I was so tempted to try their service, but it was always in the back of my mind, inside the part of my brain that was conscious during marketing 101 class in college: “What’s the long term business model here? What happens after they have everyone’s genetic identity?” Then it dawned on me like ooooohhhhh that’s the plan… no thanks.

The automotive manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler were partially nationalized in the wake of the 2008 Financial Crisis as were several banks… these were less a full government takeover and more of a government guided restructuring, but the government owned large stakes in these companies. Before that, the only full nationalization of anything substantial was the bankruptcy of the Penn Central Railroad and subsequent establishment of Consolidated Rail (branded as ConRail) the US’s only national freight rail company.

Conrail was later privatized into what is now the private companies CSX and Norfolk Southern. The collapse of Penn Central was the largest bankruptcy in history until Enron in the 1990’s. Amtrak, our national passenger rail corporation, is also a nationalized entity created around the same time as ConRail, for similar reasons, and is still nationalized (although the Trump admin wants to privatize it).

so many LLM’s just tell their users they’re always right

This is the problem, they apparently cannot be objective as just a matter of course.

I think it’ll be more of an Enron slash Theranos docudrama… questionable accounting and overvaluation mixed with a superstar CEO stuck in a faking-it-till-you-make-it corporate death loop with investors drunk on hype.

They’re kinda like the S-Pen… is it cool? Sure! Do I find myself using it? No, not really.

All your need to do is drop in one card randomly with all the holes punched out to screw up those things… there was a name for doing that to be a dick but I forgot and am drunk right now so I don’t feel like looking it up.

Democracy©®™

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Was gonna say, I think I’ve seen that porn.

From what I’m given to understand of my state’s laws, this would be covered under the same kind of thing as the surveillance cameras at a convenience store or shopping center parking lot and the expectations a person would have for their privacy… it just sucks.

Some are like six feet away and others are set farther back. It’s not all of the ring came 5 that go off. I know there’s a setting where the user can create a like a bounding box so that they don’t go off unless someone is actually at the door… these folks simply haven’t done that, don’t know to do that, or are watching the sidewalk intentionally. At any rate, my street doesn’t have much traffic so I usually just walk in the road.

Some of my neighbors have them and I hate walking down the street. I know it’s a public sidewalk, but hearing all the little pings and “some one is at the front door” it creeps me out. I live in a single party consent state so there’s not like anything I can do but now there’s a database with a record of when I go to/come back from work. I don’t like that. Thankfully, when signing the lease, my landlord forbid in the contact the installation on those. He also owns the houses on either side of mine… a little strip of privacy in a sea of surveillance.

“No, no, no, it’s not a company town… it’s a company tower… which is completely different. By the way, did you meet Brian? He’s the new manager of the convenience store the company opened in the lobby. It’s right next to the company elementary school. You can use the company issued script to buy stuff there, it’s great!”

It’s their least favorite game right behind Q&A at the SEC.

An upside down flag is meant to be a signal of distress.

The “cactus-shaped” thing is most likely a fasces, which is a bundle of sticks with an ax in the middle of them. It’s a common symbol of like “together, we are stronger.” It’s used in some generic US iconography, but has also been used by fascists.

I’m on the app and, honestly, I have been seeing the exact opposite. Loads of American users are seeing, for the first time, that folks in the PRC don’t have it so bad.

I’m not “virtue signaling” I’m tired. I’m tired of the ads.

I’m tired of the algorithm intentionally fueling flame wars.

I’m tired of INESCAPABLE “meme pages,” run by spam bots, that just recycle the same tired shit over and over and over again.

I’m tired of the THREE different video systems that are inexplicably not interoperable. Reels, Facebook Live, and video Instagram posts all showing up in my timeline but all are part of separate systems. Meanwhile, if I share a link to a YouTube video, it gets suppressed by the almighty algorithm. Because how dare I show my followers/friends something they’d might like to see if it takes their eyeballs away from Facebook.

Finally, I’m tired of companies selling people like me down the river to score political points with chuds.

Please, “Mr. TikTok” was my father, call me Zhang.

Or Lenard TikTok III.

I haven’t read the legislation, but I get the thrust of it. They want to standardize cellular devices and also cut down on electronic waste. If it’s specifically for cellular devices, then no it won’t affect TI products. If it’s more generally to cut back on electronic waste, then yes it will affect them.

When I was a kid, I played Civ 3… so I guess, according to cable news, I’d be seen as a genocidal maniac on par with Hitler.