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Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

reuters.com

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Re: Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

#151

Post by tomrod »

Shivetya wrote: post #121
mullingitover wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not supporting or opposing short selling, just pointing out that: - It was happening - The White House probably was aware of the extent of it - They wanted to get credit for the rise in stocks when their actions actually didn't have any effect (or perhaps even had a negative effect)

Seriously what do you want the White House to do? Run around like chickens with their head cut off? I am so damn disappointed at this site often enough to just delete the book mark. The partisan first, TDS, or call it what you will, on display here, makes me wonder if I landed on reddit/politics instead of a tech site. The government's job is to assure calm, it that requires a little white lie or a bit of misdirectio…

Assure effectual calm, I would say. Not wallpaper a crisis for gain of self, cronies, or political points, which is what the original commenter was describing.

People need direction and understanding of the severity, which has been lacking.

Re: Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

#152

Post by o-__-o »

netsharc wrote: post #143
tootie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's yet another detail that he's gotten wrong and shows that he's not paying attention. He made several incorrect statements about who is building the site, how many people are working on it, when it will be ready and who the target audience is. It's been a valve of mistakes this week that just show he isn't treating this seriously.

The best example of him being totally fucking clueless is when a reporter asked him if he/the WH staff will be tested after there's public evidence (a photo) of him next to the Bolsonaro aide who was later tested positive. His response, very confidently: "No, we have no symptoms whatsoever.". Oh my fucking god... anyone who's paid 30 seconds attention to this virus knows that you may have it and not show any symptoms…

[flagged]

Re: Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

#153

Post by 76543210 »

tootie wrote: post #140
iamleppert wrote: post #131

Google, with their enormous warchest of money could be providing free test kits for everyone, not developing some chinch web site locator that could be built in an afternoon by a single developer. They have clearly seized upon the moment for PR.

They maybe could. But so could the federal government and it's their actual job.

If I didn't pay taxes my mortgage would be paid off, I could quit/work from home for a decade.

How much abundance would we have without the federal government?

Re: Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

#154

Post by foobarbecue »

appleshore wrote: post #147
sdenton4 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or maybe trump heard something in a briefing and said what he thought he understood, instead of what he'd been told. And without, you know, coordinating or having the speech fact checked before delivering it to millions of people. The dude doesn't do process... See also, walking back the "no trade with Europe" thing a few days ago. He doesn't get a lot of slack (outside the right wing machine) because he's repeate…

It was Kushner. I live in CA and President Trump isn’t hated here as one would think from the media.

You must not live in my part of CA!

Re: Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

#155

Post by o-__-o »

tootie wrote: post #142
aguyfromnb wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I was reprimanded for making this point on these forums, but I'll say it again: If you think a guy with a 40+ year career in the cut-throat New York real estate world, then in in media and entertainment world, culminating in the Presidency of the USA, can't "process or transmit information", it might be you with the issue. You can mock "Art of the Deal" all you want, but it's not possible to be that "lucky"…

He hasn't worked in real estate for 30 years. Not since Trump Taj Mahal went down in flames. He does hotel management and branding. His other ventures have also all gone down in flames with a few resulting in fraud lawsuits. All that being said, when in the last 5 years has he displayed more than a facile understanding of anything besides women's bodies? He again suggested this week that the US could refinance it's d…

>He again suggested this week that the US could refinance it's debt like a mortgage.

This reads as dumbing down the explanation of interest rates enough for the american population to understand or in other words

>>he does or says is filtered for his base and/or for self-preservation.

Re: Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

#156

Post by Grimm1 »

vikinghckr wrote: post #3

Found it strange that some parts of media decided to focus on the semantics of Google and Verily being different subsidiaries of Alphabet. This is an almost meaningless detail.

I mean it was enough of a difference that a lot of Googlers were confused by it too. That said, I hear the internal memes this spawned are on point.

Re: Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

#157

Post by RickJWagner »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #83
Turing_Machine wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could see how someone could get the impression he said it was coming Sunday evening The media (and many, many commenters here) were foaming at the mouth for another ORANGE MAN BAD story. It's amusing to watch all the frantic spinning taking place in this comments section to avoid walking back the ORANGE MAN BAD narrative from this morning. You were wrong, guys. Just admit it. It won't kill you. I am no particular…

(I didn’t downvote you). I actually think this is the one time the media’s criticism isn’t hyperbolic (Trump always merits criticism, but somehow the media takes it to ridiculous extremes). I don’t think Trump is the frothing racist he’s made out to be (although I’m sure he has all sorts of subconscious biases), but he is an idiot narcissist with a national crisis on his hands and he seems to be handling it miserably…

I think POTUS is doing well. I listened to the Sunday shows this morning, administrative people calmly explained what's happening on the medical and economic fronts.

Congress, to it's great credit, cooperated and got a good relief measure done quickly.

Things are going about as well as can be expected, I think.

Re: Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

#158

Post by aldoushuxley001 »

sdenton4 wrote: post #108
appleshore wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this debate is analogous to the test kits being rejected from 3rd parties, if that’s what happened. We’re lost in bureaucratic technicalities. Verily was a division of Google X before Alphabet. It’s effectively Google Life Sciences minus the corporate advantages of the Alphabet structure. Maybe Kushner or the President wanted to encourage Google, or maybe a speechwriter over exaggerated it. Or maybe the P…

...or maybe trump heard something in a briefing and said what he thought he understood, instead of what he'd been told. And without, you know, coordinating or having the speech fact checked before delivering it to millions of people. The dude doesn't do process... See also, walking back the "no trade with Europe" thing a few days ago. He doesn't get a lot of slack (outside the right wing machine) because he's repeate…

I personally think Trump is doing a great job. Unfortunately he inherited a dysfunctional CDC, but at least he was one of the quickest to shut down flights between China and other infected areas, unlike eg Trudeau up north who took his sweet time. Talk about someone who shouldn't get a lot of slack eh

Re: Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

#159

Post by Maro »

peteradio wrote: post #150
koheripbal wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not too late. The number of likely cases is still low enough to make contact tracing worthwhile to slow the spread.

Ok, I was under the mistaken impression that we likely have a lot of cases, just under reported due to lack of tests. Perhaps we really only have ~5000, I had thought it was >100000.

There's various factors that contribute to underreporting:

- not enough testing / 80% of people have mild/no symptoms

- cases reported today were contracted ~5 days ago, so there's always roughly a doubling in the pipeline

Right now the official case number is ~3k for the US. Focusing too much on the number doesn't help (it will keep going up for a while), what matters is doing things which will stop the spread.

Re: Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

#160

Post by zaroth »

Google made the following statement on Twitter;

Google is partnering with the US Government in developing a nationwide website that includes information about COVID-19 symptoms, risk and testing information.

This is _in addition_ (emphasis added) to other measures we are taking, including:

- A Google “home page promotion” to promote greater awareness of simple measures citizens can take to prevent the spread of the disease;

- Work being done by our sister company Verily to launch a pilot website that will enable individuals to do a risk assessment and be scheduled for testing at sites in the Bay Area;

- Promoting authoritative information through Google Search and YouTube;

- Taking measures to protect users from misinformation, including phishing, conspiracy theories, malware and misinformation;

- Rolling out free access to our advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers globally until 7/01/20;

- Advancing health research and science; and financially supporting global relief efforts.”

So one of two things happened. Either the media largely got the story wrong, claiming that Google was not actually working on nationwide website like Trump described, perhaps the media was confused by the multiple efforts underway at Google and misreported the Verily work the only thing that was going on.

Alternatively, after Google sent out their internal memo asking for volunteers and got 1,700 replies (the 1,700 engineers that Trump mentioned) they still weren’t actually planning to build a nationwide site, but after Trump announced it on national news and praised Google for their work, he effectively forced them to volunteer to do the work. This seems less likely to me.

However there is just a tremendous amount of arguing and misinformation in this thread claiming that Google is only doing the Verily thing, when in fact Google has come out and declared that they are in fact working on a nationwide site, at Google, in addition to the Verily work.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1238989460127...

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