Politics - I apologize

JPaganel, my condolences about your father. Losses like that are hard.

Surprisingly, the CDC data shows exactly that, which is what the video (past the 30-second mark) shows, he even tells you in the first comment (in the comments section below the video) how/where to get the data from the CDC website. And although the music may be distracting to some (I actually like it, never heard that version of the song before), there is a way to mute the volume, at least on my computer. The information is more important than the song, and the question posed at the 3:20 mark seems relevant. Recall that the 1918 flu....the H1N1 virus.....appeared in two distinct waves: a rather benign version in the spring/early summer, and then the "killer" wave later in the year.

Actually, there's been a lot of studies (and of course history) of what HCQ offers, here's a partial list:

https://c19study.com

Lots of "positive" results, lots of negative results. But in keeping with Einstein's observation that it only takes one experimental result to "falsify" (as it's called in the hypothesis-biz) a theory, the number of positive outcomes has to be explained, hopefully in a rigorous manner, besides just claiming all of researchers, doctors, etc. are merely liars or dupes or witch doctors.

Also, I'm still wondering why HCQ was shown to be effective against SARS-CoV back in 2002?
https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-2-69

Conclusion:
"Chloroquine is effective in preventing the spread of SARS CoV in cell culture. Favorable inhibition of virus spread was observed when the cells were either treated with chloroquine prior to or after SARS CoV infection. In addition, the indirect immunofluorescence assay described herein represents a simple and rapid method for screening SARS-CoV antiviral compounds."


Although Covid-19 is a slightly different virus, it's "full" clinical name is actually SARS-COV-2, and it shares an almost identical genetic profile:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0300891620974755

QUOTE: "MERS virus and the SARS virus are more different genetically," Mesecar says. "But the COVID-19 virus is genetically almost identical to the SARS virus and, therefore, it is expected to look and act nearly the same. In another week or two, we'll be able to begin to see if the virus is mutating."

This is correct; in fact, almost all exhalations contain very few "free" virons; they are bound to that water vapor, which being a large particle, does get trapped in the mask. But water, as is commonly known, evaporates rather quickly, but the viral particles attached to it don't. Once freed from their watery bonds, the liberated virons are free to migrate thru the mask, as they are much smaller than the "weave" of most fabrics. And of course, since these masks are "dual use"....meaning there is a 2-way airflow....then the viral particles can either be expelled past the wearer, or be re-inhaled by the user.

I'm a bit curious, if you didn't watch the video, how can you tell if there is any relevant information or observations in there? And if it is indeed nonsense, then wouldn't that mean that the CDC's data is nonsense, too?

Although I'm not as computer savvy as you are (I don't know anything about MS Teams, etc.), I think this is the company: Bio-ID Diagnostic Inc.
https://saskatoon.ctvnews.ca/fast-h...-prairie-medical-firm-shows-promise-1.4905900

Again, my google-foo probably isn't what it should be, but I think this is the meeting:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/covid-19-city-council-mask-1.5802168

I'm not sure what a "conspirologist" website is---it sounds interesting, though!---but the CBC is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting company for Canada, something akin to our NPR.

I'm pretty sure they have a Facebook page, is that what you were referring to?

Unless it somehow escapes from a Level 4 Biolab in China.......

I think the evidence (notwithstanding the name given to it by Trump, and seemingly generally agreed to by everyone else as the origination point) is not as conclusive as one might believe; suppose it didn't "start" in China?

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0300891620974755

Summary:
Table 1 reports anti-SARS-CoV-2 RBD antibody detection according to the time of sample collection in Italy.

In the first 2 months, September–October 2019, 23/162 (14.2%) patients in September and 27/166 (16.3%) in October displayed IgG or IgM antibodies, or both. The first positive sample (IgM-positive) was recorded on September 3 in the Veneto region, followed by a case in Emilia Romagna (September 4), a case in Liguria (September 5), two cases in Lombardy (Milano Province; September 9), and one in Lazio (Roma; September 11). By the end of September, 13 of the 23 (56.5%) positive samples were recorded in Lombardy, three in Veneto, two in Piedmont, and one each in Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Lazio, Campania, and Friuli.

Antibodies means that these people had been infected with the disease.......as far back as September 2019.

Of course, we also have even earlier instances of "unknown" diseases that, given the symptoms observed, could also possibly been due to the same disease:

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/09/07/what-we-know-about-mysterious-vaping-linked-illnesses-deaths

www.thesun.co.uk/news/9397863/dominican-republic-deaths-latest-update

Well, just like with the definition of a "case", we would have to clarify the definition of what a "shred" is. One week before the election, the right-wing John Birchers at NPR and that foaming-at-the-mouth, uber-conservative "Judy Woodruff" did an analysis of the Georgia voting systems and situation. Unlike the previous video, this one has no music and odd graphics, so the information should be easier to digest:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/w...es-solve-election-problems-or-make-them-worse


"After driving 9 hours, the first thing I did in Georgia was register a 17-year-old to vote."
https://twitter.com/ScottPresler/status/1329953160262258688/photo/1


I've told you before, Georgia politics are as corrupt and dirty as they come; similar to an XJ engine, it's a well-honed, high-performance corruption machine. A few years back we had one Sheriff (Derwin Brown) being assassinated in broad daylight by the former Sheriff (Sidney Dorsey....he being the investigative "hero" (hee-hee, ha-ha, ho-ho) of the the Wayne Williams / "Atlanta Child Murders" event). And remember, a Sheriff is the top law enforcement official in their county, subservient only to US Marshall Service.

Locally, some people hold the opinion that perhaps the reason why Governor Kemp, who had a lobbyist for Dominion Voting Systems as his chief of staff (!), (Kemp defeated opponent Stacey Abrahms, even while he insisted that he remain as the Secretary of State during his own election efforts---and it is the SOS who oversees elections in Georgia!) may have had his hand caught in a couple of electoral cookie jars, and is thus keeping a very, very low profile as of late.......so you see, the Governor has, strangely, basically nothing to say about any of this.....while the current SOS (Brad Raffsenberger, who replaced Kemp as SOS once Kemp "won" the governorship), took a nice juicy campaign contribution from the wife of the CEO of Dominion’s partner. And Brad signed not one, but two (and perhaps still counting) secret agreements to change the way that absentee ballots are handled (verified)-----but, once that information started becoming not-so-secret, he quickly promised Georgians a full audit, recount, and re-canvass of the votes.....

Which less than 48 hours later, he quickly changed to just a re-count, including all of the possibly defective or incorrect ballots, perhaps because the much more detailed audit and re-canvassing processes might have discovered some issues that might not have reflected so well on him, his role, his connections, his campaign contributions, perhaps involving the former SOS (now Governor Kemp), etc. Who knows?

Bonus video: the machines being used in Georgia when Kemp was elected:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8eujrTyRRE

So basically, it seems that everyone is blackmailing everyone else, it's a true circular firing squad, and one might be tempted to say that it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, but the real truth may be something closer to this: there are no good guys.

Georgia is truly a peach of a state......it re-defines the word "bent".

 

You sure can type chacal.... " Georgia politics are as corrupt and dirty as they come; similar to an XJ engine, it's a well-honed, high-performance corruption machine. " And your job is selling parts for that machine ??

 

Wow! Completely out of line and in bad taste! Especially regarding XJ engines!

 

I don't sell parts to Georgia politicians (that I know of!).

"corruption machine" is a descriptor (description of) "georgia politics", not "XJ engines"; isn't that obvious from the word "it's" referring back to the subject of the sentence? Isn't that the standard rules of English grammar and sentence construction? XJ engines are well-honed, high-performance engines; georgia politics are the equivalent (well-honed, high-performance), except as a "corruption machine".

Upon re-reading it again and again, I don't understand how that is not obvious, especially considering the paragraph(s) that follow......

 

The definition is a longstanding one that has been usd by epidemiologists for many decades.
If you test positive for a disease you have it (without regard to the type of test, excluding false positives). That defines a case.

 

I warned Y'all.

Political discussions on forums always turn nasty and end up being divisive to the community (the inability to see and read nonverbal communication being one of the main issues).

Is that really the sort of community that we want to become?

 

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/11/13/covid-19-testing.aspx

Executive summary:

- PCR tests are not designed to be used as a diagnostic tool as they cannot distinguish between inactive viruses and “live” or reproductive ones.

- Amplification over 35 cycles is considered unreliable and scientifically unjustified, yet many labs use 45 cycles. This amplifies any tiny sequence of viral DNA that might be present to the point that the test reads “positive” even if the viral load is extremely low or the virus is inactive.

- The PCR test can also pick up the presence of other coronaviruses, so a positive result may simply indicate that you’ve recuperated from a common cold in the past.

- Before his death, the inventor of the PCR test, Kary Mullis, repeatedly (yet unsuccessfully) stressed that this test should not be used as a diagnostic tool for the simple reason that it's incapable of diagnosing disease.

As noted in a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention publication on coronavirus and PCR testing dated July 13 2020 (https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download)

a) Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms.
b) The performance of this test has not been established for monitoring treatment of 2019-nCoV infection.
c) This test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.

And there it is, on pages 26 and 27, no matter what test is to be used, the number of cycles (termed "Reps") is to be set to 45.


Dr. Fauci sez:


"What is now sort of evolving, into a bit of standard, that if you get a cycle threshold or 35 or more, that the chance of it being replication-confident are miniscule.

I'm not sure what the clinical definition of "miniscule" is, but he seemed to emphasize that word quite strongly. What do you think he meant?

 

That's why back-and-forth discussions add clarity!

 

Sorry, I missed the part that Bushy's post about the XJ's was a actually a quote. He didn't use the site quote option so I missed that important detail. So it almost looked like a personal attack. My apologies to both of you.
K-moe, we are already divided. Have been since the 60's as far as I'm concerned. And you right, political discussions never end well. I think the original poster should have 'let sleeping dogs lie'.

 

English was never my strong suit but I was thinking this is the way it works:

This may just be a typo but since you specifically referred to it and gave it scrutiny as to the meaning of the sentence; "its" is a determiner referring back to or associated with a thing previously mentioned in the sentence, not "it's", which is a contraction for it is or it has.

And, with multiple antecedents (Georgia politics and XJ engines) even if the word "its" was written vs "it's" it would be ambiguous as to which one "it" refereed to.

Now this would be the perfect place for the determiner "its" to refer back to Covid-19 or virus - and probably just a typo again.

And yes XJ engines are well-honed, high-performance engines, thanks in large part to a lot of great people on this site. And, I really do admire your writing, but I would humbly suggest toning down some of the sarcasm (as we all should attempt) that in a political discussion could appear condescending and taken personally.

https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/electi...r_ballots_upholds_result_of_presidential_race
- Warning, above data has not been verified, meaning official GA. site, but can you believe it

"By law, Georgia was required to conduct a Risk Limiting Audit of a statewide race following the November elections. Understanding the importance of clear and reliable results for such an important contest, Secretary Raffensperger selected the presidential race in Georgia for the audit. Meeting the confidence threshold required by law for the audit meant conducting a full manual tally of every ballot cast in Georgia."

So this claims they did a full audit, where every ballot was manually verified and counted and compared to the machine tally. This would seem like a really good response and eliminates most of the conspiracy theory as to how the Dominion software was manipulating the count total in favor of one candidate or the other, or how the QR code could possibly be manipulated to favor a candidate. President Trump still has the option to request a recount, which is just passing the ballots through the scanners again to tabulate the total.

As for the earlier video you linked by John Cullen he really is out there with the tin foil hat conspirators. He even has a video on how at the Vegas shooting the shooters were in helicopters. He supposedly uses wound entry and exit wounds to support his theory and seems to ignore the fact that many of the people have likely hit the dirt and are scrambling on their hands and knees to what they hoped would be cover.

 

I meant to add this earlier that I think within the political realm (and some others) this is pretty close to unequivocally correct. However, as the old saying goes "democracy is messy" but we shouldn't give up hope on making it better.

 

Perhaps if he is not bigger than you - but from theory to reality "no," just as you can't slap someone upside the head that is driving and texting or is recklessly speeding, both of which as motorcycle riders is a big concern.

 

Where is automated spell (or grammar) check when you really need it? Twice in one post, I may be having a senior moment (or two). But you're (not your!) correct, the it's/its could be parsed both ways, but like I said, the context in which it was written should have been an indicator of intention, along with the question of why in the world would I (or anyone else) think of a motorcycle engine (or the entire bike) as a corruption machine.....except maybe in the positive, reverse-psychology, marketing/advertising sense of (the devil inside of you) that gives in to the allure of such a sensuous pleasure? I think this is the whole idea behind the "aura" surrounding some brands, Harley-Davidson comes to mind, they are associated to the "bad boy" within us.....

This is true; however, the difference is that the video regarding the coronavirus/flu uses real-world data, directly from a reliable source, and it is that factor and his questions that are the important part, not his Hollywood-esque presentation of the material that captured my interest. His presentation about the Vegas shooting, which is mainly based upon opinion/conjecture, is less credible.....I haven't watched it (or if I did, it's been so long ago that I don't recall it), but I do realize that quite a few people have had the same observations and those types of questions. For the record, I don't think his theory is correct (but I could be wrong), but I also think the entire situation surrounding that event stinks to high heaven.

Again, Georgia politics is crooked as the day is long, and that corruption is systemic and endemic. And, it's a real shame, too, because Atlanta became the premier Southern city in a number of measures and ways because of extraordinary good (past) leadership, making conscious (yet unpopular at the time that they were made) decisions to control graft, corruption, discrimination, inequality, etc. ....resulting in Atlanta becoming a city that actually did "rise from the ashes" rather than becoming, let's say, Memphis, TN or Birmingham, AL, cities that were on about the same developmental level as Atlanta was at the time those decisions were made.

Also, re-counting flawed ballots if there are flawed ballots accomplishes next to nothing; it's the determination whether the ballots are legal, correct, and thus valid votes.....just like we wouldn't want people from, say, North Korea mailing-in ballots and those being counted. And, even the re-counting doesn't seem to be such a simple process: two "re-counters" separately counted 9600+ additional votes in the same batch of votes, leading to the elections supervisor being fired:

https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics...found-ballot-audit/LONCWU464RBPHNJ6AKDPXDVYGQ

for failure "to follow our established protocols and blatantly disregarded the required processes we utilize to account for and record all legal and verified ballots.”

By my count, that's now 3 county-level supervisors that have been fired (that I know of); I can only hope that's either then end of it, or, that any others that are guilty are caught, too.

Of course, as Dr. Edwards Deming ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming) used to say, "you can't inspect quality into a product. The quality, either good or bad, is already in the product." BTW, for those who are interested in such things, his book Out of the Crisis is very readable and understandable and should be (IMO) required reading for almost anyone in society (P.S. he was well-hated by many for his observations and insights, especially concerning his criticisms of management, be it in industry or government).

For a small preview, you can watch his rather famous "red beads" experiment (it is deliberately presented as farce, to make a point) and the follow-up analysis which explains his ideas in an easy-to-understand method. Many people can almost immediately relate to what he is saying:



and

 

Smoking Gun Video: well, the guy gets an "A" for effort, but I'm not so sure that he's "onto" what he thinks he's on to....he may be too clever by a half (intentionally or otherwise). And, like a lot of "geeks", he has a unbelievably horrible time explaining what he's doing, defining what he's doing, and the logic/thought process behind his analysis. Now, that in and of itself doesn't make it wrong, but it sure makes it difficult (impossible) for most people to follow along and/or verify what he's saying/showing. I have 6 grueling quarters of calculus and two of statistics under my belt and I had a hard time following along, and I certainly ain't going to spend the time/effort to download the data and then run the analysis myself to double-check.

Now of course, he may not be doing this for the folks in gen-pop, it may be something that he posted as raw, basic research for those more conversant with such types of analysis, and who would immediately understand the concepts and the methodology that he's using w/o the preliminary, explanatory introductions. So he may be onto something (and note that Philadelphia doesn't (does NOT) use Dominion machines), or he may be all wet, or may be a huckster. There are a lot of posters in the comments section that point out what he may be doing wrong (or simply mis-understanding the data that he is reviewing), but I'm afraid that I'm not sure that I even understand their arguments (which seem well-intentioned and compelling).

BUT, if there is any kind of flaws or hanky-panky going in within the hardware (perhaps) or the software (more likely) or manual "interventions", then it's (I got the punctuation right this time...!) this type of analysis which will be necessary to discover that situation, and if found, then try to "back into" (reverse-engineer) any type of codes and formulas that was doing so. From there, then you simply go looking into program codes to see if such features are present, and if found, then ---- as in the TV show True Detective ---- "start asking the right f----- questions".

 

Dominion software was used in a lot of states besides the ones contested. Does that mean the results of those states are suspect as well? or does it depend on who won those states?

 

chacal, my apologies to you. My previous comment was intended to be light, maybe even humorous. I can see that it could be read otherwise.

 

Something that I run into all the time, well a few times to be fair.

I went to a lot of trouble to display times in fractional output, which is absolutely useless to do someones wages, but...
Looks good
1/3h, 15/16h... was fun to look at, at any rate.

if you work for 20minutes at $90 per hour.
You ought to get... $30

Math = (60 / 20) * 90

but if you work for 20minutes more than once and total the times before the end point your wage slowly drifts one way or the other because of 1/3 to a computer is always 0.3333333333 etc.

if you get paid once a month and your wage is based on daily calculation, casual wages etc, you might get an extra 10cents or lose it! sheesh.

Yes, we all need to change to a base 12 system mmm that would make working with so many things a lot easier. (144 cents to the dollar works!, or go back to pennys and pounds pre decimal, damn computers.)

Maybe we need a third logic position, while were at it.
2. neither
1. true
0. false

<CODE>
if (!false && !true)
{
spout(shite);
}
</CODE>

As far as that video goes.
1 vote is 1 vote.
2 votes is more than 1 vote.
Not sure about the need for percentage fixation.

 

Well if (big IF) that there was some types of issues with Dominion/Smartmatic/etc. machines, software, or related equipment, then of course it would naturally lead to question other places that it's used (note that Texas specifically declined to use Dominion equipment and services because of what they felt were unacceptable vulnerabilities with it).

For a moment, let's do what Einstein called a gendankenexperiment, it may sound like a sneeze but it means a "thought experiment".....which is reportedly how he came about the insights that led to his special theory of relativity. Basically, it's imagination being shepherded by a lot of "what if's" and "then what's" in sort of a logical, iterative process.

So........what if YOU wanted to steal an election? I know this is "conspiracy-ish", but, it's a serious question; perhaps some very high-paid people devote their entire careers to figuring out such things. So, if you were assigned this "mission", how would you actually go about it?

Well, the very first job requirement is: Don't Get Caught. For smart thieves, this is always their top priority, and almost the entirety of their means and methods revolves not necessarily around "how to physically steal that diamond?" or "how do I rob that bank?" or "how do I kidnap that high-ransom billionaire's daughter", but rather, how do I do those things AND NOT GET CAUGHT? All action taken must flow from this primary goal.

Well, you could create fake ballots, mimeograph off a couple of thousand copies of each, and put them in the ballot box. That would work, but let's always remember Rule #1: don't get caught. Stuffing a single ballot box with 1000's of ballots might look suspicious, with a high chance of getting caught. So let's refine the plan a bit......

Let's stuff each ballot box in the county (or state, depending on the circumstances) with a much smaller number of ballots, so each voting station only gets a few dozen ballots, but we still get the total number of stuffed ballots needed. There, that's better! BUT........more people involved means more risk of getting caught....whereas stuffing just one box might require only one neer-do-well, stuffing a couple of hundred boxes will require assistants, perhaps lots of them......they cost $$, and might get caught, or may blab/brag on Facebook to others about it. So while we've reduced our risk in one area, we've increased it in another.

And in any case, if they are paper ballots, what do we do about voter names (or quantities, the "overvotes" problems, where 5,300 votes are recorded in a precinct that only has 4,500 registered voters)? Maybe we could forge names on the ballots, perhaps using the names of people who used to live in that precinct, or people who have lived in that precinct and died. Well, there's a couple of methods of doing this, each with it's own risk/reward profile. You can probably think of some others yourself (and open up a perhaps lucrative new career path, or as someone once remarked, "maybe you should learn how to code....").

Okay, so those methods might only go so far, and in only certain unique circumstances, but they are some of the tools in our kit, and in the election fraud biz, you sometimes have to use multiple tools to get the old gal running in the tip-top shape that you desire.

Now, when we come to digital/electronic voting-----because you learned how to code----well, now we have all sorts of other tools and opportunities, but, we also have new risks. Electronic systems can leave lots of electronic fingerprints.........and unlike the old skool method of stuffing a ballot box with paper ballots, unless you're caught in the act, or Sherlock Holmes with his big magnifying glass saw a footprint that just so happened to match the shoes that you wear....well, you're going to have to account for these risks.

So, we're going to have to do some mechanical (machines) or electronic (software) manipulations. At the machine level, we could rig the machine so that when a person voted for Candidate A, the gears and levers were set in a way such that it actually physically registered (punched a whole in the paper, incremented a counting wheel, whatever) for Candidate B instead! The voter would be none the wiser; he punched button "A" and thought he was done with it. Now, you'd have to make it more concealed than that though (keeping in mind our First Rule), so maybe we could rig up some type of random or incremental type of gearing so that it only did this type of "vote switching" once every 34th time that the button for Candidate A was punched.......for the first 33 votes, it registers a vote for Candidate A, but the 34th time, it registers that vote for Candidate B. Viola, we just "stole" 3% of the votes! And without bringing a lot of attention to ourselves......very important. Or we could rig things so that ALL the votes for Candidate A are counted, but every 33rd vote for Candidate A also added a vote (or two, or three) to Candidate B's total. Or each vote for Candidate A also incremented Candidate B's total by a small fractional percent (let's say, 2%. Or, what the heck, 4%. No, 5%. 5%, that's what we'll use, it's a nice round number). Or any number of other methods, the sky's the limit depending only on your creativity and budget.

Of course, the whole risk/reward thing comes into play again, as now you have to find a machine manufacturer that would build those features into those machines (or, take some "honest machines" and pay someone to make the (hopefully non-obvious) mechanical changes to them....and very hopefully before the machines are set up in the voting stations! Having a small army of mechanics wrenching on the machines in full view of people really ups that whole risk/reward profile (and, all those mechanics need to be paid, and that introduces even more risk into the profile).

Now, once we get into the electronic systems, well, there's no gears or levers or rube-goldberg types of intricate cam/lever/spring/gear changes that need to be physically made, it's all done with a few keystrokes in the "instructions" programming. But of course, here comes a new risk: if you code those clever "mechanical" vote-switching, vote-shaving, vote-flipping, or etc. schemes into "writing", well, Sherlock can come behind you and "read" those instructions, too, and bam!: you're busted. No, you can't just write a line of code that says (in effect):

IF VOTE = CANDIDATE A
THEN:
TALLY CANDIDATE A TOTAL BY 1
AND
TALLY CANDIDATE B TOTAL BY .03
END

This is way to obvious, and so you must start hiding such features, like this:

IF VOTE = CANDIDATE A
THEN:
TALLY CANDIDATE A TOTAL BY 1
AND
CALL SUB-ROUTINE VERIFY
END.

SUBROUTINE VERIFY (note we call it an innocuous name.......)
IF CANDIDATE A TALLY = N+1
THEN
CANDIDATE B TALLY = N+.03
END

Of course, this is real obvious, too, so you have to keep adding sub-routines, or sub-sub-routines, or even create "fake" sub-routines to keep the hounds off the scent, like maybe redefine (somewhere within 10,000 lines of code, and, don't make it obvious!) SUBROUTINE VERIFY to actually be SUBROUTINE ACCEL and then hide THAT re-definition, too....etc. etc. etc.

Oh, and by the way, make your code (on purpose) long and laborious (you can develop extra "features" and "options" for the software user, many of which no one will ever use, but the very act of creating these additional options or features requires LOTS of extra lines of code ("it's not a bug it's a feature....), making a further mess of ever trying to unravel the ball of yarn) and, don't document the "logic flow" real well, so that anyone besides the original programmers can't make heads nor tails of what happens, where it happens, why it happens, what else happens when it happens, and on and on....

And this is just some of the rock-bottom basic tricks you pick up in the first few weeks of when you're "learning to code" (just ask the VW diesel-engine emissions software programmers); "real" programmers can be even more creative at minimizing risk and increasing "reward".

In fact, after you become really good at this sort of thing, you can branch out into "virus" writing and embedding (a computer "virus" is of course nothing more than a program that gets installed maliciously to defeat or over-ride already-existing programs on a machine); for instance, see "Step 2" in the previously mentioned video (at about the 1:58 mark):



Or, once you start "getting your sea legs" in the programming biz (or information-manipulation skills), then you can start messing with the data itself (and you can do it in real-time, too).

Have you ever watched a pro football game (or any other type of "live" broadcast) where those yellow "first down" marker lines appear on the field on your TV screen? Well of course those lines aren't really there in real life, they are added in "on the fly" by a program that takes the live data stream of the actual football game broadcast, and then "insert" those lines there, and they appear real, and players move over them properly, and get tackled onto them realistically, etc. But this type of "program" isn't in the main video image processing computer program that is recording and storing/serving out the football game audio and video, it's done "on the fly" via a sorta "snatch-and-grab" separate, stand-alone program that modifies only the data stream itself. It does it in milli-seconds, so it's not visible to the end user, and it's not just field markers, it can be many other things, too (like people, or whales, or whole soccer teams appearing or disappearing, too). Those fixed (or even digital) banners behind home plate that you, watching at home, see all the time? They're probably not the same messages that you'd see if you are at the ballpark. And that 110-mph fastball, high-and-tight at the batter chest, that passes in front of that message, doesn't distort the visual of that "ghost" banner that you see; it appears exactly as you'd expect it to as if it were a real thing.

Okay, so there's a couple more tricks you can use, you've come a long way in just a few minutes.

Now, you've also got to make sure in case all of your programming tricks are well hidden, disguised, etc. that you still leave as few things to chance as possible. Such as: you've successfully pulled off a "steal at the plate", but, suppose someone wants to come back and, oh, I don't know...........audit the machine counts versus the real, physical, meat-world (IRL, or "in real life") ballots? In blow-out types of election races, this isn't that big of a concern; if Candidate A loses by 95 - 5%, there's not going to be a re-count, audit, etc. But of course, no one is going to take the risk of being caught monkeying with an election such as this, as there's a lotta risk and no reward at all (i.e. it wasn't necessary, unless you're wanting to just try out some new tricks, brush up on some rusty skills, tweak a few things in a real-world setting, play around "just for fun", etc. (i.e."batting practice").

No, you would only do these things where the results were expected to be close, that's when that extra 1%/2%/3% bump can really come in handy.

But of course monkey wrenches abound; someone could drop the ball, an internet connection could drop out at an inappropriate time, maybe CANDIDATE A got a LOT more votes than you were expecting her to, so that 3% "bezzle"" that you had programmed just isn't going to cut the mustard, so maybe you have to "stop counting votes" at midnight and then have a couple of hundred thousand votes be "found" at 4am, while everyone sleeps.

And maybe your plan should include doing a little of this here, a bit of that there, a pinch of this program over yonder.....you know, mix it up, have some fun!, and above all: DON'T GET CAUGHT.


So, we started out with a good question posed by DarthBob, and hopefully this "thought experiment" gives some unlikely, but possible, thoughts and answers to those questions.

 

Isn't this what quantum computing is all about (among other things)?