Anathema Device 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (607)

• On the post: Publisher Wants $2,500 To Allow Academics To Post Their Own Manuscript To Their Own Repository

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2023 @ 03:33pm

  Respectability. Supposedly, if you publish your work in a journal, that means it's been through peer review and passed a decent bar for truth and quality. Whereas any old shit can be thrown up on a website. The antivax/anti science movement has proven has false that dichotomy is, but it remains the standard myth by which all research is judged. Hence the rise of pay to play journals with serious sounding titles, obscuring their real value.

• On the post: Publisher Wants $2,500 To Allow Academics To Post Their Own Manuscript To Their Own Repository

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2023 @ 03:30pm

  "academics foolishly have no choice but to assign copyright to the publishers" FIFY It's not like there is a vast choice of respectable publishers for a lot of material, and mandatory copyright transfer is standard, unfortunately.

• On the post: Authors Guild, Jealous Of Other Terrible Author Lawsuits Against AI, Decides To Join In The Party

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2023 @ 10:10pm

  "What about 100 years after the last book in the series and its all out of copyright?" For everything else, there's Mastercard fanfiction

• On the post: Authors Guild, Jealous Of Other Terrible Author Lawsuits Against AI, Decides To Join In The Party

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2023 @ 10:08pm

  "If fans made an Avatar movie that came too close to the original show, it’d be deemed copyright infringement if they hadn’t got permission from the copyright owner(s)." Oh yeah? That'll be interesting to all the millions of fan creators out there who are under the impression this has not yet been tested in court with a definitive ruling. How close is close? Same dialogue? Same universe? Same dialogue, universe, actors, and plot? I can't see any fan being silly enough to create the last one because fans who create are striving for something new and better albeit with the mouth feel of the original. Trademark is another issue completely. But the copyright position of your example is not remotely clear.

• On the post: Authors Guild, Jealous Of Other Terrible Author Lawsuits Against AI, Decides To Join In The Party

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2023 @ 09:26pm

  What about nonfiction technical texts

  You've changed my mind about using fiction works for this purpose. But if in training AI the programmers use original research or technical information created by the author, then spits it out in a slightly modified form without attribution or payment, that's surely not fair use?

• On the post: Elon May Have Accidentally Revealed How ExTwitter Usage Has Dropped Massively Since His Takeover

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 23 Sep, 2023 @ 01:41am

  Mike, forgive me if "jam tomorrow" coming from venture capitalists and billionaires is...not beguiling. "the team working on it is designing it so this is an impossible result." Right. So...when they finish designing it, and federate with the rest of the Fediverse, and decentralise, perhaps you can tell me how inaccurate I am in my opinion. But given the repeated 'enshittification' you keep reporting about on platform after platform, perhaps you could be a little more cautious in your enthusiasm. It's up to Bluesky to prove to me and other potential users that (a) Dorsey's taint does not linger over the project; (b) it will play nice with the places many of us have set up home in and not be a closed shop; and (c) it's not just going to be another data grabbing project which users will have no real control over. It's not up to me to pray harder to the tech gods to help Bluesky achieve their lofty promises. I pray to no one, and definitely not to anything or anyone that Jack fucking Dorsey has anything to do with.

• On the post: Elon May Have Accidentally Revealed How ExTwitter Usage Has Dropped Massively Since His Takeover

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2023 @ 10:00pm

  I agree it's likely to be a shitshow, but not because of Dorsey (or at least, not mostly because of Dorsey. I don't believe he's as hands off as Mike claims below, because I'm a nasty suspicious person like that.) It's going to be a shitshow because it's not distributed like Mastodon, so it's going to be like Reddit or Twitter eventually once the current owners decide they would like their nice profits now, thank you. Been burned so many times by platforms owned by a single person or company, and that's just in the last 12 months :( If and when it joins the Fediverse, it might be worth looking at, but I'm also pissed off by the gadflies who set up accounts on Mastodon, creating a following and a community, then fucked off to Bluesky or Post or whatever without even a goodbye. The 'social' in social media is important. Otherwise it's just another monetisable outlet using our input and data for their profit and resale.

• On the post: Elon May Have Accidentally Revealed How ExTwitter Usage Has Dropped Massively Since His Takeover

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2023 @ 09:55pm

  "Not only does he not run it, he’s not even on the service." Still on the board, though?

• On the post: 10th Circuit Reminds Cop That A Driver Doing Nothing Suspicious Is Not Reasonable Suspicion To Extend A Stop

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2023 @ 06:57pm

  Meth ain't narcotics

  So why did the "K-9" alert to "the odor" of narcotics? Are they just using 'narcotics' as shorthand, or is this a case of a willing police dog 'alerting' at its handler's signal, as is apparently the case in nearly of these situations?

• On the post: FBI Joins Investigation Of LAPD Gang Unit Officers Who Did Their Own Selective Editing Of Body Cam Recordings

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 01 Sep, 2023 @ 07:50pm

  Obviously there is a solution to this

  'They're everywhere!' Residents complain as their Texas town of 250 people employs 50 cops https://www.rawstory.com/they-re-everywhere-residents-complain-as-their-texas-town-of-250-people-employs-50-cops/ So what you do with the rotten LAPD police is to tell them to behave, or they'll end up in Coffee City!

  Local news station KHOU 11 Investigates found that a surprisingly large percentage of police employed by the town had been fired from previous law enforcement jobs. In particular, KHOU 11's investigation found that "more than half of the department’s 50 officers had been suspended, demoted, terminated or dishonorably discharged from their previous law enforcement jobs" for actions including "excessive force, public drunkenness, untruthfulness and association with known criminals."

• On the post: The Fallout Continues For Cops Who Decided It Was A Good Idea To Raid The Office Of A Small Kansas Newspaper

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2023 @ 12:20am

  “Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind.” - Terry Pratchett

• On the post: The Fallout Continues For Cops Who Decided It Was A Good Idea To Raid The Office Of A Small Kansas Newspaper

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2023 @ 12:18am

  When they're returning the stolen material

  I hope someone remembers to give Ms Meyer her life back. Oh, they can't? Well, that's a fucking shame. The people involved in this should go to prison, for real.

• On the post: ‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Elon Musk Suggests He’s Going To Sue George Soros… For His Free Speech Advocating For Certain Laws

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 25 Aug, 2023 @ 08:43pm

  "slowly leaning"? The New York Times published a fawning profile of Hitler in 1922! https://www.vox.com/2015/2/11/8016017/ny-times-hitler And god knows how many fawning profiles of Trump, and how many times they carried the bullshit about Hillary's emails to support Mango Mussolini's campaign. Where the fuck have you been for the last eight years or more?

• On the post: Elon Musk Finally Realizes That Verification Requires More Than A Credit Card, Planning To Make Users Upload Gov’t ID

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2023 @ 07:38pm

  I'm as likely to give this arsehole my real identity and documented proof as I am to pay for his 'premium service'. I'm as likely to let him implant a chip in my brain as do either of those things. Which is to say, the heat death of the universe will happen before I do any of that.

• On the post: Today In ‘Here’s How Elon Is Making ExTwitter Worse,’ He’s Going To Get Rid Of Headlines & Snippets For News

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2023 @ 03:28pm

  Fuck those blind people anyway

  I can't imagine the supergenius that is Melon has given a second's consideration to how people with screen readers will use twitter if this is implemented. I doubt he's given a thought to anyone with a disability of any kind before in his life. That's his disability.

• On the post: Federal Judge Rules Tennessee Anti-Drag Law Unconstitutional

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2023 @ 10:14pm

  "most drag performers aren’t even LGBTQ+ in the first place" That's really not true. There are a lot of LGBTQ+ drag artists, as well as a lot of straight, cis men and women. However, whether they are or aren't is irrelevant to this crap because being LGBTQ+ doesn't make you a groomer or a paedophile, and neither does being in drag. This garbage is made up out of whole cloth by fascists, and it's repeated every couple of decades by the current far right shit stirrers to get their supporters all worked up about nothing. It's not even worth addressing, whether you're in a dress or not!

• On the post: Possible Reasons Why YouTube Has Given Up Trying To Police 2020 Election Misinfo

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2023 @ 07:02pm

  Judges Are Not Impressed by Rudy Giuliani's Evidence of 'Widespread Nationwide Voter Fraud' Although the president's lawyer says the anti-Trump conspiracy is "easily provable," the affidavits he cites fall notably short. Basically, they worked as well as Ghouliani's Grecian 2000 did at convincing people he still doesn't have any grey hair.

• On the post: Possible Reasons Why YouTube Has Given Up Trying To Police 2020 Election Misinfo

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2023 @ 06:56pm

  "The World Health Organization recently said the COVID pandemic is over" Wrong. It said the COVID health emergency is over. Not the pandemic. https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/05/1136367

• On the post: Federal Judge Rules Tennessee Anti-Drag Law Unconstitutional

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2023 @ 06:05pm

  "just as Democratic gun bans are" One of these things are not like the others, dipshit.

• On the post: Federal Judge Rules Tennessee Anti-Drag Law Unconstitutional

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2023 @ 06:04pm

  Yes, yes they would. Panto dames are often, though far from exclusively, played by gay men, so of course they must be banned! :(

Next >>