PaulT 's Techdirt Comments

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• On the post: Twitter’s Remaining Engineers Appear To Solve Elon Musk’s Complaint That His Tweets Aren’t Getting Enough Views By… Making The Algorithm Forcefeed All Of Elon’s Tweets To Everyone

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2023 @ 04:07am

  "Masnick’s shitty website seems to have eaten my initial reply" It's always funny when you whine and we can see both. Especially when your reaction is to rewrite your original reply as a 6 year old instead of your usual 12.

• On the post: FBI Director Chris Wray Turns On The Charm, Tries To Convince Tech Companies He’s Not Their Enemy

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2023 @ 04:06am

  "FBI officials say they can’t put a dent in cybercrime or economic espionage by focusing primarily on after-the-fact indictments" ...which I assume is as much because they don't have jurisdiction over most of the players involved as it is their ability to insert themselves into proceedings. Which, given their track record with prosecuting terrorist activities which often turn out to be made from whole cloth by the FBI themselves is probably a good thing. "Current and former officials have likened the approach to the bureau’s mission after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to disrupt terrorism plots before they can be carried out." I'm not sure if there's official figures, but I'd like to see a study. One that looks at the number of actual terrorist plots that have been foiled (not the ones the FBI instigated), measured against the loss of civil liberties and new problems caused by the tactics used. I somehow don't think the results would be great support for them getting involved again, especially since they haven't been able to answer questions like how encryption with backdoors protects people when their backdoors are effectively compromised (which will happen). Some variant of "blame the tech company we compromised" doesn't seem to be a compelling invitation to co-operation.

• On the post: In A World Where AI Art Is Cheap And Easy To Generate, Do We Still Need Copyright?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2023 @ 03:35am

  The initial act of copying could be a violation of copyright, but if you think that training based on existing pictures in order to create a new work based on requests for new pictures is a copyright violation... well, you just claimed that all artists violate copyright. The sheer number of pictures in the database might be beyond what what an individual human can work on, but most artists start by training themselves by copying the work of others, be that visually imitating existing paintings, doing cover versions of songs, trying to copy the style of a favourite author, making a shot-by-shot remake of a favourite movie - and that's usually not an issue unless they're doing it to actually counterfeit something. That's the real question here - great artists often started their careers by copying the work of others directly. At what point did they go from being thieves to artists in this scenario, and where does the line get drawn when it's not a human doing the initial copying?

• On the post: In A World Where AI Art Is Cheap And Easy To Generate, Do We Still Need Copyright?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2023 @ 03:27am

  "if a bit of a straw man." That's not what straw man means. What's an actual straw man is comparing theft (the original owner no longer has access to it) to unauthorised duplication (the original owner has it, but may have lost the ability to sell that specific copy iteration himself) "When it is trivial to duplicate work the value of that work is reduced" It's trivial to copy lots of valuable things. But, the fact I can copy and print out the Mona Lisa does not make the Louvre lose money, it doesn't even lose money for someone selling on official print. What is it that is valuable about your work? Is it only that people think it's hard to copy? "Are we saying we don’t want artist to be a viable profession?" We're saying that being an artist doesn't guarantee you a living, and never has. What do you as an artist offer that others wish to buy?

• On the post: In A World Where AI Art Is Cheap And Easy To Generate, Do We Still Need Copyright?

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2023 @ 03:18am

  I've seen varying results posted by others, but the general rule of thumb seem to be that the paid ones give much better results, and the more creative/unusual your prompt is, the more creative your result will seem. If all you're doing is providing a simple prompt that matches up with lots of pre-existing images online, chances are you'll get something that looks like a messed up mashup of those images. But, that's the same in the human world too. If you ask someone to create a free image or pay them a pittance through Fiverr or something based on a couple of words that returns thousands of royalty free images in a Google image search, you'll probably get a barely edited version of a stock image. If you pay them properly and provide a unique idea that requires creativity, you'll get something better.

• On the post: A Look Into What Advertisers Elon’s Twitter Has In Its Future

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 14 Feb, 2023 @ 04:42am

  “Can you not vet the ads on Truth?” asked one user in a post directed at Mr. Trump. “I’ve been scammed more than once.”

  They were vetted. Once by US Pravda making sure the funds were cleared, and once by the advertiser knowing that they were targeting the dumbest, most easily led group of people to ever empty their wallets for a con artist. If you're expecting Trump and his lackeys to be on the side of the mark and not the grifter, you really need to re-examine what you voted for in recent years, and adjust accordingly.

• On the post: Elon Musk Throws A Shit Fit And Fires Engineer Because Not Enough People Are Viewing His Personal Tweets

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 04:39pm

  Au contraire, you sticking to defending Musk despite all his obvious failings while resorting to name calling and playground insults when challenged says a lot.

• On the post: Elon Musk Throws A Shit Fit And Fires Engineer Because Not Enough People Are Viewing His Personal Tweets

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 04:36pm

  There's a lot of arguments that aren't based on actual evidence. Often, when you get into the "evidence", it's lacking or the cite itself disproves their arguments, so it can be easier to dismiss the opponent rather than try to form a response. So, here we are - when confronted, it's easier to pretend that you're talking to kids who can't possibly understand life experience, than accept that you're talking to peers with more or different knowledge that can be discussed. The irony is, this is way more childish than the "kids" he imagines he's talking to would be. Disproving the argument requires citations that can be examined, logic that can be discussed, evidence that can be falsified. "Get out of here kid" requires only imagination and a lack of self esteem.

• On the post: Elon Musk Throws A Shit Fit And Fires Engineer Because Not Enough People Are Viewing His Personal Tweets

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 04:02pm

  These people do love their strawmen. I'm often amazed at what they build to fight instead of addressing my actual opinions or life experiences.

• On the post: Elon Musk Throws A Shit Fit And Fires Engineer Because Not Enough People Are Viewing His Personal Tweets

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 03:59pm

  "Basically, it’s become a story of, “The Conservatives Who Cried ‘Woke’”" It doesn't help that there's no real definition of that word. When it was originally coined, it basically meant "person who understands systemic inequality despite not being personally affected by it", but now it's been applied to so many things it just means "person who disagrees with conservatives". Nowadays, it's like arguing with the far right over things like "socialism" - the word has actual definitions, but when you're arguing with someone who changes its meaning on the fly, you can't really get any common ground.

• On the post: This Week In Techdirt History: February 5th – 11th

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 02:19pm

  "Meanwhile, a Danish court demanded that an ISP start blocking The Pirate Bay" Thankfully that all went to plan... ...wait, I'm hearing that the site still exists, and the biggest boost to the content industries came from servicing demand rather than trying to block file sharing? Huh...

• On the post: Amid More Game Shutdowns Occurring, John Carmack Weighs In On Preservation

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 02:15pm

  I never got the point of that stuff - your game can change if some random person decides to join? Nah, just let me play. If I want to play online I'll go to a multiplayer mode.

• On the post: The Microsoft Acquisition Of Activision Blizzard Gets Major UK Pushback

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 01:59pm

  Games are sold in other places, and they have a business presence in those places.

• On the post: The Microsoft Acquisition Of Activision Blizzard Gets Major UK Pushback

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 01:59pm

  XBox seems to be a very different ethic from the OS/Office sides of the business, and even they have been forced to change their tune over the years. From my vantage point, XBox completely changed their ideas in very positive ways after the disastrous One launch for the better, and Sony are way worse in almost every metric being claimed about them now. I'll agree that trying to make CoD platform exclusive would be bad, but I don't see that it's on the cards, and I don't really see evidence that MS will do worse than letting Activision continue as they were. Certainly, if you're going to complain about a company buying studios to restrict new IPs to be platform exclusives, that's Sony's playbook. I'd rather it be opened up than let Xbox lock things up, but I don't see that the current deal does anything that Sony aren't already do.

• On the post: Texas SWAT Team Destroys Home While Searching For The Wrong Person At The Wrong Address

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 01:26pm

  Huh, I don't see people executed by police, having property destroyed by police, having property stolen be police. Yet, I still have police nearly. Wonder what the difference is? What you seem to take as a daily inevitability would be astonishingly rare in most places, and would lead to an attempt to stop it from ever happening again.

• On the post: Pretty Much Every Expert Agrees That Elon Has Made Twitter’s Child Sexual Abuse Problem Worse

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 01:23pm

  "All the evidence so far points to Musk mainly believing in catchy one-liners, talking points and bumper sticker mentality" Worse, he appears to believe in memes. As far as I can tell, he bought into the "moderation is easy" and "Twitter is blocking right-wingers" memes, and he's finding out that these were not true and the solutions are way harder than he imagined. As for consequences, I maintain that he was shielded from them by being a rich kid who pushed for actual world changing ideas like renewable energy and space exploration. Now that he's working toward trivialities like Twitter, that shield no longer exists.

• On the post: Ted Cruz Goes After ‘Woke’ Microsoft Over Xbox Power Saving Settings Update

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 01:18pm

  Sorry, are you referring to the pandemic that led to a crash in the market where crude oil was priced at a negative sum being cheaper than when people were using it again? I mean, I know you have to be very stupid to believe that the US president directly influences the price at the pump, but I just need to confirm you're assigning the effect of a worldwide pandemic that killed US citizens in a vastly disproportionate way as a positive.

• On the post: Amid More Game Shutdowns Occurring, John Carmack Weighs In On Preservation

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 01:14pm

  "I don’t understand where this or Paul’s reply are coming from. Of course single-player games shouldn’t have server requirements, and nothing about the preceding message suggests they should." There's several issues. One is that single player games are increasingly requiring online access. Sometimes this is DRM (easily removed if the publisher is no longer offering the game for sale). Other times, there's games with half-assed multiplayer or other online components shoehorned into single player experiences. The point is - if you "own" a game and the online severs go offline, the game should remain functional in a reasonable way. There's no reason why game X today shouldn't be playable in the same way as a fully purchased Wolfenstein 3D copy was back in the day, but some publishers have different ideas.

• On the post: Amid More Game Shutdowns Occurring, John Carmack Weighs In On Preservation

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 01:09pm

  Multiplayer requires code outside the game, and since many devs use shared code for that, it's a place where excuses can be made. I'd rather they didn't, but it's more defensible than single player being blocked.

• On the post: Pretty Much Every Expert Agrees That Elon Has Made Twitter’s Child Sexual Abuse Problem Worse

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2023 @ 01:07pm

  "I mean, I agree it was a bad movie." Meh, it wasn't a bad movie. It was well produced, etc., but it did lean hard into Christie tropes. Which can be divisive. Another recent movie, See How They Run, leaned equally as hard into both tropes and pointing out tropes, but it's also based around The Mousetrap, the longest running play in history. Some tropes have been update in Glass Onion to make certain contemporary points, but there's mostly valid from what I can see.

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