It is standard fare that most incidents making the TV (or radio) news regarding a violent incident, especially those including gang violence, as well as most traffic incidents resulting in injury, the news anchor ends the piece with "Police are asking anyone who lives in the area or those with dashcams who were nearby at the time of the incident to share security footage with the police". Occasionally, this is a reiteration of an officer's actual request.
Interestingly, almost every time someone has shared with the TV news, video footage of a police involved incident, the standard response from the police is along the lines of "The video shown does not tell the whole story and is just one perspective. The incident is being reviewed (internally or by the Independent Investigations Office (IIO) ). We ask witnesses to share any additional footage with the police".
Several years ago, following a tragic hit and run over 2 kms away on a perpendicular collector road, police came knocking on every residence asking us to review and share any security footage we may have.
The restaurant chain in question is also a member of "Barwatch", an almost 30 year old program which collects digital personal ID of patrons to establishments, shared amongst the association members which works closely with police to bar “undesirable” persons or a “troublemakers” from entering any of the establishments. It also works closely with local police detachments and even Transit.
The program managed to put a serious dent in gang activity within the bars and restaurants. Today's incidents are shootings on the street and their gun and run / drive-by nature has lead to much more collateral damage.
On the one hand, I applaud the restaurant for a policy demanding a warrant and would expect this to be the case, but given the near universal industry (and business) co-operation, why is this odd? Why not this time? Have there been other times perhaps where they called for police help and maybe been left hanging?
For the provincial liquor licensing authority and AG's office to mandate the restaurant comply with such police requests for an incident OUTSIDE of their establishment is definite overreach. There's no suggestion anyone involved attended the restaurant. Had the incident occurred within the premises, that would perhaps be a different matter, especially given the Barwatch membership.
There's more to this story, but it's rare that the news media ever follow-up on the stories. If there's an arrest and charges years alter, it's rare people even make the association back to original incident.
Cellphone manufacturers don't need to install custom software to comply with this proposed law ... they just need to slap a little sticker on the outside of the shrinkwrapped box stating "Not for Sale in Utah".
Pull the phones from the shelves and let the market deal with the consequences.
I'm sure the carriers could also quickly leverage some of their enshitification clauses to indicate "You did not buy this phone and own nothing. The signatories agree that the Provider shall lend the Consumer this device for their use for the duration of this contract or as long as they continue to use the Provider's services".
I live in Western Canada. When I first got "High-speed Internet" from my incumbent telco in 2011, the top ADSL options were 50, 25, 15, 10 and 5 Mbps. I choose 15. It cost me $39/month, CAD$. The top-tier 50 cost $75/month.
Since then, my bill has been automatically ratcheted up almost every 6 months by $5. Every time I complained, they said they are reinvesting in the network and that's the reason for the increases.
In 2014, they introduced Internet 75. Today, they offer 3 GBbps fibre. The current price for 3Gbps is $145. They don't even advertise less than 250 Mbps.
At no time have I ever been offered to move to a "better value" plan. When I called to ask about the cheap offers they advertised, I was told they are only available to New Customers (loyalty be damned evidently).
I am still on my Internet 15 plan, which now is costing me $105 !!
The kicker is they are repeatedly calling/forcing me to arrange to switch my drop from copper to fibre, "At no cost to me, including replacement of the modem" such that they can turn down the copper network. I would still be billed the Internet 15 rate.
They have offered to "upgrade" my plan to their lowest (unadvertised) fibre plan, Internet 75, but that will cost $115.
Back in 2011, web pages were small, and videos and streaming on-line games were negative, OS and app updates were small and infrequent, by 15 is still fine for me.
To sum up, the top tier speed has gone from 50Mbps to 3Gbps, a 60x improvement, the price has effectively doubled. But if you have the exact same service as before, you're paying 2.67x more, for the exact same thing! A service so slow, it's 2.67x slower than their slowest offering!
How is this "price dropping"? By my math, I should be paying less than $20/month if prices actually dropped.
Just one of the many astounding aspects of thia story is his argument regarding the floor and point loads. We tend to forget (and maybe he did too) that he claims to have a degree in Physics and Economics!
Understanding point loads and capacity/deflection ratings is a matter of basic physics; it's not "rocket science". Mind you rocket science is basic physics too.
Then again, his application of the economics portion of his degree seems have gone for nought as it applies to X/Twitter.
Oh, that's right, @Mike hasn't had time to redesign the site to implement a paywall, drive up the costs of hosting his content and restricting access to his information, insights and opinions, so no need for that pop-up.
ps: Let's not forget Techdirt did "upgrade its platform" just over a year ago (which freaked a lot of people out, evidently without reason), plus a few more times since the 90's, all for the better!
Now, if he could only convince a Supreme Court Justice to pen an opinion column like some other old NY rag did ...
"The Call is coming from inside the House!".
Or, more accurately, from inside the “Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Government,”
But then no Hollywood writer could possibly have dreamt up as simplistic and yet convoluted a plot, with such exaggerated stereotype as the ReTrumplican Party has done.
"Smart" Garage Door Company, dumb developers.
Maybe they could ask "greenluigi1" to hack their car's infotainment system so the Nexx garage door opens via Bluetooth as soon as the car is close enough ?
Samsung Engineer has Product idea:
"Hey ChatGPT, how would I develop an internet-connected garage door opener app, just like Nexx''s, but without the security vulnerability?"
download or watch any BBC programmes on iPlayer - live, catch up or on demand
This applies to any provider you use and any device, including a TV, desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone, tablet, games console, digital box or DVD/VHS recorder.
source: BBC: Funding through the TV licence (2023-04-10)
Seems like that applies to more than terrestrial OTA broadcasts and more than just the Beeb.
State sponsored entity? Musk, look in the mirror.
Never mind “Who Cares”…
If anything/anyone deserves a “state sponsored” label, it should be SpaceX and by extension, Elon Musk.
SpaceX directly receives government funding to both perform actions for and at the direction of the US government in order to achieve the policies and goals set out by the US government.
In fact, SpaceX would have gone into bankruptcy were it not for highly risky funding which could only have be considered a government bailout at the time, which worked out for both parties.
Ongoing government funding of SpaceX far exceeds both in actual dollar amount and by percentage of revenue anything that NPR or CPB receive.
As the voice of SpaceX, that must make Musk a state sponsored media entity.
With all due respect to "Who Cares" ...
If anything/anyone deserves a “state sponsored” label, it should be SpaceX and by extension, Elon Musk.
SpaceX directly receives government funding to both perform actions for and at the direction of the US government in order to achieve the policies and goals set out by the US government.
In fact, SpaceX would have gone into bankruptcy were it not for highly risky funding which could only have be considered a government bailout at the time, which worked out for both parties.
Ongoing government funding of SpaceX far exceeds both in actual dollar amount and by percentage of revenue anything that NPR or CPB receive.
As the voice of SpaceX, that must make Musk a state sponsored media entity.
Never mind "Who Cares"...
If anything/anyone deserves a "state sponsored" label, it should be SpaceX and by extension, Elon Musk.
SpaceX directly receives government funding to both perform actions for and at the direction of the US government in order to achieve the policies and goals set out by the US government.
In fact, SpaceX would have gone into bankruptcy were it not for highly risky funding which could only have be considered a government bailout at the time, which worked out for both parties.
Ongoing government funding of SpaceX far exceeds both in actual dollar amount and by percentage of revenue anything that NPR or CPB receive.
As the voice of SpaceX, that must make Musk a state sponsored media entity.
My family owns a little business with a storefront on Main St. It has a nice little window display that everyone enjoys stopping by and looking at. It generates good conversation while engaging the community. I update it daily with new stock, which takes effort.
But now there's a corporation that set up across the street. Every day that business owner comes into my store, takes all the merch on display in the window, across the street, wraps a little bow on it and displays it as his wares as part of some diorama. He never pays for the merch he is taking. He claims it's not about the individual wares, rather "the experience" his diorama creates from them.
I offered to sell to him my wares at a wholesale rate, but he's not interested. He claims he does not charge his customers for his wares so shuld not need to pay for them. Yet, he seems to declare ridiculous profits every quarter; that's his business model.
I'm just asking the authorities do do something about his daily taking of my wares from my display without compensation.
Well, it would seem a few days later Musk got wind of my suggestions and in a tweet (10:31 AM · Nov 18, 2022), he announced a new policy (another one, yes):
New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.
Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter.
You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.
And later that day, put it to a poll if #POOO should be reinstated (4:47 PM · Nov 18, 2022)
So, he got the point to invite #POOO back, but restrict the reach of #POOO to those who seek it out (aka Red CheckMarks ONLY), but completely misses the idea on how to monetize that for Twitter.
I guess Musk would rather stick to his "principles" than return Twitter to profitability.
I'm not the visionary or Entrepreneur that Musk is, but I do see s simple and incredibly profitable path out of this for Musk...
Introduce a new "Red Checkmark" (with a gold outline)
Offer the "Very Stable Genius' back onto the platform. He had almost 90M following before he was booted off
Require that anyone who wishes to worship (follow) the "Previous Occupant of the Oval Office" (aka POOO) must subscribe for $10/month. They will be recognized with a "Red Checkmark" beside their name.
Only those who follow POOO will be able to see his tweets
Any replies to those tweets will only be visible to the "RedMarks"
Any posts referencing #POOO will only be visible to the "Redmarks"
This proposal would allow #POOO to say he's back on Twitter, and if all the prior worshippers came back would generate $900M/month for that other Genius!!
Now, introduce the concept of a digital "swear jar". After all, "Free speech is not Free".
Should a RedMark post something offensive and it is flagged for removal for violating Twitter's guidelines, the poster shall have the opportunity to put $1 into the "swear jar" - The post will then be reinstated, but behind a "Warning: This an offensive tweet" control.
Users who wish to view the offensive tweet will be charged "2 cents" (ie: a paywall; thanks for the idea NYT).
Should continue users find the blocked tweet offensive, after 3 threes, it's outta there.
Not sure how much money the swear jar would generate but I'm sure it would pay for all the moderators Twitter could possibly need to moderate the rest of the Blue World.
I offer these concepts to Elon in return for a small 1% fee off the top.
It's been said before, but worth repeating..
Someone "as smart" as Musk, with a degree in Physics and economics should have realized that something like Starlink would not be technically capable of meeting the world's communication deficit as promised and such a scheme would never be economically viable.
But for those smart guys behind the telescopes who said:
Shutting off a telescope’s camera requires electricity, ... As a consequence, this method has the potential of driving up cost and lowering efficiency for studies of the universe.
Shutting down should not be required, only to prevent the light exposure during the overhead transit. Wouldn't a giant lens cap or shutter do?
Serving up Standard fare
It is standard fare that most incidents making the TV (or radio) news regarding a violent incident, especially those including gang violence, as well as most traffic incidents resulting in injury, the news anchor ends the piece with "Police are asking anyone who lives in the area or those with dashcams who were nearby at the time of the incident to share security footage with the police". Occasionally, this is a reiteration of an officer's actual request. Interestingly, almost every time someone has shared with the TV news, video footage of a police involved incident, the standard response from the police is along the lines of "The video shown does not tell the whole story and is just one perspective. The incident is being reviewed (internally or by the Independent Investigations Office (IIO) ). We ask witnesses to share any additional footage with the police". Several years ago, following a tragic hit and run over 2 kms away on a perpendicular collector road, police came knocking on every residence asking us to review and share any security footage we may have. The restaurant chain in question is also a member of "Barwatch", an almost 30 year old program which collects digital personal ID of patrons to establishments, shared amongst the association members which works closely with police to bar “undesirable” persons or a “troublemakers” from entering any of the establishments. It also works closely with local police detachments and even Transit. The program managed to put a serious dent in gang activity within the bars and restaurants. Today's incidents are shootings on the street and their gun and run / drive-by nature has lead to much more collateral damage. On the one hand, I applaud the restaurant for a policy demanding a warrant and would expect this to be the case, but given the near universal industry (and business) co-operation, why is this odd? Why not this time? Have there been other times perhaps where they called for police help and maybe been left hanging? For the provincial liquor licensing authority and AG's office to mandate the restaurant comply with such police requests for an incident OUTSIDE of their establishment is definite overreach. There's no suggestion anyone involved attended the restaurant. Had the incident occurred within the premises, that would perhaps be a different matter, especially given the Barwatch membership. There's more to this story, but it's rare that the news media ever follow-up on the stories. If there's an arrest and charges years alter, it's rare people even make the association back to original incident.
Ban Utah, not porn
Cellphone manufacturers don't need to install custom software to comply with this proposed law ... they just need to slap a little sticker on the outside of the shrinkwrapped box stating "Not for Sale in Utah". Pull the phones from the shelves and let the market deal with the consequences. I'm sure the carriers could also quickly leverage some of their enshitification clauses to indicate "You did not buy this phone and own nothing. The signatories agree that the Provider shall lend the Consumer this device for their use for the duration of this contract or as long as they continue to use the Provider's services".
But that makes you a spammer
Not just ripped off in America
I live in Western Canada. When I first got "High-speed Internet" from my incumbent telco in 2011, the top ADSL options were 50, 25, 15, 10 and 5 Mbps. I choose 15. It cost me $39/month, CAD$. The top-tier 50 cost $75/month. Since then, my bill has been automatically ratcheted up almost every 6 months by $5. Every time I complained, they said they are reinvesting in the network and that's the reason for the increases. In 2014, they introduced Internet 75. Today, they offer 3 GBbps fibre. The current price for 3Gbps is $145. They don't even advertise less than 250 Mbps. At no time have I ever been offered to move to a "better value" plan. When I called to ask about the cheap offers they advertised, I was told they are only available to New Customers (loyalty be damned evidently). I am still on my Internet 15 plan, which now is costing me $105 !! The kicker is they are repeatedly calling/forcing me to arrange to switch my drop from copper to fibre, "At no cost to me, including replacement of the modem" such that they can turn down the copper network. I would still be billed the Internet 15 rate. They have offered to "upgrade" my plan to their lowest (unadvertised) fibre plan, Internet 75, but that will cost $115. Back in 2011, web pages were small, and videos and streaming on-line games were negative, OS and app updates were small and infrequent, by 15 is still fine for me. To sum up, the top tier speed has gone from 50Mbps to 3Gbps, a 60x improvement, the price has effectively doubled. But if you have the exact same service as before, you're paying 2.67x more, for the exact same thing! A service so slow, it's 2.67x slower than their slowest offering! How is this "price dropping"? By my math, I should be paying less than $20/month if prices actually dropped.
Basic physics, and economics
Just one of the many astounding aspects of thia story is his argument regarding the floor and point loads. We tend to forget (and maybe he did too) that he claims to have a degree in Physics and Economics! Understanding point loads and capacity/deflection ratings is a matter of basic physics; it's not "rocket science". Mind you rocket science is basic physics too. Then again, his application of the economics portion of his degree seems have gone for nought as it applies to X/Twitter.
Get unlimited access to all of Techdirt ...
I wonder why I never see that message,
Oh, that's right, @Mike hasn't had time to redesign the site to implement a paywall, drive up the costs of hosting his content and restricting access to his information, insights and opinions, so no need for that pop-up. ps: Let's not forget Techdirt did "upgrade its platform" just over a year ago (which freaked a lot of people out, evidently without reason), plus a few more times since the 90's, all for the better! Now, if he could only convince a Supreme Court Justice to pen an opinion column like some other old NY rag did ...Small mind, big world
A plate that reads “GOBK2CA,” or “Go back to California,” ... Maybe that really meant “Go back to Canada” ! Blame Canada!
"Hidden Treasure Mapping Logic", isn't that what is commonly known as a "loot box"?
Classic horror movie trope
"The Call is coming from inside the House!". Or, more accurately, from inside the “Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Government,” But then no Hollywood writer could possibly have dreamt up as simplistic and yet convoluted a plot, with such exaggerated stereotype as the ReTrumplican Party has done.
And the car in the garage is unlocked too! Washing machine is jealous, wants door unlocked too.
"Smart" Garage Door Company, dumb developers. Maybe they could ask "greenluigi1" to hack their car's infotainment system so the Nexx garage door opens via Bluetooth as soon as the car is close enough ?
Samsung Engineer has Product idea: "Hey ChatGPT, how would I develop an internet-connected garage door opener app, just like Nexx''s, but without the security vulnerability?"A TV licence is required if you:
That's what I said ...
@Mike, That's what I said yesterday in the Comments for the Funniest/Insightful, albeit in lesser detail
State sponsored entity? Musk, look in the mirror.
With all due respect to "Who Cares" ... If anything/anyone deserves a “state sponsored” label, it should be SpaceX and by extension, Elon Musk. SpaceX directly receives government funding to both perform actions for and at the direction of the US government in order to achieve the policies and goals set out by the US government. In fact, SpaceX would have gone into bankruptcy were it not for highly risky funding which could only have be considered a government bailout at the time, which worked out for both parties. Ongoing government funding of SpaceX far exceeds both in actual dollar amount and by percentage of revenue anything that NPR or CPB receive. As the voice of SpaceX, that must make Musk a state sponsored media entity.
State sponsored entity? Musk, look in the mirror.
Never mind "Who Cares"... If anything/anyone deserves a "state sponsored" label, it should be SpaceX and by extension, Elon Musk. SpaceX directly receives government funding to both perform actions for and at the direction of the US government in order to achieve the policies and goals set out by the US government. In fact, SpaceX would have gone into bankruptcy were it not for highly risky funding which could only have be considered a government bailout at the time, which worked out for both parties. Ongoing government funding of SpaceX far exceeds both in actual dollar amount and by percentage of revenue anything that NPR or CPB receive. As the voice of SpaceX, that must make Musk a state sponsored media entity.
Not another horse buggy/car analogy
My family owns a little business with a storefront on Main St. It has a nice little window display that everyone enjoys stopping by and looking at. It generates good conversation while engaging the community. I update it daily with new stock, which takes effort. But now there's a corporation that set up across the street. Every day that business owner comes into my store, takes all the merch on display in the window, across the street, wraps a little bow on it and displays it as his wares as part of some diorama. He never pays for the merch he is taking. He claims it's not about the individual wares, rather "the experience" his diorama creates from them. I offered to sell to him my wares at a wholesale rate, but he's not interested. He claims he does not charge his customers for his wares so shuld not need to pay for them. Yet, he seems to declare ridiculous profits every quarter; that's his business model. I'm just asking the authorities do do something about his daily taking of my wares from my display without compensation.
Genius takes note, misses oppurtunity
Well, it would seem a few days later Musk got wind of my suggestions and in a tweet (10:31 AM · Nov 18, 2022), he announced a new policy (another one, yes):
And later that day, put it to a poll if #POOO should be reinstated (4:47 PM · Nov 18, 2022) So, he got the point to invite #POOO back, but restrict the reach of #POOO to those who seek it out (aka Red CheckMarks ONLY), but completely misses the idea on how to monetize that for Twitter. I guess Musk would rather stick to his "principles" than return Twitter to profitability.Does not take "A Genius" to Save Twitter, or maybe it does ?
I'm not the visionary or Entrepreneur that Musk is, but I do see s simple and incredibly profitable path out of this for Musk...
- Introduce a new "Red Checkmark" (with a gold outline)
- Offer the "Very Stable Genius' back onto the platform. He had almost 90M following before he was booted off
- Require that anyone who wishes to worship (follow) the "Previous Occupant of the Oval Office" (aka POOO) must subscribe for $10/month. They will be recognized with a "Red Checkmark" beside their name.
- Only those who follow POOO will be able to see his tweets
- Any replies to those tweets will only be visible to the "RedMarks"
- Any posts referencing #POOO will only be visible to the "Redmarks"
This proposal would allow #POOO to say he's back on Twitter, and if all the prior worshippers came back would generate $900M/month for that other Genius!! Now, introduce the concept of a digital "swear jar". After all, "Free speech is not Free".- Should a RedMark post something offensive and it is flagged for removal for violating Twitter's guidelines, the poster shall have the opportunity to put $1 into the "swear jar" - The post will then be reinstated, but behind a "Warning: This an offensive tweet" control.
- Users who wish to view the offensive tweet will be charged "2 cents" (ie: a paywall; thanks for the idea NYT).
- Should continue users find the blocked tweet offensive, after 3 threes, it's outta there.
Not sure how much money the swear jar would generate but I'm sure it would pay for all the moderators Twitter could possibly need to moderate the rest of the Blue World. I offer these concepts to Elon in return for a small 1% fee off the top.Who's that?
not culpable
I wonder if he'll present the "Pants on Fire" defence?
Smart guys miss the point
It's been said before, but worth repeating.. Someone "as smart" as Musk, with a degree in Physics and economics should have realized that something like Starlink would not be technically capable of meeting the world's communication deficit as promised and such a scheme would never be economically viable. But for those smart guys behind the telescopes who said:
Shutting down should not be required, only to prevent the light exposure during the overhead transit. Wouldn't a giant lens cap or shutter do?