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

    ke9tv ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2023 @ 01:59pm

    And the publishers who are replacing good work from humans with low-quality work from machines have every right to do so. Presumably the replacement will provoke their readers to go elsewhere for their reading material. (If there is no 'elsewhere' to go, there is either a business opportunity or a Sherman Act case waiting in the wings.) Attacking AI isn't going to help here. Were there no AI, the next thing that the publishers would likely try would be to outsource the writing to a sweatshop in Elbonia, where the lowest bidder will probably use authors who have only marginal ability to frame an English sentence. (Possibly because English is an insecure second language for them.)

  • On the post: Can Google Be Held Liable For Man Who Died Following Google Maps Over A Collapsed Bridge?

    ke9tv ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2023 @ 03:25pm

    Google and other map providers largely depend on highway departments, rather than their own surveys, for the alignment and status of roads. I suspect here that some highway department had this private road in its database, and that even if Google did act promptly to remove the collapsed bridge (whether it did or not is in dispute), the next updated copy of the database from the highway department would have put it back in. How, after all, is Google to tell without conducting a field survey itself, whether the update is restoring old, incorrect data, or indicating that the bridge has, in fact, been restored? On top of that, it appears that the developer that owned the private road is a dissolved corporation. Whether the road was part of the bankruptcy estate and a bankruptcy trustee can be identified who is responsible for maintaining it in its safe condition, or whether adjacent homeowners have undivided interest in the right-of-way and are responsible, or whether the responsibility devolved onto the government is going to be a hard question to sort out. I've seen some speculation that, since the driver was local, he may, in fact, have known about the collapsed bridge, and that the death could have been attributable to suicide. Vehicular suicide may be commoner than otherwise suspected. One study of a relatively small cohort (30 patients) in alcohol rehab showed that patients who had suicidal ideation as a comorbidity had a history of twice as many automobile accidents as patients without that comorbidity. Updates submitted by the public have to be vetted somehow. Otherwise, every homeowner who is disturbed by the traffic volume on their road will submit an update to Google that the road is impassable and the map will fail. If every map provider is required to field-verify every update, then doing so promptly is probably beyond the resources of even Alphabet. If the suit goes against Alphabet, the result will devolve into "and this is why we can't have nice things." A tough case, and there's an ancient legal proverb, "tough cases make bad law."

  • On the post: New Jersey Appeals Court Says Even Some Forms Of Harassment Are Protected Speech

    ke9tv ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2023 @ 02:35pm

    State-recognized rights, please. The rights inhere in human beings; the state has no power to give nor wrongfully to withhold.

  • On the post: New Jersey Appeals Court Says Even Some Forms Of Harassment Are Protected Speech

    ke9tv ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2023 @ 02:33pm

    is 18th Avenue still jocularly named, "Rue de la Peos'? (Giving 'Peot' the Ashkenazic pronunciation here.)

  • On the post: Supreme Court Puts 5th Circuit Ruling On Biden Admin Jawboning Of Social Media Companies On Hold For Shadow Docket Review

    ke9tv ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2023 @ 02:20pm

    Cosolayer? Did you mean 'consigliere?' Or something else? Hard to tell.

  • On the post: Artists Who Use AI In Their Work Ask Congress Not To Kill AI

    ke9tv ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2023 @ 02:14pm

    I see very little difference between this argument and many others in our history. Photography was debasing painting, or digital photography was corrupting analog photography (as if photographers hadn't been dodging, burning and airbrushing for decades before photography went digital). Collage was theft of the original artwork. Broadcasting or recording was theft of the original performance. Movies were destroying the stage. Somehow, both life and art have cone on.

  • On the post: BMW Backs Off Heated Seats As A Subscription Service Because It Was Stupid And Unpopular

    ke9tv ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2023 @ 10:22am

    Pay toilets were common in the US until the 1970s when https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America pretty much got them wiped out. (Unfortunately, that also wiped out a great many public toilets altogether; their owners closed them rather than made them free.)

  • On the post: BMW Backs Off Heated Seats As A Subscription Service Because It Was Stupid And Unpopular

    ke9tv ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2023 @ 10:16am

    It's an ancient business model - give the razor away, to sell the blades. (Sell the printer below cost, but more than make it back on the price of ink, etc.) Customers seem to tolerate 'recurring revenue' plays when they appear to get some object of value. Even if the recurring cost to manufacture and distribute that object is much less than what the customer pays. BMW might have done a better job of convincing customers that they were getting value for their subscription money if it weren't so easy and cheap to install aftermarket seat heaters. (They could try the 'but that would void the warranty' gambit, I suppose...)

  • On the post: The Batshit Crazy Story Of The Day Elon Musk Decided To Personally Rip Servers Out Of A Sacramento Data Center

    ke9tv ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2023 @ 10:08am

    ObXCKD: https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/ I'm pretty sure that well into the 2010s I was mirroring the RAID arrays on servers, boxing them up and FedExing them across the country because 'server on on airplane' had much higher bandwidth than our network connections. There was at least once that I wound up driving a rented minivan with a couple of RAID arrays in the back. (Everything encrypted, and the originals not taken down until the mirrors were synced and verified. I'm not entirely senile just yet.)

  • On the post: South Dakota Looks Like It Might Be The Next State Asked To Explain Its Stupid Vanity Plate Laws To A Federal Court

    ke9tv ( profile ), 08 Sep, 2023 @ 02:35pm

    I knew a musicologist once who was an expert on the Austrian composer and pedagogue, Johann Joseph Fux. He requested a "JJ FUX" license plate and was, of course, denied. And yet, in the same state, a man named Richard who was born in 69 got "69 DICK". There's something arbitrary and capricious about the rules as implemented.

  • On the post: Move Over, Software Developers – In The Name Of Cybersecurity, The Government Wants To Drive

    ke9tv ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2023 @ 09:33am

    This concept has made me wonder - what about if I give it away, or someone else steals it? The language appears to address developers, not vendors. Di I need to work for a huge government contractor, with a QA department, a legal department, and about a zillion compliance officers verifying this and that, before I can write a line of code? It appears that under this regime, yes, if someone could possibly misappropriate that line and cause harm with it.

  • On the post: Mozilla: Modern Cars Are A Privacy Shitshow

    ke9tv ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2023 @ 09:04am

    Any bets that there's a car manufacturer building in functionality to interrogate non-connected phones? Even with Bluetooth turned off (doing it by cell site spoofing)? It kind of destroys the functionality of a communication device if I have to keep it in a Faraday shield all the time.

  • On the post: Fifth Circuit Says Law Enforcement Doesn’t Need Warrants To Search Phones At The Border

    ke9tv ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2023 @ 07:10am

    Poe's Law

    I can't tell, but I think this is intended to be irony. But it's impossible to tell hyperbolic commentary on the right-wing position from the actual right-wing position. Poe's Law applies. Of course, so does the Law of Goats.

  • On the post: Fifth Circuit Says Law Enforcement Doesn’t Need Warrants To Search Phones At The Border

    ke9tv ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2023 @ 07:00am

    The 'border' includes the coastline and has been claimed to include any international airport. Very little of the country is NOT within 100 nautical miles. Disneyland is a LOT less than 100 nautical miles from the beach!

  • On the post: HP Fails To Dodge Lawsuit Over Blocking Users From Using Their Printer Scanner If Ink Cartridges Aren’t Installed

    ke9tv ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2023 @ 04:24pm

    Except that the instrument business went in another transaction to Keysight. Agilent is a medical lab equipment company now.

  • On the post: NY Times Considering A Potentially Very Dumb Lawsuit Against OpenAI Because It Learned From NY Times Content

    ke9tv ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2023 @ 03:27pm

    scanning the web has to be fair use, otherwise we no longer have search engines
    Which would suit a lot of people who are set on regulating the Internet. "What do you need a search engine for? Your betters will tell you what to read!"

  • On the post: Masculine Policy: The GOP’s Plan To Outlaw ‘Porn’ And Suspend The First Amendment 

    ke9tv ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2023 @ 03:16pm

    Left hand or right hand?

    The one with the hairy palm, of course.

  • On the post: Masculine Policy: The GOP’s Plan To Outlaw ‘Porn’ And Suspend The First Amendment 

    ke9tv ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2023 @ 03:14pm

    Apparently a skilled Jewish laborer (carpentry was really useful back in the 1st Century CE)
    The word that's used in the Greek New Testament translates just as well as 'building contractor'. Which makes sense to answer the question of what Joseph and Mary were doing in Bethlehem: there was rather a building boom going on in the last years of the first century BCE, while contracting jobs in Nazareth of Galilee might have been a bit scarce.

  • On the post: Florida’s Governor Continues To Abuse His Executive Power To Eject His Political Opponents

    ke9tv ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2023 @ 08:46am

    No Confederate legislator was convicted of rebellion before a jury. They were still barred from public office until the Congress granted them amnesty.

  • On the post: Florida’s Governor Continues To Abuse His Executive Power To Eject His Political Opponents

    ke9tv ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2023 @ 08:45am

    Self-executing

    The only actual precedent for applying the insurrection clause was that those who had served in the Federal government prior to the Civil War and accepted public office in the Confederacy were barred from public office during Reconstruction. (The Congress eventually granted amnesty by the required 2/3 vote.) No enabling legislation was required; the 14th Amendment itself was sufficient. Since no Federal officer since then has committed insurrection, there's no further case precedent, but there's surely a colorable argument that the amendment does not require a separate statute for enforcement. A better argument would be that Trump has not been charged specifically with 'insurrection', 'rebellion', or 'giving aid or comfort' to those who engaged in the same, and that any other crimes of which he may have been convicted by the time of the 2024 election will not be a Constitutional bar to office. But the barring of the Confederate legislators militates against that interpretation - none of them had been convicted of insurrection before a jury. In any case, there's far too great a chance that the courts, the legislatures, and the secretaries of state will lose out to brown-shirts in red hats.

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