Dark Helmet 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Deep Breath: Okay, Let’s Talk About That Controversial DLSS 5 Demo

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 10:52am

    That got a genuine laugh out of me.

  • On the post: Deep Breath: Okay, Let’s Talk About That Controversial DLSS 5 Demo

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 10:51am

    But again, if this all optional for the developer, or refinable through prompts to meet the artistic vision, your argument is with the game maker, not NVIDIA....

  • On the post: Deep Breath: Okay, Let’s Talk About That Controversial DLSS 5 Demo

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 06:17am

    That was a well said, clearly thought out comment. I still land on "We shouldn't threaten to kill people, even over our lost jobs, if that happens." That is a hill that I am, ahem, willing to die on.

  • On the post: Deep Breath: Okay, Let’s Talk About That Controversial DLSS 5 Demo

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 06:16am

    "But that’s not what DLSS 5 is. It operates from the “opposite side”, so to speak. The developer implements it, and allegedly has control. The granularity of that control seems lacking, though, based on elaborative responses from nVidia engineers." That's a completely fair point, but the analogy doesn't have to be perfect to make a point. DLSS is an optional technology FOR DEVELOPERS. NVIDIA made that even more clear in the days since the demo video release. So which respects artistic intent more: an optional tool developers can use and tailor to impact their own art, or my use of a mod that the artist had no idea would even exist, nor had a hand in, to change their art significantly? "To use the example from the video link above, if developers wanted to reduce the makeup look on Grace in DLSS5 so it doesn’t look like she’s enroute to a date, there’s no way to prompt for that reduction. They would effectively have to turn DLSS5 off entirely." Do you know that to be true? For sure? Because I don't and I don't think you do, either. In fact, from hearing NVIDIA talk about the tech, the idea eventually seems to be allowing them to do exactly that kind of prompting. So, if that's how this ends up, you're okay with it?

  • On the post: Greater Than Zero: The Anti-AI Pushback On Gaming Preservation Efforts Makes No Sense

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 20 Mar, 2026 @ 10:18am

    "Making mistakes faster is not an incremental improvement." I still think this framing is nonsense, but I'll bite: why not? If LLMs and humans reach the same endpoint (an error, in this case), why is it not better to reach that endpoint faster? The faster an error is made, the faster it can be recognized, the faster it can be corrected, the faster it can be used to enhance and train the LLM to not make the error again. How is that NOT an incremental improvement?

  • On the post: Greater Than Zero: The Anti-AI Pushback On Gaming Preservation Efforts Makes No Sense

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 20 Mar, 2026 @ 07:05am

    "If what the AI brings to the table is substantially similar or worse than what existed before the AI came along to “replace” it, then AI has not, in fact, made any kind of improvement whatsoever, and has in fact made things worse." ....wut? If AI is the equivalent error-wise as humans, but is of course FASTER than humans, then that's better incrementally, not worse. If you think it's worse than humans in making errors, then that's a claim requiring evidence and proof. "And unlike AI, humans actually learn from the mistakes we make." AI does this too, on most platforms, actually. And largely with the help of human beings training it. I think the opposite is true: what AI learns is more permanent than when humans learn. A human will repeat mistakes often, while a trained AI largely won't.

  • On the post: Full Circle: Katie Perry Gets Her Trademark Back In Australia, Court Says No Risk Of Confusion

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2026 @ 05:50am

    "First, let’s look at “who started it?” It began with the threat of legal action. The singer “started it” by issuing a cease and desist to the fashion designer. You seem to overlook that step merely because the singer didn’t follow up with any court action. The singer choosing not to follow-up left the designer in legal limbo." I didn't leave it out; I brought it up specifically when describing how the larger story started. I'll also say that the designer appeared to "live in limbo" just fine for 6 whole years without any problems. A detail I DID leave out, but which is available in previous posts and source material, is that the designer attempted to register her trademark and Katy Perry opposed it initially, but eventually backed down and allowed the mark to go through unchallenged. IOW, all the designer had to do was leave well enough alone and this tale of woe would have ended there. Instead she sued. So, yes, she's the impetus of the real meat of this story.

  • On the post: Trump Administration Using Gross Video Game Footage To Cheerlead Its War Efforts

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2026 @ 11:57am

    Don't be so sure

    That doesn't appear to be entirely accurate. Iran claimed the ship was unarmed. But part of the parade involved the ships, including the Iranian ship, firing live rounds of the surface guns and the anti-aircraft guns. Unless they were truly firing blanks, which is not what the Indian government indicated, they were armed.

  • On the post: Trump Administration Using Gross Video Game Footage To Cheerlead Its War Efforts

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2026 @ 07:06am

    Blech, yup

    Indeed a typo and this will be fixed. My apologies for the error.

  • On the post: OPM Musical Artist Gets Copyright Notice For Performing His Own Song

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2026 @ 11:13am

    "Do you also believe he should be able sell his house and move back in ten years later?" Wrong question. He's not trying to move back into the house. He's trying to show pictures of his house long after he sold it (playing the song he created on the internet). The main thrust of the post is that it's fairly silly that an artist can't perform the song they created on a stream.

  • On the post: OPM Musical Artist Gets Copyright Notice For Performing His Own Song

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2026 @ 11:11am

    It does that, but it also points out that this is probably the result of Warner owning his back catalogue: I am guessing that Warner also acquired the rights to his older music, at least for streaming distribution and the like. Warner is not only extremely protectionist on copyright matters, but also employs copyright bots that automatically look for infringing content on the internet, particularly on YouTube and social media sites. So, I would guess that Lim’s reel performing “his” song got flagged by whatever automated setup Warner Music has going.

  • On the post: OPM Musical Artist Gets Copyright Notice For Performing His Own Song

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2026 @ 05:39am

    Right....

    I believe I made this point explicitly in the penultimate paragraph....

  • On the post: Trump Administration Makes The Conscious Choice To Make America Less Prepared For The Next Pandemic

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2026 @ 10:48am

    "You realize that Trump brought you the vaccine you guys tried to force everyone to take, right?" Damn, you're right. I probably should have mentioned that somewhere near the beginning of the post. Maybe in the second sentence of paragraph 2 or thereabouts....

  • On the post: Newly Public Emails Sure Make It Look Like RFK Jr. Lied To Congress About His Trip To Samoa In 2019

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2026 @ 10:54am

    Totally

    You're totally right. The problem here is definitely that I have been giving RFK Jr. way too much leeway....

  • On the post: DOJ Arrests Journalists Don Lemon & Georgia Fort For Acts Of Journalism, Even After Courts Rejected Arrest Warrants

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2026 @ 08:58pm

    "It comes down to a question of how to define a “journalist”" If you play this game, you've already lost.

  • On the post: White House Push AI-Altered Images Of Arrested ICE Protesters To Manufacture Cruelty

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 24 Jan, 2026 @ 03:39am

    So we agree?

    There was no attack. There was no violence "They forced their way in, refused to leave, and scared the hell out of little kids, yelling all kinda vile shit." Yes, exactly, we're saying the same thing. Glad we agree there was not a violation of the law in this case.

  • On the post: New Year, But The Same Measles Crises Rages On

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 15 Jan, 2026 @ 01:18pm

    You seem fun.

  • On the post: ‘Anthem’ Shuts Down January 12th And, Poof!, There Goes All That Creative Culture

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 09 Jan, 2026 @ 05:55am

    The altnerative is linked directly in the article. The Stop Killing Games movement lays this out beautifully. "When an online game publisher sunsets an unsuccessful client-server game, they must publish protocol docs and open source the client and server code?" Again, yes, as the Stop Killing Games movement makes clear. The point I keep coming back to is what copyright law lays out: a limited monopoly in exchange for that same culture to eventually be released into the public domain. If gaming companies are allowed to simply disappear these games, how are they fulfilling their end of the bargain? They're not, and that's the point. I consider this a violation of copyright law, or at least its purpose, and nobody seems to want to do much about it.

  • On the post: Maximum Chaos: Latest Top FDA Regulator Peaces Out After Only 3 Weeks

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 09 Dec, 2025 @ 09:26am

    Close, but...

    You mispelled "eugenics".

  • On the post: RFK Jr., CDC Vaccine Guidance, A New Deputy CDC Director, And Measles In South Carolina

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2025 @ 06:51am

    Yup

    No notes; this is exactly correct.

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