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TKnarr

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  • Jul 28, 2026 @ 10:44am

    LLMs are the ultimate used-car salesman.

  • Jul 28, 2026 @ 02:28am

    I think that the fact it's only URLs from the search results being collected, not the results page itself, makes a difference. Google scraped the original web page to build it's database, which could arguably involve the copyright to the web page. Google also arguably holds a copyright on their results page itself. But SerpApi is grabbing only the target URLs, which Google doesn't have any copyright interest in. I'd argue that those URLs are facts and aren't subject to copyright at all, but if anyone owns the copyright on them it'd be the original web site owner rather than Google. So Google shouldn't be able to invoke 1201 to protect someone else's copyright interest.

  • Jul 23, 2026 @ 08:57am

    Perhaps time to move it up one step from sanctions: note that the filing doesn't cite any valid cases to back it up and then rule as if the gov't hadn't responded. No second chances, no amendments, if they have cases they think are on point they should've put those in their response in the first place.

  • Jul 21, 2026 @ 11:13pm

    One thing that also works in favor of creators: the Internet makes it possible to bypass the normal distribution channels. Ebooks can be sold directly through an author's own store. The same for music. Movies... streaming is harder, but actual downloads require just storage and a CDN. Creators doing this have a pricing advantage, they're getting 100% of the money from sales and are paying fixed rates for infrastructure as opposed to a percentage of net.

  • Jul 19, 2026 @ 06:01pm

    Churchill's comment to Chamberlain might have been restated:

    You were given the choice between honor and dishonor. You chose dishonor. War? You'd have that either way.

  • Jul 16, 2026 @ 09:25pm

    Yup, but they do that anyway. In the meantime the Court's docket gets clogged with more and more of these. If the Court's going to make life miserable for judges, it's only fair that the judges make life miserable for the Court in return. Roberts is clearly aware of how all this is making the Court look, the idea is to make it untenable for the Court to continue without actually setting precedent one way or the other.

  • Jul 15, 2026 @ 06:22pm

    Were I a federal judge, I'd probably get nasty here. These rulings on the shadow docket are non-precedential. The Court hands one down referring the case back to me for reconsideration, I note the non-precedential nature of the ruling and that, without any further explanation by the Court, my reasoning stands. If the Court expressly overturns my ruling, defendants ask for another injunction and, noting the non-precedential nature of the Court's ruling overturning mine, conclude exactly what I concluded before and issue another injunction. If Roberts wants to change the rules, he can bloody well take one of these cases up on the merits and issue an actual precedential ruling.

  • Jul 14, 2026 @ 05:37pm

    Many of them want to use genAI themselves. Shutting it down completely would keep them from doing that. They're trying to figure out a way to shut it down for everybody else while keeping it legal for them.

  • Jul 13, 2026 @ 02:46pm

    The satellite might be able to target a laser that accurately, but how about the return signal from the house? There's also the complications of putting that many laser emitters on a single satellite, powering them all, and targeting them accurately when you can't mechanically aim them. Here I'd jump over to the work being done on point-to-point laser data links for orbital use, and that's in it's early stages and nowhere near what Starlink would need.

  • Jul 13, 2026 @ 02:38pm

    No, it's physics that's the limiting factor. Look up the Shannon-Hartley theorem, more commonly known as Shannon's Law, which lets you calculate the maximum data rate possible over a channel with a given bandwidth (width in terms of frequency, not data rate (the two get conflated often)). The maximum rate decreases as signal strength decreases, and Starlink has a low signal strength due to the small size of the satellites.and the relative lack of focus of the uplink signal. Noise is also an issue. The more noise, the lower the maximum data rate. Other subscribers count as noise, because their signals bleed over into the channel you're using. With few subscribers in an area you can separate channels by enough to minimize noise, but the more subscribers the more channels you need and the closer you have to pack them to fit them in your allowed frequency range. Which means more interference (noise) and lower data rates. When the noise reaches a certain point the signal gets lost in it and your data rate drops to zero. You can hear this happening in radio transmissions, distant signals are weak and staticy, and that static is simply the noise on the channel becoming audible as it's amplitude approaches that of the signal.

  • Jul 13, 2026 @ 07:41am

    Most customers are going to stop having an acceptable experience anyway if Starlink keeps growing. The bandwidth is strictly limited by physics, if you keep adding subscribers the bandwidth per subscriber keeps dropping. Add enough subscribers and there's not enough bandwidth for each one to even initiate connections reliably. At that point nobody gets service at all, and being asked to pay a high subscription fee plus "demand" surcharges to not get service? Not a popular idea.

  • Jul 02, 2026 @ 07:33pm

    If (hopefully when) Democrats gain control of Congress they need to pass a law saying that: a) Government officials have an affirmative duty to know and understand the laws that govern them and their duties. b) No immunity may be granted unless the official had an objectively reasonable belief were both legal and within the scope of their duties. A failure of the above affirmative duty shall not provide grounds for this belief.

  • Jul 01, 2026 @ 09:47pm

    Sweeny saying it's "irresponsible" for Steam to flag games made with genAI is kind of like dairies way back when saying it's "irresponsible" to flag the chalk they add to milk to improve the look.

  • Jun 29, 2026 @ 06:58pm

    When anyone tries to make the argument that we check ages for liquor and "adult" entertainment, ask them whether the bar is required to keep a copy of your driver's license on file for the government to check later. Ditto the strip club. That's the big difference: with all the traditional age checks they check your ID but don't keep a record of it or you. These on-line "age verification" measures don't work that way. I doubt any of the people trying to make that argument would like it if the bars and liquor stores had to keep copies of their driver's license and hand it and a record of all of their purchases over to the cops any time they asked.

  • Jun 22, 2026 @ 02:31pm

    Fundamental rule of contracts and law: "In writing with signatures or it didn't happen."

  • Jun 18, 2026 @ 01:09am

    Publication in a scientific journal is supposed to indicate that the article has been peer-reviewed and meets minimum standards for such things as proper methodology, validity of data and so forth. At reputable journals this is the case, and when articles get through that turn out not to meet those standards they're routinely retracted. If Kennedy had any legitimate questions about the basis for the retraction, he'd be citing experts in the field other than the study's author supporting the position that the methodology is correct and the conclusions are supported. He doesn't because he can't. Pre-print servers have nothing to do with this, they exist to host papers that haven't been through the complete peer-review process so experts can read and review them and add informed opinions to the peer-review process.

  • Jun 17, 2026 @ 06:04pm

    The abuses definitely haven't ended, since the authority 702 gives continues for the period the courts have authorized it for regardless of the state of 702 itself. Once that authorization runs out, then we'll see what happens.

  • Jun 09, 2026 @ 02:32pm

    1. Abolish the idea that the ultimate and only priority of the company must be increasing shareholder value (usually meaning share prices). Restore the corporate charter as the prime source of management's priorities.
    2. Enforce existing UCC terms including first-sale doctrine and the default terms for retail sales. Make it clear that contracts of adhesion are not permitted without a written agreement signed before the sale is completed.

  • Jun 04, 2026 @ 07:06pm

    The cameras are on city property. Terminate the contract and give Flock 30 days to remove them or make arrangements for their removal. If they're still up after that, the city removes them and gives Flock 30 days to pay for the removal and either pick them up or arrange for them to be picked up. After that, the city auctions them off to pay for the removal. How did the lawyers ever approve a contract that didn't cover termination and removal in the first place?

  • Jun 01, 2026 @ 10:20pm

    But those issues were put before the court intentionally when Trump filed his suit. The court has inherent authority to decide whether there's an actual controversy or not and to question the parties to determine the answer. It's important to get all this on the record because it changes the way the DOJ's "settlement" is viewed. Without any case to settle, the question becomes whether the DOJ has the authority to create such a fund on it's own, and the answer to that is a "No." that'll be hard for even Trump loyalists on the SC to argue with. Trump might have the authority to create such a fund on his own initiative, but that's a really bad look which is why he's doing it via a backdoor. Plus of course doing it himself gives Congress a way to kill it's funding which he doesn't want either.

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