I reached out to Roku support regarding this. The rep told me “why are you complaining. You are the only one.” He then disconnected the chat. I’ve reached out to my state’s AG to report this. No action so far but waiting. If there are enough complaints, that might help move the needle.

What Roku is doing should be completely illegal - bricking the product after purchasing it for full price if you don’t agree to waiving your rights.

Progressives need to start their own party. The establishment DNC is so entrenched with big donors and lobbyists that it is unable to serve the people. Their balancing act of appeasing both the right and the left is just serving to alienate everyone because the final policies get so diluted. They have become too stuck in the quagmire of their own doing. I don’t see the DNC being able to change any time soon and through their inaction, will only enable more devastation of the country.

The new Progressive party should align with the DNC as the opposition during this administration but simultaneously run more like minded candidates in the next elections with their own separate fundraising campaigns. That’s the only hope I have for meaningful change to happen.

One of the funniest things about most of these companies enforcing RTO is that their “on-site interviews” are still virtual. So you believe being in-person is more effective except when it comes to paying for travel expenses for interviewees.

Just shows the massive hypocrisy behind these RTO mandates.

If CA decriminalizes it, everyone would be looking toward the state to see its success or failure. Opponents would try to find any excuse to shut it down whether in CA or other states. So if we can set up guidelines and necessary infrastructure for safe use, both medically and recreationally, it would be better for long term success of psylocybin legalization.

DSM5 needs to add Petty Manchild Adultchild Disorder as a recognized mental health issue so these people can get the help they deserve.

The era of US-Canada being brothers in arms is over. I doubt US will be receiving any favors in the future without something in return. And if Canada chooses to expand their supply chains outside of the US, which they 100% should, there’ll be no coming back to a scale of trade as it exists today.

1. Rampant unchecked capitalism of recent decades has created large wealth disparities akin to the earlier decades of the last century. It is no longer possible for one person in a household with a regular job to support a modest lifestyle for their family. All benefits especially medical for the whole family, being completely intertwined with the current job reduces mobility and further feeds into the wealth gap by keeping wages low. It’s easier to blame the powerless for this state of affairs than the powerful because the powerless cannot object.
2. The fear of the other has been accentuated by media and misinformation. Targeted algorithms feeding most of the information that is consumed has created echo chambers that reinforce existing beliefs and fears. The propaganda state has never had it easier.
3. The large military and police has given never before control to the state about what is allowed to be protested. Combined with the day to day struggles, it’s extremely hard to come together for what is right. The ruling class is able to maintain the fine balance between absolute misery and general dissatisfaction that it is still better to struggle through a thankless job than to say fuck it. Failures of recent large uprisings like Middle East and Hong Kong have reinforced the futility of standing up against the rulers.
4. Evil has many heads and there’s always one head that you can find alignment with. It could be the deregulation of businesses, lower taxes, anti abortion, racism, but as long as there’s one thing you can align on, the general sense of powerlessness makes it easier to overlook the other heads.
5. The line between evil and good has never been murkier, especially with globalization. If you focus on the betterment of your community, it would be considered good, but what if it leads to suffering of others outside the community. Is it also evil? What is community - is it the people in your neighborhood, your religion, your country, fellow business owners? The fuzzier these lines are, the harder it is to untangle them.

He took the plea deal probably because he can’t afford a lengthy legal battle, decline to pay his lawyers, getting court dates shifted, appointing his own judge,… There is an entirely separate US justice system for the rich and powerful.

I wouldn’t combine NYT and NPR in the same category. NPR has been broadcasting a lot of stories about Israeli attacks on Gaza civilians in both their news and long form podcasts.

New trade restrictions coming soon on Chinese pharmaceuticals.

Wouldn’t it be possible to buy a new PC, open the box, and return it right after because you cannot set it up without internet?

If enough people do it, may be PC manufacturers will force Microsoft to add offline setups.

The fact that Democrats should be raising their voices as loudly as possible against this admin’s moves but instead a sizable 10 of them voted to censure the 1 Democrat who tried to in fact do that, tells you everything about the Democrats’ plans.

At this point, there are only a handful of them who are rallying their constituents and speaking out about this admin’s atrocities, but the majority is completely MIA. Then they wonder why their voters are MIA during the elections.

Would it be possible to create a webapp version of this? With ICE and CBP freely able to search phones now, I am worried about retaliation if they find this app on the phone.

The same christians who got offended by this would also complain about muslims being prudish when they get pissy about showing their prophet.

How is the justice department funded? That’s right, our taxes.

Our taxes are going to be used to fight these lawsuits in court and when the department loses, our taxes will be used to pay for the damages to the FBI agents.

There are no real consequences from this to the Justice Department or the buffoon and his lackeys. The only loser is us.

FMLA. I start reading it as fuck my life before realizing it’s the family and medical leave allowance. So much hinges on that extra A.

Because isn’t there a recent article saying most of Tesla parts are imported from Mexico! Daddy Musk wants them cheap cheap parts.

The criticism from large AI companies to this bill sounds a lot like the pushbacks from auto manufacturers from adding safety features like seatbelts, airbags, and crumple zones. Just because someone else used a model for nefarious purposes doesn’t absolve the model creator from their responsibility to minimize that potential. We already do this for a lot of other industries like cars, guns, and tobacco - minimize the potential of harm despite individual actions causing the harm and not the company directly.

I have been following Andrew Ng for a long time and I admire his technical expertise. But his political philosophy around ML and AI has always focused on self regulation, which we have seen fail in countless industries.

The bill specifically mentions that creators of open source models that have been altered and fine tuned will not be held liable for damages from the altered models. It also only applies to models that cost more than $100M to train. So if you have that much money for training models, it’s very reasonable to expect that you spend some portion of it to ensure that the models do not cause very large damages to society.

So companies hosting their own models, like openAI and Anthropic, should definitely be responsible for adding safety guardrails around the use of their models for nefarious purposes - at least those causing loss of life. The bill mentions that it would only apply to very large damages (such as, exceeding $500M), so one person finding out a loophole isn’t going to trigger the bill. But if the companies fail to close these loopholes despite millions of people (or a few people millions of times) exploiting them, then that’s definitely on the company.

As a developer of AI models and applications, I support the bill and I’m glad to see lawmakers willing to get ahead of technology instead of waiting for something bad to happen and then trying to catch up like for social media.

There’s no pretending who’s calling the shots anymore. The monkey was asked to perform. He is giving his best performance and everyone is watching the (shit)show.

Since Reagan’s neoliberal policies, Republicans have created a vicious cycle of: government inefficient so reduce funding -> not enough resources to hire good talent and provide services -> government inefficient so reduce funding.

IRS is the perfect example where they can only afford to go after the mid-income, while the wealthy get to openly dodge taxes.

All this while promoting the idea that the private sector can do it better, which has led to increasing inequality in resource access, and has only contributed to more money in the pockets of executives and those same Republicans.

We need someone like FDR again to expand government programs and show how good a well run government can be for everyone. Current Democratic leadership’s half assed policies only help to reduce their favorability because neither the left nor the right is happy.