Elon: "There are too many fake accounts for me to seriously consider buying this company."

Also Elon, after creating millions of inactive accounts to follow himself: "Please clap."

Most important paragraph in the whole article:

The Southern District of New York court issued its final order in Hachette v. Internet Archive on March 24, 2023. It found that Internet Archive was liable for copyright infringement. The consent judgement of August 11 has banned the Open Library from scanning or distributing commercially available books in digital formats.

The premise of the Internet Archive is perfectly legal, but we have dimwits who think anything and everything can be uploaded for "archival purposes". This won't be the last time we see this because people are actively abusing the site.

Don't believe me? Go to the archive and search "anime". Are the first results you see forgotten 1960s shows whose only source materials are moldy VHS tapes because the studio went under and the copyright is in limbo? No. The entirety of fucking Naruto, iconic movies like Ghost in the Shell, the whole remastered Dragon Ball Blu-ray set, and who knows how much more.

No, just because it's not available where you are does not justify uploading. If geo-blocking doesn't work for a monolith like YouTube it certainly won't work for the Archive. One visit from copyright owners lawyers in their territory and it's another black eye for the Archive.

The archive is in the right for works that are out of print AND, AND, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, have no commercial equivalent or rightful copyright owner. Those old cookbooks by authors and publishers long gone, great! Vintage DOS games, do some reseach, make sure it's not commercially available on sites like GOG before uploading. A fan subbed show, upload the subtitles only. Your favorite show that is streamable but you won't pay for, put it on a tracker and seed it elsewhere.

Presumably getting ready to launch his own presidential bid, so he needs to court the center by appearing more moderate.

They do have intelligence, but that intelligence is deliberately underfunded to prevent this very situation. It's impossible to navigate the mountains of paperwork and legal loopholes the ultra-wealthy use with so few hands. That's why poorer filers get audited more often: less leg work, easier wins, at the expense of real revenue and justice against tax evaders.

This is your daily reminder to engage and boost Twitter alternatives such as Mastodon. It's not enough to ignore Twitter. We must build communities to draw in users, show them social media can exist without Elon or Zuck. Only when good alternatives exist, with content and people sought after, do users feel safe to abandon old platforms.

Found an earlier article by El Observador before the legislation passed. Under Uruguay's old laws Spotify, YouTube, an other streaming platforms paid little to nothing in artist royalties. With the new legislation artists will now see fair compensation.

The Guardian does a better job explaining Spotify's problem: do the royalties come from rights holders (I am assuming they're referring to record labels) or the streaming services? The later case they believe will cause them to pay double what they're paying for streaming rights.

The issue just needs to back to Uruguay's government to sort out who pays the artist royalties, or if both labels and streaming share a proportionate responsibility.

Said it before, I'll say it again:

It’s been shown the software is still not ready for production by interfering with emergency services, public transit, and normal traffic. These companies need to send these vehicles with a driver until the software is ironed out. We suspend human drivers for such actions. We must extend the same expectations and consequences to driverless vehicles.

If a human driver blocked an ambulance and caused a patient death, they'd be imprisoned for wrongful death. Cruise wants to roll out their software in this state, let them shoulder the legal and financial consequences.

The short version is that an actor's AI double, and an AI amalgam of several actors, will be treated as a proxy for the actor(s). The actor can agree or decline the use of their AI proxy based on the scene, and are compensated for use of their likeness as if they had gone in person. It's a pretty big win for actors considering studios wanted unlimited usage for a one time payment.

Most important lines of the article:

Anderson’s sisters say their mother, stepfather, brother, and her brother’s girlfriend had only recently moved into the home where the search warrant was executed.

They say a violent robbery at their previous house forced the family to move there, and they believe that played a factor in what happened Monday night.

This smells of botched paperwork. It wouldn't be the first time a no knock raid caused loss of life because someone didn't bother to double check the address. I'd rather the police not have this in their toolbox. It's too prone to mistakes, qualified immunity means no one is held accountable, and the resulting lawsuits become the tax payer's problem. We need justice, but justice done with due diligence and accountability.

This is a scam as old as time. An old professor of mine did the math, realized buying a new bottom tier printer was cheaper than buying its corresponding refills. Her husband was understandably furious at the stack of pristine printers pilling up in the garage.

While you do save money on ink for larger printers (laser/pro photo inkjet) you are losing a lot of money just to start up. Its also worth noting that liquid ink has a shelf life, drying out, hardening, and a hassle to clean out if not used.

On an interesting note: the EcoTank system is a reversal of the Stylus Pro and SureColor tank system. Instead of slotting in a fresh tank, you're just pouring a bottle into a permanent tank. Good to see Epson taking a practical and consumer friendly approach.

Bay Area native here. They're also prone to dead stopping in the middle of the street and other moving violations, blocking emergency services and public transit in addition to normal traffic. Ideally, we'd like these vehicles to be held accountable for these violations like normal drivers: fines, suspensions, impounds. But we'll settle for a human driver on standby who can immediately override the software when a moving violation occurs.

There's also an underlying layer to this problem with a specific type of home owner: the foreign investor. These individuals use American properties to hide their wealth from their home countries. Tax evasion, high ROI, and increased scarcity in every purchase. Homes often go months and years without occupancy, sometimes with minimal furnishings so as not to appear vacant.

I'm not saying foreigners shouldn't buy homes in America. However, if they do buy a home they should be required to occupy each individual property for a minimum of 6-9 months every year. Otherwise, a heavy tax that exceeds the property's/ies annual appreciation to encourage occupancy or selling would be ideal.

The advertising angle is likely what sank their case. Proving the food does not meet a technical specification, like not having a quarter pound of beef in a fully cooked patty, is easier to prove. But advertising has always been hyperbole.

I feel that this can be addressed at application step. Any date of birth proven to be under 18 cannot apply without an in person interview. This protects minors from taking on debt without fully understanding the implications, and puts responsibility on the lender for providing credit to a minor. If credit is provided and defaults the debt should be the lender's problem for taking such a huge risk.

Alternatively, the same premise with the exception that an adult is required as a cosigner. If the account defaults the burden is shifted to the adult as they have the cognizance to understand and take responsibility.

I wouldn't outright ban giving accounts to minors. My parents opened a savings account in my name and kept it in good standing. This gave me a big credit boost that my peers never had. But I realize I am an exception, and the problem others face is very real.

This isn't surprising, a user found out how to abuse the API to progress without doing lessons by just submitting the expected parameters last year. If they followed through on reporting to Duo then they've had plenty of time to address it. Seems like the mod also found out how vulnerable Duo was and took it to it's natural conclusion.

There is a chance that documents regarding schedules and other sensitive matters may be in the vehicle. A security leak of that nature could be life threatening to a bigger target. Alternatively, being stranded would leave Naomi vulnerable to kidnapping and assault.

Not saying the shooting was an appropriate response given the location, but the agents are right to be aggravated given the line of work and stakes involved.

I wouldn't advise it. We don't want to set precedent that you can shovel garbage at whatever federated site you disagree with. It would be funny to append all Threads requests with Zuckerberg photoshopped as neckbeard Cesar. It's less funny when bad actors use unsuspecting users to spread misinformation or bigotry.

Somebody once told me

The Borg are gonna roll me

I ain't the sharpest tool in the Delta

Needs another layer for VPN chaining after driving 1 hour away to use public WiFi so they never know where you truly are.

The short version is that it's a licensing issue. All art is free to view, but the moment you try to integrate it into a commercial product/service you'll owe someone money unless the artist is given fair compensation in some other form.

For example, artists agree to provide a usage license to popular art sites to host and display their works. That license does not transfer to the guy/company scraping portfolios to fuel their AI. Unfortunately, as we can see from the article, AI may be able to generate but it still lacks imagination and inspiration; traits fundamental to creating truly derivative works. When money exchanges hands that denies the artist compensation because the work was never licensed and they are excluded from their portion of the sale.

Another example: I am a photographer uploading my images to a stock image site. As part of ToS I agree to provide a license to host, display, and relicense to buyers on my behalf. The stock site now offers an AI that create new images based on its portfolio. The catch is that all attributed works result in a monetary payment to the artists. When buyers license AI generated works based on my images I get a percentage of the sale. The stock site is legally compliant because it has a license to use my work, and I receive fair compensation when the images are used. The cycle is complete.

It gets trickier in practice, but licensing and compensation is the crux of the matter.