Bluntly, they can't. That genie is already out of the box for anything already available; and even going forward - Unless China itself blocks export, there's no realistic way to stop us from using a non-Chinese non-US mirror to grab them.

Realistically, hardware is the sole limiting factor for open-weight models, so restricting H200's is probably the closest we can come to a meaningful embargo. There's no practical way for most of us to run a model like Kimi K3 with almost 600GB (at BF16) of weights. Even using CPU offloading and/or multi-GPU sharding (if those are even possible for K3, I haven't looked at it in depth yet), the performance drop would give a throughput best measured in minutes or even hours per token, not particularly useful.

What this will accomplish is exactly what the OP quoted - It won't be possible to run these legally, so virtually all commercial use would be DOA. Joe Hobbyist couldn't care less though.

Because what amounts to a simple financial breach of contract is being enforced unilaterally and extra-judicially - And by parties traditionally known for being some of the sleaziest and least ethical bastards on the planet at that.

In a situation where the burden of proof is on the lender and the disruption to the customer's life severe, we should absolutely not be allowing ScumCo Lending to pull that trigger absent a court order.

To be clear, I'm not claiming there's no precedent for this (and when we're talking about microwaves and TVs, hey, pay up deadbeats!). But phones are unique in that it's virtually impossible to function in the modern world without one. Personally, I might get two calls a week and missing those wouldn't disrupt me much; but I literally can't even log in at work without an MFA app tied to my phone.

I was actually wondering exactly the opposite - If this only works for three satellites per launch, would it be overall cheaper and easier to just launch three new satellites? Not to mention, the tech on a new satellite is likely far better than was available ten+ years ago.

Sure, it's one launch vs three, but moving between different orbits and physically latching on to another satellite is delicate work. I wouldn't be surprised if, on average, one of those three attempts went catastrophically wrong.

As someone who demands my devices are my devices, this is complete unacceptable.

As an investor, though - Let's be serious. This is an extension of the "buy here pay here" model loved by used car scammers everywhere to prey on those who can't really afford it but need one anyway. And those are stupidly profitable, because what are people going to do, just not have a car / phone?

It's morally repugnant but fiscally a slam-dunk.

I might have agreed with you 20 years ago.

The rise of modern streaming all but ended music piracy because a cheap and easy legal option is available. We have proof of concept, this is effectively a settled issue.

That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. People generally prefer to stay legal as long as the money is reasonable and the friction to use what you've fairly paid for is sufficiently low.

Meanwhile, we're talking about Microsoft "letting" us do something many of us are already doing via emulation. Gee, you bought a physical disc rather than a worthless digital entitlement? Sucks to be you, pay again... Except... Yeah, I really have no need for this new option when the old one is still superior.

And to be clear, I'm in no way talking about actual piracy. I've paid for a looot of media over my lifetime, and quite often I'll still use a "fixed" version because it's in every way the superior product.

You're proposing we hold kids responsible for violating laws created under the pretense of kids being too irresponsible to safely use social media.

You see the problem there, right?

I regret to inform you that you have woefully underestimated it. The actual retail rate offered to consumers is closer to $2200 US per gallon. Sources: internet-ink.com, cbc.ca. This $14 million fine is only worth like, seven thousand gallons, or less than 200 oil barrels of ink.

By your powers combined, I am... the British Colonies!

The main aim of Stop Killing Games is to ensure the practice of rug-pulling eventually comes to an end. They are not trying to save MMOs, for example.

Moreover they don't demand that every game currently on the market comply with open-sourcing requirements: at a minimum, companies always have the option of simply providing customers with adequate notice before shutdown. Open-sourcing the server would be nice, but it's hardly the only way to protect consumers' interests. Scott has, for example, suggested game boxes being marked with an estimated expiry date for online service functionality.

But most importantly: because this is about future games, not the present, the market has time to change. If studios and publishers are designing their games with a fair EOL in mind, then they can make decisions from the get-go to avoid licensing dependencies that they won't be able to release in a possible 'afterlife' version of the game. As suggested by your example of GameSpy in C&C: Generals, when a commercial dependency is crucial to a game's success, it tends to be a client-side library, but typically the problematic dependencies aren't crucial; they're e.g. add-ons for Unity or Unreal that the studio bought to save time. In a world with SKG laws, the providers of these dependencies aren't going to be a stagnant target either—demand for compliant libraries will motivate development of open-source versions.

Interestingly, the will for doing this does exist among game developers; they just need the institutional support from legislation to twist the arms of the studios and publishers. Ross Scott has talked to a lot of devs who are burnt out from having their projects cancelled, leaving them with huge gaping holes in their resumes and portfolios where they've spent years on unreleased projects that are stuck under NDA. In general they tend to see SKG as a path to ensuring the games that do see the light of day aren't also scrapped, which would erode their work histories even further. (Apparently it also just plain feels bad to have your work erased from history. Shocking, I know.)

Fear not! It's entirely possible the category was chosen by an AI. Editorial automation would probably reduce the error rate here.

It's all a small price to pay for Eat Your Veggies.

Duke 3D's soundtrack was not exclusively the work of Bobby Prince; Lee Jackson, Apogee's go-to music guy, also did some of the tracks, including the title theme, Grabbag.

Prince used not only his MIDI skills but also his experience as a lawyer to ensure his 'inspired' derivatives were as close as legally possible to the originals. The relationship between individual tracks is often very clear and sometimes even hinted in the metadata of the source files.

We will never truly know how many dimensions the Chess game has.

Say it with me, now. As we all know, the infamous saying goes:

A COMPUTER
CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER
MAKE A MANAGEMENT DECISION

It's really incredible how marketing departments can radiate amnesia like this with such proficiency.