What is clearly needed here is an update to the privacy laws. Sure, with a paid account anonymity is not a thing. But OpenAI doesn't need to know my address, eye color, whether I am allowed to ride a motorcycle and with or without glasses. And they sure as shit don't need my license number, which is very useful for identity thieves. This is a drastic overreach to gather WAY more PII than is necessary to deliver the service, and they need to be slapped down hard and fast.

And this trend of "scan your ID in to use this app/service/site/etc" bullshit has been proliferating. And let's be real... they're really gathering that information for marketing purposes just like rave and club promoters do when THEY swipe your ID in those machines that "validate your age" that have been a thing for a couple of decades now. No, that's not made up. A shady promoter actually admitted as much to me back in my raver and club kid days. No one actually gives a rip if you're over 21. Money is money. But they harvest your address when they swipe your license and sell it, along with the club/party you attended and who was DJing.

So this will NOT stop on it's own. We need some jurisdictions that actually DO care, at least a little bit, for their citizenry, to act. Which means that it's the GDPR and CCPA that can fight back against these shenanigans.

It obvoiusly doesn't apply here, because UK and all that. But if this were the US, GP would be very much correct. It's been to court... all the way to SCOTUS even. Once something is disposed of, it's fair game unless there is a local ordinance saying otherwise. You might get charged for *trespassing* if you invade someone's private property to go dumpster diving. But if it's not on private property... or if you have permission from the property owner to go through their garbage... there is no theft. Also, there is no 4th ammendment when it comes to your trash. So if you put the waste chemicals from your home meth lab in the trash bags on your curb, yes... the police can pick it up and it is evidence, no warrant required.

I may have to abandon my current nom de plume and reincarnate myself as Molly Cokeweed. Or maybe I should swing for the upper class stratosphere and instead become Molly Coke-Weed, Esq.

I dunno... at this point, it's not like ChatGPT would give *worse* advice than whatever you might get out of HHS. I would take medical advice from GPT before I would trust 45/7, RFK, or Oz to tell me that the sun is warm or water is wet. If you're taking advice from an AI, there's at least a chance... actually a fairly decent chance... you'll get the right answer. But even if it were only batting .300, that's still better than raving loons ranting on about how vaccines cause autism, ivermectin can cure everything from COVID to a stubbed toe, and if ivermectin can't do it colloidal silver can.

I don't so much see AI as a Stack Overflow replacement, per se; but as more of a research assistant that will correlate things like Stack Overflow with the official documentation, my own code, and the code of the other developers at the company. It's fantastic at pointing me in the right directions. But I find that I have to repeatedly tell it to review and cite its sources. And the code it generates can be a decent starting point, but has always needed a lot of work to make it production-ready. It's far too obsequious and inclined to telling me what it thinks I want to hear versus the truth. And biases itself towards fast and east solutions that may come back to bite me in the ass later. So I'm very wary of its solutions. But for troubleshooting and figuring out what the problem is in the first place, THAT is where I've found that it shines.

In general, I would agree. But "most favored" clauses are not exactly as uncommon as you probably think. In fact, the US government itself insists on "most favored" terms in most GSA and other procurement contracts. So they're hardly ones to talk. Instead of targeting the company, because we don't like Bezos these days; we should target the behavior and ban those clauses... everywhere.

I was about to suggest LibreOffice, but then I realized you're right. People so stupid they can't use other software that does he same damned job without grabbing your data and putting it behind a paywall can't be helped.

When you commit to the so-called "Cloud", you aren't just voluntarily dropping your pants and bending over a barrel, you're also consenting to a gang bang.

I hear ICE has also requested that the rocket use Tesla's famous self-driving technology.

It wasn't just DeCSS. There was also RSA, which either the Clinton or Bush... it's been so long I'm uncertain on the timelines... DoJ claimed was "munitions," making the PGP guy an "arms dealer" under American law. And t-shirts with the RSS algorithm printed on them were definitely big back in the day. I had one myself... RSA in perl in the shape of a dolphin... bought on Thinkgeek and worn, like many others, openly on the streets of San Francisco for quite a while before either I lost it it or wore out. Some people even got RSA in tattoo form. Tech, even the rank and file, was more apt to take a dim view of outside interference in its business back then.

I mean... it's probably sitting in his GitHub account somewhere. The security and sharing settings on those can be kind of obtuse. And it's a microsoft product, so you can count on it to be about as "secure" as a slice of Swiss cheese even if the user did everything right.

Or, really, he should have just some GPL code himself, that way he'd be obligated to open the code.

He's scheduled the launch for July 4. ;-),P>

> color does do something

Yes. But in this case, the color RED does NOT. You may recall that a couple of decades ago, there was a flirtation with making fire trucks and other emergency vehicles a certain shade of yellow-green that looked like you just drank a glass of Nickelodeon slime, chased it with a florescent highlighter's innards, and then vomited the whole mess back up. But that color wasn't random. Actual studies were done. And that neon green puke color is actually MORE visible to the human eye and MORE attention-grabbing to the human brain than red is.

But there was a mass backlash and now fire trucks and other emergency vehicles are red again... because tradition. Red == NFR. Puke-green == functional.

Also, BMORG has gotten awfully snooty and hostile and contradictory toward the attendees over the years.

The last year I went was the first year you had to create a "Burner profile" online in order to justify to them that you are worthy enough to be allowed the privlidge of buying a ticket... only available online and through their purchasing system. Or... if you were special and connected to a certian set of politically powerful theme camps, you could be allowed to buy a ticket through them. But everyday joe and jill with no connections and no history of attendance? Forget about it.

Fun fact: Before that year, you could simply pop up to the Upper Haight, walk into Distractions, and buy a ticket with cash; no justifications, no proving to some "more burner than thou" asshole that you're worthy, no hoops at all. Just plonk down the cash, and go.

And yeah... the quality of the crowd and event dropped dramatically that year; to the point that certian thinks that happened that year soured me on the idea of going back for a good number of years. And even though I do, now, occasionally get the idea in my head that I might want to go back... the idea of working that much for my vacation, while paying nearly 4x just to BMPRG for the privlidge to do so, and getting a less fun and more hostile event? Yeah... no thanks.

And then there's the whole: Bring everything you need to survive in the desert for a week. BUT... don't bring it in a car! Oh, no... there's a penalty fee for that. Just ride the Burner Bus with nothing but your clothes, tent, and sleeping bag. Other people will take care of you. And also... don't you dare rely on anybody else for anything. Practice "Radical self-reliance!" If you rely on anyone else for anything, you're a parasitic sparkle pony who doesn't deserve to be there and should just die. But don't you DARE expect to being your week's worth of everything you need to live in the desert in a dirty, stinking, CAR... you monster.

I made the mistake of starting my taxes with TurboTax once. I didn't like what I was seeing, stopped, and looked for alternatives. That was four years ago, and they've been spamming me ever since. I don't care, because their incessant pleas go straight into the "round file". If you decide to do your taxes on-line, I would recommend GenuTax instead (at least in Canada).

TurboTax is, in my opinion, an invitation to pay more taxes than you owe, because they won't (at least in my case) deal with even the slightest deviation from the most minimal, straightforward tax filing.