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Comment Re:Googles logic is insane (Score 2, Insightful) 93

Google's argument is simply a trivial permutation of that slob's "worthless clause" defense, with which he tried (and failed) to escape felony criminal conviction for fraud.

Perhaps more significantly, Google is now on record, testifying and admitting, under oath, that their LLM-generated summaries are garbage.

Submission + - CERN Open Sources Its KiCad Component Libraries

ewhac writes: CERN, a long-time Open Source pioneer, has made several contributions over the years to KiCad ("KEE-kad"), an Open Source EDA (Electronic Design Automation) package widely used in the hobbyist and professional electronics communities. It's gotten so widely used that users can now submit their KiCad design files directly to several electronics fabricators (rather than the traditional step of converting the layouts to Gerber files). Over the years, CERN have also developed their own symbol and footprint libraries to support their own internal electronic designs. Last week, CERN released those KiCad component libraries, containing over 17,000 symbols, under the CERN Open Hardware License (permissive version).

Comment eBay is Now eStop! (Score 1) 97

Welcome to the all-new eStop! We know you have concerns, so let us put them to rest straight away.

The site will not change. We respect the investment you've made in learning and navigating the site. However, if you're feeling curious or adventurous, feel free to check out our [new site design prototype]. (This design will become the default landing page in mid-2027; the old site UI will enter maintenance mode for only the most critical bugs.)

To thwart LLMs and other bots, new default limits on bidding have been imposed. Accounts may only bid on a given item no more frequently than once every 20 minutes. If your circumstances require more frequent bidding, have a look at our [eStop Pro Membership Plan] for only $9.95/month (billed annually; no pro-rated refunds), which will allow unlimited bidding frequency. And for members who want to have more than 20 items on sale simultaneously, take some time to review our [eStop Bulk Vendor Programs], charging only 25% of gross sales, or $3600/year + 20% of gross sales.

And to help with "doomscrolling" for that one specific thing you're looking for, we've also partnered with Anthrop\c and X's Grok to help curate your buying experience, surfacing the items most likely to interest you.

(All terms are subject to change without notice.)

Comment ISDN: It Still Does Nothing (Score 1) 95

(a/k/a Innovation Subscribers Don't Need)

It still amazes me that, as late as the 1990's, and well after 56kbit modems were prolific, ISDN was being offered up by the ILECs as "broadband," at metered rates that made Ma Bell's long distance charges look like spare change.

Happily, it wasn't too long before ISDN was put out of everyone's misery when DSL showed up. And now, finally, after fifty years of pissing about, fiber is finally being pulled to the premises.

If you really need ongoing ISDN support, you can pull the source code from an old Git commit and update it. But I feel quite comfortable in opining: ISDN support will not be missed.

Comment Re:Closer to Kessler syndrome (Score 1) 31

Or force them to keep their constellations lower, which means the satellites have to carry more fuel to fight drag, but if they fail they'll just deorbit in a few years. You can go a bit lower and use air-breathing ion thrusters as well, and those will deorbit even faster.

The big danger is the stuff in higher orbits that takes 100-1000 years to come down.

Comment A Surprising Result From This Crew (Score 1) 91

Given that the Roberts Court is one of the most corporate-friendly in history, this decision comes as something of a surprise.

Nonetheless, it appears to be largely concordant with the so-called "Betamax case" from the early 1980's which established the principle of significant non-infringing uses as a defense and, despite passage of the DMCA, still largely informs the contours of contributory infringement.

Comment Re: You know what? (Score 2) 71

Windmills don't kill corn. Windmills don't kill clams. They might scare some fish initially due to low frequency vibrations but they will probably adapt. The bird-killing issue is a thing but they've found that they can minimize it somewhat with different paint on the blades.

Yes there are negative issues, just like any other infrastructure project, but you have to weigh them, and you can't let your own ideological alignment get in the way.

Trump hates windmills because he hates how they look near his properties. He has a particular issue and then builds an ideological theme to support it. People get roped into ideology and stop weighing the costs and risks in favor of being a *movement*.

Opposite side of the isle it's just as bad, they're terrible at seeing the benefits of nuclear on ideological growns. They hate burning fossil fuels so bury their head in the sand at plastic incineration being more efficient and overall less carbon intensive than recycling programs.

Offshore windfarms aren't any more harmful than offshore oil rigs, and in practice offshore oil rigs are beneficial for the local ecosystem by adding a habitat (excellent fishing btw).

Comment Re:I hope (Score 1) 144

It's not like we didn't have police, just not what we think of as a modern police force. We had organized law enforcement consisting of sheriffs and constables, with the power to deputize when needed.

This is much the same as we didn't have organized fire brigades, instead we had government officials with the power to organize a response to fires by recruiting more manpower from the populace to fight fires.

Asking if we need a police force because we didn't previously have one is like asking if we need a fire department because previously we only had an informal volunteer fire department. These things only worked in the past because the need was small enough that we didn't have the economy of scale to support a professional firefighting or police force, but with growth, the professionalization required necessitated the formation of these things.

Also the "cops are just slavecatchers" thing is a largely made up and exaggerated talking point by the far left that they repeat ad-nauseum. The first professional police forces in the US were formed in northern cities like Boston and were decidedly *NOT* slavecatchers, but rather organized out of groups normally deputized to enforce the law, turning them into professional employees -- in much the same way a volunteer fire department becomes a full time employer in cities that grow enough to need it.

Some early southern professional police and sheriff departments *were* constituted out of slave patrols, as these were people who were often deputized, but these were not the first police departments, nor did they constitute the majority of them, not even in the south.

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