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Comment Re:WAY too late to get computers updated by Nov (Score 1) 90

it also presumes YOUR device is the most important device around, as opposed to, say, air traffic and flight scheduling systems, train systems, electricity control systems, stoplight control systems (they adjust their 'rush hour' times each switch), cruise and shipping departure and arrival times.

All of those systems need independent testing time to confirm that they have the switch, they can exchange information with other computers and be accurate about the switch, and all handle the fact that there would be no 'extra hour' on Nov 1st that would have already been accounted for in their schedules for that day...and note they'd be dealing with computers in other countries that would likely be even slower in getting the upgrades needed to test on their end.

Comment Re:WAY too late to get computers updated by Nov (Score 1) 90

But that's not what Trump is asking for. He is asking for "effective immediately", just like the British Columbia bill was.

Yeah, you're suggesting Congress could set it for next year (giving next year's Congress a chance to revoke it), but that's not what is being proposed by the Administration nor the bill that already passed the House but the Senate seems to be never picking up.

Comment Re:WAY too late to get computers updated by Nov (Score 1) 90

that is a very naive way of looking at how computers work, especially computers that have to share future scheduling information with other computers. NO computer has what you are talking about that would just magically solve everything - especially in THIS case where the DST would be 365. Yeah, you could tell your computer to 'lie' about its location and say it was in, say, Brazil rather than Chicago in order to stick to whatever TZ you want your device to think it is in...but that is not something that scales up to all of the hundreds of data centers on the east coast with the millions of computers involved. They need to be absolutely and automatically accurate to where they are and 'when' they are, and no 'flip of a switch' will be adequate for that purpose.

Comment WAY too late to get computers updated by Nov (Score 1) 90

Hell, about half the computers and software systems (like databases) in the public right now still aren't ready to hold Americas/Vancouver time on DST-365 (my own macbook didn't get the upgrade until about a month ago) when the flip happens. Not all the upgrades have rolled out or people are still intentionally using older systems because they "just work" (e.g., sticking with Java 8 and not having any time or inclination to try to get to Java 25 which changes so many network related libraries one might as well just rebuild the enter system from scratch).

A calendar-clock change like this needs at least a year of time to prepare it and get all the software systems tested and ready for the change when it happens. Yeah, it is easier to actually code the changes now for some systems than it was when we had the big change in 2005-2006 (in fact, because of dealing with that change), but that doesn't simplify the testing required for something on this scale.

Comment this is another grift (Score 2) 66

per a twitter post, someone did some searching and found that .si (Slovenia, yes where Melania's from) domains were being bought at an average of about 400 / month, usually with words in their own language.

But starting in *JUNE* (months before this announcement or any other like it), scalpers started buying up .si domains with common and corporate english words by the thousands...and now those domains are selling for millions.

Somebody knew it was coming, months ago. This was very well planned out to make some people very rich, possibly including Trump O itself, or those who buy his NFTs/Coins. That whole paying to get private access? This is what they're told to do in those back-door meetings.

https://threadreaderapp.com/th...

Comment Re: Oh Noes! (Score 1) 78

But is it not the government hiring flock to do this?

That largely depends on what the contract actually says, and how the data is 'federated' within Flock's own systems.

It sounds like Flock's business model was to build the massive data-collection system, but since that's expensive, it used contracts with government entities to pay for the build-out. The contracts with each of the entities might well be for the services delivered to them, but since many municipalities have separate contracts for how real estate (and installing something on a light pole counts) then Flock might be maintaining their own contracts separately for the physical placement of their cameras.

So Flock gets agencies/government to pay for the services of license plate data collection with one contract then uses another contract for Flock to pay for the rental for pole space. If the contract to provide data to the polity lapses or is terminated, that doesn't necessarily mean that Flock's permits to maintain equipment on poles is also terminated as they're separate contracts. Granted, operating the cameras is on Flock's dime now, but if they continue to harvest data then they might find takers for that data even if not the original municipality or other agency who paid for the cameras.

The thing that our current interpretation of the Constitution lacks is where the dividing line between one's self and a third-party sits when it comes to the sanctity of one's person, papers, and effects. At the time that the Constitution was written there was no photography, let alone videography, mass-processing of records automatically, etc. Someone had to physically observe someone in public in order to know what they did, and could only repeat with their words what they saw rather than demonstrating it. We don't have good law for 3rd party collection of volumes of data about people and the ability of said 3rd party to provide that data to the government. A ruling, law, or amendment that puts protections on requesting information and establishes some kind of checks and balances system that applies to the government in all its forms is needed. I don't know what the threshold should be either, but clearly right now when we have stories where the justification for a search is, "ASDFG" then something needs to change.

Comment Re:"This is not a marketing stunt," (Score 3, Insightful) 105

another - "we have enough AI, we shouldn't have more" - a way for the big 3 to try to get Congress or local governments to act...against the other vendors still building out more data centers and developing their own tech (Oracle, Amazon, Google).

"let us keep the monopoly on it all and leave those others behind, and /maybe/ we can control it...but if you let too much competition in, then our fears will happen."

Comment Re:Who watches the watchers? (Score 4, Insightful) 172

It is possible to put laws into place that require how public-private partnerships work. It would be an imposition upon Flock and upon the police. And that is just fine, and as it should be.

Law enforcement contracting to the private sector should not be allowed to be a bypass of our rights.

Comment Re:Sounds like... (Score 1) 98

The only place I see Al in the legal profession making sense is to do basic caselaw research, where it can cite the sources and the references upstream and downstream to those sources. The lawyer should be responsible to review the claimed caselaw citations to determine the merit of their support for the argument that the lawyer is making, and to pick the particular citations to use that are the strongest for the particular case.

Likewise the same sort of search but inverted, for one's opponent's most likely arguments or rebuttals might be performed, again with the lawyer doing the review based on the citations that the Al tool provided.

There was a television series in the 2010s called Person of Interest where the premise was that one of the main characters had managed to achieve Al, but in order to satisfy legal constraints, the Al was only allowed to spit-out a single phrase about a person, rather than any detail of any sort. It was up to the limited number of persons associated with the Al to figure out why this 'person of interest' had been referenced, whether they were the perpetrator, the victim, a witness, or someone who would suffer downstream effects. While soft science fiction, and pretty clearly taking inspiration from the older series Quantum Leap in having to figure out why they were there, the concept had some merit as to how Al should really be used. It should be treated as untrusted, it should be treated as requiring thorough review. It should be treated as another tool available, but no more trustable or authoritative than any other, and arguably a bit less trustable, a bit less authoritative.

Comment Re:Functionally illiterate is the new norm (Score 1) 98

Except that in basically all of the examples that you cite, the transition was from one proven technology slowly into another technology that was at least approaching some degree of maturity by the time it it mass-market adoption.

In most of those examples. early adopters were nearly all ultrawealthy who were using it for themselves. Those who weren't incredibly rich were technology-enthusiasts of some fashion or another. Those groups initially worked-out most of the showstopper-problems with the technology before widespread adoption, and in many of those industries either compatibility or outright law added extra constraint over time.

AI for the masses has taken a different development path. It's not ready and is misbehaving, to the detriment of many. "Hallucinations" should not be tolerated at this scale of deployment.

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