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Comment Re:will the former OSS employee be protected from (Score 4, Insightful) 28

I'm sure they're much happier with this outcome than most of the likely alternatives, but it's unconscionable a non-profit entity is going to pay $$$$ just to get back their own data from a company in breach of contact - A contract explicitly to safely store Nine PBS' data.

OSS' founder and former CEO Eren Niazi should be personally liable for every single dollar and legal issue that arises from the mess he allowed to happen. We're not talking about IBM, this was a company with a whopping 51 employees at its peak. That's "first name basis" between everyone there.

And before the concern trolls join this party, I'm aware that's not how incorporation works in the US. And that in itself is unacceptable.

Comment Re:What does "rare" mean here, and other issues (Score 1) 102

I'd like more information about that as well. Plenty of people in here are talking about rarities on the scale of a private printing / Shakespeare's First Folio / the Mona Lisa, but we all know (I hope we all know?) that's not what's being discussed here.

The AI companies aren't paying $$$/$$$$ for true antiquities. Rather, they're buying anything and everything for sale for pennies per copy by the pound / pallet. If something moderately uncommon (as in maybe worth $20, vs less than the cost of shipping each book individually) happens to get lumped in, that's not intentional but they don't really care either way.

That 1957 pre-Civil-Rights history textbook we were still using in my high school in the late 80's may technically be rare due to the low number of copies remaining in readable condition, but it ain't exactly an original Gutenberg bible.

Comment On the bright side? (Score 1) 81

>On the bright side? Maybe watermarks can help AI stop training on AI-generated text.
 
You're living in 2023 if you think any company worth their salt is still scraping the live internet for quality content. Everyone has their own curated library already Nobody has been scraping en masse for at least two years, unless there's a blog article about bleeding edge science research or something. Even then they will probably just scrape the scientific paper itself, rather than coverage of it.

Comment Pepperidge Farm remembers! (Score 1) 30

Anyone remember when theme parks weren't just arcades / interactive movies with fancy seating?

Hell, the average price for a family of four to spend a week at Disney has climbed to a mind-numbing $7,250. That would buy one hell of a VR setup that keeps working after the end of the week.

Comment Re:Why not a ban? (Score 1) 60

Then we're going to need a lot more funnels to refill all those toothpaste tubes.

If you removed every foreign-made product from a typical Walmart, you'd basically be left with a steel-frame building stripped to the beams.

If you replaced every one of those products with an American version - You'd have Niemann Marcus plus Erewhon, with some products simply not available at any price (short of bespoke).

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 51

"its suggested commission gives it fair compensation for the App Store platform."

Which is a pretty bold claim given this is specifically targeting devs/publishers who don't want to use their walled garden but have no choice if they want an audience of more than a few dozen hardcore geeks.

Never mind "under that approach, the fee would be zero" - Under that approach, the fee should be negative! People are actively trying to work around Apple's lock-in. I can't speak for everyone, but I usually don't go out of my way to avoid beer and BJs.

Submission + - Proposed ICE Shock Gloves are purely Torture Devices

An anonymous reader writes: Wired Reports on how the shock gloves sought by ICE actually work, and they are not in fact intended for pacifying subjects, but specifically for causing them pain:

Classified as a CD3 (conductive distraction and de-escalation device), the gloves don't work like stun guns or Tasers, which shoot out probes or use high voltages to cause neuromuscular incapacitation that overrides the central nervous system. Instead, the GLOVE works using neuro-peripheral interference, essentially shocking the skin to bombard the sensory nerves and temporarily short-circuit the brain's focus.

The latest ("Gen 5") model is capable of delivering 90 total minutes of pain shocks between charges. On just one charge, you can torture a person for an hour and a half.

Comment Re:the solution to "the mental health crisis" (Score 1) 255

If U-M is doing the now-common waste of a first semester packed with "Freshman 101" bullshit, I would agree with you.

If students are taking real classes, then no, I'd call that the second most important semester (with only the very last one mattering more). Why? Because that's when half the incoming class realizes they are wildly unprepared for college and either pursues an exciting career in fast food, or for those only slightly overwhelmed, switches to a 2-year structured a lot more like an advanced version of highschool.

Not everyone should be going to college, that is the real problem here. There's nothing new under the sun, dumb kids exist and they become dumb adults.

Comment Re:The grift is now right out in the open (Score 1) 78

You're right that wasn't an exhaustive list - I'm personally a counterexample to my own comment in that I'm a mere peon of a coder... Who is often tapped to assist with M&A, major vendor changes, and onboarding new customers (in the B2B sense). I do have privileged information that would be illegal to trade on.

But this is Slashdot, not Investopedia. The "tl;dr" is, if you have actionable insider information, you're not merely guessing, you damned well know it and almost certainly signed an NDA specifically covering what you can and can't do with that information.

Comment The grift is now right out in the open (Score 5, Informative) 78

Congress "did not intend" to legalize straight-up gambling nationwide through what amounts to a semantic loophole. There is absolutely no doubt about that, on any side of this discussion (including the CFTC).

It's funny - Online discussions among (real) investors often worry about, and frequently caution each other about insider trading. The reality is, insider trading isn't applicable to the vast majority of us. Unless you're a C-level employee, specifically working in M&A, or maybe as the lead on a truly revolutionary new product (no, your company's Facebook wannabe or thinly disguised open source ripoff ain't it) - You have no insider information to trade on. Sincere belief that your employer's cool new toys are going to change the world ain't it - every company has cool new toys in the pipeline, and most of them are going to flop or at best be just another branded widget.

Thanks to Kalshi and Polymarket, congrats, every single one of us can now have truly actionable insider information. And that's not good, because as the past year has shown repeatedly, the average Joe is more than willing to use that information and has zero comprehension of securities regulations.

And to be clear, I have no substantial objection to gambling. This sham is something else entirely, however, and that something is a naked power grab.

Comment Re:Pointless circle jerk. (Score 2) 42

In order: no, no, no, no, yes, no.

The lone "yes" is for illegally obtained. Otherwise you're effectively banning the default situation for every smartphone on the market today.

More to the point, Meta's glasses are in no way unique - And make no mistake, I loathe all things Meta as much as the rest of you. Unmodified, they're no different than using any other camera in public (including dozens of competing smart / camera glasses). Even modified - I hate to break it to you all, but go to Amazon and search for hidden / spy / nanny cams. I get nearly a thousand results and that's from a major, primarily law-abiding (if we don't count labor and competition) online store. If you go to a site actively specializing in spy cams, you can find even more, smaller, and creepier form factors beyond your wildest imagination.

There is, bluntly, zero technical difference between the nannycam in my kitchen smoke detector, and a spycam in your bedroom or a public bathroom. Any meaningful legal solutions here therefore must focus on intent (primarily in production and, secondarily, consumption). Or, as in this FP, we can pretend spanking Meta changes any of what I've just described.

To be clear, I'm not at all defending the creeps or Meta in general. Fuck 'em, and fuck 'em hard. But let's not lump the 99.9% of well-meaning and law-abiding users of recording technology in with the actual criminals.

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