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Comment Re:Weaponization of lockouts (Score 1) 64

DVRs were the starting point. The namesake for what you're talking about, tivoization, is Tivo, the DVR that existed way back when TV was still analog and being displayed on CRTs.

It's why the GPLv3 was made: to add clauses to forbid tivoization. Instead, a lot of the open source community moved in the opposite direction, moving to licenses that allowed companies even more freedom to lock up their code.

At some point people have to learn and fight back.

Good luck. This is not a new fight by any means. You could argue that the FSF has been fighting it for almost half a century. People by and large do not care.

Comment Re:Win the battle, lose the war (Score 3, Insightful) 64

More likely they'll separate the OS and the TV code so they can ship the open source OS along with their closed source software

I'd be amazed if this wasn't already the case. We've already been through this with Tivo, it was one of the reasons behind the creation of the GPLv3. Tivo based their DVRs on Linux, and provided downloads of the Linux code. But their DVRs used hardware DRM to ensure that only code signed by Tivo would run, making it so that even with the open source code, you couldn't run changes on the hardware.

From what I can tell, Vizio is doing the same thing, but isn't providing downloads to the kernel code they're using. It's possible that there's some proprietary hardware drivers that they don't want to release code to, but Nvidia has already show how to work around that.

I expect the end result to be like Tivo: a bunch of archives of the open source software used in the TV, but none of the code required to make it useful and no signing key necessary to allow any changes to run on the TV itself.

Comment Re:Federal Bribery and Taxpayer Abuse. (Score 1) 101

Every republican that acts like it's bad, probably voted for it. Every democract that speaks out against it probably voted for it.

You can't count on voting records to mean anything, thanks to the "designated villains:" the politicians whose job it is to tank a law that a party wants to be on record as having voted for, but don't want to pass. We're watching this happen right now with votes on the Iran war. Democrats don't want them to pass. What they want is to be on the record as being against it and want Republicans to be on the record as supporting it, even though there is no chance they'll do anything to stop it if they get the power to do so.

Both sides play games like this, with the end result being that only laws that have the support of large donors having any real chance of passing. Who votes for and who votes against is always carefully calculated to let vulnerable politicians give the appearance of supporting things constituents support, while never needing to support those things in actual fact.

Comment Apple? Screwing over a partner? (Score 1, Insightful) 14

Wow, Apple, screwing over a partner? Who ever could have seen this coming?

I don't understand why anyone would ever partner on Apple on anything. They are notorious for screwing over their partners at this point. There's even a term for it, "Sherlocking." People seem to have forgotten that Apple's "privacy" stance originated as Steve Jobs not wanting to share any of the data "Apple owned" with anyone else.

Comment These agencies have only gotten worse (Score 5, Insightful) 75

20 years ago I thought these agencies were incompetent. Now I know that it was actually their peak. The FCC of prior administrations would document their goals, send out a notice for public comment, write a proposed rule set, hold a hearing, the make a rule. Now they make a rule, and everyone goes "That doesn't even make sense" then they switch it. It's not just the FCC: It's the DOJ, DHS, EPA, etc.

Comment Re:Why would a faster CPU revive demand? (Score 1) 89

I'm really not sure why they bothered to rev the CPU.

In theory I think it was more energy efficient, giving them a very slightly longer battery life. Plus there were probably supply chain reasons for it too, such as allowing them to stop making the older chip while continuing to make the Vision Pro.

The Vision Pro has always struck me as a device in search of a purpose. I think Apple was hoping someone else would figure out what it was useful for an then swoop in and Sherlock them, but so far, no one really has.

Comment Re:Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score 1) 287

It is a vast majority. The midterms won't go like people on the left expect. There's one group that's hated more than just about anyone else in polls of Americans: Democrats. They manage to be less popular than Trump and less popular than Republicans.

People may not be terribly happy with Trump and the way things are currently going, but it won't take too much to remind them how much worse things were when Democrats were in control.

Despite his current negative approval rating, Trump manages to be one of the most popular politicians in America right now, even with a net negative approval rating. That mostly because Americans just do not like their current politicians than Trump, but ultimately, there's a reason Trump won in a landslide. Americans may not really like Trump, but they loathe the alternatives.

Comment Azure & dual-stack is the problem (Score 1) 73

I have a need for thousands of VMs for a load test in Azure. But Azure requires dual-stack for IPv6 to work -- which completely defeats the purpose! The DevOps team tells me we are out of IPv4 addresses. If everything IPv6 also requires an IPv4 address, then IPv6 is useless. I am told that AWS VMs do not have this problem.

Comment Re: It's easy to understand how this is happening (Score 1) 51

This is a valid retort. But let us not think that lawyers are struggling: once they get to be a "partner" in a firm they are likely making $1 million/year. And the entire context of the discussion is that they aren't relying on staff like they used to. Back in 1980, a lawyer had staff members who ran down to the court house to get documents, bring them back, photocopy them, staple them, file them, make phone calls. Now all of that is 100% automated, plus now they have AI.

I'm not sure the legal overhead is quite what it used to be.

Comment It's never the tools responsbility (Score 1) 66

Disclaimers like this apply to Excel, TurboTax, GCC, ChatGPT, and more: The user is ultimately responsible for the application. The manufacturers always disclaim responsibility.

You can get companies to stand behind products and accept liability or sign a Business Associate Agreement - but you are going to have to put it in a contract and pay extra for it. This is why the product you buy at Home Depot and the one the government/military/NASA buys has a very big price difference even if it is the exact same part.

Comment Re:It is rather amazing (Score 2) 66

Every industry does this.

From Housing inspectors and plumbers, to software products - it is super common. I just had plumber put this into their contract for replacing a cast-iron drain with PVC. Then I had the tub reglazed and they did the same thing. There are often two prices, based on if you want a guarantee behind it or not. I paid a structural engineer to inspect the foundation of my prior to purchase. While he said the cracks were normal setting, the price was $200 for the inspection + verbal assessment, or $600 to put it in writing and stand behind it. In the last two weeks I've gotten this same thing from a tax preparer and a property attorney. Free advice from the tax preparer, but if we want him to file it and sign it there was a price. The attorney told me what to say in court, but quoted me a price to put it on his letterhead or to show up and say it.

Comment Re:It's easy to understand how this is happening (Score 5, Insightful) 51

which can turn hours of work into minutes, saving them a lot of time and work

1. Raw work: 8 hours
2. Work with unchecked AI: 8 minutes
3. Work with check AI: 16 minutes

I don't get why people choose option 2 over option 3.

Lawyers are some of the most overworked people on the planet.

They stocker making $15/hour needs to work extra hours to survive. Why does the lawyer making $500/hour overwork?

Comment Re:Empathy??? (Score 1) 107

Not to mention that the first thing any gamer does when they get a game is turn all that artistic crap off, both to get a better framerate, but also to make the game easier to see. The fewer "artistic effects" on the screen, the easier it is to see what's happening. The idea that gamers care about "artistic intent" is hilarious if you've ever seen any gamer community.

Comment Re: factoid (Score 1) 135

Because "cheaper" isn't the only metric one uses to decide which type of power plant to build.

The #1 problem in all these discussions is that most people pick one single attribute, then say "Power plant type X is the best because it is the SELECT_ONE_OF( greenest | quickest to build | best ramp rate | cheapest to run | supplies the most power | safest)"

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