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Comment Re:Awards for AI slop (Score 2) 21

AI video technology is still nowhere even remotely near just "click a button and take what it spits out". I don't know how to break this to anyone here, but you're not just going to go to some video generation site and turn out Woodnuts without extensive skill about AI video tools themselves and a wide range of traditional video production tools, and without spending weeks to months and significant financial expense on the project.

Even if / when this changes, video production is still always going to be limited by the human at hand. Most people's movie ideas, plotting, scripting, directing, etc frankly will be terrible. The slop in this case is the human, not the tool.

Comment Re:This is great. (Score 1) 51

> you're really splitting hairs, that's not what is meant. a serial port is very much the physical rs232 "connector" or an emulation of it.

Key word "or an emulation of it." From the software point of view, all it's doing is sending and receiving bits at some baud rate. The physical hardware interface no longer matters. That's kind of the whole point of these things. Beyond the hardware interface, modern keyboard and mouse speak exactly the same protocol as they have since the PS/2 days. In fact USB keyboards usually still have PS/2 port hardware in them, which is why you can use those USB-PS/2 adapters (which are entirely passive).

They don't "identify as" serial devices. The are serial devices. Always have been. It's not unthinkable that a poorly made device could be vulnerable to a firmware hack and not unthinkable that giving javascript access to serial ports could be a vector for such an attack. Not even hard to imagine a fancy keyboard with programmable RGB lights or OLED displays (that definitely have microcontrollers capable of executing arbitrary code) getting exploited.

> of course, which is why the browser asks the user for permission to acces all these devices!

That's a strange way to admit you don't know how security vulnerabilities work. "There's no way someone could get in uninvited; there's a lock on the door!"

> they can already do that.

Maybe? But adding a system where javascript can directly and explicitly interact with serial ports is definitely not going to make doing it any harder, is it?
=Smidge=

Comment Re:This is great. (Score 1) 51

> this api is about ports that everyday hardware (like e.g. mice and keyboards) hasn't used for decades,

If by "decades" you mean to this very day. A serial port is not the physical connector. Your keyboard is almost certainly USB (no points for guessing what the "S" in "USB" stands for). It presents as a serial device at the hardware and OS level, like all USB devices do. If your OS puts it into a special category and doesn't explicitly label it as a serial device, that still doesn't mean it's not a serial device.

Now, whether or not any particular mouse or keyboard actually has a vulnerability where they have firmware available to be overwritten is an entirely different subject... but it's not unthinkable some devices may be exploited in such a way.

I can definitely see some shenanigans where a malicious website uses this as a vector to keylog. That's *already* well within the realm of plausible exploits, even without the WebSerial API. This is just another surface to attack.
=Smidge=

Comment Re: Modern unions are not like the old unions (Score 0) 98

I wonder if people would have said the same negative things about "the good" unions that you ack helped change things that you are saying about "the bad" unions now.

For instance, unions were the largest thorn in the DOGE and Trump agenda and helped saved people from random and unnecessary cuts.

Comment Re:Oh crap (Score 1) 58

Also, weren't you one of the geniuses here on /. telling us that Trump would keep us out of wars? How is that one going?

Oh, but these are *preventative* wars. He gets a peace prize for every country he invades!

Venezuela was using fentanyl as a WMD. Iran was about to nuke us. Cuba might attack us with drones if someone provides them. Greenland might start a snowball fight, and make us look bad if we lose.

Presumably we've got all our best people on this, since they're obviously not on the UFO videos.

Comment Re:The movie looks pretty bad (Score 2) 65

On the upside, AI lets anyone make a movie.
On the downside, AI lets anyone make a movie.

Including people who have terrible taste in plot, style, and everything else.

There's some genuinely good stuff out there - Gossip Goblin's work for example. But this is....

I'll just say, there's far better things that one could have spent half a million dollars on...

Comment Re:Hmmmmm... (Score 5, Informative) 63

Nothing.

There is a 30 year old law that prohibits releasing audio from aircraft black boxes. They accidentally "released" the audio by publishing a spectrograph, which is effectively a violation of the law.

So now they're going through all their stuff making sure they aren't accidentally releasing data they are legally prohibited from releasing.

No conspiracy needed.
=Smidge=

Comment Re:Mixed feelings (Score 2) 79

> Remember this part? "Privacy? ...

I do. In fact I even quoted it in my message, which you clearly didn't read.

"They can already track you, so we might as well make it easier for them" is not the persuasive argument you think it is. Just so you know, historically, you can lick that boot until you can see your own reflection in it and it's still gonna stomp on you. Literally any resistance is better than the rolling over you are clearly so eager to do.
=Smidge=

Comment Re:Average is doing a lot of work there (Score 1) 27

My first thought was, "So three CEOs got $10B each and everyone else gets a $5 gift card and some pizza."

Of course, the bonuses are in the form of stocks that only a third of which can be sold right away, so they're not actually paying the workers a bonus just the promise of a bonus with the caveat that the bonus value is tied to the ephemeral value of the company months or years from now and not on the actual labor that was already performed or value already created.
=Smidge=

Comment Re:Mixed feelings (Score 2) 79

I don't know if you noticed, but you're just as likely to BE kidnapped through the use of these systems than be saved from a kidnapping. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly people give power to fascists under the guise of law enforcement. There can't possibly be a better tool for a fascist regime to quash dissent than the ability to identify and track individuals nationwide. Hope you never turn out for a protest, or even be in the wrong place at the wrong time to but Uncle Sam reason to think it's worth getting rid of you.

> Without the tech, cops will be driving around all day hoping to spot him walking his dog.

And with the tech they'll at best arrest the wrong person, with the very real risk that they'll murder them or a bystander in the process because, y'know, American cops are prone to shooting first and asking questions later.

https://www.businessinsider.co...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cou...

https://coloradosun.com/2025/1...

https://www.dailyjournal.com/a...

https://www.americanpartisan.o...

And that's before we consider that cops may (and absolutely will) intentionally abuse the system to stalk people.

https://www.theguardian.com/co...

> Privacy? We all handed that over on a silver plate wearing butler gloves when we signed the service contract for your internet and your cell phone

Yes, but you can still leave your cell phone at home. Really hard to leave your FACE at home (And if you think the cameras can or will only ever read license plates you're delusional). So if you recognize the problem, why are you so gung ho about making it orders of magnitude worse?

=Smidge=

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