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Comment Re:Good! (Score 1) 42

by aitikin (#66085682) Attached to: John Deere To Pay $99 Million In Monumental Right-To-Repair Settlement

Now lets bring these requirements into law, permanently, across all industrial and consumer devices.

Any obstacle to repair and maintenance other than the inherent difficulty of the operation is anticonsumerist and in the long run, economically damaging (and many of the inherent difficulties are as well, but we gotta start somewhere).

Settlement != precedent. Court decisions create precedent, settlements avoid them. Ipso facto this is not something that can be relied upon to determine future cases.

Comment Re:How soon until sites start blocking the VPN IPs (Score 1) 42

Maybe they block them less, if they know that many users will use them. Block VPN users now and it blocks some nerds and "pirates", block these IPs and it blocks a lot of Firefox users.

I imagine there aren't very many Firefox users who aren't nerds and/or "pirates" these days. 10-15 years ago, maybe, but today, I don't see many people (myself excluded) using Firefox in my day-to-day.

Comment Re:Theaters Used to be special (Score 1) 162

by aitikin (#66036882) Attached to: Only Half of Americans Went To a Movie Theater In 2025, Study Finds

In my entire life, I've only been to, as best I recall, three movies where there was an intermission. One was a Star Wars/Empire double feature, one was the theatrical release of three episodes of The Chosen, and I just found out the third was in my imagination. When I saw Glory in 1989, it was the first time I had to get up and go pee during a movie. No intermission.

Oh! Wait a minute, didn't the Lord of The Rings movies have intermissions? Maybe my count was short by 3.

As I recall, TLotR movies did not. I've never been in a movie theater with an intermission.

I did see a movie in 2025 in theaters. I was content with the decision to go, but it takes something of substance for me to want to. That said, I haven't seen very many movies released post The Hobbit approach the 222 minute runtime of Lawrence of Arabia.

Comment Re:Good. (Score 2) 159

by aitikin (#66025242) Attached to: United Airlines Can Now Boot Passengers Who Refuse To Use Headphones

It's not just on airplanes. People using the speaker on their devices in public places like coffee shops, restaurants, movie theaters, etc., have become an extreme, difficult to avoid annoyance. I don't want to hear someone's conversation, the music they like, or whatever rage-filled commentator they're addicted to. It's an aggressive intrusion into my sonic space, and I'd like to see rules made against it and enforced.

It gets even worse. People are literally watching videos on their phone in stalls at my office. Regularly. I don't want to be hearing your pundit's analysis of last night's sportsball game while relieving my bladder or bowels. And the worst part is, I've heard multiple different feeds at the same time, so it's not just one bad apple.

Comment Re: i believed it's called (Score 1) 93

by aitikin (#66021354) Attached to: ChatGPT Uninstalls Surged By 295% After Pentagon Deal

Except, based on Reddit, many of the people canceling were canceling their FREE ChatGPT accounts. I found that funny. If anything, a free account was hurting the company as much as a $20/mo account was benefiting them.

Yes and no. Remember that those free accounts are also feeding the beast in the process. Not sure how much of that is beneficial material, but with how voracious an appetite LLMs have, every little bit counts.

Now, if there were a lot of free ones poisoning the well...those hurt the company probably as much as a $20/month account helps.

Comment Re:Great Author Dies (Score 2) 17

by aitikin (#66018332) Attached to: Hyperion Author Dan Simmons Dies From Stroke At 77

It's a bit surprising to me that the author of one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time dies and he gets about 15 comments on the Slashdot post. I guess if he had had more than a million book sales, then he would have been better known.

Worth noting that many (myself included) won't read /. over the weekend. Personally, I only am on /. during workdays as something to do in between real work tasks, and I imagine there's a decent number of posters that are like me in that regard.

I only read Hyperion two or three years ago. It was a very heady book, but well written and I was appreciative of the recommendation (I think I even got it from a different /. thread). RIP.

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