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Comment Odd methodology, tiny sample size (Score 1, Informative) 101

Typically in sound quality tests, you tell subjects which file is the original, then have them rate how close to the original the other samples are. In this he just gave them four samples, and had them guess which was which, turning it into a more subjective test of guessing what they think the track should like. In addition, based on the table he got a total of 1-4 responses per track, which is far too low to have any statistical significance.

This was a funny joke, but not the gotcha the article played it up to be.

Comment Yeah, these aren't small hobbiest drones. (Score 3, Insightful) 61

This drone (an MK30) is 78 pounds, and about 6 feet diameter. They could easily kill a person if they hit a them. I think this is the fourth time I've read about their drones crashing, and all the cases seemed reasonably avoidable. They are currently operating under a special FAA license that exempts them from several rules that normal drone operators have to follow, like not requiring visual line of site. Given their safety record so far, I think that license should be revoked, and they can go back to a normal commercial license, until they have proven their operations to be safe again.

Comment Re:So (Score 1) 51

> I don't see what would be different than if he'd pasted the text into Google Docs or Word 365 to make some edits.
Government employees are prohibited from using those public cloud services for OUO as well. There are separate instances of some of these services like Office 365 which can be used for OUO, but they are kept separate for defense in depth, given these services can have bugs that allowed people to access documents they should be allowed to.

Furthermore, it is worse because the TOS for ChatGPT state that they can and will use your inputs for training, unlike Google Docs or Word 365 (at least in the past - I haven't checked recently).

He had access to AI systems that were approved for OUO, and then on top of that given special permission to use the public ChatGPT for non-sensitive documents, but chose to use public ChatGPT for OUO documents. That would be a security incident for any clearance holder, and is completely inexcusable for the head of CISA.

Comment Re:One problem... (Score 1) 205

> The problem is when it costs MONEY to develop

It usually does, but we've somehow made free software for most tasks, and we maintain it. In some ways we do it better as free software.

Sometimes. And sometimes, development is faster with restricted sharing and per-copy fees. If faster development was the only issue, then maybe restrictions on sharing could be ok.

But there are other things like how much everyone should be able to know about the software that increasingly runs our lives, like whether people should be able to verify the security of some software, or audit the response to a security incident. Free software makes society better in those ways.

Also, you mention maintenance. We should keep in mind that the cost of maintenance is increased when only one person is allowed do the maintenance. So high costs is an argument for wanting money, but it can also be an argument for using a lower cost path, such as allowing everyone to do the maintenance, either for free or in a competitive market.

Comment Re:One problem... (Score 1) 205

He advocates sharing, and the GPL allows sharing.

He says to ignore laws that block sharing. That means ignoring some parts of copyright law. Some other parts of copyright law are fine. There's no contradiction.

(And if someone has a follow up question about sharing everything, no, he doesn't advocate for sharing everything. Some stuff is personal, for example. He's in favour of sharing generally useful technical information, such as the source code of software that has been given to you.)

Comment Re:Do a study FIRST. (Score 2) 90

The reason for the rules seems like common sense to me. There is a certain distance needed to stop or change lanes when driving at highway distance. If the truck breaks down just over a hill, cars won't see it early enough unless the warning signals are put further back where they can be seen coming up the hill.

I seriously doubt that these rules were just shit someone made up. The NHTSA has so many studies regarding road regulations and guidance. They might be outdated for modern technology, and might be worse than newer alternatives - I don't doubt that hasn't been studied yet - but I would absolutely wager that there were studies done to justify the original numbers.

Furthermore, when congress delegated regulatory power to these agencies they included laws dictating how the rules needed to be determined, specifically so you can't have a bunch of political hacks changing them on a whim. Changes to the regulation need to be justified, and there needs to be comment period to gather any information and concerns that the agency itself might have overlooked, respond to the comments and incorporate any changes as appropriate. I don't want regulators to be able say "this is just some crap" and change rules every four years because they shoot from the hip. That means that changes take 1-3 years depending on how complicated and motivated the agency is, but it is worthwhile to end up with better regulations and avoid being constantly jerked around.

Comment Some perspective (Score 1) 270

23% of that debt is owned by the Bank of England ("Gilt and Treasury Bill Holding"), which in turn is owned by... the British government.

Some more background information: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk...

In short, it is a choice to be beholden to the bond markets in this way. It is a political choice to outsource the fiscal margins of government spending to the financial sector, and paying them lavishly for that privilege. And no, I'm not saying this means you can spend endlessly on anything without very bad consequences. It's just that it's a very expensive way to provide the money supply and private savings, while giving enormous budgetary power to a sector that has proven time and again that it's unable to properly manage the economy's funding (if it's even interested in that at all, rather than just in enriching itself).

Comment Re:Who created the consent banners? (Score 3) 102

I've never seen a cookie banner ask for consent to collect and store my IP address. If that is their reason, they completely failed to obtain consent in a manner that meets the law.

The reason for the banners are simple - a court case ruled that cookies are covered by GDRP, but they haven't explicitly ruled on other tracking mechanisms. So ad companies pushed the minimum and most annoying method of conforming with that ruling without changing their practices, and continue to ignore the fact that all the other tracking they are doing without consent is blatantly illegal.

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