I almost wonder if that's actually a dude who was on the flight or someone taking advantage of an opportunity to get in the news.

Seems so unlikely.

Unfortunately it's not that cheap in many other countries and YT has been actively blocking VPNs so some of us would end up paying more just for YT than for Netflix and PrimeVideo combined. There's a lot on YT but most of it is crap and not worth paying for.

The irresistible force (movie/recording studios) versus the immovable object (the US government's support for AI).

Finally, the studios seem to have met their match.

This can't end well for anyone.

I asked Gemini and it said, with authority that it was never wrong. </satire>

When it's wearing its YouTube hat, Google says

so they always side with those who claim copyright infringement in any uploaded content. As a result, videos and even entire channels get unfairly removed.

However, when Google is wearing its AI hat *it* claims that is is exempted from copyright because of "fair use" -- *without* waiting for the courts to decide.

Come on Google... you can't have it both ways -- either you need the court's consent for "fair use" or you don't. Which is it?

Not just trashy but scammy!

I've been reporting YT ads for their "scams and deceptive practices" and all I get is... nothing.

Even on X @teamyoutube simply says "Thanks for bringing this to our attention — we'll pass this along & handle all the next steps from here" yet, weeks later, the same scam ads continue to run.

Nothing buys immunity from the TOS more than an advertiser's wallet.

While I agree that touch-typing isn't the primary skill of a competent, fast programmer -- it is still an amazing skill to have.

Although I've been touch-typing for almost half a century, it still fascinates me that the words appear on my screen simply as I think them. I don't even have to speak those thoughts -- my fingers automatically race around the keys and the words appear. It's almost like a direct interface between my mind and the computer.

Yes, I'm pretty fast -- about 140wpm which makes the whole experience even more fascinating since the words appear almost as fast as I think them.

Would I recommend that people learn touch-typing. Hell yes... I think people should learn *everything* they can, while they can. When you're young it's so much easier to learn than when you get old (like me). There are so many things I wish I'd learned when it would have been easier to do so -- foreign languages, playing a musical instrument, etc,etc.

However, here I am, a relic of the past. I can program in assembler for lots of 8-bit micros from the Signetics 2650 through the 8080, Z80, 6502, 6800 etc; BASIC, Pascal, C, Modula2, Java but now I'm faced with learning the intricacies of Python, Kotlin, Rust and crafting AI queries. It's getting harder every day because my brain seems to have simultaneously run out of RAM, CPU cycles and backup storage all at the same time :-)

I considered uploading to X but discovered that unless you pay them a monthly stipend, you can only upload very short vids (90 seconds I think).

So, if you do start paying them and upload longer vids, what happens if you stop your payment either voluntarily or perhaps because you die? Will your longer vids suddenly disappear?

None of the alternative platforms offer any kind of guarantee of continued service... hence people are far better off to self-host and federate if they are in a position to do so.

I agree. I spend about 12 hours a day working behind a computer keyboard/screen so when I'm not working I simply have no desire to carry a smartphone. I have an old-fashioned phone that only does SMS and voice -- I don't want to be connected to the internet 24/7.

What about *my* freedoms and rights?

The hypocrisy that is YouTube just gets worse by the day.

People like Jeff have perfectly good, harmless content flagged and removed for specious reasons while the company continues to profit from scammy ads that promote fake "health hacks", counterfeit electronics goods such as the fake "Sandisk" SSDs being pitched right now, "laser welders" that turn out to be just soldering irons, water-blasters that are nothing of the sort, etc, etc.

I (and thousands of others) have been reporting these ads using the mechanisms built into YouTube and also through @teamyoutube on X but the ads continue to run until the advertiser's spend is exhausted.

Surely, after a while someone must wake up to the fact that if YouTube/Google isn't going to act when these scam ads are reported and simply continues to profit from them then they become an accomplice to fraud and should he charged as such.

I've heard from hundreds of people who've lost money after being duped by these fraudulent ads and even when THEY complain to YouTube with their proof, the ads keep running.

Now there seems to be a lot of bonafide channels being deleted for "scams and misleading practices" without warning. Perhaps YouTube doesn't like the competition whenit comes to scamming -- it wants to retain its crown as "best scammer"?

It's a shame Jeffs video was pulled because I'm encouraging people to set up their own VOD servers and federate into a global network coordinated by independent search engines. This is the only way to dethrone YouTube now that it's clearly become an evil entity.

I own a tiny indie studio in Chicagoland and my peers own the some of the huge studios in Chicagoland.

Cinespace is dead right now. It has ONE show active. The other studios are so dead that they're secretly hosting bar mitzvahs and pickleball tournaments for $1500 a day just to pay property taxes.

My studio is surprisingly busy but I'm cheap and cater to non-union folks with otherwise full time jobs.

The Mazda3 is available as a 6 speed manual if you are still looking for a fun manual car in general.

Funny thing though, now manuals are typically only available with premium trim levels aimed at enthusiasts, whereas before the cheapest version of a car was the version with the manual transmission.

Would a plugin that blocks tracking pixels fix the problem? I use firefox for android with Ublock Origin installed when I browse on the phone. I do use the facebook app when I access it on the phone, as they have made the mobile browser experience fairly terrible in comparison (on purpose.)

to live with human beings might be more predisposed to understand our lives if they "grew up" in a humanoid form.
With that thought in mind, text only ASI terrifies me.

{^_^}

There is a certain aesthetic pleasure in the selection and use of the appropriate tool. This proposal is the antithesis of that ideal. It is using a nuke to swat a fly. It works; but, at what cost?
{O.O}