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Comment Re:Good! (Score 1) 60

Pirate streamers may use outsourced platforms that then use CDNs (think Discord). The stream originators may not be aware or care about the infrastructure. Going after CDN operators is valid as they carry the actual pirate traffic.

Going after public DNS providers is like going after the guys that deliver phone books to your doorstep (or used to, back in the day). The domain registrars are the place to go if you don't like certain domain names. After all, any bozo can stand up a recursing DNS server that directly queries the root servers and follows the chain of answers. No "public DNS service" needed.

Comment Re:NO one thinks this merger is a good idea.... (Score 1) 120

Most of the world, including the EU, signed off on this deal. This is a global merger, not just a US thing.

This is a generational shift in the global entertainment industry, nothing more. It's happened several times over the past 100 years.

If you're so worried about a change in editorial policy at CNN and/or CBS, maybe learn to change the channel? ABC seems to be doing a good job defending themselves against the scary MAGA monsters. Or maybe subscribe to a newspaper or three? They sure could use the money to prop up the Forth Estate...

Comment Re:Kimmel Doesn't Want to give Republicans a Platf (Score 0) 281

That's only because the FCC said, this year, that they would no longer automatically provide "bona fide news program" exemptions to late-night talk shows. 47USC315 applies equally to all candidates, regardless of party, so absent the normal exemption I'm sure ABC doesn't want to have to give, say, the Green Party candidate equal time. Or someone running on the Democratic Socialist ticket.

Comment Re:Trust? (Score 1) 83

A number of US TLAs appear to be actively developing in Rust and requiring contractors implementing "high-side" systems to do the same. C++ seems to be on its way out now. Not sure if that's the smart move. There's millions of man-hours in C++ libraries and utilities that likely need to be converted, if the edict is "Rust only" for sensitive systems. Kinda reminds me of the Ada days.

Comment The board source is more important (Score 2) 58

While it's fun to point out components, I think the bigger story would lie in where the signal processing board(s) are coming from. Russia does have fairly modern in-house electronics design and manufacturing but without vendor support integration of things like Jetsons into bespoke designs is pretty difficult. I would expect that they're actually sourcing whole boards and sensors (cameras) and hacking together interfaces to their known missile control systems.

Comment Re:Is Bonta an economist now? (Score 1) 177

You know the nice thing about "expert witnesses"? They come in both flavors of a case, depending on the amount of money you want to spend. Who's got more money to spend?

Again, I'm not in either side of this merger. I think that the states' AGs are spending taxpayer dollars for the wrong reason. The mega-media market is going to change, like it did when TV changed the whole landscape of Hollywood. A Paramount-WB hookup is not going to save either company's influence on global society.

Comment Re:drop in the bucket (Score 1) 177

How is it that every damn state is in debt, including those that are required to have balanced budgets?

That's easy: states issue bonds. In California, voters decide if there's to be a bond issue for some project or need. The results are predictable, especially if the bond propositions are written in a manner that makes it hard for the average voter to understand what they're voting for.

Comment Re:Is Bonta an economist now? (Score 1) 177

Care to point out the part(s) of the Clayton Act that you can prove would be violated by this merger? Market-share concentration, perhaps? HHI, maybe?

Bonta's claim is that the merger would result in market shares of about 27% cable-channel licensing and the same in wide-release film distribution, and around 30% in "anticipated blockbuster distribution". This last one is a real reach as it is very tough to predict what's going to go big at the box office in any given year. See https://oag.ca.gov/system/file... for the text of the suit.

So...where's the "FOLLOW THE LAW" part? The numbers that Bonta states rate the merger somewhere between "lower concern" and "significant scrutiny", not "strong concern", which is a pretty bright line.

I don't have care about the merger either way. I just find it amusing that Bonta and his merry band of AGs think they can predict the movie industry over the long term.

Comment Is Bonta an economist now? (Score 0, Troll) 177

Not sure what credentials Bonta has to determine how the media and entertainment industry is supposed to operate but he sure seems to be confident in his private opinions. Given how entrenched the labor unions are in California politics I expect he's getting info from that group. Too many of these unions think they can pin companies (and "the rich") in place while they slowly rape them because the size of California's economy is such that it's hard to not do business there.

The era of the big Hollywood studio, providing 10s of thousands of employees and contractors a middle-class lifestyle, is over and has been since the 2010s. The infrastructure to stand up large set-piece productions is now very portable and not as labor-intensive as it used to be. Paramount leaving Hollywood would be more of an acknowledgement of the above realities than a threat to California's tax base. David Ellison is an idiot to frame the move as a threat. He should just start moving the office and production out.

Overall, I think the merger is just another rearrangement of deck chairs on the SS Mass Media. It won't matter much in the long run as the ship's down heavily at the bow.

Comment Re: No RAM, dwindling customers for AI (Score 1) 133

What do you put that into? Used MBs? What about the CPUs on those MBs?

I spent a month earlier this year scraping together a bunch of NOS servers, CPUs (early-gen Xeons) and DDR3 RAM for a legacy contract (with "frozen" software) that was nearing its term. It's tough to find and assemble 10 year-old tech at scale these days but it was kinda fun.

It's not a general solution for today's needs though.

Comment Re:How will the app up-sell? (Score 1) 93

It's the T-Mobile O&O stores that are getting phased out. There are many 3rd-party locations that will happily take your money on overpriced accessories and "insurance" in exchange for the in-person experience. The basic cellular service market in the US is price-compressed now so there are not a lot of services to up-sell.

Comment Not sure this will make much of a difference (Score 1) 83

It's quite expensive to operate broadcast TV stations because they're designed to keep the barriers to access to their programming very low. No subscriptions or intermediate distribution networks between the licensed transmitter and the consumer...just some cheap and easy to find commodity hardware. At least, that was how TV used to be.

ATSC screwed that up in the US. The transition was huge bungle at a time when internet bandwidth was about on-par for the purpose of delivering video content. These days a cell phone gets you more entertainment than the combined programming of all broadcasters in a market and everyone has a phone/tablet...part of the cost of living in the modern world.

Allowing large collections of TV licenses to be held is, in this day, a leveling of the playing field from my point of view. We've had DirecTV and Dish, Comcast and Cox, all national footprint content distributors, for decades now. I don't see much of a difference between a Comcast and a Sinclair anymore.

If you wanted to really be fair, you'd subject companies that hold more than a certain national percentage of broadcast licenses to the same standards that are applied to a common communications carrier, maybe?

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