Comment Re:Imagine⦠(Score 1) 53
Waiting for the *BSD port . . . . .
Submission + - Actor James Earl Jones Dead at 93. Agreed to AI Recreating His Voice. (nypost.com)
cold fjord writes: Actor James Earl Jones, star of stage and screen has died at 93. Jones is famous for roles in such films as the Star Wars series, Field of Dreams, The Hunt for Red October, the Lion King, Conan the Barbarian, and Doctor Stragelove. Jones also appeared as a guest star in various television shows such as the Big Bang theory, and others, Jones defied expectations as he was mute between ages 6-14, after which he spoke with a stutter for years. Jone's high school English teacher inspired Jones to memorize and recite poetry, and eventually engage in debate and dramatic readings. Jone's favorite? Edgar Allen Poe. Jones went on to college at the University of Michigan where he joined ROTC. After graduation Jones was commissioned as an Army 2nd Lieutenant and completed Infantry Office Basic Course and Ranger school. After leaving the Army Jone's theater career blossomed. Early on Jones had a reputation as a Shakespearean actor which soon widened into a number of roles in other plays, eventually leading to television and movie roles. Jones won a number of awards, including two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a special Tony for lifetime achievement, a Grammy, and an honorary Oscar.
Jones retired from voicing Darth Vader in 2022, but agreed to have an artificial intelligence program re-create his voice in future shows.
Jones retired from voicing Darth Vader in 2022, but agreed to have an artificial intelligence program re-create his voice in future shows.
Comment NEVER (Score 1) 148
If you expect to get value from your $, never buy the bleeding edge product. Also, there's no compelling reason to buy this product...at all. You can fully expect Apple to be dropping the price soon.
Comment Re:Netcraft confirms it, BSD is dying (Score 2) 37
It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying
You have not truly experienced the BSD is dying meme until you have read it in the original Klingon.
Comment Re:"Can't have it both ways" is the core argument (Score 1) 282
Because the protections in Section 230 are directly modeled after the protections from other Common Carrier regulatory schemes. "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider"
The shield from the inherent liabilities of the content being hosted is predicated on the understanding that the platform is simply that - a neutral platform. It does not create content, it only removes content that is unambiguously illegal, and by continuously maintaining this neutrality it is rewarded with a shield from potential content liability lawsuits and criminal actions.
Comment Re:"Can't have it both ways" is the core argument (Score 1) 282
Those sponsors that pay the bills will need to understand that their advertising rates may go waaaaay up if the platform they are advertising on gets caught removing not-illegal material that corresponds to a particular viewpoint (political, religious, etc.) and they lose their shield of immunity.
Being able to send the court a letter that is essentially a Get Out Of Jail card, one that says "Yep, you need to dismiss that suit because we can't be sued for this" is an amazingly powerful tool.
You are correct - if you aren't paying for the service, *you* are probably the product.
Comment Re:"Can't have it both ways" is the core argument (Score 2, Insightful) 282
Except that they are. When they decide that there are (otherwise legal) topics which shall not be discussed on their platforms, they have strayed away from the concepts that brought us the protections of Common Carrier.
"I'm not liable for the content on my platform" , "I'm protected from liability for the editorial decisions made about content on my platform" and "I have Free Speech Rights to make whatever editorial decisions on any content posted on my platform" are not concepts that can coexist. Something has to give. If you want to remove content, fine... but you no longer have immunity from either civil prosecution (you are taking action against a group of people you disagree with and they sue you) or criminal action (you just so happen to take down all content posted by a particular protected class of people).
The shield of immunity is supposed to come with significant strings attached. These companies are trying to cut those strings.
Comment Re:"Can't have it both ways" is the core argument (Score 4, Insightful) 282
If the content doesn't break a law and you make an editorial decision to remove it, then you have moved beyond the role of Common Carrier... that's the short-short-short version of the "this is the line that must be crossed" I've heard from legal experts in the past.
Being immune from prosecution and/or civil suit because you are simply the medium the information flows across is a huge thing. The protections come with huge strings, those primarily being that you don't make content-based or viewpoint-based moderation decisions. Your decisions to remove content are based on criteria that do not help or hinder any particular political or religious or (insert other component) here... but that do clearly prohibit material deemed against the law.
It's when you stray into prohibiting a particular topic of conversation when you get into danger. I sat and watched test Facebook Messenger conversations on people's phones disappear when they mentioned Hunter Biden and laptop in the same discussion. A conversation between two individuals, not posted to the world at large, disappeared. That was an example of a "subject that will not be discussed on this platform". That's a clear violation of the concept of Common Carrier protections.
If you don't want the protections of the Common Carrier concept, you don't have to pursue them. But if you do pursue them, that inherently means your platform will be carrying opinions you may disagree with.
The trap we've fallen into is not understanding the difference between "Hate Speech" and "Speech I Hate".
Comment "Can't have it both ways" is the core argument (Score 3, Insightful) 282
You can't simultaneously argue "We're immune from being prosecuted for taking down protected speech because we're just a middleman, - treat us like a Common Carrier" and "We have First Amendment Rights as a company to promote or suppress the viewpoints according to our opinions".
You can't say you're claiming immunity because you treat everyone fairly, and then argue that you also have the right to treat one viewpoint differently than another.
Comment Re:More business Losing Money? (Score 1) 164
"The mandate requires the Postal Service to prefund its retiree health care benefits 75 years in advance, paying for retirement health care for individuals who havenâ(TM)t been born yet, let alone enter the workforce."
Submission + - A Paralyzed Man Can Walk Naturally Again With Brain and Spine Implants (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Gert-Jan Oskam was living in China in 2011 when he was in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the hips down. Now, with a combination of devices, scientists have given him control over his lower body again. “For 12 years I’ve been trying to get back my feet,” Mr. Oskam said in a press briefing on Tuesday. “Now I have learned how to walk normal, natural.” In astudypublished on Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers in Switzerland described implants that provided a “digital bridge” between Mr. Oskam’s brain and his spinal cord, bypassing injured sections. The discovery allowed Mr. Oskam, 40, to stand, walk and ascend a steep ramp with only the assistance of a walker. More than a year after the implant was inserted, he has retained these abilities and has actually showed signs of neurological recovery, walking with crutches even when the implant was switched off. “We’ve captured the thoughts of Gert-Jan, and translated these thoughts into a stimulation of the spinal cord to re-establish voluntary movement,” Grégoire Courtine, a spinal cord specialist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, who helped lead the research, said at the press briefing.
In the new study, the brain-spine interface, as the researchers called it, took advantage of anartificial intelligence thought decoderto read Mr. Oskam’s intentions — detectable as electrical signals in his brain — and match them to muscle movements. The etiology of natural movement, from thought to intention to action, was preserved. The only addition, as Dr. Courtine described it, was the digital bridge spanning the injured parts of the spine. [...] To achieve this result, the researchers first implanted electrodes in Mr. Oskam’s skull and spine. The team then used a machine-learning program to observe which parts of the brain lit up as he tried to move different parts of his body. This thought decoder was able to match the activity of certain electrodes with particular intentions: One configuration lit up whenever Mr. Oskam tried to move his ankles, another when he tried to move his hips.
Then the researchers used another algorithm to connect the brain implant to the spinal implant, which was set to send electrical signals to different parts of his body, sparking movement. The algorithm was able to account for slight variations in the direction and speed of each muscle contraction and relaxation. And, because the signals between the brain and spine were sent every 300 milliseconds, Mr. Oskam could quickly adjust his strategy based on what was working and what wasn’t. Within the first treatment session he could twist his hip muscles. Over the next few months, the researchers fine-tuned the brain-spine interface to better fit basic actions like walking and standing. Mr. Oskam gained a somewhat healthy-looking gait and was able to traverse steps and ramps with relative ease, even after months without treatment. Moreover, after a year in treatment, he began noticing clear improvements in his movement without the aid of the brain-spine interface. The researchers documented these improvements in weight-bearing, balancing and walking tests. Now, Mr. Oskam can walk in a limited way around his house, get in and out of a car and stand at a bar for a drink. For the first time, he said, he feels like he is the one in control.
In the new study, the brain-spine interface, as the researchers called it, took advantage of anartificial intelligence thought decoderto read Mr. Oskam’s intentions — detectable as electrical signals in his brain — and match them to muscle movements. The etiology of natural movement, from thought to intention to action, was preserved. The only addition, as Dr. Courtine described it, was the digital bridge spanning the injured parts of the spine. [...] To achieve this result, the researchers first implanted electrodes in Mr. Oskam’s skull and spine. The team then used a machine-learning program to observe which parts of the brain lit up as he tried to move different parts of his body. This thought decoder was able to match the activity of certain electrodes with particular intentions: One configuration lit up whenever Mr. Oskam tried to move his ankles, another when he tried to move his hips.
Then the researchers used another algorithm to connect the brain implant to the spinal implant, which was set to send electrical signals to different parts of his body, sparking movement. The algorithm was able to account for slight variations in the direction and speed of each muscle contraction and relaxation. And, because the signals between the brain and spine were sent every 300 milliseconds, Mr. Oskam could quickly adjust his strategy based on what was working and what wasn’t. Within the first treatment session he could twist his hip muscles. Over the next few months, the researchers fine-tuned the brain-spine interface to better fit basic actions like walking and standing. Mr. Oskam gained a somewhat healthy-looking gait and was able to traverse steps and ramps with relative ease, even after months without treatment. Moreover, after a year in treatment, he began noticing clear improvements in his movement without the aid of the brain-spine interface. The researchers documented these improvements in weight-bearing, balancing and walking tests. Now, Mr. Oskam can walk in a limited way around his house, get in and out of a car and stand at a bar for a drink. For the first time, he said, he feels like he is the one in control.
Submission + - US Senators issued satellite phones (cbsnews.com)
SonicSpike writes: Amid growing concerns of security risks to members of Congress, over 50 senators have been issued satellite phones for emergency communication, people familiar with the measures told CBS News. The devices are part of a series of new security measures being offered to senators by the Senate Sergeant at Arms, who took over shortly after the protest an the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The satellite phone technology has been offered to all 100 senators. CBS News has learned at least 50 have accepted the phones, which Senate administrative staff recommend senators keep in close proximity during their travels.
In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee last month, Senate Sergeant at Arms Karen Gibson said satellite communication is being deployed "to ensure a redundant and secure means of communication during a disruptive event."
Gibson said the phones are a security backstop in the case of an emergency that "takes out communications" in part of America. Federal funding will pay for the satellite airtime needed to utilize the phone devices.
The satellite phone technology has been offered to all 100 senators. CBS News has learned at least 50 have accepted the phones, which Senate administrative staff recommend senators keep in close proximity during their travels.
In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee last month, Senate Sergeant at Arms Karen Gibson said satellite communication is being deployed "to ensure a redundant and secure means of communication during a disruptive event."
Gibson said the phones are a security backstop in the case of an emergency that "takes out communications" in part of America. Federal funding will pay for the satellite airtime needed to utilize the phone devices.
Comment Re:Causation (Score 1) 60
Cities. People living in cities are more depressed.
My thought exactly. I'd like to know if they isolated their results for urban vs. rural. IMO, cities are depressing...too many/much people, traffic, crime, etc.
Comment Feeding the grid - still problems? (Score 1) 137
I know for some time, there were concerns from the power companies about end users feeding power back onto the grid. Anyone have any insight into the current state of this? I know I remember hearing "the power grid, at the edge, was designed for flow in one direction only" or something to that effect.
Comment Slackware not affected (Score 4, Informative) 51
Slackware has never enabled CONFIG_SMB_SERVER in any kernel.
Slashdot Top Deals
Gee, Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.
