memfree @ memfree @beehaw.org

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97

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309

Joined

2 yr. ago

Well yeah, but we know Trump doesn't give a whit about facts. I'm trying to figure out if his tongue went up to the front of his palate to form an 'n' sound.

So in the 2002 suit against bnetd, "Blizzard sued them for analyzing software they'd paid for, while it was running on their own computers." ...

because IP law is (correctly) understood as "the law that lets a company tell you how you can use your own real, physical property." Hard cases make bad law, hard IP cases make batshit law.

Now:

Sony argues that the Datel device – which rewrites the contents of a player's device's RAM, at the direction of that player – infringes copyright. Sony claims that the values that its programs write to your device's RAM chips are copyrighted works that it has created, and that altering that copyrighted work makes an unauthorized derivative work, which infringes its copyright.

and:

How bad can it be? Well, get this: the German publishing giant Axel Springer (owned by a monomaniacal Trumpist and Israel hardliner who has ordered journalists in his US news outlets to go easy on both) is suing Eyeo, makers of Adblock Plus, on the grounds that changing HTML to block an ad creates a "derivative work" of Axel Springer's web-pages

And Cory says all this to convince the public to reject Intellectual Property rights as a form of "rent" which he equates to dangerous feudalism.

I can't argue him. In the cases cited in the piece, his complaints seem valid. On the other hand, I feel like there has to be a case for saying that if you, say, try to fix your iPhone yourself and botch it badly, Apple doesn't have to honor a warranty. The tricky part is whether they would have any grounds to terminate your service or stop running some software because .... oh, maybe some security feature can no longer be verified or something. The only case for that which pops to mind is if you hacked it to copy/relay the identity of other phones such that you were stealing from other people -- which is already a crime, but you'd want a way to stop it immediately rather than rely on the hope someone catches the perpetrator.

IMO, all voting should be on paper so that a hand recount can be done if the machines are questioned.

Myst can be a bit esoteric, especially the older versions.

Did they rewrite it in later ports? Also curious as to where you stand on Zork.

That particular exit poll APnews was reporting on was just for one polling place, so it doesn't mean much, but yes, it was an opposition campaigner.

That said, we shouldn't have to speculate. All the votes should be available for review -- at least for voting centers where the results are in dispute.

On the other hand, we've been seeing that 'big money' wants the opposition to win because Maria Machado (the opposition leader who was kept off the ballot) "—derided by the Chavista leadership for her pro-market views and her upper-class background" —has promised pro-business changes.

It is as if the military looked at these guys and said, "Now THAT'S how to do camouflage!"

Yeah, not only did they prevent the actual opposition leader from running, they've really made the vote count look suspicious. From APnews :

The official results came as a shock to opposition members who had celebrated, online and outside a few voting centers, what they believed was a landslide victory for González.

“I’m so happy,” said Merling Fernández, a 31-year-old bank employee, as a representative for the opposition campaign walked out of one voting center in a working class neighborhood of Caracas to announce results showing González more than doubled Maduro’s vote count. Dozens standing nearby erupted in an impromptu rendition of the national anthem.

Authorities delayed releasing the results from each of the 30,000 polling booths nationwide, promising only to do so in the “coming hours,” hampering attempts to verify the results.

After finally claiming to have won, Maduro accused unidentified foreign enemies of trying to hack the voting system.

Within this range. 😜

I know a lot of people never got past the the total re-write of ... well, everything. I understand that. If you go in wanting the source material or you will be horribly disappointed. If, instead, you go in saying, "Alright, I know the fans are in revolt, but let's just see why this got made if it is so far from the source," then I think you will see that yes, every aspect is changed, and the story mash-up misses the original points, but... But -- BUT as a show, it was a change of pace (within what limits TV allows) and still retained a feel of a Watch novel. It wasn't a clone of Game of Thrones or Black Adder, or anything else -- and, true, it certainly wasn't a clone of Night Watch, either. It was its own thing, and I'm a bit bummed out that the hatred means it will never get another season.

Double-plus upvote for The Good Place! It is a long story arc. There IS an ending (it doesn't just trail off). It has an episode on the Trolley Problem! What more could you ask for!?

GoT

You did NOT like GoT. Take that back!

But there's a lot of good recommendations already, so I'll re-affirm a few of them that I both saw and enjoyed (exclusions are probably because I didn't see the shows):

• Black Mirror
• The Last of Us
• Three Body Problem
• The Foundation
• Hacks (for a change of pace from the rest)
• Mr. Robot

Some alternate ideas:

• The new Dr. Who -- but only the first ... maybe 3 seasons, then STOP before you get into another GoT debacle.
• The Watch -- low budget adaptation of Terry Pratchett that made some fans FURIOUS by its re-imagination, but pretty grounded in Pratchett-ness if you can get past that. Probably for fans only. I'm told it is required that Pratchett fans watch Good Omens but can opt out of viewing The Watch.
• Resident Alien -- is low budget, low humor, and stupid. I watch it anyway.
• Upstart Crow -- wanted to be Black Adder, but... not quite. Still a pretty good riff on Shakespeare.

I wish I could remember the source, but it was about the Catholic Church in central/south America with the gist of, 'When I was young, I hated The Church for building grand structures amid an impoverished population. I thought they could spend the money better on food, education, or so many other things -- but as I got older, I realized that having a glorious space to share with the community was worthwhile in its own right.'

I'm not saying that the Olympics aren't vulgar, but at least a lot of it is carried on network TV so it is more public than, say, the latest Marvel movie that not only costs a fortune, but also requires everyone fork over the cash if they want to see it.

I was NOT expecting that in an Olympic Opening Ceremony! Audio aside, it was really good.

from: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-if-reelected-wont-have-to-vote-fixed-1235069397/

At the Florida summit, hosted by conservative group Turning Point Action, Trump promised that if he wins in November, he would “once again appoint rock-solid conservative judges who will protect religious liberty.”

After repeating his usual unfounded claims about mail-in voting, Trump launched into an appeal directed at Christian voters. “Christians, get out and vote!” yelled Trump. “Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine! You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians!” He added, “You gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”

You did really good work looking that up. I appreciate it!

I can't argue with you on that.

Sorry to add this so late, but TV news just told me about an increase in "Teflon Flu". Remembering you had non-stick pans, I wanted to find a link. In a quick check, the majority of the links seemed to come from somewhat suspicious sources such as NYPost and Daily Mail rather than a .gov or .edu.

I'm not saying this is a legitimate thing, but if anyone wants a starting point, you could try here: https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a61623919/teflon-flu-symptoms/

In this particular case, Reuters seems to be pushing the narrative that there's a Border Crisis.

The dominant players in the illicit opioid trade – the Mexican cartels that manufacture most of the drugs and smuggle them into America– have been the subject of detailed reporting over the years. Now, as the first news organization to buy and test fentanyl’s essential ingredients, Reuters has penetrated the hidden sub-industry that makes the cartel operations possible: the international supply chain of precursor chemicals.

For comparison the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports:

Nearly three-fourths of those caught attempting to smuggle fentanyl into the U.S. since October 2022 were U.S. citizens, and they brought in more than half of all fentanyl seized by U.S. authorities, the officials said.

They know they done bad. They're already claiming everyone misheard him and that he didn't really say "colored". They claim he said "college".

From Raw Story, "Fox News has asserted that Kilmeade simply didn't speak clearly and he in fact said "a college sorority."

By the time The Independent was looking into it, the Fox statement was that news has “completely misquoted and unnecessarily maligned Brian Kilmeade who clearly said college sorority.”

They're escalating into another indignant outrage that they're right and everyone else is wrong.

-- but you've been to a 7-11, right? They are franchised, so maybe you have a good one, but some are rather sketchy. Though, to be fair: the super sketchy one a town over actually closed down before covid, so I may be painting with too broad a brush.