Posts by iain666 21 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Jun 2022
Eh, no.
It's not the same as me "reading a bunch of books and writing another book using your accumulated knowledge", it's the same as me stealing a bunch of books that I then read and write another book using my accumulated knowledge.
Glossing over whether "building a statistical model of a language that allows for probabilistic generation of plausible text" is any way similar to "accumulating knoweldge" the crime alleged is the initial theft, not the subsequent "writing".
"The morons that voted for him can reap the tragic consequences" - that would be fine if the US was a tiny, inconsequential country somewhere. Unfortunately we're all going to reap the consequences, American or otherwise, Trump supporter or not.
The thing about piercings (mostly) and tattoos is that once you get them they're there forever. You cannot know if the parents you are judging got them when they were parents relying on benefits or whether they had them long before that point.
I don't see a problem with your funds (and only yours) being restricted to bread and water - we should do that.
"Topics supports interest-based ads that keep the web free and open, and significantly improves privacy compared to third-party cookies,"
I currently have a browser setting that lets me reject all third party cookies automatically. If I have one that lets me opt out of Topics then it's exactly the same as far as I'm concerned, and if that doesn't exist then it's a significant degradation. Third party cookies and privacy are diametrically opposed but nobody who cares about that accepts third party cookies anyway. How is Topics better for us? I expect it'll end up harder to opt out of if it happens and so be worse.
Microsoft, like all the other big tech companies laying off a load of employees, knew as well as the rest of us that the pandemic induced spike in demand wouldn't be permanent. They assumed, probably rightly, that it would last long enough to make taking on a load of permies and laying them of would be cheaper than contractors.
NSO aren't a scapegoat. They're a publisher of malware who deserve everything they get. Yeah, it'd be nice to see the people who deployed it get collared too. If Meta could be held liable for zero day exploits of their software that would be a bit scary and essentially kill software development. Also many other things. Selling wooden furniture that you know could be set on fire by a malicious actor? If Meta are legally culpable for vulnerabilities they didn't know existed then how much more culpable are companies who sell boats while fully aware that they can be sunk if people put holes in the hull?
None of that excuses NSO.
I'm used to, erm, underestimating my alcohol intake when asked by my GP to avoid being told again what I already know about how it's not really all that healthy.
To feel compelled to share as little as possible with my GP or any of the rest of the NHS I interact with because I can't trust where that data is going to end up and what will be done with it is just depressing. Privacy or health is not a choice we should be compelled to make.
"matching a contractor to a client, allowing the contractor to specify prices and details" is in no way being a "company that sells IT services", it's managing a directory of people and companies that provide IT services.
It's business is providing a better way, in a particular sector, to match client requirements to appropriate contractors and either the clients will pay a fee for that service or the contractors will be paying to be listed on the service. The employees of this company will be doing the work of maintaining the directory of available contractors and matching them with client requirements.
" A California judge will now have to decide whether or not to approve the settlement."
If FB suggested it the judge should add at least two orders of magnitude on principle without even looking at the amount.
And then go "well, one more would be about a year of profits, and that seems kind of fitting so lets do that"...
"FTC is sending a chilling message to anyone who wishes to innovate in VR"
Build something good enough to stand on its own two feet, not something that kind of looks like it might maybe get there sometime soon and wait for Meta to buy you out so you can take the money and run.
That's not a chilling message that's encouraging innovation done right rather than half baked.
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