* Posts by EatsRootsAndLeaves

23 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Sep 2009

It is 20 years since the last commercial flight of Concorde

EatsRootsAndLeaves

No, not a reminder

"A reminder for passengers staring out of the window of a subsonic aircraft, faced with a lengthy long-haul flight, that things weren't always this way."

No, for the vast majority of people on that subsonic aircraft, it is not a reminder that "things weren't always this way."

For that vast majority, the plane they're on is and even when Concorde flew the only way.

Yelp sues Texas for right to publish actual accurate abortion info

EatsRootsAndLeaves

That's Wilhoit's Law: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html

Netflix offers up to $900,000 for AI product manager while actors strike for protection

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Re: 35 people?

"You must earn at least $26,470 in Covered Earnings in your Base Earnings Period to receive Earned Eligibility for Active Plan health coverage. Note: In future years, these minimum earnings requirements may increase. If so, the number of days required for Alternative Days Eligibility will be increased proportionately."

26,470*35 - 926450, so it's a tad rough. But the 900,000 would pay for the annual earnings of those, well it should be 34 not 35, folks in acting jobs which would qualify them for health coverage under SAG-AFTRA. Regardless of where they live.

Virgin Obit: Launch company files for bankruptcy in US

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Re: What ?

Under US law, Chapter 11 bankruptcy is essentially "continue operating but with oversight by a court and agreement from creditors." Debts remain but in abeyance, and the goal is to come out the far side restructured, or in this case, sold as a continuing, viable business. Anyone purchasing the business would also acquire the debt obligations.

Chapter 7 is "sell it, sell every item (e.g., IP, physical equipment, etc., brands, logos...) that'll fetch a price and divvy up the proceeds." IOW, liquidation. Creditors are paid off based on various arcane rules, and many smaller creditors might get nothing. At the end of the process, nothing remains, although it's possible that the 'brand' might've been acquired by some entity, along with the kitchen sink, and pop up somewhere. All debts get paid off in part or in full or simply dropped.

There is a difference in law. Whether, given the lack of employees, there is a difference in reality in this case is up to you to decide. But at least for now it differs for the creditors.

It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system

EatsRootsAndLeaves
WTF?

We'll have to replace our clocks

I was in high school in the US in the 1970s. For some reason I recall not, the metric system was being discussed. A math teacher was moaning that converting to the metric system would mean that "we'd have 10 'hours' in the day and 'a hundred' seconds in a minute..."

Not sure the exact numbers he used, but, the tirade was definitely around the fact that all of our existing clocks would need to be thrown away to switch to the metric system...

And, if you're wondering... it was a widely held opinion that the high school I attended was the district's employer of last resort for those who'd been 'encouraged' by every other school to find elsewhere to teach.

Only 'natural persons' can be recognized as patent inventors, not AI systems, US judge rules

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Re: Judge is right

In the US on a patent application, two key fields pertain to this discussion:

- Inventor(s) - the list of individuals who invented the doohickey claimed by the application. Must be the full and complete list of people (yeah, people) who contributed to the invention. Must not include people who happened to assist (for example, people who ran test equipment but simply followed instructions and reported results that might've helped the invention be developed) and managers (who might've allowed the inventors time to work or bought requested equipment but otherwise didn't contribute.) The article is stating that in the US this list must still be only people.

- Assignee - the 'owner' of the rights to the invented doohickey. Often a company and on the application usually the company that employs/employed the Inventor(s) when they did the work. The Assignee can license, sell or otherwise do whatever they want with the patent once granted. The Inventors have no say in any of that, unless they're also the Assignee.

The above is why I'm named as an Inventor or in the list of Inventors on tens of patents but never as Assignee. I was always employed - and my former employer is the Assignee - as it was all work-for-hire.

Trust Facebook to find a way to make video conferencing more miserable and tedious

EatsRootsAndLeaves
FAIL

Re: Zuckerberg had a reasonably good idea once

As Brian Glanville wrote of Sepp Blatter... 50 new ideas a day, 51 of them bad.

Boffins find an 'actionable clock' hiding in your blood, ticking away to your death

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Naive? Or something else?

"Using iAge it's possible to predict seven years in advance who is going to become frail," he said of the study's findings. "That leaves us lots of room for interventions."

It's absolutely endearing that they even think this is how it'll be used. In the US at least, insurance companies will take this and jack up your rates or deny you coverage, if it's not the 'right' value. Or is endearing the wrong word? Naive? Disingenuous? Unless you're rich enough, in which case you just buy 'good stuff' from poor people.

Just like Fitbits and such trackers have been weaponized. I looked for a way to manually add steps to my daily count after a soccer game in which I couldn't wear it and discovered that it's absolutely impossible. Why? There are insurance companies and employers that require customers/employees to do the 10,000 steps daily or... else. So, manually adding steps wouldn't allow a club to be held over their heads.

WTH are NFTs? Here is the token, there is the Beeple....

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Re: So, it's a bubble?

> I'll happily agree that copyright is automatically assigned at the point of creation (though as you noted, that wasn't always the case - IIRC, in the USA, you had to register it).

Copyright in the US is now automatically assigned. But, copyright registration still exists. AND, in the US, if you want to be able to sue in federal court against perceived copyright infringement you must have registered it (slight simplification, see https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf.) Without registration you can still file DMCA requests, etc., but not sue. And since copyright is federal, you can only sue in federal court.

>E.g. back in the day, people used to put stuff in an sealed envelope and post it to themselves; as long as the seal remained unbroken, the mail date-stamp was considered proof.

>(Or at least: that was the recommendation I used to see in computer magazines when people asked about sending their games to publishers. I don't know if that was ever actually used in real life...)

What the US Copyright Office calls "Poor Man's Copyright." And absolutely useless. As note, since you can't sue without having registered your copyright, simply posting the document to yourself does nothing and is less than having a series of drafts and backups on USB key and the like.

File this next to Mars bars under 'things that should not be deep-fried': Marks & Spencer's Colin the Caterpillar

EatsRootsAndLeaves
Pint

Scottish culture taking over the world

Well, if you're in Beaverton, Oregon (just outside of Portland) and you have a hunger for fish and chips and a deep fried Mars bar and Irn-Bru... you're in luck!

https://www.oregonlive.com/dining/2018/09/some_of_portlands_best_fish_an.html

"The Frying Scotsman, a Portland fish and chip cart from Scotland native James King, will pack up its fryers and move to Beaverton after nearly a decade downtown.

Alongside thick-cut fries and golden cod or haddock -- considered by some to be Portland's best fish and chips -- King offers Scottish staples such as deep-fried Mars bars and the bright orange soda Irn Bru (Scotland's other national drink)."

Then again, Scotland has nothing on American State Fairs when it comes to deep-frying... anything. Bubblegum, beer, butter... just a sample of the, um, goodness on offer.

https://www.delish.com/food/news/a38681/fried-bubble-gum-and-other-big-tex-choice-awards-finalists/

Yes, fried beer... fried Pepsi... fried cheesecake...

[Beer to wash it all down because there isn't an icon of arteries seizing up.]

Mortal wombat: 4 generations of women fight for their lives against murderous marsupial

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Another wombat reference from the Fortune program

the wombat lives across the seas

among the far antipodes

he may exist on nuts and berries

or then again on missionaries

the wombat's distant habitat precludes

conclusive knowledge of his moods

but I would not engage the wombat

in any form of mortal combat

- From the Unix 'fortune' program

Publishers sue to shut down books-for-all Internet Archive for 'willful digital piracy on an industrial scale'

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Re: Unusually

If you're thinking of Public Lending Right (PLR) or Lending Right Schemes (ELR/PLR) then this does not exist in the United States.

It does exist in the UK, much of Europe, Australia, New Zealand and a few others.

So the IA has zero responsibility once they've purchased an initial copy (and therefore the royalty portion of that cost) to pay anyone anything for any lending in the USA. Whether the IA tracks and pays these fees for loans to UK or other residents, no idea. To my knowledge, these schemes generally only apply to public libraries and in some cases (e.g., Oz) educational libraries and institutions so the IA even being included would be a base question.

Most of these schemes only pay if an author (and publisher and other eligible folks) live in the country in question, e.g., Australian authors, publishers, etc. (https://www.arts.gov.au/funding-and-support/lending-rights).

From attacked engineers to a crypto-loving preacher with a questionable CV: Yep, it's still very much 5G silly season

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Re: Fall of empires (and civilization too?)

"(ECs are not legally obliged to take the ballots into account)"

Based on constitutional strictures, true. But many states, for example, Washington, have state laws that require the electors to give their votes to the winner of the majority of popular votes cast in that state.

But, after 2016 multiple lawsuits were brought against these various 'faithless elector' laws and at least one is going to the US Supreme Court. If the court strikes down these laws then yes, it would truly be that the American people do not vote for President. They vote for slates of electors that the vast majority of the population has zero clue who they are, what they do or even why they exist. These electors would have zero constraint on them as to how they vote.

Another level of problem is that these electors have traditionally been low-level state party workers and other random folks. No specific laws regarding acting in the public benefit, don't take bribes, etc., apply to them, usually named to recognise their volunteer efforts or perhaps notable people in the community. In the 20th Century they simply became little more than a bookkeeping artifact but without these laws and with the full corruption of the orange terror to bring to bear the US may as well not bother anymore with voting 'for president.'

It's Black Hat and DEF CON in Vegas this week. And yup, you know what that means. Hotel room searches for guns

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Motel 6

But who wants to stay at a Motel 6?

Hey! Back in the 1980s my soccer team stayed at (probably that off strip) Motel 6 every year!

When you play the game of Big Spendy Thrones, nobody wins – your crap chair just goes missing

EatsRootsAndLeaves
Facepalm

Re: "disk drives the size of top-loading washing machines"

Pah. You don't know fun until you get told (the halcyon days of 1982) by the Ops guys that one of those washing machines has crashed. Ok, sigh. I enter the machine room and walk to the indicated disk drive. Yes, all indications it has joined the choir invisible.

I popped open the lid. The disk manufacturers I don't recall (the mainframe clone was an SEL, Systems Electronics Laboratories steam-powered behemoth) but they had a fan when the lid was opened blew filtered air up and out to discourage dust from falling in while you switched disk packs in and out.

In this case I was struck in the face and chest by tiny bits of paper and bits of now free-floating oxide disk coating.

One of the morning operators had put in the "daytime" systems disk but there was a piece of paper stuck to the bottom of it. He'd not noticed, closed the lid, spun it up, disk heads emerged, and made contact with the paper. Not only was the paper shredded but the heads and paper hit the disk drives and freed oxide.

Much fun was had when I had to rebuild the system disk from base tapes and install all updates (backups were, um, corrupted).

Also fun when I had to call it in for service.

"What? Did you say paper?" Even with his hand apparently over the mouthpiece the torrents of laughter as he relayed this to the rest of the office were clear.

Bulb smart meters in England wake up from comas miraculously speaking fluent Welsh

EatsRootsAndLeaves
Pint

Tough, sinewy men

How is it no one has posted this as yet?

Blackadder: Have you ever been to Wales, Baldrick?

Baldrick: No - but I've often thought I'd like to.

Blackadder: Well, don't. It's a ghastly place. Huge gangs of tough, sinewy men roam the valleys, terrifying people with their close-harmony singing. You need half a pint of phlegm in your throat just to pronounce the place names! Never ask for directions in Wales, Baldrick; you'll be washing spit out of your hair for a fortnight.

- Blackadder the Third

Apparently the rumours of a fifth season are just that, rumours.

In the US? Using Medicaid? There's a good chance DXC is about to boot your data into the AWS cloud

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Re: The countdown to disaster has started

Not even that. As it's Medicaid the victims whose data will be released are poor people. While they won't deserve it they won't have the wherewithal to complain and no one will likely champion their cause.

DeepNude deep-nuked: AI photo app stripped clothes from women to render them naked. Now, it's stripped from web

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Re: Time passes...

Another person who fails to understand 'consent.'

Plenty of adult people willingly post nudes of themselves on the internet. That isn't the problem.

But the people being targeted by this app have not likely consented to their nudes being publicly posted.

Is that so hard to understand? Apparently.

SILENCE of the OWLS may mean real-life 'Whisper Mode' for Black Helicopters

EatsRootsAndLeaves

Silent plunging

It's not exactly silent during the plunge. There is all of that screaming going on...

Think enterprise software is complex? Check out the licences

EatsRootsAndLeaves
Meh

Oracle Licensing and Hard Partitiong

"Only servers virtualised with Xen-based OracleVM can get the discount of "hard" partitioning. According to Oracle, every other hypervisor - including other Xen-based hypervisors - can deliver only "soft" partitioning."

Oracle recognises numerous hypervisors that offer hard partitioning, IBM's PowerVM as one of them. Your article equates "x86 hypervisors" = "all possible ways to virtualise systems".

Stare into the abyss at http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/partitioning-070609.pdf

Habitable HEAVY GRAVITY WORLD found just 42 light-years away

EatsRootsAndLeaves
Alien

What? No 'Mission of Gravity' reference?

Pshaw. The children today.

Oracle, Cisco crow new database flash dash record

EatsRootsAndLeaves
WTF?

3rd lowest? Try sixth...

How do you get third lowest? Right on the TPC-C site there are five Price/tpmC results ahead of this one. You had also better be satisfied with web support since that's all you get.

Oracle to talk Sun hardware on October 14

EatsRootsAndLeaves
WTF?

But it's a useless benchmark

Or so Sun have been saying since, oh, 2001 or so. They've been relentless in publicly saying this. I'll note that they aren't the only ones who say this but they've not been shy.