• 0 Posts
  • 47 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 15th, 2023
  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.socialtoTechnology@lemmy.world•The Man Amazon Erased
    121·
    2 years ago

    I think you are missing the point here. Yes, Amazon, blah blah blah. But technology and everyday life are increasing in their intersection. And things like the Equifax breach show, you don’t have to participate to be involved.

    In most of everyday activities you have some form of legal recourse, save for many of the technical activities. In many cases, this is largely left to companies to offer recourse and aside from arbitration, you have little other rights offered to you to bring about civil suit. Like the guy’s photos, he took those photos. He has legal copyright over them, except when they’re hosted in the cloud the TOS of many services makes your legal copyright suddenly a joint ownership. This reduces your ability to exercise your copyright to get your photos back and increases the bar of evidence to entry for civil litigation. For the most part, you are at the whims of corporations to exercise a right the Constitution grants you (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8).

    That’s the more general thing you should take away from this. You have rights granted to you, but because our legal system is largely silent on many digital aspects, you are barred in many cases to exercise your rights in the United States. For a lot of things, you lack legal recourse on something that everyday becomes more and more intertwined with your everyday life, whether you like it or not.

    Yes, yes. It’s easy to look at this particular episode and indicate “well you shouldn’t use Amazon”. And that’s a fine take, but you’re missing the point the article is attempting to make. In general, there are a lot of rights granted to you that you don’t get to use because the law on how you use those rights in the court system is largely left up for companies to dictate. That is a really non-good position that lots of people have been yelling for our leaders in Government to address. When people yell, “we need to modernize our laws”, this is what they are talking about.

    Our predecessors created protections for us citizens. And because our current leadership won’t translate those protections into the terms of modern society, companies are getting to dictate how, when, and where you get to exercise those protections our fore-bearers worked tirelessly for. You are having something stolen from you that it is easy to steal because so few actually need it, but those that need it are seeing the hard implications of that theft. And it will become more and more problematic as more and more things of our society require that technology. And some of it, you don’t get to have a say on if you’ll join in or not.

    So it’s really important that “IN GENERAL” you remember that this is really, really, really important to everyone. Yes, this specific instance, just don’t use Amazon’s cloud services until they have been resolution processes, that are more transparent. But please, don’t loose sight of the bigger picture here that the article mentions.

  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.socialtoGames@sh.itjust.works•Unity: An open letter to our community
    30·
    2 years ago

    Just remember, the current CEO was too greedy even for EA

    John Riccitiello is his name. Dude has the anti-Midas touch. Everything he has ever touched turned to shit. How people keep hiring him is beyond me.

    That said, the board of directors is also part to blame for this. One name stands out, Roelof Botha. Same guy from Sequoia Capital that backed the whole Elon Musk taking a loan out for Twitter and old buddy of Musk’s from PayPal days. He’s also been known for some “choice” selections on where to put VC money.

    And of course you have Barry Schuler of “I made AOL popular” fame. So… Yeah, he’s a choice selection for the board as well.

    But on the other side of it, you’ve got David Helgason one of the co-founders of Unity who has been pretty vocal about “We fucked up!”. But to me that is a tell-tell that Riccitiello et al. sold the rest of the board on the change.

    Point being, the board is made up of hard going MFers who fuck up along the way and folks who are easily rolled over by promises of $$$. So while the CEO is indeed “a work of something”, the board is a perfect storm of “egos and pushovers”.

    Either way, yeah, I think that since literally no leadership change is coming from this “you put the same chemicals in, you’re absolutely going to get the same reaction out.” The only thing they have likely taken from this whole thing is that they cannot be as obvious about changes as they were.

  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.socialtoNews@lemmy.world•House Republicans release short-term bill to avert government shutdown until Oct. 31
    20·
    2 years ago

    SEC. 2010. OPERATION STONEGARDEN.
    (a) ESTABLISHMENT .—There is established in the Department a program to be known as ‘Operation Stonegarden’, under which the Secretary, acting through the Administrator, shall make grants to eligible law enforcement agencies, through State administrative agencies, to enhance border security in accordance with this section.

    Well that’s escalating fast. This would allow local police to “enhance” border security, which is… Ungood. So this is obviously going to die in the Senate.

    To be eligible to receive a grant under this section, a law enforcement agency shall
    …
    a State or territory with a maritime border.

    Ah shit, we’re going to give a ton of money to Florida’s State army. Boo!

    Man, Division C of this just sucks giant donkey balls. Also, some of it doesn’t even make math sense. Use the budget allocation pre-2021 for 900 miles of solid wall? There’s not enough dinero amigo! And yes, even with the oh so clever item (3):

    Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall waive all legal requirements necessary to ensure the expeditious design, testing, construction, installation, deployment, integration, operation, and maintenance of the physical barriers, tactical infrastructure, and technology under this section

    Just ignoring all the construction regulations isn’t going to save that much money on nine followed by two zeros of miles of solid wall in a lot of the land that Congress is requiring. It’s just a non-doable thing, even if we were building the wall out of papier-mâché. Also the whole “oh don’t worry about documenting anything during the construction” that seemed to work “oh so well” with the PPP loans. Let’s clearly do that again.

    Oh also of note is the lack of any guidance on E-Verify. Clearly we cannot be going after “innocent” employers who “forgot” to check if the person was a legal immigrant or not.

    All I have to say is that whole thing is a BIG ASK for just kicking the can to October.

    SEC . 101. (a) Such amounts as may be necessary, at a rate for operations as provided in the applicable appropriations Acts for fiscal year 2023

    Just FYI for anyone who doesn’t know. The US fiscal year is from Oct. 1 to Sep. 30. So FY23 ends on September 30th and that’s literally the first thing this bill covers. “We’re just going with it until the end of FY23.”

    All I’m going to say is that I’m putting a shiny quarter on this being told to pound sand by the Senate. Just a hunch.

  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.socialtoNews@lemmy.world•Contradicting federal health officials, Florida Gov. DeSantis recommends against new COVID booster
    81·
    2 years ago

    but he definitely has an M.D. from Harvard

    Yeah, of Internal Medicine. Infectious diseases is a specialty of that domain for the reason that most internists hand off to specialist for specific diseases and mostly deal with generalized management. I don’t go to a gastroenterologist for hip replacement. Someone who is into family medicine ain’t my first choice for diagnosis and treatment options for something like lymphoma, I’ll likely go to a specialist who knows what the hell they’re talking about for specifically dealing with the disease and they’ll hand off notes to my PCP for generalized management. Ladapo is no different here, Internal Medicine doctors are ones that usually look at a patient and try to figure out who to send them to for specialized care and then handle general management based on the notes from specialist.

    Ladapo is indeed a doctor. He’s got a domain of mastery. But that domain isn’t on infectious diseases, but instead of deferring to those who have devoted their lives to this specific domain of study, he’s just spouting off at the mouth about something in his professional career he’d refer patients off to a specialist for.

    So, I find it humorous to say the least that when he was an internists that whole being held accountable for running his mouth off about things was next to nothing and routinely handed off for specialty care. But now that he’s in a political position where he can be held less accountable for BS he spouts off, he’s got no problem indicating that he’s got the answers to it all.

    It’s just funny how once that accountability goes out the window, he’s less affable to defer to specialist’s wisdom.

    The quip about me heading to my optometrist is going a bit extreme indeed, but still, guy has a background in knowing when to hand off to others when he’s being held accountable, and now has a background of running his damn mouth when he’s no longer being held accountable for the crap he’s saying. But that said, guy better hope to hold tight to that political career now. Making a lot noise needlessly isn’t a look most hospitals like for their residents.

  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.socialtoNews@lemmy.world•'I did the right thing,' Jan. 6 rioter says before being sentenced to 2.5 years in prison
    26·
    2 years ago

    Wow, let’s cover some of the gems there.

    After her trial, St Cyr had said in a Facebook livestream that she wasn’t sure the case would ever move to sentencing because “the truth” would come out before then.

    I’m sure “the truth” is coming right after infrastructure month.

    "So just keep watching Tucker, keep spreading the truth, keep talking about the corruption, keep sharing, and we will bring the system doooooowwwwn.”

    Tucker Carlson’s show was canceled.

    At her sentencing hearing Wednesday, St Cyr’s attorney, Nicole Owens, said her client was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, because of a “misguided sense of duty.”

    C’mon don’t leave us hanging, who was the source of that misguided sense? Also, getting ice cream on your first date with someone only to find out they’re lactose intolerant, that’s misguided. Attempting to overthrow the government, that’s a few levels past misguided. Just saying.

    “I’ve been on a spiritual journey,” St Cyr said. Then she launched into a bizarre 45-minute rant — until the judge cut her off with a stern warning to wrap up — on a series of topics, including her beliefs about the air we breathe, her spiritual being, radio frequencies, her difficult upbringing and a woman she watched being arrested on a playground during the Covid pandemic.

    Actually I blame the judge on this one. After sitting for weeks listening to this lady’s crazy Facebook streams, figuring “what’s the worse that could happen if I let this lady speak freely?”, you’re just opening yourself up for that.

    That said, I’m sure the 45-minute jam packed insane stream of consciousness diatribe was something to behold.

    She also talked about her actions during the Capitol riot. She didn’t express regret or accept any responsibility for her actions that day, and she indicated that she wasn’t concerned about the prospect of serving jail time

    Shocking. Been a pattern of that with folks who attempted to overthrow the government. It’s like these small jail sentences aren’t deterrent enough.

    “I did the right thing,” St Cyr said about her actions on Jan. 6. “I know it sounds delusional.”

    Oh sweetheart, it’s a bit past just sounding that way.

    In a Facebook livestream after her sentencing, St Cyr also said she hadn’t filed taxes since 2019, and she encouraged her followers not to pay their taxes.

    I foresee another court case in her future, just a hunch.

  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.socialtoNews@lemmy.world•Contradicting federal health officials, Florida Gov. DeSantis recommends against new COVID booster
    26·
    2 years ago

    Florida Surgeon General who has no formal education in infectious diseases, gives advice about infectious diseases. Seriously, the guy’s medical background is “PhD in Health Policy, clinical training in internal medicine, and clinical studies for ‘weight loss, smoking cessation, and cardiovascular disease prevention among people with HIV’.”

    I may as well just go to my optometrist and ask what they think about the vaccine while I’m at it. Good professionals command what they have mastery over and become supportive on that which they are not. Shitty professionals run around acting like they know everything. This guy is very much the latter.

  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.socialtoTechnology@lemmy.world•X updates its terms to ban crawling and scraping
    15·
    2 years ago

    Yeah that’s literally UNENFORCEABLE. We just had a case last year that indicated that you can scrap data from sites so long as the data being scrapped isn’t used for profit.

    Additionally, scrappers cannot be legally held to have agreed to the TOS. Just simply typing an address in and then receiving a page back doesn’t mean that anyone agrees to the TOS of the server that gave the page. For pretty much the same reason software couldn’t enforce the “if you don’t agree with the terms on the CD-ROM, then you cannot open the package the CD-ROM is in.” So just because X wrote that in their TOS has zero bearing on if they can actually enforce that through the court system, which likely that’s going to be a big NAH.

    That’s based off of the point of the gate-up/gate-down test given by the courts. If a normal person can find a random “tweet (are we still calling them that?)” by typing a URL, the gate is up, you cannot pick and choose who gets to enter. If you don’t want a random tweet being scrapped the gates must be down. That means nobody typing in a random URL can ever access that tweet, they have to go through the gate house to gain entry to the resource. But gates down means that no one is going to link to a tweet because when they click the link, instead of seeing the related information, they get handed a login page. Which X has been trying that and news outlets bitching that they’re not going to post tweets in their story if Musk is just going to block everyone.

    The thing that X could argue is that someone is using their tweets for “profit” which is exactly the case they’re trying with the ADL and the CCDH. They’re trying to argue that these not-for-profits are profiting off of convincing ad buyers to not buy ads. Which, if that sounds crazy, OH BOY IS IT. However, Musk’s lawyers have attempted to muddle the waters on what is "PROFIT". So grab some popcorn for that one.

    The thing is that, I get Musk wants to hold tight copyright on the tweets and not surface a lot to others who might use that data for who knows what purpose. BUT you cannot have cake and have eaten it as well. Musk doesn’t get the best of both worlds. He can put everything behind a wall and attempt to enforce his TOS, but that’s still not really go to go well for his ADL/CCDH case. Or he can surface the tweets for the Internet to read. But he cannot have both. We’ve settled that in courts and Congress hasn’t made any kind of motion in changing that standing.