Sculptus Poe

Surveys have always been nonsense. I suppose if you are legitimately trying to find something out then that is one thing, but almost every group doing surveys has an ulterior motive. If the data starts looking bad for them, they just don’t release it or they cherry-pick who they are talking to by how they gather the data. Either way, it is always skewed towards the advantage of whoever is paying the tab.

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They have discovered that even the Amazon rain forest is actually a result of agriculture. I suppose you enjoy eating… It makes no sense to rave against agriculture in general. At any rate I wish they would start domesticating Melipona beecheii for North American bee keeping. It is a native american bee, though it is more central and south america as it is tropical. It is also stingless, which is a plus. Native Americans in Mexico harvested them for honey.

Well, domestic bees are invasive. I wonder if they are going to try to feed this to wild bees… Probably not. Still, I want domestic bees to flourish, because I like honey, so I’m not that mad.

All the TVs nowadays are pretty obnoxious with their bars staying up for a few seconds too long between turning them on and switching to the source. I suppose that might be the price we pay when we get a 75" for under $500. My samsung TV forced me to accept an update I didn’t ask for and approve the changed “terms of service” as if I read that. I could have given them rights to my firstborn for all I know.

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If they reprinted those scanned books and sold them or even gave them away, they would be in more trouble than you would by sharing on limewire by dent of numbers. That isn’t what they are doing with these books. In fact, they did get in trouble for using the books they didn’t buy.

When a bookstore goes out of business or just can’t sell a book, they don’t return it to the printers, they tear off the cover, return that and by law have to throw the rest of the book in the trash and destroy it. So books are already destroyed by the millions. When I was a kid our hometown bookstore went out of business and I watched them throw away 2 metal dumpsters full of coverless books. If they were destroying ancient texts or valuable copies, that would be more something to get excited about. I doubt that they were doing that though.

I mean, really, you probably have $0 worth of damages to worry about. If something in particular happens, like corporate espionage hurting your business that causes real damage, then you have the freedom to sue for that particular thing. (Supposing you aren’t locked out by the settlement.)

These are civil cases, buying your way out is all that happens in the best of circumstances in a civil case. It is just a matter of how much you have to pay to buy out. Punitive damages might do some extra justice, but what would that be? In the end you have to imagine that some radom person has sued you unjustly and decide how you want an innocent person to be treated, or perhaps they sued you with some small real point to their lawsuit, do you want the default to be that you are ruined? Maybe you didn’t intend harm, but want to either make amends or at least get past the lawsuit so you can get on with your life, do you want no recourse possible?

In the end, if Google was forced out of business, many(most) of us would be way worse off. That is not the ideal outcome. Ideally, the case brings enough money to the plaintiff to right any hardship caused and, in the case of punitive damages, does just enough hardship to the defendant that they are dissuaded from pursuing that course of action, but you aren’t trying to kill them.

Good gravy. 1984 wasn’t a guidebook.

Settlements only happen with the consent of both parties. I don’t see that as a problem. If you really don’t want a settlement, then opt out of the class action and bring your own case or do what you can to make sure the lawyer for the class action won’t settle. That I suppose is unlikely, as the lawyer will do whatever ends up being the most likely win case scenario in their opinion and the number of people in the class action will probably mean you have no individual say in it (not sure how that particular piece works but no class action suit that approached me gave me any options for what I wanted out of it).

Well, trash. I already knew about these, but as fossils. This headline made me think they found a branch of them just growing in Scotland. But no, it is just the thing we already knew about. Not sure how they got any information that confirms they weren’t plants or fungi from fossils, but I guess that is the only newsworthy thing here. (Tubes, mostly looking at the branching of tubes and how they differ from any fruiting fungus is what I gather after reading the actual paper. I do think it is interesting that they also focused on how they are different from crustaceans. It would have been pretty interesting if those were crab trees.)

I’m not anti-AI at all, but their LLM definitely isn’t ready for the top of a google search as if it is real information. Of course, posting promoted search results at the top of the searches as if it was a real result already devalued them. They at least need the LLM result to be an opt-in option with caveats. I would probably opt-in but I would like off to be the default.

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I just updated through Ninite and it went to 8.8.9.

I would legitimately watch robot boxing.

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8k is a little high. I feel like 4k is a significant change from 1080p, especially if you use your screen as a computer monitor.

Yeah, I wouldn’t watch it. I also don’t watch boxing or football. They probably should have shut them down if they are policing their streams at all.