c/Superbowl

For all your owl related needs!

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • I’d like to see a world more like that, but it feels like something that would require a society much different than the one we currently have.

    Even your simplified mention of freeing IP not being marketed, in the Internet age, does having an item listed as for sale but out of stock or for an unreasonable price counted as being marketed? It’s technically advertised for sale at no real cost, and can be done so in perpetuity. Or they could sell themselves product to show legal sales.

    Simple rules and judgement operating under the intentof the law makes sense to rational individuals like us, but with scammy business and individuals, that’s why we end up with a complex legal system. If we hate when legal loopholes are taken advantage of, we can’t outright hate when laws get more complex.


  • I largely agree. I don’t know the best solution for copyright. On one hand, I don’t think that necessarily the creators’ kids deserve rights forever. They didn’t make the stuff. But on the other hand, who does get the money after the creators are gone? The publisher in this case should get something for publishing physical materials or for marketing their wares that sell, but again, they didn’t create it so someone should get something.

    I do think that if nobody does anything with a work for x amount of time (maybe 10 years) then it should be fair game for anyone that does.

    Even things like old games, if I download a Contra NES ROM, how am I hurting Nintendo or Konami?

    If I download LotR, how am I ripping off Tolkien? I’m not stealing a hard copy. I could borrow it from a physical library. Why can’t I borrow it from an electronic library? The person that deserves the rights to the literal story is dead. He doesn’t care.





  • I think many may now be too young to remember, but in the 70s and 80s, this was a big issue.

    NY Times, 11 June, 1983 - DEMAND INCREASES FOR FIRE-SAFE CLOTHING

    Clothing that can erupt into flames is coming under increasing scrutiny of consumer and fire safety organizations. They say Federal regulations governing the safety of fabrics used in clothing are too weak to protect the people who are most vulnerable: the elderly.

    Those who most often suffer serious injury or death from clothing fires, safety experts say, are retired people who spend many hours of the day in such loose-fitting garments as bathrobes or housecoats. With the exception of children’s sleepwear, for which special regulations were decreed in the 1970’s, Federal standards allow clothing manufacturers to use all but the most extremely flammable fabrics.

    Plastic fibers can melt to your skin, which isn’t great considering you’re in contact with the seats and carpets of the car. In an emergency, you’re not prepared to deal with additional complications like that.

    The article I linked here is pretty good, so I recommend reading it if you aren’t familiar with this issue from back then. It will really help give you the other side of the issue to see why these chemicals are there to begin with.


  • Not sure exactly why you’re getting downvoted as that was essentially the point of the article:

    Flame retardant chemicals off-gas or leach from the seat and interior fabrics into the air, — especially in hot weather, when car interiors can reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

    Advocates argue that the risks of these chemicals outweigh the benefits.

    But health researchers have found that the average U.S. child has lost up to 5 IQ points from exposure to flame retardants in cars and furniture. And adults with the highest levels of flame retardants in their blood face a risk of death by cancer that is four times greater than those with the lowest levels, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.




  • Lol that’s exactly the stuff I mean. Legalize drugs, sure. Make them safe and take the business from cartels. Legalize anonymous strangers selling random chemicals, nah.

    It was good maybe the first 3 months of the Great Migration, then had a sharp decline. Those first few months were great.

    I’m not here for anyone’s militant views on politics, software licensing, diet, or religion. I just tend to avoid most comment sections anymore.


  • Dang paywall. That’s at least something I can look into more directly though, so thank you.

    Lemmy makes me feel right wing anymore. I think the general news and politics here might be worse than Reddit, which is a shame. There’s a lot of things I’d like to learn or discuss, but half the threads might as well be bizarro MAGA rallies with how cultish they get.

    I just came back to this post from one on Angela Chao, and just like the last one about that story, people are cheering on this lady’s death because they don’t like her brother-in-law. I haven’t been able to find anything about Angela that would indicate she had it coming, but that isn’t stopping anyone. If people have valid criticism of a person or idea, share it. Don’t just keep shouting “such-and-such bad!” over and over.


  • I see a bunch of complaints against Kahn, but I haven’t been able to find articles on what she did that someone else would have done to be more effective. I don’t normally follow this type of news, so if anyone can point me to some articles, I’d appreciate it.

    I’ve heard a few interviews with Kahn, and she sounds like someone looking to make a difference, so I’d like to cheer her on, but if she’s not the right person for the job, it’d be nice to see some examples why. I’d think much could go on to make her lose without it necessarily being due to her actions or inactions.








  • Upon Mr. Dahl’s request, LexisNexis sent him a 258-page “consumer disclosure report,” which it must provide per the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

    What it contained stunned him: more than 130 pages detailing each time he or his wife had driven the Bolt over the previous six months. It included the dates of 640 trips, their start and end times, the distance driven and an accounting of any speeding, hard braking or sharp accelerations. The only thing it didn’t have is where they had driven the car.

    According to the report, the trip details had been provided by General Motors — the manufacturer of the Chevy Bolt. LexisNexis analyzed that driving data to create a risk score “for insurers to use as one factor of many to create more personalized insurance coverage,” according to a LexisNexis spokesman, Dean Carney. Eight insurance companies had requested information about Mr. Dahl from LexisNexis over the previous month.

    “It felt like a betrayal,” Mr. Dahl said. “They’re taking information that I didn’t realize was going to be shared and screwing with our insurance.”

    Automakers and data brokers that have partnered to collect detailed driving data from millions of Americans say they have drivers’ permission to do so. But the existence of these partnerships is nearly invisible to drivers, whose consent is obtained in fine print and murky privacy policies that few read.

    Especially troubling is that some drivers with vehicles made by G.M. say they were tracked even when they did not turn on the feature — called OnStar Smart Driver — and that their insurance rates went up as a result.

    “I don’t know the definition of hard brake. My passenger’s head isn’t hitting the dash,” he said. “Same with acceleration. I’m not peeling out. I’m not sure how the car defines that. I don’t feel I’m driving aggressively or dangerously.”

    In response to questions from The New York Times, G.M. confirmed that it shares “select insights” about hard braking, hard accelerating, speeding over 80 miles an hour and drive time of Smart Driver enrollees with LexisNexis and another data broker that works with the insurance industry called Verisk.

    Customers turn on Smart Driver, said Ms. Lucich, the G.M. spokeswoman, “at the time of purchase or through their vehicle mobile app.” It is possible that G.M. drivers who insisted they didn’t opt in were unknowingly signed up at the dealership, where salespeople can receive bonuses for successful enrollment of customers in OnStar services, including Smart Driver, according to a company manual.

    After LexisNexis and Verisk get data from consumers’ cars, they sell information about how people are driving to insurance companies. To access it, the insurance companies must get consent from the drivers — say, when they go out shopping for car insurance and sign off on boilerplate language that gives insurance companies the right to pull third-party reports.

    This summary contains 489 words. I’m neither a bot nor open source, but the bot summary was poo.

    As usual, lack of transparency is of key concern. Digital opt-in where other people have physical control of the device and have a profit motivation should not be acceptable.

    The quote about what is a hard brake exactly or heavy acceleration is most relevant to my thoughts. Without any context, are you hard braking to avoid dangers? How many hard brakes are acceptable? What is the penalty for hard braking, etc?

    My girlfriend tried the OBD reader for her insurance for a bit, and it didn’t anything one way or the other to her insurance. For something as random as driving, I dont see who would want to volunteer for it. We know the only direction prices ever move is up, so what does the consumer have to gain?