Reviewing it (I haven’t needed to touch the setup in a good year or more), it’s basically a replacement to make other code think the browser acceptability check returned true, since feeding in a fake User-Agent stopped being sufficient to pass the check a couple of years ago. One-liner, and not written by me, but I seriously hate the fact that it pushes browser monopoly.

I usually don’t even turn on the TV until the teeny display on the player is showing “MENU”. Achieves the same thing without requiring me to get up.

I would be more impressed if Discourse worked in my browser without using an extension to inject code changes. It also tries to forbid browsers it doesn’t recognize, regardless of their ability to run its code. Plus it doesn’t downgrade gracefully—you should be able to view public information in full without Javascript (I don’t expect any ability to log in or manipulate content, but reading things should work, and Discourse seems to break scrolling somehow). Not impressed. Granted, I’m not sure what I would choose if I were setting up a Web forum today, since mobile is now such a Big Thing and I don’t use it, but Discourse fails at things I consider basic.

This is likely to be C&D’d as well if it ever reaches the point where it does anything useful (remember, reddit doesn’t need grounds that would hold up in court to send a C&D).

The sun will freeze over before Google would give them an API.

“There’s one born every minute.”

A question that comes to mind: Is there a power plant nearby that’s been running at a higher level since the Bitcoin mine settled there? The issue might not be just noise pollution.

Would everyone who is surprised by this please raise your hand? . . . That’s what I thought.

We need more examples?

Seriously, though, there are options in between keeping copyright as it is and removing it altogether. Shortening the term is one. Mandatory mechanical licensing is another (that is, allowing people to make copies for a fee set by the government or a nonpartisan board without requiring permission from the copyright owner, who does, however, receive the fee—the trick is setting the fee at a level that makes it reasonable for the average person making a single copy, but still high enough to make it unattractive for corporations churning out millions of them). We also need to overhaul how derivative works are handled, and some aspects of trademark law.

They can do it at the border or within 100 miles of it

Pretty sure that’s just a US thing (including declaring that international airports are “borders”). Other countries will have other laws.

Still best to bring a burner instead of your real device if you’re passing through international customs, though, even if both countries involved claim to be respectable Western democracies. Just in case.

Note that they’re talking here primarily about $10000-and-up printers that use technologies like laser sintering, not the plastic filament types that you can buy for a few hundred and set up in your garage. Sintering printers can print metal and ceramic as well as plastic, and can produce better-quality parts.

🎵 It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. 🎵 (Seriously, if I had a nickel for every time someone said or implied that . . .)

I’ve never understood the whole “fear of missing out” thing, probably because I’ve spent my entire life “missing out” by most people’s standards and am aware that it isn’t the end of the world.

If it won’t wait by the conveyor belt to collect your checked luggage, there’s still a boring, repetitive task it doesn’t cover.

My guess is that they’re surfacing something from Bing rather than doing this themselves. Still Not Good, though.

Provided you’re paying them, I can’t see why you would need to feel uncomfortable. Many of them would probably be overjoyed to collect some cash doing something they like doing anyway—seniors whose income was just enough pre-COVID are really struggling now.

Unfortunately, no one’s yet succeeded in making a workable checker (AI-written text and the writing of English-as-foreign-language speakers are awkwardly similar along many axes, apparently, so existing checkers have a lot of false positives).

While a nicely-bound blank book with heavy paper isn’t worth $500, it isn’t entirely worthless, either. To really rip buyers off, it has to be an ebook or print-on-demand. As has already been demonstrated.

Probably riffing on the fact that the Pi people hired (some time ago) an ex-cop who had used their devices in surveillance.

I believe there’s an act covering presidential disability, dating from long before Reagan, due to a president’s wife having effectively run the country for a couple of years while her husband was too ill to get out of bed. That would probably cover obvious and serious dementia as well. (Not my country, though, so I may have it wrong.) Problem with the recent Republican presidents is that their insanity is plausibly deniable, if your worldview is damaged enough already.