merc
@merc@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on It's a fun new game 1 week ago:
Because it would be nice to have a card number that looked plausible that could be used in movies. Imagine if every phone number in a movie had to be (555) 555-5555. It would break your suspension of disbelief.
- Comment on It's a fun new game 1 week ago:
Too bad the Visa and Mastercard ones are so obviously fake.
- Comment on Bluesky has started honoring takedown requests from Turkish government 1 week ago:
You’re right that Bluesky isn’t federated, but it most definitely is centralized.
- Comment on It's a fun new game 1 week ago:
It doesn’t seem to be the case, but it would be interesting if there were CC numbers that were meant to be used in movies, similar to how 555-XXXX phone numbers are never real.
- Comment on Determining the reason no one replied to your Lemmy post. 1 week ago:
It’s a different model.
Mastodon, like Twitter, is a person-centered setup. You can use hashtags, but most people don’t. You follow people not communities. As a result it’s basically microblogs, where most people are just posting into the void. Celebrities are followed more, so they get more replies, so there are more conversations. But, fundamentally it’s not really inviting interactions.
Lemmy, like Reddit, is a topic-centered setup. It has a bunch of communities and people post something because they think it might be interesting for people who are also interested in that community. Every post is basically an invitation to have a discussion about something.
I think the friction to posting something on Lemmy is slightly higher, but when you do, it’s more likely to generate comments.
- Comment on Determining the reason no one replied to your Lemmy post. 1 week ago:
Similarly a “good post”, one that gets lots of comments, would be any post that gets more than 13 comments.
By my count, this comment will take your post from one with 12 comments to one with 13 comments, therefore I’m conferring on you the title of “good post”. Congratulations!!
However, I’m assuming that you’re including your own comments in the comment tally. If you’re not, then your 2 comments so far to this post don’t count, and you’ll only be at 11, and therefore “not good”.
If you are counting your own comments on your own post, can you juice the numbers by adding lots of comments? In other words, can you make a post good by interacting with the people who are interacting with the post? Like some kind of um… conversation? Sounds like cheating to me.
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 1 week ago:
I’m saying it is necessary to achieve the aims of the GPL.
Until copyright no longer exists and everything is in the public domain, as I said.
How are you going to enforce the GPL in a world where copyright doesn’t exist?
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 1 week ago:
No, the GPL very much requires copyright to work
That’s what I said.
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 1 week ago:
The current US trade war is the perfect opportunity for some other country or countries to “right-size” their IP laws.
Hollywood wanted “lifetime plus 900 years” or whatever. So, whenever the US negotiated a trade deal it said “you only get tariff-free access to our markets if you give Hollywood lifetime plus 900 years in your country too.”
With section 1201 of the DMCA this also meant that other countries had to accept that you could only repair your John Deere tractor if you paid Deere for the privilege. Or that HP could prevent you from using any ink but theirs in your printer, allowing them to make printer ink the most expensive liquid on the planet.
If the US is no longer abiding by the terms of their trade agreements, other countries should no longer honor these absurd IP treaties.
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 1 week ago:
That’s why the Sistine Chapel has the little © 1512 painted in the corner
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 1 week ago:
The GPL is basically trying to make a world without copyright. The GPL basically only has teeth in a world where copyright exists. If copyright didn’t exist then everything would be in the public domain and the GPL would be toothless, but that’s fine because it would no longer be unnecessary.
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 1 week ago:
I see the value in trademarks because it prevents people from selling knock-offs. In some cases (medicine, machine tools) using a knock-off could be deadly.
For patents, I don’t think it should be one-size-fits-all. A modern drug takes a lot longer to develop than some e-commerce thing like one-click ordering. Different categories of thing could get different lengths of patent protection. Also, IMO, the clock should start once something is available in the market. Again, I’m thinking of medicine. Something might be working in the lab so it’s patented, but going from lab to store shelves is not quick. If the clock starts immediately, then that mostly benefits huge and rich pharma companies that can move extremely quickly.
I strongly believe that if we have copyrights, they should be short with an optional renewal that’s also short. Too much of our culture is locked up by companies like Disney. They shouldn’t be able to hold onto it for more than a century. That’s absurd. For the most part, media makes the vast majority of its money in months. 14 years gives the creator not only the most lucrative period, but also the vast majority of the tail of the distribution. It would also be good if corporate-owned copyright had a much shorter term than copyrights owned by individuals. And, we also need to have a way for people to get their own creations back, by say cancelling the copyright assignment.
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 1 week ago:
For as much as they are abused, “IP laws” protect small and individual inventors, writers, composers, etc.
Do they? Or do they protect the huge companies that those people have to assign their IP to?
- Comment on Are there any Lemmy/Mbin instances by women for women? 1 week ago:
This seems like a very good niche for someone willing to do it. Problematic accounts could get a site-wide ban instead of each woman having to ban someone herself.
- Comment on Are there any Lemmy/Mbin instances by women for women? 1 week ago:
People who cover their drinks when you’re around.
- Comment on The US Secretary of Education referred to AI as ‘A1,’ like the steak sauce 1 week ago:
People seem to be missing the one positive piece of news here: She’s literate!
The only person who would make this mistake is someone who read “AI” in an ambiguous font. I know it’s a low bar, but this means that the secretary of education is able to read.
- Comment on How likely is it that Trump will be the first President assassinated since Kennedy? 2 weeks ago:
There’s a reason I didn’t say “hairs”. I believe he has one and it gets wrapped around and around and around and around and around…
- Comment on How likely is it that Trump will be the first President assassinated since Kennedy? 2 weeks ago:
It’s going to take a while to weed all the competent people out of the secret service.
- Comment on Framework temporarily pausing some laptop sales in the US due to tariffs 2 weeks ago:
And if investors think the future is extremely bleak they will cancel plans to expand, “right-size” their workforce, and so-on, which will smash the economy. The future looks incredibly bleak right now. Many businesses have stopped ordering at all from China because they have no idea what the tariffs will be once the goods arrive.
- Comment on Framework temporarily pausing some laptop sales in the US due to tariffs 2 weeks ago:
The tariff on goods from China is more than 100% now. Why do you think the price would only go up by 10-20%?
- Comment on How likely is it that Trump will be the first President assassinated since Kennedy? 2 weeks ago:
Many countries saw the US as an ally, they don’t anymore.
- Comment on How likely is it that Trump will be the first President assassinated since Kennedy? 2 weeks ago:
What world do you live in where you don’t understand that the US has many enemies?
- Comment on How likely is it that Trump will be the first President assassinated since Kennedy? 2 weeks ago:
He’d know what it would do to his hair, he’d never risk that.
- Comment on How likely is it that Trump will be the first President assassinated since Kennedy? 2 weeks ago:
What country would want him shot? He’s destroying the US more effectively than any enemy could ever hope to do.
- Comment on Genius 2 weeks ago:
No, only in Quebec. There’s a bit of French spoken in Ontario (especially on the border with Quebec), and maybe 30% of the population in New Brunswick, but in other provinces it’s not even the second most spoken language.
For example, Manitoba’s most widely spoken languages are 1M English, 33k Tagalog, 30k Punjabi, 19k German and 15k French.
- Comment on How likely is it that Trump will be the first President assassinated since Kennedy? 2 weeks ago:
I don’t think it’s at all likely. Trump knows he’s hated, and he isn’t about to go and do a parade in a convertible. More importantly, the secret service knows he’s hated and know they screwed up huge in letting someone take a shot at him, so they’ve dialed security up to 11.
Reagan and JFK were shot at a time when they had extremely high approval ratings. It was probably harder for the secret service to stay focused and for everyone to take threats seriously when that was the case.
This isn’t a Hollywood movie where a billionaire can go on the dark web and hire The Jackal or something. If they were to try to place a hit, most of The Jackals out there are probably feds posing as hitmen.
But, let’s say somehow a billionaire could find people willing to make the attempt. Trying to assassinate the US president is a suicide mission. If someone tries to do it as a lone gunman, they’re going up against the entire secret service. They may get the attack in, but they’re almost certainly not going to get away. If it’s a group of attackers, the more people, the more communications, the more communications, the more opportunities for the NSA to spot them.
And, this is one time we don’t have to worry about nation-states attacking the president. The US is punching itself in the dick over and over right now. If you’re someone who wants the US to fail, you just have to stand by and watch. In fact, if an enemy’s surveillance of the US turned up a plan to kill Trump, they’d probably warn the secret service to make sure Trump stays in power as long as possible.
- Comment on Genius 2 weeks ago:
Whatever you say, bud.
- Comment on Genius 2 weeks ago:
I’m not defending taco bell, I’m just saying that they serve tacos. Why are you so convinced that they don’t?
- Comment on Framework temporarily pausing some laptop sales in the US due to tariffs 2 weeks ago:
Imagine even a business that is supposed to benefit from tariffs, like garment manufacturing. Previously it wasn’t worth it because other countries could do it cheaper. So, now you could set up a garment factory and start making things in the US. You can buy cotton from Texas, spin it into yarn, make that yarn into cloth, do it all from seed to finished garment all in the USA.
But, can you really trust that these tariffs are going to be around for the long haul? If you invest $200k to start making clothing in the US, then Trump, the master negotiator, does a deal with Bangladesh and their tariffs go to zero again there’s no way you can compete and you’re out $200k.
Even if you’re extremely lucky and already had a US-based business that was surviving vs. overseas competition, would now be a good time to ramp up production? Sure, your goods are now much cheaper than your competitor’s goods, but with the economy cratering is anybody going to be buying?
There are times when tariffs can work extremely well for certain lucky companies, but they have to be targeted long-term tariffs. Not this chaos.
- Comment on Framework temporarily pausing some laptop sales in the US due to tariffs 2 weeks ago:
I wonder how it works though. Do they get finished laptops off a ship from China, or do they do final assembly in the US?
If they do anything in the US, then they’ll have to pay import tariffs to get the things they’re using, and then have to make up that tariff when selling it to other countries. I assume that the only way to avoid tariffs is to avoid any part of their products ever entering the US. But, how easy is it to change their business so despite being a US-based business their products avoid the US entirely?