Look, I know "nuclear device" is correctly generic, so that RTGs and things like them, legitimately count. But let's be serious: right around the very same time this real stuff happened, some really great fake stuff happened too: the movie Goldfinger.

And once you've watched Goldfinger, "nuclear device" is just a euphemism for a bomb. So don't go calling RTGs "nuclear devices," please.

it is pretty clear trump would pardon or vacate any fine against a right winger org.

The president does not yet have pardoning power over civil judgements. Maybe a constitutional amendment to do that is coming, but we haven't had a vote on it yet.

Some good has come from promoting more user speech online, but also a lot of bullying, harassment, echo chambers, doxxing, stochastic terrorism, and so on.

You make it sound as dangerous as a 1775 soap box that people like Sam Adams would stand upon and shout from, or a pamphlet-printing-press that someone like Thomas Paine might use, where in both cases the goal was often to rowse the rabble into protest and action.

But is the internet really that dangerous?

"The platforms" are, at best, a percent of the internet.

Sign up for a linode, put up any sort of website you can imagine on it, and explain why you would choose for the algorithms you write or install, to work the way that you fear.

It doesn't have to be as bad as you say, unless you want it. That's essential freedom.

This would result in suppression of anti Trump opinion

It will result in suppression of all anti- power/wealth opinion, i.e. all criticism of government or big-pocketed business.

This change is sponsored by litigious motherfuckers. Trump is only the instance-du-jour, a few percent of the overall threat, though very much a shining example of it.

That it's a competitive system is the problem. The world advances through cooperation.

Not exactly true. The world largely advances by Natural selection. Survival of the fittest. Allocating scarce resources, such as money, to the projects and people who prove the most meritorious or effective or valuable usage of the resource. Of course Collaboration has a value, but it's largely involving or between researches who already passed the bar. You gotta have people reaching a certain level before a degree of collaboration becomes of value.

With one important difference, this reminds me of the 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act, which established a national speed limit of 55 MPH. States had to either adopt a state speed limit of 55 MPH, or else lose out on funding, i.e. get punished.

Of course, that was a law enacted by Congress, not an Executive order. I guess, traditionally, they say that for first quarter millennium of America, Congress held the purse strings because some inky piece of paper said they were supposed to, as if Congress could ever handle that much responsibility! Can you imagine?! Anyway, we've decided Fuck That Tradition, let's try something new and put a thieving tool in charge of the purse.

we have to many Ph.D's and when you need to do this to keep your slot = the college system is broken.

They are students not PhDs. And you don't "need" to do this to keep "your slot". Nobody is entitled to a slot. What you have to earn is not owed to you.

It's a competitive system, and you have to maintain certain level of merit and academic progress.

There is a right way. Either follow the rules or quit, and go do something more productive. And somebody deciding to become a criminal does not mean the system is broken.

from my overpriced Disney+ subscription was user-generated "AI" slop.

The article says a selection. Presumably terms will let them cherrypick videos they like, so it will probably be not slop, but whatever generations they deem high quality. Likely involving extra work by the end user, since actor voices aren't included for the characters.

Earth and are paying 1 billion to give it away. Make it make sense.

In short.. they are Not giving it away; they are expanding monetization into an area they'd not get money from before. They are earning billions in license fees for allowing limited use for limited time.

First AI came for the artists And I did not speak out Because I was not an artist

AI has not come for the artists. Artists are still necessary to create quality work.

There is simply a technical improvement, and you may have to learn new AI-based tools now required for the trade of creating animations.

More importantly: They set a business precedent for media companies that it is appropriate to demand licensing and expect generative AI companies have to pay for creating images resembling any of their characters/trained on their characters - even in a short video or internet meme context.

What they have licensed for now they can de-license in a few years, when Disney releases their own generative AI service.

That is the way with trademarks. X management has been very clear about stopping to use the name Twitter;
which means they won't use it anymore, therefore, they have no business continuing to claim a trademark.

That said the artists who drew the Twitter icon still get the copyright to their Logo and art assets, so another company shouldn't be able to just start using those. They will need to have to have their own art created.

If Elon really cared about the Twitter mark it would be, or would have been extremely easy; to keep a service Live using the mark.
Such as a Testbed website for X, for example, or an extra service to still be marketed under the Twitter name.. so called "Token use" wouldn't be sufficient, But you only need to have one actual service still using the branding to prevent it from being "abandoned". You can have a limited service with 100 customers, and still have the rights to your trademark. So If Elon/Twitter/X cares about this in the slightest; they should be able to easily block this proceeding. And you just need to resume use of it within 3 years to avoid it being abandoned under US law. So it's odd for them to petition the trademark office so early.. X can apply a new use of the mark within any schedule they want before that date. The attempt to usurp their IP would easily be blocked if X still cares in the slightest.

We might have cable tv, if that was the cheapest way to get internet in our house. I literally do not know, only one device is plugged into a coax cable in our entire house and that's the modem. I wouldn't even know where to look on my tv to see if they still come with coax connectors on the back, it hangs on the wall and there's a power plug, that's it.

NO! This is an outrage! [slams table]

Our religious war should be about reader's choice vs writer's choice!