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Comment Won't Matter (Score 1) 85

The EEOC and NLRB were impotent prior to Jan. 2025 and are even worse now (the NLRB can't even rule because they lack a quorum).

Amazon is following the letter of the law, which means they can grind this down until people quit. Accommodation is suppose to be a "good faith" effort between employer and employee. It seems neither is approaching this in that spirit.

Comment Re:Training does Respect Copyright (Score 1) 100

Uh-huh.

Take something like music. There are specific licenses for specific uses. We've already have a legal framework with regards to sampling. Imagine my dismay how none of these people spoke up then, but now cost of sampling and the morass of licensing is an issue.

But tell me, is any of the software copyrighted?

Oh...

Comment Correction (Score 5, Insightful) 100

AI firms won't pay to respect copyright

On they one hand, I can only hope this leads to revisiting the insanity of copyright law.

On the other, fuck them for double dealing with regards to what ownership actually means ("I'm alright, Jack.").

Comment Re:If you have a mediocre workforce at best (Score 1) 101

Maybe...

One of the benefits of "top" talent is influence that rubs off in other domains. 80/20 rule and all that.

On the other hand, overt specialization is suicide (which also seems to come with top talent).

The difficulty is (always) what excels in a particular environment varies dramatically. One persons' genius is anothers' prima donna.

Comment Difficulty (Score 1) 92

for me is you need a coherent framework not only for current circumstances but a future technologies. And that is not just limited to corporations. Your local busybody with a swarm of drones eyeing the neighborhood is just as bad.

As we have now, regulation cannot hope to keep pace with technological development. And government contracting the private sector (or foreign countries) as an end-around the law will not be put back in the bottle.

The best I think you can do is HEAVY penalties for database breaches and the like (including full financial liability/prison). Make data collection a costly liability instead of a cash-cow. Use the same incentives that fuel the current boom to crush it.

Comment Re:Terrible Headline. (Score 1) 28

Hmm...

Folding@home has already a list of accomplishments for nominal costs.

Further, picking specifically a Nobel prize winning AI as demonstrative of cost, when Forbes places the total spending for AI next year alone at a quarter trillion is suspect to say the least.

That's a lot of research dollars, but hey you accomplished what was already being done for free and with no restriction on copyright. I'm positive Alphabet spent that money strictly out of benevolence and will do the same.

But as we aren't discussing them but LabGenius LabGenius (mind who those investors are).

Comment Re:Terrible Headline. (Score 1) 28

The difficulty here is the amount spent on AI and the like vs. other research- which will have the most efficacy?

The promises of AI are far and wide, as if to justify spending even more at the expense of other things.

Yes, new tools are helpful in many disciplines, but that's not what is being sold here.

Comment Re:I am shocked! (Score 4, Interesting) 290

More an indictment of law enforcement "intelligence".

There is a boogie-man around every corner to justify stricter and stricter laws, and always more farcical threats that somehow omit very present threats (such as foreign policy).

I've seen police task force materials on everything from Dungeons & Dragons to Insane Clown Posse to Satanism, and seeming secret societies form within law enforcement (Vampire Hunter 2000 was just wild. And now we have the thin blue line.).

It's brand of cultural enforcement dressed as benevolent concern, and making stuff up and fearmongering is far easier than proper investigation.

Submission + - Another large Black hole in "our" Galaxy (arxiv.org)

RockDoctor writes: A recent paper on ArXiv reports a novel idea about the central regions of "our" galaxy.

Remember the hoopla a few years ago about radio-astronomical observations producing an "image" of our central black hole — or rather, an image of the accretion disc around the black hole — long designated by astronomers as "Sagittarius A*" (or SGR-A*)? If you remember the image published then, one thing should be striking — it's not very symmetrical. If you think about viewing a spinning object, then you'd expect to see something with a "mirror" symmetry plane where we would see the rotation axis (if someone had marked it). If anything, that published image has three bright spots on a fainter ring. And the spots are not even approximately the same brightness.

This paper suggests that the image we see is the result of the light (radio waves) from SGR-A* being "lensed" by another black hole, near (but not quite on) the line of sight between SGR-A* and us. By various modelling approaches, they then refine this idea to a "best-fit" of a black hole with mass around 1000 times the Sun, orbiting between the distance of the closest-observed star to SGR-A* ("S2" — most imaginative name, ever!), and around 10 times that distance. That's far enough to make a strong interaction with "S2" unlikely within the lifetime of S2 before it's accretion onto SGR-A*.)

The region around SGR-A* is crowded. Within 25 parsecs (~80 light years, the distance to Regulus [in the constellation Leo] or Merak [in the Great Bear]) there is around 4 times more mass in several millions of "normal" stars than in the SGR-A* black hole. Finding a large (not "super massive") black hole in such a concentration of matter shouldn't surprise anyone.

This proposed black hole is larger than anything which has been detected by gravitational waves (yet) ; but not immensely larger — only a factor of 15 or so. (The authors also anticipate the "what about these big black holes spiralling together?" question : quote "and the amplitude of gravitational waves generated by the binary black holes is negligible.")

Being so close to SGR-A*, the proposed black hole is likely to be moving rapidly across our line of sight. At the distance of "S2" it's orbital period would be around 26 years (but the "new" black hole is probably further out than than that). Which might be an explanation for some of the variability and "flickering" reported for SGR-A* ever since it's discovery.

As always, more observations are needed. Which, for SGR-A* are frequently being taken, so improving (or ruling out) this explanation should happen fairly quickly. But it's a very interesting, and fun, idea.

Submission + - Surado, formerly Slashdot Japan, is closing at the end of the month. (srad.jp) 1

AmiMoJo writes: Slashdot Japan was launched on May 28, 2001. On 2025/03/31, it will finally close. Since starting the site separated from the main Slashdot one, and eventually rebranded as "Surado", which was it's Japanese nickname.

Last year the site stopped posting new stories, and was subsequently unable to find a buyer. In a final story announcing the end, many users expressed their sadness and gratitude for all the years of service.

Comment Re:Why are iPhones made in China? (Score 1) 213

I'd add (exceptions for tariffs as a portion of industrial policy) broad-range tariffs would make the whole of the US a company town in all but name, especially given the amount of consolidation in the US. Add in speculations as to the effects of wealth concentration and you have the makings of something ugly.

Similarly how H1Bs only apply to certain kinds of labor; I cannot countenance that employment is even on the radar with current trade policy. This seems more about control.

Comment As soon as (Score 1) 104

Someone makes the claim they were charged more because they are a minority, this will go up in a ball of flames.

I am amused that the business class hasn't thought this through as to blowback.

People like the concept of equal treatment in the marketplace. Give that up and it will get ugly in ways unseen since labor riots.

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