We’ve noted a few times now how as the streaming sector consolidates and grows, it’s becoming more and more like the traditional cable industry it disrupted. This enshittification includes a lot of endless price hikes, a steady degradation of product quality, pointless mergers that cause endless layoffs, and the implementation of new restrictive efforts to […]
ShotSpotter has long presented itself as a reliable detector of gunshots. Mileage, however, has varied. Law enforcement customers that have gotten disgruntled with this limited service have pointed out — en route to terminated contracts — that (a) detected gunshots are not always gunshots, (b) detected gunshots are rarely useful intel, and (c) detecting gunshots […]
The fallout from game engine Unity’s decision to try to cram a completely new and different pricing structure down the throats of game developers continues. Originally announced in mid-September, Unity took a bunch of its tiered structures of its offerings and suddenly instituted per-install fees, along with a bunch of other fee structures and requirements […]
We’ve written a bunch of stuff about the obvious to anyone who understands the internet problems of Canada’s C-18, now dubbed the Online News Act. The fundamental premise behind it is to break the open internet, as an obviously corrupt forced wealth transfer from one disfavored industry to an industry that helps get politicians elected. […]
When it comes to the children, Wu-Tang Europol is for the children. According to a recent report by Balkan Insight, Europol (Interpol but without the across-the-pond component), the only thing that should matter is the kids. Europeans’ rights and privacy should be sidelined — possibly forever! — until European law enforcement can put a dent […]
Learn Unreal, C++, and game development with the Ultimate Learn Unreal Game Development Bundle. This series of highly-rated Unreal Engine courses, created in collaboration with Epic Games, can help! Anyone who wants to learn to create games: Unreal Engine is a fantastic platform that enables you to make AAA-quality games. It’s on sale for $35. […]
As you’ve likely heard, earlier this week the WGA worked out a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) on a new contract that ended their months-long strike. By all accounts, this looks like a big win for the WGA, which is fantastic and long overdue. The AMPTP seemed to […]
A few years ago during one of our Greenhouse forums, activist Terique Boyce wrote about how an all-volunteer army had been spending their days deploying free broadband to NYC residents. It’s the latest example of frustrated communities building their own infrastructure after decades of being ripped off and underserved by powerful, local broadband monopolies. NYC […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy deploying an overused (and often abused) quote for, in this case, a very apt purpose — responding to right wing denial about Republicans pushing to censor the internet: Sure all the evidence shows it’s republicans censoring things but… “The Party told […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2018, a district court ignored the real issues when it dismissed the EFF’s constitutional challenge to FOSTA, while we looked at how the law was becoming another tool for silencing people you dislike, legislators were pushing for even more draconian laws under the guise of fighting sex trafficking, and […]
You can be a law enforcement officer without being a complete asshole. I know it rarely seems to be the case, but it’s completely possible to command respect while still treating others with respect. And while assholery tends to go hand-in-hand with enforcing the law far too often, the end result of being vindictive and […]
As a Walled Culture explained back in 2021, open access (OA) to published academic research comes in two main varieties. “Gold” open access papers are freely available to the public because the researchers’ institutions pay “article-processing charges” to a publisher. “Green” OA papers are available because the authors self-archive their work on a personal Web site or institutional repository […]
This isn’t exactly a surprise. Everyone has expected this pretty much from about the time that Ron DeSantis insisted he had a plan to regulate social media, but it got delayed by a year, because it seemed that the Supreme Court just didn’t want to deal with it yet, and punted by asking the White […]
The most cynical take on this period of historic lows in US crime rates isn’t that we’ve locked up so many people that most crime now takes place in prisons where no one cares (or tabulates) how many criminal acts are still being committed. No, the most cynical take is this: people just got sick […]
Your future is here with the Ninja Dragon 4K Smart Drone. It’s super simple to take off and land with an optical flow positioning system that allows you to keep your hands off the controls when flying, especially if you have trouble taking off/landing from high places like trees. This model also has intelligent gesture […]
We’ve been on this soapbox for over 15 years now. There are reams upon reams of evidence that the single greatest reason why California became the innovation hub that it became (in both Silicon Valley and Hollywood) was because it effectively outlawed non-compete agreements in the late 19th century. I have long been a vocal […]
Back in July, Reuters released a bombshell report documenting how Tesla not only spent a decade falsely inflating the range of their EVs, but created teams dedicated to bullshitting Tesla customers who called in to complain about it. If you recall, Reuters noted how these teams would have a little, adorable party every time they […]
Marijuana has been legalized pretty much everywhere in the United States. Even the DEA seems somewhat willing to move this source of easy busts off its drug schedule. At this point, there are only four states that have yet to legalize (or decriminalize) marijuana possession. So, how is it that cops still think the “odor […]
We’ve spilled a great deal of ink discussing the GDPR and its failures and unintended consequences. The European data privacy law that was ostensibly built to protect the data of private citizens, but which was also expected to result in heavy fines for primarily American internet companies, has mostly failed to do either. While the […]
Accessing consensually created and distributed online pornography is a human right. Do you know why? The consensual production and viewing of porn online is a protected form of sexual expression between two or more adults. Laugh your asses off, sure. But there is a point to my ludicrous statement. It’s not about porn per se. […]
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