What seems to be lost on most, is that money has been coming “out of thin air” for close to a century already. The problem is that every time less money gets destroyed than created, it dilutes the worth of the total… and people who still think in terms of gold nuggets, are completely unprepared to propose anything that would make sense.

Gen Beta might have more of a grasp on things.

That’s going to be a “he said, she said” case. Chances are, since she was an activist in the US, that she might’ve been labeled as an “instigator” in whatever ID database they are using.

You can learn about manipulation techniques so you can spot some sooner… but ultimately it’s up to you to make a decision, and chances are you’ll either over-react, or under-react. It’s very hard to not make any mistakes, or spot the ones who spend their whole life learning how to manipulate others.

Not really an option, when the data is being used for billing purposes (which phone, used what services, and when).

The US has no laws forcing data retention like the EU, but it would take something like anonymous micro transactions in order to have a working billing system, without collecting the data (and it being available to law enforcement).

By the time they’re about to go belly up, companies no longer have the resources to ensure they comb through the code to remove the parts licensed from 3rd parties, and the liquidators see all assets as something to sell in order to cover whatever loans the company got.

In an ideal world, consumers would never buy a non-open sourced car, or phone, or IoT device.

In the real world, regulators need to force companies to give consumers at least some basic way to control the products they buy.

Smart to have a buyback clause in the contract, otherwise this would’ve been lost and locked until the patent expired.

You say I don’t read… then proceed to explain the same that I already said? Ok.

This is going to get interesting:

The decision imposes a daily fine of R$50,000 (£6,800) on individuals and companies that attempt to continue using X via VPN.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/30/elon-musk-x-could-face-ban-in-brazil-after-failure-to-appoint-legal-representative

A judge’s ruling on a previous case makes that ruling law.

Not everywhere.

Previous rulings are a precedent in Common Law systems like the US, UK, Canada, or Australia.

Only Supreme Court rulings become a precedent in Civil Law systems like the EU, Russia,most of the rest of America.

To draw an example, the EU never made a law about cookie splash screens.

A very poor example; Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive 2002/58/EC.

The EU at its top level creates “Directives”, which member states then are bound to transpose into their national Civil Law systems. Judges can interprete that law in different ways, none of which creates a precedent. Only a country’s Supreme Court decision creates a precedent for that country, but even then it can be recurred up to the EU Tribunal, which has the last saying.

Where I am, the news said:

• “Telegram is a social network” (it isn’t)
• “that allows terrorism from Russia and Iran” (it’s used by Russian and Iranian oppositors)
• “drug trafficking” (because it’s encrypted, I guess)
• “fraud” (scams are also part of email and the web)
• “money laundering” (…what?)
• “piracy” (sigh…)
• “and distribution of child pornography.” (so does email)
• “It doesn’t honor removal requests from the film/music industry organizations” (that’s piracy twice)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse

Terrorists, pedophiles/child molesters, organized crime like drug dealers, intellectual property pirates, and money launderers are cited commonly

Do we have a BINGO?

The problem is that some people are “so copyleft”… that they fall into the MIT honeytrap.

Maybe… but before sharing files, his priors include selling stolen phone numbers, some shady stock manipulation, an embezzlement sentence, running an illegal hedge fund, and other shenanigans.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom

As well as copyright infringement, Dotcom faces more serious charges, including money laundering and racketeering. He has long argued that he should not be held liable for copyright infringement carried out using his site

Ok… so what about that money laundering and racketeering, once again?

Really not sure how to feel about this. The copyright infringement damage claims are bonkers, but this guy is not exactly an upstanding citizen either. He already got some jail time in the 90s, fled to NZ, changed his name to a joke, and has been involved in random shady stuff over the last decade.

Check the ADHD video, I think it complements the series of articles quite nicely.

consumer cameras were made with a certain type of complexion in mind

Not sure if it’s what you’re talking about, but consumer cameras, and most graphics systems, have been using logarithmic encoding (gamma) to fit a larger dynamic range into a reduced data range… which has the effect of reducing de detail level of larger areas of an image, with the idea that the human eye would struggle to see them anyway. It didn’t have anything to do with complexion, but with pushing technology to a minimally acceptable level on a limited budget. HDR cameras with linear encoding, are still quite expensive, way out of the consumer market range, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change too soon.

Air dominance means being able to fly anywhere anytime, without having to worry too much about the enemy. In post-WW2 wars, it meant ground troops didn’t need to worry about random bombs falling on them from the sky.

Right now, neither Russia or Ukraine have achieved that… which is kind of crazy; at the beginning of the “special operation”, everyone assumed that Russia would control the skies from day 1. And yet, Ukrainian jets and drones keep flying around, slowing Russia’s progress on the front to a crawl.

We will indeed see how things evolve, but Russia faces a problem now: if they pull troops from the front, which they’re barely holding, it can mean the difference between crawling forward, and crawling backwards.

Lightning Network is not centralized, anyone can run a node with their own wallet. Not everyone will want to, since there are management and safety tasks involved, but that’s up to each one.

Funds are stored in your own wallet… but again, you can use some bank’s wallet if you want to, up to each one.

Transactions are almost instantaneous, no need to wait for the channels to settle. You only need to wait when moving Bitcoin between non-LN and LN wallets or, if running your own node, when a channel closes.

You can find a list of physical stores accepting LN… mostly in El Salvador, but still.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network

They’re not legal tender, not at all commonly accepted, and anyone accepting them (mostly in tourist areas) will charge an exchange fee because nobody’s going to take them as payment for their bills.

They’re all the same as casino tokens though, because they don’t have an intrinsic value, like for example an ounce of gold.

• Fiat represents the trust an issuing bank has in everyone trusting it at a faster pace than the expiry of its loans.
• Casino tokens represent the trust a person has in the casino paying out when getting the token back.
• Crypto represents the trust in that someone will want to exchange it for something in the future.

Since the end of the gold standard, economy has been running on trust (aka: credit). These are just different representations of that.

I know the meme via the Bernie Sanders reference, but come on, all the other images have a better spacing; this one’s keming is either on purpose, or hilarious.

Although… it mentions the official domain as PutaBirdOnIt.com… reminds me of ExpertSexChange.com 😆

LMAO… this is on purpose, right? …right?

(“puta” in Spanish, means “whore”)