If exceptions in your programming aren't rare, you're programming it all wrong. The models that compilers, supporting libraries, debugger tooling, and basically everything use all assume that the "happy path" will be executed commonly and exceptions will be rare occurrences, and code that breaks that assumption tends to cause all sorts of problems. (The old ANTLR parser generator framework comes to mind. Something might take 2 seconds to parse normally, but 1-3 minutes when running under a debugger because of its frankly horrific abuse of exceptions. Newer versions of ANTLR fix this by finding better control flow models.)
Now, however, the same “death of truth” claims — mainly in the context of fake news and disinformation — ring out in response to deep fakes as new artificial-intelligence and machine-learning technology enter the market. What if someone released a deep fake of a politician appearing to take a bribe right before an election? Or of the president of the United States announcing an imminent missile strike?
Or the converse: what if someone released a legitimate video of something like that, and the corrupt politician was able to deflect it by claiming it's just another deep fake?
I leave as an exercise to the reader to determine which of the two is more plausible, and which is more disturbing.
There's a saying in the computer programming community: the use of exceptions for ordinary control flow is considered harmful.
This is as true for a code of laws as it is for source code. When you make laws based upon rare exceptional cases that treat them as if they were normal, all sorts of harmful side-effects emerge.
Only if one of those persons is brain-damaged. This is a really terrible saying that needs to die, as the difference between the two is trivial and the false equivalence only serves to cause real harm by downplaying the threat of actual terrorism.
A freedom fighter is someone who fights against an oppressive regime, with the goal of gaining freedom.
A terrorist is someone who acts to circumvent the political process by inspiring terror and fear in the people he hates. His principal target is not an enemy government; it is civilians, those most vulnerable to both physical and emotional attack.
That's a bright, clear line. When you target civilians, you lose all right to call yourself a freedom fighter and become a terrorist instead, nothing more than a rabid beast to be hunted and put down.
Have you ever hit those ads? You don't click on anything; the ads contain malicious Javascript that forcibly redirect you, and you don't know which one it was because there are multiple ads on the page and by the time you get redirected, you're no longer on the page containing the ad.
I've reported these things to TD a few different times, but they still manage to slip through from time to time.
This is why I take an extremely cautious stance on Internet ads: if it does anything other than show static content, if it moves, plays video or sound, or contains any Javascript, for any reason whatsoever, shoot on sight. Nuke it from orbit; it's the only way to be sure.
Troll contingent, take note: this is what a real exception looks like. The DMCA is actually being used for its intended purpose for once, by taking down material that the poster did not have a lawful right to be selling.
In this day and age, this is vanishingly rare. The vast majority of DMCA takedowns are for abusive purposes, and so the DMCA should not exist. It needs to be repealed.
It is hardly in the interest of copyright enforcement to understand that tilting at windmills, chanting spells, and sacrificing goat liver to the gods may, in fact, not DO anything other than waste resources.
As Upton Sinclair famously put it, it's difficult to get somebody to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it.
No, they're done by an abuse of the DMCA, forcing abuse upon you in the name of "copyright-protecting" DRM even though it has nothing to do with copyright. (Or contracts for that matter.)
The claimed reason has to do with branding, yadda yadda, but abusing copyright tools to do so tends to diminish the credibility of the one making the claim.
When information goods are sold to consumers via a retailer, in certain situations, a moderate level of piracy seems to have a surprisingly positive impact on the profits of the manufacturer and the retailer while, at the same time, enhancing consumer welfare
Nothing particularly "surprising" there, really. Anyone with a basic understanding of human nature and human economic behavior, and a functioning brain, could derive that outcome with a few minutes' thought.
Which is probably why the big publishing interests have never worked it out.
As the plaintiffs point out, it's not just transparency activists reading the law as retroactive. It's also one of California's largest police unions.
This whole thing makes me uncomfortable, because the Constitution says, plain as day, that you can't have retroactive laws. Period.
There have been some very bad interpretations of this over the years that tack on a restrictive addendum like "regarding the definition of criminal offenses or the punishment thereof," but that's not what it originally said, and allowing retroactive laws gives rise to messes like retroactive copyright term extension.
Think about it. If we had a proper zero-tolerance policy on retroactive laws, would Disney have ever had the incentive to try and get terms extended far past any bounds of rationality in order to keep Mickey Mouse from entering into the public domain?
The other difference between algorithms and people is that algorithms are much better at being corrected.
Algorithms can learn something once and remember it throughout their "lifetime."
Algorithms don't die and lose all their accumulated knowledge without passing it on.
Algorithms don't have an ego that prevents them from accepting new and better information.
Algorithms are still new to the job, so it's rather unfair to compare them humans with decades of experience. They'll get better over time, and they'll get better better than humans do.
I can think of plenty of things that would make me happier. Which isn't to say that this wouldn't be a good thing too; just not the best possible thing.
Re: Re: Re: The panic over MS-13 and "gangs" and unlim
> That brought him to attention: the justification for it is because he's here ILLEGALLY.
The article doesn't actually mention that, but... yeah, that's a good point. Is deportation even something that can happen to immigrants who are here because they followed the rules? Because if he was here illegally, then I'm sorry, but nothing else matters and the rest of this is all a big smoke screen.
On the post: Developer DMCAs Steam For Hosting Its Own Game To Wrest Control Back From Rogue Publisher
Re: Re: Re: Re:
If exceptions in your programming aren't rare, you're programming it all wrong. The models that compilers, supporting libraries, debugger tooling, and basically everything use all assume that the "happy path" will be executed commonly and exceptions will be rare occurrences, and code that breaks that assumption tends to cause all sorts of problems. (The old ANTLR parser generator framework comes to mind. Something might take 2 seconds to parse normally, but 1-3 minutes when running under a debugger because of its frankly horrific abuse of exceptions. Newer versions of ANTLR fix this by finding better control flow models.)
On the post: Some Small But Important Techdirt Updates
Re: Re: Defaults
On the post: Some Small But Important Techdirt Updates
Re: Defaults
On the post: Deep Fakes: Let's Not Go Off The Deep End
Or the converse: what if someone released a legitimate video of something like that, and the corrupt politician was able to deflect it by claiming it's just another deep fake?
I leave as an exercise to the reader to determine which of the two is more plausible, and which is more disturbing.
On the post: Developer DMCAs Steam For Hosting Its Own Game To Wrest Control Back From Rogue Publisher
Re: Re:
This is as true for a code of laws as it is for source code. When you make laws based upon rare exceptional cases that treat them as if they were normal, all sorts of harmful side-effects emerge.
On the post: Human Rights Groups Plead With The EU Not To Pass Its Awful 'Terrorist Content' Regulation
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Human Rights Groups Plead With The EU Not To Pass Its Awful 'Terrorist Content' Regulation
Re:
Only if one of those persons is brain-damaged. This is a really terrible saying that needs to die, as the difference between the two is trivial and the false equivalence only serves to cause real harm by downplaying the threat of actual terrorism.
A freedom fighter is someone who fights against an oppressive regime, with the goal of gaining freedom.
A terrorist is someone who acts to circumvent the political process by inspiring terror and fear in the people he hates. His principal target is not an enemy government; it is civilians, those most vulnerable to both physical and emotional attack.
That's a bright, clear line. When you target civilians, you lose all right to call yourself a freedom fighter and become a terrorist instead, nothing more than a rabid beast to be hunted and put down.
On the post: Human Rights Groups Plead With The EU Not To Pass Its Awful 'Terrorist Content' Regulation
Re: Re:
I've reported these things to TD a few different times, but they still manage to slip through from time to time.
This is why I take an extremely cautious stance on Internet ads: if it does anything other than show static content, if it moves, plays video or sound, or contains any Javascript, for any reason whatsoever, shoot on sight. Nuke it from orbit; it's the only way to be sure.
On the post: Developer DMCAs Steam For Hosting Its Own Game To Wrest Control Back From Rogue Publisher
Troll contingent, take note: this is what a real exception looks like. The DMCA is actually being used for its intended purpose for once, by taking down material that the poster did not have a lawful right to be selling.
In this day and age, this is vanishingly rare. The vast majority of DMCA takedowns are for abusive purposes, and so the DMCA should not exist. It needs to be repealed.
On the post: Study Shows Piracy Can Sometimes Be Beneficial To Markets & Consumers Alike
Re: Re:
As Upton Sinclair famously put it, it's difficult to get somebody to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it.
On the post: Study Shows Piracy Can Sometimes Be Beneficial To Markets & Consumers Alike
Re: Re: Re: just like in real life
No, they're done by an abuse of the DMCA, forcing abuse upon you in the name of "copyright-protecting" DRM even though it has nothing to do with copyright. (Or contracts for that matter.)
The claimed reason has to do with branding, yadda yadda, but abusing copyright tools to do so tends to diminish the credibility of the one making the claim.
On the post: California Cops Continue To Pretend New Public Records Law Allows Them To Erase Years Of Past Misconduct From The Record
Re:
They're having problems with angry birds?
On the post: How My High School Destroyed An Immigrant Kid's Life Because He Drew The School's Mascot
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: How My High School Destroyed An Immigrant Kid's Life Because He Drew The School's Mascot
Re:
On the post: How My High School Destroyed An Immigrant Kid's Life Because He Drew The School's Mascot
Re: Re:
On the post: Study Shows Piracy Can Sometimes Be Beneficial To Markets & Consumers Alike
Nothing particularly "surprising" there, really. Anyone with a basic understanding of human nature and human economic behavior, and a functioning brain, could derive that outcome with a few minutes' thought.
Which is probably why the big publishing interests have never worked it out.
On the post: California Cops Continue To Pretend New Public Records Law Allows Them To Erase Years Of Past Misconduct From The Record
This whole thing makes me uncomfortable, because the Constitution says, plain as day, that you can't have retroactive laws. Period.
There have been some very bad interpretations of this over the years that tack on a restrictive addendum like "regarding the definition of criminal offenses or the punishment thereof," but that's not what it originally said, and allowing retroactive laws gives rise to messes like retroactive copyright term extension.
Think about it. If we had a proper zero-tolerance policy on retroactive laws, would Disney have ever had the incentive to try and get terms extended far past any bounds of rationality in order to keep Mickey Mouse from entering into the public domain?
On the post: The Criminal Justice System Is Relying On Tech To Do Its Job And That's Just Going To Make Everything Worse
The other difference between algorithms and people is that algorithms are much better at being corrected.
Algorithms can learn something once and remember it throughout their "lifetime."
Algorithms don't die and lose all their accumulated knowledge without passing it on.
Algorithms don't have an ego that prevents them from accepting new and better information.
Algorithms are still new to the job, so it's rather unfair to compare them humans with decades of experience. They'll get better over time, and they'll get better better than humans do.
On the post: These Wireless Location Data Scandals Are Going To Be A Very Big Problem For Ajit Pai
Re: To Much To Hope For
Nothing?
I can think of plenty of things that would make me happier. Which isn't to say that this wouldn't be a good thing too; just not the best possible thing.
On the post: How My High School Destroyed An Immigrant Kid's Life Because He Drew The School's Mascot
Re: Re: Re: The panic over MS-13 and "gangs" and unlim
The article doesn't actually mention that, but... yeah, that's a good point. Is deportation even something that can happen to immigrants who are here because they followed the rules? Because if he was here illegally, then I'm sorry, but nothing else matters and the rest of this is all a big smoke screen.
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