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Cake day: September 29th, 2025

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  • Smirnov’s smattering of international affiliations makes the convicted felon a significant flight risk—but another possibility of freedom may await the foreign asset. Earlier this year, the DOJ filed a joint motion alongside Smirnov’s attorneys to release him pending appeal. U.S. District Judge Otis Wright tossed that effort in April, but legal experts stress that the effort could be an early sign that the Trump administration is considering pardoning Smirnov, as “it is almost unheard of for the DOJ to argue for someone’s release pending appeal.”

    The DoJ was asking that he be released pending appeal? After confessing to being a Russian operative working against the interests of the USA? The whole DoJ is now working for Russia. This guy is already back in Moscow.





  • First, there’s no such thing as actual Artificial Intelligence. In it’s current usage, AI is simply a Large Language Model that takes the enormous amount of data it’s been fed and tries to generate a response that seems like it may be an answer to your question. It has no understanding of the question or the answer, it’s just an estimation of what might be an answer. The fact that there is no guarantee whatsoever that the answer you get is accurate is simply a modern example of the old adage, “Garbage in; garbage out.”

    Secondly, there isn’t a single LLM made by a company that I would trust to guess my weight let alone the answer to a question I thought was important.




  • They want to be able to sue ISPs who fail to take block people they believe are pirates. Cox did not do that. They told Cox that these people are pirates and Cox didn’t block them. Do you really want your ISP to be able to cut you off just because some other company claims you are using the service to pirate content? I want them to have to go to court and prove a crime was committed before their ISP is required to block them.

    Right now, these very publishers can file copyright claims against people on youtube and other sites for infringement. Those claims are not evaluated by youtube. The content is just removed. No proof. No court order. If SCOTUS sides with the guild here, then those same companies will be able to have your internet cut off just by telling your ISP that your IP address was used to pirate their material.

    Frankly, I would like a court to be involved before what is now a vital utility is cut off rather than letting book, movie, and music publishers decide who should be cut off with no review.


  • Uhm… what do you think this is?

    This is the Author’s Guild asking for internet providers to be able to block people without a court order. They want to be able to contact a provider and say, “This user downloaded a book without paying for it so you have to cut off their internet.” The provider should not be allowed to do that unless the courts order them to do so.

    The linked article clearly shows this.

    As our brief explains, when millions of people can copy and share creative works “quickly, anonymously, and across borders,” going after individual infringers one by one is nearly impossible. The only practical way to stop large-scale piracy is to hold accountable for the internet companies that provide the infrastructure—especially when those companies know exactly what’s happening and choose to profit from it anyway.

    They can already go after individual infringers and web sites that aid in piracy. Now they want to be able to order providers to cut off users without the bother of going to court over it.

    Uhm… they do. Fuck up badly enough and your license is taken away.

    Yeah, by the courts. Fuck up badly enough, and you can be taken to court and a judge will take away your license. It’s not taken away by the local government. What the Author’s Guild wants is equivalent to requiring communities to take away the rights of some drivers to use the roads without bothering to take drivers to court.











  • Illinois law does not apply in Indiana where this incident took place. Indiana has a pretty robust stand your ground law.

    Indiana’s stand-your-ground law provides that a person (1) is justified in using deadly force against someone (including a law enforcement officer) and (2) has no duty to retreat if the person has a reasonable belief that force is required in order to prevent any of the following:

    • Serious bodily injury to the defendant or a third person;

    • The commission of a forcible felony (one that involves the threat of force or involves risk of bodily injury);

    • The unlawful entry of the defendant’s home or curtilage (the area around their home) or their (occupied) vehicle;

    • Trespass or unlawful interference with property in the lawful possession of the defendant, a member of their immediate family, or a person whose property the defendant is authorized to protect (i.e., an employer protecting their employees); or

    • The hijacking (or threat of hijacking) of an airplane on the ground in Indiana or Indiana airspace.

    So the homeowner has to show that they reasonably believed deadly force was needed to stop this woman and her husband from entering their home. That’s it. That’s all they need to prove to use this defense.

    I for one do not for a moment think that it was justified, but in a town named Whitestown, who can say what the police and prosecutors will conclude?