Tag: facebook

Brainiac On Banjo: A.I’s Just A Photocopier.

Brainiac On Banjo: A.I’s Just A Photocopier.

I’m all alone, so are we all. We destroyed the government. We’re destroying time. No more problems on the way — Clones (We’re All), written by Alice Cooper.

According to last Friday’s Hollywood Reporter, “A federal judge on Friday upheld a finding from the U.S. Copyright Office that a piece of art created by AI [artificial intelligence] is not open to protection. The ruling was delivered in an order turning down Stephen Thaler’s bid challenging the government’s position refusing to register works made by AI. Copyright law has “never stretched so far” to “protect works generated by new forms of technology operating absent any guiding human hand,” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell found.”

That certainly is good news to creators of all sorts — not just artists, but writers and other producers of copyrightable or patentable products. However, I suspect the majority of such gifted people will not waste carbon dioxide emitting a deep sigh of relief. Damn near all of them have been to this rodeo dozens of times; more likely hundreds. The longer you stay in the business, the more you slip on corporate dogshit.

Do not think the producers and corporate princes reading about this ruling will say “well, jeez, maybe we should start acting in a morally acceptable manner.” Hell, no. The vast majority of media moguls who possess an “annual compensation package” in excess of ten million dollars per annum confuse having their package reduced by as a direct kick to their… package. Whereas that seems fair to me, my WGA and AFTRA memberships expired a while ago. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: A.I’s Just A Photocopier.”

As Is: The Crack of the Whip

As Is: The Crack of the Whip

The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes, the blossom embraces the bee. But, soon, says a whisper “Arise, arise! Tomorrow belongs to me.” – German folk song “Tomorrow Belongs To Me,” adapted by John Kander.

From what I perceive, TikTok is not an app intended for me. The younger we are, the more juvenile we act, which is also known as “duh…” To me, TikTok is the home-game version of Jackass.

And if you get that joke, you, too, are too old for TikTok. It appears the members of the legislature of the state of Montana also are too old for TikTok. They just banned the use of the app throughout the state.

OK, a lot of state legislatures have done far worse stuff over the past, oh, two weeks. Are you listening, you bigoted Tennessee crackers? Probably not. However, there are understandable reasons for wanting to ban this product. TikTok is owned by a Chinese company named ByteDance, which calls Red China its home. Technically, it exists at the government’s pleasure. TikTok strip-mines personal information so effectively you’d think they were owned by Google or Facebook. That makes TikTok as great a security risk as, well, Google and Facebook, and that is not good. Continue reading “As Is: The Crack of the Whip”

Brainiac On Banjo: Are YOU… Verified?

Brainiac On Banjo: Are YOU… Verified?

Trumpets and violins I can hear in the distance, I think they’re calling our names. Maybe now you can’t hear them, but you will. — Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced?

I suspect you’ve heard of Meta, but if you haven’t, it has nothing to do with DC superheroes. Less than nothing, when you think about it. “Meta” is the incredibly stupid and highly misleading name that Facebook and Instagram owner “Mort” Zuckerberg gave to his company in late 2021.

Meta is an evil corporation. They follow you wherever you go on line. When you use their stuff, they record where you are, who you are, where you go, what you like, who you like, what you buy, when you’re not home, when you are home, your credit card numbers, your phone numbers and your email addresses and those of your friends. If you masturbate, they know which is your favored hand and if you do not, they’ve got pills and ointments to sell you. I do not know if they have recorded the date and time of your last bowel movement, but I have asked. These bastards have more on each of us than the FBI ever had on John Gotti.

Now Zuck has figured out a way to screw us out of another $150 or so a year, thrusting his grimy waxed paw so deep into our pockets he now has an imprint of our car keys. It is quite impressive that he has chosen to follow the lead of the biggest, most obnoxious and cheesiest hustler who does not yet hold elective office. Then again, who among us would be surprised to discover Elon Musk and George Santos are, were, or soon will be the same person? Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Are YOU… Verified?”

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind  #090: Tweedledumbass

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #090: Tweedledumbass

Lies, dripping off your mouth like dirt / Lies, lie in every step you walk / Lies, whispered sweetly in my ear / Lies, how do I get out of here / Why, why you have to be so cruel / Lies, lies, lies, I ain’t such a fool — “Lies,” written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, 1978

We all have said things that are later proven to be mistaken, and I’m mouse enough to admit that on March 21st 2006 I fubared one right out of the park. Watching a CNET piece about Twitter, I proclaimed “who the hell wants to know what you’re having for lunch, and why it’s being served to you on such crappy plates?”

Of course, I was wrong to the tune of about sixty-five million American daily active users. One of those daily active users happens to be the President of the United States. He’s got 80 million followers worldwide, but that includes the media, other politicians, the curious and those hard up for light entertainment. Trumpsy loves Twitter because he has 100% control over his message… or at least he did until Tuesday. The Orange Fool repeated his completely baseless lie that mail-in ballots lead to vote fraud and forgeries. Twitter attached a warning to this and a couple other presidential fabrications suggesting readers fact check his claims.

Twitter did not say “This dipshit is lying again!” They didn’t even call bullshit on his bullshit claims. They just suggested people check it out, which they should be doing anyway… certainly by now.

Turns out, Twitter’s tweet hurt Li’l Donnie’s feelings. He tweeted “Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen… Clean up your act, NOW!!!!”

Four exclamation points!!!! I guess he means it. He repeated his threats to regulate or shut down social media companies for trying to silence “conservative” expression. In so doing, Trumpsy betrays his lack of faith in capitalism: such conservative voices, no matter how few, possess on average nearly two eyeballs each and internet content providers cover their nut with the number of eyeballs they attract.

Therefore, if you are a “general interest” content provider, you don’t want to chase away any noticeable group of followers. Even Trumpsters buy stuff… like, say, Clorox and hydroxychloroquine.

According to Reuters, after Orangey made his threat shares of Twitter and Facebook dropped – temporarily. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #090: Tweedledumbass”

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #029: Is Bigger Worser?

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #029: Is Bigger Worser?

Last Friday Senator Elizabeth Warren called for the breaking up of the larger tech/innovation companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. She made this argument at the South by Southwest (SXSW) technology conference, citing anti-trust as her major concern.

It’s amusing to see Sen. Warren side with Donald Trump on anything. You may recall that Trump wanted to kill the AT&T / Time Warner merger. The standard reason of “limiting competition” was offered, and I agree with her in concept: limiting competition is bad, and monopolies suck. Ask anybody who subscribes to cable television.

A couple years ago Warren promised to break up the big banks. These few institutions are quite rich, extremely powerful, are paying their top executives in eight or nine and are doing much, much better now than they did before they forced us into our worst recession since the Great Depression. At that time, the government said they could not break up these institutions who had put a death grip on our economy, cost millions of mom-and-pop investors much of their life savings, and allowed them to gobble up hundreds of smaller, local banks. They were, as we were told, “too big to fail.” Which is the same as “too big to follow the law.”

Warren cried bullshit onto that, and she was right. But if she did anything meaningful about it except bray, she’s succeeded in keeping that to herself. So, instead, she’s shifted her attention to much lower-hanging fruit. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind #029: Is Bigger Worser?”

Beat JENeration #011: How Deleting My Facebook App Saved My Sanity and Proved I’m Self-Centered

Beat JENeration #011: How Deleting My Facebook App Saved My Sanity and Proved I’m Self-Centered

Just about five months ago, while scrolling through Facebook on my phone, I deleted the app in anger. And then, not only did the world not end, it felt like it improved.

The actual world, well, that has been getting progressively worse since June. I mean, of course, I still follow the news and cringe through each new embarrassment my national government heaps upon itself, but I cringe through it on my own terms. This came in really handy during the Brett Kavanaugh Confirmation Shit Show. As a member of Gen X, I don’t readily believe in trigger warnings, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get triggered. The fight or flight (or in my case really it’s more a freeze) response came on strong, so having some control of where I would encounter the newest travesty and my rage response was really important.  Continue reading “Beat JENeration #011: How Deleting My Facebook App Saved My Sanity and Proved I’m Self-Centered”