You are suggesting a user configurable setting, but that’s exactly what they had. Apple had a user wide setting, and then individual apps could ask to override that setting. I have personalized ads off in my general settings, and though I would never turn them on, if for whatever reason I did want to, the best way to get me to do that would be to ask in the specific app I wanted to give access to that. Absolutely no way I would change my overall settings just for the benefit of one app. Others have noted that a second layer of consent was only needed if you did not use the Apple provided ad option, because Apple already has your opt in/out on file. I hope this causes Apple to also display the pop-up for those using Apple ad options. Most people probably just agreed to the tracking when setting up their phone, so forcing Apple to show the pop-up even if an app is using Apple as their ad distributor is ideal in my opinion. Users will be much more likely to opt out even if their overall setting is opt in. This will ideally make Apple and non-Apple advertising options on an even playing field and is better for users. If anything, it’s probably worse for developers because had they just chosen to use Apple ads before they were probably more likely to get targeted ads from the user since Apple would bypass the pop-up.

The “auction” is not a realtime auction that you might be used to IRL or anything, and these brands likely have AI already doing that. They likely have certain bid strategies and ad budgets. So they may be willing to pay up to $X to be in that spot for a user with demographic/behavior profile A and pay up to $Y for a user with profile B then the have an overall budget for that ad spot of $Q per day. All of those parameters are likely set by a specialized AI that monitors bid strategy over time. The AI might see that users with profile B download the app via the ad more often so they will spend more to capture that audience. It’s possible companies have their own internal strategies, but most ad platforms have at least some of that analysis built in and will regularly offer recommendations based on the data and have had that available for years.

Other than being an obvious ad for their own AI, the article was pretty informative.

Per the article, the following were found to be affected. Probably anything by the publisher should not be trusted as they’re just a data mining company, so make sure not to download any rebrands or new releases from the same people. Chrome Web Store:

• Urban VPN Proxy - 6,000,000 users
• 1ClickVPN Proxy - 600,000 users
• Urban Browser Guard - 40,000 users
• Urban Ad Blocker - 10,000 users

Microsoft Edge Add-ons:

• Urban VPN Proxy - 1,323,622 users
• 1ClickVPN Proxy - 36,459 users
• Urban Browser Guard - 12,624 users
• Urban Ad Blocker - 6,476 users

Absolutely infuriating. I’m upset the judge did not award the full extent of monetary damages even though it’s evident that Verizon is in violation of multiple agreements.

I know it’s not how this works, but since the FCC put those rules in place as a condition of their acquisition of the other companies, and since they violated those rules, the government should be able to nationalize/seize the assets of the other companies. Verizon should not legally have them since they broke the agreement. I’d love to see not just a one time fine but a legitimate punishment. If this guy hadn’t done this they’d be knowingly violating their agreement still. The people doing this are disgusting and taking advantage of the people with the least amount of time and resources. I truly wish they all have the day they deserve.

Yes, thank you! My timing was wrong (I’m getting old lol), but this was the exact thing being discussed. Glad other people were able to find the info.

Yes! Thank you for the link! I can’t guarantee it but this seems like the exact thing we had been chatting about. The age puts it in time to have made the rounds but still be tech relevant at around the time of discussion.

Not to support Disney or IP/copyright laws here, but that’s not really how that works. A musician can choose to not be on Spotify but be on Apple Music. A movie can be licensed to Netflix and not Hulu. A writer can publish in one paper and refuse to work with another. I think for how these things currently work, that is an important right that holders can claim. If I’m an artist and I want to make an AI generator from just my art, that should not give other companies license to use my are to train their AI.

Yea. I didn’t call it AI because I’m not sure the exact method of generation. It may have been AI or maybe some other generation method.

I may be hallucinating now, but I swear I remember nearly a decade ago there was a paper or articles about how CG PCBs were using some electrical tricks that were non standard to minimize space or something. The design purposefully had arcs or short circuits or something. Maybe it was a temperature thing? I did a more than cursory search and couldn’t find much, but I vividly remember having conversations about it. Anyone remember anything like that?

While I agree that especially in this moment this is a terrible idea, and the collection process is idiotic and reprehensible, in a better society it might be helpful if it were actually a successful tool. Autism is a spectrum and a somewhat vague collection of behavioral traits and plenty of children grow up without a diagnosis causing lots of undue pain and stress. Plenty of them may learn to mask on their own, but imho it would be great to be able to catch it early and give them tools that might help them succeed and give their family more understanding of them as individuals. Again, I don’t think this is a good idea, but I can see how a well meaning person might have come up with this.

Lol. Thank you. I had definitely just added necromancer by Gordon R Dickson to my list instead so that info really helps. I don’t read a lot of cyberpunk, so looking forward to something a little different.

Awesome! Thank you!

Not me having already just added Necromancer by Gordon R Dickson to my to read list. Thank you!

That’s helpful, thank you! I play a lot of ttrpgs so searching just “necromancer” was not yielding much so I just added “show” to the search. Will have to check this out.

I looked it up and all that’s coming up is an upcoming Apple TV show called neuromamcer. Would you mind sharing where to watch necromancer?

Not exactly the same, but pantheon on Netflix is in a similar vein.

This is such a beautiful comment. Feels like what the internet was made for. The holidays have me all emotional, but this just was so sweet. Thank you very much for sharing! I will probably not make this for a while, since holiday plans/family visiting/cooking for out of town picky eaters/etc etc. but it might be my first dish of the new year. Legitimately very excited to try this. Thank you again for sharing.

I can’t open this site so it might already mention this, but I went to a website that had specific buttons to have 4 different AIs offer their input on the recipe. Obviously I clicked off immediately, but that’s an insane thing to do. The whole point of a recipe is that an “expert” or at least a real human being with tastebuds presumably made this and thought it was good enough to share. I don’t want the general statistical average of every soup recipe. I want one specific recipe and for it to be cohesive and good. Some breads have rosemary in them. Some have raisins. Some have poppy seeds. I don’t need something that doesn’t understand the difference between poppy seed bread and cinnamon raisin bread telling me about poppy seed raisin bread. I know that’s not exactly how it works, but still. It’s incredible to me that people would do that.

For those curious, it’s an American cemetery under US administration. It’s just located abroad.

I have added the text and a generic online summary below, but generally the issue is that judges are becoming more and more lenient and are unwilling to put their foot down when there are requests that are actual overreach. This is for a variety of reasons, and the law might need to be more clear/strict, but according to the letter and interpretation of the law they need to be specific about what they are looking for and it should minimize intrusion in general. Judges have just stopped caring in many cases, and of course the people carrying them out are trigger happy jackboots.

Edit to add: we have a pretty open legal and recordkeeping system here in the US, so the removal from public record is pretty against that. I don’t know enough about the particulars to state whether I think that would be a wholly good or bad thing. I think a transparent judicial process is important, and things submitted to the court generally have a high degree of specificity and do involve redactions when relevant. I don’t know the benefits necessarily, but if proposed I would not necessarily be against sealing cases where the party was not found guilty.

From Cornell law school: Amdt4.5.4 Particularity Requirement Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

“The requirement that warrants shall particularly describe the things to be seized makes general searches under them impossible and prevents the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another. As to what is to be taken, nothing is left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant.” 1 This requirement thus acts to limit the scope of the search, as the executing officers should be limited to looking in places where the described object could be expected to be found.2 The purpose of the particularity requirement extends beyond prevention of general searches; it also assures the person whose property is being searched of the lawful authority of the executing officer and of the limits of his power to search. It follows, therefore, that the warrant itself must describe with particularity the items to be seized, or that such itemization must appear in documents incorporated by reference in the warrant and actually shown to the person whose property is to be searched.3

Footnotes 1 Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 196 (1927). See Stanford v. Texas, 379 U.S. 476 (1965). Of course, police who are lawfully on the premises pursuant to a warrant may seize evidence of crime in “plain view” even if that evidence is not described in the warrant. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 464–71 (1971). back 2 In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 17–19, (1968), the Court wrote: “This Court has held in the past that a search which is reasonable at its inception may violate the Fourth Amendment by virtue of its intolerable intensity and scope. Kremen v. United States, 353 U.S. 346 (1957); Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U.S. 344, 356–58 (1931); see United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 586–87 (1948). The scope of the search must be ‘strictly tied to and justified by’ the circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible. Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 310 (1967) (Fortas, J., concurring); see, e.g., Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 367–368 (1964); Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 30–31 (1925).” See also Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463, 470–82 (1976), and id. at 484, 492–93 (Brennan, J., dissenting). In Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 569 (1969), Justices Potter Stewart, William Brennan, and Byron White would have based the decision on the principle that a valid warrant for gambling paraphernalia did not authorize police upon discovering motion picture films in the course of the search to project the films to learn their contents. back 3 Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551 (2004) (a search based on a warrant that did not describe the items to be seized was “plainly invalid” ; particularity contained in supporting documents not cross-referenced by the warrant and not accompanying the warrant is insufficient); United States v. Grubbs, 547 U.S. 90, 97, 99 (2006) (because the language of the Fourth Amendment “specifies only two matters that must be ‘particularly describ[ed]’ in the warrant: ‘the place to be searched’ and ‘the persons or things to be seized[,]’ . . . the Fourth Amendment does not require that the triggering condition for an anticipatory warrant be set forth in the warrant itself.” back

Here’s so generic information about the above: Requirements for a Valid Search Warrant

The police who submit an affidavit supporting a warrant must attach a sworn, detailed statement. The officer must then appear before a neutral judge or magistrate. The judge will check to see if the officer has probable cause to execute the search.

In Carroll v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court held that probable cause exists when a police officer has facts and circumstances that provide a reasonably trustworthy basis to believe a suspect has committed or is about to commit a crime.

If the police request a search warrant to search a location, the police must provide probable cause that evidence of a crime exists at that location. The officer must also state, with specificity, the items they are looking for.

Reasonableness Requirement

Even if the police have a warrant, their search must still be reasonable. Although the facts of the case dealt with a warrantless seizure, the court in Brinegar v. United States reiterated that the presence of a warrant does not give the police the power to conduct an unreasonable search.

The police officer’s search must be reasonable, or the prosecutor won’t be able to use the evidence they find in court. For example, if the police are looking for a large suitcase that contains drugs, it wouldn’t be reasonable for them to look in your bedroom drawers. A large suitcase or duffel bag could not fit in a nightstand drawer.