bookwormstory.social

https://societyofauthors.org/2025/04/01/soa-day-of-action-following-allegations-of-metas-mass-theft-of-authors-work/

The SoA is organising a day of protest against Meta following revelations of pirated books being used to train their large language models

On Thursday 20 March, The Atlantic broke the story of how Meta has used the Library Genesis (LIbGen) dataset, which is full of pirated material, to develop their AI systems.

The revelations detailed by The Atlantic come against the background of the recent government consultation into Artificial Intelligence (AI) and copyright and the #MakeItFair campaign which sees the UK creative industries fighting back against the proposed changes to copyright law, which would favour multinational tech companies, but irremediably damage the creative industries.

A red button. Image says: 'Would you press the button?' [results of pressing the button:] there exists a pill that makes your disability a LOT less debilitating BUT it's near-impossible to get because the non-disabled enjoy taking the pill for fun and the government doesn't want them to.

What are all the federated blogging options available? I know of a few that are mostly clunky in my eyes.

https://apnews.com/article/val-kilmer-actor-dead-pneumonia-7e8f27b1ec80f2940f7a7776f5f92804

I played some more AC Shadows today. I did this fun mission where i snuck aboard a boat and blew up some gunpowder reserves (The ship is in the background of the screenshot above. If you look closely you can see the fire)

Before that, I also visited this island filled to the brim with cats. Just cats everywhere. It was like paradise. I found this one building with a ton of cats outfront.

I found another with a cat getting ready to eat. There were plates all over the island with fish on them, for the cats i imagine.

I found this Calico smiling, which is probably my favorite cat pic yet in a game. Idk though, some of my Mountain Lion pictures from red dead are pretty cute.

Underneath the Island, there's a cave that has a secret mount in it. I heard about it online and decided to do a brief search to see if it was true, Sure enough, it was, and i got a free horse. I got this screenshot of the gorgeous cave after surfacing for air before grabbing it from a chest (because everyone knows that's where you keep horses).

After that, i left the island and hijacked this ladies boat and took her on a romantic boat ride. I ended up going to this big city to chase after the next target. I got to get a nice evening of sailing because the lake was huge. It was almost a 1 km of a drive on the boat. I got the following lovely photo as the sun set:

On my way into port, i drove past the ship i would later blow up. It was massive and took up a huge amount of space. I honestly considered climbing it if i wasn't eager to get back on land sooner:

I eventually made port next to this fishing boat and disembarked, heading into town. I'm quite proud of my parking job. Didn't even strike another fisherman, which is a good record for me:

I had to head up to this sort of palace area as Yasuke to talk to this one lady. Along the way i went through these pretty fields. I'm excited to pass back through them once it turns winter because one of my favorite sites is a big open field of snow. Bonus points if the game lets me leave trails in it.

Finally, after talking to the lady, i headed back into town to blow up the ship. The walk back was way quicker because i slid down the hills, but i took a detour to grab a synchronization point at the castle. As i scaled it, i grabbed a photo of it's gorgeous moat area thingy(?)

Artist: Iwauchi Tomoki | fediverse | pixiv | twitter | danbooru

This lamp by OSRAM uses the LEDVANCE trademark, implying it is an LED replacement for fluorescent tubes. I repair LED bulbs (and tubes but broken ones are still rare) as a hobby, and while going through bins I have to avoid fluorescent ones (even CFLs in fancy globes). Welp, there goes my yet-flawless way to tell: "if it says LED, it's LED". I really need to shine through most of them! Shining a light through this one reveals nothing inside but a heated electrode at either end (aside the phosphor coating, and a gas mixture including a little mercury vapor), the normal components of an FL tube. LED tubes would include a driver and an LED strip (and usually a PTC at the other end). I mainly use the method to reveal the kinky or twisty tube of "sneaky" CFLs with milky balls.

Also, the company took a while to leave Russia but at least they did

All bakeries in Gaza have been forced to close down due to Israel’s blockade on food and essentials.

“Bakeries will no longer operate until the [Israeli] occupation opens the crossings and allows the necessary supplies to enter.”

The WFP supports the running of 18 bakeries in the enclave. Their closures will worsen a starvation and malnutrition crisis that has devastated Gaza’s two million residents.

All bakeries in Gaza have been forced to close down due to Israel’s blockade on food and essentials.

“Bakeries will no longer operate until the [Israeli] occupation opens the crossings and allows the necessary supplies to enter.”

The WFP supports the running of 18 bakeries in the enclave. Their closures will worsen a starvation and malnutrition crisis that has devastated Gaza’s two million residents.

TL;DR: Self-Driving Teslas Rear-End Motorcyclists, Killing at Least 5

Brevity is the spirit of wit, and I am just not that witty. This is a long article, here is the gist of it:

• The NHTSA’s self-driving crash data reveals that Tesla’s self-driving technology is, by far, the most dangerous for motorcyclists, with five fatal crashes that we know of.
• This issue is unique to Tesla. Other self-driving manufacturers have logged zero motorcycle fatalities with the NHTSA in the same time frame.
• The crashes are overwhelmingly Teslas rear-ending motorcyclists.

Read our full analysis as we go case-by-case and connect the heavily redacted government data to news reports and police documents.

Oh, and read our thoughts about what this means for the robotaxi launch that is slated for Austin in less than 60 days.

Bénédicte de Perthuis, the judge who sentenced Le Pen for embezzling EU funds and barred her from running in France's 2027 presidential election, was placed under police protection on Monday night over alleged death threats she received, domestic press reported.

Artist: Takamine Nadare | bluesky | pixiv | twitter | danbooru

The European Union’s new research chief Ekaterina Zaharieva speaks to Nature about attracting disaffected US scientists and cutting grant bureaucracy.

The date it posted on this site doesn't convince me it is a joke, and even if it is, it's not funny.

And on the first of the fourth, they shall become unto one another, mixing together joy and confusion in equal measure -Yagoo 6:9