Mastodawn

Microsoft's "Megatron" AI got its education from the high seas of piracy! 📚🏴‍☠️ 200,000 stolen books later, authors are filing suit. Turns out even Decepticons need to learn about copyright law ⚖️

https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/25/2137220/microsoft-sued-by-authors-over-use-of-books-in-ai-training

#Microsoft #AI #Copyright

Microsoft Sued By Authors Over Use of Books in AI Training - Slashdot

Microsoft has been hit with a lawsuit by a group of authors who claim the company used their books without permission to train its Megatron artificial intelligence model. From a report: Kai Bird, Jia Tolentino, Daniel Okrent and several others alleged that Microsoft used pirated digital versions of ...

tend2wobble 2h ago

Associated Press 16h ago

A Revolutionary War-era boat is being painstakingly rebuilt after centuries buried beneath Manhattan
https://apnews.com/article/new-york-buried-boat-revolution-7751e21d35d49dfe27d255ec46048403?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Top Stories @top-stories-AssociatedPress

Revolutionary War-era boat being restored in New York

A Revolutionary War-era boat is being reconstructed more than two centuries after being buried deep beneath Manhattan’s expanding shoreline. The New York State Museum in Albany will become a permanent home for the vessel. It was found far below street level in 2010 during construction at the World Trade Center site. Researchers believe it was a gunboat built in 1775 to defend Philadelphia. They don’t know all the places the boat sailed to or why it ended up apparently neglected along the shore of lower Manhattan by the 1790s. Reconstruction is expected to be finished later this month.

AP News

tend2wobble 3h ago

huntingdon 6h ago

Social Security will not run out of money in 2034 or at any other time. It has dedicated revenue from every working American that Congress is not supposed to touch.

What may happen, without reform, is that the revenue won't cover the current level of benefits.

But no reduction in benefits owing to that would be remotely as severe as the cuts Republicans want to make now, and have wanted to make since the program began. Their argument is meant to shield them from liability for doing that.

tend2wobble 3h ago

huntingdon 6h ago

When politicos like Attorney General Pam Bondi pretend not to know something obvious to everyone else, it's usually because their ignorance is a lesser crime, with lower penalties, than admitting knowledge of bad acts.

Pam Bondi and her direct reports are doing it every day, which says something about how corruptly they are running the Department of Justice.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/25/ag-pam-bondi-ice-masks-raids

Pam Bondi denies knowing Ice agents wore masks during raids despite video evidence

At hearing, US attorney general claims she’s unaware of reports that officials have hid their faces during roundups

The Guardian

tend2wobble 3h ago

Mike Masnick 9h ago

Wrote about this crazy deal in which Donald Trump was literally written by name into US Steel's incorporation docs, giving him unprecedented *personal* control over the company. It's not socialism or nationalization. It's Trumpilization...

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:l4edfel22exejp7mewt6f3ky/post/3lsh66nvtxl2o

tend2wobble 3h ago

Corporate Deal Making Made Easy: Just Give Donald Trump Personal Power To Approve All Strategic Decisions | Techdirt

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/06/25/corporate-deal-making-made-easy-just-give-donald-trump-personal-power-to-approve-all-strategic-decisions/

Corporate Deal Making Made Easy: Just Give Donald Trump Personal Power To Approve All Strategic Decisions

Here’s a fun corporate governance puzzle for you. Suppose you’re a foreign company trying to buy an American steel producer. The previous administration blocked your deal. The current p…

Techdirt

tend2wobble 3h ago

Luís Mar 9

The rare-earth elements deal didn't protect Afghanistan, and it won't for #ukraine. Everything old is new again because #trump can only think in terms of deals, tariffs, and intimidation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/world/asia/afghanistan-trump-mineral-deposits.html

Trump Finds Reason for the U.S. to Remain in Afghanistan: Minerals

Last week, as the White House fell into an increasingly fractious debate over Afghanistan policy, Trump aides met with a chemical executive to discuss the potential for extracting rare-earth minerals.

The New York Times

tend2wobble 3h ago

Show thread

Luís 9h ago

@tend2wobble I don’t think ICE can recover from this. Any reasonable president after Trump will have to close the department and fire agents who followed illegal orders, at a minimum.

tend2wobble 7h ago

Mark Stoneman 1d ago

This announcement is alarming. It is unclear what "a legitimate business need" means or who will make that determination. Are they planning to review the research plans of individual scholars? https://www.archives.gov/college-park #NationalArchives #authoritarianism

tend2wobble 7h ago

Laffy 1d ago

Keep 'em coming

Via James Fallows:

If I understand this ruling correctly, it is the biggest good news in a long time (I know, low bar). This was the hideous Mike Lee proposal to lay waste to much of West, by *forcing* a sale of Forest Service / BLM land.

‪Aaron Weiss‬:
‪
HUGE: Senate Parliamentarian says that Mike Lee's public land sell-off violates Byrd rule, requires 60 votes in Senate. A bunch of other terrible anti-environment provisions do too.

This isn't over, but this is a huge win.