Sculptus Poe

If they reprinted those scanned books and sold them or even gave them away, they would be in more trouble than you would by sharing on limewire by dent of numbers. That isn’t what they are doing with these books. In fact, they did get in trouble for using the books they didn’t buy.

When a bookstore goes out of business or just can’t sell a book, they don’t return it to the printers, they tear off the cover, return that and by law have to throw the rest of the book in the trash and destroy it. So books are already destroyed by the millions. When I was a kid our hometown bookstore went out of business and I watched them throw away 2 metal dumpsters full of coverless books. If they were destroying ancient texts or valuable copies, that would be more something to get excited about. I doubt that they were doing that though.

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I mean, really, you probably have $0 worth of damages to worry about. If something in particular happens, like corporate espionage hurting your business that causes real damage, then you have the freedom to sue for that particular thing. (Supposing you aren’t locked out by the settlement.)

These are civil cases, buying your way out is all that happens in the best of circumstances in a civil case. It is just a matter of how much you have to pay to buy out. Punitive damages might do some extra justice, but what would that be? In the end you have to imagine that some radom person has sued you unjustly and decide how you want an innocent person to be treated, or perhaps they sued you with some small real point to their lawsuit, do you want the default to be that you are ruined? Maybe you didn’t intend harm, but want to either make amends or at least get past the lawsuit so you can get on with your life, do you want no recourse possible?

In the end, if Google was forced out of business, many(most) of us would be way worse off. That is not the ideal outcome. Ideally, the case brings enough money to the plaintiff to right any hardship caused and, in the case of punitive damages, does just enough hardship to the defendant that they are dissuaded from pursuing that course of action, but you aren’t trying to kill them.

Good gravy. 1984 wasn’t a guidebook.

Settlements only happen with the consent of both parties. I don’t see that as a problem. If you really don’t want a settlement, then opt out of the class action and bring your own case or do what you can to make sure the lawyer for the class action won’t settle. That I suppose is unlikely, as the lawyer will do whatever ends up being the most likely win case scenario in their opinion and the number of people in the class action will probably mean you have no individual say in it (not sure how that particular piece works but no class action suit that approached me gave me any options for what I wanted out of it).

enters the chat.

I’m not anti-AI at all, but their LLM definitely isn’t ready for the top of a google search as if it is real information. Of course, posting promoted search results at the top of the searches as if it was a real result already devalued them. They at least need the LLM result to be an opt-in option with caveats. I would probably opt-in but I would like off to be the default.

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I just updated through Ninite and it went to 8.8.9.

I always wondered why there could be a shortage of coal and fossil fuel since it should be constantly made on various layers. Then I looked it up. Seems like that is all there will be in any quantity, especially for coal but also for fossil fuel though I have seen less about whether more fuel is being made by the biomass that falls in the ocean… I can’t find that information on a quick search when I’m supposed to be doing cad drawings right now … heh.

I would legitimately watch robot boxing.

I think that is coal. Almost all the coal in the world was made between 300 and 360 million years ago, between the times that the right plants showed up for coal production and the bacteria showed up to break them down too fast.

The wizards had indoor plumbing starting in the 1700s. Most of the world didn’t have indoor plumbing until the 1800s. It would be hard to read the books and not know Hogwarts had plumbing. Your bad example notwithstanding, yes the wizards are ignorant of a few things that make no sense even though they use magic for every mundane thing, and it makes less sense since children would have to completely rely on their parents for any magical utility until they were pretty much grown. It doesn’t take away from the story, but if she did the worldbuilding like Tolkien, she probably would have noticed this and made small adjustments.

Fossil Fuel comes from dead plankton and algae, much older and more plentiful than this poor fellow and his colleagues. He isn’t going to achieve his aspirations.

I’m going to have to read The Blazing World now. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of it.

Well, if you include Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World (1666), you would have to put Johannes Kepler’s Somnium (1634) and Lucian of Samosata’s A True Story (2nd century AD) ahead of her.

I’ve listened to “A True Story” years ago but can’t remember any of it. Reading the synopses, I think all three are closer to fantasy than Sci-Fi. So I still Put Frankenstein as the first true Sci-Fi book.