duckduckgo has an array of LLMs, which they take care of anonymity

do you need GPT4 specifically? If not, mistral has their large model for free available: https://chat.mistral.ai/chat

Yes, I told someone to inform themselves before making assumptions. Which, I think, is a reasonable expectation.

The rest of the comment was pointing out how archive.org acts like any other public library and therefore should not be treated differently. This does not carry hostility against the person I am replying to.

Please inform yourself. In these comments and on their website, it is covered that they do not provide books freely. Just like any other library books can be borrowed exactly as many times as they own a copy.

Just like any other library they sometimes provide a download for Adobe Digital Edition, which manages your lends on books. But as your friend with DRM stripping tools for sure can confirm: DRM is just an annoyance for legitimate customers, it forces legitimate users to use specific applications, while pirates get the freedom to choose how they interact with the not any more protected media. But this is a discussion for another thread as archive.org treats copyrighted books just like any other library.

Please go to archive.org > Books > Books to Borrow

Select any book which strikes your fancy. You will see a reading excerpt, like flicking through pages in a library. if you have a free account, you can lend it for 1h at a time.

Or look at this video https://dn720701.ca.archive.org/0/items/openlibrary-tour-2020/openlibrary.mp4

That means that if the Internet Archive and its partner libraries have only one copy of a book, then only one patron can borrow it at a time, just like other library lending.

Lending and renting stuff is not piracy! Many corporate suits want people to start believing this. but i remember going to the library and renting books, movies and games. it was not piracy back then, and it wont be now.

looks like itch.io is down too. might be a coincidence or someone trying to show off…

You want an e2e encrypted public DNS? https://www.quad9.net/

You want to white- / blacklist IPs and domains? Configure your DNS

(/) brings you killed mice (x)

@Baleine@jlai.lu already mentioned one. And it does not really matter what the can do specifically to you. It matters what they can do and that you have no control. If you want to know what people can do with just your username look at this project: https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock. Now imagine what someone with more data can do.

Yes but No. For most people writing this kind of mail should not be a problem. However, for many different reasons it can become difficult to write such things: This mail is some kind of formal letter and alters a contract. Let’s imagine someone with a learning disability, they may be able to sign up for a online service, as they have done it many times. Writing a formal letter they may not have done many times and they cannot map past experiences the same way as a neurotypical person.

Depending on the local law this may be a reason why forced arbitration has to be opt-in: Typically the law should protect the weaker party. As the barrier for writing this letter is higher than the sign-up process, there is an argument that the chosen opt-out process of discord is targeted against some of their weakest customers.

Good question, but: Why would Discord ever expect to be in a lawsuit or arbitration with you? Most people, like you, use it to chat with people they barely know and give them no money. Still discord think it is necessary to take away legal rights from all their users.

don’t try to misunderstand ppl on purpose

nothing to hide nothing to fear, huh?

And i thought at least after Snowden we learnt this is bs…

To me the problem is that you wouldn’t be able to buy a car anonymously anymore, while it leaves the really rich pretty much untouched.

Art is a well known angle for money laundering or giving someone a huge sum of money pretty much without any regulation. Contracts for construction or even consulting are another way.

I don’t have access to this kind of playground - chances are, you neither. But the people supposedly targeted by this kind of law (corrupt politicians, organised crime, …), do have access to these things and are therefore not impacted.

I am pretty sure the lesser part of corruption is cash. Probably more stuff like exchanging a lucrative contract for political support.

They are not stupid. Afterall cash needs to be explained, a good contract gives you cash and the explanation.

Small businesses can individually refuse to do business with the big shopping mall -> add threads to the block list (‘defederate’ them)

The big shopping mall is not allowed to put their building at the public square -> threads is not allowed to use ActivityPub

The first statement is totally ok and a lot of instances do this. However, similar like shopping malls it can pose a challenge for small businesses to stay competitive, while categorically refusing business with the big actor. The second statement would require the towns construction committee to not give the shopping mall a license to build. However, this construction committee is a centralised power and not in the design of ActivityPub.

I do not like threads and see them as a potential threat to what we have here. Exactly because it could become harder to stay competitive while refusing them. But i don’t see much that we can actively do.

“We can’t federate” is not really an option… Sure, every instance can add threads to the blocked list. But to keep big corporations out of ‘our public square’ ActivityPub would have to be twisted into a grotesque version of itself.

It really seems like we are looking at two sides of the same coin.

The coin has already ben tossed. Let’s see on which side it will land - I certainly hope it is the one you described.