The Death of the Mind

You know, when you’ve written as much as I have about trademark disputes, there are times when you think you’ve seen everything, only to have the universe remind you that the depth of silliness around trademarks can always get deeper. The subject of today’s conversation is going to be a certification mark. While afforded similar protections to a trademark, they are primarily used by a third party, with permission of the owner of a trademarked product, to validate that a product meets certain agreed upon quality standards from the trademark owner. You can find some examples here, but one that is easy to understand is the Energy Star certification mark. To have an Energy Star stamp…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/09/us-appeals-court-sends-dispute-between-french-cognac-cartel-and-music-label-back-to-uspto/

Texas is one of eight states that have enacted laws that force adults to prove their age before accessing porn sites. Soon it will try to persuade the Supreme Court that its law doesn’t violate the First Amendment. 
Good luck with that. 
These laws are unconstitutional: They deny adults the well-established right to access constitutionally protected speech.
Texas’ H.B. 1181 forces any website made up of one-third or more adult content to verify every visitor’s age. Some adult sites have responded to the law by shutting down their services in Texas. The Free Speech Coalition challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, arguing that mandatory age verification does more than keep minors away from porn — the law nannies adults as well, barring…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/08/age-gating-access-to-online-porn-is-unconstitutional/

Enlarge / EUS panel test weld at the Michoud Assembly Facility on Tuesday, February 9, 2021. (credit: Michael DeMocker/NASA)
The NASA program to develop a new upper stage for the Space Launch System rocket is seven years behind schedule and significantly over budget, a new report from the space agency’s inspector general finds. However, beyond these headline numbers, there is also some eye-opening information about the project’s prime contractor, Boeing, and its poor quality control practices.
The new Exploration Upper Stage, a more powerful second stage for the SLS rocket that made its debut in late 2022, is viewed by NASA as a key piece of its Artemis program to return humans to the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=2041826

Small stay of execution in ‘exceptional circumstances’ promised as lawsuits start to fly

As the DigiCert drama continues, we now have a better idea of the size and scope of the problem – with the organization’s infosec boss admitting the SSL/TLS certificate revocation sweep will affect tens of thousands of its customers, some of which have warned that the short notice may have real-world safety implications and disrupt critical services.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/31/digicert_certificates_extension/

Today’s links

A profoundly stupid case about video game cheating could transform adblocking into a copyright infringement: Actual property rights are less important than the metaphorical property rights of “IP.”

Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.

This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2019, 2023

Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.

Recent appearances: Where I’ve been.

Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.

Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.

Colophon: All the rest.

A profoundly stupid case about video game cheating could transform adblocking into a copyright infringement (permalink)
Here’s a weird consequence of our societal shift from capitalism (where riches come from profits) to feudalism (where riches come from rents): increasingly, your rights to your actual property (the physical…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/29/faithful-user-agents/

Logical replication is a powerful feature in PostgreSQL that allows for real-time data replication between databases. It can be used for performing major version upgrades using a blue/green setup where you have two databases, allowing you to test and switch over to a new version with minimal downtime. Logical replication can also be use to facilitate database migrations between different environments, using the same technique and tooling.
In this post, I will describe the process of setting up simple replication and switchover between two databases using pg_easy_replicate.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/6zV

PostgreSQL major versions are released every year, with each release delivering better performance and new features. With such rapid innovation, it is inevitable that there will be a need to upgrade from one version to another. Upgrade procedures are usually very complex and require thorough planning. With the 2.4.0 release of Percona Operator for PostgreSQL, […]

External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/6zI

Well, we’ll see how long ShotSpotter/SoundThinking will keep making that New York money. The outlook is not good. A lot of this will depend on how well the NYPD can defend the useless product it’s spending millions on, but at the end of the day, the city still holds the purse strings and it has the power to terminate contracts that simply aren’t worth paying for.
The NYC comptroller performed an audit of the NYPD and ShotSpotter not with the intent of burying them, but simply to determine whether or not the NYPD was paying its bills on time and whether or not ShotSpotter was fulfilling the obligations of its contract.
The answer to both questions…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/27/nyc-comptroller-report-says-shotspotter-is-just-wasted-money/