pnw_hazor

It also says something about the people that are willing to stick around. Not good things.

He may not have been able to understand your answer without seeing it in code.

Algorithms remain unpatenable.

The claims of this patent recite a chat bot system that does specific things a certain way. If it does require a particular algorithm, the algorithm itself is not protected.

The claims define the protected inventions. In this example, claim 1 recites a very specific way to implement a chat bot.

"A method for creating a conversational chat bot of a specific entity, the method comprising: receiving a request associated with a specific entity; accessing social data associated with the specific entity, the social data comprising at least one of: images of the specific entity, voice data for the specific entity, conversational data associated with the specific entity, and publicly available information about the specific entity; processing the social data using at least one of machine learning techniques and one or more rule sets, wherein processing the social data comprises: identifying conversation data collected for the specific entity; identifying conversation data collected for one or more entities similar to the specific entity; and determining similarities between the one or more entities and the specific entity using at least one of expression analysis techniques, approval indicators, and characteristics comparisons; using the social data to create a personality index, wherein the personality index comprises personality information for the specific entity; and using the personality index to train a chat bot to interact conversationally using the personality information of the specific entity"

Is this really common?

Some are. It depends on how they work. Remember utility patents are about how things work, not what they are.

There are probably 1000's of issued patents for chat bots each one claiming different hows.

I watched Alex Jones on Tim Pool's IRL podcast say that it was a crucial part of "The Great Reset" to clear out the middle-rich -- the people considered wealthy enough to cause trouble but not part-of-the-program so to speak.

I have no idea about The Great Reset but it makes sense for the CCP.

They formed a Members-only union which can exist absent a majority of employees joining. The terminology is confusing since all unions are member-only.

These minority unions do not have collective bargaining rights unless the employer agrees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members-only_unionism

Apparently this is a Members-only union. They are different than classic teamster/boilermaker/machinist unions most people think of.

Unless the law or NLRB has recently changed its position, employers do not have to bargain with members-only unions. Though they can if they want.

https://prospect.org/justice/labor-crossroads-defense-member...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members-only_unionism

When I did employee-side employment discrimination law, the stories from the union employees who worked at a giant US airplane manufacture were the saddest. Often with local union leadership being involved in the discrimination.

Eventually I learned to pass on cases that involved unionized employees because having a union involved made it much more difficult to prosecute cases.

I my one experience, they were more than happy to let us breakdown the booths at the end of the show rather than stick around after 5pm on a Friday.

But setting up or carrying things things during the day had to use union people.

Omitting an inventor from a patent is usually grounds for invalidating the patent.

(Unless they are careful to exclude all of your contributions from the claims -- which is almost impossible)

Downvoting for disagreement is okay? That is new to me. Well okay then. I will proceed accordingly.

Thanks.

Common law fraud is hard to prove in the US.

All of the elements listed below must be proven. However, some of the comments here describe behavior that comes pretty close.

(1) a representation of fact; (2) its falsity; (3) its materiality; (4) the representer’s knowledge of its falsity or ignorance of its truth; (5) the representer’s intent that it should be acted upon by the person in the manner reasonably contemplated; (6) the injured party’s ignorance of its falsity; (7) the injured party’s reliance on its truth; (8) the injured party’s right to rely thereon; and (9) the injured party’s consequent and proximate injury.

Lying to consumers. Puffery is the legal term of art.

The "reasoning" allowing advertising/advertisers to lie is that it is assumed consumers do not believe it.

This is creeping pretty close to the legal definition of fraud.

But advertising has had a fair amount of safe-harbor carve-outs for over a 100 years or so that are not available to other industries. So it is no surprise it continues today.

edit: I hate to say it but the auto-downvoters here on HN are approaching reddit levels. Everything I said above is true.

I competed for some gov projects before. The one-trick that produces such bad outcomes is requiring the RFP winners to have done similar projects before.

This often freezes out local innovators in favor of large national contractors that specialize in fubar government projects.

The King 5 article says that the WA project was led by Hewlett-Packard and then Microsoft helped out at the end.

I am talking about the cost of the software for Washington State. Added a link.

"Eventually, the [Washington] state’s computers started to flag anomalies: out-of-state banks, duplicate email addresses and multiple names using the same bank accounts. But there and elsewhere, antiquated state computer systems failed to flag foreign IP addresses, repeated computer serial numbers and techniques to mask that number."

The current version of WA employment security dept software was deployed in 2017. It was a boondoggle that cost taxpayers ~$50mm.

edit-to-add-link: https://www.king5.com/article/news/investigations/years-late...

I switched to single spacing about 15 years ago when I was reading about typography for legal writing. Now I find two-spacing jarring. Also, when seeing two-spacing I somewhat irrationally get the feeling that the writer is old-fashioned or uninformed.

I understand the claim that two-spacing makes it easier to read because it separates sentences. But that is what the period does. Sentences are supposed to flow together.

Paragraphs are for separating.

And from the linked article:

“I’ve gotten a lot of flak for using a mono-spaced font (Courier New) in the study,” said Johnson.

Flak? I think using monospace font invalidates the conclusion of study.

Well, the company would cut you loose in a second if they felt like it.

A VP of Engineering at my first tech job was the first to tell me to never be loyal to a company because they will never be loyal to you.

Later the worst example of this I experienced was when I was a hotshot contractor at a medtech startup. About a week after I started, they pivoted and fired almost everyone except me and another recently hired contractor. Junior devs and most marketing/biz dev folks were offloaded. They were w-2 employees not contractors like me and my buddy.

Many of the folks there had been recently hired as the company was spinning up for a product release. They had been grinding for weeks to get ready for a trade show demo.

I found out about the pivot and layoffs when I heard some of my office neighbors crying.

I lined up another gig and left soon after.

Two weeks is fine. Candidates can take the first offer and continue their interview process.

Then two-months later they can give notice when the slow deciding company they really want to work at finally makes an offer.

Given that turnbacks and rehabs have been a thing for years, it is probably working out the way the Army hopes.

I got in trouble a few times in the Army and there was a lot of effort to "rehab" me. When I got in trouble as an NCO, the whole point of my punishment was to make me a better NCO. That's what they said and it seemed that's what they were trying to do.

Generally, yes. Victims of this tactic are required to obey the absurd orders and then seek remedy from the courts afterward.

There are exceptions related to orders to break the law, put oneself or others into danger, and so on.

For example, if you resist arrest, the underlying charge may get dropped for lack of evidence but the resisting arrest charges may remain. Though, the resisting arrest charges (or obstruction charges) may get dropped too depending on the prosecuting agency's policies.

Same in the US.

But, people are required to obey police commands, unlawful or not, and then seek remedy from the courts afterwards.

And, there is usually a narrow self-defense exception. One can lawfully resist if the police are unlawfully trying to kill you.

The are US laws like the Electronic Communication Act that addressed some of these issues for phone companies and ISPs.

Google, et al, need to be roped into similar laws. They are providing a defacto public square that deserves more regulation -- one way or the other.

I look forward to the signature audits.

Witness affidavits suggest some counties in some states did not follow their own laws.

Now, unfortunately, there is no legal remedy because in most cases the irregular ballots cannot be separate from the regular ballots once they are pooled together.

A lot of election laws define the rules, but few define the remedy if they are broken.

Fraud is a very specific (and hard to prove) term of art in US law.

There is no US law that would stop someone from making expressions that are later determined to be fraudulent.

Note, commercial speech (e.g., advertisement) is considered a less protected species of speech and may be subject to prior restraint in limited viewpoint neutral circumstances.

Sure their may be consequences for speech that is later determined by a court and with due process to be unprotected.

But no US law can prevent you from saying it in the first place.

More recently, the pre-election suppression of the Hunter Biden scandals that are now okay to talk about openly for some reason.