Apple put the Magic Mouse’s charging port at the bottom again. “… Apple still thinks that the best way to charge your Magic Mouse is by flipping it over to plug it in, making it so you can’t use it. Why?”
It's now legal to hack McFlurry machines and medical devices to fix them
It is now legal to hack or otherwise bypass technical protection measures on McFlurry machines and other commercial food preparation machines in order to repair them thanks to a new rule issued by the Federal government.
Also, after a challenge, it remains “legal to circumvent manufacturer locks that prevent the repair of medical equipment.”
Bad copyright law combined with arbitrary software locks installed by manufacturers make it illegal for people to repair the devices they own, resulting in “both a huge number of McDonald’s ice cream machines and a large number of medical devices being broken at any given moment.” The beneficiaries of this bad law are the manufacturers of these devices, who have an unjustified monopoly on repairs.
This same monopoly, granted by Section 1201 of the the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is enjoyed by manufacturers of “everything from video game consoles to tractors to ventilators to ice cream machines, kitchen appliances, and trains.”
The US Copyright Office issued exemptions to the law.
But Kylie Wiens, CEO of iFixit, said the new ruls don’t go far enough. Industrial equipment is excluded and the rules do not legalize sale of tools that would bypass software locks.
“This exemption is helpful, but what we really need is Congress to solve this problem and truly legalize repair,” he said.
The American housing crisis is a theft, not a shortage
Economics From the Top Down: Since Reagan, the US has been on a massive policy of redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich.
By returning this stolen money, the US housing crisis would evaporate. No, I’m not kidding. If the United States were to undo its experiment with rampant inequality and return the distribution of income to the levels found in 1970, the housing crisis would disappear.
“Fighting for the right of disabled people to adapt their technology is fighting for _everyone’s _rights.” — Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr
Please enjoy this 2021 photo of Minnie. She says hey.
Max Read: Anthropomorphic chatbots are a dangerous user interface for LLMs. AI didn’t kill 14-year-old Sewell Setzer. He killed himself with a gun he had easy access to in his house.
The mates who have met for a pint every Thursday for 56 years. “We once talked about soccer and sex. These days it’s more prostates and pensions.”