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> There are plenty of H1Bs who are similarly smart but don't want to build weapons though

Which companies are employing H-1B labor to work on presumably ITAR/EAR-regulated articles?

Everything old is new again. The movie industry relocated itself to California specifically to evade Edison's patents on movie cameras. Today, they're on the frontlines using lawfare to shut down any and all infringement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Patents_Company

Safari is exempt.
How did she do in the primaries?
This is legally irrelevant to the statute.
Yeah, western parts are expensive.

https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/C47117600.html

Here's a capable switch for $0.07.

Rockchip has stellar mainline kernel support for most of their SOCs.
> there has to be a physical switch

Or literally any $1-3 SPDT RF switch? >80% of which are directly optimized and advertised for wifi and bluetooth?

Receiving stolen property is a specific, enumerated crime - which statute are you alleging that Anthropic knowingly and intentionally violated?
> The distinction is that Aaron Schwartz was intentionally pirating research papers

And, you know, all of the intentional, physical, artfully-planned means by which he did so.

Which is why GP should never have attempted the "theft" analogy. No part of what Aaron Swartz did was theft - so every single statute you can cite regarding knowingly receiving stolen property is irrelevant.
And only a crime in one of them.
If you leave the door to your house unlocked, am I welcome to come in, pop on into your utility closet, plug into a switch port and take everything your machines allow me to fetch?

I don't disagree with what he was doing from a moral standpoint or a hacker standpoint, but it's very easy to convict him.

This discussion typically devolves into an argument about what is "publicly accessible." No reasonable person (i.e. those who serve on juries - not autistic software engineers) would agree that someone who isn't even a student at a school is legally entitled to enter a building (unlocked or not), venture into their utility room and access protected computer resources.

Everyone loves to make this about JSTOR: they weren't the only victim. MIT was far more aggrieved; JSTOR blocking his Harvard account access and him proceeding to breach their TOS ("clickwrap agreements aren't law!!!") and circumvent their defenses isn't required to convict him of CFAA violations.

Why can't I go into a bank, sit down at a personal banker's desk who is away on vacation, plug into a switch port and do whatever I want? There's no lock on his cubicle, the door was open! This is the legal equivalent of "neener neener, I'm not touching you."

Mens rea is an important thing people love to sweep under the rug with this case:

• First and foremost: Why did he have to go to into a closet at MIT to fetch documents? Why not do it at home or a public library?

  • Because of rate limits and/or authentication requirements. He *knew* he could not obtain the access he needed through other means, so he had to trespass to do it.
• Why did he cover his face with his bicycle helmet... just when passing by cameras?

  • He wasn't some weirdo who liked to wear his helmet that way: he stopped immediately when he believed he didn't need to conceal his identity any further. He *knew* he shouldn't be there.

• He registered his guest account using false credentials: "Gary Host" and "Grace Host" - "Ghost"

  • Why wouldn't he just use his real name if he believed what he was doing was legitimate?

• When MIT blocked his IP, he released/renewed and fetched a new one. Fine, no problem on its own, hard to prove intent there. When MIT subsequently blocked his MAC address, he proceeded to change one character and kept on downloading.

  • Computer people will try to reduce this to "MAC addresses aren't legal identifiers blah blah blah." The beliefs of zealous third parties are completely irrelevant: direct measures were taken to prevent his access, he recognized and immediately circumvented them. He *knew* what he was doing. That's what matters.

• Why hide his hardware under boxes? In absence of all of the other facts, sure, one could argue that he didn't want students at this ultra-prestigious Ivy League school to steal his shit, but to a reasonable person weighing the totality of the circumstances: he was again concealing his actions because he knew they were wrong.
Come and take them.
> Swiss people are the absolute bottom of the barrel maybe followed by the cheap outsourcing countries next

Just by fact of population, a generalization may or may not hold more weight. Anecdotes are also tricky to really apply broadly: it's simply impossible for you to have encountered that many Swiss software engineers because few exist... few Swiss people exist. In 2019, there were over 300,000 Indian H-1B petitions to Switzerland's total of 202.

> I'm also sure i've worked with a lot more very good Indian engineers than German engineers here in America, but that might have more to do with who immigrates here.

Relative quality of life in Germany is objectively better in India by pretty much every metric, so there's an automatic/inherent bias - it's probable that more Indians wish to immigrate to the United States. (More than 10% of the Indian population doesn't have access to modern toilet facilities, for instance.) The competition for U.S. immigrant visas is far higher amongst Indians simply by the numbers, so there may also be a filtering function at play.

Is it possible to make a broadly-accurate generalization about work ethic in a given country? (There are no Foxconn-style suicide nets in the United States that I am aware of - so perhaps?)

Do some countries possibly value quality or responsibility as a desirable property more than others at a cultural level? (Is "German Engineering" a real thing?)

Why do 419-style scams seem to emanate from a few specific countries? Why is piracy on the high seas more prevalent in Somalia than the United Kingdom?

I imagine this largely depends on whether one elects for the lump sum or annuity payments.
> Attack missiles generally need to travel much farther which increases the cost.

This is likely a a flattened curve after you enter ballistic missile territory.

> There's no other outcome.

Wow, what an interesting binary when 80% of all cases end in settlement.

Re:GPT-6 Astra Helped Me Jailbreak My Kindle on Monday October 12, 2026 @10:49PM (#50065943)
What's really fun is when you get halfway through a completely legitimate engineering problem and then any further attempts are permanently rejected - leaving you with a half-working (if you're lucky) codebase. Stunning UX.
Re:OpenSCAD the Programmers Solid 3D CAD Modeller on Saturday October 10, 2026 @06:30PM (#50037837)
Yeah - this is BREP-recovery using RANSAC shapes, not tesselated-mesh-in-STEP.
Re:How California Closed the Montana License Plate Loophole on Wednesday October 07, 2026 @06:09AM (#49990622)
> mooching off residents who paid for the roads they want to drive on.

...While 99% of road damage is being done by out-of-state semi trucks exempt from CA registration.

Re:What is going on with ceiling fans on Monday October 05, 2026 @08:42AM (#49964104)
> controller in the fan take that as an input

Yes - doing this is quite ugly, electrically, is all. Dimmable LEDs, etc. do this same thing (with the load supply, not a separate line - you couldn't get away with this on a fan.)

Re:What is going on with ceiling fans on Monday October 05, 2026 @08:36AM (#49964050)
Hunter Fans - I had 3 fail, switched to premium, have had no issues since.

They are also substantially more quiet (silent) where every Hunter fan from $150-$550 had terrible hums. YMMV.

Re:What is going on with ceiling fans on Monday October 05, 2026 @08:34AM (#49964030)
> Why are they shit?

Poor cooling, poor light emission, poor longevity. Philips Dubai lamps aren't bad in this line, but Feit, Philips' normal products, etc. have high failure rates when installed in most enclosures (fans, cans, tight sconces, etc.)

Re:What is going on with ceiling fans on Monday October 05, 2026 @08:31AM (#49963999)
Branded "Hunter" is mid-to-low-end, yes. Big Ass Fans, Modern Forms, Modern Fan Co, Matthews Fans - all are 100% DC. I believe Casablanca (Hunter offshoot, almost all DC) might have some AC fans, but don't quote me. I've had 3 Hunter AC fans fail, all had hums. I use my fans non-stop.

Almost every fan sold at Home Depot (in-store) is on the mid-to-low-end side of things. You'll notice that Home Depot doesn't sell Wolf, Cove, Sub-Zero, Viking, or Gaggenau appliances either.

DC fans were a thing as far back as 2007 (family had some, and they were even cheaper than today's DC fans, though maybe not with inflation.)

If you're in a situation where you have a landlord, the likelihood of your fans being premium is quite low, even in "luxury" apartments. They're a consumable item, and bearings go bad no matter what when you run them non-stop.

Re:What is going on with ceiling fans on Monday October 05, 2026 @12:23AM (#49960650)
> There is.

How did it work electrically? This is what I mean by "clean."

Re:What is going on with ceiling fans on Sunday October 04, 2026 @11:52PM (#49960491)
> I figure that every ceiling fan I've ever lived with has been AC powered.

Every high-end fan sold today is DC. It's possible that you didn't see the power supply.

> way worse than hauling my ass up to pull a damn chain.

Many people have high ceilings where a pull chain couldn't be humanly reached. Sure, this might work if you have 8' ceilings. Which high-end fans have pull chains?

Re:What is going on with ceiling fans on Sunday October 04, 2026 @11:49PM (#49960481)
> torque

DC fans don't have the hum, get up to speed faster, etc. They can operate at a far greater range of power and still maintain high torque output. AC fans operate in a much narrower envelope.

> longevity

AC fans typically use brushes and slip rings.

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