Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

pcgamer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 768 posts

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#381

Post by wtallis »

gatlin wrote: post #273
wredcoll wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selecting an age choice from a drop down is in no way verification. The original post was low effort flame baiting. There's an argument to be made that it should be ignored, but it's hard to say.

If it must be ignored, then it exists. The bill proposes age verification. You may think the measures employed are weak or trivial, and I would agree, but the bill proposes age verification.

You seem to be operating with an unreasonably weak definition of "verification". What this bill is requiring is that app stores or operating systems ask for age information. Verification would mean doing something to verify the accuracy of the information provided, not merely receiving a response to the question. "Age verification" is not a synonym for "having age-based restrictions".

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#382

Post by WalterBright »

hash872 wrote: post #266
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "government successes" Please, name for me one product or service that the US government has created, that people willingly buy, that has made your life tangibly better. I can list a billion made by businesses. Please, go for it. Just one.

The proto-Internet. GPS. Nuclear energy. MRIs. Fracking. The Human Genome Project. Fiber optics. Optical data storage. Jet engines. Heck, the entire space industry. Lithium ion batteries. Radar. Night vision technology. Modern lower limb prosthetics. Just off the top of my head

Jet engines - Frank Whipple (England) and Franz Ohain (Germany) invented them. In both cases the governments were not interested in them until flying jet aircraft were demonstrated. Lockheed was ordered by the government to abandon their jet engine project and focus on piston engines instead (which resulted in the US having to get started on jet aircraft by buying British machines).

Human genome - J. Venter was the first to sequence the human genome, privately funded.

the entire space industry - Liquid fuel rockets were pioneered by Goddard, through private funding.

Radar - originated from late 19th-century experiments on radio wave reflection, pioneered by Heinrich Hertz in 1886. While Christian Hülsmeyer patented a "telemobiloscope" for ship detection in 1904

The proto-Internet - Pioneered by Samuel Morse, see "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage. Privately funded.

Optical data storage - Invented by D Gregg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Paul_Gregg, at a private company.

Nuclear energy - a very long list of contributors. See "The Making of the Atomic Bomb".

And so on.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#383

Post by mulmen »

jonhohle wrote: post #268
SllX wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet, term limits are something many people want in the hopes that it will solve some of the problems in Washington DC. Plenty of shitty ideas are popular based on a hope and a prayer. That’s why you don’t give in to populism. If we’re to impose any kind of limits on Congress, it has to be more intelligent than term limits.

How about, if your taxable income exceeds some multiple of the median income of your district, you are no longer eligible to represent them. It’s pretty amazing how much a representative’s income grows once they take public service positions.

This smells like funding schools based on student test results. Won't it disadvantage the most vulnerable areas? If I live in a state with some poor areas and some wealthy areas why would the most qualified people not compete to represent the wealthy areas?

If the problem is representatives using insider knowledge to enrich themselves then just hire more Inspectors General. If the problem isn't insider knowledge specifically then make whatever allows them to get rich illegal.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#384

Post by matheusmoreira »

sealeck wrote: post #359
matheusmoreira wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman has always been right. It's mind boggling just how right he was about everything. The narratives are changing. All these locks and controls used to be about curbing copyright infringement. Now that AI has more or less rendered copyright irrelevant it's turned into a straight up attempt to control the population. They're barely even making excuses anymore.

> Stallman has always been right. It's mind boggling just how right he was about everything. Mind boggling right about not allowing GCC to be used as a library, his comments on Jeffrey Esptein, a refusal to in any way compromise (e.g. the GNU/Linux meme), etc... Oh and a recognition that free software, while nice, does not in any way solve the underlying issues he claims it does. Similarly to how letting everyone wal…

> not allowing GCC to be used as a library

Nothing wrong with that move from a strategic point of view. The objective was to leverage GCC and make others play ball. People who wanted GCC should have been forced to do things the free software way.

Only problem with this is it turned out GCC didn't provide enough leverage. Replacing GCC wasn't difficult enough. People implemented LLVM instead and the rest is history.

Compare that to Linux which literally leaves companies behind in the dust when they refuse to merge. No kernel ABI stability: if out-of-tree stuff gets broken it's not their problem. Companies have a choice: play ball or pay the maintenance costs required to keep up with the biggest free software project ever. That's how it should be.

> his comments on Jeffrey Esptein

By "everything" I of course meant his ideas on computer freedom which is the context of this thread. I don't know or care about his opinions on Epstein.

> a refusal to in any way compromise

As he should. If anything he's not extreme enough. Compromise is the root of many evils.

> a recognition that free software, while nice, does not in any way solve the underlying issues he claims it does

Elaborate.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#385

Post by drdeca »

martin-t wrote: post #216
SllX wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentives are all wrong. You can serve up to 6 two-year terms in the Assembly or up to 3 four-year terms in the Senate, but regardless of which combination you do, nobody in the California legislature can serve more than 12 years combined across both Houses of the legislature. So we don’t have professional legislatures with long-term electability incentives or leadership goals, we have a resumé-building exercise…

> professional legislatures That should not be a profession. Decisions should be made by people who are the most informed about the subject matter. By definition you cannot have someone who is the most informed about everything.

> By definition you cannot have someone who is the most informed about everything.

This is not true-by-definition . It may be true, but not by-definition. If there were an omniscient person, they would be the most informed about everything.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#386

Post by mulmen »

martin-t wrote: post #216
SllX wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentives are all wrong. You can serve up to 6 two-year terms in the Assembly or up to 3 four-year terms in the Senate, but regardless of which combination you do, nobody in the California legislature can serve more than 12 years combined across both Houses of the legislature. So we don’t have professional legislatures with long-term electability incentives or leadership goals, we have a resumé-building exercise…

> professional legislatures That should not be a profession. Decisions should be made by people who are the most informed about the subject matter. By definition you cannot have someone who is the most informed about everything.

I used to think like this but now I'm not so sure. Representatives should represent the electorate, not special interests. If someone invents a civilization destroying macguffin they are the most qualified person on that topic but we wouldn't want them to be in charge of regulating it.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#387

Post by bikelang »

9x39 wrote: post #80
fangpenlin wrote: post #67

There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place." There are just too many examples. For instance: - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode swi…

I’m more curious in the genesis of these laws, whether their sponsors received written suggestions or ghostwritten bills, etc. as a form of parallel construction. It seems all at once, everywhere that many groups that have a vested interest in forcing precedent and compliance of non-anonymous access across the computer world. It smacks of something less-than-organic.

> It seems all at once, everywhere that many groups that have a vested interest in forcing precedent and compliance of non-anonymous access across the computer world. It smacks of something less-than-organic.

I think you’ve nailed it here. How many of these people campaigned on this issue? Where were the grassroots to push this? Where did this even come from?

Somebody, somewhere - with a heck of a lot of money - wants to see this happen. And I don’t think they have good intentions with it.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#389

Post by WalterBright »

wredcoll wrote: post #376
WalterBright wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "that people willingly buy" language Well, they aren't willingly buying it. They are funded with taxes.

People can choose not to use a lot of those things.

Right, but they cannot choose to not buy them.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#390

Post by hash872 »

wredcoll wrote: post #348
hash872 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proto-Internet. GPS. Nuclear energy. MRIs. Fracking. The Human Genome Project. Fiber optics. Optical data storage. Jet engines. Heck, the entire space industry. Lithium ion batteries. Radar. Night vision technology. Modern lower limb prosthetics. Just off the top of my head

You had me until fracking.

The Department of Energy funded much of the early research into fracking in the 70s

https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/articles/does-early-investment-s... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking_in_the_United_States https://clearpath.org/tech-101/hydraulic-fracturing-a-public...

Post reply on HN