To my undestanding chess is based on the Arabic game Shatranj, based on the Indian game Chaturanga, and in both games the piece next to the king is the “general” or “minister” which moves one space diagonally.

https://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/shatranj.html

https://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/chaturanga.html

If you think about it, and I suggest you don’t, this is a Markov model for all people regardless

Come on, this has been a thing for the last 19+12i years

It really looks to me (a non-lawyer, non-legal-expert) as if the “oh we just need the rights necessary to fulfill the requests you make to Firefox” terms are kind of trying to confuse Mozilla-the-organization with Firefox-the-software-running-on-your-computer. Like, they seem to be saying that if you e.g. submit some text to a comment box on some website, then in order for Firefox, i.e. the copy of Firefox running on your computer, to send that text to that server, it is necessary for you to grant Mozilla, an organization that does not own your computer and whose computers are not running your copy of Firefox, all the rights necessary for them to send your data to the requested server.

It’s as if they’re trying to say that the copy of Firefox on your computer is considered to be part of and acting on behalf of the Mozilla organization and therefore anything it does, even actions directly requested by you like loading a page when you click a link, are legally the actions of Mozilla and not you. Which doesn’t make any sense to me. Like, if a user uses Firefox to do something illegal is Mozilla then liable for that? If I go into my file manager and make a copy of a file whose contents I own the copyright to, do the makers of the file manager and of the filesystem and of every other piece of software in the chain all need to be granted the legal rights to make copies of my content, just to protect against me turning around and suing them for copyright infringement over the copy I myself instructed the file manager to make? That seems completely bonkers.

My understanding is that websites have this sort of language in their ToU because once you submit a comment / post / whatever to be displayed publicly, it is necessary for software running on their server and under their control to then transmit copies of your content whenever someone loads the page. But when you operate Firefox as a web browser to access a (non-Mozilla-owned) webpage, no server owned or operated by Mozilla should be involved in the process unless you have explicitly opted into telemetry, data sharing, VPN/proxy services from Mozilla, etc.

I feel like “downloading a file removes it from the computer you’re downloading it from” was a weirdly common misconception in the 90s. I’m sure I remember some Star Trek episode that felt the need to specify that a bunch of data had been “copied and downloaded” from the hero ship’s computer so that the audience wouldn’t think that the data was now gone. Maybe the desktop metaphor where files are presented as physical objects that can be moved around contributed to this belief. Maybe also all the anti piracy PSAs that likened downloading music to stealing a car

Well, God has concepts of a plan anyway

“Mmm let’s see, the ship is about to go into a potential crisis situation, yes this sounds like the perfect time to break up a ton of working relationships and give my whole crew jetlag”

I guess I tend to use data as a mass noun when referring to computer data (“there’s a lot of data on that drive”) and as a regular noun when referring to data in the scientific sense (“these data show xyz”)

have they tried graham crackers

“Hostage negotiations now entering their fourth week between the U.S. and Hamas over the release of hostage Elon Musk, however in spite of intense diplomatic overtures and offers of significant concessions the U.S. still refuses to take him back”

It’s all I can do not to nest them 🙃