Mike C. 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (402) comment rss

  • On the post: David Cameron Says People Aren't Radicalized By Poverty Or Foreign Policy, But By Free Speech Online, So ISPs Agree To Censor Button

    Mike C. ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2014 @ 12:50pm

    Re:

    You beat me to it with the general idea. I was going to ask if there were any takers on how long it would take Anonymous to flood report requests over any and everything government related.

    This will not end well. It will be hilarious in it's failures, but I really see no way it can end well...

  • On the post: Huffington Post And The View From Bogustan: Standing Behind Blatantly False Claims Isn't Journalism

    Mike C. ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2014 @ 10:11am

    Re: Too late

    Too late. The whole series has been removed and replaced with the following:

    Editor's Note

    The post that previously appeared in this space -- part of a blogger-generated series on the history of email -- is no longer available. Readers and media commentators alerted us to factual and sourcing issues in the series and, after an internal review, we removed it from the site.


    Guess they finally listened....

  • On the post: Brazil Passed On Boeing For $4.5 Billion Fighter Jet Deal Because Of Concerns Over NSA Surveillance

    Mike C. ( profile ), 30 Apr, 2014 @ 07:34am

    Re:

    Take your comment to the next level though.

    What if enough companies are negatively affected that one of them eventually gets the idea of using something akin to the ISDS process to sue the US Government for damages due to the spying. After all, the spying was put in motion via legislation and that legislation has now had a proven and serious negative affect on expected corporate revenue...

    I know the US will just claim sovereign immunity and say "too bad", but it would be interesting to watch it unfold.

  • On the post: Dumb Criminal Promises To Shoot Someone For 100 Retweets, Is Promptly Arrested

    Mike C. ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2014 @ 05:46am

    Re:

    I'm actually in agreement here. My first thought was "wait - isn't this just a more extreme version of what Justin Carter did?"

  • On the post: Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker To Lock Out Refill Market

    Mike C. ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2014 @ 09:20am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Actually... you already can...

    http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/sustainable/coffee-printer.htm

  • On the post: Chicago PD Believes It Can See The Future, Starts Warning Citizens About Crimes They Might Commit

    Mike C. ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2014 @ 09:14am

    Re: I got a GREAT idea!

    Let's give the ACLU a reason to sue us on behalf of an innocent citizen for slander! - Police

  • On the post: Cops Subject Man To Rectal Searches, Enemas And A Colonoscopy In Futile Effort To Find Drugs They Swear He Was Hiding

    Mike C. ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2013 @ 03:40pm

    Re: Things are looking up

    Unfortunately, these officers and doctors are REPEAT offenders...

    http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3210356.shtml?cat=500#.UnrRl-KQORM

    Our investigation reveals another chapter. Another man, another minor traffic violation, another incident with Leo the K-9 and another example of the violation of a man's body.

    Police reports state deputies stopped Timothy Young because he turned without putting his blinker on.

    Again, Leo the K-9 alerts on Young's seat.

    Young is taken to the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, and just like Eckert, he's subjected to medical procedures including x-rays of his stomach and an anal exam.

    Again, police found nothing, and again the procedures were done without consent, and in a county not covered by the search warrant.

  • On the post: Dianne Feinstein Deploys All The 'Intelligence' Cliches In Op-Ed Defending Metadata Program

    Mike C. ( profile ), 22 Oct, 2013 @ 10:46am

    Keeps popping in my head...

    s/Jane/Dianne/
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k80nW6AOhTs

    Had to share because I don't want to be the only one thinking this way... :-)

  • On the post: Speed Cam Contractor Responds To Challenged Tickets By Cropping Photos, Moving Cameras

    Mike C. ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2013 @ 07:45am

    Insurance companies and accidents

    I wonder if the shortened yellow lights thus resulting in higher accident rates will eventually raise the ire of insurance companies having to pay out for said accidents. It probably wouldn't take much to add a state DOT on as a contributing factor via negligence to the cause of the accident.

  • On the post: Senators: Why Is Everyone So Worked Up About Verizon Spying? We've All Known About It Since 2007

    Mike C. ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2013 @ 02:21pm

    Re:

    There's a difference between a private company not bound by the Constitution gathering the data and the Federal government which is SUPPOSED to be bound by the Constitution gathering the data.

  • On the post: Dan Brown: Video Games Lead To Violence

    Mike C. ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2013 @ 11:07am

    Re: Re:

    By that definition, any organized sport would also have to be a religion. After all, they follow set rules, meet on a regular basis, etc. Of course, I've always held that a religion is centered around a set of beliefs, not the practicies tied to it.

    As far as the Freemasons are concerned, while they do like members to believe in a "higher power", no two people have to believe in the SAME higher power. Thus, in today's diverse cultures, it's very easy to have a single lodge with christians, muslims, hindu, pastafarians (yes, with a "p") and native americans in it. Still think it's a religion on it's own? It's a social club.

  • On the post: Why The DOJ's Decision To Not Read Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights Is A Terrible Idea

    Mike C. ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2013 @ 03:51am

    Popehat roundup of relevant posts

    You must have missed Ken White's roundup of the discussion. With respect to the "public safety exception", it appears that may have been around since 1984 according to this former public defender.

    Ken's roundup is worth checking out for further discussion of the topic.

    tl;dr version: Yeah, probably a bad idea but far from "fatal" to any eventual case.

  • On the post: If Your Kid's Playing M-Rated Games, You Can't Blame The Retailer

    Mike C. ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2013 @ 07:16am

    Re: Re:

    Sometimes, this makes me wonder if it's not the governments fault. Much like a child in an abusive family can grow up to be an abuser themselves, our government running roughshod over our civil liberties for a decade plus have left people feeling somewhat powerless - or bullied. How have the powerless respond? By attempting to increase the power they have. Whether that's engaging in a road rage game of chicken a fellow motorist who cut you off, shooting up a populated area, or terrorizing fast food workers because they didn't make your sandwich the "right" way, it's all an attempt to exert more control. A lot of people are able to deal with it, but as the "bullying" continues by the government and even major corporations, the problem could just get worse and worse.

    I know, it's wayyyyy out there as a theory and it's not even really that good, but I still think it's an interesting thought experiment.

  • On the post: The List Of Government Agencies That Can Get Your Data Under CISPA

    Mike C. ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2013 @ 07:25pm

    Re: I have an idea how to fix this

    I have a better idea. Just point out that under the guise of cybersecurity, the ATF get access to all Facebook comments about guns. That should set off the 2nd Ammendment crowd and this thing will get dropped in a heart beat...

    /Food for thought

  • On the post: Copyright Lobby: The Public Has 'No Place In Policy Discussions'

    Mike C. ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2013 @ 02:27pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Ooops - looks like I left something out which caused you to make false assumptions. Let me rephrase something and see if it helps you at all:

    Any creative product created by any "author" in my lifetime will never be available to me outside of copyright for use as a base or starting point to build something new.

    Of course, you would have us believe that the original creator still deserves a major cut of any profits from the new work. You believe that the 2nd generation work couldn't possibly exist without the first. The point you're ignoring is that the 2nd creator puts just as much if not more effort into the 2nd generation work. If you disagree, then stop being a hypocrite and demand that the Ray Charles estate donate their proceeds to all the people Ray copied to become a star.

  • On the post: Copyright Lobby: The Public Has 'No Place In Policy Discussions'

    Mike C. ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2013 @ 10:31am

    Re:

    I love how you leave off the part of the Copyright Clause that says the way to promote the progress is to grant exclusive rights to authors. No doubt you'd erase that from the Constitution if you could. Best just to pretend it's not there, right?

    I love how you leave off the part of the Copyright Clause that says "for a limited time". No doubt you'd erase that from the Constitution if you could. Best just to pretend it's not there, right?

    Of course, I'm sure you'll reply that current copyright is limited. I disagree. While in the scope or frame of all of human history, life+70 is limited, but in terms of a single human lifespan, it's not. Any creative product created by any "author" in my lifetime will never be available to me outside of copyright. As far as my perspective is concerned, that's an infinite restriction, not "limited".

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Making Murderless Meat

    Mike C. ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2013 @ 08:52am

    Re:

    Seen on Fark recently: PETA... Proudly Euthanizing Thousands of Animals

    And the link associated with the post goes to their official filing with the state of Virginia how they killed almost 90% of the animals they took in...

    http://www.vi.virginia.gov/vdacs_ar/cgi-bin/Vdacs_search.cgi?link_select=facility&form=fac_select&fac_num=157&year=2012

    So some intrepid Farker took the time to compare PETA to other humane/animal rescue outfits in VA and came up with this interesting post:

    From the link, PETA Virginia's stats: 1,877 animals taken in, 1,675 euthanized, about 90%
    Looking at the same source, for all humane societies (including PETA): 10,143 animals taken in, 2,519 euthanized, about 25%
    That means that for non-PETA humane societies in Virginia, you're looking at 8,266 animals taken in and 844 animals euthanized, about 10%.
    Why does PETA have a 90% euthanasia rate while the rest of the humane societies in Virginia combine for a 10% rate?

    /Things that make you go hmmmm....

  • On the post: Wrong Legislative Thought Of The Day: An Email Tax To Save The Post Office

    Mike C. ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2013 @ 01:05pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    In Connecticut after 2011 the power companies started to care a little bit. With two major power outages just a couple months apart, the legislature stuck their nose into things and passed a law about penalties if more than 10% of their customers are out for more than 72 hours. For the last 2 years, they've actually been trimming and clearing lines. That's pretty much what prompted me to think of the idea.

    Granted, a similar idea would be for follow up after a major storm. Since they're travelling the streets, have them report downed trees, wires, etc. Tie it in with a GPS location and perhaps a picture upload (via cell) and utility response time could increase dramatically.

  • On the post: Wrong Legislative Thought Of The Day: An Email Tax To Save The Post Office

    Mike C. ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2013 @ 08:33am

    Re:

    If only the postal service with it's fleet of trucks that visit nearly every physical address in the entire country multiple times per week could be used in other ways. I mean, it's really too bad we don't have GPS units they could attach to them so that mapping companies could get really accurate GPS locations for addresses. Or if only someone could invent a camera system that you mount to the roof of a vehicle to take pictures of the road to get a street level view for mapping directions. And what local municipality could possibly want a service to report road and highway issues like serious potholes in the northeast or roads washed out in the southwest. And, of course, there's no way a power company would want to license a fleet like that to help get a complete survey of their power lines looking for dead/weak trees and obstructions. I doubt even a communications company like AT&T or Comcast would want that either.

    Such a tragedy...

  • On the post: Prenda Law Showdown Happening Monday: Judge Orders Everyone To Show Up In Court

    Mike C. ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2013 @ 05:16am

    Re:

    And I'm sure that he got whatever sickness from Juan Epstein too...

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