Donny 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Does An Impartial Jury Mean An Ignorant Jury? Can Barry Bonds Get An 'Impartial' Jury?

    Donny ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2011 @ 11:10am

    Re: Re: A practical question

    "What wonderful, perfect source are you suggesting they should use to get "better informed"?"

    As many as possible!

    You want as wide a variety of hypotheses, of rebuttals, or corrections, of counterarguments, of overviews, of dissents, of amendments, as you can get.

    The truth is what's left after you've thrown out all the research, not what was found within it.

  • On the post: Does An Impartial Jury Mean An Ignorant Jury? Can Barry Bonds Get An 'Impartial' Jury?

    Donny ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2011 @ 08:35am

    Re: At odds...

    "There's your side, my side, then there's the truth, lying somewhere in the middle."

    Could you clear that up? It's raising warning flags as I read it.

  • On the post: James Joyce Estate Sends Takedown For Joyce Quote In DNA

    Donny ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2011 @ 10:37am

    Saddened

    http://english.osu.edu/research/organizations/ijjf/copyrightfaqs.cfm

    Good GOD. Seeing that really hit me with how absurd this idea is. Who'll really care about the works by then, except those who've been told to or made to, who'll approach them as dead scholarly institutions, instead of the playful exciting invigorating living creative works they deserve to be read as.

    It is a damn shame Finnegan's wake hasn't become a compendium of a thousand genius' wit, instead of just one. And by the time it becomes possible to do that, well who'll really want to try? There'll be a hundred year gap between authors.

  • On the post: Bon Jovi Thinks Steve Jobs Killed Music; More Old Rockers Shooing Those Darn Kids Off Their Lawn

    Donny ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2011 @ 11:13am

    I think the really revealing point

    Is contained in this sentence:
    "in a generation from now people are going to say: 'What happened?'"

    As if the upcoming situation is the aberration, and the not-quite-a-century of a recording industry (and only-little-over-half-a-century of Rich Musicians) is the historical norm.

    Mick Jagger understands the situation better I think:
    http://www.switched.com/2010/05/17/mick-jagger-talks-tech-gives-the-finger-to-the-recording-indust/

  • On the post: What Would Happen If Napster's Co-Founder Owned Warner Music?

    Donny ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2011 @ 08:45am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Facebook's 'commodity' are your friends. It's gossip, social interaction, communication with the 'scarce' people you know.

    If it can turn a profit connecting you with people, why couldn't a similar platform turn a profit connecting you with music?

  • On the post: HP And RIM Produce Similar Device… Don't Freak Out

    Donny ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2011 @ 08:41am

    Feels

    It's odd, I feel encouraged to take note of HP/RIM as names to keep an eye out for now.

    Their exchange suggests they don't rest on their laurels, they work hard at putting out the best products they can, they are attuned to a broader picture than the first moment of sale.

    Naive, sure. But comparing it to how I feel about a company when I hear they're engaging in litigation...even if it's well-founded, my personal assessment of the company's 'character' is affected.

  • On the post: 'Privacy' The Latest Tool Being Used For Censorship

    Donny ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2011 @ 01:19pm

    Re:

    I think a key difference is, do you regard yourself as basically public, and when you want conceal something you take steps to do so - wear a trench-coat and sunglasses, close the door, etc - or do you regard yourself as basically private, and the extra steps are what're taken in order to place yourself in the public arena?

    That legislation is horrible to the latter, but to the former isn't even worth frowning at.

  • On the post: Data Says Money Might Buy Happiness, But Happiness Might Not Be What You Want

    Donny ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2011 @ 01:35pm

    Does happiness mean "gratification"? Or something more like "eudaimonia"? What exactly are those surveyed replying to?

    Same goes for wealth - does wealth signify "being able to wave aside quotidian obstacles" or does it mean "owning valuable possessions"?

    Interesting stuff though.

  • On the post: Just Because A Population Isn't Politically Active Now, Doesn't Mean They Can't Become Politically Active Quickly

    Donny ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2011 @ 06:36pm

    Re: Instantaneous vs. average

    This sounds very depressing but very plausible. Would North Africa/Middle East be going through such upheaval if the people thought that in 4 years time it'd all be ok again?

  • On the post: GAO Suggests It's Time To Ditch Dollar Bills For Coins

    Donny ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2011 @ 08:58am

    Re: Re: Re: Other Mints

    "This I don't know for sure" Yeah you're right, it doesn't work.

    But maybe it's more efficient then, in comparison to other groupings? (I don't want to denounce it as plain arbitrary just yet :P)

  • On the post: GAO Suggests It's Time To Ditch Dollar Bills For Coins

    Donny ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2011 @ 08:37am

    Re: Other Mints

    The 1; 2; 5; 10; 20; 50 system for coins I thought made mathematical sense? There's no number below 100 that requires more than 4 coins to reach.

    This I don't know for sure, but to me it made more sense than trying to reach 74c with quarters, dimes and nickels.

  • On the post: Derivative Artwork Inspiring Derivative Artwork — But Will The Lawyers Ruin It?

    Donny ( profile ), 07 Mar, 2011 @ 11:59am

    Re:

    HOW???

    How is it like that??

    Do the original songs no longer exist? Is your mp3/cd/vinyl of Jay-Z now magically converted into the Girl Talk song that samples him?

    Or is it that if you reference your fondness for Jay-Z, or try and talk about what he means to you, that people won't understand, or will mentally plug in the name "Girl Talk" over your references and talk at cross purposes?

    Or is it that the meaning, the function, the purpose of Jay-Z's song is undermined, withered, defeated?

    In what actual tangible sense is any of the art here actually affected - actually infringed upon - by this new music, EXCEPT in a financial sense?

  • On the post: The Artificially High Price Of Academic Journals And How It Impacts Everyone

    Donny ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 08:37am

    Re: global cost of closed publishing estimated at $5.5 billion

    Fair enough. But when did scientific progress need to sustain itself as a profitable business?

    Some things matter more than the fact that they cause *financial* loss, and their loss in other ways (religious, or artistic, or scientific in this case) can't be reconciled by pointing to accounting books.

  • On the post: Music Is Not A Product, And You'll Never Adapt If You Think It Is

    Donny ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2011 @ 11:21am

    Re: Re: Grammatical angle

    I don't mean literally :-|.

  • On the post: Music Is Not A Product, And You'll Never Adapt If You Think It Is

    Donny ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2011 @ 10:24am

    Grammatical angle

    A service is a verb; a product is a noun.

    And the revolution is to realise, music is a verb.

  • On the post: IEEE Decides That Its Own Profits Are More Important Than Sharing Knowledge

    Donny ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2011 @ 07:58am

    This is the problem:

    "that stance is complicated by my obligations to my student co-authors, who need a wide range of publishing options if they are to succeed in their budding careers"

    If his (or rather, his students) main concern is their careers, why should they expect their publishers or organisations to be any different?


    Principles. Success. No struggles. - Choose two.

  • On the post: Army Propaganda Unit Ordered To Illegally Target US Senators With Psy-Ops Propaganda

    Donny ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2011 @ 11:10am

    Anyone else take by the idea

    Of avoiding being accused of using propaganda by...uh, using propaganda and newspeak to convince us it's all above board?

    Also, I can't help but feel that military organisations with bland names MUST be up to something interesting, and trying to divert attention from themselves.

  • On the post: Did Watson Succeed On Jeopardy By Infringing Copyrights?

    Donny ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2011 @ 02:17pm

    Some Reasons

    Why Watson (& other computers) might have to worry about copyright, but our meaty brains wouldn't:

    - There is a real sense in which the work has been COPIED onto a hard-drive when a computer 'reads' it. That's not so clear with a human - if you wanted to remember a quote on page 53 of the last novel you read, where would you turn to for reference? But if you had a hard-drive for a memory, where would you turn then?
    - Now true, some people have impressive recall - stories of medieval scholars who could recite the Koran or Bible abound - but a computer is guaranteed to be able to perfectly reproduce what it 'reads' - is even programmed to be able to do so.
    - Most significantly, computer hard drives can in turn be 'read' by third-parties, even against the computers 'will'. You can't access the contents of a human mind from the outside; you can a computer's.


    (None of this is to say copyright makes sense or etc. But you CAN find a certain logic to this issue if you accept the pro-copyright stance.)

  • On the post: If You Don't Offer Legit Versions, Is It That Big A Surprise That People Want Unauthorized Copies?

    Donny ( profile ), 08 Feb, 2011 @ 07:38am

    The really dumb thing

    Is that one of the crucial ways companies can 'compete with free' regards piracy is by offering customer service.

    When even that becomes a reason FOR, not against, pirating...well then you're really doing something wrong.

  • On the post: Homeland Security Tries And Fails To Explain Why Seized Domains Are Different From Google

    Donny ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2011 @ 09:52am

    Re:

    "Apparently I fail at understanding the roles of our government agencies"

    So do the government agencies...

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