TimK 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (83)

• On the post: The Details Of What Information The Police Can Suck Out Of Your Phone

  

  TimK ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2013 @ 11:36am

  I'll tell you what the police can suck.....

• On the post: DailyDirt: Big Money, Small Change

  

  TimK ( profile ), 09 Jan, 2013 @ 09:43am

  Re: cosmological inflation

  I was going to comment on this myself.
  
  A) 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 would actually be 100 billion billion.
  
  B) There's an actual number for 100 million billion. Its called 100 quadrillion.

• On the post: French Politician Wants Twitter To Help Censor Speech

  

  TimK ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2013 @ 01:35pm

  Pffft. With all the money Twitter is making they can surely afford to hire a few people to read the 500,000,000+ tweets per day to make sure none of them are offensive. Is that so much to ask?

• On the post: No Surprise Here: Congress Passes Unanimous Resolution Telling The ITU: Hands Off The Internet

  

  TimK ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2012 @ 08:01am

  There's really nothing the UN or ITU can do if the US says NO. What can they do? They can't take the internet. The appropriate response is a simple "no, and if you don't like it go build your own internet."
  
  What is the UN going to do, try to pass a toothless resolution against the US? Ha! UN resolutions are a joke, and only the US and EU can do anything to enforce them. The US and EU are already opposed to this, and the US, France and UK have veto power anyway. What a waste of time this is, even for the waste of time UN.

• On the post: DailyDirt: Cool Coins, Unpopular Coins…

  

  TimK ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2012 @ 05:39pm

  I hate coins. I hate paying in cash and getting a handful of coins that I have to carry in my pocket. The second I get home they go in a bucket until the bucket is full....then it goes to the bank.
  
  I hate coins.
  
  Don't give me more, bigger, heavier coins.
  
  Find a way to make paper money cheaper to produce or longer lasting.
  
  Coins suck.
  
  More NFC please!!!

• On the post: This Goes Beyond Tablets: Apple, Amazon & Google Are Betting On Economic Philosophies

  

  TimK ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2012 @ 01:09pm

  I see a similarity though, in the fact that both Apple (apps/music) and Amazon (books) have a somewhat captive market to sell to. I don't think the two are that different at all.
  
  Amazon entices its captive book audience to buy its inexpensive tablet in order to consume more books - and even as it may not profit on books, it hopes to profit on shoes, razors, and cameras.
  
  Apple entices its captive app/music market to buy an expensive tablet to consume more apps and music - and even as it may not profit on apps and music much, they profit on the hardware.
  
  So in the end, both companies are attempting to profit from their captive markets.... Apple on the Hardware, Amazon on consumer products.

• On the post: UCF Student Makes Class Registration Easier; Receives Academic Probation For His Troubles

  

  TimK ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2012 @ 01:04pm

  Sounds to me like a great opportunity for an institution that encourages problem solving and innovation to step in. If I ran such a school I'd offer this kid a scholarship of some kind to transfer to my school.

• On the post: Dear Permission Culture: This Is Why No One Wants To Ask For Your OK

  

  TimK ( profile ), 30 Jul, 2012 @ 10:53am

  In retrospect, it would have been cheaper, faster, and easier for him to buy a plane ticket, fly to the US, record and release the parody here, and fly back home.

• On the post: FBI Wants To Make It Easier For You To Tell Your Customers They Might Be Felonious Pirates

  

  TimK ( profile ), 13 Jul, 2012 @ 11:44am

  Legally Purchase DVD:
  Go online and order the movie, then wait several days for it to come in the mail or drive to a local store, wait in line, and then drive back home. Then you get to open ridiculous plastic seals protecting the integrity of the contents, insert disc into proper regionally encoded DVD player, sit though 10 minutes of unskippable trailers, sit through 1 minute of anti-piracy warnings..... watch movie. All for only $19.99
  
  Torrent DVD:
  Click on a link, wait a couple of minutes..... watch movie. All for free.
  
  Which one is more consumer friendly?
  
  OK, maybe your PC isn't connected to your TV (Why isn't it?) and you have to rip it to DVD and then ... watch the movie. Still its much less trouble than the legal method. If only the studios would allow services like Netflix to actually stream new/decent movies online....

• On the post: Are Books Printed With Disappearing Ink Really The Best Way To Make People Read Them?

  

  TimK ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2012 @ 08:49am

  What a good way to limit the number of people that will read your book, hear of you, or buy another book of yours.
  
  How many people have gotten a book from a friend, read it, enjoyed it, and then bought multiple books from that same author? I'd guess that number is a HUGE number. And disappearing ink, well that will only make that number smaller. So good luck with that. Tell the recording industry we said Hi!

• On the post: New iPhone Connector Port Revealed, Thus Wiping Out Several Generations Of Accessories In One Fell Swoop

  

  TimK ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2012 @ 08:10am

  1. I don't own any Apple products so I don't care. But, having owned a dozen cell phones and having bought multiple chargers for each until the micro USB became standard.... I don't feel too bad.
  
  2. Obviously adapters will become available so its not like every dock and charger becomes useless.
  
  3. Everyone who sells their iPhone 4 and 4s to upgrade to the 5 will simply include their chargers in the sale and buy new ones with the phone.
  
  4. Not EVERY iPhone owner is a lunatic who must have the next device immediately. Yes, many of them are, but more people won't upgrade than will. That means the change won't actually impact the majority of iPhone owners.
  
  Just for fun....
  
  Here's a crazy theory: Maybe Apple is changing the dimensions of the new iPhone...perhaps its wider and taller and wouldn't fit in some of the older docks.... so if the old docks wouldn't fit the new phones anyway, now is the perfect time to switch connectors. hmmm....

• On the post: Denmark Ditches Warning Letters, Launches Soft War On Piracy

  

  TimK ( profile ), 21 Jun, 2012 @ 06:57am

  I agree that a positive information campaign is the right way. Education is the key.
  
  But they're trying to educate the wrong people. Consumers don't need to be educated about legal music offerings. Its the recording and movie industries that need to be educated. They need to learn economics and to give the people what they want in a way that is easy to use and reasonably priced.
  
  That's the only education campaign that will do the slightest bit of good.

• On the post: Apple Steps Into Patent Fight To Unnecessarily Silence A Little Girl

  

  TimK ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2012 @ 08:52am

  It seems I only find articles on the net that make me hate Apple more and more every day.
  
  My standard response to follow.
  
  
  F Apple.

• On the post: DailyDirt: School's Out For Summer…

  

  TimK ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2012 @ 03:41am

  All other flaws and arguments aside...
  
  How the hell are we going to pay for it????
  
  Schools don't have enough money now, teachers are always fighting for more money, programs are always getting cut...
  
  "Hey everybody, guess what? We need to raise your property taxes 25% to pay for more schooling. Oh, and good news for those of you with kids in private school....not only do you get to pay 25% more in property tax, you also get to pay 25% more in tuition! But its good for the kids."

• On the post: New HTC Phones Stopped At Customs Due To Apple Patent Fight

  

  TimK ( profile ), 17 May, 2012 @ 06:14am

  Re:

  Can a MOD delete this? I posted it anonymously by accident.

• On the post: New HTC Phones Stopped At Customs Due To Apple Patent Fight

  

  TimK ( profile ), 17 May, 2012 @ 06:14am

  According to "the verge" found via Phandroid.com
  
  http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/16/3024889/htc-one-x-evo-4g-lte-custom-android-build -apple-patent-linkify
  
  HTC modified the code to work around this ridiculous patent.
  
  By "work around" they mean that they eliminated the menu of choices and instead take you to the default program (dialer for phone #s, maps for addresses, browser for URL's, etc). The defaults can be changed by the user, but its not perfect as there are many cases where you don't want to use the default... such as if you run multiple browsers.

• On the post: The Stupidity Of Data Caps: No One Knows What A Megabyte Is

  

  TimK ( profile ), 16 Apr, 2012 @ 12:59pm

  It won't stop until it costs them money...

  A friend of mine recently bought a "the new iPad" with Verizon 4G data. He wanted it to watch shows on Netflix on the train to and from work. He used it for 2 days and loved it, but said he won't be using it any more. 40 minutes each way on Netflix used over 200MB per day. He'd reach his 2GB cap in 2 weeks! No thanks. Data plan canceled.
  
  The carriers think that everyone will just shell out more money for a higher cap, but in reality they won't. Some people won't care and will pay whatever they have to. Others will simply cancel the data plan, and find the content and copy it to their tablet instead of streaming.

• On the post: A Perspective On The Complexities Of Copyright And Creativity From A Victim Of Infringement

  

  TimK ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2012 @ 09:40am

  Well, within 5 seconds both SoundHound and Shazam accurately identified each song...regardless of what part of the song I played.
  
  Why is that?
  
  Oh, because they aren't the same.

• On the post: A Perspective On The Complexities Of Copyright And Creativity From A Victim Of Infringement

  

  TimK ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2012 @ 08:04pm

  Re: i ain't no musician, but i heard music onced...

  You do realize that the song in the commercial IS her song which is why it sounds EXACTLY the same right? And that the supposed copy is in a different link because it couldn't be embedded right? This is all some sarcastic post and I'm not in on it right?
  
  Any who. I for one think the songs sound similar. Not copied. Not the same. Similar. Similar to songs I hear just about every year on the radio from some folksy pop-y artist. Recently, as Dave so thoroughly pointed out, names like Colbie Callait and Sara Bareilles come to mind.
  
  There's similar and then there's "the same". I learned the difference in grade school.

• On the post: NY Public Radio Station WNYC Decides That Time Shifting = Piracy

  

  TimK ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2012 @ 09:02am

  I am so confused.
  
  So.....its a freely available public radio broadcast. They are 'listener supported' so they don't have commercials that are being skipped. They don't sell their 'podcasts' online so they aren't losing that revenue...in fact, they have them available FREE on their own website.
  
  So, what exactly is being pirated? And more importantly, why do they care?
  
  I mean, of all the cases of "piracy" that have ever been discussed here, this one I get the least. I mean, I just don't get it.
  
  It seems like the only reason is "because we don't want you to".

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