Hephaestus 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (6144)

• On the post: Former FCC Boss Turned Top Cable Lobbyist Says Cable Industry Being Unfairly Attacked, 'No Evidence' Of Consumer Harm

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 19 May, 2016 @ 09:55am

  Re: No evidence

  ... but my refrigerator being empty and cold.
  
  Thanks for informing us you still have money to power your fridge, will will be increasing your cable next month to compensate.

• On the post: Former FCC Boss Turned Top Cable Lobbyist Says Cable Industry Being Unfairly Attacked, 'No Evidence' Of Consumer Harm

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 19 May, 2016 @ 09:49am

  Re: Re: Re: former FCC boss turned slimy cable lobbyist is right!

  One line about climate and we get stupidity like yours here.
  
  Lets see if we can trigger a bunch more search engines to bring us more trolls.
  
  Go Hillary
  Go Trump
  Go Bernie
  Coal is bad
  Oil is causing climate change
  Solar power will win in the end
  
  I wonder if that will cause the tornado equivalent of a troll storm ...

• On the post: Former FCC Boss Turned Top Cable Lobbyist Says Cable Industry Being Unfairly Attacked, 'No Evidence' Of Consumer Harm

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 19 May, 2016 @ 09:44am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: former FCC boss turned slimy cable lobbyist is right!

  Yeah I know, do not feed the trolls ... but this
  
  Was it an enlarged orbit?
  
  What kind of idiot are you? enlarged orbit ... bet you believe in Santa, the Easter bunny, and that faeries make the flowers grow also.

• On the post: Government Argues That Indefinite Solitary Confinement Perfectly Acceptable Punishment For Failing To Decrypt Devices

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 18 May, 2016 @ 07:13pm

  Re: Re: Irony

  If you're innocent, you're providing proof of that innocence. If you're not innocent, you're only providing access to that proof, not testifying against yourself."
  
  Its odd but when I read that, I immediately thought of another wonderful moment in US history.
  
  If you are innocent you will drown and not be considered a witch. If you survive, we will burn you as a witch.

• On the post: French Student Group Sues Twitter (Again) For $50 Million (Again) Over Tweets It Doesn't Like

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 17 May, 2016 @ 09:48am

  I find this truly amusing. Europe is big on privacy laws, but not all that interested or concerned about free speech. If organizations like Union of Jewish French Students continue moving forward with ridiculous laws suits, they will end up with their section of the internet being the lowest common denominator of free speech imaginable.
  
  I say more power to them, the more restrictive they become, the sooner they becoming a self censoring nation like China. That means less competition for the US.
  
  Yay!!

• On the post: How Java's Inherent Verboseness May Mess Up Fair Use For APIs

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 16 May, 2016 @ 04:23pm

  What an API is

  "They don't get that an API is more like a map or a menu, rather than the actual stuff itself. The API is basically just explaining how to get information, not what the information itself actually is."
  
  The map and menu lines are old and tired.
  
  An API is like the front panel of a vending machine, you know that when you push one sequence of buttons, it will deliver you a danish, another sequence you get corn chips.
  
  The code is the mechanism that drops the food, the machine could use screws that turn, a robotic arm, or some weird ass Rube Goldberg machine that ends with a catapult tossing your food to you.

• On the post: Court Strikes Down Louisiana's Attempt To Regulate Online Content 'For The Children'

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 16 May, 2016 @ 07:48am

  "considering a lot of constitutionally protected speech might not be fit for an 8-year-old"
  
  Let me ask a question. So when does the First Amendment, the ability to speak freely and read what you want kick in, when a child turns 18?

• On the post: Comcast Now Trying To Claim That Delivering Just TV To Third-Party Set Top Boxes 'Not Feasible'

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 16 May, 2016 @ 07:40am

  Catastrophic failure due to momentum and threshold

  It is in Comcast's best interest to open up its set top boxes. If they fail to begin competing now, sometime in the next 5 to 10 years, there will be a threshold that is reached where they are losing customers at an accelerating rate and they will begin panicking and making rushed and very poor business choices. Cord cutting, VR and other new technologies, will all come into play.
  
  Much like all disruptive events, denial, doubt that things are changing, and monopoly business practices will lead to a rapid collapse in profitability, as they struggle to keep up with a rapidly changing business landscape. The only choice they have is to get ahead of this and be proactive. And they need to do this way before someone comes up with and open source (hardware and software) standard for content delivery. If they are rushing to play catch up at that point they are doomed.

• On the post: James Comey Still Trying To Blame Increase In Violent Crime On 'Viral Videos'

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 13 May, 2016 @ 03:36pm

  Dear police and FBI,
  
  If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
  
  Sincerely,
  The general public.
  
  PS. Kindly shut the fuck up and do your jobs.

• On the post: Congress Questions Facebook About Something It Probably Didn't Do With A Feature That Barely Matters

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 11 May, 2016 @ 10:43am

  Re: Conservatives complaining again

  The difference is everyone knows that Fox news, CBS, NBC, CNN are biased. People do not expect the post office, to not deliver mail from a specific political party, or AT&T to block political content it does not agree with. The same goes for Facebook, people do not expect things to be blocked or down graded.

• On the post: India's Proposed 'Geospatial Information Regulation Bill' Would Shut Down Most Map-Based Services There

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 11 May, 2016 @ 08:50am

  Re: (Un)Intended comsequences?

  This is actually Crony Capitalism at its best. They are outlawing GPS systems, and systems built into GPS systems for mapping traffic flow and the like.
  
  The reason for this is the new GPS satellite system that India just got up and running.
  
  The probable outcome is only GPS systems built in India will be allowed in India. (i.e. they are funneling money to locally politically connected corporations and individuals)

• On the post: Congress Questions Facebook About Something It Probably Didn't Do With A Feature That Barely Matters

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 11 May, 2016 @ 10:39am

  now for something completely different ...

  On a totally different note. From the perspective of an investor, this censoring of new stories, would make me very nervous, as history has a way of repeating itself. MySpace was once the social media platform of choice for a sizable portion of the internet connected population.
  
  It fell for several reason, the site attempting to become all things to all people, the failure to evolve, and the big one, the perception problem that lead to people believing MySpace was not safe.
  
  If this perception that Facebook is biased becomes a cultural/societal belief, it could lead to the failure of the company. In reality most people have heard about Facebook's experiments creepy experiment to alter moods opinions. (anotherlink) how many more things can Facebook get away with before people do not trust them anymore and move on?

• On the post: Congress Questions Facebook About Something It Probably Didn't Do With A Feature That Barely Matters

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 11 May, 2016 @ 10:24am

  Point of perspective ...

  Mike
  
  From the perspective of Facebook being a publicly traded company, much like many news organizations, the bias in reporting is forgivable and allowable under the first amendment.
  
  From the perspective of Facebook being the quintessential social media service provider, it is not. It would be as if AT&T, Comcast, Cox, or any other service provider suddenly decided what you have access to and what you do not.

• On the post: Why Encryption Bans Won't Work: Brazil Government's WhatsApp Block Just Sends Users To Other Encrypted Platforms

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 10 May, 2016 @ 03:22pm

  Re: Re: Dry Humor

  Yes they do
  
  http://thefreethoughtproject.com/court-police-departments-refuse-hire-smart/
  
  and in case you are wondering the test they use is this one
  
  http://wonderlictestsample.com/wonderlic-test-sample/50-question-wonderlic-test/
  or
  http://samplewonderlictest.com/
  
  The response that he received was completely out of left field. The city responded that it removed Jordan from consideration because he scored a 33 on the Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test, and that to prevent frequent job turnover caused by hiring overqualified applicants the city only interviewed candidates who scored between 20 and 27.
  Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/court-police-departments-refuse-hire-smart/#0ac45tUpsCI3HiP8.99

• On the post: Homeland Security Wants To Subpoena Us Over A Clearly Hyperbolic Techdirt Comment

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 06 May, 2016 @ 04:30pm

  On the part of DHS, this is more than likely an attempt at the standard things, getting you to self police, intimidation by showing they are listening, overreacting, etc.
  
  Mike, I wonder if they looked you up before they made the request for this information ...
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
  
  ROFLMAO David

• On the post: FBI Harassing Core Tor Developer, Demanding She Meet With Them, But Refusing To Explain Why

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 05 May, 2016 @ 03:26pm

  I have this feeling ...

  Just a feeling, this about getting her to backdoor TOR, national security gag order included, and threats of jail time if she doesn't.

• On the post: Congress Has No Idea How The FCC's Cable Box Reform Plan Works, Conyers, Goodlatte Compare Effort To 'Popcorn Time'

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 04 May, 2016 @ 09:10am

  You forgot ...

  destroy consumer privacy, increase piracy, hurt programming diversity, and make little children cry ...
  
  make you less safe, lead to terrorism, cause global warming, earth quakes, typhoons, and kill puppies and kittens.

• On the post: EU Regulators Can Barely Contain Their Desire To Attack Google And Facebook, Believing It Will Help Local Competitors

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2016 @ 04:58pm

  Re: Not a European Problem/Attitude

  They do not realize that the rules and regulations that they created in the past, are the thing keeping innovation from happening now. So heaping a shit load of new regulation on top of old regulation is not going to help, just hinder innovation. The solution is to reduce regulation, and give companies breathing room to innovate, without government regulation and constant intervention.

• On the post: Senators Burr & Feinstein Write Ridiculous Ignorant Op-Ed To Go With Their Ridiculous Ignorant Bill

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2016 @ 04:25pm

  Re: We can save the step.

  "Oh and in the meantime, we should make bullets that only kill bad people."
  
  So, who defines the term "bad people"? what sorts of people would be on the list? Pedophiles, terrorists, and politicians?

• On the post: FBI Director Says 'Smart People' At Office Supply Companies Can Help Limit Terrorists' Access To Pen And Paper

  

  Hephaestus ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2015 @ 11:27am

  This is a joke, spoof, satire ... right? No one could be that stupid.

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