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About PjerkyI am a PHP programmer and Web Developer that has a great interest in many subjects. One of which is consumer rights. I have a blog about consumer rights and other public issues that can be seen at http://www.pjerky.com. |
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Re: Re: (as Pjerky)
This reminds me of an episode of sliders where they slid into a dimension where the tabloids wrote about the truth while the mainstream media made up all their stories (like the tabloids of our world). Things certainly seem to be looking more and more like the world in that episode.
Re: (as Pjerky)
Says who? Cost is cost in any industry at any time of day. If your most expensive cost comes from charging for a distributed product then you may actually free up more revenue to be available as profit.
I bet your local gas station cut some costs when they started letting customers fill up their own personal cups from the soda fountain instead of from plastic cups the station provided. And that even helped the environment a bit.
Re: Re: Re: Re: (as Pjerky)
Jeeze dude, you had me fooled for a moment. Yikes, I need to step out of the office more often to get a good dose of sanity injected back into my life.
Christmas Planning (as Pjerky)
I really hope you plan on keeping the store open through Christmas. Because I want to put some of the items on my list.
Anyways, awesome experiment!
-Pjerky
Re: Counter-Terrorism? (as Pjerky)
Actually it is very simple, it involves hooking up the bomb to the phone ringer. Call the phone from another phone and boom, the bomb goes off. Simple, easy, and can be detonated from anywhere on the planet.
Plus since when did silly things like laws stop criminals and terrorists?
Block this idiot's site. (as Pjerky)
I think something ironic would be that someone create a Firefox add-on that blocks users from visiting this guy's site and sites of others like him.
I have been a Netflix subscriber for years (as Pjerky)
I have been a subscriber of Netflix for years and I love it. That combined with RedBox, Hulu, Torrents, and other online video sources I have been seriously considering getting rid of cable TV. I only have two problems, my TV doesn't work so well with my computer even though it is a plasma and my two roommates are no where near as computer savvy as I am so that would piss them off. But when I get a place without roommates I will be kicking cable TV to the curb.
This will of course make the net neutrality discourse right now even more important.
I have a dream... (as Pjerky)
Where childish lawsuits (lawsuits against those that attack those that tell the truth) are dismissed automatically. In this dream those that file said lawsuits are then imprisoned for a year on their first offense, just to make them think about it. On the second offense they get 5 years, then 10, then 20. Then people may actually reconsider filing frivolous lawsuits. Aahh, but tis a dream!
Re: Welcome to the digital age. (as Pjerky)
I agree with you on most points, but as for the forefather's reaction... Yeah they would be even more ignorant of how the internet works than the sheriff is.
No offense to our forefathers. Though if you really look at history our forefathers were essentially glorified tax evaders and businessmen looking to share less of their profits. What they did for everyone turned out to be wonderful, amazing, very brave, very ingenious (in their success and the design of the new government), and certainly warrants great respect, remembrance, and honor. However, despite what most people imagine their intentions were not entirely honorable and selfless and they certainly didn't have hearts as pure as superman's (I know, an odd reference given the context). I used to imagine them this way until I got older and gained a more mature perspective on them. But enough with that silly rant...
The problem really boils down to a combination of ignorance and trying to blame someone else for a problem. Most people seem have this mystical view of the internet. They view it as sudo-magic where anything and everything is possible. Both in what people do with it and the extent it can be controlled. Until the majority of policy-makers understand that things are not that simple and that the internet is not some form of magic, we will continue to see these types of stories.
Re: Re: Florida never smelled right (as Pjerky)
No, the government will just steal it from them one way or another. The government legalized theft a long time ago. At least theft by the government. Of course that has been extended to politicians and big businesses (that bribe said politicians). But I digress.
Re: (as Pjerky)
Lol, nice one.
What I find annoying about this case... (as Pjerky)
What I find annoying about this case is the fact that the author of the Harry Potter, JK Rowling (billionaire no less), on multiple occasions in the past has said that she has referred to the online (original) version of this Harry Potter Lexicon when she forgot details here and there. She has also voiced much appreciation and support for her many fans and their fan fiction work.
But then this case happened and she did a 180 and started, literally, crying in the court room about how the publication of this Lexicon in book form not only violated her rights, but also interfered with her own idea of releasing such an Encyclopedia to Harry Potter. Of course her version isn't even a sure thing. She simply said it was something she considered and in not so many words said that she didn't want the competition nor the loss of revenue.
Lets see where do I start on all of that. First of all money should be the last thing on her mind as well off as she is. Secondly the makers of this Lexicon spent years putting together the online version as a dedicated fan of her work. She should be supportive that such a dedicated fan is being reimbursed for all his hard work. Instead she shows that she is two-faced (for turning on her fans), greedy, and and self-important.
I am a fan of the books, but this trial made me lose a lot of respect for the woman.
Very Complex... (as Pjerky)
This is a very complex issue I think. On one hand I have always looked up to Google as a very respectable organization and have come to expect much from them in terms of protecting rights and privacy. On the other hand their history has been more about general rights, not rights for a specific person and it is a lot to expect them to deny court orders in all cases when they are trying to make things better for all.
I personally hate that these people and companies overreact to mouthy bloggers and I really support protecting anonymity just to shut down frivolous lawsuits. I would like to think that if I were in Google's position I would fight tooth and nail to protect this ideology of mine. But I really can't say for sure what I would do because if you go too far then you risk shutting down your business and making your employees lose their jobs and I can't support that results either.
In this case, I think Google did the right thing by notifying the user weeks in advance so that they can take steps to protect their anonymity if they choose to do so. The whole situation is very frustrating. But I would like to see them focus on changing laws to protect all rights instead of protecting a few individuals that started the fight by running their mouths too much.
Re: (as Pjerky)
While I agree with you on some points. I disagree with you when you suggest that raising their monthly fees $10 would make it just as costly to own as an iphone.
I have an iphone and this weekend I looked into the cost of the unlimited Sprint plan versus the not-so-unlimited AT&T plan. At current prices I would save $30-40 per month with Sprint. As much as I hate to say it I am seriously considering switching back to Sprint. I used to have them and left because the prices of the phones, the lack of sim cards, and the horrible customer service.
Sprint seems to have dropped the price of phones (thank goodness), they have immensely improved their customer service, and they offer some phones with sim cards. If they make the Pre or a Google phone with a sim card they will have me sold. AT&T and Apple can kiss my rear-end with their restrictive phone and excessive prices.
Question of efficacy or question of privacy? (as Pjerky)
Mike, I usually enjoy reading your work, but this time I wonder if it is more about the concern of privacy for the everyday citizen than about the effectiveness of the cameras. While I am certainly no fan of cameras blanketing a city and watching every movement anyone makes, I still see the functional use of such cameras and how they can be highly effective tools in solving crime.
While just 3% of robbery suspects were caught using the cameras, you failed to mention that 70% of murder investigations were solved using the cameras. I would say that seems to justify the cameras outright, while completely disregarding any other crimes solved. How many of those murder investigations would not have been solved without the help of the cameras?
If your real concern is privacy than you should state it. But as it stands now I think that the cameras are a mixed bag of privacy and crime solving tool and neither should be taken lightly.
Re: (as Pjerky)
Ok, so apparently you (Anonymous Coward talking about gauging demand) are missing the truth here. Demand for buying the real thing or the original, in the past, has been shown to actually INCREASE because of free. The presence of free doesn't skew the information, if anything it gives more power to the consumer to demand good products and ignore shitty products.
The case of the original Napster is a great example. For the better part of two decades album sales had been dwindling, then Napster came around and all the sudden the sales of albums in the stores jumped in correlation with the use of Napster. This is because people got a taste of part of an album and decided that it really is worth spending $15 on it. Whereas in the past, unless someone just really loved a band or highly anticipated an album, people generally would choose not to buy it. This is because the sense of risk at wasting money on a terrible album prevented them from even trying it out.
Abusive telcos suck (as Pjerky)
This is what I hate about big companies that have limited competition. They get to abuse their positions and then when a problem comes up they lobby some politician to allow them to do whatever they want. In this case it would be hard to pass a law for something that occurs in more than one country I think, even though they live in one country.
Re: TOS Violation (as Pjerky)
This is actually really funny here. I would love to see the reaction from the city when they realized this.
I don't trust lawmakers (as Pjerky)
As much as I agree with the court ruling I have to say that I really don't trust nor expect politicians to make the right choice. They will do whatever they are told by those that give them the most money and/or gifts. It is nice to see that the courts still have some decency though. Lets hope enough politicians will have the same decency.
Re: We don't have access to public roads now? (as Pjerky)
I think this can be filed in the "bending the law for the sake of decency" folder. As much as I like to protect our freedoms I also understand that following the law to the letter can be just as dangerous as ignoring laws altogether. Obviously this brings up questions as to who gets to decide what is decent. I really don't want to start that argument here.
Suffice to say taking gruesome photos of someone else's misery and suffering for personal financial gain is a disgusting abuse of "freedoms". I doubt the intentions of the law were to cover this kind of use and thus I think that potentially bending the law to prevent this abuse was a good thing. Notice I say potentially because it is questionable that law was bent or broken to prevent this action, primarily because we are talking about the freedom of speech, not the freedom to nose into others personal business.