El_Segfaulto's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the winner's-circle dept
Last week, el_segfaulto scored a rare double win, getting both "most insightful" and "funniest" comments of the week -- on two separate comments (it's been done on a single comment before). Given that, we figured he easily deserved to write up this week's "favorites" post...
Good weekend everybody. Welcome to the recap and another round of favorite posts. When Mike first asked me to write this, I started brainstorming ways of doing it fairly. I wrote an algorithm to compare the number of total comments to the percentage of those that I find troll-like for each article. I solicited opinions from coworkers, friends, the crazy homeless guy that hangs out on the route I take to get coffee in the morning. Unfortunately for you all, I realized that all of that work was for naught and I decided to simply list off the articles that I enjoyed reading and the articles that elicited the best comments. A big thanks to Mike for the opportunity to write this up and for letting me have a little extra time to get everything in order.
So...without further adieu, let's geek it up a notch!
Honorable mentions:- Another viewpoint - Another View Of The Netflix Price Hike: It's Speeding Up The Shift To Online Streaming
- Government out of control - Feds Say They Can Search Bradley Manning's Friend's Laptop Because They Can
- Comic Relief - Judge Waxes Comedic On Whether You Can Trademark Quilted Diamonds On Toilet Paper
- A sudden outbreak of common sense - Apple Does Not Have More Cash Than The US Gov't; Stop Saying That It Does
10) I wanted to start with an encouraging article. As was noted throughout UK Government Announces Copyright Plans, the UK seems to be taking a surprisingly reasonable route towards copyright reform.
9) Apple Continues To Scream To The World How Competitive Samsung's Tablet Is By Getting It Banned In Australia in a number of tech blogs throughout the internet. It's always fun to see the Apple fans come out in droves to protect the mothership. Unfortunately most of the Techdirt readers kept it civil and calm...next time I want flames.
8) More good news! Apparently the Economist is starting to recognize that patents have become far more of a hindrance than an incentive to create. The Economist Once Again Worried About Our Innovation-Hindering Patent System may not have brought out a ton of comments, but the story itself was interesting and the comment thread good, albeit a little meandering.
7) I try to avoid reading too many patent articles if at all possible (they anger up the blood) but reading Hulu Sued For Violating 'TV Guide' Patent led me on a long rant at work so I felt it deserved some recognition.
6) 20th Century Fox Claims 'Dice Age' Game Sounds Too Much Like Ice Age Movie was a good read, but for whatever reason a lot of the comments had me in stitches.
5) Is Google Antitrust Investigation Simply A Repeat Of Wasteful Microsoft Antitrust Effort? brought up a lot of good points and actually changed my opinion of the software behemoths slightly, and that's all anyone can ask from a written work.
4) For some reason I find that reading about multinational megacorps going at it reminds me of watching a Godzilla movie, no matter which monster wins the citizens of Tokyo lose. Amazon Stops Accepting Apps In Germany Due To Apple's App Store Trademark Claim is a great story and thread of trademarks gone amok.
3) Really Bad Idea: Make ISPs Liable For Cybercrime Efforts was a good read and, as always, the comments failed to disappoint.
2) The infuriating post of the week has to go to Court Shuts Down Zediva: Apparently The Length Of The Cable Determines If Something Is Infringing. Hearing a court make this kind of judgment made me die a little inside.
1) As a security geek my favorite post of the week has to be Defense Department Pretty Much Incompetent In Dealing With Online Threats. Over the past year there has been a multitude of hacks and attacks throughout the world. Although I'm not convinced that the DoD is that inept, it was an eye-opening article with a ton of insightful comments.
If you've gotten this far...congratulations! Thanks for reading and enjoy the summer, while it lasts.

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I'm pretty sure we're at war with Eurasia...hmmm, I see a van from Minitruth outside my door. I wonder what they want.
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Wow, I got married a few months ago. Hopefully my liver can repair the damage that I did to it in my 20's!
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SomewhereEverywhere, Big Brother Is Smiling: Congress Sells Your Privacy For A Cool $84 MillionInComprehensibly corrupt charlatans creating certain cash cows for their corporate chiefs. Crapping over the constitution is certainly how capitalism chews through our culture.
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Netflix does an amazing job with video compression, however the crux of the matter is that none of this would have been possible if the country was still on dial-up. Data transfer is like a goldfish (stick with me on this one), it tends to fill up to expand its environment.
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The problem is that the advertised speed is megabit while our operating systems use Mebibytes [2^20] (compared to the Megabytes [10^6] of hard drive manufacturers). Your 35Mbps connection is about 4.5 MiBps. That is enough to stream a reasonably HD movie from Netflix, but if you have somebody else in the house wanting to stream, play an online game, or browse in a snappy matter you'll be out of luck. I have 50 Mbps service with Charter and am actually pretty pleased with it. But saying that you'll never peg a high-speed connection is just showing a lack of imagination.
Why All The Hate?
Oh Mike. Laws, due process, and individual rights are for those who hate freedom. You don't hate freedom...do you?
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Personally, I think this is a long time coming. When I was a younger man I used to pop little white pills like candy, until I started hallucinating that ghosts were chasing me. Later in life I was involved in underground street fights until I got my face bashed in by an Asian girl with gigantic thighs. And the final tragedy...me and a bunch of friends got together to collect a bunch of crystals to help save the world. I don't mind telling you, if it weren't for the copious amount of phoenix down that we had, it would have been much worse. Stop violent video games now!
Re: Re: Re: You keep mistaking what sue-crazy lawyers do with copyright.
I think most sanitariums frown on blogging.
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I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but in my mind the U.S. Constitution doesn't grant natural rights but recognizes them. As in they're inherent. The 4th Amendment not being recognized outside of our borders is as troubling as the 13th Amendment not being recognized beyond the border.
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Based on all of the "LOLs", "ROFLMAOs", etc I think you should get upstairs quick! Your mom is no doubt done making your lunchtime sandwich (no doubt with the crusts cut off!). After that take a few hours to finish that blasted Kirk/Spock slash-fic. These things don't write themselves.
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I don't know...the Oakland Raiders calling themselves a football team is pretty creative. ZING
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And another crime (via DMCA) that can be used against you if the powers that be get tired of your shenanigans.
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Although it may not be broadly enforceable, my fear is that it will become yet another piece of ammunition to use against anybody with the guts to challenge rightsholders.
Re: Re: Re: whats a kindle
Baen has a pretty large collection of SciFi available DRM free. Obviously the Gutenberg Project has what little hasn't been ripped from the Public Domain (yet). From an ethical standpoint, I have zero problem with grabbing electronic versions of books that I already own...so a few have also come from friends willing to share their particular file. If you haven't installed and learned Calibre yet, do so. Not only is it the best manager around, it can also download articles from various sites and send them to your device properly formatted.
Re: whats a kindle
Wrong. I don't like Amazon, but the Paperwhite the most used gadget in my collection. The e-ink is much easier on the eyes than a backlit LCD screen and the battery lasts for weeks.
In fairness, the first thing I did when I bought it was root it and remove the ads. I haven't given a dime to Amazon (outside of the cost of the hardware) and purchase everything through 3rd party sources using Calibre to synchronize. It's an extremely locked down device, but credit where credit is due.
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Note: I say this as an application developer and server administrator.
It really isn't fair to ask everybody to become conversant with the underlying technologies behind everyday conveniences. The world is becoming much more complicated. I know the most basic aspects of how my truck works, but I would not trust myself to do any major repair work. Asking a non-techie to learn the basics of Java, C (and its cousins), Assembly, etc. is just asking for trouble.
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I'll drink to that!
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I've always judged both sites by the intelligence of their commentators. The people commenting on CNET stories sound barely high-school educated and willing to prove to the world how little knowledge they have. Ars seems to be doing a bit better and attracts a more intelligent crowd. This may not always be a good thing as any regular reader of /. will tell you.
So...
Does that make everybody who's ever written a template for Wordpress, Joomla, or Drupal a dirty rotten thief?
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And yet, my work goes unappreciated at home.