Griff 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (29) comment rss

  • On the post: Ford Hits Back On Ridiculous Lawsuit Demanding $2,500 Per CD Ripper In Its Cars

    Griff ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2014 @ 04:34am

    Re: Re: Today I Learned

    This looks to be fairly current, the filing is from 10/10/14.

    The technology it talks about suggests otherwise - are 40GB HDDs really still available? OEMs have always been behind the curve with storage capacity, but that seems laughably small for 2010, miniscule now for what is the premium sound option for a vehicle.

    Yeah, it's probably an SSD, but still. A 128GB stick is under $60 at Micro Center these days.

  • On the post: Ford Hits Back On Ridiculous Lawsuit Demanding $2,500 Per CD Ripper In Its Cars

    Griff ( profile ), 14 Oct, 2014 @ 06:20pm

    Today I Learned

    That CD players are still a thing.

  • On the post: Survey: 27% Think A Gigabyte Is a Type Of South American Insect [Update: Or Not]

    Griff ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2014 @ 12:14pm

    Re: A special message for you

    That was a hoot! Especially the 01101 part, that was clever.

  • On the post: Competitor Takes Over Verizon's West Virginia Landlines; Complaints Drop Nearly 70%

    Griff ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2014 @ 04:53pm

    My folks had Verizon DSL, which was either sold to or transitioned to Frontier at some point.

    It worked ok, until Christmas Day a few years ago. It quit that afternoon. Phone was fine. Constant calls for repair was met with excuses, promises, it-shows-it's-working-here, and other crap. After more than a month, they cancelled the service. It still didn't work, no one understood why it didn't work, and no one cared.

    They have Wild Blue now, which is a big step down from the poor service that DSL was.

  • On the post: Awesome Stuff: Smart Plugs

    Griff ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2013 @ 01:20pm

    Re: uMMM

    X10 isn't really a useful thing anymore. It still works, yes, but too many things interfere with it these days. CF bulbs and switching power supplies will kill an X10 system.

    I personally took my X10 system out of service a few years back, as it was becoming more and more unreliable. Last use, the timer and controller had to be on the same plug for anything to work with reliability.

    I really miss the easy just plug it in usefulness of the X10 system. It's just past it's time.

  • On the post: Canadian Entertainment Industry Begins New Media Campaign For Draconian Copyright Laws

    Griff ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2010 @ 04:45pm

    Canada has an "Entertainment Industry?"

    I thought Red Green and the Frantics *were* Canada's entertainment...

  • On the post: Sports Journalist Blames Fat, Cheeto-Eating Bloggers For The Decline Of His Trade

    Griff ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2010 @ 05:53am

    Someone please send Mr. Hansen a 'Butthurt Report Form.'

  • On the post: Sports Journalist Blames Fat, Cheeto-Eating Bloggers For The Decline Of His Trade

    Griff ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2010 @ 05:50am

    Re: Re: Re:

    When you are in the public eye, representing some entity, you must be careful all the time. There are no exceptions - one mistake and the sharks will tear you up.

    If you don't want people following you around all the time, broadcasting your every comment - get out of the light.

  • On the post: TV Broadcasters Looking At Public Safety As Justification For Next Government Handout

    Griff ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2010 @ 09:11am

    What would be really useful

    Is if cell phones had a built-in way to receive short text-based messages. Say on the order of 160 charachters or so. That would be an ideal way to convey a quick information bite in an emergency situation.

  • On the post: Commerce Dept. Supports RIAA Bailout Radio Tax

    Griff ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2010 @ 12:09am

    Re: This isn't a tax

    Radio? I remember that. My grandmother had one.

    I'm in favor of shutting down ALL radio stations in the United States. Well, all except for WINB, which has a fun, checkered past.

  • On the post: As Expected, Ridiculous, Wrong, Exaggerating And Misleading Report Claims That 'Piracy' Is Killing Jobs

    Griff ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2010 @ 09:32am

    When I first read the headline, I wondered if each jailbroken iPod Touch was acting as a personal attack on Steve Jobs, killing him.

  • On the post: Microsoft Security Exec Suggests Internet Tax To Pay For 'Computer Health Care' Program

    Griff ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2010 @ 03:50pm

    Re: New idea

    "Why not just have an OS that when it's hit with a virus or malware to "format c:"."

    Because the first time the monitor program made a mistake (or got compromised!) and YOU lost all your data, you'd be crying up a storm.

    Windows Embedded currently has something like that - it's called Write Filtering. Basically, for embeddded controllers, you can set up Windows so it keeps all changes in RAM and abandons them at reboot - never writing to the disk.

    The downside is you lose all your data. But hey, a virus
    free system!

    Modern software is amazingly complex. It's always going to have holes. No matter what it is, or is running on.

  • On the post: Microsoft Security Exec Suggests Internet Tax To Pay For 'Computer Health Care' Program

    Griff ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2010 @ 09:18am

    Re: Re: Re: Uh huh...

    I think you'd find "stupid Windows user's computers" in a lot more places than you think.

    Supermarket self-checkouts and complex industrial control and monitor systems may not be important to you, but you can cause quite a bit of havoc with them if you know how.

  • On the post: Would A Moron In A Hurry Be Confused By The Difference Between A High School And A Pickup Truck?

    Griff ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2010 @ 09:39am

    Why copy?

    >>why the hell would Chrysler be upset about this?

    Brand dilution. Products like Aspirin and Kerosene come to mind - products that were once trademarked names, but because they were so commonly used, lost that protective status.

    Granted, I don't think there's any danger of Chrysler losing the logo's status simply because a school copied it - but, when you have a distinctive brand, you have to protect it.

    What I can't understand is why didn't this school simply pick a logo from the royalty free artwork that floats around out there? I can't believe that someone didn't see this beforehand and go "Hey, that looks just like the logo on my Dodge!"

    Then again, maybe they did.

  • On the post: No, The Apple Tablet Won't Save Publishing Nor Will It End 'Free'

    Griff ( profile ), 26 Jan, 2010 @ 05:23pm

    Re: Re: Macworld, Kirk McElhearn

    * happily types away on a Nokia N810 UMPC Tablet *

    Oh, hai! I heard Apple is coming out with one of these tablets. About time. Too bad Apple will probably think they invented the concept.

  • On the post: No, The Apple Tablet Won't Save Publishing Nor Will It End 'Free'

    Griff ( profile ), 26 Jan, 2010 @ 05:17pm

    Re: Apple Table is made of Magic

    The Apple Table is "it." "It" will change the way we think and live. Entire cities will be built around "It." "It" will save the publishing industry, the music industry, the movie industry, and the buggy whip industry. "It" will transport you, entertain you, move you, keep you company, and fart unicorns. "It" is a miracle, and I, for one, will be happy to bow down to my new reptilian overlords.

    Hmm. That statement seemed to go places I didn't want to. Oh well. There's an app for that, I'm sure!

  • On the post: Insurance Discounts For Software That Won't Deliver Calls To Cars In Motion

    Griff ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2008 @ 05:00pm

    Re: Discount

    But if I just lie and tell them I installed the software, then I still get the discount! Bonus!

    Now I just need a phone number. What's yours?

  • On the post: Insurance Discounts For Software That Won't Deliver Calls To Cars In Motion

    Griff ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2008 @ 04:35pm

    I wonder if I get the discount?

    I'm wierd. I don't have a cell phone anymore (got rid of it a year ago) and have never had a wired phone.

    So, since I can 100% guarantee that I won't make any calls while driving, I wonder if I can get the discount?

  • On the post: DHS Declares H-1B State Of Emergency; Allows Foreign Students To Stick Around Longer

    Griff ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2008 @ 05:53pm

    re: Looking

    Columbus has always been about banking and insurance. But when the tech industries that were there dropped their major presence, wages for that type of position dropped. No real reason to keep wages high anymore when you aren't competing with an established, 100,000 employee industry anymore. When your major employer is Wal-Mart and Teleperfomance, why pay much more than they do? And yes, I've actually been offered engineering positions that paid less than Teleperformance.

    Almost all the tech people I know of have left the city for greener pastures. Why stick around when companies are trolling for engineers, but only want to pay 32k a year? As a native Columbus resident, it saddens me to think that I'm going to be leaving my beloved city behind for my next job. But hey, I can't live on $14 an hour when my non-negotiable expenses are double what they were 10 years ago.

  • On the post: Apple Seeks To Patent 'Anti-Piracy' Technology. Will Steve Jobs Be Dumb Enough To Use It?

    Griff ( profile ), 26 Dec, 2007 @ 04:55pm

    Re: Total COA?

    @shanoboy

    A Mac can use a lot of the same common components that a PC does. It's perfectly possible to swap lots of things around, cheaply, between the two types of machines. PCI cards, hard drives, DVD drives, keyboards, joypads, etc, etc. All do adhere to certain standards (IDE, PCI, HID, etc.) you know, and even made-for-Mac common parts are pretty reasonable. Not all things are compatible - some items have firmware-specific code for one type of machine, but the majority of standard parts are swappable.

    Case in point, I used a lot of Sonnet (made for Mac) parts in PC builds just because of the sweet purple mask they coated boards with. That, and you could usually assume that if the card had a certain type of chip on it, all would. My main machine still has a Sonnet USB card and an IDE (w/onboard laptop HDD) controller in it.

    Granted, the entry price for a Mac is a *lot* higher, and you miss the experience of selecting all the goodies for your machine and putting them together. But hey. Not everyone likes to turn screws, or wants to. You have to pay for that. That's the same reason a pre-built PC is more expensive.

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