lostalaska 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Florida State Police Raid Home Of COVID Whistleblower, Point Guns At Her & Her Family, Seize All Her Computer Equipment

    lostalaska ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2020 @ 04:15pm

    10:1 odds the policehad to be talked down from using a SWAT team

    To all the people who were surprised when the cops hand went for his gun upon realizing children were present. I don't think you realize how dangerous children are. One child can be dangerous, but a group of them are like piranha, I've seen them strip the meat from the bones of a bucket of KFC in minutes.

    For the sarcastically challenged and for those who've lost all faith in humanity and might think this was a real argument or concern I present to you the "/srcsm" tag.

    Also, you think there is any chance she'll ever see the thousands of dollars worth of electronics they took from her house in the next decade? 4:1 odds against.

  • On the post: Maybe Epic's Claims For Exclusivity Strategy To Benefit The Gaming Industry Isn't Entirely Crazy

    lostalaska ( profile ), 27 Jun, 2019 @ 10:47pm

    The other elephant in the room is...

    So as the market fractures and we get more store fronts selling games on their platforms what happens when one of the platforms fail. I'm assuming somewhere in the EULA it says that you're not actually buying the game but a license to play the game and if the store fails the games you've bought will no longer be playable and that's that.

  • On the post: Fighting The Future: Teamsters Demand UPS Ban Drones And Autonomous Vehicles

    lostalaska ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2018 @ 12:37pm

    Wagon Wheel Union gots yer backs!

    We here at the wagon wheel union wholly endorse your bid to prevent these dirty automatons from taking over your jobs. Stay strong and resist the change, it worked so well for us!

  • On the post: Cable Industry Tries To Distance Itself From Decades Of Poor Service By Eliminating The Word 'Cable'

    lostalaska ( profile ), 15 May, 2015 @ 12:04pm

    This just in...

    Cable companies want to rename their box of shit to "Pro-Consumer Happy Funtime box". Early reports still say the box if full of shit.

  • On the post: EA/Origin/Something Locks Benchmarkers Out Of Battlefield Hardline After Too Many GPU Swaps

    lostalaska ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2015 @ 10:01am

    As a gamer the list keeps getting longer....

    I quit buying Ubisoft games because their Uplay system is a horrible tacked on piece of bloatware with almost no user benefits for all the overhead and if it's crashing it won't let you play the game you bought on Steam. Then there was the Microsoft "Games for Windows" program that added itself as another layer of frustration since it wasn't tied to a specific brand. I had one of the Batman Arkham games on Steam that had the MS Games for Windows DRM tacked onto it. When I had the gall to update to windows 8 I couldn't play any of the games locked down for "Games for Windows" because they didn't have a driver for Windows 8 because MS had abandoned the program. About a year later it was re-released on steam as a Game of the Year edition and they had ripped out Games For Windows DRM and offered it free as a replacement to those of us who hadn't been able to play it for nearly two years. I've avoided EA's ORIGIN service because I'm so fed up with janky DRM I just didn't want to have to jump through another set of hoops for another company. I pick up a lot of older games off of GoG, but their selection is pretty small and specific. Still I usually check there first before going elsewhere to purchase a game.

  • On the post: You Don't Own What You Bought: Drone Maker Updates Firmware On All Drones To Stop Any Flights In DC

    lostalaska ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2015 @ 12:06pm

    Different application, same old cr@p...DRM

    I used to work at a school district doing IT across multiple schools. We had a couple new copiers I had installed over the summer in the staff media room. Within the first couple of days of the school year the machines were giving an error code and wouldn't print or scan, even after turning them off and on again they would still show the code and not allow any of it's functions to work. A staff member had called the company (there was a sticker on the machine with the local business's phone number) and the company had already been out 3 times and was now saying they were going to charge a $100 a pop to come out and "fix" the machine. This was when I was finally informed of the issue. I went out to the school wrote down the code and looked it up via google. The first few pages of results had similar stories and basically the code that locked down the copier was because a teacher had been scanning dollar bills with their face taped to the middle of it for some class activity which teachers have done since they had access to copy machines. Now the machines saw the dollar bill and considered it potential counterfitting attempt and would lock the machine down until a tech would show up and clear the code with PIN number. Luckily one of the posts I found while searching through google also had the clear code (PIN) posted. So I just wrote up a quick explanation with the clear PIN and taped it to the wall behind the copier. Thanks DRM, because I'm sure that crappy 300dpi black and white copy machine has the potential to crank out real looking currency that has been scanned into it.

  • On the post: Linux Developer Who Issued Bogus YouTube Takedowns Threatens Techdirt With Legal Action For Publishing His 'Private Information'

    lostalaska ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2015 @ 05:24pm

    Privacy does not equal illegal activity

    It's very similar to the false argument that anyone encrypting their phone or hard drive is either a terrorist or a pedophile.

  • On the post: Throwing Tax Breaks At AT&T And Verizon Shockingly Not Creating Promised Jobs, Investment

    lostalaska ( profile ), 24 Dec, 2014 @ 10:28am

    Bluffing & Bullshit: The Card Game

    Yes, if Cards Against Humanity could pull it off....

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Does Anyone Really Want A Modular Smartphone?

    lostalaska ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2014 @ 05:35pm

    So hopeful, but...

    ...having been a geek that enjoys building his own custom computers and tinkers with Arduino's (almost got my 3D Reprap Prusa built) and Raspberry Pi's there's a lot of hurdles they're going to need to be able to jump to make this happen. Things like bus speed that increases significantly for every new chip generation or standards for how it all connects so 3rd party devices can be used too. With all the advancements we've had in the past decade with making digital sensors smaller and smaller I see the potential for these kinds of modular phones to be potentially portable x-ray scanners or blood test kits. If you have decent storage and powerful chip in your hand things like spectrometers and such could become cheap enough for citizen scientists to use. The potential is huge, but it all depends on the implementation. I sure hope Google's ATAP can pull it off because the potential is staggering.

  • On the post: AT&T Pouts, Freezes Mostly Bogus 'Fiber To The Press Release' Deployments In Net Neutrality Bluff

    lostalaska ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2014 @ 02:25pm

    Bullies...

    It's like standing up to a bully and their response is "Well, I was going to play nice finally and do all these great things for you, but you just had to go and stand up to me and tell me how much of a lying jerk I've been all these years, such a shame... I always wanted to be your friend. Now all I want to do is take your lunch and kick you in the balls, now gimmie 'yer wallet!".

  • On the post: AT&T Still Proudly Makes Unlocking Phones Under Contract Annoying and Impossible

    lostalaska ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2014 @ 10:26am

    Tough even when out of contract

    I've been trying to unlock my iPhone 4s from AT&T. I got the phone new a little over 3 years ago so it's been off contract for about 13 months now. I tried the web page found under their support section of the website for unlocking a phone. It asks for your IMEI number and email and then says you'll get a response back in 48 hours normally. I got this response back...

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    Request number: XXXXXXXX

    Thank you for contacting AT&T Customer Care about unlocking your AT&T Mobile device.

    We cannot complete your request because this account has reached the maximum number of unlock requests allowed during a given period. If you have questions, please review the AT&T Mobile Device Unlock eligibility requirements by going to this link, att.com/deviceunlock.

    Thank you for your business. For other questions about our AT&T wireless service or Mobile devices, please visit att.com.


    Sincerely,
    The AT&T Customer Care Team
    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    I have never requested a phone be unlocked that was on my account and the only other phone on my account is my girlfriends Galaxy S4, but my name is the one on the account and as far as I'm aware I'm the only one with access to my account. So I called their help line and spent some time on the phone with a support specialist that didn't see any reason for me to be concerned about my account already having the maximum number of phone unlocks having already been reached and she said they contract the phone unlocking through another company and have no way of seeing what phones had already been unlocked using my account. She said she'd forward it onto someone else and I'd get an email back in a couple of days letting me know if AT&T would unlock my out of contract phone. So I have a sneaking suspicion that they just decline everyone regardless of if you're on contract or not, if you're on contract they'll use that as the argument. If you're off contract they'll say you've used all your phone unlocks and do their best to have you run in circles until you just give up.

  • On the post: Snowden & Greenwald Reveal PM John Key Lied About Kiwi Mass Surveillance; Key Hits Back By Calling Greenwald 'A Loser'

    lostalaska ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2014 @ 04:35pm

    What do you do when the facts speak for themselves...

    ...you give up on deflecting criticism and move directly to character assassination, maybe if you can undermine a persons credibility people will disregard the facts.

  • On the post: Angry Lawyer Sues WordPress Because Someone Set Up A Website Mocking Him

    lostalaska ( profile ), 08 Aug, 2014 @ 12:35pm

    After reading through all of the article I'm starting to think that the websites that were griping about this attorney might have been going kinda easy on the guy.

  • On the post: Tektronix Uses DMCA Notice To Try To Stop Oscilloscope Hacking

    lostalaska ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2014 @ 05:14pm

    $20 of parts apparently makes a $500 add on board

    If this was the article I'm thinking of on Hack-a-day I think they also mentioned that the boards were very expensive to purchase, but could be built for about $20. I not sure what should be considered more criminal the hacking or the insane mark up on $20 worth of hardware. I'm not sure if I condone that kind of hacking or not, but I sure as hell understand why people do it.

  • On the post: Dangerous Ruling: EU Says Google Must Help People Disappear Stuff They Don't Like From The Internet

    lostalaska ( profile ), 13 May, 2014 @ 05:22pm

    What about libraries and microfiche

    So would this be a similar analogue?

    Can i go to a library, look through their microfiche of public documents or old newspapers and if I were to find something referring to me that I don't like could I demand they cut out that part of the microfiche so no one else will see it? If it's considered public knowledge that could be read from a court, state or federal institution or newspaper. Maybe I'm missing some of the subtleties of this law, but it seems ripe for abuse and nearly impossible to implement. What if I can find it still on the internet achieves or the way, way back machine?

  • On the post: Dear Everyone: Stop Freaking Out That Malaysian Airlines Notified Victim's Families By Text Message

    lostalaska ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2014 @ 12:49pm

    Text not a big deal...

    Maybe I'm just different, but the type of delivery of the message that they're dead doesn't really matter to me. I really don't see a huge difference between some stranger texting you this versus calling you or having some stranger on your doorstep letting you know. In the end they're all strangers telling you that someone you care about is dead. So you acknowledge what they said and then once they're gone you kind of fall apart into a slumped over, sobbing, heaving mess. I'm in my thirty's now and have gotten quite a few emails, facebook messages and late night phone calls notifying me that someone I cared about at some point in my life had passed away and unless it was someone I was close to informing me of this I could really care less what form the message takes to get to me.

  • On the post: HuffPo Columnist: I Infringe, So All Broadband Users Must Pay A New Piracy Tax

    lostalaska ( profile ), 24 Feb, 2014 @ 03:56pm

    Did I miss something?

    With as many companies and businesses on the internet, I don't think one range of businesses(media MPAA/RIAA)should be able to control the internet. The obvious solution is to have all failing businesses part of a consortium that dictates how the internet works.

  • On the post: NSA Defenders Ratchet Up The Rhetoric: Two Former Gov't Officials Urge Hanging Ed Snowden

    lostalaska ( profile ), 24 Dec, 2013 @ 02:14pm

    This week on extreme security state apologists....

    This week on extreme security state apologists, how to demonize someone who made your department look like an overreaching power hungry monster that likes to crap all over the constitution... after the break we have Martha Stewart on showing us all how to tie a hang mans noose and add some red ribbons to keep the bureaucratic lynching festive during this time of year.

  • On the post: Bizarre Legal Threat Of The Day: Confused Zoo Owner Threatens Popehat Over… Well… Just Read It

    lostalaska ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2013 @ 01:49pm

    Re:

    I read it the same way and all I could think is wow... i sure hope I'm never DP'ed by legal council... does not sound like a good time, lets hope he doesn't up the threat to legal DVDA.

    Also, if this guy has sooOOooo much money why wouldn't he have a lawyer on retainer that could write out these threats in a way that look legit instead of the angry ramblings of another clueless internet bully trying to sound big in an email to get people to back down and do as they will without any actual legal merit?

  • On the post: CNET Finally Reports On Its Own Fight With CBS Over Dish CES Award

    lostalaska ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2013 @ 12:29pm

    C|NET is now Officially CBS's B*tch

    Luckily nowadays we have the internet (shhhhhh, no one tell CBS) so it's easy to just go somewhere else and let CNET fall into irrelevance, well more so then they already have.

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