rangda 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (110)

• On the post: Cord Cutting Is Hitting Comcast Harder Than Ever

  

  rangda ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2023 @ 08:06pm

  I'm in the US and pay around $275/mo for 75 mbit internet, tv, and phone (FIOS). The $300 for these utilities is pretty normal here. Now you know why these companies have been so anxious to preserve their monopoly. I'd have canceled phone/tv long ago but my wife is a luddite and insists on being able to channel surf.

• On the post: Finally: Countries Start To Rebel Against Corporate Sovereignty, But Ten Years Too Late

  

  rangda ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2022 @ 05:45pm

  I mean why waste time with that. If you are a government you control a gang with guns. I'm sure the threat of the nuclear option of using said gang with guns to seize all of the companies assets and funds in your country would be enough to get them back inline.

• On the post: Report: Elon Musk Plans To Make Twitter Profitable By Firing 75% Of The Staff

  

  rangda ( profile ), 22 Oct, 2022 @ 06:58pm

  Personality cults are based on faith, what logical argument can you possibly make to argue against faith? The entire point of faith is believing something despite the lack of evidence (or evidence to the contrary).

• On the post: Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Goes Completely Rogue, Blocks Inspector General’s Access To Files, Facilities

  

  rangda ( profile ), 14 Oct, 2022 @ 08:10pm

  99% of cops give the rest a bad name.

• On the post: It Can Always Get Dumber: Ron DeSantis Moves To Eliminate The Ridiculous Disney Exemption To His Unconstitutional Social Media Bill Because He’s Mad At Disney

  

  rangda ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2022 @ 10:46pm

  a law that has no purpose other than to create a massive chilling effect in classrooms

  An uneducated society is an easily manipulated society. If I'm a morally bankrupt (or worse!) politician of course I want to do anything possible to eliminate critical thinking and replace it with faith based thinking. That creates a society much easier to manipulate and control.

• On the post: As War Rages On In Ukraine, Don’t Forget The Real Victims: Disney’s Profits

  

  rangda ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2022 @ 10:41pm

  Money is valuable, human life is not.

• On the post: Hypocrisy: Rupert Murdoch Has Always Hated Antitrust; But Now He Wants It Used Against Internet Companies Who Out Innovated Him

  

  rangda ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2021 @ 11:05am

  clearly you are confused

  Murdoch was never against anti-trust regulation. He was (and is) against anything that prevents him from having "all the monies". If antitrust regulation stops him from having giant bags of money then he is against that. If competitors stop him from having giant bags of money then he is against his competitors.

  This is not hard to understand.

• On the post: Ubisoft Shifts Its Future Plans To Include More 'Free To Play' Games

  

  rangda ( profile ), 18 May, 2021 @ 09:38am

  FYI gamers generally don't view free to play as a good thing. With few exceptions it's viewed as a bad thing. Free to play games are frequently designed as cash grabs, where the game puts nearly impossible levels of grind in front of you and then sells you the ability to bypass the grind.

  This isn't to say you can't do free to play well, Path of Exile is an example of free to play that is mostly done right. But it is to say that it's so infrequently done well that the target community views it as a flaw not a feature.

• On the post: Trump Promises To Defund The Entire Military, If Congress Won't Let Him Punish The Internet For Being Mean To Him

  

  rangda ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2020 @ 06:15pm

  Re:

  Ranked choice voting was on the MA ballot this year and it got shot down in flames big time. I have to admit I'm somewhat at a loss as to why aside from perhaps the intelligence level of the average American voter who perhaps found it too confusing.

• On the post: Trump Promises To Defund The Entire Military, If Congress Won't Let Him Punish The Internet For Being Mean To Him

  

  rangda ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2020 @ 06:11pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  We don't have a centrist party, we have far right, and slightly less far right parties in an absolute sense.

• On the post: Stop Pretending The Trump GOP Genuinely Cares About Monopoly Power

  

  rangda ( profile ), 07 Oct, 2020 @ 07:01am

  "Stop Pretending The Trump GOP Genuinely Cares About Monopoly Power"

  You are deluded. The GOP cares very much about monopoly power, they care about ensuring that the few that fund their party have it.

• On the post: Facebook Sued For Not Preventing A Bunch A White Guys With Guns From Traveling To A Protest To Shoot People

  

  rangda ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2020 @ 05:23pm

  Re: Re:

  "the era was known for a widespread disregard of civil rights,corrupt selective enforcement such that there was little difference between gangster and lawman" How is this any different from now?

• On the post: Forget TikTok. Feebly Secured Infrastructure Is Our Real Problem

  

  rangda ( profile ), 11 Aug, 2020 @ 09:42am

  I assume that your question is purely rhetorical because you already know the answer.

  And elected official's job is to get re-elected. Solving large scale problems often requires complex, nuanced solutions, and frequently comes with some sort of cost that someone will perceive as negative. Fulfilling your job requirements of getting re-elected doesn't actually require you to solve problems, in fact actually solving them will probably piss some people off so it's actually detrimental to your employment. Instead you just have to make people think you are solving problems. So the theater is far more important than the action. And if you can lash out at the platform whose users put a damper on one of your rally's, hey, that's a win-win.

  Also keep in mind that a secondary career objective for an elected official is to ensure a soft landing spot in the private sector if/when you finally leave office. So if any of your theater can benefit someone that might be a future employer that's great too.

  And frequently ego comes into play as well. You want to make sure that you are always the most important person in the room (as long as you can do so while getting re-elected). This is particularly important with our current president, who I suspect prioritizes ego masturbation over re-election (and anything else).

• On the post: Update: The TikTok Clusterfuck: Trump To Order A Block, Microsoft Wants To Buy, And Competition Is Still There

  

  rangda ( profile ), 31 Jul, 2020 @ 05:46pm

  Re: 'Nice company you got there...'

  Speaking as an American, it seems that it would make far more sense for TikTok to divest itself of it's American operations than to sell. Unless of course they can sucker Microsoft into drastically over-paying. MS will of course not get TikTok and will screw it up horribly (see Skype), so at some level this is a chance to pocket a pile of American dollars and then start working on TikTok's replacement.

• On the post: Appeals Court Strips Immunity From Abusive Cops Who Assaulted A Compliant Black Man… And The City That Allowed This To Happen

  

  rangda ( profile ), 27 Jun, 2020 @ 07:02am

  99% of cops give the rest a bad name.

• On the post: Senators Launch Full On Nuclear War Against Encryption: Bill Will Require Broken Encryption, Putting Everyone At Risk

  

  rangda ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2020 @ 11:34am

  Re: Why stop with communications?

  It has been my experience that every criminal act in the history of mankind has been committed by a living individual. Clearly the problem is living, if we just kill every human on the planet the problem is solved. No more crime. Simple.

• On the post: Police Memo Says Officers Raiding A Journalist's Home Were Instructed To Turn Off Their Body Cameras

  

  rangda ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2020 @ 11:32am

  As someone I know always says:

  "99% of cops give the rest a bad name"

  I've come to the conclusion that his estimated percentage is too low.

• On the post: Cops — Newly Wary Of Looking Like Authoritarian Assholes — Open Fire On, Arrest Journalists

  

  rangda ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2020 @ 08:50pm

  Re:

  Citations needed. I've seen precious little in the way of accountability.

• On the post: Cops — Newly Wary Of Looking Like Authoritarian Assholes — Open Fire On, Arrest Journalists

  

  rangda ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2020 @ 08:49pm

  As a friend constantly points out when he links police brutality articles on FB, "99% of cops give the rest a bad name". If anything I think his percentage is too low. The majority that condone this behavior through their silence and inaction are more of a problem than those that exhibit the behavior.

• On the post: As Pandemic Exposes US Broadband Failures, FCC Report Declares Everything Is Fine

  

  rangda ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2020 @ 08:14am

  Re: Just one piece of a much larger problem...

  it's no longer our government

  I suspect that this has been true for longer than any of us have been alive. The only difference now is that those in power have discovered that they can be much more blatant about it and still get away with it.

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