Sychodelix 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Let Them Eat Facts: Why Fact Checking Is Mostly Useless In Convincing Voters

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2016 @ 04:16pm

    Good explanation...but...

    What you are describing, Mike, sounds like a reasonable explanation for why people have such a hard time being told they are wrong, even when presented with facts. Maybe to an extent, you are correct that it takes lots of back and forth discussion and a certain understanding that changes your mind within yourself.

    Unfortunately, there is a much simpler explanation. Vast amounts of people are utterly stupid. No amount of proven facts will change the mind of many people because they cling to their views with rabid fervor. And the more politically hardline that someone is to one extreme or the other, the higher likelihood of cognitive dissonance. Facts don't matter, because their party is right, no matter what. And when they aren't, they throw blame and bias accusations and hope they will stick to something to take the attention off of their utter idiocy.

  • On the post: Court Reminds Police That Refusing A Search Isn't Inherently Suspicious Behavior

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2015 @ 04:21pm

    Re: Re: Scale

    It's very likely that in any of those situations, the scale would be stored in your house, shop or wherever, but not carried around with you. It is enough to be suspicious. No, it's not clear cut evidence, but it is enough reason for a search.

  • On the post: Court Reminds Police That Refusing A Search Isn't Inherently Suspicious Behavior

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 21 May, 2015 @ 04:09pm

    Scale

    I'm all for flexing your rights. But the scale being visible was enough to be extremely suspicious along with all the other red flags. Save it for when the police actually do something wrong.

  • On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2013 @ 05:42pm

    The fact is, although the law is trying to follow the Constitution in disallowing discrimination, it also forces speech, and that part is unconstitutional. The law should be struck down, and the ACLU has no business trying to force compliance with an law with an unconstitutional part of it. If the "tell their story" part was removed, the law would be just fine, but not the way it stands.

  • On the post: Red Cross Pushing For War Crimes In Video Games To Be Punished In Video Games

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2013 @ 10:28am

    Not to mention, I'd be good for letting people know, who are usually clueless about this sort of thing just how far there government is crossing the line and maybe enough public recognition will allow the people to do something about it, instead of being complacent.

  • On the post: Red Cross Pushing For War Crimes In Video Games To Be Punished In Video Games

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2013 @ 10:25am

    Honestly, for games based on realistic warfare, I think some game companies should step up and make it happen. Not for censoring or restricting free speech, but for that next level of realism and immersion. But it should be up to each individual game company, and not the government.

    I think it would be fun having a war game where you have to consider your actions carefully and be careful how close you get to crossing the line.

  • On the post: Another Reason The NSA Can't Prevent Terrorist Attacks: Protecting Its Methods Is More Important Than Protecting The Public

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 19 Sep, 2013 @ 11:04am

    The Real Question

    "What if the NSA (or CIA or FBI) manage to uncover a terrorist plot via methods it considers too valuable to expose? Does it allow the attack to proceed rather than jeopardize a useful surveillance program?"

    The real question is, how many times has this ALREADY happened?

  • On the post: The 217 Representatives Who Voted To Keep NSA Spying On All Your Data

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 25 Jul, 2013 @ 05:59am

    Two of my reps voted yes, so that's good.

    The rest should be publicly hung for treason.

  • On the post: White House Believes Ed Snowden Shouldn't Have Any Free Speech Rights, Attacks Russia For Letting Him Speak

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 15 Jul, 2013 @ 11:45am

    Good job poking the Putin with a stick. It's not like we were in a long, dangerously frightening cold war with Russia or anything.

    Human rights activists are allowed in just about every situation there is, and it's usually the US pushing for it to happen. But now the NSA is butthurt because Snowden let their dirty laundry air, and thinks those same things don't apply.

  • On the post: Google's App Crackdown Results In Indie Developer Smackdown

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 06 Aug, 2012 @ 09:22pm

    Star Traders is one of the best games on the Play Store period, and Cory Trese is a genius. He's one of the few app developers on there that listen carefully to his customers and his patches frequently add new features and tweaks to make the game better than ever.

    Google better fix this screw up or there's going to hordes of very pissed off paying customers at their throats, and I will be right there near the front of the line. I bought the game, and I'll be damned if Google is taking it down.

  • On the post: Public Petitions The White House To Investigate Chris Dodd & The MPAA For Possible Bribery

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2012 @ 11:23am

    Implicating one, implicates the other...

    Of course the White House will decline. Because implicating Chris Dodd and the MPAA also implicates Congressmen, since they are the ones being bribed. The White House won't go after their own.

  • On the post: Massive Exodus From Netflix Over Fee Increase

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2011 @ 10:50am

    Not a problem for streamers

    This is really only a problem for people that can't let go of DVDs. I don't even hardly watch DVD's at all anymore. When you are like me, and cut off $80 worth of cable, when I hardly watch it, and can watch Netflix on a relatively cheap wi-fi Blu-Ray player hooked up to a 1080p 42" HDTV, then paying 8-9 dollars a month for a huge selection is friggin awesome. I fail to see the point of the DVD part of Netflix that everyone is bitching about. Scratched up DVD's that can easily get lost in the mail, that may or may not play on your player due to arcane DRM, DO NOT impress me.

    I know that I can't get everything Netflix has to offer with only streaming, but there's still a huge amount of content, and new things showing up all the time. Fuck Starz. I wasn't that impressed with their feeble selection anyways. There's a massive load of streaming anime on Netflix now, and I'm happy as hell about it.

  • On the post: Record Labels Planning Yet Another Way To Try To Get You To Rebuy Music You Already 'Bought'

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2011 @ 04:50pm

    I can definitely tell the difference between any mp3 and flac. FLAC is totally lossless and impossible to tell the difference from whatever the source is. As for creating a perfect FLAC from the source, you have to take all settings into account, including 16 or 24 bit (or higher), sampling rate, etc. Just using a higher level for one setting is not enough, it has to match the source, or you are getting loss.

    I don't have the sound system to need higher than 44Khz-48Khz and there isn't a massive difference between 16 and 24 bit. If I got rich and had the cash to buy a sound system worth several thousand dollars, sure I'd rebuy. But that's more than likely not going to happen, so if not, I'll keep the 16 bit 48Khz FLAC cd rips.

  • On the post: Police Chief Tells Parents To Hack Kids' Facebook Accounts

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2011 @ 10:38am

    I learned to use computers and write batch files in msdos when I was around 4-5 years old. In a few years I was programming and was a world ahead of even my grandfather who taught me how to use it. There wasn't much of anything but AOL and Compuserve at the time, but if there would have been some app spying on me at the time, I would have found it. Unless the parent is very tech savvy, this isn't going to work. Most kids today know far more about computers than their parents, and only the newer parents that are more knowledgeable about technology are going to have a leg up.

    In any case, trust is important and you can't build trust by spying on your kids completely unwarranted. Then again, you can't be naive either and expect that your "little angel" would never do anything wrong. There's a happy medium without becoming as bad as big brother. Good parenting helps too!

  • On the post: Amazon Announces It's Leaving Texas In Tax Dispute; Governor Blames Comptroller, Says He'll Fix

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 14 Feb, 2011 @ 09:33am

    Honestly, anywhere that has a distribution facility in that state, you generally end up paying taxes in that state. It works that way for many other companies, such as Newegg. Every state that they have distribution centers in pay taxes, and in those states it is passed on to the customers. This doesn't fit the governor's interpretation of the law that they need to have a storefront.

    If other companies that have distribution centers have to pay taxes, so does Amazon.

  • On the post: 'War' On Fake Drugs Really An Excuse To Boost Big Pharma; Putting The Poor At Risk

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 09 Feb, 2011 @ 09:28am

    Re:

    You are correct on one point. Mentally ill people do tend to look to drugs to self medicate, mostly because the majority of Big Pharma drugs do little more than placebo. This may very well be the reason that there are some people that smoke pot and it can cause psychosis, because they were already predisposed to it. There's virtually no evidence to show that it can do the same to a mentally healthy person.

    I'm not trying to prove what I'm saying as fact, I'm just saying if you try to match the studies correlating pot and psychosis with the sociological data comparing pot users to schizophrenia rates, there seems to be no real link between the two. Take it as you will.

  • On the post: 'War' On Fake Drugs Really An Excuse To Boost Big Pharma; Putting The Poor At Risk

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 09 Feb, 2011 @ 09:17am

    @AC

    Correlation is not causation. Just checking on the numbers of people that have schizophrenia (or other forms of psychosis) that has not significantly changed in the population compared to the people that use marijuana, which has increased exponentially, it's obvious that your argument is a fallacy. One study with skewed results, funded by anti-drug lobbyists does not make fact.

  • On the post: Tobacco Companies Using Trademark Claims To Try To Avoid Putting Warning Labels On Cigarrettes & Cigars

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2011 @ 09:51am

    Logo obfuscation

    Nobody likes the tobacco industry. This still doesn't change the fact that Australia has no right to have part of their logo blocked out by the big honking warnings all over them and it is changing the way the logo looks. Therefore, you could consider it real trademark infringement.

  • On the post: Anonymous Mexican Blog Becomes Go To Source For Drug War Info, 'Pro' Journalists Upset

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2010 @ 12:06am

    Re: Re: Re:

    I agree with you for the most part, Montezuma, but comparing marijuana to refined drugs is silly. Comparing it to raw coca leaves would be much closer. Coca leaves are pretty much safe, as long as you don't break down the components of them and refine it. And even that's silly, because straight up THC doesn't do any more harm than smoking weed (probably less since it doesn't have the carcinogens that you get from burning a plant.

  • On the post: If Your Brother Was Arrested For A Crime, Does It Violate Your Privacy When They Store His DNA?

    Sychodelix ( profile ), 21 Jun, 2010 @ 07:56am

    This is interesting, mostly because I haven't thought of it before. But I really see no real problem with it. It takes an exact match to be usable in court, therefore consent has to be given by any family members tested, or warrants have to be issued if they refuse. So in truth, their privacy is still protected.

    Not as if we have any real expectation of privacy, anyway.

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