MikeVx 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (98) comment rss

  • On the post: Tales From Ubisoft DRM: Latest DRM Goes From Horrible To Slightly Less Horrible

    MikeVx ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2012 @ 12:56pm

    Why do people put up with this stuff?

    The only time I purchase deliberately sabotaged software is when I am paid to do so. (Yes, people pay me to work with Windows.)

    Other than that, I don't buy anything that has lockdowns, activation codes, or other such garbage.

    Software that is designed to fail gracefully when things go wrong is not merely acceptable, but expected.

    Software that is deliberately designed to fail, regardless of the reason, is unfit to exist. If the programmer(s) logic is so distorted that engineered failure is considered acceptable behavior, can you really trust the program with your data? Of for that matter, on your machine at all?

    (Virtual machines, a cage for potentially feral software.)

  • On the post: Has Hollywood Hubris Awakened Silicon Valley To The Importance Of Telling DC To Knock It Off On Bad Laws?

    MikeVx ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2012 @ 09:01pm

    Alerting is not censorship.

    Censorship would be removing the comments completely so that no one could get at them. All the hiding does is say to anyone passing by "Here there be idiots." People can simply choose to lift the sign and see the stupidity if they either don't trust the group judgement or think it might be funny stupid instead of burning stupid.

  • On the post: Kopimism Approved As Official Religion In Sweden: File Sharing Now Protected Under Freedom Of Religion Laws?

    MikeVx ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 07:25pm

    Re: Singing Goddesses

    My current worship for a singing goddess is Nanne Gr?nvall, who I only know about because of what the copyright maximalists would call theft. (I watched an AMV.)

    How they would explain a theft that resulted in my tracking down all but one of the albums I know her to be on via various international sellers (that part is easy, finding ones with English web pages was a bit more work) is an interesting thought. The one album I can't get is her least successful, yet I can't seem to get anyone who has one to part with it.

    And for good measure, I tracked down Princess Tutu from the AMV and bought the series box set.

  • On the post: Verizon Wireless: Paying Online Is More Convenient, So Now You Have To Pay $2 To Do So [Updated]

    MikeVx ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2011 @ 07:24pm

    Cingular and AT&T

    Actually, Cingular IS AT&T now. The old AT&T ceased to exist a while back. SBC bought the assets, including the name, and instead of taking the opportunity to bury it once and for all, they adopted the name and have been trying (and succeeding quite well) to live down to the name.

  • On the post: US Box Office Revenue Finally Drops; But Not Because Of Infringement

    MikeVx ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2011 @ 04:20pm

    Theater Avoidance

    The only time I go to theaters anymore is when friends ask me to go with them. The theater experience is so bad the people I am with serve to distract me from some of it.

    Let's see. Tickets that cost more than is reasonable for a disc of the film, concessions (which I have not purchased in well over a decade) priced worse than the films, ads running any time a film isn't.

    And there is a mystery here?

  • On the post: DOJ Two Step: It Should Be A Criminal Offense To Lie About Your Age On Facebook… But We Probably Won't Go After You For It

    MikeVx ( profile ), 17 Nov, 2011 @ 04:35pm

    Re: It's Like Something Out of a Book

    After some time spent around 30 years ago doing some research on the subject, I am convinced that it is illegal to exist, and that anything that is possible for a human being to do is illegal under some or another idiot law. As a result I laugh whenever I agree to terms of service that mention illegality, since I can't have done anything legal for decades. Passing this new law is just lazy as there are probably several hundred laws already lurking that could be used for far worse than anyone has speculated yet on SOPA.

    It should still be set aflame before it can be voted on.

  • On the post: UMG Finds Perfect Biz Model: Cheat Artists, Then, If Caught, Demand Insurance Company Pay Instead

    MikeVx ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2011 @ 08:01pm

    These entertainment company attitudes...

    Remind me of the motto of a corporation from another dimension. "Grab it all, Own it all, Drain it all."

  • On the post: A Glimpse Of The Future Under SOPA: Warner Bros. Admits It Filed Many False Takedown Notices

    MikeVx ( profile ), 11 Nov, 2011 @ 09:20pm

    Re: Someone has just flagged themselves as a net.newbie.

    And on the subject of typing HTML code, it complicates entry of text, as the error in <i>italics</i> above demonstrates, and I'm an old code hacker who's used to typing complex chains of symbols.

  • On the post: A Glimpse Of The Future Under SOPA: Warner Bros. Admits It Filed Many False Takedown Notices

    MikeVx ( profile ), 11 Nov, 2011 @ 09:14pm

    Someone has just flagged themselves as a net.newbie.

    At least to those of us who pre-date the whole concept of the internet.

    "First off, stop with the /. Its annoying and serves no purpose."

    Before HTML infested the net, there were generally-accepted ways to specify things like *bold* and /italics/. These do indeed serve a purpose. They can give an indication of intended formatting, and yet not be stripped out of e-mail by a working security system. They are also are visually easier on non-HTML supporting systems than <i>italics&lt'/i> and <b>bold</b> and a lot faster to type.

    Now get off my lawn. :-)

  • On the post: 'British Cinema's Golden Age Is Now': So Where's The 'Serious Problem' Of Copyright Infringement?

    MikeVx ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2011 @ 05:18pm

    Utterly off topic, but...

    Because of your avatar image, I mentally hear Leonard Nimoy as Spock when reading your posts. The truly weird thing is, it works. I can actually imagine Spock saying those things just that way.

  • On the post: 'British Cinema's Golden Age Is Now': So Where's The 'Serious Problem' Of Copyright Infringement?

    MikeVx ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2011 @ 04:25pm

    Macrovision

    You have been looking at this backwards, Mike, putting the horse in front of the cart so to speak. I'm sure you are younger than I am but I remember seeing black market video tapes at flea markets alongside bootlegged cassettes. Then the movie producers implemented Macrovision to thwart the piracy on VHS.


    The interesting thing about that is that the industry got special treatment on the issue. Strictly speaking, Macrovision was a form of sabotage. The closest equivalent to todays terminology would be a denial of service attack. The process took advantage of a design flaw in most VHS decks to disrupt the intended function of the device. Early Beta decks were not affected by this, and the flaw had to be deliberately designed into later generations for it to have the same effect as on VHS. Beta decks could copy the tapes, Macrovision and all.

    In just about any other industry, the equivalent of Macrovision would have had a number of corporations on the wrong end of a lawsuit. Outside of the copyright industry, the law takes a very dim view of sabotage.

  • On the post: Lady Googoo Gone Gone After Lady Gaga Gets Injunction Against Parody

    MikeVx ( profile ), 14 Oct, 2011 @ 12:04pm

    As the Streisand effect kicks in...

    Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta really needs to figure out the modern internet. It is no longer possible for anyone to do stupid and not have it broadcast world-wide. This sort of dick move (amusing thought given one accusation leveled at her) is doing far more damage to her reputation than any satire/parody/sendup/etc could ever do. I had no particular opinion of her before, now I have an active dislike. Way to sell your music, Stef.

    And, yes, using her given name means what it does when a parent uses it to a kid, "ya screwed up".

  • On the post: If TV Companies Released Authorized Torrents With Ads, Would People Download Them?

    MikeVx ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2011 @ 11:24am

    Re: Re: Probably would not work for me...

    Most TV torrents I download have some form of logo in the corner. How do you deal with those? It's how the industry operates.


    For most things I don't. The practical effect of logos is that I know little of what has been on TV for the last decade. I either have to wait for it to be broadcast in a civilized country or wait until it hits DVD, and then I have to have heard enough good things about it to make it worth anything other than ignoring.

    I can't watch regular TV because of the blasted things, and convincing me to buy discs of something I haven't seen is not the easiest sell you can attempt.

    For some things, the blur filter in Mplayer suffices, but then I have to be motivated to go to the effort to specify the parameters of the bug.

  • On the post: If TV Companies Released Authorized Torrents With Ads, Would People Download Them?

    MikeVx ( profile ), 02 Sep, 2011 @ 07:57pm

    Probably would not work for me...

    As I went off TV because of the corner logos. I don't tolerate ads, and the logos would make a paid solution worthless. The fail keeps building up.

  • On the post: Leaked State Department Cable Confirms What Everyone Already Knew: MPAA Was Behind Bogus Australian ISP Lawsuit

    MikeVx ( profile ), 02 Sep, 2011 @ 11:49am

    Re: Burn After Reading

    So the title might have been better listed as "Burn Before Watching".

  • On the post: Connecting With Fans: Paul Simon Invites Fan On Stage To Play Song After She Yells That She Learned Guitar To It

    MikeVx ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2011 @ 06:02pm

    The good ones know the value of fan interaction

    Swedish singer Nanne Gr?nvall sometimes involves audience members by holding the microphone up to a fan for a round of a chorus or two. She seems to do this mostly in small venues such as shopping malls, but has also done a few instances (I have no idea if those are staged) on major television programs. I wouldn't be surprised if doing these small venues gives her more fan cred than other less sociable singers get.

    Now some people will no doubt comment that a singer doing shopping mall concerts is a has-been. This particular "has-been" has been doing appearances on Melodifestivalen, which is the Swedish feed platform for the Eurovision song contest. She's placed high in Eurovision in the past.

    I think the point Mike is trying to make he is that these little moments do happen, and the smart entertainer could learn a bit about fan involvement from such as Paul Simon, or Nanne Gr?nvall.

    Part of why I bother to collect albums from a singer whose songs I can't understand without Google Translate is the energy she has and her fan interaction.

    And to throw in the obligatory copyright-paradox point, the only reason I know about Nanne at all is from an AMV (Anime Music Video, for those unfamiliar with the term) that combined Nannes "H?ll om mig nu" with clips from the anime "Princess Tutu". The result of this is that I bought the Princess Tutu box set and have chased down every Nanne Gr?nvall album I can find.

  • On the post: Belgian Appeals Court Says Google Must Pay Up For Linking To Newspaper Websites

    MikeVx ( profile ), 09 May, 2011 @ 05:38am

    To quote Zaphod...

    Belgium, man! Belgium!

  • On the post: Maybe Super Cheap Video Games Are Helping, Not Destroying, The Video Game Industry

    MikeVx ( profile ), 24 Feb, 2011 @ 07:39pm

    Pizza via IP?

    "The Unix to Unix Pizza Protocol (UUPP) had to be abandoned due to a design flaw. Some receiving clients would fall back to the Unix to Unix Cookie Protocol (UUCP), with the result that transmitted Pepperoni Pizzas would be received as Chocolate Chip Cookies."

    --Paraphrased from a 20+ year old newsgroup post that lurks in the dusty depths of my memory.