mudlock 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (141) comment rss

  • On the post: Author Discovers Assassin's Creed Uses Same Cliche'd SciFi Trope As His Book… Sues For Infringement

    mudlock ( profile ), 24 Apr, 2012 @ 04:28pm

    Re: Re: That's all you could find?

    Well, did it work? Did I suck anyone into the vortex?

  • On the post: Author Discovers Assassin's Creed Uses Same Cliche'd SciFi Trope As His Book… Sues For Infringement

    mudlock ( profile ), 24 Apr, 2012 @ 04:12pm

    That's all you could find?

    Paltry lists. TV Tropes' is much more complete (it includes The Fifth Element, for example):

    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GeneticMemory

  • On the post: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Civility In The Face Of Adversity

    mudlock ( profile ), 06 Apr, 2012 @ 05:57pm

    Chaos

    Embrace chaos.

    I'm bored to death of people crying about how Wikipedia, and similar efforts, shouldn't work, because there's not enough structure. Well guess what? It works. Yes, people could be dicks and fill it with lies, but they generally don't. If they do they generally get noticed. And even if they don't, it still comes out as-accurate as good 'ol well-structured EB ever was.

    The whole world is, if you dig deep enough, based on trust. If you can align the incentives right--and what's the incentive for lying on a Wikipedia article in a clever-enough way that it won't get noticed and quickly reverted?--then you don't need a structure to get a good result.

    And never mind that Wikimedia has actually instituted lots of (some would say too much) structure as it's grown. Chaos, chaos, they still cry! Embrace it.

  • On the post: German Pirate Party Scores Another Electoral Victory: Gets 4 Seats In State Parliament

    mudlock ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2012 @ 03:31pm

    Reasons for Success

    Why have the been so successful? One big reason is the different voting system used in Germany.

    In the US, these 51 seats would be decided by having 51 distinct election in 51 distinct districts, and with 9% of the vote, the Pirate Party would have won zero percent of those seats.

    But in Germany, the election is handled via proportional representation, so if your party gets at least 5% of the vote, then you're guaranteed to get at least a few seats (through a somewhat involved "overhang" system whose details I won't go into here, but look up "mixed member proportional" in Wikipedia.)

  • On the post: NYT Pays Former CEO $24 Million To Go Away; The Paper Made $3 Million Total Over The Last 4 Years

    mudlock ( profile ), 12 Mar, 2012 @ 04:38pm

    I suppose it's possible that if they had hired someone else, that person would have produced net earnings of negative several million dollars? Maybe?

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Who's That Kid With The Oreo Cookie?

    mudlock ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2012 @ 05:55pm

    No mention of Hydrox? Feh!

  • On the post: Techdirt Deemed Harmful To Minors In Germany

    mudlock ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2012 @ 12:31pm

    It's All True

    To be serious for a moment: Yes, Techdirt discusses violence and pornography all the time. So often, that you find it useful to have tags for these topics (and the porn tag misses all the stories about Perfect 10's ongoing legal adventures.)

    Ironically, these tags are almost always used in the context of censorship: either censorship of violent video games, or the prevention of pornography as an excuse for censorship provisions in overly-burdensome copyright laws.

    It would be idiotic to claim that Techdirt doesn't discuss violence and porn; so don't be an idiot. Instead, use this as a teachable moment, about how filters can't distinguish between ACTUAL violence and porn and public DISCUSSION about the issues of violence and porn, making their use a dangerous assault on free and open speech.

  • On the post: Rep. Doyle Introduces Bill To Provide Public Access To Publicly Funded Research

    mudlock ( profile ), 09 Feb, 2012 @ 04:28pm

    Re:

    Whether or not you're published, and how well-established the publication is, factors into whether or not you get tenure. So if you want tenure, you publish through these established journals. Once you've got tenure, you get to sit on tenure committees, at which point you need some way to judge applicants... so you look at where they got published.

    Everyone in the system _knows_ the publishers are no longer necessary, that now it's just a viscous cycle that needs to be broken. But that takes time. You need something to replace the established publications with. Those things are happening now though; give it time.

  • On the post: Rep. Doyle Introduces Bill To Provide Public Access To Publicly Funded Research

    mudlock ( profile ), 09 Feb, 2012 @ 03:58pm

    Take Two!

    Well, it worked last week so I might as well try again:

    You make me want to move to Pittsburgh, just so I can say "I...

    No, wait, hang on. In 2010, I WAS living in Pittsburgh, and I DID vote for that guy.

    Keep up the good work, Mike! Sorry I won't be there this November.

  • On the post: PolitiFact Trashes Lamar Smith: Says His Claims About Economic Impact Of Piracy Are Flat Out False

    mudlock ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2012 @ 06:26pm

    Re: Re:

    Now? Neither.

    The right never did (something about facts having a liberal bias?) but since the "Lie of the Year" and their State of the Union thought-lie, neither does the left.

  • On the post: Lamar Smith: Enemy Of The Internet? Defends Internet Snooping Bill

    mudlock ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2012 @ 03:04pm

    Re: Re: Sad Thing Is...

    Mack is noted on Green Papers, but the note says he was not listed on the December 2011 official lists.

    Best of luck to him, but he better get his paper work in order.

  • On the post: PolitiFact Trashes Lamar Smith: Says His Claims About Economic Impact Of Piracy Are Flat Out False

    mudlock ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2012 @ 01:06pm

    To bad Politifact burned most of it's credibility with the half of the political spectrum that used to still trusted it; because otherwise I could have used this claim as something meaningful.

  • On the post: Lamar Smith: Enemy Of The Internet? Defends Internet Snooping Bill

    mudlock ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2012 @ 12:41pm

    Sad Thing Is...

    Mr. Smith's district has a partisan voting index of R+14, and he has no opposition in the Republican primary.

    Barring a redistricting miracle, there is basically a 100% chance that Smith with be reelected in November.

    So get used to complaining about this guy.

  • On the post: Senator Ron Wyden's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    mudlock ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2012 @ 12:17pm

    You make me want to move to Oregon, just so I can say "I voted for that guy!"

    If you have more time, I think it would be great if you would do something like a Slashdot interview (although I hear the kids these days are doing reddit AMAs instead? Either or.)

    Thank you for your efforts.

  • On the post: Another Interesting White House Petition: Reduce The Term Of Copyright

    mudlock ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2012 @ 02:59pm

    Re:

    The Berne minimum on movies done as works for hire (i.e., the stuff MPAA cares about) is 50 years.

    We can *absolutely* do this. In fact, 56 is too long, it should be 50!

    (Individual works is life of the author plus 50.)

  • On the post: Supreme Court Chooses SOPA/PIPA Protest Day To Give A Giant Middle Finger To The Public Domain

    mudlock ( profile ), 18 Jan, 2012 @ 02:59pm

    Re:

    Shorter me:

    Just because something is stupid doesn't mean it's unconstitutional.

    The supreme court only gets to decide constitutionality, not stupidity. Don't complain to the supreme court, complain to congress.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Chooses SOPA/PIPA Protest Day To Give A Giant Middle Finger To The Public Domain

    mudlock ( profile ), 18 Jan, 2012 @ 02:55pm

    I can't believe I'm going to say this, I've always been a huge anti-copyright-maximalism crusader... but.

    The comparison to original US national copyright law is apt; whereas before each state had different laws about what could be copyrighted and for how long, when the federal laws went into effect it caused *some* works which were public domain in *some* jurisdictions to go back under copyright. There wasn't much complaint though, because the consistency afforded by having just one set of laws was generally considered a fair price to pay.

    Now look at Golan. This is the US complying with an international treaty, in which we agreed to begin respecting the copyrights of works from foreign countries whose copyright we had not previously respected, in exchange for them respecting ours, and this has caused *some* works in *our* jurisdiction to go back under copyright. A fair parallel, I think.

    Let me point out something important here: Prokofiev (and three other soviet-era composers) *sued* a US company for using their works, and the US courts said 'too bad, your communist copyrights are no good; everything you make is considered public domain here.'

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Russia#Copyright_on_Soviet_and_Russian_works_in_other_countries (If you can't figure out how to turn of javascript, check it tomorrow.)

    Yes, copyright was used as a cold-war pawn. And you know what? I think it's GOOD that we're playing nice with the Russians now.

    What I'd LIKE to see, is the various national Pirate parties get their people out there to negotiate the next WIPO Copyright Treaty, and turn the term limits back down. I'd also like to see the US lower their terms down to current minimums in the meantime. But this case? I just can't work myself up over it. It's disappointing, but I can't say it's unequivocally disasterous; it's probably a fair price to pay.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Trains, Trains, Trains. I've Got a Thing About Trains…

    mudlock ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2011 @ 05:26pm

    Yeah, great idea; build a train tunnel to Nome. Only one problem: There are no train tracks (or roads) that come out of Nome.

    Oh, and no train tracks from Alaska to the rest of the US (and only one road).

    I thought this crazy scheme had died five years ago; why is it surging in popularity again all of a sudden?

    Following sources back...
    http://inhabitat.com/russia-green-lights-65-billion-siberia-alaska-rail-and-tunnel-to-bridge-the-bering-strait/2/

    ...and back again...
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1680121.ece

    By line: 2007! It DID die five years ago!

  • On the post: Everything Is A Remix: The Invention Edition

    mudlock ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2011 @ 10:07pm

    Re: Re:

    Words evolve, especially in "hot" contexts.

    I'm still bitter about the word "bandwidth" being applied directly to a digital context (what band? what width!?) but definition come from usage, not the other way around.

    Get over to it.

  • On the post: Neil Gaiman And Todd McFarlane Fight Over Whose Derivative Character Is Owned By Whom

    mudlock ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2010 @ 12:17pm

    Re: Re: Maybe not Hypocrites ...

    Yeah but, presumably, Gaiman's contract with McFarlane included a clause saying Gaiman would retain the rights to his own work, since that was half the point of him founding Image. In other words, it was work done for hire, but under a contract saying the work he was hired to do would not be considered "work for hire".

    Right?

Next >>