Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the the-ron-wyden-edition dept

So a week ago, as some of you noticed, we had Senator Ron Wyden write the “favorites of the week” post, which got an impressive reaction. And, in fact, the top two highest voted “most insightful” comments both were responses to that post, addressing Senator Wyden. First, we had mudlock who wrote:

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.

And, coming in second was the very next comment, from Brendan offering a direct thank you to the Senator:

You also stood up against these efforts in congress before others even considered it worth their time. Thanks for that.

As a Canadian, I can’t really threaten any senators or reps with my vote, but I sincerely hope your consituents reward you when the time comes.

Nice to see lots of people recognizing Senator Ron Wyden’s contribution to fighting against bad internet policy (as well as a variety of other dangerous issues, such as abuse of the Patriot Act).

As for editor’s choice, I had trouble narrowing it down to just two, so bonus time, you get three this week. First up, we’ve got Ima Fish discussing Hollywood’s inability to recognize that it no longer drives popular culture:

How could anyone seriously believe that Hollywood drives popular culture considering that most movies nowadays are either remakes or sequels.

How is it possible to drive culture forward when nearly everything you produce is from the past?!

Then we’ve got Chosen Reject talking about how Redbox is fighting Warner Bros. and going to buy DVDs from alternative sources in order to rent out WB movies that WB doesn’t want rented. Something about that seems crazy:

I find this absolutely fascinating. Redbox is willing to go to court to fight WB for WB’s own sake. This is like some kind of forced intervention for a suicidal person. WB wants to shoot themselves in the foot and Redbox is fighting to stop them. It’s almost surreal.

And, finally, on the insightful side, we’ve got an Anonymous Coward doing a quick stock check on the impact of ICE seizing domains of websites that were going to stream the Super Bowl today:

New domain name? -Check
Wikipedia the US relations with the TLD country? -Check
48 hours left before superbowl to allow DNS propagation? -Check
Make sure to email all members the new URL? -Check

How much money did ICE waste on this again?

The only thing missing from that comment is that it should be “how much taxpayer money did ICE waste…”

Okay, okay. I know what kind of week it’s been. You’re done with the insight… and you want to move on to the funny. We can do that for you.

Coming in first (by a decently wide margin) was also a comment from the Senator Wyden post. After one of our regular critics tried to attack Wyden, another commenter jokingly asked if that original, trollish commenter was Chris Dodd. That Anonymous Coward brilliantly destroyed that theory:

He is the head of the MPAA, use of computers and the interwebs is prohibited.

Coming in second, was :Lobo Santo with this gem:

“Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to create an artificial fish scarcity, and he’ll eat steak for a lifetime.” -Stephen Colbert

On to the editor’s choice awards… and for the sake of balance (as well as my own inability to pick just two) you get three of those again. First up, TheStupidOne gives a thorough explanation for Warner Bros. to not even let people put DVDs into someone’s rental queue until 28 days after the DVD has actually been released:

Don’t forget the saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” By making their movies completely inaccessible to the people that want them, WB is increasing the excitement their fans have for the movies. By not allowing them to add movies to their queue, the fans will be anxiously checking Netflix daily to see when they can add the movie they wish to watch. Many of those fans will become so excited about the movie that their money will fly out of their wallets and into WB’s underground vault. At which point Scrooge McDuck will dive into the pool of cash while WB executives sip celebratory martinis and discuss which sequel to make a sequel of next.

Then we have Marcus Carab responding to Jonthan Franzen’s statement about how ebooks have no permannce and feel like they can be changed at any time — unlike good, old fashioned paper, which is somehow permanent and meaningful.

Maybe nobody will care about illuminated manuscripts 50 years from now, but I do … Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they spent hundreds of man hours copying it out by hand and filling it with unique graphical and typographical touches. A printing plate always feels like we could lose that, change that, move the metal type around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it’s just not permanent enough.

And, finally, this last comment just missed out on the number 2 spot in the funniest list, and I’m actually happy about that because ever since I saw it, I knew I wanted it to close out this week’s comments post. Considering the Super Bowl is starting in just a little while, how could we not have at least one comment make the list mocking the NFL’s ridiculous claims that using the term “The Super Bowl” in almost any manner, is an abuse of their trademarks. BeachBumCowboy took things to the next level:

Hey Techdirt,

You are all invited to come watch the great athletic event held once a year, roughly 7 weeks before the vernal equinox, played by large athletic males of the teams representing persons who love their country, as well the unusually large persons living in the 3rd largest state of the union of former colonies located in North America. This year said contest will be be held in the capital city of the state admitted on December 11, 1816 to said union, inside the domed sports arena named after a regional manufacturer and distributor of automotive oil, additives, and lubricants.

We will be watching said contest on the large viewing apparatus designed and constructed by the leading electronics maker from the southern most country of the Korean Peninsula, with service provided by the cable provider recently separated from the large conglomerate media company with interests from magazines, to movie studies, and recently Internet providers. It should be a good time with food provided by various crispy tortilla manufacturers and fried spicy chicken wings traditionally associated with a Northeast city located along the border of the two northern most countries of North America.

I dunno, he did use our brand “Techdirt” in there. That seems like infringement to me….