doubledeej 's Techdirt Comments
Latest Comments (32)
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On the post: Far Beyond Filtering: Is The GOP Looking To Shut Down Porn Producers?
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On the post: 2012 Democrats: Remember That Civil Liberties Thing From 2008? Um, Nevermind
doubledeej ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2012 @ 08:59amRe: As the country moves farther to the right
I beg to differ. If anything, we've moved way farther to the left.
Government has gotten bigger and more powerful. What was once considered immoral behavior is now acceptable. Regulation by government has increased almost exponentially. Government control over social programs has expanded continuously over the last century. All of these are principles endorsed by the left.
The right, on the other hand, endorses reduction of government power and programs. Even if they never follow through. -
On the post: Cisco Has Enough Of TiVo Patent Claims, Files To Invalidate TiVo Patents
doubledeej ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2012 @ 07:37amRe:
They may have a product that is available, but they don't offer a competitive product to the marketplace. They rested on their laurels for way too long before they started to innovate, and the recurring fees for using their product really turns off potential buyers.
If they killed their fees and negotiated decent rates with cable companies and satellite providers they could potentially be competitive. But their business model is flawed so they've moved from being a real player into near irrelevance. -
On the post: A 4G iPad Requires A Sensible Shared Data Plan
doubledeej ( profile ), 21 Feb, 2012 @ 08:36amRe:
Depends on the sample size. If they surveyed 100% of tablet owners, a 5% jump is meaningful. :)
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On the post: Megaupload Details Raise Significant Concerns About What DOJ Considers Evidence Of Criminal Behavior
doubledeej ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2012 @ 04:33pmRe:
This would destroy the economy. No music or movie producer, director, author, or software development company would ever release anything again if their works can be legally copied, and they'd all be forced to close their doors. We'd be left with poorly produced music, movies, TV, books, and software, because the professionals that produce these things now wouldn't be able to afford to do so, or have the time because they'd have to have another job to pay the bills. Why would anybody buy when they can have, legally, for free?
Look at the difference between open source and commercial software. Open source doesn't have the polish or selection of commercial titles.
As the architect and author of niche market software, I'd find something else to do if I couldn't guarantee a living by selling my works. No way I'm going to dedicate years of my life to try to sell something that everybody would just end up getting for free. -
On the post: GAO Suggests It's Time To Ditch Dollar Bills For Coins
doubledeej ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2011 @ 10:04amI had a friend pay me in $1 bills for something he was buying from me yesterday. It was quite the stack. Almost didn't fit in my coat pockets to take it to the bank.
I shudder to think what that would have weighed if it had been dollar coins. -
On the post: GAO Suggests It's Time To Ditch Dollar Bills For Coins
doubledeej ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2011 @ 09:57amRe: Re: Other Mints
A system with coins/bills based on 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. requires no more than 1 each to make any particular amount. But nobody wants to do that math.
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On the post: Judge Blocks Gov't From Upgrading Email System To Microsoft In Google Lawsuit
doubledeej ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2011 @ 08:42amGoogle isn't an upgrade
Based on my own company's experience, which has tried to use Google's mail solution, Google's solution is a serious downgrade. Lost messages, delayed delivery are the worst problems, but lesser capabilities have certainly played their part as well.
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On the post: Grammar Nazis: Useful Language Experts, Or Elitist Snobs?
doubledeej ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2009 @ 12:04pmRe:
It is a big deal. When I'm reading a sentence that has the wrong "there/their/they're" in it it's like my brain hitting a speed bump at 70 MPH. It might as well be another word entirely because I (like many left-brained people) don't read based on word pronunciation; I read based on what words have been written. When I see a sentence that says "I will be going over their tonight" it might as well be "I will be going over gobbledygook tonight" because it's the wrong word and it doesn't make sense. I have to back up and re-read the sentence again based on pronunciation (out loud in my head, if that makes sense... which is much slower) to determine the original meaning of the author. It really slows the process down, and if there is too much of this nonsense in someone's writing it hurts the brain too much to decypher their intent and I just give up and move on.
It isn't so much of being an elitist snob; it's a matter of writing to be understood. Using the wrong words is just lazy. People know the difference between "there" (a place), "their" (belonging to them), and "they're" (they are)... they're just being too lazy to think about their writing or press the extra key on their keyboard.
Spelling mistakes and typos are understandable. Using the wrong words in the first place just isn't excusable. -
On the post: Surprise, Surprise: Blu-Ray Still Not Catching On
doubledeej ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 10:49pmRe:
You can't assume that everybody buying a PS3 does so with the intent to watch Blu-ray movies. Their device might be capable, but we've seen studies that indicate that an alarmingly high percentage of PS3 owners aren't even aware that they can play BR discs on it.
The numbers I've seen are more like 14%, with the PS3 included, 7% without.
High speed (>6Mbps) Internet is becoming more and more common. Give it another year or two and it will become the norm for broadband customers. -
On the post: Surprise, Surprise: Blu-Ray Still Not Catching On
doubledeej ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 10:45pmRe:
The PS3 has to be separated out from standalone devices. Not everybody who buys one actually uses it to watch BR movies. (Remember that study a year ago that 60% of PS3 owners didn't even know it could play Blu-ray discs?) But you can pretty much guarantee that everybody who buys a standalone player does so with the intent to watch movies. Amongst dedicated devices, there are still more HD-DVD players out there, mostly because the price dropped like a rock once the format was discontinued.
That same Harris study you're talking about showed BR and HD-DVD capable devices equal at 14% when you include the PS3 and Xbox 360 add-on device. You can assume people bought the 360 device to watch movies, since it has no other purpose, but the same assumption cannot be made about the PS3.
The most revealing part of their study, however, seems to have been missed by nearly everyone. Amongst people who do not currently own a Blu-ray playback device, 93% said they are "not likely" to buy one in the next year. The same people indicated they were much more likely to buy and stream movies online. That doesn't bode well for physical formats.
It seems that Blu is going to be a niche format, much the way that Laserdisc was. Both have/had a superior picture to their competitors, perhaps, but not interesting enough for the masses. -
On the post: Antitrust Lawsuit Wants To Force Apple To Add WMA Support To iPods
doubledeej ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2008 @ 10:39amRe: oh hell no...
Have you actually tried WMA, or are you just spewing forth the mindless babble circulated by anti-Microsoft bigots? My guess is the latter, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.
I spent days comparing the different codecs out there in a professional audio studio environment... (MP3, WMA, AAC, Ogg) And guess what... WMA actually sounded better than the other codecs I tried. It removed less of the original music than even AAC and Ogg, keeping more of the original material than the others. MP3, was, of course, by far the worst, and admitedly AAC and Ogg weren't far behind WMA at equal bitrates, but to say that WMA is a bad codec is just ignorance.
Sigh...
Sigh... another article by a leftist quoting an article from a extreme left organization creating FUD by taking a statement out of context and expanding its original intent 1000 X over.
Can't believe anything you read on the Internet any more.