Mark Gisleson 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Finding And Responding To The Media's Favorite Ridiculous And Misleading Free Speech Tropes

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 26 May, 2015 @ 09:50am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: "hate" speech

    I hate 1st Amendment debates because everything is so black and white, but I live in a very gray world.

    I don't have much faith in our Constitution anymore. Words can be used as weapons, and there is a gray area where our Constitution permits those with loud voices to brutalize those without power. Our courts refuse to see the connection between the words and the violence, but clearly some of those words lead to some of that violence.

    You can use words to promote revolution without anyone being harmed, but a skilled hatemonger can use words to promote philosophies that result in attacks on whichever "other" is being scapegoated.

    But maybe this is really just a debate about how selectively we interpret our laws. A SCOTUS worthy of the name would see that Geller's speech shouldn't be protected. Such a ruling would be of great comfort to me because I live in a violent country where haters constantly urge us on to new wars and more punitive law enforcement.

    I do appreciate this site's optimism and belief in our Constitution, but increasingly I think that's a Norman Rockwell picture of an America that doesn't exist anymore, if it ever did.

  • On the post: Sherlock Holmes And The Case Of The Never Ending Copyright Dispute

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 26 May, 2015 @ 09:39am

    Homage, not infringement

    The passages you selected show that Cullin honored Doyle by taking a passage and improving on it in ways Doyle could not have. Doyle's Holmes sounds like a manipulative cult leader, whereas Cullin's take pays tribute to the detective as psychologist.

  • On the post: Finding And Responding To The Media's Favorite Ridiculous And Misleading Free Speech Tropes

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 21 May, 2015 @ 03:55pm

    Re: Re: "hate" speech

    I do not care for a 1st Amendment that only kicks in when death is mentioned.

    So you support a broad reading of the first amendment that protects you in a wide variety of circumstances? I am failing to see how that helps your arguement.

    --
    Not worded well. I meant that the 1st Amendment only kicks into "hey, that's not what the Founders meant" mode when death is mentioned.

    The exceptions for commercial speech are clear. And when you're on the receiving end of it (and as a white male Boomer I rarely am), hate speech is a lot more obvious than this site seems to think. I'm not talking nuances, I'm talking Ms. Wu's death threats sitting on an FBI desk gathering dust. Hate speech/gamergate/Pam Geller — there are a lot of people working to necessitate a clarification of the 1st Amendment.

  • On the post: Finding And Responding To The Media's Favorite Ridiculous And Misleading Free Speech Tropes

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 20 May, 2015 @ 03:15pm

    "hate" speech

    I'll just say this once and will leave it at that since I mostly agree with you, but truly as one who has followed this issue closely, it is troubling that those who discount "hate" speech are, to the very best of my knowledge, all of European descent and not a member of a discriminated against group.

    Especially with the internet, you have a very distinct and ugly school of online bullying that is quite obviously used against women, people of color and other minorities. I do not care for a 1st Amendment that only kicks in when death is mentioned.

  • On the post: One ISP's Prices Are So Bad, It Refuses To Tell Anyone What They Are

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2015 @ 08:36am

    Huh

    Read this as an RSS feed and didn't see the post was corrected from Fairpoint to Frontier.

    Should have realized Frontier wouldn't refuse to tell you rates, instead they'd just lie about the service you'd allegedly get.

  • On the post: One ISP's Prices Are So Bad, It Refuses To Tell Anyone What They Are

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2015 @ 08:31am

    The only reason

    Frontier is not more hated than Comcast is that Comcast has far more customers.

    In Wisconsin where I live Frontier is worse than a joke. Basic phone service runs about $60 a month. You can go without features, but they will — one way or another — trick your landline bill into being $60 a month. DSL is imaginary and any google search for Frontier and DSL will find tons of angry missives from customers of this alleged service.

    They do not upgrade phone lines and the entire company is an invisibly owned Ponzi scheme. Apparently control of the company keeps getting sold to new investors who loot and then move on.

    Worst phone company ever.

  • On the post: The Cartoonist Has No Idea How Fair Use Works

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2015 @ 12:35pm

    Google image Chip Bok

    If you follow the news at all, you will be amazed how frequently his cartoons are based on his misunderstandings of actual news. Glenn McCoy is still the worst, but both rely on ridicule and mockery much more than anything vaguely construable as humor. Both love to "punch down."

  • On the post: Judges May Deflate Massive Opportunity By Declaring Uber, Lyft Drivers 'Employees' Rather Than Independent Contractors

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 05 Feb, 2015 @ 12:34pm

    Having written thousands of resumes

    I understand and respect that many in the tech community love being independent contracts, and financially flourish under those rules. They are the exception. In virtually every other field I worked with, independent contractors were little more than abused and underpaid employees.

    Nearly ALL workers benefit from the legal protections afforded employees, but not independent contractors. From newspaper carriers to pizza delivery folks, indie contractors get the short end of the stick while being held to the same standards as employees without the benefits.

  • On the post: Dorian Nakamoto Wants To Sue Newsweek — But It Seems Unlikely To Succeed And Could Cause More Problems For Him

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 14 Oct, 2014 @ 11:17am

    Newsweek should be held up to ridicule on this

    It's deeply offensive they have not withdrawn their allegation and publicly apologized. Nakamoto may not have the law on his side, but with crowdfunding he could embarrass Newsweek and I suspect that's his intent.

    The less the American media bothers to investigate and report real scandals, the harder they should be slapped for sloppy work that serves no point other than to serve up some mild titillation to their geekier readers.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Herding Cats For Profit

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2014 @ 05:57pm

    Bad employment practices

    Salaries are kept confidential for the worst of reasons, and almost always hide unequal pay and disproportionate bonuses. I've written over 7,000 resumes for clients. Never has one told me of a good job review that helped them improve their work, but countless clients told me of being unfairly set up for being fired after getting a bad review that came out of nowhere.

    Nothing beats transparency, and no workplace ever suffered from hands-on management and supervisors who worked with their employees to assure top quality. You should never need a performance review to know what your boss thinks of your work.

  • On the post: FCC Votes To End Its Sports Blackout Rule

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2014 @ 06:04am

    The NBA's League Pass

    still blacks out local games, making it impossible for fans to watch the local team except by paying for cable TV.

    League Pass is a horrible run service, something the NBA did solely to take the heat off them for their unholy alliance with cable. Very few NBA games are shown on broadcast TV, and their playoffs are all locked up by cable channels. It's a pay-per-view league, and only fans in a handful of cities get to watch the home games and playoffs without paying at least $600 a year.

  • On the post: True Detective Accused Of Plagiarizing Horror Author Because Characters Sounded Similiar

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2014 @ 05:09pm

    Re: No, you're wrong, Tim. This is a clear-cut case of plagiarism.

    Everything must be owned. If a reader is influenced by your words, then that reader becomes your property or at least their brain does because you can prove your words are in their head. That's where you're going, isn't it?

    You're trying to lock ideas up. Once expressed, no one else can have them. They cannot be debated or revised, only attributed and paid for. Over and over again forever, amen. It's not homage, it's theft. If Pizzolatto had been a serious writer, he would have never read anything by anyone else ever. Once you fill your brain with other people's words, how can you ever claim to be original?

  • On the post: Reagan Biographer Claims 'Copyright Infringement' Because Another Biographer Used The Same Facts

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 08 Aug, 2014 @ 05:18pm

    Re: ideology war

    That's exactly right. Perlstein's documentation attacks the right's myth building. Anything that detracts from Reagan as Buddy Jesus offends the right, and the right still believes that it should be illegal to offend them.

    It is important to fight back when the media confuses the right with conservatism, a label the modern right and Republican party do not deserve. This is the party of Nixon's Southern Democrats. They are ideological pissants who would rather tear down than build, prefer libel to fact finding, and favor oppression over liberation.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Diet Myths

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 24 May, 2014 @ 07:28am

    You should still avoid glutens

    The gluten study did not REVERSE its previous findings, it simply discovered that almost all food with gluten in it also has other compounds that cause the inflammations. But for all practical purposes anyone who has gained joint pain relief from avoiding glutens should still do so.

  • On the post: Medialink Threatens Customer With Lawsuit For Writing A Negative Amazon Review

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 07 May, 2014 @ 10:45am

    Go to Craigslist. It's a rare day when there are no ads for product reviewers. The pay is so dreadful the people writing them really don't have time to go to the website to see the product, let alone use it.

  • On the post: Would You Pay $50 Per Episode To See Game Of Thrones?

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2014 @ 08:04am

    This is nothing new

    Sports fans have endured this for years now. Want to watch the MN Timberwolves? You must have a cable package that includes Fox Sports, ESPN, TNT/TBS and access to NBA TV. If you do it right, you may be able to watch your team play in their taxpayer-subsidized arena for a little less than $7 a game (x 82 games).

    Welcome to our brave new rentier society. And once you're used to paying these rents, you'll be ready for a world in which you never get to own anything. Your car will be leased, your home rented, major appliances leased, and, of course, any entertainment you purchase can be deleted remotely at the behest of just about anyone who's not you.

  • On the post: Baseball Is Back! Too Bad I Still Can't Watch My Local Team On My MLB.TV Subscription…

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2014 @ 08:22pm

    Amen

    I couldn't watch my team over the internet (legally) when I lived in Minnesota, and now that I'm in Wisconsin I find myself in a no cable address with a worse than nothing Frontier phone system that doesn't support DSL. Literally my only broadband solution was to pay Verizon $120 a month for 30GB of insanely fast and incredibly expensive broadband.

    I can watch my team on NBA League Pass now (TNT and ESPN games excepted) but I can't afford the broadband (those game streams suck up a lot of bandwidth.

    We are the most corrupt country on earth, Russia included. Worse, we don't even know the only standing that count, namely which billionaire has/is the biggest dick.

  • On the post: Netflix, YouTube Streaming Gets Worse on Major ISPs, Who In Turn Blame the Deep, Dark Mysteries of the Internet

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2014 @ 03:19pm

    More anecdotal evidence

    I moved to a remote rural location with no cable or dish options available. I had to set up a Verizon Home Fusion device. It is amazing. It can download the Library of Congress in about half an hour. OK, 30mbps isn't that fast, but at $5 a GB I had to dump my Netflix account because I couldn't afford the bandwidth it used.

    That and even at 30 mbps, Netflix was choppy and unwatchable. All other streaming video was better, including illegal NBA feeds.

    State of the art wireless technology, but it couldn't stream Netflix worth a crap.

    There's something else going on here.

  • On the post: Baybrook Remodelers, Still In The Midst Of Suing People For Negative Reviews, Deploys A Disastrous SEO Hitman

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2014 @ 01:16pm

    This sounds like a job for Anonymous

    Those who use the internet to abuse others should experience how that feels first hand.

  • On the post: Washington Post Columnist Says 'Complainers' Will Be At Fault For Next Terrorist Attack

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 31 Dec, 2013 @ 05:13pm

    Re: Re: To Pincus's credit

    i SERIOUSLY doubt 90-99% of the people who were protesting against the illegal invasion of iraq, know SHIT about pincus, but i bet most of them had heard of -and been influenced by- greenwald and moulitsas ( as much of a demo-shill as he has become)...

    But unlike Greenwald and (Markos) Moulitsas, members of Congress and people in the Pentagon did read Pincus.

    I'm not nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize, just saying that he was an establishment voice for reason at a time when the establishment had gone batshit insane. Also, he's 83 years old and entitled to his opinions.

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