nerd bert 's Techdirt Comments
Latest Comments (79)
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On the post: When Piracy Literally Saves Lives
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On the post: Facebook's Weird Pointless Auditless Audit Of Political Bias On Its Platform
nerd bert ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2019 @ 07:44amInstead, it releases this garbage.
Why are you surprised? Isn't that SOP for Facebook?
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On the post: Court Dismisses Democrats' Nutty Lawsuit Against Russia, Wikileaks And Trump Associates
nerd bert ( profile ), 01 Aug, 2019 @ 10:24amRe:
If I may parrot Popehat for a moment:
"Treason." "Logan Act." "RICO." "Slander." All modern terms meaning "I am upset by this."
Treason, as defined in the Constitution, is a very narrowly defined crime that's nearly impossible commit when no war has been declared. There are crimes you could accuse PDT of committing, but treason is not one. -
On the post: Court Dismisses Democrats' Nutty Lawsuit Against Russia, Wikileaks And Trump Associates
nerd bert ( profile ), 01 Aug, 2019 @ 09:59amRe:
I get it. Judges like to have their say, but lowering the bar even just a little to make Rule 11 sanctions more widely imposed would clear a lot of worthless suits out of the courts and help folks who can't afford to risk a lawsuit avoid their inherent threat.
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On the post: German Political Leader Questions YouTubers' Right To Tell Fans Not To Vote For Her Party, Urgently Summons Her Advisers In Response — By Fax
nerd bert ( profile ), 30 May, 2019 @ 08:34amThat's not the way this works.
It's practically a worldwide phenomenon, as centrist political leaders are getting increasingly rare.
If those "centrist political leaders" had delivered what the voters wanted, would they be increasingly rare? What has become increasingly evident is that the traditional political parties have failed to deliver what their people want. The Greens in Germany took a set of issues that the CDU and the other "establishment" politician ignored and gained. But Farage in the UK is a far better example. Both major parties backed away from Brexit, so he formed a party based on essentially the main issue of the election just a few months before the election and flat out won. So if you want to blame "rage culture" you might want to really understand that folks are raging about having their wishes ignored. This isn't a crisis of "rage culture", it's a crisis about the "mainstream" politicians' views decoupling from the people they allegedly represent. -
On the post: United States Gifted With 33rd National Emergency By President Who Says It's Not Really An Emergency
nerd bert ( profile ), 19 Feb, 2019 @ 07:22amRe: Critical Thinking
Yes, we see a lot of folks sneaking over the Canadian border daily. And those dastardly Canuks come here to settle down, bringing their piss-water we call Labatts with them. Intoxicants and illegal immigrants flow freely from Canada down here, so it must be shut down! Or at least launch a cruise missile barrage at the Labatts breweries, that stuff is poisoning our water. (Actually, the wife and I went dancing across the Canuk border in Vermont years ago. We must have crossed the border a couple of hundred times that night. Very likely we were technically guilty of some sort of violation for carrying all that alcohol across the border, 12oz at a time. The joys of having the border running through the middle of town.)
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On the post: United States Gifted With 33rd National Emergency By President Who Says It's Not Really An Emergency
nerd bert ( profile ), 19 Feb, 2019 @ 07:09amRe: Ssssh
Is not the more "causal-like relationship" in this case the reluctance of Congress to take an action for which they might be held responsible. The whole crux of this problem is that for at least the last century the Congress has steadily empowered the executive branch with its powers. It used to be Congress that wrote laws, now they write the barest of frameworks, often contradictory, and tell the executive to make sense of what they wanted. And their oversight of the interpretation of those laws into regulations that are the actual law is practically non-existant. And all this so that Congress doesn't have to to the hard and responsible work of actually governing. They'd rather spend their time passing resolutions naming local post offices after various local folk. They get much more praise for that work than for actually doing the heavy lifting of really governing. At a minimum any change in regulation should require a positive approval by the Congress before becoming law. That would strip much of the power of the executive branch to make arbitrary decisions without consulting Congress. But that would make Congress actually responsible for how the country is governed and that would result in risk to their phony-baloney jobs so it'll never happen.
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On the post: CNN Lawsuit Seeks To Show That Trump Can't Kick Reporters Out For Asking Tough Questions
nerd bert ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2018 @ 08:08amRe: Re:
This is exactly what Obama did. He very rarely held press conferences, while Trump has been the most accessible modern President. You'd almost imagine he likes hearing himself talk. (/s for the humor impaired.)
Obama's solution to avoiding questions was to give one-on-one interviews to smaller players in smaller markets where he was pretty sure he'd get softball questions. Trump thrives on the contention, on getting publicity from the press, and creating a foil in the grandstanding idiot Acosta.
There was talk about getting rid of daily briefings at the start of the Trump administration. If Acosta is required to be admitted they may well wish they had that many if Trump's appetite for vengeance continues. -
On the post: Qualcomm's Patent Nuclear War Turning Into Nuclear Winter
nerd bert ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2018 @ 06:30pmRe: Objecting to calling this Nuclear Winter...
Because the patent war here isn't a total war...
Given how Qualcomm behaves, functions, and prices its chips, it really is the equivalent of total war. FRAND licencing will enable serious competition from many sources to Qualcomm products and without the extravagant prices Qualcomm charges for its chips it will be hurt financially. Especially since so many of the competitors will have cheaper methods of fabricating the chips. Intel has its own fabs, fairly underutilized so there's plenty of capacity there, and Qualcomm has a fair number of folks who can get wafers from TSMC cheaper than they can because they can get higher volumes. That Qualcomm portfolio is very valuable and the patents are real and foundational for many products. Qualcomm got them into the standards that govern most radio products by claiming FRAND compliance. But, much like a company called Rambus did years earlier with SDRAM, Qualcomm turned around and used those patents against other suppliers to prevent them from competing effectively with Qualcomm by jacking their prices to the point that Qualcomm made more money if a company chose a competing product rather than Qualcomm's. But, like Rambus, Qualcomm has been found to have gamed the system and the licensing agreements are being forced back to FRAND levels. This will not bode well for Qualcomm. They've grown fat and unfocused by manipulating the market and, frankly, they've pissed off their biggest single customer. How pissed is Apple? There have been rumors in the semiconductor industry that Broadcom made an offer for Qualcomm because Apple asked them to do so (Trump stopped them for various reasons involving the DoD). -
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
nerd bert ( profile ), 11 Nov, 2018 @ 08:46pmPolitician or Actor? Both!
My grandma once forwarded me an e-mail ranting about how these Hollywood celebrities should shut up and stay out of politics.
It closed with a quote by President Reagan
Ironic, but was the quote from when Reagan was a politician or while he was an actor?
And when you think of Reagan, do you think of him as an actor, serviceman, politician, president, anti-communist crusader, or union activist? He was all those things at one point in his life. Even when he was an actor he was involved in politics to at least some degree because his involvement as union president during the McCarthy era.
And I believe my point was more the incredulity of believing that actors' (or in the case of the jibe, musicians') beliefs should have more respect because they come from actors rather than the guys at the local bar. That someone should be instantly change their vote to Breeden because Taylor Swift endorsed him seems pretty ludicrous. Inevitable, but ludicrous.
I find it interesting that Swift broke her political silence to endorse Breeden, but the original article implied that a combination of a good net neutrality position and Swift's endorsement should have pushed him over the line, and that I found laughable. Really, we had an author who was both fan-obsessed and internet-techie obsessed and who seemingly had little connection with what the issues were for most folks. Hint: the state of internet governance and the state of current pop music aren't driving forces for most folks, so Breeden's endorsements and/or good positions on those issues probably gained him twenty or so votes.
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On the post: New Acting Attorney General Part Of A Patent Scam Company Recently Shut Down By The FTC And Fined Millions
nerd bert ( profile ), 08 Nov, 2018 @ 12:12pmRe: Wingmen
There are valid reasons to be concerned about this appointment.
Trump is looking for a "wingman", not a non-partisan, rule-of-law guy, someone in the mold of Eric Holder. Holder quite openly disregarded the rule of law and withheld documents that were obligated to be disclosed, but that were requested for "political" reasons in his view. (I will remind you that the "wingman" description was Holder's of himself and his function for Obama.)
Trump is looking for someone to be as devoted to protecting him as Holder was to protecting Obama now that there's active political opposition in the House. And I fully expect the Democrats in the House to howl with impotent rage when Sessions' replacement ignores subpoenas in the manner Holder did.
We've allowed the DoJ to become a political institution, like it or not. Sessions was the one to make some modest attempt at reversion to the mean and now he's paying the price for it. -
On the post: Marsha Blackburn Continues To Be Rewarded For Screwing Up The Internet
nerd bert ( profile ), 08 Nov, 2018 @ 07:59amRe: The Internet isn't everything, nor the only thing
Oh, and speaking of Taylor Swift -- really? If Swift were talking about entertainment that'd be one thing, but she's talking about subjects that are far outside her expertise.
But the good news for her fans: just wait, she's got more material and you'll get another song about how a man disappointed her. -
On the post: Marsha Blackburn Continues To Be Rewarded For Screwing Up The Internet
nerd bert ( profile ), 08 Nov, 2018 @ 07:50amThe Internet isn't everything, nor the only thing
I somehow suspect that Net Neutrality wasn't the only issue in the campaign.
In fact, I'd lay odds that for most people it wasn't in the top 10 reasons they voted for the candidate they voted for anywhere in this country.
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On the post: Gov't Says Accused CIA Hacking Tools Leaker Leaking Even More Classified Info From Behind Bars
nerd bert ( profile ), 05 Nov, 2018 @ 07:30amRe: "Video cameras everywhere"
And that's besides the fact that most prisons have video cameras everywhere, cellular communications jammed or Stingray'd and there's basically no privacy of any kind.
That's actually not true. The market for cellphones in prisons is notorious, and guards find them all the time. It's a constant battle that isn't won by jamming. As for Stingrays, they're not cheap and typically require personnel to monitor so they're expensive and not typically used. And as for "cameras everywhere", that's again not true. The administration always manages to leave a few areas uncovered where particularly abusive inmates always seem to "trip and fall" in guards' custody, nor are there cameras in the cells themselves. Shulte probably wasn't set up. The Constitution and the courts guarantee him the right to see the evidence against him. The DoJ likely gave him some of the less classified evidence against him and monitored his actions to see what he did with it, found he'd violated the law again, and dropped this hammer. It's not so much a sting in that the DoJ was required to give him the material in the first place, nor was Shulte in particular targeted to try and get him to do something he normally wouldn't, at least if you believe the allegations against him in the first place. This is more like the DoJ being legally obligated to hand him an explosive package with a button saying "Don't push me" and then observing as he pushed it. -
On the post: Steam, Proud Adopters Of Hands Off Games Policy, Very Hands On When Banning All Of TorrentFreak
nerd bert ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2018 @ 09:08amMalicious defamation?
Steam has banned our entire platform and put up a warning that’s not only completely false but also damaging to our reputation.
“https://torrentfreak.com has been flagged as being potentially malicious. For your safety, Steam will not open this URL in your web browser. The site could contain malicious content or be known for stealing user credentials,” the warning reads.
Maybe it's because we see so much very dubious legal action talked about on this site, but it seems to me that TorrentFreak at least has a reasonable case if they allege defamation given this warning being shown to Steam users.
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On the post: Sony Decides That It Too Can Compete With Free With Its Own Retro Console
nerd bert ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2018 @ 06:54amConvenience
I think what the default techie crowd here is missing is what these "classic" consoles are selling to the non-techie crowd: convenience. The hardware is there, all the software is there and known to be working, and there's no tweaking. Just plug the device in and it will work.
While I don't mind downloading software, tweaking it for my particular adapter and monitor and whatnot, your average Joe will see what it takes to get emulators working well and walk away and gladly pay the $100 to get easy access to those games.
In fact, that's much of the attraction for consoles in general: the games you play will work well and pretty much the same in all setups, and nobody has an advantage because of a having a better rig (in general). No, the settings won't be optimal and the controls will be such that PC players will wipe the console guys if they play in the same match, but it's easy and "good enough". -
On the post: NY Times, Winner Of A Key 1st Amendment Case, Suddenly Seems Upset That 1st Amendment Protects Conservatives Too
nerd bert ( profile ), 03 Jul, 2018 @ 06:36amRe:
So, lemme get this straight, you want the New York Times to protect it's legacy of championing free speech by... censoring an author?
No, I want the NYT to use its corporate speech rights to counter the author's idiocy by showing it understands the importance of the First Amendment. Not that I expect that will happen. Too many "progressives" are far too happy to attack the basic human rights of people these days, and classic liberalism is sadly out of fashion these days being relegated to the libertarian crowd alone. -
On the post: Boys In Blew: Australian Cops Caught Faking 258,000 Breathalyzer Tests
nerd bert ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2018 @ 10:30amRe: There is no metric that can't be gamed
Not only can every metric be gamed, nearly every metric is poorly implemented and selected because making a proper metric is incredibly hard work for management, especially when applied to a largish population doing all sorts of differing work.
For example, in software the metric from management used to be how many lines of code you produced. That led to a proliferation of comments, which caused the comments not to be counted. That led to the elimination of macros and lots of continuation lines, which led to style formats being dictated, etc. Rather than admit that their metrics were stupid and not really measuring what they were alleged to measure, even counterproductive, management kept trying to dictate things that were in direct conflict with getting the job done properly.
Consider the cops in this case. Do you think management was intelligent enough to set different quotas for the cops in sleepy suburbs and those working the party district? To account for the differences in drunken driving in December and that in March? To track changes in population, popularity of the various hangouts, etc? I doubt it very much. Just as the workers were trying to make their life easier, management almost certainly wasn't willing to do the work to make up a set of realistic metrics.
All in all, I'm not blaming the cops in this situation without more data. Calling them lazy and unwilling to do their job is not warranted with this little information, and I think the article's author is showing his bias. Or does the author think that every article should only be judged on how many words it contains, no matter the subject?
Just because cops were cheating on a management directive doesn't mean that the directive was either sensible or reasonable. -
On the post: Court Says Gov't Can't Claim Testimony That Undermines Its Criminal Case Is 'Privileged' When It's Used It In Other Cases
nerd bert ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2018 @ 11:13amA third bite at the apple?
Seems to me that something should be done to recompense the defendants after this many trials. Right or wrong, the government definitely has a massive funding advantage that can only magnify itself over time.
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On the post: Six More J20 Protest Prosecutions Dismissed As Gov't Admits To Hiding Exculpatory Evidence From Defendants
nerd bert ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2018 @ 08:53amRe:
Your comments are not germane in this instance. The Project Veritas folks released all the videos/audio. It is the government that lied about the contents. Reread that ThinkProgress report:
The recordings, which were made by employees of the right-wing Project Veritas, purportedly show defendants discussing de-escalation tactics and their intent not to initiate physical violence with anyone unless they are attacked first. The prosecutor had previously told the judge that no recordings existed from the meetings where the newly revealed audio and videos were made.
Further:“The Government has succeeded in misleading over 200 co-defendants, their attorneys, and three Honorable Superior Court Judges to believe there were only seven videos in its possession from Project Veritas,” attorney Andrew Clarke wrote in the filing. “Only by Order of the Court and more recently, its own disclosures, we now know the truth, that the Government withheld 69 additional recordings by Project Veritas and altered others.”
In this case the Veritas guys are blameless and we need to blame the government and its prosecutors for both withholding and altering (!!!) the videos in question.
I'm looking forward to this future?
I supposed that it is inevitable with today's laws, that the only way you really "own" something is if you pirate it.