OkVol 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (28) comment rss

  • On the post: Court Temporarily Blocks School District From Suspending Student For Refusing To Wear Student ID/Tracking Device

    OkVol ( profile ), 27 Nov, 2012 @ 06:12am

    But why is the funding tied to attendence?

    Yes, school is mandated. Kids skip school anyway. But couldn't schools attract kids to stay better with more money to start with? The incentive that triggered this debacle is flawed to start with.

    What would you do for a million dollars?

  • On the post: Dear Pro Sports Leagues: Can I Watch The Game Please?

    OkVol ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 06:27am

    I'm cutting the cord next year.

    The one thing I'll miss is Nascar. With broadcast, antenna, and Tivo, adding Netflix, and Hulu+, I can get what I want cheaper than Cox or Direct or Dish - except for most of the Nascar races only on cable channels. I'd pony up $10 or $15 to nascar.com if they'd offer the service.

  • On the post: Why Does Everyone Underestimate Netflix?

    OkVol ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2010 @ 06:05am

    A few months ago, streaming passed by shipped

    Netflix delivers more my streaming than snail-mail. I've stopped buying series to catch up on, and stream them instead. I'm looking forward to more and more movies available. And my Sanyo (that died from lightning) and Vizio blu players stream just fine. This on-demand availability is the real game changer. And I can do it on vacation too, with my laptop.

  • On the post: Oh No! Run And Hide! Kids Getting High With MP3s! Moral Panic! Moral Panic!

    OkVol ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2010 @ 06:12am

    Genius marketing

    1. Make some sound files with a free tone generator, mash them up, store result as MP3.
    2. Put up a cheap web site, mark as 18+ only.
    3. Pay some kids in pizza and beer to make some vids for youtube.
    4. Get some ignorant folks to put it on the news.
    5. Make money out the wazzo!

    These folks are making money without a record company contract or the RIAA! All the rest of this article is just marketing BS.

  • On the post: Time Magazine's New Paywall? Buy The Paper Version Or The iPad Version To Read

    OkVol ( profile ), 07 Jul, 2010 @ 06:17am

    Just pick a news outlet w/o a paywall

    Al Jazeera is a great alternative for news in English. It often has a fresh point of view, and Rupert Murdoch (probably) will never own it.

  • On the post: Congress Gives $30 Million To Fight 'Piracy'

    OkVol ( profile ), 16 Dec, 2009 @ 06:11am

    But this is a project to protect jobs

    This will protect the jobs of the terrorist interrogators. We all know how piracy = terrorism.

  • On the post: Mark Cuban Declares War On Free TV Online… But Misses Out On The Economics

    OkVol ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2009 @ 11:09am

    Choice of programming

    Quality shows on American TV don't usually last long. When they do, they morph into the classic soap-opera format quite often. (Let's hope Fringe and Dollhouse have a good run.)

    But, I've used Hulu, TV.com, and Joost with my laptop connected to my 42" LCD more and more frequently. Surface, a South African origin show, was good but only ran one season.
    Hex, from GB, is also quite good. (Think OC meets Supernatural.) But only the first season is available legally.

    I am sometimes busy: I use my cable DVR often. But if I miss that, I've caught the show online instead. And my cable company can't stop what I stream/download. I use DSL.

  • On the post: Will Warner Bros. Studios Go After Everyone Offering The Christian Bale Rampage For Piracy?

    OkVol ( profile ), 09 Feb, 2009 @ 12:21pm

    What about the re-mixes?

    I almost broke my mouse down voting those on Reddit...

  • On the post: Is There A Privacy Issue In Cable Companies' Plan To Track Viewing Habits?

    OkVol ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2009 @ 07:03am

    The idea of an additional box to get your TV fix is absurd

    TV/radio concept was great. Broadcast (in the technical sense) you signal out, and hope someone listens. Nielsen made a ton of money finding out if someone listens.

    Then the VCR came along. If it wasn't for the testimony of Mr. Rogers before congress, the movie/TV industry would have killed that concept. But, the VCR screwed the Nielsen ratings - they could not shift concepts to allow for time delay. (And they still can't.)

    Cable, back in the early 70's, was broadcast on coax. Hook it to your TV, and watch what you want. Then cable offered more than 13 channels, and changed the frequencies to use what you couldn't broadcast, and offered a box. TVs shifted to cable/broadcast, but still those darned boxes still hung around.

    Cable and satellite companies want a box they control to provide limits, and get you the pay more to remove those limits. It's easier than removing the frequency filters back in the pre-box cable days.

    Digital cable provided even finer control. The prime driver of digital cable is the transport of the non-local channels is encrypted. Cafeteria plans? They could do it, but they don't have the procedures and staff to handle the implementation. That is what drives up the cost.

    And, by the way, the MPAA wants to limit your DVR from recording movies that are making them money. At least that is getting shot down.

    But, the cable head-end already has the capability of knowing what you watch, what you record (DVR), and when you watch what you record. Satellite, if you connect the ethernet or phone line, can too.

    Cable and satellite companies are looking for more profit, and they are close to used car salespersons for reputation.

    It's a dirty business. I just want an Internet pipe of at least 5Meg download, and be able to find all my programming on the Internet. If I have to use the TOR onion router to make myself anonymous, I will.

    My qualifications for this rant? I used to work at TV listings company, and got hands-on with their cable head-end demo lab. Yes, they develop the software for some cable boxes, and I heard this concept discussed 5 years ago.

  • On the post: UN Agency Working On Tech Standards To Get Rid Of Anonymity

    OkVol ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2008 @ 06:47am

    Another idiot politician

    Impossible. IP V4 does not require such bits. It cannot even uniquely identify every endpoint that current exists: therefor now we have NAT (address translation). When you have NAT, you hide the original address. And party B could borrow party A's network to masquerade as Party A.

    IP V6 has enough address space for everyone. But, there has a been a recent blather of folks insisting on NAT with V6 to make internal corporate systems "better protected" in their view, since they cannot be directly addressed from the public Internet.

    You want to set other bits as a unique ID? Someone will build a proxy that modifies those bits. Mandate software? Good luck with open source, and those still running Windows 3.11 or OS/2.

    Politicians can't engineer. So, let's try having engineers run the government for a while...

  • On the post: Once Again: People Just Aren't That Interested In Mobile TV

    OkVol ( profile ), 13 Aug, 2008 @ 06:02am

    Just another case of self-deception

    Yes, it has some success in Japan. The cell phone industry in the US is so desperate for growth that they bought into their own marketing hype and thought this was the future. It ain't. Now they are going to have to look elsewhere for money. I wonder if that is why some are jacking up texting rates, which are ridiculous to start with...

  • On the post: Turns Out Americans Are Watching More TV Than Ever

    OkVol ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2008 @ 06:23am

    It's the economy

    People can't afford to go out as much anymore. So, they are sitting at home watching TV and drinking beer. You need plenty of beer to enjoy the shows that are on today, however.

  • On the post: There's An Election Coming Up, So Time To Bring Out The Line About Protecting The Children

    OkVol ( profile ), 24 Jan, 2007 @ 06:47am

    Let's turn around the cannons...

    ... the enemy is behind us.

    Family values - and elections. All those nasty attack ads, blatantly promoting hate and ugliness, with kids asking parents "What's the KKK?" and such.

    let's get a campaign together to strike down as family hostile all the ugly, mud-slinging ads that penetrate every possible slice of available air time. Let's turn the cannons around and point them at the real enemy.

    My point is that the ugliest ads are usually from PACs. Media folk are not to blame - they could get into FCC trouble for refusing an ad. THERE IS NO REGULATION ON WHAT THEY CAN AIR. It doesn't have to even be true. Slander laws can't help.

    Lets instead call these ugly creations hostile to family values!

  • On the post: The Internet Is The Internet Because Of The Inter Part

    OkVol ( profile ), 12 Oct, 2006 @ 06:35am

    BS alert on TechDirt

    OK, let's break down the layers here. The basis of the Internet is IP packets. The only issue in the article that affects this is packet prioritization (aka Net Neutrality, the political name). This entire deal is a ploy by the big telcos to exploit money from Google, et al. Just ignore it. If B wants to charge A for it's packets getting to C, then A can connect directly to C and bypass B, or use D, E, and/or F instead.

    The other layer is about the latin letter basis of domain names. Big whoop. Let me put this simple: DOMAIN NAMES ONLY POINT TO THINGS ON THE INTERNET. If China wants to put up an independent DNS root and domain system based on their pictograms, fine. If the web site wants to be seen outside China, then register it on the domain system there too. By the way, which pictogram system is China going to use? Is Korea and Japan going to follow suit? Why don't we setup a Klingon DNS character system too? What about Arabian characters (we use their numbers)? Or ... nevermind.

    What I read here is another whining, powerless UN entity that was created to whine.

  • On the post: How Do You Hate Your Mobile Phone Company? Let Me Count The Ways…

    OkVol ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2006 @ 02:40pm

    Sprint interesting issue

    I moved from California to Oklahoma, and Sprint continued to charge me California state taxes. I called, and a supervisor told me to contact my local state tax agency! So, I finally contacted the Oklahoma Tax Commision, and told them that they were missing my taxes. I never heard from them. But, I got a letter a month later from Sprint. They corrected the taxes, and credited me about $25. The kicker is that they got my name backwards on the letter, even using it through the text.

    If you want to compare service, ask about having a family plan across many states - any service based on a traditional telco can't, as they are regionally regulated. Only Sprint and T-Mobile can do it. When you have kids attending school out of state, this restricts your selections.

  • On the post: Clear Channel Wants To Relax Ownership Rules; Or Its Elected Friends Say The Public Will Be At Risk

    OkVol ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2006 @ 06:58am

    Observations

    I lived for 2.5 years in NY's evil twin, LA.

    During this time, KCBS changed to Jack-FM format. They fired ALL the DJs. No news, no stupid, ignorant morning shows. No opinions. No weather. No traffic. But, the music play is wide and deep, and runs just like a giant iPod on random. So, where is the public service?

  • On the post: Culver City Gets Around Pesky First Amendment With Terms Of Service

    OkVol ( profile ), 30 Aug, 2006 @ 02:31pm

    And this is north of the Orange Wall

    Culver City is within LA County, which is deep blue. (As opposed to Orange County which is deep red.) Yet, with all those liberals around, this erosion of rights continues.

    I think to cost of the network is too high - and the LA area has other commercial systems available w/o these blocks.

  • On the post: Hollywood's Unfounded Fear Of New Products

    OkVol ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2006 @ 02:17pm

    Requirement for MPAA membership

    If you can pass a General Math course, you cannot be a member of the MPAA.

  • On the post: How A Little Editing Inflated Some Web 2.0 Hype

    OkVol ( profile ), 07 Aug, 2006 @ 01:07pm

    Typical

    Business Week still does not understand. They had to say something about Digg since it is so popular. They just got it wrong because they don't understand what is going on or why, since in business V1.0 this can't happen.

    This also demonstrates a disconnect between the web version of the rag and the papyrus version. Obviously the web version was not the final copy, and no one there is interested in keeping it updated since it obviously is not as important as the papyrus version.

    This is a fluff article, something to sell the rag with a cute kid that does well as the cover story.

  • On the post: Dear Possible Identity Thief, Please Delete The Data We Accidentally Leaked

    OkVol ( profile ), 04 Aug, 2006 @ 12:21pm

    Re:

    If you stole a bike as your own idea, that would be considered unauthorized by the local mafia. You'd be better off re-imbursing the owner than facing mafia punishment. I'm not sure that the idea applies here.

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