allengarvin 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: DailyDirt: Interesting Designs For Common Items

    allengarvin ( profile ), 17 Jun, 2014 @ 10:32am

    Is it safe?

    You'll be losing that side B-pillar, or at least its connection to the frame. Can it stand up to side-impact collisions? There might also be some structural issues in roll-overs, though I guess no worse than convertibles currently face.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Should Touch Typing Replace Cursive?

    allengarvin ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2014 @ 08:17pm

    I remember being taught cursive in 2nd grade

    I was terrible at it. I had mostly taught myself writing sometime around age 4-5. When I got to 2nd grade, I held my pen "wrong", and I was absolutely terrible at writing cursive. As a consequence of my inability to write cursive and illegible handwriting, I was placed in the "slow-track" classes in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. All that time I considered myself one of the slower, dumb students. Then came 6th grade, where students got classified by standardized test scores, and I got placed in the smart classes, and also the accelerated learning, because I had the highest math scores in the district. In 7th grade, I went back to printing my letters, and ever since, I've been highly skeptical of cursive and any kind of tracked education placement--both kinds I encountered were so arbitrary.

    Cursive should have been ditched with the ballpoint pen. Or the fountain pen. It only has real advantage with true dip pens. Speed is more a matter of practice. Even though I write very little by hand these days, I have such instinctive muscle memory that if needed, I can totally zip out hand-written "printed" notes at impressive rates.

    (OK, I remain totally jealous of an elegant italic hand, but I know I'll never master it)

  • On the post: USPTO: Again, Redskin Can't Be Trademarked Because It's A Racist Term

    allengarvin ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2014 @ 08:54pm

    Re: Re: But...

    Except the application was for gift wrap and some clothing. There were no actual potatoes being branded. It was potato-related items.

  • On the post: USPTO: Again, Redskin Can't Be Trademarked Because It's A Racist Term

    allengarvin ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2014 @ 08:59pm

    Go look at the article it links to. The main reason it was denied because they weren't trying to brand any potatoes. There's not a single potato in the application. Note this part: "The application doesn?t appear to have anything to do with actual potatoes. The rejection notes that the applicant applied for the trademark to market ?entertainment services? and all sorts of merchandise, from clothing to trading cards."

    It got denied mainly because it could be confusingly similar to the Washington Redskins team trademark.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: The End Of The World As We Know It

    allengarvin ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2014 @ 06:23pm

    'Our planet could cross a dangerous threshold in 2036'

    Fortunately, I should be retired by then. Heck, given my drinking habits and weight, I might well be dead. And, given my career as a Unix Administrator, I'll be thankful I don't have to deal with the Y2038 problem.

    Deal with it, youngsters!

  • On the post: Disappointing: DMCA Being Used To Make Feynman Lectures On Physics Less Accessible

    allengarvin ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2014 @ 05:00pm

    They seem to have a script to block IPs after 85 requests, too. I had to cycle through several of my externals (via --bind-address) to wget it all (I already own the 3 books, but it's nice to have an electronic copy).

  • On the post: Houston Issues 'Cease-And-Desist' To Uber To Stop Houston Residents From Communicating With Their Government

    allengarvin ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2014 @ 08:40pm

    Re: 1st Amendment

    The first amendment as well as the Texas constitution.

    It's not an official cease & desist yet though. The city attorney just used those words in an email. Uber might be able to go to court and get an injunction against such, but it's probably far better to wait and let the city make a bigger fool of itself.

  • On the post: Zero Tolerance Nets Two 11-Year Old Boys Juvenile Criminal Charges For Bringing A Toy Gun To School

    allengarvin ( profile ), 21 Feb, 2014 @ 07:29am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Time for actual gun control laws

    It's part of the US code:

    http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/311

    "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States..."

    It's part of the law passed during WWI to justify the draft. Mostly it remains as a curiosity.

  • On the post: You Want People To Have Strong Passwords? What Are You, Some Kind Of Communist?

    allengarvin ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2014 @ 09:04am

    Wasn't RMS a big advocate for null passwords in the 70s?

  • On the post: Silk Road Vendor Who Says He Never Sold Anything Illegal Wants His Bitcoins Back

    allengarvin ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2014 @ 04:35pm

    Legal in the UK doesn't mean it can stand up against pretty broad Drug Paraphernalia laws, like the federal:

    http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/863

    And then there are asset forfeiture laws, which will make getting back the money very difficult in any case.

  • On the post: California Cracking Down On Coding Bootcamps For Teaching Coding Without A License

    allengarvin ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2014 @ 03:40pm

    Information wants to be licensed.

  • On the post: King Cries Trademark Over The Banner Saga

    allengarvin ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2014 @ 06:49pm

    "would be akin to Major League Baseball seeking to keep little league baseball from using the name of the sport because someone might confuse the two enterprises."

    Not quite--both have baseball in common, which are fundamentally the same thing, the same game. It's more like Major League Baseball going after the League of Women Voters.

  • On the post: NSA Interception In Action? Tor Developer's Computer Gets Mysteriously Re-Routed To Virginia

    allengarvin ( profile ), 24 Jan, 2014 @ 12:35pm

    Re: Solution: Burn the computer and get another from a safe vendor

    "The solution to this seems obvious, Amazon can't be trusted."

    And you trust that employees of Newegg will risk charges of criminal contempt under 18 USC 402 by disobeying such orders? That they'll go to jail rather than compromise your privacy?

    You do know private citizens don't get to decide what's constitutional or not, right?

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Categorizing Everything

    allengarvin ( profile ), 15 Jan, 2014 @ 08:16am

    There's an "open source", crowd-sourced replacement for the Dewey system that is a branch off the last public domain version of the system in the early 20s. It's the Open Shelves Classification. (There's also the Library of Congress classification system, which is PD and which most universities use).

    The OLCL has been pretty litigious about its trademarks and copyrights in the past. A few years ago, they sent a C&D to the Library Hotel in NYC, whose floors and rooms are based on the Dewey Decimal system (and whose rooms contain books on particular subjects). After what would now be called the Streisand effect, they backed down, let the hotel give a small amount of money to a charity, and officially licensed the hotel to as a DDCS user.

  • On the post: USPTO: The Term 'Redskins' Is Offensive And Can't Be Trademarked

    allengarvin ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2014 @ 05:47pm

    Redskin is a pretty offensive word when applied to First Nations peoples, harking back to centuries of broken treaties, mistreatment, oppression, sometimes outright genocide.

    But, I note, trademarks are still allowed for certain types of trademarks on redskin peanuts, as well as potatoes. I suggest the Redskin Pork Rind company simply use the skin of a particular breed of pig:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Wattle

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Additional Challenges To Making Dinner

    allengarvin ( profile ), 10 Jan, 2014 @ 09:05pm

    Re: Hm

    "people who want to avoid nonstick (it's toxic)"

    There are no dangers associated with non-stick until the temperature gets very high (450F or higher, if you have birds as pets; up around 650F when they start getting dangerous for people). You can reach those temps relatively easy with high heat on a burner, but a rice cooker isn't ever going to be a danger.

  • On the post: How To Solve The Piracy Problem: Give Everyone A Basic Income For Doing Nothing

    allengarvin ( profile ), 27 Dec, 2013 @ 11:10am

    Re: Canada did it too

    "over $250,000 is taxed at 100%"

    And, 15 seconds after such a bill, no company in the world would be paying any US employee more than $250,000. Any married couple whose joint income is in excess will immediately start filing separately. Other people whose income exceeds 250k will probably donate the entire excess to tax-deductible non-profits, something where they at least get social prestige, rather than passing it all to the government.

    Long-term (just a very few years out), the collections from such a tax will be effectively 0. That might fix inequality issues, but the government is still stuck with supplying (using the swiss figure above) $2800 a month to 240 million adults. Eight trillion dollars a year. 20% more than the current entire revenues of the whole federal government right now, which will surely be less in the future because there will no longer be any taxes from high-income or high capital gains, plus, marginal workers have a lot less incentive to work if they can get by on a guaranteed income.

  • On the post: FBI Agent: Connection Logs Show Suspect's MAC Address, So Look For Apple Hardware

    allengarvin ( profile ), 20 Dec, 2013 @ 01:07pm

    It's a good thing, I guess, that malware writers don't use maclisp as their coding platform.

  • On the post: Appeals Court Upholds Life Prison Sentence For Iraqi 'Terrorist' Caught In One Of The FBI's Own Terrorist Plots

    allengarvin ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2013 @ 08:05am

    Looks like a pretty straight-forward case, not even vaguely approaching entrapment. They didn't entice someone uninclined to commit a crime to do so. It's not like he was a mentally retarded high school kid who wanted a girlfriend who texted him 40 times begging him to buy her a single joint. They dangled an illegal act in front of him and his partner, and he not only jumped for the idea, but made an overt act to carry it out.

    And, course, he plead guilty. Everyone has the right to an appeal, unless waived, but without a trial, there's almost no avenue for appeal.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Sriracha Apocalypse Watch

    allengarvin ( profile ), 14 Dec, 2013 @ 09:09am

    "And if you just can't get away from Sriracha, you can try the Thailand-made Shark Brand Sriracha sauce."

    That is the normal brand I use. I keep a bottle in the fridge at work and at home. It's runnier than Huy Fong, and a little sweeter as well. Sriracha is great for an ingredient for all kinds of thai type sauces. I rarely just dump it on stuff when I'm at home.

    BUT! Huy Fong's is found everywhere, and it's great to add to burgers or pizza or banh mi or whatever, when you're out eating.

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