another mike 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Congress Not Yet Willing To Outlaw Being A Jerk Online

    another mike ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2009 @ 04:43pm

    dealing with "cyberbullies"

    "Cyberbullying" is such a crock, but it has a real simple solution. You take the electronic gadget from the bully and shove it so far up his exhaust port he poops 3G connectivity.

  • On the post: Doctors In Tennessee Have Been Faxing Patient Info To The Wrong Place For Years

    another mike ( profile ), 30 Sep, 2009 @ 04:28pm

    how's that saying go?

    "Once is an incident.
    Twice is a trend.
    Three times is enemy fire."

  • On the post: Google, Rocky Mountain Bank Ask Judge To Restore Deactivated Gmail Account

    another mike ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2009 @ 12:24pm

    violation of every information security policy known

    Why was RMB able to send critical sensitive financial data out of their systems at all? And not only send it out, but e-mail it out as an attachment to an unsigned unencrypted free e-mail account. And to top it off, they typoed the address to send it to the wrong person!

    Rocky Mountain Bank's account holders need to seriously reconsider their choice of financial services partner. I've changed banks simply because I didn't like their color scheme. But to so thoroughly screw up data security?! I'd be gone so fast the shockwave would pull the vault door off it's hinges.

  • On the post: EU Worried About IP Harming Innovation… But Gets It Backwards

    another mike ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2009 @ 10:57am

    experiments with chimps

    The chimpanzee investigates a wire connected to a treat. When the chimp pulls on the wire, the treat moves further away. The chimp doesn't pull on the wire too many times before realizing the action taken isn't matching up with the intended result. Noticing that the observed result is the exact opposite of the intended result, the chimp performs the opposite action and pushes the wire and receives the treat.

    The politician sees a failing market; the treat is already moving away. The politician passes strong IP protection laws to improve the economy. The market accelerates its decline; the treat moves away even faster. So the politician passes stronger IP protection laws and the market goes down more. This cycle repeats indefinitely. The politician may realize that the observed result is the opposite of the intended result, but never makes the connection to perform the opposite action and weaken IP protection.

    Therefore, a chimpanzee is obviously smarter than a politician.

  • On the post: Obama Finally Appoints IP Czar… Puts It In The Wrong Department

    another mike ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2009 @ 05:00pm

    Re: Re: How to handle these Czars

    from the Roman "Caesar".
    They knew how to handle things. "Here Julius, hold this."

  • On the post: Music Publishers Push LyricWiki Into Wikia's Arms

    another mike ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2009 @ 01:09pm

    karaoke

    You have no idea how embarrassing it is to request a song at the karaoke bar and not know the lyrics ahead of time. Or not being able to request the song you want because the radio stations don't identify the songs they play anymore. You never hear the title or artist so if you can't search by lyrics you're stuck. These sites are a FSM-send.

  • On the post: New Zealand Author Claims Libraries Are Involved In Grand Theft By Loaning Books

    another mike ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2009 @ 12:53pm

    This isn't a copyright issue. This idiot is just bad at negotiating an employment contract. He says he was paid $40,500. Work done, work paid for, end of discussion. If he wants to be paid more, he needs to ask more up front.

  • On the post: Bank Sends Confidential Email To Wrong Address, Hauls Google To Court To Figure Out Who Got The Email

    another mike ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2009 @ 12:35pm

    reply all

    Why couldn't that employee just send a suggestive email to a female employee after clicking "Reply All" like a normal person. All this trouble about tracking down where you leaked your data.

  • On the post: Bank Sends Confidential Email To Wrong Address, Hauls Google To Court To Figure Out Who Got The Email

    another mike ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2009 @ 12:27pm

    Re:

    This is going to be my e-mail server's new TOS.

  • On the post: Bad Ideas: Trying To Build Patent Marketplaces

    another mike ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2009 @ 05:06pm

    Re: Re: And that is why the New York Times is financial trouble.

    You're too late, but you can get caught up at wikipedia.

    /I can be offered a penny for my thoughts, or I can put in my two cents. obviously, unsolicited advice is twice as valuable.

  • On the post: Nissan To Add Futuristic Sound Effects To Its Electric Car To Keep It From Hitting Unaware Pedestrians

    another mike ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2009 @ 04:05pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Proprietary Noises

    It's piezo, but I think a standard hobby 8 Ohm project speaker would work better and probably cost less. You'll need a memory chip to hold the recording and a processor chip to control the playback, trigger playback off the indicator's blink. Mount that with an amp (if the speaker kit doesn't have its own) and a projection cone near the headlights so you've got power and ground nearby.
    So a PIC, an EEPROM, a speaker, a little project board to solder it all on to, plus all the resistors, capacitors, and bits to make it an engineered solution. Maybe $20, 25 shipped.

  • On the post: Appeals Court Says Patenting Basic Medical Diagnostic Process Is Just Fine

    another mike ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2009 @ 04:36pm

    patents vs chemistry 101

    How would Prometheus Labs know they've been copied? Patients start recovering after getting the best dosage for their metabolism?

    I can just hear some doctor defending it now. "What patent infringement? My lab tech learned that test in Biochem 101."

  • On the post: Google: Flipping Off The Newspapers

    another mike ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2009 @ 03:43pm

    giving it up for them

    I read an article on PCWorld or one of those about Google Fast Flip. It basically said Google just gave the newpapers the rope they've been requesting.

    See, Google News sends viewers to the papers' websites, where the newspaper can attempt to monetize the click-throughs. But Fast Flip keeps all that traffic on Google's servers, to do with as they please. That will completely end the traffic to most news sites, especially for the sound-byte style of reporting so popular now. Such short articles appear on Fast Flip's preview pane in their entirety so viewers can see just how short and sucky the article really is before they make the mistake of following the link over to it.

    The article does point to a solution; a way to slip the noose. And that is to bring back the longer format investigative reporting style so largely abandoned by the mainstream media.

  • On the post: The FCC, PTC And Bogus Indecency Counts

    another mike ( profile ), 11 Sep, 2009 @ 03:27pm

    not watching

    Most of those people were probably not watching the show when it aired the offensive material and were only notified of their recommended wharbargle level when they saw the new petition posted.

  • On the post: The FCC, PTC And Bogus Indecency Counts

    another mike ( profile ), 11 Sep, 2009 @ 03:25pm

    historical data invalid

    Just remember when you go to plot out trends, your historical data is only valid back to the last methodology change. If the FCC tries to look at TV decency further back than 5 years (or less), they don't have the valid data to do that. As for what data they do have, a simple count isn't sufficient, as any statistician will tell you. Because they admit to counting multiple data points, they'll have to do some numerical analysis to get usable numbers.

    On a different note, how did all their members see the "obscene scene"? Do they just have a description of the clip? Or did someone record it and post it on their site so they can all be equally offended?

  • On the post: In Case You Didn't Know… People Hack Email Accounts All The Time

    another mike ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2009 @ 05:11pm

    Re: Not hacking

    I've started to use the term "maker" (as in MakerFaire) for all that warranty-voiding, dumpster-diving, getting into the guts of a system, non-criminal fun that used to be called "hacking".

    Harry Tuttle didn't need a 27b-stroke-6 to conduct unauthorized repairs. And neither do I!
    /obscure?

  • On the post: Is There Any Innovation That Hollywood Won't Try To Kill?

    another mike ( profile ), 08 Sep, 2009 @ 11:42am

    seen a red box near here

    There's one of these things at the grocery store. Squeezed in behind the front door next to the Rug Doctors. It's so popular it can be hard to get in and out of the store sometimes.

  • On the post: Hot Coffee Finally History? Take-Two Pays $20 Million To Investors

    another mike ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2009 @ 03:08pm

    Re: Re: The reason Hot Coffee had legs is Hillary Clinton

    No, these are Victorian Era hang-ups regarding sex. The Dark Ages were delightfully bawdy. Check out Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; the wife of Bath story is particularly raucous.

  • On the post: Judge Says Blogger Who Called Model A Skank Should Be Unmasked

    another mike ( profile ), 19 Aug, 2009 @ 04:50pm

    Re: Sigh

    When I was growing up, you solved insults with a throwdown at recess. In earlier days it was drawn pistols at ten paces. If this is the future I almost miss the good old days.

  • On the post: Have Your Say: Should Mike Speak At SXSW?

    another mike ( profile ), 19 Aug, 2009 @ 04:13pm

    Re: Re: Riddle me this

    I second Phoenix. Tucson would be even better.

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