PaulT 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (29334)

• On the post: No One Has Any Clue How Texas’ Social Media Law Can Actually Work (Because It Can’t Work)

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 09 Oct, 2022 @ 01:33pm

  "You need better arguments" His argument appears to be that the government should be able to seize private property and control how they use it and how they speak. If he thinks he's not a communist, he really needs to think about what he's saying. Although, so many of these people get their ideas from RT/Pravda/whatever they're laundered through that he might not even know himself.

• On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 09 Oct, 2022 @ 01:24pm

  "In modern usage, “Woke” means “Not an irredeemable piece of shit" I could be wrong, but I think the original context was "someone aware of injustice". e.g. a white person aware that black people are treated worse in general than they are, or a man aware of the "glass ceiling". It's simply the idea of being aware of certain prejudices within Western society, and the following ideal of thinking about ways to correct that. This seems fine, but the right-wing seems to be committed to trying to turn the term into a pejorative. I can guess why some people are insisting on redefining words rather than look at why negative terms are being applied to them, but it's not a good look. The question is - how do you get some people to understand the actual definitions on the words rather than the fictional definition fed to them? I've seen friends misuse "woke" online to mean something very different to what it actually means, even though they would be firmly "left" and supporting of anti-racist/anti-fascist ideals. It's concerning.

• On the post: Arizona GOP Secretary Of State Candidate Insists ‘Deep State’ Google Is Blocking His Website; Turns Out He Requested It Not Be Indexed

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 02:59pm

  Yes, the main takeaway here should be that this story isn't for those of us who understand reality, it's to get certain other people angry. Those people vote, and tend to turn out in larger numbers during mid-terms. As a concerned outsider, all I can say is if you're annoyed by this kind of story please get out there and speak against this kind of thing. Even if you don't have to get out there to stop an MTG/Walker/Oz type directly, just speak out and cast a vote to state that you're not for this kind of thing.

• On the post: Arizona GOP Secretary Of State Candidate Insists ‘Deep State’ Google Is Blocking His Website; Turns Out He Requested It Not Be Indexed

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 02:56pm

  "That is Part of a long post, does anyone SEE a Problem?" Yes, the electoral college enabled a corrupt gameshow host/con artist to be in power at a time when actual leadership was required. "TRUMP WASNT PRESIDENT" When wasn't he president? Every date you mentioned was during his term. Is this one of those "why didn't Obama stop 9/11" type posts that serve to weed out who has a friendly relationship to reality, or is this one of those situations where your posting style prevents people from understanding what you're saying?

• On the post: Arizona GOP Secretary Of State Candidate Insists ‘Deep State’ Google Is Blocking His Website; Turns Out He Requested It Not Be Indexed

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 02:38pm

  All I can say is... I hope sensible voters in AZ also tell him that when the time is right for their voices to be heard.

• On the post: No One Has Any Clue How Texas’ Social Media Law Can Actually Work (Because It Can’t Work)

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 01:47pm

  "Gay and straight customers should be able to buy the same items from the same menu. But by the same token, the bakery shouldn’t be compelled to produce speech with which it disagrees" I can't imagine how small-minded you have to be to even argue here, but I do understand the difference between refusing to sell a basic cake based on sexuality, and refusing to add decorations you disagree with. I just can't imagine being opposed enough to the existence of a gay couples for it to matter, and I hope everyone who comes across such bigotry has the ability to take their business elsewhere.

• On the post: No One Has Any Clue How Texas’ Social Media Law Can Actually Work (Because It Can’t Work)

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 01:20pm

  "I asserted that bridging or routing was whatever a given designer said it was" Yeah, weird isn't it? If you pretend that other people are making things up and have no technical basis for their arguments, you can ignore all sorts of technical data! I'll just note that you didn't prove there was no difference, only claimed that because you said there was no difference that it was good enough. You can surely make all sorts of arguments if you just reject the proof other people provide.

• On the post: No One Has Any Clue How Texas’ Social Media Law Can Actually Work (Because It Can’t Work)

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 01:18pm

  So, do baseless accusations of racism usually help you avoid factual arguments, or is that something you reserve for this particular site? I'm also interested in your definition of "database", because that will affect how I address your technical knowledge of email.

• On the post: This Week In Techdirt History: October 2nd – 8th

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 12:59pm

  Jammie Thomas... I'm not sure what happened to that poor woman after her bankruptcy but kudos for standing up to the outright stupidity, and hopefully contributing to the idea that record labels had to deal with the real market and not their fantasy that everyone paid full price for every song they listened to. I don't wish her ordeal on anyone els, but thank you for fighting against corruption and racketeering.

• On the post: No One Has Any Clue How Texas’ Social Media Law Can Actually Work (Because It Can’t Work)

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 12:51pm

  "Says the moron who gets his tech from a blog" I understand why you erect strawmen, I just don't understand why they're always so badly constructed. "run primarily an MBA and a theater major neither of whom have had an actual tech job in their entire fucking lives" I'd ask what job you've had, but then the most important question would be why you think there's a required qualification to run an opinion blog. Even if what you say is true, there's no reason why a theatre major can't state is opinion on tech, especially when he opens the floor to people to tell him where he's factually wrong (which weirdly, you've opted not to do) "TechDirt, technology being derived from the root techne logos has little no techne logos. Then someone tries to have an actual techne logos" I'm sure you meant to say something here. Whether angry typing or illiteracy prevented you from making sense I'm not sure, but thank you for not making false accusations of racism. "Mike is a classic narcists" Yet, despite not being able to spell your accusation about him, you choose to visit his site. I'd love to argue against whatever point you think you're making, but I'll just ask you to phrase it in English first.

• On the post: Court Strips Immunity From Cop Who Shot A Dog Within Seconds Of Arriving On The Scene Of A Non-Crime

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 12:40pm

  American cops. There's a reason you don't see many of these stories coming from elsewhere, and it's not because they're being suppressed. There's reasons, but from anecdotal personal experience, I think that US cops are trained to believe everyone else is out to kill them, whereas cops elsewhere are trained to think they're part of a community and violence is best de-escalated.

• On the post: Court Strips Immunity From Cop Who Shot A Dog Within Seconds Of Arriving On The Scene Of A Non-Crime

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 12:38pm

  So would a toddler, but most people would object to cops shooting one.

• On the post: No One Has Any Clue How Texas’ Social Media Law Can Actually Work (Because It Can’t Work)

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 12:22pm

  I don't want to search for whatever you think you're replying to, but I am intrigued as to which comment you think was racist. Could you like to it, that seems to be a serious accusation? "A social medium front-end and an email front-end can easily be interchanged" I'm not sure how ignorant of tech you have to be to claim this, but I'm sure you'll tell us. How similar do you think a mailed letter is to a nightclub?

• On the post: No One Has Any Clue How Texas’ Social Media Law Can Actually Work (Because It Can’t Work)

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 12:08pm

  I don't think I've encountered anyone as loud as the people who claim they're not allowed to speak. It's weird, almost as if they are whining about their reach and not their speech.

• On the post: No One Has Any Clue How Texas’ Social Media Law Can Actually Work (Because It Can’t Work)

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 12:06pm

  Just to reword that - they had to serve a gay couple a cake. They didn't have to serve a cake with explicit BDSM decorations, or whatever the right-wing echo chamber has been taught to fantasise. It's just that if they would serve a cake to a straight couple, they had to legally serve the same cake to a gay couple. The issue was that they changed their minds after finding out the couple was gay. I think I get some facts confused between the two cases so forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think we can all work out who's really on the wrong side of the issue if "don't refuse business to a protected class" is problematic. Especially since "protected class" also protects the other person (e.g the "class" is sexuality, so it protects a straight guy being refused service as much as it protects a gay guy. The fact that the straight guy is not as likely to be refused service is incidental)

• On the post: No One Has Any Clue How Texas’ Social Media Law Can Actually Work (Because It Can’t Work)

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 11:59am

  "Bakers and photographers are entitled not to work for events with whose contents they religiously disagree, but that did not stop them from being hauled into court, and needing to litigate all the way to the Supreme Court to be vindicated." If you paid attention to facts and not the fictional version of events spread by hatemongers, you'd know that the people in that bakery case stated they were happy to bake cakes for the couple until they realised they were gay. Which falls directly foul of laws stating that you can't discriminate against protected classes, which is a condition of offering services to the public. Basically, if you offer a service to the public, you can't pick and choose who counts, which is something that's been in place because people got tired of racists of refusing services to black people. If you own a bakery, but hate gay people, you have 2 choices - offer your services to the public but suck it up if you are asked to deliver a product to gay people, or set up a private club where the same rules don't necessarily apply but you only get to serve homophobes willing to join. If you want the benefits of public access, you have to accept the conditions, which include baking cakes for gay people as much as it does not giving the wedding party salmonella. I'm not sure why people like you obsess so much about what other consenting adults do behind closed doors, but I do support their right to be treated as people.

• On the post: Musk’s About Face: Tells Twitter He’s Now Planning To Move Forward With The Purchase

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 11:49am

  Huh. It's Saturday and Muck isn't in control. I wonder if this is another one of those things where the reality of a situation isn't the simplistic fiction you want it to be.

• On the post: There Are All Sorts Of Problems With Ruling That YouTube Ripping Tool May Violate Copyright Law

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 11:46am

  "I don’t think this is true." You've said that about a great many factual and easily provable ideas, so I don't think this is a great argument. I'm not even sure the rest of your comment counts as a coherent argument.

• On the post: There Are All Sorts Of Problems With Ruling That YouTube Ripping Tool May Violate Copyright Law

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 11:43am

  "I still fail to see a difference between the right to record OTA broadcasts and the ability to download the video stream sent to your house by Youtube" I think the difference is information. If you recorded an OTA radio or TV stream, they could speculate but they didn't know exact numbers. With digital, they know exactly how many people did it without paying a fee, and it hurts their minds. It's not a problem if you realise that most people didn't pay directly for the content they consume in their lives, but if you fall into the trap of thinking that one download = one purchase at full retail price, it's painful. Self-inflicted fictional pain, but painful.

• On the post: There Are All Sorts Of Problems With Ruling That YouTube Ripping Tool May Violate Copyright Law

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2022 @ 11:40am

  The absurdity is that they started by trying to set up a YouTube competing service, Vevo, shut it down to host everything on YouTube because it was more profitable, then still complain that YouTube doesn't pay them, enough. They took it elsewhere, then went to YT because they made more money...

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