James Jensen 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (105)

• On the post: Xbox One Caves Again: Console Will Now Be Offered Sans Kinect

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 14 May, 2014 @ 06:47am

  Re: What ridiculous commentary.

  I wouldn't say Sony's misdeeds are lauded but they're certainly ignored. I keep thinking that had Sony tried what Microsoft wanted to do they'd have gotten away with it.

• On the post: Xbox One Caves Again: Console Will Now Be Offered Sans Kinect

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 14 May, 2014 @ 06:40am

  Re: Re: This has gotten petty.

  You're biased towards one company that's been openly trying to rip you off because their competitor did the same in the past?
  
  I had fully planned to never get an Xbox One given the "features" they were going to include. Then they went back on everything. How is continuing to punish them going to help?
  
  Furthermore, Microsoft at least announced its plans before the console ever came out. You would have known what you were getting into before ever buying it. Sony sold me a system and then took a feature away from it afterward.

• On the post: Xbox One Caves Again: Console Will Now Be Offered Sans Kinect

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 13 May, 2014 @ 10:47pm

  Re: Re: This has gotten petty.

  I agree Microsoft has gotten rather arrogant in recent decades but I don't think that overall arrogance detracts from my point: in at least one part of their business, they're actually starting to listen.

• On the post: Xbox One Caves Again: Console Will Now Be Offered Sans Kinect

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 13 May, 2014 @ 10:07pm

  This has gotten petty.

  Seems to me the moral of the story is really that Microsoft learns from their mistakes when it comes to the Xbox: they backpedaled on all the really outrageous ideas they had for the One, they made sure the thing was well ventilated this time, and now they've even made the Kinect optional to cut the price.
  
  Isn't that a good thing?
  
  I'm a little biased, though. Sony removing OtherOS is a slap in the face I haven't fully forgiven. Even if I wasn't using it at the time, they made me choose between removing a feature I paid for (OtherOS) or give up other features I paid for (PSN, games made after the update).

• On the post: The Bizarro, Fact-free World Of Copyright Policymaking

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 08 May, 2014 @ 09:49am

  Re: Re: Re: Stupid moral people, they just don't get it!

  Would it kill them to have a principled, non-dismissive discussion about moral and dignitary rights? Since they're a thing?
  
  That discussion has happened again and again and again. The outcome is always the same:
  
  1. The pro-IP side asserts that artistic works should be treated as property.
  
  2. The anti-IP side points out how thoroughly flawed that idea is.
  
  3. The pro-IP side responds with (entirely hypothetical) sob stories and accuses the anti-IP side of just being selfish pirates.
  
  4. The anti-IP side points out that all this is irrelevant.
  
  5. Go to step 1.

• On the post: Chase Bank Slutshames Their Adult Performer Customers

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 01 May, 2014 @ 10:18am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Stretching it much?

  "Protip: Don't discuss religion AND use the words "reason" "arguments" or "conversation" - religion allows for NONE of these."
  
  This would come as quite a surprise to Thomas Aquinas. You may have heard of him: he wrote some fairly lengthy books about religion that were full of arguments and reasoning.
  
  Protip: Don't tell people discussing a topic what they can and can't say about it when you don't know what you're talking about.

• On the post: Square Enix: DRM Is Here To Stay

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2014 @ 07:33pm

  Re: Think they mean Steam DRM

  It's still disheartening to hear them say things like this. DRM is at best a security blanket for the anxious. Steam's DRM provides that comfort with a minimal interference, but I'd still rather buy from GOG.com and get it with no DRM at all. That way I can make my own backup.

• On the post: Square Enix: DRM Is Here To Stay

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2014 @ 04:10pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re:

  I know I'm in the minority, but I really enjoyed FFXIII.

• On the post: Square Enix: DRM Is Here To Stay

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2014 @ 03:56pm

  Alternate Title: Square Enix: We Can't Admit We Wasted A Whole Bunch of Money on FFXIV So We're Going To Blame Piracy

• On the post: MPAA's Lawsuit Against Megaupload Is Yet Another Broadside Attack On The Internet

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2014 @ 11:14am

  Re: Megaupload

  As if legally uploaded videos are 72+ minutes long.
  
  That's a poor argument and you know it. However, let's look at some >72 minute videos that one might legally upload:
  
  The Little Shop of Horrors (1960): 72 minutes and 30 seconds
  Sita Sings the Blues: 81 minutes
  Night of the Living Dead: 95 minutes
  
  All of them public domain and completely legal to upload and make money from. All completely legal to remix to create a new work.

• On the post: DailyDirt: Judging The Quality of Science

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2014 @ 05:57am

  Re: Re: Science or Pseudo-Science - How can we tell

  Perhaps that?s why the ?alternative medicine? crowd?and all the other religionists?hate it so.

  
  
  Nobody else brought up religion, so why did you?
  
  I mean, can we not discuss science without the "at least it's better than religion" argument popping up? Seems like it happens every single time. And most of the time it's in the form of exactly this sort of sneering, throwaway remark.
  
  It's just tiring.

• On the post: DailyDirt: Judging The Quality of Science

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2014 @ 05:46am

  Re: Re: None of these entities have actually been observed

  Bacteria most definitely have been. Any science classroom microscope is powerful enough to see them.

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

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2014 @ 08:19pm

  Re: Re: Re: Zero insight

  But yeah, Objectivism tends to take self-interest to ridiculous extremes.

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

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2014 @ 08:17pm

  Re: Re: Re: Zero insight

  Well, I - a non-Objectivist - personally take the position that self-interest is the ground of all our motivations - and thus of morality since we can only act on our motivations, and ought implies can.
  
  Fortunately, human psychology is such that most of us don't want to be the sort of person who screws others over any chance we get. Virtue is not just a means to happiness, it's part of it.
  
  There are exceptions of course, such as sociopaths, but then we're talking about someone with a serious defect, not the normal case. They deserve our pity more than anything else. (Of course, we can still protect ourselves from their predations.)
  
  All of this is pretty standard Aristotelian virtue ethics.

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

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2014 @ 04:01pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  And this is why we love this site.

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

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2014 @ 04:00pm

  Re: Zero insight

  I've seen Objectivists complain that other Objectivists are dogmatic nutjobs.
  
  One former Objectivist, Roderick T. Long, has said Rand has two sides. One side is libertarian and tolerant. The other is authoritarian and plutocratic. The problem is that she conflated to two to hell and back, leaning further and further to the latter side in her old age.
  
  For example: in one passage, Rand argues that charity can be investment in others and thus perfectly compatible with self-interest. Whereas in another, she argues that someone who risks their life to save a drowning child should be shamed by others for their pernicious altruism. According to her, only in emergencies, where you're probably going to die anyway, should you try to save others.

• On the post: 5 Year Old Hacks Xbox Live; Thankfully DOJ Apparently Uninterested In Prosecuting Cute Kid Under CFAA

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2014 @ 03:22pm

  Re: Good thing it wasn't a PS4!!!

  Yeah, Sony scares me way more than Microsoft when it comes to what they'll do to their console customers.

• On the post: Sony And YouTube Take Down Sintel; Blender's Open Source, Creative Commons, Crowdfunded Masterpiece

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2014 @ 10:45am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's Sony

  It's amazing what Sony does with very little backlash. Rootkits, removing an advertised feature, securing PSN so poorly? and I've always thought that if Sony had decided to try with the PS4 what Microsoft did with the Xbone, they would have gotten away with it. It'd have hurt their market share, but not by that much, I think, and it would have set the standard for everyone to do it the next time around.

• On the post: Sony And YouTube Take Down Sintel; Blender's Open Source, Creative Commons, Crowdfunded Masterpiece

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2014 @ 10:38am

  Re: Re: Re: Re:

  Yeah. Better still, find some way to have a fifth light appear only when Picard was by himself. That'd really mess with your head.

• On the post: 5 Year Old Hacks Xbox Live; Thankfully DOJ Apparently Uninterested In Prosecuting Cute Kid Under CFAA

  

  James Jensen ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2014 @ 11:32am

  It's said that the second half of the title was necessary.

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