Roy Wilson 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Appeals Court Says Of Course Georgia's Laws (Including Annotations) Are Not Protected By Copyright And Free To Share

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2018 @ 02:43pm

    Something actually PD?

    Disney announces new movie coming out based on Georgia Laws, files copyright....

  • On the post: Streaming Exclusives Will Drive Users Back To Piracy And The Industry Is Largely Oblivious

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2018 @ 07:36am

    I forsee...

    ...sometime, fairly soon, say in the next 20 years, all the "content providers" will use the Amazon Prime model.

    Look up just about any TV show or released to DVD movie on imdB and there'll be a banner along the lines of "Watch NOW for just $2.99 on Amazon Prime".

    The biggest fight will be with advertisers, who rely on people flipping on the TV and just letting it play all day or evening long. Won't happen if you're paying by the movie or episode.

    But it appears to be the only model that makes sense. The big ISP's will handle licensing and offer shows in the same way they do now with "On Demand". Your monthly bill will be some exorbitant "access fee" and itemized by the shows you actually wanted to watch.

    What's an average cable bill now, about a hundred bucks? If they charged a dollar per one "hour" (42 minute) show, how many people actually WATCH 100 shows in a month?

  • On the post: Mississippi Law Enforcement Performed $200,000 Worth Of Illegal Forfeitures Because It 'Didn't Realize' Law Had Changed

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2018 @ 03:54pm

    At least...

    ...they're giving the stuff back.

    I fully expected to read further down in the article that some Court upheld the seizures based on the "good faith" idiocy.

  • On the post: Chinese Professor Argues Google Should Launch A Censored Search Engine In China

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2018 @ 05:56am

    Re: Re: It's a matter of economics

    No, it's simply a comment on how politicians and companies wax poetic about the Great Good! they're doing for Humanity! in the media, while never mentioning it at Board or Shareholder meetings as they display the graphs of how much more money they have coming in.

    Businesses exist to make money, not to "help" people. If they help people while making money, it's a bonus that Marketing can use to make more money.

    Same for most "charities". Look at the top brass - first thing most do is give themselves hefty salaries. And then an "expense account" that pays all their bills, leaving the salary as pure profit.

    So Google has two possible profit-driven motives here. Create a parsed-down "special" engine for use in China, making the speed dealers in the market happy, or simply wait for outside forces to pressure China into accepting the current engine, making the long-term investors happy.

    What's "good" for the Chinese population or "humanity" in general doesn't come into the picture except as spin to make Google look better to the non-trading masses.

  • On the post: The Decline Of Congressional Expertise Explained In 10 Charts

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2018 @ 12:32pm

    Alternatively....

    ...they DO have a basic "homeowner's" grasp of tech. But to admit that means questioning.

    They can play stupid about all kinds of things to protect their funding.

    C'mon, even congresscritters KNOW that the cable companies and ISP's are blowing smoke. But so long as the checks clear, and they can blame it on "bad experts" giving "opinion"....

  • On the post: Chinese Professor Argues Google Should Launch A Censored Search Engine In China

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2018 @ 03:46am

    It's a matter of economics

    Building a "special" search engine for China would increase market share in the short run - which is what the high frequency traders want to see.

    Not building one put pressure on the Chinese government in that their population *wants* the same "see everything" search engine "everyone else has". Massive market share increase, but over a long forecast as the government slowly capitulates. Not what Wall Street wants to see for the high frequency trades, but making it an excellent long-term investment.

    Forget all the "humanitarian" nonsense. It sounds good to the naive, but it's a fast way to run a company into the ground. Companies will *always* take moralistic positions, but they're still driven by simple economics.

    Just like politicians.

  • On the post: PEN America Sues Donald Trump For 1st Amendment Violations In Attacking The Press

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2018 @ 01:51pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    I didn't miss it.

    Everyone from POTUS down to the local dog catcher, including all the janitors, typists, military members, postal workers, etc. Have NO First Amendment rights when it comes to saying anything bad about gays or blacks.

    You can't have it both ways.

    You either support free speech for ALL, or you don't actually support free speech.

  • On the post: PEN America Sues Donald Trump For 1st Amendment Violations In Attacking The Press

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2018 @ 12:58pm

    Re:

    You realize you just stated that it's OK with you to remove the First Amendment rights of anyone who speaks their mind on gay people or black people, right?

  • On the post: PEN America Sues Donald Trump For 1st Amendment Violations In Attacking The Press

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2018 @ 12:27pm

    Re: Postage

    Amazon pays "less" because they're extremely efficient at pre-sorting to take advantage of the best possible Bulk Rates.

    It's not illegal, and it's probably saving everyone a lot of money - if they didn't pre-sort and paid full rates, USPS would have to do all the sorting - at full union scale.

  • On the post: PEN America Sues Donald Trump For 1st Amendment Violations In Attacking The Press

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2018 @ 10:09am

    Re:

    You don't need to be a pedant to read what the words say - "Congress shall make no law..."

    The President isn't mentioned because ONLY Congress can make Laws.

  • On the post: PEN America Sues Donald Trump For 1st Amendment Violations In Attacking The Press

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2018 @ 10:06am

    Re:

    The "something" they're trying to do is call attention to themselves by grandstanding.

    This is no different than the hundred or so lawsuits we see filed every year against whatever government official in the news - "Bronx Woman Files $10 million suit against Texas Mayor". You can file suit against anyone for any reason, all you have to do is pay the filing fee. The courts spend more time tossing suits for lack of standing than they do working on suits that are actually important.

    You never see that the suit was tossed out reported.

    But PEN America grabbed some headlines. Yay for them.

  • On the post: 'See Something Say Something' Sends Philly Counter-Terrorism Unit After A Local Journalist Over A Harmless Facebook Post

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2018 @ 02:09pm

    "This is what we pay law enforcement to do: follow up on reported criminal activity."

    Not exactly. They were notified of a threat (DePre said of Owens. "'A day of reckoning is coming,'"), and questioned the person making that threat to determine if the threat was credible.

    Which SHOULD be proper procedure. We see too much of the opposite, often in articles here, where the response to a threat that MAY be credible is to send in the SWAT teams.

    SOMEONE has to determine if a threat is credible. These cops should be lauded for their handling of this.

    And note that the police did NOT act on DeFre's Facebook posting, the acted on another citizen *reporting* the threat that DeFre made on Facebook. World of difference there.

  • On the post: PEN America Sues Donald Trump For 1st Amendment Violations In Attacking The Press

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2018 @ 09:42am

    So, basically...

    ... the story here should really be under the headline of

    "Anti-Trump Do-Gooder Organization Files Multiple Suits That Will Be Summarily Dismissed"

    As you yourself note, they've got no Standing for ANY of the claims they're filing.

    Tremendous waste of time and taxpayer dollars all around.

  • On the post: Facebook's Latest Fake News 'Purge' Terminates Several Accounts Known For Their Criticism Of Law Enforcement

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2018 @ 01:26pm

    Re:

    Scunthorpe is a narrow example of a common problem. But it does apply, I was just thinking of how many times I've built a RegEx filter for something that ended up either selecting every word I wanted plus some, or only catching some of what it should have caught all of.

    And the max dB size was only a few tens of thousand records. I can't see anyone writing a filter to handle something like Facebook and getting it "right" first try.

  • On the post: Facebook's Latest Fake News 'Purge' Terminates Several Accounts Known For Their Criticism Of Law Enforcement

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2018 @ 12:23pm

    Vast Right Wing Conspirace aside....

    ... Gotta wonder how much of this type of thing is simply following the law of unintended consequences.

    You set a filter and run it against a file. It flags everything you wanted it to. But wait... on a closer look, it also flagged everything that has the first word starting with "An" and the third word starting with "Go"...

    PITA to deal with when working a local database. Orders of magnitude worse when working literally billions of constantly changing records.

  • On the post: NYC Prosecutors Accidentally Admit They Use Bail To Deprive Presumably-Innocent People Of Their Freedom

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2018 @ 05:24pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'They're a serious threat to the public... right until they pay'

    The Bench Warrant is issued for Failure to Appear if the ticket is for a Misdemeanor rather than a Violation.

    You're basically released on your own recognizance for such tickets - the penalty is usually a fine.

    By ignoring the ticket, which was something like a $15-20 fine back around 1980, it ended up costing me about $2,000.

    Moral of the story: Don't ignore court dates.

  • On the post: NYC Prosecutors Accidentally Admit They Use Bail To Deprive Presumably-Innocent People Of Their Freedom

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2018 @ 12:19pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'They're a serious threat to the public... right until they pay'

    Ah, there's the ad hominem attack. Can't refute anything, so attack the person pointing it out to you.

    Cops have nothing to do with BAIL. Or Prosecutions, other than when called as Witnesses.

    Look, kid (ad homindm for ad hominem, it's only fair), if you're going to complain about something, make sure you know what you're talking about.

    Take a simple traffic ticket and watch what happens if you don't show up for court....

    You miss First Call, then Second Call. The Judge says "Bench Warrant" and the ADA issues one then and there.

    Two weeks, or ten years later, you're stopped for Jaywalking. Cop inputs your ID and it comes back Open Warrant.

    You're arrested on that Warrant, and Bail IS granted because you PROVED you're a Flight Risk.

    On top of that, you're assessed a minimum of $1,000 for Warrant Execution.

    Now all kinds of fees and charges pretty much like interest on what the maximum fee of your original ticket was.

    How is anyone with enough brain cells to tie their own shoes supposed to feel sorry for you?

  • On the post: NYC Prosecutors Accidentally Admit They Use Bail To Deprive Presumably-Innocent People Of Their Freedom

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2018 @ 11:32am

    Re: Or in tl;dr format: 'When all you have is hammer...'

    Prosecutors get nothing for high (or low) Bail amounts.

    They advance based on how MANY cases they WIN.

    Which is why they use the Plea system for all it's worth - they get no points for people found Not Guilty.

    So they add in every possible charge they can think of so that the Accused will plead Guilty to a lesser charge. And that gives them the "points".

    Also, don't dismiss that many Prosecutors see the job as a stepping stone to elected office. A "97% Conviction Rate!!!" looks good on the news blurbs.

    Even if the Prosecutor has pleaded out every single case and never faced a Judge or Jury.

    If you want to attack the Bail system, you've got to go much higher than Prosecutors or Judges. And you can't just blindly attack it - you need to propose a replacement system for ensuring that the Accused will actually appear for Trial.

    Not an easy task.

  • On the post: Epson 'Security Update' Bricks Third-Party Ink Refills, Opens Up Possibility Of A Competitive Trades Investigation

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2018 @ 11:03am

    Re: Re:

    They do the opposite - they put labels on the printers stating "Use ONLY Genuine XYZ Refills".

  • On the post: NYC Prosecutors Accidentally Admit They Use Bail To Deprive Presumably-Innocent People Of Their Freedom

    Roy Wilson ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2018 @ 10:59am

    Re: The bail system is just a symptom of a much larger class war

    Can you point to when the bail system changed? As far as I've been able to see, the amounts Judges have set over the last forty years or so haven't changed (adjusting for inflation - a hundred bucks bought a lot more forty years ago) in any appreciable way.

    You get charged with Assault, you're looking at about $2,000 for bail. Regardless of your skin color, sex, or religion.

    Now, if you are rich, you don't rely on a Public Defender to argue against Bail, or to reduce it. That's a perk of having money - it's useful stuff.

    And that too hasn't changed over the decades. Well, centuries. Hell, millennia.

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