Ben 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (453)

• On the post: Waypoint Writers Quit After Vice’s Chickenshit New Owners Delete Articles Critical Of Steam Policies

  

  Ben ( profile ), 24 Jul, 2025 @ 11:11am

  Ultimately it's not the payment processors (JP Morgan Chase, Worldpay, Stripe, PayPal, etc) who're the problem. It's Visa and Mastercard (and to a lesser extent Amex) who really call the shots. And they pull the puppet-strings of the processors. If Visa and Mastercard and Amex networks won't take your requests for payment, you won't be doing business with credit cards (or debit cards) at all, regardless of what the intermediate card processors say.

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

  

  Ben ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2025 @ 02:05pm

  Carrying on, sir!

• On the post: Trump’s $10 Billion WSJ Lawsuit Over Epstein Article Reveals His Lawyers Can’t Read Good

  

  Ben ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2025 @ 04:15pm

  Frankly, this couldn't happen to a nice chap... decide for yourself whether I'm referring to Trump, Murdoch or Epstein. (oh, but would that make me anti-semitic?)

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

  

  Ben ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2025 @ 01:57am

  OMG how low the standards of humour must have reached for that nugget of wit (sic!) to get noticed!

• On the post: RFK Jr. Promotes Meal Delivery Company That Serves Ultra-Processed Food

  

  Ben ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2025 @ 02:59am

  Follow the money

  What's the odds that Kennedy has an investment in the company? I'd say, given the current regime of adminis-grifters, the odds are significant.

• On the post: ‘Stop Killing Games’ Finds An Ally In An EU Politician

  

  Ben ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2025 @ 01:49am

  20 years rule?

  A full refund after 19 years? (because the company didn't support for the full 20) So how does a business make any money for giving you 19 years service? Surely some sort of pro-rating against the purchase date would make more fair sense. Perhaps a full refund after 1 year, degrading to 5% after 20?

• On the post: UnitedHealth’s Response To People Cheering Their CEO’s Murder: Silence The Critics

  

  Ben ( profile ), 15 Jul, 2025 @ 02:43pm

  Time to check the mailbox

  Is that a letter incoming from Clare Locke I see. Paging Ms Streisand. Could Ms Streisand come to the front page, please?

• On the post: Trump Globally Launches New Truth+ ‘Video Streaming Service’ That’s Just Right Wing Propaganda And Gibberish

  

  Ben ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2025 @ 05:24am

  "Pravda" had the same problem.

• On the post: Trump Globally Launches New Truth+ ‘Video Streaming Service’ That’s Just Right Wing Propaganda And Gibberish

  

  Ben ( profile ), 09 Jul, 2025 @ 05:55am

  AI crawlers

  Won't somebody please think of the AI crawlers. If they start using Truth+ as training data, who knows what nightmarish creations they will create. Second thoughts: maybe that would be a feature, not a bug? Make AI models so full of garbage people stop using them?

• On the post: Who Goes MAGA?

  

  Ben ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2025 @ 03:01pm

  I wish

  ... someone could translate ECA's posts into English. I often get the feeling that there's something in there, but I'm damned if I can parse it out following the rules of any English variant that I know. Sorry fella / lass. (delete as appropriate because I sure as hell can't tell)

• On the post: DOGE Cuts Turned A Predicted Disaster Into A Deadly Reality In Texas

  

  Ben ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2025 @ 07:13am

  BBC

  The BBC Verify also looked at this event. They have little to benefit from sugar coating this. I suspect NOAA/FEMA/DOGE/Trump just had a very near miss - their cuts probably had little impact in this event. 2026 hurricane season won't be anywhere near so lucky. However, the use of ExTwitter to 'alert' in Texas is clearly.... suboptimal. That does lie with the penny-pinchers at all levels of emergency planning.

• On the post: GOP Budget Bill Includes Massive Spectrum Handout To Large Wireless Carriers, Hurting WiFi Speeds

  

  Ben ( profile ), 04 Jul, 2025 @ 05:16am

  Seems, on the basis of November 2024, that we can't even trust the Democrats to competently run an election campaign for a dyed in the wool democrat. Don't vote for any of them, it just encourages them! /s

• On the post: TN Govt. Saves School Children From Smut Like Magic Tree House, Calvin & Hobbes, & A Light In The Attic

  

  Ben ( profile ), 03 Jul, 2025 @ 02:49am

  tell me you never...

  Tell me you never read the book without telling me you never read the book, Senator Hensley!

• On the post: The Trump Org Sort Of Launches A New Half-Assed Wireless Phone Company, Trump Mobile

  

  Ben ( profile ), 17 Jun, 2025 @ 08:58am

  Spray paint a pig

  Spray paint a pig of a phone with goldish paint somewhere in deepest darkest Florida and suddenly you've got a phone 'made in America' as far as the average MAGA is able to tell. Add a $47.45 per month charge for a service that costs pennies to actually run, and you're in the money!! Perfect GOP grift. Now the Donald just needs to find a Faux News talking head to promote it, then become the CEO of the 'Trump Network'... where Truth (anti-)Social is the only social media app you'll ever need.

• On the post: Calling All Cars Named Eleanor! The Ninth Circuit Has Decided You’re Not Copyrightable After All

  

  Ben ( profile ), 11 Jun, 2025 @ 09:06am

  not car sales

  I wasn't thinking of car sales, as Disney don't sell cars and therefore shouldn't have a trademark on selling VWs. But I wouldn't recommend selling a movie nor a toy car (merch., if you prefer) with a white VW, numbered 53, with the appropriate styling, because Disney's lawyers need fed and watered with your body and blood.

• On the post: California Sues Trump Over Unprecedented Federal Seizure Of State National Guard

  

  Ben ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2025 @ 05:38am

  Commanding officers?

  Why did the commanding officers of these troups of troops carry out these clearly illegal orders? That's their single defence against tyranny (short of mutiny) - they can refuse to follow illegal orders. Oh wait, they're as inculcated in the 'brown = subhuman' cult as the next MAGA twat. (At least, that's what the evidence shows so far)

• On the post: Trump, ICE Have Earned Every Bit Of The Hatred They’re Now Facing

  

  Ben ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2025 @ 05:26am

  sorry, not sorry

  Sorry, when the alternative is Trump 2.0, knowing what he did in 1.0, and what he & his supporters said on the campaign trail about what they would do this time, not voting for Harris was idiotic and delusional... and I'm being charitable. Sometimes the lesser of two 'evils' is clearly far better for the country than the orange demon YOU HAVE let in now.

• On the post: Calling All Cars Named Eleanor! The Ninth Circuit Has Decided You’re Not Copyrightable After All

  

  Ben ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2025 @ 07:33am

  A white Beetle numbered 53

  I wonder if Herbie, the white VW Beetle with the red & blue strips and the number 53 decal might be a better counter example of a car that is a character that should be copyrightable in the context of somewhat comedic films featuring a sentient racing car. As others have stated, the Batmobile far too varied to justify the copyrighting. Though trademarking of a specific iteration/expression is entirely logical.

• On the post: State Dept. Says Any Foreigner Seeking To Visit Harvard Must Be Vetted For ‘Hostile Attitudes Towards US Culture’

  

  Ben ( profile ), 03 Jun, 2025 @ 10:51am

  It's becoming simpler and simpler

  It is time for every business, every national government, every educational establishment, every research council or laboratory outside of the USA to say, "You know that meeting/deal/partnership/relationship/conference/show you're planning in Las Vegas/Chicago/New York/Detroit/Bum-fuck, Alabama? Nah. We'll give it a miss." Sorry, not sorry. Electorates get the elected politicians they elected. The rest of us can just leave y'all to it. But if you want out, just give us a call.

• On the post: Dr. Donald Trump Declares That Autism Doesn’t ‘Occur Naturally’

  

  Ben ( profile ), 29 May, 2025 @ 02:58am

  Same here

  Get my father (born in 1945) into an argument and you'll see the autist in him staring right back. It's somewhat toned down in me (born by 1970) .. I'm the one that got all the vaccines available throughout my childhood, so clearly vaccines also prevent autism.

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