bshock’s Techdirt Profile

On the post: Sen. Joe Lieberman Asks Google For A 'Report Blog As Terrorist' Button

bshock ( profile ), 29 Nov, 2011 @ 07:19am

it cuts both ways

How do I report Joe Lieberman as a terrorist?

I'm serious. This person terrifies the hell out of me. As a U.S. senator, he has massive amounts of power to take away my freedom, waste public money, destroy property, push for war, and generally use the leviathan of government to work his twisted will.

I didn't elect him (in fact, only a vanishingly tiny, unrepresentative constituency in the country's smallest state elected him), and yet he has the ability to screw up my life far worse than any member of Al Qaeda.

Every time this man opens his mouth, I'm scared. Where's my "terrorist" button to label Joe Lieberman?

On the post: Angry Birds CEO At Peace With Chinese Counterfeit Merchandise

bshock ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 10:55am

let's go over this again

It's a fairly well observed phenomenon in human psychology that a person will tend to reject significant gain for himself if he feels that someone else will profit more in the process. In other words, Mr. A will tend to reject a situation where he makes $100 if he knows that Mr. B. will make $1000 from the same situation, in favor of a situation where he (Mr. A) makes only $50 if Mr. B's take is reduced to $10.

It's stupid and irrational, but by and large, that's how your species rolls. Capitalism isn't a zero sum game, but a large subset of humans play it as if it were.

On the post: Phony Bologna: More Evidence Of Indiscriminate Pepper Spraying, As Police Defend Actions

bshock ( profile ), 03 Oct, 2011 @ 08:44am

wishful thinking

Mike, I'd really like to believe that the growing frequency of video evidence will help to improve police behavior.

But the social psychology seems to be against it. Police behave the way they behave because there are countless major and minor pressures acting on them as they perform the role of physical authorities. Video is just one small addition to this, and I suspect it will either become illegal to video a police officer (as wildly unconstitutional as that might be), or the police will simply adopt an absolute contempt for video evidence against them (as seems to be the case here).

On the post: Guy Who Created The TSA Says It's Failed, And It's Time To Dismantle It

bshock ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2011 @ 11:00am

just dismantle the TSA?

By all means, dismantle this horrific monstrosity. But first indict its managers, indict its employees, and most especially indict the incompetent fools who created it.

There comes a point where gross incompetence is a criminal offense. The TSA has caused untold harm to this country, and we need to make an example of everyone involved with it.

On the post: TSA Agent Threatens Woman With Defamation, Demands $500k For Calling Intrusive Search 'Rape'

bshock ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2011 @ 04:48pm

what's the best way to find a terrorist?

Apparently the TSA believes the best way to find terrorists is to act increasingly outrageous and disgusting, to the point where it starts motivating people to become terrorists.

I would never knowingly harm another human being or encourage others to do so. But if I were to come upon a TSA agent burning to death, I wouldn't even try pissing on him to put out the fire.

On the post: Man Claims Apple Investigators Pretended To Be SF Police In Searching For Lost iPhone Prototype [Updated: Or Not]

bshock ( profile ), 03 Sep, 2011 @ 03:46pm

we need to grow out of our naivete

Why is everyone surprised by a story like this?

The more money and power you have, the more you get what you want. Governments insist that their "justice" is above money and power, but this is just one more fairy tale designed to keep the herd quiet.

Apple has massive amounts of money and power. If it wants its employees to masquerade as policemen, that's what happens. If it wants the real police to lie about participating in this masquerade, that's what happens also.

In this case, we were just seeing a lag between what happened and what Apple decided it wanted.

On the post: If TV Companies Released Authorized Torrents With Ads, Would People Download Them?

bshock ( profile ), 03 Sep, 2011 @ 03:01pm

no

Reasons I download tv shows:
1) I don't watch many shows, so having cable tv would be a waste of money.
2) If I do watch something, I like it enough to keep it.
3) I despise commercials. If I'm even watching a YouTube video and they start with a commercial, I immediately turn it off.

Nothing is worth wasting your life on watching a commercial.

On the post: So How Do We Fix The Patent System?

bshock ( profile ), 20 Aug, 2011 @ 12:24pm

Re: So How Do We Fix The Patent System?

darryl, for all I know, you may be an expert on the patent system as well as a certified genius.

But posts like yours make me wish that TechDirt comments had four buttons instead of just three: "insightful," "funny," "report," and "obvious troll."

On the post: Privacy Is Not Secrecy; Debunking The 'If You've Got Nothing To Hide…' Argument

bshock ( profile ), 26 May, 2011 @ 08:55am

if you have nothing to hide...

If you have nothing to hide, show me your credit card numbers and the corresponding expiration dates.

On the post: Fair Use Doesn't Weaken Copyright Law, It Strengthens It

bshock ( profile ), 20 May, 2011 @ 12:46pm

and the fiction continues

As much as I respect your ideas, Mike, I am always confused by your insistence that IP is meant for social good.

There's a critical distinction between reason and rationalization. We know that the ideas behind IP were propagated by middlemen for their own greedy purposes, using social good as a rationalization. Throughout history, this same sort of middleman has constantly demonstrated just how superficial the "social good" rationale was to him.

Sure, groups like the U.S. Founding Fathers probably intended social good as a genuine reason for IP. But how much does that matter? Essentially they were trying to co-opt an evil system for good purposes, a bit like trying to turn criminals into policemen.

For all of the honest idealism in this, is it really practical? Isn't it much more likely that a system founded on greed and justified with the flimsiest of rationalizations will always tend to grow in the direction its flawed foundation set?

On the post: What Corruption Looks Like: FCC Commissioner Takes Job At Comcast Months After She Voted To Approve Its Deal With NBC Universal

bshock ( profile ), 12 May, 2011 @ 08:55am

it doesn't mean she's corrupt?

I'm sorry, Mike, but if this doesn't constitute corruption, then we desperately need to change our definition of corruption.

Okay, we can't know that the potential job at Comcast affected Ms. Baker's FCC decision, but I really believe we need to change the rules to eliminate the very possibility that it might occur.

I mean, this "revolving door" between government and corrupt corporations (and okay, I'm a radical, but I tend to think that our conscience-free corporate citizens are guilty until proven innocent) is becoming a disgusting cliche. Goldman Sachs executives go to work for the government and government officials go to work for Goldman Sachs. Regulatory officials go to work for BP and its associates. The list goes on and on.

And it must stop.

On the post: Dan Bull Auctioning Off A Custom Song On eBay

bshock ( profile ), 09 May, 2011 @ 05:01pm

i like it

I'm not really a fan of this artist, but I agree this is a cool idea and I hope it catches on. I would very much like to see other musical artists emulate this model.

I mean, I can't write music to save my life, but I know a young lady who loves music, and might be thrilled to have a song written just for her. If I could approach one of her favorite artists and offer them an accessible sum like $5k for a song, that would make a truly amazing gift (even more so in my case, because this young lady doesn't like me to give her physical objects, but will accept things like charitable donations in her name).

And this doesn't even seem like a terribly new idea. Centuries ago, you could go to an artist like Mozart and commission him to write music for you, as long as you had the money.

On the post: Mexican IP Official: Infringement Is A More Serious Problem Than Drug Trafficking

bshock ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2011 @ 09:57am

mexico is the future

About 25 years ago I lived in Mexico for a while. At the time, I was amazed and disoriented by its value system, where the non-wealthy were considered little more than cattle. Mexico had a relatively tiny, wealthy ruling class, a massive amount of poor people, and practically nothing a U.S. citizen would call a "middle class." As far as I could tell, the role of the government and the police was to protect the wealthy from the poor.

Apparently that hasn't changed. While drug trafficking may kill thousands of poor people in Mexico, these are exactly the people who don't count. However, copyright infringement threatens the money of the wealthy, and that's a big deal.

And isn't that the direction the U.S. has been going for the last 25 years? The rich get richer, the poor multiply, and the middle class dwindles. Government is purchased by the wealthy to protect wealth. The authorities (police, FBI, TSA, etc.) become fat and arrogant and fearful in their harassment of non-wealthy citizens. The War on Drugs becomes nothing more than an excuse to arrest or kill the poor who don't fall into line like good little cattle, waiting to be herded, milked, or slaughtered.

On the post: The Cognitive Science Explanation For Why Copyright Doesn't Make Much Sense

bshock ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2011 @ 11:09am

Re: Re: Devil's Advocate

With all due respect, the difference between Expression and Ideas seems to be pretty obvious to most people... unless they happen to be attorneys or judges.

On the post: Why Is President Obama Setting Up IP Enforcement Committees Rather Than IP Effectiveness Committees?

bshock ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2011 @ 09:06am

Re: Re: Innovation will soon come to a crawl

I like this line of thinking.

I've long suspected we need an underground communication system that parallels the Internet and avoids the easy meddling of government/corporate thugs. That would be a good start for bootleg innovation. Further bootleg innovation could come from that.

On the post: Chris Matthews Says That Pointing Out Chertoff's Conflict Of Interest Over Rapiscan TSA Scanners Is Slander?

bshock ( profile ), 30 Nov, 2010 @ 09:41am

Re: Matthews

I respectfully disagree that Mr. Matthews is a "nut job," and I suspect we'll eventually need something equivalent to Godwin's Law to point out how unhelpful it is to compare anyone to Glenn Beck.

However, I would agree with the viewpoint that Mr. Matthews is a poor journalist, in that (a) he tends to play fast and loose with facts, and (b) he seems to develop an irrational crush on the powerful, most particularly presidents.

Perhaps the problem is that we're trying to project Mr. Mathews into the role of a traditional journalist, when in fact he's merely a talk show host whose primary topic is politics and whose primary goal is to entertain.

On the post: New Site Tries To Explain To Book Authors & Publishers Why People Choose Not To Buy

bshock ( profile ), 16 Nov, 2010 @ 12:56pm

another anecdote

I read numerous ebooks, but I have never purchased one.

To me, ebooks in general are not something to buy. Why should I waste money on something that can be obtained freely? That is, what's the difference between downloading a book and borrowing it from a library? Claiming there is some sort of emergent distinction in media type is just a way of rationalizing a rather feeble scheme to extract money from sheep in human form.

At some point, somebody bought that library book, just as somebody bought that ebook. I'd return a library book, but with an ebook, I can just erase it or forget about it, because nothing physical was taken and I'm not depriving anyone of anything. (I'm certainly not depriving the author or publisher of any more money than I would in borrowing a library book.)

Best of all, with both library books and ebooks, I can take a chance on authors I don't know. I'd have to be a fool to spend money on something I might hate, and I have certainly hated a lot of books I've started to read. When I find an author or series I like, though, I might actually start spending money. If I like the work enough, I might buy (and have bought) physical copies. If the author sells some sort of accompanying merchandise, I might buy (and have bought) some of that. If I really want to read the author's next work and think that it won't be available online for a week or two after Amazon could delivery a physical copy, then I'll order (and have ordered) the physical copy.

You can spend all day trying to fool yourself into believing that "reasonably priced ebooks" would sell better. Maybe there are a few suckers who would buy them. But I either want a free ebook or a reasonably priced hard copy -- nothing in between. I'm not stealing from anyone and I'm not going to be stolen from; don't crap on my shoes and call it Shinola.

On the post: Falsely Arrested Woman Told She Should Thank The Police For Realizing Their Error

bshock ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2010 @ 11:46am

why not?

Isn't this just a standard reaction for authorities?

When a drunken Dick Cheney shot someone in the face, wasn't it the victim who apologized to him?

On the post: Some Modest Proposals To 'Save' Other Industries

bshock ( profile ), 25 Aug, 2010 @ 10:26am

some cute illustrations of this in a comic

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/8/18/

On the post: Can We Please Stop The False Dichotomy Of 'Creators' vs 'Consumers' When It Comes To Copyright?

bshock ( profile ), 05 Aug, 2010 @ 12:03pm

Re: "Most people are both creators and consumers at the same time" WRONG !!

Sir, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that artistic works are created in a vacuum and 100% original.

All artists are innovators. They take their inspiration from the works of others, tweak a bit here, add a bit there, and come up with something more or less different.

Perhaps not all consumers are creators, but all creators are consumers.

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