Christopher’s Techdirt Profile

On the post: Appeals Court Refuses To Overturn Ruling That Ends Stop And Frisk In NYC [Updated]

Christopher ( profile ), 26 Nov, 2013 @ 04:45am

Don't worry, people...

... once they take away stop-and-frisk and crime rises, you'll have your test. Harassing shitbirds is a good tool. If you wanna act like one, you get what you deserve.

-C

On the post: Bank Calls Customer Over Detected Bitcoin Transactions, Asking What They Were For

Christopher ( profile ), 23 Oct, 2013 @ 03:13pm

Re: Alright everyone, lets practice the correct answer

The banks never seem to pull this on someone who would a) actually respond "It's for fuck you and go fuck yourself." and b) report it to Techdirt with full disclosure.

Someday the law of averages will catch up with them I guess.

-C

On the post: Petition Launched To Get The White House To Open Source Healthcare.gov Code

Christopher ( profile ), 22 Oct, 2013 @ 06:39am

Contract for hire is whatever the hiring agent says it is.

"First of all, while things created by government employees is automatically public domain, works created by contractors is not.".

If I contract you to work for me, and all rights are assigned to me as "work for hire", you don't have copyright. I do. And if I release that source, then tough cookies. Sure, it's not automatic, but "works for hire" exists.

-C

On the post: Merck 'Evergreens' Off-Patent Lipitor By Creating Combination Drug With No Additional Benefit

Christopher ( profile ), 09 Jul, 2013 @ 07:18am

This was obviously in 2009.

Zetia was tested in combination with Lipitor several years ago and it was the most efficacious combination possible then, as it likely is now. We at SP knew it was only a matter of time before we swapped out Zocor for Lipitor and combined them for a single-dose solution. Merck just took an SP play and ran with it -- not surprising since Merck's last good idea was buying SP.

This is not an ineffective drug. It might not be *novel* and I wouldn't dispute it, but if you read up on Zetia testing you'll find, publicly, that the Lipitor+Zetia combo was identified very early as the best pairing, and going off-patent was clearly going to result in this.

-C

On the post: Stop & Frisk Accomplishments: Barely Any Illegal Weapons Recovered, But Tons Of Weed Smokers Jailed

Christopher ( profile ), 30 May, 2013 @ 09:33am

Selective evidence

Maybe NYPD hasn't recovered a lot of guns, maybe the weed busts are incident, but the crime rate is way down over the same period. It's nice to think, in theory, all people are equal, but the reality is that they are stopping and frisking people that look like shitbirds. Don't wanna get stopped? Don't dress like a shitbird. The culture that owns that look needs to die. The end.

On the post: Activist Tells Court That Since Corporations Are People, He Can Drive In The Carpool Lane With Incorporation Papers

Christopher ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2013 @ 04:05pm

Re: Re:

You can laugh, but it's still a corrupt decision, added onto the 1888 mining company bullshit.

On the post: Police Use HIPAA To Justify Charging Citizen For Recording Them

Christopher ( profile ), 10 Jan, 2013 @ 12:02pm

Re: The sad thing is...

The funniest things I've ever personally witnessed are the interactions between my stupid cop father and the high IQ public he would pull over. For some reason my 100 IQ dad thought blocking a crosswalk or speeding through intersections near schools was a problem. How stupid he is! Ha ha!

Comments like scat's make me root for the baton, not the recipient.

-C

On the post: Supreme Court Rejects Appeal Over Law Banning Recording The Police

Christopher ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2012 @ 05:22am

Re: Re: Re: Well, Timmy, if anyone knows

The problem with recording law enforcement activities is that absent context, the viewer will likely come to the wrong conclusion. The *greater problem* however is that most people have no idea what it really takes to control the bad actors you see filmed.

You see a 5' 2" lady being maced and are outraged. You don't see the knife sticking out of another lady's chest off-camera. This is the missing context.

You see a police officer pushing a man to the ground and kneeling on his neck, roughly, and punching him in the face. You don't see the four minutes before that point, where the police officer's lawful commands are ignored, and the miscreant now on the ground had punched and kicked his way into a fight.

Viewers have no stomach for seeing the outcome of bad decisions. It would be fair to assume police officers would really just like a nice, easy day like anyone else. Being stabbed or shot, or hit by a car is zero fun, and that's essentially the daily existence for every street cop.

Comply with a police officer's direction, lawyer up without being a jerk, and let the process work. The police officer doesn't really care about your particular interpretation of the law, he or she just wants your stupidity off the street. Tell it to the judge.

-C

On the post: FTC Offers $50,000 To Whoever Can Come Up With A Way To Stop 'Rachel From Cardholder Services'

Christopher ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2012 @ 11:30am

This is ridiculous.

The FTC can solve this tomorrow.

Every single telephone carrier has the endpoints for all calls. *57 should be available for ALL CALLS, including the fake-legal charities, politicos, et cetera. At the end of the month, I click "opt out" to all reported/tracked *57 calls, and my telco can NEVER EVER connect a call from the entity, no matter how many phone numbers they have.

Force the externality back onto the telcos where it belongs, and this ends today. Forget a 50k prize, start levying fines of 50k per incident to every telco.

Oh, wait, that's right, the FTC doesn't actually work for ratepayers. Sorry.

-C

On the post: Time Warner Cable Suddenly Forced To Compete In Kansas City; Complains Google Has 'Unfair Advantage'

Christopher ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2012 @ 10:02am

Re: Well

There's nothing unfair about it. The terms were clear and transparent. Only incumbents building to wholly unserved endpoints need to comply; that's the part of the regulated monopoly people seems to forget. 100% rollout coverage is delivered for a captive audience.

-C

On the post: Bob Dylan: People Claiming I Plagiarized Them Are Pussies

Christopher ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2012 @ 09:44am

Dylan as a puss

I hafta give ol' Bob some credit though; he magnanimously "allowed" Jimi Hendrix to cover his songs ("My songs are his songs"). Of course, it probably had something to do with the fact that Jimi often transformed someone else's songs from "meh" to "Holy Christ How Cool Was That"...

-C

On the post: The Copyright Act Explicitly Says Disruptive Innovation Should Be Blocked

Christopher ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2012 @ 11:12am

Re: The law is good.

"Hey, the law is the law. If you don't like it change it."

Or, break it. Works for me. If the lawmakers don't care to play fair, I'm good with that game too.

-C

On the post: DEA Gets Lawsuit Dismissed Because It Couldn't Cope With Two Terabytes Of Evidence

Christopher ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2012 @ 07:56am

Chain of custody

How do you prove that evidence was not mishandled if the two terabyte HDD is sitting unsecured on someone's desk?

Think this through a little before making it an economic argument. The economics is a cost of preserving a chain of custody and a level of auditing.

-C

On the post: Bait & Switch: Buy A Lifetime Account For As Long As We Exist Or Until We Get Tired Of You

Christopher ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2012 @ 04:56pm

Typical, sadly.

Remember Winamp?

Winamp was a tiny little MP3 player application. The nerd that created it sold tiny little licenses. Basically, it didn't do much more than help defray some costs but at least you got a regcode and the satisfaction of helping Nullsoft succeed.

Then AOL bought them. And, the thing that *really* burned me, aside from the bloated software and higher pricing, was the loss of my regcode. My cachet, so to speak, of being an early adopter. I was there. I helped. My brick is in that wall. And Justin sold the building and threw the brick in the garbage.

It's these kinds of things that stay with you.

-C

On the post: WIPO Is Quietly Signing An Agreement To Give Hollywood Stars Their Own Special Version Of Copyright

Christopher ( profile ), 26 Jun, 2012 @ 08:32am

It doesn't affect me.

I steal everything now anyway. The game is rigged, and I'm not playing that game any longer. Level the playing field again, and maybe my moral outage and pure evil will subside.

-C

On the post: Louis CK Keeps Experimenting: Now Bringing The Direct-To-Fan Approach To Ticket Sales

Christopher ( profile ), 26 Jun, 2012 @ 04:58am

Well, it does put a cap on some shows.

Where Ticketmaster has a monopoly on ticketing, wouldn't Louis CK have difficulty selling direct?

On the post: FAA Admits That It's Going To Rethink Whether You Can Use Kindles & Tablets On Takeoff & Landing

Christopher ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2012 @ 05:29am

Cattle price?

Lost in your pseudo-analysis is the manner in which airlines meet the price point demands: charging fee upon fee for extras or slight increases in comfort are how they make ridiculous profits for a select few.

Pilots and crew do not make incredible dollars. Flight line sure doesn't. ATC, nope. Gate staff, nope. Yet, subsidy dollars keep flowing their way. Where's the money going?

It sure isn't going into a positive flight experience. Seats are cramped, service is diminished, and we're saddled with security theater that forces flyers to buy overpriced water at Hudson News. There's a racket going on for sure, but it's not driven by customer demand for poor treatment.

-C

On the post: Why Johnny Can't Read Any New Public Domain Books In The US: Because Nothing New Entered The Public Domain

Christopher ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2012 @ 03:18pm

Piracy is good.

It's the "fourth box" in this whole scenario. And no one gets shot.

On the post: Gov't Able To Keep Details Entirely Private In 'Public' Hearing Over Twitter Subpoena

Christopher ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2012 @ 03:17pm

Fourth box.

Why not? They use gunpoint to trample due process and transparent government...

On the post: DailyDirt: Sweeteners By Any Another Other Names May Not Taste As Sweet…

Christopher ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2011 @ 10:44am

FDA redaction of its denial in 1974?

I would think that's the lead story here. Can't the people bring suit against the FDA for violating FOIA by so much redaction?

-C

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