Powertoaster 's Techdirt Comments
Latest Comments (14)
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On the post: ID.me Doesn't Have Enough Humans To Backstop Its AI, Allowed A Guy In A Bad Wig To Illegally Obtain $900,000 In Benefits
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On the post: Elon Musk's 'Next-Gen' Broadband Service Is Overheating In The Arizona Desert
Powertoaster ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2021 @ 12:29amPolicy vs Practicality
I understand that Techdirt is very much focused on the big picture and policy and I believe that that is a great thing.
But I cringe a little bit at these articles that in my opinion are doing what you so often criticize others for doing, setting up a straw man to knock down.
You treat Starlink in every article as if it is supposed to be the solution to broken broadband and the criticize it for not being that solution.And look I am not blind to the policy and industry efforts that point to any new technology and say look we do not have to improve or fix our issues because of whatever the flavor of the day is let it be Starlink or 5G and I appreciate that you push back on those efforts.
Starlink has never been promoted as far as I can tell as the or even a fix for the broken broadband industry, except by those that want to detract from the industry failures. If you want to criticize Starlink for its flaws, and it clearly has some but don't put it up on a pedestal and take cheap pot shots at it.
But for those of us that cannot get decent internet any other way it is a godsend. Is it better then fiber clearly not but is it better than fiber that I realistically am never going to get Hell Yes it is.
I think a little bit more nuance in these Starlink articles would be nice.
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On the post: Bad Section 230 Bills Come From Both Sides Of The Aisle: Schakowsky/Castor Bill Would Be A Disaster For The Open Internet
Powertoaster ( profile ), 12 May, 2021 @ 01:41pmJob Opening
I would like to start out by thanking you for the opportunity to apply for the Consumer Protection Officer position at Techdirt.
As you probably already know, I have been a loyal Techdirt user for 12 years, and I am sure you can find anything that you need in the very detailed profile you have maintained on me, as such I am supremely qualified for this position.
But more to the point having been a System Administrator and Programmer for 42 years I am more than ready to outsource the production of a script that will combine input from the appropriate Reddit communities and Facebook groups combined into a dense word salad report that will satisfy absolutely no one.
I have heard that you pay very generously and have excellent people skills and benefits, you are also very good looking and the smartest person in the room.
I believe that now that we have that settled, you can now get behind this awesome opportunity to improve the internet as we know it.
Powertoaster
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On the post: Philippines Government Uses Cybercrime Law To Arrest A Citizen For Calling The President An 'Asshole'
Powertoaster ( profile ), 21 May, 2020 @ 04:49amI hate to be picky but you mispelled ruining.
Otherwise, expect to spend some time being subjected to a criminal justice system that has had every one of its excesses blessed by the man running(ruining) the country.
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On the post: Turns Out Hillary Clinton Had Hundreds Of Potentially Classified Emails On Private Server; Officials Ask For Criminal Investigation [Update]
Powertoaster ( profile ), 24 Jul, 2015 @ 07:41amWhich Email did she use
If she never dealt with clasified email on her private server then which account/server did she use for secure communication and where are those emails?
Unless of course she never sent or received any classified email, which I guess is the safe way to prepare for a presidential run. -
On the post: Just How Much Do Shows Like Game Of Thrones Owe To Piracy?
Powertoaster ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2012 @ 04:11pmNot just piracy
I have purchased a Roku box to provide channels to a new TV at my home. I did not have anyway to get my satellite cables to the TV in a clean manner.
Since all I have on the TV is content available via he Roku, specifically Netflix and Amazon Prime. I have spent more time exploring the existing content that I never had a chance to view previously.
I have found and become hooked on a number of shows that I sometimes faintly remember seeing ads for and others that I completely missed.
Some examples are White Collar and The Defenders. I have since watched all of the episodes of both and am anxiously waiting for the new episodes of White Collar to arrive via this distribution channel.
I was very excited to see the new season available via my DirecTV subscription but discovered that with my schedule and the complexity of some of the story lines, it just does not interest me to watch them as they come out, and I will be waiting till next year when I will be able to sit with my wife and watch the full episodes in our own time.
Unfortunately the advertisers for these shows will not get any of my attention, I regularly find myself going out of my way to support the creators of these shows. So that I can continue to get content I like.
So even though some producers are so bent about a certain percentage of piracy that they refuse to have their content appear on these alternative distribution methods, they will never have my attention, just the smaller portion of those that are willing to pirate the content since they have no other reasonable or convenient alternative. -
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats… But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Powertoaster ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2012 @ 11:03amWhile box-office revenues have benefited from rising ticket prices, movie attendance has been steadily declining.
I cannot be the only one to look at this sentence and wonder why fewer people might be going to take in the latest Hollywood remake?
Same theater, same recycled content, same high priced food, the exact same experience year after year but at a higher price.
Don't need to be an economist to see a problem there. -
On the post: For VPN Provider HideMyNet DMCA's ABC's Not As Easy As 123
Powertoaster ( profile ), 18 Nov, 2011 @ 11:28amRe:
Well since you asked, I can give you one very good reason, and many other general reasons.
As a system admin and security researcher, I frequently have the need to trace back and or investigate certain pieces of malware.
I do not want to alert my target to my identity or even the subnet that I am coming from as this could provide valuable information about which of their attacks was recognized.
A second point you may want to consider is why should I have to have a specific reason to be anonymous. Why should I have to reveal my identity to check the weather, read news, engage in political commentary, or exchange naughty messages with my wife? -
On the post: A Question For SOPA Supporters: How Will You Gauge SOPA's Success?
Powertoaster ( profile ), 16 Nov, 2011 @ 01:10pmRe:
I appreciate your comments here frankly I did not expect a single coherent answer.
I think I understand what you are saying here. Basically, it is just easier to get illegal stuff now than legal stuff. And SOPA will change that equation.
I decided to try a little experiment to see if it was actually easier to get a legal copy of the movie Cars 2 than a legal one that I would be able to watch today or tomorrow.
I have a number of TVs and video devices at home, my kids (I have 6 and 2 grandchildren at home) computers do not have DVD drives only CD.
The video system setup in my car works off of a hard drive and also does not have a DVD drive.
I would like to have something that any person in my family can enjoy wherever in the house or car they are, So I am really interested in a digital copy.
I went to google and entered cars 2, all of the links on the front page were to legitimate content, but none of them led me to a site or location where I could pay for and download the movie.
I choose Disney's site.
I can buy the DVD or Blu-Ray, and the main page says Movie Download but after looking for the Download for 20 minutes, I gave up.
If I buy the 5 disc premium copy I can get a digital copy, but there again I have to order it and wait for shipping or drive across town to pick it up, even then I end up with a single digital copy and have to choose which disc less device I want to use it on. And in my experience all of these digital copies have to be used on a computer so I can't put it on the Hard Drive in the car.
I can't view it on Netflix or Amazon Prime, nor is it available to pay-per-view on my dish.
I went to thepiratebay and in about 10 seconds found a number of downloads that I could have in less than one hour with no restrictions on my use.
Then I did a number of searches through a variety of search engines, (assuming that SOPA was already in place and the folks at tpb had folded, although I don't see that as a realistic scenario ) and found quick easy downloads all over the place.
So, given this brief and limited experiment, My conclusion has to be that SOPA would have to make an absolutely huge difference primarily by inconveniencing the people on the fence, and shutdown literary hundreds of sites along with all the in-intended collateral damage, or Disney could just let me pay for a download from the original site, or let Netflix or Amazon do the same, and save themselves a lot of bandwidth cost.
Seems to me that the issue is not the ease of getting illegal content it is the difficulty in getting useful legal content.
I would like to see a test Disney, could easily pick one of their movies and do a pay to download test, just to see if it did lead to less piracy vs. more.
I have to tell you I am not all that surprised, I tried to watch a pay-per-view movie on my satellite dish last year and kept getting an error, I was told by the support staff of the company that my tv was not compatible with the copy protection scheme on the movie, and that I might be able to watch it by going and buying a super cheap HDMI cable from Walmart as that would circumvent the issue.
Main line content producers have a major problem with the way they treat potential customers like me and SOPA is just going to make it worse. Since it will embolden them to continue down this same path of excessive control.
I also have an issue with the "probably 40% of the marketplace quote". Is that just your gut feeling or do you have any statistics to back that number up. -
On the post: British Transport Police: Illegal Downloading Kills Babies [Updated]
Powertoaster ( profile ), 19 Sep, 2011 @ 03:17pmThe real sign bothers me
I am amazed that everyone is so concerned about the parody, the real sign bothers me more. I have to agree with the AC that linked to http://www.met.police.uk/so/at_hotline.htm.
Any time I travel with my van, I display pretty much all of the suspicious activities listed on the site except for the mask and goggles. Although if it is cold and I will be riding my bicycle I would have those with me as well.
I have multiple passports in my dresser at home.
My credit card has charges to companies like stalker.com, clearly someone should be worried.
I also rent a commercial property and do not go out of my way to display all of the items I store there, some might even consider my behavior secretive.
So the only thing on the list which is not part of my daily life are the suspicious use of chemicals.
And then there is the anti-copyright, anti-social web site (I am sure the MPAA would not have to stretch to characterise techdirt as a terrorist website ) that I knot only read but comment on. -
On the post: Woz Completely Changes Tune On Patent Trolling From Just Months Ago
Powertoaster ( profile ), 04 May, 2011 @ 11:52amMaybe the difference is in who is getting sued.
His initial comment is framed in a small vs. large context.
The second comment notes that Allen is not suing Microsoft.
Maybe it is ok to patent troll if you are a little guy fighting a large company (social consciousness), but not just for the sake of suing for money. -
On the post: Scott Adams: The Economic Value Of Content Is Going To Zero, But Maybe It's Okay
Powertoaster ( profile ), 03 Jun, 2010 @ 11:02pmAll Authors care about is money?
I read all of the time, I love books and stories and also spend quite a bit of time learning about the Authors of the works I enjoy.
I would suggest that a very high percentage of Authors write because something within them drives them to it.
I have read hundreds of descriptions from Authors about how they got started.
Although some portion of them intended to get rich by doing so, most don't and those that do soon come to a realization that this was an extremely poor way to make any money at all, and in the face of that realization continued to write anyway. They just could not stop themselves.
There will always be great content and great stories, people will continue to create all types of literary works even if as suggested in Mr. Adams ramblings that there will be no profit involved.
And frankly there will always be people like me that will gladly pay for those works, but in my case only for content that does not have artificial limitations on when where and how I can enjoy it. Just like the paper back book I just set down. -
On the post: Making Credit-Card Payments More Secure By Making Breaches More Expensive
Powertoaster ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2009 @ 08:11amAlready being done
My company was contacted by a third party which was contracted by our cc processor. We were required to go to a website and answer a bunch of questions about our policies.
If we did not we would have been faced with higher processing fees.
The lame thing about this, is that it is a self reported very basic 10 question online quiz which you can take as many times as you need to to pass.
I wonder how many people are going to get the correct answers in spite of their actual policies in order to avoid the higher fee? -
On the post: AT&T Jumps Into The Metered Broadband Game
Powertoaster ( profile ), 05 Nov, 2008 @ 08:03pmDeath of Online Backup
I am a recent subscriber to Carbonite backup for the family computer in my basement. I use this machine a lot to process and store the pictures I take with my nice DSLR. I have 500GB of pictures on this machine. At $1 per gig above 250gb my service provider would have made Carbonite's service way to expensive. Instead of $50 a year I would have been looking at around $300 the first year just for the additional backup. If my system crashed and I needed to restore I would be looking at a cost of around $250 again, assuming that I had not used my connection at all the rest of the month just to use my own files. Thats nuts!
IRS is still using it
Not sure where you heard that the IRS quit using id.me, i spent hours yesterday trying to get the system to accept my valid original documents trying to create an IRS login.
By the way I am still waiting for a response from them on how to resolve my issue.