hozelda 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Janet Jackson's Wardrobe Malfunction Leads To FCC Malfunction: Claims Broadcasters Give Up 1st Amendment Rights

    hozelda ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2010 @ 07:47am

    Re: It's not a new idea

    It would make sense to me to have a channel or some amount of the bandwidth dedicated to unrestricted content. Some channels can be restricted (perhaps even locally). And the FCC can add rules to ensure everyone has some amount of access to any of these channels for communicating.

    On the receiving end, there is no technical reason why you can't have the channels you don't like be excluded (this was true decades ago and is sure true today).

  • On the post: Piracy Isn't The Problem, A Bad Business Model Is The Problem

    hozelda ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2010 @ 07:04am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    The comment you are replying to said nothing about a lack of value.

    That comment was about differing expectations between those charging and those consuming through various means.

  • On the post: A Lesson In Venn Diagrams… And Who Gets Paid To Touch Your Junk

    hozelda ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2010 @ 06:52am

    Re: Re: Wrong again

    See the other comments about replacing the simplified set name "X" with "Characteristics of X"

    Then, Michael's comment will make sense since there is more than simply 1 item in each of the overlapping regions. Eg, another characteristic of all 3 professions is that they "are practiced by people who almost always have two arms and two legs", yet that characteristic is not represented.

    Of course, we can fix that as well by replacing "X" with "Representative Characteristics of X".

    [I think a similar disease to what led that other group to want to correct the first diagram explains why I keep posting this "correction of correction" over and over on this thread.]

  • On the post: A Lesson In Venn Diagrams… And Who Gets Paid To Touch Your Junk

    hozelda ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2010 @ 06:39am

    Re:

    Yup, as explained in a different comment, the original is essentially correct.

    To see what I mean, replace "Doctors" with "Characteristics of Doctors" and repeat the replacement pattern for the other sets as well.

  • On the post: A Lesson In Venn Diagrams… And Who Gets Paid To Touch Your Junk

    hozelda ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2010 @ 06:34am

    Whoops

    Except that the original diagram was essentially correct.

    Venn Diagrams cover sets of things, but a thing can be a "property of a thing" as well.

    In other words, each circle doesn't have to refer to people.

    For example, the three circles can each have elements that represent, respectively, "properties of prostitutes", "properties of doctors", and "properties of TSA agents".

    And then we'd label these using short-hand: "prostitutes", "doctors", and "tsa agents" rather than using the more accurate longer text.

    This is why most people will see the original diagram and understand what is being described, because in fact it is a correct association but with the figure labeled a bit tersely.

    Also, the universe set (that name that appears on the lower right corner of the surrounding box) would more accurately be labeled "properties of people".

    Note, by "properties" I mean "characteristics" or "features" and not "items owned". See definition 4 here http://www.thefreedictionary.com/property

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram

  • On the post: Exposing The False Sanctity Of 'Intellectual Property'

    hozelda ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2010 @ 05:50am

    Great comic.

    I noticed pooperty a few days back on one of your strips and thought it was really good way to rename IP.

    I'm glad to know it wasn't an overlooked funny because it might have some real potential.

    However, I'm not sure if I will embrace it wholly (maybe mix it in with other variations).

  • On the post: Indian Film Industry Threatening To Strike Over Proposed Copyright Reform That Would Make Them Pay Composers For Music

    hozelda ( profile ), 28 Dec, 2010 @ 05:59am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I think the bluff should be called. It will open up opportunities.

    Also, it is sad that some who work hard get so much lower financial compensation than others that arguably work not as hard but certainly not much harder. The artists make much less than those coming in with the investments and running the businesses.

    So reward is not nearly based on hard work as it is on how much money you already have, which itself has a fair amount to do with luck (starting with the family under which you were born).

    Even factoring in "risks" of loss, hard, smart, diligent, etc, work in not nearly rewarded on a similar level (the business and investment skill, of all skill classes and fortunes necessary to keep society going, getting a much sweeter deal).

    Again, I think if the bluff was called, these people would still put their investments on the line just as quickly (after doing their song and dance). At the end of the day, a great opportunity will still exist for them to use their existing assets to gain more. Naturally, though, they have many strong levers so want to exercise them to shut out as many as they can from lucrative royalties.

  • On the post: Study Suggests Placebos Don't Have To Be Secret To Work

    hozelda ( profile ), 27 Dec, 2010 @ 02:08pm

    Re: Re: Psychosomatic

    To clarify, I am not saying that science is garbage. I am saying that we should weigh the risks but always have humility towards evolution and less faith-trust in wonderful new solutions hatched in a laboratory recently. The lab result might be very close to natural or might be excellent, but we should be wary unless we are at a crucial juncture and anticipate problems if we don't get help soon.

    For example, there is a real risk in avoiding antibiotics and various other external aids under various contexts. In these contexts, there is a high risk of death or serious injury and taking the medication has a result of improving these results substantially. However, for most cases, the time span is much longer and people have time to try and prod Mother Nature.

    There are other issues. A person may prefer to indulge in something and simultaneously take the scientific remedy to its negative effects so that they can "live life to the fullest". That might be best for them (or for me in some cases I don't doubt); however, I do find that a part of living life to the fullest for me frequently is deriving solutions and also finding sustainable low cost blah blah solutions.

    Sorry to have polluted this thread.

  • On the post: Study Suggests Placebos Don't Have To Be Secret To Work

    hozelda ( profile ), 27 Dec, 2010 @ 01:52pm

    Re: Psychosomatic

    >> For minor things like colds, where the stakes are fairly low, the placebo effect might be fine. But clearly more research has to be done before you can apply them to more serious ailments.

    One thing to keep in mind is that a failure of the body can be because of a failure of some proper "exercise" or other or can be greatly reduced by making a small adjustment.

    Consider a very large and very complex computer program that has been homed over a very long time via natural selection -- this is our body. There might be a very simple set of input context when using that program that might lead it to perform spectacularly, but it might fail convincingly if some small part of that context is missing.

    Adding "medication" would amount to letting a group of youngsters that have only recently in this evolutionary development started trying to understand this massive body of source code add some software here or there (in tinker fashion) to try and neutralize the supposed negative effects of the main software. If instead the owner of the program can figure out that some small change to the input context can make a positive difference, then that might be better in the long run.

    Our bodies are very complex and we should always remember the law of unintended consequences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences when we try to interfere with it using means that are very distinct from what the human species has experienced through progressive evolution. To me, to rely on an outside agent is an admission that I failed to find a natural solution that might very well exist and be fairly simple to execute and have decided instead to surrender myself over to the youngsters.

  • On the post: Study Suggests Placebos Don't Have To Be Secret To Work

    hozelda ( profile ), 27 Dec, 2010 @ 01:29pm

    Re: Mind Over Body

    I don't like to take pain killers or anything if I can at all avoid it because I like my body/mind to figure out how to get itself better without any help. I don't think it's healthy to be in pain, but as long as I can avoid being overwhelmed I look for things to do to distract, relax, etc, and ease the pain away as quickly as possible (and hopefully without having to work myself too hard since doing so would be unsustainable). I become much more tuned with what patterns might hurt me (frequently interpreted as "pain me" or change my functioning from expectation). I am forced into studying my body and how I react to things. I'm my primary doctor. I really don't trust outside unnatural agents too much (medicine or the people that subscribe them or say they are good for you). This isn't to say I reject help, but I do live in peace largely and at low cost and prefer to get help when I pretty much have failed convincingly (ie, when I haven't found a way to control pain or some other reaction or adjustment on my body and am not willing to try further.. which is odd). Not surprisingly, a primary tool I use is avoiding suspected "high" risk threats.

    I suggest that people that take medicine at least consider reducing or not taking something here or there.. but only really if you first believe that these agents have a very real chance of failure and actually of perhaps hurting your long term chances of being able to heal yourself or to engage in a mind-body learning/exercise opportunity (and you would like the freedom from not being stuck on medicine). Where you don't believe an alternative exists, then by all means make the small sacrifice so you can get on with life.

    This approach I take is related to how much I like to understand things and build theories and that I know how little we potentially know about many complex interactions. I'm always willing to look at "irrefutable" (or other) evidence, but most people can't provide it because we naturally learn the "facts" most of the time and leave it at that. I guess when you enjoy deducing things, for better or worse, you are more susceptible to developing experience/awareness/theories that will contradict some particular advice.

  • On the post: Building A Censor-Resistant Web?

    hozelda ( profile ), 25 Dec, 2010 @ 08:51pm

    Re: Re: first poster

    >> and just as much as people try to hide their activities, they actually make themselves more obvious.

    What activities are you talking about people hiding?

    Avoiding censoring is not about hiding but about making sure that information can be found by as many people as possible.

    >> There isn't anyone out there planning a completely seperate network

    Well, if the laws are fair, people will abide, but if the laws are not, eventually you will see people disregarding frequency allocation and other government imposed restrictions as they build their own other networks.

    Also, if the intent was to hide, then that already happens through encryption. Encryption need not be obvious. Can you differentiate that an https session to a shopping site isn't actually transferring something else for those that know the secret password? Can you figure out that a long list of files transferred over a few days using various routes actually includes hidden bits of information that the target can assemble in the end?

    Anyway, file sharing (if this is what you are getting at) means just that, sharing files. I don't see how you can make communication between people illegal without invoking a tremendous backlash.

    >> Piracy is still piracy

    I took a sneak and got a clue that perhaps you were talking about alleged copyright violations (aka "piracy").

    I'm not sure what this has to do with censoring, but since you bring this up, I would also like to bring to attention that people should start demanding "open content" from those they patron. Give money to those that share rights with you. Don't patron those that want to own your culture.

    Also, people can complain to their government representatives about damage they belive locking up of culture is doing to their financial and social well-being.

  • On the post: Indie Music Association Comes Out In Favor Of Seizing Domain Names Of Blogs That Promote Their Music

    hozelda ( profile ), 23 Dec, 2010 @ 09:26pm

    An artist who shares without biting back later

    and who contributes to techdirt.com periodically
    http://mimiandeunice.com/about/
    http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

  • On the post: Now Random Webhosts Are Demanding Wikileaks Mirrors Be Taken Down Over Possibility Of DDoS?

    hozelda ( profile ), 23 Dec, 2010 @ 08:46pm

    Re:

    We can help solve this problem if rather than mirroring the entire site, people volunteer to host small pieces (eg, in the kilobyte range).

    The main servers can then hand off the same but with greater granularity. In fact, you can even hand off the resolution process to specific servers and these can themselves be distributed.

    This is technically not a difficult problem. In fact, a torrent of all the pieces where every piece has many seeds is one possible other solution to this problem.

  • On the post: Now Random Webhosts Are Demanding Wikileaks Mirrors Be Taken Down Over Possibility Of DDoS?

    hozelda ( profile ), 23 Dec, 2010 @ 08:42pm

    Re: Re:

    Blood inside a person is quite different. Capacity, risks to life, etc, are very different.

    However, the point is that there is only so much any individual or group should be expected to put up and that depends on what resources they have.

  • On the post: Now Random Webhosts Are Demanding Wikileaks Mirrors Be Taken Down Over Possibility Of DDoS?

    hozelda ( profile ), 23 Dec, 2010 @ 08:33pm

    Re: Re:

    Exactly. One major reason to have mirrors is to distribute load. DDOS google, but they have thousands of server. The difference here is that the *costs* would be distributed rather than be put up by a single company.

  • On the post: New Newspaper Business Model: Create Compelling Graphic, Wait For Others To Use It… And Then Sue

    hozelda ( profile ), 22 Dec, 2010 @ 05:46pm

    Re: Re: Re: Julian Assange talks about Journalism today

    I hope desperate efforts like those from Righthaven help many more judges re-evaluate copyright fair use, perhaps while entertaining more literature from outside their primary circle.

    PS: [Please repost that very interesting and valuable link on the next wikileaks/Assange piece so that more people are likely to come across it.]

  • On the post: Harvard Newspaper Staff Apparently In Need Of A Lesson On Copyright Basics

    hozelda ( profile ), 22 Dec, 2010 @ 02:51pm

    Re: Re: Re: why don't you cite the entire phrase from the constitution

    >> There's a thing called the draft and they can send you marching into a hail of machine gun fire.

    How long has this draft thing lasted? Were we arguably in an emergency situation? Was it short-lived?

    How long does copyright last? Is it reasonable to consider that two lifetimes is "limited" within the context of the creative life of a creator and his/her peers?

    There are a lot of gray areas and potentially conflicting sections of the Constitution where a balance must be struck, or where it might take a while before the boundaries are confirmed or adjusted by the court.

    Acceptable copyright boundaries within the era of digitalization are still be in flux. How many times do staunch supporters of copyright violate it themselves? Obviously, when its strongest supporters have so many problems adhering to it, something is wrong.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objector
    "From 1941 to 1947 nearly 12,000 draftees,[38] unwilling to do any type of military service, performed work of national importance in 152 CPS camps throughout the United States and Puerto Rico."

  • On the post: Harvard Newspaper Staff Apparently In Need Of A Lesson On Copyright Basics

    hozelda ( profile ), 22 Dec, 2010 @ 04:58am

    Re: why don't you cite the entire phrase from the constitution

    >> Of course the constitution's framers used the phrase "promote the progress of science and useful arts", but they then followed it with the phrase, " by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"

    That's right, so if progress is not being promoted, Congress does not have the right. That was a conditioned statement. It says that something is possible if something else is satisfied.

    There is no direct Constitutional support (and plenty against) to suggest that these monopolies are legal if they don't promote the progress.

    Congress can't make something promote the progress by decree. What would you think of the following fictional Congressional Power? "The Congress shall have Power [t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right" of all first-born Children not yet claimed and living within a one-mile Radius of their primary Residence.

    Simply, these first-born ownership actions don't promote the progress. We can assume the document is twisted, or we can salvage it by interpreting the "to promote the progress" as a criteria that only if met results in Congress having a certain power but not otherwise.

  • On the post: Spanish Legislature Rejects Hollywood-Backed Copyright Law Changes

    hozelda ( profile ), 21 Dec, 2010 @ 10:47pm

    Do consumers owe this victory to whistle-blowing and to a free press?

  • On the post: Spanish Legislature Rejects Hollywood-Backed Copyright Law Changes

    hozelda ( profile ), 21 Dec, 2010 @ 10:44pm

    That's a relief

    >> It was a narrow vote, but it sounds like this issue is dead until at least next year. Of course, in the interim, expect more ridiculous and unsubstantiated bellyaching about how entertainment in Spain is dying.

    Well, that's not too bad. 10 days of not having to worry is better than 9 or 8 or 7.

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