IanW 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: The NHL Is Having Trademark Trouble With Its Newest Team In Utah

    IanW ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2025 @ 04:04am

    Utah Dry; probably to be disputed by Canada, eh! Utah Desert; that would make the players "deserters"?

  • On the post: Elon Musk Doesn’t Like Some Headlines. But That Doesn’t Make Them Defamatory

    IanW ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2025 @ 04:31am

    The @AP post qouted in @BasedMikeLee's post said,

    1 person dies when Tesla truck catches fire and explodes
    That suggests the truck caught fire, then explodes and that resulted in the death, which was not the case.
    • It would seem that a bullet to the head killed the occupant, not the fire or explosion
    • The explosion also appears to have preceded the fire, based on the video.
    There was evidently a perpetuated interpretation/assumption the truck itself, probably originating with the battery, caught fire and then exploded, as Teslas have had occasion to do. The rewording is neutral as to the origin. That would leave nothing for Musk to freak out about other than the "salient facts at the beginning being (1) Trump Hotel in Vegas, (2) Tesla Cybertruck, and (3) explosion". Too bad all the money in the world cannot buy Musk a thicker skin, a longer fuse or more discerning judgement. I do think an actual Tesla originating explosion/fire outside a Trump pproperty (which comes out of this somehow unscathed) would be an excellent metaphor for what is likely to come.

  • On the post: Elon Musk Doesn’t Like Some Headlines. But That Doesn’t Make Them Defamatory

    IanW ( profile ), 02 Jan, 2025 @ 07:29pm

    AP News correction

    AP should correct it to read '1 person dies inside Tesla truck after explosion and fire outside Trump Las Vegas hotel'. Explosion came first. 100% accurate and no apportion of blame. It's still a Tesla truck outside a Trump Hotel.

  • On the post: The Trump Vengeance Tour Continues As He Sues Pollster For Being Wrong

    IanW ( profile ), 19 Dec, 2024 @ 01:15am

    The best Grift ever !!

    This is not a vexatious SLAPP suit. It does not matter if the suits are baseless and would be thrown out out by the courts; they won't get that far. It's not even really directly about a thin-skinned narcissist trying to silence critics in the media. This is Trump doing what he does best; it is pure GRIFT. In fact, this may be his BEST GRIFT EVER. It kissing the ring at arms length, sanctioned by the courts, out in the open and at least for now, all above board and legal. Trump gets annoyed by something George "Slopadopolus" said. Files lawsuit. Stephanopoulos works for ABC. ABC is owned by Disney, run by Bob Iger. GOP and Trump dislike them all. Iger wants to "make good" in Trump's eyes. Iger directs the lawyers to capitulate and signs a $15M cheque to Trump. Case goes away but sets "precedent". Trump gets annoyed by something that appeared in the Des Moines Register. Files lawsuit. Des Moines Register is owned by Gannett Corp. Gannett is owned by New Media Investment Group. NMIG is owned by Fortress Investment Group. Fortress is owned by Japanese conglomerate Softbank. Masayoshi Son is the founder, CEO and largest shareholder of SoftBank. On the same day Trump filed the suit, he also announced a $100 Billion investment by Masayoshi Son (maybe hoping it would dominate the headlines over the lawsuit). Trump says "I want a cut of that". Masayoshi says "I can't just give you money, that's not legal". Trump says not to worry, he has a plan. Lawsuit filed. Expect this vexatious, flimsy lawsuit to quickly be settled in Trump's favor, out of court, for a large sum. It is kissing the ring by proxy, directly into Trump's pocket; no middlemen, no shell games, no GOP meddling. He can even claim he had to sue to protect his reputation and now is "forced to accept the money" to protect the integrity of the legal system. The harm to the media's reputation, the gutting of their resources and fewer eyes on his travails and antics is just a collateral bonus. Expect more lawsuits against media corporations owned or led by billionaires to follow.

  • On the post: Democracy Dies In Darkness… Helped Along By Billionaire Cowardice

    IanW ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2024 @ 03:06pm

    Who cares what dies?

    He doesn’t care if the Washington Post dies. He cares about losing government contracts if he hurts Trump’s feelings.
    Musk and Soon-Strong don't care if their respective newspapers die. To them that's probably just a convenient way of getting a tax write-off. It's YOU and ME, the PUBLIC that SHOULD care if the Washington Post and other major newspapers die. Aside from betraying their owner's original stated commitments to keep the newspapers going, independently, what are the impacts to the community if they disappear? Techdirt has repeatedly written about the loss of local news (print, radio and TV) as well as the consolidation of media into giant conglomerates, giving their owners a single, often deleterious voice. Think Sinclair media among others. Either billionaires buy up all the media stations and provide a single, unified and biased megaphone, or they run them into the ground and shutter them or directly shutter them in the name of synergies, or they run their competition into the ground by undercutting them. The net result is the loss of independent, investigative reporting, or those voices get buried in cacophony of just another WordPress site or YouTube channel where you have no idea what to trust. What are the alternatives to billionaire owned media? Investor owned public media (ie publicly listed stocks) are all ultimately subject to generating wealth for their investors, not the interests of their readers/viewers. State-supported media gets a terrible rap in the US even though agencies like the CBC (Canada), the BBC (UK), NHK (Japan) and Agence France-Presse all have solidly independent reputations despite state funding. Then there's RT. And sadly it seems community owned media ultimately seems to run out of funding when the community loses track of the valuable service these entities provide. Perhaps, as communities recognize amd embrace the value of community owned fiber networks, those may also rediscover the value of community owned media?

  • On the post: Democracy Dies In Darkness… Helped Along By Billionaire Cowardice

    IanW ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2024 @ 09:53pm

    The day Democracy Dies

    Bezos forcing the Washington Post to go Dark Wapo will not prevent Trump from killing it along with the LA Times and the other "fake media" should Trump become President. Will Nov 5, 2024 go down as the day Democracy Dies? More disturbingly, how many stories and columns critical of Trump will not be reported as the column inches and resources are spent on this story? Distract room tactics at its best!

  • On the post: The $1M Question: Is Elon Musk’s ‘Petition’ Drive Actually Legal?

    IanW ( profile ), 21 Oct, 2024 @ 10:49pm

    buying a propaganda machine .. ?

    ..when Elon Musk misleadingly claimed that George Soros was secretly “buying a propaganda machine to influence how you think”
    Maybe what we don't know is that Musk has secretly agreed to sell his "propaganda machine", eXTwitter, to Soros for a steal, sale to complete after the election. That would make it Musk spending Soros' money to buy votes! Soros influencing how you think is a minor consequence, inconsequential if Musk is successful in getting votes for Trump, since Trump will then shut eXTwitter down.

  • On the post: In-N-Out Bullies Local Sports Bar Into Poke-N-The-Eye Menu Item Name Changes

    IanW ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2024 @ 11:30am

    Canadians too polite, eh!

    When is In&Out gonna go after Tim Horton’s for their Double-Double?
    I believe it should be, when will Tim Horton's go after In-N-Out? To paraphrase a Canada/US comparison, "Tim's: we're bigger and we're on top". Quite literally every single Canadian knows what's a Double-Double is, even if not a coffee drinkeror been to a Tim's. Leave the Western states and no will know what an Animal is (or maybe even an InO!). There's more Tim's in Toronto alone than total InO outlets! But it's not all about size, is it, except for the calorie count in those giant US food portions. Canadians are just too polite to pull some litigious bullying, eh!

  • On the post: Republicans Are Angry The FCC Admitted Broadband Deployment Discrimination Exists

    IanW ( profile ), 30 Jun, 2024 @ 02:45pm

    Bad timing?

    I could only wish Boeing's crewed launch to the ISS had come a few weeks later. Then the decision on whether to launch or not could have been decided by experts on the Federal Judiciary! That assumes it did not get punted up to the Supreme Court who, in their infinite wisdom discard precedent and stare decisis, and declare the Earth to be flat!

  • On the post: RCMP All Pissed Off A Private Business Told It To Get A Warrant If It Wanted A Copy Of Parking Lot Camera Footage

    IanW ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2024 @ 05:46pm

    Serving up Standard fare

    It is standard fare that most incidents making the TV (or radio) news regarding a violent incident, especially those including gang violence, as well as most traffic incidents resulting in injury, the news anchor ends the piece with "Police are asking anyone who lives in the area or those with dashcams who were nearby at the time of the incident to share security footage with the police". Occasionally, this is a reiteration of an officer's actual request. Interestingly, almost every time someone has shared with the TV news, video footage of a police involved incident, the standard response from the police is along the lines of "The video shown does not tell the whole story and is just one perspective. The incident is being reviewed (internally or by the Independent Investigations Office (IIO) ). We ask witnesses to share any additional footage with the police". Several years ago, following a tragic hit and run over 2 kms away on a perpendicular collector road, police came knocking on every residence asking us to review and share any security footage we may have. The restaurant chain in question is also a member of "Barwatch", an almost 30 year old program which collects digital personal ID of patrons to establishments, shared amongst the association members which works closely with police to bar “undesirable” persons or a “troublemakers” from entering any of the establishments. It also works closely with local police detachments and even Transit. The program managed to put a serious dent in gang activity within the bars and restaurants. Today's incidents are shootings on the street and their gun and run / drive-by nature has lead to much more collateral damage. On the one hand, I applaud the restaurant for a policy demanding a warrant and would expect this to be the case, but given the near universal industry (and business) co-operation, why is this odd? Why not this time? Have there been other times perhaps where they called for police help and maybe been left hanging? For the provincial liquor licensing authority and AG's office to mandate the restaurant comply with such police requests for an incident OUTSIDE of their establishment is definite overreach. There's no suggestion anyone involved attended the restaurant. Had the incident occurred within the premises, that would perhaps be a different matter, especially given the Barwatch membership. There's more to this story, but it's rare that the news media ever follow-up on the stories. If there's an arrest and charges years alter, it's rare people even make the association back to original incident.

  • On the post: A Utah Porn Filtering Bill Is Back, And It’s Very Stupid

    IanW ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2024 @ 01:16am

    Ban Utah, not porn

    Cellphone manufacturers don't need to install custom software to comply with this proposed law ... they just need to slap a little sticker on the outside of the shrinkwrapped box stating "Not for Sale in Utah". Pull the phones from the shelves and let the market deal with the consequences. I'm sure the carriers could also quickly leverage some of their enshitification clauses to indicate "You did not buy this phone and own nothing. The signatories agree that the Provider shall lend the Consumer this device for their use for the duration of this contract or as long as they continue to use the Provider's services".

  • On the post: ExTwitter Misclassifies Your Spam Reports So It Doesn’t Have To Take Down Spammers

    IanW ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2023 @ 06:38pm

    But that makes you a spammer

    Maybe we should try all the categories to find out which is now which.
    But by repeatedly forwarding the same content, you'll be flagged as a spammer and booted from the platform. You can't win for trying!

  • On the post: Every Year Like Clockwork The Telecom Industry Lies And Claims Broadband Prices Are Dropping

    IanW ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2023 @ 05:49pm

    Not just ripped off in America

    I live in Western Canada. When I first got "High-speed Internet" from my incumbent telco in 2011, the top ADSL options were 50, 25, 15, 10 and 5 Mbps. I choose 15. It cost me $39/month, CAD$. The top-tier 50 cost $75/month. Since then, my bill has been automatically ratcheted up almost every 6 months by $5. Every time I complained, they said they are reinvesting in the network and that's the reason for the increases. In 2014, they introduced Internet 75. Today, they offer 3 GBbps fibre. The current price for 3Gbps is $145. They don't even advertise less than 250 Mbps. At no time have I ever been offered to move to a "better value" plan. When I called to ask about the cheap offers they advertised, I was told they are only available to New Customers (loyalty be damned evidently). I am still on my Internet 15 plan, which now is costing me $105 !! The kicker is they are repeatedly calling/forcing me to arrange to switch my drop from copper to fibre, "At no cost to me, including replacement of the modem" such that they can turn down the copper network. I would still be billed the Internet 15 rate. They have offered to "upgrade" my plan to their lowest (unadvertised) fibre plan, Internet 75, but that will cost $115. Back in 2011, web pages were small, and videos and streaming on-line games were negative, OS and app updates were small and infrequent, by 15 is still fine for me. To sum up, the top tier speed has gone from 50Mbps to 3Gbps, a 60x improvement, the price has effectively doubled. But if you have the exact same service as before, you're paying 2.67x more, for the exact same thing! A service so slow, it's 2.67x slower than their slowest offering! How is this "price dropping"? By my math, I should be paying less than $20/month if prices actually dropped.

  • On the post: The Batshit Crazy Story Of The Day Elon Musk Decided To Personally Rip Servers Out Of A Sacramento Data Center

    IanW ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2023 @ 03:41pm

    Basic physics, and economics

    Just one of the many astounding aspects of thia story is his argument regarding the floor and point loads. We tend to forget (and maybe he did too) that he claims to have a degree in Physics and Economics! Understanding point loads and capacity/deflection ratings is a matter of basic physics; it's not "rocket science". Mind you rocket science is basic physics too. Then again, his application of the economics portion of his degree seems have gone for nought as it applies to X/Twitter.

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

    IanW ( profile ), 06 Aug, 2023 @ 03:08pm

    Get unlimited access to all of Techdirt ...

    I wonder why I never see that message,

    "Get unlimited access to all of Techdirt" ?
    Oh, that's right, @Mike hasn't had time to redesign the site to implement a paywall, drive up the costs of hosting his content and restricting access to his information, insights and opinions, so no need for that pop-up. ps: Let's not forget Techdirt did "upgrade its platform" just over a year ago (which freaked a lot of people out, evidently without reason), plus a few more times since the 90's, all for the better! Now, if he could only convince a Supreme Court Justice to pen an opinion column like some other old NY rag did ...

  • On the post: Nevada Government Begs For A Lawsuit After Rejecting Resident’s ‘GOBK2CA’ License Plate

    IanW ( profile ), 14 Jul, 2023 @ 01:46pm

    Small mind, big world

    A plate that reads “GOBK2CA,” or “Go back to California,” ... Maybe that really meant “Go back to Canada” ! Blame Canada!

  • On the post: The Sanctions Hearing For ChatGPT Using Lawyers… Did Not Go Well

    IanW ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2023 @ 02:17pm

    "Hidden Treasure Mapping Logic", isn't that what is commonly known as a "loot box"?

  • On the post: Jim Jordan Further Weaponizes His Subcommittee On The Weaponization Of The Gov’t To Chill Speech

    IanW ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2023 @ 03:50am

    Classic horror movie trope

    "The Call is coming from inside the House!". Or, more accurately, from inside the “Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Government,” But then no Hollywood writer could possibly have dreamt up as simplistic and yet convoluted a plot, with such exaggerated stereotype as the ReTrumplican Party has done.

  • On the post: ‘Smart’ Garage Door Company Nukes Key Feature After Ignoring Vulnerability For Months

    IanW ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2023 @ 01:52pm

    And the car in the garage is unlocked too! Washing machine is jealous, wants door unlocked too.

    "Smart" Garage Door Company, dumb developers. Maybe they could ask "greenluigi1" to hack their car's infotainment system so the Nexx garage door opens via Bluetooth as soon as the car is close enough ?

    Software developer cracks Hyundai car security with Google search. Top tip: Your RSA private key should not be copied from a public code tutorial
    Samsung Engineer has Product idea: "Hey ChatGPT, how would I develop an internet-connected garage door opener app, just like Nexx''s, but without the security vulnerability?"

  • On the post: Now That Elon Musk Is Labeling NPR And The BBC As ‘Government Funded,’ Shouldn’t He Do The Same For Tesla, SpaceX, And Twitter?

    IanW ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 03:39pm

    A TV licence is required if you:

    A TV licence is required if you:
    • watch or record live TV programmes on any channel
    • download or watch any BBC programmes on iPlayer - live, catch up or on demand
    This applies to any provider you use and any device, including a TV, desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone, tablet, games console, digital box or DVD/VHS recorder.
    source: BBC: Funding through the TV licence (2023-04-10) Seems like that applies to more than terrestrial OTA broadcasts and more than just the Beeb.

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