Jeffrey Nonken 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against eBay Because Of The Way Its Auctions Work

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2012 @ 12:16pm

    Re: Re: Re: Second-price auction

    It's exactly the same, only different.

  • On the post: Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against eBay Because Of The Way Its Auctions Work

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2012 @ 12:13pm

    Re: bleh

    Um... you know, I've been both a buyer and seller on eBay for years, and they've always been pretty upfront about their fees. The first time I tried to sell something I read through their information several times to make sure I understood the process details, but all the information was right there in the instructions.

    Maybe you should have read ALL the words.

  • On the post: Techdirt 2011: The Numbers.

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 07:47pm

    Re: Re:

    I agree -- "Report" is just too broadbrush a button without any other choice. I'd expect to see "Report" for, as you said, reporting spam or something unacceptably offensive. I'd like to see something more fine-grained for simply disliking a comment. What are the opposites of "Insightful" and "Funny"? Plus maybe a "Troll" button.

  • On the post: Techdirt 2011: The Numbers.

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 07:41pm

    Re:

    And I thought I was angry and bitter.

    Hey Mike... how about an Angry&Bitter button while we're at it?

  • On the post: It Is Time To Stop Pretending To Endorse The Copyright Monopoly

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 10:58am

    Re: RE Seriously?

    Nice hasty generalization. Troll much?

  • On the post: It Is Time To Stop Pretending To Endorse The Copyright Monopoly

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 10:54am

    Re: Re: Actually

    Yeah. They totally quashed home taping.

  • On the post: Capcom Confirms: If ESA Is For SOPA, Then So Is Capcom

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 10:11am

    Re: Re:

    I bet if he had been offered a reasonably priced upgrade he would have bought it with no more than a grumble or two.

    As it is, it sounds like he would have had to pay full price for what amounts to an incremental upgrade. I would have been pissed, too.

    To you, this is about following the letter of some rule of law with no consideration for Capcom's business practices, or how they treat their customers, or any rights (legal or ethical) the customers might have. Very dogmatic. To me, this is about marketing and customer support. Treat your customers as merely an unlimited source of revenue that only needs to be tapped, and in the long run you'll lose them, one way or another. Treat them like people, look to their needs, engage them instead of treating them like cattle to be slaughtered, and they'll support you to the ends of the Earth.

    Besides which, calling it "stealing" is an argument by emotive language.

  • On the post: Is Monmouthpedia The Future Of Wikipedia?

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2012 @ 09:19am

    Then there's Davis Wiki.

  • On the post: ICE Mistakenly Deports Missing Teen To Colombia

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2012 @ 01:41pm

    Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

    At that point the police and everyone after was under the impression they were dealing with an adult criminal.

    Right, and because they can believe anything she says, they're both legally and morally released from having to investigate.

    Oh, and as several others have pointed out, also because no two people could possibly have the same name.

    I know a guy named Greg Schwartz who happens to live in the same town as another guy named Greg Schwartz. Fortunately they have different middle initials. Unfortunately the other guy is a bit shady. Our Greg Schwartz constantly gets mail for the other (including auto titles -- the other guy runs a junkyard), has been served with various legal notices, and I think even arrested once, for things that had nothing to do with him. He has several times had to go to court to prove who he is. Simply based on a common name.

    But hey, it's OK. This bunch of bozos is let off the hook because she gave them a fake name, and they're so stupid they just assumed she was an adult illegal immigrant from Columbia with a Spanish accent. Not a problem, she shouldn't have been there in the first place, she was asking for it! They're all asking for it, all the time!

    I think we should deport ALL accused shoplifters.

  • On the post: Google Penalizing Its Own Google Chrome Search Results For Violating Google Paid Link Rules

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2012 @ 10:46am

    Re: Re: Re:

    It's censorship if the government says you're not allowed to express it.

    Filtering the auto-complete is not censorship.

    You may claim otherwise if you like, of course. You're allowed to express silly opinions based on a misunderstanding of word definitions. But if you start screaming about Constitutional violations because you can't see dirty words in your Google auto-complete I am going to laugh at you. I expect I'll have company.

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

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2012 @ 03:15pm

    We're not getting enough new works from these dead people, so obviously extending copyrights on their existing works will give them incentive to create more.

    Duh.

  • On the post: Another Candidate Campaigning Against SOPA Supporter: Jack Arnold

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2012 @ 02:54pm

    Re: Re:

    Why? Should he wait until Dec 31st to start?

  • On the post: No, Sony Electronics, Nintendo And EA Have NOT Publicly Changed Their Position On SOPA

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2012 @ 02:43pm

    And yet... a ton of news sites have picked up on the BI story and written their own versions...

    BI should sue everybody for stealing THEIR STORY.

  • On the post: New Year's Message: From Optimism And Innovation… To The Power To Make A Difference

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2012 @ 12:56pm

    Re: Re:

    You also seem to have ignored the fact that remixes are a central part of culture and have been for, quite literally, centuries.

    Absolutely. The troubadours would spread news by memorizing each others' songs, for example. Stealing IP? Uh huh.

    And watching Connections constantly bemuses me as I see how one invention builds on others. I'm always thinking back to the IP protectionists on Techdirt, and how they claim that it's stealing and seem to think that innovation happens by inventing everything new and fresh.

    Waterwheel. Drives cams which drive hammers to pound grain to make bread. Those cams went through several generations of inventors before it got to computer cards. Meantime, they're also used in the internal combustion engine to drive and sequence the valves.

    Disease. Volta (who pretty much invented the battery) believed in the bad smell theory of disease. He had a special glass "gun" made where he'd trap gases and try to ignite them with a spark, and he'd wander around through marshes and such looking for the source of disease. Must've been a fun guy to hang around with. Well... the battery ended up being used in automobiles as a portable source of power, and the pistol for igniting flammable gases? The spark plug.

    You make the flammable gas in the IC engine's carburetor by atomizing a flammable liquid and mixing it with air. The atomizer? Came from the scent spray.

    From bells to bombards to cannon, they figured out how to make accurate cylinders by turning them on a lathe. Ended up in the IC engine.

    That's just a few of the ideas that ended up in Otto, Daimler and Maybach's 4-stroke internal combustion engine. In nearly every case the people inventing things were doing so NOT to make money, but to solve problems. And in nearly every case they were using ideas other people had come up with and improving or building on them.

    So, IP maximalists, don't tell me our culture is about throwing away everything that has come before and coming up with new ideas created from whole cloth. It's about re-applying what has come before in new ways that solve new problems, or solve older problems more efficiently.

  • On the post: Goodwill And Hospitality Theft Continue To Drive Up The Cost Of The Holiday Season

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2011 @ 01:45pm

    There's a 19yo woman who lives in my second bedroom and calls me "Dad". What cheek!

  • On the post: Verizon Wireless: Paying Online Is More Convenient, So Now You Have To Pay $2 To Do So [Updated]

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2011 @ 01:12pm

    Re:

    I don't like ANY of the carriers. Used to like Cingular, now they're part of AT&T. Used to like T-Mobile, but their customer service has suffered over the last couple years, they broke a promise to my wife and when I took over the account they signed me up for a less favorable (read: more expensive with fewer features) plan. And no way to get the same plan, even paying more money.

    "Dear loyal customer: your business is important to us, so we're going to go out of our way to make sure you hate our guts. Love, T-Mobile."

    Maybe I should just forget having a phone at all.

  • On the post: Lamar Smith Out Of Touch With The Internet: Still Thinks It's Just Google That Opposes SOPA

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2011 @ 11:49am

    Re: Living In The Past

    Jethro Tull. :)

  • On the post: GoDaddy Boycott Fizzles; Twice As Many Domains Transfer In As Out

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2011 @ 11:14am

    Re: In your face theft

    Imagine if you didn't lie outright to make your point. 17.5 of Internet traffic is infringing does not mean that 17.5 of the work I do is not paid for. The two are not related.

    Try again.

  • On the post: GoDaddy Boycott Fizzles; Twice As Many Domains Transfer In As Out

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2011 @ 10:50am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Dirt Sandwich of GoDaddy

    "...dirty hippy commie fags..."

    Hey, that's not true, I bathed this month!

  • On the post: GoDaddy Boycott Fizzles; Twice As Many Domains Transfer In As Out

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2011 @ 10:45am

    Re: Only for midnight to 1am on the 30th anyway

    Nice parting shot. What were you trying to accomplish? Did you know it just makes you look petty and vindictive? Not to mention childish.

    TD is an opinion blog, not a newspaper, and Mike puts a human face on it. One of the results is... sometimes Mike makes mistakes. And sometimes we, his readers, call him on it. Makes for some lively discussions.

    So go back to your sanitized NY Times or whatever, where nobody ever makes a mistake.

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