Jeffrey Nonken 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Of Course: New Fox Delay Means More Unauthorized Downloads Of Fox Shows

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2011 @ 12:39pm

    Jeez, Mike

    The cause is obvious. It's your fault.

    If you (and Roettger, et.al.) hadn't told the world that it's OK to download illegally, people wouldn't have done it. Socialist freetard!

    It can't possibly be anything Fox did wrong. 'Cause they're, you know. Experts.

  • On the post: Public Health Official Forced To Shut Up On Twitter, Blog For Daring To Speak Honestly

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2011 @ 12:31pm

    Re: autism

    "I know for sure now that OJ causes autism!"

    Don't be stupid. I mean, really, orange juice. Hah hah!*

    My daughter was diagnosed for autism after being evaluated for autism. It's obvious that autism tests are the cause of autism!


    *Joke.

  • On the post: Did Libyan Gov't Briefly Turn Internet Access Back On To Try To Stall Rebel Attacks?

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2011 @ 08:41am

    Re: ^^^ "bombinb" in my post above is intentional.

    You seem defensive.

  • On the post: Judge Slams Photographer For Bogus Copyright Lawsuit: Says Use Some Common Sense, Points Out 'Utter Lack Of Similarity'

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 19 Aug, 2011 @ 06:05pm

    What copyright means

    IANAL but it seems to me that copyright means that I can't take her picture and duplicate it (with some exceptions that aren't relevant to my argument).

    What it does not mean is that I can't take a picture like hers. I don't care if the composition is identical. I took the picture, not she.

    If it does, we're all screwed, the lot of us.

  • On the post: Ubisoft Removes 'Always On' DRM From New Driver Game; Replaces It With Something Slightly Less Annoying

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 19 Aug, 2011 @ 12:07pm

    Somebody might get away with something

    Years ago (1990s) I passed along (to a chat room with mostly intelligent people) something I'd heard that if the long-distance companies stopped billing by minutes and billed a flat monthly rate, they'd save enough on the simplified billing that (assuming they passed on the savings) long distance service would cost a small fraction of what we'd been paying. $10/month? $5/month? Something ridiculously low.

    (This was in the bad old days before cell phones were in common use. Just about everybody used landlines in those days. AT&T had recently been broken up, Sprint and MCI had barely become legitimate, and so on.)

    I thought that was kind of cool, actually, and a few people agreed with me. But a number of people were outraged by the idea: what if somebody called his cousin in New Zealand and then left the phone off the hook for a week?

    Of course, New Zealand would have been an international call, so the example was a bad one. But what would happen if enough people did something like that domestically? (Answer: probably raise the monthly bill by a few cents, and the phone company would probably add ways to automatically detect and disconnect unused connections, if they didn't have them already. Would it be widespread enough to jack up the rates? Doubt it.) And what about some lonely old grandma who only used 10 minutes of long distance every six months? (Dunno. Obviously there's no possible way to handle that, right? Because personally I can only think of three or four possible ways off the top of my head.)

    This is what I call the "somebody might get away with something" syndrome. It doesn't matter how much money you'd save on long distance; if somebody else got ten times as much service than I did but we both paid the same amount, even if it was 1/100th of what we used to pay for the same service -- if somebody could get away with something, I didn't want it.

    This is what I see happening with Ubisoft and a number of other companies (and people) regarding copyright violation. If one person gets something for free undeserved, it doesn't matter that the same availability causes 10 other people to buy it that wouldn't have -- it's more important not to let the filthy thief get away with being a freetard than it is for me to make more money.

    Of course we can't couch it in such terms, even in our heads, or our insanity (or stupidity) would be revealed. So we have to make stuff up about how much we're losing and ignore all contrary facts in order to make ourselves look like victims.

    Can't have people getting away with stuff! That's just wrong.

  • On the post: German Officials Outlaw Facebook 'Like' Button

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 19 Aug, 2011 @ 11:39am

    Re:

    As loathe as I am to agree, it was the first thing I thought of when I read that sentence. Mike has expressed the other side of this many times when it comes to laws, and it's just as true here as it is there. If it can be abused, somebody will abuse it.

    The fact that it's voluntary on the part of the users? That's a perfectly good point. Laws are imposed upon us, often against our wishes and sometimes to our detriment. This is a feature of a social site that the users can simply ignore if they wish.

  • On the post: German Officials Outlaw Facebook 'Like' Button

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 19 Aug, 2011 @ 11:33am

    Oh, fer cryin' out loud...

    ...Just give Schleswig-Holstein back to Denmark and have done.

  • On the post: CBO Says PROTECT IP Will Cost Taxpayers Over $10 Million Per Year To Censor The Internet

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 18 Aug, 2011 @ 02:56pm

    So...

    It will cost us an additional $10m+/year to help prop up a dying industry so it can give us more unmitigated dreck and treat its customers like criminals while continuing to withhold content and options that we actually want?

    Sign me up, I'm stupid and masochistic. I certainly don't want to see that money go towards education or social services.

  • On the post: Jay-Z And Kanye West Go To Ridiculous Efforts To Stop Album From Leaking

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2011 @ 10:09am

    Re: Re: Radiohead dislike leaks too

    I doubt Mike likes people putting words into his mouth, either. Unsanitary.

  • On the post: Jay-Z And Kanye West Go To Ridiculous Efforts To Stop Album From Leaking

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2011 @ 10:03am

    Re:

    Once it has been ripped it will be distributed to anybody who wants a copy. Only one copy will ever sell.

    This has been proven time and time again.

  • On the post: As Governments Get Censorship Happy, New Technologies Popping Up To Route Around That

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2011 @ 09:33am

    Re: "Routing around" Youtube requires high bandwidth.

    Please don't.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Cures For Everything..?

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2011 @ 09:22am

    Re:

    The last time (years ago, and not here) I pointed out that it was in your doctor's best interests to keep you alive but unwell, I was told my viewpoint was "dystopian".

    And I thought it was a quite reasonable argument. Tsk.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Cures For Everything..?

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2011 @ 09:16am

    Re: Re:

    ...And as usual xkcd does it with mirth and sarcasm. :)

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Cures For Everything..?

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2011 @ 05:25pm

    Today's xkcd covered the first one.

    http://xkcd.com/938/

  • On the post: Where In Trademark Law Does It Say It's Okay To Trademark A Town Name 'For The Good Of The Community'?

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2011 @ 11:58am

    Re:

    You mean S?turgis??

    Too late, I just got the trademark, as you can see! :)

    Hint: ® gets you ®
    ™ gets you ™
    © gets you ©

  • On the post: Spanish Appeals Court: Linking Is Not Infringement

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 12 Aug, 2011 @ 05:25pm

    Re: Re: Re: How can any number be infringing?

    Actually I took it as dry humour [sic] and tried to reply in kind. Note the quip at the end about us really speaking different languages after all.

    I'm old enough that our schools pretty much taught us to spell correctly. (I mean, American correctly.) I do remember the teacher telling us about a new, alternate method of teaching to spell phonetically, and showing us a book. At the time I thought it was pretty stupid, but heck, I was all of maybe 8.

    These days... I'm not quite as arrogantly sure of myself on that opinion, but I'm still not convinced.

    What I do know is that if I see a post that doesn't at least approximate English spelling (including substituting single letters or numbers for words), I will pass it by. I used to try to decipher such messages, and after having done so always concluded that it wasn't worth the effort I'd expended. Eventually I decided to stop bothering. I have yet to regret that decision.

  • On the post: Once Again NY Expands 'Anti-Piracy' Laws Based On No Evidence

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 12 Aug, 2011 @ 05:04pm

    Re: Re: One definition of insanity?

    It's certainly a good working hypothesis. Naturally I consider myself one of the exceptions, but then, I also think I'm smarter than average. :)

  • On the post: AT&T Accidentally Reveals That It Doesn't Need T-Mobile At All

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 12 Aug, 2011 @ 04:50pm

    Oops

    Hey, AT&T -- that cool, breezy feeling around your genitals? That means your fly is unzipped and something is hanging out that you didn't want to be.

  • On the post: BART Turns Off Mobile Phone Service At Station Because It Doesn't Want Protestors To Communicate

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 12 Aug, 2011 @ 04:45pm

    Oh come on, Mike. I can't believe you're putting this spin on it.

    "...apparently shut down all cell service at a station under the (false, as it turns out) belief that protesters were going to show up there..."

    Obviously the protesters didn't show up because of the agency's wise, proactive precaution of shutting off the cell repeaters. I'm astonished that even you can see it any other way.

    Elephant repellent!

  • On the post: Will TV Providers Finally Realize That People Really Are Cutting The Cord — And Not Just Because Of The Economy

    Jeffrey Nonken ( profile ), 12 Aug, 2011 @ 09:54am

    Eh, we cut the cord years ago

    The only reason I have a TV at all is to watch DVDs and, occasionally, tapes (more often to transfer the tapes). I also have my old Mac laptop hooked up to watch streaming and things like (see old rant about an American movie only available in region 2 format, or on VHS).'

    I haven't paid a cable bill in over a decade.

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