JoeCool 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (2746)

• On the post: Thin-Skinned Chinese Government Busy Making American Sports Orgs Look Silly On Free Speech Issues

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 09 Oct, 2019 @ 01:41pm

  Re: Re: corporate stuff

  And that's why you don't open offices in countries like that. They sold their soul for some extra money, like many other big game companies today. They have no moral high ground to stand on at all, and are quickly losing the low ground as well.

• On the post: Violating The Fourth Amendment To Break Up An Underage Drinking Party Means No Qualified Immunity

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 09 Oct, 2019 @ 05:44am

  Hmm - not so sure

  This doesn't sound like a "win" for the "small guy". The guy only got a citation, and not for something major. No being bounced off the hood of the cop car or the driveway, no "contempt of cop" charges, no strong-arming at all. Five cars in front of a single house IS excessive, and four of the twelve partiers HAD been drinking alcohol.

  This sounds more like someone with money or connections... possibly both. Remember, there's two laws in this country: one for peons, and one for "real" people.

• On the post: Why Navigation Apps, Working Properly, Can Make Traffic Flows Worse — And What To Do About It

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2019 @ 08:12am

  Re:

  No, they looked at the existing traffic and decided a stop sign would be fine as opposed to a signal light. Now with the increased traffic solely due to traffic apps, they will HAVE to put in a traffic light, slowing down everyone, including the larger road.

• On the post: Why Navigation Apps, Working Properly, Can Make Traffic Flows Worse — And What To Do About It

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2019 @ 08:05am

  Re:

  The NIMBY attitude is justified in many cases. These apps are routing heavy traffic through small neighborhoods not designed to handle the traffic. It puts people in danger, and increases accidents. I don't see things like banning non-locals as the solution - speed bumps are the better option there, even over speed limits (people can and will ignore speed limits, but rare is the idiot that ignores speed bumps ;) ). I knew of a case like that in Houston many years ago where the neighborhood couldn't get the city to put in speed bumps, so the residents finally paid a concrete company to "accidentally" spill concrete all down the road, forming make-shift speed bumps that successfully diverted the traffic. The issue isn't NIMBY, it's selfishness - NIMBY is partly selfishness, but it also includes people who won't get up 30 minutes earlier to provide the time needed to actually get where they need to go on time, who will risk their own lives and everyone else's to attempt to go backwards in time on the road, be it weaving through traffic at an unsafe speed, to shortcuts at 60 MPH through small neighborhoods to avoid traffic.

• On the post: Jerry Seinfeld Wins BS 'Comedians In Cars' Copyright Suit That Was Filed Way, Way Too Late

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2019 @ 03:46am

  Re:

  And it's not like Seinfeld is ripping off anyone. Being paid six figures for work-for-hire writing is VERY generous. I know Star Trek Discovery writers would KILL for even half that.

• On the post: Court Tells Man $172 Red Light Camera Ticket Is Actually Less Than $100 And Can't Be Challenged In Court

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2019 @ 11:49am

  Re: Re: Sounds like this needs a constitutional challenge

  Civil violations are supposed to be able to be fought in court. That isn't something only for criminal cases. Now it's time for him to make use of his right to appeal a civil judgment. But probably no one will because it costs too much.

• On the post: Court Tells Man $172 Red Light Camera Ticket Is Actually Less Than $100 And Can't Be Challenged In Court

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2019 @ 07:47am

  Re: Bounties

  That's why you only ever see these cameras in larger cities. In small towns, they'd be used for target practice before a week was gone. I'm a LITTLE surprised that that doesn't happen more often in larger cities as well. Even if cops are more likely to respond to shots fired in a city, a pellet gun can still disable a camera, and won't generate a call to the cops.

• On the post: Elizabeth Warren Wants Congress To Be Smarter About Tech… While Grossly Overstating Google & Facebook's Market Power

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2019 @ 05:23am

  Re: Re: Have you tried digging up yet?

  Most of these folks fall under the old saying, "Better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." :D

• On the post: Devin Nunes Sues Again; He REALLY Doesn't Want You To Read This Article About His Family's Cow Farm In Iowa

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2019 @ 11:32am

  Change of venue?

  Seems like it should be easy to get this moved to California since nothing at all in this ties it to Iowa. Unless Nunes has asked the local judge for a favor for his family, of course. Might need to take this to a higher level before it gets moved... which is the point. I don't think Nunes believes he has a prayer of any of these suits getting even as far as trial. It's simply to make his opponent spend money and waste time.

• On the post: Court Tells Man $172 Red Light Camera Ticket Is Actually Less Than $100 And Can't Be Challenged In Court

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2019 @ 07:52am

  Sounds like this needs a constitutional challenge

  Doesn't matter if the fine is only a penny, you SHOULD be able to challenge ANY alleged violation of law in court. Period. If something can't be challenged in court, what's to keep them from moving the bar later. Today it's $100. Tomorrow it's $1000. The day after it's Contempt of Cop.

• On the post: Welcome To A World Of 500-Megapixel Cameras, And Surveillance Systems Able To Zoom In On Small Objects A Kilometer Away

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 01 Oct, 2019 @ 05:59am

  Re: "privacy" in public

  I don't know why they bother... they all look alike anyway. ;)

• On the post: Welcome To A World Of 500-Megapixel Cameras, And Surveillance Systems Able To Zoom In On Small Objects A Kilometer Away

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 01 Oct, 2019 @ 05:55am

  Re: Re: Re:

  It's easy to tell when a rocket is preparing to launch, even as long as a hour or two ahead of time. The "unexpected" thing was the explosion, not the watching an Iranian rocket launch. They were probably watching that launch like a hawk for hours before the launch.

• On the post: Federal Court Blocks South Dakota's Pro-Pipeline, Anti-First Amendment 'Riot Boosting' Law

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 01 Oct, 2019 @ 05:48am

  Re: Re: Re: Re:

  Absolutely! If he wants to build a machine that refines uranium and spew nuclear waste all over the country, no one can do ANYTHING about it! It's his property!

  _>

• On the post: Top Oracle Lawyer Attempting To Gaslight Entire Software Community: Insists APIs Are Executable

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 30 Sep, 2019 @ 12:42pm

  Re:

  Add to that that in theory judges should in theory have an open mind and only judge the situation based on the evidence and arguments presented and not do any original reasearch...

  I'd argue the opposite. A good judge will do all the extra research needed to come up with the correct judgment. It's lazy judges who rely only on the (quite possibly biased) experts presented by both sides. This is particularly true about an area the judge is not familiar with. That's partly why amicus briefs are usually filed - to help guide a judge towards available info they might not otherwise know where to look for.

• On the post: Rich Dude Goes Back On His Promise About Forcing California Into A Dreadfully Bad Privacy Law, Brings A Worse Version Back

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2019 @ 01:54pm

  Re: tainted democracy

  It's pointing out the California let's the rich bypass buying the legislature and go straight to buying the voters directly. They're both bad, but the second goes well beyond the pale.

• On the post: What's Australian For Streisand Effect? Perhaps It's Fatty McFuckhead

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2019 @ 11:25am

  Re: Re: Re:

  Hmm - I don't know about that. Gimme a couple billion bucks and lemme judge that for myself.

• On the post: Sprint Busted For Allegedly Defrauding The FCC Lifeline Program

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2019 @ 11:16am

  Re:

  So they'll probably get a $500K fine, knowing the way these things go.

• On the post: Yahoo Hack Victims Line Up To Get $100 (Or Less) For Historic Hack

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2019 @ 01:48pm

  They're learning

  They have learned one thing from the EquiFax kerfuffle - to request the money, you have to prove you already have credit monitoring covering at least the next year.

• On the post: Adland Shuts Down After Web Host Complies With Bullshit DMCA Notice

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2019 @ 11:00am

  Wack a mole

  You can still find it on YouTube. I just downloaded a copy in case I have trouble finding it later, but someone will repost it... and again... and again. Bridgestone is only drawing attention to something they want to hide. Stupid people just don't seem to get the Streisand Effect.

• On the post: Jerks 'Reporting' Women Who Swipe Left On Them In Tinder, Once Again Highlighting How Content Moderation Gets Abused

  

  JoeCool ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2019 @ 11:39am

  Ridiculously strict

  ONE strike and you're out with no appeal? I'm surprised they're still in business. There's no way any real-world app can be that strict in the long run given that a significant number of real people are assholes. All they've done is made it super-easy to be an asshole, so eventually, that's all that'll be left on the app, at which point it will go under. So I guess in the long-term, it's a self-correcting problem. :D

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