John Fenderson 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (17316)

• On the post: New Yorker Decides US Has Too Much Free Speech; Dismisses 'Free Speech Extremists'

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2015 @ 09:18am

  Re: regarding publication freedom and varied media

  "how is telling me what sort of sign I can use NOT an abridgement of my right to free speech"
  
  It is. Equally, laws that say I can't beat up random people in the street are an abridgement of my freedoms. Laws that say I can't dump toxic waste into a stream are and abridgement of my freedoms. Etc.
  
  There is no such thing as an absolute right, because every right can be exercised in a way that abridges other rights. Free speech is no exception to this. There are plenty of examples of free speech restrictions that most people don't find controversial. Slander and libel laws, for example.
  
  
  I think the key is finding the right balance between these competing rights. Generally, there is an attempt to find a balance that leads to the least harm and most freedom overall. If we are restricting the rights of people, regardless of what rights we're talking about, then a strong case must be made that failing to restrict them causes either a clear harm to the public or an even greater restriction in the rights of others.
  
  For free speech, this is an exceptionally high bar. As it should be.

• On the post: Spin Bike EBay Listing Removed Because 'Spin Bike' Is Apparently A Non-Generic Trademark

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2015 @ 08:23am

  Re:

  "You would do the same if it was yours."
  
  I always love it when people make this sort of argument, since they have literally no way of knowing whether or not the assertion is true.

• On the post: LMFAO, The Band, Sends Cease And Desist Over LMFAO, The Beer

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2015 @ 08:16am

  Re: LMFAO in use since 2003

  And the term was in common use well before that. I saw it (along with the other standards like LOL) used frequently in various MUDs going back to the early '90s. I'm confident that their use is even older than that.

• On the post: New Leaks Confirm AT&T's Position As NSA's Favorite Telco 'Partner'

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2015 @ 08:12am

  Re: Vote with your wallet people

  But who will you switch to? All of the major cell companies do this, and the minor ones are just reselling time on the major's networks.

• On the post: New Leaks Confirm AT&T's Position As NSA's Favorite Telco 'Partner'

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2015 @ 08:10am

  Re:

  That past AT&T management goes way back to the days of the telegraph. That was when the deep ties between AT&T and government spies were cemented.

• On the post: New Hampshire Law Banning Ballot Selfies Struck Down As Unconstitutional

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2015 @ 09:08am

  Re: Re: Re:

  "Voting needs to be secret IRRESPECTIVE of whether the voter wants it to be."
  
  So why isn't it illegal for me to tell others how I voted?

• On the post: Lenovo Busted For Stealthily Installing Crapware Via BIOS On Fresh Windows Installs

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2015 @ 09:05am

  Re: Re: Re: lenovo caught useing the NSA's toys.

  The way this worked is that Windows actively looks for the code embedded in the BIOS, loads it, and executes it. This is a "feature" of Windows.
  
  Simply having the code in the BIOS (even if that code can execute under any OS) doesn't do anything at all. Something on the OS side of things must load and execute that code. Linux does not look for, load, or execute any such code and so is immune from this attack vector.

• On the post: Chelsea Manning Threatened With Indefinite Solitary Confinement For Expired Toothpaste & Having A Copy Of Vanity Fair

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2015 @ 09:00am

  Re:

  "since when has toothpaste been medication?"
  
  Technically speaking, it became medication as soon as they added fluoride to it.

• On the post: Chelsea Manning Threatened With Indefinite Solitary Confinement For Expired Toothpaste & Having A Copy Of Vanity Fair

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2015 @ 08:55am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Military Prisons

  "the goal is to have soldiers understand that if they are faced with adversity, they need to deal with it in a disciplined way, not whine and complain."
  
  That can't be the goal, because there are much better ways of achieving that. I rather suspect that the actual goal is to get soldiers to be instinctively subservient and as divorced from humanity as possible. This would make sense: when you're trying to convert people into killing machines, you need to break them.

• On the post: Paramount Pictures Goes After The Codfather Fish Shop Over A Fish That Looks Like Marlon Brando

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2015 @ 08:40am

  Re: To answer the question...

  "Trademarks have to be defended, or they go up in a puff of smoke."
  
  This is often an overstated thing. It is not true that every instance of perceived infringement must be attacked in order to keep the trademark. Also, I'm not familiar with Australian trademark law, but in the US this would not be a slam-dunk case of infringement.
  
  However, for the sake of argument, let's say that it is infringement and Paramount must do something about it or lose their trademark. There's a MUCH better way to do this: offer the restaurant a license for $1. Problem solved.

• On the post: Spin Bike EBay Listing Removed Because 'Spin Bike' Is Apparently A Non-Generic Trademark

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2015 @ 08:33am

  "Spin bike" is generic to me

  Considering that I literally had no idea that it was a trademarked term until I read this article, despite seeing it used for decades in reference to exercise bikes, the term is generic as far as I'm concerned and I will continue to use it that way.

• On the post: Windstream To Farmer: Sure, We'll Give You Fiber Broadband — For $383,500

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2015 @ 08:29am

  Old game

  I'll never forget in the pre-broadband days when I wanted two additional phone lines run to my house. In the city. The phone company wanted a bit over $10,000 to do this. During this debacle, I learned that it was company policy to avoid putting in more trunk lines than there was current demand for, so unless you got lucky and there happened to be unused capacity, if you wanted more than one phone line then you had to pay for the company to add additional trunk lines.

• On the post: Lenovo Busted For Stealthily Installing Crapware Via BIOS On Fresh Windows Installs

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 13 Aug, 2015 @ 11:47am

  Re:

  But that won't clear the firmware. As soon as you install Windows again, the malware will be back.

• On the post: New Hampshire Law Banning Ballot Selfies Struck Down As Unconstitutional

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 13 Aug, 2015 @ 11:42am

  Re:

  "On the other hand people fought very long and hard to establish the secrecy of the ballot. That secrecy is worth fighting for."
  
  And nothing about this threatens the secrecy of the ballot. Your vote remains just as secret if selfies are allowed: exactly as secret as you want it to be.

• On the post: Lenovo Busted For Stealthily Installing Crapware Via BIOS On Fresh Windows Installs

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 13 Aug, 2015 @ 11:38am

  Re:

  Lenovo thought its customers were so stupid that they'd never notice. They weren't far wrong -- look how long it took to get noticed.

• On the post: Chelsea Manning Threatened With Indefinite Solitary Confinement For Expired Toothpaste & Having A Copy Of Vanity Fair

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 13 Aug, 2015 @ 11:32am

  Re: Re: Military Prisons

  What I'm hearing here is that the "military way" is to teach prisoners/soldiers that the military cannot be trusted.

• On the post: Chelsea Manning Threatened With Indefinite Solitary Confinement For Expired Toothpaste & Having A Copy Of Vanity Fair

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 13 Aug, 2015 @ 11:28am

  Re: Re: Disrespect

  And pointless. Nobody has ever gotten respect by demanding it, and nobody ever will.

• On the post: Chelsea Manning Threatened With Indefinite Solitary Confinement For Expired Toothpaste & Having A Copy Of Vanity Fair

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 13 Aug, 2015 @ 11:26am

  Re: Re: Re: Re:

  "Tell them indefinite, throw them in the hole, and then let them out in two weeks."
  
  That is clearly and unambiguously torture. Despicable.

• On the post: Lenovo Busted For Stealthily Installing Crapware Via BIOS On Fresh Windows Installs

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 13 Aug, 2015 @ 10:21am

  Re: lenovo caught useing the NSA's toys.

  "this type of attack absolutely works against linux"
  
  You've mixed together a bunch of technically very different attack vectors, so I'm not sure which one(s) you're talking about with this assertion.
  
  Assuming you're talking about the one the article is discussing, then no, this attack does not work against Linux. It requires the active support and cooperation of the operating system, and Linux does not provide the necessary support.

• On the post: Lenovo Busted For Stealthily Installing Crapware Via BIOS On Fresh Windows Installs

  

  John Fenderson ( profile ), 13 Aug, 2015 @ 10:18am

  Re:

  This trick couldn't be used to do that -- but the ability to prevent non-MS OS installs already exists in many modern machines: UEFI. Now that Microsoft no longer requires OEMs to provide a way to disable UEFI, look for an increasing number of systems that do this.

Next >>