Jon B. 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (140) comment rss

  • On the post: Appeals Court: Bundling Cable Channels Together Isn't Anticompetitive

    Jon B. ( profile ), 06 Apr, 2012 @ 03:03pm

    "that lumping stuff together just pisses off consumers, and they might as well offer up an a la carte solution instead"

    I haven't commented much lately, and I hate to log in just to (rarely) disagree with Mike...

    But this statement isn't backed up by anything. There's no guarantee that a la carte would be cheaper for most people. The service would definitely be more expensive for cable companies to provide - the question is how much. If you like 30 of your 60 channels, buying those 30 channels 1 or 5 at a time would probably be more expensive. On top of licensing, there's a large technical cost for the cable company to implement a system where your channels are artificially limited so that those other 30 channels are turned off, and a lot of overhead in the billing department as well. Remember, this is cable... all that data is broadcast over the cable anyway. All they're doing is artificially limiting it, and adding the artificial limit adds cost.

    Sure, it might be cheaper for the people that only want 5 of those 60 people, but those people are dropping cable for netflix and hulu anyway.

    tl;dr: I only view 10 websites a day, but I still pay for all of them and that's good. Why should cable be different?

    The future of TV is internet anyway

  • On the post: Guy Loses Probation Because Court Decides That Facebook & MySpace Are 'Electronic Bulletin Boards'

    Jon B. ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2012 @ 11:36am

    Re:

    I agree with this. The only excuse here is that he uses it for his job. That's not a good excuse. If he wants to not be in jail and stick to the guidelines, he should try to get a different job. It sounds like the guidelines are intended to keep him away from communication platforms. Want to read the headlines? Fine. But no Facebook account for you.

  • On the post: Star Trek In The Age Of Intellectual Property

    Jon B. ( profile ), 23 Jul, 2011 @ 11:19am

    Re:

    Thanks for jumping on that. My brain focused on that same line...

    Capitalism by definition is the default, unfettered state of economy. The existence of replicators doesn't make capitalism go away or difficult to maintain. It just changes how that default state is described a little bit. Time, space, and manpower will always be scarce, so there's always something to "capitalize". Starfleet's members may not be serving to earn higher and higher paychecks. They serve to earn higher prestige and opportunities to go out and look at things. Even after eliminating money itself, capitalism still exists.

  • On the post: AP Finally Learns That On The Internet, You Can Link To Other Sites

    Jon B. ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2011 @ 05:35pm

    Re: WTF Bit.ly?

    Whoops... noticed that the SUP tag is not on the whitelist of HTML tags. Sorry.

  • On the post: AP Finally Learns That On The Internet, You Can Link To Other Sites

    Jon B. ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2011 @ 05:33pm

    WTF Bit.ly?

    Why are we still hung up on using URL shorteners? Why the fear of real URLs?

    If the deal is that we still want non-HTML agents to still show a brief inline cititation, when why not stick to footnotes? Make the inline line a Source 1 and then let non-HTML agents show the full URL in a footnote.

  • On the post: Senator Gillibrand Thinks PROTECT IP Is About The Internet Kill Switch

    Jon B. ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2011 @ 02:56pm

    "In the 21st Century, access to the internet has become an indispensible communication tool and a forum for vigorous public discourse. We have seen the power of the internet leveraged to promote democracy and topple repressive regimes in North Africa. While the internet has become a great tool for good..."

    So, the Internet has been a tool for good and vigorous public discourse in places where governments do not have means of killing that communication. Therefore, we need to build the means of killing that communications.

  • On the post: Can We Subpoena The Monkey? Why The Monkey Self-Portraits Are Likely In The Public Domain

    Jon B. ( profile ), 13 Jul, 2011 @ 03:42pm

    The smiling monkey photo was an AWESOME photo.

    The camera company should use it in a commercial... "If a button-mashing monkey can take a photo this good with our camera, you should too!"

  • On the post: Google Wants Another Court To Determine If Accessing Open WiFi Is Wiretapping

    Jon B. ( profile ), 13 Jul, 2011 @ 05:55am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    In many states, recording a conversation without either party's consent is illegal regardless of the method of the conversation or the method of recording.

    But again, it's clear that Google had no intention of recording conversations because of the nature of the protocol (not the frequency of the signal...)

  • On the post: Google Wants Another Court To Determine If Accessing Open WiFi Is Wiretapping

    Jon B. ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2011 @ 04:31pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    You managed to miss the entire point of my comment.

    Do you not agree that someone (neighbors, cops, Google) spying on your cordless phone conversation would be considered wiretapping?

    My point was that you can't make the type of radio wave your sole consideration for what constitutes wiretapping. Lots of things are transmitted over radio waves. Some are private (like phone calls) and some are not.

    I did say that Google is still right for other reasons, though.

  • On the post: Google Wants Another Court To Determine If Accessing Open WiFi Is Wiretapping

    Jon B. ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2011 @ 07:33pm

    Re:

    Consider cordless household phones that operate on the 900MHz, 2.4GHz and 5.4GHz frequecenies. These radio frequencies are in the same range as some wifi. Remember talking on these phones, and sometimes, if you accidentally got on the wrong channel and live too close to the neighbors, you could hear their conversation. These phones aren't encrypted or anything. If you did this intentionally, surely you would agree that's no different from wiretapping? I don't think you want to go down the road that just because something operates on these frequencies it's the same thing as FM radio.

    That said, Google is still right. You have to consider the intent of the communication protocol. SSID broadcast is built into the protocol and happens on the same frequency. It's not Google's fault that the protocol makes no distinction between reading someone's welcome mat and rifling through their underwear. What Google did is no different from what any other Wifi device does except that the Google car threw those bits into a bucket to be sorted later instead of sorting through the bits immediately.

  • On the post: Artist Behind 'Go The F**k To Sleep' Gives Away Free Illustrated Book On Jury Nullification

    Jon B. ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2011 @ 06:30pm

    Re: Re:

    It's a good power to have but a sort of weak one. It should be easier for the "people" to have laws overturned. For example, we should create a system where the jury can go beyond just saying "not guilty" but also force the judge to rule on constitutionality of the law or force a referendum to the legislature on repealing the law.

    Now, there might be better ways to do that, but still the People need more power than to just stick their tongues out at the law in isolated cases.

  • On the post: Artist Behind 'Go The F**k To Sleep' Gives Away Free Illustrated Book On Jury Nullification

    Jon B. ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2011 @ 03:49pm

    I honestly don't know how I feel about jury nullification in general...

    If a person is found guilty of a completely retarded law, that could create enough public outrage to have the law overturned (hopefully in a way that frees the "guilty")

    If a person is guilty of a completely retarded law, but found innocent through jury nullification, the law still exists and doesn't prevent the next person from being found guilty of the same retarded law.

    Of course, if it were me on trial, I'd probably be all for it, and I'm not particularly against it in any ethical sense.

  • On the post: Artist Behind 'Go The F**k To Sleep' Gives Away Free Illustrated Book On Jury Nullification

    Jon B. ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2011 @ 03:46pm

    Re:

    No, 1 holdout would make a hung jury, and in turn, a mistrial that may or may not result in a retrial.

    It takes 12 out of 12 for jury nullification.

  • On the post: RIAA: LulzSec & Anonymous Show Why We Need PROTECT IP

    Jon B. ( profile ), 30 Jun, 2011 @ 02:09pm

    Re:

    You win this thread, Mr. Eejit. You win this thread.

  • On the post: Prop Wars: Can Paramount Prevent People From Offering Up Plans To 3D Print Movie Props?

    Jon B. ( profile ), 30 Jun, 2011 @ 01:18pm

    I guess I missed the previous thing about Gene Roddenberry's son. As a big fan of ST:TNG, that made me giggle uncontrollably.

  • On the post: Reading 'Go The F**k To Sleep' May Lead To Child Abuse And Racism*

    Jon B. ( profile ), 29 Jun, 2011 @ 10:19am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Rule of thumb: don't "spank" your child harder in discipline than you would wrestling and playing on the living room floor. It always amazes how the same amount of force can be funny (to the child) when playing but effective discipline other times.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Saving The Planet By Using Better Packaging

    Jon B. ( profile ), 15 Jun, 2011 @ 07:23am

    Re:

    You first.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Saving The Planet By Using Better Packaging

    Jon B. ( profile ), 15 Jun, 2011 @ 07:22am

    Re:

    We're not talking about recyclable stuff. We're talking about biodegradable stuff. Stuff that eventually turns back into fertilizer when thrown in the regular trash.

  • On the post: 'Geek Power': Best Buy Sends C&D To Newegg Over Marketing Campaign

    Jon B. ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2011 @ 01:41pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    I remember going to an Egghead in Memphis a LONG time ago.

    It's nice that Newegg seems to be treating people well and growing.

  • On the post: Iceland (a.k.a. The Transparentest Place On Earth) Crowdsources Its New Constitution

    Jon B. ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2011 @ 12:14pm

    Re: Very Cool

    I think the US constitution is a little unclear in areas (and kinda hard to read unless you read an annotated copy with the bits crossed out that were repealed over the years), but other than that needs to be left alone.

    I would, however, love to see the STATES wikify their constitutions.

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