Dan 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (425)

• On the post: Woof: Jack Daniels Takes Fight Over Doggy Chew Toy To The Supreme Court

  

  Dan ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2020 @ 09:28am

  Didn't this play out before, somewhere?

  Our high court is reduced to quibbling over whisky and dog poop. {Insert comment about the use of musical instruments and uncontrolled combustion here.}

• On the post: SafeSpeed Executive Charged With Bribing Cook County Officials For Red Light Camera Contracts

  

  Dan ( profile ), 01 Sep, 2020 @ 06:13pm

  Re:

  Still figuring out the 3 sea shells, BTW.

• On the post: Peaceful Protests Around The Nation Are Being Greeted By Police Violence. Remind Me Again How Peaceful Protests Are Better?

  

  Dan ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2020 @ 06:08pm

  Re:

  I disagree. The proper response to burning a police car is to apprehend and detain you, in which a gun may or may not be necessary. It depends. To a properly trained officer, a match is no threat. (Unless they happen to have an accelerant on their uniform, at the time. Not likely, but OK.) Facing a flamethrower...? By all means, shoot away! A good officer can assess, a bad one cannot. A sidearm as a first resort instead of last is pitiful policing at best, Gross Negligence (by the legal definition) at worst. Policing as a profession, may have become professionally "lazy" because of their over reliance on firearms. Cops are just like any one of us. "I just want to hurry up and get this job done, so I can get home." Expedience is easy. Not a good habit to develop, in ANY difficult job.

• On the post: Peaceful Protests Around The Nation Are Being Greeted By Police Violence. Remind Me Again How Peaceful Protests Are Better?

  

  Dan ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2020 @ 05:15pm

  Re: Re: Violence as an answer to violence

  It was not my intent to advocate for or against, any position. My comment isn't about that. I'm merely pointing out that it's not law enforcement who will pay the financial cost, and reminding everyone that "their burning stuff" only applies to private property, not public assets.

• On the post: Peaceful Protests Around The Nation Are Being Greeted By Police Violence. Remind Me Again How Peaceful Protests Are Better?

  

  Dan ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2020 @ 01:16pm

  Re: Re: Peaceful is not the end of the story

  The fallicy here is that the law and morality sleep in the same bed. Often, they don't.

• On the post: Peaceful Protests Around The Nation Are Being Greeted By Police Violence. Remind Me Again How Peaceful Protests Are Better?

  

  Dan ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2020 @ 01:09pm

  Violence as an answer to violence

  The author does make a very good point. Sometimes violence must be met with active defense. (1776, anybody???) I do however take issue with one thing...

  "If the problem is law enforcement, it should be law enforcement's stuff that burns."

  A very important point here is being missed or ignored. The police own NOTHING. We the taxpayers do. If a police station burns, no officers that are housed there, nor any government agency, suffer any personal financial loss. We do. If we need to destroy our own stuff to make a point, then so be it. Just make an informed decision, knowing who will ultimately foot the bill.

• On the post: Everyone's Got A Pet Project: Patent Maximalist Says We Need Longer Patents To Incentivize Coronavirus Vaccines

  

  Dan ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2020 @ 10:59am

  Irony...

  I find this particularly ironic since those patient scambags tried to halt the production of virus tests.

• On the post: Local Government Employee Fined For Illegally Deleting Item Requested Under Freedom Of Information Act

  

  Dan ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2020 @ 05:40am

  We staff for this

  Here in America we have plenty of scapegoats on staff, for just such situations.

• On the post: Well Then: Activision Issues DMCA Subpoena To Have Reddit Unmask Whoever Posted That CoD Image Leak

  

  Dan ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2020 @ 09:02am

  Journalism?

  I'd love to see the Reddit user put a journalism spin on this and claim protection of his source.

• On the post: The End Of Ownership: Tesla Software Updates Giveth… And Tesla Software Updates Taketh Away…

  

  Dan ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2020 @ 03:38pm

  Cars as a service

  Linus Tech Tips' WAN show had an interesting discussion as cars as a service because of this, regarding features being attached to a user, not the car. Interesting discussion. Unfortunately, I can't find which episode to link here.

  But it seems to me that until that happens, the feature set should be locked at the time of original purchase. Even then, I can see giving endless software support troublesome. It's one thing to stop giving updates to a navigation center, no one may die from that. It's quite another to stop updating self driving features, I would think. An interesting first-world dilemma. With corporate fleets jumping onto this bandwagon, someone in charge (private or gov.) is going to have to regulate the do and don'ts very soon.

• On the post: Clearview Looking To Expand Its Market To Problematic Countries Known For Human Rights Abuses

  

  Dan ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2020 @ 06:42am

  The first rule of international business

  If one country doesn't like what you are doing, go to one that does.

• On the post: Google Says Clearview's Site Scraping Is Wrong; Clearview Reminds Google It Scrapes Sites All The Time

  

  Dan ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2020 @ 10:30am

  Re:

  In all fairness to Clearview, SWAT raids are not their fault, nor should they be. That's another issue caused by law enforcement.

• On the post: Google Says Clearview's Site Scraping Is Wrong; Clearview Reminds Google It Scrapes Sites All The Time

  

  Dan ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2020 @ 10:25am

  Re: Re: Fair Use?

  That mechanism has become useless. People who don't even know such a thing exists, can now put up a website in 30 minutes with the tools offered. That is, unless the Go Daddy's, et al. turn on 'no web crawling' as the default. It's another arms race, just like when telcom offered robocalling and then call blocking became a thing as a result.

• On the post: Google Says Clearview's Site Scraping Is Wrong; Clearview Reminds Google It Scrapes Sites All The Time

  

  Dan ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2020 @ 10:47am

  Shooting the wrong horse...

  I find it amusing that everyone is blaming Clearview. (Not that I'm condoning their actions. Far from it...) The underlying issue is who is getting the data...law enforcement. "Well gee, if the cops don't have this information, they can't burst into homes with a battering ram, and possibly kill people."

  In the land of sanity, people would be arguing that law enforcement shouldn't be doing that to start with. Then again, is way easier to go after one company then go after a much bigger organization that is not only their customer, but is also causing the actual problem.

• On the post: Facial Recognition Developer Told Cops To Test Out The Software By Running Searches On Friends And Family

  

  Dan ( profile ), 05 Feb, 2020 @ 05:03am

  What about the CFAA?

  "While it's not definitely illegal to violate sites' terms of service to scrape photos for resale, it's kind of discouraged."

  It's my understanding that going against a site's terms of service, violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. I hadn't heard that this had changed.

• On the post: YouTube Streamer Hit With Demonetization Over Copyright Claims To Numbers '36' And '50'

  

  Dan ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2020 @ 07:02am

  Re:

  No one is claiming copyright on one a single word under the law. The problem is YouTube's system of allowing a one word response for what is the alleged infringement.

• On the post: YouTube Streamer Hit With Demonetization Over Copyright Claims To Numbers '36' And '50'

  

  Dan ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2020 @ 06:55am

  Re:

  It all gets scanned. That's not were the problem lies.

• On the post: YouTube Streamer Hit With Demonetization Over Copyright Claims To Numbers '36' And '50'

  

  Dan ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2020 @ 06:52am

  Re: Re: Re: Re:

  The example given was a substantive new work.

• On the post: YouTube Streamer Hit With Demonetization Over Copyright Claims To Numbers '36' And '50'

  

  Dan ( profile ), 24 Jan, 2020 @ 02:40pm

  Scamming YouTube creators in this way is more common

  I've heard YouTube creators battling this problem. Scammers are using this to temporarily divert funds. And they get to keep all they got. YouTube doesn't try to get the payments back. I would love to blame this all on bad federal law, but YouTube is more at fault for allowing money to be diverted without proof from the alleged copyright holder. It would be easy for YouTube to hold all disputed funds in escrow, until the issue of ownership is resolved.

• On the post: Russia Disconnects Itself From The Internet, Asks UN To Let It Have More Control Of Internet Usage Around The World

  

  Dan ( profile ), 03 Jan, 2020 @ 11:02am

  Re: Re:

  I tend to agree AC. We grab everything and it does little.

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