Mark Gisleson 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Washington Post Columnist Says 'Complainers' Will Be At Fault For Next Terrorist Attack

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 31 Dec, 2013 @ 01:15pm

    To Pincus's credit

    He was more critical of the BS leading up to and during the Iraq War than almost any other columnist I can think of.

    He's very old, very pro-defense establishment, but he's not half the hack his boss, Fred Hiatt is.

    Agree with you that this is a bad column, but I think it lacks context. Pincus did a better job of trying to slow the rush to war than Glenn Greenwald, Marcos Moulitsas and all the other bloggers combined (myself included).

  • On the post: Author Claims Copyright Over Interview He Gave 20 Years Ago

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 21 Oct, 2013 @ 10:35am

    A good writer but too full of himself

    For those who don't know Bryson, his breakout novel, "A Walk in the Woods," was based on his hiking the Appalachian Trail with a high school buddy. Yes, Stephen Katz was a real person. It's not clear if Bryson has any documentation from "Katz" allowing him to freely recount their trip.

    All you really need to know about Bryson is that he was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, but now speaks with a British accent.

  • On the post: Undownloading: Further Proof Those eBooks You Paid For Really Aren't Yours

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 19 Aug, 2013 @ 02:13pm

    DRM

    A friend recently published a book on Amazon. I bought a copy and then found out I could not read it on my Kindle due to DRM protection.

    The problem was that I broke my Kindle and bought a used replacement but did not register it with Amazon. That's what DRM is now about: you cannot read DRM content on an unregistered device.

    Why does that not scare the hell out of civil libertarians.

  • On the post: Comcast: We Won't Terminate Your Account Under Six Strikes; We'll Just Block Every Single Website

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2013 @ 08:09am

    CenturyLink (formerly Qwest) is not a part of this, and every tech/repair person I've ever talked to joked with me about piracy. They simply don't care.

    Sadly, they're regional so you can't switch to their DSL product, but Qwest/CenturyLink has always been a great ISP.

  • On the post: Microsoft Sued Because It Overloaded Surface Tablet With Pre-Installed Apps

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 16 Nov, 2012 @ 10:00am

    Re: Re: There is no consumer protection

    Here's a very old archive of a newspaper column about what happened to me, and sorry for misspelling Arrhythmia.

    http://mfinley.com/articles/cardiac.htm

    I accidentally bought Word 6 before it went on sale (clerical error) and because of that and my very busy resume writing service I got to be a primary troubleshooter for MS on that horrible release. Apparently not one single beta tester typed over 50 wpm, and they didn't realize how buggy the Typeahead buffer was. Word was literally dropping words and letters at random out of what I was inputting and suddenly my workload doubled due to the need for very close proofreading. Resulted in involuntary eye twitches and then my heart went out of rhythm, something that's never happened before or since.

  • On the post: Microsoft Sued Because It Overloaded Surface Tablet With Pre-Installed Apps

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2012 @ 07:36am

    There is no consumer protection

    in this country. When Microsoft's super-buggy Word 6.0 resulted in my hospitalization (cardiac arrhythia), the MN AG's office refused to even consider suing Microsoft. They flat out told me that Microsoft was bigger than Minnesota, and there was no point to litigation.

    Clinton's DOJ gave MS a free pass on monopolistic abuses. I don't think that horse is ever getting put back into the barn.

  • On the post: FTC Offers $50,000 To Whoever Can Come Up With A Way To Stop 'Rachel From Cardholder Services'

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2012 @ 01:14pm

    How can I contribute to that reward?

    She's called me literally hundreds of times over the last ten years ON MY RESIDENTIAL LINE.

    It's gotten to where I'm beginning to involuntarily hate everyone named Rachel.

  • On the post: Court Rules Yellow Pages Are Protected Speech

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2012 @ 03:51pm

    Outrageous

    The right of corporations to litter our doorsteps shall not be abridged.

    Corporate litterers now have more rights than human beings engaged in political protest.

  • On the post: FTC Supposedly Getting Ready To Go After Google For Antitrust Violations

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2012 @ 11:41am

    Re: Re: Given the Microsoft precedent

    I'm bad on this topic. I used to use other search engines just to go against the grain, but Google won me over. Of all the major players online, I cannot think of anyone else who's been more useful to me, especially not for free.

    It would break my heart to learn that Google's as bad as the rest of them.

  • On the post: FTC Supposedly Getting Ready To Go After Google For Antitrust Violations

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 12 Oct, 2012 @ 02:42pm

    Given the Microsoft precedent

    I don't think the FTC gets to call anyone a monopolist, ever.

    If what Microsoft did was legal, it is not possible to break this law.

  • On the post: Come Celebrate 15 Years Of Techdirt (And 50,000 Posts)!

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2012 @ 08:12am

    Congratulations

    Fifteen years is an awesome achievement, especially in a demanding area like IT trends. I've been tracking blogs pretty closely since my first one in 1999, and you are easily one of the most prolific quality bloggers out there.

    And no, I don't know why your anniversary isn't on all the news wires, or why you haven't received a MacArthur grant yet.

  • On the post: Court: Fining Jammie Thomas $9,250 Per Song Infringed Motivates Creative Activity

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 11 Sep, 2012 @ 06:51pm

    Re: Re: Re: Using her numbers, at one time I would have been subject

    Shhh! Don't tell Anonymous Coward how it works!

    Yes, there may have been one or two songs I downloaded that I didn't upload, but that happens when you're the last to grab the second album from a one-hit wonder band.

  • On the post: Court: Fining Jammie Thomas $9,250 Per Song Infringed Motivates Creative Activity

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 11 Sep, 2012 @ 06:49pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "If I went to a site called "pirate movie download den", I can be pretty sure they don't have the rights. When in doubt, air on the side of caution."

    OK, guide me through the world I live in. I go to one torrent site and they have very strict rules for uploading. Nothing on any label that objects to their music being shared, nothing by any artist who objects. I've uploaded there and I'm very confident that the music I get at their site is OK to share and distribute.

    The other sites I go to don't have rules, but I see a lot of the same music, so I know they have music that I can legally download.

    HOW DO I TELL WHICH IS WHICH? Are average music consumers really expected to keep up-to-date lists of all the no-downloading-allowed labels and artists? Seriously?

    I think what you're saying is that "free" should not be a legal distribution model. And you also seem to be saying that content that is legally uploaded and downloaded from a site like Pirate Bay is somehow tainted because not all of their torrents are OK with the RIAA/MPAA/porn producers, etc.

    You don't seem shy about reiterating your arguments. Please respond.

  • On the post: Court: Fining Jammie Thomas $9,250 Per Song Infringed Motivates Creative Activity

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 11 Sep, 2012 @ 04:23pm

    Using her numbers, at one time I would have been subject

    to BILLIONS of dollars in fines. And as a Minnesota blogger I kept posting that fact over and over again every time Jammie's case came up in the newspaper. I would leave comments in local newspapers explaining that I had downloaded literally over 100,000 songs.

    No one ever sued me.

    The difference? Jammie had a job and money in the bank. I didn't.

    RIAA never sues anyone who doesn't have money to pay, or a paycheck to slap a lien on.

    This is all about money, and only about money.

    Fuck the Eighth Circuit and the whores who sit on it.

  • On the post: Novell's WordPerfect Antitrust Lawsuit Against Microsoft Over Windows 95 Dismissed (Yes, This Is A 2012 Post)

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2012 @ 11:10am

    What a farce

    Microsoft notoriously embedded code in Windows (and, for Mac users, in Word) that made your computer crash if you tried to use WordPerfect.

    I was running a resume service and, for conversion purposes, tried to install WordStar and WordPerfect on my computer numerous times. You could not launch those problems if MS Word was open. Period.

    For this alone Microsoft's corporate charter should have been pulled, yet all these years later they're still beating up their victim in court.

  • On the post: NYTimes Reveals Details Of How US Created Stuxnet… And How A Programming Error Led To Its Escape

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 02 Jun, 2012 @ 07:49am

    Re: Iran

    I grew up in the '50s. I was born just months after the CIA deposed the first democratically elected leader of a Muslim nation. As I grew up I watched the US prop up the corrupt Shah as Iran did the scut work of American "diplomacy" in the Middle East, a job that was taken over by Israel after the Shah fell.

    Iran is an immature theocracy now, just like Israel. Iran, however, has centuries of history in their corner that indicates they will not attack their neighbors (Iraq attacked Iran with Reagan's blessings, remember?)

    Iran needs to be watched, but the Iranian people will slowly bring sanity back to that nation despite it having some crackpot leaders.

    I'm much more concerned about Israel, a nation that keeps moving right, and whose political parties are becoming increasingly hostile to African workers, gays and pretty much everyone who isn't Jewish.

    You can call it a tie, but Iran doesn't influence the USA. Israel does.

    I'm keeping my eye on Israel if you don't mind.

  • On the post: NYTimes Reveals Details Of How US Created Stuxnet… And How A Programming Error Led To Its Escape

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2012 @ 03:33pm

    I'm not disappointed in Israel

    this being one of the least of their crimes, but it always disappoints me when the Israeli dog wags their U.S. tail.

    I would hate to have to vote for Ron Paul to achieve saner U.S. foreign policy, but I cannot think of one major candidate in the last twenty years who hasn't crapped on the U.S. Constitution in their haste to embrace Israel's thuggish world view.

    Yes, many Jews died in WWII death camps, but how many Muslims have to die from IDF attacks before Israel calls it even?

  • On the post: Webmaster Convicted For Not Being Fast Enough In Deleting Comments That Insulted Thai King

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 30 May, 2012 @ 04:15pm

    The rules in Thailand are very well understood

    This wasn't a capricious action taken by the Royal Commission on Recording Industry Association Profits, or the Royal Motion Picture Association of Thailand. This woman was arrested for violating a well known Thai law. You think it's silly to have laws protecting the dignity of the royal family? I won't argue with you, and if I was in Thailand, I definitely wouldn't argue with you.

    But that doesn't make you right when you call the Thai people stupid for sticking with a monarchy. Thailand is the only Asian nation to have gone several centuries without being occupied by a foreign power. Thailand serves some of the best food in the world, and is the breadbasket of Asia. Thailand is not a stinking cesspool of filth and genocide like Cambodia, and is considerably more free than Burma, Cambodia or Laos, its closest neighbors.

    Yes, maybe it sounds silly to have laws protecting a monarch, but when's the last time you heard of a Thai college student being fined $675,000 for illegal downloading? Also, no one ever goes to prison for getting or providing an abortion in Thailand.

    Thailand's not a perfect country, but at this point in time it would behoove most Americans to STFU about other countries and their practices, most of which pale into insignificance when compared to our Wall Street driven mores.

  • On the post: Magician Dinged For Copyright Infringement For Doing The Same Trick

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 10 Nov, 2011 @ 06:19am

    Re: Um...

    Also, the WaPost article was pretty thin but they seemed to describe the "act" as being protected as much as the trick. In fact, I'm not sure it was the trick so much as it was the staging.

    I'd like to learn more about this decision. Is the actual illusion being protected, or the act? Both acts used a butler. That seems to have been an easily changeable part of the act.

    Not the best news article, imho.

  • On the post: Modern Art: $5 Million Worth Of Unauthorized Downloads On A Hard Drive On Display

    Mark Gisleson ( profile ), 23 Aug, 2011 @ 03:42pm

    Re: Contents of the PDF file.

    I figured it was a short list. I've always estimated the fines for downloads on my 1TB drive to be in excess of one billion dollars. I've blogged about it countless times but, having no seizable assets or steady income, the RIAA/MPAA for some reason never contact me....

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