mac insand 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Well, That’s Everyone: Senator Wyden Letter Confirms The NSA Is Buying US Persons’ Data From Data Brokers

    mac insand ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2024 @ 11:26am

    bots to the rescue?

    Is this an issue that we could tackle with bots to create fake data about nonexistent actions from nonexistent people? Could bots help to restore privacy by diluting real data with noise?

  • On the post: HP CEO Makes Up A Whole Lot Of Bullshit To Defend Crippling Printers That Use Cheaper Ink

    mac insand ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2024 @ 10:30am

    HP's debasement is as extreme as it is sad

    HP used to be a name to respect. In school, I lusted after the HP-41CV calculators that I couldn't afford. They were built like a tank! The gas chromatograph that my school bought in the 1980s is still running. For the past few decades, they've redirected to a focus on consumer-grade crap. The HP-49 that I got in the '90s was an insult to the quality of the decade before, and HP has continued to sink. HP has become this decade's version of Packard Bell. If you're too young to remember the Packard Bell crap PCs, be grateful.

  • On the post: Freshman State Lawmaker Wants To Ban Porn In Oklahoma 

    mac insand ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2024 @ 01:06pm

    So Obscenity has no First Amendment Protection?

    1) Deevers' level of oppression is extremely offensive to me, so can we start abridging his speech? 2) We must not be too serious about stamping out 'offensive' when you can get pineapple on pizza in about any town. (I'M KIDDING!)

  • On the post: Carmakers Push Forward With Plans To Make Basic Features Subscription Services, Despite Widespread Backlash

    mac insand ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2023 @ 09:57am

    Do I understand correctly?

    So, TV prices have gone down as a result of selling our information that they gather (a $400 TV today beats the hell out of a $400 TV from the early '70s). However, auto manufacturers are making money selling our information while also looking for more.

  • On the post: If You Kill Two People In A Car Crash, You Shouldn’t Then Sue Their Relatives For Emailing Your University About What You Did

    mac insand ( profile ), 21 Nov, 2023 @ 05:11am

    Our auto problems start with our 'training'

    A big problem here in the US is that we don't take training as seriously as other countries. We effectively hand out licenses like Halloween candy.

  • On the post: The US Healthcare Scam Illustrated In The Impossibility Of Getting A Bill For Five Stitches

    mac insand ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2023 @ 01:14pm

    Insurance "Savings"

    The insurance gets crazy levels of discounts (95%) from hospitals and then makes it look like they paid the full amount.
    I found this out with respect to glasses. The last couple of times I've bought glasses, the initial price gave me sticker shock, but then the price dropped to merely being mildly obscene. The places told me that it was thanks to "your very good insurance." Yeah, right. The place my company uses is very convenient, but they don't take optical insurance. I needed a new prescription, I was in a bit of a rush, so I scheduled an exam there. It wasn't "free" the way my "insurance" lets me have "free" exams, but not bad. Then, I started looking at the glasses and decided to buy my own pair as well as getting the company-paid safety glasses. Overall, I spent less than half of what I spent at the places that take insurance.

  • On the post: Apples And Oranges: The US Patent And Trademark Office Combined Copyright And Trademark And Nothing Good Will Come Of That

    mac insand ( profile ), 10 Oct, 2023 @ 01:55pm

    Piracy and Economic Benefit

    10-12 years ago, there were regularly articles like this about Microsoft benefiting from piracy: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-apr-09-fi-micropiracy9-story.html#:~:text=Although%20the%20world's%20largest%20software,from%20free%20open%2Dsource%20programs.

  • On the post: Judge Tosses Donald Trump’s Half-Billion-Dollar Bogus ‘Big Lie’ Defamation Lawsuit Against CNN (While Whining About The Media & Internet)

    mac insand ( profile ), 04 Aug, 2023 @ 01:13pm

    So Trump is Upset to Have the Benefit of the Doubt

    Over 60 cases lost for lack of any real evidence, and Trump is upset over being called a liar. Wow! If he had any intelligence at all, he would be relieved that he wasn't rightfully being called the "Stupid Fool," and Trump hates to be reminded how stupid he is.

  • On the post: Judge Tosses Donald Trump’s Half-Billion-Dollar Bogus ‘Big Lie’ Defamation Lawsuit Against CNN (While Whining About The Media & Internet)

    mac insand ( profile ), 04 Aug, 2023 @ 01:11pm

    History versus Present Day

    That’s when he wrote “Mein Kampf”. It was afterwards that his career took off for real.
    What's that perfectly-fitting quote from Trump's ghostwriter? "He can't even read a book, much less write one."
    The saving grace is that Trump is too old to do the complete replay.
    I don't think an added lifetime would enable Trump to gather the discipline to become literate.

  • On the post: Preservation Fail: Hasbro Wants Old ‘Transformers’ Games Re-Released, Except Activision Might Have Lost Them

    mac insand ( profile ), 04 Aug, 2023 @ 08:59am

    What if we hadn't preserved Chess, playing cards, etc.?

    Granted, chessboards, playing cards, dice, etc. are far easier to recreate than a video game, but we would be so much culturally poorer without them. One problem is that the hardware and software that enable the games eventually getting in the way. I love the game Hack and the later games NetHack. However, the game that I used to play on MS-DOS in the late '80s will not play on Windows. The same is true with Dungeon Keeper, which is a great, silly game. Copyright made more sense for books and recordings* than for software, where the advance of technology is far, far faster. By the time interest in a game has faded, hardware and OS have also moved on. Backwards compatibility is no longer a consideration much of the time. We really need to shorten copyright for software and make the code available at the end of copyright to preserve this part of our culture. *Copyright made some amount of sense before Sonny Bono and Disney got involved.

  • On the post: Maryland’s Top Court Calls Bullshit On Ballistic Forensics

    mac insand ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2023 @ 05:06am

    Fingerprint reliability tests?

    Somewhere I read that studies on fingerprint reliability were forbidden, though I can't cite the source, so we can't say whether the article (or my memory) are reliable. HOWEVER, with the 'infallible' ballistics now being fallible, I'm wondering how dependable fingerprint analysis is.

  • On the post: In 303 Creative, By Happily Helping One Bigot, SCOTUS (Perhaps Inadvertently) Helped The Larger Fight Against Bigotry

    mac insand ( profile ), 06 Jul, 2023 @ 01:19pm

    In a perfect world...

    I would like for bigot-driven businesses to be open about it. In a perfect world, they'd be up-front about who they don't want to serve, and then most of us would do business with just about anyone else. I've got a feeling that too many would then go back to being quiet bigots, while too many of the customers would be apathetic.

  • On the post: Governor Newsom Desperately Begs NetChoice To Drop Its Lawsuit Over Unconstitutional AADC Bill

    mac insand ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2023 @ 01:49pm

    a commonsense red flag

    "Rather than join California in protecting our children, your association, which represents major tech companies including Google, Meta, TikTok, and Twitter, chose to sue over this commonsense law. "
    I've realized that "commonsense" is a word people pull out to demean opposing opinions. If you want to make an argument, use facts; don't passive-aggressively dump on anyone that might disagree with you.

  • On the post: Court To Donald Trump: Journalists Encouraging Someone To Break A Confidentiality Agreement Is Protected Speech

    mac insand ( profile ), 19 May, 2023 @ 01:07pm

    NDAs and limitations

    A quick look didn't turn up the NDA, but I would love to see it. Donald Trump has a habit of demanding NDA terms that make them very questionable. I've had to deal with a number of them over my career, in addition to having worked a number of attorneys to craft them. What has been consistent is that the enforceability of an NDA is inversely related to the breadth. A limited, well-defined NDA is not difficult to enforce, while a broad, barely-limited NDA is not enforceable. From what I have seen of the terms that Trump demands, the broad scopes and long time periods would make them a legal joke.

  • On the post: Automakers Are Making Basic Car Functions A Costly Subscription Service… Whether You Like It Or Not

    mac insand ( profile ), 18 May, 2023 @ 07:18am

    Fed Up with Fru-Fru Anyway

    A few years ago, I bought what will either be my last vehicle or my last non-vintage vehicle. All of the added crap is just more stuff to break and more distraction from driving. If I have to get another car, I'll go to one of the consignment shops where car restorers sell to fun their next restoration projects.

  • On the post: Fox News On Its Way To Finding Out What ‘Actual Malice’ Means In Dominion’s Defamation Lawsuit

    mac insand ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2023 @ 01:12pm

    The Problem with the Carlson Defense

    Paul,

    There’s been previous lawsuits where the likes of Tucker have argued in court that basically nobody of any value would take them seriously...
    I think there was just one, and that's bothered me in that he's court-vetted (can I use that as a term) as recognizably disconnected from reality. What really bothers me now is the judge ruling that there's no need to bring up January 6. January 6 demonstrates the damage these lies have done to the country. The people that believe the lies may be mental midgets, but they still staged an insurrection. So, I would have to say that the people that believe Faux News have considerable value, though that value may be a national liability.

  • On the post: Even Former NSA Lawyers Don’t Think A TikTok Ban Fixes The Actual Problem

    mac insand ( profile ), 13 Feb, 2023 @ 08:13am

    Old People and Western Stockholders

    The 'Old People' thing hits from multiple directions. The western world has a huge drive to focus on returns for the current quarter and not much beyond that. As a result, thoughts of what could make a company healthy for the long term just don't materialize. This goes for younger investers as well as pension fund managers.

  • On the post: Apple Still Sucks On Right To Repair

    mac insand ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2023 @ 08:26am

    The first time I saw an "Apple store" was in the early '80s

    There is a building in the town where I work, and the first time I saw it, the signage proclaimed that they specialized in selling Apple computers and Yamaha motorcycles. That was in the era of the Apple II.

  • On the post: BMW Further Embraces Making Basic Features A Costly Subscription Service

    mac insand ( profile ), 11 Jan, 2023 @ 07:37am

    monthly modem charge ripoffs

    The monthly charges on modems are actually worse than they first appear. The providers have a recommended list of modems that are acceptable, and they are all much better performers than the ones they provide. The payback is about 8-10 months to buy your own, and the purchased modems work far better. They not only make money from the monthly charges, they also go cheap to supply underperforming hardware for that price.

  • On the post: County Benchslapped For Illegally Detaining All Foreign-Born People For Pickup By ICE, Even If They’re American Citizens

    mac insand ( profile ), 16 Dec, 2022 @ 05:02am

    Re: Essence of a Hate Crime

    Anonymous Coward, Wow! I have never seen such a clear, succinct, and forceful argument for hate crimes as what you wrote. Very well done!

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