Miff 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (151)

• On the post: Want To Destroy Any Hope Of Serious Cybersecurity? Give The DOJ Its Desired Backdoor Wiretaps On All Communications

  

  Miff ( profile ), 17 May, 2013 @ 04:03pm

  Well, time to move all our online infrastructure to a government that doesn't care about the Internet. Like China. Or North Korea.

• On the post: Native Advertising Is Advertising People Want

  

  Miff ( profile ), 26 Apr, 2013 @ 10:28pm

  At least native advertising has a much higher bar to distribute malware then traditional advertising. (You have to specifically get the site owner to include an iframe to your site rather then just paying someone who buys ads from someone who buys ads from Google.)

• On the post: Maryland The Latest State To Trample The First Amendment With Quixotic Attempt To Outlaw 'Cyberbullying'

  

  Miff ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2013 @ 03:57pm

  You know

  I don't think "actual bullying" (aka assault, battery, petty theft, etc) is illegal anywhere. :/

• On the post: DJs' 'Dihydrogen Monoxide' April Fool's Prank Results In Suspension And Possible Felony Charges

  

  Miff ( profile ), 04 Apr, 2013 @ 11:49am

  I prefer more obscure alternate names for water, such as hydrogen hydroxide, hydroxylic acid, hydrogen oxide, and oxidane (the last of which is the official IUPAC name! (when it's necessary to disambiguate between liquid water and H2O regardless of state)).

• On the post: Author Claims That If Apple And Microsoft Started Today They'd Fail Without Stronger Patent Protection

  

  Miff ( profile ), 04 Apr, 2013 @ 11:42am

  Well actually if they had today's level of patent enforcement back then, Compaq would have been wiped off the map and IBM would have remained the dominant player in the computing world.
  
  Oh yeah, and we wouldn't have had the portable PC so there's that.

• On the post: If Your Cable Company Were Honest, This Is What Its Commercial Would Look Like

  

  Miff ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2013 @ 04:12pm

  Re: very funny, fortunately doesn't fit my experience

  Comcast is rolling out IPv6 nationwide and will send a tech for bad signal levels. Knology sees no benifit to IPv6 and even at -12 dBmV, you'll sit on hold for 90 minutes before all they do is lock out your ability to view signal levels at the modem.
  
  I showed my modem stats to a Comcast tech and he said that he's surprised that I even get internet at all.

• On the post: Internet Under Attack: World's Largest DDoS Attack Almost Broke The Internet

  

  Miff ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2013 @ 09:37pm

  At the very least, say goodbye to open dns resolvers after this...

• On the post: Disappointing: Tim Berners-Lee Defends DRM In HTML 5

  

  Miff ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2013 @ 03:21pm

  Re: Re: Re: Not surprising?

  Mozilla would never add DRM to Firefox. Remember these are the same people who didn't add MP4 support becuase of MPEG-LA.

• On the post: Awesome Stuff: Rethinking The Mouse (Finally!)

  

  Miff ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2013 @ 06:27pm

  Re: Re:

  I am in no way a fan of wireless mice. Last mouse I had required it's batteries changed every two weeks or so (and these were brand name batteries) and every time you did, you had to "re-syncronize" it with the PC by pushing the button on the mouse then on the base. Or is it pushing the button on the base, then on the mouse? Or is it holding the base while pushing the mouse? Or holding the mouse while pushing the base?
  
  It's things like this that led me back to wired PS/2 mice. I eventually switched to USB when computer manufacturer started putting a decent amount of usb ports on their systems.

• On the post: National Post Wants $150 To Quote Articles (Even The Parts It Quoted From Other Articles)

  

  Miff ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2013 @ 12:50pm

  I'm surprised that googling copyright myths doesn't turn up anything about the #1 copyright myth: That copyright is necessary.

• On the post: Online Polish Loses Some Of Its Polish

  

  Miff ( profile ), 01 Mar, 2013 @ 07:37am

  I find it a remarkable co-incidence that English just so happened to be the language where primary development of computing took place, and it seems to be the only major languages that uses the Latin alphabet with no diacritics.

• On the post: North Carolina Newspaper With No Backbone Apologizes For Its Request For Public Records

  

  Miff ( profile ), 27 Feb, 2013 @ 09:11am

  So...

  Carrying a deadly weapon anonymously: OK.
  
  Posting offensive comments on the Internet anonymously: WRONG.

• On the post: Make A Counterstrike Map Of A Montreal Metro Station, Get Threatened With $50,000 Fine

  

  Miff ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2013 @ 04:21am

  I don't play CS, but as a Team Fortress 2 player I can't help but think a real-world building would make a terrible game map gameplay-design-wise.

• On the post: Truly Stupid Ideas: Adding DRM To HTML5

  

  Miff ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2013 @ 08:12pm

  Why not? Apple added patented technology (MP4) to HTML5 already.
  
  Besides, it doesn't matter what the WHAT-WG says. Google has ultimate authority over HTML5. Whatever it adds to Chrome will end up in Safari (now just a fancy UI over Chrome anyways) and then Mozilla will be pressured to play catch-up.
  
  It doesn't matter though if Mozilla implements it anyways. They'll implement a different version where the only difference is that the code says "moz" instead of "webkit". Only half of the sites that use the Webkit version will even bother adding the Mozilla version too.
  
  And now you see why I got out of the web developer business. >_

• On the post: Police Department Rewards Officer Caught By An Online Pedophile Sting With Full Retirement Benefits

  

  Miff ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2013 @ 08:06pm

  > not even his pedophile conduct was sufficient to push him over the line of denying him a pension.
  
  Maybe if he was caught violating a websites's terms of service.

• On the post: Feds Seize Legit 49ers Merchandise, But Apparently Unconcerned About Actual Fraud In Ticket Sales

  

  Miff ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2013 @ 07:59pm

  Sweet

  I guess selling fake super bowl tickets is legal now.

• On the post: How Unlocking Your Phone May Now Be A Crime: $500,000 Fines And 5 Years In Prison For First Offense

  

  Miff ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2013 @ 01:07pm

  Re: Re:

  Wikipedia says "grievous bodily harm," looks like a UK term for an assault that causes injuries.

• On the post: Just Two More Days To Unlock Your Phone, Then You'll Be Breaking The Law

  

  Miff ( profile ), 24 Jan, 2013 @ 07:24pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  Unless you buy a device made by a company that doesn't want you messing with your phone, which is... all of them?

• On the post: Developer Of Bookmaking Software Gets Full Kim Dotcom Treatment For 'Promoting Gambling'

  

  Miff ( profile ), 08 Jan, 2013 @ 07:19am

  Yet another reason not to do business in the United States.

• On the post: Patent Troll Shell Companies Shake Down Small Businesses For $1k Per Employee For Using Network Scanner

  

  Miff ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2013 @ 06:05am

  A little marketing can help this.

  Xerox or HP or whoever makes these scanners can include in the device's license "this license includes the right to use all patented technology within the device" or similar. Then they can market their device as patent-protected, the legal theroy being that the company does have a patent license and if they say it's invalid they should take it up with the licenser, that is, Xerox or HP or whoever.
  
  Then again this problem can also be solved if the statuatory limits for losing a patent lawsuit were raised.

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