Michael 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Why The Traditional News Media Is Becoming Less Relevant: They Didn't Adapt

    Michael ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2009 @ 03:25pm

    Why I dislike cable news...

    CNN - Used to be my favorite, now they've really become a -slightly- leftwing biased sideshow style 'action news' outlet. Plenty of examples of 'False/fake interaction', the most notable of which is when they allow vetted twitter-length comments to appear, often split due to length in to two lines text; displayed one after the other in a small area at the bottom of the screen.

    FoxNews - Obvious rightwing bias, additionally often a bias in favor of major corporations and religious orgs/corps. Same general 'action news for the masses' issue as CNN, but their fake interaction, if any, was the more traditional useless phone in style sound-bytes.

    MSNBC - I don't usually see this on TV in public or at home. The last time I did however it seemed like FoxNews with a business focus.

    BBC World News America - It's so bad that even the BBC seems to be trying to intellectually bail out the US; but of course their bias is mostly British. I at least get an obvious feeling of bias to compensate for and a more balanced set of coverage from international and US issues. On the downside they rarely have time slotted to properly cover complete depth on key US issues and they aren't (weren't?) even a 'basic cable' channel the last time I checked. It's very difficult to have a community of discussion based around TV stories most of my peers won't have the same access to.


    So, I dislike cable news because there isn't anything biased towards the consumer (anti-political or politically unbiased) that is able to provide proper time and depth to get to the root of issues and identify the parties who should be responsible for resolving the issues. Every one of which should be named and their mistakes noted to properly assign shame and motivate redemption by correction of mistakes.

    News shouldn't be about sensationalism as much as attention to detail.

  • On the post: Just Because Something's New Doesn't Mean It's Not Obvious

    Michael ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2009 @ 10:10pm

    Re:

    Have students attempt to solve these problems for their term/final projects. Grade them on their -approach- to solving the problem, not the fact that they developed a solution or not; though obviously anyone who developed a solution would recieve a better/easier grade.

    This is also why there should be a -limited- number of patents granted each year, though review may take more than a year. Developing a merit list and declaring the rest to be in the public domain/obvious and now documented only under copyright with mandated maximum reproduction fee is a good approach in my mind)

  • On the post: Do Hourly Employees Even Make Sense Any More?

    Michael ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2009 @ 05:08pm

    Re: ABC News writer interested in interviewing hourly workers about this topic

    I used to be an hourly worker, and am looking for a new job at the moment. The schedule was an odd one due to covering a 24/7 support contract with 4 people filling one position over a whole week.

    I have never been a salaried worker, but I've seen what they put my bosses and indirect bosses through where I used to work.

    A national reform on labor laws is really necessary, these are the following problems that should be fixed.

    Salaried workers should be considered flex time. The salary should be for a fixed and previously specified quantity of work, or option for such, over a given period of time. This should be flexible, but it should be required that all those values are specified in the contract. Contracts should also specify the minimum rate for over-time/unit work that both employee and employer agree to in writing before it is allowed.

    For hourly workers medical coverage should be pro-rated and should be applicable to -any- plan that the employee desires (thought the company need only pay based the rate of the plan they pick for the '20' hour workers). Examples; if a customer service location (store of any kind) schedules 5 hours of work a week for an hourly employee they are required to pay 5/20 (25%) of the cost for their default medical plan to be disbursed to a health insurance plan of some type. A worker is scheduled for 30 hours of work each week, they would then have 30/20 (150%) of the cost of the default 20 hour health care plan to disburse to coverage. There should be specific national and optionally local requirements for health care plans, A baseline of 'full' medical (general health and vision/etc benefits).

    All workers should also have their schedule set at least six weeks in advance. Any last moment changes should be considered at least time and a half, and not -required- work by the employee.

    That's all I can think of off the top of my head in about 15 min. Unfortunately this is one of those massively interlinked can of worms subjects.

  • On the post: Why Is Google Turning Chrome Into An Operating System?

    Michael ( profile ), 09 Jul, 2009 @ 12:40am

    Re: Re: It doesn't make sense

    Hum...

    Base Command : Check
    Mothership : Check
    Landing Craft: Desired... after I get hired again...
    Scout Craft : The scout should be aboard the Landing Craft
    Escape Pod : Check, many lifeboats ready.

  • On the post: How Toyota Is Using Patents To Slow The Growth Of Hybrid Vehicles

    Michael ( profile ), 09 Jul, 2009 @ 12:34am

    Literally Limit Patents (To less than one per day)

    The solution to weak patents is to limit patents to only the cream of the crop, those most innovative, non-obvious, and fully vetted as not being obvious engineering challenges.

    I would like to see patents collected in secret and a list of 12 - 365 top candidates for patents to be created. A set of engineers would then describe the -task- those patents were to accomplish and colleges around the country would have a year to try and duplicate any patents that they find. Other corporations would also have time to file. ANY duplication of the patented process would thus invalidate the patent as obvious to other skilled practitioners.

    I imagine this process would probably take 2-3 years to complete. A year for collection. A year for public competition to duplicate the effort. Then the time required to examine the efforts towards the patents to ensure that they aren't getting too close or duplicating it.

    Limiting patents to 10-20 years. Limit copyright to 20 years. Also, any period of greater than a year when either is unavailable would automatically and irrecoverably revoke the rights on the basis of abandonment.

    Trademarks, now those should exist until abandoned. (Thus the name Mickey Mouse attributed to that cultural icon would be a trademark. However just Mickey in a generic artistic setting, or attributed to say a moose would not infringe.)

    Obvious names wouldn't be protected (EG: Fido the dog), nor would concepts and contexts that had become part of popular culture. The test for that would be to ask a representative sample of plaintiff and defendant selected target audiences about samples of the 'original' and 'copied' work to determine attribution of influences. A scholarly examination of the surveys would, if audiences are selected properly, determine any cultural source works and the degree of material which should actually be tested for unattributed inspiration, or mutual discovery.

  • On the post: If You're An East Texas Company, Are You Now More Prone To Patent Infringement Lawsuits?

    Michael ( profile ), 27 Jun, 2009 @ 09:55pm

    Re:

    What about the forum area; the issue of patents has been discussed at length however the forum issue isn't something I noticed when I'd looked at similar topics in the past.

    Why isn't there some electronic courtroom system where you'd only have to visit a local court (with a built in conference room) and it would link up with the remote court. There would have to be some witness of the local jurisdiction there, and the only applicable laws would be shared between jurisdictions (hence it would inherently be either a federal or international level law case even though the courtroom may be local.); how could anyone say someone violated a law in Texas without being there anyway?

    With a bridged courtroom like that, the next issue would be judge. I see coin-toss OR availability being the deciding factor there.

    Of course why not skip that step and have a national pool of judges outside of any involved states, and thus less likely to be sympathetic to either party.

  • On the post: If You're An East Texas Company, Are You Now More Prone To Patent Infringement Lawsuits?

    Michael ( profile ), 27 Jun, 2009 @ 09:49pm

    Re:

    That is exactly what I was hoping when I read this.

  • On the post: Mythbusters' Adam Savage Discovers Insane Roaming Fees: $11,000 iPhone Bill For A Few Hours Surfing

    Michael ( profile ), 27 Jun, 2009 @ 09:34pm

    Moron in a hurry test

    What is really needed is a 'moron in a hurry' law for anything worth less than the poverty-line per year.

    Anything -OVER- that should require a HUGE statement saying exactly that it is not protected by that.

    The moron in a hurry test is roughly thus: If there is a moron who is just barely able to remember the details they need to sign up for the contract, like all my contact info is on a scrap of paper in my pocket, then they must still be able to accurately predict what their billing would be from any action proposed to them in relation to their contract in -laymans terms-. IE, You take a vacation to canada and your wife's mom calls you and complains at you for 3 hours, what is that on your bill when you get home?

  • On the post: Nebraska Officials Upset That Librarian Used Funds To Make The Library Cool For Kids

    Michael ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2009 @ 09:00am

    Re: Re: Re: It's a library

    Word of mouth advertising: $420 and incidental electricity.
    Attracting youth to a place where the best way to kill time in line is to read a book?: Priceless.

    This is the exact same theory that theme parks operate under. Except they aren't charging admission. Theme parks have a few fun (often simple) rides with fixed maintenance costs. They have -tons- of shops which is that they're really attracting you to.

    So the library in question is just another example of using a common semi-scarce good (the game time, which as noted is also edutainment) to attract a community (the scarce good they want to cultivate/their profit).

  • On the post: Bilski Continues To Cause Software Patents To Get Rejected

    Michael ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2009 @ 08:51am

    Re: Invention is Killing Innovation

    Reform that fixes -this- is what would really stimulate the economy, and it would actually SAVE the government money, not cost it!

  • On the post: Why Do We Assume No One Is Fixing The Financial Crisis?

    Michael ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2009 @ 04:13pm

    Reform regulations first

    The money we're putting out might be going in to a deep dark pit of no good unless we change regulations first. I'm no expert in this field but it's clear even to me that the incentives and regulations have failed to produce the desired outcome.

    Fix the regulations and incentives to make the system responsible.

    I'm for scaling back the lost value so that the same percent of the house is paid off as was before.

    I'm for the option of a forced 'sale' of the house at whatever it's current market value is to the lending institution, and profit to those who were buying it from the bank before that sale of whatever is leftover between the remaining debt and the value of the house. With the worst case scenario for the buyer being no more house and no more debt.

  • On the post: Why Government Backed Businesses Will Always Be Inefficient

    Michael ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2009 @ 08:58am

    Re: Good title

    The roll of government should be to regulate the market to protect consumers and part of that roll should be gracefully deflating and clearing out failing/failed companies.

    What they should do is an asset freeze, put anything that has a good chance of being solvent later or which can be restructured aside to have that treatment, and sell off the rest to the market to divide things up and liquidate remaining value.

  • On the post: Garbage In… Radical Transparency Out?

    Michael ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2009 @ 11:28pm

    Re: Devil's advocate

    I believe the transparency would be on the assets and liabilities and reporting basic statistics data. Data such as 'House in Zip+4 valued at $ (Year by firm) X year mortgage with average payment rate of Y in period Z.'

  • On the post: Not At All Surprising: TARP Is Ripe For Fraud

    Michael ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2009 @ 11:15pm

    Re:

    This is why you publish the 'books' (accounting database) to the public as information on how their tax-dollars were spent. Then you allow the public to scrutinize the data and you have strings attached to the money making those involved liable for any such wastes.

    In this way, the heavy lifting part of the problem is divided among everyone who cares to spend time on the task. It would also restore public confidence and give everyone out of work something to put on their resume as having done.

  • On the post: Time To Make Carl Malamud Head Of The Government Printing Office

    Michael ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2009 @ 11:04pm

    Re:

    STOP THE PRESSES

    No really. Stop the presses. We -really- do not need that until the final draft.

    What we need are checksums (math fingerprints) and open protocols and systems designed to assist people in managing the deluge of information that comes at them so they can actually understand what's been changed, and track issues they care about.

  • On the post: Time To Make Carl Malamud Head Of The Government Printing Office

    Michael ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2009 @ 11:02pm

    Re:

    Think of all the paper, and money, that could be saved by having soft copies of everything.

    Think of the -benefits- of having a visual diff tool built in so that it would be easy to see everything that changed between revisions, and even sign off on changes you liked and didn't want to track (until it changed again).

  • On the post: Microsoft Finally Reveals Some Of The Patents It Claims Linux Infringes… Sorta

    Michael ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2009 @ 10:47pm

    Re: Back to the Top

    I think that patents should either be eliminated or vastly restricted and more expensive.

    The number of patents granted in a given year should be in the dozens at most, and should be open to full publishing and public review for prior art and obviousness to engineers in the field. Announce the title and applicability of the patent as qualified by a single independent engineer who can understand it but is then barred from the rest of the process a few months before the patent is published for review.

    Patents should also be much more expensive to purchase. A fee of $50000 for any corporation and $1000, adjusting with inflation, for any person applying should limit entries to only the best and brightest.

    The rest should all be under the protection of Copyright and private contracts. Copyright should also be limited to a sane value somewhere around 10-25 years; any longer than a quarter century and I do not anticipate further relative incentive or value to the public.

  • On the post: AT&T Didn't Violate Antitrust Laws In Wholesale DSL Pricing

    Michael ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2009 @ 10:37pm

    Natural Monopoly / Public Infrastructure

    Roads, pipes, power and data lines. All of them are 'network' or grid technologies. It is inherently obvious that the publics interest is best served by having one, at most two (a good backup), infrastructures of each type of delivery technology. Said infrastructure should be owned by the public, and access to that first connection a community cost (at some level the public agrees on).

    Alternate providers could improve service, or offer additional products on top of said network.

    This would be much like the way on the air and Satellite TV work. Both are radio wave based services, and both use allocations of the 'media' from the government, but one is 'free' while the other is an upgrade.

  • On the post: ISPs Fear SAFETY Act Outlaws Email; While RIAA Thrilled They Can Use Retained Log Files For Anti-Piracy

    Michael ( profile ), 24 Feb, 2009 @ 08:11am

    Can I sue congress for wasting taxpayer money like this?

    Can I sue congress for wasting taxpayer money like this?

    Seriously, can I?

  • On the post: Throwing Money At Problems Usually Is Not The Solution

    Michael ( profile ), 24 Feb, 2009 @ 08:06am

    Warranties

    Warranties are part of the problem, people who buy cars want to know that they will have service and parts for the 'lifetime' of the car (which should be considered to be at least 10 years, though most extended warranties only go up to around 7 in my limited experience.) So, what the car companies who are going to or do go in to chapter 11 need to do is to devote a fixed portion of the car's cost to warranty. The remaining warranty would have a value that 'depreciates' over time and would thus be a vested profit for the auto-company. They should be allowed to invest that in any 'safe' bond or Cash deposit which could be liquidated within 6 months. If they can no longer back the warranty the rest of the vested money is handed off to a contracted firm which will bear the responsibility of fulfilling said warranty under the otherwise original terms. If the car company remains solvent then they eventually do get the full profit they otherwise would have. Further if we do bail them out it should be with purchased stock at market value. Which would then be sold back over time at a rate or by formula and selected values determined before the purchase. With the stock interest the government could then partner with the other investors to dictate what types of products the manufacturer would invest in. Like requiring all new vehicles to be low emission, and have very good mileage; or even electric/NG/fuel cell/hybrid whatever.

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