Oliver Wendell Jones’s Techdirt Profile

On the post: IBM Patents 'Paper Or Plastic'?

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 08 Aug, 2008 @ 07:06am

English or Spanish?

Now maybe someone can add this same functionality to my ATM card so that I don't have to choose a language every single time I use my card - I want English - just like last time, and the time before that and the hundreds of times before that! Now that would be a useful invention!

On the post: Can A Company Ban Retailers From Selling Its Products On eBay?

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 03 Jul, 2008 @ 07:40pm

The lawsuit is referring to retailers - not re-sellers

If you buy a stroller, you can re-sell it on ebay.

If you're a store owner who purchases strollers from this manufacturer, they don't want you selling them directly on ebay.

Although I don't agree with what they want, there is distinct difference between the two. Mike leads us to believe that it's about the re-selling of the strollers when that doesn't appear to be the real case. (sorry, Mike!)

On the post: Selling Stuff On The Internet? Why, That Infringes On A Patent!

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2008 @ 02:01pm

I've said it before...

Taking an existing action or business model and adding the phrase "over the internet" to the end of it does not make it a new idea nor should it be patentable - unless you already hold the patent on the default action.

This same rules applies to new technologies as they become available, and so it also applies to "via a wireless connection", "via a 3G wireless network", etc....

This means that people who took actions like "Conduct an auction" and added "over the internet" to it shouldn't be able to get a patent unless they invented auctions in the first place and still hold a patent on the concept.

On the post: On The Criminality Of WiFi Piggybacking…

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2008 @ 12:53pm

Change your SSID configuration

I changed my SSID to "NOTPUBLIC" and then turned off SSID Broadcast - voila, no one accesses my router but me any more.

My neighbors, the "Linksys" and "D-Link" families, both leave their systems wide open, so if anyone nearby needs to beg / borrow / steal some free wi-fi it's available from their routers.

On the post: Why Do You Need A Doctor's Note To Get A Genetic Test?

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 17 Jun, 2008 @ 07:38am

Traditionally...

I used to work in a hospital laboratory, back before HIV became the issue it is today - back when it was "safe" to work around blood and bodily fluids...

When I transitioned through the Serology department, the first thing they taught me was "when a patient calls and asks about the results of the test(s) - you tell them to call their doctor - you never, ever, ever give results directly to a patient".

I asked why and the answer (which now seems obvious) is that you don't know the context in which the test was performed - you don't know if the patient wants a positive or negative result and you're not trained to tell a patient that (s)he is positive for a life-threatening disease, or that the couple who have been trying for 30 months to conceive don't want to hear that their pregnancy test result is negative. You can't always assume that what you think is good news is what the patient wants to hear.

If you take a cheek swab from your infant and send it on for DNA profiling, do you want a form letter printed from a computer that says "Your sample show a high probability of a crippling genetic condition and you will be lucky to live long enough for a second birthday"? Or would you rather have a doctor explain it to you and be there to answer the questions that you are no doubt going to have?

I don't necessarily agree that it needs to be a law that doctors have to be involved, but there are good reasons for wanting a doctor to be between you and the lab.

On the post: How The Digital TV Transition Will Accidentally Help HDTV Sales

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 11 Jun, 2008 @ 11:51am

People are stupid

I work at a very small TV station in the Midwest and we get daily phone calls from people asking about the DTV switchover and almost all of them are from people watching us on cable.

The thing that people need to be aware of is that a lot of satellite systems allow you to hook up an external antenna and pick up your local channels over the air (as they do in our area) and if you have an older satellite box (more than 2 years old) you need to contact your satellite provider and find out if it has a built in ATSC tuner or else you're going to need a converter box or a new satellite box before the switchover in Feb of 2009.

Don't be misled by the statement "if you're on satellite - you're safe" as you may not be.

On the post: iPhone Shows That Cheaper Phones Are Still Important

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2008 @ 02:41pm

Re: They could have sold more...

They could have sold more if they didn't tie it to AT&Ts crappy service with crippled internet speeds.

Where I live (small town in the middle of the Midwest) AT&T is the worst possible service to have as there aren't many towers in the are that support it and the few people that do use can't make or receive calls in a lot of locations, plus the AT&T data network here is horribly slow.

If Apple had chosen two cell companies that don't compete directly with each other (i.e., there are no AT&T cell stores anywhere near here, it's all Altell or U.S. Cellular around here) and maybe, just maybe there had been a cell company that I could have used, then I just might have bought an iPhone, but as it sits now - as long as AT&T is the only choice, then it would be stupid of me to buy an iPhone as it would be virtually unusable where I live, work, etc.

On the post: Courts Should Reject Blizzard's Assault on the First Sale Doctrine

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 07 May, 2008 @ 07:13am

It's about grouping with cheaters

It's not about Player_A is better than you because he cheated, or whatever, it's about when you and Player_A, Player_B, Player_C, etc. try to go complete a quest together and you notice that Player_A doesn't have the foggiest clue how to play his character because he skipped all the boring parts - the parts where you learn strategy and how to use your character's abilities and got to be high level by pushing a button and going to bed.

Then you have to kick them out of your group and and go back and look for another player to replace them. That wastes everyone's time and can ruin a night's play for a group of people.

That happens enough times and people start to get disenchanted with the game and the next thing you know, they stop playing and stop paying. That is what Blizzard is trying to avoid.

On the post: eBay Exec Explains How Not Using PayPal Is Like Dealing Heroin…

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 07 May, 2008 @ 07:05am

It's to protect ebay reputation...

When someone buys something on ebay and pays for it via Crazy Eddies Discount House Of Payment Handling and for whatever reason the deal goes sour, people complain "I got ripped off on ebay!" rather than correctly claiming "I got ripped off because I used an untrustworthy 3rd party payment handling system!".

A huge percentage of online fraud is a result of "auction related fraud" which at one time didn't necessarily mean ebay, what with Yahoo! Auctions and numerous other online auction and dutch-auction websites that were around - most of which have dried up and gone away and now when you see "online auction" it's almost equivalent to "ebay". That means that when the annual reports come out showing breakdowns of online crime, there is a section that says "auction related fraud" and by association people think "ebay". Who can blame them for wanting to get people to think something else?

Mike is right in that ebay needs to make it some how possible for 3rd party processors to get approved/certified and if ebay refuses to do so, then it will be obvious to everyone that this isn't about protection, it's about keeping every possible cent of profit to themselves.

And for those of you badmouthing ebay, there are alternatives like Craig's List that are only effective if you live in a major city - those of us who live out in the boonies 2 hours away from a major city, those aren't an option for us - shopping on ebay is the alternative to driving 2 hours to visit a Best Buy, or other big store to shop and it's still just as important and useful to me as it was years ago when it first started - higher rates and all.

On the post: Just Because Content Is Free Doesn't Mean It's Worthless

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2008 @ 01:13pm

Free and Worthless are not the same

The air that we breathe is "free" but I guarantee that once you put a plastic bag over someone's head, they no longer think that air is "worthless".

The problem that so many people have is that for years the entire world has had "plastic bags" over their heads and the media companies chose to let us have little bits of "air" for which we paid.

Now, with the advent of the internet and the ability for anyone to put anything they create online for the entire world to see, we've had our "plastic bags" ripped off and suddenly there is an entire atmosphere of free "air" to breathe and the big media companies are finding it harder and harder to convince us to pay a premium for their "air" and they're trying to find ways (such as DRM extended copyright limitations and other increased legislation) to pull those "plastic bags" back over our heads.

On the post: Now IBM Wants To Patent Responding To Chaos

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2008 @ 06:44am

IBM isn't usually very sue-happy

IBM tends to patent a lot of ideas that they never implement and I often times think they do it just to keep some potential patent troll from acquiring the patent and mis-using.

Imagine if a patent troll had patented this, then after the next disaster if FEMA had used anything even remotely similar, they would jump out of the woodwork and shout "You Owe Me One Hundred Billion Dollars!" and the US Government may end up having to pay some idiot a large sum of money (or at least pay a lot of lawyers to try and stop from having to pay).

On the post: eBay Bans Auctions Of Digital Goods

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 02 Apr, 2008 @ 06:46am

In response to #1

I tried over the weekend to find a dirt cheap DVD player. The one in my boss's office is dead and our budget for a replacement is tiny, so I hoped to find a good deal on eBay. I've bought used players for as little as $5 before and got a couple of years of use out of them.

I did a search for "DVD Player" and sorted by cost - low to high and a vast majority of the listings that show up are "Portable DVD Player" with starting bids of $0.99 and only when you read the listing do you see that it's an opportunity to buy a list of wholesale DVD player vendors where you can buy them for up to 70% off of retail.

Some of the ones I read tell you in the description - "DO NOT BID ON THIS AUCTION - Send an e-mail to someaddress@somedomain.com and I'll let you know how to get this list" I tried to report the auction to eBay by clicking the "Report this auction" link and after answering several questions I was directed to a help page with information about what is and what isn't acceptable on eBay and was never given the opportunity to actually report the auction".

After having to filter through all of that crap, I have no problem with them doing away with auctions of this type. Of course, the vendors will just switch to printed copies of the list that they snail-mail to you instead of e-mailing you a digital file, but at least it will cut into their profits some.

On the post: Has Congress Backdoored In 'Attempted Copyright Infringement' As A Crime?

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2008 @ 11:31am

Anyone know a copy in this guy's district?

It would be great to have the police carefully watch this gentleman and his family and arrest them every time they leave a store with blank CDs, blank DVDs, blank VHS tapes, an iPod, etc. and charge them them with conspiracy to attempt copyright infringement and then multiply it by the number of items they bought - "oh, you bought a 50 pack of blank CDs? Then you must obviously be planning to infringe on the copyright of 50 albums, so that's 50 counts of conspiracy to attempt to infringe..."

On the post: Yet Another Attempt At Satellite Internet Access

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2008 @ 12:03pm

It has it's uses...

I used to be a DirecPC subscriber back in the day (prior to DSL or cable modems in my area) and the only thing it was really good for was newsgroups.

The newsgroup info was fed at a constant 2 MB with the catch that you had to run your own local news server (which they provided you with the software and support to do so).

You would then point your news reader to localhost and you could download warez, mp3s, porn, etc. at (for the time) unbelievable speeds.

You still had to pay for a dial up account, you still had to dial in to be able to do much of anything (except newsgroups!) online, so it ended up being pretty expensive and you were limited to what times of day and what days of the week you could be online without paying a premium...

I guess on second thought, it *DID* suck.

On the post: eBay Bans Negative Feedback For Buyers; Everyone Be Good Now

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2008 @ 07:26am

A couple of years ago I found my first vindictive seller. I was wanting one of those 3M privacy filters that you slip over your monitor to keep people from seeing what you're working on, and so I started watching ebay for a good deal. I found and won an auction for about 1/2 the retail price. I immediately sent payment and waited.

And waited. And waited. And waited. 8 business days later and I don't have my screen and I have received zero communication from the seller. I send off an e-mail via the "ask seller a question" link and finally get a response that he accidentally "scratched" the filter while packing it and was going to refund my money. I wrote back and said that was fine, but it would have been nice to know that a week ago so I could have looked at other auctions. I left neutral feedback stating that "Seller had 0 communication. Broke item before shipping - all money refunded." which in my opinion is more than fair.

His response was to post negative feedback about me (and this is a cut and paste quote) "Refunded money to avoid problem later, Sellers beaware!!, selfish person."

That's right, I'm selfish because I wanted the product I paid for and I wasn't willing to wait any longer than 8 business days before contacting him... beaware!

On the post: Spammer Alan Ralsky Finally Indicted

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2008 @ 04:38pm

Profits from ill-gotten goods?

I'm not ordinarily a big fan of property seizure laws, but if he himself proclaims it as the "House That Spam Built", then shouldn't the police be able to seize it along with any other property related to spamming (i.e., computers, printers, vehicles used to go to the store to buy more computers, etc.)?

On the post: EFF Busts Yet Another Bogus Patent… But It's Taking A Long Time

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2008 @ 06:59am

Ah the good old days...

Ah, 1999... the internet was still "new and fresh" and you could rubber-stamp the words "Online!" or "On The Internet!" on to any existing business model or process and it magically became an all new, patentable, profitable, IPO-offering business...

On the post: Yahoo China Found Guilty Of Copyright Infringement For Linking To MP3s

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 20 Dec, 2007 @ 11:47am

Nice Princess Bride Callback

"I'm beginning to think that the industry maybe does not really know what that word means."

Inconceivable!

On the post: Why Is Kevin Martin Advertising The DTV Switch On Dish Network?

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 20 Dec, 2007 @ 07:02am

Re: This is a fact for many rural households

"Others cannot get their local affiliates on the satellite because of the small size of their market."

Local affiliates can't get on the satellites because most of them can't afford the $20,000 it costs (for equipment) to get your station added to their lineup.

The people that upset me the most are the satellite TV installers who advertise on local channels and tell unsuspecting consumers that "you can get all your local channels for only a few dollars more per month" when they know perfectly well that you can't get your local channels because they're not available.

On the post: Can The FCC Actually Manage The Switch To Digital TV?

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 13 Dec, 2007 @ 07:51am

DTV is not the same as HDTV

Those of you arguing about HDTV are completely missing the point. Although DTV and HDTV are only letter different, they're entirely separate issues. HDTV is High Definition TeleVision - DTV is Digital TeleVision. DTV is the replacement for the current analog over-the-air television that many people receive today.

Starting Feb 19 of 2009, people still using rabbit ears or other antennas to receive their NON-HDTV signal will notice that they can no longer pick up the stations they're used to because they'll no longer be broadcasting a signal that their TV can receive and decode - they will need to obtain a digital -> analog converter box.

The FCC is setting up a system where Americans will be able to obtain one free converter box per home.

This only applies to people who receive their non-HDTV signal over the air! If you have cable, whether it's analog or digital, or a satellite dish, this will not affect you - yet.

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