Oliver Wendell Jones 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Video Game As A Sequel To A Movie?

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2003 @ 07:50am

    It's a great game

    I highly recommend this game to fans of FPS games and/or of Tron.

    The graphics are stupendous (actually better than the movie) and it's a lot of fun. It is definitely not your typical FPS game, it's more like a Deus Ex or System Shock.

  • On the post: File-Sharers Get Angry… With Kazaa

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2003 @ 07:38am

    Re: Bong's are Legal too ...

    I figured since I can buy bong's legally

    That argument is no longer valid. Just ask Tommy Chong.

  • On the post: Ghosts Afraid Of Mobile Phones?

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2003 @ 02:45pm

    Re: Cell phones are expensive tools...

    Isn't this a little like the story of the crazy guy who bangs bricks together to 'keep the elephants away'. When told there aren't any elephants around here, he says, 'See... it works!'...

  • On the post: Brain Still Has A Bit More Memory Than Computers

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2003 @ 08:57am

    Please ban Dorpus

    Once again he's posting inane and highly inaccurate information.

    A substantial portion of an infant's congnizant capabilities is directly related to facial recognition, especially of it's mother. Don't take my word for it, ask any pediatrician or psychologist.

    Basic facial recognition is a very important part of all intelligent people's (leaving out people like Dorpus) brains. People who can not recognize other people's faces have serious mental disabilities (see Dr. Oliver Sack's "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For His Hat" for additional information).

  • On the post: Calling Telemarketers Back

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2003 @ 08:53am

    Re: Amusing myself

    Or you can let them get about 60 seconds into their pitch and quietly mumble "I'm not wearing any underwear". They will often times stop and ask you to repeat yourself, and then you say "Are you wearing any underwear? Tell me about it..." and then they'll hang up.

    Although I did have one lady one time start telling me about her underwear...

  • On the post: Warning: Excuses From The Beach On Your Mobile Phone May Not Work So Well

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2003 @ 08:51am

    Please ban Dorpus

    Once again he's back with completely inane comments that are totally unrelated to the topic at hand.

    What does calling in sick on your mobile phone from the beach have to do with submarines using ULF radio signals for communication? They're both near the ocean?

    Please, Mike, I'm begging you to give us some way to ignore certain users.

  • On the post: Apple Sues Apple

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2003 @ 08:17am

    I don't see a problem with this.

    I'm sure that those many years ago when the contract was negotiated that this was never even considered.

    Apple was a computer company, and back in those days you made music by hand coding a series of frequencies to feed to a buzzer element to produce a series of flat notes that could vaguely be described as music-like.

    It would have been impossible at the time for them to imagine a time you could carry around a cigarette-pack sized box with more computing power than the biggest mainframe computers at the time and have it hold so much music.

    I'm sure when the lawyers said "and by signing this agreement you agree to not become a music publishing company" and Steve Jobs thought "yeah, like that's ever going to happen".

    Apparently the lawyers at Apple forgot about that little agreement.

  • On the post: Symantec Wants To Outlaw Publishing Virus Information

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 11 Sep, 2003 @ 03:00pm

    Nobody gets it?

    They don't want to ban virus information.

    They want to ban 'how to make' virus information.

    A subtle difference, but a difference none the less...

  • On the post: New P2P Fingerprint-And-Block Software Almost Ready

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 11 Sep, 2003 @ 08:26am

    Re: Encrypt or Interleave

    Another option would be to encrypt the files with a random 32-bit key and NOT share the key

    Or you could implement a simple 4-bit key and then sue any company that develops software that 'decrypts' the key for violating the DMCA. It's always beautiful when you can use the other guy's tactics against him.

  • On the post: Now It's Arianna Huffington's Turn To Spam Voters

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2003 @ 02:41pm

    A perfect new way to sling mud at your opponents!

    You hire a firm to spam everyone in the voting region and make it appear it comes from your opponent!

    If you'll excuse me, I'm off to patent this not-entirely-obvious business method...

  • On the post: Location Tech Will Tell Police Your TV Was Stolen, Slow You Down, Make You Pay

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2003 @ 02:14pm

    This is funny (to me)

    If I could somehow invent a system that would keep people from murdering anyone (a crime), any where in the world, people would applaud.

    If I could invent a system to prevent all children from being molested (another crime) or abused (yet another crime) people would nominate me for a Nobel prize.

    Yet, invent a system that prevents people from exceeding the legal posted speed limit (yet another crime) and everybody throws their hands up and screams "BUT WHAT ABOUT MY PRIVACY!", "IT'S NOT FAIR!", etc.

    Why is that there are certain laws it's ok for people to break (i.e., speeding, copyrights, etc.) but other laws are well respected?

    If so many people are so opposed to the idea of a world where you can't speed (and get away with it 99.9999% of the time) why don't they encourage their elected representatives to do away with speed limits?

    I'm constantly amazed at the number of police cars that pass me at excessive speeds with no lights or sirens and no obvious sign that they are actually rushing off to be somewhere.

    I think that if the government wants to implement these sorts of things they should make them mandatory in all government vehicles for at least one year (and that includes the limos that the elected representatives are riding around in) and then after that they can decide if they need to be rolled out to the public.

    Oh, and all the records of every time they break the posted speed limit should be made publicly available on a website somewhere.

  • On the post: Push-To-Mudsling

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2003 @ 07:39am

    Push-To-Talk or Nextel = Annoying!

    It's bad enough when you're sitting in a restaurant and you have to put up with someone near you talking on a cell phone, but if every time they stop talking you hear that incredibly annoying 'doodley-doot' sound it's just that much more annoying.

    Those phones should be banned in public!

  • On the post: Colleges Charging Students Who Get Viruses

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2003 @ 03:10pm

    Blaiming the victim?

    How is this different than schools requiring students to get physical examinations from a doctor certifying they are healthy before attending school?

    If you're kid has lice in his/her hair, it's your responsibility to take care of it before you send your kid to school. It is not the school's responsibility to clean up your kids infestation and if they do, don't be surprised if they bill you for it.

    In this day and age, anyone who doesn't have some level of anti-virus protection on their computer is simply asking for trouble, or else they have a PC with no floppy drives, no CD drives, no USB ports, no ethernet ports, no modem, etc. and is completely cut off from the outside world. Since most college students don't have computers like that, they *need* anti-virus software.

    I'm surprised that the school hasn't investigated purchasing a site license or at least some sort of quantity discount for their students so that everyone can afford a quality anti-virus package.

  • On the post: Do You Have The Right To Open What You Own?

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2003 @ 03:05pm

    It's all about control(ling who you give your mone

    How soon until we see our house door locks becoming electronic and requiring special 'digitally secured' keys that are only available from the manufacturer for a significantly higher price than the local locksmith?

    We've already got car ignition keys that include anti-theft measures that make them difficult to duplicate, how long until the auto manufacturers start claiming DMCA so that you have to buy your keys from them at their artificially inflated prices? My sister's car has these kinds of keys and when she asked the dealer how much for an extra set of keys they told her it would be $75!! She found a friendly locksmith who made a set for her for $12, but how long until that is illegal?

    So far almost every lawsuit I've seen the DMCA used for is to eliminate some way in which the 'copyright holder' might possibly lose money, i.e., generic ink cartridges, generic garage door openers, etc. It's not protecting people's intellectual property, it's protecting their revenue stream and is thus contributing to anti-competetive behaviour.

    The courts need to investigate this anti-competitive behaviour for what it is so that companies are afraid to file DMCA lawsuits so they won't be investigated for anti-competitive behaviour.

    Disclaimer - I'm loopy from cold medicine, so maybe none of this makes sense. Try taking some Tylenol Cold and Sinus pills and see if it becomes clear to you.

  • On the post: How Do Anti-Virus Companies Pick Names?

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2003 @ 02:30pm

    My suggestion is...

    Come up with a list of seriously, embarassingly names to use for new viruses.

    For example, when I worked as an in-game support person for the MMORPG Anarchy Online we had a character naming policy that stated you couldn't use names that were offensive, racist, sexist, etc. If people found chararcters with offensive names they would report them to us and we would go to that character and ask them to come up with a new, non-offensive name because we're going to change your name - now.

    If the person took too long or couldn't think up a name that was non-offensive we would change their name to something from our list of seriously, embarassingly names. The most popular of which was PinkBunnySlippers. Usually within 2 minutes of changing an offensive name to PinkBunnySlippers, the person would message back that they had come up with a name they would much rather have.

    If instead of giving viruses strong and powerful names like "Master Blaster", we gave them names "Small Penis Protaganist", "Momma's Boy" or "Desparate for Attention" it might reduce the incentive to become infamous.

  • On the post: Italy To Send Spammers To Jail

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2003 @ 01:00pm

    You've got to admit that at least they're trying

    What with recent stories about the FTC finally realizing that identity crime is serious problem, and countries starting to realize that SPAM is also a problem...

    Even if they're not doing it right the first time, at least they're trying...

  • On the post: US Postal Service Shuts Down Internet Post Office

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2003 @ 12:58pm

    Re: They Don't Get It

    I'm going to guess that the only way to pay that $1 to submit the information was by credit card, right?

    Did you ever stop to think it could be a preventative measure to keep people from randomly forwarding your mail to some other address, as they either need to go into the post office in person (and risk being remembered) or use a credit card to do it online, and leave an elecronic trail?

  • On the post: Building The Ultimate MP3 Jukebox The Wrong Way

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2003 @ 12:38pm

    This is a first?

    When I met my girlfriend, she was working as a topless dancer. She has since quit that and now has a respectable job working for a respectable company, but that's not important...

    She moved from club to club, and one of the clubs she worked at (for one night only) didn't have a DJ, but a jukebox connected to the internet. They would insert a dollar and could download and play two songs of their choice, but they had to choose them several minutes before they were due to go on stage because of how long it took to download them.

    She danced 6 sets that night, which means she paid $6 into the jukebox. She took in a total of $19, so after paying the jukebox and 10% to the house, she took home $12 - the primary reason she never worked their again.

    So there are existing MP3 jukeboxes that are connected to the net, and I would assume that there is some sort of licensing agreement between the jukebox company and the music industry.

  • On the post: Companies Develop Camera Phone Policies

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 02 Sep, 2003 @ 08:36am

    It's not about the phones

    Imagine you work in an office and there is one guy who always carries a camera (film or digital, doesn't matter) and is always holding it under the table at meetings, etc.

    People are going to figure out he's some kind of perv and avoid him.

    But, what if instead that same guy (prior to picking up a reputation as a perv) gets a camera phone and every once in a while during a meeting does that little 'my cell phone is vibrating' jerk and reaches in his pocket, discretely keeps his phone below the surface of the table like he's checking to see who is calling and then puts it back in his pocket.

    Are people going to suspect he's a perv? Probably not.

    If you see someone manipulating a camera it's a safe bet they're taking a picture and you can cover your face, cross your legs, etc. If you see that same person maniuplating a cell phone you have no reason to assume they're taking a picture.

    That's the problem with cell phone cameras.

  • On the post: Some Numbers On The Costs Of Spam

    Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2003 @ 01:12pm

    Re: No spam at work

    I don't know how you define 'misusing corporate resources', but I assume you mean I'm using my desktop for something other than what I'm being paid for. Other than reading TechDirt, Slashdot and a few other IT news sites, I'm pretty clean. I write an internal-use-only IT e-mail newsletter and use those sites as leads for stories that might impact our business.

    I have a significantly faster PC at home and with my cable modem all to myself, my internet connectivity is much more responsive at home, plus I don't have filters blocking a majority of websites at home, either.

    I've also noticed that approx. 1/3 - 1/2 of all the SPAM I receive is sent to multiple recipients within the company, so I suspect that someone somewhere got their hands on a corporate e-mail directory. It's funny because our corporate e-mail system uses firstname.lastname@companyname.com and so often times I can tell it's SPAM just by seeing 'JOHN.SMITH we have an exciting offer for you' in the subject line.

    For some reason one of the guys at our Puerto Rica location seems to be the name most often to appear in the subject line... I wonder why?

    2 hours to quitting time and current count is 298 SPAM.

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