Oliver Wendell Jones’s Techdirt Profile

On the post: If Online Harassment Is Harassment… Why Does It Need A Special Law?

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 28 Nov, 2007 @ 02:59pm

Two Points

1) I feel that there needs to be a minimum waiting period for creating laws following a tragedy of any sort - big or small. You can't make good laws in a short period of time. There needs to be time enough for constitutional review, public feedback, etc. before it gets signed into law. Lawmakers who respond rapidly like this are just trying to earn brownie points with their constituents by claiming "look how fast I took care of this!"

2) There is a difference between "outlawing online harassment" and "legally defining harassment to include online harassment" and if the law simply adds online harassment, then it's probably not bad - if it makes it a whole new crime then hopefully it's not like so many other instances where they've taken something that's been illegal for years and slapped "internet/online" onto it added new fines that are more up-to-date, so that if you commit the offline version of the crime you pay a $50 fine but if it's done online with the new law in place, it's suddenly a $50,000 fine.

On the post: Why A La Carte Cable Will Probably Cost You More

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 26 Nov, 2007 @ 02:21pm

Re: Let's hear it for supply and demand

But do they do the math to show that there are people like me who are "paying" for ESPN but would never turn to that channel in million years?

Claiming that you have 100 bazillion possible viewers because there are 100 bazillion cable/satellite customers who happen to receive ESPN sounds good when you're talking financials with a potential ESPN advertiser - but imagine how much better it would sound if they could say "we have 10 bazillion customers who actually pay to receive our programming and who are big sports fans." That raises the value of your commercial time significantly because you can actually point to a real number of potential viewers instead of a made up number.

And as this website has made a point of time and time again - why is it the government's responsibility to support your business model? If you can't make it on the number of people willing to pay $3-12 per month to watch your channel, then maybe you're doing it wrong?

On the post: Suggestion For Mobile Phone Operators: Be Upfront And Honest About Plans

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2007 @ 09:11am

Speaking of cell plan rip-offs...

When I moved to this state, where my brother, sister and niece already lived, they suggested that I add yet another phone to their plan and pay a fair share of the bill vs. the cost of having my own separate account. We ran the numbers and it looked like a good deal... except for the fine print...

In order to add the new phone we had sign a new 2 year contract (which we expected) but hidden in the fine print was a new "feature" that wasn't part of the old contract - a late payment "reconnection fee". Now, if we're late making the monthly payment they turn off all four phones and charge a $25 per phone reconnection fee. That's right - $100 every time we're late.

The first time it happened I went into the store and spoke to the manager and told them that was outrageous, especially since they don't have to type in the payment info 4 times, just once, but they want to charge us a fee for every phone. Her response was "all cell phone companies do this and have always done this, so I don't understand why you're complaining".

On the post: Is It Copyright Infringement To Skip Commercials?

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2007 @ 08:27am

Re:

but they can't replace the national ads that were sold for specific times

That's where you are wrong. Syndicated TV shows come to the station (over satellite, via digital download or sometimes shipped in on tape) with national advertisements already in place between the show segments. The contract between the syndication and the station allows for overwrites of national advertisements. For reasons unknown to me, this is referred to as "Barter". Format sheets that show the commercials within each program list each break as either "Barter", "Double Barter", "Local" or a combination thereof (i.e., "Double Barter a,b,c,d + Local e" might have 4 national ads and then 31 seconds of black for a local ad. For the TV station where I work, "Barter" means we let it run as is, "Double Barter" means we can overwrite (and we usually do) and "Local" means it's going to be dead air if we don't put something in at those times. Everyone once in a while when you're watching TV you'll see a split second of a commercial and then it flips to a different commercial, that's a sure sign of a double barter ad being replaced either at the station or by the cable company.

On the post: RIAA Sues Usenet.com

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2007 @ 07:10pm

Tough Sell

I believe phrases like this one

"Shh... Quiet! We believe it’s no one’s business but your own what you do on the Internet or in Usenet. We don't track user activity."

that appear on the usenet.com website will make it harder to prove that they're 100% innocent.

On the post: Amway/Quixtar Sues Web Critics

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2007 @ 12:22pm

I fell for it

Several years back, a lady I worked with convinced me that this was the future and that I'd be able to make a small fortune with very little effort on my part.

It turns out that when you make a purchase from them (Quixtar), by the time you pay for shipping & handling to get it delivered, it ends up costing the same or more than if you had just driven to the mall and purchased it.

I went to a couple of their seminars and the recurring theme is that you should fill your home with Amway products so when people visit you, they'll see that you use Amway products and want some for themselves. And you shouldn't just buy a few products, you should buy every possible product from them.

Of course what they don't mention is that every product you buy is another commission for them...

On the post: Reminder: Patent Examiners Still Don't Scale

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 10 Oct, 2007 @ 06:20pm

How about if they hire a panel of "patent screeners" with a variety of backgrounds and as each new application is submitted it is very briefly reviewed by a group of 3, or so, screeners and they give it a thumbs up or thumbs down on whether or not it's a legitimate patent application for an idea that is really patentable.

If 2 of the 3 say 'no', then it is immediately rejected, otherwise it then moves on to "real" examiners who can do a more thorough job of reviewing.

Does that sound reasonable to anyone?

On the post: Company Betting On GPS-Based Driving Tax

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2007 @ 10:41pm

Re:

It would just be a GPS based odometer.

Then why not just use an odometer? If mileage is all the government really wants to track, why not just develop an 'unhackable' (or extremely difficult to hack) odometer that can be easily added to a car - why does it have to be a location based tracker *and* an odometer?

The other big issue is that such a device would only allow the government to collect road-use taxes on state residents - people that come to visit, or 18-wheelers that don't do a lot of business in Oregon won't have to pay road-use as their vehicles won't be equipped with the necessary tracking equipment - if the tax was collected at the gas pump (as previously suggested) or via toll booths, then the government can collect a "fair" amount from everyone.

On the post: AT&T: Bundling Is Lame… But You Have To Buy This Other Bundle To See Why

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2007 @ 10:57am

Re:

I'd say you're spot on with your comment that "People don't hate the right bundles.". What people do hate, though, is forced bundles. If you can't have product/service A without having to simultaneously purchase/subscribe to product/service B - people aren't happy.

I work for a small TV station in the midwest. We've always been the home for the college sports team games - until this year when the Big Ten Network purchased the almost exclusive rights to show all Big Ten games.

So now I get daily phone calls from customers who ask if we'll still be showing their favorite college games and I get to to tell them that no, we won't, and in order to get them they'll have to a) subscribe to cable TV, b) upgrade to digital cable TV, c) pay extra for the 'digital sports package' that isn't included in basic *or* premium cable, and so if you were a typical over-the-air viewer and you still want your college games, you'll have to end up paying over $70 a month just to get the one channel you need to continue to watch games that were free up until this year.

That of course assumes that the local cable company will get off their butt and actually start offering the channel. They're currently involved in a pissing contest with Big Ten because Big Ten *wants* to be part of basic cable, but the cable company insists that people don't want Big Ten as part of their basic cable, that people *want* to pay extra and make it a premium channel.

This is exactly the sort of corporate thinking that leads to bundling that forces consumers to pay extra and purchase/subscribe to additional features they didn't want in the first place.

On the post: Why Is P2P Software The Focus In Latest Identity Theft Arrest?

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 08 Sep, 2007 @ 08:20am

Re:

That would mean that even of people are ignorant and can't properly configure their software, you still aren't allowed to access it.

No, that's like saying "if people can't remember to lock their door when they leave their home, then you should be allowed to enter their home and it not be illegal". Just because you can do something, doesn't mean it's right or legal.

On the post: FTC Notices That Diet Pill Spammer's Diet Pills Don't Work

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 27 Aug, 2007 @ 09:44am

Read This And Lose Weight!

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That's right, all you have to do is eat healthy, adopt a regular exercise routine and read this posting as little as 3 times per day!*

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Call 1-800-fake-pills now to receive a free sample (credit card required so we can sign you up for a subscription to our worthless pills and continue to send them to you and bill you outrageous amounts while you struggle to find a phone number to cancel your subscription and good luck getting through to our one operator who works 3-4 minutes per week, and btw, you can't return the pills to us because we package them in such a way you could easily tamper with them, so we can't refund the money we've already taken)

*The statements regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. N-yah, n-yah, you can't sue us for fraud as we covered our butts with a disclaimer!

On the post: Automatic Airport Check-In Is Patented?

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2007 @ 07:40pm

Why?

"why not just give the money wasted on the patent filing to the employees?"

Why do that when you can wait and sue every major airline *and* every major airport in the country, give some small token percentage to the employees and keep the rest for yourself?

On the post: Nobody's Hunting Over The Internet, But Dammit, We Gotta Make It Illegal

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 10 Aug, 2007 @ 08:43pm

Oops...

I better go read that bill carefully... I just "shot" and "killed" another player I was "hunting" in Unreal Tournament over the internet... I might already be a felon!

On the post: Microsoft To Release Free Ad-Supported Productivity Suite, Sort Of

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 31 Jul, 2007 @ 01:14pm

The biggest problem...

The biggest problem I see with web-based (or otherwise online-based) applications like this is - "What do you do when your net connection is down?".

I've worked for two Fortune 500 companies with excellent IT resources, but on more than one occasion at each job I can remember one or more days when the network was down for whatever reason (e-mail viruses took down one network in the early days of e-mail viruses, a truck went off the road and knocked down the utility pole that carried our internet connection, etc.) and in each case there would have been thousands of employees cut off from being able to perform their normal tasks.

If you're smart enough to save your current working files on your local drive instead of on the network, then you can pick up and keep working without network/internet access. If your files *and* your applications are both on the network/internet, then there isn't a lot you can do.

At the second employer mentioned above, we weren't allowed to save files locally, they had to stay on the network drives. When the network drive (raid array) got full, then everyone using that drive had to stop working until IT got around to either deleting files or adding a new drive to the array. If you were on a low-priority server and there were higher priority IT issues, then you may have to wait a day or more before they found time to fix the issue - but in the mean time they would take that drive off-line. That would leave my entire department sitting at our desks twiddling our thumbs and waiting for an e-mail from IT that the problem had been resolved. I still got paid the same, but that was a lot of wasted and paid for people-hours...

I sure won't be signing up for an online-only tool any time soon...

On the post: Duh: Report Says DVD Ripping Is A Lesser 'Threat' Than File-Sharing

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2007 @ 11:30am

Uber-Pirates

I went to a local estate auction last month - the ad promised "lots of movies on tape and DVD!". Upon arrival I noticed that there were literally thousands of DVDs and several hundred VHS tapes - and less than 2% of them had original store-bought labels. The remainder were all handwritten labels. I opened up a few of the jewel cases and inside were DVD-R and DVD+R discs with handwritten movie titles. Turns out the guy ran the local video store and made a copy of (apparently) EVERY movie they ever stocked for himself.

I mentioned to the auctioneer that it wasn't at all legal for him to try and sell the discs or tapes, he said he was covered because he was specifically selling "only the boxes and you get whatever comes inside for free"...

On the post: Universal Threatens To Take Its Music And Go Home

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 02 Jul, 2007 @ 11:28am

Typo...

The article linked says that Universal has chosen not to "renew" their contract, which is different than "review" as you have in your story, Mike... :-)

On the post: Now It's Drug Companies' Turn To Flip Out Over Legal Parallel Imports

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2007 @ 01:03pm

It's all about the lawsuits

If you're a pharmaceutical developer you're much more likely to be sued by an American than by other countries - partly due to our culture and partly due to late night TV commercials that let you know you you're probably able to climb aboard someone else's class-action suit if you ever heard about or saw a picture of the pills in question (possible slight exaggeration there).

I've worked for a medical diagnostics company and a pharma company and there *ARE* differences between what a product sells for in one country vs. another - part of that is due to the economy in the target country, part of it is due to legal restrictions in other countries (mostly those with socialized medication - the government is only willing to pay $XX.XX per pill/device/etc.) and you have to adjust your prices accordingly.

It's not a case of "stick it to the Americans!" as much as it's a case of "if we don't let France/Canada/etc. have product Y for $X.XX then we simply can't sell our product in that country. Period."

Anyone with a economics background can tell you its better to sell 100,000,000 of an item at $0.01 profit per item than it is to sell 0 of an item with $10.00 profit per item.

Furthermore it's better to sell 100,000,000 of an item at $10.00 profit per than to sell those same 100,000,000 with $0.01 profit per, and to then let the intended recipient resell those items and keep the $9.99 profit per for themselves.

On the post: Is The Software Industry Like The Pharmaceutical Industry, Or Is Investing In It Like Developing New Drugs?

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 08 May, 2007 @ 04:51pm

Re: Re: Fantasy Worlds

I Weep For Our Future...

In a world where Dorpus works in a pediatric hospital, there can be no God...

On the post: Dell Bringing Back Windows XP For An Encore

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2007 @ 11:39am

Why should a new OS require such a major upgrade?

I, for one, have no desire to try out Vista.

My brother installed it and said "other than the fact that it slows my computer to a crawl and everything takes much longer, and a lot of my old software isn't compatible, I like it". What a ringing endorsement!

A friend of mine who is quite computer literate installed it on his PC and was unable to get any sound to work in games. He bought a new sound card that was "Vista compatible" and now instead of no sound, it hard crashes the PC requiring a press of the reset button. He's reverted back to XP just in order to get his PC to do all the things he did before he wasted, err... spent money on Vista.

I picked up a copy of Microsoft Flight Sim X in the store the other day and under requirements it said Windows XP:256 MB of RAM, Windows Vista:512 MB of RAM. Think about that - their new and improved OS requires that I have TWICE as much memory as their last OS in order to play a game that Microsoft themselves publish!

My computer runs great with XP + SP2 and only 1 GB of RAM. I recently upgraded from an Athlon 64 3500+ to a Athlon X2 3800+ and have no desire to upgrade hardware again any time soon, so why would I want to install *anything* that would slow my system down or make it less efficient than it is now?

On the post: Two People Arrested In England For WiFi Theft

Oliver Wendell Jones ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2007 @ 03:50pm

A simple solution that will be ignored...

Manufacturers could change the default SSID from "Linksys" or "D-Link" to something like "NOT_PUBLIC" so that noone will "accidentally" connect to a wireless hub and claim "I had no idea that 'NOT_PUBLIC' meant it wasn't for public use..."

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