Pseudonym 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Asiana Air Says It Will Sue Over Stupid News Program Broadcasting Offensive Joke Names Of Crash Pilots

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2013 @ 12:26am

    Re: Diverting

    I thought that myself. The Streisand Effect in reverse, perhaps?

  • On the post: Why Yes, We Have Learned A Lot About The NSA's Surveillance Programs

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2013 @ 09:18pm

    Re: Scary part

    Actually, the United States is almost everything that the first colonists wanted. It's a huge penal colony (highest incarceration rate in the world, in fact), with an economy partly based on slave labour, and pretty close to a puritan theocracy to boot.

  • On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2013 @ 08:49pm

    Re: Assange prints...

    Of course, that doesn't mean that Snowden didn't sign off on it. Lots of statements in press releases are written by the PR person, but they always ask the subject if they can quote them saying this.

  • On the post: Sony At E3: Look How Unlike Microsoft We Are!

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2013 @ 08:33pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Yeah, 3 years sounds about right for me, too. I suspect it'll be a choice between the PS4 and the Steam Box.

  • On the post: Microsoft's Attack On Used Game Sales Asks Customers To Sacrifice Their Rights To Save An Industry

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2013 @ 06:46am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    How many games work well with it?

  • On the post: Microsoft's Attack On Used Game Sales Asks Customers To Sacrifice Their Rights To Save An Industry

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2013 @ 05:22pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    This is an acceptable trade off.

    On behalf of console gamers, I agree. That's why we like the current console economy, for the most part.

    Having said that, I think that what I really want is the ability to use a console controller with a PC. For non-point-and-click games, playing with a mouse and keyboard sucks, and doesn't scale to more than one person sharing a couch.

  • On the post: Xbox One Release: Tons Of Questions, Very Few Answers

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 27 May, 2013 @ 12:15am

    Re:

    For the Australians following this, the conversion rate is around $1.04 AUD to the USD, so that translates to around $90 AUD.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Crackpots Versus Real Scientists

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 15 May, 2013 @ 05:31pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Hold on there...

    You have a point, but I should point out that cases of genuine breakthroughs which deal an effective blow to traditional orthodoxy made by mavericks who don't play by the rules are notable precisely because they're rare.

    The overwhelming majority of major breakthroughs are made by people working within the peer review process, because we don't have a better alternative.

    Upsetting the apple cart is actually a desirable thing in science. If someone could actually disprove an orthodoxy, it would make that person's career.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Crackpots Versus Real Scientists

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 14 May, 2013 @ 06:44pm

    Re: Re: Hold on there...

    Yeah, I agree with that.

    Part of the thing is that anyone who has worked in science knows that they could, at any time, produce an interesting idea that may go somewhere. Some of us are even lucky enough to have done this. When that happens, you don't want to oversell it, but you don't want to undersell it either.

    There are rules to the peer review process, and you have to play by them. There is, in theory, no shame in having honestly proposed something that turned out to be wrong. Well, as long as you don't do it consistently. Unfortunately, the more significant the problem is, the higher a chance you have of your half-baked idea going viral before it's ready. So I feel really bad for Lisi, and somewhat bad for Deolalikar. That could have been any of us.

    It's harder to feel bad for Mochizuki, because he did not play by the commonly accepted rules. Those rules are there for your benefit. You are the one who best understands your ideas. If you are good, then you are the biggest critic of your own ideas. But the bigger the problem, the more likely that there's something you overlooked. That's why it's up to you to explain your ideas to other people, so they can help you look for what you missed.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Crackpots Versus Real Scientists

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 14 May, 2013 @ 06:15pm

    Hold on there...

    At least two of these three people are not "crackpots" by the usual definition.

    Vinay Deolalikar is a real scientist. He has done a lot of work in number theory, coding theory, information theory, machine learning, data mining and so on. He is employed as a researcher at HP.

    Deolaikar did not prove that P != NP. However, he is precisely the sort of person who might make significant headway on the problem. He also did investigate a possible plan of attack which had genuinely never been tried before.

    Deolaikar's problem is that of the several P/NP papers a month posted to arXiV, his is the one that went viral. In one sense, that's inevitable, since his was the one not posted by a crackpot. But it's also unfortunate for him, because anything he does with that paper now will be scruitinised to hell and back.

    There may be something in his proof which constitutes an advance on the problem. It's difficult to tell at this stage, and certainly the onus is on him to show it if there is. Unfortunately, thanks to the viral shitstorm, anything he does with the preprint is tainted.

    A Garrett Lisi is also not a crackpot. He is a legitimate theoretical physicist, albeit a minor one. Unlike Deolaikar, He is the first to point out that the preprint for which he is most famous is preliminary and speculative, and has no pretension that it is even close to a major contribution to the field at this stage. He is exactly the sort of person who might produce some preliminary, speculative work which he or others may find useful to build upon into something more solid.

    Once again, it was the subject of a viral shitstorm. In his case, I think he's a victim of his own eccentricity. His slacker surfer lifestyle makes him look like an "outsider", and the mainstream media eats that shit up.

    You could argue that Deolaikar's infamy was at least somewhat deserved: he was a real researcher who claimed to have solved a significant outstanding problem. It's hard to make the same case with Lisi, who never claimed such a thing.

    Shinichi Mochizuki... nobody knows what's up with him. It's once again hard to call him a crackpot. He is a real mathematician, and a brilliant one at that. He is exactly the sort of person who might have cracked (or made significant headway on) the ABC conjecture. Once again, the onus is on him to show that he has, and he hasn't done it.

    Mochizuki's papers have not been "debunked". They haven't even been understood, despite a lot of effort. The only reason why people are going to the trouble is that there's probably something of significant value in his papers, even if it's not a proof of ABC.

  • On the post: Police Follow Up Beating A 'Possibly Intoxicated' Man To Death By Seizing Witnesses' Cell Phones

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 13 May, 2013 @ 06:38pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: No Tazers?

    Only in America.

    That's true, but to be fair to the cops, only in America is there a significant chance that there may already be firearms present wherever they go. If any person you encounter could be capable of responding with deadly force, it's at least understandable that you might err on the side of overreaction.

  • On the post: There Is No Logic To The Argument That Zach Braff Shouldn't Use Kickstarter

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 13 May, 2013 @ 06:19pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Exactly. Having said that, if some of Zach Braff's fanbase comes to Kickstarter for him, but stays because there's other cool stuff there, then the world will be a better place.

  • On the post: There Is No Logic To The Argument That Zach Braff Shouldn't Use Kickstarter

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 12 May, 2013 @ 04:58pm

    Re:

    The only naysayer who crossed my path was veteran screenwriter Ken Levine (MAS*H, Cheers, Frasier and not forgetting the classic Mannequin 2).

    His argument wasn't that Zach Braff shouldn't use Kickstarter because he has Hollywood connections. His argument is that Zach Braff wasn't getting any of his money because he has Hollywood connections.

    I totally get that. For the record, that's a feature, not a bug. The whole point of crowdsourcing is that you fund what you think is important, not what some non-creative industry executive scum thinks will improve their own career.

    Among Hollywood creative people, there is a strong "pay it forward" mentality. You should be supporting the next generation, not the current generation. If you're an established Hollywood creative type, you're unlikely to find a Zach Braff pet project important enough for you to pony up your own hard-earned.

    If that's your priority, I wholeheartedly encourage you to do that. But the argument that he shouldn't even use it is asinine.

    Having said that, I do recognise that there is a trend of established players taking over outlets previous reserved for up-and-coming artists. Sundance used to be a place where non-established players got to show their movies to the industry. Some of that still goes on, but today it's Cannes plus snow.

    There is a balance to be struck here. A few John Ks or Michael Dorns or Zach Braffs will help legitimise crowdfunding, and that's good. Nobody will be ever able to claim that it's for "unprofessional" creative works only. But we have to keep up a steady stream of independent projects too.

  • On the post: Is Anybody Shocked That Americans Trust TV Judges More Than Supreme Court Justices?

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 10 May, 2013 @ 05:28pm

    Re:

    I don't know about all of them, but Scalia seems to be in roughly the right position.

    I'm a bit surprised that Roberts beat Ben Affleck, though.

  • On the post: Dr. Phil Sues Deadspin For Reporting On Manti T'eo Hoax Even Though Deadspin Broke The Story

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 08 May, 2013 @ 06:36pm

    Re: Re:

    You do realize that he has used the title to imply he's a medical doctor, right?

    I'm not saying you're wrong, but some evidence would be useful.

    If he used the title to imply that he is a qualified clinical psychologist, to the point of having a master's and doctorate in that field, then... well... that would pretty much be the opposite of misleading.

  • On the post: Dr. Phil Sues Deadspin For Reporting On Manti T'eo Hoax Even Though Deadspin Broke The Story

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 08 May, 2013 @ 06:32pm

    Re: He's not a doctor

    I know you jest, but I don't know what makes someone look more faux ignorant: not knowing that he has a PhD from the University of North Texas (which is arguably better than a MD), or admitting to having watched Scary Movie 4 (even if it was only the beginning minutes).

  • On the post: MA Teen Arrested And Held Without Bail For Posting Supposed 'Terrorist Threat' On Facebook

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 03 May, 2013 @ 02:47pm

    Dear Tim,

    You didn't need to disclose that you're the parent of a teenager.

    We can tell from the rest of the piece. It's [expletive] obvious.

    Sincerely,
    Other Parents of Teenagers

  • On the post: Judge Says Giving Up Your Password May Be A 5th Amendment Violation

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 26 Apr, 2013 @ 04:55pm

    Re:

    Yes, this is very important. The issue in this case is that the very act of producing a password would constitute solid evidence that the accused had access to the child porn. The police had no solid evidence of this, so compelling the accused to turn over a password would be compelled testimony against himself.

    The police can still compel you to turn over a password if they know beyond reasonable doubt that you know it, and they know beyond reasonable doubt what they'll find when they use it. That hasn't changed in this ruling.

  • On the post: Eric Holder, The American Library Association And Wikipedia Are America's Worst Porn Enablers

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2013 @ 10:29pm

    Re:

    Most porn does not depict "natural bodies", and what takes place in it are not even close to "natural acts". Anyone who has actually had sex can tell you this.

    My kids (all under the age of 14) know about sex. They know that their parents have sex. They've seen pictures of childbirth. I let them watch The Big Bang Theory, where it's mentioned and even implied all the time. They've been to art galleries regularly since they were 2, where there's plenty of nudity.

    I don't have a problem with sex and nudity. "The problem with porn" is that it's not sex. It's not that it's too explicit, it's that it's not nearly explicit enough. It invariably contains no emotion, nothing about relationships, nothing about negotiation... it leaves out everything that's good about sex beyond the purely mechanical. Everything is that you see is done for the benefit of the camera, not for the benefit of the people having sex.

    (And that's leaving aside the the fact that it compounds existing dysfunctions in our society like body image dysmorphia.)

    There's a lot of emerging evidence that young adults who watched a lot of porn have problems with intimate relationships. It makes intuitive sense when you think about it, like how exclusively using Visual Basic teaches you bad programming habits, or eating a diet of junk food gives you bad dietary habits and can even permanently affect your physiology.

    That there exists "good" porn is beside the point. The vast majority of it is bad for a developing brain. Kids would be far better off with trashy erotic romance novels than they would be with porn, because at least they contain some actual emotional content.

    So yes, there is a problem with porn.

    Of course, banning it is no solution at all, because you can't legislate good taste. The real solution is to counter the misinformation with information.

  • On the post: Bad Move: Google Removes AdBlock Plus From Google Play Store

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2013 @ 05:59pm

    Part of the appeal of the Google Play store is the lack of Apple iOS style walls and gates.

    This confuses two issues. Google Play store is to the iTunes store as Android is to iOS.

    The Google Play can censor whatever the hell it wants. It's part of the appeal of Android that you're free to get your apps elsewhere. Amazon and the Samsung store are two popular ones.

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