Pseudonym 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Maxis Insider: EA Lying About Needing Servers For Single Player SimCity

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2013 @ 05:36pm

    Re:

    I have to admit, I got the latest Sim City. In my defence:

    1. It came free with my shiny new (and on special) Nexus 7.
    2. Everyone who signs up on line by the 18th gets another free EA game.

    If you go by content industry thinking, I just deprived EA of two sales. I consider that a win. But I'm sure they're going to record it as two actual sales just to prove that people don't mind the always-on DRM. So... umm... everybody wins?

    Now, where is that "don't need internet" mod...

  • On the post: PETA Goes After Assassin's Creed For Its Depiction Of Whaling; Ubisoft Responds With A Heaping Dose Of Sarcasm

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2013 @ 08:31pm

    Re: Re:

    What do you mean becoming common? This phenomenon is older than dirt.

  • On the post: PETA Goes After Assassin's Creed For Its Depiction Of Whaling; Ubisoft Responds With A Heaping Dose Of Sarcasm

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 12 Mar, 2013 @ 09:28pm

    They have a point. I've played the other games, and it's given me strong urges to liberate the Holy Land from the Saracens and open a brothel in Italy.

  • On the post: Awesome Stuff: Rethinking The Mouse (Finally!)

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2013 @ 05:11pm

    Re:

    Commodore didn't get an official mouse until 1986. It was C64 and up.

  • On the post: Awesome Stuff: Rethinking The Mouse (Finally!)

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2013 @ 05:00pm

    Re: Wireless?

    In general, mice are utterly shit for gaming. At least, they are compared to a typical console controller.

  • On the post: Awesome Stuff: Rethinking The Mouse (Finally!)

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2013 @ 04:58pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Getting tangled up in your mouse cable is fairly common in the scenario where the mouse is regularly unplugged and replugged, and especially if the cable is regularly wound and unwound. This is what happens on most portable machines, especially if you port it a lot.

    So yes, I prefer a wired mouse on a desktop machine, but I far prefer a wireless on a laptop/notebook/whatever.

  • On the post: 7-Year-Old Student Suspended For Waving Around A 'Gun' Made From A Pastry

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 07 Mar, 2013 @ 02:53pm

    Oh, you say it's the nadir now, but next month, some four year old will be removed from class for carrying a plastic yoghurt spoon in such a way that it could resemble a butter knife if you squint really hard.

    Actually, scratch that thought. I shouldn't give them ideas.

  • On the post: Video Shows How Patent Trolls Kill Innovation

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 27 Feb, 2013 @ 06:44pm

    Re: Date of Patent

    This illustrates a key point of fighting patent trolls: You probably don't infringe the patent.

    This is good news for you, because it's far easier to prove that you don't infringe than that the patent shouldn't have been granted.

  • On the post: The Insanely Complex Rules The Supreme Court Requires You To Meet To Ask It To Hear Your Case

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2013 @ 05:06pm

    Re: Re: Supreme Court printing

    I mentally added my hourly rates to what he spent, and it came out significantly higher than $1900.

  • On the post: Bestselling Author Of Children's Books Accuses Public Libraries Of Stealing His Paychecks

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2013 @ 03:48pm

    Re:

    And the best part is, he could play himself in the sketch.

    For balance, here's the reply from Julia Donaldson, third-most borrowed author from UK libraries last year. Choice quote:

    In reality, libraries are the places where our readers and book-buyers are created. Without the huge choice of books which libraries provide, children are not going to discover their favourite authors, and will not then be asking for books for their birthdays or buying them when they are adults with their own money. [...] One of my sons found Horrible Histories in the library, and I used to buy them for his birthday. I would never have found them without the library, so I think library borrowing definitely contributes to sales.

  • On the post: Bestselling Author Of Children's Books Accuses Public Libraries Of Stealing His Paychecks

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2013 @ 03:43pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    The TV show made from his books is one of the most popular comedy shows currently on television, and the only "kids" TV show ever to win a British comedy award in the general category. So taking his books off the shelf won't deny him publicity.

    Besides, it's school libraries which are the biggest offenders. Those are the ones he would really have to shut down.

  • On the post: Here's A Use Of Drones (Nearly) Everyone Will Like

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2013 @ 05:57pm

    Re:

    As a general rule, I don't have a problem with drones replacing manned aircraft.

    If we currently use manned aircraft for surveillance (as we do in lots of applications from forestry to border protection to military applications), then making the aircraft unmanned doesn't really add any extra moral difficulties to me.

    The same goes for armed drones. If it's already okay to send in a bomber in some situation, I don't see a moral problem with sending in an armed drone instead, especially if there really is a pilot making the targeting decision.

    Oh, there may be practical problems for sure. But as a general rule, the morality of aerial surveillance or air strikes is the same whether the aircraft has a pilot physically in it or not.

    One of the big problems with drone strikes as the US carries them out is that they are often used in places other than legitimate war zones. That's a moral problem whether the drone is manned or not.

  • On the post: Collateral Censorship: Oxford Union Replaces Assange Speech Backdrop, Citing 'Copyright' Concerns

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 05 Feb, 2013 @ 05:02pm

    Re: Re: Mike, Mike,... You are confused...

    It wouldn't have been a copyright violation were it shown in the US, and probably (but I'm not 100% certain) wouldn't were it shown in the UK. However, I'm not sure that the Oxford Union knew this. They are not, after all, experts on the laws of foreign countries.

    Works produced by the UK government are not public domain by default (look up "Crown Copyright"). That they took the precaution is understandable, even if in hindsight they didn't need to.

  • On the post: Obama Tasks CDC With Study Of Video Games And 'Violent Media'

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2013 @ 07:47pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What will they find??

    I doubt there's any real evidence at all that people who care about other civil rights don't care about the second amendment.

    It's hard to frame the question in a way that measures exactly what you want. However, I will point out several observations.

    First off, the number of people who are members of both the NRA and the ACLU is tiny compared to the membership of the NRA. (It's possibly also the case that it's small compared to the size of the ACLU, however the ACLU claims a membership of 500,000 and the NRA claims a membership of 4.3 million. So the proportion is much, much smaller for the NRA than the ACLU.)

    Secondly, whatever the contemporary form of the gun owner (or manufacturer in the case of the NRA) advocacy groups have been, they have not historically spoken out on historic and current examples of egregious civil rights violates, such as universal suffrage, the internment of Japanese-American citizens, the "war on drugs", issues relating to separation of church and state, prisoners' rights, censorship, privacy, same-sex marriage and so on.

    I will point out that my claim was about "many gun nuts". The specific gun nut claim that I want to critique is that one purpose of gun ownership is to oppose an oppressive government should the need arise. I claim that the threshold will never be met, because the only act the US government could perform that would make this happen would be to confiscate firearms which have legitimate civilian uses from socially acceptable people.

    For $DEITY's sake, in WW2, the US government actually herded US citizens into concentration camps! You'd think that it wouldn't get any more obvious, but not even this wasn't enough to trigger armed opposition to the US government, because the government was careful to only do it to "them". Hell, if "they" had defended themselves with guns, it would only have proven the government's point.

    Gun owners, as a whole, won't defend your civil rights when they are being infringed, because those doing the infringing and their collaborators will make sure that they paint you as the enemy first. The hysteria over taking away your guns is precisely part of this: painting liberals as your enemy. Divide an conquer.

  • On the post: Obama Tasks CDC With Study Of Video Games And 'Violent Media'

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2013 @ 04:30pm

    Re: Re: Re: What will they find??

    Banning certain types of gun is not the same as disarming the population. It is extremely well-established in law that a) the US government can't take away certain types of gun, and b) the US government can limit ownership of certain other types of gun. That other governments have managed it does not change this.

    Apart from the fact that it's legally impossible and politically implausible, the main reason why I think it's a complete beat-up is that the meme is just far too convenient for the gun manufacturer lobby (known to many as the NRA) to be real.

    Many gun nuts talk about protecting the Constitution, but the simple fact is that they have done nothing to do defend civil rights, because they only care about one civil right. Pretending that that is the civil right that is under attack is a sure-fire way to get them to pay money to the gun manufacturer lobby, and has the side-benefit of distracting them from all of those other civil rights under attack.

  • On the post: Obama Tasks CDC With Study Of Video Games And 'Violent Media'

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2013 @ 12:37pm

    Re: What will they find??

    What they might find is that video games, movies, TV shows and so on are all symptoms of a deeper problem in US culture. But it would be hard for the CDC to do that on medical evidence, so probably not.

    It's the same with automobiles. Thanks to public transport atrophy, poor urban planning, a culture which equates driving with personal freedom, and many other individual factors, most families in the US need more than one car, and can't really do anything without driving. There wouldn't be so many road deaths, or so much pollution, if there were fewer cars on the road. Right now, there are far more than there needs to be.

    What I'd like to see is if there's a link between gun violence and the ubiquity of TSA checkpoints, armed guards in every public building, the over-reach of "zero tolerance"-like laws in schools, the militarization of the police and so on.

    How about all that misogynist victim-blaming perpetrated by politicians ("legitimate rape" and all that)? How about the evidence-free hysteria about the government wanting to take your guns? How about the fact that the criminal justice system is run by mostly elected prosecutors, who are motivated mostly by headlines, not justice?

    To what extent is a pervasive set of government policies telling you every day that you are not safe, not even from your own government, and that if you are a victim it's your fault, partly responsible for people feeling helpless, arming themselves, and lashing out?

    The answer is "I don't know". But I'd sure as hell like to know.

  • On the post: 'Quantum Copyright:' At What Point Does A Legal Copy Become Infringement?

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2013 @ 05:15pm

    Re: Re: What about travelling with copies?

    In your offer, there's the question of intent. You're actually offering to distribute to the United States stuff that's illegal to distribute in the United States.

    So here's a related offer. I (an Australian) am willing to sell to any American a shiny almost-new, slightly-used, USB flash drive for whatever the normal market price is for an almost-new USB, slightly-used, flash drive. Oh, plus postage.

    There may be some (public domain in Australia) stuff already on it. I didn't get a chance to wipe it before I posted it. You can do that, right?

  • On the post: NRA: Games To Blame For Violence! Also, Here's A Shooting Game For 4-Year-Olds!

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2013 @ 04:11pm

    Re: Re: This blog amazes me

    "Special interest group" isn't perjorative. I use it all the time to refer to groups whose interests aren't the same mine.

    The NRA is not a special interest group. It does not lobby on behalf of the interests of responsible gun owners. It lobbies on behalf of the interests of gun manufacturers, sometimes against the interests of responsible gun owners. It is an industry lobby group, and therefore presumed evil until proven benign.

  • On the post: Anonymous Launches White House Petition Saying DDoS Should Be Recognized As A Valid Form Of Protest

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 12 Jan, 2013 @ 03:45pm

    Re: Re:

    That second paragraph nails it. Someone who participates in an act of civil disobedience is willing not only to be identified (and hence be the target of reprisals), but also to spend time in jail if necessary. Bad laws partly get changed by the world seeing someone be punished for breaking or opposing that bad law.

    That's not to say that civil disobedience is the only valid response to a bad law. Ignoring a bad law can be a legitimate response, too.

    Until 2003, some sex acts, between consenting adults and performed in private, were illegal in some parts of the United States. I'll wager that there are people here who broke some of those laws, though not with the intent of being identified and taken to court to challenge the injustice of those laws.

    Even if you're too young for that, many have treated some of the laws on drug use or possession, or some of the weirder copyright laws, in much the same way.

  • On the post: Opera About Walt Disney Refused Permission To Use Disney Images

    Pseudonym ( profile ), 08 Jan, 2013 @ 04:07pm

    Re: Disney is proof

    Oh, it goes way beyond not allowing works to go into the public domain. You sometimes get the impression that it's about controlling history, at least the part of history where Walt Disney and his key employees are involved.

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