robertkb64 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Drug Prices Are So Insane That The NY Times Is Recommending The US Gov't Just 'Seize The Patents'

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 19 Jul, 2019 @ 05:41am

    Re: See Insulin...

    Insulin prices are largely driven by bad regulations (at least since 2010), so yes, things have changed. What happened is that Congress passed a law about how to regulate biologics (including insulin), and during the Obama administration the FDA stated in rule making that any insulin application outstanding on the effective date of 1/1/2020 would be summarily denied, and the applicant would have to start over. So the 3 current worldwide manufacturers all know that their competition has been locked out by the government for a decade, and raised prices accordingly. Are they scum? You bet. Were they directly aided by the government, likely for improper reasons? I sure think so, even if the actual reason was FDA laziness. I hope at least someone got paid off - I’d rather it was greed than sloth, and the world needs more Ferrari’s.

  • On the post: London Metropolitan Police's Facial Recognition System Is Now Only Misidentifying People 81% Of The Time

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 19 Jul, 2019 @ 05:04am

    Safest place in London

    According to the Met, 999 of 1000 are correctly identified, and if 19% of the 1/1000 are correctly identified as criminals then there are only 19 criminals per 100,000 people, which is easily the lowest rate in London, let alone in the world.

    Great job, London Metropolitan Police, you’ve shown you have the safest jurisdiction and must not need this fancy tech.

  • On the post: 5G's Latest Problem: Summer Temps Are Causing 5G Phones To Overheat

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2019 @ 08:00am

    What do you mean Apple doesn’t have 5g?

    What do you mean Apple doesn’t have 5g? My iPhone has said it’s been on 5g for months now. Must have been some kind of OTA update from those nice folks as ATT. I wish you’d stop pushing this fake news.

  • On the post: Another Way In Which Patents Contributed To The Opioid Crisis: Hospitals Ordered Not To Use Better, Less Problematic Medicines

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2019 @ 08:47pm

    Not just patents

    A large part of this isn’t just the patents, but also downstream liability for later complications. Paracetamol (Tylenol) IV is safer than other routes because it bypasses first pass metabolism, but unlike opiates there’s also a ceiling effect.

    If you have a patient with severe pain, you can start with low dose morphine and just keep titrating up until the patient gets enough relief. You can’t do that with paracetamol, so for a patient for whom you think it won’t be enough, you just start with morphine.

    Where this gets more interesting is that there are drugs that cause neither addiction nor dependence, and are much stronger than anything other than an opiate, but that have their own potentially negative effects. Toradol is a commonly used example of that, but which can fry your liver if used too frequently (and the “too frequently” dose is pretty close to the effective dose).

    So from a hospitals perspective, the real driver is ease of administration. You can give a mix of many different drugs to optimize effect, or you can use only OTC and morphine, which has the benefit of being easy to administer, easy to monitor, and cheap.

    But if you try to do the best for each patient you’ll inevitably give a patient too much toradol and pay out millions after litigation.

  • On the post: Section 230 Is Not Exceptional, It Is Not Unique, It Is Not A Gift: It's The Codification Of Common Law Liability Principles

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2019 @ 12:34pm

    Re: Re: Contraband -- elephant in the room!

    Right, that’s the problem. Though the only unlawful-in-almost-every-circumstance content I can think of already has that rule, and it doesn’t* seem to be a problem now. Even the DMCA style abuses seem readily solvable: anyone who wants to have their claims have any force have to register their identities, and any false claims after adjudication result in some combination of presumed + actual damages. Congress writing a law appropriately, on the other hand, has almost no chance. *If there’s an actual issue platforms have of someone uploading kitty porn, being told about it, and then instantly being prosecuted because they had actual knowledge of it for a few minutes/hours/days until they removed it, I’ll be unhappy to learn about it.

  • On the post: Section 230 Is Not Exceptional, It Is Not Unique, It Is Not A Gift: It's The Codification Of Common Law Liability Principles

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2019 @ 10:00am

    “In cases where egregiously offensive or patently harmful material can be reliably identified by nonexpert moderators or basic software, and where the risk of false positives can be minimized, a notice of liability could be sent to the online distributor requiring removal of the content. ”

    Anyone have an example of “egregiously offensive or patently harmful material” other than contraband?

    Even something like that I’m quite certain will be used to target content someone dependent like, like the statement (manifesto?) of that idiot in New Zealand that their official idiot (censor) banned anyone from reading.

    Maybe if it was “and platforms can be held liable for not removing contraband (example: kitty* porn) when told exactly where it is”

    *I’m intellectually curious about tech dirts word filters, but not curious enough to test all of the permutations of this.

  • On the post: The Third Circuit Joins The Ninth In Excluding E-Commerce Platforms From Section 230's Protection

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2019 @ 09:18am

    Walmart is Amazon, but with liability

    Slightly disagreeing with the logic of the ruling, but in support of the purpose of such a ruling.

    Walmart, like Amazon, doesn’t own all of the product it sells off its shelves. But while Amazon does own some of the product, Walmart owns essentially none of it - Walmart always acts as a consignment store, and the manufacturer owns the product, with Walmart taking a cut of the proceeds for providing a storefront, cash handling, marketing, and sales consulting (help set the price).

    If this has been bought from Walmart, everyone agrees they’d be liable. The only difference is that you can walk into a Walmart point of sale warehouse, while Amazon only let’s employees into their point of sale warehouse.

    The underlying point of the ruling is (or should be), that its inherently unfair that two otherwise identically situation businesses face different liability when one allows the inspection of goods before purchase (Walmart), while another refuses to allow a purchaser to inspect those goods (Amazon), and its the one who restricts purchaser information more that gets immunity.

    Otherwise, all Walmart would need to do is change its point of sale devices into web terminals, so that every sale is completed over the internet and their “store” becomes just a self service warehouse. If anyone saw that happening, where a Walmart store refused to sell you something you picked off an aisle, but would provide you the web portal to “buy it online and take home today! No waiting for Amazon Prime, get it now!” They’d immediately see it as a scam to avoid liability.

    That’s (hopefully) what the two judges saw, and were trying to correct.

  • On the post: No Shirt, No Shoes, No Facescan, No Service: Welcome To 21st Century Convenience Store Shopping

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 15 Jul, 2019 @ 11:21pm

    Re: Re:

    At least until you’re the second clown who tries it after the first robs the place.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2019 @ 10:43am

    Re: on the menu

    I see where you’re going with this, but I don’t think the analogy holds (or maybe, I misunderstood the facts of the case). The baker was willing to (and had) sold anything on the menu, he was ostensibly sued because he wouldn’t make a custom cake - he would sell a standard cake, which anyone was of course free to use in any way they like. The attempted positioning of the complainants was that he wouldn’t sell them a standard wedding cake - which he wouldn’t sell to anyone, since the only kind of wedding cake he made were custom ones. But the reason he won in the Supreme Court was precisely because it was a sham prosecution - the prosecuting agency had pre-judges the case, and it was this animus that caused his win, regardless of the underlying issue. With that as the background with the agency, I don’t think we can use its actions in a case with a different ideological alignment to tell us anything - because if the real rule is “my guys win” it looks exactly the same as the rule you described. That may be the real reason I don’t find these insightful, they undifferentiable from “my guy wins.” And I hope we all agree that’s a terrible principle. In case you find it useful, my background is libertarian, so I’m pro gay marriage (to the extent the government should be in the business), and pro bigots showing us who they are.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 30 Jun, 2019 @ 06:51pm

    Discrimination

    “One discriminates against a protected class..the other....doesn't.”

    I’ve always had a problem understanding the insight other people seem to see being conveyed here, and I’m hoping people can help me understand it.

    I can see a few things it might mean, but none of them seem very insightful to me:

    “One is a protected class, the other isn’t” is almost tautological: political affiliation is not in any of the protected class statutes, so it’s not a protected class (duh). If the point is that it ought to be a protected class, then I don’t understand how that’s insightful - obviously the people complaining about viewpoints discrimination think it should be protected (plus a few that think it shouldn’t be protected by the government but my social pressure).

    If the point is about inherent attributes versus choice, then I don’t understand it in this context: even if homosexuality is inherent and “conservatism” isn’t (and social science suggests that it’s not actually a choice to a large extent), then the analogy doesn’t fit. The baker was happy to bake cakes for gay couples, had knowingly done so on numerous occasions and intended to do so again, but would only refuse in the specific case of a homosexual wedding - a voluntary act, since no one can inherently get married. The analogy here fits with the act, not the status - he wouldn’t have made a cake for Adam Sandler in Chuck and Larry, for instance.

    I don’t find either of these particularly insightful, so is there something I’m missing?

  • On the post: Google Stadia Is About To Show Everyone Why Broadband Usage Caps Are Bullshit

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2019 @ 05:58pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Sacred is the antonym of profane. “... this isn’t profane”
    “So you’re saying it’s sacred?” This comes from old English and the catholic tradition that heavenly things are sacred, and earthly things are profane. “Profanity” is derived from that, as those terms by definition can’t be sacred.

  • On the post: Government Generously Hands Back Two-Thirds Of The $626,000 It Stole From Two Men Driving Through Missouri

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 27 May, 2019 @ 08:23am

    Re: Re: Reported transports of cash to the IRS

    https://www.cbp.gov/document/forms/form-6059b-customs-declaration-english-fillable Question 13

  • On the post: Ajit Pai May Have Lied To Congress About FCC's Failure To Address Wireless Location Data Scandals

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 24 May, 2019 @ 08:04am

    Re:

    Sadly there’s a better correlation: allies of the party in power of the body lied to don’t get prosecuted, or even meaningfully threatened. Clapper lies, same political allegiance, no penalty (and he’s somehow still on TV). McGahn doesn’t show up (so he doesn’t have to lie), and he’s threatened with sanctions - differing party. Gone decades by are the days when a party would censure itself, and I almost miss the days not even a decade gone when no one was ever censured. Remember that no mans life, liberty, or property are safe when the legislature is in session.

  • On the post: Techdirt Sues ICE After It Insists It Has No Records Of The 1 Million Domains It Claims To Have Seized

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 24 May, 2019 @ 07:51am

    Re: Re: Re:

    No, based on what happened last time, they outsources the work to No One, and that’s who did it.

  • On the post: House Dems Start To Wimp Out On Net Neutrality

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 24 May, 2019 @ 07:30am

    “natural broadband monopolies”

    They’re not “natural broadband monopolies”

    They’re un-natural broadband monopolies. Google Fiber made that pretty clear.

    Preempt the state laws creating the monopoly and all of these problems will be solved by the market (and probably a few anti-cartel prosecutions against Comcast and Verizon, then the others will fall into line).

  • On the post: US Bandwidth Consumption Surges As Usage Caps Pose A Looming Threat

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 10 May, 2019 @ 11:39pm

    Re:

    We don’t do any 4K content either, and we had 1292 downstream and 81 upstream over the last 30 days...... after we had $100 in “use” charges from Cox. Unfortunately, although Commissioner Pai indicates otherwise, Cox has a monopoly here, with Time Warner willing to do an install for $15,000 and an 18 month wait. As that fantastic video said, we can “Oligop-ple down their balls” https://youtu.be/0ilMx7k7mso

  • On the post: Sixth Circuit Court Dumps Lawsuit Seeking To Hold Twitter Responsible For The Pulse Nightclub Shooting

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2019 @ 02:27pm

    Re: I-can't-believe-it's-a-LAW-FIRM

    That’s because aircraft aren’t guns, and we all know that guns viciously attack people on their own, or take over the mind of good honest people and force them to kill others.

  • On the post: Grandstanding GOP Senators Continue To Mislead About Social Media Bias, Demand A 'Fairness Doctrine' For The Internet

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2019 @ 04:51pm

    Re:

    “from TERFs and other conservatives.” It’s great to hear that radical feminists self-identify as conservatives, and that it’s only their pro-trans agenda that allows them to be proper progressives. Great analysis there. I wouldn’t have seen it.

  • On the post: Why, Exactly, Do We Still Trust Telecom Megamerger 'Synergy' Promises?

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2019 @ 09:39am

    Finally Truth in Merger Advertising

    I wish Techdirt would stop trying to falsify the record. When ATT said

    “because it will enable the merged company to reduce prices, ”

    They were absolutely telling the truth, and any other view is disingenuous. Just because they have no intention of actually doing it doesn’t mean it wasn’t enabled, after all, they fired lots of dead weight while increasing revenue, which they were enabled to pass on to the consumer.

    Just because they were also enabled to line their own pockets and did so doesn’t mean they weren’t enabled to reduce prices.

  • On the post: Federal Judge Says Boycotts Aren't Protected Speech

    robertkb64 ( profile ), 05 Feb, 2019 @ 12:24pm

    Re: Re: “reverse discrimination”

    What you describe is actually perfectly good, but I think you’re trying to get at something else. State contracts with groups that minimize cost to the project, that happen to be run by (insert racial group) is ok. State contracts with groups that are run by (insert racial group) because of their race, but don’t have the lowest cost is not ok. The tricky part is case 2 (explicit racial discrimination) when that group happens to have the lowest cost - so that under race neutral criteria they’d still get the work. Not sure on the right answer here, other than voting the bastards out, of course.

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