RobShaver 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Patent Office, Perhaps Forgetting What Year It Is, Locks Down Mobile App Development Platforms

    RobShaver ( profile ), 17 Nov, 2012 @ 02:22pm

    Prior Art

    10 Top Mobile Application Development Platforms

    http://www.cio.com/slideshow/detail/60019#slide1

  • On the post: Patent Office, Perhaps Forgetting What Year It Is, Locks Down Mobile App Development Platforms

    RobShaver ( profile ), 17 Nov, 2012 @ 02:07pm

    Appcelerator founded in 2006

    Appbar founded in 2009,From the Appcelerator web site.

    "Appcelerator At a Glance
    Founded in 2006 and based in Mountain View, California, Appcelerator makes Titanium, the leading mobile platform of choice for thousands of companies seizing the mobile opportunity. With more than 50,000 applications deployed on 75 million devices, the award-winning Titanium Platform leverages over 5,000 APIs to create native iOS and Android apps, and HTML5 mobile web apps."

    http://www.appcelerator.com/company

  • On the post: 'Looper' Director Offers Downloadable 'In-Theater' Commentary Track

    RobShaver ( profile ), 10 Oct, 2012 @ 01:41pm

    iPod Shuffle

    My iPod shuffle has no glowing screen at all. I pretty much wear it all the time and have worn it to moves. I listen to podcasts instead of the pre-movie advertising.

    So I think I might try this out. Think they'll let me stay to watch it twice on one ticket? If not then I'll just wait until it's out on disk and rent it at a RedBox for $1.20. Of course they will have stripped the bonus features, but I'll have it on my iPod.

    Darren Aronofsky put a downloadable audio commentary file out on the Internet to go with "The Fountain". He said he didn't have time to get it onto the DVD so he was putting it out later.

    "The Fountain" is one of about a half dozen DVDs I own and I did listen to it with his commentary track. I loved it.

  • On the post: Yes, There Are Many, Many, Many, Many Legal Uses Of BitTorrent

    RobShaver ( profile ), 01 Oct, 2012 @ 09:39pm

    I use bittorrent ...

    I use bittorrent every time I take classes from http://fxphd.com

    Each term all the students have to download the class videos for each class. There's a minimum of four classes times ten weeks or 40 videos. Then there's often supplements and extra materials depending on the class.

    By having all the students use bittorrent they can keep their bandwidth requirements reasonable and keep the class costs lower.

    If you want to blame the technology for the all the ills then outlawing cars would save 15 or 20 thousand lives every year.

  • On the post: Louis CK's Direct Tour Sales: Over $6 Million In 1 Week, Scalping Drops From 25% To Below 1%

    RobShaver ( profile ), 06 Jul, 2012 @ 09:30am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Are scalpers providing a service?

    I think I do see the point. I'm just sad to see the "first sale" principal being attenuated by everyone.

    Why not just limit sales to the box office an hour before the show? (Yes, I know that causes other problems too.)

    Again, don't like scalpers ... don't buy from them. Don't like prostitutes, don't buy from them. Don't like pay-day loans, don't buy from them.

    To me it is simple.

  • On the post: Louis CK's Direct Tour Sales: Over $6 Million In 1 Week, Scalping Drops From 25% To Below 1%

    RobShaver ( profile ), 06 Jul, 2012 @ 08:48am

    Re: Re: Are scalpers providing a service?

    We had tickets to a show that is now sold out. Some friends came in from out of town that day. The choice was to not go, go without our friends or buy in front of the venue from a scalper.

    We bought two tickets from a scalper in front of the venue for 15% above face value and were glad for the service they provided.

  • On the post: Louis CK's Direct Tour Sales: Over $6 Million In 1 Week, Scalping Drops From 25% To Below 1%

    RobShaver ( profile ), 06 Jul, 2012 @ 08:12am

    Are scalpers providing a service?

    Here's a very simple test to tell if scalper are providing a service: if people buy from them then they ARE providing a service.

    Same goes for any service, legal or illegal, if there's a market someone will provide it.

    So the only question is, should it be legal. Think of prostitution or pay-day loans or political super PAC.

    So if I show up to one of Louis CK shows with a ticket and they say I can't come in, I think that I have been harmed (is tort the right word?) and have the right to a refund plus damages.

    Of course for $45 even small clams court is too expensive to make it worth the effort.

    Just my opinion.

  • On the post: Louis CK's Direct Tour Sales: Over $6 Million In 1 Week, Scalping Drops From 25% To Below 1%

    RobShaver ( profile ), 05 Jul, 2012 @ 05:12pm

    Sounds similar to Omega

    This sound a lot like Omega using copyright to stop the sale of watches in the USA that were not bought through the "official" Omega channel. I understand that in some cases people want to have total control over what they used to own.

    How's this different from the original architect writing into the contract on a house he designed that he (and his estate) get's 0.1% of the sale price EVERY TIME IT SELLS?

    We can wipe out scalpers any time we want ... if nobody buys from then then they will be gone. Simple as that.

    Look what happened to Arthur Anderson after Enron ... nobody would use their services after it was reveled that they couldn't be trusted. (The same should have happened to Ford when it came out they made the corporate decision to pay off the families who had members die in the exploding Pintos because it was cheaper than fixing the problem.)

    The same should be true for software and games and anything ... if you bought it you should be able to resell it. A willing seller and a willing buyer, right?

  • On the post: This Is Reporting? Fox News Ties Flame Malware To Angry Birds Because Both Use Lua

    RobShaver ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2012 @ 01:25pm

    Fox News Tied to Child Porn ... Both Use Video

    Film at 11.

  • On the post: Insanity: CISPA Just Got Way Worse, And Then Passed On Rushed Vote

    RobShaver ( profile ), 26 Apr, 2012 @ 05:19pm

    To paraphrase Ross Perot ...

    "That sucking sound you hear is our human/constitutional rights getting drained away by the people YOU put in office."

    I don't hear much talk in these pages about the NDAA that Obama already signed which effectively repealed the Habeas Corpus Act. (Read The NDAA: a clear and present danger to American liberty in The Guardian where it says The US is sleepwalking into becoming a police state, where, like a pre-Magna Carta monarch, the president can lock up anyone)

    Now CISPA is pushed through is another nail in our coffin.

  • On the post: Disappointing: Teller Sues Other Magician For Doing The Same Trick

    RobShaver ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2012 @ 10:12pm

    Re: Re: Revealing secrets

    I remember that too.

  • On the post: Zazzle Blocks '1-Star Review' Mug, Gets Even Worse Review From Instapaper Creator

    RobShaver ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2012 @ 02:57pm

    Is this fair use?

    So I ordered a mug with this on it:

    "Now I just know that Zazzle sucks, and I?ll never do business with them again." - Marco Arment

  • On the post: This American Life Retracts Entire Episode About Apple Factories After Mike Daisey Admits To Fabricating Parts Of The Story

    RobShaver ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2012 @ 01:17pm

    Common fiction wisdom ...

    Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

  • On the post: This American Life Retracts Entire Episode About Apple Factories After Mike Daisey Admits To Fabricating Parts Of The Story

    RobShaver ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2012 @ 01:16pm

    Re: Re: Butt Jobs Admited To Some Problems

    No but he could hire 3,000 lawyer here at the drop of a patent and sue everybody making competing products. That's want make America grate ... no, not great.

  • On the post: Since The RIAA & MPAA Say That A Copy Is Just As Valuable As The Original, Send Them A Copy Of Money

    RobShaver ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2012 @ 11:07pm

    That's why counterfeiting is illegal.

    Look, I agree with you on copying in general but this analogy isn't correct. If you can scan currency AND you print it out AND you can pay for stuff with that scanned currency:

    A. That will devalue the currency due to inflation of the money supply. (That's also why it's bad when the government does it legally. Same result: inflation.)

    B. Printing copies of money is illegal in all countries in the world because ... see A above.

    This analogy only works if you scan, print and use the scanned currency. If you put a CD in a scanner and scan the art and put that scanned picture of the CD on the internet for people to download, they can't play the songs. Nobody's suggesting they care of you scan the CD art work ... although I'm sure they'd complain about it.

    So, in fact this is a good analogy for the copyright maximalists. They would say that copying copyrighted infinite goods and putting them on the internet devalues them in the same way as counterfeiting money, if unchecked, will devalue that money. And that's why, they'd say, that the prohibition of counterfeiting is strongly enforced and that's exactly why the prohibition of copying copyrighted goods should be strongly enforced too.

    In fact the marginal cost of printing another currency bill is very low also, compared to its value in circulation. But we all know that printing a huge supply of paper money will not add value to the economy.

    To summarize, I think that copyright as it is currently practiced is broken and I also think scanning and printing currency as a analogy to devaluing copyrighted infinite goods is an argument FOR strong copyright enforcement just like counterfeiting laws.

    Or did I miss something?

  • On the post: Entertainment Industy Back To Demanding That Search Engines Censor The Web… Through 'Voluntary' Measures

    RobShaver ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2012 @ 10:31am

    Why don't we ...

    Why don't we put together a set of proposals for how they should run THEIR business? It should have about the same weight and could be quite entertaining.

  • On the post: Senator Ron Wyden's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    RobShaver ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2012 @ 11:55pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    And yet another "WOW" from a whole other country ... Texas.

    If you run for the top office in 2016, count me in!

  • On the post: UK Court Says You Can Copyright The Basic Idea Of A Photograph

    RobShaver ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2012 @ 08:48am

    Hurry and copyright the portrait

    Who will hold the copyright on the portrait? Portrait with one person, two people, family, baby on bearskin rug. Can dance be copyrighted? How about fashion runway walking style?

  • On the post: Clay Shirky: Why SOPA's Not Going Away

    RobShaver ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2012 @ 12:36pm

    Re: The real reason SOPA & PIPA are not going away

    "Big money knows how to align their interests with government ..."

    Here's another video ... well, movie (1.5 hours so watch it in the living room using your Google TV) that talks about this and other subjects.

    CULTURAL CREATIVES - THE (R)EVOLUTION
    http://vimeopro.com/fogelmedia/cultural-creatives-10-the-revolution

  • On the post: Clay Shirky: Why SOPA's Not Going Away

    RobShaver ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2012 @ 12:30pm

    Re: SOPA & PIPA are the symptom ...

    CORRECTION: ... should NOT reduce free speech ...

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