Roger Strong 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (3460)

• On the post: The Folks That Built The Internet Tell The FCC It Has No Idea How The Internet Works

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 12 Dec, 2017 @ 08:30am

  Re: Let's look skeptically at your list of "experts":

  The wheel. Used later by the MILITARY!
  
  Cutlery. Used by staff at the CIA!
  
  Pants. Used for spying, because RFID tags can be sewn into them!
  
  Don't trust anyone who uses them!
  
  /s

• On the post: FCC Boss 'Jokes' About Being A 'Verizon Puppet' At Tone Deaf Industry Gala

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2017 @ 05:59pm

  Re:

  ...because every sane person...

  Context is everything. For the Russians the context was that Reagan had recently announced plans to deploy Pershing II nuclear-capable missiles to West Germany. Launched from road-mobile vehicles, making the launch sites very hard to find, and only six to eight minutes flight time to Moscow. Consider how the US reacted to missiles in Cuba. Reagan had also announced development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, which would allow the US to launch missiles against the USSR without fear of retaliation. They thought that a US first strike on the Soviet Union was imminent. Leading to Operation RYAN to find out Reagan's intentions. When Reagan made his bombing joke, the Soviet Far East Army was placed on alert and the the alert was not withdrawn until 30 minutes later. Reagan didn't want to start a war, but he was clueless about the consequences of his actions. Pai will get his cushy revolving door industry job/payout regardless, so he just doesn't care.

• On the post: Court Says Google Must Unmask Person Who Left Wordless, One-Star Review Of Local Psychiatrist

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2017 @ 12:14pm

  Re: Re:

  Plus the Streisand Effect seems to be less relevant in the era of Donald Trump and Roy Moore.

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

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2017 @ 09:34am

  Re: "Aerie simply wasn't having it, for good reason:"

  The only thing Aerie was wrong about is that you cannot trademark a generic term. And even those who wrote the law would probably agree with Aerie.
  
  Aerie was right about everything else. "Comic Con" is a generic term, and had been before San Diego started using it.

• On the post: Court Says Google Must Unmask Person Who Left Wordless, One-Star Review Of Local Psychiatrist

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2017 @ 11:47am

  Court Says Google Must Unmask Depressed Night Owl With PTSD

  Psychiatrist claims defamation over one-star review, says he never had a patient named "Batman."

• On the post: Court Says Google Must Unmask Person Who Left Wordless, One-Star Review Of Local Psychiatrist

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2017 @ 11:20am

  Given that one can create a largely anonymous Google account, and given that this review was created with a name Beale declares "obviously a pseudonym", will Google have *any* reliable information?
  
  Anything more than an IP address, the unreliability of which is often demonstrated by everyone from researchers to copyright trolls?

• On the post: MPAA Wins: Australia To Carve Google And Facebook Out Of Its Expanded Safe Harbor Provisions

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2017 @ 09:45am

  The government initially signaled that it wanted to harmonize its law with EU and American law, before the lobbying dollars of the entertainment industry sprung into action, causing the government to walk this back a bit.

  They'll look back on this and realize that they succeeded.

  Because EU and American lobbyists - and their owned and operated politicians - will harmonize with Australia. They'll quickly declare that excluding Google, Facebook and similar platforms from safe harbor provisions is the international standard.

• On the post: Shocker: Study Finds Cord Cutting Very Real, TV Execs Still Failing To Adapt

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 08 Dec, 2017 @ 10:58am

  Re: Re: Local Antenna TV

  Here in Canada that OTA signal comes with at least one major cable perk: The CRTC requires the cable companies to carry some local channels in their basic cable package. ("Mandatory carriage") Which is almost always the local OTA broadcasters. Being in the basic cable package they can charge more for advertising.
  
  It's a big enough perk that the Sun News Network, once they discovered that Canadians weren't interested in paying extra for "Fox News North", demanded to be included in the mandatory carriage list. That failed, and they went under amid a lot of mocking over a right-wing channel demanding government intervention to protect them from the free market.

• On the post: Dear Tech Guys: HBO's Silicon Valley Is NOT An Instruction Manual

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 08 Dec, 2017 @ 11:47am

  The next step in the cycle is that that techbros and carpetbaggers hire some intelligent and hardworking people to do the actual work.
  
  Paid in company stock, which they're not allowed to sell any time soon. But that's OK, because they're making a fortune. On paper.
  
  The techbros and carpetbaggers spend all the money on parties and a Superbowl commercial, and the company disappears.
  
  Those paid in company stock don't merely lose it all. The IRS tells them that they're required to pay taxes based on when they received it, when it was still worth a fortune.

• On the post: Opening Statements In The Trademark Battle Of The Comic Cons, While Other Regional Cons Go Full Judas

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2017 @ 09:17pm

  Re: Re: SDCC

  To prevent a future Trump administration reunion, I claim "Convict Con."

• On the post: New York City Hotels Say Obnoxious $25 'Destination Fee' 'Improves The Customer Experience'

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2017 @ 01:12pm

  Re:

  Wait for it.
  
  Here in Canada a cable/phone/ISP company's advertised price on the web site is the "introductory price." It'll go up after x months.

• On the post: FCC Boss Lies Again, Insists Net Neutrality Harms The Sick And Disabled

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2017 @ 09:55am

  Re: RE: Karma

  You should take your own advice. You're the one declaring the abandoning of regulation to the fault of those on the left and those who favor regulation.
  
  Like I said, you're very confused.

• On the post: FCC Boss Lies Again, Insists Net Neutrality Harms The Sick And Disabled

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2017 @ 09:16am

  Re: Re: Karma

  OK, so you see leftists AND conservatives as misguided and wrong. You declare anyone on the right - but not alt-right - to be "leftists." That doesn't make you appear any less confused.
  
  And you ignore the right's blind love of regulation. (On drugs, who can marry, bathroom usage, enforced ISP monopolies, religious restrictions on those entering the country, Sunday shopping laws, morality restrictions on music and TV and of course indefinite extensions to copyright terms. No doubt I'm missing a few areas.)

• On the post: FCC Boss Lies Again, Insists Net Neutrality Harms The Sick And Disabled

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2017 @ 08:34am

  Re: Re: Karma

  You're very confused. What Pai is doing isn't regulation. It's abandoning regulation. If the FDA were to abandon all safety standards and let people go back to selling tobacco as a cure for asthma or radioactive materials as a beauty cream, that's not "powerful regulation." It's just the opposite. As BernardoVerda wrote in another topic:

  Chess or Poker, Baseball or Basketball, the Justice system or the Economy... Without rules (a.k.a. "regulations") and effective enforcement, what you're left with just doesn't work. (Hell -- eventually we figured out that even full out War is worse for everyone, without some regulation. )

  Conservatives on the RIGHT recognize this. You're just being a partisan little weasel when you declare it a left-wing thing.

• On the post: FCC Boss Lies Again, Insists Net Neutrality Harms The Sick And Disabled

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2017 @ 07:02am

  Re:

  He just doesn't have the honesty or sense of reality of the rest of the administration.

• On the post: New York City Hotels Say Obnoxious $25 'Destination Fee' 'Improves The Customer Experience'

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2017 @ 01:21pm

  It's as though Electronic Arts released SimHotel.

  Granted they'd be screwing over their real customers, not the simulated ones.

• On the post: Snopes Debunks Fake YouTube Video; Video's Creator Responds With A Bogus DMCA Notice

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2017 @ 02:43pm

  Re:

  If some pig-ignorant inbred conspiritard spends his time listening to Alex Jones and posting birther and islamophobic wingnuttery, then at least it keeps him off the streets. It's not like he'll be elected President or appointed National Security Advisor.

• On the post: Google And Amazon Are Harming Consumers And Behaving Like Obnoxious Toddlers

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2017 @ 01:26pm

  Re: "no longer supporting"

  Karl, you should've called them out on this lie too.

  The entire story does just that.

• On the post: Google And Amazon Are Harming Consumers And Behaving Like Obnoxious Toddlers

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2017 @ 12:54pm

  I finally understand something about cloud-based voice recognition devices that's been bothering me: Why were home users first to adopt them? It's probably because large corporations predicted these sort of pissing matches.
  
  And so Google, Amazon and the CIA can hear everything I say at home, but McDonalds can't hear me say "No pickles" at the drive-through speaker.

• On the post: What Happened To Everyone Complaining About The Length Of The 2015 Net Neutrality Rules?

  

  Roger Strong ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2017 @ 10:20am

  As always, IOKIYAR.
  
  (It's OK If You're A Republican)

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