Ryan 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (153) comment rss

  • On the post: The Traditional Banner Ad Business May Be In Even More Trouble Than You Think

    Ryan ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2008 @ 12:54pm

    also

    what sites do you guys visit that have these annoying banner ads everybody talks about being bombarded with?

    I've never seen them on a news site or comapny website or online web application that I use daily.

    In fact, I don't think I've noticed an annoying ad in months.

    of course, i don't visit porn and warez sites either.

    In my daily internet usage, I haven't come across any - and I don't use adblock.

    Something tells me that the problem is either way over-stated, or some of you people visit some very shady websites.

  • On the post: The Traditional Banner Ad Business May Be In Even More Trouble Than You Think

    Ryan ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2008 @ 12:49pm

    two sides

    but what about the other side? banner ads are the reason many sites (including this one) can continue offering up free content.

    I run several free web services that average about 25-50,000 unique visitors per day, and I couldn't afford to keep those sites online without banner ads.

    Granted, I don't do the annoying popups, expanding, make noise ones.

    As companies start pulling out of banner ads though, many popular websites (including major sites like Digg, MySpace, Fark, etc) will have to find other ways to pay their bandwith bills.

    All of you who are quick to bash ads - you still read this site... would you pay to read it without ads? I doubt any of you would.

  • On the post: American Citizen Detained At Border Due To Drawing Of An SUV

    Ryan ( profile ), 09 Oct, 2008 @ 10:15am

    Hmm

    looks like my submit button works.

  • On the post: Congress Too Busy Gambling With Your Money To Let You Gamble With It Yourself

    Ryan ( profile ), 06 Oct, 2008 @ 11:50am

    horse racing

    Horse racing isn't a game of chance. In theory, a faster stronger horse with a better jockey should win every time.

    When I go to the track, I always do better than flipping a coin or picking a horse at random.

    While crazy things do happen, it's not a random game of chance.

    Now, lottery on the other hand.....

  • On the post: Congress Too Busy Gambling With Your Money To Let You Gamble With It Yourself

    Ryan ( profile ), 06 Oct, 2008 @ 10:03am

    regulate

    or, we could pass it now, regulate and tax it, and maybe make some more money to help bail out CEOs with.

  • On the post: Online Poker Cheating Scam Unraveled

    Ryan ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2008 @ 12:29pm

    read the original

    You should read the original post by the guys who first found this:

    http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/ub-scandal-sticky-251207/

    Of course the Kahnawake whatever isn't going to do anything - they were the ones doing the cheating. They won't bust themselves.

    As for the Hellmuth colluding, read annie duke's book or Richard Marcus' book - both out him as a cheater (without namhing his name, but making it very easy to see who they're talking about)

  • On the post: Online Poker Cheating Scam Unraveled

    Ryan ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2008 @ 07:59am

    phil hellmuth

    I find it no coincidence that Phil Hellmuth was involved in this somehow too.

    Those in the professional poker industry know that much of his success is based upon having friends in the same tournaments dump him chips, so it's no surprise that he'd be involved with this scam too.

  • On the post: Linguist Explains That Txting Isn't Ruining Spelling Or The English Language

    Ryan ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2008 @ 12:34pm

    irregardless

    You can't criticize somebody's spelling or grammar if you're using the word "irregardless" in your criticism. The word simply doesn't make sense. Regardless means the same thing, there's no need to embiggen it with the "ir" preface. It's a double negative.

  • On the post: Hey, Didn't Taxpayers Pay For Those Patents NASA Is Auctioning Off?

    Ryan ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2008 @ 09:32am

    The real question is: Why is NASA patenting this stuff in the first place?

    It's not like they have competition.

    Seems to me tax payer research ought not to be patented. If nasa discovers something, great share it with the public.

  • On the post: Making Results Better For End Users Isn't Acting Like A Monopolist

    Ryan ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2008 @ 12:46pm

    the question they use

    The question to ask yourself in all of these cases is:

    "how does this provide more value to the user than simply by searching Google."

    A directory doesn't provide anything more than Google, if Google indexes all those sites in the directory.

    Original content is the key.

  • On the post: Making Results Better For End Users Isn't Acting Like A Monopolist

    Ryan ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2008 @ 09:48am

    the test

    The real test of whether or not a new web2.0 company or business has merit is if they can describe their business model without using the word "adsense"

  • On the post: EA Admits That You Can Only Have One Spore Player Per Install

    Ryan ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2008 @ 09:30am

    eh

    I installed the game (on a virtual machine on my mac so that I don't have the rootkit problem)

    It could be a lot better. Why wasn't this a MMORPG like world of warcraft?

    Instead of competing for good against other player's creations, why can't I compete against other players?

    Also, the cell and land stages are way too short. There's not enough time to fully explore and unlock all the parts before you evolve to the next stage.

    The tribes stage is like a watered down more boring age of empires 1.

    I somehow expected more.

  • On the post: CBS Goes To Court To Let The NFL Know That You Can't Copyright Player Stats

    Ryan ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2008 @ 11:33am

    re: what we need

    We need that for a lot of things:

    Rape
    Patents
    DMCA takedowns

  • On the post: CBS Goes To Court To Let The NFL Know That You Can't Copyright Player Stats

    Ryan ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2008 @ 10:59am

    they can

    they can copyright the performance and the plays (if they wanted to)

    But what they can't copyright is fact.

    Even if a movie is copyrighted, i can say "actor X spoke Y lines and had 56 minutes of face time on screen"

    That's a fact, and it can't be copyrighted.

  • On the post: Anonymous Newspaper Commenters Protected By Same Law That Protects Reporters' Sources

    Ryan ( profile ), 09 Sep, 2008 @ 07:36pm

    not a troll

    it was tucked away in this bill:

    http://news.cnet.com/Senator-Illegal-images-must-be-reported/2100-1028_3-6142332.html

  • On the post: Anonymous Newspaper Commenters Protected By Same Law That Protects Reporters' Sources

    Ryan ( profile ), 09 Sep, 2008 @ 03:20pm

    no

    This can't continue. We need to elect McCain immediately so that he can make sure that anonymous posters aren't allowed, and that the sites can be held responsible for the actions of their commenters.

    (what? he proposed that in a bill a year ago)

  • On the post: If You Had The 'Secret' To Winning The Lottery, Would You Patent It?

    Ryan ( profile ), 25 Aug, 2008 @ 12:25pm

    actually

    it's pretty smart. If they successfully get a patent on "randomly choosing numbers that match those drawn by the lottery" they can effectively sue every future winner.

  • On the post: Video Game Developer Talks To Pirates: Realizes He Can Compete With Free

    Ryan ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2008 @ 11:33am

    and then

    and then when they put out a new game that answers all of these concerns, there will still be reasons to pirate it.

    As long as piracy is the same product for free, people will always find a reason to justify their piracy.

    Why would you pay for something if you can get the same thing for free with little fear of repercussion?

  • On the post: Yes, Marketing Matters To Innovation Too

    Ryan ( profile ), 13 Aug, 2008 @ 10:31am

    or..

    Linspire was never intended to actually take on windows. It was intended to generate publicity and then be sold for profit.

    It was named "lindows" on purpose to draw a lawsuit. That's how Michael Robertson (the VC behind it) markets. He owned mp3.com, got sued, made money.

    He called it lindows, got sued, and now sold it to make money.

    Now he's got sipphone - which is currently suing vonage for publicity. Want to guess how this will turn out?

    It's actually seems like a pretty good strategy.

  • On the post: TSA Loses Laptops With 'Verified' Flyer Details

    Ryan ( profile ), 05 Aug, 2008 @ 05:04pm

    the real question

    The real question I keep asking whenever I read about these things is:

    Why is this data on a laptop to begin with?

    I keep hearing of all these stories, and I find no reason why all these laptops have plain text files of all this data on them. It shouldn't be sitting around in plain text, and it shouldn't be on laptops.

    This is what VPN is for people.

    Is it time for a law against storing CC#, DLN, Passport, or SSN information on any portable device?

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