ShadowNinja 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: USAToday Latest News Outlet To Completely Miss The Point Of Cord Cutting

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2017 @ 06:42am

    Add another $15 monthly for HBO.

    Only need that when Game of Thrones is on, which is two whole months in the year with the new season being just 7 episodes.

    Also you can choose when your month starts by when you sign up for HBO Now.

    So that $30 works out to more like $2.50 a month when averaged out for the whole year. Yeah, really going to break my poor wallet.

  • On the post: Aussie Film Distributor That Pledged To End Movie Release Delays To Combat Piracy Delays Movies Anyway

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2017 @ 01:54pm

    premiering Down Under more than six weeks after it hits US cinemas.

    Holy cow. I thought we were talking a 24 hour delayed release due to timezone differences until I saw this. A 6 week delay in today's Internet age is just insane and simply undoable.

    Not only is there piracy to worry about, but once people in other countries have seen the movie and reviewed it, people in Australia will already know if the movie is good or bad, and decide if they want to watch it or not just from those reviews.

  • On the post: ESPN On-Air Talent About To Care About The Cord-Cutters The Execs Aren't Concerned About

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2017 @ 09:31am

    Re: Re: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

    Cordcutting services such as Sling, Vue, DirecTVNow, etc. Nielsen has no way of counting these yet.
    Except ESPN isn't available on any of these cord cutting alternates. So it doesn't matter that they don't count in the ratings.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Won't Hear Case, But Justice Thomas Questions Constitutionality Of Asset Forfeiture

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 07 Mar, 2017 @ 01:55pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A call out

    Apparently you didn't pay attention to how McCain Feingold was struck down then.

    The SCOTUS took up a more narrow case about it. But then after deliberating they basically announced there would be another hearing on much broader questions (which would allow them to strike down much more then the narrow part of the law the case was originally about).

    The SCOTUS has done the same before, asking the two parties to come back and deliberate over something else related to the original lawsuit. At time's it's just used as a stalling tactic for political reasons (like Brown vs Board of Education, where several justices were working extra hard behind the scenes to get a unanimous ruling, but needed more time to sway a few hold out justices), but other times it's used to expand the scope of the suit.

  • On the post: German Judge Fines Father Because He Didn't Tell His Kid Not To Engage In Piracy

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 07 Mar, 2017 @ 07:01am

    Re: Re: While we're at it...

    Oh, so you're telling me stealing and armed robbery is illegal after I just did both! How was I supposed to know that! The bank should have told me when I came barging in with a gun and demanded all their cash! That makes it all the bank's fault by this judge's logic!

  • On the post: Arizona Legislators Approve Bill That Would Allow Government To Seize Assets From Protesters

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 24 Feb, 2017 @ 11:13am

    Re:

    I'd prefer these steps instead.

    1) Find something that politicians who support this bill and civil asset forfeiture oppose.

    2) Organize a protest opposing that same thing those politicians oppose.

    3) Get someone to break some stuff at that protest.

    4) Use the very power of this new law to confiscate the assets of said politicians who backed this law, by arguing that through their public statements on the issue they were a part of the group of protesters, even if said politicians weren't even there at the protest.

    5) Watch as the politicians are forced to suddenly take asset forfeiture laws and abuse their seriously when they're suddenly the ones being robbed by it.

  • On the post: Rep. Sensenbrenner Thinks We Can Pay For The Border Wall With More Asset Forfeiture

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 21 Feb, 2017 @ 11:58am

    Re: The sheriff of Notingham

    Nonsense, I'm sure asset forfeiture isn't abused at all!

    In fact I'm sure Rep. Sensenbrenner will be happy to prove it if a cop threatens to arrest him for political corruption, but agrees to drop the charges if Sensenbrenner will agree to hand over all his assets to law enforcement to escape charges.

    After all, if it's a good system for everyone else, why shouldn't it be for handling corrupt as hell politicians?

  • On the post: Get Ready For 'Leak Investigations' In The Trump White House

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 14 Feb, 2017 @ 01:41pm

    Why should this leaking surprise anyone?

    Trump and everyone else 'shocked' by these leaks is either being delusional or willingly forgetful if they thought there wouldn't be a ton of leaks from his white house.

    We literally knew throughout the entire 2 year presidential campaign what all the drama was that was happening in his campaign, the entire freaking time. We literally had constant stories about people who are moving up and down in the Trump campaign, and the constant conflict between multiple factions in his campaign that were out to get each other. That's stuff that should NEVER be leaking out, especially so regularly, from a competently run campaign.

    Why would anyone expect that to change just because they were in the white house? If Trump couldn't crack down on the leaking then, why should we expect him to succeed in cutting down on it now?

  • On the post: New FCC Boss Decides It's Cool If Phone Monopolies Want To Rip Off Inmate Families

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 08 Feb, 2017 @ 10:36am

    Re: Re: Re: Free Market!

    Nope. There's even been some prison strikes in recent years over this. :(

    From what I learned in school, part of why this was put in the 13th amendment is supposedly some people were paranoid at the time that without the clause, imprisoning people could potentially be declared unconstitutional. The fear being a prisoner could successfully argue to the SCOTUS that prisoners are treated no different than slaves, and therefore imprisonment is unconstitutional under the 13th amendment abolishing slavery.

  • On the post: New FCC Boss Decides It's Cool If Phone Monopolies Want To Rip Off Inmate Families

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 08 Feb, 2017 @ 07:50am

    Re: Free Market!

    And everyone knows people who are enslaved have lots of extra spending money sitting around to pay $14 per minute of a phone call!

    (For those unaware, the 13th amendment makes clear treating prisoners as slaves and making them doing the kind of labor America used to have slaves do is perfectly legal. And prisoners are essentially slaves with how they make like 25 cents or so an hour for such labor.)

  • On the post: Wawa Versus Dawa: Trademark Dispute Blamed On A Need To Police That Doesn't Exist

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2017 @ 06:41am

    This sounds similar to a textbook example trademark infringement case in Business Law 101

    Years ago I took a Business Law 101 course, and this Dawa and Wawa case sounds almost exactly like one of the example cases of a trademark infringement suit.

    In that case it was 7/11 suing a convenience store called 8/11 that was quite similar to 7/11.

    7/11 clearly had a much stronger case there then Wawa does against Dawa. And yet when it got to court, 7/11 lost the case.

    The main reason 7/11 lost? 7/11's stores and layouts were too generic and not uniquely identified with them. There was no other potential infringement of the 7/11 logo/etc in 8/11. All they had was a claim to a similar name.

    Now if you tried to rip off say McDonald's with a store called say "McSmith's", with pink uniforms with a big M on them, and a big pink M sign outside, that's a different story. Then you're ripping off much more than just McDonald's name.

    So given that case, I highly doubt Wawa can win this if it actually goes to court.

  • On the post: Denmark Says Tech Giants Affect It More Than Entire Countries, Decides To Appoint Official 'Digital Ambassador' To Them

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2017 @ 07:11am

    Point to one thing that helps big tech companies like google that hurts anyone besides other big non-tech corporations that politicians have actually passed if you think google/etc are too powerful.

    You can only point to one thing that politicians killed for them (not passed), and that's SOPA.

    So yeah, I'll believe tech companies are powerful and influential in the eyes of politicians when they start to pass bad legislation that's just designed to be a big giveaway to google/etc while screw over everyone else, similar to the how killing net neutrality will hurt almost everyone.

  • On the post: Nine Years Later, Patriots Get '19-0' And 'Perfect Season' Trademarks, Despite Doing Neither

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2017 @ 06:47am

    Being able to trademark a term as generic as '19-0' and 'Perfect Season' is just ludicrous.

    Statements like '19-0' and 'Perfect Season' are facts, not things for people to identify you with. Any other team in any sport (or heck even video game tournaments) could get the same 19-0 record, or 'perfect season'.

    So what would the Patriots do if they start to brag about their factual record, sue them for playing exactly 19 games and winning them all?

  • On the post: Mac Repair Company iGeniuses Sends Legal Threats To Unhappy Customers, Demanding $2500 Per Negative Review

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2017 @ 09:07am

    Re:

    Hey any publicity is good publicity!

    ... Unless iGenius says otherwise in court.

  • On the post: New Trump Executive Order Says Federal Agencies Should Exclude Foreigners From Privacy Protections

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2017 @ 01:54pm

    This is why the bill of rights should apply to foreigners

    Situations like this are exactly why I argue the bill of rights does and should apply to everyone, and not just US citizens as many others insist.

    If the government will violate the rights of foreigners, such as their rights of privacy, how can US citizens expect to have the same rights? With technology connected to the Internet especially it's absurd to think the government can spy on everything a foreigner (especially a foreigner on US soil) does online, all while respecting the privacy of US citizens.

    Plus violating the bill of rights on foreigners can have massive chilling effects. Imagine for example if the government passed a law that foreigners who criticize the government are to be sentenced to life in prison, all while insisting US citizens were free to do the same thing because of the bill of rights. It's absurd to think such an action wouldn't have a massive chilling effect on freedom of speech, and that people wouldn't be scared if they do the same thing as a foreigner the government will find some other reason to throw them in jail that doesn't have the pesky bill of rights interfering.

  • On the post: New Protectionist Virginia Law Would Keep Residents From Better Broadband

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 24 Jan, 2017 @ 01:53pm

    Re: I'm Puzzled

    Just put the word 'freedom' or 'right' in front of something and you get a bunch of politicians willing to back it no matter how anti-freedom and anti-your civil rights it is.

    See for example 'right to work' which really consists of scrapping employee protections, and 'religious freedom' laws that allow businesses to discriminate against you for any reason they can backup by 'sincerely held religious beliefs'.

  • On the post: Arrested Flag Burner Sues Arresting Officers

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 24 Jan, 2017 @ 06:31am

    Re:

    A bunch of unenforceable laws struck down decades earlier are still technically on the books in various places.

    Virginia's AG in recent years tried to enforce sodomy bans, insisting the SCOTUS ruling that struck down them all only applied to Texas where the lawsuit was brought them.

    And there's at least a half dozen states where either their laws or constitutions technically ban atheists from holding public office, even though anyone who's tried to enforce such religious tests has been smacked down in the courts.

  • On the post: EU MEPs Call Again For 'Robot Rules' To Get Ahead Of The AI Revolution

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2017 @ 07:41am

    Re: Re: Re: “Electronic Persons”

    That to. Watson from Jeopardy (the computer smart enough to know the answers to all sorts of questions, like a real human) had something like 30+ servers for a brain.

    With continued miniaturization and improving of computers we can no doubt lower the amount required to do a task like Watson, but it'll take time. And Watson's capabilities are just one of MANY complicated things a robot AI would have to do in order to be a truly 'independent 'person'.

    Also, some of the systems might not work so well together when you have unreliable technology on top of unreliable technology. For example, if the hearing doesn't work properly, then a 'Watson' intelligence to look up data will likely look up the wrong data, and the 'chatbot' intelligence will likely say something odd or stupid that doesn't go with the current conversation.

  • On the post: EU MEPs Call Again For 'Robot Rules' To Get Ahead Of The AI Revolution

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2017 @ 06:01am

    Re: “Electronic Persons”

    Not to mention programming AI's to basically be a robotic version of a human is infinitely more complicated/impossible then most non-programmers realize. Among the difficulties for such a robotic human are:

    • Speech recognition is quite difficult, and is still not that great even when you speak directly into a microphone. Even if everyone speaks the same language, some have such heavy accents it might as well be a different language.
    • Image recognition has a lot of the same issues. It's still quite bad, and all work done on it so far is just feeding in still images and getting the computer to figure out what it is. An AI would need to be able to process images in real time properly so that they could interact with the world correctly, and not for example trip and fall down.
    • A robot would need a lot of common sense programmed into it to. It couldn't simply learn through experience to for example not walk into a busy street full of traffic. Programmers would no doubt constantly have to program in more common sense as the robot finds new stupid & potentially dangerous things to do that no human would even think about doing.
    • Robots would need to be programmed to do non-work related things for a robotic AI in robot human to work. Otherwise robots would simply not want to leave work and take breaks other then to refuel themselves.
    • Above all else, who would pay for such self aware robotic AI? Businesses that use robots would want a robot that could do the job of a human 24/7, and businesses wouldn't care about the robot being shaped like a human, they'd just care that it's a productive robotic slave. Most individuals wealthy enough to afford a robot would basically want them to be some kind of a robotic slave servant to.
    • Some might want robots to do house work or be a perfect teacher, but those things need programmed as well, and the robot teacher part especially would be insanely difficult to program. As would a proper 'robot friend' who can chat properly with you (just google chatbot fails for some hilarious examples of failures in this area).

  • On the post: Surprise: President Obama Commutes Chelsea Manning's Sentence

    ShadowNinja ( profile ), 18 Jan, 2017 @ 07:02am

    Re: Re:

    Not to mention even Ellsberg has said Snowden shouldn't return to the US, even highlighting how much of a sham trials are under the espionage act.

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