Rather_Notsay 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (127) comment rss

  • On the post: Software Developer Realizes That Pirates Are Giving Him Market Feedback

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 09 Jan, 2009 @ 04:41pm

    Micropayments

    I'll say it again, we need micropayments, or even minipayments. If the game was 50 cents I wouldn't care if it had inconvenient controls, or poor replayability, or if the DRM server went out of business, or if it didn't work on my new platform. I spend five bucks at Arby's for crying out loud, and don't complain. A game that gave me that much enjoyment (I get 45 minutes where my boss can't find me and my stomach doesn't growl for a couple of hours) at the same price would be an acceptable transaction.
    I'm only going to get uptight if it's $50.

  • On the post: Lexus' Trial Balloon On Car Spam

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 09 Jan, 2009 @ 04:29pm

    I'll be so startled by an ad

    If an unsolicited ad ever comes over my speaker system I'll drive the car into the nearest object (hopefully another expensive car), and sue the sender and the automaker who enabled it for making me lose my focus and crash. That will be the end of that.

  • On the post: Has Our Economy Become Dependant On Bubbles?

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 08 Jan, 2009 @ 11:53am

    The Engine of the American Economy

    The major product of the American economy is new scams to fleece foreign investors. We don't manufacture anything, just borrow money to buy oil from the Arabs and junk from China. We then scam the holders of all those bucks into investing in the latest bubble so the game can begin anew.

  • On the post: Students Using Speed Cameras To Frame Other Kids

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 22 Dec, 2008 @ 06:40am

    Electronic tickets ARE an infinite good

    Electronic traffic fines are an near-infinite good: anybody who wants one can have one at low cost. Back in the old days you had to find a real cop and goad him into pulling you over; now all you have to do is drive by the camera. You might not even have to violate the law.

    The problem is the government wants to give them to people who don't want one.

  • On the post: Canadian Blank CD Levy To Increase By Another 38%

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 16 Dec, 2008 @ 07:38am

    And I answer

    Gee, Twinrova, I didn't realize the World-Wide Web was restricted to the United States only.

    Thanks for clearing that up.

    I suppose we never have to think about what happens in other countries having legal systems with common principles, since things the Border Patrol would stop them before they got too far.

  • On the post: Microsoft Jumping On The T-Shirt Bandwagon

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 08 Dec, 2008 @ 10:04am

    And all I sold

    How about

    "I put together a winning web site full of relevant news and insightful commentary and all I sold was this lousy T-shirt

    - Techdirt.com"

  • On the post: Does The Internet Generation Make For Bad Jurors?

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 10 Nov, 2008 @ 06:51am

    Re: The CSI generation

    It's not just CSI. Thirty years ago the local DA came around to my high school. Among his anecdotes was a burglary trial that ended in a hung jury, 11-1 for conviction. The perp had used latex gloves, which were found at the scene. There were no fingerprints lifted the gloves because it's not possible. The one juror voting for acquittal had seen seen an episode of "Columbo" where he had lifted fingerprints from latex gloves, and concluded that the DA was trying to railroad an innocent man.

  • On the post: Does The Internet Generation Make For Bad Jurors?

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 09 Nov, 2008 @ 11:00am

    Skill sets have changed

    In the olden days, when nobody could read, people were very good at listening to long discussions and remembering what was said. The part of the brain that listened and remembered got exercised from birth and was well developed.

    We now gather a lot more of our information visually, so that has crowded the listening and remembering portion. It's not a matter of being lazy or stupid, it's a matter of being wired differently in response to different stimuli.

    This is actually better because the visual pathways have a lot greater bandwidth than the auural pathways, so there's more capacity to absorb information by reading than by listening.

    Unfortunately, the legal system still treats jurors as though they are illetrate peasants who have to have everything read to them. It's not only a waste of time, it's counter-productive.

    Of course, most lawyers WANT illiterate peasants because they're easier to snow.

  • On the post: Amazon Recognizes That People Hate Annoying Packaging

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2008 @ 10:34am

    Reduce returns

    I think the real advantage to the marketer of the impossible to open package is that they reduce returns.

    If I buy a box of something, carefully open it, then decide I don't want it I'm not a bit shy about returning it. One I've destroyed of those impossible to open packs, it's no longer in resellable condition, so I'm a little more sheepish about it.

  • On the post: BBC's Magic TV Detector Vans Kept Secret

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2008 @ 05:41am

    The Real Scoop on the Vans

    What happened is a bunch of EE nerds went to BBC management and said, "You know, we can make a van that will detect if anyone is watching TV without paying the tax." Management, not knowing any better, gave them a bunch of money to develop it. The nerds filled the van with a bunch of impressive looking equipment, and now they drive around all day watching porn videos on it. If management ever checks in on them they just say, "It's what these pervs watch. We have to keep an eye on them because any minute they're going to turn on the Beeb. Just one of the many indignities we have to endure in service of the public."

    There, their little secret is out.

  • On the post: Security Theater In Action

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 21 Oct, 2008 @ 06:05am

    I don't think the purpose of the TSA is to, "makes me feel any safer about flying." If someone gets on an airplane and stabs seven people, that's a crime, but just that, a crime, not a national security imperative. Rigorous security is no more justified to prevent that than it would be to pat down everyone walking down the street because they might be considering committing a crime.

    Airplanes represent a force multiplier that potentially allows a few nutbags to use some boxcutters to gain control of something that enables them to do much more damage than they could with their boxcutters alone.

    TSA's mission should be to worry about the latter and not so much about the former.

  • On the post: Don't Say 2012 Olympics Unless You've Paid Your Licensing Fee

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2008 @ 01:59pm

    Re: Work around

    Roman numerals belong to the NFL. You can't go around using them because in MMMCMLXXVI there might be confusion between what you're doing and Super Bowl(TM) MMXII.

  • On the post: Wikileaks Tries Auctioning Off Leaked Documents

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2008 @ 02:06pm

    Plus, the whole obsession with "exclusive" news stories is pretty silly.
    It's the way news organizations count coup amongst themselves, by claiming "first" and "exclusive". Of course the customers, silly things that they are, only care about "timely" and "accurate."

  • On the post: Boston Subway System Stops Defcon Talk; But Paints Security Target On Its Back

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 11 Aug, 2008 @ 09:06pm

    Not even at the level of an ordinary injunction

    This case doesn't even rise to the level of an ordinary injunction. An injunction is only supposed to be granted if there will be irreparable harm to the plaintiff if the defendant goes ahead with the action they are being sued over. In this case, the transit authority at worst stands to have people riding who didn't pay. It won't increase their costs one iota because they're going to run the same trains they always do; added passengers don't cost any extra to carry. It probably won't decrease their revenue much because I suspect those who use the hack will ride for free just to prove they can, not because they are avoiding payment of a fare that they would have otherwise paid. And even if they do lose money, they have the option of suing the defendants for the damages. Maybe they won't get it all back, but if a transit system can be harmed by a reduction in paid fares, they would have all disappeared long ago.

    So there's not only not "irreparable harm", there's darn near no harm at all. And for this some judge wants to throw away the concept of free speech?

  • On the post: The Hidden Costs Of Micropayments Go Beyond The Penny Gap

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 31 Jul, 2008 @ 07:59pm

    Micropayments should be mandatory for email

    I wish there were a minimum charge per email, say 0.01 cents. I send a few hundred or maybe 1000 emails per month, so that would work out to ten cents a month. Legitimate businesses might send 100 times as much, which would work out to ten bucks. A spammer, however, who sends millions, would immediately be bankrupted.

    I wish there were a way to pay people who create good content on the web (like news reporters and musicians), but I'm not giving each one of them my credit card number and shelling out $19.99 a month or whatever exorbitant price they all want. Of course they all want that price because they have to cover the transactions costs.

  • On the post: Yahoo Offers Refunds Or DRM-Free Music In Exchange For Shutting Down DRM Servers

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 29 Jul, 2008 @ 06:22am

    If the songs were a nickel each, no one would care that the DRM server went away. If they're a buck, people are going to get royally POed when they get robbed. I suspect there's more profit in the first model than the second, provided there were a way I could actually pay five cents for something. Micro-payments is the key missing link on the internet, and I can't understand why it hasn't been done a hundred times.

  • On the post: When Colluding With A Competitor, Perhaps Don't Send A Direct Email Suggesting You Keep Prices High

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2008 @ 11:06am

    Evidence is a secret

    I love that idea of declaring evidence of a crime to be a trade secret. I'm going to use it the next time I'm out dealing crack and the cops want to look in my trunk. The color, consistency, packaging, and handling methods of my product are a trade secret that I don't have to reveal.

  • On the post: Is Cost Accounting To Blame For Patent Hoarding?

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2008 @ 10:55am

    Inflatable Assets

    I don't think it's accounting per se that's the problem, it's that patents are a great asset for a company with a clever (read shady) accountant to own. Their value is very hard to determine, so it's very tempting to over-value them, thereby creating paper profits that the management can then use to fool investors and justify their stock options. After the collapse the creditors find out that the portfolio of patents is not worth the paper that it's printed on, but by then the CEO and friends have already retired to their Cayman Island retreats.

  • On the post: Too Much Ownership Can Be Bad For The Economy

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 09 Jul, 2008 @ 01:04pm

    Extend Ownership to Streets

    I want to own the street in front of my house. This would relieve the government of the expense and trouble of maintaining it. It will extend the ownership economy, and make me an enteprenurial businessman (which we all know we need more of) instead of a wage slave like I am now. Of course, I will have to put up a toll booth and charge anyone who wants to pass by. This will also provide employment as toll collectors to otherwise unemployable low lifes. Since I'll have to provide them with expensive benefits, it will cost about twenty bucks a clip to the 20 or so people who live beyond me. Once my neighbor figures this out, he will want the same deal, and so on all the way up the street, so it will probably cost the guy at the end of the street about $400 bucks everytime he leaves the house. It's a small price to pay, especially since I'm not paying it. I'm submitting a patent application on this idea so I'll get royalties on all the other toll booth operators in the neighborhood.

  • On the post: Kia Decides That It No Longer Wants Its TV Commercials To Be Entertaining

    Rather_Notsay ( profile ), 03 Jul, 2008 @ 11:03am

    Re-think the whole concept of advertising

    I disagree that advertising is content that needs to be entertaining. The whole notion needs to be re-conceived. The in-your-face notion of advertising is based on the assumption that I'm not paying attention because I'm distracted. In fact, I'm not paying attention because the in-your-face advertising drives me away.

    Example: one of my favorite web sites has now decided that I need to be forced to sit through an ad for classmates.com for some unspecified period of time before I get to read the article I want. This serves absolutely no (positive) purpose either to me, the site, or to the advertiser. I already know all I need to know about classmates.com. Forcing me to see an ad will not increase my knowledge of classmates.com, but it will make me view it in an (even more) unfavorable light than I do now, thus strengthening my resolve to never do business with them. The anger also spills over onto the web site that hosts the annoying ad, so all three parties come away worse than they were before.

    The TV and radio ads for ********* *****, a local car dealer with famously annoying ads, are dealt with the same way: I strengthen my resolve to never do business with the advertiser, and I change the channel, to punish the broadcaster who distributes them.

    Both of these advertisers seem to think that they need to get my attention, but they're wrong. They have my attention, at the start, but they instantly drive me from paying attention to long lasting, festering hatred, with a desire to retaliate by taking by eyeballs and ears somewhere else, preferably someplace where I will never see them again. It wouldn't help if their ads were more entertaining, because no matter how entertaining the ads were at first glance, they would very quickly grow old.

    It's not that I hate advertising. My favorite part of the Sunday paper is the ad inserts. I pull out the ones I'm interested in, and pore over them to see what's on sale, if there are any products I hadn't heard of before, what does a certain store carry. I love those. I hate the flap they put over the comics section, the one I have to carefully tear off and discard (and vow not to do business with that advertiser) before I can read the funnies.

    Sponsoring valuable content in an unobtrusive way is is the best that anyone has yet come up with. At least I hear that they exist, if only for a few seconds, and it doesn't incite me to retaliate against them and the communications channel. With the internet I can go find out all the details I want, once I'm motivated to look. Assuming that they are smart enough to have a usable and informative web site.

    Product placement has the same negative effects. It's distracting, and makes me more suspicious of the content producer. It creates a negative aura around everything, forcing me to raise the sensitivity knob on my bullshit detector, which detracts from the whole experience.

    Far better, however, if the advertisers can figure out how to give me something I want that will see why their product is good. I'll pay attention to their ad as they're doing something useful for me.

    How's this for an ad: a slide show of the products, maybe with a summary of characteristics, played silently. That would really catch some attention. At least I woundn't have to mute it.

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