sporaderic 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (470) comment rss

  • On the post: Top European Court To Consider If EU Countries Can Censor The Global Internet

    sporaderic ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2017 @ 06:58am

    Can't say I can predict everything that'll appear in Google's letter to the CJEU, but I'm pretty sure it's going to start with 'Alright, you primitive screw-heads, listen up!' and end with 'Thanks, though, for sending a lot of tech jobs back to the US. That whole NSA thing was kinda hurting us for a while there.'

  • On the post: Freedom Of Information Lawsuit Results In NYPD Agreeing To Follow FOI Law

    sporaderic ( profile ), 20 Jul, 2017 @ 08:05pm

    Re: NYPD become expert quackers

    'What happens when it rains on a duck? The water rolls right off.' Live & learn. I always thought it was 'The duck puts you in a sleeper hold til you pass out & die, and manages to get away with it despite there being plenty of witnesses and video evidence.' The 'rolling off' thing is good too. More succinct.

  • On the post: Massachusetts Lawmaker Wants To Make It A Felony To Have Secret Compartments In Your Car

    sporaderic ( profile ), 20 Jul, 2017 @ 05:29pm

    Re: Re:

    Might as well extrapolate ridiculously, just to see where reality will be in 5 years:

    a) A driver must be in the car to operate it.
    b) A driver is definitely an 'aftermarket' item.
    c) A driver can swallow condoms/balloons full of, say, heroin.
    d) The inside of the human body isn't visible with the naked eye.
    e) Cops now own all the cars.

  • On the post: Russia Does A 'Copy/Paste' Of Germany's New 'Hate Speech' Online Censorship Law

    sporaderic ( profile ), 20 Jul, 2017 @ 03:20pm

    Re: If Germany had planned ahead...

    Then they could take Russia to a court over unauthorized copying of the German law. ;) They're not gonna bother will the small fish. Germany's going straight to charging Google a fee for every search result that includes a form of the word 'Russia' in it.

  • On the post: Connecticut Latest State To Add A Conviction Requirement To Its Forfeiture Laws

    sporaderic ( profile ), 20 Jul, 2017 @ 09:15am

    Re: There's just one small problem; how many people are still plea-bargaining due to the lack of effective counsel?

    Yes, you're being cynical. You're also being realistic and rational. Depressive realism is no longer considered a mood disorder: now it's just called 'a safe bet.'

  • On the post: AT&T Tricked Its Customers Into Opposing Net Neutrality

    sporaderic ( profile ), 19 Jul, 2017 @ 12:27pm

    Re: Re:

    What free market? The free market that lasts for about ten seconds, at which point the top dog declares itself to be the government by virtue of its own success.

  • On the post: Researchers Say Chinese Government Now Censoring Images In One-To-One Chat

    sporaderic ( profile ), 19 Jul, 2017 @ 05:40am

    Re:

    I think retrograde is the past relative to the time of an amnesiac event, and anterograde amnesia where you stop forming new memories from the time of onset. (Technically, this isn't forgetting the future: that's only possible when it involves Terminators and Terminator-related events.)

  • On the post: AT&T Tricked Its Customers Into Opposing Net Neutrality

    sporaderic ( profile ), 19 Jul, 2017 @ 07:39am

    used the opportunity to trick its customers into opposing real net neutrality protections -- and convinced many to root against their own self interests.

    Given the building evidence of the last few years (decades?), 'rooting against one's own self interests' will soon culminate in eliminating the middle-man and going straight for voting booths being swapped out for suicide booths.

  • On the post: When The 'Sharing Economy' Turns Into The 'Missing Or Stolen Economy'

    sporaderic ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2017 @ 07:37am

    Re:

    How uninformed are you? You live in a cave? All you have to do is turn on the news once in a while! Two. Damn. Minutes. All you need.

  • On the post: Senator Wyden To FCC Chair Pai: Hey, Stop Lying About What I Said To Undermine Net Neutrality

    sporaderic ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2017 @ 07:29am

    The fact that Pai thought he could get away with it, apparently didn't care if he got called out on it, and doesn't seem to care that he did get called out on it* is strangely satisfying to my inner cynic's sense of masochistic schadenfreude. I haven't given up on the lawsuit-to-be, though.

    • I can't find any news of a response from Pai at this point... maybe I missed it.

  • On the post: When The 'Sharing Economy' Turns Into The 'Missing Or Stolen Economy'

    sporaderic ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2017 @ 03:55am

    So... Chinese businessmen are, in effect, gradually giving everyone on the planet a free bicycle? What are they, a bunch of commies?

  • On the post: Our Net Neutrality Comments To The FCC: We Changed Our Mind, You Can Too

    sporaderic ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2017 @ 01:56pm

    Re: what about...

    I'm willing to bet a lot of TD readers did contact their reps to voice their opinions. Even I did, and I'm a cynical, lazy-ass defeatist. Besides, like Mike said, I can't bitch about it later if I don't put in a little effort now... and I really like to bitch about stuff.

  • On the post: The FCC Needs Your Quality Comments About Net Neutrality Today

    sporaderic ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2017 @ 09:26am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I submitted a fairly rational, evidence-supported comment to the FCC, but couldn't help adding a postscript to clarify that it was submitted for aggregate, statistical use as part of the evidence that would be used in the consumer-rights lawsuit that would eventually follow the FCC's decision to gut NN.

    I think I may have a small problem with compulsive, passive-aggressive sarcasm.

  • On the post: De-Escalation Works, But US Law Enforcement Hasn't Show Much Interest In Trying It

    sporaderic ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2017 @ 03:13pm

    Even if officials don't really care whether the police maintain a healthy relationship with the communities they serve, they can't keep asking taxpayers to pay for the sins of government employees

    Why do I not feel entirely confident that relying on the 'free market' will be a raging success?

    I know it seems to be one of the last solutions we're left with, but I can imagine an awful lot of authoritarian voters opting for 'law & order' policies and candidates that promise expanded civil forfeiture to pay the bills.

  • On the post: The FCC Needs Your Quality Comments About Net Neutrality Today

    sporaderic ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2017 @ 05:51am

    Re: Re:

    consider the difference between not entertaining one posted comment and not entertaining 6 million posted comments. I think Pai's considering the difference between five offers to be a 7-figure/year lobbyist and six million instances of being offered nothing but the satisfaction of 'doing the right thing.' Honestly, I was gonna be an optimist today... but then I had some coffee and my mind cleared up. (My actual comments to the FCC were relatively caffeine-free, at least :)

  • On the post: Trump's Pick For FBI Head Sounds A Lot Like The Guy He Fired When It Comes To Encryption

    sporaderic ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2017 @ 07:19am

    Re:

    Politicians are filthy animals...
    But ham sandwiches taste gooood.
    We need a new analogy, unless we're talkin' about one charmin' motherfuckin' politician.

  • On the post: Trump's Pick For FBI Head Sounds A Lot Like The Guy He Fired When It Comes To Encryption

    sporaderic ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2017 @ 06:57am

    Re: Shall I ...

    NO FAKE MATH!? What're nerds trying to hide?

  • On the post: Trump's Pick For FBI Head Sounds A Lot Like The Guy He Fired When It Comes To Encryption

    sporaderic ( profile ), 15 Jul, 2017 @ 04:52pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    *Or, you know, proofread. *

    Too much of a good idea...: I Preview. I question my word choice and sentence structure. I try a rewrite. I keep some revisons, discard others. Repeat a dozen times, and Submit: coherence is at best a crap-shoot.

    TBH, though, an edit function would mean I'd never stop 'fixing' the same comment to the exclusion of all else, until the day I die.

  • On the post: Trump's Pick For FBI Head Sounds A Lot Like The Guy He Fired When It Comes To Encryption

    sporaderic ( profile ), 15 Jul, 2017 @ 07:29am

    Re: Re:

    this post's^ seems to be about a larger chunk of the big picture Option 1: insert "point" Option 2: omit "'s" possessive I noticed a bit of a mention (in the publicly viewable part of the insider chat) concerning the history & possible future of an 'edit' function in an evolving plan for site redesign, and I think I have the perfect solution: a CVS repository that's dynamically generated for each individual comment as it's posted. Obviously, something like github is underpowered and lacks many necessary features, but its engine could serve to run a temporary system to tide us over until a more robust, dedicated Google-AI optimized data center solution can be tested & put into service. I'm sure this is already part of the plan, but I just thought I'd put in a 'yea' vote from an outsider :)

  • On the post: Trump's Pick For FBI Head Sounds A Lot Like The Guy He Fired When It Comes To Encryption

    sporaderic ( profile ), 15 Jul, 2017 @ 05:58am

    Re:

    I don't think Tim's oblivious to 'bigger picture' issues -- he & TD cover Balko-style militarization of local PDs, mission creep, inter-agency collusion (parallel construction, fusion center data sharing), scope creep (FBI butting into wholly non-US events, NSA performing domestic SIGINT). In fact, this post's seems to be about a larger chunk of the big picture than Christopher Wray the person: it's about the fact that he & Comey are just interchangeable duplicates who'll spout the exact same nonsense about encryption despite the fact that two real people capable of rising to the position of Director couldn't both actually be this damn stupid. The big picture is made up of a bunch of individual pixels, and we need every single one of 'em lit up.

Next >>