Strawb 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (2397)

• On the post: The Kids Are (Mostly) Alright: New Pew Study Deflates The Social Media Panic

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2026 @ 11:55pm

  Yes you have. It’s been pointed out to you before. Here it is again. You just keep pretending it doesn’t exist.

  That study is based on data from nearly 20 years ago. Even if the casuality is rock-solid, it doesn't mean the same effects occur today. The authors even note that themselves: "Similarly, we cannot provide evidence as to whether years of experience with the platform mitigate or exacerbate the effects on mental health." And regarding evidence in general, if one study shows harm and multiple others don't(and assuming they're all methodologically sound), there's little reason to believe there's actually harm.

• On the post: Kash Patel’s Defamation Suit Against The Atlantic Is Designed To Generate Headlines, Not Win In Court

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2026 @ 11:42pm

  Patel pulled it out of his ass.

• On the post: Trump Is Literally Negotiating With Himself Over How Much Taxpayer Money He Gets Because His Taxes Were Leaked

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2026 @ 12:04am

  I can't tell if you're taking the piss or not.

• On the post: Oh Look, The MAGA FTC Built The Censorship Industrial Complex It Was Screaming About

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2026 @ 12:51am

  Go ahead, ask me what “woke” means for the 10th time, cakeboy.

  Not him, but okay: what does "woke" mean, specifically?

• On the post: ‘Trump Phone’ Sees Price Hike, But Still No Release Date (Or Actual Phone)

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 16 Apr, 2026 @ 01:22am

  No such thing has happened. “Corruption” doesn’t just mean random thing you don’t like. If there was actual fraud of some kind (rather than a failed project) affected parties could sue for fraud. They haven’t. That is an idiotic claim.

  Suggesting that if nobody has sued, that means there's no fraud is even more moronic.

  Donald Trump was ruled legally liable for the rape

  Literally false. (Stephanopoulos had to pay a lot of money for this!)

  That's what's called a technicality, and one that only a rapist or rape apologist would use. According to the judge in the case, it was rape, despite New York law using a narrower legal definition.

• On the post: Judge Tosses Trump’s Ridiculous $10 Billion Defamation Suit Against Rupert Murdoch

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 16 Apr, 2026 @ 01:08am

  You don’t know much about the law

  In that case, feel free to explain in great detail how the ruling is wrong. Don't forget the cite the relevant precedent.

• On the post: ‘Trump Phone’ Sees Price Hike, But Still No Release Date (Or Actual Phone)

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2026 @ 05:48am

  Last year the fraud-prone Trump organization announced a half-assed wireless phone company.

  Which, in this case, would make them the fraud-phone Trump organization.

• On the post: The Trump Administration Is Trying To Steal $21 BIllion Earmarked For Better Broadband

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2026 @ 12:13pm

  Yes, god forbid that tax money are ever spent on something that doesn't directly benefit you.

• On the post: Trump’s Anti-Migrant Surge Is Now A Mudslide That’s Wiping Out What’s Left Of His DOJ

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 02 Apr, 2026 @ 10:45am

  Huh, so she is. It seems he fired her because she didn't go after his opponents hard enough, meaning that whomever follows her could get up to even dumber shit than she did.

• On the post: The EU Killed Voluntary CSAM Scanning. West Virginia Is Trying To Compel It. Both Cause Problems.

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 02 Apr, 2026 @ 02:14am

  Yeah, but that’s just coming down on the privacy side of the trade off, isn’t it?

  They're not really coming down on the side of privacy when the motivation to stop scanning is avoiding fines. More to your point, "Stop voluntarily trying to remove CSAM or we're going to fine you" isn't much of a choice in the first place.

• On the post: Federal Cyber Experts Thought Microsoft’s Cloud Was “A Pile Of Shit.” They Approved It Anyway.

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 02 Apr, 2026 @ 02:05am

  When moving from on-prem AD and email, Microsoft is the only real option, even if it’s less secure.

  Both Amazon and Google have cloud AD and email services as well. Microsoft is far from the "only real option". Money is almost certainly the kicker here. It's not like the administration is capable of doing cost-benefit analyses.

• On the post: Free Speech Experts: Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Panic Is As Old As Democracy Itself

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2026 @ 12:53am

  He "defends" transphobes the same way the US constitution defends them: by arguing for their right to express their opinions. To put it in the words of Evelyn Beatrice Hall: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

• On the post: Hegseth’s War On Anthropic Encounters The First Amendment

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2026 @ 01:36am

  Anthropic was trying to make C&C decisions.

  Did Anthropic try to tell the military how to do their job? Did they try to tell them which specific tools they can or can't use? Did they try to interfere with their supply chain in any way? No? Then shut up.

• On the post: An Open Letter To Members Of The United States Congress

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2026 @ 01:37am

  I'm fairly certain he's referring to Netanyahu, since he writes "a foreign head of state".

• On the post: Deep Breath: Okay, Let’s Talk About That Controversial DLSS 5 Demo

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 05:53am

  And here’s the other thing to consider with this particular complaint, combined with the previous one about artistic intent: do any of you use visual mods in your games? I do. A ton of them. For a variety of reasons. I have used them to alter the faces and models for games like Starfield and Skyrim, among many others. Do I need to feel bad for altering the artist’s intent? Do I need to apologize for incorporating mods to make characters and environments appear in a way that helps me better connect with the game I’m playing?

  I don't think those are the same. If a player uses mods, they openly and willingly ignore artistic intent to play a game the way they want to. But that's not what DLSS 5 is. It operates from the "opposite side", so to speak. The developer implements it, and allegedly has control. The granularity of that control seems lacking, though, based on elaborative responses from nVidia engineers. To use the example from the video link above, if developers wanted to reduce the makeup look on Grace in DLSS5 so it doesn't look like she's enroute to a date, there's no way to prompt for that reduction. They would effectively have to turn DLSS5 off entirely. It's possible nVidia improves the control before release, but as it stands, it doesn't sound like developers will be able to configure the tool the way they would like to.

• On the post: Deep Breath: Okay, Let’s Talk About That Controversial DLSS 5 Demo

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 05:31am

  DLSS 5 makes changes, like putting lipstick on all the women, and the demonstration needing dual 5090s makes it sound like it’s going to come with a significant reduction in framerate.

  It's worth pointing out that when nVidia introduced real-time RT back in 2018, their tech demo was running on four Quadro GV100 GPUs. Those weren't exactly consumer-grade cards. I don't know why people who see this expect it to be able to run well on something like a single RTX 5080. I do strongly agree that previewing this as the next iteration of DLSS was a mistake.

• On the post: Greater Than Zero: The Anti-AI Pushback On Gaming Preservation Efforts Makes No Sense

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 20 Mar, 2026 @ 11:34am

  Unless Dustin Hubbard has stated in the past that he would never use AI for his preservation efforts, where does the integrity come into the picture, exactly?

• On the post: Pete Hegseth: We Can’t Wait For Larry Ellison To Turn CNN Into Another Right Wing Propaganda Mill

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2026 @ 03:33am

  [...]and the fact that most of the nepobabies (David Ellison) and brunchlords (Bari Weiss)[...]

  Or, in this case, brunchladies.

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

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2026 @ 12:09am

  And this is how and why authoritarians WIN

  Make up your mind. Is Trump an authoritarian or a dictator? Because I would agree with the former, but certainly not the latter.

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

  

  Strawb ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2026 @ 02:41am

  Trump doesn't have supreme power(yet), and while dictators can certainly be elected, their elections tend to be complete shams. Trump's wasn't. So I would agree with Thad that Trump isn't there yet, despite his best efforts.

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