techdescartes 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Techdirt Survival Fund: I Support Journalism

    techdescartes ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2017 @ 07:57am

    Re: Re: Re: Strategy?

    Your second question is an absurd appeal to the extremes and not worthy of a response. Your first question already has been answered by an AC: "That's... not how it works at all." You clearly do not understand the American legal system, the concept of "procedural posture", or how appeals work.

    Simply put, your "aspirin" would only be useful to treat the headache of a cease-and-desist letter, if at all. TechDirt has a much more serious condition that requires a serious response. As numerous other commenters have recognized, TechDirt has made that response and has a reasonable chance of success.

  • On the post: Techdirt Survival Fund: I Support Journalism

    techdescartes ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2017 @ 10:44pm

    Re: Strategy?

    Your advice is the equivalent of refusing a $10,000 drug in favor of some aspirin that won't help because you just should let the disease run its course and get a $100,000 surgery later. Your comment about an appeal is like saying that, if surgery fails, you always can get a $200,000 transplant.

    If you only can afford the first option, by all means take it. If you can't afford option two combined with option three, or even option two standing alone, this may be your only chance for survival.

  • On the post: Techdirt Survival Fund: I Support Journalism

    techdescartes ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2017 @ 06:29pm

    Re: Wanted: Better financial models for journalism

    In your first comment: "I rest my case…" Your assertion that TechDirt is inconsequential is belied by your continued need to comment. If you actually believed TechDirt didn't matter, you wouldn't have bothered with your first comment, much less all of the others.

    P.S. Are you making up for the absence of a donation by trying to drive higher-than-usual levels of activity on this post?

  • On the post: Judge In Twitter Lawsuit Over Surveillance Disclosure Dings DOJ For Cut-And-Paste Legal Argument

    techdescartes ( profile ), 16 Feb, 2017 @ 02:42pm

    Re: Friendly Reminder...

    No matter what political view is being expressed, the "pun" that X "Trumps" Y lost any minimal cleverness a year ago.

  • On the post: Iowa Appeals Court Doubles Down On Curbing Police Abuse Of 'Inventory Search' Warrant Exceptions

    techdescartes ( profile ), 08 Feb, 2017 @ 08:59pm

    Just a Thought

    Instead of telling friends to "drive safe" when they leave, maybe we should be saying, "May the Fourth be with you."

  • On the post: Court Tells Melania Trump She Can't Sue The Daily Mail In Maryland, So She Refiles In New York

    techdescartes ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2017 @ 05:21pm

    Double Jeopardy: Charles Harder's Stand-Up Routine

    What is SLAPP-stick?

  • On the post: Federal Court Basically Says It's Okay To Copyright Parts Of Our Laws

    techdescartes ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2017 @ 12:17pm

    Regression to the Mean...ing

    “Standards” do not promote progress. They merely prevent regress.

  • On the post: Why Did The FBI Say It Couldn't Release Documents To 'FOIA Terrorist' Jason Leopold That It Released To Me Months Earlier?

    techdescartes ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2017 @ 11:24am

    Re: "THIS guy? Again?!"

    What if the FBI is unreasonably denying responses to requests it knows are relatively harmless so as to consume Leopold's time, leaving him less time to draft other more "harmful" requests?

    Go ahead, file a lawsuit, fight us in court. When you win, we just give you the files we already gave to Masnick. And you've lost two years fighting us—two years you could have spent filing requests we really didn't want to have to deal with.

  • On the post: Why Did The FBI Say It Couldn't Release Documents To 'FOIA Terrorist' Jason Leopold That It Released To Me Months Earlier?

    techdescartes ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2017 @ 11:18am

    FBI Training Manual

    "Going Dark" (public): any use of encryption other than by the FBI
    "Going Dark" (internal): limiting responses to, or denying outright, FOIA requests

  • On the post: Here's What Happened When The Dutch Secret Service Tried To Recruit A Tor Admin

    techdescartes ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2017 @ 09:31pm

    Post Hole Digger

    What if Glyn isn't real and this is a fake post about a fake post?

  • On the post: The Massive Overreaction To Uber's Response To JFK Protests

    techdescartes ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2017 @ 03:45pm

    Irrational Numbers

    Excellent post, Mike. I had the same thoughts. I will add just a few.

    People apparently no longer understand what it means to "break" a strike. If the taxi companies hired Uber drivers to drive their yellow cabs and fill the empty taxi lane at JFK Terminal 4, that would be "strike breaking". What happened here was merely consumers choosing a non-striking service.

    Of course, Uber drivers were free to go on their own strike if they had wanted. But imagine if Uber had ordered a shutdown of its service. For one hour, it would force its drivers to receive no income, not by their choice but by Uber's. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people effectively would have their means of income taken away for an hour.

    But isn't that what the taxi drivers did? No, they elected union bosses to make that decision for them. The taxi companies didn't decide for the drivers. And the drivers presumably got paid for the missed hour of work from the union account set aside for funding strikes. Equating the two is dishonest at worst and unfair at best.

    Finally, if people decide to use some non-striking company for the same service and it renders a strike powerless, that merely demonstrates that the striking union has lost its market power. We all knew that Uber (and Lyft) had decimated the taxi industry. We just didn't realize how nearly complete that decimation was.

    P.S. As the only permitted reaction to rational thought in today's marketplace of ideas apparently is to do something irrational, I must now #DeleteTechDirt. Sorry, Mike. Next time, don't be so rational.

    P.P.S. I'll be back tomorrow ... just like all the protesters who will reinstall their Uber app the next time they need a ride.

  • On the post: Legal Threats By Charles Harder & Shiva Ayyadurai Targeting More Speech

    techdescartes ( profile ), 26 Jan, 2017 @ 11:23am

    All you need to do is...

    "Litigate Harder"

  • On the post: Database CIA Claimed Too Difficult To Compile For FOIA Requesters Released In Full On CIA Website

    techdescartes ( profile ), 24 Jan, 2017 @ 11:10am

    Database Relativity

    Apparently the Heisenberg uncertainty principle applies to FOIA requests: the more you know about a document's location, the less you are allowed to know about its contents.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Delves Into Question Of Whether Or Not You Can Trademark 'Disparaging' Terms

    techdescartes ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2017 @ 08:58pm

    Bureaucratic Singularity

    "Federal registration is the T.S.A. PreCheck of intellectual-property law: Not everyone has to get it, but if you do a lot of business, you probably should."

    DHS has a trademark on TSA Pre√. Does this mean we've reached the bureaucratic singularity?

    http://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn86107248&docId=ORC20140701005456#docIndex=0&page=1

  • On the post: DOJ, Obama Administration Fight Order Requiring The Full CIA Torture Report To Be Turned Over To The Court

    techdescartes ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2017 @ 09:55am

    Re: You've Got a Good Thing Coming

    Never mind about the White House site. It doesn't include any pre-administration statements, only those once Obama was in office. It's been a long eight years.

  • On the post: DOJ, Obama Administration Fight Order Requiring The Full CIA Torture Report To Be Turned Over To The Court

    techdescartes ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2017 @ 09:38am

    Re: Re: Offending the Monkeys

    Though Naruto would appreciate a small change to the Copyright Act in the meantime.

  • On the post: DOJ, Obama Administration Fight Order Requiring The Full CIA Torture Report To Be Turned Over To The Court

    techdescartes ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2017 @ 09:52am

    You've Got a Good Thing Coming

    2007 Obama Press Release:

    "I know it's easy to be cynical about politics in this country," Obama said. "I understand that cynicism. But I've always said that when the American people are paying attention -- when they're involved and engaged and informed about what's going on in their government -- then good things happen. I've spent my life trying to open up the political process to people, and I believe we can do it again. And when we do that, we will have a government that listens to their voices and finally responds to their best hopes once more."

    "Good things happen" means lawsuits and court orders? That would only be true if Obama were a lawyer. Oh. Never mind.

    p.s. This quote came from http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=93244, because the White House archives only go back to 2009. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-and-releases?term_node_tid_depth=41&page=1175 Hmm.

    p.s.s. When leaving office, the Clinton administration stole all of the W's from the keyboards in the White House. Here's guessing the Obama administration steals the "Delete" keys.

  • On the post: FTC Sues D-Link For Pretending To Give A Damn About Hardware Security

    techdescartes ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2017 @ 02:00pm

    Wordsmithing

    "This frequently allows 'hackers' (that term is generous since it takes just a few keystrokes)..."

    Maybe we should call them "shlackers"...

  • On the post: Software Copyright Litigation After Oracle v. Google

    techdescartes ( profile ), 12 Jan, 2017 @ 08:47pm

    Which brings us back to D'oh

    Don't worry. If Dolby only acquired “Do re mi”, they won't get (very) fa.

  • On the post: Techdirt's First Amendment Fight For Its Life

    techdescartes ( profile ), 11 Jan, 2017 @ 05:10pm

    Re: Re: Well now...

    "...since one of the plaintiffs was from California..."

    Here, two of the defendants are from California (Floor64 and Mike) but the only plaintiff (Ayyadurai) is from Massachusetts.

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