Tek'a R 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (373) comment rss

  • On the post: Awesome Stuff: 3D Printing And Way, Way More

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 10 Oct, 2015 @ 12:00pm

    I love seeing all the high tech toys and tools coming from kickstarter projects.

    I hate seeing all the app-based and cloud-hosted controls that ultimately leave them entirely hostage to future bankruptcy, sell-outs or "brand revitalizing" efforts that turn free to paid or functional to bricked.

    There is no reason to force a smart lightbulb to dial out to a server in spain just to receive commands from your living room.

    All that said, this thing looks like a lot of techy fun. It's too bad that the cloud is inserted so rudely between the maker and the device.

  • On the post: Train Simulator 2016 And How We've Reached The Crest Of The Dumb DLC Wave

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 06 Oct, 2015 @ 07:14pm

    mixed minds here.

    I have known train simulator afficianados and it is entirely unreasonable to think that many of them would want Everything or even Most things that were available. These guys (stereotyping but fairly true) want a specific type of train, maybe a specific one, and a specific type of track, maybe a specific one. This is not the best example.

    The BS DLC is the day-one, on-disc (or pre-downloaded) levels or missions that seem like they were cut out of the game just to create another marketable good, all those times when it is painfully clear that the publisher is selling you half a game at full price.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Semi-Automatic Jobs

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2015 @ 09:53am

    Re: Brick Will Go The Way of Wood and Electric Wiring Before It.

    Some commercial suppliers already supply brick "veneers" to skin stick&board construction but outside of north america brick and block construction is more common.

  • On the post: Comcast CEO Admits You 'Can't Keep Raising Prices Forever,' But Seems Intent On Trying Anyway

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2015 @ 09:49am

    Re: Re:

    When they burn they won't collapse into themselves in the way that a corner store or mom&pop restaurant would. There will be some magical financial events and debts, unpaid pensions and settlements will remain in the hands of the dead company while assets fly away like little birds to roost in a new company.

    These assets will cement the position of the new frankencorporation with some lip service to new restrictions that will disappear like fairy gold. A few unwanted areas will get sold off to small companies under complex payment schemes that cripple them and others will be shuffled and shuffled until they drop off the subscriber maps entirely while things like Universal Service Fund moneys keep flowing into the black hole coffers instead of into development.

  • On the post: How The Heavy Hand Of Government Stifles The On Demand Economy

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 25 Aug, 2015 @ 04:55pm

    Re: Re: Re: On Demand infrastructure?

    Are you suggesting that current taxi companies in new York apply 100% equal and totally seamless service to all neighborhoods and regions? Taxi drivers are not currently cherry-picking profitable markets?

  • On the post: Seat Belt Violation Greeted With Spike Strip, Smashed Window And Tasering

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 12 Oct, 2014 @ 10:06pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Hey, hey, don't go lumping perfectly reasonable fetishists in with that apologist.

    kinksters of all flavors, even the ones who get their jollies in SS uniforms, come out against police brutality, abusive law enforcement activity and dangerous relationships all the time.

  • On the post: MPAA Tries To Ignore The Fact That The Study It Paid For Reveals Very Few Top Films Are Available On Netflix

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 30 Sep, 2014 @ 11:53pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Blockbuster can stock whatever it wants because of first-sale
    Something the industry hates and tries to erase at every opportunity.


    streaming requires complex licensing negotiations.
    Created by the very same people/organizations to divide money and power amongst themselves.

    So the bad situation, created by middle-men and abusers of truth, will be fixed by those same middle-men and liars so that people can have a situation more like first sale and the simplicity people want even though it's something that the middlemen hate and fear, because it removes layers of -middle- for them to inhabit. It will be fixed right up so it's important that we wait patiently, accept what we're given and never ever question the steps being taken.

    Seems legit.

  • On the post: The FBI Wants Speedy DNA Analysis Added To Its Biometric Dragnet

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 30 Sep, 2014 @ 08:59pm

    This worries me for reasons in addition to the personal privacy and security reasons.

    Say a blood sample from your physical gets processed by one of these mobile fast 'labs' and gets 'tweaked' into the records. Now, something happens. Maybe you disappear, maybe you are accused of some crime, either way some evidence has to be processed and you are not around as a baseline comparison.

    How will the police or feds get a comparison? why, they'll get the records from the FBI! And now the unreliable lab test is there to tell them that they must have found someone hair or blood belonging to someone else under the victims fingernails/in the murderer's basement. Either way.

    Once something is in a database it gets treated like cosmic truth carved in stone tablets.. adding garbage is more than bad public policy, it's bad law enforcement.

  • On the post: Awesome Stuff: Simple And Small Stuff

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2014 @ 12:50pm

    Re: Re: You are paranoid

    In the context it seems pretty clear that Jamie was referring to the camera mounted in a laptop shell.

  • On the post: School Claims Teen's Writing About Marijuana Use Is 'Drug Possession'

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 23 Sep, 2014 @ 09:06pm

    Re: Re: Re: They Want to Move the Student to an Adult Program.

    it sure is kind of you to figure out her whole life for her. You're like every bad guidance counselor rolled into one being.

  • On the post: What's So Bad About Making Money Off Fan Fiction?

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 23 Sep, 2014 @ 05:12pm

    Re: Trolls

    First, your entire idea hinges on distributors, resellers, wholesalers and the actual book stores, not to mention readers, being idiots.

    Second, I havn't seen anyone suggest that counterfeits (falsly claiming to be the Nth book of a series and/or claiming to be written by the actual author) are desirable or defended. Being the real J.K. Rowling and writing the real series has a cachet that no fan fiction can overwrite and that should continue to be protected by law to an extent.

    Why can't J.K continue to swim in her scrooge mcduck vault of money while letting people get a few coins for writing an exploration of early days at hogwarts or Lily and James' marriage?(for example)

  • On the post: NSA Official Handing Off Contracts To Government Contractor Spouse?

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2014 @ 01:07am

    Even if there is no actual wrongdoing (possible, sure) the Appearance of wrongdoing combined with no ways to challenge or verify it is almost as corrosive.

    "Just trust us, we wouldn't lie and always follow the rules we made up" coming from a organization built of secrets and lies and secrets and even more lies does not inspire trust in anyone ever.

  • On the post: TSA Not Sure If It Groped Man Before Flight, Demands To Grope Him After Flight Is Over

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2014 @ 04:47pm

    Re: another outrageous incident

    So anyone who fails to bow to the capricious demands of an entirely unaccountable "security" force is a "dick" who must deserve the abuse ladled upon them? And everyone woman or man who is raped was askin' for it, right? Every homeless guy beaten into a coma by a half-dozen patrolmen, any of them outweighing him, was a deadly threat too.

    You might be ready, willing and eager to bow to any group that has matching shirts and special ID badges but not everyone is. Failure to humble yourself at the altar of security theater does not imply a nefarious drive or even a deep-seated hunger to be outraged, it might just be called being a CITIZEN who has even the barest knowledge of their rights and is unwilling to abandon them.

  • On the post: The Judicial System's Blessing Of Police Use Of Excessive Force Makes It Nearly Impossible To Hold Bad Cops Accountable

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2014 @ 08:21pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: back seat driving?

    You talked around it, but let us be clear on your statement.
    So you are saying that the reason police kill so many non-white people and poor people is not racism, classism or simple thuggish behavior. The reason is simply that non-whites and poor people are all automatically criminals who can be beaten or killed out of hand.

    The police are not a problem, all those poor or black or hispanic so-called "citizens" deserved it. They received the correct and proper treatment in your eyes.
    Amazing.
    Now, quick, move the goalposts and blame something else!

  • On the post: The Judicial System's Blessing Of Police Use Of Excessive Force Makes It Nearly Impossible To Hold Bad Cops Accountable

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 27 Aug, 2014 @ 10:48pm

    Re: back seat driving?

    " It's much harder to make it all happen at the moment, when you have a half a second to react."

    Training. Lots of training.
    These men and women are supposed to be professionals who are qualified to make those decisions in that time period and to make them correctly. That is where all the mystical unofficially official and the real official prestige and trustworthiness is supposed to come from, isn't it?

    If the professional law officer's reactions boil down to the same "eh, good enough" outcomes that any slack-jawed fool could come up with then why are they funded and given special powers, special cars and nice big guns to cruise around with?

    "Remember though that it all tracks back one step further, which are those people who choose to break the law, choose to ignore police officers, and choose actions which put police in a position to make their lethal choice.

    Once again, the police are not the enemy, they are just people like you. You are the cause and the effect."

    oh, I forgot.
    Disrespect Of Cop, Driving or Walking While Non-White or Non-Wealthy and Any Suspected Crime We Can Think Of Afterwards are all punishable by an impromptu sidewalk firing squad of one. (or two or seventy-five, depending on how bored the rest of the department is)
    I forgot that bit of statute, how silly of me.

  • On the post: State Treasurer Cites Anomalous Kidnapping Case, Office Distraction In Denying Newspaper Access To State Pension Fund Records

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2014 @ 09:47pm

    Re:

    "One time back in the summer of '82 we went into the records shed and there was a whole bunch of bees in there. It would be far too dangerous to send someone in there to release the documents that are being asked for today"

  • On the post: Documents Show 100 Officers From 28 Law Enforcement Agencies Accessed A Photographer's Records

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 05 Aug, 2014 @ 10:39pm

    Re:

    often found near or on a crime scene

    You are hilarious.
    "Yeah, uh.. He sure is near a lot of crimes, if you know what I mean, eh? eh? wink wink, nudge nudge, robert is your mother's brother"

  • On the post: Revealed: What Kind Of 'Extra Scrutiny' The Government Gives To Folks On The Terrorist Watchlist

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 24 Jul, 2014 @ 10:15am

    Re: How?

    Because terrorism.

  • On the post: Warner Brothers Pulls Plug On Viral Greenpeace Ad Utilizing 'The Lego Movie' Theme Song (And Legos)

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2014 @ 02:10pm

    Re:

    As I understand it, Lego occasionally releases small polybag kits with Ferrari branding and they are available at shell stations in a few countries.

    That is about it.

    Greenpeace is trying too hard here.
    And the downtempo Everything is Awesome is haunting but not as haunting as the thought of dredging all those legos in an oil-like gel.. They wouldn't use Real oil, right?

  • On the post: How Patents Are Stopping Your Microwave From Being Awesome

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 26 Jun, 2014 @ 11:04pm

    Re:

    That is so backward and wrong.

    We've gone from "patents protect the original inventor so they have a chance to bring their invention to market (while also placing the details of the innovation in a public database for anyone to use eventually)" to "Someone making something new or even just improves, with no help from vague legalese patents, has to pay rent to everyone who managed to get a legal monopoly claim on some permutation of 'microwave' 'smart' 'internet' or 'technical term'"

    This does not help progress.

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