Tek'a R 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: The Top 5 Lies NSA Defenders Still Spread: Don't Let Them Get Away With It

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2014 @ 04:47pm

    Re: points

    1: the 54 events around the world figure that they think they had some involvement in(a shaky figure at best) magically went around and around in the mouths of pundits and promoters until it became "The NSA Has Stopped Over Fifty Attacks On America With These Special Powers!" And then the actual events turn out to be catching some guy sending a couple thousand bucks to a charity that is considered to have terrorist ties or other baloney.

    2: It remains a big deal, even when people don't know it. There is no overwhelming backlash because of the incredible success in making this vast trove of data seem boring and remote.

    3: With the incredibly exceptional powers lined up, both in laws on the books and in their willingness to just do whatever they like, "the regular level of exceptional situations" is freakin unacceptable.

    4:no one was talking about calls, though that court-created mechanism is interesting. Care to address.. well.. anything else the NSA has done with it's seemingly unlimited budget and unlimited power to fight terr'r?

    5: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/02/nsa-federal-agency-created-secret-memo-rather-congressional-legislation.html

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/04/congress-nsa-denied-access

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/black-budget/

  • On the post: New Paper Says It's Time To Reasonably Decrease Copyright Term And Rethink Putting Copyright In Treaties

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 02 May, 2014 @ 03:06pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: How to fix Copyright plenty easily

    Hollywood and the music industry have ways of making sure that they can show break-even or terrible loss no matter how well something does. Your implementation would mean that only the small, honest people ever had to pay anything notable.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Discussion In Aereo: At Least The Justices Recognize The Harm They Might Do

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2014 @ 06:20pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    The situation is entirely as simple as he is 'inclined' to believe.

    Litigation does not need things like "facts" or "truth" to get off the ground. It needs money. moola. Fat stacks of greenbacks and all the circular-arguing, simplicity-eroding legal help you can buy.

    These cases have again and again been examples of just dumping lawyers on your enemies in an attempt to choke them and then find a judge who isn't inclined to understand all this newfangled internet tomfoolery to rule on the amazing success.
    Broadcasters (and their law firms) will spend anything that they have to if it means they get to claim victory, stomp out someone doing something new And re-align the status quo to a situation of receiving all money forever.

    >>Did I Post twice? oops.

  • On the post: Eli Lilly Enlists Congress In Fight Against Canada For Refusing Patent On Useless Drug

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2014 @ 06:25pm

    Re: re: Eli Lilly tantrum

    Basically, Eli Lilly is claiming that failing to approve a new drug's patent equals stealing all the money that they were going to make with it.

    How do they decide that monetary amount?
    Well, someone thought up a number and then they added all the Zeroes that could be fit on the page.

    In other words, they think they deserve to make a bajillion dollars and if you dare challenge them about the drug 'not working and being unprotected' or 'failing in testing' you are responsible for covering the "profit" that you "stole from them".

  • On the post: Wacky Snowden Haters Pile On The Bandwagon Claiming Snowden Is Somehow To Blame For Russia In Crimea

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2014 @ 08:11pm

    Re: Re:

    It is actually surprising that all of those fact defieient complainers with their 'beliefs' have not defaulted to calling him Edward Joseph Snowden, which is obviously a way to suggest he is an insane murderer according to media usages.

    Maybe calling him Comrade Edward Josephavitch Snowdeniski is next.

  • On the post: Awesome Stuff: Get Out And Exercise

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2014 @ 12:17pm

    Rundercover sounds a bit like ZombiesRun!, (https://www.zombiesrungame.com/) a game/workout thing that a friend uses. The app runs their playlist of songs but between things an unseen radio operator breaks in to give guidance, to weave together a story (the survivors are just around the corner but you're going to have to be quick to get there in time") and adds some item-collecting progress. And sometimes you are chased by the zombie horde so you better run.

    I like the idea but the Rundercover crew really needs a better video, something that is not just "Running Woman Plus Dramatic Text Cards And Music!"

  • On the post: Fluke Gives Sparkfun A Bunch Of Multimeters In Response To Trademark Mess

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 21 Mar, 2014 @ 01:24am

    I would have rather have seen Fluke take over paying the storage fee and go to court/file with Customs to clarify their own trademark to remove the overlap and overly broad handling shown here.

  • On the post: Thanks Anti-Vax Loons: The Return Of The Measles And The Backlash Against Jenny McCarthy

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2014 @ 07:36pm

    Re: Be sure to send some thanks to the vaccine makers

    mercury
    That's right, they squirt a dollop of pure shiny mercury into every vial to preserve freshness. Those science types are totally just sloshing things around in beakers, what do they know about medicine right?

  • On the post: If Intellectual Property Is Neither Intellectual, Nor Property, What Is It?

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2014 @ 07:10pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: It IS TO Intellectual Property

    >I am now on my employer's clock
    You just stole from your employer and should be jailed.

  • On the post: New Net Neutrality Bill Introduced, Has No Chance Of Passing

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2014 @ 10:42pm

    I love "if they say up we must say down!" politics.

  • On the post: NSA Helped Destroy Trust In US Internet Firms, But Would Going Overseas Be Any Better?

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2014 @ 10:29am

    Re: Easy question. Answer is NO: all gov'ts and all corporations are intent on stealing your privacy.

    1. "meme"-image sites shut down, open up, rebuild and fall apart all the time. This is a non-issue.

      2. number of 4chan users has nothing to do with app users, so bringing That up is a bit pointless. There was never real cross-promotion because it was more or less unrelated to 4chan and his other works. Poole's own writing on the subject lays bare that the venture-backed business was just not quick to profit and it is shutting down instead of hunting for more VC money. That's the great thing about a free system! sometimes people succeed, sometimes not.

      3. And thanks for that opinion.. which has nothing to do with anything ever.

      Stop acting foolish, or at least stop broadcasting it.

  • On the post: Rep. Mike Rogers Keeps Insisting Snowden Is A Russian Spy, Even As NSA/FBI Officials Say No Such Evidence

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2014 @ 10:17am

    Re: Would the real asshole stand up?

    You have been watching too many thrillers.

    A real spy would shift the information, continue to work there and continue to say nothing. In fact, since it was comparatively easy to do and there was so little in the way of safeguards against it, it is almost certain that one or more foreign intelligence services already Had all or part of the data in the leak from Real spies, people who Didn't go to the press and flee and get trapped in a foreign country.

  • On the post: Jury Finds Two Officers Charged In Beating Death Of Homeless Man Not Guilty

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2014 @ 08:17pm

    Re: Called it

    "goes absolutely berserk" = " is beaten with clubs and pinned under a pile of heavy men while crying out apologies and pleas for help until hammered into a coma and braindeath"

  • On the post: Not Cool: MPAA Joins The W3C

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2014 @ 03:24pm

    Re: Re: Legacy

    Oh, perhaps, perhaps, save for some small details.

    Google pays me for the datapoints that I generate, on my own terms, by providing services and content that I want in a very free and broad way.

    The theoretical endless tentacles of artist-damaging middleman groups would be Charging me and Limiting options in a broad way while curtailing my options tremendously.

  • On the post: Number Of Officers Killed In The Line Of Duty Drops To 50-Year Low While Number Of Citizens Killed By Cops Remains Unchanged

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2014 @ 10:15am

    Re: Re:

    And those numbers are skewed even farther by the way an "assault" on an officer might be defined.

    Were you trying to curl up into a ball to protect yourself from batons and the butts of expended tasers? You were assaulting those poor, poor lawkeepers, you monster.

  • On the post: Warrantless Collection Of Cellphone Data By Law Enforcement On The Rise, As Is The Use Of Stingray Tower Spoofers

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 10 Dec, 2013 @ 10:18am

    Re:

    as far as I know, that would be very tricky. The devices themselves are mobile and interact with your phone at a core level. If a phone gets a stronger signal that declares itself to be the proper kind of tower, it will swap to that tower without prompt and probably with little or nothing in the way of accessible logging in the phone itself.

    One of the mysteries and troubles with this tech is that invisible nature, making it impossible to tell that the police were digitally riffling through your pockets and flagging you into a database to draw out further data at their whim.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Better (Bigger) Batteries

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2013 @ 11:29pm

    battery installation should be ready to produce electricity in 2016


    "Produce" feels wrong in this case. It is just a way to smooth out the grid and reduce peaking generators, things like that, right? The facility is energy storage and supply, so, supply?

    Other than that, why are all the really cool things supposed to be seven to ten years away forever? It's probably just perception.. I want the future now.

  • On the post: Schools Ban Tag, Cartwheels And 'Unstructured Play:' The Inevitable Outcome Of Unrealistic Promises And Expectations [UPDATED]

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 10 Oct, 2013 @ 04:42pm

    Re: More kids are probably injured...

    Funny, I found the exact opposite in my education (a fair little while ago now) and have heard the opposite complaint from family with school age children.

    Teachers spent some ninety percent of their time backtracking to work with.. lets see under-performing students as many were not 'dumb', leaving children at an expected reading and knowledge level to languish. With state testing and minimums there are no rewards or encouragement or even time to have " star pupils and pets, those who excel on their own" as some kind of special group.

  • On the post: Insanity: PayPal Freezes Mailpile's Account, Demands Excessive Info To Get Access

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2013 @ 11:56pm

    Re: HOLD IT

    None of those things are functions that the involved parties (people giving the money, mailpile getting the money) wanted. They were not selling email software on Ebay, where there are rules and satisfactions pledges and the like.

    Pledgers A through Z+ authorized paypal to take money from their credit/debit/bank and give it to mailpile. Not vet mailpile, not do a cost/benefit analysis, just make the transaction (for which PP takes a percentage/fee somewhere on the back end I am sure)

    Doing anything else that is exceeding the requirements of law enforcement in the slightest, is wrong.

  • On the post: NSA Tries To Justify Its Surveillance Programs With Ridiculous Assertions

    Tek'a R ( profile ), 09 Aug, 2013 @ 06:36pm

    Re:

    Yes, this is obviously an entirely partisan issue that can be blamed entirely on Fillintheblank. Fillintheblanks policy decisions are a radical departure from the American Values that OtherGuys stick to at all times.

    There is no reason to push for reform in questionable or downright immoral government actions. Just vote for OtherGuys next time. We will get rid of all of those Fillintheblank policies and replace them with good ones that are full of patriotism and happiness. Don't ask questions about unelected bureaucratic structures who have secret rules, Just trust that Otherguys will 'make that better' without committing to anything in particular.

    Vote Otherguys! We are nothing like Fillintheblank, because of reasons! We use a different animal spirit icon from the 1800s so you know we are nothing like Them. Just Vote Otherguys, because any possible problems have nothing to do with us in the past, present or future.

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