vastrightwing 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Author Walter Jon Williams Asks For Fans To Help Him 'Pirate' His Own Works Better

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 25 May, 2011 @ 09:03am

    It won't be long

    Soon, big publishing will sue Williams for giving other authors the idea they can do it themselves without the old industry titans. This will not end well.

  • On the post: European Politicians Look To Ban WiFi In School… For The Children

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 20 May, 2011 @ 10:01am

    Radiation

    Wifi only? how about banning all RF transmitters? Yes, this includes TV, AM/FM radio, ham radio, satellite navigation systems, etc. Then we need to make sure we block UV, IR light and how about gamma rays, X-rays, etc. Then certain sound waves coming from certain music groups must also be harmful and the sound waves coming from all politicians is obviously harmful. As others have already pointed out, the 50 cycle EMI spewing out of power cords must also be harmful. The EU needs to block all of it now before more damage has occurred... for the children, of course.

  • On the post: BMI Says A Single Person Listening To His Own Music Via The Cloud Is A Public Performance

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 10 May, 2011 @ 09:47am

    Privacy, it's not just for spam anymore

    This is where privacy becomes important. It's those people who contend that we can't do what we want with our data. You understand, from their point of view data isn't data. Certain kinds of data is special: when the data can be rendered as sound waves or patterns of light, it all of a sudden belongs to a certain group of people who tell you this data can not be stored on hard drives which are accessible in certain ways.

    This is why I don't use remote backup, I won't store anything on a "cloud" (aka server I don't own), I won't use photo share sites or upload anything I can't keep off the internet. I don't want to deal with these people who think my data may fall within their jurisdiction somehow. I don't want to be a party of some dispute where I'm breaking some license agreement. Forget that. Instead, if I want to share data with my friends, they will simply have to drive to my home and plug their storage device into my private network. Not only that, I can share terabytes of data in mere minutes, rather than hours. Plus, I won't bust any data caps. Makes sense to me.

  • On the post: When Will People Stop Exploiting Google?

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 28 Apr, 2011 @ 10:14am

    Free parking is stealing

    I once read some guy make a comment that parking spaces were too valuable to give away. Your premise is pretty much the same idea. The so called free parking is very valuable, but once parking costs money, it changes the dynamic considerably. It means fewer patrons who are unwilling to pay will park and shop. Like you said, once Google started charging money, a TON of competitors would leap into that space and then Google would no longer be number one. Some things just shouldn't be monetized in order to expand other opportunities. Broadcast TV is being killed off by trying to monetize carriage fees, as an example. Distributors are so intent on charging as much as they can for their content that they are forcing people to other forms of entertainment, very quickly. When they wake up and realize the mistake, it's too late. The damage has been done. You can't monetize everything without risking killing the golden goose.

  • On the post: Drug Companies Overestimate Cost Of Developing A New Drug By Merely $1.26 Billion

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2011 @ 01:30pm

    Embellish to deceive

    This reminds me back when it's was popular to tout there were over 3 million homeless people and it was a travesty. Turns out this was made up. I can't remember how that magic number was arrived at. It's well known that in order to make a case and lie, you need to use made up stats that no one can easily verify. The R&D numbers are hard to verify and the number of homeless people also is hard to verify. The PRESS certainly is not known for its facts; right Mike Barnicle and Jayson Blair? This is why the internet is such a threat to "real" journalists: they get called out on their made up "facts". The only fact you can believe when reading most main stream stories is that very little fact checking went on and the reporter parroted what ever someone told him. Yea, he might have done a little internet checking, but that's about it.

  • On the post: Good Question: How The Hell Did The NYT Spend $40 Million On That Paywall?

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2011 @ 11:59am

    Consulting contract

    There's a famous three letter computer company that got a contract from a firm I worked for that created this monster of a project. It failed and yet cost my ex-firm who paid for it, millions of dollars. I blame it on the management who bought a bill of goods and paid for it. A fool and their money are soon departed. What I'm saying is, I think the NYT got shafted big time.

  • On the post: Should Have Known Better Than To Trust The NY Times: China 'Protest' Hangups Story Is Bunk

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2011 @ 04:03pm

    Remember these?

    LOL, and the New York Times thinks a pay wall will help? LOL when they have other problems like: Jayson Blair, Maureen Dowd, Walter Duranty, Hassan Fattah, Jack Hitt, the "Plastic Turkey" story, etc. I'd say their "fact" checking is a little on the poor side, to put it mildly. I don't bother reading the New York Times since I never know where they're coming from. They often leave out facts that lie just as much as the facts they make up. Consider this part of your plan to fix the times. Try putting integrity back into reporting... then... maybe they will come.

  • On the post: Hollywood Continues Its Plan To Kill Netflix

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2011 @ 09:36am

    Plastic media is dying

    The outcome is not hard to predict:
    1) Build a model that gets around the licensing problem of content distribution: setup a bank of DVD players and continue to rent plastic discs with holes in them connected with a long cable to each renter's computer.
    2) Netflix or some other production company will produce content with the intent of licensing the material for digital distribution.

    People are easily distracted and are not married to Hollywood. It only requires someone to break the mold. I will not subscribe to a dozen different providers just to see 1 or 2 movies. I will simply do without. If you look on Google Video or YouTube, there's tons of interesting stuff on there. The shift is already happening. The new generation is not interested in plastic media anymore. Plastic media is dying.

  • On the post: NY Times In Denial: Only Teens & The Unemployed Will Game The Paywall

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2011 @ 02:52pm

    New definitions of theft

    Here's what I learned:

    Copying = theft.
    Reading something without paying = theft.
    Circumventing or ignoring a javascript block = breaking and entering.
    High school kids are mostly thieves.
    People out of work are mostly thieves.

  • On the post: If AT&T Puts A Meter On Your Broadband, But That Meter Is Grossly Inaccurate, Is That Meter Really There?

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2011 @ 02:18pm

    Why bother metering?

    The whole idea of metering data is total bunk: it means nothing. If anything everyone should pay the same amount. The infrastructure is a fixed cost. Unlike electricity, there is no load as such. Data isn't consumed or even moved. Data is information on a carrier, usually voltage level changes or modulations of light. The more data being used does not equal consuming anything. If I send 0 bytes over the network or 1 billion bytes over the network, the costs are exactly the same. Same if you have 1 person sending data or millions of people sending data; absolutely nothing is consumed or destroyed. No new expenses are incurred. It's not like routers are turned on or off depending on the amount of data going over the network. OK, now that I've beat that to death, why do ISPs insist on charging people more who use more bandwidth? Because they can. They can convince customers that people who send/receive more data consume more resources. Also, they can use metered pricing to shape demand and keep from upgrading their switches. Didn't I read that CISCO had this breakthrough switch that would deliver over 322 terabits per second? Just pop in a few of these and be done with it. According to CISCO, one of these routers will deliver any movie ever made in 4 minutes or allow every person in China to have simultaneous video chats! Come on! Instead of whining about bandwidth hogs, deal with it! Upgrade your routers to faster units or gang more of them up. This is a simple problem. Shaping traffic is much more complicated and burdensome.

  • On the post: AT&T Jumps Into The Metered Broadband Pool; 150 Gig Limit For DSL

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2011 @ 12:04pm

    Fix your aging network; don't shape demand to fit.

    Rather than penalize customers AT&T needs to fix their aging infrastructure with limited capacity to deal with demand, not shape demand to deal with their old network!

    I don't agree with the notion of consumption since there are no resources to use up. The infrastructure is fixed. Data is simply modulating light or voltage so it can represent data. Data (as such) doesn't even exist. Nothing is consumed. The only resource is electricity and this too is fixed. Data centers use the same amount of power whether the network is being fully utilized or not. It's not like they shut routers down at off peak times. Sure, AT&T must buy switches and lay cable but as I said, these costs are fixed and utilization changes nothing: the cost stays the same whether data is moving across the network or not. AT&T is trying to appeal to the masses by making false statements or statements which have nothing to do with anything.

    Saying that 2% of the highest consumers are using 20% of available resources means nothing. So what. All this means is that at certain times, the network is busy. My answer is to fix the network. Look at it way, what is happening is that AT&T's network has a very limited capacity. Customers are not "consuming" anything. What are they consuming? Data? Modulating light and voltage levels in a router? All that is happening is that AT&T's infrastructure is hitting limits. This limit is not going to get higher anytime soon. So customers are complaining. Unlike electricity, "using" data does not create a load. Companies, like AT&T are great at making consumers confused about stuff so they can justify raising prices.

    What AT&T wants to do is charge more and offer less. They don't want to upgrade their equipment. They want instead to regulate demand. The only tools they have are to shape traffic and charge higher prices based on usage. Neither option is popular. What they need to do is upgrade their infrastructure with higher speed switches and we need more trunk lines. Yes, it is this simple.

    So don't listen to AT&T when they try to suggest that users are "consuming" bandwidth. This is a false metaphor: there is no consumption going on. They want you to think that some users are consuming something that costs money. This is not true. The problem is AT&T is not keeping their infrastructure up to date, they want to blame their customers for it. This is wrong on so many levels. Complain back to AT&T or your carrier that they are the problem. They need to fix their aging infrastructure to deal with demand, not shape demand to deal with their old network!

  • On the post: Mediacom Puts Its Own Ads On Other Websites, Including Google & Apple

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 01 Mar, 2011 @ 01:30pm

    Opening the mail

    This is no different than having a 3rd party intercept your private mail, open the envelope and stuffing a flyer in there, re-sealing it and forwarding it your mailbox. I see no distinction... oh, except this is legal.

  • On the post: Record Labels Planning Yet Another Way To Try To Get You To Rebuy Music You Already 'Bought'

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2011 @ 02:43pm

    Re:

    I think anyone who can't tell the difference between a CD and a DVD-A (or SACD & Hi-Res downloads) must: A)be tone deaf B)have crappy equipment C) both A & B
    .. or don't care.

  • On the post: Record Labels Planning Yet Another Way To Try To Get You To Rebuy Music You Already 'Bought'

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2011 @ 02:33pm

    You talkin' to me?

    Yea, that's right. Still haven't gone out & bought one of them Blu-rays yet. My TV is only 720i, and mostly I listen to 128k encoded mp3s because I just don't care enough to have the best: DVD is good enough, 720i is good enough, mp3s @ 128k bit rate is good enough, and yes, $35 computer speakers are good enough too.

  • On the post: Sony Demanding Identity Of Anyone Who Saw PS3 Jailbreak Video On YouTube

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 08 Feb, 2011 @ 08:54am

    Sony, you're not making me want to buy your stuff

    Sony, I stopped buying your stuff long ago when you started attacking your customers. This action is simply not doing you any favors. I look at this and shake my head and thank God that Samsung isn't acting this way. Seriously, none of my TVs or audio equipment has Sony markings on it. I won't buy a CD/DVD with Sony music on it (ok, you caught me, I haven't bought CDs in a long time). I have a radical idea for you, how about building electronics that people want to buy and don't make a fuss when people open or mutilate/modify the electronics they own. It belongs to them. Sure, void the warranty once the seal is broken, but don't attack people for hacking their equipment. It's just not good business. Take a cue from Pansat: they encourage people to hack their electronics and it pays off for them.

  • On the post: The Impact Of Egypt Cutting Itself Off From The Internet

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2011 @ 08:20am

    Re: All the eggs

    Couldn't agree more. This even goes to the "too big to fail" argument. When a single entity owns or controls too much of a critical infrastructure of any kind, a disaster is just waiting to happen. Like the company who had all of their IT infrastructure in Egypt, this was a disaster just waiting to happen. Even if Egypt didn't purposely cut the cord, just having all of your infrastructure in one place is not a good idea even under the best conditions.

  • On the post: The Impact Of Egypt Cutting Itself Off From The Internet

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2011 @ 12:33pm

    First hand knowledge

    I have first hand knowledge of a company who based all their servers in Cairo against the advise of several IT professionals. The reason for the advice was this exact scenario. The owner insisted on using the expertise they had in Cairo and now the owner is stuck in Cairo trying to move that equipment somewhere safer. What is going to happen now is that most of the employees in Cairo will no doubt loose their jobs and the whole data center will be moved to a safer location: not Egypt. So not only will companies who depend on the internet be affected, but many local professionals will be without jobs right now and going forward because any world wide company that has any sort of IT infrastructure in Egypt will no longer be keeping any servers in that country. If you are an Egyptian IT professional, I'm sorry. Perhaps you should move where all your equipment is moving.

  • On the post: Sony PS3 Hacker Gagged

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2011 @ 11:52am

    Sony, do I have this right?

    So you're saying it's ILLEGAL and wrong for someone to mod their PS3? Is this any way related to hacking consumer's computers so they can easily get a virus? Or put another way, it's OK for you to dangerously hack your consumer's PCs, but it's not OK for consumers to do the same thing to your hardware? Please reconcile this for me. Thank you.

  • On the post: Facebook, Goldman Sachs & How Money Seeks Regulatory Free Zones

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2011 @ 07:49am

    Can you say Ponzi scheme?

    Fiat currency is nothing more than a "legal" Ponzi scheme. it will come crashing down like a house cards. The only problem is knowing when. GS has been instrumental in all of our economic disasters. Look as far back as you can, and you'll find GS at or near the center of all of it. Matt Tiabbi has done a great job of documenting many of their exploits. What is GS doing next? Carbon offsets? It's simply amazing.

  • On the post: Company That Makes Wristbands With Holograms Forced To Admit That Their Scientific Claims Are Bunk

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2011 @ 06:55am

    .. but have you tried this?

    Maybe that doesn't work, but have you tried the Fuel Doctor?

    http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Fuel+Doctor+-+Fuel+Efficiency+Booster+-+Gray/9754101.p?skuId=9754101&id=1218170982087

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