Vidiot 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (907)

• On the post: Incentivizing Better Speech, Rather Than Censoring 'Bad' Speech

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2017 @ 11:54am

  That's an un-American approach... it's neither divisive nor irrational. I like it.

• On the post: Disney: The Only Fun Allowed At Children's Birthday Parties Is Properly Licensed Fun

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2017 @ 11:51am

  But, as we know, it's not about Disney prevailing, and winning a cash judgment from a tiny company... it's about the threat, about bleeding them dry with legal fees. Which shouldn't take long.

• On the post: Big ISPs Lobby To Kill Attempts At More Accurate Broadband Mapping

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2017 @ 11:47am

  The ISP's can prove there are tens of thousands more broadband-connected communities... they just have to wait for the results to trickle in via DSL and postcards.

• On the post: Details Emerge Of World's Biggest Facial Recognition Surveillance System, Aiming To Identify Any Chinese Citizen In Three Seconds

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2017 @ 05:21am

  I did some research last night with my associate General Tso, and I'm thinking that using four 256GB microSD cards per 1TB, the entire database could be smuggled out in a wonton.

• On the post: AT&T Spent Hundreds Of Billions On Mergers And All It Got Was A Big Pile Of Cord Cutters

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2017 @ 05:15am

  What's clear is that by the time these lumbering behemoths decide to become a "playuh", they're so far down the trend slope that failure is all but assured. Verizon must have heard that Yahoo was the the bees' knees... "Our own search engine! Imagine that!" All they got instead was the ability to shut down their own mail servers in favor of a poisoned, spam-ridden domain. AT&T would have done better investing in fidget spinners... at least you can still find them at a convenience store.

• On the post: GAO Will Investigate The FCC's Dubious DDoS Attack Claims

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2017 @ 07:51am

  GAO... wonderful! They'll find real, hard evidence of what actually took place.
  
  Too bad we've abandoned that old-timey "evidence based" notion. We can still check Twitter, though, to find out what REALLY happened.

• On the post: The 'Gawker Effect' Is Chilling Investigative Reporting Across The US

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2017 @ 07:48am

  And so we find the true value of large journalism organizations... big enough pocketbooks to pay the lawyers when you're (inevitably) sued.

• On the post: The Cyber World Is Falling Apart And The DOJ Is Calling For Weakened Encryption

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2017 @ 07:45am

  Saw a headline including the (non-)word "cyber", and I can't stop facepalming. I'll read the rest of the post soon.

• On the post: Deputy AG Pitches New Form Of Backdoor: 'Responsible Encryption'

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 11 Oct, 2017 @ 07:34am

  Well, come on, now... we’re all adults here. I mean, there’s “encryption”, and then there’s encryption. (wink-wink)

• On the post: Oracle Tells The White House: Stop Hiring Silicon Valley People & Ditch Open Source

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 03 Oct, 2017 @ 08:58am

  "The USG’s enthusiasm for open source software is wholly inconsistent with..."

  ... Oracle's need to skim easy federal money from decades-old, proprietary installations.

• On the post: Stupid Patent Of The Month: Will Patents Slow Artificial Intelligence?

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 30 Sep, 2017 @ 09:11am

  Re: Good lord!

  When bogus software patents burst forth upon the scene, the trick was to take an obvious, garden-variety solution and tack the phrase "... with a computer" onto the end of it.
  
  Now, we're inserting "... using an AI engine". In this case, those are totally empty words; there's no universally understood meaning for that language, and the description stands on its own with those words removed. (And is clearly not patentable.)

• On the post: How The Supreme Court's Continued Misunderstanding Of Copyright Ruined Halloween

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2017 @ 11:30am

  A bunch of possible outcomes, but...

  Who knows what may happen upon a peel?

• On the post: Chinese High-Tech Startups: Now More Copied Than Copying

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2017 @ 05:43am

  "Anyone clinging to that belief is simply deluding themselves..."

  But... but... the American President believes that, and is threatening the Chinese government with those allegations. Is it possible he's deluding himself?

• On the post: As 'Star Trek: Discovery' Shows, The Streaming Exclusivity Wars Risk Driving Users Back To Piracy

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2017 @ 06:56am

  Re: Is it a bad thing?

  Yay, competition! Also could lead to epic "churn"... add a boutique service for a month, binge the content of interest, and cancel. That actually would be far cheaper than one-off "renting" individual episodes. (Does anyone actually do that?)

• On the post: As 'Star Trek: Discovery' Shows, The Streaming Exclusivity Wars Risk Driving Users Back To Piracy

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2017 @ 05:45am

  I've watched favorite series vanish suddenly from Netflix or Amazon Prime (sometimes from both at once), usually in mid-binge. What will happen to the beleaguered hero in S3E7? To find out, I need a subscription to PBS Masterpiece, Britbox, or one of Amazon's $6.99/mo add-ons.
  
  For me, this completely obliterates the freedom and promise of OTT/streaming. It's also promoted a kind of "streaming hedonism", a live-for-today mentality that requires immediate, continuous binging to hedge against the prospect of that content disappearing without warning... and that's not my favorite way to view. Next question: does anyone care?
  
  Bundled cable pay services certainly didn't care what we thought about their policies and practices; it was a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. (Notice I keep saying "was" regarding cable.) OTT services, though, were born and flourished due in large part to their desire to track user sentiment... make people happy. Have they gone to the dark side?
  
  And the complicating factor is the fact that the rise of the major streaming platforms empowered individual content creators with new and undreamed-of revenue streams; now, they're feelin' their oats, and are willing to withhold and re-deploy content to maximize return. My Brit-cop dramas are now sprinkled indiscriminately across services from Netflix, PBS, Amazon, Acorn and Britbox... do they realize they're becoming the new villains, keeping me from my content?
  
  And, as Karl suggests, will that drive me to the nearest Tor node? Make it easy and reasonably-priced, and I'm first in line with my pocketbook open; start mucking around like this, and my capitalist loyalty starts to wither...

• On the post: Appeals Court Tells Patent Trolls' Favorite Judge He Can't Just Ignore The Supreme Court To Keep Patent Cases In Texas

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2017 @ 01:30pm

  Predicting a big sales slump at "Judge Gilstrap's Courthouse Lemonade and Fireworks Stand"...

• On the post: Desperate To Stop Leaks, The Trump Administration Considers Moving From Bad Ideas To Worse Ones

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2017 @ 05:12am

  Re: Can we hook Trump up to a polygraph?

  They'd have to use the pediatric sensors for his hands...

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

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2017 @ 05:02am

  Re: One day

  I got it once. The unicorn ride was definitely cool, but that rainbow-shooting thing isn't as amazing as it sounds... I was eating breakfast off the mantelpiece for a week.

• On the post: Lawyer: Without The Monkey's Approval, PETA Can't Settle Monkey Selfie Case

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2017 @ 08:04am

  Re:

  I apologize for thinking there was nothing left to be said about the #%*& monkey selfie case... this is brilliant.

• On the post: Documentary About Freeing Happy Birthday From Copyfraud Comes Out The Day After Happy Birthday Officially Declared Public Domain

  

  Vidiot ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2017 @ 06:24am

  Re:

  As the documentary notes, Warner was required to set aside a $14 million fund to compensate those who paid fees since 1949.

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