Mat 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (114)

• On the post: Minnesota Kicks Off Legal Battle With Trump Administration To Hold ICE Shooters Accountable

  

  Mat ( profile ), 04 Apr, 2026 @ 11:10am

  The irony

  It was a greeting in Minnesota before metro surge, just without the capitalization. Amazing how the more things change the more they stay the same?

• On the post: Congressional Republicans Push Bills That Would Block Kids Access To Content For Ideological Reasons

  

  Mat ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2026 @ 07:05pm

  We’ve had decades at this point and parents generally don’t seem to actually do this. It’s a reasonable thing to ask as a hypothetical, but as an empirical matter, most simply don’t manage those settings.

  Parents generally not doing it and instead pushing the 'care' off onto the tech would be part of the problem. And not doing this is a hell of a lot more of a solution then asking tech to be the parent/babysitter. or perhaps more bluntly: learn to parent, or don't. But don't put the problems from 'don't' on the rest of us please.

• On the post: Superior, Wisconsin Latest City To Build Community-Owned Gigabit Fiber Network

  

  Mat ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2025 @ 06:36pm

  As someone across the bridge in Duluth...

  I salute this project and it's proof of how much it's needed: it hit it's planned yearly goal of subscribers in a month or so, and I hope at some point the ball gets rolling over here for something similar.

• On the post: Trump Is Accusing Foes With Multiple Mortgages Of Fraud. Records Show Three Of His Cabinet Members Have Them.

  

  Mat ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2025 @ 04:03pm

  Huh

  On the one hand, questionable is questionable. On the other, usually they at least try to give plausible deniability of playing favorites.

• On the post: These GOP Lawmakers Referred Constituents To The CFPB For Help. Then They Voted To Gut The Agency.

  

  Mat ( profile ), 20 Aug, 2025 @ 03:04pm

  Re: Replaced

  Citations please: Which other agencies picked up the tasks listed above, so that those who need those services can get the help they need. In other words, Put up or shut up.

• On the post: Despite A Flood Of New State Laws, Most Industries Still Suck On ‘Right To Repair’

  

  Mat ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2025 @ 11:17pm

  I'm honestly surprised

  Apple scoring somewhere around a B average is kinda shocking. Valve getting an A+ is actually not surprising to me at all somehow. And as someone who owns a second-hand MSI laptop? Their score does not surprise me in the slightest. (It's a good laptop, don't get me wrong, but the fact that several things just 'don't work' in linux is still annoying as hell.)

• On the post: Trump Declares A Trade War On Uninhabited Islands, US Military, And Economic Logic

  

  Mat ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2025 @ 12:33pm

  It gets worse

  Someone else made a realization: this isn't a list of countries: This is a list of top level domains. I'm half in agreement someone shoved the top level domains into an LLM along with what numbers they wanted, and it spat out this thing...

• On the post: People Who Can’t Get Books Banned From Libraries Are Now Hiding Them Or Throwing Them In The Trash

  

  Mat ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2025 @ 11:35am

  what makes me sad? This is far too accurate a reasoning.

• On the post: Thanks Complicated Music Licensing Schemes: ‘Alan Wake’ Updated To Remove Bowie Song From Credits

  

  Mat ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2024 @ 01:20am

  Hmmm

  Not quite what I meant. I mean where "we can no longer sell the VHS version unless we remake it without the songs." But you know, that's also bad. ANd dear gods this has depressed me in ways I never thought I'd know.

• On the post: Thanks Complicated Music Licensing Schemes: ‘Alan Wake’ Updated To Remove Bowie Song From Credits

  

  Mat ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2024 @ 08:57pm

  If you own it on plastic discs, your memory matches the reality. You obviously didn't buy the plastic shiny disc for skyrim. Which, has an installer. For Steam.

  Not even buying physical media can save you from the games licensing plague.

• On the post: Thanks Complicated Music Licensing Schemes: ‘Alan Wake’ Updated To Remove Bowie Song From Credits

  

  Mat ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2024 @ 07:52pm

  A slight misunderstanding in what I meant: Has a movie had to remove a song to continue selling after release? If not, why? Different negotiations? different licensing? Or just the understanding that removing something from a finished artistic product is absolutely stupid?

• On the post: Thanks Complicated Music Licensing Schemes: ‘Alan Wake’ Updated To Remove Bowie Song From Credits

  

  Mat ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2024 @ 06:15pm

  I have to ask...

  Does this same problem happen to movies? Because gods damn the inability to sell a movie a few years down the road because it had a music clip that was licensed in it, seems so utterly stupid that it hurts.

• On the post: British Comic Artist Petitions USPTO To Cancel ‘Super Hero’ Trademark Held By DC, Marvel

  

  Mat ( profile ), 20 May, 2024 @ 10:43pm

  Wait

  ... how the hell do both of them have the trademark to the same thing?

• On the post: Protect Yourself From Sen. Mike Lee’s Anti-Porn PROTECT Act

  

  Mat ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2024 @ 09:20pm

  If they really believed that defention of consent...

  They'd apply it to all work. But that won't happen. Because that'd make all of us slaves.

• On the post: Marsha Blackburn Makes It Clear: KOSA Is Designed To Silence Trans People

  

  Mat ( profile ), 06 Sep, 2023 @ 09:59pm

  Anyone following a republican bill “for the children” should be extremely suspicious.Anyone following a republican bill “for the children” should be extremely suspicious.

  There's one word too many in this. ANy time you have a bill "for the children", you should take it with several grains of salt. And look to see who is most affected by the bill.

• On the post: WotC Makes Major Changes To D&D OGL License, Sends Community Into A Frenzy

  

  Mat ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2023 @ 12:30pm

  Hey Now

  That's an insult to the kender: The kender have a lot lower learning curve to not pissing off everyone around them.

• On the post: WotC Makes Major Changes To D&D OGL License, Sends Community Into A Frenzy

  

  Mat ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2023 @ 12:21pm

  "pretending that one can apply terms, and then arguing about which terms should be applied, is a waste of everyone’s time, which could be better spent gaming." Oh please, a good chunk of people in this hobby are in it specifically to argue how to apply various terms to things.

• On the post: WotC Makes Major Changes To D&D OGL License, Sends Community Into A Frenzy

  

  Mat ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2023 @ 12:19pm

  A plus and a minus

  They critically failed their initial diplomacy check (among other things) with how this had to be leaked before the general community could make informed comment, and not listening to their partners in this before things got bad. They may not have critically failed their backpedal, but they sure didn't make a successful diplomacy roll there either. and in the process, I think they may have lost more community trust then they realize... and I think the higher ups in the company don't realize just how fragile that trust was, and how near impossible rebuilding it will be now.

• On the post: Raspberry Pi Shows How Not To Mastodon

  

  Mat ( profile ), 12 Dec, 2022 @ 03:13pm

  Every time...

  Every time I hear about this federation thing, and the whole supply chain of issues it seemingly can cause? It makes me glad my platform of choice branched off, forked its code completely, and got rid of all the federation features up front.

• On the post: Anti-Cheat Software Continues To Be The New DRM In Pissing Off Legit Customers

  

  Mat ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2022 @ 02:59pm

  as a thought

  The company cannot control what runs on my machine. nor should they. They can, however, scrutinize the inputs to the server. If they are trusting user machines to give valid inputs... well, I have so many reasons that's a bad idea that it's funny.

Next >>