xebikr 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (493)

• On the post: DC Court Confirms That Government Agents Can Abuse US Citizens' Rights With Impunity If They Leave The Country

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2014 @ 09:55am

  Re:

  Legally speaking, they are still criminally liable and within the jurisdiction of the US Govt. There's this law:
  

  (a) Offense.? Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
  (b) Jurisdiction.? There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if?
  (1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
  (2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.

  
  Even if the agents are outside of the US, they can and should be convicted for torturing anyone and not just US citizens. But that would require the government obeying its own laws.

• On the post: James Clapper Admits What Everyone's Been Saying For Months: Snowden Didn't Take 1.7 Million Documents

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2014 @ 11:53am

  Re: This just in!

  "We're still investigating, but we think that a lot of what he looked at, he couldn't pull down,"
  
  Nice phrasing, that. The use of the work 'couldn't' implies that "if only he could, he would have", instead of a possible active choice by Snowden NOT to. The fact that he was viewing it seems to say he could, actually, 'pull it down'.

• On the post: John Kerry Claims US Is On The 'Right Side Of History' When It Comes To Online Freedom And Transparency

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 05 May, 2014 @ 05:51am

  It's almost like he's had his fingers in his ears saying: "LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU, LA LA LA" for the past year (or longer).

• On the post: Censorious Parent Calls Cops On Teen Giving Away Books In A Local Park

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2014 @ 10:03am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  /sigh
  
  In this case, the humor was hyperbolic: Comic presentation marked by extravagant exaggeration and outsized characterization. Specifically it was exaggerating the viewpoint of the 'typical conservative nutjob' by conflating the preceding two groups (terrorists and child pornographers), with the third (liberals).
  
  You could also view it as an inversion of a popular trope, which is usually invoked by naming ordinary things in the same list as a horrible one. Example from The Princess Bride:

  Prince Humperdinck: Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work, but I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it; I'm swamped.

  Now, even with (or perhaps because of) this explanation, you still might not find the humor in it. That's ok. Not everyone is born with a sense of humor. But with time and hard work, you can fake one very convincingly.

• On the post: Describing Public Domain Works As 'Pirated' And 'Illegal' Is Bad For Everyone

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2014 @ 10:26am

  The material being printed consists of ?arcane scientific papers that are hundreds of years out of copyright,? he tells me via email. ?Yet JSTOR is firewalling & profiting from this stuff, which should be available to everyone at no cost.?
  
  Again, those works have already been freed, legally, both by Maxwell and by JSTOR.

  
  New movie: Rebel Without A Clue

• On the post: Utah State Records Committee Orders City Of Bluffdale To Reveal Data On NSA's Water Usage

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 02 Apr, 2014 @ 11:12am

  Re: Re: Re:

  So where do you want to have the heat go?
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump
  Quick answer for tldc: The ground.

• On the post: To Catch A Meaningless Leaker, Microsoft Made It Clear It Has No Concern For Your Privacy

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2014 @ 09:43am

  Re: Re:

  Your link sucks. It doesn't lead where you think it leads.

• On the post: Someone Please Tell Congress That 'Free' Is Not Illegal & Not To Lie About Bogus Search Results

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2014 @ 03:10pm

  Re: Wow...

  Is Netflix even complaining about piracy? I can't find anything.

• On the post: Innovation And Our Better Future Depend On Preserving Net Neutrality

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 05 Feb, 2014 @ 05:40pm

  Re: Re: Re: I agree, but...

  Hyperbole? I thought it was funny because it's true!

• On the post: Mike Rogers Tries To Make The Case That Glenn Greenwald Should Be Prosecuted For 'Selling Stolen Material'

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2014 @ 02:34pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Not tangible property

  Who says Roger's wants to have a productive conversation
  
  I would never make that mistake. Fortunately, I have had no communication with Rep. Mike 'Typhoid-Mary-of-Bad-Ideas' Rogers. I give the AC I replied to more credit, though.

• On the post: Mike Rogers Tries To Make The Case That Glenn Greenwald Should Be Prosecuted For 'Selling Stolen Material'

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2014 @ 01:34pm

  Re: Re: Not tangible property

  It is not academic when a congressman is directly suggesting that publishing state secrets is the same as fencing stolen property. Legal definitions for those activities already exist and muddying the waters by conflating two completely different activities by relying on how they are referred to in the vernacular doesn't create a productive conversation.
  
  Another way of thinking of it is the difference between a literal and figurative definition. Mike Rogers might figuratively be a 'scumbag', but unfortunately he can't be declared a public health hazard like a literal bag of scum could be.

• On the post: California Cracking Down On Coding Bootcamps For Teaching Coding Without A License

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2014 @ 07:18pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Seems fair

  I gave you insightful for both posts. Your comment totally deserves it.

• On the post: NSA Defenders Offer Weak Rebuttal Of The RNC's Condemnation Of Mass Surveillance Programs

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2014 @ 08:42pm

  Re: Re:

  Which definition are you using? I'm going with American colloquial.
  

  Partisan
  In politics, a partisan is a committed member of a political party. In multi-party systems, the term is used for politicians who strongly support their party's policies and are reluctant to compromise with their political opponents.
  In the United States, the meaning of the term has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. Before the American National Election Study (described in Angus Campbell et al., in The American Voter) began in 1952, an individual's partisan tendencies were typically determined from their voting behavior. Since then, "partisan" has come to refer to an individual with a psychological identification with one or the other of the major parties.

  It's the idea of the party for the party's sake. Us against them. If they support it, we oppose it. That way of thinking is bad, and his comment drips of it.

• On the post: NSA Defenders Offer Weak Rebuttal Of The RNC's Condemnation Of Mass Surveillance Programs

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2014 @ 04:34pm

  New amendment idea. Anyone who uses the phrase "partisan advantage" as a positive thing should be impeached. I'd prefer that any position the parties took was as a result of following their ideologies, and never "partisan advantage". You may say I'm a dreamer. You'd probably be right.

• On the post: Court Says LA Police Warrantless Access Of Hotel Records Is 'Unconstitutional'

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2014 @ 10:03pm

  Half a step forward, two steps back.

• On the post: Dumbest Logic Ever: 9/11 Happened Without Today's NSA Surveillance, And That's Proof Why It's Necessary

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2013 @ 02:11pm

  You guys are all wrong. 9-11 happened because I had not yet created my robot gargoyle army. Now that my stealth robo-goyles are continually patrolling the skys above all major world cities, there will never be another 9-11. That the robo-goyles also gather information that further my plans for world conqu-..., I mean, business interests, is a small price to pay.

• On the post: Feds Took Reporter's Notes During Unrelated Search, After They Spotted Documents She Had Obtained Via FOIA

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2013 @ 08:25am

  There's a saying: Never attribute to malice that which could be explained by stupidity. I'm more inclined to believe that it is perfectly reasonable to attribute these actions to malicious stupidity.

• On the post: How The Legacy Entertainment Industry Poisoned The Well For The Innovation It Desperately Needs

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2013 @ 11:00am

  Official Notice

  I hereby certify sarcasm based on the below:
  "efforts of the Labels to build a viable, artist-supporting business model."
  "reasonable Label-determined price"
  "Labels remove all the non-artistic content"
  "supporting their creativity"
  "All of our efforts are hindered by Google and piracy sites."{
  "we can't even afford to pay artists"
  "Our services were user friendly, affordable and directed consumers to the best possible art available."
  "make techies rich, while artists die!"
  "Their goal is total control over that which they do not create, own, or even care about."
  "The 'legacy' entertainment industry is the real innovators!"
  
  In particular, the line that begins "All our efforts" cement the post's status as sarcasm, not written by label representatives. A label representative would have stated "Google and other piracy sites".
  
  Therefore, this post is hereby unequivocally certified as sarcasm. Those wishing to appeal the ruling can reply below. I really, really care about your opinion.

• On the post: How The Legacy Entertainment Industry Poisoned The Well For The Innovation It Desperately Needs

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2013 @ 09:11am

  Nothing ever disappears from the internets.

• On the post: If The Justice Department Has A Plan To Fix Its Overclassification Problem, It's Probably Classified

  

  xebikr ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2013 @ 07:14am

  My uncle, who worked for a stint at the DoD told me that if there was any paperwork his coworkers didn't want to deal with they would just reclassify it one level higher than they had clearance for and they would never see it again. If the *only* source of over classified material came from lazy office workers, I can still see how that would be a huge amount.
  
  Mind you, this was about 20 years ago. Maybe office workers these days don't try to avoid work?

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