xenomancer 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Microsoft's 'Threat Management Gateway' Blocks Free Software Foundation Donation Page As 'Gambling'

    xenomancer ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2012 @ 02:34am

    Give Them Credit

    Donating to FSF is a bit of a gamble; the same way:
    buying Windows 8 will be a gamble,
    or driving to work in the morning,
    or breathing air inside a bathroom,
    or making a call on AT&T's network,
    or sipping a coffee from McDonalds,
    or ...

    Seriously? Gambling? WTF?

  • On the post: Twitter Suspends, Unsuspends, Suspends, Unsuspends CascadedBug Account That Mocked Its Downtime

    xenomancer ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2012 @ 02:09pm

    This sounds more like a software engineer who took the insults personally and decided to toy with the minds of those who'd dare to poke fun than the move of an executive.

    "Oops, looks like I accidentally hit 'deactivate account', I'll just go get another mug of coffee before I fix that... There, all better; ah, darn, looks like I did it again. That undo button looks nigh impossible to click again with out a sandwich..."

  • On the post: Red Green Show Thrives Thanks To The Internet And A Whole Lot Of Duct Tape

    xenomancer ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2012 @ 02:44pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Right, but I think the point everyone has been making is that the content that may or may not be decaying or maturing in quality is quickly shifting its upward trending production volume to more convenient platforms (for the consumers AND producers), and that the content that is left over on the aging infrastructure is simply not keeping pace in quality with the newer stuff due to the significantly lower quantity. That discrepancy alone should make one pine for "the good old days," until the realization of how suffocating they really were sets in.

  • On the post: Barnes & Noble: Ebooks Should Be Expensive So Amazon Won't Kill Us And Make Ebooks Expensive

    xenomancer ( profile ), 11 Jun, 2012 @ 04:02am

    Re:

    Yep, they can't even compete with the underpants gnomes. Look how much more complicated their business model is. A whole extra phase?!?!?!?!?

  • On the post: How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos? About $37 Billion Per Year…

    xenomancer ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2012 @ 09:27am

    Re:

    It's comments like this that make me look for DarkHelmet's awesome wit.

  • On the post: How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos? About $37 Billion Per Year…

    xenomancer ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2012 @ 09:22am

    Re:

    Thirdly, that number would suggest that the videos were watch end to end, slowly and carefully.
    ... going for an absolute 100% level of accuracy ...
    Two assumptions I thought I was pretty clear on when I wrote the derivation out.
    ... the number is bullshit ...
    True of the specific number, but the magnitude is probably pretty close to reality. Bear in mind that I left out jurisdictions and the contents of the comments on the videos. You can tack on three more zeros for jurisdictions alone.
    ... seems like an attempt to ass cover for the impending storm ...
    It was just a thought experiment. I have no more stake in this than any other ordinary netizen. I went through the motions since I had a spare five minutes and it turned out to be a humorously large number. The thing to take away from it is the issue of scalability. Regardless of the cost issue, there simply are not enough people deemed qualified by the current legal framework for a final say on the matter of whether or not a work infringes on a copyright to properly assess the general content of the internet, let alone just YouTube. It is simply not feasible to make that determination with legal certainty prior to making that content available.

  • On the post: How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos? About $37 Billion Per Year…

    xenomancer ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2012 @ 09:02am

    Re:

    Remember that day back in middle school when your teacher said showing your work was really really really important?

  • On the post: How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos? About $37 Billion Per Year…

    xenomancer ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2012 @ 08:58am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Beyond the fact that in the end only a judge has the final say on whether or not a work is infringing on a copyright (which I used as a fact based not-so-far-fetched logical extreme), my derivation for what I still consider to be a grossly simplified first approximation is based on the assumption that Google has decided (or was ordered) to settle the question of copyright status of all new content hosted on YouTube.

    I don't care how good Google's coders are, they can't and never will replace an actual judge.
    And this was why I leaped so far to an extreme in my assumptions. The entitlement mentality cultivated by the ability to sever the abstract ownership and rights to a fixed implementation of creative effort is skew to the progressive attitude concomitant to technological progress. Attempting to get the needs of both to intersect requires a warped view of reality or a questionable point of view.
    /badvectorcalculusjoke

  • On the post: How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos? About $37 Billion Per Year…

    xenomancer ( profile ), 30 May, 2012 @ 11:49am

    Re: Re:

    I am pretty goofy, but do I really match the character of a whole ball of goof? Can you cite an authority on this matter? I'd like to know how I can keep this prestigious designation and what committee to lodge complaints with when I get so serious about the little things.

  • On the post: How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos? About $37 Billion Per Year…

    xenomancer ( profile ), 30 May, 2012 @ 11:38am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Shh!!! If you keep handing all that logic out for free you'll ruin the industry!

  • On the post: YouTube Uploads Hit 72 Hours A Minute: How Can That Ever Be Pre-Screened For 'Objectionable' Material?

    xenomancer ( profile ), 24 May, 2012 @ 09:52am

    Re: Re: Re: Automating filtering

    No, I didn't account for that, but it would be additive anyway. Just add the salary for a judge in each jurisdiction to the base salary of a judge in Silicon Valley. Or, since they'll likely need to work there anyway (so the MAFIAA can ensure no one is looking away from the monitors), just multiply the salary by the number of jurisdictions. That's already 51 for the US (50 state + 1 federal competing sets of rules), and there are 207 countries (last I checked by the UN's standards) the potential increase in cost is more akin to a drunken dart game than a number worth discussing in jest.

    I think accounting for other jurisdictions brings this little thought exercise from humorous hyperbole to the serious rigor of the reported losses to the industry (a factor of ~1000 larger) and I shan't be bothered to defend my method as being even remotely useful when it becomes more absurd than the method I am mocking.

    But, for shitsngiggles, take your rounded off number ($40b) and add three zeros. $40,000,000,000,000. Now that is a budget request that takes some serious balls of steel. Someone find me Jon St. John!!!

  • On the post: Now Is The Time To Tell Your Senator That Privacy Is Awesome And CISPA Is Not

    xenomancer ( profile ), 23 May, 2012 @ 03:41pm

    Re: Spread the word

    Ditto

  • On the post: YouTube Uploads Hit 72 Hours A Minute: How Can That Ever Be Pre-Screened For 'Objectionable' Material?

    xenomancer ( profile ), 23 May, 2012 @ 03:26pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: EASY!

    NOOOO SOUP FOR YOU!

  • On the post: YouTube Uploads Hit 72 Hours A Minute: How Can That Ever Be Pre-Screened For 'Objectionable' Material?

    xenomancer ( profile ), 23 May, 2012 @ 02:44pm

    Re: Automating filtering

    I just finished writing up a facetious cost analysis for implementing the kind of screening everyone but Google might agree to were cost, privacy, and due process not an issue. It got to the point where writing the math out in LaTeX on my blog was easier, then it got to the point where it could stand on its own. Anyway, as far as I could reasonably figure, it would cost in the neighborhood of $36,829,468,840 per year to have live judges scrutinize every minute of new video uploaded to youtube. I had to make a few leaps of faith coming up with assumed values when it came to how long they look at and consider each video, but in the end it only made about an order of magnitude difference.

  • On the post: Police Officer Fired Over Questionable Confrontation, Would Have Gone Unnoticed Without YouTube Video

    xenomancer ( profile ), 30 Apr, 2012 @ 10:40am

    Re: Re: Re: Wait a minute...

    Clearly we need SOPA. SOPA by any other name would still be as effective.
    To otherwise paraphrase Shakespear: Is a pile of rotting elephant shit not a monument of decay'd feces by any other name?

  • On the post: Copyright Lobby Tries To 'Hire' Demonstrators, Since The Public Refuses To Rally In Support Of ACTA

    xenomancer ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2012 @ 07:51am

    Copyright Lobby had decided to try to put on a pro-ACTA demonstration... but they needed to hire people to act as ACTA supporters
    It shouldn't surprise anyone that a lobby backed by the MPAA would try hiring extras at a place so likely to both despise the effort and need the money. It's actually a rather fitting vignette of the overall global trend in IP law.

  • On the post: Workshop Audience Barred From 'Demonstrating' Approval Of Michael Geist's ACTA Takedown

    xenomancer ( profile ), 07 Mar, 2012 @ 01:15pm

    Re: Nominations

    Muhahahahaha

  • On the post: Workshop Audience Barred From 'Demonstrating' Approval Of Michael Geist's ACTA Takedown

    xenomancer ( profile ), 07 Mar, 2012 @ 01:13pm

    Re:

    You "might" be ignorant of how speculation is different from proscribed prerogatives.

  • On the post: Chris Dodd: The Internet Developed Because Of Strict Copyright Enforcement

    xenomancer ( profile ), 07 Mar, 2012 @ 09:34am

    Dear Chris Dodd

    How are you? I haven't heard from you in quite a while. Most of your brethren appear to have moved on and now service the next generation by powering vehicles and co-gen plants. In other words, they have become useful again by participating in a larger scheme that benefits everyone by relinquishing their stake in a grand timeshare. So, please be useful. Please help out the newer generation. Please go die in a fire and take your ignorance with you.

    Sincerely,
    Earth

  • On the post: 'We, The Web Kids': Manifesto For An Anti-ACTA Generation

    xenomancer ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2012 @ 05:09pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Not Just The Youngins

    Troll Report 3/10 for improper use of a binary scale.

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