xmichaelx 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (712)

• On the post: Can Anyone Name A Programmer Still Getting Paid For Code He Wrote In 1962?

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2014 @ 04:44pm

  Re: Re: Rental Investment

  "musicians, for whatever reason, expect to be paid again, and again, and again for their work."
  
  I'll point out that this is untrue for the vast, vast majority of musicians. Most musicians who play on albums from the '50s through the '80s were session musicians who collected zero royalties. This isn't true of all bands, but it's certainly true of most Big Band, jazz, blues, ethnic music, early rock, Motown, and classical.
  
  There's even a massive contingent of musicians who never record anything at all. These include backing bands for current performers (I live in Vegas, and there are a million of these), and most orchestral performers.
  
  Not all musicians are money-grubbing a-holes who pissed away their fortunes and now think they (and their grandkids) are entitled to millions. Some are happy just making music, and earning a living.

• On the post: Midwestern Town Of 7,000 Approves Military Surplus Armored Personnel Carrier For Its 12-Member Police Force

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2014 @ 02:05pm

  Re:

  It's okay - this one has giant robot arms to apprehend the criminals once it's on the scene.
  
  Wouldn't want those brave officers breaking a nail, would you?

• On the post: Adding Condoleezza Rice To Dropbox's Board Seems Incredibly Tone Deaf Following NSA Concerns

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2014 @ 01:28pm

  Re: Dropbox is only used by the naive and stupid

  I use Dropbox because my data isn't private, so I don't care who else sees it. The stuff I have there is innocuous, and only there because it makes a convenient place to temporarily store files I might want to move from 1 device to another.
  
  My private data never goes on a server. Not as convenient, but much more secure.
  
  Am I naive or stupid?

• On the post: Adding Condoleezza Rice To Dropbox's Board Seems Incredibly Tone Deaf Following NSA Concerns

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2014 @ 01:22pm

  Re:

  "People seem to forget she was doing her job when she went on the Sunday talk shows and defended warrentless searches and spying."
  
  The Nuremberg Defense holds no water for me.

• On the post: Bogus Comparison Between Detroit In 1990 And Silicon Valley In 2012

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2014 @ 04:23pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  "Honestly, can you imagine a future that still has manual labor jobs?"
  
  Of course. Do you really think robots will be doing all the gardening? Coming to your house to repair the wiring or fix the plumbing? Will robots be doing all the road work?
  
  Manual labor isn't going anywhere, and no one (except you) thinks that it is.
  
  Manufacturing jobs, OTOH, will disappear.

• On the post: Bogus Comparison Between Detroit In 1990 And Silicon Valley In 2012

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2014 @ 04:20pm

  Re:

  "I don't think there can be any serious doubt that in terms of total numbers in the US, the number of jobs today are lower than the number of jobs in the past."
  
  You know there are a lot more people today than in the past, right? So there are actually A LOT more jobs today, but also more people to fill them.

• On the post: Senate Republicans, Trying To Score Political Points, Claim Democrats Revealing Spying Scandal Puts Lives At Risk

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 12 Mar, 2014 @ 02:48pm

  Small government?

  '"I personally don't believe that anything that goes on in the intelligence committee should ever be discussed publicly," said Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.).'
  
  Remember when Republicans were the party of Small Government?
  
  Me neither.

• On the post: CCI Claims Six Strikes Working Great To Thwart Piracy, Offers Absolutely No Evidence To Support That Claim

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2014 @ 05:27pm

  Only 1 notice

  I've only ever gotten one notice from my cable provider (Cox) and it was for "pirating" a show I'd never even seen.
  
  So since I was already being treated like a criminal, I decided to try out this piracy thing. It was awesome! Now I do all my pirating through a VPN.
  
  That 6-strikes thing worked out great for me.

• On the post: DailyDirt: Online Dating, FTW?

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2014 @ 05:16pm

  88 dates?

  I know Chris McKinlay has gotten a fair amount of press for supposedly "gaming the system" on OKCupid, but think about it: It still took 88 dates for him to find a decent match, and they're not even in a real relationship (just a long-distance one, with no end in sight).
  
  88 dates??!
  
  It sounds like "gaming the system" is actually far more onerous -- and way more time consuming -- than just asking out a random gal on the street, or in a class, or at work, or in a bar ...

• On the post: DailyDirt: Jack Sprat Could Eat No Fat…

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 09 Feb, 2014 @ 11:38am

  Today I learned ...

  ... that there are people who still believe that "low fat" diet is smart or healthy, and that eating fat causes one to get fat.
  
  I really thought we got over all this anti-science in the mid-90s.

• On the post: Our Broken Patent System: Company That Does Nothing May Get Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars From Google

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2014 @ 03:32pm

  Re: Does nothing now but it did something before

  Actually, the company never did anything with these patents except buy them from someone else who never did anything with them.
  
  I know that because I read the article.
  
  Patent reform is entirely populist - without it, the wealthy can prevent the little guy from competing with only the THREAT of a lawsuit.

• On the post: Sheriff's Dept. Hopeful Wishes A 'Holocaust And Gas Chambers' On CopBlock.org's Writers And Readers

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2014 @ 01:31pm

  Liberal?

  As a conservative non-Republican who has actually studied political theory, I'm always flabbergasted by any attempt at questioning government power being classified as "liberal" by know-nothing "conservatives."
  
  Aren't they the ones who pretend to want "small government"? Why are they constanty arguing for a removal of government -- including police -- oversight by citizens?
  
  This is why I've never voted Repiblican.

• On the post: University Professor: Candy Crush Is Turning Children Into Obsessive Gamblers

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2014 @ 11:28am

  Re:

  "there are mountains of evidence that some controls are needed."
  
  Pretty please, point me to those mountains. All I've seen are anecdata.

• On the post: Hollywood Needs The Internet More Than The Internet Needs Hollywood… So Why Is The W3C Pretending Otherwise?

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2014 @ 12:31pm

  Re:

  "I wonder how many open source browsers/os's will pop up with no html5 or go back to what it was prior to it."
  
  There's no need for anything to "pop up." The source code for many older browsers is readily available.
  
  And while I'm here ...
  Nothing these companies are doing prevents me from continuing to download and use whatever I want, whenever I want. The internet isn't dying; we're just witnessing an expansion of the underground user base and the increasing irrelevance of centralization.
  
  It's beautiful.

• On the post: Disappointing: Google Releases… Then Removes Great Privacy Feature From Android

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2013 @ 01:54pm

  Re: Sorry but this should be standard and required by common sense.

  The problem (for some apps and information) is that users don't understand why an app requires certain information.
  
  For example, I've heard many Android users say, "This app shouldn't need to monitor my phone calls - THEY'RE SPYING!!1!"
  
  In reality, many apps need to monitor the state of your phone so that they can pause themselves if you get a phone call. Imagine people with no knowledge of how Android works deciding to turn off phone monitoring. They'd learn to hate Android because of the terrible user experience that they themselves have created!
  
  THIS is what google needs to overcome before releasing such a feature (maybe by making it difficult to turn on, or something).

• On the post: Education Through Games, Or How SimCity Finally Became Useful

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2013 @ 10:53am

  "besides the point"?

  TFA said: "but that's besides the point."
  
  It's not "besides" the point; it's BESIDE the point.
  
  Think about it.

• On the post: Google Is Your Friend, Unless You're A Dumb Criminal; Then It's Your Downfall

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2013 @ 09:41pm

  Funny ...

  I just googled "What happens if you rob a bank" and all that came up in the first page was pictures of these losers and their story.
  
  Now I know what happens, and I'll never do it. Lesson learned. Thanks, internet!

• On the post: When Will Hollywood Stop Blaming Everyone Else And Help Itself?

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2013 @ 03:23pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  "I make the content, my rules. If you make the content you can make your own rules."
  
  This may be how you WANT things to work, but we don't live in fantasyland.
  
  I watch what I want, when I want. If you want to get paid, you make it easy for me.

• On the post: DailyDirt: Playing Some Games With Hunger

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 11 Oct, 2013 @ 12:07pm

  what year is this?

  "there is some evidence that high-glycemic foods (from processed carbohydrates) can cause blood sugar spikes and stimulate hunger. "
  
  This has been well-established for 20 years, and is based on research from the '70s and '80s into potential diabetic diets and their effects.
  
  Hard to believe anyone -- let alone the NYTimes -- treats this as news.

• On the post: DailyDirt: Solar Powered Transportation

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2013 @ 10:23am

  Re:

  "45mph for a plane is... Laughable."
  
  This may shock you, but the first automobile wasn't a Lexus. And the first computer couldn't run Crysis, either.
  
  Have you ever actually designed and built anything? Was it spectacular perfection, or was it a proof of concept onwhich to build a better model?

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