xyzzy 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (25) comment rss

  • On the post: In 303 Creative, By Happily Helping One Bigot, SCOTUS (Perhaps Inadvertently) Helped The Larger Fight Against Bigotry

    xyzzy ( profile ), 06 Jul, 2023 @ 12:46pm

    You miss the point

    This is not about law, and you should know this. you lead with "vindicating a website designer’s ability to refuse to build a website celebrating gay marriage, may seem at first glance to be a blow to gay rights. And maybe that’s what some or all of the six justices in the majority intended for it to be. But that’s not the upshot to the decision" And you are oh so cleverly right, their rights will still be there, all the time they are being violated, and this is an invitation extend that violation. If I am building a website, it is for the speech of the person owning it, not the web head who wrote it The case was brought, on a hypothetical basis, to advance hate, the supreme court blesses it, that is the real message

  • On the post: New York City Business Owners Aren’t Happy About Facial Recognition Ban Prompted By New York City Business Owner

    xyzzy ( profile ), 26 Jun, 2023 @ 10:34am

    Exceptional claims...

    My understanding is the gap in recognition was acknowledged, and has narrowed over time, as companies try harder, and train more, however, I can find no evidence for your claim that this "has not been true for many years", indeed, quite the contrary, recognition bias will always be a struggle to contain, on an ongoing basis We would all love to see some exceptional evidence for your claims, as a solved issue, I am sure that must be easy for you

  • On the post: Texas Legislature Convinced First Amendment Simply Does Not Exist

    xyzzy ( profile ), 21 Jun, 2023 @ 02:26pm

    Religion found harmful to children

    There seems to be an abundance of actual evidence for harm to children, brought to you by the Roman Catholic Church, somehow I doubt they will be subject to ban Widespread sexual abuse and cover ups by archdiocese of baltimore Sex abuse in the roman catholic church in New Orleans Meanwhile Drag Queens do not feature anywhere I can find

  • On the post: Six Months In: Thoughts On The Current Post-Twitter Diaspora Options

    xyzzy ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2023 @ 01:23pm

    Definition of newspeak "algorithm" please?

    Clearly someone has improved on past usage of the term "algorithm", the one which has been commonly understood from around the 17th century, and used in the software industry for most of my lifetime, where everything, except a specific implementation, is an algorithm, just drawing text, algorithms, logging in, lots of algorithms, this reply, a gadzillion algorithms, you see the pattern. You cannot have software without algorithms, sorry. So, can someone define in terms a software engineer could understand, what "algorithm" means in this particular context? Is it a bit like "woke", as in, "it means whatever I want it to mean"? ;-)

  • On the post: Starlink Is ‘Forced’ To Finally Start Caring About The System’s Light Pollution And Harm To Scientific Research

    xyzzy ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2023 @ 03:12pm

    Not just Starlink or Musk

    This is just one example of one I have seen repeated over and over, and at all scales. What harm can X do whether X be satellites, mines, big tobacco, thalidomide, fentanyl, plastic waste, fossil fuels, overfishing, dams, carbon emissions, on and on, it is always the same damn story. Lie about impact, prevaricate over remediation and run away from the problem. Companies are just like Elon, selfish amoral liars, assigning no value to truth and decency. Government has a role policing that psychopathic behavior through rules and regulations, a role it has dismally failed to fulfill, mainly through lack of effective investment in the apparatus needed, and the absence of law underpinning the mechanisms of enforcement

  • On the post: Elon’s Promise Not To Ban Account Tracking His Jet Didn’t Last Very Long At All; Also Bans Guy’s Personal Account

    xyzzy ( profile ), 14 Dec, 2022 @ 02:26pm

    Constructive suggestion

    Based on this I'm gonna guess the "What is in violation of this policy" section is going to get much longer over time. I suggest changing it to the more accurate "anything that gets under Musks thin skin" then never have to change it again, just trying to help.

  • On the post: If It’s Impossible To Compete With Google, How Come New Search Engines Keep Launching?

    xyzzy ( profile ), 09 Jul, 2022 @ 05:13am

    Not really search engines

    So DuckDuckGo should be take off the list, or at least classified as a search integrator, they claim many sources, but the mainly use a bing and yahoo back end. Result, poor results. Yep has a back end and no front end, try it, no images, very little added value, just a raw results browser for traditional text results, they have a ways to go. Bing itself produces inferior results, for the sorts of technical searches I do. Bing is dying. Yahoo is garbage.

  • On the post: Owners Of ‘Gran Turismo 7’ Locked Out Of Single Player Game When Online DRM Servers Go Down

    xyzzy ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2022 @ 04:43pm

    More than DRM

    Bad in itself, this is about more than simple DRM and an outage of a couple of weeks, this is about representing a game as one thing, pre-release, and then post-release, just because you are always connected, the game is will be updated and fundamentally changed, and it becomes less fun, and a lot more expensive to play. You suddenly realize you paid a lot of money to buy a "game", only to have to pay even more to progress in the game. DRM is the enforcement arm of something much worse.

  • On the post: Minnesota Pushing Bill That Says Websites Can No Longer Be Useful For Teenagers

    xyzzy ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2022 @ 03:22pm

    Any bit of code is an algorithm so how do I code this without one?

    As any sequence of code, even "random" selection, is an algorithm, and almost all content on such a site is "user created" this effectively means, a social media site with no social media This is unless you are an "adult", something the authors of this bill clearly are not

  • On the post: Important Announcement: Techdirt Is Migrating To A New Platform

    xyzzy ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2022 @ 02:07pm

    Weird auth flow

    Normally when I choose to auth on techdirt I use https://www.techdirt.com/my-account/ which looks like any other Techdirt page, but if I try to reply to a posting when I am not authenticated, when I click the login link I get forwarded to a wordpress branded login page (with some ungodly URL), which encourages me to link my Techdirt and Wordpress accounts, is this intended, and what advantage is there to linking accounts?

  • On the post: Surprise: U.S. Cost Of Ripping Out And Replacing Huawei Gear Jumps From $1.8 To $5.6 Billion

    xyzzy ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2022 @ 11:04am

    Just part of the war

    I don't think it any coincidence that the restrictions on Huawai happened just as their equipment was becoming much more popular. We know China doesn't believe in fair competition, but it seem neither does the US. Maybe it's a draw.

    I see no evidence of planted back doors in Huawai equipment.

    These actions will in the short term profit US based companies like Intel and AMD, that is why this was done. The spying stuff is, in my opinion, simply a pretext.

  • On the post: Birds Aren't Real, And Kids Are Not So Susceptible To Conspiracy Theories (Their Parents On The Other Hand…)

    xyzzy ( profile ), 14 Dec, 2021 @ 05:34pm

    Neither are giraffes

    Birds, ok, but who could possibly believe in giraffes? https://www.reddit.com/r/Giraffesdontexist/

  • On the post: Turkish President Sues Dutch Lawmaker Over A Bunch Of 'Insulting' Tweets

    xyzzy ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2020 @ 07:30am

    I could have sworn you were talking about the USA there...

  • On the post: As COVID Highlights U.S. Broadband Failures, State Bans On Community Broadband Look Dumber Than Ever

    xyzzy ( profile ), 13 Oct, 2020 @ 07:43am

    Corporatocracy trumps democracy

    These cases of blatant corporate control are just one example that democracy in the US is dying, and that it has become the worlds best example of a corporatocracy.

    The founders could not have anticipated this, so whereas some safeguards were built in to prevent other corrupted forms of government, such as a theocracies, we seem to have no guards against corporations running the government, especially as the supreme court thinks corporate personhood is a good thing.

    I have no idea how this can be reversed, I fear we lost control somewhere along the way, and now it may be too late.

  • On the post: Biggest Ransomware Attack Yet Crippled U.S. Hospitals Last Weekend

    xyzzy ( profile ), 01 Oct, 2020 @ 05:19pm

    Making money out of misery

    You said: "Massively profitable medical organizations routinely underfund their privacy and security IT infrastructure"

    Close, but I think we can broaden that to: Massively profitable medical organizations routinely underfund anything important to actual "healthcare", as profits come before all else.

    I am ashamed to say I have worked in Healthcare IT, and I was shocked at the inadequate security reviews (threat analysis) of 3rd party software systems. The "epic fails" (pun intended) are a consequence. There is a lack of strong common standards, due to the fragmentation within the industry, so it is all too easy for weaknesses to be engineered in, and there is an almost complete lack of accountability when the fails occur, as they almost inevitably do.

  • On the post: Judge Issues Preliminary Injunction Saying That The US Cannot Block WeChat, Says The Ban Raises 1st Amendment Concerns

    xyzzy ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2020 @ 04:51pm

    Re:

    Ah, the old, because "China has an authoritarian regime, that bans a whole bunch of stuff, so the USA should become an authoritarian regime..." argument? How about, "the USA is a bastion of free speech that the rest of the world looks up to, which makes China look bad in comparison" approach? Oh, I forgot, Trump burnt that boat a while back.

  • On the post: CBP So Confused It Seizes Clearly Labeled OnePlus Earbuds, And Falsely Claims They're Counterfeit Apple Airpods

    xyzzy ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2020 @ 07:06pm

    Re: OnePlus is Chinese

    I think you nailed it, whatever lame excuse they came up with, the REAL reason is to support a trade war that Trump seems to be convinced is such a bright idea. Gotta pull out all the stops to protect Apple (repeatedly chant USA at this point, fellow patriots) against the yellow menace of OnePlus who have the audacity to try to compete.

  • On the post: #NoRightsMatter: US Postal Service, Law Enforcement Team Up To Seize 'Black Lives Matter' Facemasks

    xyzzy ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2020 @ 07:57am

    Re:

    If there is a Chris, and if he said these things (we just have to take your word for it, as you cite no sources) I dont see how that leads to a conclusion that "there are agitators who are hijacking the protests..." and even less of an implication that those agitators are antifa. Your thesis seems to be if someone says something violent, they are guilty of such interference, if you feel that way (I don't) then I recommend you visit https://www.plainviewproject.org/ to view what police officers have been saying, perhaps some of them have a "violent agenda"?

  • On the post: No, Twitter Fact Checking The President Is Not Evidence Of Anti-Conservative Bias

    xyzzy ( profile ), 30 May, 2020 @ 07:53am

    Re: Re: Re: Daily Proof of Bias

    Na, stupidity is its own reward, it means you never have to agonize over right or wrong, or deal with complexity, it means you can simply assume any batshit crazy idea you have is right and you always know best, it is a blessed relief. It's a feeling normal people can only get by excessive drinking. See also https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dunning-kruger-effect

  • On the post: No, Twitter Fact Checking The President Is Not Evidence Of Anti-Conservative Bias

    xyzzy ( profile ), 30 May, 2020 @ 07:34am

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

    That article, from Breitbart, well, I hardly needed to read it, being an propaganda outlet for the right, but just to humor you I did. It does NOT, as you accuse "substantiate that Twitter is taking money from Mail-In Ballot groups", the article merely suggests that, and I quote, Twitter "...is an active “Premier Partner” of Vote Early Day 2020, an election advocacy group seeking to educate voters that they can cast their ballots prior to Election Day, including via the vote-by-mail option." If anything this suggests (and there is no evidence presented, as one would expect from Breitbart) quite the opposite, that Twitter is helping fund a group performing actions to help increase participation in the voting process, something the right fears for obvious reasons. You already got a president in on a minority vote, heaven forbid more people participate in an election!

Next >>