Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the catalyst dept

Sun, Apr 7th 2013 12:00pm — Leigh Beadon

It's another week with one big winner, this time coming in on our popular post about the DJ who was suspended for pulling the classic "dihydrogen monoxide" prank on his listeners. Gareth soared past the competition in both the insightful and funny categories, because our readers don't seem to think highly of Floridians:

Hardly surprising, given:

A) It's Florida, and

B) It's a Country station.

Not exactly a Venn diagram that would contain a lot of smart listeners.

Meanwhile, our next comment comes in response to something that should be an April Fool's prank but isn't: Warner Bros' attempt at an online streaming service. SirToreth took second place for insightful with his interpretation of the offering:

It isn't about succeeding...
...it's about making it look like you made a "good faith effort", when you're engineering it to fail, then writing off the loss on your taxes, insisting piracy (instead of lack of a compelling product) is the problem, and then insisting on more legislation to put the actually successful streaming services under, and propping up your old business model.

For editor's choice, we start out on one of this week's many posts about Prenda, where an anonymous commenter underlined one of the many imbalances in the system:

So change your MAC address is spoofing a network and worth 35-50 years, but lying to the judges/court system gets you a slap on the hands?

That's justice for ya!

Next, we head to our post about the USPTO's final rejection of Apple's rubberbanding patent. One commenter insisted that it's unrealistic to expect patent examiners to properly review prior art since there's far too much out there for that to be possible. That commenter is correct, but nasch is the one who saw the actual moral of that story:

Isn't that a problem with the patent system, then?

On the funny side, we've already had the number one comment, and our second place winner comes from the same post. Chosen Reject took the prize for warning us about an even bigger threat than dihydrogen monoxide:

Wait till people learn about the amount of dioxygen in the air. It's been responsible for mass extinctions, and is highly linked to forest, home, and business fires. It has also been known to cause rust, accounting for billions of dollars of economic loss every year.

I recommend that everyone who was concerned about dihydrogen monoxide should immediately put in place measures that prevent exposure to dioxygen.

And as long as we're riffing on chemistry, first editor's choice goes to Some Guy for his take on the scare:

It's no joke. Dihydrogen Monoxide kills. If we don't address the problem now, we'll soon be swimming in the stuff.

And finally, our second editor's choice for funny comes from our post about NJ Assemblyman Sean Kean's legislative war on videogames. Kean rationalized his recent anti-video-game bills thusly:

“Just as it’s unlawful for minors to purchase alcohol and cigarettes, because it’s detrimental to their well being, the same can be said of adult video games, most of which contain extremely inappropriate content for a young viewer’s eyes and ears,” said Kean. “These two pieces of legislation are intended to protect children.”

DannyB artfully demonstrated the stupidity of trying to eliminate "inappropriate content":

I would like to point out that High School also contains extremely inappropriate content for a young viewer’s eyes and ears. So if you want to protect the children, then keep them out of high school and safe at home playing video games. This third item is at least as good for the children and for society as the first two pieces of legislation.

Thank you legislators for considering this legislation on this fine early day in April.

And thank you readers for another week of great comments.

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28 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2013 @ 1:07pm

"Wait till people learn about the amount of dioxygen in the air. It's been responsible for mass extinctions, and is highly linked to forest, home, and business fires. It has also been known to cause rust, accounting for billions of dollars of economic loss every year."

Yes, it's also contributed towards violently destroying buildings.
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jakerome (profile), 7 Apr 2013 @ 2:25pm

The top comment is shit
"Hardly surprising, given:

A) It's Florida, and

B) It's a Country station.

Not exactly a Venn diagram that would contain a lot of smart listeners."

It's juvenile & insulting. Bad enough that it got voted funniest comment of the week. It's downright pathetic that it got voted most insightful, given the high level of insight Techdirt commenters come up with week after week. As someone who has been following Techdirt for the better part of a decade, it's clear to me that while the audience has grown considerably, the level of reason among the average contributor (commenter) has fallen notably. The best stuff is still there.

If you think I'm just being curmudgeonly, how well would the comment have been received if there were a couple small changes?

"Hardly surprising, given:

A) It's Baltimore, and

B) It's a Rap station.

Not exactly a Venn diagram that would contain a lot of smart listeners."

Either way it's juvenile, factually incorrect, intolerant and elitist.
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jakerome (profile), 7 Apr 2013 @ 2:26pm

Re: The top comment is shit
The Venn diagram of people who mock juvenile comments and then forget to close their italics tags is at least one.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2013 @ 2:42pm

I don't understand why we waste all this time and money creating half-baked laws to "protect the children" when there's a more viable solution.
Ban children. That is the only way to successfully ensure 100% of the children are 100% protected 100% of the time.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2013 @ 2:59pm

The comment re "prior art" being lauded here reflected the poster's poor ability to understand what he had just read. Perfection is unobtainable, unless one is talking about matters like patents, in which case it is elevated to a mandatory requirement. For example, 35 USC 102 incorporates published documents without any regard for territoriality. Thus, a properly catalogued technical paper residing solely on the shelf of a library in Sierra Leone comprises prior art that can be applied against a US patent application. If this situation was ever to arise, it seems quite unreasonable to use it as an example of a broken system.
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FuzzyDuck, 7 Apr 2013 @ 3:01pm

Re: The top comment is shit
Funny maybe, but insightful it was not.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2013 @ 3:50pm

Whenever somebody says Florida the first thing that comes to mind is crocs, then I remember all the croc jokes.
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Atkray (profile), 7 Apr 2013 @ 4:26pm

To Paraphrase:
If you are posting on a Blog and you can't tell who the curmudgeon is, then it is you.
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jakerome (profile), 7 Apr 2013 @ 5:25pm

Re: To Paraphrase:
If you're posting on a blog, and you don't think people will realize you're being a passive aggressive asshole, then you're wrong.
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Edward Teach, 7 Apr 2013 @ 5:39pm

Re: Perfaction, mate!
Arrr! Belay that pagan gibberish about prior art in Sierra Leone, mate! Ye be implin that we should all give patent examiners a pass for tying a loose hitch on any prior art that may be existin? How about we trade ye? We trade ye slack in the prior art for an independent invention defense, mate! Sure, that's a fine, fair trade! Only a jackanapes would object, no? For the same resoning spplies there, my fine lad! Any pissgums can invent something previously patented, and not be able to find it in the heathen palaver that passes for patentable claims, especially since it's not necessarily searchable. A little non-perfection in prior art? No problem! A little independent invention to cure what ails thee!
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arcan, 7 Apr 2013 @ 5:40pm

Re:
unfortunately that would not work. cause then you would have to ban sex. and we all know how that would turn out...
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2013 @ 5:58pm

Re: The top comment is shit
Wow, a juvenile joke, definitely worthy of criticism, but that's as nothing when a joke isn't even factually correct and on top of all that a joke that isn't even complimentary but in fact the opposite.

How can people even call it a joke, if it's not mature, precisely accurate and supportive?

Those are the internationally agreed criteria for jokes, I understand.
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charliebrown (profile), 7 Apr 2013 @ 7:01pm

Re: The top comment is shit
I agree. That was the worst "insightful" or "funniest" comment I've seen on here. Any chance of either a recount or showing us what came third in both categories?
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charliebrown (profile), 7 Apr 2013 @ 7:04pm

Re: Croc Jokes
Given how crap the top funny comment was, could you share a croc joke or two please? I could use a laugh and I'm sure many other readers could too.
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SirThoreth (profile), 7 Apr 2013 @ 9:29pm

Re: The top comment is shit
"Lighten up, Francis"
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2013 @ 9:49pm

Re: Re: Perfaction, mate!
No, not at all suggesting patent examiners should be given a pass, and for you to make such a statement is to demonstrate your lack of familiarity with the process by which patent applications are considered and acted upon by the USPTO. This is not, of course, entirely unexpected given the grossly misleading pronouncements of the legal process so regularly presented here by this site's principals and contributors.
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Josh (profile), 7 Apr 2013 @ 10:03pm

Re: The top comment is shit
Well, rap sucks and I've heard things about Baltimore. So yeah, still funny.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2013 @ 1:19am

Re: Re: Re: Perfaction, mate!
[citation needed]
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 8 Apr 2013 @ 3:03am

Re: Re:
We can't have that, you breeders do my favorite thing... You have us. :)
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 8 Apr 2013 @ 3:18am

Re:
How ugly those shoes are punishment enough.

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/531327232/h6EA95111/
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 8 Apr 2013 @ 3:20am

Re:
Yeah imagine if there wasn't patents and copyright to get in the way of all of those things being shared globally rather than locked up in little physical places...
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2013 @ 4:46am

Re: Re: Croc Jokes
Sure:

Q: What do you call an alligator in a vest?
A: An Investigator

Q: Why won't alligators attack lawyers?
A: Professional courtesy!

Q: What do yuppie alligators like to drink
A: Jaw-va

Q: What was the nerd alligators favorite programming language
A: Jaw-va

http://www.jokes4us.com/animaljokes/alligatorjokes.html
http://www.jokebuddha.com/web/8GX /Alligator
http://goflorida.about.com/od/allaboutflorida/a/stories.htm
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2013 @ 4:50am

Re: Re:
Are there cats in Florida?
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 8 Apr 2013 @ 5:04am

Re: Re: Re:
count the lumps in pythons
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 8 Apr 2013 @ 9:00am

Re: The top comment is shit
Yeah, we were all a little disappointed that comment won, but not much to be done about it. Florida, apparently, is a big hit as a punching bag.

However, as a Canadian, I'll point out that seemingly about 90% of Americans are perfectly happy to jump on the bandwagon of cliched Canada jokes no matter how "juvenile, factually incorrect, intolerant and elitist" -- and I suspect the French feel similarly...
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pattypan (profile), 8 Apr 2013 @ 10:49am

Anti-Country Bigotry
Would you dare say that about the audience members of a Hip Hop station?
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Edward Teach, 8 Apr 2013 @ 11:22am

Re: Re: Re: Perfaction, mate!
Deal with the issue, dickhead. You're picking nits so as not to have to deal with the issue that the exact same problem exists for those wishing to comply with patents that the patent examiner's encounter. You want some laxity for the patent examiner, yet aren't willing to allow the exact same excuse for a possible patent infringer. Hypocrite.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2013 @ 2:09pm

Re: Re: The top comment is shit
"However, as a Canadian, I'll point out that seemingly about 90% of Americans are perfectly happy to jump on the bandwagon of cliched Canada jokes no matter how "juvenile, factually incorrect, intolerant and elitist" -- and I suspect the French feel similarly..."

I'll surrender that point. Sorry about that.
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