Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the definitions-and-nuances dept
This week, Keith Alexander made a strong argument in favor of continued ineffective surveillance, on the basis that this very inefficacy has ensured that the problem is undiminished and the efforts are still necessary. This prompted BentFranklin to deliver our most insightful comment of the week, reminding everyone of an important definition:
Terrorism is the use of fear to affect policy. General Alexander uses fear to affect policy.
Meanwhile, LG revealed its thirst for data this week when it told Smart TV customers that it would disable features if they refused to share their viewing and search history with third parties. Josh won second place for insightful by pointing out how much less palatable this kind of thing is with an expensive product:
Why are people complaining about Google is generally watching what you do with free stuff, but LG is watching very specific stuff with something you have bought.
If LG gave me the TV for free, I wouldn't have to much of an issue with it, but when you pay $1000 for a TV, I expect some privacy.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we'll start out with one more from that post, since an anonymous commenter offered the solution to these and other smart TV woes:
Just buy an 'dumb' TV, and get a dongle to make it smart. Much cheaper, can be swapped and less hassle.
Next, we've got Josh in CharlotteNC with some thoughts inspired by Ladar Levison's condemnation of the stacked US legal system:
What has happened to equality under the law? To me this shows a very clear imbalance among those with real access to the legal system (namely those with money or connections to lawyers), and those without.
Every other day I've got to "agree" to some type of legally binding contract to buy things, install basic software, or use basic services - and it all changes without any warning or objection I can raise. I have to sign 20 pages of dense legalese contracts to get a job, and to be expected to keep up with it when it changes without notice. I luckily rarely deal with the government, but the situation is the same there. If you don't want to be screwed by someone with their lawyer, you need multiple lawyers skilled in wildly disparate parts of the legal code available to you all the time.
I know there's a lot of lawyers that read Techdirt. I know most of you are both very good at what you do, and very well intentioned. You're just trying to help those of us without years of legal training navigate through a crazy byzantine system you had no part in creating. But there is something fundamentally *broken* about the legal system.
I'm a technical, engineer type person. When I see something that doesn't work well, or work fairly, or work efficiently I want to fix it. Rather than just working in the system with its faults, what can be done to make the legal system better? What can be done to simplify it for normal people so that we don't need a lawyer for every minor interaction we might have with the government, with other companies (or our own), or any random passerby on the street?
Over on the funny side the voting was pretty slow this week, but after we criticized Google for being a trademark bully, Michael took first place by sarcastically echoing a troll refrain:
Here you go - another Google is great and can do no wrong article. Don't you get tired of being the Google fanboy?
Next, when a German copyright lawsuit raised some extremely unanticipated questions about Jesus and authorship, an anonymous commenter took second place for funny with an appropriately adapted quote:
He who is without copyright violation among you, let him be the first to throw a lawsuit
Editor's choice for funny starts out on our post about publicity rights disputes between celebrities and the brands that (truthfully) boast about their patronage. An anonymous commenter suggested a workaround for the marketers:
The designers just have to be more careful about wording their ads:
"The Prop Master of The Blind Side thought our tacky watch was perfect for the character played by Sandra Bullock."
or
"Katherine Heigl won't let us say that she shops at Duane Reade. But if she doesn't, this picture shows that she had the good sense to mug someone who does!"
Finally, we've got Beta, who delivered a joke at the expense of the SF police who built a huge fiasco on a single license plate reader mistake:
Q: How many San Francisco police officers does it take to look at a license plate?
A: Huh?
That's all for this week, folks! We'll be off enjoying the (hopefully) nice weather tomorrow for Memorial Day in the US, but will be back to our regular posting schedule on Tuesday...
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- C. S. Lewis
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Firstly Consumer law:
* make warranties to be a minimum statutorily in both timeframe (12months at minimum.. reasonable life of product at best) and if warranty is required for the consumer to decide whether they want a Repair, replacement or refund at THEIR choice not manufacturers.
* Make the point of sale the ONLY requirement for customers to deal with. ie: if you buy an item at X store, X store has to do all the legwork etc for that item at the stores expense (recouped by the store from the distributor and/or manufacturer). The consumer should never have any call to deal with a distributor or manufacturer EVER.
* if any of the above, including misleading practices, unenforceability, unconscionable behaviour and other fine points of contract law dealing with goods and/or services are allegedly breached by a seller/distributor/manufacturer then an UNBIASED authority (tribunal based works best) should decide what should be done.. Not some arbitrary arbrtation system that is payed for and beholden to the manufacturer. Transparency and Equity demand that the your Federal govt needs to do this only. If a breach is found the user is NOT payed money (though is just compensated for by either Refund, repair, replacement) and instead the corporation is FINED publicly.
Secondly, TORT REFORM:
This is normally a dirty evil blasphemous phrase for any attorneys in the USA who work for BigLaw and there are numerous ideas, theories, etc of what it involves etc. Though a good starting point is LOSER PAYS!
In other words if someone(thing) gets taken to court and loses the winning party MUST pay all legal costs unless an appeal on the legalities of the case is granted.
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Google is so great, but I am not biased
Also rather cheap to call everyone who disagrees with your Google fanposts a troll. I'm not the only one who notices a complete reporting bias in favor of Google. Anyway, that is fine, just put a banner under each post: 'I am truly a great Google believer' then people will be able to read it the way they should. I am a total Google hater. They are making a useless commodity of the net and it hurts the ecosystem that one company is allowed to grow so large.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Google is so great, but I am not biased
repeat the lie often enough...
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Defending against the same accusation every day is a lesson in futility and I'm sure Mike and the staff of Techdirt have more important things to do than to humor you.
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Re: Re: Re: Google is so great, but I am not biased
I've been following Techdirt for a long time and I say you are telling a lie. You can't reasonably expect me to prove a negative by saying that there is no evidence to support your assertion. But you can easily prove me wrong by providing support. You are a liar. Prove me wrong. Where is the support to your claims?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Google is so great, but I am not biased
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So where is our proof?
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Re: Re: Re: Google is so great, but I am not biased
That... doesn't make sense though.
See, here's the problem, dude. If Mike really is a Google shill, then you need to be able to explain all the posts he's written that criticize Google and call it out for bad behavior. The explanation I've seen for that is that he deliberately writes those posts to throw people off his trail so no one will suspect he's a Google shill, but that explanation doesn't resist the cut of Occam's Razor. He'd have to be running a pretty convoluted scheme that would take lots of effort to keep up, and for what purpose, ultimately? He's just a blogger, not a Fox News anchor under the command of Rupert Murdoch or something.
That's not the only reason no one listens to you either. Your attitude makes it pretty obvious that you've put yourself in the center of a fantasy drama, where you gain a sense of personal power because it feels good to be the only one who's right on a website full of fools. If you were as honest as you think you are, you'd be a lot more humble. Even if you were right in your assertions, why should anyone trust you when you speak? Surely someone more knowledgeable and trustworthy than yourself should be able to corroborate your story.
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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140520/12135027294/google-trademark-bullies-obvious-parody-s ite.shtml#c123
I am still waiting for a response. Can you defend your claims or is everyone going to have to continue to conclude that you are a selfish lying shill. The later does nothing to advance your selfish pro-IP, pro-monopoly, agenda and only serves to turn people against it in which case your agenda is better served if you simply left.
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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140520/12135027294/google-trademark-bullies-obvious-parody-site.s html
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140424/15565627021/big-tech-companies-agree-to-pay-up-over-hi ring-collusion.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140406/07212626819/sony-youtube-take-down-sin tel-blenders-open-source-creative-commons-crowdfunded-masterpiece.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/artic les/20140331/11022126751/telemundo-univision-copyright-claim-youtube-takes-down-us-congressional-app ropriations-hearing.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140329/07454426727/apple-google-adobe-in tel-have-to-face-music-over-collusive-hiring-practices.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/2014032 6/08003126688/youtube-finally-admits-it-totally-screwed-up-rolling-out-contentid-to-multi-channel-ne tworks-trying-to-improve-tools.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140102/17424525757/dan-bull-t akes-youtubes-contentid-changes-stolen-revenue-with-diss-track.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles /20131224/11361425686/youtubes-merry-christmas-letting-large-music-publishers-steal-money-guy-singin g-public-domain-christmas-carol.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131215/23475125574/disappoin ting-google-removes-great-privacy-feature-android.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131211/173 65325537/youtube-fails-explaining-flood-takedowns-lets-play-videos.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/blog /innovation/articles/20130428/15442222865/googles-attempt-to-bully-microsoft-back-with-patents-not-g oing-too-well.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130405/01191322589/youtube-wont-put-your-video -back-up-even-if-its-fair-use-if-it-contains-content-universal-music.shtml
Every single one of those articles is pretty damning for Google and simply could not be written by someone being paid by Google. Like I say to Christian theists who espouse a caring and loving God "If that were true, then how come your holy book contains so many references to an angry, wrathful, bloodthirsty god?"
Same thing applies here. You espouse a Mike Masnick who is being paid by Google to write pro-Google articles. The problem with your hypothesis is that there are anti-Google articles as well. Thus, given the data at hand, I come to the conclusion that your hypothesis is incorrect and Mike Masnick is not being paid by Google.
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Re: Google is so great, but I am not biased
No as cheap as your use of straw men. OTOH, you don't have the facts on your side, so you must make up sh!t.
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Re: Google is so great, but I am not biased
Not everyone, just a few making ridiculous, unfounded claims and behaving in an entirely trollish manner. People with genuine criticism and mature attitudes don't get called trolls.
"I'm not the only one who notices a complete reporting bias in favor of Google."
Correction: "I'm not the only one who completely missed all the Techdirt articles criticizing Google over many years."
The fact is you can't and won't provide a rational explanation for these articles because they completely undermine your claims. And the fact that there's more than one person with your willful blindness doesn't strengthen your argument much.
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great line, but not really true
Actually, Terrorism uses fear to affect behavior, General Alexander uses fear to affect policy.
Terrorism is ground up, shake the roots stuff. Politics no matter at what level is always top down stuff.
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Re: great line, but not really true
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Change
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Re: Change
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ohhh dear
Why is the DOJ making it harder to get justice and not resolving the issues of unfairness in the courts post haste.
"The system is broken, we all know that so why is the DOJ not fixing it."
This is rightly compared to an engineer ignoring failures in his construction....the end result is that the building collapses, maybe the DOJ should notice this and understand if they do not fix the problems post haste that they will eventually collapse.
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