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Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the innovation-nation(alization) dept

Sun, Jul 27th 2014 12:00pm — Leigh Beadon

This week, Verizon got rather snarky about its dispute with Level 3 over traffic congestion and slow Netflix speeds — and, in doing so, essentially admitted that the problem was its fault. Both of our top-voted comments for Insightful this week came in response to that post, and first up is Scote, with an apt analogy:

This is like a company demanding UPS shove all the packages it ordered for it's company headquarters be delivered through a 6" mail slot and then blaming UPS for the congestion.

It's Verizon's customers who ordered the data, data Verizon promised to deliver them at high speed. Netflix sends it straight to Verizon at locations near where the data was requested, all paid by Neflix and delivered via via Level 3, and instead of saying "thanks for getting that to us" Verizon is saying "how dare you! You should pay us!" This is just all sorts of effed up.

In second place we've got Noah Callaway with a noteworthy observation:

It is telling that the Level3 blog post has 192 comments, and Verizon's blog doesn't allow for comments.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with the story about a musician attempting to sue for defamation over reports on his history of poor crowdfunding efforts. One anonymous commenter noticed a problem with his threats:

"ive been building a case with my lawyer for 3 years now." Sounds like a bluff. The statute of limitations for defamation in California is one year. CCP 340(c).

Next we've got another anonymous commenter who had the intriguing idea to co-opt the language of copyright maximalists to fight back against government surveillance:

Since everyone is misusing the word "theft" and "steal", tell the government to stop stealing my metadata.

On that note, we head over to the funny side. This week we saw a ridiculous proposal to nationalize big internet companies to prevent abuse, which would itself have been pretty funny if it had been a joke. Dale won first place for funny by quickly laying the idea to waste:

Well - if 'nationalizing' is the cure for 'abuse behaviour'...

..then let's 'nationalize' the NSA!

Oh, wait....

Of course, this week has some competition for "stupidest idea", since it's also the week federal prosecutor Sally Quillian Yates made the claim that "Copyright infringement discourages smart people from doing innovative things". Michael took second place for funny with his simple response to that assertion:

Well Yates, you have certainly dodged a bullet then.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with one more response to Yates' comments, this time from the devil himself:

As a smart person, I'm often called upon to do innovative things. One of my highest achievements was to convince otherwise intelligent people that nebulous ideas could be stuffed into a bag and stolen like so many doughnuts.

- Lucifer

And finally, we've got an anonymous response to the highly-questionable claim that Comcast is the "number 1 rated" broadband provider:

Just like how chlamydia is the number 1 rated STD!

That's all for this week, folks!

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12 Comments

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Ben, 27 Jul 2014 @ 6:34pm

The internet needs to be regulated as a utility end of story. Could you imagine if the Post Office one day decided to only allow it's larger business customers to use their $19.99 Priority Mail Express Flat Rate Envelope. All other small business customers would be required to ship their mail using their slowest bulk rate service.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2014 @ 6:50pm

Re:
Could you imagine if local governments granted regional monopolies on mail delivery.
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Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 27 Jul 2014 @ 6:52pm

In Other News ...
... I didn’t know John Oliver had left The Daily Show to do his own series, Last Week Tonight. He seems to be doing some remarkably in-depth coverage of events both inside and outside the US, like his commentary on the Indian general election (and discussion with Fareed Zakaria on same!).

Clips available here.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2014 @ 10:43pm

Re: In Other News ...
Perhaps his criticism of the TW Comcast merger upset the network.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2014 @ 4:32am

Re: Re:
What local government disallows FedEx, UPS, etc?
They provide delivery service, or did I misunderstand something.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2014 @ 5:24am

Re: Re: Re:
They don't and can't because mail delivery is clearly related to interstate commerce and international commerce which is completely federal jurisdiction. In the same way so is the Internet, which is entirely the point with state and local laws prohibiting municipal broadband. The state and local governments have no authority to regulate that under the Constitution.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2014 @ 5:27am

Re: Re: In Other News ...
Except that happened on his show well after he left.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2014 @ 5:50am

Re: Re: Re: In Other News ...
Fair enough. Perhaps his intent to criticize such mergers and to do shows that could/would upset the network upset the network or got him to consider leaving. I know that's a bit more far fetched though but it wouldn't surprise me.
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Michael, 28 Jul 2014 @ 6:46am

Re: Re: Re: Re: In Other News ...
He did a great interview on the Stern show and discussed his leaving the Daily Show. To paraphrase what he said, Stewart suggested to Oliver that after he stood in for him as host of the Daily Show, Oliver would have probably outgrown his old position and was unlikely to be able to go back. There was no ill will with the network, he got the new offer and parted ways on good terms and will be likely to do some Daily Show spots now and again when he can. The new offer was WAY more than the network would have been able to do in terms of both money and freedom.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2014 @ 1:48pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: In Other News ...
Maybe the money part was a part of it but I'm specifically talking about the freedom part. The freedom to more openly express his opinion even if it's contrary to that of the network's.
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 28 Jul 2014 @ 1:55pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: In Other News ...
Ultimately I think it all adds up to the simple fact that in show business, letting your career go backwards even briefly is seen as the mark that it's over.

After he'd sat in as host of the Daily Show (a nearly 20-year-old institution at this point), and not just for one night but for an extended stretch, he simply couldn't go back to being a floating guest star. On top of everything else, it'd be seen as an indication that nobody thought he did a good job in the guest host spot.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2014 @ 8:00pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: In Other News ...
I guess 'perception is reality' as they say.
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