Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the cops-and-photographers dept

When a theater chain announced plans to bring TSA-style security to the movies with bag and purse searches, it sounded stupid. But to Johan it sounded suspicious, leading to our most insightful comment this week:

My guess that this is a disguised attempt at catching outside food and drink to boost concession stand sales. Just say you're looking out for customer's safety and at the same time remove the contraband twizzlers.

Next, after a photographer attempted to sue over the use of his photo by a map company — despite that use perfectly adhering to the Creative Commons license he chose — Arthur Moore won second place for insightful by pointing out just how counterproductive the whole ordeal was:

The worst thing is the photographer wasted a perfectly good opportunity. Instead of companies seeing that his work was good enough to be used commercially, they'll now see him as someone who is willing to frivolously attack anyone who does more than look at his work.

For our first editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got a comment from a photographer expanding on that point. Marcel de Jong discusses the benefits of sharing your work for free:

Most of my photos are released under CC-BY, a decision I didn't take lightly. And some of them have been used in commercial settings (there's a webshop selling fridge magnets of photos of mine, and several have appeared in magazines and online articles (including one in a cracked.com article)). It just makes for a more interesting line on my resume: "Internationally published photographer" instead of "Hobbyist fool with a camera".

I'd love to have one of my photos used as the cover of a book/map. I'd buy a copy of that, instantly, or at first ask if I could get one for free.

Next, since it wouldn't be a week in 2015 without  a story of police misbehaviour, we turn to one such example in which a woman caught an officer beating a handcuffed suspect only to have him attempt to prevent her from recording the incident. One commenter pointed out that we should all really be using software that uploads the videos to the cloud as they are shot, so that you can tell an officer there's no way to delete the recording, but Rekrul had his own idea:

No, don't tell them that it's automatically backed up online. Let them think the recording is gone so that they can file their bogus report. Then once they've lied in their official statement, release the recording and prove that they lied.

Over on the funny side, we surprisingly start out on that same not-so-funny story, but only because That One Guy latched on to the quote that "guns don’t belong in the hands of children" and provided a response that scored nearly as many insightful votes as it did funny ones:

I actually agree wholeheartedly with this, and it's nice of them to finally admit it. Mind, a little odd that he describes the police as 'children' in his statement, but I suppose a group that regularly throws tantrums when they don't get their way does rather fit the definition.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to replace my irony meter, given it seems to have exploded for some reason.

For second place, we head to the story about Jeb Bush's campaign against "creating" encryption, leading one commenter to wonder if he realizes that encryption already exists and is in heavy use around the world. In response, an anonymous commenter paraphrased his requests:

"Stop making all this math guys!"

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a response to Xerox's decision to start region-locking ink cartridges.  This seemed like a terrible idea, but one anonymous commenter saw a lot of sense in it:

Regional ink markets just make good sense.

Ink sold in Iowa, for instance, can be sold as 'corn-based'. Markup: 25%.

Ink sold in Nebraska can be sold as 'pigshit-based'. Markup: 32%.

Ink sold in India can be backfilled with mercury and other cost-effective fillers and sold as 'Murican!' Markup: 13%.

Zip code based micro-regions are important in areas like Washington, D.C. Ink destined for the DOJ requires the thick 'Redacto-Blend'. Markup: 325%, while ink going to Congress requires the much thinner 'printed-on-a-tissue-of-lies' blend. Markup: 600%.

Yes, ink markets are important, not only for specific customer needs, or "customer needs hahahaha", but for the much more relevant 'where-are-we-going-to-get-the-money-for-our-Caribbean-conferences' requirements.

Ink: because the world runs on chumps not knowing any better.

Finally, we've got a nice and simple response from Baron von Robber to the folks at Ashley Madison, who are still trying to abuse the DMCA to hide the devastating data leaks:

Dear Avid Life Media,

I hear pissing into the wind will help too.

That's all for this week, folks!

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  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2015 @ 1:30pm

    Oh, mere readers can't beat minion's hysterical: "[Russia is] "pumping the internet full of toxic disinformation 24 hours a day"!!!

    Proves the old adage that "pure crap drives ordinary crap off teh internets". Doubly shameful because merely copying Official Narrative from the NYTimes. "pumping the internet full" -- it's a series of tubes, right? Techdirt is with Mitt Romney in believing corporations are persons, now you're with Ted Stevens in worrying the tubes are clogged! There's even a religious aspect of not trusting people to know the truth! What happened to combatting words with more words? Just tell us what US/UK/Israel are doing in Ukraine, for instance, NOT rant that the Rooskis are lying.

    Every day now I wonder if Techdirt isn't a subsidiary of The Onion, or a full-scale experiment in AI re-writing.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2015 @ 1:49pm

    Death of Pi rate M ike after exemplary freebooting. Confirmed after 30 days. Sad and grisly last log entry on Jul 21, 2015, 23:33 pm:

    "Becalmed this month entire, neither food nor grog. Eateth my own good leg, but though tasty, sustaineth me not unto ridiculous length of becalmedness. Drink cheer to me, you scalawags! At least MPAA never caughteth and hangeth yours truly! Steal some content in lieu of flowers. AAAR! I have passeth."

    https://pirates-forum.org/Thread-TPP-Likely-To-Force-Canada-To-Repeal-Local-Data-Protection -Laws

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2015 @ 4:47pm

      Re: Death of Pi rate M ike after exemplary freebooting. Confirmed after 30 days. Sad and grisly last log entry on Jul 21, 2015, 23:33 pm:

      Wateth hath thou been somketh

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2015 @ 4:48pm

        Re: Re: Death of Pi rate M ike after exemplary freebooting. Confirmed after 30 days. Sad and grisly last log entry on Jul 21, 2015, 23:33 pm:

        Smoketh *

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2015 @ 5:14pm

      Re: Death of Pi rate M ike after exemplary freebooting. Confirmed after 30 days. Sad and grisly last log entry on Jul 21, 2015, 23:33 pm:

      Didn't you listen to the doctor? You're supposed to take the medicine every day, not just when you feel strange and then stop as soon as you're 'fine'. Because when you do that, that's how stuff like this makes you look like a crazy person, instead of the fine, upstanding citizen that I'm certain you are offline.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      CharlieBrown, 23 Aug 2015 @ 7:37pm

      Re: Death of Pi rate M ike after exemplary freebooting. Confirmed after 30 days. Sad and grisly last log entry on Jul 21, 2015, 23:33 pm:

      I don't get why this comment was reported. It is clearly a joke. In the joke, he pretends Mike is dying and his last words are "The MPAA never caught me". I am not sure how his link is relevant, though.

      I think in reality, Mike's last words would be "Not even the NSA can retain my data where I am going!" but I'm sure they'd be working on it.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Leigh Beadon (profile), 23 Aug 2015 @ 7:59pm

      Re: Death of Pi rate M ike after exemplary freebooting. Confirmed after 30 days. Sad and grisly last log entry on Jul 21, 2015, 23:33 pm:

      I dunno about everyone else, but I get a surprising amount of joy from picturing this idiot obsessively reloading some random forum where all our stories are apparently auto-posted and convincing himself he's discovered something meaningful.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Ninja (profile), 24 Aug 2015 @ 5:57am

        Re: Re: Death of Pi rate M ike after exemplary freebooting. Confirmed after 30 days. Sad and grisly last log entry on Jul 21, 2015, 23:33 pm:

        An excellent case study for psychiatrists I'd add.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2015 @ 2:46pm

    Anonymous Coward's Theory of Forum Post Insanity

    Insane paragraph-like titles outside indicate almost certain insanity inside.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      CK20XX (profile), 23 Aug 2015 @ 4:08pm

      Re: Anonymous Coward's Theory of Forum Post Insanity

      They're going into their supernova stage before they become burned-out husks.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2015 @ 8:10pm

    out_of_the_blue just hates, hates, hates it when due process is enforced.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2015 @ 8:35pm

    Kinda sad when you can't even tell what the hell the trolls are trying to articulate. Way more fun when you can tear their ridiculous arguments apart, but when they don't even make sense, it gives you no where to go with it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2015 @ 9:43pm

      Re:

      And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the whimpering sound of a troll winning.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2015 @ 10:22pm

      Re:

      It looks as though blue is claiming that if TPP passes, governments worldwide will be forced to be more invasive in monitoring Internet traffic, which somehow becomes a magic bullet for pirate hunting. (Kinda botching Richard Bennett and M. Slonecker's claims that IP protection on behalf of the MPAA isn't the main aim of TPP, to no surprise.)

      Of course, he's failed to notice that with all the secrecy and subsequent scrutiny dogging the process, he might not even get to have his supposed magic bullet either.

      link to this | view in chronology ]


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