Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the broadband-comedy dept

Sun, Oct 25th 2015 12:00pm — Leigh Beadon

This week the UK went, as we put it, "full Orwell" with a plan to remove children from homes that it suspects might radicalize them. Plenty of people struggled to put their reaction to this into words, but That One Guy got there first and won the top spot for insightful with his response:

"I know, let's give them even /more/ reasons to hate us!"

So taking away children, without having to present any real evidence or anything beyond suspicion of what might happen...

Well, I'm sure any parents who've had their children taken away will respond to the matter in a calm and collected manner, understanding that Big Brother really does know best, and would in no way make for a perfect target for any terrorist recruiters looking for people who might have a very real reason to hate the UK government and nothing left to lose, having already lost that which was most precious to them.

Meanwhile this week, Congress was pushing a car "safety" bill that we dubbed "a big gift to the automakers." JustShutUpAndObey won second place for insightful by correcting this choice of phrase:

It's not a gift when it's bought and paid for...

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got two comments from the world of broadband. First, after Slate published an article in favor of unnecessary broadband caps, sorrykb found an explanation in the details:

Per the Slate article, Eli Dourado is a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and director of its technology policy program.

[boggles]
How could the a person in such a position be so misinformed?

[googles]
"The Mercatus Center was founded and is funded by the Koch Family Foundations."

Oh. Never mind.

Next, TheResidentSkeptic shared a personal tale of broadband woe:

I watched with glee as Verizon installed fiber - not only in my neighborhood, but right through my property. Their repeater was on the pole in MY yard.

So, I called to order. "Not available in your area".

Over on the funny side, we start out on our post about the sketchy legal threats by a company that claimed to have made a food-scanner, but whose video showed some very curious timestamp anomalies. Sorrykb is back with a first place win for a possible explanation:

I don't see why everyone keeps going on about the impossibility of TellSpec's food scanner technology when the big story is that they've invented a time machine.

For second place, we're back to the world of broadband, this time on the net neutrality front in Canada, where Rogers Cable was mid-flip-flop after becoming a victim of traffic discrimination. David pointed out that this "unexpected" behavior is... expected behavior:

Since when are corporations incapable of simultaneously wanting their cake, eating it too, and suing it for breach of intergastric property rights?

Speaking of the cable industry, our first editor's choice for funny comes in response to another bizarre stance, this time the notion that millennials will stop cord-cutting once they have kids. Angel swiftly summed up the stupidity of this idea:

Yes because nothing says "Let's Add yet another bill to our expenses" like having a few babies

Finally, after the CIA director's personal email was hacked and found to contain official documents, one anonymous commenter couldn't help thinking about a relevant bill (give or take a vestigial P):

If only we had CISPA, this never would have happened...

That's all for this week, folks!

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8 Comments

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Beech, 25 Oct 2015 @ 4:10pm

Cable after Children
The real irony is that Millennials will have WAY more of a reason to stay away from cable after they have kids. Have you seen the Kids' section of Netflix? It. is. awesome. TONS of childrens' shows on demand. No filling up your DVR's hard drive with hundreds of hours of kiddy programming. No explaining to a 3 year old why he can't watch his favorite show RIGHT NOW because it isn't currently airing or recorded.

And really, do you want to be in charge of the business model that is going to try to teach the toddlers of today that they can't watch whatever they want whenever they want even though the internet is a thing? "OK toddler, we know that YouTube exists, but really your parents need to spend tons of money on our service (instead of buying you toys with it) so you want watch what we decide to play when we decide to play with it...don't even think about netflix because we said so." Talk about being on the wrong side of history.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2015 @ 5:47pm

Re: Cable after Children
I think you summed up the same thing I've been thinking. Traditional TV OTA/Cable/Satellite is dead and has no hope for survival. It's just a zombie wandering around hungry for money.

I found it interesting that my cable company, WoW, is advertising how easy it is to access Netflix from their new and improved cable TV DVR. It's almost like the only way they can get people to sign up for cable TV is if it makes accessing Netflix easier!

Me: Why do you waste your money on cable TV?
Technically Illiterate Neighbor: Because it allows me to access Netflix from my TV instead of having to watch shows on my laptop!
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2015 @ 6:25pm

Re: Cable after Children
Plus there's all the free games(in terms of both price and in terms of being open source) you can install for your kids from the Internet.

This and books are things cable doesn't offer for kids that wabt them
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Roger Strong (profile), 25 Oct 2015 @ 8:12pm

If you listen closely, you can hear the last gasp of cable's business model:

CBC: Netflix to stream Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Canada — and nowhere else

Meanwhile, Americans will have to subscribe to Starz on "premium cable."

But the Starz deal ends with Disney movies hitting the theatre in December. Disney has a deal with Netflix starting with movies that hit the theatres in January.

There's also new legislation in Canada requiring cable companies to "unbundle" their channel packages and provide an a la carte selection in 2016. Canadians will be able to pick individual television channels after subscribing to a “skinny basic” cable service costing no more than $25 per month.

The cable companies have been fighting it, of course. Presumably using Do Not Resuscitate rules as a precedent.
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That One Guy (profile), 25 Oct 2015 @ 10:22pm

Re:
Well of course, after all, if they can't force people to pay for 99 channels they don't want to get the one they do, how will they ever manage to scrape together enough money to keep the lights on? /s
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David, 26 Oct 2015 @ 12:36am

I feel with TheResidentSkeptic
I watched with glee as Verizon installed fiber - not only in my neighborhood, but right through my property. Their repeater was on the pole in MY yard.

So, I called to order. "Not available in your area".

There is a cross-country gas pipeline running under our premises. Sometimes maintenance vans are around, presumably checking for trace leakage.

I'd like to be cooking with gas rather than electricity. But our area is not serviced. And I rather doubt there is anything within quite a large radius of us warranting a tap.

But then the gas company did not collect government subsidies for making gas "available" on our ground, either. Which makes this slightly different after all.
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sorrykb (profile), 26 Oct 2015 @ 9:30am

Re:
I love that the CBC article comes right out and acknowledges -- in the second paragraph no less -- that people will find a workaround for region-blocking:
After what seems like light-years of griping about the fact that Netflix users get more (and sometimes better) titles in the U.S., Canadians will soon have exclusive access to something our American friends might actually install a VPN for: Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 26 Oct 2015 @ 11:12am

Re: Re:
Yeah, it's SUCH a common practice here (even moreso in Australia, and in general it is everywhere outside the US I think).

If a late-adopter in Canada asks how to get into the Netflix game, more often than not the answer will include signing up for a VPN as though it's just a normal, expected part of the process.
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