Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the guess-who dept

Sun, Nov 15th 2015 12:00pm — Leigh Beadon

It probably won't come as a surprise to anyone that this week's top comments were dominated by responses to the Patrick Zarrelli situation. Three out of the four winners by vote were on that post, with the first being GMacGuffin taking most insightful comment of the week with an observation about word choice:

You can tell that Mike is fully gobsmacked by the stupidity of a circumstance when he uses "Dude" as a pronoun more than once in a story.

Second place on the insightful side is the exception, coming instead in response to the leaked Comcast documents that confirmed what everyone expected about data caps. That One Guy unpacked the company's weasel words:

Truth by technicality, the best kind of truth

Don't say: "Data Cap" (This is not a cap. We do not limit a customer's use of the Internet it any way at or above 300 GB)"

In the same way, 'speed limits' don't actually stop you from going over the listed speed, you're just penalized if you do.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a simple anonymous response to the news that the head of the House Judiciary Committee went for dinner with the head of the MPAA following a Los Angeles copyright hearing:

To a large extent, Silicon valley is about enabling people to do things, while the MPAA is about controlling people. Guess which group politicians feel most at home with, and will therefore listen to?

Next, after a charity started attempting to claim ownership of the recently-invalidated Happy Birthday copyright, another anonymous commenter made a key observation about the lyric side of this copyright battle that's often easy to forget:

The lyrics consist of 6 words (minus the repetition) ! It's got less content than a 1/4 of a tweet. How is that worthy of a copyright monopoly.

Over on the funny side, we return to Patrick Zarrelli's world and remain there for the duration. In first place is an anonymous commenter who may have figured out the nature of the supposed "bar complaints":

He's probably filing bar complaints to his local bartender as he cries in his drink of choice.

In second place, it's techflaws coining a new version of an old term:

This will probably soon become known as the 'Chewbacca offense'.

For the editor's choice, we'll follow up with Mark Wing, the one commenter on that post who expressed some concern:

Are you going to hire Tim back when he gets out of prison?

And finally, since he made a good point (and called my attention to it directly), Roger Strong and Patrick Zarrelli himself can share the final spot based on the former's nomination:

Attn: Leigh

So many comments on this topic have been "deemed funny by the community", all of them were inspired by Patrick Zarrelli's performance art.

Let's not forget that while Zarrelli's own submission may have arrived by post, it was still a Reader's Comment to Techdirt. Please do not deny him the Funniest Comment of the Week honors.

That's all for this week, folks!

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21 Comments

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Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 15 Nov 2015 @ 12:15pm

Here’s Hoping The French People Stay Strong
As I previously said, the only proper response to this kind of brutality is anger, not fear.

Don’t give in to those who claim that the only way to prevent these sorts of attacks is to put in place more surveillance and security checks—in short, to succumb to a police-state mentality. Because that’s what the terrorists want you to do.

To those who feel that such loss of liberties is a small price to pay for helping to save lives, the only proper response is: is liberty not worth dying for?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2015 @ 12:22pm

Re: Here’s Hoping The French People Stay Strong
Oh, liberty is worth dying for all right. However, the political types are unanimous that somebody besides themselves and their children should be the ones who do the dying.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2015 @ 1:01pm

Re: Here’s Hoping The French People Stay Strong
The proper response to such things are pity and sadness. Pity that people have been driven to such acts and sadness about the people harmed and that people who would do such things cannot be reasoned with and will likely have to be killed. Anger and fear rarely help and are usually the wrong answer. Just ask Anakin Skywalker.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2015 @ 1:08pm

Re: Here’s Hoping The French People Stay Strong
One of the things that makes me feel horrible about myself is that at this point, when a tragedy costing scores of lives happens my first thoughts (and most of those that follow) have nothing to do with the victims. They're barely on my radar. All I do is worry about how our governments are going to exploit the event, and how many more rights we're going to lose.
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Socrates, 15 Nov 2015 @ 2:32pm

Re: Re: Here’s Hoping The French People Stay Strong
Sad but true.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2015 @ 2:32pm

Re: Re: Here’s Hoping The French People Stay Strong
All I do is worry about how our governments are going to exploit the event, and how many more rights we're going to lose.

It's a shame governments have made it that way.
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Mark Wing, 15 Nov 2015 @ 4:31pm

Zarrelli has been deemed comedy gold by the community.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2015 @ 4:50pm

Re: Re: Here’s Hoping The French People Stay Strong
Rights cannot be taken away.

You can however choose to give them up.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2015 @ 7:59pm

Re: Re: Re: Here’s Hoping The French People Stay Strong
They can be denied.
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Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 15 Nov 2015 @ 8:13pm

Re: They can be denied.
They can indeed. But that requires thinking rationally about something that scares the pants off most people. And prevailing against those who would accuse you of putting the public in danger if you don’t immediately go along with the most draconian security measures.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2015 @ 8:17pm

Re: Re: Re: Here’s Hoping The French People Stay Strong
You're right, they can't be taken away, but they're a little harder to effectively exercise from a prison cell.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2015 @ 11:22pm

Re: Re: Re: Here’s Hoping The French People Stay Strong
"Rights cannot be taken away."

What a load of absolute rubbish.
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voiceofReason (profile), 16 Nov 2015 @ 9:44am

This is not the Religion of Islam
I fully expect Obama to any minute now explain why the most important thing America needs to do right now is ensure that no one thinks that any of this terrorism has anything to do with Islam. It just so happens that a lot of these folsk are kind of intense about Islam.

Similarly, we need to be sure and undertand that the Crusades had nothing to do with Christianity. Those folks were also just by happenstance kind of intense about Jesus.
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Roger Strong (profile), 16 Nov 2015 @ 10:17am

Re: This is not the Religion of Islam
One can also point to the Holocaust, carried out by Christians from France to Ukraine. And the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacre by Christian Lebanese forces a couple decades ago.

Anti-Semitic Romanian Orthodox fascist movements in Romania, such as the Iron Guard and Lancieri, were responsible for involvement in the Holocaust, Bucharest pogrom, and political murders during the 1930s. In Europe there were pogroms by Christians against the Jews even *after* WWII. Meanwhile the British government bombed five ships and attacked another as part of a campaign to discourage post-war Jewish refugees from sailing to then British-controlled Palestine.

The "Curse of Ham" was used by Christians to justify slavery in the US, and later to used to justify treating blacks as second class citizens.

Currently in India there's the National Liberation Front of Tripura. Crimes include forcible conversion of tribal cadres/civilians to Christianity. In Uganda the Lord's Resistance Army, a guerrilla army engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government, has been accused of using child soldiers and committing numerous crimes against humanity; including massacres, abductions, mutilation, torture, rape, porters and sex slaves. It's led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the Christian Holy Spirit. LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle.

You can play that game against any major religion. That doesn't mean that those horrible acts represent a majority let alone a sizable minority of the religion's followers.
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Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 16 Nov 2015 @ 12:14pm

Re: This is not the Religion of Islam (Or Christianity. Or Whatever.)
Nevertheless, they continue to use the same branding. If you use it, you must accept all the connotations of it. If you don’t want those connotations, you change your branding. Basic Marketing 101.

As Arthur C Clarke said, “The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion”. Religion is purely a matter of belief, and belief can be whatever you like. But morality is not purely a matter of belief. Notions of right and wrong are something we hold in common as a species, independent of religion. Thus, the only path to religious tolerance must lie in the rejection of religion as a basis for morality.
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Roger Strong (profile), 16 Nov 2015 @ 1:00pm

Re: Re: This is not the Religion of Islam (Or Christianity. Or Whatever.)
> Nevertheless, they continue to use the same branding. If you use it, you must accept all the connotations of it. If you don’t want those connotations, you change your branding.

Should the rest of Christians "change their branding" because of televangelists ripping off the elderly? Or because of IRA and Ulster loyalist violence?

The Tea Party suffered from a small number of people showing racist signs. The Occupy Wall Street movement suffered from enough allegations of rape, sexual assault and gropings that women-only sleeping tents were set up. Should either movement have "rebranded?" What's to stop the bad people from adopting the "new brand?"

Any popular movement - especially one with no central leadership - is going to attract extremists and unsavory types that they have no control over.
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John Fenderson (profile), 16 Nov 2015 @ 1:49pm

Re: Re: Re: This is not the Religion of Islam (Or Christianity. Or Whatever.)
"Should the rest of Christians "change their branding" because of televangelists ripping off the elderly? Or because of IRA and Ulster loyalist violence?"

From a purely marketing point of view, probably, especially if you include distancing from the more extreme fundamentalists. If they had, they would certainly be viewed in a more positive light by more people than they are.
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Roger Strong (profile), 16 Nov 2015 @ 2:10pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: This is not the Religion of Islam (Or Christianity. Or Whatever.)
Again, once all the different denominations adopt your new brand, what stops the televangelists and terrorists from adopting it too?
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2015 @ 5:14pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: This is not the Religion of Islam (Or Christianity. Or Whatever.)
Trademark law?
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Roger Strong (profile), 16 Nov 2015 @ 5:45pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: This is not the Religion of Islam (Or Christianity. Or Whatever.)
He's talking about Islam as a whole, or Christianity as a whole. Lots of denominations each, which by definition disagree on a lot of things.

Shiites aren't going to let a Sunni group control the trademark on their "rebranded" religion. The United Church would insist that rebranded ethical Christianity means recognizing and performing same-sex marriages, while Catholics would insist that it does not. Etc.

A trademarks is controlled by one entity, and there's no such single entity for Christianity or Islam. Or popular movements like the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2015 @ 9:46pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: This is not the Religion of Islam (Or Christianity. Or Whatever.)
Yeah, but it would be nice if all the different sects of all the different organizations would sue each other for the right to control the base-class trademark for each category. They'd all be stuck in court for centuries, letting the rest of humanity do something productive for a change.
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