Batteries and all other removable parts (optical drives, RAM, HDD) will have to be removed, transferred to a plane that will fly just behind the passenger jet, then will be returned to the user for a small "security fee" that will cover the cost of the parallel flight (no more than a few hundred dollars each).
They'll buy a whole fleet of new cargo planes, but when people catch on and stop bringing laptops, opting instead to just buy new ones when they land, the TSA will have to start answering questions about how far this "cord cutting" fad will go. Don't worry, they'll say, they didn't want to transport all those old laptop parts around anyway.
They'll keep the fleet of cargo planes, though, and get a massive bailout for being too big to fail.
"It should be mathematically impossible to have a negative satisfaction rating, but Comcast will never stop innovating until we've done the impossible!"
I'm surprised at how dismissive Glyn was at this clause. Once the data is there, all it takes is access to connect all the dots. That's exactly why mass collection is so dangerous in the first place. Once the government/hackers/anybody has this, it's analysis and release can only be delayed, not stopped forever.
That impact hasn't leaked into ad revenue, nor has it leaked into ratings. The people who’ve traded down have tended to not be sports fans, and have tended to be older and less affluent.
Cord cutters and cord trimmers tend to be young, affluent consumers who are just tired as hell of paying an arm and a leg for channels they don't watch. And, if recent surveys are any indication, there are a lot of users who don't watch ESPN and are tired of paying for it.
You and ESPN are talking about different revenue streams. If all (or rather, most of) the people dropping ESPN aren't watching anyway, then it may be completely true that ratings and ad revenue aren't impacted.
Is there any data showing the percentage of revenue that ESPN gets from carriage fees vs ads? If 90% of subscribers never turn to ESPN, but subscription fees only make up 30% of revenue (just making up numbers), then really only 27% of revenue is at risk to cord cutting, instead of the bigger sexy 90% number that these doom and gloom articles throw around.
ESPN is just a middle-man. Most of their revenue ends up in the hands of the NBA and NCAA, with smaller contracts for other leagues (17 NFL and ~18-20 MLB games/year). I'm sure they license clips of plays/games from nearly every sport, so there will be some impact around the sports world, but it won't be evenly distributed. The college football racket, in particular, may be the bloodiest casualty, as they deal with lawsuits of their own on the other end already.
Re: "For your attempted extortion, you get NOTHING. Enjoy."
I wonder if this is temporary.
They award the contract to a new company, who is required to purchase the (newly devalued) IP, then the parks buy those names for pennies on the dollar, and finally, return the facilities to their original names by the end of the year.
People who want to watch Netflix, but DON'T have a game console, roku/slingbox/etc, blu-ray player, or even an HDMI cable long enough to stretch from a computer?
Are the TV manufacturers getting kickbacks from the OTT service providers for including their apps? There's got to be some reason they are putting so much effort into doing something so badly.
SCOTUS is not making any moral statements about Arbitration vs Litigation, it's merely pointing out that the US Congress passed the Federal Arbitration Act, which takes priority over State laws.
Your elected representatives (or those of your great-grandparents, in this case) passed an awful law, with numerous unforeseen consequences, but it is not inherently Unconstitutional. As pointed out many times recently, they refuse to be judges of the wisdom of pieces of legislation, merely judges of its legality.
They got this one right, but that doesn't mean the law is just.
This could come across wrong, but I do recognize that preventing one death is more important than saving a few dollars.
With that said, when you combine just 8-10 of the biggest data breaches over the last 5 years, you get over 500 million records compromised, at the cost of 10's of billions of dollars to clean up.
You are literally millions of times more likely to be a victim of poor data security than good data security. And if security is millions of times more important than freedom (to balance that equation), then you might as well put a government minder on every street corner and government cameras in every house. "Big Brother is Doubleplusgood."
See, this isn't just not the story the surveillance maximalists want to tell. And it goes deeper than saying encryption doesn't matter.
This suggests that the mass surveillance mentality itself is partly to blame.
We already know that France and most of the rest of the EU has NSA-type powers to collect it all and sort through the pile later. This means they probably had all the evidence they needed but couldn't stop it anyway. There's too much data to search in real time in any meaningful way. A more focused targeting of surveillance would greatly reduce the analysis paralysis.
Which leads to a point I've been making all along., that there are two realities to mass surveillance: 1) If they are parsing it all in real time, they may be able to prevent an attack, but this gives lie to the claim that your data is never being searched (everybody's must be included in the data set). 2) If they are only looking at it in hindsight, they can be more specific about the selectors and exclude more people, but this gives lie to the claim that they can prevent an attack in the first place (it can only be investigated).
Court documents place the restaurant at 2105 W. Davis St., Suite G in Conroe, at least as of 2004. But a Smoothie King operates at that address presently.
Damn it, I wanted Burger King, not Smoothie King! Why are they allowing some similar names, but not others?
Exactly. They are saying 41% of their workforce are anglo-American straight males. A group that makes up slightly less than 30% of the American population. That makes 2014 reflect reality, and not much more. I'd guess that 28-30% of the population makes up a somewhat higher percentage of the workforce, which makes Comcast better at this than many (most?) other companies, but it's hardly a superhuman effort.
What would prevent pissed-off customers from petitioning their local city council to not renew the Comcast franchise agreement, or to roll back their tax breaks/rights of way on utility poles?
Remember, Comcast relies on city-by-city regulations to exist. They can only get away with this because city officials let them. Don't wait for the FCC to do something, fight this from the bottom.
Solutions ... will require a renewed focus on ... a commitment to right-sizing and resourcing TSA to ... decrease the volume and contents of ... screening in airports.
Agreed.
The Right Size for the TSA to successfully fulfill that mission is zero.
On the post: Techdirt Crowdsourcing: How Will The TSA Idiotically Respond To The Laptop Terror Bomb?
Re:
On the post: Techdirt Crowdsourcing: How Will The TSA Idiotically Respond To The Laptop Terror Bomb?
Re:
They'll buy a whole fleet of new cargo planes, but when people catch on and stop bringing laptops, opting instead to just buy new ones when they land, the TSA will have to start answering questions about how far this "cord cutting" fad will go. Don't worry, they'll say, they didn't want to transport all those old laptop parts around anyway.
They'll keep the fleet of cargo planes, though, and get a massive bailout for being too big to fail.
On the post: The Cable Industry Is Absolutely Terrified Of Set Top Box Competition
On the post: Kuwait Creating Mandatory DNA Database Of All Citizens, Residents -- And Visitors
Re: Yet
Once the data is there, all it takes is access to connect all the dots. That's exactly why mass collection is so dangerous in the first place. Once the government/hackers/anybody has this, it's analysis and release can only be delayed, not stopped forever.
On the post: ESPN Pretends It Saw Cord Cutting Coming, Says Departing Subscribers Old And Poor Anyway
Devil's advocate
You and ESPN are talking about different revenue streams. If all (or rather, most of) the people dropping ESPN aren't watching anyway, then it may be completely true that ratings and ad revenue aren't impacted.
Is there any data showing the percentage of revenue that ESPN gets from carriage fees vs ads? If 90% of subscribers never turn to ESPN, but subscription fees only make up 30% of revenue (just making up numbers), then really only 27% of revenue is at risk to cord cutting, instead of the bigger sexy 90% number that these doom and gloom articles throw around.
On the post: South Carolina Politicians Propose Ridculous Plan To Register Journalists... To Make A Statement About Gun Control
On the post: 56% Would Drop ESPN In A Heartbeat If It Meant Saving $8 A Month On Cable
Bigger picture
The college football racket, in particular, may be the bloodiest casualty, as they deal with lawsuits of their own on the other end already.
On the post: Yosemite Changing The Names Of Popular Park Landmarks Following The Most Ridiculous Trademark Dispute Ever
Re: "For your attempted extortion, you get NOTHING. Enjoy."
They award the contract to a new company, who is required to purchase the (newly devalued) IP, then the parks buy those names for pennies on the dollar, and finally, return the facilities to their original names by the end of the year.
On the post: TVs Now 'Smart' Enough To Get Hijacked, Pick Up Malware
Re: Devil's Advocate Question: Any Wi-Fi on "Smart TVs"?
On the post: TVs Now 'Smart' Enough To Get Hijacked, Pick Up Malware
What's the market?
People who want to watch Netflix, but DON'T have a game console, roku/slingbox/etc, blu-ray player, or even an HDMI cable long enough to stretch from a computer?
Are the TV manufacturers getting kickbacks from the OTT service providers for including their apps? There's got to be some reason they are putting so much effort into doing something so badly.
On the post: Supreme Court Again Makes It Clear: Companies Can Erode Your Legal Rights Via Mouse Print
Slightly misleading
Your elected representatives (or those of your great-grandparents, in this case) passed an awful law, with numerous unforeseen consequences, but it is not inherently Unconstitutional. As pointed out many times recently, they refuse to be judges of the wisdom of pieces of legislation, merely judges of its legality.
They got this one right, but that doesn't mean the law is just.
On the post: The Two Leading Presidential Candidates -- Clinton And Trump -- Are Both Mocking Free Speech On The Internet
Not to minimize deaths...
With that said, when you combine just 8-10 of the biggest data breaches over the last 5 years, you get over 500 million records compromised, at the cost of 10's of billions of dollars to clean up.
World's Biggest Data Breaches
You are literally millions of times more likely to be a victim of poor data security than good data security. And if security is millions of times more important than freedom (to balance that equation), then you might as well put a government minder on every street corner and government cameras in every house. "Big Brother is Doubleplusgood."
On the post: After Endless Demonization Of Encryption, Police Find Paris Attackers Coordinated Via Unencrypted SMS
Biggest story of the day
This suggests that the mass surveillance mentality itself is partly to blame.
We already know that France and most of the rest of the EU has NSA-type powers to collect it all and sort through the pile later. This means they probably had all the evidence they needed but couldn't stop it anyway. There's too much data to search in real time in any meaningful way. A more focused targeting of surveillance would greatly reduce the analysis paralysis.
Which leads to a point I've been making all along., that there are two realities to mass surveillance:
1) If they are parsing it all in real time, they may be able to prevent an attack, but this gives lie to the claim that your data is never being searched (everybody's must be included in the data set).
2) If they are only looking at it in hindsight, they can be more specific about the selectors and exclude more people, but this gives lie to the claim that they can prevent an attack in the first place (it can only be investigated).
On the post: Permission Culture Infects Texas: Rodeos Or A Mexican Restaurant, Who Can Tell Them Apart?
Damn it, I wanted Burger King, not Smoothie King! Why are they allowing some similar names, but not others?
On the post: Comcast Keeps Scolding Me For Calling Its Top Lobbyist A Lobbyist
Re: Re: Re:
I'd guess that 28-30% of the population makes up a somewhat higher percentage of the workforce, which makes Comcast better at this than many (most?) other companies, but it's hardly a superhuman effort.
On the post: Facebook Bans Tsu Links Entirely, Choosing Control Over User Empowerment
Alow users to control their own newsfeed?
On the post: Full Text Of TPP Released: And It's Really, Really Bad
On the post: Comcast's Christmas Present To Broadband Users: More Usage Caps In More Places
Fight locally?
Remember, Comcast relies on city-by-city regulations to exist. They can only get away with this because city officials let them. Don't wait for the FCC to do something, fight this from the bottom.
On the post: TSA: Terrible At Security But Finally Willing To Work On Its Problems
Agreed.
The Right Size for the TSA to successfully fulfill that mission is zero.
On the post: TSA: Terrible At Security But Finally Willing To Work On Its Problems
Re: Re: TSA isn't all bad
Next >>