When we "buy" Netflix and HBO, it's marked very clearly that we're buying a subscription service to watch whatever they offer.
There's no offer of owning a movie or TV show.
"widespread economy of illegal bribes going on for decades. I figure someone would have reported on that by now."
If the economy of illegal bribes has been going on for decades, then they've probably gotten so good at it that no one has reported on it.
I'm sure it's nothing like the old days where a lobbyist gives a stack of $100 bills to a senator while a reporter snaps a photo.
Instead, the company gives the senator's son some free toys and maybe gives the daughter an internship with the company. Nope, no "bribe" here since there's no money changing hands.
Yes, it's bad that the NRCC website has evilly-worded check boxes and takes money from people, but on the other hand, they're taking money from rubes.
And, yes, I use the word "rube" in the classical sense, meaning "people who know the con man takes money from people but they give him money anyway".
Who are all these people who still give money to Trump after all stories about how Trump keeps so much money for himself. Okay maybe they don't believe all the stories, but how many stories does it take to realize there might be a grain of truth?
On the other hand, maybe the credit card processors are the good guys since they gave people their money back when the complaints came in.
Is there any word if the card processors banned the NRCC from processing credit cards due to all the complaints?
This is an interesting point.
Why does Microsoft allow any software to install anything in the system32 folder in 2021? Haven't we reached the point in PC game development where every file can be contained within that specific game's folder? I thought the days of installing and registering dll's in the Windows or system32 folder was long gone.
First, Georgia passes a bad bill.
Then organizations like Major League Baseball and Delta protest the bill.
Then the governor says MLB is part of the liberal "cancel culture".
Then the legislature passes bills against Delta.
So what's the obvious next step? Delta and Coca-Cola leave Atlanta.
Then what happens to all the money that the politicians would get from these companies? What happens to all the jobs? Okay, maybe all the employees move to another state, but that means the jobs aren't in Georgia any more.
Yet this issue with Delta could have been prevented if the governor just admitted that there were some bad parts of the bill instead of doubling-down on the whole "cancel culture" and saying MLB was falling for "liberal lies".
"Nike also does claim that there is confusion and highlights a bunch of social media posts..."
Well, if there were some social media posts saying people were confused, then that's all the proof I need! Someone get me a team of lawyers- we have lawsuits to file!
I intended that to be sarcasm, but it seems like too many people put too much weight in random social media posts. I saw a commercial for a TV show which had tons of quotes about how great it was. Yet if you looked quickly, the quote were from "John123" on Twiiter or "Bob345" on TikTok. Why would anyone use a quote from a random person? Why do their opinions matter?
Here's an experiment:
Who wants to post a left-leaning comment on his site, such as "black lives matter" or "gay people deserve equal rights", then get banned, and then complain about how the site is censoring liberal voices.
Bonus points for taking the issue to Congress and getting them to debate whether Donald Trump's website is actually trying to censor liberal voices.
Extra bonus points for getting Congress to haul Donald Trump in front of them and explain why his website is trying to block what liberals have to say.
" only to find their favourite services and propagandists swept up in the flood of lawsuits."
And? So?
Republicans have been using scorched-Earth policies for years. They don't care how many of their own constituents or voters are swept up in their bad policies as long as they can "own dem liberals".
As an example: they claimed there were tons of fraudulent mail-in ballots (without evidence) so they want to restrict mail-in ballots, even though a large number of rural, white, middle-age Republicans use mail-in ballots.
But it's better if 100 Republicans can't vote by mail than let one more Democrat mail-in ballot get in.
Forward it to 7726, which is the spam text reporting service for most carriers. Check your phone instructions for how to forward a text.
Block the number on your phone.
Report the number to call-screening services like Hiya, MyNumber, etc.
Report the number to the FTC Do Not Call List and your state's do not call list.
As more people report the numbers, these sites will build up a database of spam-text numbers and will be more likely to flag the call.
And if you flag spam from legitimate sources that don't have your permission to text you, those places won't be able to send any more texts. Granted, MoveOn.org or sign-the-petition sites might have a political exemption to send texts, but again, if enough people flag their texts as spam, then more people will get warned, and their texts won't get read.
"But the Sheriff's Office may soon find itself shelling out its own ill-gotten gains to replace the ones it apparently unlawfully took from the plaintiff during its drug warring."
Um, I don't think the Sheriff's Office will be the ones to pay- the money will come out of the city taxes, which means the costs will be passed onto the tax-payers And how many taxpayers go through the sheriff's budget to see that $X have to repaid to people whose items were illegally seized by the police?
In other words, the behavior won't change unless the police are held accountable. I don't know- maybe dock the officers' pay until the items are paid back or put them on suspension without pay.
And before someone says police shouldn't have to pay back items like this, remember that even the sheriff admitted the items weren't seized as a part of a crime. If there was no crime, then the items were illegally seized and someone should be held responsible.
The police officers who shoot and kill someone while executing the no-knock warrant?
The police department that has a no-knock warrant policy in the first place?
The DA who doesn't prosecute the officers for killing someone, because it was part of the officer's job?
The judge who doesn't take the case because again, the officers were just doing their job?
So if no one will be held accountable, then why should the police stop doing it, especially since "drug raids" get good coverage on the local news. Even though, like the article said, the "drug raid" is a merely a cover to seize some illegal weapons.
Where's the media (besides John Oliver) asking why the police need to raid homes with such small amount of drugs in the first place? Ah, but then that would start to peel back the reality that the "drug war" isn't really a "war" like the government thinks it is.
"My child just studied hard & did really well in school, you're kid just screwed around to much."
I don't know if you're using bad grammar to make a point, but that sentence should be:
"My child just studied hard & did really well in school, YOUR kid just screwed around TOO much."
Though I suspect it's an ironic use of bad grammar since people who say "your kid screwed around" would probably be the same ones who use bad grammar.
I think the tour company should list every campus, but then add a notice to the ones filing this suit that says "Tour not available due to legal reasons".
Then let prospective students decide whether they want to go to that school even if they can't go on a tour... I'm guessing plenty of student won't go. But I'm not a university marketing department, which probably has plenty of other ways of convincing people that they have a beautiful campus.
Since this guy wants to ban a video game and directly impact a company's business, then I assume he has proof. So...
How many people were carjacked last year?
Of those, how many of the carjackers played GTA?
Of those, how many said playing the game influenced their decision to carjack a car in real life?
By contrast:
How many copied of GTA were sold in the past 5 years?
Of those, how many were purchasing in Illinois?
So, then what percentage of people were influenced to carjack a car in real life compared to the total number of sales just in Illinois? So even though ALL of those people played the game without any issues, the game should still be banned?
Once again, I have to ask: why didn't more people in the media push back on this nonsense story? Why weren't more people saying there were more important things to worry about?
So, once again, we should blame the media for going along with Trump's ideas rather than standing up to him and saying his TikTok deal was a bad idea.
Re: Re: It might be reasonable for impairment behind the wheel.
"Ever person should learn how to politely say you won't answer questions."
And in theory, that's an excellent idea.
However, the reality is that this was a cop who was already going down the path of charging the guy with something. The choice was to either politely say no or have the cop arrest him, take him to the station, hold him, impound his rental car and weed, then hold him for a few hours for "not cooperating". Either way, it's still a major hassle to deal with. At least this way, the court threw the case out.
So I'm not sure what the right choice would be, in this situation.
Here's an idea: how about if Facebook treats people like adults and has a "nudity" checkbox when they sign in: check yes if you don't mind seeing nude images, check no to not see them. Then only show nude images to people who checked the box.
Then there's no need for AI or automated moderation: if someone reports a nude image and they checked "yes", then Facebook rejects the report because the user opted-in.
Just imagine the kinds of groups that could form if they allowed nudity! And more groups mean more users on the site, which means more user engagement, which means higher ads rates, and so on.
Heck, Facebook could even mine people's data just by seeing which groups with nudity they join (which they probably do already).
And continuing with this argument, how much money is Facebook leaving on the table by not allowing nudity and adult groups?
"Congress could impeach him"? I had a good laugh at that.
I'd be willing to bet good money that if Trump had a second term in office, he'd become brazen enough to kill off critics. Sure, the killing would be made to look like an accident, but still.
Then when killings were linked back to Trump, the House would impeach him (again) and the Republican-controlled Senate would refuse to hear the case (again), so Trump would get away with it (again), and he'd further learn that there are no consequences to anything he does.
Stupid tweet? Yes, but so are the people who believe it
I know I'm a little late, but...
"Oh, and it's even stupider. On so many levels."
This is a great observation, but the problem is that you're preaching to the choir. I'd say that most people reading this article agree with you.
However, how many followers does Trump have? The tweet itself has 119.7 likes, which means 119,700 people liked it.
How many people on Twitter see a tweet and think it's true without doing any research on their own? How many of Trump's followers blindly believe what he says?
So, yes, this has the potential to spiral out of control as Republicans rush to please the Trump supporters, even though there's no risk of them getting voted out of office.
On the post: Judge Lets False Advertising Case Against Apple Over 'Buying' Music You Didn't Buy Move Forward
Re:
When we "buy" Netflix and HBO, it's marked very clearly that we're buying a subscription service to watch whatever they offer.
There's no offer of owning a movie or TV show.
On the post: Uninformed Legislators Shoot Down Right To Repair Legislation In Colorado
Re: Re:
"widespread economy of illegal bribes going on for decades. I figure someone would have reported on that by now."
If the economy of illegal bribes has been going on for decades, then they've probably gotten so good at it that no one has reported on it.
I'm sure it's nothing like the old days where a lobbyist gives a stack of $100 bills to a senator while a reporter snaps a photo.
Instead, the company gives the senator's son some free toys and maybe gives the daughter an internship with the company. Nope, no "bribe" here since there's no money changing hands.
On the post: Republicans Using Incredibly Sketchy And Manipulative 'Dark Patterns' To Dupe People Into Donating Way More Than Intended
Not sure who's the bad guy here
Yes, it's bad that the NRCC website has evilly-worded check boxes and takes money from people, but on the other hand, they're taking money from rubes.
And, yes, I use the word "rube" in the classical sense, meaning "people who know the con man takes money from people but they give him money anyway".
Who are all these people who still give money to Trump after all stories about how Trump keeps so much money for himself. Okay maybe they don't believe all the stories, but how many stories does it take to realize there might be a grain of truth?
On the other hand, maybe the credit card processors are the good guys since they gave people their money back when the complaints came in.
Is there any word if the card processors banned the NRCC from processing credit cards due to all the complaints?
On the post: Game Publishers: If Your DRM, Anti-Cheat Software Does Creepy Installs, Warn Your Customers First
Re:
This is an interesting point.
Why does Microsoft allow any software to install anything in the system32 folder in 2021? Haven't we reached the point in PC game development where every file can be contained within that specific game's folder? I thought the days of installing and registering dll's in the Windows or system32 folder was long gone.
On the post: Georgia Republicans Try To Punish Delta For CEO's Statement About Voting Rights Law
Watch it escalate
First, Georgia passes a bad bill.
Then organizations like Major League Baseball and Delta protest the bill.
Then the governor says MLB is part of the liberal "cancel culture".
Then the legislature passes bills against Delta.
So what's the obvious next step? Delta and Coca-Cola leave Atlanta.
Then what happens to all the money that the politicians would get from these companies? What happens to all the jobs? Okay, maybe all the employees move to another state, but that means the jobs aren't in Georgia any more.
Yet this issue with Delta could have been prevented if the governor just admitted that there were some bad parts of the bill instead of doubling-down on the whole "cancel culture" and saying MLB was falling for "liberal lies".
On the post: Nike Sues MSCHF Over Its High Profile Satan Shoes, Claiming Unsafe Blood May Dilute The Exalted Nike Swoosh
Social media posts
"Nike also does claim that there is confusion and highlights a bunch of social media posts..."
Well, if there were some social media posts saying people were confused, then that's all the proof I need! Someone get me a team of lawyers- we have lawsuits to file!
I intended that to be sarcasm, but it seems like too many people put too much weight in random social media posts. I saw a commercial for a TV show which had tons of quotes about how great it was. Yet if you looked quickly, the quote were from "John123" on Twiiter or "Bob345" on TikTok. Why would anyone use a quote from a random person? Why do their opinions matter?
On the post: Donald Trump's Website's Terms Of Service Rely On Section 230, And Promise To Remove Content That Violates Its Terms
An experiment
Here's an experiment:
Who wants to post a left-leaning comment on his site, such as "black lives matter" or "gay people deserve equal rights", then get banned, and then complain about how the site is censoring liberal voices.
Bonus points for taking the issue to Congress and getting them to debate whether Donald Trump's website is actually trying to censor liberal voices.
Extra bonus points for getting Congress to haul Donald Trump in front of them and explain why his website is trying to block what liberals have to say.
On the post: Donald Trump's Website's Terms Of Service Rely On Section 230, And Promise To Remove Content That Violates Its Terms
Re:
" only to find their favourite services and propagandists swept up in the flood of lawsuits."
And? So?
Republicans have been using scorched-Earth policies for years. They don't care how many of their own constituents or voters are swept up in their bad policies as long as they can "own dem liberals".
As an example: they claimed there were tons of fraudulent mail-in ballots (without evidence) so they want to restrict mail-in ballots, even though a large number of rural, white, middle-age Republicans use mail-in ballots.
But it's better if 100 Republicans can't vote by mail than let one more Democrat mail-in ballot get in.
On the post: Wireless Industry Eyes Nontransparent 'Trust Score' To Determine Who Can Market Via Text Message
How to fight back
Whenever I get an unsolicited text, I:
As more people report the numbers, these sites will build up a database of spam-text numbers and will be more likely to flag the call.
And if you flag spam from legitimate sources that don't have your permission to text you, those places won't be able to send any more texts. Granted, MoveOn.org or sign-the-petition sites might have a political exemption to send texts, but again, if enough people flag their texts as spam, then more people will get warned, and their texts won't get read.
On the post: Forfeiture In Theory: TAKING DOWN DRUG LORDS! Forfeiture In Practice: Taking A Guy's TV And PlayStation During A Drug Raid
Accountability
"But the Sheriff's Office may soon find itself shelling out its own ill-gotten gains to replace the ones it apparently unlawfully took from the plaintiff during its drug warring."
Um, I don't think the Sheriff's Office will be the ones to pay- the money will come out of the city taxes, which means the costs will be passed onto the tax-payers And how many taxpayers go through the sheriff's budget to see that $X have to repaid to people whose items were illegally seized by the police?
In other words, the behavior won't change unless the police are held accountable. I don't know- maybe dock the officers' pay until the items are paid back or put them on suspension without pay.
And before someone says police shouldn't have to pay back items like this, remember that even the sheriff admitted the items weren't seized as a part of a crime. If there was no crime, then the items were illegally seized and someone should be held responsible.
On the post: John Oliver On Drug Raids: Why Are We Raiding Houses For Drug Quantities That Could Be Easily Flushed Down A Toilet?
Who should be held responsible?
Who should be held responsible?
So if no one will be held accountable, then why should the police stop doing it, especially since "drug raids" get good coverage on the local news. Even though, like the article said, the "drug raid" is a merely a cover to seize some illegal weapons.
Where's the media (besides John Oliver) asking why the police need to raid homes with such small amount of drugs in the first place? Ah, but then that would start to peel back the reality that the "drug war" isn't really a "war" like the government thinks it is.
On the post: John Oliver On Drug Raids: Why Are We Raiding Houses For Drug Quantities That Could Be Easily Flushed Down A Toilet?
Re: Re: Re:
"My child just studied hard & did really well in school, you're kid just screwed around to much."
I don't know if you're using bad grammar to make a point, but that sentence should be:
"My child just studied hard & did really well in school, YOUR kid just screwed around TOO much."
Though I suspect it's an ironic use of bad grammar since people who say "your kid screwed around" would probably be the same ones who use bad grammar.
On the post: Universities Threaten Virtual Campus Tour Business Over Trademarks
Tour not available
I think the tour company should list every campus, but then add a notice to the ones filing this suit that says "Tour not available due to legal reasons".
Then let prospective students decide whether they want to go to that school even if they can't go on a tour... I'm guessing plenty of student won't go. But I'm not a university marketing department, which probably has plenty of other ways of convincing people that they have a beautiful campus.
On the post: Illinois Lawmaker Proposes Unconstitutional Ban Of 'GTA' In Response To Carjackings
How about some evidence
Since this guy wants to ban a video game and directly impact a company's business, then I assume he has proof. So...
How many people were carjacked last year?
Of those, how many of the carjackers played GTA?
Of those, how many said playing the game influenced their decision to carjack a car in real life?
By contrast:
How many copied of GTA were sold in the past 5 years?
Of those, how many were purchasing in Illinois?
So, then what percentage of people were influenced to carjack a car in real life compared to the total number of sales just in Illinois? So even though ALL of those people played the game without any issues, the game should still be banned?
On the post: A 90 Year Old Shouldn't Have To Buy A $10,000 Ad Just To Get AT&T To Upgrade His Shitty DSL Line
What government regulation?
So when AT&T doesn't deploy services as promised to people they promised to serve, there's no talk of government regulation.
But Twitter bans racists for posting hateful comments and Republicans want to pass regulations telling Twitter how to run their business.
So the moral is- a company is free to do whatever they want as long as they aren't seen as censoring conservatives.
On the post: Trump And Oracle's Dumb TikTok Cronyism Falls Apart
Blame the media
Once again, I have to ask: why didn't more people in the media push back on this nonsense story? Why weren't more people saying there were more important things to worry about?
So, once again, we should blame the media for going along with Trump's ideas rather than standing up to him and saying his TikTok deal was a bad idea.
On the post: Court Says There's Nothing 'Reasonably Suspicious' About The Odor Of Marijuana In A State Where Marijuana Is Legal
Re: Re: It might be reasonable for impairment behind the wheel.
"Ever person should learn how to politely say you won't answer questions."
And in theory, that's an excellent idea.
However, the reality is that this was a cop who was already going down the path of charging the guy with something. The choice was to either politely say no or have the cop arrest him, take him to the station, hold him, impound his rental car and weed, then hold him for a few hours for "not cooperating". Either way, it's still a major hassle to deal with. At least this way, the court threw the case out.
So I'm not sure what the right choice would be, in this situation.
On the post: Content Moderation Case Study: Facebook's AI Continues To Struggle With Identifying Nudity (2020)
I'm an adult, I should see nudity if I want
Here's an idea: how about if Facebook treats people like adults and has a "nudity" checkbox when they sign in: check yes if you don't mind seeing nude images, check no to not see them. Then only show nude images to people who checked the box.
Then there's no need for AI or automated moderation: if someone reports a nude image and they checked "yes", then Facebook rejects the report because the user opted-in.
Just imagine the kinds of groups that could form if they allowed nudity! And more groups mean more users on the site, which means more user engagement, which means higher ads rates, and so on.
Heck, Facebook could even mine people's data just by seeing which groups with nudity they join (which they probably do already).
And continuing with this argument, how much money is Facebook leaving on the table by not allowing nudity and adult groups?
On the post: Utter Insanity: Trump Lawyer Suggests Former Trump Cybersecurity Official Should Be 'Taken Out And Shot' For Saying The Election Was Secure
Re: Re: Re:
"Congress could impeach him"? I had a good laugh at that.
I'd be willing to bet good money that if Trump had a second term in office, he'd become brazen enough to kill off critics. Sure, the killing would be made to look like an accident, but still.
Then when killings were linked back to Trump, the House would impeach him (again) and the Republican-controlled Senate would refuse to hear the case (again), so Trump would get away with it (again), and he'd further learn that there are no consequences to anything he does.
On the post: Trump Promises To Defund The Entire Military, If Congress Won't Let Him Punish The Internet For Being Mean To Him
Stupid tweet? Yes, but so are the people who believe it
I know I'm a little late, but...
"Oh, and it's even stupider. On so many levels."
This is a great observation, but the problem is that you're preaching to the choir. I'd say that most people reading this article agree with you.
However, how many followers does Trump have? The tweet itself has 119.7 likes, which means 119,700 people liked it.
How many people on Twitter see a tweet and think it's true without doing any research on their own? How many of Trump's followers blindly believe what he says?
So, yes, this has the potential to spiral out of control as Republicans rush to please the Trump supporters, even though there's no risk of them getting voted out of office.
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