"I will tell you, we are going to start working very hard on the Internet because they are using the Internet at a level that they should not be allowed to use the Internet,"
At first glance, I read this as "they are using the Internet at certain level, and them using it at that level should not be permitted". I.e., not "they should not be allowed to use the Internet at all", but "they should not be allowed to use the Internet at that level".
The article seems to be based on reading it as "they are using the Internet at such a level that they should not be permitted to use the Internet at all".
Leaving aside the fact that the latter idea sounds like it would apply more to kicking off heavy users of available bandwidth than to kicking off terrorists, do we have anything to indicate which meaning he intended?
Re: Re: Re: Is there a moral lesson to this story?
If I may make a suggestion?
Continually ending sentences with rhetorical confirmation questions ("right?", "isn't it?", "wouldn't you?", et cetera) does not help your case, does not support your argument, does not present a good image, and also helps serve as an identifying signature of who is writing the post.
I've more than once had to restrain myself from reflexively flagging a post which contained two or three (or more) "right?"-suffixed sentences, just because it's so blatantly passive-aggressive as to arguably qualify as trolling all by itself.
I would suggest that if you cut way back on the use of that sort of rhetorical gimmick, it would - not so much strengthen, perhaps, as "de-weaken" - your position in the discussions.
Maybe one such sentence every three or four posts might be reasonable enough to not obtrude upon the reader's consciousness as a negative factor, but anything more than that - and certainly by the time you have even two in the same post - is IMO enough to be immediately noticeable, and therefore too much.
The key element is that they believe that a search at the border, or otherwise pursuant to border / customs enforcement, is inherently not unreasonable - and, therefore, does not need a warrant in the first place.
And the reason they continue to believe this after so many hears is that many courts seem to have agreed with them.
You don't, and I don't, and I (not speaking for you) think that no one should - but some people do, even including some technically-savvy people.
They may not be at genericide yet, but they're well on the way. James Burkhardt's example sentences "What site do you google with?" and "I googled it on Yahoo" are instructive; contrary to his assertion that neither makes sense, I have literally heard a close equivalent of the latter used in real-world conversation.
As I think I've said here before, there is exactly one thing tying my household to cable television:
Live TV news-and-analysis programming.
When it becomes possible to reasonably get CNN and MSNBC (and possibly a couple other such channels; for myself, I'd like C-SPAN) separately rather than with a cable subscription, we'll probably cut the cord in short order.
Time was Comedy Central would have been on that prerequisite list as well, but with Colbert et al. having moved on to other things, I don't think there's anything there which we can't get just as well elsewhere.
I don't consider "the police are against [X]" to be a moral view, or a moral question, and I don't think anyone else here does either.
The fact is that "the police" are not a monolithic entity. I know some police officers, and at my workplace, one of the groups for which I provide technical support is a police academy where new officers are trained; there's so much variation in the people I see in those roles, there's no way "the police" can all hold the same views or be equally complicit in any failings. (Although broad statistical observations can still be made and be accurate.)
The situation with regard to "the police" is a sufficiently complex one that only a lengthy, nuanced analysis has any meaningful likelihood of being accurate, beyond broad strokes. If you want a single, simple, brief statement, you're not going to get it.
That said, while I don't always agree with every particular statement made here at Techdirt on the subject (especially in comment threads), I do generally concur that the analysis of the situation which I see presented here is largely correct. (At most, it may be a bit too broad.)
And to answer your initial question: again, not enough information. Just looking at the people (police and otherwise), and seeing the context in which they are encountering one another (including various details which one wouldn't think to include in a description), would give me hints which would shape my reaction and thus my decision about what action to take.
That said: most of the time, I would stand by and let the police handle it, unless it looked like I could produce a better outcome by attempting to defuse the conflict entirely. The circumstances which would lead me to attempt to intervene on either side are relatively rare.
I don't blame Trump for the rise of white nationalism.
I blame Trump for *legitimizing* white nationalism, by accepting its support and failing to clearly condemn it (and, at least arguably, even espousing some of its views - albeit in less blatant and aggressive forms).
Taking an extreme, fringe viewpoint and making it seem acceptable and mainstream is an act worthy of either praise or condemnation all on its own, depending on what you think of the viewpoint in question.
White nationalism, et cetera, aren't all the way there - but they're a hell of a lot closer than they were this time last year, and a hell of a lot closer than they would be likely to be if Trump hadn't won the electoral college.
I am; that's probably correlated to why I would give *both* parties the benefit of the doubt.
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the police does not extend as far as using deadly force (myself! - not even just permitting the police to use it) against a person just because the police are in conflict with that person.
A: Mu. This situation would not arise; if Mike Masnick had a gun to someone's head, it would not be for the purpose of silencing that person.
B: The unknown person, assuming I can't practically defuse the situation in a less extreme way. (But how do I know that this person is doing the gun-to-head thing for the purpose of silencing the speaker, if the person is unknown to me?)
C: Neither. I don't have enough information about the situation to decide that the use of deadly force is (even potentially) justified.
Because trolls, and because too few people retain the old admonition DFTT.
Or as someone (or some set of ones) used to put it, in old Techdirt comment threads: "Just flag and move on."
For myself, while I rarely reply (even to respectable comments, much less to trolling), I also don't reflexively flag, even when it's clear from the ephemeral avatar icon that the poster is the same one who's been flag-worthy elsewhere in the same comments page; I consider each post individually.
(And then usually wind up flagging it, because seriously, have you seen the posts this guy writes?)
The reason people want to have statues of famous Confederate figures removed is not because they are of people who owned slaves.
It is because they are of people who, by their (AFAIK entirely voluntary) actions, opposed ending slavery.
It is because that is the only, or at least by far the most major, thing for which these people are famous - and, thereby, the thing for which they are being honored with these statues.
It is because to have these statues up is to honor the pro-slavery cause for which these people fought.
By contrast, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and so forth are famous in history for many things which do not involve their support for the cause of slavery; in fact, it is entirely possible to present a reasonably comprehensive history of the things for which they are remembered which does not mention slavery at all. It is to honor these things, not their ownership of slaves, that these statues exist.
If you want to have public images to remind us of the history of slavery, in a "never forget, so that we never repeat these things" line, that's fine; there are ways to do that, even ways involving statuary, which do not involve presenting those who fought to preserve slavery as figures worthy of honor and respect. If you want to design and/or commission such a statue, I wish you all success.
I think what Bergman was claiming is that that color-blind ideal would be considered racist under the modern definition, because it does not do anything to support people who have been disadvantaged due to *past* racism. I.e., one of the same arguments that crops up in affirmative-action debates.
I would agree that the color-blind society would be the ideal, but we don't have that yet, and I would also probably agree that some degree of "counterbalancing unfair disadvantage due to race" is probably appropriate. The devil, however, is in the details.
(Also, as long as we still think of "race" as a thing, we will never achieve that color-blind society. The core idea of racism, on which everything else is based, is the idea that the ill-defined collection of characteristics which we label as "race" is an appropriate basis for categorization; as long as we still think of "race" as being a set of categories, much less - however unconsciously - classify people into those categories, a post-racism society is impossible.)
The trouble is that if you don't vote, you are not counted towards the "total" which determines how many votes constitute a "majority".
In other words: if you vote, and there are 1,000,000 votes cast in that specific election, then winning requires getting 500,001 votes.
But if you don't vote, then there are only 999,999 votes cast in that specific election, and winning requires only getting 500,000 votes.
A "none of the above" ballot option would have your vote counted towards the total, but not towards any of the individual candidates.
The problem with that, and one of the major reasons why such an option is unlikely to ever be adopted, is the question of what to do if A: this results in no one winning at all, and B: what happens if "none of the above" wins directly.
* The same place as the line which convinces the "base" which got Trump elected and is still (in some politically-relevant sense) loyal to him to not merely turn against him, but do so in a way which is clearly visible to Republicans in Congress.
* The same place as the line which convinces Republicans in Congress that they can continue to be re-elected without the support of that "base".
The former line appears to be getting closer (which in turn may be bringing the latter closer), but judging from the rate of change of poll numbers, both are still a long way off.
Of course, impeachment could still happen without crossing either of those lines; all that would need to happen is for Congress to get turned over to a non-Republican majority. Unfortunately, by demographics and gerrymandering, that seems a highly unlikely prospect this next midterm election year.
I think your math is wrong. 10/7 is a ~43% increase; (10/7)*0.44 is a ~37% decrease (vs. the original total revenue). That doesn't sound like "pretty much covers" to me.
To look at some of the numbers here in a bit more detail:
100 customers at $7.21 per customer results in total revenue of $721.
If 56% of those customers stop paying, that leaves you with 44%, or 440 remaining customers.
To make $721 in revenue from 44 customers, you'd need to charge them each $16.39. That's a price increase of over 2.25x.
How many of those 44 will decide that the increased price isn't worth it, and drop the subscription?
Of course, for every one who does that, you need to increase the price on the remaining subscribers even more if you're going to retain the same revenue.
Saw that 180Mbps was significantly higher than the speeds he could get from the ISPs in his own market, and that he remembered seeing advertised in general.
Assumed that a foreign country not on the list of known well-off, major-world-player countries would obviously have worse speeds than he could get in the US.
Concluded that the transfer must have been across a faster network than the Internet.
The first critical error lies in the second (or possibly second-and-a-halfth) step: either assuming that the speeds available to him are representative, or failing to check the speeds being advertised more generally, even in the USA. (Because trans-180Mbps services are certainly available, even here. Look at all those gigabit-fiber-service projects that get so much news attention, however illusionary they sometimes turn out to be; for that matter, I'm pretty sure I've seen a 300Mbps service advertised by one of the big-name providers.)
Even better would have been actually checking the speeds advertised by providers in Romania, but I'm not sure whether that would be practical for someone who doesn't know the local language, and by sheer statistical probability the "expert" in question probably didn't.
On the post: Trump's Latest Nonsensical Announcement About Censoring The Internet
A misreading?
At first glance, I read this as "they are using the Internet at certain level, and them using it at that level should not be permitted". I.e., not "they should not be allowed to use the Internet at all", but "they should not be allowed to use the Internet at that level".
The article seems to be based on reading it as "they are using the Internet at such a level that they should not be permitted to use the Internet at all".
Leaving aside the fact that the latter idea sounds like it would apply more to kicking off heavy users of available bandwidth than to kicking off terrorists, do we have anything to indicate which meaning he intended?
On the post: Chateau Marmont, Hotel For Celebrity Humans, Sends Trademark C&D To Cateau Marmont, Hotel For Cats
Re: Re: Re: Is there a moral lesson to this story?
Continually ending sentences with rhetorical confirmation questions ("right?", "isn't it?", "wouldn't you?", et cetera) does not help your case, does not support your argument, does not present a good image, and also helps serve as an identifying signature of who is writing the post.
I've more than once had to restrain myself from reflexively flagging a post which contained two or three (or more) "right?"-suffixed sentences, just because it's so blatantly passive-aggressive as to arguably qualify as trolling all by itself.
I would suggest that if you cut way back on the use of that sort of rhetorical gimmick, it would - not so much strengthen, perhaps, as "de-weaken" - your position in the discussions.
Maybe one such sentence every three or four posts might be reasonable enough to not obtrude upon the reader's consciousness as a negative factor, but anything more than that - and certainly by the time you have even two in the same post - is IMO enough to be immediately noticeable, and therefore too much.
On the post: Border Device Searches Continue To Increase, Threatening More Than Just The 4th Amendment
Re: Re: Close, but not quite right
And the reason they continue to believe this after so many hears is that many courts seem to have agreed with them.
On the post: Failed Cybersquatter Asks Supreme Court To Declare 'Google' A Generic Term
Re: Re: Re:
They may not be at genericide yet, but they're well on the way. James Burkhardt's example sentences "What site do you google with?" and "I googled it on Yahoo" are instructive; contrary to his assertion that neither makes sense, I have literally heard a close equivalent of the latter used in real-world conversation.
On the post: Tech Journalists Keep Completely Missing The Point Of Cord Cutting
TV news
Live TV news-and-analysis programming.
When it becomes possible to reasonably get CNN and MSNBC (and possibly a couple other such channels; for myself, I'd like C-SPAN) separately rather than with a cable subscription, we'll probably cut the cord in short order.
Time was Comedy Central would have been on that prerequisite list as well, but with Colbert et al. having moved on to other things, I don't think there's anything there which we can't get just as well elsewhere.
On the post: YouTube Briefly Nukes Video Of Nazi Symbol Destruction For Violating Hate Speech Rules
The fact is that "the police" are not a monolithic entity. I know some police officers, and at my workplace, one of the groups for which I provide technical support is a police academy where new officers are trained; there's so much variation in the people I see in those roles, there's no way "the police" can all hold the same views or be equally complicit in any failings. (Although broad statistical observations can still be made and be accurate.)
The situation with regard to "the police" is a sufficiently complex one that only a lengthy, nuanced analysis has any meaningful likelihood of being accurate, beyond broad strokes. If you want a single, simple, brief statement, you're not going to get it.
That said, while I don't always agree with every particular statement made here at Techdirt on the subject (especially in comment threads), I do generally concur that the analysis of the situation which I see presented here is largely correct. (At most, it may be a bit too broad.)
And to answer your initial question: again, not enough information. Just looking at the people (police and otherwise), and seeing the context in which they are encountering one another (including various details which one wouldn't think to include in a description), would give me hints which would shape my reaction and thus my decision about what action to take.
That said: most of the time, I would stand by and let the police handle it, unless it looked like I could produce a better outcome by attempting to defuse the conflict entirely. The circumstances which would lead me to attempt to intervene on either side are relatively rare.
On the post: YouTube Briefly Nukes Video Of Nazi Symbol Destruction For Violating Hate Speech Rules
I blame Trump for *legitimizing* white nationalism, by accepting its support and failing to clearly condemn it (and, at least arguably, even espousing some of its views - albeit in less blatant and aggressive forms).
Taking an extreme, fringe viewpoint and making it seem acceptable and mainstream is an act worthy of either praise or condemnation all on its own, depending on what you think of the viewpoint in question.
White nationalism, et cetera, aren't all the way there - but they're a hell of a lot closer than they were this time last year, and a hell of a lot closer than they would be likely to be if Trump hadn't won the electoral college.
On the post: YouTube Briefly Nukes Video Of Nazi Symbol Destruction For Violating Hate Speech Rules
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the police does not extend as far as using deadly force (myself! - not even just permitting the police to use it) against a person just because the police are in conflict with that person.
On the post: YouTube Briefly Nukes Video Of Nazi Symbol Destruction For Violating Hate Speech Rules
B: The unknown person, assuming I can't practically defuse the situation in a less extreme way. (But how do I know that this person is doing the gun-to-head thing for the purpose of silencing the speaker, if the person is unknown to me?)
C: Neither. I don't have enough information about the situation to decide that the use of deadly force is (even potentially) justified.
On the post: The Dangerous Rise Of Unproductive Entrepreneurship
Re:
Or as someone (or some set of ones) used to put it, in old Techdirt comment threads: "Just flag and move on."
For myself, while I rarely reply (even to respectable comments, much less to trolling), I also don't reflexively flag, even when it's clear from the ephemeral avatar icon that the poster is the same one who's been flag-worthy elsewhere in the same comments page; I consider each post individually.
(And then usually wind up flagging it, because seriously, have you seen the posts this guy writes?)
On the post: Because Of Course There Are Copyright Implications With Confederacy Monuments
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The reason people want to have statues of famous Confederate figures removed is not because they are of people who owned slaves.
It is because they are of people who, by their (AFAIK entirely voluntary) actions, opposed ending slavery.
It is because that is the only, or at least by far the most major, thing for which these people are famous - and, thereby, the thing for which they are being honored with these statues.
It is because to have these statues up is to honor the pro-slavery cause for which these people fought.
By contrast, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and so forth are famous in history for many things which do not involve their support for the cause of slavery; in fact, it is entirely possible to present a reasonably comprehensive history of the things for which they are remembered which does not mention slavery at all. It is to honor these things, not their ownership of slaves, that these statues exist.
If you want to have public images to remind us of the history of slavery, in a "never forget, so that we never repeat these things" line, that's fine; there are ways to do that, even ways involving statuary, which do not involve presenting those who fought to preserve slavery as figures worthy of honor and respect. If you want to design and/or commission such a statue, I wish you all success.
On the post: Because Of Course There Are Copyright Implications With Confederacy Monuments
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I would agree that the color-blind society would be the ideal, but we don't have that yet, and I would also probably agree that some degree of "counterbalancing unfair disadvantage due to race" is probably appropriate. The devil, however, is in the details.
(Also, as long as we still think of "race" as a thing, we will never achieve that color-blind society. The core idea of racism, on which everything else is based, is the idea that the ill-defined collection of characteristics which we label as "race" is an appropriate basis for categorization; as long as we still think of "race" as being a set of categories, much less - however unconsciously - classify people into those categories, a post-racism society is impossible.)
On the post: NFL Tells ICE That Parody Shirts Are Counterfeits
Re:
That idea ignores the existence of parody (and possibly other considerations), but it's at least internally consistent.
On the post: EFF Pioneer Awards: Chelsea Manning, Annie Game... And Me
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The "and no one likes it" is demonstrably false, though.
On the post: Crowdfunded Billboards Shame Politicians For Selling You Out On Net Neutrality
Re: Re: UNTIL..
In other words: if you vote, and there are 1,000,000 votes cast in that specific election, then winning requires getting 500,001 votes.
But if you don't vote, then there are only 999,999 votes cast in that specific election, and winning requires only getting 500,000 votes.
A "none of the above" ballot option would have your vote counted towards the total, but not towards any of the individual candidates.
The problem with that, and one of the major reasons why such an option is unlikely to ever be adopted, is the question of what to do if A: this results in no one winning at all, and B: what happens if "none of the above" wins directly.
On the post: One Twitter Account's Mission To Make White Supremacists Very, Very Famous
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
* The same place as the line which convinces the "base" which got Trump elected and is still (in some politically-relevant sense) loyal to him to not merely turn against him, but do so in a way which is clearly visible to Republicans in Congress.
* The same place as the line which convinces Republicans in Congress that they can continue to be re-elected without the support of that "base".
The former line appears to be getting closer (which in turn may be bringing the latter closer), but judging from the rate of change of poll numbers, both are still a long way off.
Of course, impeachment could still happen without crossing either of those lines; all that would need to happen is for Congress to get turned over to a non-Republican majority. Unfortunately, by demographics and gerrymandering, that seems a highly unlikely prospect this next midterm election year.
On the post: As A Streaming Future Looms, ESPN Is Damned If It Does, Damned If It Doesn't
Re: Re: Re: Great Story
To look at some of the numbers here in a bit more detail:
100 customers at $7.21 per customer results in total revenue of $721.
If 56% of those customers stop paying, that leaves you with 44%, or 440 remaining customers.
To make $721 in revenue from 44 customers, you'd need to charge them each $16.39. That's a price increase of over 2.25x.
How many of those 44 will decide that the increased price isn't worth it, and drop the subscription?
Of course, for every one who does that, you need to increase the price on the remaining subscribers even more if you're going to retain the same revenue.
On the post: Once Again, Rather Than Deleting Terrorist Propaganda, YouTube Deletes Evidence Of War Crimes
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: At the heart of Techdirt there is a lie
Only I think he was even less coherent, and even less able to remain on topic.
On the post: Stories Claiming DNC Hack Was 'Inside Job' Rely Heavily On A Stupid Conversion Error No 'Forensic Expert' Would Make
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: try again
I think it's more likely that he:
The first critical error lies in the second (or possibly second-and-a-halfth) step: either assuming that the speeds available to him are representative, or failing to check the speeds being advertised more generally, even in the USA. (Because trans-180Mbps services are certainly available, even here. Look at all those gigabit-fiber-service projects that get so much news attention, however illusionary they sometimes turn out to be; for that matter, I'm pretty sure I've seen a 300Mbps service advertised by one of the big-name providers.)
Even better would have been actually checking the speeds advertised by providers in Romania, but I'm not sure whether that would be practical for someone who doesn't know the local language, and by sheer statistical probability the "expert" in question probably didn't.
On the post: Danish University And Industry Work Together On Open Science Platform Whose Results Will All Be Patent-Free
Re: Re: Re: Re:
All I see is one mild instance of vulgarity; I don't see any terms relating to contempt for sacred things.
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