Andrew 's BestNetTech Comments

Latest Comments (36)

• On the post: Criss Angel Sends Ridiculous Legal Threat After Comedian Creates Parody Menu Of His Restaurant

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2022 @ 10:29am

  See also

  https://www.clevescene.com/64-and-counting/archives/2010/12/22/absolutely-epic-1974-letter-from-cleveland-browns-to-a-fan

• On the post: DOJ Asks Tenth Circuit Appeals Court To Firmly Establish A Right To Record Police Officers

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 30 Nov, 2021 @ 11:44am

  A minor question

  It also points to the killing of Walter Scott by South Carolina police officer Michael Slager, who stated Scott had reached for his taser, necessitating his shooting. Bystander video showed what actually happened, which was Officer Slager shooting Scott in the back as he fled and then dropping his taser near Scott's body.

  While I'm all for complete protection for citizens and journalists alike being able to record public officers performing public duties in public, wouldn't Walter Scott's case been clearly established by forensics? Shooting someone reaching for your taser would be from a foot away in the front, not at a distance in the back.

  Of course, I'm guessing the police could have just swept the autopsy under the rug...

• On the post: Section 230 Continues To Not Mean Whatever You Want It To

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 09 Jul, 2021 @ 11:56am

  Like decent toilet paper, the inanity of this tweet is two-ply.

  The perfect double-entendre, since decent toilet paper is mostly what's needed to read Mr. Berenson's tweet.

• On the post: Thanks To Crappy Cable Channel Bundles, Non-Watchers Hugely Subsidize Tucker Carlson And Fox News

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2021 @ 05:21am

  Now do ESPN

  ... which is something we actually pay hard money for above and beyond our contractual monthly cable bill "charge".

• On the post: Patent Troll Sable Networks Apparently Needs To Learn A Lesson: Cloudflare Wants To Destroy Another Troll

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 26 Apr, 2021 @ 02:56pm

  Sorry to see Juniper and Cisco bought into this

  They are both big companies with plenty of law talent on staff (I work for one of them). They also have plenty of incentive to avoid these trolls, because there are so many possibilities of such overbroad interpretations in the network space.

  Sadly, my company years ago also settled with a lone engineer, the name of who's company (in a completely different space) conflicted with an acronym we wanted to use for a new platform. So we changed the name rather than spend even a day fighting it.

• On the post: Josh Hawley: We Must Break Up Companies Whose Politics I Disagree With For Discriminating Against People Whose Politics I Agree With

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2021 @ 05:42am

  I love the acronym

  Bust Up Big tech Act - BUB(b)A

• On the post: Trump's Support Of Cops Pays Off: Multiple Police Officers Under Investigation For Illegal Invasion Of The Capitol Building

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2021 @ 06:49am

  Our local version of this

  From the Live Free or Die state, one of my local State Representatives made the following tweet after the "incident":

  "Wow. These terrorists need to be locked up, I want to know who is from NH besides the police chief from Troy, NH."

  The police chief from Troy was in fact at the Capitol that day. Instead of lawmakers looking in to what other NH officials attended and what role they may have played, the rep was stripped of her committee assignments and censured.

• On the post: Will Wall Street Get In The Way Of Jack Dorsey's Lofty Plans To Turn Twitter Into A Protocol?

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2020 @ 01:27pm

  The short termers

  I work for a decently mid-sized cutting-edge technology company that Elliott Management owns a stake in. For years they have been trying to tell us how to run our business. That advice is 99% of the time about quarterly returns and not about long term strategic investment in growth and technology. Half of the time, it is exactly about sacrificing long term growth in the name of scooping out money now.

  I can understand that shareholders have an interest in how the company is working, but... if they don't like how we're working and don't think they'll make enough money, go buy some other stock! The people who run our company are knowledgeable and passionate about our technology and where it's going. Elliott doesn't have a clue, and that doesn't seem to matter to them.

  So far, our company has managed to tell them to go pound sand (ever so politely, I assume). We've been hiring as opposed to laying off, and getting our engineering groups back into fighting shape to take on our technology challenges. Let's hope that can continue.

• On the post: The End Of Ownership: Tesla Software Updates Giveth… And Tesla Software Updates Taketh Away…

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2020 @ 12:02pm

  Re: Tacking features via VIN

  Obviously that should have been "tracking", not "tacking". Unless Tesla makes sailboats too?

• On the post: The End Of Ownership: Tesla Software Updates Giveth… And Tesla Software Updates Taketh Away…

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2020 @ 09:50am

  Tacking features via VIN

  One interesting potential concern in this (beyond the obvious ones discussed) is that most cars now have the features shipped with it tracked via the VIN. I can give my dealer the VIN of my car and they can tell me the exact model including every option it was bought with. Mechanics use this to work on the car.

  What happens when some mechanic relies on this and thinks one of these "de-featured" Teslas still has the applicable feature and does something wrong fixing the car?

• On the post: How Years Of Copyright Maximalism Is Now Killing Pop Music

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2020 @ 10:45am

  We're finally living a Spider Robinson story

  Read "Melancholy Elephants" for a pretty humorous but accurate description of the endgame here....

• On the post: Copyright Enforcement Service Claims $600 Billion-Worth Of Images Are 'Stolen' Every Day

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2019 @ 11:34am

  Doing more math

  Poor Scottsdale. If they are responsible for 5% of 2.5 billion piracies per day, that is 125 million per day. With a population of 250,000, let's assume half are pirates, that is 1000 images pirated per person per day every day. If only we could harness that productivity for good....

• On the post: MEPs Realizing How Bad Article 13 Could Be, Begin To Back Away From EU Copyright Directive

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2019 @ 01:19pm

  Re: Dissent is marked by a cogent rebuttal

  Man: An argument isn't just contradiction.
  Mr. Vibrating: It can be.
  Man: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
  Mr. Vibrating: No it isn't.
  Man: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
  Mr. Vibrating: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
  Man: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
  Mr. Vibrating: Yes it is!
  Man: No it isn't!

• On the post: Why Is The EU Parliament Pushing Fake Propaganda From Hollywood?

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 01 Mar, 2019 @ 06:14am

  In what world is that okay?

  This one apparently. Most governments have gone so far beyond "regulatory capture" that they don't even try to hide who's interests they represent now. And it isn't their constituents.

• On the post: Calling Out Copyright Troll Mathew Higbee

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2019 @ 11:56am

  Re: Re: Re: Re:

  They sure don't look multi-national. The address listed on the letter is apparently office #2 in a small strip-mall building next to a Countrywide Debt Relief and a Buddhist outreach organization.

• On the post: Express Homebuyers Wins Its Bid To Cancel Competitors 'We Buy Houses' Trademark

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 21 Aug, 2018 @ 10:01am

  "Too often these bullies are allowed to cut and run from trademark suits when it's clear their own trademarks are in danger of invalidation."

  Why is this allowed to happen? The same pattern is prevalent in patent troll handiwork, and responsible for much of the "success" they have extorting payments; there's no downside for them.

  There should be some reasonable way to make the case proceed after a certain point is reached unless the respondent also agrees to drop it.

• On the post: The View From Somewhere: The Press Needs To Be Anti-Partisan, Not Bi-Partisan

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 19 Jul, 2018 @ 10:10am

  The parties are the root of the problem

  or more specifically, when "the party" became more important than "the candidate" or "the issues". Every single thing reported in the news today is always "which party supports it", and thus requires every single member of the other party to oppose it simply to be allowed to remain in the party.

  It is BIG news when a member of one of the parties votes in opposition now, since it happens so rarely. And, god forbid, an intelligent politician (please, no snickering) researches actual facts and changes their mind about an issue, they are immediately tagged as flip-flopping and marked for defeat. This reinforces that the party itself is the most important thing and what the member thinks is irrelevant. And this feeds itself and brings increasingly extremist positions in an attempt to pander to the "base".

• On the post: Latest Text Of EU Copyright Directive Shows It's Even Worse Than Expected: Must Be Stopped

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 03 Jul, 2018 @ 10:17am

  And as if by magic

  https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/07/03/1517253/wikipedia-italy-blocks-all-articles-in-protest-of-eus-ruinous-copyright-proposals

• On the post: Latest Text Of EU Copyright Directive Shows It's Even Worse Than Expected: Must Be Stopped

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 03 Jul, 2018 @ 10:14am

  Two things come to mind. First, let's just identify all European users a la:

  lauren.vortex.com/2018/06/12/a-modest-proposal-identifying-europeans-on-the-internet-for-their-protection

  Second, maybe a handful of large corporate players (Google, Amazon, etc) should just publicly announce they will no longer service EU countries at all. I bet that would last about an hour before MEPs suddenly achieved enlightenment.

• On the post: House Dumps Trump's Immigration Bill, Deep-Sixing A Sizable Increase In Border Surveillance

  

  Andrew ( profile ), 28 Jun, 2018 @ 12:28pm

  ..."It would also affect US citizens -- the sort of people everyone agrees have Constitutional rights."

  Have you guys not been reading the articles you've been writing these past years? Or any other news?

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