antimatter3009 's BestNetTech Comments

Latest Comments (31)

• On the post: Senate Extends Controversial Patriot Act Spying Provisions By 90 Days; But Will They Debate Them During That Time?

  

  antimatter3009 ( profile ), 16 Feb, 2011 @ 05:14am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Talking to my Senator...

  Right. Snail mail is probably still better, but I've gotten relatively thoughtful (read: not canned) responses to my emails before, at least from my House Rep. Senators are probably getting more mail, so you may be more likely to be lost in the shuffle.

• On the post: First Test Of Computer Jeopardy Player Goes Well; Watson Beats Mere Humans

  

  antimatter3009 ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2011 @ 06:17am

  Re: Re:

  Jeopardy questions are not straightforward. What's impressive here isn't finding the answer, it's figuring out the question. Natural language processing is very difficult, and Jeopardy provides a particularly difficult version of it, too, with all the puns and such.

• On the post: Obvious News Is Obvious: Polls That Only Call Landlines May Be Biased

  

  antimatter3009 ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2010 @ 06:29am

  Re: Anyone Suprised?

  I don't disagree in many cases, especially when it comes to influencing elected officials. However, I will say that polls predicting votes and the like can be nicely checked against real results. Most (all?) pollsters and poll analyzers take the error into account when making future predictions and attempt to correct through proper weighting, etc.
  
  Polling is never perfect, and even if you could feasibly poll everybody you'd still see differences as people change their minds or whatever, but some pollsters consistently get pretty close despite these and other issues. That said, as more and more people drop their land lines, I imagine these corrections are going to get more difficult to make and poll results will start to fluctuate more. But hey, maybe not. I'm pretty consistently surprised how close they get even today.

• On the post: Australian Gyms Dumping Pop Music After Massive Increase In Royalty Rates

  

  antimatter3009 ( profile ), 18 May, 2010 @ 11:11am

  Free Market

  Can someone please explain to me why these rates are set by the government? Why can't the rates be negotiated between the businesses in question, like pretty much every other industry?

• On the post: As Expected, Labels Now Want To Use Privacy-Reducing Watermarks As 'Cloud DRM'

  

  antimatter3009 ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2010 @ 03:23pm

  Re: Re: Not Actually Watermarking

  Attaching metadata could be called a form of watermarking I suppose, but when I think of watermarking I think of altering the actual data portion very slightly in an identifiable way, but without a noticeable change to the audio.

• On the post: As Expected, Mandelson To Introduce Plan To Kick File Sharers Off The Internet

  

  antimatter3009 ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2009 @ 11:49am

  Finding Music

  You know, it just occurred to me that without the internet, I don't even know how I'd find music anymore. I don't even have tv, so no ads or shows there. I've hardly listened to the radio in forever (and don't generally like it when I do), so nothing there. I do all my music discovery (and purchasing, for that matter) online. I probably buy 5-10 albums a month, but without the resources online I don't think I'd ever actually buy music simply because I couldn't find stuff I liked.

• On the post: Felicia Day Building Acting Success The Entrepreneurial Way

  

  antimatter3009 ( profile ), 01 Oct, 2009 @ 06:46am

  Re: Re: Re: Tossing two cents into the pool...

  She could sell specific timeslots. Instead of selling it as $1000/hr, she could sell it as $1000 for 1-2pm on Wednesday (for example). Then she gets to control how many timeslots exist. She could also do this and auction them off as someone mentioned above. Start it at $100 and let people bid up to a few hours before the slot and whoever has the highest bid gets it.

• On the post: German Judge: If Sex While Driving Is Legal, Why Isn't Driving While Phoning?

  

  antimatter3009 ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2009 @ 02:03pm

  Re: The Future

  http://www.bash.org/?240849

• On the post: Google To The World: Don't Be So Sure YouTube Isn't Profitable

  

  antimatter3009 ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2009 @ 07:36am

  Re: Re: Re: Re:

  "I mean, even the article stated that it seemed like Google enjoyed having people think that something wasn't true; how is that NOT dishonest?"
  
  I don't understand what your point is here. The article says that Google seemed to enjoy it, but then surprisingly set the record straight. To use your words: how is that NOT honest?
  
  Really, Google isn't perfect (it's not possible to please all the people all the time, etc.), but they're a large step up from just about everyone. They provide many services whose only cost is non-intrusive ads, they support open source (Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, etc.), they generally stand on the "right" side of major tech issues (according to general consensus, anyway), etc.
  
  Also, the link you posted about making Google illegal really has nothing to do with Google specifically. It's about search engine liability, of which Google happens to be one. I don't think arguments being made about search engines in general can really be used as any kind of specific attack on Google.

• On the post: RIAA Has A Blog? And They Use It To Read My Mind!

  

  antimatter3009 ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2009 @ 12:03pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: from the business model as a "right" department...

  Just to add to this, movies and music are not at all the same. Generally, once you see a movie you're done with it, at least for awhile. On the other hand, music is listened to over and over again. In other words, while HBO showing a movie actually might dissuade people from buying it elsewhere (since they've already seen it), hearing a song on the radio is much more likely to encourage a purchase since it can be listened to repeatedly.

• On the post: Why Is Boeing Storing Direct Deposit Info On A Laptop?

  

  antimatter3009 ( profile ), 21 Nov, 2005 @ 09:20am

  Re: All too common...

  I remember that email = . Very comforting to know that you're info can be so easily stolen no matter who you're dealing with.