beckerist 's BestNetTech Comments

Latest Comments (152) comment rss

  • On the post: Italy Tries, Fails To Ban The Pirate Bay

    beckerist ( profile ), 11 Aug, 2008 @ 08:24am

    My belief:

    I think you're pretty close, except it's self-regulating (and therefore responsible) governments that tend to do this. The **AA's of the world are trying to get the governments to ban things that might hurt their business model (with money, ironically.) The politicians of the world that DON'T get campaign contributions from said organizations will then put the cap on the **AA agenda. Often citing "maintenance of privacy" as the primary reason for doing so. The same government might have two different agendas, it just depends on who controls what.

  • On the post: Congress Pushes Forward On Banning Already Banned In-Flight Calls

    beckerist ( profile ), 01 Aug, 2008 @ 02:23pm

    Re:

    It's a way to grab attention to your cause. Childish and unprofessional as it seems, it happens allllll the time.

    Now if only I remembered any examples...! (Read: Too lazy to look it up)

  • On the post: Is Embedding Infringement? MPAA Sues Two Sites

    beckerist ( profile ), 30 Jul, 2008 @ 10:30am

    Linking to MP3's

    I've found a similar situation with my own site (lame plug I know but it's relevant!)
    I commonly post to links where you can download mp3s of the songs I transcribe (fileflyer, zshare...etc...)
    I've been threatened multiple times in regards to this, while I maintain it's perfectly legal. Between free speech (servers and I are both in the US,) fair use and the fact that all I'm doing is searching Google and posting a link I find that's already out there (I have nothing to do with otherwise!)

    ...I'm VERY interested in the outcome of this suit.

  • On the post: Italy Wants To Put Google Execs In Jail Over Uploaded Video

    beckerist ( profile ), 25 Jul, 2008 @ 01:33pm

    Re: Viva Italia!

    Mike! When are you going to allow us to block useless, trolling, flaming and generally NON-productive comment posters? (See parent.) I'd really love it if I could never see another comment from this trash again.

  • On the post: Andrew Cuomo Threatens To Sue Comcast If It Doesn't Sign Up For His Plan To Pretend To Fight Child Porn

    beckerist ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2008 @ 10:18am

    Re: Who does this remind you of?

    ...AND ex gov Mario Cuomo... I f---ing hate this state...

  • On the post: How Would You Sentence A Convicted Spammer?

    beckerist ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2008 @ 05:40am

    Re: sentence

    I believe that if a volume could be determined, than the spammer should be forced to pay per email sent. If they can't pay the fine, a "time per dime" jail sentence should do.

  • On the post: Apple Finally Sues Psystar For Selling Mac Clones

    beckerist ( profile ), 15 Jul, 2008 @ 02:43pm

    Re:

    However, Apple is the sole producer of both the hardware and software. It isn't violating anti-trust because there are certainly other options out there (ie: PCs)

    Apple's argument is that you can't have one (software) without the other (hardware.)

    Apple's real point of contention is that they can jack the price of their hardware to 400% manufacturing costs, which is how they make a large portion of their money. With a competing hardware provider, their software (sold cheap) isn't going to make them the same gobs of cash.

    Apple: "Our product is both hardware AND software, you can't sell one without the other."

    Psystar: "F--- you, we don't have to SIGN anything to get your software, and it's perfectly legal to resell..."

  • On the post: Judge's Order For Google To Hand Over YouTube Usage Morphs Into Google Backlash On Storing IPs

    beckerist ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2008 @ 09:17am

    Re:

    Sunpass == EZPass? Interstate IR transmitter so you can drive right through the booths?

  • On the post: Japanese Gov't Says No (Again) To An iPod Tax

    beckerist ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2008 @ 02:56pm

    Re:

    Lobbyists lining politicians wallets have a bit more say (unfortunately) than you or I, so long as the politicians can let it fly low enough under the radar to get reelected.

  • On the post: Japanese Gov't Says No (Again) To An iPod Tax

    beckerist ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2008 @ 02:53pm

    Re:

    Plus, a ton of market research is done to find the ideal cost of trivial (see: non-essential) items such as this. Much like Starbucks coffee at $4 a pop, if an iPod were inflated artificially then I wouldn't be surprised to see a considerable (noticeable?) dip in sales, ultimately hurting them in the long run.

  • On the post: Turns Out Americans Are Watching More TV Than Ever

    beckerist ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2008 @ 07:51am

    I don't pay for cable, I use:

    I have a TV, a PC hooked to said TV via DVI cable, and a solid internet connection. I don't pay for cable, I use:

    http://www.hulu.com/ -- Last Comic Standing, Family Guy, American Dad, Simpsons, Scrubs, The Office...
    http://www.joost.com/ -- The National Geographic Channel is almost as addicting as the History Channel used to be for me, though there's a lot of other stuff too.
    http://www.southparkstudios.com/ -- Every single south park episode is available to watch. Paraphrased from Matt Stone and Trey Parker: "We got sick of having to pirate our own show, so we had our website guys hook us (and all of you!) up!"
    http://www.myeasytv.com/ -- Only have tried a few times when bored, but seems to be full of stuff.

    ...and of course the various Youtube, BreakTV... and Bittorrent sites out there that can get me shows within minutes of airing!

  • On the post: Turns Out Just Saying A Marketing Campaign Is Viral Doesn't Make It So

    beckerist ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2008 @ 07:40am

    Re:

    www.ilovebees.com :-)

    Halo 4 PLEEEEEASEEE!!!! :-P

  • On the post: Music As Torture: Are Musicians Whose Music Is Blasted At Gitmo Compensated For Public Performance?

    beckerist ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2008 @ 10:57am

    Re: The right to life

    Without getting into a huge flamewar...why should someone who has killed or tortured others be given any rights?

    The right to life implies that they themselves would give the same liberties if the shoe were on the other foot, and they clearly would not.

  • On the post: Japanese ISPs Decide That Criminal Confessions Should Be Blocked Online

    beckerist ( profile ), 02 Jul, 2008 @ 02:55pm

    Re: premeditation

    premeditation implies sanity...you had time to think about it and STILL did it...

    insanity really only applies in "acts of passion" or impulse reactions, OR when the defendant has a history of mental illness...in which case his blog should have probably been monitored anyway

  • On the post: Is A GoDaddy VP Bidding Against Customers In Domain Auctions?

    beckerist ( profile ), 30 Jun, 2008 @ 02:29pm

    Re: Go Daddy

    Yes and I'll give examples, but it wasn't with GoDaddy:

    http://www.scientistscanvas.com/ (link farm now)
    http://www.allpopcorn.com/ (has since been resold, was a link farm)
    http://www.proggin.com/ (looks like either a sophisticated link farm or some crappy ad-ridden portal...)

    All domains I either at one point owned and lost OR straight up wanted. I researched and found they were all available at the time of search, and within days of searching they were unavailable.

    This happened to me all 3 times, using multiple different search engines, so I STARTED using GoDaddy. I'm still not sure which search was the culprit, so if you want a list of those I used (to avoid) just email me...

    While this is not the same as bidding on domains to jack prices (which is incredibly unethical) I DO trust GoDaddy to not sell the information about what was searched for, and they haven't let me down yet.

  • On the post: Don't Blame Rick752 For Blocking Ads; Blame Those Who Made Ads Annoying

    beckerist ( profile ), 26 Jun, 2008 @ 11:16am

    Re: Re: And yet...

    Me too, and yet I still had ads on my own site.

    Note: I say had, because in 7 years of me owning the .com I made a grand total of $250 in advertisements (and I was told that was EXCEPTIONAL!)

    Didn't even cover hosting costs and I'd rather my visitors feel like they are on a homepage than a business (I don't care about making money off the site.)

    Come to think of it, the ads might go back up now that Adblock is around simply because people have an opportunity to opt-out from seeing them. Hmm so is this a case of Adblock INSPIRING the use of ads?! I believe so!!

  • On the post: Don't Blame Rick752 For Blocking Ads; Blame Those Who Made Ads Annoying

    beckerist ( profile ), 26 Jun, 2008 @ 11:04am

    Re: Adblock saved my life

    Plus, think of the bandwidth you're saving not having to load the flash files and all that.

    I also use PeerGuardian that acts as a firewall. If you turn on the "advertisers" list, then the sites don't even resolve to their IPs (they resolve to your own localhost) so you don't even download ANYTHING!

    Google Text ads don't bother me, and in fact I've unblocked them from adblock. I don't mind clicking the occasional link to help a webmaster out if they actually give me ads worth clicking.

  • On the post: Prince Sues Musicians For Making A Tribute Album For His Birthday

    beckerist ( profile ), 26 Jun, 2008 @ 11:01am

    Re: Thieves

    Um, it's called a tribute album. They aren't making money off of it, so they aren't freeloaders. They paid for all expenses out of pocket, and the musicians were eating the cost of the time and energy they spent.

    Personally, I'm all for covers and remixes, I believe that you can truly create a new and beautiful song using and existing foundation. Do you think that sitting women were never a subject for artists before Da Vinci came along?

    Prince is a talented musician, but that doesn't have any bearing on his credentials as a copyright lawyer... or a winner for that matter...

  • On the post: Perhaps The Senate Won't Roll Over On Telecom Immunity

    beckerist ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2008 @ 09:04am

    Re: two party politics

    Transparency in government is the only way to reduce corruption. Lifetime terms work for the Judicial branch, but every other branch needs that check of being temporary to ensure the pool doesn't become stagnant.

    It's websites like this that inform people like ME what's going on in government that will ultimately reduce corruption. It also falls on you, the US citizen, to write your representatives and tell them where YOU stand, because ultimately that's who they answer to (whether they act like it or not.)

  • On the post: EFF Protects Anonymity Of MySpace User

    beckerist ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2008 @ 07:03am

    Re: Privacy & ISP

    Wait what? This has nothing to do with ISPs, and even if they COULD monitor everything their customers do, do you know how much storage would be required to LOG it all?

    This also has nothing to do with digital music or copyrighted material.

    OFF TOPIC, and really not far off of a troll...

Next >>