mermaldad’s BestNetTech Profile

On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At BestNetTech

mermaldad ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2015 @ 09:40am

Re: Re: Re:

Just like the television show Star Trek , "This Week In BestNetTech History" is a five year mission. Any longer than that, and it would necessarily be reruns, since everything from 5 to 20 years would (obviously) have already been covered.

No, it just goes recursive after that. I for one am looking forward to "This week in 'This week in BestNetTech history' history" posts.

On the post: Jeb Bush Is The Latest Politician To Demonstrate Absolutely No Understanding Of Net Neutrality

mermaldad ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2015 @ 08:15am

Crazy

The idea of regulating free speech with a 1787 constitution is one of the craziest ideas I’ve ever heard.

Just think of the logic of using a 1787 constitution that was designed when we relied on hand-operated printing presses as the basis to regulate the most dynamic part of life in America. It’s not going to be good for consumers. It’s certainly not going to be good for innovation.

On the post: Actress Seeking $1 Million From IMDb For Publishing Her Real Age Was Pulling In Less Than $2000 A Year

mermaldad ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2015 @ 02:10pm

Quite a Longshot

On top of the problems with her suit already mentioned, there's the question of whether publishing her real age violates her privacy or breaches any contract. I'd say her chances of any money are pretty slim.

On the post: EFF To NAACP: Trademark Isn't For Censoring Your Critics

mermaldad ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2014 @ 06:45pm

Obnoxious?

The Radiance Foundation's speech, while wholly obnoxious[...]

While I agree with the OP about the inappropriateness of using trademark law to stifle speech, I have to say that the word "obnoxious" falls short of the mark here. Obnoxious was your little brother on a long car trip when you were ten. How about "reprehensible"?

On the post: Antitrust, DRM & Coffee: Is It Illegal For Keurig To Lock Down Its Brewers?

mermaldad ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2014 @ 06:04pm

The Market is At Work

Just peeked on Amazon, and while all of the 1.0 Keurig machines had 4 and 5 star ratings, the 2.0 machines are averaging about 2 stars. Looks like Keurig's customers aren't as loyal/stupid as Keurig thought.

On the post: Using Spreadsheets In Bioinformatics Can Corrupt Data, Changing Gene Names Into Dates

mermaldad ( profile ), 31 Jul, 2014 @ 10:12am

Re:

Nope. The problem is that Excel converts the value of the cell to the numeric equivalent that represents the date, and also converts the cell format to Date. So if you format as text, you fix one problem, but not the other. "DEC1" becomes 41974, for example.

On the post: Intelligence Lawyer Robert Litt Claims Searching For Possible Privacy Violations Will Violate Privacy

mermaldad ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2013 @ 06:28am

Already violated

"Yeah, I was peeping through your window, and yes, I happened to see you naked, but I shouldn't be arrested for that because if I am arrested, I will have to think about what I saw (as part of my defense, of course) and you don't want me thinking about you naked, do you?"

On the post: The Death Rattle For Blackberry: Once Again, Markets Change Very Quickly

mermaldad ( profile ), 24 Sep, 2013 @ 08:03pm

The elephant NOT in the room

The thing that bothers me about that first graph is the missing elephant. Where's Motorola?

On the post: Dan Brown: Video Games Lead To Violence

mermaldad ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2013 @ 01:10pm

Sorry, someone had to do it...

"I think Dan Brown's books are very dangerous. The quantity of hours that people read these action novels. It becomes a reality of some sort, and that's a part of it. It really comes down to educating schools and parents. To say 'you know what, you can't read that, sorry, I'm just not going to let you do it'."

On the post: Expose A Blatant Security Hole In AT&T's Servers, Get 3.5 Years In Jail

mermaldad ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2013 @ 04:28am

Et tu

"His entire adult life has been dedicated to taking advantage of others, using his computer expertise to violate others' privacy, to embarrass others, to build his reputation on the backs of those less skilled than he,"

Funny how this quote could, with minor grammatical modifications, be applied to the "victim", AT&T...

On the post: Bev Stayart Loses Yet Another Battle Against Levitra, Cialis And Search Engine Results

mermaldad ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2013 @ 07:36pm

Ahh, Bev

My 2013 is so much better now that Bev has appeared in it. She never ceases to amuse me. Some of the other commenters seem to want to associate new terms with her name. However, I am confident that she would be able to do so without any outside help.

On the post: Open Letter To Human Synergistics International In Response To Your Accusation That BestNetTech Is Infringing

mermaldad ( profile ), 30 Nov, 2012 @ 07:18pm

Too far is not far enough

I'm a little disappointed that Mike didn't take the time to explain exactly how to file a DMCA takedown notice. They might need help with that, and I think the result would be even more entertaining.

On the post: Dear Sir, I Am A Nigerian Prince And If You Believe That There's A Bridge I'd Like To Sell You…

mermaldad ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 01:50pm

Legacy players

Hmmm, I just thought of a new business model for the legacy music and movie industries...

On the post: Forget The Death-Star Anti-Mosquito Lasers, Here's How Nathan Myhrvold Can Help Tackle Malaria — And Improve His Image

mermaldad ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2012 @ 01:45pm

A minor nit...

This just a minor nit, a flyspeck, if you will, but male mosquitoes are much *larger* than females, not the other way around.

On the post: Traditional Publisher Ebook Pricing Harming Authors' Careers

mermaldad ( profile ), 09 Aug, 2012 @ 08:42am

overhead

Of course the traditional publishers have more overhead. They have to protect against devaluation. That PC on the desk? They pay $2000 for it, because they wouldn't want to devalue the PC by paying less. Long distance phone calls? They pay 12 cents a minute for the same reason. What's that you say? They don't do that? Then why do they think consumers would want to do it?

On the post: Kevin Smith's Approach To Competing With Piracy: Give Away A Ton, Then Sell Stuff That Can't Be Pirated

mermaldad ( profile ), 10 May, 2012 @ 05:28am

Competes with piracy

@Mike: The problem isn't that "competes" is the wrong word. The problem is how you are reading the phrase. Try it this way: Kevin Smith competes...with piracy!

On the post: When You Create Value It Doesn't Mean You Have To Capture Every Bit Of That Value

mermaldad ( profile ), 30 Apr, 2012 @ 05:50am

crazy talk

This article is just crazy talk. Of course you should squeeze every last bit of value from something you create! A bunch of movie studios are missing out on this. You know those previews that take up the first 15 minutes of every cinema experience? They should be charging viewers for those. Let's face it, if it is a comedy, that's usually where the best jokes are anyway.

On the post: Louis CK: Over $1 Million In Sales In Just 12 Days For DRM-Free Download

mermaldad ( profile ), 23 Dec, 2011 @ 07:42am

The part I disagree with

Having a charitable component is kinda cool. Yes, in this case it's after-the-f cool.

To me, that it is after the fact makes it even cooler. It means that he's giving to charity because he wants to, not to drive sales. That's pretty high up there on the mermaldad heirarchy of commercial charitable giving:

From lowest to highest esteem

For every purchase you make, we'll make a gonation to the Central Ypsilanti Network for Infants, Children and Lepers (CYNICAL), up to $100,000.

My reaction: That's nice, but if you really wanted to give, you wouldn't put a cap on the amount. This is more about sales than a desire to give.

Help us raise money for CYNICAL by donating at the cash register.

My reaction: I'm glad that you are supporting this cause, but when you present the oversized check, will you remember to mention that the money was donated by your customers?

We are donating $100,000 to CYNICAL.

My reaction: that is nice. No gimmicks, just a nice gift to a worthy cause.

On the post: USTR Puts Out Its 'Rogue Sites' List… Can't Even Find 20

mermaldad ( profile ), 21 Dec, 2011 @ 10:29am

I'm with Mr. Smart***

I had much the same idea as Mr. Smart***, although it s?nded like he was talking. about patent trolls. We need some organization to put out a special report of its own, identifying the "rogue"players, individuals and organizations who do the most to distort and abuse copyright, patents, and trademarks from their original purposes. there should be a separate report for each form of IP.

On the post: The Many Killers Of The Film Industry: Volume 2 – A Disaster Called Television

mermaldad ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2011 @ 03:07pm

Filled with omissions, half truths, and outright lies...

...Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about the latest attempts to justify PROTECT IP. Nevertheless, I did notice a glaring omission in this article, on the first line, no less.

The guy's name was actually Fran?ois Magnavoix. The spelling was mangled when he filed for a trademark, and the misspelled name stuck.

Just wanted to do my part to maintain the high standards of veracity expected on BestNetTech.

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