Rosedale 's BestNetTech Comments

Latest Comments (106) comment rss

  • On the post: Oh Look, People Are Already Looking At Expanding How Selectable Output Control Will Be Abused

    Rosedale ( profile ), 22 Dec, 2009 @ 09:26am

    This would be horrible

    What about all those people who record a sporting event for the purpose of watching it on their own time. I mean with the movies at least there is some logic since it would be VoD, but a sporting event is just absurd. I recorded the Wimbledon finals one year because I had something going on during the showing. And I know many people who regularly record sporting events and watch them in full after the fact. Another good method is letting the game start and watch it on a 30 minute, or so, delay to skip some commercials at the beginning. In this case not only would it "break" people's systems, but really, really, piss off a bunch of people who have perfectly LEGAL and legitimate uses for time shifting the game.

    Bad form from whomever suggested this as a fix. Bad, Bad, Bad!

  • On the post: If You Make A Mistake With A Paywall, It Can Linger For A Long Time

    Rosedale ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2009 @ 01:30pm

    Re: pay walls...

    The core of his content is absolutely free. Most users go blissfully through their entire day not only not knowing, but not caring that he has a "paywall." I know, but couldn't care less and so far haven't found a reason to pay. But for those people who do find it valuable more power to them and Mike. I think any fessing is needed. If I like a BestNetTech article I share the link and *anyone* can view it. Works like a charm.

  • On the post: If You Make A Mistake With A Paywall, It Can Linger For A Long Time

    Rosedale ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2009 @ 10:48am

    NYT

    It was much the same with New York Times. I remember getting links from time to time that I could read because of the paywall. Almost worse were the ones I could read, but try to browse to more content only to be denied. I even refused to create a free account to most sites I am only passing by. It got so bad that I refused to follow a link to NYT and didn't read them for a very, very long time. It wasn't until just this year when I got my iPhone and downloaded the NYT app. Everything on it was free and I found the content to be very good. I now share plenty of links with friends and read them weekly (though not daily). I don't know when they dropped their whole walled garden stuff, but the stigma lasted through college and up to 3 years after.

  • On the post: So What's Wrong With Transparency Again?

    Rosedale ( profile ), 14 Oct, 2009 @ 08:37am

    O'Reilly media

    O'Reilly has been trying for some time to open up Government and provide more transparency. There is actually a pretty big push from Tim O'Reilly. The idea is to get the "geeks" together to churn through data and do something useful with it.

    Anyway here was a take on Radar http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/10/larry-lessig-and-naked-transpa.html

    Data by itself won't solve anything, but doing something with that data can accomplish a lot. http://www.gov2summit.com/

  • On the post: US Opens Up All Sorts Of Gov't Documents

    Rosedale ( profile ), 06 Oct, 2009 @ 01:36pm

    More info for your reading pleasure

    http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/10/questions-and-answers-about-th.html

    "I gathered questions from a variety of sources, including on-line discussion groups and twitter, and have been doing email back and forth with both Ray and Mike. Hope this is useful (it certainly has been fun to do)!"

  • On the post: Oh No! Book Piracy Is Coming! Run And Hide!

    Rosedale ( profile ), 06 Oct, 2009 @ 12:21pm

    O'Reilly media

    I work for O'Reilly media. We are actually quite bold in being one of the first to market on the whole ebook thing. We actually offer quite a few books as PDF downloads. I know we are a breed of our own, but we don't worry much about piracy in the process. I don't have much of anything to do with the selling or monitoring of any of that, but my understanding is that O'Reilly has plenty of books online in various places that aren't authorized, but that really hasn't hurt the sales all that much.

    Of course I hear a lot of this second hand, and it is totally unscientific, but it seems that if you have a good enough product, people are willing to pay. For us our brand is sustained by the community that we foster. We are loved in the tech world and people trust the products we produce. The money follows that sense of community.

  • On the post: As Newspaper Execs Discuss Putting Up Online Paywalls, London Evening Standard Paper Edition Goes Free

    Rosedale ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2009 @ 10:05am

    Metro

    I still say Metro is a fine example at least here in Boston. I'd say that 1 out of ever 3 people riding the T in the morning has a metro in hand. I read it on my way home from work so the number could be higher. They have people stand outside to hand it to you as you walk into the stations. It is the only physical news paper I read, and one of very few "news papers" that I read religiously. A lot of it has to do with their local news information that I can't get easily anywhere else, but it is also just a good news paper. And they do it all *for free*. They have my business. And I keep coming back. In fact if I miss a day I feel out of the loop.

  • On the post: Lily Allen No Longer in Favor Of Kicking People Offline… Just Cutting Back Their Bandwidth

    Rosedale ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2009 @ 08:37am

    Low Bandwidth

    How low would the bandwidth have to be in order to prevent file sharing? Because Torrenting is pretty low bandwidth ordeal. I mean yea I guess the lower the bandwidth the slower the process. So perhaps you would be scaled down, but it would have to be lower than dial up speeds to rule out torrenting.

  • On the post: Lily Allen: Copying Isn't Alright… Unless It's Done By Lily Allen

    Rosedale ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2009 @ 09:43am

    50 is selfish? What about her?

    I mean if 50 is selfish for figuring out a way to make money without pissing off users and that somehow makes him selfish for not thinking of other people? Isn't she equally selfish then? I mean she isn't thinking of 50, or Radiohead or NIN or any other group that figured out a new way. So really she has no point!

  • On the post: Class Action Copyright Suit Filed Against Scribd… By Jammie Thomas' Lawyers?

    Rosedale ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2009 @ 09:42am

    This is a good thing. Inept Lawyers

    Given how inept they were with the RIAA trial this is probably a good thing. They'll stink up the court room for a bit, lose, and go home. Than we can get some good case law on the issue.

  • On the post: Ticketmaster Trying To Cut Down On Scalpers… Or Increase Fee Collection For Itself?

    Rosedale ( profile ), 18 Sep, 2009 @ 12:15pm

    Buy but give away

    What if I buy, but then give away the tickets. I bought two tickets for a concert. My wife suddenly couldn't come so I asked a friend to come along. Now perhaps that wouldn't have been such a problem since I purchased the tickets and all, but what if I skipped out and told him and his wife to go?

    I just don't like the idea of locking things out like this.

  • On the post: Recording Industry Insiders Complain About Musicians Who Argue Against Kicking People Off The Internet

    Rosedale ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2009 @ 09:55am

    Somebody

    Anyone notice how last quote said "somebody" Not that the artist should be paid, but that somebody should...ideally them. That is the issue. It isn't about the artist it is about their own pocketbooks. How dare and artist try to go around the perfect system and cut them out. They must be "naive."

  • On the post: Can You Copyright Homework Titles?

    Rosedale ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2009 @ 08:54am

    I understand the professor

    I understand where the professor is coming from I really do, but really it comes down to what the student wants to get out of the degree. I am taking classes right now, but even in my BS and MA degrees there were times that I could google some answers it is especially true in computer science (the classes that I am taking now). Two things, first if I do nothing but copy code straight from google search than it stands to reason that the professor would realize it if he searched google. I think you can tell when someone just up and copies code without attempting to change anything. So the professor could just deal with each situation on its own. Personally I would feel dirty copying code from the internet. I have occasionally used the internet as a resource, but in general I always try to do my own work for my own logic. But honestly in today's society google and searching is a big part of the industry. Why reinvent the wheel if someone else has done it for you. I think a better programmer is one who can come up with it himself, but if someone gets by copying code from the internet it will likely catch up with them in the end. When I was in music it was much the same way. If I copied a paper online it may have gotten me a grade, but it would have caught up with me eventually.

    So I guess what I am saying is I see this as a non-issue. For real cheating it will probably be pretty obvious and for everything else, even what is missed, it will likely catch up with the student anyway. Some day he'll be presented with something where no google search will work and if he unprepared let him suffer.

    I have also learned a lot by looking at other people's code. There was an extra credit assignment in my last class where the teacher specifically said you could look at sample code online, but that your code must include certain things. That assignment I ended up using someone else's code, but revamped it to the way I typically do things. That processes actually taught me a lot.

  • On the post: Boston Public Transit Does It Right: Opens Scheduling Data

    Rosedale ( profile ), 20 Aug, 2009 @ 10:02am

    To be fair

    To be fair this took a long time in coming and a lot of complaints. I personally am an every day rider. To work and back from work. So by now I've figured out most things on my own. Still I find myself in uncharted waters from time to time and this info is invaluable. I know when I was in NYC for vacation my iPhone was used to ride public transit. Without it I would have used their subway a lot less.

    From what I can tell there are a lot of great computer geeks in the area planning on some great projects with this new data. Stay tuned and we'll see what happens.

  • On the post: Boston Public Transit Does It Right: Opens Scheduling Data

    Rosedale ( profile ), 20 Aug, 2009 @ 09:59am

    Re: MBTA needs to release real-time info

    Yes, Yes, This is exactly what I want. Real time tracking so I don't have to stand and wait at a bus stop and such.

  • On the post: It Ain't The Link, It's What You Do With The Traffic

    Rosedale ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2009 @ 01:36pm

    How I found BestNetTech

    So way back when I used to frequent slashdot. It was the best, especially before wide spread use of RSS. From time to time, probably not all that often, BestNetTech would be mentioned or an article that linked to BestNetTech was mentioned. I don't remember how many times I clicked through, but eventually I figured out that the topics covered here were near and dear to my heart. So instead of relying on Slashdot I started coming right to the source. It was the same process for Ars Technica. They kept getting linked and every time I liked what they have to say. Actually now I don't really ever go to slashdot because I kept finding that everything they had to say was either a link to sites I already went to or I found out the information from another source. So in my story the aggregator got surpassed by the actual information.

  • On the post: Permission Culture: Want To Quote A Single Sentence In A Book? Pay Up!

    Rosedale ( profile ), 28 Jul, 2009 @ 07:26am

    Who loses?

    I think the only person that loses is the people who think they deserved to be payed for the small quotes. They could have made it in a book thus insuring their lasting impact and instead they are excluded. The book is likely still brilliant, so who loses? Not the reader and not the author it is the artists. It is absurd the way some people think.

    Of course I wouldn't have even thought this would ever be an issue. I cited music sources all the time in college. I couldn't imagine having to pay for them. I think fair use is clearly on his side. Shame the publisher got in the way. All the publisher needed to do was say, "go ahead, I dare you, sue me."

  • On the post: LSU Starts Fining Students For File Sharing; But Seems Quite Confused About It

    Rosedale ( profile ), 20 Jul, 2009 @ 10:15am

    Re: Computer Science department vs bean-counting IT department

    Indeed there is a huge difference between the teaching departments and the hired pay. But the CS department can and should step in to clarify the blatant misinformation. Which is why I said they are either incompetent or mortified. If it is the latter than it is excusable and all things should be cleared up in short order. Same goes for their legal school.

  • On the post: LSU Starts Fining Students For File Sharing; But Seems Quite Confused About It

    Rosedale ( profile ), 20 Jul, 2009 @ 10:12am

    Re:

    If that is really happening at MTU than that may be far worse than what is happening here. I would have serious problems if I went to that school and needed to pay $100 to get my internet back for a mere DMCA notification. It is the educational equivalent to 3 strikes. So glad I go to school in Boston.

  • On the post: LSU Starts Fining Students For File Sharing; But Seems Quite Confused About It

    Rosedale ( profile ), 20 Jul, 2009 @ 08:55am

    Their CS department must be horrified.

    Either their CS department is worthless or they are horrified at this point. Their Law school should be pretty mortified as well. Glad I am not getting a degree from there in either field.

Next >>