Posts by Turtle

Alternatives.

"ads'n'search giant"

Or, let's say, "surveillance 'n' datamining giant" or "content-stealing 'n' copyright-infringement giant". Or "stalking 'n' tracking giant". Well you are free to think up as many more as you want for whatever the context requires.

And here *I* though...

Well *I* am a bit surprised to find that was any flammable material left, as I thought that the OLPC project crashed and burned a long time ago.

Translation!

"Dealing with the question of how they will actually make money, Instagram says: 'We plan to experiment with different models as we grow and learn what special value we can provide to the community to make their collective experience more engaging, exciting and useful.'"

Translation: "Dealing with the question of how they will actually make money, Instagram says: "We have no idea at all. But we DO have some buzzwords, and we plan on using them to mystify and grow fat on the investment money of suggestible venture capitalists."

Worrisome.

"Stavridis is an avid social media user"

Worrisome.

Let me fix that for you!

"A Forbes magazine article on the study quoted one of the researchers saying that Facebook access restrictions make it difficult for employers and the whole fucking world to see a potential applicant’s entire profile."

Well score one for Facebook.

The same mistakes, or different ones, lead to a similar outcome

"The book business has no intention of making the same mistakes as the music business – such as suing members of the public – and it is welcoming digital markets rather than fighting them."

It won't help them all that much. As e-reading becomes more popular, expect piracy to further undermine authors' ability to make a living from writing.

Incidentally, there is and was no strategy that the music industry could have implemented that would have prevented the situation they are now in: what they were and are up against is the tech companies that massively profit from piracy, and end-users who want everything they want, for free. What kind of business strategy could overcome that? Any remedies must come from legislation and law enforcement.

If there is one factor that might mitigate the effects on piracy on the publishing business, it is that a physical book and an e-book are vastly different experiences, as opposed to music being the pretty nearly same irrespective of its being listened to as a stolen file on an mp3 player or on a cd player as a purchased, physical item. (And don't tell me about bitrates and frequency response; I know all about it. Few people care.)

And, of course, the amount of music one can consume vastly outstrips the number of books one can consume.

And someone will have to explain to me why suing downloaders is a bad strategy. After all, by definition, someone who is downloading files illegally is hardly a paying customer. Actually it seems to me that the risk of being sued might be the only possible way to deter downloaders. (I seem to recall reading a study that said that those RIAA lawsuits actually had helped to either reduce or slow the growth of piracy, but I can not find the link now.) After all, what is a downloader going to do? Stop listening to music? Download again and riskget sued again? Boycott the music? What difference would boycotting the music make, if the boycotters stealing rather than purchasing, anyway?

Like this?

"He has also pleaded guilty to using stolen credit card information to pay for car parts valued at $3,450."

So, something like this, then:

"Hi! My name is Sabu! I am an avenging sword in the fight for justice against the forces of capitalism, and also use stolen credit cards to buy auto parts! Long live the Revolution!"

Getting even!

"Website graffiti for Lulzsec arrests".

Well that really evens up the score, now doesn't it?!

Oh, well, that's okay then.

"The EFF points out that over a third of takedown notices received by Google are false..."

On Nov 16, 2011, a Google representative testified before Congress that Google had processed 5 million DMCA takedown notices to that point in 2011. (I.e. the 5 million takedown notices were _not_ for a full year.) So if Eff is saying that fully 1/3 of them are false, then 2/3 of them, i.e. 3.3 million DMCA takedown notices, were true.

So Eff figures that that's okay then, I guess.

http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/how-many-dmca-notices-are-too-many/

http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/the-500000000-cost-of-googles-five-million-dmca-notices/

Very surprising.

If I recall correclty, one of LulzSec's targets was a military contractor, from which they managed to extract a very extensive list of the email addresses of US military personnel, (and which they subsequently made public). I wonder if that would be suitable grounds for charging LulzSec with espionage.

Also I have to say that I am very surprised by this turn of events, and how it turns out that the internet is FAR less anonymous than Lulzsec and Anonymous believed.

What is _not_ surprising, and is in perfect accord with the common wisdom that it's easy to be an internet tough guy sitting in front of one's computer, is that Tough Guy Sabu rolled on his comrades.

Kind of makes you wonder.

"However, because they are “free”, it does not mean that Google can take the privacy of its users for granted in order to maximise profit."

Well, to this point in time, as a matter of actual fact, this statement is wrong. They can do so and they have been doing so and they are determined to continue doing so.

I guess Google thinks that if their privacy policy is -sufficiently- incoherent, then it can legally said to have no legal meaning. And if it has no legal meaning, then Google can't violate it, now can they? Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?

A VERY special message!

Larry, Serge, and Eric have a -very- special message for Viviane, the EU, and everyone else: "Fuck you".

Talkin' 'bout De-g-g-g-generation

Although I have not tried Windows 8, judging by the article, it will most likely serve as proof that the most difficult thing to design is a useful UI. The Vista and WIn 7 UI's were so bad, as far as I am concerned, that I am still using XP. To be fair, however, my major complaints were not addressed in the article (bizarre desktop clicking behavior, unusable Windows Explorer, unusable search function, etc.)

But again to be fair, nearly every app I use has undergone what their developers would call "evolution" but what I consider "degeneration": oversimplification and abandoning of important UI elements, eccentric window designs, concealment of essential icons, fields, and functions. And all this seems to be done for the sake of the mere appearance of the app, and is being done, quite happily as far as the developers are concerned, at the expense of usability.

If my "user experience" ends up frozen in, let's say, 2006, well that's just how it goes. I use a very expensive piece of software as my main app, and it has also been stricken with "interface degeneration". I realize that its latest iteration, like this latest iteration of Windows, is more powerful than what I am currently using, but I refuse to cope with the jagged edges, or having some coder's incompetence thrust in my face every time that I look at my monitor.

Don't like the new look.

This new layout for the comments is poor. I don't know to whom one needs to complain about it, but please go back to the previous layout, instead of this less readable "wider-columns" one, that incorporates the currently very fashionable "let's see how homogenous we can make the disparate elements of the page seem' so that, for example, all the posts kind of run into one another instead of being instantly recognized as discrete elements.

(Off-topic)

This new layout for the comments is poor. I don't know to whom one needs to complain about it, but please go back to the previous layout, instead of this "wider-columns" one, that incorporates the currently very fashionable "let's see how homogenous we can make the disparate elements of the page seem' so that, for example, all the posts kind of run into one another instead of being instantly recognized as discrete elements.

"Confusion"

"Nevertheless Google has implemented the tweaks and defended the move by saying that halting it at this stage would "confuse" the firm's userbase."

The "confusion" here is Google's, if they think that they can hold themselves above the law forever.

Flight!

"Leg-roped to an electronic monitor, Dotcom will be subject to strict bail conditions, with the court considering him a continuing “flight risk”.

Well I would have thought that, if the court considered him a flight risk, then bail would not be granted.

(Although to interpret this a bit more literally, then the only way this hambeast is going to achieve "flight" is if he is tethered to a CH-47 Chinook.)

"Paid"?

""We believe that inventors should be paid for their innovations"

Oh nice! Now maybe you'll agree that content creators and copyright holders should be paid too!

Lacking facts and context

Tis story is very poor in both facts and context. For a better overview of the matter please see:

http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/02/motorola-cant-enforce-standard.html

Note that it is the German courts who have decided that Apple's latest offer was sufficient and that a refusal by MMI to accept it would be an anti-trust violation.

Interesting quote: "With today's ruling, Googlorola's strategy has failed even before the companies have formally merged. This is such a major blow to Google's patent strategy that [...] it should now give serious consideration to the possibility of coughing up the $2.5 billion break-up fee[...] and walk out on this deal. [...] But in all likelihood, Google will nevertheless try to close the deal, if only to avoid a colossal embarrassment for its CEO and other decision-makers."

Scorecard so far: $12.5bn spent to avoid embarrassing The 3 Assholes (Schmidt, Brin, Page), and another $500 million to the US Feds to keep them out of prison for profiting from illegal and counterfeit drug sales. Of course, if Google walks away from Motorola and pays the $2.5bn breakup fee, they reduce their losses from $13bn to a trifling $3bn. But even $3bn is a lot of stupidity...

Every minute.

"The aiding the enemy charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, while the other counts carry a combined maximum of more than 150 years in jail."

And he deserves every minute of it.

Whose agenda is getting pushed, really?

"Various members of Anonymous denounced this warning as scare-mongering geared towards creating a climate in which Congress allows the passage of the 2012 cyber-security bill despite objections by Senate Republicans. They say it gives federal authorities too much power over private-sector infrastructure firms. 'We're pretty sure, that cyber bill is the reason for the renewed NSA fear-mongering," AnonymousIRC retorted.'"

In line with today's article about Labour attacking Google's Tory hirelings, we once again see the odd (i.e. not odd really at all) sight of these loudmouth "hacktivists" on the side of the Republicans.

Did these hacktivist idiots really not understand that the *inevitable* reaction to their high-publicity attacks would be increased government involvement? Government abhors a power vaccuum, and these fools and tools and been advertising the power vacuum on the internet with such enthusiasm that you'd think that they're getting paid to do so.

If someone wanted to establish firm government control over the internet, they couldn't ask for better shills for their agenda, then these "hactivists".

Fuuny! Or maybe not.

Now what would be funnier than seeing the freetards supporting the Tories? But then again, considering how many freetards are fans of the neo-nazi-run Pirate Bay, supporting the Tories should be a cakewalk. But yet again, who really cares about politics when one's access to free digital content is threatened?

"Victimized"?

"The Pirate Party UK was founded on similar disaffection, and feelings of victimisation and powerlessness, which far right parties have traditionally exploited."

They feel "victimized and powerless" because... they are to be prevented from stealing other people's work? It's okay then if *I* feel "victimized" because the local bank keeps its money in a locked vault, right?

Taking a walk...

Taking a walk down 5th Avenue in Manhattan one passes, just north of Rockefeller Center, the Coca-Cola store, the NBA store, the Disney store, and maybe some other which I am forgetting. These store are solely "vanity enterprises" - they probably contribute next to nothing the bottom line of their respective owners. Most of the IT stores will probably be about the same.

Nice!

"aforementioned enpopment of caps in the hapless laptop"

Nice!

Oh well in that case!

"Steve Jobs' [...] personality flaws were all investigated by the FBI"

Well in that case, they know *all* there is to know about him.

As usual, when Google wins, everyone else loses.

Can you give me some examples when Microsoft demanded price-gouging royalties for a FRAND patent? Or some examples of promises made to a standards organization that they subsequently violated?

On the other hand you can be sure that if Motorola/Google is successful in this ploy, then FRAND will cease to have any meaning at all, and every holder of a FRAND patent will demand the same kind of exorbitant royalties - not only Microsoft. And *you* can expect prices of electronics goods to soar, as either the exorbitant royalties will need to paid, or expensive research to find workarounds will need to be found, or competition will be restricted - or all of the foregoing. But no matter how it works out, if Google/Motorola wins with this ploy, *you* will lose.

But then again, that oh-so-clever "M$" you use, tells us that you are *already* a loser.

"Troubled"? Right. "Take"? Right.

"[The EFF is] troubled that so many lawful users of Megaupload.com had their property taken from them without warning."

"Troubled"? Now why the fuck is that? These are the same scumbags who *take* bags of money from Google to support and help insure that Google can continue to *take* the property of copyright holders and help anybody who also wants to *take* it, as opposed to law-enforcement entities acting in according with legal norms and court orders. But then again, as long as Google can *take* its cut, I guess the Eff thinks it's alright.

Additional Culpable Party Not Mentioned In Article.

There is an "unnamed co-conspirator" also bearing responsibility for the situation mentioned in this article and it is the Chinese government itself. They are *easily* capable of passing laws which, if not remedying the situation entirely (they after all do not want to discourage investment and economic growth) would at least ameliorate the worst of the abuses.

A good question to ask is what is preventing the Chinese workers from unionizing. Is it because the workforce is too closely surveilled and any such activity is immediately met with sackings (or threats and intimidation of various kinds), or are there laws there prohibiting them from organizing)?

Western consumers can (and I am sure that many of them do) shield themselves with the idea that products which they buy have appeared on the shelves of retail stores, both physical and virtual, by a long process of legal actions and transactions in many legal jurisdictions, and that each of those jurisdictions have outlawed any egregious abuses, or have given their workers the ability to unionize and thereby ameliorate the abuses themselves - although obviously they do not explicitly reason it out like this. In an ideal world, this chain of reasoning would be admissible and correct. But in the real world...