Atkray's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
This week’s favorites post come from Atkray.
I get asked about it, so for those who wonder, Atkray combines the ATK from the motorcycle company, not the rocket engine manufacturer, with Ray my given name. I am grateful for this opportunity to give back a little and hope that my reflections on the past week will be of value or entertainment to some of you.
By Sunday night, I find that I have stared at the favorites, the most insightful, and funny posts long enough. Consequently, by Monday morning I am ready to see what the new week brings. This week I skipped the first post and went straight to the monkeys writing Shakespeare. I was a tad disappointed to see the output was not what I expected and for some reason the side note about the real monkeys typing mostly the letter “s” and then urinating on the keyboards left me wondering if, for the sake of authenticity, it is necessary to program the virtual monkey to do the same. Unfortunately, the comments deteriorated to personal attacks rather quickly before changing to a most interesting discussion of infinite and near infinite. I can see monkeys writing Shakespeare becoming the next folding@home.
Behaving more like monkeys than officers, NYPD kicked off what became the theme for the week, cops being caught on video and lying.
Building on that theme, on Tuesday we had the Canadians getting involved with a face-tasing, as well as the bonus multi-angle feature of the Wall Street incident from Monday. On Wednesday the police in Chicago felt left out, so we got the story of cops disrupting funeral processions and then lying about it. I really enjoyed the position put forth by an AC that it is only a small percentage of the cops that are bad so we shouldn?t worry. On Thursday, the entire state of Illinois joined the theme and decided to appeal a ruling that filming police is protected by that pesky old Constitution. Of course allowing the focus to shift westward is unacceptable to New Yorkers so they started rounding up people with cameras and hauling them off in the paddy wagon, prompting an epic comment from Dark Helmet (widely rumored to live in or around Chicago) that made me go digging through old boxes so I could watch Ghostbusters again. Friday returned back to Illinois with the story of a guy being threatened with a felony and 15 years in jail for filming a traffic stop.
It is a rare week when we don?t get more news from Righthaven, and I find it entertaining to see the Karma boomerang in action — although it appears that even the judges involved may be feeling a little pity for Righthaven and the beating it is taking.
The seemingly inevitable arrival of the police state was shown to us by officials at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, where officials decided to censor a professor by misunderstanding (totally) a poster he put up. Nice to see that freedom of thought and expression won?t be interfering with the indoctrinations. This story was my favorite of the week with the second poster the professor put up making me literally laugh out loud.
I was disappointed to see Governor Moonbeam (disclosure: I lived in the state when he and Linda were an item) has the opportunity to help out the citizens by protecting their 4th Amendment rights on traffic stops, but appears to be bought and paid for by the law enforcement lobbyists.
The news that Direct TV sees that the prices Hollywood dictates are not the prices customers are willing to pay gave me a glimmer of hope. But then Time Warner’s belief that no one is cutting the cord snapped me back to reality. Even the little old ladies in my neighborhood are talking about dropping cable.
The Friday afternoon downer that (as expected) the US will be signing ACTA still wasn?t enough to overcome the unexpected surprise that at least 2 Senators on the Judiciary Committee believe that TOS violations should not be a crime. I fired off another email to Senator Hatch telling him to listen to his colleagues, but figure I?ll get another form letter in about 3 weeks.
I want to close with an observation. Mike posted about a conference and mentioned a discount for TD readers. It was a nice gesture and the conference may appeal to visitors here. As can be expected, the usual group of ACs promptly chimed in with derogatory remarks and personal attacks. This is common and as mentioned here is not indicative of all ACs. Mike undergoes daily personal attacks by those who seem incapable of expressing themselves in an articulate and adult manner. Others are frequently attacked as well. Those attacking resort to third-grade playground bully tactics and run away when confronted. They truly are cowards. To those who insist on trying to degrade Techdirt, you only show others your true colors. I appreciate when someone with an opposing view brings a valid and well thought out disagreement, but unfortunately that seems to be an increasingly rare event. To those who do, I thank you. While I may not agree with you, at least I can respect you and should I meet you in person I would enjoy sitting down over lunch and having a conversation… You keep all ACs from being painted with the broadbrush of trolling.
Thank you to Mike for this opportunity to share.
Hopefully no one tells him about War Kitteh and Denial of Service dog.
Or you could try not not counting your negative words.
The damge from copyright
...and coming up on the left side of the tour bus you will see TAC. TAC was once a prolific and insightful commenter online but the relentless encroachment of what previous generations called "Intellectual Property" (but now properly understood to be imaginary) rights on individual rights caused TAC like millions of others to self censor due to concerns about the financial implications of being improperly accused. Sadly, The Enlightenment arrived too late to save TAC.
I can't help but think that AI has great potential in the patent approval process for quickly finding prior examples and/or deciding something is obvious.
Coming soon?
Does this mean that a link to Techdirt on Mastodon is coming soon to the Tools & Services section at the bottom of the page?
I don't know that any of us will live long enough to see the courts disbar their own. Let each court keep the cash from sanctions. Maybe if the courts started treating sanctions the same way that LEOS treat civil asset forfeiture?
Any US citizen thinking of traveling abroad really should watch the decades old travel documentary, Midnight Express.
Them going to homes doesn't turn out so great either. A better option is to treat people equally and call them up and tell then to show up at the police station with their attorney so they can be booked and released.
Framework
Linus tech tips recently did a video about how he invested in Framework and has a clickbaity title asking if he should take back his investment. Answer is no, but he does show replacing the motherboard in it and then re-purposing the old motherboard in a 3d printed case. Having read Mike's earlier post about Framework is what made me curious about this video. It also provides context on just how ridiculous this action by lenovo is.
Another plausible reason is so when they all open fire they know who not to point their weapons at. I hate that I just wrote that.
Axel Springer may want to look into relocating to Missouri.
The governor there has the same view of how browsers work.
I believe the military term for this situation is SNAFU
Someone needs to tell George Clinton about this brewery.
Because trademarks
Re: The Kids Are Alright
Leave it to a musician to quote 2 rock legends in a post.
Re: It's ok, I locked it...
...and we got this open. LPL
Re:
Nah, that is the exact reason copyright needs to extend past death, to prevent hit jobs. The unfair competition is always someone else is making money so it must be unfair. I will confess I have the faintest hope they take this to court and Tarentino gets a win, with the copyright claim failing in such a way as to make it clear that linking to a non-infringing item is not infringement.
Beware of Tech companies bearing gifts...
How is Apple going to profit from this?
1: They get to say that right to repair is redundant and a government overreach.
2: They can conveniently price it so that no one uses it:
3: They can the further claim right to repair is pointless because they offer a service an no one uses it.
4:?????
5: Profit
Alright then,
The officer has knowledge and experience that the general public does not,” Massock said.
If this is true, then why do these same officers need qualified immunity?
Thanks
Thank you for pointing this out an explaining it.
Re: Re:
You have been here long enough to know that Mike is not going to implement a "Sad but True" button.