Robert Ring 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (228)

• On the post: Reminder To Parents: Online Kid Filters Don't Really Block All That Much

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2011 @ 08:05pm

  This reminds me of someone I know who was babysitting and somehow didn't know that the kids had gotten on the computer to look up "weiner dogs." The parents came home, and, yeah.....

• On the post: Movie Studios Purposely Crippling Rental DVDs In Misguided Effort To Get People To Buy

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 10 Dec, 2010 @ 09:53am

  Somebody went to a Blockbuster?

• On the post: Some Sanity From Those In Power In The US Government, Concerning TSA Security & Wikileaks

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 03 Dec, 2010 @ 06:32pm

  More like this.

  I swear, reading the news nowadays makes me feel like 100% of everyone in power is either corrupt, stupid, or a moderate combination of the two. It's nice to hear stuff like this

• On the post: TSA Defending Its Groin Grabbing Or Naked Image Security Techniques

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 17 Nov, 2010 @ 12:55pm

  Mike's so gonna get arrested for just writing the "sky high" thing.
  
  Just kidding.
  
  Half way.

• On the post: Beatles & Apple Finally Going To Let You Pay Money For The Beatles Songs You've Been Pirating For Years

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 16 Nov, 2010 @ 06:10am

  Not to mention, the marginally higher cost (from digital to physical) to simply purchase a Beatles CD and import it into iTunes has never exactly been a huge barrier.

• On the post: Brazilian TV Host Gets Court To Demand Google Censor Results Pointing To A Movie She Was Once In

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2010 @ 11:38am

  Re: I know that movie.

  Not to mention, anyone performing that specific search probably already knows about the movie. Otherwise, why would they randomly Google that.
  
  And if they Googled it because they randomly heard her name coupled with "pedophile" somewhere and wanted to learn more about it, she would only be absolved, as the person searching for the terms would learn, "Oh, that's just from a movie."
  
  Ah, if only people gave these things some thought before suing.

• On the post: Brazilian TV Host Gets Court To Demand Google Censor Results Pointing To A Movie She Was Once In

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2010 @ 11:28am

  or why there were Google results on it
  
  ?? Google will return results for practically anything. I doubt there's any combination of [name] + "pedophile" that would return 0 results.

• On the post: Odd That TV Networks Would Block Their Own Ads From Being Shown To Users Who Want To Watch

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2010 @ 06:25pm

  You know, I recently noticed that CBS did sort of the same thing with YouTube. They just took down all of their full Star Trek episodes (which the company itself had uploaded, with commercials) from YouTube. Now they're only available on CBS's website (as they had previously been along with YouTube), also with commercials. What kind of sense does it make to take them off of the internet's biggest stop for video content? Especially considering YouTube's search/browse interface, as imperfect as it is, is still eons better than that of CBS.
  
  These television networks. They confuse me.

• On the post: Lawsuit Settled After Cop Revealed Anonymous Blogger To His Church, Then Destroyed Records To 'Protect Civil Rights'

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 05 Nov, 2010 @ 07:48am

  what's amazing to me is that the state's attorney office was willing to issue that subpoena without realizing that it appeared to be more of a personal vendetta, and without any concern for the First Amendment anonymity rights of the blogger.
  
  I wish I could say I was amazed as well.

• On the post: How Cooks Source Magazine Learned That Reputation Is A Scarce Good… As Reddit Applies The Social Mores Of Justice

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2010 @ 02:31pm

  I read Mike's article quickly, so he may have mentioned it, but another lesson here is that copyright laws are unnecessary. Regardless of whether CS's actions were legal (and they clearly weren't), they got hammered extremely hard by the community. That is their punishment, and it will definitely be felt financially, as opposed to being sued in a court of law. (And the original author's compensation, as Mike did say, is the publicity.)

• On the post: US Lost Touch With 50 Nukes This Weekend

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2010 @ 05:41pm

  Re: No worries...

  And you get these SWEET computerized wristbands.

• On the post: Local News Website Says You Need To Pay To Read Its Stories, Says It's Collecting Visitor IPs To Sue

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 26 Oct, 2010 @ 10:08am

  Re:

  Hahaha, that's exactly what I was thinking.
  
  Also, "Please don't abuse the privilege"? What privilege? Since they've explicitly said that no one can read their articles without paying, they haven't offered any privilege.

• On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 26 Oct, 2010 @ 07:55am

  So, if you invest in a company and they don't make money for you, now the answer is to sue them! It's a win-win scenario, guys.
  
  Obviously this individual needs to learn a little about the basics of investing.

• On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 26 Oct, 2010 @ 07:54am

  Re: Re:

  I think he knows that. He's just pointing out Mike's humorous mis-wording of his statement.

• On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 26 Oct, 2010 @ 07:53am

  Re:

  No, Jesus didn't write the Bible until he invented the internet first.

• On the post: China's Main Newspaper Complains That The iPad Is Too Damn Legal

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 22 Oct, 2010 @ 12:36pm

  Re: What the hell happened?

  I just imploded.

• On the post: Glenn Beck Not A Fan Of Fair Use; Claims US Gov't Paying Remixers To Create Anti-Beck Propaganda

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2010 @ 11:39am

  I gotta say I have very little reaction to this article. What would REALLY have me interested is if Beck were to say something sensible.

• On the post: What's Wrong With Students Reusing Papers?

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2010 @ 09:28am

  Re: Re:

  Well, considering that the act of writing, not just obtaining knowledge, is part of what is involved in composing a paper, even if you do have previous knowledge, you still learn by developing your writing skills in forgoing so-called self plagiarization.
  
  I've met people with masters degrees and even PHDs who have no common sense and all the book-learning in the world won't help them to function in society.
  
  That's not news. Many, many PhDs, in my experience, lack common sense and social skills. That's not what the academic program is meant to develop.

• On the post: What's Wrong With Students Reusing Papers?

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 14 Oct, 2010 @ 09:31pm

  Re:

  Oops. "away with it" -- not "a way with it"

• On the post: What's Wrong With Students Reusing Papers?

  

  Robert Ring ( profile ), 14 Oct, 2010 @ 09:31pm

  Yeah, I actually did this once in college, using just a paragraph or so from one paper in another paper, not realizing it was even considered "self-plagiarization" until I read about it a few months later in the MLA handbook.
  
  Guess I got a way with it.
  
  I can actually see the argument against this for academic purposes, though -- that it lessens the student's ability to learn from the class. But, as the article says, people do this frequently in the professional world, so I would think it should ultimately be considered okay for students, since part of college is preparing students for careers.

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