Tag: Slashdot Comment

Comment on Web Giants Form US Internet Lobby Group

I remember this being something that came up during the fight over SOPA: Namely, that while the entertainment industry is used to lobbying the government, the tech industry was fractured and didn’t see lobbying as a high priority, so the success Hollywood had at railroading some of those crazy ideas just blindsided them. (Stacked hearings, deliberately ignoring experts, etc.) It became clear that something would have to level the field, and since we know the RIAA, MPAA and friends aren’t going to back off on their lobbying (and we know the government isn’t going to stop listening to lobbyists), the solution is a tech lobby.

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It’s always seemed like a bad idea to name anything after a figure whose claim to fame was that he ignored warnings against exceeding the tolerances of his vehicle, causing it to break up and kill him.

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Sometimes, lawsuits take a *long* time to get through the courts to the point where they’re dismissed or resolved. Six years from incident to dismissal doesn’t surprise me as much as I wish it did.

There’s a book called “The True Stella Awards” [stellaawards.com] by Randy Cassingham, which is full of documented court cases that waste time & money, set bad precedents, try to punish the wrong people, etc, and it’s disheartening to see how long the process can take.

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Comment on Facebook Patents the News Feed

If I’m reading the summary correctly, it’s about building this kind of list:

– Alice became a fan of Wonderland. [Become a fan of Wonderland]
– Bob just won an apple in the Halloween tournament. [Play Halloween]
– Carol is attending the Yadayada concert [RSVP]
– Dave and Ellie are now friends
– Frances joined the group, “I Hate Software Patents” [Join “I Hate Software Patents”]
– Greg commented on Hayden’s status. [Read comment]

Probably a key element in it is trying to make the list relevant enough to the user that they’ll want to click on the “Become a fan of…” or “Play…” or “RSVP…” links.

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Comment on Phone and Text Bans On Drivers Shown Ineffective

Just because a behavior is banned doesn’t mean people have actually stopped doing it. California’s ban has been in place for a year and a half now, and I still regularly see people driving while talking on their phones. So hand-held phone use has reduced in these areas. How much?

The other thing to consider is that at least the California law allows you to use your cell phone while driving as long as you use a hand-free system, like an earpiece or a car system that acts as a speakerphone. I seem to recall that other studies have shown that hands-free cell phone conversations are just as distracting as conversations carried out while holding the phone. (The article spends a whopping one sentence on this.)

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Comment on Netflix Will Delay Renting New WB Releases

I’m sure that’s [a discount on DVDs] a big part of it…but the press release also mentioned that WB is giving them access to more of its catalog for their streaming service.

With physical DVDs, if WB refuses to sell directly to Netflix, they can always send someone to Costco, buy a bunch of DVDs, and rent them under the first sale doctrine. With streaming, they need an active contract with WB to do it (legally) at all. If WB decides not to renew that contract…well, there goes their streaming service. Or at least anything from Warner Bros.

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So, have you got some specs for exactly the way IE and Gecko handle every single case of non-standard code? Including cases where it’s clear the code is broken, but it’s not clear what the author meant, and multiple interpretations are equally valid?

No? There’s no specification? They’ll have to reverse-engineer it by visiting every page on the internet with IE and Firefox and seeing what those browsers do with them? Gee, that sounds workable!

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