Latest Techdirt Comments Easily digestible tech news.... Costs do come down after a year or so, if you know where to buy Tue, 6 Oct 2015 03:45:35 PDT Re: Re: Re: Re: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 03:45:28 PDT
Thanks for proving where the personal attacks come from on this site. Way to keep it classy! (oh, and at least I provided a link to back up my view... you, well... not so much).]]>
Mark my words: ArsTechnica is next, give it a few months... Tue, 6 Oct 2015 03:40:37 PDT
I could never express in words how much I've learned over the years not only with amazing articles, but ESPECIALLY through invaluable input from thousands and thousands of regular users with hardcore knowledge of the subject matter at issue in each of them.

But quite some time ago they started trying really hard to push this toxic ideology of a pseudo-feminist agenda, (watch especially from minute 49:55 on-wards for a primer and in it's entirety for a complete and condensed fact-filled crash course on journalistic/moral and ethical corruption) and with disinformation tactics, and they have been relentless in this push...

And when the vast majority of readers point out their factual errors, fallacies, and flagrant bias, they just "moderate" those comments (read censorship) and flat out block them.

They just seem to not give a fuck about the Ars community any more. That may be the only website I will really regret not going back ever again, if and when they pull the plug on the comment section... I'm really fed up as it is with what the site as a whole as come to.

But the amount of knowledge and "agnostic" resources one gets just by reading the comments and compiling hundreds of links that the community selflessly contribute day in and day out, on every single article... that website has amassed a treasure trove of intellectual capital, I really wish they would value it so much more...

But this seems to be the sad state of affairs... just push a fundamentalist ideology and bury the head on the sand... lalalalallala we don't hear!! lalallalalaa

For what it's worth, this is their last sorry attempt at pushing the same already a-million-times-over debunked narrative...

PLEASE Read the comment section there, 99% of readers are politely telling them that they are not buying the shit they are trying to sell, with well reasoned counter-arguments and facts... and all we get in return is a half-ass response from "some editor", yet the article's title and the subtitle remain untouched!

Adding insult to injury, this last article (as well as many previous ones) are concocted and featured under the SCIENTIFIC METHOD/SCIENCE & EXPLORATION section!!

They are a disgrace to the scientific method and to science in general with this flagrant ideology pushing and lame practices, a hundred face-palms do not cut it...

Anyway, maybe you guys can do something, I've seen many times that you cross-reference some of their articles and vice-versa, maybe you can talk to some higher-ups @ Ars before it's to late, they do not seem to care that they relabeled themselves "The Titanic-a" and with every piece of made-up hateful propaganda, with every comment they censor and block, with any piece of feedback they get telling them they are on the wrong path and they ignore, they keep rearranging chairs...

In closing, taking the world wide web as a whole, that community and the one that comments here at TechDirt, are the only ones I would really miss if they ever go under.

Sorry about a really long rant, but it's really sad for me to have been a front row witness to the decline in journalism standards of some of the most prestigious websites out there, Ars, the Guardian, Motherboard/Vice, those you mentioned and others.

Keep up the good work here, I salute you from Argentina.-]]>
Re: The Nerve! Tue, 6 Oct 2015 03:37:37 PDT Re: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 03:34:31 PDT
"They should just lose money so we get things for free"

Attack that strawman!]]>
Re: Re: Re: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 03:29:00 PDT
Whereas you offered nothing but your personal opinion as well. But, yours count and mine doesn't, right? You weren't lying for once, but you're still a hypocrite.

"Bottom up: Harry Potter was actually an EXCEPTION to the rule, not the rule."

Citation, or are you pulling your personal opinion out again as if it counts for something? *Glances at the next few sentences* Oh..


Me too. Not so much my peers. There certainly wasn't a Potter-sized mainstream hot that transcended age, peer group and other demographics as far as I recall. Maybe I'm mistaken, but most kids my age weren't avid readers and were actually likely to mock and bully those who read for pleasure than take part themselves. I took part in reading group, and I had friends who also loved reading, but I'd be amazed if many of the class ever voluntarily picked up a book outside of the classroom.

"But hey, don't take my word for it:"

OK, that's a survey of Americans. Not relevant to my personal experience, though maybe yours. I'd like to see historical result, though - especially from 20-30 years ago before things like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games made it a more popular activity among kids again. It would also be nice to see comparative figures between different media and different regions.


That makes no sense, especially with your blathering about dead tree editions elsewhere. Pirated copies of something durable should be easier to find than pirated copies of something disposable? That makes no logical sense. Wouldn't it make more sense that people buy the more valuable thing and don't bother buying the one that's instantly disposable?

"A few will be doing the digital thing, but most of them are still dragging around dead tree editions"

Absolute bullshit in my experience, but whatever. I see lots of electronic devices from Kindles to phones to laptops being used, and I see lots of books being read on them. I also see a lot of paper items. You know what I also see? People using both items (for example, people who pick up a newspaper to read on the plane but have another device to use to watch a movie, play a game or - yes - read a book).


They're also bulky, heavy, expensive and a pain in the arse if you happen to finish the one you're reading but don't have a nearby second hand store to dispose of it before you get on your next mode of transport with a new book.

I can see you have your personal biases, but it's laughable that you're trying to pretend that they apply to everyone, and even more laughable that you're trying to tell me what me own personal observances are.

"But hey, disagree with me if you must."

What's the point? You don't bring facts, and you've already decided that my personal experiences are somehow inferior to yours.

"Oh, the sky is blue"

True. I wouldn't believe you if I didn't have independent verification, because you're not interested in honest discussion.]]>
Re: Re: Re: What does God need with a starship? Tue, 6 Oct 2015 03:27:20 PDT Rant Warning)

"The trick is learning not to care about their wishes or demands. "

That's a little like trying to not care about the pack of wolves eyeballing you - while you're leaning up against a tree, weaponless and with a broken leg. Sure you might be able to eventually zen up an indifference to their desires, but that won't actually stop them from eating you alive.

I think this is a recurring cycle, made inevitable by the fact that we always design our civilizations around money and thus our social hierarchy ends up being formed directly according to the personal accumulation of wealth.

As a general rule, those with a little can gain more much easier than those with none, and those with a lot can gain more much easier than those with a little. Because the society worships wealth as the means to an end, we forgive those who accumulate the most, the transgressions they carried out to reach that goal, which in turn tends to create a system where only the most cunning and ruthless among us reach the top, through the most heinous of methods.

Eventually the wealthy grow in numbers until there are enough of them to pool their wealth for the purpose of bending the laws to their needs - and the only real needs of the rich are things that make them richer. Fascism is the method always chosen - as can be seen plainly today.

As the laws start to make it easier for them to rob everyone else, more people among the "lesser" classes become broke and thus more desperate and as sources of income dry up, are more and more willing to do whatever is necessary to survive - like helping the wealthy accomplish their goals in return for a little cash - as is the case today.

Eventually, the Haves Class devour the wealth of the "lesser" classes and turn the national resources into some form of transferable funds that they can horde in usury vaults, until they have divvied up the nation's wealth completely - as will be seen tomorrow.

At that point the only place they can steal more wealth, to fulfill their addiction to wealth, is from each other, leading to the final stage of the dissolution of that society, as they pit the now entirely poor population against each other in an attempt to rob these last sources of wealth. In this way, the wealthy run a survival of the fittest contest among themselves leaving only the most vicious and cunning of the lot as the winners.

The wealthy don't really care about the nation they are liquidating, because they have always been world travelers and own palaces in other lands and can always move to another nation when this one dies, gathering even more wealth as they repeat the whole process again in that new land.

We always assume War (where no obvious natural disaster is responsible) to be the cause of social dissolution of ancient cultures, because war is obviously taking place at the time of their demise.

But War is the tool of the Fascist, as can be seen today, which serves them as rationale for tighter control and for stricter laws that remove freedoms from the sheep, while promoting profiteering by the rich - for the war effort. It also allows them to eliminate competition by labeling such as the enemy, or as the enemy's friend. It also quells dissent through Patriotic See and Tell training of the young.

This process will always take the form of fascism because it is always driven by the very people of a culture who have used that culture's laws to their own advantage to become wealthy in the first place.

The problem with these wolves, is that they are incapable of satiation - its an addiction - and will do anything, up to and including mass murder, to get the results they need.

When your only love is money and power, people become commodities with price tags.


As for Gawd, I always figgered I'd just study the hell out of everything else I could gather information on, and if Gawd existed, he'd turn up eventually among the details in the data, since everything else is, as I suspected at the start, connected.

Nothing yet though, although the work of Zecharia Sitchin - he translated the world's mother tongue and thus deciphered the oldest written documents that exist today - looks promising, but in a manner that absolutely nobody could possibly find comforting.

It does not contain a Happy Ending Clause and so could never be accepted as reality by humans and for the last 40 years has been universally poo-pooed by one and all. :)

Evidence Tue, 6 Oct 2015 03:22:09 PDT
Sadly they can still plant drugs though. And they might put you on one of their "lists". It have become bad enough that even crossing the Canadian border often involves harassment, detaining people and refusing them food and water, and in some cases access to their own medicine, just to fuck people up.

The land of the "free"]]>







