Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, we looked at the story of Laura Poitras, who sued the government to find out why she was detained every time she flew anywhere. In one instance, she was denied use of a pen, lest it serve as a weapon, prompting one anonymous commenter to win first place for insightful by underlining the oblivious irony of this move:

As the famous saying goes, the pen is mightier than the sword.

It says a lot about a government when their biggest fear is a journalist with a pen. I doubt these thugs, who clearly had stabbing on their mind, even realized the irony of what they said.

Meanwhile, the Authors Guild reared its perennial "we hate the internet" head, this time with a focus on Amazon. The guild employed a twisted reading of antitrust laws and understanding of economics to suggest that we should focus on creating a robust, competitive market place but not on driving down book prices. took second place for insightful by breaking down the idiocy of this statement:

And what exactly would you like to point out? The two are one and the same, because a thriving, competitive marketplace always drives prices down. That's, like, Capitalism 101, guys...

Or, to borrow a local meme, Author's Guild just hates it when the laws of economics are enforced.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a response to the White House agreeing to look the other way on Malaysia's massive human rights violations for the sake of getting the TPP passed. As Ninja points out, this is sadly not very surprising:

Well, what can we say? You have that joke of 301 report that lists perfectly good countries as some sort of potential terrorists or something because they don't do what the MAFIAA says, you have the Patriot Act and other incredibly unconstitutional things that allow all sorts of surveillance because a bunch of psychopaths and a huge industry behind the security apparatus likes it, you see serious environmental violations because some huge oil conglomerates and other base industries pay enough for it, you have a completely broken health system and outrageously expensive medicine because some big pharma industries say so... What were we expecting from a Government that not only disregards entirely what is good for the citizenry but often holds total contempt towards said citizens?

This shouldn't be a surprise as much as a reason for going Baltimore/Ferguson/etc on your Government. Sadly, it is happening everywhere in different clothings.

Next, we head to our big post about rethinking moderation in terms of protocols, not platforms. GMacGuffin shared his own story of developments in exactly that area:

I went to a presentation last night by the guys building OpenBazaar.org. It will be a decentralized P2P marketplace utilizing bitcoin (for now). They are building the open source core, that like bitcoin core, can be built upon by anyone. Users download the core program, and they are their own server and can sell anything they want directly to anyone else they want. If they want to use cloud servers to handle load, fine. If they want to build their own storefront on core, groovy, here's the API.

OpenBazaar's Brian Hoffman kept being asked if they would be adding this or that feature. Answer, probably not. Let other devs do that. The core features will be pretty standard: ratings, comments, friends. They are specifically staying out of being any kind of middleman in the traditional sense, to avoid any of the liability issues.

AND, if you want moderation, you can pay a bit for a neutral moderator/arbitrator to act as multisig escrow, or resolve disputes, etc. Anyone can do that job too, they'll be rated like the rest, so reputation matters.

If you want a curated space, they'll be available. Or build one. If you want to dive into the wild unregulated jungle, that will be there too. If you want to build an ad-based OpenBazaar search engine, awesome. It's brilliant.

Also there were some folks from blocktech.com, who are building Alexandria -- essentially the same concept for digital works, rather than goods.

Decentralized protocols are coming, and fast, because these people really want to build something that the govt. cannot shut down, because it's nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

(... this question always happens: "Don't you feel a moral obligation to keep people from using it for human trafficking?" Er, it's useful software; if others use it for bad, we can't stop that. [Auto makers aren't liable for drunk drivers either.])

Aside: Tech issues preclude this working on Tor, so if you're going to use it for bad, the IP address will be broadcast anyway, for now.

Over on the funny side, it's no surprise that we start out with a response to Comcast's absurdly expensive two-gigabit offering. DannyB used four adjacent links to remind us that there's more to life than price:

Please consider the value you are getting with Comcast

Comcast may be more expensive than Google fiber, but at least you are getting Comcast's Award Winning customer service. That kind of recognition doesn't come easily, or for free.

Next, we've got an excellent summing up of the story of Newegg, which politely nudged a judge towards issuing an extremely late ruling, only to be chastised for it. Mason Wheeler scored another second place win:

Counsel: Be careful with all this; the judges around here don't like being pestered.
Newegg: *waits 2 years* ...Mandamus, please?
Judge: HOW DARE YOU PESTER ME!!!

For editor's choice on the funny side, we'll loop back to two previous stories. First, Uriel-238 caught the critical detail about that dastardly Laura Poitras:

Did you not read the article? Ms. Poitras' Threat Score was 400 out of 400 points. You can't get threatier than that! Maximum Threatiness! That's the equivilant of a terrorist with standing orders, bombs, weapons and supplies at her disposal already available to her at the target site, and a plan B in case things go awry!

Poitras is a Modesty Blaise, Emily Pollifax, Felicity Flint and Sarah Walker open-faced sandwich topped with Cammie Morgan sauce with a side of Agent 99 and a bottomless cup of Cate Archer. At 400/400, she's a master infiltrator, agent provocateur, skilled saboteur, proficient in disguise and skilled in the secret ninja arts of Shiatjitsu.

I mean, compare her to all the other 400/400 threats on the list and it all makes sense.

They were right not to trust her with a pen. Unarmed she could kill everyone in the room in slow motion before the first victim hit the floor. She's the arch-nemesis of Jack Bauer, no less.

And finally, we've got an anonymous commenter who noted the critical (or at least implied) small-print on Comcast's new high-speed offering:

Fees of up to $ARM for installation and up to $LEG for activation apply.

That's all for this week, folks!

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