The Principle of the Thing: Recent Comments

Comment on Melting Sea Ice

Eric Phillips — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:21:39 GMT

There are huge glaciated valleys all around the Arctic Ocean. The glaciers are now gone because many of the lands around this ocean are Polar Deserts and get very little precipitation. In past times when the glaciers were there, they received much precipitation because the Arctic Ocean was ice free and its water could be evaporated. In modern times the floating sea ice has acted like a membrane stopping evaporation from the Arctic Ocean and creating these Polar Deserts. The floating sea ice has never been a permanent feature of the Arctic. It has melted many times. Most Arctic geologists, who have made the observations, understand this. And of course, an ice free Arctic Ocean will cause the glaciers to grow again, in turn cooling the northern continents.

Comment on Global Warming Farce

Missy — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:55:36 GMT

What would be the motivation for such an elaborate hoax? (re global warming). It's a stretch to think it's about greed, compared to the power and greed large corporations hold. (ie oil companies, polluting pharmaceutical companies, etc) Certainly if propaganda were to be spread, it would be by these polluting monsters and the propaganda would be anti-global warming obviously. I do indeed understand the science by the way.

Comment on How To Make Math Hard

blue — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:19:55 GMT

haha,,,,

i liked it but slight

hehe,,,

it's good

Comment on How To Make Math Hard

Morbo — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 05:45:06 GMT

Thank you for that and I couldn't agree more being I was one of those "confused, demoralized students." And even our math teacher in Grade 9 said many times that he wished he could show us a simpler way but he is not allowed to. so now here I am at 40 feeling like a dumb arse because of 12 years of talking in riddles by our know it all teachers. I hate educator as much as I hate Car salesmen and politicians.

Comment on Fire In The Hole

hot sausage — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:32:47 GMT

So here is the story. I was to help the boys out with this fire in the hole apology video. Provide them with a camera give them ideas and help them edit it together. Well long story short they probably worked on it for 15 minutes and I worked on it for a week. I do video production around the area so with my skills and creativeness I produced pretty much the whole video. Came up with the idea scripted it, shot it, edited it and put the jail bars and sound fx in. I gave it to the parents of the kids and was told that it was going to be for the lawyer and judge to see privately on youtube. Well to my surprise now I see my video all over the media. I would not have a problem with this if the lawyer or judge told me what was going to happen with the video. I feel really violated here. I feel the lawyer here is using it get publicly while I did all the work. Don't get me wrong the kids are great kids and did one stupid mistake. But for my video that I took time to do and help out some good kids to be pimped all over the media was not my intension. I would not have had a problem if the lawyer said and I quote "which the boys scripted, filmed and edited, serves as an example to others." was true but it is not and I feel very violated that my work is being used for others exposure. Thank you John Ross

Comment on Lessons From The Homeless

polistra — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:39:09 GMT

Another excellent and original point, which I'd never though of before.

We know the homeless guy will probably spend the dollar on alcohol ... but for him, alcohol may be better than the alternatives. So a direct dollar to him makes more sense (on a human basis) than a dollar which goes partly to feed some idiot Senator's addiction.

Comment on Which Principle

T Dejmikian — Sun, 25 May 2008 04:26:46 GMT

When you do a Google search for “Effects of Global Warming,” one of the top results that always appears is the Wikipedia entry for this subject. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Unfortunately, most of the people that sign up to edit this article are pro-global warming evangelists who exhibit a clear pro-global warming agenda. This means that everyone from school children to the media are getting this highly biased view of climate change, when they research this topic via a Google search. Fortunately, however, ANYONE can sign up on Wikipedia free of charge in less than one minute and edit this article. I would encourage everyone to sign up and contribute to this article, to ensure it presents the correct view of global warming. Simply go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming (or just go to Google and search “effects of global warming” to find the Wikipedia entry right near the top) and start editing! Then you can help to provide the proper balance that is needed in this highly biased article.

-T. Dejmikian

Comment on Fat People Can't Hide

Jim Willis — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:56:47 GMT

Well said Derica! Forget about slippery slopes...we're now on the bobsled run and there's no stopping these ninny nannies who know better than we do how to live our lives.

Comment on How Many Angels?

polistra — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:41:25 GMT

Tremendous and original point.

At one time the states and localities were the "laboratories of democracy", but now the foundations are the "laboratories of tyranny."

Comment on Damned If You Do

Mike Masnick — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:05:16 GMT

Hi there Derica,

Thanks for the link and the discussion, but as the "reporter" who you claim doesn't know things, I'd like to offer a few corrections to your post, which misstates a number of things.

First, in the article above you continually refer to copyrights, but you mean trademarks. Copyrights and trademarks are two very different things, and you mix them up throughout this post.

If you want a primer on the difference, please look here:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080228/003450379.shtml

Second, since you actually mean trademarks rather than copyrights, I'll respond to the claim that you have to enforce it. This is misleading and not entirely correct. You are correct that a trademark holder needs to enforce the mark, but NOT against anyone who uses it. It only needs to be enforced against those who are using it in a way that is likely to cause confusion in the marketplace.

In a situation such as this, where there is unlikely to be any confusion that the creator of the knitting patterns was actually the BBC, there is not a need to enforce it.

As for copyrights (which aren't what's being discussed here anyway), there is no requirement to enforce.

So, I'd appreciate an update on the post, suggesting that maybe I'm not as clueless as you suggest. :)

Thanks!

Mike