Disqus - Latest Comments for pwfenton

Re: US Copyright Office: We Can’t Register a Monkey Selfie… Or One Taken by a God

pwfenton — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 14:12:52 -0000

This decision really irks me no end. It's absurd. The macaque did not take it's own picture. It does not know how, and has no concept of "a picture". Because the monkey touched the shutter release, the rights to the picture is not owned by the photographer who set the camera up to take pictures? Ridiculous. If I've I set up a camera in my back yard to take pictures of deer when the camera detects movement... and it works... I don't own the pictures? The deer does? Everyone alive does? This is so wrong, I can't even imagine the reasoning behind it. If I use an attachment to trigger my camera to take a picture every 5 minutes, I can't own the rights to the pictures because the gadget took the pictures? Under this ridiculous ruling no other act besides the pressing of the shutter release creates a photograph.

Re: Engadget Giveaway: win a new iPad (32GB with AT&T), courtesy of Rebtel!

pwfenton — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 07:35:19 -0000

I could handle this

Re: Three iPad giveaways in three days: day three, courtesy of Gogo!

pwfenton — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:25:23 -0000

You must mean me

Re: Three iPad giveaways in three days: day one, courtesy of Wonders of the Universe! -- Engadget

pwfenton — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 07:44:11 -0000

Count me in

Re: Engadget Giveaway: win one of three Kindle Fires, courtesy of TurboTax!

pwfenton — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:29:16 -0000

That would be very cool indeed.

Re: Engadget Giveaway: win one of three ioSafe 500GB Rugged Portable hard drives!

pwfenton — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:54:41 -0000

I happen to need a nice drive.

Re: Digital Flotsam

pwfenton — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:36:35 -0000

Marshall, I am astounded at your good taste :-)

Thanks, so much, kind sir.

P-Dub

Re: Macs are even more expensive than I thought (Scripting News)

pwfenton — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:38:18 -0000

I've had nothing but good experience with Apple repair... but I may have an important difference. In the Tampa Bay area I have a choice between going to the big Apple store in Tampa or choosing between 2 other "authorized service centers". I chose the service center in Clearwater the first time only because the guy there told me on the phone he thought he could do the repair while I waited and I couldn't afford to be without this computer. It was much more difficult than a drive replacement. It turned out to be small mom and pop operation that did all kinds of computer repair, but specialized in Apple. There are no people called "geniuses" there. There is no "back room". When you walk in the door you are in his workspace. He took the machine apart in front of me... showed me the swollen and fried parts... and replaced them right in front of me. When he was done he told me he thought it was the result of a known defect and that it would probably be covered by Apple. He didn't charge me a cent, and said he'd call me if the repair wasn't covered. I didn't ask for the melted parts :-) Needless to say, I will take him anything. In subsequent years he made similar repairs for me on Apple stuff. Always with the same result... repaired as I watched... and no money exchanged till he hears from Apple. That guy made me feel like Apple was clearly worth the higher price.

Re: How spam will likely enter the Twitter community (Scripting News)

pwfenton — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:38:18 -0000

You say "You can direct a message with a url to anyone as long as you know their username." I can direct a message to anyone... however, that doesn't mean they will receive it. Send me a message from someone I am not following... my ID is "P_Dub". I don't think you can.

Re: How spam will likely enter the Twitter community (Scripting News)

pwfenton — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:22:09 -0000

I don't understand what you are suggesting. I just created a new Twitter account and tried to send both a "reply" and a "direct message" to my normal Twitter ID... neither one went through because I am not "following" the new account I just created. So how does someone that I am not following send me SPAM?

Re: Twitter takes a break, we're awake, and wondering... (Scripting News)

pwfenton — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 22:06:31 -0000

No such requirement. You are confusing Twitter with some other service... maybe "Quechup".

Re: Twitter takes a break, we're awake, and wondering... (Scripting News)

pwfenton — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:41:28 -0000

Do we need ANY form of entertainment? Twitter is personalized entertainment. I "follow" folks that I find interesting and/or entertaining. I follow Dave, for example, because I ENJOY getting a link to a picture of his Paris dessert... not because I NEED it. Would I be disappointed if I couldn't get it? Yes. But I could live without it... just not as enjoyably.

Re: Twitter takes a break, we're awake, and wondering... (Scripting News)

pwfenton — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:01:45 -0000

How about writing an client application which would write (and read) short 140 character text messages as items in a personal RSS feed (readable on the user's computer). User's could subscribe (follow) any friends they wanted to. It could work just like Twitter, yet be independent of any big corporate server... and it wouldn't go down for maintenance. You could also save ALL messages instead of a limited amount.

Or is that just a stupid idea?

Re: Why I use Twitter (Scripting News)

pwfenton — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:41:33 -0000

By the same token I am leery of Twitter being re-defined by expanding it's capabilities. It's odd, but I think some of what makes it so enjoyably useful are it's limitations... text... links... 140 character limit. etc.