Friday, February 15, 2008

Con Artist?

Did Connie strike again? After comments from me and others were erased from her blog, I decided to give ConnieTalk another try, specifically commenting on her recent post about Polaroid. Though Polaroid went bankrupt over six years ago, and stopped selling consumer "instant cameras" last year, it's Polaroid recent decision to close two Massachusetts factories affecting about 150 jobs that Connie decries (emphasis in original):
Polaroid is taking away their famous instant photo cameras with hardly a whisper. . .

There just is not, and never will be, a camera as handy to keep in your closet as Polaroid. . . .Edwin H. Land founded it in 1937 and instant film cameras have been out since 1948; but in 2001, after drowning in the market of digital cameras, they filed Federal Bankruptcy protection and were bought by a subsidiary of Bank One.

Every time the man behind the miracle dies, things go bad. Polaroid...McDonald's...KFC...Disney...Alexander Graham Bell...Hilton...

It becomes an empire that doesn't care for itself for the way the inventor did.

If Polaroid indeed withdraws any further plans to market this product, the U.S. patent (that prevented Kodak from producing instant film cameras in 1986) could be removed. Meaning, anyone would be able to design and market their version of the shoot-and-print camera.

It's high time we supported budding genius minds that have product ideas outside of corrupted national monopolies, and bring small businesses back to thriving in the United States.
This made no sense, as I showed in comments:
As the articles you link to say, Polaroid didn't die because it failed to "care for itself for the way the inventor did." Polaroid went bankrupt because consumers no longer wanted its product. (Similarly, Kodak had to write off its entire film business a few years ago.) It had nothing to do with supporting genius, or where one gets film developed. (Contrary to your example, AT&T did quite well for more than 50 years after Alexander Graham Bell died in 1922.) Rather, Polaroid was felled by "creative destruction," in the form of new and better digital technology--and the creative destruction aspect of capitalism is itself pro-consumer and anti-monopoly. I'm not sure what you would change--force customers to stick with film to keep a factory producing unwanted goods? There's a heck of a lot more jobs in digital photography than the 150 lost by Polaroid's planned closure.

And I have no idea what you're trying to say here:

"If Polaroid indeed withdraws any further plans to market this product, the U.S. patent (that prevented Kodak from producing instant film cameras in 1986) could be removed. Meaning, anyone would be able to design and market their version of the shoot-and-print camera."

First, few people want such a camera to be available--which is why Polaroid went bankrupt. Second, patents are not "removed" (whatever that means) from non-use. They expire after a certain number of years, whether or not the patent holder licenses or uses the idea. Indeed, for the most part, absent deception or an anti-competitive conspiracy, patent holders may refuse to license their patent entirely.
My comment appeared immediately on Connie talk -- albeit without the attempted embedded hyperlinks. This time, I took a screen shot:


(note time 11:47 pm)

Less than two hours later, my comment has vanished.

How did it disappear? Why was it erased? Only Connie knows--and so far, she's been silent or slippery on my blog and hers.

What's it all mean? As evidence of Connie's commitment to openness, diversity, and tolerance, Res Ipsa Loquitur. Look it up.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I went ahead and reposted it for you a second time, along with a preceding note about the mysterious disappearance. I've also taken a screenshot.

If it disappears again, I'll send it to you...

@nooil4pacifists said...

Anony:

I don't see yours either.

Larry Sheldon said...

What does that site offer that is worth looking for?

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Carl, like many reasonable people, keeps hoping he can shame progressives into actual discourse. He thinks that will give some advantage to his crafted arguments that take observable facts into account.

He's quite mad, of course. There's a 12-Step group (Reasoners Anonymous) for it and we're both members, reminding each other from time-to-time that such expectations of our political opponents only lead to frustration.

A fine guy, Carl. But he may be in need of an intervention soon.

Anonymous said...

Carl, this is the response I got in their message board/forums.

http://connietalk.com/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=0.533333333333333&TOPIC_ID=245ҷ


.We do not manually delete any comments on the news portion of the site, as we already addressed with you numerous times.

I've checked into the specific comment you linked to.

"No Oil For Pacifists," IP ending in 218.18, has been blocked by IP address since last year for spamming the comments section with links back to his/her own website (only), using invalid HTML tags and leaving paragraphs and paragraphs of self-linking material. His/her comments have NEVER showed up and then disappeared, they are automatically filtered by JS-Kit and Akismet by his IP address. They will show up on his screen, but no one else can see them, ever. He/she posts anything from that IP address, it never shows up to any other IP but his/her own.

So he/she must be taking screenshots from the offender's screen, and then posting them on his/her blog, and then lying to you about it. There is no other explanation as we have not manually removed any of his/her comments, they've all been auto-filtered.

Which I already told you was one of the possible explanations when you made the initial accusation that comments were being deleted.

We do not have the time to read all of the comments that are posted on our articles, and do not manually remove ANY of them.

MY RESPONSE:Then unblock his IP. He's posted twice without any links whatsoever.
Obviously, since you didn't make commenters aware of the fact that your retarded software then you owe it to people to unban their IP's and inform them of your retarded software.

Nor does this explain how a previous comment of his, without links, is posted and visible on a another topic.

Additionally, this still doesn't explain the second person who commented in the post in question.

@nooil4pacifists said...

AVI is wise: the truth is that I value the discourse as much for the help in crafting my replies as for any hope of changing intolerant minds.

And as for Connie's claim that I've been "lying," it is Connie who is telling untruths: as powerboss observes, at least some of my comments, including imbedded hyperlinks, are not blocked (or erased) from ConnieTalk. And others (like anonymous above and OBH) have reposted comments -- some with, others without hyperlinks -- which also have been erased.

In any case, whether blocked or erased, the bottom line is the same: Connie eschews debate and dissent and prefers ignorance to fact. It's called ConnieTalk for a reason--she's not listening.

@nooil4pacifists said...

Larry:

Nothing.

OBloodyHell said...

Yeah, as you note, my reposting of comment-only-no-links has been wiped. I have screen caps, and the idea that MY IP is banned is an obvious crock -- my repost, and **only** my repost (last I checked), of his comment was deleted. I have a screencap of THAT, too.

Connie's a lying colostomy bag. A full one.

The site censors, and they know it.

@nooil4pacifists said...

OBH is right; it's censorship not blocking my IP address.

@nooil4pacifists said...

Other comments of mine not "blocked" or erased from ConnieTalk; screen-cap here. The point being that I'm not "automatically filtered." Instead, ConnieTalk appears to engage in selective erasure.