Posts by Tom 13 7544 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
You need to learn to read better. The whole point of his lawsuit is that the original deed came from Mexico, is incorporated into the US Constitution by way of treaty, and contains no such easement clauses. And since the treaty makes the Mexican deed superior to State law, no State laws passed after the deed was issued affect the rights in the deed.
Doesn't work that way. One of the idiosyncrasies of the US Constitution is that all Treaties get incorporated into law as part of the Constitution. Since the Treaty with Mexico was signed and approved by the Senate, it's requirement to respect the land grants from Mexico trumps the eminent domain clause of the US Constitution and therefore any State/Commonwealt constitutions as well. And there's not much point in fighting it to SCOTUS because SCOTUS will probably rule 7-2/8-1/9-0 for the Treaty enforcement on it if they do take it.
Along those same lines, I wonder how much of that malware would be eliminated if they were running IE9 instead of IE6 or IE8?
And given the number of corporate web apps that require IE6, maybe MS should release a version of it that runs side by side with IE9 but is restricted to only approved domain connections which are set by group policy. Still a kludge, but maybe a better kludge than what they have.
Most good engineers aren't good CEOs. I don't recall how well the company was doing financially at that time but their products were all at least serviceable even when they weren't top of the line. And there were certainly more top of the line products than serviceable back then. But I think if you are a technology company one of your CxO types has to be from an engineering background, even if you have to create a new CxO title for him to sit with the CEO and the CFO. And the other CxOs have to weigh his opinions carefully. From time to time it may be proper to overrule him, but he can't just be a false front for the rulers of the empire.
Grasshopper, such was not always the case. Sadly the youth of today no longer remember when HP was a leading technology company along with IBM. To own an HP engineering calculator was the mark of a true geek. Of course that was also a time when they were more known for selling oscilloscopes, chromatography equipment (gas or liquid), as well as chemical supplies and lasers. The company today is not as it was then. What it is now is perhaps a shadow of a reflection refracted through a dusty lens.
Reading that remark in the way I hope it was intended as opposed to the literal interpretation which also raised my eyebrow it still reeks of hubris. I'm sorry, I have never met anyone who is capable of consistently evaluating 1,000 people and their fitness for a given position. Hell, I doubt I've ever met anyone who can say that about a mere 100 people. I'd say that number is about 30 max. After that you are depending on their good judgement to get you 900 over whom you have fairly direct impact, but they are still reporting to the guys reporting to you. After that things start to get diluted pretty quickly, even if you can fire any of them on the spot if they give offense to you.
That's the key point right there. Many phone buyers care about the cost of the phone + cost of monthly plan to make sure it is in their budget. After that does it Google/Bing/Firefox/Opera to what I what I want, and can I be a Twitter/FB with my friends. Hell, they likely don't even call it the Internet. Or if you prefer a slightly different context: they just want their "XP Word program to write their damn letters" as my mother once told me.
Yeah I remember those days. I didn't mind too much when they put the serial and comm port on the MB, but when they added the graphics chip I do remember thinking "Great, now I'll have to replace the whole fricking MB if the graphics card goes." For the most part these days the only guys looking for a slot for a graphics card are hardcore gamers and CAD/CAM folks.
I had an interesting twist on that "business model" a few days ago. One of those phone scammer types called the house about an error they found on our computers. When I told him to put away the F***ing script and talk to me like a tech he kept on reading the script. Same thing the next day. And a couple days later the same guy called but said his name was Kevin instead of Martin. After saying, "Look, Martin, just tell me what the error code is that you've detected..." he hung up. I haven't heard from them since.
You forgot Facilities, although I suppose they might fall under Finance.
Worst problem child I ever had was in Facilities Management. He couldn't keep track of email for love nor money. At least once a week half an hour before quitting time we'd get a call to help him locate something in his email. Every week it took me 20 seconds to find it after using the Search feature in his MS Outlook. We had a user who was more inept, but the more inept user was always pleasant to deal with, called less frequently, and wished you a nice day. Tone from the Facilities person was always irritating.
Agreed. Especially given their example of:
"Can I plug in my personal laptop and use it at work?"
"No" is the quick and easy answer and probably better than my alternative:
"Damn. What was your name again? Now that you've said that I have to report to your supervisor that you failed the IT Security Awareness Training and will have to take it again. You have no idea how much work you've just caused me and yourself."
There are business meetings and then there are business meetings. At the first it is acceptable to periodically check your inbox or take a call. At the second it is unacceptable. I am frequently in the first one, almost never the second*. Sales pitch meetings are of the second type. The weekly gathering of the tech staff to review mundane management type things is the first sort. And being a tech who gets notified of emergencies by email and phone, that's the reason it is ok for me to check. If the world is coming to and end for one or more of the users I support, it is then appropriate for me to excuse myself to deal with the issue.
*In my work career of more than 15 years since such devices have been commonly available I'd count 3 RIF meetings and 2 Furlough/shutdown meetings for the second category. Nobody is damn fool enough to take me to a sales meeting. I tell the truth too much.
Dell was a company in free fall, Apple is a company with too much cash on the books. The two situations are not equivalent. Asset strippers don't help the first. They do the second as long as the board limits them to moving the cash to the investors, which is where the profits belong in the first place.
While that might be a true statement, there is an even worse signal to send to investors: that you have no idea how to invest your cash reserves and aren't going to pay them either. Which is exactly what Apple have been doing and why they now find themselves being targeted by Ichan.
No she means Enterprise Management. HP like IBM are moving away from the low end commodity market and into the service market. Agnostic about platform, selling knowledge more than hardware, but grabbing profitable hardware opportunities if they are low hanging fruit.
Don't forget about the years the Fanbois all want to memory hole:
When fortunately for a nearly bankrupt Apple, the hated Bill Gates was so desperate to avoid being regulated in the US as a monopoly that abused its power he was willing to loan them enough money for a long enough time period that they could turn the ship around.
Twice a day Monday through Friday. Once on my way to work, once on the way home.
It's where I use my tablet the most because I don't even want to lug the laptop. I ride the train. I once bought one of those new-fangled 4G smart phones thinking I could hot spot it to my laptop and surf while riding. No such luck. Getting 3G signal was 50-50 and there were several spots along the trek where you can't even make phone calls. Severed the contract with the phone company. Bought a tablet with the refund for my hardware.
No, it's not.
Some people are, others aren't. I'm a multiple devices guy. Not that I like a fist full of remotes, but it's what I wind up with. I have a laptop which I use for somethings, a desktop for my power user work and a tablet for play on the train. The desktop cost me about $2000 when I put it all together many, many moons back. Lenovo laptop ran me about $700 from Woot two or three years back when my previous Lenovo finally died. Tablet was $49. If you were a vendor, which one of those would you want to sell me? I think it's safe to say the tablet would not be your first choice, even if I pick up a new one every year. I have a friend who has essentially the same assortment except his laptop and phone are from work. Oh, and I think he dropped about $3K on components for his desktop.
Eh, yes and no. Make no mistake about it, iPhones and iPads are intended to be tethered to iTunes for media consumption. Most people I know are all about their music/video library on their devices. You don't HAVE to do it, but it works better if you do. Phones in particular are a PITA to activate without iTunes. I don't own an iPhone, but I have to configure them for users at work. And work doesn't allow you to use iTunes. So I understand the process and avoid it when possible. It makes it really interesting when they want to deploy apps to the damn phones. Especially free ones that are simple if you are tethered to iTunes/the store
Betamax went that route back in the 90s too. Better quality all the way around. VHS still won the tape war before DVD rolled in to dethrone it. And for essentially the same reasons: sometimes good enough at half the price takes more of the market than top quality at top dollar. I've heard people say similar things about laser disk players vs DVDs, although they will usually yield on Bluray.
Same abuse principles will apply, just slightly different semantics. In this case the big boys infringe freely on small players knowing they can run out the clock in court.
The crux of the problem is that it seems like there are no reasonable people involved anywhere in the patent to litigation gravy train.
No it doesn't. Only RICCO allows all of your assets to be seized. He can still pay for the lawyer.
While concurring that he needs to be able to defend himself, I'd allow the seizure and copying of the hard drive. There is significant risk he would destroy evidence related to the case. But I'd insist on it being returned in working order within 24 hours as well as issuing a restraining order for destroying information relevant to the case on the computer. And I would not permit the plaintiff to access the copied data until after the defendant had time to argue the initial order was improper and submitted a proper warrant for the data sought. With the proper warrant approved, only the relevant data should be released to the plaintiff.
No, I'd put this one on failure to have a restricted send ability on the mail group.
For the BCC you are depending on humans to be infallible as well as having unlimited willpower. Restricting who can send to the mail group/list is a technical solution that IT can implement. Others have noted other mitigation strategies IT can implement to put breakers in the system, but for a cold hard stop, it has to be a restricted mail group. Restricted send should be automatic on ANY large mail group (I'd say 50+ recipients but YMMV) and should be a consideration for any mail group. Yes it is more of an annoyance to the mail admin to maintain (but that can be delegated from real mail admins to fake ones like me), but not nearly the annoyance of dealing with a mail storm.
That's a bit too limited. What you actually need is a way to specify the people who can send the list, not that they be administrators. Assuming of course when you say "administrators" you mean mail admins instead of secretaries. Oddly enough my work place has some ancient Unix system for the LDAP service which provides exactly that functionality. And I mean ancient as in the current real* mail admins are getting tired of trying to keep it running.
*I'm shown in the system as a mail admin, but I consider myself a fake mail admin. I create user accounts and mailing lists. I don't know the first thing about standing up an actual mail server.
Even with broadband that still happens. My roomie works in an office with a very limited mail space. They are expected to monitor mail, archive/download and delete for the server. Periodically secretaries for high level mucky-mucks send out "All Hands" type messages with html wallpapers, flashing GIFs, or overly large PDF fliers for upcoming celebrations. In fact just the other day her "funny for the day" comment when she got home was one such message had taken more than a fifth of her mail space that morning. Mind you, there are cases in which she is legitimately expecting largish images to be coming in so she can look at photos of stuff to determine failure modes of equipment.
Yes it is kneejerk not to mention unthinking and completely unhinged.
There are legitimate R&D people and outfits that legitimately outsource their legal work.
It is theoretically possible to fix the problem with changes in the law. First up, instead of allowing patents to be hidden land mines, you force companies to assert them the same way the law requires you to protect a trademark. Next up you require the company to make what a reasonable person would consider a reasonable effort to resolve the issue without resorting to the sueball first. That means exchanging a series of letters from one lawyer to another laying out the patent, the item(s) infringing, and an offer of a license agreement. All of which have to be presented to the jury if you do sue. And just to keep things balanced both companies would have something to lose in court. If the alleged infringer is found to in fact have infringed, treble or even quintuple damages would be allowed. But if the party alleging the infringement is found to have not bargained in good faith, the jury can award damages to the party answering the charges up to and including a free license for the product for the life of the patent as well as all legal costs associated with defending themselves.
The problem is, at the moment the political fundraising skids are greased by all the wrong people.
even if New Customer --> New Contract.
Especially with wireless charges typically split from your broadband bill in the US, new connected devices like phones and tablets means a new contract.
Also there might be more companies signing up second vendors for site location fail-over plans. I know there was a big push for it 10-12 years back but a lot of companies didn't have the money at the time so they accepted the risk instead.
The KIND of data do matter. I don't do much torrenting but when I do, +/- 10 minutes doesn't mean all that much to me. If you're talking about my VoIP phone +/- 10 seconds is unacceptable. Yet both are transmitted on the same wire. So there is some need for the infrastructure owner to be able to differentiate traffic and treat it differently. But it shouldn't be the disruptive sort of resetting peers because its a torrent and the infrastructure owner assumes just because it is a torrent it is piracy. My torrents are all either Linux ISOs (when I get the urge to try to play with it) or covered under parody fair use exceptions to US copyright law with a fair chunk of original work from the folks who've posted the torrent. And actually, I think even that one I haven't touched in over a year because the project went quiet.
Part of it is that the networks figure if they broadcast it in primetime for LA, London pretty much won't be there. Which seems to me to be a reasonable assumption as I think those are prime sleeping hours in London.
The bigger problem is that while the tech is there for the broadcasting, the business model for the production work isn't. If you put together a series like Eureka or Firefly the shooting and post production work are multimillion dollar projects, sometimes tens of multimillions. Somebody has to have deep enough pockets to front that money, and that's where most shows lose out. Netflix had the deep pockets to do it themselves and benefited accordingly. The other people who can do it are the no budget direct to streaming people like Geek and Sundry. OK, they have a tens of thousands of dollars budget which is large to the Geek and Sundry producers, but in mass media terms, that's a no budget show.
And yes, it has been interesting listening to Felicia Day or Saul Rubinek talk about the ins and outs of production work at SF cons.
You didn't look very hard.
If you're TEA party like me you'd know the Judiciary isn't supposed to be engaged in making the laws, only rendering verdicts based on the laws the Legislature passes with the consent of the President and ensuring the laws passed actually conform to the Constitution.
Regardless of what OUGHT to be happening you should still be aware of the fact that for at least the last 50 years the Legislature has been delegating those power to unelected bureaucrats like the ones at the USPTO. They don't want to be held accountable.
I'm not even fond of copyright on software, especially US copyright law. Most software is more akin to a machine than a copy of Faulkner or Asimov. As such the time period for patents (17 years in the US) seems more reasonable to me. The problem is you also have things like Encarta as software and they are more akin to Faulkner or Asimov where 70 years seems more reasonable. Of course at this point Walt has been dead for a few decades, but every time the copyright is about to expire on The Mouse, Congress extends it another 15-20 years.
Truthfully, the whole IP thing (including trademarks) needs to be rewritten by honest people. I'm not so sure the distinction between patent and copyright is especially useful, the issue is the time of exclusivity after the IP monopoly is awarded and what determines whether or not an infringement claim is enforceable. Unfortunately it is in the hands of the politicians.
That was 16 years ago under different management teams. That particular settlement would certainly not have covered future patents. They might have continued updating the agreement on a yearly or other intermittent basis, but the existence of the agreement in 1997 does not mean they couldn't start again over something new.
I'd hope you are right and they both see the senselessness of continuing to feed the lawyers. But here of late we seem to be returning to the old ways.
That would be almost as bad as using the UN.
You want to fix the problem? It's simple and easily contained within your borders. Pass a law that requires all imported goods to come from factories which meet the pollution controls that would be required if the factory were built in your country. Mandate one of your government types has to inspect the factory if necessary. If goods are imported from a factory that isn't inspected/doesn't meet the requirements the import tax is equal to the cost of the regulatory burden placed on factories in your own country.
Problem solved.
Oh wait, you say it's not? Because for all that the UK and the US might be dumping their pollution in third world countries, those third world countries are generating even more of it own their own. Like using coal instead of natural gas or oil to heat their homes. Coal they can now afford because they work in one of those factories supplying goods to Americans and Brits.
Because the developers of critical web/apps insist on coding for it. From my PoV the sooner those lazy bastages in development get their collective asses in gear the better. As soon as they've got it fixed, my sys admins are ready to roll out the updates.
Maybe we should meet and discuss strategy against our mutual enemies?
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