I thought they were still trying to find the 24 million emails from the George W Bush Presidency.
Always amazed at the US political scene (and the most ardent supporters) pee'ing all over each other rather than running the country. If an anti establishment figure emerges without Trump's trail of destruction (from either side), they'll easily win in 2020. Just a question of who susses it first.
Thames Valley Police here in the UK offer body cameras to officers. A friend of my sons is in the force, and he says that most officers request them voluntarily and leave them switched on by default.
He says that folks he's engaged with tend to be less assertive when they know everything is being recorded. He also says it makes any physical contact he has to enact is much more carefully considered and executed.
Overall, cools everyone down then. Being able to turn it off is not a good thing...
I think of two brilliant examples. Some time ago, Clare Enders (who was Strategy Director of EMI Music earlier in her career) wrote an analysis of Napster - back when it was being sued to death - looking at the end result if it was left alone. Conclusion was that increased exposure in the music industry benefited every single constituent in that industry with one sole exception; the top 10 acts of each of the top 5 record labels. 50 people (or small groups) worldwide.
Recently Paul McCartney tried to justify increased copyright terms by saying he feared for the new artist trying to make a living. This is factual bullshit and in fact completely self serving - just like this Qualcomm inference that they care about 'the little guy'.
Lies, damned lies, statistics and false controversies...
They ought to do what no rag does (as none of them has sense of ethics nor the balls to ever do it): To publish a retraction with headline and copy in the same font size, and on the same page, as the original lies.
Remember the phrase every English football fan knows when the National team is playing Germany and leading in extra time: it ain't over until it's over.
FOSSpatents is historically a paid Oracle and Microsoft shill, posting stuff sourced from them without citing the fact he is retained by them. Hence about the least trustworthy source you can find on the interwebs... fact checks elsewhere hence actively encouraged.
The Minister for Work and Pensions is persecuting people on benefits who have too many bedrooms in their house, while trousering €150,000 per year from the public purse for leaving farmland around the mansion he lives in Fallow. And please don't mention the validity of his University Degree either...
That of Plumpergeddon - a guy mugged at a cashpoint in London, losing his wallet and MacBook. Then a long example of police imcompetence, closing the case for "lack of evidence" despite 6,000 photos and screenshots from the "hidden" app on the MacBook.
I think he's had a phone call do a sting, and the police are back - and now interested in persuing things. But a shocking read if you follow the story as it unfolds. See: http://plumpergeddon.tumblr.com/
Her book "Captive Audience" is a good read. I guess the FCC and DOJ need to apply a number of preconditions without end dates to cover the potential areas ripe for abuse, namely:
* Net Neutrality both in the network and to its edges * investment in increasing speeds of the core infrastructure * Separating out the current vertical integration between content & wires * putting catastrophic penalties in place for violations of the above, or in support of legislation to undermine competitors and municipal alternatives
Somehow, I don't think the FCC or DOJ are smart enough to go close. About the best result is to decline to merger, or put a precondition to spin out the infrastructure and content sides to separate trading entities...
In the final analysis, the consumer pays. This whole scam is a magnesium flare to divert attention away from net neutrality.
The funny thing I head this morning was that Comcast, at the request of the FCC, had a precondition from their NBC acquisition to obey net neutrality rules until 2018. Stupid or not? Why end date anything like that. It's like telling the Taliban the date they won't be confronted with any US troops in Afghanistan. I mean, what do you expect to happen if you're given a date beyond which you can gouge customers to your hearts content?
This on the same day that it was announced that IBM had successfully executed their patent related shakedown on Twitter, having pounced on them the day before their IPO.
Don't IBM realise they are bringing their widely respected brand into disrepute by doing this?
The News this morning mentioned that a specific junior minister had requested the destruction of storage media at the Guardian. If so, we're getting closer to the top. A Junior Minister is normally a bag carrier for the Ministers instructions, but who can be thrown under a bus as an escape route for their boss if things go pear shaped. So, I don't think it will take Brain of Britain to work out the definitive source of the command...
You're in good shape if you're a multinational, at least with Microsoft. I had one bank that asked about differential pricing between the UK and USA, and at the time, it was circa 30%. Said Bank told the local MS sub that it was going to administer all its corporate licenses out of the USA, so they set the price at SELECT Level D minus 30%.
After a year of trading, the bank asked the same question again. US HSBC asked for their pricing, and the USA pricing was quoted back on Microsofts own systems at SELECT Level D (USA pricing), discounted by 30%.
Microsofts response was to tell LARs that they couldn't buy from each other across continental borders unless you were a LAR in both, so only 1-2 resellers could broker these sort of International deals for multinational clients.
Adobe refuse point blank to license across Continental borders; as an end user, they split the user populations accordingly and discount each continent separately.
As far as Microsofts own internal accounting is concerned, they attribute 20% of the financials they land to the country of order, and 80% to the Microsoft subsidiary where the end users actually reside. Resellers only get rebates where the licenses are present in the geography they are authorised to sell into... hence their margins are extremely small on these deals (routinely less than 1% GM).
While at Harvard, Gates learnt a lot from source code listings from the DECsystem-10s there.
I was also shown a prerelease version of Windows by Bill Gates himself in May 1983, on the Compaq Plus he was carrying around to vendors at the time. I asked him at the time why the Apple Lisa had one mouse button, Visi-On had three but his mouse had two. He rolled off all the design tradeoffs for 20 minutes or so. Very impressive, knew all the competitors thoroughly.
Opening words whenever he shook hands with any senior exec were "When are you going to drop CP/M?".
I still agonise on why MS get licensing fees for FAT-32 when it is almost a direct copy of Files-11 ODS-1 and ODS-2, which both were live inside DEC at the time Microsoft were first incorporated (in 1976). Or indeed how they get to play Playground Bully with Android licensees. Microsoft are great at a number if things, but innovating genuiinely new work is not a core competence there.
I live in the constituency that includes some major RCUK funded labs (Rutherford Appleton, Diamond, ja.net, etc) and where my local MP is Ed Vaizey - Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries.
I've dropped an email to him to ask why such things are being allowed to happen when research was paid for by the public purse in the first place, and whether RCUK can return to their original proposal. I've cited the TechDirt article in my email.
How are they doing with GW Bush email?
Always amazed at the US political scene (and the most ardent supporters) pee'ing all over each other rather than running the country. If an anti establishment figure emerges without Trump's trail of destruction (from either side), they'll easily win in 2020. Just a question of who susses it first.
UK Experience
He says that folks he's engaged with tend to be less assertive when they know everything is being recorded. He also says it makes any physical contact he has to enact is much more carefully considered and executed.
Overall, cools everyone down then. Being able to turn it off is not a good thing...
Police here dont carry firearms, so YMMV.
All the more curious
Familiar patterns
Recently Paul McCartney tried to justify increased copyright terms by saying he feared for the new artist trying to make a living. This is factual bullshit and in fact completely self serving - just like this Qualcomm inference that they care about 'the little guy'.
Lies, damned lies, statistics and false controversies...
Retraction due
Victory is no closer...
There are public data term limits to apply, but the court bodged it royally
Take care
Good article on Medium about this...
Re: We need a Minister for Hypocrisy
The Minister for Work and Pensions is persecuting people on benefits who have too many bedrooms in their house, while trousering €150,000 per year from the public purse for leaving farmland around the mansion he lives in Fallow. And please don't mention the validity of his University Degree either...
Plumpergeddon II
Damn autocorrect !
Better example over here
I think he's had a phone call do a sting, and the police are back - and now interested in persuing things. But a shocking read if you follow the story as it unfolds. See: http://plumpergeddon.tumblr.com/
Come in Susan Crawford
* Net Neutrality both in the network and to its edges
* investment in increasing speeds of the core infrastructure
* Separating out the current vertical integration between content & wires
* putting catastrophic penalties in place for violations of the above, or in support of legislation to undermine competitors and municipal alternatives
Somehow, I don't think the FCC or DOJ are smart enough to go close. About the best result is to decline to merger, or put a precondition to spin out the infrastructure and content sides to separate trading entities...
Content companies would need to bill customers to pay ISPs
The funny thing I head this morning was that Comcast, at the request of the FCC, had a precondition from their NBC acquisition to obey net neutrality rules until 2018. Stupid or not? Why end date anything like that. It's like telling the Taliban the date they won't be confronted with any US troops in Afghanistan. I mean, what do you expect to happen if you're given a date beyond which you can gouge customers to your hearts content?
Oh dear
Don't IBM realise they are bringing their widely respected brand into disrepute by doing this?
Junior Minister
Set up an office in the USA... (as Ian Waring)
After a year of trading, the bank asked the same question again. US HSBC asked for their pricing, and the USA pricing was quoted back on Microsofts own systems at SELECT Level D (USA pricing), discounted by 30%.
Microsofts response was to tell LARs that they couldn't buy from each other across continental borders unless you were a LAR in both, so only 1-2 resellers could broker these sort of International deals for multinational clients.
Adobe refuse point blank to license across Continental borders; as an end user, they split the user populations accordingly and discount each continent separately.
As far as Microsofts own internal accounting is concerned, they attribute 20% of the financials they land to the country of order, and 80% to the Microsoft subsidiary where the end users actually reside. Resellers only get rebates where the licenses are present in the geography they are authorised to sell into... hence their margins are extremely small on these deals (routinely less than 1% GM).
Gates learnt a lot from DEC also (as Ian Waring)
I was also shown a prerelease version of Windows by Bill Gates himself in May 1983, on the Compaq Plus he was carrying around to vendors at the time. I asked him at the time why the Apple Lisa had one mouse button, Visi-On had three but his mouse had two. He rolled off all the design tradeoffs for 20 minutes or so. Very impressive, knew all the competitors thoroughly.
Opening words whenever he shook hands with any senior exec were "When are you going to drop CP/M?".
I still agonise on why MS get licensing fees for FAT-32 when it is almost a direct copy of Files-11 ODS-1 and ODS-2, which both were live inside DEC at the time Microsoft were first incorporated (in 1976). Or indeed how they get to play Playground Bully with Android licensees. Microsoft are great at a number if things, but innovating genuiinely new work is not a core competence there.
Written to my MP on this (as Ian Waring)
I've dropped an email to him to ask why such things are being allowed to happen when research was paid for by the public purse in the first place, and whether RCUK can return to their original proposal. I've cited the TechDirt article in my email.
Lets see what he comes back with...
Ian W.
So, is VLC coming back to the iPad?
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