Posts by Alan Penzotti 27 posts • joined 28 Dec 2007
My philosophy is that there will be at least one unexpected/unplanned encounter/person at that event that makes the entire trip worthwhile. Your goal is to seek out that unexpected opportunity.
In these modern (pre COVID-19) times, I am seeing smaller regional events replace the bigger ones.
I think that Judge Alsop (2012, Oracle vs. Google) had the keen sense to see where it was headed, and has prudently included findings of fact and other supporting cliff notes to insure that these Nine Seniles were able to have a carefully measured bullshit calibration routine to correctly call out both parties if they cross these lines.
What trade "secrets" would still be hidden from view from a determined group 20 college students observing the front of house operations of their local Panera. Especially if they worked in the "Banquets" department in any large Las Vegas casino for a summer?
Perhaps Saich and company should sponsor such a (focus group/mystery shopper) activity and have these college kids write an operations/specifications manual on their observations alone. It would make great defense fodder to determine if these trade secrets were truly "secret."
With a traditional taxi, the cab driver is responsible for collecting fees (cash) and offering (cash) receipts. Same with credit cards, although there is a more detailed paper trail that can be reconciled with monthly statements/expense claims.
It is noted that there is no cash/credit transaction between the driver and Uber (outside of tips.)
If I were the judge, I would find in favor of the plaintiff, but only award him £1, and then declare the Uber is on the hook for (%VAT) of all fares collected in the UK, along with all retroactive taxes, fees, and penalties from day one of their UK business.
By siding with the plaintiff, it would quench any chance at an appeal since they were the prevailing part, and hopefully encourage out of court settlements on such egregious cases.
I know that this is being heard in an appeals court and there are (usually) no additional depositions, witnesses, nor testimony at this stage of the litigation process. There may be an exception in light of his unilateral motions for material removal of consumer protections of which this lawsuit is about.
For once I would like the appeals court to compel Ajit Pai to attend this court proceeding in person and compel him to answer some very pointed questions. At least make him a target vulnerable to some contempt of court proceedings if the judges don't like his answers.
If Apple were smart, it would re-introduce the iPod shuffle with the Qualcomm chipsets, but unused in implementation. Produce 100B of these units. Sell or give away 80B of these units, and then scrap 10B of these units to salvage the chipsets for their higher priced kit, and destroy 10B of these units as "unsaleable/unsalvageable." That way the cost per chipset would be cheaper.
Another way would be to use these iPod Shuffle units as a concealed "plug in module" inside these final revenue shipping units.
Dear Google,
When you implement this "to ensure that search engines do not link to the worst-offending sites," please include ALL mentions of the works in question, including fan sites, the publishers and copyrights holders too.
The publishers and copyright holders are the worst offenders when it comes to ripping off the artists.
Based upon the wording, it sounds like it would be legal to honeypot (bait) the FBI and hack them using the same backdoor connection, which was "authorized" by the same warrant.
The definition of a honeypot is that there is no legitimate traffic, and all is subject to deep packet forensics and scrutiny.
Bonus points if the determined endpoint is the Chinese embassy located in the United States.
Perhaps the extortionist doesn't know that he needs a Business License before he can collect.
My recent domestic (US) flights have shown that the ticket counter people appear to no longer be trained in the soon to be lost art of hand-writing tickets or baggage tags. I discovered this when I had separately purchased (connecting) flights and they were confused that my final destination didn't match the "final destination" on the first flight. I showed them both ticket confirmation numbers. The system only knows how to print baggage tags based upon a single ticket, but not a combined itinerary. The folks at the ticket counter sent me to the gate (with carry-on sized bag to gate check to final destination.)
The folks at the gate had the correct materials but didn't know how to fill them out. (I could have filled them out myself as I have seen them completed to know how it is done.) Instead they said, "board the flight with them."
When boarding the flight, I got scolded for having three carry-on bags. I indicated to them that "I tried to check this bag at the ticket counter, at the gate (before boarding), and at the gate again (while boarding). I would be happy to check this bag if you would like." Bag ended up in overhead bin without charge.
When the tickets are created, require that the attendee name be printed on the ticket and compare that with photo ID and name matches ticket Sales Number on file. If there is a change of attendee, assess change fees on the spot for 2x-10x the final sale value of the ticket, just like an airline would.
This is already understood too well.
Reality
---> Marketing Spin.
"Not enough customers are signing up"
---> "We are able to offer a lower price because..."
"Our product is inferior to other 'more mature competitive' offerings
---> "We are able to offer a lower price because..."
"We are not able to perform to the SLA we promised."
--->"We are able to offer a lower price because..."
"We need more 'Gamma Testers' to vet our products."
---> "We are able to offer a lower price because..."
"We want to acquire a bigger slice of this market-share and are willing to sell at a loss to get it."
---> "We are able to offer a lower price because..."
"We don't want to pay for a 3rd party to thoroughly test the security of our products/services"
---> "We are able to offer a lower price because..."
It might make sense for Apple to create "Apple Branded" blade server modules for use in other-branded blade servers (Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, SuperMicro, ...) blessed with their OSX Server licensing rights and give these items an Apple part number.
That way Apple is off the hook for building the rest of the server (power supplies, lights-out management, chassis) and they get to keep their mark-up by providing them as a hardware-software bundle.
Best yet, they can leave this market at anytime by discontinuing this product.
What Apple is trying to prevent is VMWare from buying the assets of Psystar at fire-sale prices and enabling Mac OSX to run as a guest OS and support PCoIP.
This would enable business to buy one large server and make (multiple instances of) MacOS available to thin clients much like is being done with Windows under VMWare View.
In a twist of fate, this may still happen without any money changing hands.
If I were show management, I would be sending Sisvel to the door sans their exhibitor (and all other) badges and have the labor pool pack up their booth post haste; especially if there were no retail sales allowed at the show.
Any event that happens to be sponsored by them, as show management, I would claim credit for these "generous donations" as coming from an "anonymous sponsorship."
AVG seems to have a lock on having multiple computers on the Internet running their product. Since we now know that AVG will auto-follow links and pre-load and pre-screen content, it isn't that far of a stretch to sell this (screen scraping) service to Easyjet competitors. This alone could cover the developments costs of AVG and allow it to become commercial freeware.
The counter-measure to this would be unthinkable as Easyjet would have to identify and block nearly every AVG user.
The article never divulged if these impounded goods were being sold at the show or were for show (as prototypes/first articles) with sale/marketing details to be worked out later.
If these were for show (and NOT for sale at the show), I hope that Sisvel is on the receiving end of some heavy (legal, extra-legal, and country-to-country) return fire.
Perhaps the affected exhibitors at the show next year will higher some embassy staff as "booth bunnies" so as to inherit their diplomatic immunity.
Finally, I believe that CeBIT should require all exhibitors to have their goons on stand-down during the show; couple that with a no sales on show site rule.
I recently bough a new router with some WICs. Using the advice on Cisco's site to identify counterfeits, I nearly rejected the genuine article as counterfeit. (Cartons made in Mexico with a high recycled content, no hologram stickers as per their marketing, made in China with components from...)
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