Posts by admiraljkb

Small pile of cash, dying platform: 2011 is bad news for Nokia

re: Whats Nokia going to do about it?

Same thing every corporate entity does in that situation (ordering may not be right, feel free to rearrange for own purposes):

10) Call extra meetings to discuss strategy (only to have similar meetings at a higher level overide your meeting)

9) Executive leadership team goes to Caribbean for a week for a top level "retreat"

8) Find successful group of employees, lay them off first.

7) On campus Teambuilding exercises

6) Dismiss CEO/Chairman with golden parachutes

5) Declare Bankruptcy and restructure

4) Early Retirement packages

3) Additional performance management metrics and reporting tools (really intrusive for bonus points)

2) Hire more Managers while laying off worker bees.

and the top number 1 answer:

1) The Beatings Will Continue until Morale Improves!

(beer icon because this should be a drinking game!)

@John G Imrie

I'm so sorry that you had to experience that on holiday. Walmart is NOT the normal American Experience. (or at least I hope not, eeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww)

Not surprised, Nokia's brandname is nearly gone now

Customers aren't very loyal these days. Nokia had disappeared in the US market for a year before coming back this month with basically what amounts to a low end Tmobile Winmobe. For the average consumer in the States (ala not us reading the Reg and keeping tabs) it looked like Nokia went bankrupt and disappeared for good. Then there is the issue Nokia for the most part was only low-end feature phones in the US anyway, so it releasing higher end Smartphones aimed at *average* consumers is like Hasbro doing it. They probably should've invented a new/crazy name for the US market to distance themselves from the low-end Nokia perception. Outside of my techie friends/coworkers, nobody knows Nokia ever produced anything other than the very popular little feature phones.

Meanwhile in the last year Samsung came out of nowhere and dominated the non-Apple US market filling some of the Nokia void as many feature phone folks upgraded to smartphones. The current defacto flagship Winmobes are from Samsung and HTC, so I still can't figure out what Nokia is doing. I still think MS is just hanging them out to dry while placing their real Winmobe hopes on Samsung and HTC.

Its almost like watching what happened with Apple/IBM when they started working together on a OS/2 and MacOS replacement (Taligent/Pink) that would run on everything. By the time Apple figured out it was about to get whacked by IBM's bureaucracy, it HAD been whacked by IBM's bureacracy. :) Kinda wonder how long it'll take Nokia to figure it out.

(need an "Epic FLAIL" icon for this one)

HUD's up! Ubuntu creates menu-free GUI

@melt

<< "But that's what happens when there is no incentive for people to do the parts of programming that aren't fun. Fixing bugs isn't fun; going through the bug list isn't fun; but rewriting everything from scratch is fun (because "this time it will be done right", ha ha) and so that's what happens, over and over again. "

http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html >>

I've noticed that as well. The young and not so young but fresh to a long running project see so clearly where everyone before them went wrong, and the idea is to start over with fresh ideas and not make the same mistakes. (same idea the team before them had, and the team before them) In the process adding some good ideas, and and the same time adding the same old mistakes that were made the 1st 3 times the product was rewritten. :) Plain and simple, sustaining an existing product isn't sexy and won't get you promoted. As a result NEW and shiny is what is delivered, and screw the new bugs cause you'll be onto the next project when those are found. :) Been there, done that... *sigh*

@Flash_Penguin

Or without going through the trouble of rebuilding the system, you can switch it over to Kubuntu, Xubuntu, or Lubuntu. I've kept the family on Kubuntu to escape the Unity issues.

Packages to install (choose one)

kubuntu-desktop

xubuntu-desktop

lubuntu-desktop

(not to detract from trying out other distro's, just thought I'd point out that going the format/reload route isn't necessary)

Maybe it should be: Controllable Heads Up Display

CHUD!

re: Discoverablility?

No doubt. The power features keep getting further and further buried making it more difficult for me to use when something goes wrong, or if I want to do something "unexpected" like Save As in Word instead of save. Instead of one click, its two or three, or more to do something that used to be EASY. It seems like they've all been taking away from the UI rather than adding, and then calling the feature removal a feature in itself. :)

BTW - Microsoft has now joined in on the OS front with Metro. Pretty soon we'll all be on KDE and LXDE to escape Gnome/Unity/Metro (yes I lump them all together). :) Remember back in Win3.x when we were using Norton Desktop and HP's NewWave to escape Program Manager? I suspect we'll be back there for using alternative GUI shells on Windows by the end of the year...

Russia and NASA plan to COLONISE the Moon

Moonbase Alpha

Sorry, that one's taken.

Moonbase Beta. :)

American search team fails to find women's G-spot

Evolution..

Except in Kansas

Activation required...

Activation Server not found. Do you wish to phone product support for activation assistance?

Well...

No doubt it was a vigorous study and the scientists stuck it out to the very end, and really inserted themselves into their work. After many oral dissertations, back breaking labour in the field was required. Working many late nights they couldn't quite get a handle on it, but they laid out the foundations for more in-depth research when a proper conclusion can be reached.

Motorola repels US import ban bid by Apple

@Dazed and Confused - Apple v Win2.x/3.x

Actually I was referring to the case that Apple lost on Windows back in the 3.x era. The result was Microsoft was pretty much freed from any/all design limitations and did Windows 95's UI freed from Program Manager, which *then* infringed on the trashcan. :) hehe But good point bringing up the trashcan, because I'd TOTALLY forgotten about that one. Pretty funny.

The other big look and feel suit back then that I was tracking (as a heavy Quattro Pro user), was Lotus vs Borland over Quattro Pro's use menu structure. Lotus lost, but by the time the decision was made, everyone (but Wordperfect) had shifted to CUA standards by then. Not to mention they were so distracted, that Excel took over from both of them, and it was game over. I miss Quattro Pro... :)

@ArmanX

That is very apt here. I guess the other part of that, is if you push your enemies to the sea while playing "El_Degüello", expect the enemy to fight back with some extra ferocity.

Apple tried to sue nearly the whole planet on patents that were dubious at best. What I find interesting is most of the current lawsuits are similar to the old look and feel suits from the 80's that dragged out into the 90's. The culmination of which was Apple lost, and Win95 was born free of any UI restrictions. Their lawyers *should* be brighter than that, but maybe it was Jobs pushing them to do it anyway? He *was* pretty ill for the last several years, and I've seen upclose the tragedy of how vicious people can get due to cancer as it hits the terminal phase and gets to the brain.

I still maintain that Apple *could* have sued on some Trademark issues legitimately. I question the whole suing on unpatentable items (and ones that have numerous examples of prior art at that) and losing the opportunity to do the Trademark lawsuits (that stand a good chance of success) due to running into the statute of limitations? Mr Cook, fire Steve's attorneys and get some that will stand up to you and tell you what they think, and actually give you proper legal counsel. The more information that comes out, the more I think the board should have forcibly removed Jobs ages ago.

Russian boffins: US radar didn't fry Phobos-Grunt

NASA needed this probe to succeed as well

Since NASA wanted (even needed) this to succeed as much as Roscosmos, I don't see it getting sabotaged. Even making accusations of that is really strange. Cold War is over, and has been over for quite a while., in spite of Putin trying to recreate the "glory years" of Communist Russia.

<alien icon, cuz that makes only slightly more sense>

Woz praises Android, blasts iPhone limitations

Well, Apple went for "cutesy" with Siri rather than a serious tool. Google is on record as saying they want theirs to work like Star Trek. You ask for info, you get info, no gimmicks. I appreciate that viewpoint, but as an engineer, I would. :)

The smartphone market is getting fuzzy

Well, Android is rapidly evolving now at a good clip after a slowish start. iPhone seems stuck in 2007 and little real evolution (outside of slightly improving hardware) as they're too busy with lawsuits right now. Not much innovation coming out of Apple other than rounded corners... That's pretty embarrasing. Apparently they don't feel its worth the effort (or their huge cash bundle) to spend R&D money on it.

Personally, I think Apple is exiting the smartphone business, which sounds crazy at first until you look at where the focus is. The focus is on iPad currently, and they've shifted resources to that rather than bringing out the much delayed iPhone 5 which is now closing in on a year late on the outside and 6 months late on the inside. Why might they do that? The smarphone is becoming a commodity market now, and without them being willing to take less of a profit cut, they're going to get marginalized (already occurring), and eventually forced out anyway. Another high profit margin company, Cisco (well its CEO John Chambers), states when a market goes commodity, they will exit rather than reduce the margins. Best example there is when they stopped making NICs. So it isn't out of the question Apple deciding to focus on high margin iPads instead and killing off the iPhone. The timing of Woz's statements also hint at something *possibly* afoot long term.

Of course, much of the above could be complete bollocks, and fair enough if it is. Apple has been too secretive for its own good. Maybe Cook will fix that and he is making some efforts at Glasnost to fix the worst of the Jobs era, but right now the actions of Apple are pointed towards a smartphone EXIT while they continue the tablet ramp-up.

Woz

The actual brains of the *original* Apple, with nary a marketing bone in his body obviously. But he's an engineer's engineer! Woz - I respect, admire and definitely just like the guy.

Boffins quarrel over ridding world of leap seconds

Leap Seconds

The proper solution to leap seconds is to arrest the Moon from its current escape trajectory and move it back closer to Earth. Kinda like "Space: 1999" in reverse

Yeah, DST can byte the big one

DST typically does little to save money, but it is a political thing so politicians look like they've done something. The spots in Indiana that started observing DST ended up using more electricity rather than less due to using more electricity for air conditioning in their homes. If they weren't in the homes for an extra hour of daylight in the evening, they'd need less AC. For an example, for much of the northern US, "Daylight Wastage" (an term I invented for an hour subtracted from the evening) makes more sense due to AC consuming more electricity than light bulbs. In a good chunk of the Southern US it doesn't matter. If you turn off the AC during the day to save power, it'll take most of the night to catch back up. Summertime 100F+ degree heat and sunshine makes for easy solar power and wind (in West Texas), unlike the UK which has problems with consistent power from either, but it means you have to keep the AC on all the time during the summer sucking down a lot more power which is a problem the UK doesn't have.

Regardless, artificially jacking with the clock for DST is nuts. If a government is going to do something that crazy, just legislate *suggested* "Standard" Business hours instead. Much less destructive than switching clocks around willy nilly.

Microsoft raises 'state of the art' son of NTFS

The Cairo project came out in pieces spread out since the early 90's. It never released as a real product as we know. But the WinFS filesystem that is to replace NTFS since NTFS was in version 1? We've all been waiting on that for 20 years now. I personally remember announcements that WinFS being scheduled to release with NT 3.5, NT4, Win2k, and 2008, but hasn't actually been seen yet. Maybe it will really release this time with Win8?

After 20 years, I'm finding myself caring a lot less about it now, but I was pretty excited about it in 1993 though... *sigh*

Rumoured 'GarageBand for e-books' to bulldoze textbook biz

I'm just going to agree with everyone (so far) and say WHAT? We already have Wikipedia for fiddling with. Somewhat immutable E-Textbooks are already available on Kindle and others. Why would a school district get textbooks the students could fiddle with? Hard to teach without a common textbook.

Surely this has been misunderstood, like when everyone was hyped up when Apple was releasing the 4" iPhone5, and instead a little 4s came out?

Wikipedia to shut down Wednesday in SOPA protest

The one time that I would expect BiPartisanship

>Bipartisanship is so last century

*sigh* yeah, that's true... The second a politician mentions the word (or cooperation), means they're about to do the opposite. Since this is mostly "benefits"* Hollywood types (who hate Republicans), it does beg the question why Republicans supported it other than Murdoch who is a bit of a looney? (see current UK cases and purchase of Myspace)

* NOTE: benefits in quotes above, since I don't think SOPA as written benefited anyone.

The one time that I would expect BiPartisanship

It would be this. SOPA doesn't accomplish what they are trying for. Near as I can tell, they just need to prosecute existing laws (or enhance existing law), not make whole new ones.

Five things that knocked CES 2012 for six

Ultrabooks

Yeah, same thing different name. Netbook got a bad rap due to the Atom procs. There is already been essentially Ultra's (ala netbook++ or laptop--) with AMD procs for the last year, so Intel's marketing has i3 equipped "Ultra's" that feature i3's... Whatever. Laptop is a laptop. If I have a need, I'll get it, otherwise not. :)

My current batch of netbook, laptop, fire, and desktops are doing the job. When it comes time for replacement, the netbook will get an 11" screened one, and I don't care what the marketing term is for it. :)

Here's the *my* new laptop "marketing" designations for fun and commonality.

Laptop---- 8.9" netbook

Laptop--- 10.1" netbook

Laptop-- 11.x" ultras

Laptop- 13-14" laptop

Laptop 15.x" laptop

Laptop+ 16" laptop

Laptop++ 17" laptop

Wideload+++ >17" laptop

Dumb Displays FTW!

I totally agree with Ralph (except the Apple TV part). :) I use my TVs exactly the same way, except for they're driven by WDLives and a Logi Revue.

Smart TV's are obsolete the first day they are manufactured. (hell, lets face it, they're already obsolete in the design phase...) Better to keep the smarts separated in another device (WDLive, Logi Revue, LG whatever, Sony whatever, Apple TV, etc etc etc) and the consumer can pick and choose as they wish according to their own requirements. TV's are now nothing but giant computer monitors being driven by external devices anyway, why even complicate them with network smarts (or power sucking tuners for that matter)?

Murdoch slams White House over SOPA in Twitter row

I have one thing to say about Rupert's reactions on this

<see icon>

Murdoch is clearly out of his element in the modern world. Time to retire.

Boeing backs biofuel boffinry

Umm, Jet Fuel and Diesel are very very closely related, and Boeing's announce was quite clear that Jet Fuel was the aim of this project.

The opposite end of the spectrum would be Avgas/gasoline.

Biodiesel / Jet Fuel

Essentially they're discussing making biodiesel, which is much more environmentally friendly (read less processing) and doesn't use up potential food crops like the "standard" biofuel ethanol which requires more energy intensive refinement. Definitely a toast to them. The other big research that I keep hearing about is using Algae to produce biodiesel which looks quite promising.

Part of the reason my current car is diesel is to have greater flexibility of fuel later, whether running on "DinoDiesel" or "BioDiesel". Gasoline engines are more finicky about that sort of thing.

Amazon welcomes Microsoft files into Kindle cloud

@Stevie

I've been reading mostly dry technical and service manuals and such that started as PDF's and the Kindle PDF reader as recently as early December didn't like scrolling through them very smoothly, or handle the formatting right, at least for me. Given the variety out there, it doesn't surprise me that some PDF's might be better native.

Hint on the images in mobis on the Fire. Double click (tap) it for the full sized image. I fell into the same trap there of trying to pinchzoom and going WTF. :) HTH's.

@Sordid Details

>And PDFs can be sent to your Kindle, albeit as PDFs and not in native Kindle format.

PDF and Kindle Fire aren't the best of buds, I've tried. Its unpleasant. I currently use Calibre (available on Win/Mac/Lin) to convert my PDF's to mobi, and then it emails my kindle.com acct. Pretty slick really.

What I'm getting at, is that if there is a way to "print" the file directly to the Kindle, then that would save a step or two.

Microsoft sharpening axe for marketing heads - report

@Vic

I think it was inaccuracy, because like you I think that would be ODD. The last Agile team I was on had a several devs, with one test and one PM, the one before that a lot more devs and 3 testers, and still 1 PM. I'm thinking they are not being literal with a 1:1:1 relationship, but more of a "all three orgs will be represented" in a scrum (or whatever MS calls it internally).

@Vic

I'll see if I can shed some light as I've worked in an engineering company recently. Marketing is now enemy #1 in most of them. I think this is a FANTASTIC step on MS's part. As you mentioned, MS's marketing has been lacking (for 10 years or so by my count). The reason is that Marketing in many engineering companies have taken over. Rather than selling and making suggestions, they've been giving orders instead, which leads to a lot of "look - squirrel!" type of reactionary actions. Its what I call, "Followship" instead of "Leadership". It destroys any sort of innovation (and morale) from the engineering staff, since they just take orders from the equivalent of Dilbert's pointy haired manager... It also leads to engineering sitting in confusion waiting on their current project to get killed because it's no longer the "hipness du'jour". Nothing worse than having a bunch of your work just thrown out, because a marketing type got a new bee in their bonnet about what is "hot" right now. It's like working for Paris Hilton...

* "Sinofsky's organisation seems a little strange according to this description - one coder, one tester, one PM? - but he does seem to be turning in the goods."

This is called the "Agile" program management method or some variant thereof. Popular in the open source community, and increasingly in corporate dev as well, it does allow for faster time to market, *if* marketing is removed from the equation. It sounds like MS is removing Marketing from the equation. :) It allows you to plan/design/prototype faster, and with QA's input at every step should you be about to pull a boneheaded move as a developer. It allows to break up giganto projects into manageable portions as well and have it come together nicely and more quickly, *if* handled correctly... Big *IF* there though...

* "But making *60%* of your staff "uncomfortable"? That strikes me as a really easy way to destroy morale..."

Agreed x10, but this *might* be a step up. I would venture to guess that it might be 80-90% of engineering staff already being generally unhappy right now to due Marketing interference in their day to day operations.

Overall I think this is great news for MS, and maybe for the rest of the tech industry where marketing has been running roughshod over the development organization in the company. Probably bad news for all the folks with marketing degrees though. :)

Ubuntu Linux shop reveals 'TV for human beings'

re: 'TV for human beings'

"Because normal TVs are for birds..."

Normal TV in the future is for ANGRY BIRDS!

This could be cool

Or it might not. I've got two WDLIveTV (one of them the WDLIveHub) which don't quite get it right (and WD is NOT taking requests well so no more WD Media Products for me). I've also got a GoogleTV Logitech Revue which is better overall and more flexible, but still has much room for improvement, and it has improved little by little, but Logitech decided to exit...

After the above, if Canonical can pull this one off, I'd be much happier running a full on Linux versus WD's stripped down Linux distro and Google TV's stripped down Android. For one thing, you get a lot more flexibility with applications, configuration, games and general functionality at that point if it is running on a bare metal OS. The other thing, is I theoretically (stressing theory here) wouldn't get trapped by the hw vendors when they decide they don't want to support something they sell...

I welcome this announcement, but am hesitant to get very excited over it yet.

HD JuiceBox HDMI over Powerline kit

How MUCH???

£410 for the the old 200Mbs Powerline adapters is no good, even if it does HDMI... The benchmarks bore that out as there was trouble getting to 1080i. They should have the current 500Mbs Powerline adapters for full HD.

Cool concept for having HDMI built in though. Shame to have done some really cool stuff, and then put a lower tier network adapter into it.

I had to bone up on the powerline stuff to help an inlaw out with his 85Mbs one that was a real bottleneck, and much slower than his 18Mbs internet connection (he was getting 7Mbs instead). Found that need to divide BW on powerline devices by 15 to have a margin or error, like for bad wiring and such. That ruled out the cheaper 200Mbs adapters as a replacement due to a lack of bandwith for internet and local net traffice once it goes any distance. Trying to get fast connections over the powerlines in the house is a haphazard affair at best. One thing I found out on one site that was doing benchmarks and interoperability testing, is best not to mix and match slower 200Mbs adapters and faster 500Mbs adapters. The 500Mbs Powerline adapters are typically much faster/reliable than wireless, but actually running some Cat5e or Cat6 cable for true Gigabit is faster still. *If* you can, run real network cable, it'll actually save some time/frustration and you'll be happier with it in the long run.

The article was indicating that SurgeSuppressors were a problem and they are, BUT there are SurgeSuppressors that are compatible with Powerline, you have to research to find them.

Advice - for anyone having a house built new (or a major remodeling job as well) - have 2-4 cable drops put in each room while the walls are open to escape the wireless/powerline problems... Powerline is great when there is NO alternative, but real network cabling is always best.

@Bah!

The Powerline AV units have AES encryption if you enable it. That *should* keep the neighbors out unless they're really, really determined and intelligent/patient enough to crack encryption.

Samsung: 'We'll nick Nokia's global mobe crown this year'

re Not so much 'nicked'

"... Nokia just put it outside the front gate with a handwritten sign saying "Free global mobe crown" "

Hehe. Yeah. I can't help but wonder if Samsung has been helped into the front by the near limitless free advertising of Apple's lawsuits combined with producing some pretty beefy hardware to match. I personally expected it to be HTC or Motorola taking it, but Samsung has nearly come out of nowhere from my vantage point. Last year I wouldn't have owned one (Samsung who?), and today I've got three in the family. Fortunes change quick in this biz... It *could* be Huawei this time next year for all we know.

@G2

I read through the blog post from the WinPhone Team. I can't believe the "The update, available to all carriers that request it". For those of us that were Winmobe users in the past and remember the bad old days, that's the most inflammatory comment that could have been made. (in voice of Comic book guy) "Worst blog post ever". The comments over there are getting vicious...

The carrier driven update issue is the exact SAME mistake MS made with WinMobe previously. I had a phone stuck on WM5 because of the carrier... Pissed me off big time. On the good side, that got me searching for how to fix it, and I joined the XDA community. The firmware available from the excellent "chefs" there mitigated the problem and got me decent uncluttered firmware at the same time which ran much better than MS/Carrier/HTC defaults. Why MS/HTC couldn't figure out how to make good firmware (with their own sw and hw respectively) is beyond me though...

I thought MS were supposed to be in control of the firmware on "their" phones now like Apple C'mon MS, you've got a whole new batch of users now, don't screw them over the same way you screwed us previous Winmobe users. Jeeeeesh

Bit-part actress slings sueball at IMDb over age gripe

Well (you mean that thing hole in the ground with water?)

"if the Vatican uses Wikipedia..."

hehehe Yeah, still chuckling on that one myself...

Asus updates netbook line with Intel, AMD chippery

@James 51

Well, the Atoms don't do well with heavy multithreaded loads. They don't have out of order execution and other modern features. Found that out the hard way with an embedded product I was working on . Marketing had spec'd Atoms without any research/benchmarking. Turned out they took 1.5 hours to do what a Core2duo 2.3 would do in 15 minutes (SELinux rules updates and Database updates). If you get one of these that's Intel, make sure it has at least a modern i3 or better. Really have to read the labels to make sure which processor.

The AMD's of this lot are modern K10 cores and have all the features of a modern processor. The other part is with the E350's and E450's mentioned, there is a Radeon63xx GPU built into the CPU resulting in good video performance. You won't play Crysis with it, but quite acceptable nonetheless.

Needs EeePC Girl for proper demo. Just saying...

Apple patent stashes passwords in chargers

@Daf L

Ugh. If your power adapter has your password on it (and its a known disclosed feature), it shouldn't be stored (or even used) with your laptop in a situation where it might be stolen. Hence the safe comment. (admittedly overkill unless in the CIA)

The current solutions of using a USB dongle, or CD's or post-its are less homogenous in nature being different solutions to the issue. There is diversity there, and the crook probably wouldn't know what to do with them anyway (except the post it note, and then only if on the bottom of the keyboard/laptop). This idea gives you a known single attack vector, hence lack of diversity and a single security point to focus on. Think about it, if your power adapter has your passwords on it, then you'd have to secure it differently than your power adapters today.

Hmmmm

It seems like this *might* actually increase security problems, rather than reduce. If nothing else, you'd have to buy more power adapters so that you kept your "good one" locked in a safe. :) Pretty interesting nonetheless. Looks like a legit patent filing from Apple as well. Don't know if there is a prior art problem or not since there have been plenty of dongles in the past for this, but good on them for filing something that didn't involve rounded corners. (As much grief as I've given Apple on "look and feel" pseudo-patents, I do feel obligated to give credit where credit is due.)

From the linked article, apparently it is supposed to have a security question like "what was the name of your first pet?" prior to letting you get in, and can distribute the ciphers around the network to make sure you are who you think you are... Seems like the increased complexity of that will ensure it won't get used though, unless you can push the policies down through AD, or Tivoli, or whatever.

Ex-Intel engineer now AMD strategy chief

@AC - Monday 9th January 2012 18:57 GMT

The bad part of AMD having spun off GloFo, is after GloFo misses a critical date and the AMD CEO has just had the bad press conference apologising for the slip, the AMD CEO can't just walk down the hall and throttle one of their own VP's for it ... :) Ah the hazards of outsourcing...

I'm thinking they need to have hired Vader instead though. He seemed to have done a good job getting Death Star II "back on schedule". ;)

Apple legal threat to Steve Jobs doll deemed 'bogus'

American Law isn't exactly homogenous

Well, kindof an interesting story there, and borderline off topic for this, but good pub trivia. Not all of the US has English Common Law as a base. Texas has Spanish Common Law as its legal base. :) Louisiana is French/Spanish, and (by memory) the US Southwest (former Spanish colonies) is also Spanish Common law except for California which forcibly legislated English Common law for political reasons...

The Steve Jobs estate is what has legal standing.

I noticed the lack of legal standing issue right away, and I've just had a couple semesters of pretty boring Business law AGES ago... If Apple's real attorneys can't, they're in big trouble. Apple can't sue over Steve Jobs likeness regardless of whether Steve Jobs was alive or dead. They don't have legal standing since they aren't Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs (and now his estate) would have to sue. If Apple's board votes to send funding and attorneys for Jobs's estate to sue, that's one thing, but Apple itself doesn't have the legal standing to sue.

This does make me question all the suits being filed though if Apple's attorneys seem to have a competency/credibility problem here.

Arctic freshening not due to ice melt after all, says NASA

@John Smith 19

Yep. Pretty cool really. Another datapoint in the overall puzzle. The problem so far has been premature conclusions keep being drawn from incomplete data. Too much money being spent to prove Global Warming, instead of to just observe/theorize, prove/disprove and not get religious about it in the process. As human knowledge grows so does our understanding of our world and universe. Much of the time, things aren't what they appear. :)

Anecdotes from too short of a history

Going longer back, it was generally even WARMER in AD800-1300 which gets ignored. That was a period of reasonable prosperity. It ended in the Little Ice age which technically we have almost climbed out of (FINALLY). But when the temps dropped going into the Little Ice Age, plague and famine (and wars) wiped out huge swaths of population back then. That went on into the mid 1800's. That doesn't happen when the planet heats up. The animal and plant populations prosper instead. The current planetary temp is still COLD according to the geologists who have a much longer timeframe to work with than the 100-150 years the climate guys keep banging on about... The science behind the climate still isn't well understood, so long term predictions are still near impossible to make since there are too many variables and not enough data points yet. In the late 70's we thought we were about to turn into a snowball (which would kill millions), now we think the planets heating up which will bring prosperity but few deaths. Warmth brings life, cold brings death. I don't see a problem with a warmer planet, unless getting warmer plunges us into an Ice Age again...

Nokia: There will be NO smartphone division selloff to Microsoft

@multipharious

I have have no reason to doubt you. I've had an HTC in my hands when last shopping. It wasn't my cup of tea really. My opinion on the UI wasn't that great, and it isn't very flexible for being able to tweak, but I'm not the market segment it was aimed at. But Nokia has no market presence in the US at all now. I couldn't look at a Lumia if I wanted to currently. T-Mobile (subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom) has a 710 "coming soon", but that is the only carrier to have anything from Nokia currently displayed on their websites. Hence part of my gloomy outlook on Nokia, they just missed the Christmas phone boom in the US and complete loss of Brand name recognition. Over here, it looks like they went bankrupt, disappeared altogether, and then trying to make a Braniff style comeback...

and now is the perfect time for a 'Yes, Minister' quotation...

"First rule in politics: never believe anything until it's officially denied"