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Suggestions for next steps:

1. Contact the California Dept Financial Institutions and tell them one of their licensees is committing financial embezzlement and racketeering under the guise of operating under their granted license
2. Contact the Santa Clara Country District Attorney's office and tell them a Santa Clara Country corporation is committing embezzlement and racketeering with charitable donations for Katrina victims.
3. Contact SF Bay Area news media (SJ Mercury News, SF Chronicle/Examiner, KRON 4 TV, KTVU 2 TV, KPIX 5 TV, KGO 7 TV) and tell them a Santa Clara Country corporation is committing embezzlement and racketeering with charitable donations for Katrina victims. Send E-mail and call them - hearing the story from multiple channels adds credibility.
4. Collect documentation of previous malfeasance (e.g. PalPay Sucks!) and broadcast it as widely as possible. That especially includes personal networks: make it a point to tell 5 friends and 5 strangers about PayPal's unacceptable behavior in the next 24 hours. Ask those you tell to investigate the truth themselves and tell 10 people they know also. Lather. Rinse. Repeat as necessary.

This ongoing and repeated abuse must stop now!

There are no Saddam loyalists.

Bullcrap.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article= 36512&d=16&m=12&y=2003
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/specia l_packages/iraq/7511113.htm
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003580992,00 .html

The freedom fighters are just that - fighting for control of their own country.

They don't have to fight- Iraqis get control of the country at the end of June.

You can't dismiss as everyone who is anti-US as an Islamic terrorist

I didn't, and on the same note, you can't dismiss the entire nation of Iraq as anti-US. We are doing a lot of good in Iraq, and they are appreciative (unlike some countries)

This article is in the registration free section of NYT

large corps *never* fudge on their taxs *Cough* ENRON *Cough*

Enron paid more taxes than they should have because they were reporting fraudulent income (they have also asked for a refund because of this).

We do why always have to here about the lawyer, political, EULA, UN, Patent, Copyright side of the issues and not the technology? Enough already the found a new Marsupial and the poles may flip. Google Tech for me when I want news for nerds I guess, but I miss the smart comments from many of /.

Kevin Mack's Top 10 Linus SCO quotes (in reverse order):

[thanks to Dee-Ann LeBlanc for the link.]

10. Not About IP"None of the SCO accusations have anything to do with IP rights; they're all about contracts between IBM and SCO. All the IP rights blathering by SCO was just that -- blathering"

9. Custody Battle"SCO is claiming parenthood of that child and now wants to make money off the earnings of that child. Even though SCO has refused to undergo the technical equivalent of DNA testing, and even though my (and other people's) DNA is probably all over Linux."

8. Lottery

"we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company that seems to have squandered all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery."

7. Copyright Law"So . . . when he attacks the GPL as being somehow against 'financial gain', that notion that the GPL has of 'exchange of receipt of copyrighted works' is actually EXPLICITLY ENCODED in the US copyright law. It's not just a crazy idea that some lefty commie hippie dreamed up in a drug-induced stupor."

6. Raelians

"SCO is playing it like the Raelians [the organization backed by Clonaid's founder, known as Rael], saying, 'We'll show you proof in a few weeks, through an expert panel that we trust.' Let's see if there is any baby or not."

5. Jerry Springer"Quite frankly, I found it mostly interesting in a Jerry Springer kind of way. White trash battling it out in public, throwing chairs at each other. SCO crying about IBM's other women. ... Fairly entertaining"

4. Stealing Cars In Bright Daylight

"Do you steal a car in the bright daylight with a lot of people around? Or do you steal a car, go for a joyride at 4 am in the morning when there aren't a lot of people around. With open source, there is a lot of daylight. A lot of people looking at the code. You don't really go around and steal things."

3. Constitution and Marriage"If Darl McBride was in charge, he'd probably make marriage unconstitutional too, since clearly it de-emphasizes the commercial nature of normal human interaction, and probably is a major impediment to the commercial growth of prostitution"

2. Smoking"They are smoking crack."

And number one, according to Mack...

1. Please Grow Up"we find your references to a negotiating table somewhat confusing, since there doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP in the Open Source domain, but we wait with bated breath for when you will actually care to inform us about what you are blathering about."

What do you think? Join the Feedback to this item.

Aircraft status: "oh shit!"

The pilot made it back, sucseeded in landing, and the aircraft was repaired to full flightworthy status. Altough, I'm not sure on the 48 hour turnaround time.

A similar story is here

I also saw an article on another A-10 that was on almost constant missions during Desert Storm and saw a tremendous amount of action. When the ground crew finaly got her in the hanger for maintence they they went over her and counted over 1,400 impacts on the outer skin from weapons of various calibers, from small arms to AAA.

The only A-10 that I heard of being shot down, was during Gulf War II. Where a doomed A-10 was running a mission near the airport in Bagdad and got nailed with a lucky shot from an Iraqi firing a RPG (an anti-tank weapon, mind you).

For more information on A-10s go here and here.

let's not forget that Edward James Olmos has warned fans of the original series to not watch.

Mike

In John McCain's words, Bush is spending like a drunken sailor.

Conservatives are against runaway spending on principle, and because they figure libs won't give them any credit even if they do spend:

Federal spending soars under Bush's watch

According to one recent analysis, the government now spends $20,000 a year for every household in America, the most since World War II

Notice this isn't just on defense and homeland security (you know, the common defense that the Constitution actually calls for), but also for entitlements.

I'm still looking for AmeriCorps, the Boys and Girls Club, or job training expenditures mentioned in the Constitution.

Anyway, Bush is spending a lot. Why bother? He's being attacked by both sides. He might as well cut cut cut.

So far, federal judges have ruled that because the base, leased from Cuba, is on foreign territory, aliens held there have no access to U.S. courts to challenge their detentions. The Bush administration maintains that the detainees - most of them captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan - are "unlawful combatants," do not deserve POW status under the Geneva Conventions and can be held indefinitely.

Some governments whose nationals have been detained with this status, notably Canada, Britain, and Sweden, have intervened to limit the degree to which the rights of their nationals have been suspended. In general this has been handled on a case-by-case basis as numbers are few.

Australia recently pulled a stunt like this with a bunch of refugees who landed on an island. The government retroactively excised the island (and about 3000 others) so they could send the refugees on their way to Indonesia where they were detained and arrested. Juggling words does not make it right. I don't disagree that some things (detaining people in Cuba) may have been done out of necessity, but at some point you must correct your wrongs. Not just obstinately declare that there is nothing to be discussed.

So far, federal judges have ruled that because the base, leased from Cuba, is on foreign territory, aliens held there have no access to U.S. courts to challenge their detentions. The Bush administration maintains that the detainees - most of them captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan - are "unlawful combatants," do not deserve POW status under the Geneva Conventions and can be held indefinitely.

Column...

eJournal

The name is Charles BOOHER, not BOOKER. This guy is a notoriously eccentric character in the Bay Area programming scene. The Mercury News got his name right:

News Article

But in May, Booher received one piece of unsolicited e-mail too many. Booher sat down at his keyboard and began firing back e-mail after e-mail threatening to kill the alleged spammer, according to law enforcement officials. On Thursday, federal agents arrested Booher, 44, at his home and charged him with 11 violations of interstate communications.

Released on bond, Booher faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Other news from Google News

According to the San Jose Mercury News "Google once required SAT scores of job candidates". And if you're trying to hire "only the smartest of employees", that test sounds as reasonable as many other possible tests of smartness.

Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Comcast to Offer Online Music

2003-11-11 13:10:14 Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Comcast to Offer Online Music (articles,music) (rejected)

Wal-Mart will launch its own digital music download service through its Web site later this month. Not to be outdone, Best Buy will also launch an iTunes-type online music store - with the ability to buy through in-store kiosks - based on the MusicNow service (formerly FullAudio). And today Comcast announced music downloads via Real Rhapsody for its 5 million broadband Internet subscribers. The Washington Post's Cynthia L. Webb writes about the online music frenzy and the resultant advertising onslaught due to the sheer number of entrants into the music download market, while Bloomberg's Holly M. Sanders offers an analysis of Walmart's imminent entry into online music, which is significant since Wal-Mart already controls 14 percent of global CD music sales. More at the New York Times (via SeattlePI).

However, if you are unemployed, you shouldn't be bitching about it on slashdot.

I'm not unemployed. I know good, educated people who are unemployed because of the government's policies, and I will bitch about it on Slashdot or any other forum where people might listen. Sorry if that annoys you.

Why not consider teaching? Schools across the US are in dire need of teachers, especially in math and science.

Another fallacy. Just like the IT labor shortage that never was, the dirty little secret is that are many teachers looking for jobs. The problem is many of them are over 40, so they are discarded. This is yet another "intellectual career path" that has not paid off on the investment - and teachers aren't that well-paid to start with.

. . . we had all better start doing what we do better and cheaper or plan to do something else.

We are not inherently any better or smarter than Indians or Chinese or Brazilians, and American companies are not even offering us the "cheaper" option, so it comes down to the question I keep asking: What is that "something else" we're supposed to do? Unfortunately no one seems to have a plausible answer. Set up a seniors' football league perhaps?

Hot off the press is this news article: "Sources: Google Seeks Banks to Lead IPO". The search-engine business is going to consolidate. Microsoft and Yahoo will be two survivors. Google won't be because it lacks the revenue to invest in the R&D needed to build the best search engine. What Google has right now can be easily duplicated by either Microsoft and Yahoo. Google also has the issue of appearing to favor H-1B workers over American workers; in a period of 9% unemployment in Silicon Valley, Google just can't seem to find enough qualified Americans to fill its list of unfilled job positions that are advertised month after month. Google also practices age discrimination: "Google, in its intense effort to hire employees, is focusing on 'getting 25-year-old [employees]'.

If you buy into the Google IPO, you are shooting yourself in the foot as its stock will be worthless after 2 years. Moreover, you are enriching the pockets of people who turn their backs on the older, unemployed Americans. You ask yourself, "Is Google ethical?"

As well, you can be sure that VMWare is running to the IPO finish line. Microsoft has built a virtual machine monitor (VMM) that is as good as VMWare's best product.

... from the desk of reporter

NEW YORK - The month-long criminal trial against Frank Quattrone, Silicon Valley's once-high-flying financier of the technology boom, crumbled Friday when a judge declared a mistrial after jurors deadlocked on a verdict.

Inside Frank Quattrone's Money Machine

Nobody knew it at the time, but the apex of the Internet rocket ride came on the morning of Dec. 9, 1999. Executives of computer maker VA Linux Systems Inc. gathered at 6 a.m. in the trading offices of Credit Suisse First Boston (CSR ) on the 17th floor of a San Francisco skyscraper for the company's initial public offering. Among those assembled were Larry M. Augustin, the chief executive, and his friend Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux operating system, who was dressed in his customary T-shirt and sandals. Their three toddlers scampered around underfoot while the adults watched in stunned silence as the stock price jumped from 30 a share to more than 200 within minutes. Augustin nudged Torvalds and whispered: "Did you ever think we'd be here?" At the end of trading, the company's shares were worth 239.25 apiece, up 697.5%, making it the best-ever first-day IPO performance.

Franky Q. has a mistrial declared.
I guess it's good that we don't rush to judgement, but if this guy is actually innocent, then Saddam Husssein is Mother Theresa.
Maybe we shouldn't pay lawyers by the hour.

On a more serious note, I bet this'll get rid of the few people who still think MS is holding up its fair share of the interoperability departments.

I wonder if anyone will bother to bring this to the attention of the Supreme Court. They, apparently, don't care about monopoly practices unless someone with money tells them that its happening.

I wonder how this might affect their current stock issue?

Or, how about Mike Langberg at the San Jose Mercury News?

Are they unbiased enough for you?

I'm curious which products you think are s__t? (That was a rather disgusting metaphor, by the way!)

I'm not sure why, but a couple of links were removed from the edited post. I haven't yet used MS Office 2003, so I'm not in a position to say whether or not the PC World review 'sums things up pretty well' (not my words) or not. Some of the other edits do clarify, however. As for the "spectacular-conglomeration dept.", if that referred to this post, a tip of the hat to simoniker.

For anyone who cares, here's how it looked as submitted, with an additional Google link for PC Pro article to bypass their registration page. The interesting thing is that PC Pro changed the headline which was definitive about shutting out Macs to something less than absolute.

The first users of MS Office 2003 are weighing in and the response is decidedly mixed. The new Outlook has received a favorable response but the mantra seems to be there's little reason to upgrade unless you absolutely need the new features. Microsoft probably heard this in beta trials and has adopted the curious strategy of denigrating previous versions of Office as "too hard to find things" and having a "clunky" interface. Meanwhile, Bill Gates dismissed the open source competition. One of the new features - self-destructing documents - seems to have caused some confusion because 'Microsoft says the new feature is not designed to remove all traces of a file' and MS spokesman Mike Pryke-Smith says, "The message will still be in various places." E-mails will not self-destruct. Another problem is the permissions technology called Information Rights Management that will shut out Mac users (Google link). PC World has a long and detailed review of Microsoft Office 2003 (single-page).

I know I read elsewhere that the FCC had previously rules that *digitial* TV (DTV) signals must have minimum recording rules (see this article for example). These specifically allow at least one time recording of a DTV signal for personal use. Yet, HDTV (high definition TV) may have difference restrictions? This seems really odd, and part of the problem is the slow process of implementing two different but new standards at the same time. I believe that HDTV will be carried by DTV in the FCC vision of things to come, so I would expect DTV rules to carry more weight than the HDTV rules.

Brief summary: (1) Has 20 GB (2) $399 (3) Line-in for recording (4) FM antenna (5) Can record FM radio (6) 10 hour battery life

George Bush said that because he, unlike you, is not a fuzzy brained bunny hugger. If the enemy is predisposed to run himself up onto your bayonet, shout encouragement!

Wow, wouldn't that be great? Meanwhile, back in the real world, that's not what they do. Damn. For a second there you almost sounded like someone who gave a shit about our soldiers wounded and dying in Iraq.

here and here

So far I've got " a slice of pizza sticking out of your head", "a taco surgically grafted to your head", and "like talking into a banana or Frisbee."

Any others?

You can see a picture of someone using the phone here.

Thank god it was spotted after the fact, or else we would have had another stupid media frenzy that would draw attention away from more important matters, like friggin this, this, or this. Media man, it's like a toy for an ADD child.

Yep. That was the going rate here in Silicon Valley until the bust a couple of years ago. Now companies seem to be offering less, and sometimes a lot less. A year or so ago there were stories in the Murky News about recruiters pursuing new careers in real estate and retail.

...can be found here.

The ACLU is suing the California government in an attempt to block paper voting - they appear to be in favor of electronic voting.

Story

Makes ya wonder where those ACLU donations are really going eh. :)

Here's an article that gives a little more detail. Apparently during the conference, a demo was presented in with BG present using Linux and Netscape as the client. It doesn't explain how the gist went from "not running of stage fuming" to "embracing" but at least it explains why Netscape and Linux are in that headline.

For example consider the following question about minimum credit card charges. The retailer says that she pays Visa 3 percent of charges PLUS A FLAT 30 CENT FEE PER TRANSACTION. That's why Visa can get away with allowing one cent charges, because in fact the merchant still pays them the 30 cents (and loses 29 cents of course).

And it's not like 30 cents is what it costs Visa. It probably costs them much more than that per transaction. But they make enough money on the percentage of $1000 transactions that they can charge only 30 cents for a very small one. With micropayment systems, however, they have no big transactions to help cover the cost of the small ones.

So my argument is that micropayments can't work because of the fixed overhead. BUT, one thing is that when some people talk about micropayments they can mean some pretty big amounts. I saw one article that defined a "micropayment" as anything under $2.50. Come on, you can buy lots of actual real useful goods for $2.50 today. If you go to a store and buy a magazine for $2.50 is that a "micropayment"? I think not.

So I think there should be some discussion over the boundary line for micropayments.

To me micropayments are so small that you don't even think about them individually, and they are therefore charged a lot -- for example paying something each time you view a page on a site. The per-second charges on cell phones are like that (per-SECOND I said, that is, just pennies at a time) -- nobody really worries about talking for an extra second or not. Personally I would say the micropayment cutoff should be around one cent, certainly under five cents, but that's just me.

- adam

He was definitely more than a kook, as the parent post says. Two more views of Edward Teller:

Passion, patriotism marked Teller
(He was important, but single-minded about nuclear weapons.)
Quote: "He had these sort of blinders where he couldn't see the costs, he could only see the benefits of nuclear weapons," Gusterson said. "He was sort of a one-eyed genius in that way."

My own opinion: I met Dr. Teller...
(He influenced the world to be more violent.)

Is that the spin of the reviewer, or of the book's authors?

Granted, the shitty writing of the stanlee.net 'webisodes' probably would have guaranteed the implosion of the company sooner or later, but before that could happen Stan's cofounder and one of the company execs ran the company into the ground by way of a stock scam.

Stan Lee Media was one of the last hurrahs of the dot com era... I worked there for six months, and managed to cash out my unused vacation and leave about a month before everyone in the company got laid off (right before christmas, that was). I should have known better when I went for my interview; the office was decorated entirely with leftover junk from the failed Marvel Restaurant at Universal Citywalk from a few years before that.

Yet more evidence

Second example: ACLU sues when gay groups are excluded from Christian-sponsored Family Day parade - like, d'oh? Would ACLU sue to include NAMBLA in such a parade? Evidently they would. What about the Christians' right to make their point? Sorry, stick to making it in church, presumably behind locked, soundproof doors lest some poor unwary Atheist be accidentally converted.

Third example: ACLU causes pulling of an AIDS brochure addressed to Christians as being inappropriate for a government department to publish. In point of fact they actively oppose many Christianity-focussed (ie the opposite way around) AIDS defenses as well, despite the measurable fact that this is the only effective defense against AIDS so far discovered. They'd rather that people died than that they becomes Christian. But I digress: is this government department unable to address the Christians in their constituency in their own language, when bringing them to an understanding of AIDS and a compassionate response toward AIDS sufferers? ACLU seems to think so. I mentions the Bible in other than a condemnatory light, so it has to go.

Over to Leader U for a bigger dose.

A quote from this article.

The complexity makes it tough to say whether Issa, a Republican from Vista, broke the law with portions of $650,000 in contributions to the campaign to recall Davis.

Darrell Issa wanted to be governor. He paid enough petition gatherers $0.50 - $1.00 per petition signature to the legally required number of signatures. Why'd he drop out of the race afterwards? Arnie decided to run and apparently, he was afraid of getting his ass kicked yet again by The Terminator.

There's no mass movement here to rid the world of bad government. Just an ambitious politician who "broke into tears as he announced he would retain his seat in Congress so he could work toward peace in the Middle East." when he found out that he had no chance of winning.

While Davis sucks, at worst, he's about average... 0wn3d by the usual suspects.

No.

But they will file it with their insurance company when it lands on their vehicle

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/65 58801.htm

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= SVBIZINK3.story&STORY=/www/story/08-18-2003/000200 2335&EDATE=MON+Aug+18+2003,+07:04+AM

Hear, Hear!

Even though a cause for this blackout has not yet been determined, we are already hearing the drumbeat from certain parties calling for further deregulation and drilling in ANWAR as a solution.

Two years ago I would have been inclined to entertain these claims, but since the administration's own appointees on FERC found that market manipulation was rife during the 2000-2001 power crisis in the west, I now have to entertain the possibility that this summer's blackout was due to market manipulation. FERC finds widespread power manipulation in California"

It's 100 less than your standard Atari 2600 you insensitive clod.

Actually, the new alphabet created for the California Recall has caused the Atari 2600 or "VCS" to be renamed the Atari PQE.

The speed with which things have changed is amazing. Malls and multiplexes were unheard of six-seven years ago.

hmmm....very interesting. I'm curious, tho. Of those 9 linux vulnerabilities, how many required a national alert from the US Government's Office of Homeland Security? And not just one but TWO.

And there were certainly more than just 2 windows vulnerabilities in the . Nice FUD, but you might want to check against Microsoft's own security list

Well, apparantly it bothers a little more than some. Try over 28 million so far, not counting those who have signed up on state lists.

It's just like spam. They need to figure out that a large number of people aren't intersted in their "service".

This should be a benefit to the industry anyway. Think of they money they are losing by having to pay telemarketers to call people that are just going to harass or hang up on them anyway. By having access to a list of those people they can then concentrate their efforts on the people who are not on the list and actually don't mind getting their calls.

It's too bad people have to lose jobs over this, but it's not like this would be the first industry to have huge layoffs after some cost cutting.

And it's not as if the industry is being outlawed. People want the power to prevent marketing calls. The government has the power to make such a law. The government is petitioned to pass the law. And so it goes.

Napster may be long dead, but the name and the ``kitty'' logo of the pioneer online music-swapping program could return to cyberspace before the year is out. Santa Clara-based Roxio Inc., which owns the rights to the Napster name, plans to shelve its current online music service, pressplay, and roll out Napster 2.0 by Christmas, Chris Gorog, Roxio's chairman and chief executive, told The Associated Press. [...]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25DSL .html

More articles:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2003/07/25/BU143220.DTL&type=busin ess
From which quotes: "... SBC's monthly wholesale fees were between $32.50 and $39 per subscriber. At that price, he said, his clients were unable to compete against SBC when the additional cost of Internet service and modems is factored in."

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/business/638193 1.htm

http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1413, 87~11271~1532530,00.html

It's high time DSL prices fell so that I can get my $15/month - unlimited download - dedicated IP - T1!!! (then hook an 801 router and be peddling th e bandwidth to the neighbors... )

See this story I quickly googled up for more info.

Long story short: You're worse off if you ignore a subpoena than if you just deal with it head on.

The summary shows an astounding lack of attention to the news story. Please go back and reread the first few paragraphs. Olmos is not telling critics to tell their readers not to watch the show. He is telling hardcore fans that they will probably not like it, and therefore not to watch it. Neither comment would be an extraordinarily wise one coming from a lead actor in the show, but the latter is obviously far less damaging, seeing as how there are quite a lot of people who will be seeing the new show without ever having seen the original.

Certainly a lot of purists (whatever that means, since we are, in fact, talking about a TV show, for Pete's sake) are going to throw up their hands in disgust at any tinkering with the original's characters, plot points, art design, costumes, hardware, and whatever else it is that people of that ilk fuss and obsess over instead of living their lives. But the show's writer, Ron Moore, does bring up some very interesting points in the far more illuminating article available at the Mercury News. There was a lot of deeper drama that was never touched in the original, even though I suspect that the strong thread of spirituality and morality that ran through the original series will probably not be as prevalent in the new one. For some people that's not a problem; my personal view is that good writing is good writing, so I'll judge for myself after I see the show.

I have fond memories of the original myself (well, up to the 1980 abortion they called a series comeback), but that probably has something to do with the fact that I was 9 years old. I'm hoping that the channel that aired the first really decent adaptation of "Dune" might actually be able to pull off something that is a little more filling in the dramatic sense than the cotton candy that was the original series. I mean, let's face it, folks, a good bit of the time the original was about as dumb as a box of hair.

I have to say that, on the whole, I am pretty impressed with Olmos' straightforwardness. It's probably not incredibly politic for him to have done, but it took a lot of guts for him to speak the truth out loud, when other people don't want to for fear of riling up the obsessives and fanatics. That'll get me to watch, and now it's up to the writer(s), actors and director to keep me interested.