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If tech stocks are overvalued now, it's nothing like they were then. Now let's talk about housing, shall we?

I often wonder how 4 years of school can turn a teenage Britney Spears-clone into an electrical engineer, yet somehow a person who has been learning on his own since childhood is looked down upon.

True story: in an interview for a technical job at a telecom company, I said I never went to university, but learned on my own. I got the most condescending "Oh, you're one of those".
Looking at the company's value it's my turn to say, "Oh, one of those"... Bastards! May they stay in penny stock hell for ever!

Don't forget the earlier examples of footshooting involving WordPerfect. Novell paid $1 billion (or was it $850 million?) for WordPerfect Corporation and sold it to Corel for $186 million about 18 months later. That's a pity, because for $50 I could have told them that WordPerfect Corporation was not a good fit for Novell.

Little-discussed facts about WordPerfect for DOS: There were plenty of menus that were 7 levels deep. It was like a video game. There may have been a pot of gold in there somewhere that no one ever discovered.

It always seemed to me that the old WP Corp. was like a Ponzi scheme. They had excellent free technical support to tell you how to find things in the forest of menus. But that could only work if they had steadily increasing sales.

That was not the end of footshooting. Corel President Michael Cowpland (I once talked to him on the phone, briefly.) was married to a woman who had a habit of dressing seductively... some described it as going about in public half-naked. Here's a quote, one of many: (Sorry, I couldn't find any of the really seductive photos.)

Most Likely to Be Talked About Behind Her Back

Marlen Cowpland: The wife of former Corel Corp. CEO Michael Cowpland and the Marie Antoinette of the Canadian rich, she appeared at the computer software company's 1999 Ottawa gala draped in a million-dollar dress following a quarter when Corel stock had lost more than half its value and the firm had bled almost $15 million. She later hosted Talk TV's Celebrity Pets. A release for Cowpland's show gives no year of birth, but did say she was born in "Quebec, Canada." The release added, "Cowpland believes that to fully experience life, you must create your own party."

No, this is a hostile bid. See here for more details.

A hostile action, is one taken when you don't have the agreement of the target company's management. Eisner, disagreed, and Comcast is now attempting to do an end run around him straight to the shareholders. Personally, I hope Comcast succeeds, because Disney is in desperate need of a change in management.

Yup, that's pretty much the clear mud of it. And yes, the levies did just go up but not as much as everyone feared it may be.

http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/s tory/ROC/20031212/2003-12-13T002411Z_01_N12402633_ RTRIDST_0_BUSINESS-MEDIA-CANADA-COPYRIGHT-COL

"The United States alone had a GDP of $10 trillion in 2001, compared to $7.8 trillion for the entire EU -- and an apples-to-apples comparison would measure the EU against NAFTA"

Um, you can count us out. Not interested in getting lumped in with 'borrow & spend' policies dragging down our "combined" economies.

-Canada

This may or may not have anything to do with it... but Theo apparently has made a bunch of anti-war comments to the media, to the tune that he hoped his grant was taking funding away from the US-led war effort in Iraq. here a link... and here's another

Now, I'm not here to say that Theo's not entitled to his opinions; he unquestionably IS entitled to them. I would point out, however, that it's not a good idea to publicly bite the hand that's feeding you. By injecting a political viewpoint into this grant, Theo put the DARPA folks in a quandry, and while it may have had nothing to do with the grant cancellation, it certainly did NOT help matters.

Focus on coding and doing what you love (if it's all about the software). I'm not saying high-profile people can't have opinions... they just need to be careful about where they voice them, and be prepared to deal with the consequences if they use their position to advocate a viewpoint (ask Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins about that). It's not wrong to speak up... you've just got to be ready to deal with the fallout.

PR Newswire is reporting that
'Federal District Judge J. Frederick Motz of Baltimore today ruled that Microsoft will not be allowed to contest 395 separate findings that were made against the company in the case brought by the Department of Justice. Judge Motz entered today's ruling in cases brought by consumer plaintiffs, Sun Microsystems, Netscape Communications, Be Incorporated and Burst.com. Under today's decision, Microsoft cannot offer any evidence at trial to dispute any of the 395 factual findings. The findings provide the foundation for the determination in the Government case that Microsoft violated federal antitrust laws by illegally maintaining its Windows monopoly.

'This ruling is significant because it will make it much easier for the consumer and competitor plaintiffs to win their cases against Microsoft,' said Stanley M. Chesley, co-chair of the group of attorneys representing the consumer plaintiffs. 'Microsoft now enters the trial with one or two strikes against it,' he said. 'Microsoft had its day in court and lost when the District of Columbia court ruled against it on these 395 findings. Microsoft is now conclusively found to have engaged in numerous anticompetitive acts in order to maintain its dominance of the market, overcharge the public for Windows and stifle innovation of better, competing products.'

Dozens of consumer cases against Microsoft were filed in courts throughout the United States and transferred to Judge Motz in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. The cases allege that Microsoft abused its monopoly power to prevent competition in the market for personal computer operating systems, leveraged its Windows monopoly to obtain monopolies in the markets for word processing and spreadsheet software and used its monopoly positions in these markets to overcharge purchasers of Windows, Word, Excel and Office software.

It did not take Microsoft long to act on this. They have already reported the cost against this quarter's earnings.

Microsoft Corp. today announced that it will record a pre-tax charge of approximately
$550 million in the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2001, resulting from the
settlement of more than 100 class action lawsuits.

On an after-tax basis, the settlement will result in a charge of
approximately $375 million, which represents a $0.06 to $0.07 reduction in
forecasted diluted earnings per share for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2001.

It is not clear if they are writing the total cost off all at once(in which case they it is costing them alot less) or this is the first of five instalments(which would make it more than the $1.1 billion reported).

How on earth would acquiring Novell be of strategic advantage to Cisco?

Yesterday, GlobeInvestor had an article about Cisco potentially taking over Nortel, seeing as its stock price is very low right now. Today there is an article with Nortel denying it.

Today the Globe and Mail is proclaiming that Canadian Internet usage has made a record leap!

ATI just announced today that they are shipping the ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON PCI card which features 32 MB SDR memory, Personal Video Recorder (PVR) technology, a stereo TV tuner, DVD playback with Dolby(R) Digital 5.1 surround sound and video output. The graphics card offers video editing enthusiasts the ability to capture and edit MPEG-2 video for creating professional-looking home movies. Video CD creation - When combined with popular CD creation software such as Roxio Easy CD Creator, you can create your own MPEG-compliant Video CDs for playback on a consumer DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) player.

BTW, Iomega just announced their10 and 20 gig Peerless storage system. It looks like the sucessor to their zip drives. It will be hard to beat CDs though since blank CDs are so cheap.

ATI just announced today that they are shipping the ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON PCI card which features 32 MB SDR memory, Personal Video Recorder (PVR) technology, a stereo TV tuner, DVD playback with Dolby(R) Digital 5.1 surround sound and video output. The graphics card offers video editing enthusiasts the ability to capture and edit MPEG-2 video for creating professional-looking home movies. Video CD creation - When combined with popular CD creation software such as Roxio Easy CD Creator, you can create your own MPEG-compliant Video CDs for playback on a consumer DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) player.

BTW, Iomega just announced their10 and 20 gig Peerless storage system. It looks like the sucessor to their zip drives. It will be hard to beat CDs though since blank CDs are so cheap.

OTTAWA, CANADA--Corel Corporation (NASDAQ: CORL, TSE: COR) is pleased to announce WordPerfect(r) Office 2000 Deluxe for Linux(r) has been placed on Winmag.com's prestigious WinList.

Each month editors at Winmag.com, an online Windows(r) publication, test and evaluate numerous hardware and software products. The best rise to the exclusive WinList. Products remain on the list as long as they lead their category. WordPerfect Office 2000 Deluxe for Linux placed first in the category of Software -- Business Suites.

"In Linux, Corel's Suite is the only game in town and, as such, is a genuinely great office suite," said Warren Ernst, in Winmag.com's June 1, 2000 review of Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 Deluxe for Linux. "It indeed brings Linux a step closer to a useful desktop operating system alternative in the modern office environment." Further in the review, Mr. Ernst went on to say, "This version of WordPerfect speaks 'Microsoft Office' fluently."

WordPerfect Office 2000 Deluxe for Linux packages WordPerfect(r) 9, Quattro(r) Pro 9, Paradox(r) 9, Corel(r) Presentations(tm) 9, Netscape(r) Communicator 4.7 along with 1000 True Type(r) fonts, 12,000 pieces of clipart, 200 stock photos and a copy of the Corel(r) LINUX(r) OS.

"I am thrilled a prestigious publication like Winmag.com has recognized the power and ease of use of WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux," said Derek J. Burney, executive vice-president of engineering and chief technology officer of Corel Corporation. "This is a strong endorsement of what we've been saying all along. Not only do our Linux products give consumers another choice, but they also offer the best of both worlds by providing a bridge between Windows and Linux."

WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux (Standard and Deluxe Editions) hit store shelves in April and already the Deluxe Edition is among the top five best-selling Linux products in the U.S. retail market, according to the April 2000 figures released by PC Data, a market research firm. According to these figures, WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux ranks 5th out of a total of 66 Linux products sold in the U.S. retail market, based on total revenue.

In addition, PC Data figures show Corel's share of the Linux market continued to rise in April. Corel had 22.6 per cent of the U.S. retail market share -- based on sales of Corel LINUX OS and WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux -- compared to 15.7 per cent in March. Corel is ranked second only to Red Hat(tm) when tracking the share of revenues from Linux sales in the U.S. retail market (PC Data Retail Software Report -- April 2000).