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Monster Cables Pushes Around the Wrong Small Company
Alien54 writes "Audioholics has a fun read regarding a recent legal dustup involving Monster Cables. The well-known (some might say notorious) cabling company sent a cease and desist letter to Blue Jeans Cable over a supposed patent violation. What the Monster folks couldn't have known was that Blue Jeans president Kurt Denke used to be a lawyer. His response is as humorous as it is thorough. ' Let me begin by stating, without equivocation, that I have no interest whatsoever in infringing upon any intellectual property belonging to Monster Cable. Indeed, the less my customers think my products resemble Monster's, in form or in function, the better ... If there is more than one such connector design in actual use by Monster Cable as to which appropriation of trade dress is alleged, of course, I will require this information for each and every such design. On the basis of what I have seen, both in the USPTO documents you have sent and the actual appearance of Monster Cable connectors which I have observed in use in commerce, it does not appear to me that Monster Cable is in a position to advance a nonfrivolous claim for infringement of these marks.'"
I read every word of that rather long article, and all I have to say is "OWNED". Wow. Normally I refer from such Internet slang, but I really believe in my heart that it applies here.
In my opinion, Monster cable has been taking advantage of the lack of technical knowledge of the general public to convince people to buy EXTREMELY expensive cables, when much cheaper cables would provide equal performance.
Performance of audio systems is not heavily affected by cables, if only the size of the wires is adequate.
Slashdot reposts a story found on Gizmodo that Gizmodo found on Digg that was first seen on reddit that...
The best line of the reply has to be "Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it."
Dear Monster Lawyers,
The mention of similarity between my company and yours makes me throwup in my mouth a little. Your threats are empty and vague. You provided no details to your patent hissyfit.
If you're actually attempting to prove you own a patent on the RCA connector, then fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
Sincerely,
Kurt Denke
I refer my learnèd friend to the case of Arkell v Pressdram.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
... As to why patent reform can't come soon enough.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
My man-crush for Kurt Denke currently knows no bounds. I will gladly have his love-children if he so asks, biology be damned!
I can has sig?
Every small company I've worked for has been shaken down this way.
Step 1: Giant company sees small company as a real or imagined threat.
Step 2: Initiate patent or Trademark litigation.
Step 3: Repeat step 2 until small company is sunk under a mountain of legal bills.
Step 4: Profit!
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
For more proof that Monster has nothing special, see the Consumerist's comparison of Monster Cable versus wire coat hangers. Nobody could tell the difference.
I think this deserves an "OH SNAP!"
My Sysadmin Blog
I hate these losers at Monster cable. They are a total rip off.
What is funny, however, is that in San Francisco, the park where the 49ers play, it's called Monster Park.
EVERYONE thinks it was named after monster.com, the job web site. Absolutely no one realizes that it's for Monster cables.
Good work guys!
I will begin by addressing your trademark/trade dress claim. You have referred to two trademark registrations, and have attached some printouts from the USPTO system but the depiction of the marks on the drawings provided is small and indistinct, making it difficult to determine exactly what the alleged resemblance is, and I need further information from you. This made me laugh. Monster Cable wants to initiate a trademark suit and can't send a legible image of the trademark? Sounds like something SCO would do...
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
And we need them in a serious way. People who know their stuff, know what the legal system is supposed to be used for, and stand up for themselves in a positive way.
I hope we see more small companies and individuals do this in the future.
Further, if any of these patents or trademarks has been licensed to any entity, please provide me with copies of the licensing agreements. I assume that Monster Cable International, Ltd., in Bermuda, listed on these patents, is an IP holding company and that Monster Cable's principal US entity pays licensing fees to the Bermuda corporation in order to shift income out of the United States and thereby avoid paying United States federal income tax on those portions of its income; my request for these licensing agreements is specifically intended to include any licensing agreements, including those with closely related or sham entities, within or without the Monster Cable "family," and without regard to whether those licensing agreements are sham transactions for tax shelter purposes only or whether they are bona fide arm's-length transactions.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
When digg first came out, I thought it an incredible improvement on /. as far as getting timely stories, if they would only get nested comments. But then the fanboys hit, duplications made /. look as staid and conservative as the New York Times, and I gave up on digg. Far too much noise for far too little signal.
/. has improved immensely. No doubt the competition helped, but I care not where the incentive came from, only that /. gets better and better.
And since then,
Infuriate left and right
I purchased some Monster Cables for my home theater. Now the damn connectors are coming off my speaker wires. I took them apart to find out that connectors are held on by a shoddy crimp job. For what they cost they could at least solder them. The rubber shielding is even starting to deteriorate. Not worth the money.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I have not enjoyed a letter like that in a long while.
I think I have a new rule, right after "never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!" "Never challenge a former litigator who misses his old job."
Now, the real issue here is that every frakking time a large east-coast firm throws up some completely contrived and in this case completely confused claim of infringement, where is the Lawyer that will be able to send something like that on behalf of the poor schmucks that DIDN'T come out of a heavy damage litigation background?
Does the DOJ need to aggressively treat all patent infringement claims such that the one filing the claim is audited by federal attorneys for relevancy? Should the patent office send out investigators and rip the claim apart before it gets to court?
I, for one, would be SOL if a company the size of Monster came after me. I can't even START to mount a defense for this kind of thing. I applaud Mr. Denke but at the same time, I have to say that this is a serious lament for the system. You have to be a high-class lawyer to get this crap out of your company's hair.
Not only does he completely and thoroughly tear Monster's case apart, he also points out that Monster uses a Bermuda-based company for IP holding to shift income offshore and avoid paying US taxes. Not illegal per se, but also not something Monster would want broadcast.
Although it may have taken some time to write this he absolutely ensures that Monster will never mess with him again and decreases the chances of Monster going after anyone in a similar fashion. He has done in probably less than a couple of hours what would normally take months of messy litigation.
This guy is a hero.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
That letter is a thing of legalistic beauty. I wanted to cheer when I read it.
Sometimes, only sometimes, lawyers can be pretty damned awesome.
Wouldn't the RCA connector patented by.... oh, I don't know.... RCA?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I believe the proper iSlang is PWNED!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You misspelled "PWN3T"
Alternative acceptable spellings include "PWN37," "pVVn3D," "pwnt," and "9W|V3D," though "OWNED" is flat out incorrect.
Hey, It's Digital, Clowns! It either works, or it doesn't. It doesn't work halfway.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
... buy all of my overpriced cables at Blue Jeans Cable from now on (obviously I'm not a customer of either company)
This is also a great piece of guerrilla marketing - maybe they are well known in their field but I had never heard of Blue Jeans Cables before today ...
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
Amusingly, for many years Monster stayed away from the types of cables where quality matters, like VGA cables. VGA cables have a high-bandwidth analog signal, and long (10m or so) VGA cables have transmission-line type problems, where mismatches or crosstalk result in ghosting or blur at the monitor. For short tables, it's not a big deal, but as length increases, it matters. There are lots of crap VGA cables out there. Still, above $15 for 10m, you're overpaying.
HDMI cables have to carry 340MHz, so they're transmission lines. There's a certification process, and if the cable passed it, it should be OK. There are phony HDMI cables out there that don't pass the spec, but all certified cables should work equally well.
There's something to be said for gold-plated connectors, especially for something that's frequently unplugged, but the cost of the gold is trivial.
Further, if any of these patents or trademarks has been licensed to any entity, please provide me with copies of the licensing agreements. I assume that Monster Cable International, Ltd., in Bermuda, listed on these patents, is an IP holding company and that Monster Cable's principal US entity pays licensing fees to the Bermuda corporation in order to shift income out of the United States and thereby avoid paying United States federal income tax on those portions of its income; my request for these licensing agreements is specifically intended to include any licensing agreements, including those with closely related or sham entities, within or without the Monster Cable "family," and without regard to whether those licensing agreements are sham transactions for tax shelter purposes only or whether they are bona fide arm's-length transactions.
I clearly haven't been noticing that Monster have been suing people for producing cables with RCA and coax style connectors.
I mean, how lame is that? Those are standardized connectors, so the idea of suing someone for making cables with similar ends is ludicrous.
I've always believed the claims that Monster Cables magically make audio sound differently were completely silly. But, this is the first time I've apparently registered the fact that they sue people who make other cables. I really do hope this guy gets to stand up in court and make them look like fools.
That's just weird.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You just return your utterly destroyed Monster cable to any participating store, and they replace it for you, free of charge. Which is pretty goddamn awesome.
I like PlanetWaves cables better, though. I fear the metal Monster plug will damage my equipment. And I think PlanetWaves has a similar warranty.
But the price, in light of the lifetime warranty, is pretty fair.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
It looks like a porcupine, and boy does it growl like a porcupine. Monster Cable Products Inc, would you like to try a bite and see if it tastes like a porcupine?
My company has received warnings letters about possible patent infringements on our part. As manager of R&D, I've helped respond to them.
The main thing to keep in mind is that such patent infringement claims are mostly bluff. Sending a letter to a company claiming patent infringement is a relatively cheap thing to do, and might result in a competitor discontinuing a product or paying a license fee. But responding to such a letter in a coherent, technically competent, and determined manner is often enough for the patent holder to back off. They don't want a legal battle any more than you do.
Indeed, if you can make a case for prior art then the patent holders will really want to avoid a fight, for such a battle might invalidate their patent.
what a beautifully put, long winded way to say "suck my balls"
Monster cables are nonsense. If you don't mind paying for them because they are right there and look good, have at it. If your money is worth something to you, buy something else.
Go to a hardware store and buy 10 gauge stranded wire for your speakers, go to a discount store to by cheap audio/video cables for your VCR (with white/red/yellow RCA connector hoods and coaxial cable), and buy HDMI cables on-line for $4.99.
Digital signals like HDMI either work or they don't, so as long as it works, you are fine. The speaker wire is far more than enough. And the cheap w/r/y a/v cables from walmart are just fine for the signals they are carrying from a VCR or DVD player.
Monster cables are a rip-off, there is absolutely no factual quantitative reason to pay for them. The do not perform better, and seriously, CAN'T perform any better then generic cables on consumer electronics. When properly connected, the electrical signals levels are pretty immune to noise. Did you ever wonder why VCRs and DVD players always came with cheap wires? Because the OEMs know that it doesn't make a difference.
In the case of speaker wires, does anyone know how much energy has to be induced on a speaker wire to actually produce audible noise through a speaker? Its HUGE! Measured in WATTS!
Monster Cables? give me a break.
dude, thats like the biggest can of whoop ass EVER!!
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Monster is hiring a paralegal - bet you would be kept busy! https://jobs-monstercable.icims.com/monstercable_jobs/jobs/candidate/job.jsp?jobid=1503&mode=view
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
I read the entire letter and all I can say is wow! Monster is going to be licking it's wounds for a while from that one.
Just in case anyone doesn't know of them, Monoprice has been my cabling place for years. Good prices, reasonable shipping.
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
I can't help but be reminded of the various legal threats towards Lowtax at Something Awful and his hilarious responses.
This letter is way beyond awesome.
Bose has been doing this for years as well. It's amazing to me the chasm between the home users who buy the stuff and the true audiophiles and sound engineers who won't touch it. In the long run, I suppose it is all subjective - if it sounds good to you, then your money is well spent. I just take issue with companies using suspicious claims to support their "innovative" technology.
Anyone who's not an idiot realises the lack of value with monster cables. and its a friggin RCA cord for god sakes, they're all pretty much the same. what a bunch of duchbags
Monster provided him with enough information (i.e., a reference to a patent, a reference to a trademark, and a reference to one of his products) for him to determine if he is in fact violating their rights. He responds by asking for a bunch of things they have no need and/or no ability to provide him at this stage (e.g., a list of their own products made that use a design patent's features, an exact legal description of what exact parts of his product infringe, etc.)
Many comments have heralded him as a hero for calling out some inadequacy in the Monster letter, but in reality, the information he has is enough for a skilled lawyer to determine if he is likely to be infringing any rights that Monster has. All of the design information about his cables and logos should be known to him or other people in his company, and all of the patent information and trademark information (including the correspondences he requested) is available for him and all of the public to view in high quality. Before discovery has taken place, he is in a much better position to make an argument that his products don't infringe than Monster is in to make an argument that his products do infringe because he knows more about his own products than they do and all of Monster's legal claims are rooted in patents/trademarks that are publicly available. The fact that he doesn't know how to find the public information indicates that being whatever type of lawyer he once was does not amount to sufficient qualifications to defend himself against this potential lawsuit.
He has not provided any legally sufficient grounds to rebut anything Monster said. He will probably antagonize them by requesting ridiculous things from their already busy employees when he should be getting those things himself. He will probably give them added confidence by responding in a way that shows both his ignorance of the subject matter and his overconfidence/willingness to fight back without proper legal council. I expect this not to be pretty for him in the future and hope others talk to a skilled IP lawyer before trying something like this.
I believe the proper iSlang is PWNED!
Or "pwn3d". I've been wondering for years, is that supposed to be pronounced "owned" or "pawned"?
I really wish I knew about this crap a few years ago when I bought my car stereo. I'm starting to have a feeling the shop had normal wiring that would have sounded identical for a tenth of the price. I spent $100 and about a month with the shop trying to fix a problem. They even sent my amp in to the manufacturer to check it out. The sent it back as "fixed" with no other info and charged me $100. Problem still occurred. So I get fed up after a while and check everything I can think of, every connection and wire. Low and behold, the Monster cable was the issue with a faulty cap that would cut out the signal if it was pushed in all the way. What a joke...
I have to say, that is the best piece of legalesed "kiss my arse" I've read in a very long time. Saved for future reference under "Trademark infringement reply form" should it ever become necessary.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Monster Cables are always recommended by the longhairs in Guitar Center and other music stores. Those dudes get really confused when I say I never buy Monster. Worst Instrument Cables Ever. They're so noisy, tangle easily, crappy frequency response. And did I mention they're noisy? By this I mean you plug in your guitar and when you move around the electrical capacitance (or whatever, I'm no engineer) of the cable turns it into one giant contact mic. Terrible. I hope people will wake up and realize that these products suck.
I RTFA too despite this being contrary to normal /. SOP. He certainly has a way with words and I am impressed with the way he demolished every point they made. It's almost a pity that he is no longer a lawyer.
At the end, my only conclusion is that Monster is to speaker cables what Scientology is to well, anything...
Your attitude is infectious...
That's hardly what I would call a reliable source of information, and yet people continue to perpetuate the mean as truth because it appeals to their pre-existing notions.
Wikipedia!
FWIW, I've got some high-end Monster cables for speaker cables and some Blue Jeans cables for interconnect. The Blue Jeans cables are great. (Good audio cables isn't hard, just use some nice co-ax.)
I belive that "iSlang" is not the word used for Internet Slang. Ever. In any situation. Maybe by people who still call the internet "Cyberspace".
I've bought cables from them before, they always struck me as the perfect antidote to the snake oil industry. This only increases my respect for an already respectable company.
I hope Monster is foolish enough to go forward, I would love to see them taken off of the $100 cable for the masses pedestal they've placed themselves on; the specific RCA connectors they appear to be claiming are single use pieces of crap, they work great but I've destroyed several in the attempt to get them off of the equipment on which they're used. This guy should take offense at the comparison. After reading the letter I find myself reminded of an Eddie Murphy skit where he dresses up as a white guy...... priceless.
I've always heard it as "powned"
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
So if he's everyone's hero, then go to his website and start buying his cables! Support this guy!
but i bought a hdmi cable that was poorly shielded and killed my ps3's wifi, sad thing was that it was not even that cheap.
Length of the run... For 95% of consumers who have their components sitting 5-10 feet away from each other, monster is useless. Test after test has shown that in distances less that about 20 feet, there is no difference.
I loved every word Mr. Denke wrote...freakin' brilliant. Kudos to him for fighting back.
Two things. I've had some high-powered lawyers across the table from me on 3 occasions and so far, I'm 3-0. There IS an assumption these big firms make along the lines of threaten and terrify people until they give it up. Sadly, that works pretty well...until someone like Mr. Denke comes along and says "wait just a damn minute!"
In my most "fun" case, I leased a new Jeep Cherokee for business use in 1984. I had it for exactly 35 days, several of which the Jeep spent in the dealer's service department. The thing was a TOTAL lemon. The first time I tapped the horn, the entire button, retaining ring, and spring flew off. The first cassette I popped into the "premium" audio system was eaten so badly the unit broke. Rear window defroster...no electrical connection. And so on. On day 35, I picked the Jeep for the 4th or 5th time...in a month...and discovered they hadn't fixed the latest problem, just ordered parts, and I was to "call every few days to see if the parts have arrived". I walked into the Leasing Manager's office, handed him the keys, notified him I was surrendering the vehicle under the terms and conditions of the lease in the Section for Early Lease Termination. I agreed to pay $900 to get out of the lease as the agreement stated a 6% charge on a 1st year termination. OK, $15,000 Jeep....that's $900. I walked out, got a cab, and bought a Nissan truck the next day.
A few weeks later, I get served. The leasing company WHOLESALED a new Jeep that had 400 miles of driving on it for $9500 and presented me with the difference...about $6000. And placed an entry with the credit bureaus that I had "defaulted" on a loan. I countersued the dealership, their employee, and the leasing company. We went to deposition...myself and my small-town lawyer...and sat down with about 15 people from the other side. Other than myself and the lady typing, it was all lawyers. The lead guy, "Rudy", did everything but punch me. I smiled, we presented our evidence, and left. In the hall, the dealership lawyers offered to pay the leasing company themselves if I would drop the countersuit against them. In the end, I paid them nothing. They even paid MY attorney. I still smile every day or so about that one.
2nd thing: Monster cables are NOT very good. I have an extensive background in electronics and have made thousands of cables of every description. I also play bass in a working band and run 3 basses during a big show. I tried a Monster Instrument Cable...at a premium price...and found it to be trash. A handmade "Radio Shack" special worked as well. I now use Planet Waves cutout cables and have never had a problem. In the studio, I'm going straight to the board and listening to the mix with Sennheiser phones and the PW cables sound as good as anything I've made or used. And before the "audiophiles" jump in with the "warm" and "bright" crap, MY former life was as an engineer for a major A/V firm that does work from coast-to-coast. Wire is wire. 12 gauge copper wire in bulk from the hardware store is just as good as the horrendously more expensive Monster Cable stuff. I only use the PW cables for my basses because of the cutout switch makes instrument changes on stage a QUIET snap and I'm too lazy to build my own....yet.
I am my own gestalt.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
"pooned"
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Leo Laport says powned like owned with a p in front. p-owned. It sounds gay though, in a bad way not in a rainbow covered belt way. owned is better.
Added Pressly: "Oh, and by the way, milk is nothing but liquid meat."
Why is a guy as smart as Denke working in such a bullshit marketing, sham-filled sector as high-end audio cables?
Damn you kids and your lingo!
GET OFF MY INFORMATION SUPER HIGHWAY!
-Rick
To the filter: Yes, using so many caps is like yelling, because I am. When was the last time you heard an elderly gentleman say "get off my yard" in a civil voice to a bunch of rowdy teenagers?! Is this enough babble to avoid the yelling filter?
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Think Monster is expensive?
http://www.pearcable.com/
Anjou Speaker Cable
3 foot pair - $2750
8 foot pair - $5250
12 foot pair - $7250
You can start laughing/crying now.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
While that was one of the most amusing reads I've had in quite some time, when I came back to read the comments, all of the text looks slanted to the left. Ok fine, they're back to normal now, but it was an interesting sensation for a few minutes there.
I couldn't agree more. In fact, he is now *my* hero. I was planning on naming my first son (due in June) "Jeffrey" after my deceased brother. However, after reading this letter, I'm now hard pressed to name him "Kurt Denke" in hopes that my degenerate genes he's inheriting would somehow be buffed.
Wow, I try not to think in "Us vs. Them" terms but that was brutal. And no matter what happens, you can bet your a$$ that the IRS is already looking into this regardless of what happens to Monster vs. Blue Jeans.
I actually RTFA, and I must say without reservation that it is completely and totally worth reading the entire thing.
Question everything
I know what my first set of HDMI cables will be ... ... ;-)
assuming they are priced competitively and not
priced like the Bermuda company's
Clevertwit - not logged in
...threatened to go into the business of selling clothes hangars real cheap to compete with Monster Cables.
I read most of the way through the letter. I'm quite impressed by the guy who wrote this. He does his freaking homework. I love how after spending the first 1/2 of the letter going into some detail about the homework he's done which show's there no possible way his product can be infringing Monster's current patents, he doesn't stop there. He then goes on the attack, bringing up their Bermuda "IP Holding Company" which he posit's they appear to be using as a tax shelter, and how me might blow down their little Bermuda shelter like a hurricane.
You mess with this guy and he's going to dig up every single skeleton in your closet and use it against you. I'd say this guy has shown he is *not* lazy, and will be *relentless*. Wow.
As much as we detest lawyers, it isn't bad when you have one on your side, or can learn from one.
Kudos Kurt!
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
I guess it's not surprising that something that reveled in its own obscurity and nicheness lost its appeal when everyone was doing it. On reflection, it's probably *not* a coincidence that it seemed to really die out just around the time that the mainstream press started running articles explaining those strange messages your teenage children were typing. That's so uncool
(And my use of smileys is so 1990s too...)
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I believe the proper iSlang is PWNED!
You'll be hearing from Apple's lawyers shortly.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
would try to sue Mr. Denke.
On a tangent: are HDMI cables just cables with HDMI connectors, or do they have to contain licensed cryptographic DRM processors to account to the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player for where all those electrons have gone or somesuch? I thought that the increase in cost was due to heavy-handed Hollywood-mandated DRM requirements, and the patent-licensing feast on top of that.
Nah, nah. It's "Poned." As in, "Ponied." ...PONIES!!!
After reading that, I was completely on his side, then I thought "wait, I am taking the side of one lawyer over another" and I just felt so.... dirty.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Bravo. Just fucking bravo.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I think part of the fun he's having at their expense is that it will cost them literally thousands of dollars just to have their lawyers read and digest that response - which they won't be able to avoid since they already authorized their lawyers to handle the communication with him.
Just have Kurt write a letter to them too.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I saw this a few months ago on TV. Can't recall what program it was but they basicaly tested generic cables with the monster ones to see if there was a difference in the quality of the signal. From there testing there was absolutly no difference. That it be gold plated or not absolutly no difference.
InfoBahn?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
When was the last time you heard an elderly gentleman say "get off my yard" in a civil voice to a bunch of rowdy teenagers?!
I'd be inclined to do so, but punctuate my civil voice with a few shotgun blasts in their general direction.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I also take issue with your contention that under 104V or over 116 volts will damage a computer. The power supply on my computer states that it operates from 100-240V, 50/60 Hz. If you know how these supplies are designed, you won't be concerned with minor surges and sags...they take the raw AC, full wave rectify and filter it, and use the resulting +300 to +500 DC as the input to a step down (to 3 to 12 volts) switching regulator. Spikes don't make it past the transformer.
Surges are something else. Multi-cycle overvoltages can affect switching supplies (although this is unlikely in the US, as our 120V is at the low end of the switcher's operating range). The best way to protect against those, and a good investment anyway, is a small UPS from a good, reputable manufacturer. It'll save your data when the line goes out and block any dangerous surges.
UPSs can be picked up cheap, as most companies ditch them after the batteries die. Spend $25 or $50 on some new cells at Digikey and you have a perfectly good UPS. Ask your company IT people, they'll usually be happy to have you haul them away. Laptop owners already have one...the battery in your computer.
If your lights are flickering when your fridge kicks on, call an electrician. Your fridge should be on its own dedicated circuit, and if your lights are flickering, it's a sign that there's a high resistance connection between the fridge and your power feed. Get it investigated and fixed! If your AC is dimming your lights, you've may have too much load on that circuit, and you shouldn't be plugging your computer in to that outlet!
The more you know...
"You are in possession of at least seven orifices. Your website demonstrates fifteen cables, one of which you may discard. If so, the other fourteen are still under the terms of your retributuion. You will now insert those cables into the orifices in the 1-1-1-1-3-1-7 configuration."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
This guy would write to Microsoft concerning their claims of patent and copyright violations.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
FTFA: "Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it."
in other words - Bring it!
I prefer "chowned". :)
All comments are properties and trademarks of the voices in my head. Not like I'm gonna claim them.
Monster makes supposedly 'high quality' A/V cabling, Blue Jean makes custom and non-custom cabling, that happens to actually be high quality, sans quotes.
Specialization is for insects. -Heinlein
Monster cables have become the poster boy for corporate greed in my book. Blue Jeans Cable also appears to be seriously overpriced, but that actually makes such a dustup even more entertaining, actually, since I really don't care who wins or loses...
Actually it would usually be 50 or 75 ohm coax, and it's used for interconnect, not speaker cables, so hardly any current is flowing.
The nice thing about it is that it's easy to put RCA (or BNC at the high end) connectors on it. No soldering required, and you get really good shielding.
High end cables are for e-peen. There is actually no measurable sonic difference between the output of speakers and systems connected with Monster or Blue Jean cables, and garden-variety cables from Radio Shack or any other non-premium cable vendor. In short, premium cables of any brand are basically ripoffs. Buyers pay a large premium solely to feel better about their expensive home theater system. You spent $10,000 on the electronics, a $5 cable seems - unworthy. And yet, every double-blind study and every sonic measurement ever done on this question has shown that not only is there no measurable difference in the final signal, but persons who claim to be able to hear the difference are always shown to be under the influence of wishful thinking. They are no better at fingering the premium cable than a random guesser.
http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1082.html
Edith Keeler Must Die
It's not supposed to be pronounced. Please.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
It is pity that other smaller companies don't have this form of defense other than the ACLU. I hope Blue Jean wins this cases and sends a message to other corporate raiders to think before they send legal letters.
instead of cables, box contained monster. Would buy again A+++.
Entertaining enough to justify a purchase. I'd been putting off getting HDMI cables for my projector for a while anyhow. http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/
Although Kurt is the owner of Blue Jeans Cable, I need to remind some of you that Monster is coming after Tartan Cable (which is also owned by Kurt). Tartan cable is Kurt's economy line of cables... it's all "Made in China", it's inexpensive, and by all standards, just as good as any of the other stuff bought at Best Buy or Circuit City - just less money. Blue Jeans Cable sells what is known as broadcast quality cabling. Basically, it's the same stuff you'll find being used by professional broadcast engineers in television studios, radio stations, A/V post production houses, and the like. Yes, it's more expensive than the chinese stuff, but it is mostly Belden Cable and anyone who knows about this stuff will see the value. Yes, for the most part, a lot of what Blue Jeans sells may be considered "overkill" for your run of the mill home theater - that is why the Tartan line of products was introduced. But for those who want what the pros use, Blue Jeans will deliver and not suck your wallet dry in the process.
Looks to me like these guys either stripped their website down to the barest of bare bones to survive what must be DDoS-level traffic, or they have a really crappy website.
I'm thinking that those graphics look like they probably fit into a more image-rich site. They've even done away with their style sheet.
If my guess is right, it shows that these guys are definitely on the ball. Well done! (if not, they really need to do something about that site!)
https://jobs-monstercable.icims.com/monstercable_jobs/jobs/candidate/job.jsp?jobid=1503&mode=view We should all try to apply at least once. Making valid legal arguments apparently is not a job requirement.
There appears to be a remarkable resemblance between patent trolls and spammers in that they both appear to like sending things like this out to as many people as they can and just playing the numbers. I'm sure Monster have done this before and either gotten the other entity to just roll over and play dead, but really - they can just spam things like this out to as many people as they want and hope that they can get enough of a percentage of success to make it profitable as its own business process.
Admittedly its more expensive than the near-zero cost of spam, but the principle is the same.
we here in the Poison Tooth legal division of the Monster company collectively approve of your response and fully appreciate your work ethics and willingness to "pay 50k for a defence
Informally and frankly, many of us at Monster see our professional zest deteriorating and qualification decline when kept on a usual diet of helpless ladies, their clueless bluecollar husbands, widows and orphans too internet-active for their young age.
We fully share your sentiment and you will be happy to hear that we all agreed to fight.
Most agile of our colleagues immediately pointed at a flaw in your estimations of the pecuniary and moral effects of the case. Gobbling up one cheeky former lawyer would do to our reputation and intimidation potential wonders; you alone weigh probably between 37 and 83 units (calculated in number of destroyed helpless ladies and young orphans with their future careers clobbered for good by their first criminal record), and we simply cannot miss such a chance.
We are writing to inform you that, with this unanimous view we at the Poison Tooth subdivision, descended upon one of the hunting lodges rented by Monster for such occasions around the year, and conducted a rather successful brainstorm session.
The members according to their dispositions naturally divided themselves into several parties, the mildest only suggesting that we should wreck your company. More mainstream thinkers smiled indulgently at this during the first presentations of legal attack strategies, and soon revealed their hands. It seems, that going after your wife or undigging underage indiscretions of your high-school son presents much better avenues for advancement. More radical party, however, began to prevail by approx. 11 p.m., suggesting that (with a reasonable degree of success) you could be put into a mental institution, where your brains will be cooked with potent drugs, while your skin will dry and stretch on your sordid skeleton that has the bad luck of carrying such stupid head on its shoulders. But, after some discussion, the radicals acceded that as a compromise that you should be left watching as your son is forced to swallow amphimethamine-equivalent drugs through the school system for the remaining years there and be able to do exactly nothing about it.
We agreed to post you these suggestions and ask for your own choice.
I have to note that, being of a certain professional standing (and being gentlemen of taste), we all despise light drinks often fradulently pushed under misleading label of "beers" in low-end retail outlets, and as a consequence and of necessity our brainstorming session had to be somewhat shortened (although not lacking in intensity or rigour of our professional analysis). By 11:30 the radical party (having suspiciously stepped out of the room 4 times previously) dosed off, which tipped the delicate balance of opinions; the last thing I remembered was a legal precedent quoted by one of our most senour colleagues:
So the knight took in all air his breast could take and yelled as loudly as he could yell "Hey, you, dragon, come out, and I will fight you!"
But the cave remained silent.
Then he took more air, and yelled louder "Hey you, son of a demented frog and a lizard streetwalker, you, a Monsanto experiment of genetically splicing chicken wings to earthworms, (then grown for 30 consequtive days in a dung heap mixed with rBST)" and many such insulting and disparaging remarks, but again there was silence
Then he took even more air and shrieked even louder, and the dragon turned its head towards the knight
I guess the market's not big enough for two companies that makes ridiculously expensive cables that have no effect on the sound. We only need one of those.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I might be wrong, but I have no recollection of having ever gotten an erection from reading a legal letter before.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Did anyone go to blue jeans cable website? I don't care if they charge less for an HDMI however 30 dollars is still WAY to much for a 6ft cable in my opinion. I got my 6ft hdmi cables on amazon for $3 and they kick ass. Screw Blue Jeans Cable, they're still trying to rip you off, just not as much.
Well now I'll have to see which firm has the company's forms. Most of these companies are merely bits of paper in a file drawer at a lawyers' office, and there's very few of them. I'd laugh if my mate was the one who incorporated the firm.
It is to laugh...
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
Wow... that's brutal.
I just found my new favorite cable company! You can't buy advertising like this, Blue Jeans Cable must be thrilled.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20021125h.gif
xb0x
I see that two-thirds of the lawyers' names are 'Grubman' and 'Payne'. Sort of sums them up really.
The whole point of his response is that it follows valid legal convention. If his company is infringing, it's not extortion for the patent holder to demand compensation. Class-action has nothing to do with this either (yet). He's received a claim, his job is to respond to the claim. He did that in spades.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Two things I got from it: 1) You are messing with the wrong guy. 2) I am putting my balls on the table. Go ahead, kick/smash them. I will make sure that the resulting damage hurts you a lot more than it hurts me.
©
"pwned" ("pwnd" or "pwn3d") is pronounced "owned". As best i could discover, it was originally an IRC typo (the O and P keys being right next to each other on a 'standard' keyboard). A lot of the newer internet generation pronounce it "powned" or "pawned" in my experience, however. (Gods, but I'm feeling old having typed that ...)
krenshala
pwnies!
-- Flaw
Hey all, first post here. Just thought I would give everyone a heads up. The site bluejeanscable.com has been infected with malware(JS_PSYME.XP). The site was fine yesterday so it appears that someone has decided to mess with our friend the lawyers company. Cheers
Alan with Blue Jeans Cable here - all of our research has shown this statement about our website being infected with a virus to be completely untrue. Our website has been a bit slow for a few days because of the extra traffic, but we have taken steps to correct that. I find no evidence of any malware, and assume that this is just a malicious post to the thread. Thanks to all for the support and the excellent comments. We truly appreciate it.
Hey Alan, the post was not meant to be malicious in anyway shape or form. I was just passing alone what happened when I visited your site. I wish you the best of luck resolving any issue that you may or may not have. I would have prefered to email you this time but your email address is not publicly listed on /. and I will not visit while I am at work. If you would like the information that I have from the attack let me know and I will post what I have.
Cheers
We have thoroughly scanned the site, and found nothing but I suppose no one is right 100% of the time. If you have some information you'd like to share, you can send that to me directly at alan @ tartancable.com or sales @ bluejeanscable.com.
Hey Alan, i'll just post what I have here as I don't know when ill be home from work today. The virus appeared when I followed a link from audioholics.com to your site. The malware came from 'http://61.155.8.157/iframe/wp-stats.php' this is what Trend Micro reported at anyrate. The issue occured at 9:36am Japan time. Hope this helps. If I find any further information i'll email it to you this weekend. Have a good day.
Line conditioners can be added to an entire house for a few hundred bucks. These don't completely clean the line of all issues, but spikes are dropped to a ground line, and a lot of exterior noise is removed. It's a good start, but does not protect from brown out or sags in power.
In a newer home, with a modern breaker panel, you should not be getting flickering from voltage irregularity in your house, but most people live in homes or apartments built more than 20 years ago, and most systems older than that do not properly isolate one circuit from another.
Your PS may be rated for 100-240 volt (really 100-120 and then 200-240, assuming the position of the switch on the PS). But that's it's own operating limits, not the components attached. unless you have a high end PS with active conditioning (very few do), then slight variations in voltage going in to the PS do translate through the transformer. Your CPU clock runs at up to 1300MHz, but this assumes predictable 3v or 5v signals. When power fluctuates up and down at small intervals, the CPU clock timing can also fluctuate. This causes voltage iregularities in the board based on capacator timing, other onboard transformers, and circuit paths. It becomes possible using high performance electronics for timing in differnt parts of a board to conflict, and this is a primary cause of mainbord lock-ups.
CPUs are typically, on most mainboards, protected from onboard voltage regulators. This typically is limited to higher end systems, (and nearly all server and workstation grade equipment). Many modern PCs are also beginning to include these components on lower end products.
Your home theater howeverequipment, usually no.
Electronic parts fail for the folowing reasons:
- environemt (temp, humidity, condensation, etc)
- abuse (lack of cleaning, physical damage)
- manufacturing defects (usually reveal themselves in 30-60 days)
- Mechanical failure (does not apply to solid state electronics)
- electrical damage (causing either complete part failure, or micro fractures in circuitry).
All outside factors removed the only real way for a computer device (excluding the HDD, CD, Floppy etc moving parts) to fail, something has to cause micro circuit damage. the only 2 causes of this are 1) improperly regulated power, and 2) EMP or other high intensity EMI. Since MI powerful enough to cause circuit damage is typically only associated with very close lightnight strikes, nuclear weapons, and other EMP causing events (all very rare) this leaves the bulk, over 97%, of all electronic component failures being left to bad power...
When a power supply is set to produce 3v 5v or 12v current, and the expected input is 110volt to do so, everything is happy. When power runs below 104 volt, the PS needs to adjust to accomodate a continual 3v current. Since power frequencies are at 60Hz, but mainboard frequencies are hundreds of times this, circuits can't be adjusted fast enough to account, and over time, these miniscule errors cause erosion of the substrate materials, and eventually lead to shorts in the microarchitecture. You can look around online and see before/after images of what a CPU looks like under high detail microscope after exposure to cleaned vs uncleaned power.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Ok, so where can i buy these Blue jeans cables? I'll buy a dozen of them and hand them out with copies of this letter just to stick it to Monster. Man, Monster's products have always sucked balls; i didn't realize they as a company sucked balls, too.