Yes, Google is not lowering the offering price, they are raising it. People who in good faith made bids based on the offering of the original number of shares will now pay the price set by the lowest price of a much smaller number of shares. That price is obviously much higher.
Share winners in the auction should be able to sue Google for the difference in price between the new offering price and the price which would have been set by the losing bid price at the original offering number of shares. And, the losers of those withdrawn shares might also have a cause to sue as well.
Google should not be allowed to change the auction rules after the bids are made. Thats simply fraudulent.
California has reached a settlement of its first-in-the-nation lawsuit under the federal "do not call" law, Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Wednesday.
The state sued American Home Craft Inc. and two of its corporate officers in November, alleging the company made illegal telemarketing phone calls to more than 120 Californians who had their names on the national registry. The complaint also alleged the home improvement company violated federal law by continuing to call customers after they asked to be placed on the companys internal "do not call" list.
Lockyer, in a statement, said the Hayward-based company "blatantly disregarded one of the most significant consumer protection laws ever enacted." He said the state's investigation showed the company never purchased the federal registry when it became available in October.
But Sanjay Khurana, the company's chief operating officer, said the problem "was an honest mistake... due to a technology glitch."
"We're on the same side as the attorney general and the people of California" in wanting to protect privacy rights, Khurana said. He said the company is now watching its list "like a hawk" to prevent a repeat.
The settlement approved by U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey S. White in San Francisco requires the company to comply with federal and state "do not call" laws, to investigate and report complaints, and to train its employees.
The company and its president, Bradley Alan Smith, also will pay $45,000 in civil penalties, $30,000 to cover the state's cost of investigating and prosecuting the case, and $25,000 in restitution to the California residents who formally complained to the attorney general, the Federal Trade Commission or the Federal Communications Commission.
Those residents will be paid up to $200 each.
In addition to its Hayward headquarters, the company has offices in Sacramento, San Diego and Irvine selling vinyl siding, texture coating, patio doors and cabinet refacing services.
California's "do not call" law took effect Jan. 1, but Lockyer sued American Home Craft under the earlier federal law.
Lockyer has a second pending lawsuit against Florida-based L.M.A. Marketing Inc., doing business as Mortgage Concepts, after fielding more than 250 complaints from state residents.
Residents who want to register their phones under both the state and federal lists can use the National Do Not Call registry Web site or call 1-888-382-1222. Complaints can be filed through the same Web site or telephone number.
You must not have heard of the Burroughs B5000, B5500, B6500, B6800, B7700,... MCPs dating back to the 60s. These 'Master Control Program's were written entirely in ESPOL, an Algol varient with some additions to provide a read/lock on memory to allow multiprocessing. You might have seen a varient of them in the movie 'Tron'.;)
What was really useful, the additional libraries, compilers and utilities came with full Algol source. Not really 'open source', but you could patch the system to fix bugs or extend its features.
The system architecture was very clean, and the MCP code was very straight forward and easy to read. It was by far the easiest system I've ever seen to work with. But, those were simpler times.
Some forms of eCommerce do lose sales. I helped put in the first online lotteries back in the late 70's. The States would fine us $1000 a minute for downtime to offset a bit of the lost revenue and also get our attention. We were our own private network back then, so we were a bit more in control. But, those $1000s added up very quickly for us and the real loss to the States was even bigger.
But, the point of the change is that each and every claim the Microsoft patent was claiming appeared it two other previous patents. Microsoft wasn't patenting something new or obvious. They weren't stealing someone's idea. They were wrongfully granted a patent based entirely on the claims of two previous patents!
Sure, but it makes no sense to grant a patent on claims which were already patented or applied for. The Microsoft's patent, 5,579,517, claims are shown to make the same claims as the prior art patents 5,307,494, Yasumatsu et al., and 5,367,671, Feigenbaum et al.
The challenge by PUBPAT has a long breakdown of how each and every claim in the Microsoft patent is claimed by the prior art patents. So, the prior art claimed is not just some other previous implementation, but laid out clearly in two previous patents. It would seem to be a slam dunk if you read the details of the request for reexamination.
I wish Google had a clear policy on what they do with all the information they can gather on all the users of the web. They don't say that they do not and will not record user searches. They could gather enough information from queries to profile us all.
There was some discussion a while ago about the connections between some of their directors and secret government agencies. Just because they do a polite interface doesn't mean there isn't possibility for evil deeper wihin. Or, maybe I'm just parinoid about this DARPA net thing.
Sure, 'buckminsterfullerenes in full, are molecules composed entirely of carbon' but they can and are used to carry other molecules inside. When used as a container with something else inside they open up all sorts of nasty possibilities.
Ok, I downloaded OpenOffice and tried to use it for some of the same work I have been doing with Excel. I have a data set of 32 columns and 8k rows that I chart to look for various patterns. No formulas, just a simple array of floating point data items.
Excel has many more chart options. The few charts in OpenOffice draw extremely slugishly. I cannot change any parameters of an OpenOffice chart without it hanging up completely.
OpenOffice looks a bit like Excel, but for my needs it's performance is a joke. It's not yet ready for prime time. I'd love to see the open source movement succeed, but OpenOffice's spreadsheet engine needs a major tuneup before I can use it.
And of course there was Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad on the MIT TX-2 in 1963. It was the first GUI, not a WIMP. GUI's were very familiar to anyone in the industry years before PARC did their thing.
I used a vector based graphics storage tube at the Michigan Dept. of Highways back in the '60s. It was used like a pen plotter, but had a light pen for interacting with it. Light pens and track pads were common for years before the mouse was invented.
I was an Apple VAR with a 128K Macintosh that I upgraded to 512K following the instructions in a German Mac magazine. It required unsoldering the memory chips, soldering in sockets for the new chips, and adding an extra address controller chip.
When the SE came out, I did an upgrade offered to VARs to swap systems. Apple offered only about $400 for the old motherboard and floppy, so I decided to keep them. I found another article about using an Atari monitor for the video and sound. So, I added a couple of chips to a daughter board with a commercial power supply and had the makings of a new system.
My company was making speaker phones out of wood, so I had our woodworker make an oak, (not apple), case to put under the Atari mointor. I added a fan and had a 12" screen wooden Macintosh.
My DirecTIVO can record one channel while playing another as a standard feature, but you need two COAX cables to do it. I can't run another cable to my TV location, so I'm losing a nice feature of my system. And, it needed a phone wire to keep itself from complaining about updates. I wish I had conduit to allow for future tech needs of my non-computer systems.
Back in the 1970's I was able to buy a hail damaged new Falcon for $750. Ford was dumping them because the cost to repair the damage would be more than the car was worth. I thought it was a super deal.
It had dozens of quarter sized dimples, and ran really fast. I'm not sure, but it might have benefited from some kind of golf ball wind resistance effect.
(The third core font was Arial.) Yes, MS had to use the name Arial because the font they copied, Helvetica, had a copyrighted name. So much for respect of other people's IP.
Yes, 28 countries including the UK are exempt but something is a bit off. I just picked up my daughter, her partner and granddaughter at the San Francisco airport tonight. They were on UA flight 931 from London. She has a US and British passport and her partner is British. They took over an hour thru customs and WERE fingerprinted and photographed. So, more is going on than we know from our government's public statements.
There seems to be no real advantage to Apple in letting all the Wintel box builders eat their margins on hardware sales. And supporting an OS on every scraped together mix of flea market junk is a problem no OS developer would choose. So, I guess the only reason for asking this question is that there are a lot of folks who have Wintel boxes and would like to run a Mac OS on them.
All the buzz around this issue, year after year, boils down to a simple issue of Mac OS envy. Get over it. Go to Apple's web site and buy an eMac or low end laptop for less than $1000 or get a used one on ebay. Don't worry they don't turn into a ball of slime in a year or two like the lowball boxes you are used to.
Slashdot Mirror
For sex we have masturbation for one, orgy for many and nothing for two!
Yes, Google is not lowering the offering price, they are raising it. People who in good faith made bids based on the offering of the original number of shares will now pay the price set by the lowest price of a much smaller number of shares. That price is obviously much higher.
Share winners in the auction should be able to sue Google for the difference in price between the new offering price and the price which would have been set by the losing bid price at the original offering number of shares. And, the losers of those withdrawn shares might also have a cause to sue as well.
Google should not be allowed to change the auction rules after the bids are made. Thats simply fraudulent.
So, at least now I won't risk poking out my eye with that sharp stick.
In the SF Chronicle
... due to a technology glitch."
06-23) 16:22 PDT SACRAMENTO (AP) --
California has reached a settlement of its first-in-the-nation lawsuit under the federal "do not call" law, Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Wednesday.
The state sued American Home Craft Inc. and two of its corporate officers in November, alleging the company made illegal telemarketing phone calls to more than 120 Californians who had their names on the national registry. The complaint also alleged the home improvement company violated federal law by continuing to call customers after they asked to be placed on the companys internal "do not call" list.
Lockyer, in a statement, said the Hayward-based company "blatantly disregarded one of the most significant consumer protection laws ever enacted." He said the state's investigation showed the company never purchased the federal registry when it became available in October.
But Sanjay Khurana, the company's chief operating officer, said the problem "was an honest mistake
"We're on the same side as the attorney general and the people of California" in wanting to protect privacy rights, Khurana said. He said the company is now watching its list "like a hawk" to prevent a repeat.
The settlement approved by U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey S. White in San Francisco requires the company to comply with federal and state "do not call" laws, to investigate and report complaints, and to train its employees.
The company and its president, Bradley Alan Smith, also will pay $45,000 in civil penalties, $30,000 to cover the state's cost of investigating and prosecuting the case, and $25,000 in restitution to the California residents who formally complained to the attorney general, the Federal Trade Commission or the Federal Communications Commission.
Those residents will be paid up to $200 each.
In addition to its Hayward headquarters, the company has offices in Sacramento, San Diego and Irvine selling vinyl siding, texture coating, patio doors and cabinet refacing services.
California's "do not call" law took effect Jan. 1, but Lockyer sued American Home Craft under the earlier federal law.
Lockyer has a second pending lawsuit against Florida-based L.M.A. Marketing Inc., doing business as Mortgage Concepts, after fielding more than 250 complaints from state residents.
Residents who want to register their phones under both the state and federal lists can use the National Do Not Call registry Web site or call 1-888-382-1222. Complaints can be filed through the same Web site or telephone number.
You must not have heard of the Burroughs B5000, B5500, B6500, B6800, B7700, ... MCPs dating back to the 60s. These 'Master Control Program's were written entirely in ESPOL, an Algol varient with some additions to provide a read/lock on memory to allow multiprocessing. You might have seen a varient of them in the movie 'Tron'. ;)
What was really useful, the additional libraries, compilers and utilities came with full Algol source. Not really 'open source', but you could patch the system to fix bugs or extend its features.
The system architecture was very clean, and the MCP code was very straight forward and easy to read. It was by far the easiest system I've ever seen to work with. But, those were simpler times.
Some forms of eCommerce do lose sales. I helped put in the first online lotteries back in the late 70's. The States would fine us $1000 a minute for downtime to offset a bit of the lost revenue and also get our attention. We were our own private network back then, so we were a bit more in control. But, those $1000s added up very quickly for us and the real loss to the States was even bigger.
Did you know that Walmart originally was called 'The Great Wall Mart', but seemed a bit too Chinese?
Pi isn't infinite. In fact it is a bit less than four. And, four is finite.
But, the point of the change is that each and every claim the Microsoft patent was claiming appeared it two other previous patents. Microsoft wasn't patenting something new or obvious. They weren't stealing someone's idea. They were wrongfully granted a patent based entirely on the claims of two previous patents!
Sure, but it makes no sense to grant a patent on claims which were already patented or applied for. The Microsoft's patent, 5,579,517, claims are shown to make the same claims as the prior art patents 5,307,494, Yasumatsu et al., and 5,367,671, Feigenbaum et al.
The challenge by PUBPAT has a long breakdown of how each and every claim in the Microsoft patent is claimed by the prior art patents. So, the prior art claimed is not just some other previous implementation, but laid out clearly in two previous patents. It would seem to be a slam dunk if you read the details of the request for reexamination.
I wish Google had a clear policy on what they do with all the information they can gather on all the users of the web. They don't say that they do not and will not record user searches. They could gather enough information from queries to profile us all.
There was some discussion a while ago about the connections between some of their directors and secret government agencies. Just because they do a polite interface doesn't mean there isn't possibility for evil deeper wihin. Or, maybe I'm just parinoid about this DARPA net thing.
Sure, 'buckminsterfullerenes in full, are molecules composed entirely of carbon' but they can and are used to carry other molecules inside. When used as a container with something else inside they open up all sorts of nasty possibilities.
Ok, I downloaded OpenOffice and tried to use it for some of the same work I have been doing with Excel. I have a data set of 32 columns and 8k rows that I chart to look for various patterns. No formulas, just a simple array of floating point data items.
Excel has many more chart options. The few charts in OpenOffice draw extremely slugishly. I cannot change any parameters of an OpenOffice chart without it hanging up completely.
OpenOffice looks a bit like Excel, but for my needs it's performance is a joke. It's not yet ready for prime time. I'd love to see the open source movement succeed, but OpenOffice's spreadsheet engine needs a major tuneup before I can use it.
I used a vector based graphics storage tube at the Michigan Dept. of Highways back in the '60s. It was used like a pen plotter, but had a light pen for interacting with it. Light pens and track pads were common for years before the mouse was invented.
The Mac did have the option of using two video buffers. You could compute into one then swap them to avoid screen flicker.
With only 128k of ram, it was an expensive programming luxury.
I was an Apple VAR with a 128K Macintosh that I upgraded to 512K following the instructions in a German Mac magazine. It required unsoldering the memory chips, soldering in sockets for the new chips, and adding an extra address controller chip.
When the SE came out, I did an upgrade offered to VARs to swap systems. Apple offered only about $400 for the old motherboard and floppy, so I decided to keep them. I found another article about using an Atari monitor for the video and sound. So, I added a couple of chips to a daughter board with a commercial power supply and had the makings of a new system.
My company was making speaker phones out of wood, so I had our woodworker make an oak, (not apple), case to put under the Atari mointor. I added a fan and had a 12" screen wooden Macintosh.
My DirecTIVO can record one channel while playing another as a standard feature, but you need two COAX cables to do it. I can't run another cable to my TV location, so I'm losing a nice feature of my system. And, it needed a phone wire to keep itself from complaining about updates. I wish I had conduit to allow for future tech needs of my non-computer systems.
Why not a simple show of hands in the Supreme Court?
Trickle down doesn't work because of all the sponges at the top!
Back in the 1970's I was able to buy a hail damaged new Falcon for $750. Ford was dumping them because the cost to repair the damage would be more than the car was worth. I thought it was a super deal.
It had dozens of quarter sized dimples, and ran really fast. I'm not sure, but it might have benefited from some kind of golf ball wind resistance effect.
(The third core font was Arial.)
Yes, MS had to use the name Arial because the font they copied, Helvetica, had a copyrighted name. So much for respect of other people's IP.
Yes, 28 countries including the UK are exempt but something is a bit off. I just picked up my daughter, her partner and granddaughter at the San Francisco airport tonight. They were on UA flight 931 from London. She has a US and British passport and her partner is British. They took over an hour thru customs and WERE fingerprinted and photographed. So, more is going on than we know from our government's public statements.
in the form of a winged polyphallus.
There seems to be no real advantage to Apple in letting all the Wintel box builders eat their margins on hardware sales. And supporting an OS on every scraped together mix of flea market junk is a problem no OS developer would choose. So, I guess the only reason for asking this question is that there are a lot of folks who have Wintel boxes and would like to run a Mac OS on them.
All the buzz around this issue, year after year, boils down to a simple issue of Mac OS envy. Get over it. Go to Apple's web site and buy an eMac or low end laptop for less than $1000 or get a used one on ebay. Don't worry they don't turn into a ball of slime in a year or two like the lowball boxes you are used to.
But the retrival time really sucks...