You *know* now that we're going to see an uptick in those types of scams.
Those were chicken-feed. There's a couple in the states that is renting out abandoned, foreclosed, houses. They take away all the signage, cut the lawm - the neighbors think "Oh, good, someone's moving in!" Then they rent it out and cash the cheques - no mules needed.
They have fake paperwork saying they're the agent handling it for the real owner, who, tsk tsk, can't be traced. Do that with only a half-dozen places and you can quit your day job.
And yet for some reason they offered this worthless peice (sic) of hardware to a magazine and got $5K for it?
The offer was several WEEKS after Apple was contacted, and after plenty of rumors of a lost iPhone prototype. What part of "it's no longer lost if I've contacted the owner (Apple) and they aren't interested" do you fail to understand?
Laws covering lost property deal with, you know, LOST property. The owner doesn't want it, sucks to be them.
You lose your wallet, but you don't notice. I find it, call you up, and tell you I've found your wallet. Since you "know" you haven't lost your wallet, you tell me to f*** off because you think I'm a scammer, keep the stupid wallet.
3 weeks later you finally notice your wallet missing. You realize I wasn't a scammer. You call me back. "Where's my wallet?" "My guess - in a land-fill."
I'm under no obligation to take care of your crap after you've renounced ownership.
If he had been smarter, he would have dissected it himself, and sold the video + pics for $5k, along with letting them look at (and photograph) the pieces. - after all, SEEING it opened up, there's no question that it's the prototype. And then send the pieces back to Apple by registered mail in a box marked in BIG letters - "MISSING APPLE PROTOTYPE IPHONE". Guaranteed it gets "lost in shipping".
Right, exactly, there's no way you can get title transferred simply by giving "notice."
Compare to whit I wrote:
No, but park it in my parking space, don't remove it after I have you served with a notice to either do so or that I will go to court and get title of it, and guess what - I *can* go to court and get title transferred.
You get your notice, you don't pay or take the car away, we go to court. You don't show to oppose the lien, I get title. How hard is that to understand? Oh, right - you don't want to admit that your prior post:
Uhhhh...what?? What law is this? IAAL and I've never heard of this legal maneuver.
... only exposed your ignorance, as several others have also pointed out.
In some jurisdictions, we have to go through the formality of a public auction, which is basically posting as small a notice as possible giving the time and date of the auction (make it an inconvenient time, date, and place), nobody showing up, and then getting the title transferred by the clerk.
It's how houses are sold "on the courthouse steps" all the time. The guy steps outside, reads the call for bidders (in a very low voice, so nobody hears him), looks around, walks back in, and says "No other bidders than the one I have in my pocket."
"A friend of Hogan's then offered to call Apple Care on Hogan's behalf, according to Hogan's lawyer. That apparently was the extent of Hogan's efforts to return the phone." For all we know, said friend didn't even call Apple's tech support line.
Except that the guy DID call Apple. And Apple admitted to opening up a support ticket, but saying that nothing would come of it.
If you know the name of the guy the phone belongs to (and they did), why on Earth would you call some tech support guy in India? You expect the Apple Care guys speak for Apple on the issue of iPhone prototypes?
Because at they time they didn't know the guys name, silly - and it turns out that the guy wasn't the owner - Apple was, so they contacted Apple. If Apple hadn't bricked the phone, maybe they'd have had it back quicker?
You're supposed to turn it over to the police if you can't reach the original owner (either Apple R&D or the engineer who lost it).
False. In that jurisdiction, only property with an apparent value of $100 or more - something that looks like a bricked knockoff of an iPhone doesn't qualify.
And that ignores the fact that you're taking as prima facie truth the word of people under criminal investigation.
"Your papers, citizen, after all you have nothing to hide!" Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty?"
So, what's a bricked phone worth? Not much as a phone. And when the guy found it, there was no way to tell that it was a prototype - it was in a gimmicked-up G3 case, but wasn't a G3 - which made it more likely that it was a knock-off. Not worth more than $100 working (and less bricked).
Don't take Wired as gospel either - there were plenty of other sites that gave other aspects of the story.
The original money doesn't exist. The check they're asked to cash is ALWAYS bogus.
This is bank fraud. It may involve check kiting, where the original cheque is from a real - but overdrawn - account, or it may just involve fake cheques printed to order, but it;s still cheque fraud, not money laundering.
And the vast majority of people who "get taken in" are just greedy slobs who want to believe so badly that they can actually make $500 for taking a $10,000 cheque and cashing it that they lie to themselves and say "if worse comes to worse, I can always say I didn't know."
Derzeit lassen sich viele.de-Domains nicht auflösen. Schuld daran könnten Probleme auf Seiten der Denic sein, die die Rootserver für die Top-Level-Domain.de betreibt. Mittlerweile ist das Problem behoben.
Problems with the root.de name server. Of course, it's funnier if you don't know that "die" is "the" in german: "die die Rootserver für die Top-Level-Domain.de" so in germglish it becomes "die, die, tld.de rootserver" OMG terrorist threat!
If the vehicle hasn't been reported stolen, yes, they'll do a title search - and give you the results, so you can mail the current owner a notice that you have a lien on it and that you're going to claim title to it unless they cough up some money.
So yes, it's basically rubber-stamping stuff to make sure it's all legal.
And why are you talking about phones in bars - the iPhone in question was not "found in a bar." Oh, right - you didn't read the article.
You get title, and you can plate it just like any other vehicle after it's inspected.
These lien sales include where you have not been paid for storing the vehicle, so all you have to do to initiate the process is send the owner a demand for parking fees of $x per day.
So, park your car in my spot - I send you the notice to either remove it immediately or start paying $50/day storage. You ignore it, I apply for a lien sale, send out the notices as required, you either pay all amounts due at that point or it goes to auction. If nobody else bids, I get it. I plate it. I have it inspected. I drive it. Total time is 2 to 4 months total, not 2 years, and I can drive it on the street.
This is more expensive in terms of energy and more vulnerable to failure from unseasonable weather and disease.
Everything fails at some point. Too many people will turn failures from "oh well, we can shift a surplus of supply from somewhere eles" to "massive death."
The way to increase our environmental footprint and put evrything under even more stress is to assist the developing world into realizing it's potential, rather than EVERYONE reducing their birth rate to below ZPG.
You can get it towed maybe, but you sure as hell can't get the title transferred to you! What kind of crap are you making up
Read it and weep. I've provided links to the procedure in various states. The delay can be anywhere from 3 days to 45 days (Hew Jersey is 3 days).
How to obtain to title an abandoned vehicle
If you want to claim ownership and title an abandoned vehicle, you must request an application packet from the Special Title Section at an MVC Agency. You must state whether the vehicle was found on public or private property.
Now fess up that you're wrong, that you can't even do a simple search on the internet, and hand in what's left of your geek cred.
A vehicle is considered abandoned if it has been in the same public location for at least three consecutive days. Most often, it will be damaged or missing critical components, such as the engine, wheels, tires or plates.
You may be able identify a vehicle as abandoned if:
It has been in the same location for at least three consecutive days
Is missing the engine, wheels, tires or any other part of the vehicle that make it inoperable
Has a broken window or windshield that limits visibility
Has one or more flat tires
Does not have valid license plates
Is not registered
Note: This doesn't include any vehicle kept within a building when it is not in use
How to report an abandoned vehicle
To report an abandoned vehicle, call your local police department with the location and description of the vehicle.
How to obtain to title an abandoned vehicle
If you want to claim ownership and title an abandoned vehicle, you must request an application packet from the Special Title Section at an MVC Agency. You must state whether the vehicle was found on public or private property.
In order to operate an abandoned vehicle on New Jersey roads, it must first pass a state inspection process.
If you own a repair facility and a vehicle was abandoned on your property, you may have it removed and stored or you may sell it at a public or private sale.
So, leave it on someone's property for 3 days without their okay, and they can get title to it.
Oh look, I found your Porsche parked on the street. I'll just take it home with me. Finders keepers. I don't think so.
No, but park it in my parking space, don't remove it after I have you served with a notice to either do so or that I will go to court and get title of it, and guess what - I *can* go to court and get title transferred.
And if you park your Porsche on the street without license plates, the city will seize it. If you never registered or plated it, you'll have fun getting it back.
Fresh water and land. Those are problems, and they're going to continue to be problems. Why not lessen the scale by reducing birthrates? 2 kids per family will still mean a peak at around 9 billion, but that's better than 12 billion.
Just because we're found "work-arounds" up to now doesn't mean we'll continue to, or that the ones in place will continue to work. Look at the problems with the current crop monoculture now being encroached on by super-weeds.
Why do people think they need 3, 4, 6, 8, 14, 19 kids anyway?
One kid, no problem. Two kids, that's one per parent - there's a kind of balance to that. 3 kids, simple solution - shoot one of the parents. (I'm not serious, but if we're not careful, it COULD come down to that, and it does address the problem by getting rid of one of the people responsible).
A few decades ago it wasn't economically viable to extract oil from tar sands. Today it's done on a routine basis.
We only are able to do it economically when the world price of oil is high. When the price of oil dropped, oil sands production became ueconomical.
It also requires large quantities of something else that is increasingly in short supply - water - as well as natural gas to produce the steam necessary for liquifying the oil in the tar sands..
Even then, it'll all be gone in well under a century...
If software patents aren't important, explain why open-source's answer to H.264 is a format that used to be patented before being abandoned by the parent company.
... because people are free to use it, duh! Unlike the patented codecs.
And your statement is so off that it's not even wrong. It's not a question of whether software patents are or aren't important - it's whether they should be allowed under patent law - and they weren't until the USPTO screwed up. Same with patenting "business methods".
Software should only be protected by copyright, same as any other written work. As provided by law and the original intent of the people who wrote the law.
Doesn't matter either way - the house was in Florida, so it's pretty much guaranteed to be underwater either financially in the next 2 years, if it isn't already.
If you thought the subprime crisis was big, you ain't seen nothing yet. The Alt-A defaults are just starting up, and they'll continue to pull values down - to the point that most prime mortgages will also be underwater.
Add the boomers trying to "cash out" and there's no way housing recovers before 2020.
$200 on contract, $600 cash. In other words, this puts it in line with other smartphones. (go check the price on an iPhone without a plan - if you can find one. Apple won't sell it to you without a contract in the US - in Canada the 16GS is $$700 without a contract, the 32GS is $800 without a contract - with a contract the 16GS is $199, the 32GS is $299). So expect the Evo 4g to be $200 - $300 with a contract.
Anyone following the SCO case would know that in the US, copyright transfer can ONLY be done with an explicit writing.
Saying that the Uni has an "interest" in code written before he was hired is just posturing. There is no such thing in law as an "implicit copyright transfer" -
SCO tried to argue that, and failed.
Can you give me an example of a closed source company not playing by the rules?
Search for "submarine patent". There are plenty of examples.
If anything, the open-source groups that are releasing patented and licensed technology for free are the ones breaking the rules. It's like spending a few weeks retyping the contents of a Harry Potter book, then claiming that your ability to do so proves that copyrights on written material are bullshit ("it's just a sequence of words!"). It ignores the fact that developing the characters and story took much, much longer than writing the actual words on paper, and that the material wouldn't have been created in the first place without the protections offered by copyrights.
Patent != copyright.
Software should not be patentable, and neither should business methods. Software should be copyrightable, which means that others are free to implement similar stuff as long as they don't copy the code. After all, we have more than one love story, one comedy, one drama, one police procedural, one fairy tale, because you cannot copyright the idea behind the story - just the story itself.
Slashdot Mirror
Timothy Leary might have prior art on that.
You *know* now that we're going to see an uptick in those types of scams.
Those were chicken-feed. There's a couple in the states that is renting out abandoned, foreclosed, houses. They take away all the signage, cut the lawm - the neighbors think "Oh, good, someone's moving in!" Then they rent it out and cash the cheques - no mules needed.
They have fake paperwork saying they're the agent handling it for the real owner, who, tsk tsk, can't be traced. Do that with only a half-dozen places and you can quit your day job.
The offer was several WEEKS after Apple was contacted, and after plenty of rumors of a lost iPhone prototype. What part of "it's no longer lost if I've contacted the owner (Apple) and they aren't interested" do you fail to understand?
Laws covering lost property deal with, you know, LOST property. The owner doesn't want it, sucks to be them.
You lose your wallet, but you don't notice. I find it, call you up, and tell you I've found your wallet. Since you "know" you haven't lost your wallet, you tell me to f*** off because you think I'm a scammer, keep the stupid wallet.
3 weeks later you finally notice your wallet missing. You realize I wasn't a scammer. You call me back. "Where's my wallet?" "My guess - in a land-fill."
I'm under no obligation to take care of your crap after you've renounced ownership.
If he had been smarter, he would have dissected it himself, and sold the video + pics for $5k, along with letting them look at (and photograph) the pieces. - after all, SEEING it opened up, there's no question that it's the prototype. And then send the pieces back to Apple by registered mail in a box marked in BIG letters - "MISSING APPLE PROTOTYPE IPHONE". Guaranteed it gets "lost in shipping".
Compare to whit I wrote:
You get your notice, you don't pay or take the car away, we go to court. You don't show to oppose the lien, I get title. How hard is that to understand? Oh, right - you don't want to admit that your prior post:
In some jurisdictions, we have to go through the formality of a public auction, which is basically posting as small a notice as possible giving the time and date of the auction (make it an inconvenient time, date, and place), nobody showing up, and then getting the title transferred by the clerk.
It's how houses are sold "on the courthouse steps" all the time. The guy steps outside, reads the call for bidders (in a very low voice, so nobody hears him), looks around, walks back in, and says "No other bidders than the one I have in my pocket."
Except that the guy DID call Apple. And Apple admitted to opening up a support ticket, but saying that nothing would come of it.
Because at they time they didn't know the guys name, silly - and it turns out that the guy wasn't the owner - Apple was, so they contacted Apple. If Apple hadn't bricked the phone, maybe they'd have had it back quicker?
False. In that jurisdiction, only property with an apparent value of $100 or more - something that looks like a bricked knockoff of an iPhone doesn't qualify.
"Your papers, citizen, after all you have nothing to hide!" Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty?"
So, what's a bricked phone worth? Not much as a phone. And when the guy found it, there was no way to tell that it was a prototype - it was in a gimmicked-up G3 case, but wasn't a G3 - which made it more likely that it was a knock-off. Not worth more than $100 working (and less bricked).
Don't take Wired as gospel either - there were plenty of other sites that gave other aspects of the story.
The original money doesn't exist. The check they're asked to cash is ALWAYS bogus.
This is bank fraud. It may involve check kiting, where the original cheque is from a real - but overdrawn - account, or it may just involve fake cheques printed to order, but it;s still cheque fraud, not money laundering.
And the vast majority of people who "get taken in" are just greedy slobs who want to believe so badly that they can actually make $500 for taking a $10,000 cheque and cashing it that they lie to themselves and say "if worse comes to worse, I can always say I didn't know."
read the whole series of links - if it's on your proprerty, you don't even need the 3 days ...
"Oy vay! What do you expect from a golem? Probably got distracted by. some shiksa. Give the servers some chicken soup, already!"
"Chicken soup won't help!"
"Couldn't hurt ..."
Problems with the root .de name server. Of course, it's funnier if you don't know that "die" is "the" in german: "die die Rootserver für die Top-Level-Domain .de" so in germglish it becomes "die, die, tld .de rootserver" OMG terrorist threat!
So yes, it's basically rubber-stamping stuff to make sure it's all legal.
And why are you talking about phones in bars - the iPhone in question was not "found in a bar." Oh, right - you didn't read the article.
Lien sale of vehicle valued at less than $4k in California - total time is less than 2 months. http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/howto/htvr7.htm
Over $4k - 90 to 120 days http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/howto/htvr8.htm
You get title, and you can plate it just like any other vehicle after it's inspected.
These lien sales include where you have not been paid for storing the vehicle, so all you have to do to initiate the process is send the owner a demand for parking fees of $x per day.
So, park your car in my spot - I send you the notice to either remove it immediately or start paying $50/day storage. You ignore it, I apply for a lien sale, send out the notices as required, you either pay all amounts due at that point or it goes to auction. If nobody else bids, I get it. I plate it. I have it inspected. I drive it. Total time is 2 to 4 months total, not 2 years, and I can drive it on the street.
Everything fails at some point. Too many people will turn failures from "oh well, we can shift a surplus of supply from somewhere eles" to "massive death."
The way to increase our environmental footprint and put evrything under even more stress is to assist the developing world into realizing it's potential, rather than EVERYONE reducing their birth rate to below ZPG.
Read it and weep. I've provided links to the procedure in various states. The delay can be anywhere from 3 days to 45 days (Hew Jersey is 3 days).
Now fess up that you're wrong, that you can't even do a simple search on the internet, and hand in what's left of your geek cred.
http://legisweb.state.wy.us/statutes/statutes.aspx?file=titles/Title31/T31CH13.htm
http://www.iowadot.gov/mvd/ovs/abandoned.htm#What%20are%20the%20steps%20for%20disposal%20of%20an%20abandoned%20vehicle%20on%20private%20property
http://www.state.nj.us/mvcbiz/Abandoned/Abandoned.htm
Sample (from the last link):
So, leave it on someone's property for 3 days without their okay, and they can get title to it.
if it's been abandoned/unclaimed for 30 days or more, it usually takes a couple of weeks. Not "... a long time". Look up "abandoned vehicle lien sale"
No, but park it in my parking space, don't remove it after I have you served with a notice to either do so or that I will go to court and get title of it, and guess what - I *can* go to court and get title transferred.
And if you park your Porsche on the street without license plates, the city will seize it. If you never registered or plated it, you'll have fun getting it back.
Fresh water and land. Those are problems, and they're going to continue to be problems. Why not lessen the scale by reducing birthrates? 2 kids per family will still mean a peak at around 9 billion, but that's better than 12 billion.
Just because we're found "work-arounds" up to now doesn't mean we'll continue to, or that the ones in place will continue to work. Look at the problems with the current crop monoculture now being encroached on by super-weeds.
Why do people think they need 3, 4, 6, 8, 14, 19 kids anyway?
One kid, no problem. Two kids, that's one per parent - there's a kind of balance to that. 3 kids, simple solution - shoot one of the parents. (I'm not serious, but if we're not careful, it COULD come down to that, and it does address the problem by getting rid of one of the people responsible).
We only are able to do it economically when the world price of oil is high. When the price of oil dropped, oil sands production became ueconomical.
It also requires large quantities of something else that is increasingly in short supply - water - as well as natural gas to produce the steam necessary for liquifying the oil in the tar sands..
Even then, it'll all be gone in well under a century ...
Something that we can't do - there simply aren't enough resources.
We'll overshoot to 12 billion people in 2050, then we'll see the big die-off.
And your statement is so off that it's not even wrong. It's not a question of whether software patents are or aren't important - it's whether they should be allowed under patent law - and they weren't until the USPTO screwed up. Same with patenting "business methods".
Software should only be protected by copyright, same as any other written work. As provided by law and the original intent of the people who wrote the law.
If you thought the subprime crisis was big, you ain't seen nothing yet. The Alt-A defaults are just starting up, and they'll continue to pull values down - to the point that most prime mortgages will also be underwater.
Add the boomers trying to "cash out" and there's no way housing recovers before 2020.
While the price hasn't been finalized, here's some info: http://www.phonedog.com/2010/05/07/htc-evo-4g-documentation-spotted-at-radio-shack/
$200 on contract, $600 cash. In other words, this puts it in line with other smartphones. (go check the price on an iPhone without a plan - if you can find one. Apple won't sell it to you without a contract in the US - in Canada the 16GS is $$700 without a contract, the 32GS is $800 without a contract - with a contract the 16GS is $199, the 32GS is $299). So expect the Evo 4g to be $200 - $300 with a contract.
Anyone following the SCO case would know that in the US, copyright transfer can ONLY be done with an explicit writing.
Saying that the Uni has an "interest" in code written before he was hired is just posturing. There is no such thing in law as an "implicit copyright transfer" - SCO tried to argue that, and failed.
I'm amazed at how quickly people forget ...
Search for "submarine patent". There are plenty of examples.
Patent != copyright.
Software should not be patentable, and neither should business methods. Software should be copyrightable, which means that others are free to implement similar stuff as long as they don't copy the code. After all, we have more than one love story, one comedy, one drama, one police procedural, one fairy tale, because you cannot copyright the idea behind the story - just the story itself.