I'm a 10Mbps Charter subscriber who, as of yesterday, became subject to a 100GB monthly cap on my service. I really, really, really want to change providers, as much to punish Charter for its hubris as to get out from under the cap.
My only other broadband option is DSL, which The Phone Company provides to our neighborhood in one flavor: 768Kbps/256Kbps.
Some choice, eh?
...from the demon spawn of a company that existed as a government-protected monopoly most of its corporate life. Being the insatiable pigs they are, they not only want to eat from the trough, they want to eat the trough, too.
...AT&T is claiming a patent on communication. To wit:
1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns communications systems generally and particularly concerns the use of a communications system to mediate transactions among entities reachable by the communications system.
I agree, for sure. Not only did it create an impregnable defensive position for the king, it provided a centralized and flexible launch pad for movement along the pawn wall. Looking back, I can't believe the computer gave Kasparov the time to create the position. I'd be interested to know if that same position has ever occurred in human competition.
The computer had some kingside counterattack possibilities, but kept its kingside pawns so hemmed in they couldn't be brought into play. Without some sort of break in the pawn wall, Kasparov was in firm control of the gate at a6 and could attack at his leisure.
That's an interesting question. Even if X3D's handlers couldn't manually pick the first move, though, they could still set up the computer's opening book in a way unfavorable to Kasparov, so that even a random choice would play to the opponent's weakness. I'm fairly certain that X3D's book includes every recorded game played by Kasparov.
The game of chess has been around so long that opening moves and their variations have been cataloged, categorized, and analyzed in great detail. It's been a while since I was a serious student of the game, but I think Modern Chess Openings is still the standard reference for opening play.
In any event, X3D Fritz has a database of analyzed opening moves, including, for this match, a database of Kasparov's opening moves. It's called the opening book. Opening books save the computer time at the start of the game, since it doesn't have to reinvent the wheel every time it plays.
As for deciding the first move to play, the computer has a randomizer to select a move from its opening book. For this match, though, I wouldn't be surprised if X3D's programmers didn't pick its first move for it.
The position after 29. a6 was indicative of how paranoid Kasparov was about the computer's tactical capabilities. In addition to the pawn blockade stretching diagonally from f2 to b6, he had marched his king all the way from e1 to b2 and protected it behind a wall of pieces. The king's bunker looked like this:
A lawyer can acquire an ownership interest in a client while he is representing them. Further the ABA sayeth not:
Formal Opinion 00-418
Acquiring Ownership in a Client in Connection with Performing Legal Services
The Model Rules of Professional Conduct do not prohibit a lawyer from acquiring an ownership interest in a client, either in lieu of a cash fee for providing legal services or as an investment opportunity in connection with such services, as long as the lawyer complies with Rule 1.8(a) governing business transactions with clients, and, when applicable, with Rule 1.5 requiring that a fee for legal services be reasonable. To comply with Rule 1.8(a), the transaction by which the lawyer acquires the interest and its terms must be fair and reasonable to the client, and fully disclosed and transmitted in writing in a manner that can be reasonably understood by the client. The client also must be given a reasonable opportunity to seek the advice of independent counsel in the transaction and must consent to the transaction in writing. In providing legal services to the client's business while owning its stock, the lawyer must take care to avoid conflicts between the client's interests and the lawyer's personal economic interests as an owner, as required by Rule 1.7(b), and must exercise independent professional judgment in advising the client concerning legal matters as required by Rule 2.1. (emphasis added)
Looks like SCO has cash flow problems...
on
SCO's Lawyers Analyzed
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Everyone assumes the original deal between SCO and Boies was a straight contingency agreement. Given the size and resources of the defendant, the amount of time and money required to prosecute the claim, and the likelihood of an unfavorable outcome, I can't believe it was. Even if there was a contingency agreement, though, it may well have been conditioned upon IBM settling the case within a certain period of time. Now that settlement is a remote possibility, Boies may have demanded money to continue with the case, and SCO couldn't come up with the cash. The company's 8-K talks about "credits for amounts received as discounted hourly fees". If they had actually retained Boies on a contingency, there wouldn't be any hourly fees.
The language of the SEC filing ("...in the process of finalizing...", "...subject to a definitive agreement...") clearly indicates that this is a deal SCO has pitched to Boies (or vice versa). It's also clear that part of the money ("...certain licensing fees...") is coming directly from Microsoft. Since no lawyer in his right mind would negotiate a fee agreement downward, Boies' firm undoubtedly stands to make more money under the deal, but on the back end.
In a nutshell, this is the scenario: SCO brought Boies in to force a quick settlement. When that didn't happen, Boies' fee agreement reverted from contingency to hourly. In fact, it appears that Boies may have been paid something for not settling the case, since the 8-K also talks about a credit for "prior contingency payments." In any event, Boies and his firm are now working on an hourly basis, which SCO can't afford. To keep him on board, they've offered him (or he's offered them) the deal stated in the 8-K.
Given SCO's well-documented compliance problems with IBM's discovery requests, one can only wonder whether Boies' firm has cut back its work on the case until the compenstion issues are resolved.
I was a law student at SIU in Carbondale when I first encountered PLATO. I slept about six hours from 1979 to 1981, since the terminal in the law library was only available for "non-educational" use after 10:00 PM, and the system usually went down for maintenance about 4:30 or 5 in the morning. Needless to say, I found Oub and Emp infinitely more interesting than torts and contracts. Sheesh, I wouldn't even go home for holiday breaks during the school year -- with little or no load, the system really rocked during breaks, and there was usually no shortage of people available for gaming.
Looking back on it, though, I would have to say that my real fascination was with the network -- the games did a very good job of exposing the powers of communication, collaboration, and interaction inherent in an internetwork. In fact, there's really nothing I've seen or done on the modern Internet that has rivaled the wonder, awe, and excitement I felt after my initial exposure to PLATO: by the primitive standards of the time, it seemed like something straight out of Roswell. It is one of a handful of things that I can honestly say changed my life. Law school, by comparison, does not make that list.
How many degrees of separation are there between PLATO and what we now call the Internet? Fewer than six, I would reckon. And, judging by the way it keeps popping up in stories here, I would say its influence is just beginning to be recognized.
The issue seems to be no Makefile.in for xpfe. I've downloaded the release source and also grabbed the CVS from which the current binaries came. No joy.
Had a similar problem with SVG in the 1.4.1 release.
And, after enduring a metric buttload of gratuitous abuse on irc.mozilla.org, still no answers...
Between the shares he owns outright and his vested options, the net value of Darl C. McBride's SCOX portfolio dropped from $5,133,293.22 to $4,227,836.85, a one-day fall of $905,456.37.
I was hoping he would break the million-dollar barrier, but a small rally in the last half-hour of trading took the stock above 14.
The 331,669 shares of SCOX that Darl McBride has an interest in, either through direct ownership or as vested options, have a net value of $5,382,044.97.
As a former practitioner of the dark arts, the very first thing I told clients involved in litigation was: keep your mouth shut. When big money is involved, every wall has ears. In that sense, Darl McBride is a litigator's worst nightmare. His hyperkinetic gum-flapping is leaving a long, winding, and very public trail of half-truths, exaggerations, and contradictions, all of which are being noted and filed away for future use by IBM's lawyers.
"No comment" is standard operating procedure for corporations involved in high-profile litigation, especially when the stakes involve the survival of the company. If McBride really thinks, as he's said on several occasions, that he is trying the case in the court of public opinion, he's an idiot. The only opinions he's manipulating -- other than those of stock speculators -- belong to a microscopically small segment of the population, none of whom will be sitting in the jury box when the case goes to trial. At this point, I was going to say that he may actually be doing a disservice to the company's stockholders by jeopardizing SCO's prospects at trial. However, since the shareholders of the company consist almost exclusively of insiders, related parties, and speculators taking the stock for a ride, I'm not sure that's a relevant consideration.
In any event, it's pretty clear that McBride's agenda involves something other than the litigation. Any CEO with half a brain knows and appreciates the dangers of commenting on a pending lawsuit. And, if he doesn't, his lawyer should remind him. Yet, Darl's still running his mouth every chance he gets.
Boies took this case on contingency. If SCO rolls the dice and wins, he could be looking at a billion-dollar payday. If they lose, he gets nothing. I can't think of a bigger incentive to keep McBride on a leash. Now, it's quite possible that McBride is a loose cannon. If that's the case, I'd expect Boies to bail out at some point. It's also possible, too, that Boies condones McBride's activities. But, given Boies' reputation for meticulous trial preparation, that seems highly unlikely: every public comment by McBride is another thing to be dealt with at trial.
I honestly cannot recall another instance where a corporation involved in litigation has conducted itself like SCO has.
"Licensing. Licensing revenue was $8,250,000 for the second quarter and first two quarters of fiscal year 2003 as compared to no revenue for the second quarter and first two quarters of fiscal year 2002. This revenue is the result of our intellectual property licensing program, SCOsource, launched in January 2003." For the record, their licensing revenue for the first quarter of fiscal year 2003 was zero.
I don't know why you're belaboring this point, because you're wrong. The only profits SCO/Caldera have ever generated are the result of Linux shakedown cash.
...their second quarter 10Q reported a $4.5 million profit on the basis of $6.1 million in net licensing revenue. Pull out the net licensing revenue, and SCO had a $1.6 million loss for the quarter.
What the SCOspeak in the filing cited in the article means is that if licensing revenues don't increase, then the mounting losses from their core business are going to drag the company's bottom line into the red.
And, yes, that means their core business is currently unprofitable and, as their Q2 financial shows, has been in the past. In fact, the only profitable quarters in the company's history have been the last two quarters of the current fiscal year. The profits for both of those quarters are exclusively attributable to "licensing revenues".
In short, SCO's "core business" -- whatever that is or was -- has always been unprofitable.
See, kids? That's why knowing how to read a financial statement is more important than anything you learn in school.
Pursuit of the litigation against IBM and, potentially, others will be costly, and management expects the costs for legal fees could be substantial. In addition, the Company may experience a decrease in revenue as a result of the loss of sales of Linux products and initiatives previously undertaken jointly with IBM and others affiliated with IBM. The Company anticipates that participants in the Linux industry will seek to influence participants in the markets in which we sell our products to reduce or eliminate the amount of our products and services that they purchase. There is also a risk that the assertion of the Company's intellectual property rights will be negatively viewed by participants in our marketplace and we may lose support from such participants. Any of the foregoing could adversely affect the Company's position in the marketplace and our results of operations.
The ultimate outcome or potential effect on the Company's results of operations or financial position is not currently known or determinable. [emphasis added]
This is in a footnote to the company's financials. Yet, when the company's CEO speaks publicly about the matter (and the related actions the company is taking), none of these risk factors are mentioned. Intellectual property litigation is a high-risk proposition under any circumstances. Given the convoluted pedigree of the rights involved in this case, asserting that a favorable outcome is certain -- as Mr. McBride has done with every reporter he has talked to -- is speculation of the most pernicious order, and shows a reckless disregard of his duty to provide the investing public with an accurate statement of the company's affairs.
The conscientious exercise of that duty would seem especially important for a publicly-traded corporation where insiders or related parties own almost 50% of the outstanding stock, and millions of low-balled options are in the portfolios of executives and board members. Based on Mr. McBride's statements -- which are ultimately self-serving, since he has an interest in 800,000 options priced between $0.76 and $2.07 a share -- the price of SCOX has septupled in just six months. Whether its the product of fact or fiction remains to be seen, but there seems to be something very, very wrong with a CEO publicly contradicting the risks reported in a company's financial statement.
Options/insider information...
on
SCO Roundup
·
· Score: 1
So far, I've just parsed McBride's SEC filings, but the rest of the SCO crew -- Broughton, Bench, Olson, Wilson, Hunsaker, and Opinder -- will be joining him on the page shortly.
One thing protracted litigation -- and can there be any other kind with Boies on one side and IBM on the other? -- does for McBride is keep the market buzz around SCOX going. Each additional month of FUD puts another 8,333 price-inflated shares in his pocket. That number jumps to 12,500 a month in April of 2004. The FUD also gives his executive staff an opportunity to dump options that were essentially worthless a year before. Reginald Broughton, for example, has moved $670,000 (55,000 shares) of SCOX since June 20th.
Almost all of the insider trades this year have been made pursuant to 10b5-1 plans, which purport to insulate insiders from liability by disposing of stock according to a fixed, predetermined schedule. My guess -- and that's all it is -- is that these plans were put in place recently, in anticipation of exactly what has transpired. It doesn't take an MBA to figure out that SCO's current course of action would generate an increase in the price of SCOX. For whatever reason, investors seem to respond to the sizzle first, and check to see if it's steak later. If that's the case, SCO's executives are gaming the system, and doing a pretty good job of it.
All in all, the whole mess reeks of stock manipulation, but, given the current regulatory climate (whatever happened to Kenny Lay?), the relatively small amounts of money involved, and the steps the principals have taken to protect themselves, I doubt if there's much the SEC can or will do about it.
...because my Valkyrie in Oubliette really needed one.
And, I wasn't the only person on the PLATO system purchasing items, either. Sometimes, it was the only way for players without powerful friends in the game to advance.
So, seeing a market where real dollars change hands for items created in a closed virtual economy isn't exactly new, although it appears the concept is scaling nicely.
Roger Ailes is not a name I associate with "fair and balanced".
Evidently, Fox thinks that if they include those words in every promo for their news channel, people will believe it. After all, that kind of mindless repitation worked very well for the phrase "liberal media conspiracy".
In a song called "Moneygoround" from Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround.
For your listening pleasure:
Robert owes half to Grenville
Who in turn gave half to Larry
Who adored my instrumentals
And so he gave half to a foreign publisher
She took half the money
That was earned in some far distant land
Gave back half to Larry
And I end up with half of goodness knows what
Oh can somebody explain
Why things go on this way
I thought they were my friends
I can't believe it's me
I can't believe that I'm so green
Eyes down
Round and round
Let's all sit and watch the moneygoround
Everyone take a little bit here
And a little bit there
Do they all deserve money
From a song that they've never heard
They don't know the tune
And they don't know the words
But they don't give a damn
There's no end to it
I'm in a pit and I'm stuck in it
The money goes round and around and around
And it comes out here
When they've all taken their share
I went to see a solicitor
And my story was heard
And the writs were served
On the verge of a nervous breakdown
I decided to fight right to the end
But if I ever get my money
I'll be too old and grey to spend it
Oh, but life goes on and on
And no one ever wins
And time goes quickly by
Just like the moneygoround
The United States has been a plutocracy since the turn of the 20th century. Resistance is futile. The bottom line is that 80% of us work to allow the remaining 20% to live the American Dream.
The advance in technology isn't coupled with an advance in the method of delivery. It will still be administered by the progeny of Bell and, if they can find any way to screw it up, they will.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a 10Mbps Charter subscriber who, as of yesterday, became subject to a 100GB monthly cap on my service. I really, really, really want to change providers, as much to punish Charter for its hubris as to get out from under the cap. My only other broadband option is DSL, which The Phone Company provides to our neighborhood in one flavor: 768Kbps/256Kbps. Some choice, eh?
...from the demon spawn of a company that existed as a government-protected monopoly most of its corporate life. Being the insatiable pigs they are, they not only want to eat from the trough, they want to eat the trough, too.
...AT&T is claiming a patent on communication. To wit:
1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns communications systems generally and particularly concerns the use of a communications system to mediate transactions among entities reachable by the communications system.
What doesn't that cover?
I agree, for sure. Not only did it create an impregnable defensive position for the king, it provided a centralized and flexible launch pad for movement along the pawn wall. Looking back, I can't believe the computer gave Kasparov the time to create the position. I'd be interested to know if that same position has ever occurred in human competition.
The computer had some kingside counterattack possibilities, but kept its kingside pawns so hemmed in they couldn't be brought into play. Without some sort of break in the pawn wall, Kasparov was in firm control of the gate at a6 and could attack at his leisure.
That's an interesting question. Even if X3D's handlers couldn't manually pick the first move, though, they could still set up the computer's opening book in a way unfavorable to Kasparov, so that even a random choice would play to the opponent's weakness. I'm fairly certain that X3D's book includes every recorded game played by Kasparov.
ESPN2 had the match sandwiched between the double-dutch jump rope championship and women's college basketball.
How rude.
The game of chess has been around so long that opening moves and their variations have been cataloged, categorized, and analyzed in great detail. It's been a while since I was a serious student of the game, but I think Modern Chess Openings is still the standard reference for opening play.
In any event, X3D Fritz has a database of analyzed opening moves, including, for this match, a database of Kasparov's opening moves. It's called the opening book. Opening books save the computer time at the start of the game, since it doesn't have to reinvent the wheel every time it plays.
As for deciding the first move to play, the computer has a randomizer to select a move from its opening book. For this match, though, I wouldn't be surprised if X3D's programmers didn't pick its first move for it.
The position after 29. a6 was indicative of how paranoid Kasparov was about the computer's tactical capabilities. In addition to the pawn blockade stretching diagonally from f2 to b6, he had marched his king all the way from e1 to b2 and protected it behind a wall of pieces. The king's bunker looked like this:
BN N
K R Q
As chess positions go, that one cracked me up.
A lawyer can acquire an ownership interest in a client while he is representing them. Further the ABA sayeth not:
Formal Opinion 00-418
Acquiring Ownership in a Client in Connection with Performing Legal Services
The Model Rules of Professional Conduct do not prohibit a lawyer from acquiring an ownership interest in a client, either in lieu of a cash fee for providing legal services or as an investment opportunity in connection with such services, as long as the lawyer complies with Rule 1.8(a) governing business transactions with clients, and, when applicable, with Rule 1.5 requiring that a fee for legal services be reasonable. To comply with Rule 1.8(a), the transaction by which the lawyer acquires the interest and its terms must be fair and reasonable to the client, and fully disclosed and transmitted in writing in a manner that can be reasonably understood by the client. The client also must be given a reasonable opportunity to seek the advice of independent counsel in the transaction and must consent to the transaction in writing. In providing legal services to the client's business while owning its stock, the lawyer must take care to avoid conflicts between the client's interests and the lawyer's personal economic interests as an owner, as required by Rule 1.7(b), and must exercise independent professional judgment in advising the client concerning legal matters as required by Rule 2.1. (emphasis added)
Everyone assumes the original deal between SCO and Boies was a straight contingency agreement. Given the size and resources of the defendant, the amount of time and money required to prosecute the claim, and the likelihood of an unfavorable outcome, I can't believe it was. Even if there was a contingency agreement, though, it may well have been conditioned upon IBM settling the case within a certain period of time. Now that settlement is a remote possibility, Boies may have demanded money to continue with the case, and SCO couldn't come up with the cash. The company's 8-K talks about "credits for amounts received as discounted hourly fees". If they had actually retained Boies on a contingency, there wouldn't be any hourly fees.
The language of the SEC filing ("...in the process of finalizing...", "...subject to a definitive agreement...") clearly indicates that this is a deal SCO has pitched to Boies (or vice versa). It's also clear that part of the money ("...certain licensing fees...") is coming directly from Microsoft. Since no lawyer in his right mind would negotiate a fee agreement downward, Boies' firm undoubtedly stands to make more money under the deal, but on the back end.
In a nutshell, this is the scenario: SCO brought Boies in to force a quick settlement. When that didn't happen, Boies' fee agreement reverted from contingency to hourly. In fact, it appears that Boies may have been paid something for not settling the case, since the 8-K also talks about a credit for "prior contingency payments." In any event, Boies and his firm are now working on an hourly basis, which SCO can't afford. To keep him on board, they've offered him (or he's offered them) the deal stated in the 8-K.
Given SCO's well-documented compliance problems with IBM's discovery requests, one can only wonder whether Boies' firm has cut back its work on the case until the compenstion issues are resolved.
I love these PLATO stories.
I was a law student at SIU in Carbondale when I first encountered PLATO. I slept about six hours from 1979 to 1981, since the terminal in the law library was only available for "non-educational" use after 10:00 PM, and the system usually went down for maintenance about 4:30 or 5 in the morning. Needless to say, I found Oub and Emp infinitely more interesting than torts and contracts. Sheesh, I wouldn't even go home for holiday breaks during the school year -- with little or no load, the system really rocked during breaks, and there was usually no shortage of people available for gaming.
Looking back on it, though, I would have to say that my real fascination was with the network -- the games did a very good job of exposing the powers of communication, collaboration, and interaction inherent in an internetwork. In fact, there's really nothing I've seen or done on the modern Internet that has rivaled the wonder, awe, and excitement I felt after my initial exposure to PLATO: by the primitive standards of the time, it seemed like something straight out of Roswell. It is one of a handful of things that I can honestly say changed my life. Law school, by comparison, does not make that list.
How many degrees of separation are there between PLATO and what we now call the Internet? Fewer than six, I would reckon. And, judging by the way it keeps popping up in stories here, I would say its influence is just beginning to be recognized.
The issue seems to be no Makefile.in for xpfe. I've downloaded the release source and also grabbed the CVS from which the current binaries came. No joy.
Had a similar problem with SVG in the 1.4.1 release.
And, after enduring a metric buttload of gratuitous abuse on irc.mozilla.org, still no answers...
SCOX opened at $17.02. It closed at $14.29.
Between the shares he owns outright and his vested options, the net value of Darl C. McBride's SCOX portfolio dropped from $5,133,293.22 to $4,227,836.85, a one-day fall of $905,456.37.
I was hoping he would break the million-dollar barrier, but a small rally in the last half-hour of trading took the stock above 14.
The 331,669 shares of SCOX that Darl McBride has an interest in, either through direct ownership or as vested options, have a net value of $5,382,044.97.
As a former practitioner of the dark arts, the very first thing I told clients involved in litigation was: keep your mouth shut. When big money is involved, every wall has ears. In that sense, Darl McBride is a litigator's worst nightmare. His hyperkinetic gum-flapping is leaving a long, winding, and very public trail of half-truths, exaggerations, and contradictions, all of which are being noted and filed away for future use by IBM's lawyers.
"No comment" is standard operating procedure for corporations involved in high-profile litigation, especially when the stakes involve the survival of the company. If McBride really thinks, as he's said on several occasions, that he is trying the case in the court of public opinion, he's an idiot. The only opinions he's manipulating -- other than those of stock speculators -- belong to a microscopically small segment of the population, none of whom will be sitting in the jury box when the case goes to trial. At this point, I was going to say that he may actually be doing a disservice to the company's stockholders by jeopardizing SCO's prospects at trial. However, since the shareholders of the company consist almost exclusively of insiders, related parties, and speculators taking the stock for a ride, I'm not sure that's a relevant consideration.
In any event, it's pretty clear that McBride's agenda involves something other than the litigation. Any CEO with half a brain knows and appreciates the dangers of commenting on a pending lawsuit. And, if he doesn't, his lawyer should remind him. Yet, Darl's still running his mouth every chance he gets.
Boies took this case on contingency. If SCO rolls the dice and wins, he could be looking at a billion-dollar payday. If they lose, he gets nothing. I can't think of a bigger incentive to keep McBride on a leash. Now, it's quite possible that McBride is a loose cannon. If that's the case, I'd expect Boies to bail out at some point. It's also possible, too, that Boies condones McBride's activities. But, given Boies' reputation for meticulous trial preparation, that seems highly unlikely: every public comment by McBride is another thing to be dealt with at trial.
I honestly cannot recall another instance where a corporation involved in litigation has conducted itself like SCO has.
The bazaar has met the bizarre.
...then why isn't there a licensing line item on any of their balance sheets before the second quarter of fiscal year 2003?
Again, their Q2 10Q provides the truth:
"Licensing. Licensing revenue was $8,250,000 for the second quarter and first two quarters of fiscal year 2003 as compared to no revenue for the second quarter and first two quarters of fiscal year 2002. This revenue is the result of our intellectual property licensing program, SCOsource, launched in January 2003." For the record, their licensing revenue for the first quarter of fiscal year 2003 was zero.
I don't know why you're belaboring this point, because you're wrong. The only profits SCO/Caldera have ever generated are the result of Linux shakedown cash.
...their second quarter 10Q reported a $4.5 million profit on the basis of $6.1 million in net licensing revenue. Pull out the net licensing revenue, and SCO had a $1.6 million loss for the quarter.
What the SCOspeak in the filing cited in the article means is that if licensing revenues don't increase, then the mounting losses from their core business are going to drag the company's bottom line into the red.
And, yes, that means their core business is currently unprofitable and, as their Q2 financial shows, has been in the past. In fact, the only profitable quarters in the company's history have been the last two quarters of the current fiscal year. The profits for both of those quarters are exclusively attributable to "licensing revenues".
In short, SCO's "core business" -- whatever that is or was -- has always been unprofitable.
See, kids? That's why knowing how to read a financial statement is more important than anything you learn in school.
Taken from page 12 of SCO's Q2 FY2003 quarterly report:
This is in a footnote to the company's financials. Yet, when the company's CEO speaks publicly about the matter (and the related actions the company is taking), none of these risk factors are mentioned. Intellectual property litigation is a high-risk proposition under any circumstances. Given the convoluted pedigree of the rights involved in this case, asserting that a favorable outcome is certain -- as Mr. McBride has done with every reporter he has talked to -- is speculation of the most pernicious order, and shows a reckless disregard of his duty to provide the investing public with an accurate statement of the company's affairs.
The conscientious exercise of that duty would seem especially important for a publicly-traded corporation where insiders or related parties own almost 50% of the outstanding stock, and millions of low-balled options are in the portfolios of executives and board members. Based on Mr. McBride's statements -- which are ultimately self-serving, since he has an interest in 800,000 options priced between $0.76 and $2.07 a share -- the price of SCOX has septupled in just six months. Whether its the product of fact or fiction remains to be seen, but there seems to be something very, very wrong with a CEO publicly contradicting the risks reported in a company's financial statement.
...can be found here.
So far, I've just parsed McBride's SEC filings, but the rest of the SCO crew -- Broughton, Bench, Olson, Wilson, Hunsaker, and Opinder -- will be joining him on the page shortly.
One thing protracted litigation -- and can there be any other kind with Boies on one side and IBM on the other? -- does for McBride is keep the market buzz around SCOX going. Each additional month of FUD puts another 8,333 price-inflated shares in his pocket. That number jumps to 12,500 a month in April of 2004. The FUD also gives his executive staff an opportunity to dump options that were essentially worthless a year before. Reginald Broughton, for example, has moved $670,000 (55,000 shares) of SCOX since June 20th.
Almost all of the insider trades this year have been made pursuant to 10b5-1 plans, which purport to insulate insiders from liability by disposing of stock according to a fixed, predetermined schedule. My guess -- and that's all it is -- is that these plans were put in place recently, in anticipation of exactly what has transpired. It doesn't take an MBA to figure out that SCO's current course of action would generate an increase in the price of SCOX. For whatever reason, investors seem to respond to the sizzle first, and check to see if it's steak later. If that's the case, SCO's executives are gaming the system, and doing a pretty good job of it.
All in all, the whole mess reeks of stock manipulation, but, given the current regulatory climate (whatever happened to Kenny Lay?), the relatively small amounts of money involved, and the steps the principals have taken to protect themselves, I doubt if there's much the SEC can or will do about it.
...because my Valkyrie in Oubliette really needed one.
And, I wasn't the only person on the PLATO system purchasing items, either. Sometimes, it was the only way for players without powerful friends in the game to advance.
So, seeing a market where real dollars change hands for items created in a closed virtual economy isn't exactly new, although it appears the concept is scaling nicely.
...ship the jobs overseas, to English-speaking countries (read India) which are already doing telephone work for American companies.
Their cost of doing business will certainly go up, but, barring some international treaty on telemarketing, they will be beyond the FTC's reach.
The nightmare of globalization just keeps chugging along...
Yeah, right.
Roger Ailes is not a name I associate with "fair and balanced".
Evidently, Fox thinks that if they include those words in every promo for their news channel, people will believe it. After all, that kind of mindless repitation worked very well for the phrase "liberal media conspiracy".
In a song called "Moneygoround" from Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround.
For your listening pleasure:
Robert owes half to Grenville
Who in turn gave half to Larry
Who adored my instrumentals
And so he gave half to a foreign publisher
She took half the money
That was earned in some far distant land
Gave back half to Larry
And I end up with half of goodness knows what
Oh can somebody explain
Why things go on this way
I thought they were my friends
I can't believe it's me
I can't believe that I'm so green
Eyes down
Round and round
Let's all sit and watch the moneygoround
Everyone take a little bit here
And a little bit there
Do they all deserve money
From a song that they've never heard
They don't know the tune
And they don't know the words
But they don't give a damn
There's no end to it
I'm in a pit and I'm stuck in it
The money goes round and around and around
And it comes out here
When they've all taken their share
I went to see a solicitor
And my story was heard
And the writs were served
On the verge of a nervous breakdown
I decided to fight right to the end
But if I ever get my money
I'll be too old and grey to spend it
Oh, but life goes on and on
And no one ever wins
And time goes quickly by
Just like the moneygoround
I only hope that I'll survive
The United States has been a plutocracy since the turn of the 20th century. Resistance is futile. The bottom line is that 80% of us work to allow the remaining 20% to live the American Dream.
The advance in technology isn't coupled with an advance in the method of delivery. It will still be administered by the progeny of Bell and, if they can find any way to screw it up, they will.