Yeah, but this isn't a final release of Hardy, either. If you dig through the release notes, you'll see that it's an RC (with a couple of potentially large/annoying bugs) -- which makes you wonder when the full release is due.
I haven't followed up on this, but it was a couple of years now that I read a very involved discussion about Direct TV doing the exact same thing. The big issue there was that not only was the HD signal down-rezzed, but in times of huge HD traffic -- such as the football package they were pushing at the time -- they would turn off less popular channels (such as TNT HD). Apparently, the root of the issue was that they didn't have enough satellites to supply the proper amount of bandwidth. They had another satellite launch scheduled for early last year. That was supposed to solve the problem, but I haven't gotten around to seeing if it was actually true.
Are we surprised that Comcast is down-rezzing HD video? Were we surprised to discover they're throttling BitTorrent? Not if you've ever had to use their service. You take what they give you, and if it fails catastrophically, then you might be able to find someone to get the service restored -- but complaining that the performance of a thing isn't what it's supposed to be? You'd be lucky if you found someone that had any idea what you were even talking about...
Had they observed him pocketing something while in the store, for example, they would have had the right to detain him. However, that right stops at the door. Once you're out of the store, they have no rights whatsoever -- which is why they always ask people to come back inside to "sort things out". At that point, you've willingly gone back onto their side of the game board...
There's obviously more to this story than was in TFA.
Points that need clarification:
1) The entire point of press packets is to disseminate information, some elements of which are expected to be under copyright because press packets typically contain articles and extracts of articles from many different sources. TFA doesn't indicate if Knowledge Networks was duplicating these press packs on their own dime, or what...
2) As other people have pointed out, the headline on the/. story doesn't have anything to do with the actual content of the article.
3) This is an out of court settlement, not a fine, and not a legal judgement against. KN obviously weighed their options under advise of counsel and determined that it would be quicker and cheaper in the long run to make this issue go away with a little cash and some "education classes" than to let it go to litigation. Going to court is usually the last place anyone wants to wind up, and $300k can disappear in a hurry when you're being billed out $400 / hr.
You don't have a clue what you're talking about. Or maybe you do -- but it's totally irrelevant to the issue at hand.
The only way to avoid being "deprived of the right to control your work" is to absolutely never, ever release it to the public, ever. This is not only basic meme theory and historically verifiable, but common sense. Nobody controls information they release into the wild. Period. Copyright merely grants the originator a short-term legal monopoly on profiting from the work.
No. No it doesn't. Copyright can grant such rights to the originator, but quite often -- as in the case of work for hire -- ownership is transferred to or held by another party.
You seem to be confusing copyright with patent, since the definition you supplied is exactly the purpose of the patent system. The purpose of copyright is to protect a form of expression from others taking advantage of it, or ripping it off. If I write a book set in a fantasy universe with a lot of very particular rules of behavior, this is a very specific artistic creation and is protected by copyright. You have exactly zero legal right to come along and say, "Hey, that's fab and groovy, I think I'll use that as the backdrop for this story I was thinking about." Whether I spent an afternoon or a decade creating my fab and groovy universe, you don't get to help yourself to it. Go build your own.
So back to this "short term legal monopoly" issue. What's your definition of "short term"? Before the recent legal revisions, the term in the US was 28 years -- and it could be renewed for another 28. Theoretically, that's enough to cover the lifespan of an adult creator, but even if the law hadn't been revised, I'd hardly call that short term. On the other hand, 14 years is absolutely short term.
Copyright does not mean that I can profit from my work. I can profit from it, or I can not profit from it. Whatever I choose. What it does explicitly mean is that you can't profit from it, so long as I retain legal control of the work. And who are you (or the author of this study) to tell me that I am not entitled to do that for as long as I see fit?
It does not grant or describe any sort of natural right ("life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness")to somehow magically "control" information.
I'm sorry -- who said that it did? Maybe you could keep to the issue?
I find it interesting that you continually use the term "information" -- as if protecting information is the point of copyright. In the US, raw information does not qualify for copyright -- thus lists of things, like the phonebook, or databases do not qualify (though there is certainly a push from corporate interests to change this). The purpose of copyright is to protect the artistic expression of a thing. Is the Mona Lisa nothing more than information to you?
It is merely a social contract to encourage social welfare by encouraging the creation of art, literature, and science. Look it up.
Look it up? In what tome of wisdom do you propose I do that?
Copyright is not "a social contract to encourage social welfare by encouraging the creation of art, literature, and science". Copyright signifies ownership. Copyright is not the same as a license to use (or haven't you bothered to read the GPL). Depending on how someone chooses to license a thing, copyright is a legal protection which allows someone to profit from their artistic work without having to worry about someone coming along and ripping them off. By the same token, someone can give away a thing for free and still retain the copyright.
So, in a way you're right: the benefit to social welfare is not from depriving you of anything; it's from granting you copyright, and for making that copyright of limited term.
There are many instances of writers taking many years to finally break into the publishing world, and by this logic, their work could be in the public domain before they ever got the chance to profit from their work.
Having only read the story, not the source papers, I can only say as an artist, there is absolutely zero "social welfare" that comes from depriving me of the right to control my work and profit from my efforts during my lifetime.
By that logic, the first of the Harry Potter books will soon be entering the public domain. Granted, Potter is a phenomenon, and Rowling has been lucky enough to make a boatload of money off of her work, but a copyright term like this would nip that right in the bud. Fan fic of the most vile nature could take its legitimate place right next to the canon, if someone were to publish it. There would be no reason to pay the author one more dime going forward. Limiting, if not eliminating, any incentive for them to put their blood and sweat into continuing their work. What kind of socialist fantasy is that?
From the summarizing article, this concept seems to apply ONLY to corporate producers and has no appreciation for the poor individual whose very existence is determined by their ability to profit from their work. I'm sorry, but having the ability to throwing rotten eggs against a wall in an artistic universe that someone else created does not even remotely count as "inspiring new creative acts".
My FIL has an ancient computer that is in desperate need of being retired. He asked if I could put XP on this new HP Slimline he picked up (came with Vista). Turns out that there's not a single XP driver available for the thing, anywhere. Nothing even for the NIC to get to Windows Update to look around. Still playing with the thing. Threw in a Feisty Live CD and every single peripheral in the thing came up. Even the monitor worked, but not at the recommended high resolution because of something to do with the NVIDIA driver being proprietary -- but after install, a couple of clicks had that working, too. He's not ready for a Linux desktop, but VMware got him sorted right out.
I haven't set up a Linux machine since about 2000. At the time, it was hell getting everything even recognized, much less configured. This was a fantastic experience all around.
Eudora's kind of unique in that you don't actually have to INSTALL it. If you have it backed up to CD (or whatever) all you have to do is drag it where you want it and run it. It will recreate whatever registry entries it needs. The only thing you have to do is make sure that the data path listed in eudora.ini is correct.
This is not a Cease and Desist order. It's a polite request to withdraw a trademark filing application. Didn't you bother to read TFA? Of course, the/. editors didn't bother to do that before posting the story, and the guys who wrote the Wired blog entry don't seem to understand the letter, either. All they did was see the words "Apple" and "IPod" and recognize that the letter is from a law firm and instantly work themselves into a tizzy.
To sum up for those that can't be bothered: Apple owns the trademarks "IPOD" and "POD". These people filed a trademark application which incorporates those existing trademarks in their proposed trademarks. Apple would like them to withdraw the application. It's all part of the process. No harm, no foul. That's why you don't instantly get trademarks -- they go through this sort of review and examination process.
What you fail to grasp -- along with everyone else who's posted in the thread so far, if the comments are any judge -- is that these are AV gear racks, NOT computer/network/phone racks.
CEDIA == Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association. These people install home theatres, integrated audio systems, etc.
The obvious, knee-jerk reaction is that he wasn't in violation of wire-tapping laws for the simple fact that he wasn't WIRE-TAPPING. He was simply recording a conversation, same as would happen if, say, you were conducting an interview and holding a tape recorder.
Reading the definitions page at the link provided by the article, you find the following definition: "Oral communication" means any oral communication uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation."
People speaking in public have no expectation of privacy. That's why the interception of something like a phone call requires a device (however remedial) to intrude on said privacy (being defined as a conversation between you and the person on the other end of the line).
> Skywalker Ranch was located in Lucas Valley, but the valley had its name long before George located there.
Skywalker Ranch IS located in Lucas Valley. It's the compound where George lives -- and it's not going anywhere. The only thing that moved is the ILM crew (I think the game people were already somewhere else). Skywalker Sound is still out there.
From the other comments, it's interesting to see how many people seem to miss the point of what ILM does. ILM is NOT LucasFilm. LucasFilm is George's production company. ILM creates special effects for anyone who can afford their rates. It's not their responsibility to ensure that the movies have reasonable plots or competent acting, any more than it is the responsibility of the craft services people.
George hasn't made a decent film since the '70's. That's hardly ILM's fault.
Be that as it may, I can't believe that no one has pointed out that this article is writen by a notoriously anti-open-source and pro-SCO shill. No matter how relevant the point may be, what else did you expect him to say -- and how much did he have to twist what McVoy said to get the salacious quotes he wanted?
DNR has been around for years and it's important to understand that the process isn't at fault here. It's all just math -- like a filter on a dial. You want more sensitivity or less, just crank that sucker one way or the other.
I read a piece a number of years ago which quoted some folks who ran a small restoration house. I forget what movie the were working on -- I want to say that it was a WWII picture -- but they had to go back and redo a good portion of their work since the computer took all of the tiny specks out of one particular sequence. Turns out that those specks were a receding view of a parachute drop, which they'd just conveniently erased. Oops!
It's amazing how many people -- including supposed industry experts -- just shrug this stuff off. When they restored Casablanca, they cleaned it to the point where they took the grain out of the bleedin' film. It's so bad (i.e. slick and glossy) that if you look at the DVD, it looks like they shot the movie on tile. What did the guy who owns the company Warner contracted to do the work have to say? "We're always learning and improving our process."
That merits nothing but the finger from me. If these people can't do the work properly, they don't belong in business. And the people paying them (i.e. the studios) have no business releasing a substandard product. Problem is, all those people are idiots commanded by marketing types. It's all just revenue, and they have no incentive to get it right.
All of this broke this morning. O'Gara was out of Sys-Con and all of her work was going to be purged from their servers. Well, here it is 12 hours later and not only is the front page still wall to wall with articles by O'Gara, but her author page is still up. In fact, the only thing that ISN'T up is the one particular article from last night that caused all of this bruhaha in the first place.
Don't these seem like obvious places to start sowing that salt they were promising?
It will be interesting to actually track this issue and see if Sys-Con does, indeed, rid themselves of the O'Gara nuisance. So far, it just looks like lip service.
I will say though, that this case does strike a blow in the favour of artists getting their due.
No, actually, it doesn't. The only thing this case has anything to do with is the terms and validity of Lee's contract with Marvel. Two parties had a contract, it said X; Stan didn't feel like Marvel lived up to the terms of said contract, so he sued them -- and won. No different than SCO's ongoing spat with IBM.
It's got nothing to do with "doing the right thing" by the artist(s), and Stan has never -- at any time -- shown even the slightest concern for doing the right thing by anyone other than himself. (Witness his constantly poaching all the credit for other people's work.)
Ditko and Kirby had no such contracts -- and as such, they'll never see a dime. Superman has made DC hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, but Siegel and Shuster died broke.
I was stunned when I saw Ditko's creator credit on Spider-Man. I understand that Sam Raimi absolutely insisted on it.
Did Kirby get a credit on X-Men? Nope. Apparently, Stan created that one all on his own.
Yeah, Lee is a creative genius - not. Stan Lee was merely the relative of the publisher. It's good to have friends in high places.
The most obvious proof of this is a superficial glance at his career. When he's working with people like Ditko and Kirby, he's nothing short of a genius. On the other hand, when he "creates" on his own, he comes up with... "She-Hulk" (or Stripperella). Few people ever bother to make that correlation.
I worked on a project a few years ago that was nominated for an Eisner. We were a complete longshot, since the publishing run was smaller than the voting body, but someone asked if what we'd say if we won. My suggestion that "it's an honor to accept an award from one of the few people to have emerged from the Golden Age of Comics without Stan Lee's cock in their ass" struck them as being a tad excessive. But it would have been a nice sentiment.
Now Will's left the building. Kirby's gone. Ditko's gone off the deepend. And we're left left with Stan.
As an ex-CPQ guy, I wish Compaq had never bought Digital, either. To a large degree, Compaq had little respect for Tru-64 -- and that didn't do them any favors. More importantly, the absorption of DEC management philosophy and corporate attitude dramatically and fatefully changed the internals of the company. It was the Greeks assimilating the Romans all over again, and eventually Compaq paid the price.
You might really get a kick out of looking through the various extension archives. They have all manner of add-ins which address some of the issues you're concerned about -- especially the privacy/cookie/cache ones.
The best, and most thorough is The Extension Mirror:
What exactly does your extension fix? I haven't noticed anything amiss with/. since the.9.x series. Presently surfing with 1.0 final and feeling no pain.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but this isn't a final release of Hardy, either. If you dig through the release notes, you'll see that it's an RC (with a couple of potentially large/annoying bugs) -- which makes you wonder when the full release is due.
Not just laptops, but toiletries and things that you might like more than a tablespoon of when you get where you're going.
Next day air to your destination -- it's the ultimate in non-carry-on luggage.
I haven't followed up on this, but it was a couple of years now that I read a very involved discussion about Direct TV doing the exact same thing. The big issue there was that not only was the HD signal down-rezzed, but in times of huge HD traffic -- such as the football package they were pushing at the time -- they would turn off less popular channels (such as TNT HD). Apparently, the root of the issue was that they didn't have enough satellites to supply the proper amount of bandwidth. They had another satellite launch scheduled for early last year. That was supposed to solve the problem, but I haven't gotten around to seeing if it was actually true.
Are we surprised that Comcast is down-rezzing HD video? Were we surprised to discover they're throttling BitTorrent? Not if you've ever had to use their service. You take what they give you, and if it fails catastrophically, then you might be able to find someone to get the service restored -- but complaining that the performance of a thing isn't what it's supposed to be? You'd be lucky if you found someone that had any idea what you were even talking about...
Had they observed him pocketing something while in the store, for example, they would have had the right to detain him. However, that right stops at the door. Once you're out of the store, they have no rights whatsoever -- which is why they always ask people to come back inside to "sort things out". At that point, you've willingly gone back onto their side of the game board...
There's obviously more to this story than was in TFA.
Points that need clarification: 1) The entire point of press packets is to disseminate information, some elements of which are expected to be under copyright because press packets typically contain articles and extracts of articles from many different sources. TFA doesn't indicate if Knowledge Networks was duplicating these press packs on their own dime, or what... 2) As other people have pointed out, the headline on theYou don't have a clue what you're talking about. Or maybe you do -- but it's totally irrelevant to the issue at hand.
The only way to avoid being "deprived of the right to control your work" is to absolutely never, ever release it to the public, ever. This is not only basic meme theory and historically verifiable, but common sense. Nobody controls information they release into the wild. Period. Copyright merely grants the originator a short-term legal monopoly on profiting from the work.No. No it doesn't. Copyright can grant such rights to the originator, but quite often -- as in the case of work for hire -- ownership is transferred to or held by another party.
You seem to be confusing copyright with patent, since the definition you supplied is exactly the purpose of the patent system. The purpose of copyright is to protect a form of expression from others taking advantage of it, or ripping it off. If I write a book set in a fantasy universe with a lot of very particular rules of behavior, this is a very specific artistic creation and is protected by copyright. You have exactly zero legal right to come along and say, "Hey, that's fab and groovy, I think I'll use that as the backdrop for this story I was thinking about." Whether I spent an afternoon or a decade creating my fab and groovy universe, you don't get to help yourself to it. Go build your own.
So back to this "short term legal monopoly" issue. What's your definition of "short term"? Before the recent legal revisions, the term in the US was 28 years -- and it could be renewed for another 28. Theoretically, that's enough to cover the lifespan of an adult creator, but even if the law hadn't been revised, I'd hardly call that short term. On the other hand, 14 years is absolutely short term.
Copyright does not mean that I can profit from my work. I can profit from it, or I can not profit from it. Whatever I choose. What it does explicitly mean is that you can't profit from it, so long as I retain legal control of the work. And who are you (or the author of this study) to tell me that I am not entitled to do that for as long as I see fit?
It does not grant or describe any sort of natural right ("life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness")to somehow magically "control" information.I'm sorry -- who said that it did? Maybe you could keep to the issue?
I find it interesting that you continually use the term "information" -- as if protecting information is the point of copyright. In the US, raw information does not qualify for copyright -- thus lists of things, like the phonebook, or databases do not qualify (though there is certainly a push from corporate interests to change this). The purpose of copyright is to protect the artistic expression of a thing. Is the Mona Lisa nothing more than information to you?
It is merely a social contract to encourage social welfare by encouraging the creation of art, literature, and science. Look it up.Look it up? In what tome of wisdom do you propose I do that?
Copyright is not "a social contract to encourage social welfare by encouraging the creation of art, literature, and science". Copyright signifies ownership. Copyright is not the same as a license to use (or haven't you bothered to read the GPL). Depending on how someone chooses to license a thing, copyright is a legal protection which allows someone to profit from their artistic work without having to worry about someone coming along and ripping them off. By the same token, someone can give away a thing for free and still retain the copyright.
So, in a way you're right: the benefit to social welfare is not from depriving you of anything; it's from granting you copyright, and for making that copyright of limited term.There are many instances of writers taking many years to finally break into the publishing world, and by this logic, their work could be in the public domain before they ever got the chance to profit from their work.
Having only read the story, not the source papers, I can only say as an artist, there is absolutely zero "social welfare" that comes from depriving me of the right to control my work and profit from my efforts during my lifetime.
By that logic, the first of the Harry Potter books will soon be entering the public domain. Granted, Potter is a phenomenon, and Rowling has been lucky enough to make a boatload of money off of her work, but a copyright term like this would nip that right in the bud. Fan fic of the most vile nature could take its legitimate place right next to the canon, if someone were to publish it. There would be no reason to pay the author one more dime going forward. Limiting, if not eliminating, any incentive for them to put their blood and sweat into continuing their work. What kind of socialist fantasy is that?
From the summarizing article, this concept seems to apply ONLY to corporate producers and has no appreciation for the poor individual whose very existence is determined by their ability to profit from their work. I'm sorry, but having the ability to throwing rotten eggs against a wall in an artistic universe that someone else created does not even remotely count as "inspiring new creative acts".
...of apps is making forward progress.
Now all they need to do is to create a decent contact manager. And no, Thunderbird does not count as a contact manager, decent or otherwise.
My FIL has an ancient computer that is in desperate need of being retired. He asked if I could put XP on this new HP Slimline he picked up (came with Vista). Turns out that there's not a single XP driver available for the thing, anywhere. Nothing even for the NIC to get to Windows Update to look around. Still playing with the thing. Threw in a Feisty Live CD and every single peripheral in the thing came up. Even the monitor worked, but not at the recommended high resolution because of something to do with the NVIDIA driver being proprietary -- but after install, a couple of clicks had that working, too. He's not ready for a Linux desktop, but VMware got him sorted right out.
I haven't set up a Linux machine since about 2000. At the time, it was hell getting everything even recognized, much less configured. This was a fantastic experience all around.
They have at least one shipping depot in California (I know there's one in Richmond) and I've never been charged sales tax...
Eudora's kind of unique in that you don't actually have to INSTALL it. If you have it backed up to CD (or whatever) all you have to do is drag it where you want it and run it. It will recreate whatever registry entries it needs. The only thing you have to do is make sure that the data path listed in eudora.ini is correct.
This is not a Cease and Desist order. It's a polite request to withdraw a trademark filing application. Didn't you bother to read TFA? Of course, the /. editors didn't bother to do that before posting the story, and the guys who wrote the Wired blog entry don't seem to understand the letter, either. All they did was see the words "Apple" and "IPod" and recognize that the letter is from a law firm and instantly work themselves into a tizzy.
To sum up for those that can't be bothered: Apple owns the trademarks "IPOD" and "POD". These people filed a trademark application which incorporates those existing trademarks in their proposed trademarks. Apple would like them to withdraw the application. It's all part of the process. No harm, no foul. That's why you don't instantly get trademarks -- they go through this sort of review and examination process.
What you fail to grasp -- along with everyone else who's posted in the thread so far, if the comments are any judge -- is that these are AV gear racks, NOT computer/network/phone racks.
CEDIA == Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association. These people install home theatres, integrated audio systems, etc.
The obvious, knee-jerk reaction is that he wasn't in violation of wire-tapping laws for the simple fact that he wasn't WIRE-TAPPING. He was simply recording a conversation, same as would happen if, say, you were conducting an interview and holding a tape recorder.
Reading the definitions page at the link provided by the article, you find the following definition: "Oral communication" means any oral communication uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation."
People speaking in public have no expectation of privacy. That's why the interception of something like a phone call requires a device (however remedial) to intrude on said privacy (being defined as a conversation between you and the person on the other end of the line).
...was Eazel. They went through $20 million and all they ended up with was a semi-decent file manager and a building full of used Aerons.
> Skywalker Ranch was located in Lucas Valley, but the valley had its name long before George located there.
Skywalker Ranch IS located in Lucas Valley. It's the compound where George lives -- and it's not going anywhere. The only thing that moved is the ILM crew (I think the game people were already somewhere else). Skywalker Sound is still out there.
From the other comments, it's interesting to see how many people seem to miss the point of what ILM does. ILM is NOT LucasFilm. LucasFilm is George's production company. ILM creates special effects for anyone who can afford their rates. It's not their responsibility to ensure that the movies have reasonable plots or competent acting, any more than it is the responsibility of the craft services people.
George hasn't made a decent film since the '70's. That's hardly ILM's fault.
Be that as it may, I can't believe that no one has pointed out that this article is writen by a notoriously anti-open-source and pro-SCO shill. No matter how relevant the point may be, what else did you expect him to say -- and how much did he have to twist what McVoy said to get the salacious quotes he wanted?
DNR has been around for years and it's important to understand that the process isn't at fault here. It's all just math -- like a filter on a dial. You want more sensitivity or less, just crank that sucker one way or the other. I read a piece a number of years ago which quoted some folks who ran a small restoration house. I forget what movie the were working on -- I want to say that it was a WWII picture -- but they had to go back and redo a good portion of their work since the computer took all of the tiny specks out of one particular sequence. Turns out that those specks were a receding view of a parachute drop, which they'd just conveniently erased. Oops! It's amazing how many people -- including supposed industry experts -- just shrug this stuff off. When they restored Casablanca, they cleaned it to the point where they took the grain out of the bleedin' film. It's so bad (i.e. slick and glossy) that if you look at the DVD, it looks like they shot the movie on tile. What did the guy who owns the company Warner contracted to do the work have to say? "We're always learning and improving our process." That merits nothing but the finger from me. If these people can't do the work properly, they don't belong in business. And the people paying them (i.e. the studios) have no business releasing a substandard product. Problem is, all those people are idiots commanded by marketing types. It's all just revenue, and they have no incentive to get it right.
All of this broke this morning. O'Gara was out of Sys-Con and all of her work was going to be purged from their servers. Well, here it is 12 hours later and not only is the front page still wall to wall with articles by O'Gara, but her author page is still up. In fact, the only thing that ISN'T up is the one particular article from last night that caused all of this bruhaha in the first place.
Don't these seem like obvious places to start sowing that salt they were promising?
It will be interesting to actually track this issue and see if Sys-Con does, indeed, rid themselves of the O'Gara nuisance. So far, it just looks like lip service.
I will say though, that this case does strike a blow in the favour of artists getting their due.
No, actually, it doesn't. The only thing this case has anything to do with is the terms and validity of Lee's contract with Marvel. Two parties had a contract, it said X; Stan didn't feel like Marvel lived up to the terms of said contract, so he sued them -- and won. No different than SCO's ongoing spat with IBM.
It's got nothing to do with "doing the right thing" by the artist(s), and Stan has never -- at any time -- shown even the slightest concern for doing the right thing by anyone other than himself. (Witness his constantly poaching all the credit for other people's work.)
Ditko and Kirby had no such contracts -- and as such, they'll never see a dime. Superman has made DC hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, but Siegel and Shuster died broke.
I was stunned when I saw Ditko's creator credit on Spider-Man. I understand that Sam Raimi absolutely insisted on it.
Did Kirby get a credit on X-Men? Nope. Apparently, Stan created that one all on his own.
Yeah, Lee is a creative genius - not. Stan Lee was merely the relative of the publisher. It's good to have friends in high places.
The most obvious proof of this is a superficial glance at his career. When he's working with people like Ditko and Kirby, he's nothing short of a genius. On the other hand, when he "creates" on his own, he comes up with... "She-Hulk" (or Stripperella). Few people ever bother to make that correlation.
I worked on a project a few years ago that was nominated for an Eisner. We were a complete longshot, since the publishing run was smaller than the voting body, but someone asked if what we'd say if we won. My suggestion that "it's an honor to accept an award from one of the few people to have emerged from the Golden Age of Comics without Stan Lee's cock in their ass" struck them as being a tad excessive. But it would have been a nice sentiment.
Now Will's left the building. Kirby's gone. Ditko's gone off the deepend. And we're left left with Stan.
Sigh...
As an ex-CPQ guy, I wish Compaq had never bought Digital, either. To a large degree, Compaq had little respect for Tru-64 -- and that didn't do them any favors. More importantly, the absorption of DEC management philosophy and corporate attitude dramatically and fatefully changed the internals of the company. It was the Greeks assimilating the Romans all over again, and eventually Compaq paid the price.
He doesn't like mindless women, and he likes them to remain quiet.
You don't remember Temple of Doom very well, do you?
You might really get a kick out of looking through the various extension archives. They have all manner of add-ins which address some of the issues you're concerned about -- especially the privacy/cookie/cache ones.
The best, and most thorough is The Extension Mirror:
http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/
What exactly does your extension fix? I haven't noticed anything amiss with /. since the .9.x series. Presently surfing with 1.0 final and feeling no pain.