I suggested something similar to this (renaming him "Betty Sue") when I mentioned this momentous event in a discussion about another topic ca. two hours prior to this story finally being posted. (not to mention my surprise no one had posted the story itself)
Otherwise, "Alan Ralsky" might find a name change to "Betty Sue" and become someone's prison beeyitch. (it might still happen)
I wonder if he'll have to mortgage "The House That Spam Built"[1] to pay his lawyer to plea bargin to stay out of prison? What will he do for a job to pay the mortgage? (any assets, including money he might have stashed away and could use to pay the mortgage back off could, and likely would, be confiscated, just as his "toys" were in October, '5.
The DOJ has him in the can and his records are sealed for seventy-two hours.
My suggestion on SPAM-L was to use this opportunity to put the DMA on hold this time (they wrote CAN-SPAM and a VP said opt-in wasn't a viable economic model so they wouldn't use it) and have any number of the CongressCritters who later admitted rubber-stamping CAN-SPAM was ineffective at best, get something put into their hands which "Prevents the possibility of another Alan Ralsky" (but I also have said, "...we know there are others, but it makes for a good buzzphrase for them to use as a sales pitch to their peers, not to mention good press for them to toot their own horn. If that'll produce better legislation, such as fighting Ronnie "You Can't Legislate Me Out Of Business" Skelson, I'll let them toot all they want....").
____________________________________
[1] Here's the original Slashdot story, but the Detroit Free Press link it points to produces a 404. Fortunately, the Wayback Machine has many copies, such as this one.
(I'm dragging this out for those who don't know about the Wayback Machine)
If anyone wants additional info about Alan Ralsky there's plenty there about him.
Owner && President of Playboy Magazine (not just one magazine, the company): will hang around plenty of naked good looking blonde chicks
Hef may be the owner, but his daughter (Christie) has run the company for quite some time. (IIRC, she started when she was 41-42, so Hef had to have some confidence in her; i.e. to just hand it over out of the blue).
Somehow, you seem to think my wording means I'm unaffected by anything described in the article.
I wish you hadn't done that. I really do.
You see, I'm affected in addition to dealing with a permanent headache. Someone ran a red light eleven years ago (April 20th) and I had a severe concussion likened to "shaken baby syndrome". It cost me my Japanese, my Chinese, and I have constant head pain. On a scale of 0-10 (0=no pain), it's never been below a 4 and generally is a 4-5-6. It's not unusual for it to hit 10 and stay there. I'm allowed methadone once a week. I'm allergic to morphine. vicodin, and a lot of meds have so little effect I could probably take a lethal dose before I'd notice any effects. The fear about methadone is although others can take it daily, my body aclimates to meds so fast the doc is afraid there won't be any other opioids which will help me.
Factor that in against all of my other (BiP) medication and that'll give you a overview of the tightrope I walk. Oh, my photophobia (sensitivity to light, particularly flashing, flickering, or bright light - try going to a theatre and not being affected by the shadows on the walls appearing like flashes), vertigo is now intensifying (falling down is fun), stumbling & breaking my toes is fun I haven't enjoyed since college.
1. Reading the story and the paper doesn't tell you what Deep Brain Stimulation actually is. What'd you think? Phoebe Buffet was going to climb on and reach deep into your skull and start the massage?
Fortunately, someone put good wiki material for those of you who didn't already know what it is. To save you the reading, it's a "pacemaker" in your brain.
2. Shock treatment (as in for the loonies) has been making a comeback for the previous decade or so as an attempt to rebalance those who are severely depressed or those who are Bipolor (or Manic-Depressive) but spend more time on the down side than the up side.
3. Regardless of the treatment, many seriously believe "fixing" this, particularly the down or depressed side will decrease or neutralize the creative side of those who are exceptionally creative. I know many friends who are careful about the medications they take and insist upon some trial & error not just on the effectiveness axis, but the suppression of creativity. If the latter is lost or decreased, they'd rather do without medication (with or without their physican's knowledge).
4. If this sounds familiar to you or you think it's a good idea for a book, think of it as a first cousin to one of Ray Bradbury's (existing) books.
Of course. Every time something big appears on Patch Tuesday, a particularly hasty virus, or anything else which is newsworthy (as in appearing on the local affiliates' clock), whose face|voice is played off of a clip?
It's lottery time for the vendors of detection, exorcising, or protection software.
Remember Tor on Seinfeld? They're in the business of selling what they have. Whether they're objective or not is another story, regardless of whom they work for. If someone were to get on-camera and not hint at a purchase in some way, they'd likely be [officially] reprimanded the next time they show their face(s) for failing to sell the product.
Carpal tunnel is less extreme but it's a consistent, applied pressure on nerve endings and it's going to have an effect over time if you have poor typing technique, regardless of how muscular you are
Typing technique is one of the most overlooked factors. Most people aren't typists (they know how to press keys) and didn't take typing classes to learn to type well (and properly). There are a lot who are proud they are self-taught (and vocal about it) - like the movie traditional, two-finger newspaper reporter in the movies. Resting wrists is certainly not taught in formal typing and I'm guessing a lot of people rest them, even if they do have training, because their habits have diminished.
My mom strongly suggested typing as a way to remain independent when I would go to college and could type my own papers. This is not to mention being available for those who couldn't find anyone at the last minute an poach them. The following Summer is when I got my first exposure to computers (LISP, then FORTRAN). Additional time studying under Douglast Hofstadter and Paul Erdos (RIP) was a few layers of icing on the cake. Hofstadter's GEB had hit the shelves about that time and things were abuzz with excitement.
Good habits are good things. I don't unbuckle my seatbelt when I happen to drop someone off & I'm waiting for them to come back out - it feels natural & comfortable, I find myself using a turn signal turning into or backing out of the driveway. I don't think about it - it just happens.
Now if we could just reprogram the idiots who stop in traffic, then flip on their turn signal, as if that's going to help. Once you've hit the brake, turn signals are worthless. The same goes for lane changes. Signal, then change.
Working as an EMT (late teens, early twenties) and cleaning up the messes created by morons made a lot of impressions.
MIT's Technology Review (a wonderful magazine - on par with Scientific American) has covered Dr. Nathan substantially with his [current] underlying philosophy and what he's going to do (mine patents) now that he's got his JD, focusing upon patent law.
The cover (May '04?) has a quote to the effect, "You can't outdevelop Microsoft but you can outinvent them", leading into an article about his efforts.
Regardless of what one feels about this type of business model, at least he's being open about it.
What I find rather distasteful is when WHG III said '04? '05? (for the subsequent year) "We're going to receive <x> patents this year." I think <x> was in the range of 3'500-5'000. It would be one thing for someone to look at the average number awarded and know you've applied for more than the gross (expecting the outcome), but when there seems to be monkeyshines on the part of certain companies, one cannot possess very much confidence in the US patent system: an apple? (a real apple) how to know when a baseball game is interesting? (someone might as well take the logic and apply to to cricket, football (non-US soccer), football (US), hocket, basketball, Scrabble, rugby, curling, speed skiing, and any other form of competitive activity.
I could understand it if they're going to retrofit this into an xBox game and make the background noise change depending upon the status of the game, so I may be misunderstanding how the patent could be used in an "appropriate" way. But some of this stuff when you're glad to see Google take it to Microsoft, no matter what kind of Behemoth Google could become in the future; i.e. above and beyond what Microsoft has done to date.
"People don't want bug fixes, they want new features."
-William Henry Gates, III
With that in mind and as to why they have Patch Tuesday when someone has stitched a sampler proclaiming "We are a monopoly!" hanging on the wall, perhaps it's what will happen to the stock [if they don't].
"If you call a cow's tail a leg, how many legs does a cow have?"
"Four. Calling it so doesn't make it so."
-A. Lincoln
Was it that time in front of the judge or another where the judge spent about fifteen minutes on his own and performed the disconnection [successfully]? (he probably had instructions, but he still did it)
Besides, remember when they claimed 95, 98, 98SE, and 98ME weren't based upon the DOS shell and [instead] were standalone systems? Yet as part of the XP release ceremony, WHG III sat down to a DOS window and typed "exist" along with the [enter] key to indicate DOS was finally gone?
Remember, the two strongest sectors within Microsoft the company are Marketing and Sales. And that's where the salt licks are located for two of the three biggest groups of storytellers. (the third is PR)
You forgot something else: your employment is more portable than his is. If you get tired of what you're doing or someone gets hit by a bus and starts handing down policies you don't want to swallow, you can fold up your tent and play in someone else's sandbox.
Sure, he's the one who can hand down the policies, and could throw his weight around, but I don't think everyone truly enjoys being around others while being a career prick.
You definitely (and many other techies) generally have a better life.
What do you mean, "When I go full time next year"?
What's important isn't [always] necessarily the purpose of the game.
It's the chitchat which goes on whilst playing. You aren't going to talk about various things going on whilst you are swimming laps or hanging out at the local go-kart racing.
If you are good enough to play [and have enough to pay], you're stepping up to a higher level of access others may not have. Michael J. Fox steaming opening corporate mail as well as sneaking into executive meetings doesn't happen every day of the week. And should it occur, it's not going to be effective very long.
Peeps are extruded marshmallow cover with all sorts of color material. They're quite pliable.
The Chicago Tribune had an article interviewing the president/CEO and said it's been determined Peeps have a three-year shelf life. (the pres offered the interviewer one and he passed it up.
I would liken this to be like the breakfast cereals which claim to be "part of this nutritional breakfast" and it's okay until they add the extra stuff which would already covers the necessary quanties.
Whatever they have in them, they have the bare minimum to qualify as food, just like ventored honey buns. It's like White Castle. (You can find a White Castle franchise when the bars have closed - just look for a list of cars of thirty or more. If somoeone sold White Castle & booze in the same location....
For a long time, Jim Carey had a listing in IMDB showing "The Eight Billion Dollar Man", but that seems to have been removed. This is likely for one of his most recent movies, such as See Jane Play With Dick".
But let's not forget the high school kid who had some work done on his spain and it gave him some bionic-like power, Steve's old friend who had four limbs, Max(amilion), two groups of aliens - one just visiting, the other with a hidden location, guarded by Bigfoot, etc.
I stil have (all of the) the six books.
In the original book, his left arm was bionic, not his right, and he had a dart gun in his middle finger.
Oh, and let us not omit Sandra Bullock, the "next generation" of bionics (ca. '89) where she was confined to a wheelchair as a crippled athlete until she was needed.
"Soon to be a major motion picture"
He later wrote Man-Fac. wich was like Iron Fan - the guy was crippled but used an exo-skelton. He wanted to commit suicide but his SO claime he could do so if she could assign the method - and I think it was an aquarium (self-drowning). I don't think she could have gotten away with "old age".
When it comes to using free as in beer copies of Linux downloadable at a site of their choice or Windows eXtreme Pracy Version 2006, also "free", which are they selecting?
That doesn't bode well for Microsoft.
They can throw a fit about piracy in China and try to hold their (China's) collective feet to the fire, but secretly, they've got to see it as a compliment (albeit bad).
I still maintain Linux should build up as much of a market share as possible. Now that the Intel hardware provides a duel desktop, people (as in at work) will be more more likely to move Apple|Windows than to Linux, despite the financial investment. The UIs are more mature, and the training would be considerably less. (you've heard it here first, over & over &....)
Licensing is like mana from heaven for companies. It represents a long term income stream that can only add to the value of the company and the value of their patent.
Something of which Microsoft has no experience. (When offered the opportunity to sell or license DOS to IBM, they went with the quick money and just sold the software to IBM, right?) Oh, and:
I can't imagine that Lucent wants an honest (and drawn out) court case.
Maybe they do. They couldn't have enjoyed the turn your head & cough circus which was going on in parallel with IBM, but now that the money might be flowing into their pockets it may not be such a bad thing. The money certainly isn't going to rip a bigger hole in Microsoft's pockets, is it?
While it's unlikely console will be pulled from shelves, it's one way to generate some publicity.
Microsoft's most powerful offspring, the twin brothers known as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, um, Marketing and PR, certainly are not going to look away from this pissing match - a clear opportunity for them to get the cameras turned upon them. Barring, of course, the next plane crash, or something like that. They'd (Microsoft) be forced to find another patsy to throw a bag of flaming dog poo on their front porch.
Slashdot Mirror
This crops up about as often as a coder who farts after making a big stop at White Castle for some gut bombs and Bawls.
Can't anyone find new stories to report?
I suggested something similar to this (renaming him "Betty Sue") when I mentioned this momentous event in a discussion about another topic ca. two hours prior to this story finally being posted. (not to mention my surprise no one had posted the story itself)
You looked Alan Ralsky up in jail?
It's a good thing you're only his brother.
Otherwise, "Alan Ralsky" might find a name change to "Betty Sue" and become someone's prison beeyitch. (it might still happen)
I wonder if he'll have to mortgage "The House That Spam Built"[1] to pay his lawyer to plea bargin to stay out of prison? What will he do for a job to pay the mortgage? (any assets, including money he might have stashed away and could use to pay the mortgage back off could, and likely would, be confiscated, just as his "toys" were in October, '5.
The DOJ has him in the can and his records are sealed for seventy-two hours.
I'm surprised the story hasn't appeared yet.
There's a story at news.google.com:
Hackers quaking over reported Spam King's arrest
My suggestion on SPAM-L was to use this opportunity to put the DMA on hold this time (they wrote CAN-SPAM and a VP said opt-in wasn't a viable economic model so they wouldn't use it) and have any number of the CongressCritters who later admitted rubber-stamping CAN-SPAM was ineffective at best, get something put into their hands which "Prevents the possibility of another Alan Ralsky" (but I also have said, "...we know there are others, but it makes for a good buzzphrase for them to use as a sales pitch to their peers, not to mention good press for them to toot their own horn. If that'll produce better legislation, such as fighting Ronnie "You Can't Legislate Me Out Of Business" Skelson, I'll let them toot all they want....").
____________________________________
[1]
Here's the original Slashdot story, but the Detroit Free Press link it points to produces a 404. Fortunately, the Wayback Machine has many copies, such as this one.
(I'm dragging this out for those who don't know about the Wayback Machine)
If anyone wants additional info about Alan Ralsky there's plenty there about him.
Owner && President of Playboy Magazine (not just one magazine, the company): will hang around plenty of naked good looking blonde chicks
Hef may be the owner, but his daughter (Christie) has run the company for quite some time. (IIRC, she started when she was 41-42, so Hef had to have some confidence in her; i.e. to just hand it over out of the blue).
Okay, Mr. Ralsky, who gave you a keyboard in jail?
Somehow, you seem to think my wording means I'm unaffected by anything described in the article.
I wish you hadn't done that. I really do.
You see, I'm affected in addition to dealing with a permanent headache. Someone ran a red light eleven years ago (April 20th) and I had a severe concussion likened to "shaken baby syndrome". It cost me my Japanese, my Chinese, and I have constant head pain. On a scale of 0-10 (0=no pain), it's never been below a 4 and generally is a 4-5-6. It's not unusual for it to hit 10 and stay there. I'm allowed methadone once a week. I'm allergic to morphine. vicodin, and a lot of meds have so little effect I could probably take a lethal dose before I'd notice any effects. The fear about methadone is although others can take it daily, my body aclimates to meds so fast the doc is afraid there won't be any other opioids which will help me.
Factor that in against all of my other (BiP) medication and that'll give you a overview of the tightrope I walk. Oh, my photophobia (sensitivity to light, particularly flashing, flickering, or bright light - try going to a theatre and not being affected by the shadows on the walls appearing like flashes), vertigo is now intensifying (falling down is fun), stumbling & breaking my toes is fun I haven't enjoyed since college.
Reduce or eliminate RSI?
See our recent discussion how RSI is user-inflicted.
1. Reading the story and the paper doesn't tell you what Deep Brain Stimulation actually is. What'd you think? Phoebe Buffet was going to climb on and reach deep into your skull and start the massage?
Fortunately, someone put good wiki material for those of you who didn't already know what it is. To save you the reading, it's a "pacemaker" in your brain.
2. Shock treatment (as in for the loonies) has been making a comeback for the previous decade or so as an attempt to rebalance those who are severely depressed or those who are Bipolor (or Manic-Depressive) but spend more time on the down side than the up side.
3. Regardless of the treatment, many seriously believe "fixing" this, particularly the down or depressed side will decrease or neutralize the creative side of those who are exceptionally creative. I know many friends who are careful about the medications they take and insist upon some trial & error not just on the effectiveness axis, but the suppression of creativity. If the latter is lost or decreased, they'd rather do without medication (with or without their physican's knowledge).
4. If this sounds familiar to you or you think it's a good idea for a book, think of it as a first cousin to one of Ray Bradbury's (existing) books.
Of course. Every time something big appears on Patch Tuesday, a particularly hasty virus, or anything else which is newsworthy (as in appearing on the local affiliates' clock), whose face|voice is played off of a clip?
It's lottery time for the vendors of detection, exorcising, or protection software.
Remember Tor on Seinfeld? They're in the business of selling what they have. Whether they're objective or not is another story, regardless of whom they work for. If someone were to get on-camera and not hint at a purchase in some way, they'd likely be [officially] reprimanded the next time they show their face(s) for failing to sell the product.
Carpal tunnel is less extreme but it's a consistent, applied pressure on nerve endings and it's going to have an effect over time if you have poor typing technique, regardless of how muscular you are
Typing technique is one of the most overlooked factors. Most people aren't typists (they know how to press keys) and didn't take typing classes to learn to type well (and properly). There are a lot who are proud they are self-taught (and vocal about it) - like the movie traditional, two-finger newspaper reporter in the movies. Resting wrists is certainly not taught in formal typing and I'm guessing a lot of people rest them, even if they do have training, because their habits have diminished.
My mom strongly suggested typing as a way to remain independent when I would go to college and could type my own papers. This is not to mention being available for those who couldn't find anyone at the last minute an poach them. The following Summer is when I got my first exposure to computers (LISP, then FORTRAN). Additional time studying under Douglast Hofstadter and Paul Erdos (RIP) was a few layers of icing on the cake. Hofstadter's GEB had hit the shelves about that time and things were abuzz with excitement.
Good habits are good things. I don't unbuckle my seatbelt when I happen to drop someone off & I'm waiting for them to come back out - it feels natural & comfortable, I find myself using a turn signal turning into or backing out of the driveway. I don't think about it - it just happens.
Now if we could just reprogram the idiots who stop in traffic, then flip on their turn signal, as if that's going to help. Once you've hit the brake, turn signals are worthless. The same goes for lane changes. Signal, then change.
Working as an EMT (late teens, early twenties) and cleaning up the messes created by morons made a lot of impressions.
MIT's Technology Review (a wonderful magazine - on par with Scientific American) has covered Dr. Nathan substantially with his [current] underlying philosophy and what he's going to do (mine patents) now that he's got his JD, focusing upon patent law.
The cover (May '04?) has a quote to the effect, "You can't outdevelop Microsoft but you can outinvent them", leading into an article about his efforts.
Regardless of what one feels about this type of business model, at least he's being open about it.
What I find rather distasteful is when WHG III said '04? '05? (for the subsequent year) "We're going to receive <x> patents this year." I think <x> was in the range of 3'500-5'000. It would be one thing for someone to look at the average number awarded and know you've applied for more than the gross (expecting the outcome), but when there seems to be monkeyshines on the part of certain companies, one cannot possess very much confidence in the US patent system: an apple? (a real apple) how to know when a baseball game is interesting? (someone might as well take the logic and apply to to cricket, football (non-US soccer), football (US), hocket, basketball, Scrabble, rugby, curling, speed skiing, and any other form of competitive activity.
I could understand it if they're going to retrofit this into an xBox game and make the background noise change depending upon the status of the game, so I may be misunderstanding how the patent could be used in an "appropriate" way. But some of this stuff when you're glad to see Google take it to Microsoft, no matter what kind of Behemoth Google could become in the future; i.e. above and beyond what Microsoft has done to date.
"People don't want bug fixes, they want new features."
-William Henry Gates, III
With that in mind and as to why they have Patch Tuesday when someone has stitched a sampler proclaiming "We are a monopoly!" hanging on the wall, perhaps it's what will happen to the stock [if they don't].
"If you call a cow's tail a leg, how many legs does a cow have?"
"Four. Calling it so doesn't make it so."
-A. Lincoln
Was it that time in front of the judge or another where the judge spent about fifteen minutes on his own and performed the disconnection [successfully]? (he probably had instructions, but he still did it)
Besides, remember when they claimed 95, 98, 98SE, and 98ME weren't based upon the DOS shell and [instead] were standalone systems? Yet as part of the XP release ceremony, WHG III sat down to a DOS window and typed "exist" along with the [enter] key to indicate DOS was finally gone?
Remember, the two strongest sectors within Microsoft the company are Marketing and Sales. And that's where the salt licks are located for two of the three biggest groups of storytellers. (the third is PR)
Bitter Apple is a wonderful deterrent for many animals (unless you condition them against it).
Tasers and stun guns are pretty effective as well.
You forgot something else: your employment is more portable than his is. If you get tired of what you're doing or someone gets hit by a bus and starts handing down policies you don't want to swallow, you can fold up your tent and play in someone else's sandbox.
Sure, he's the one who can hand down the policies, and could throw his weight around, but I don't think everyone truly enjoys being around others while being a career prick.
You definitely (and many other techies) generally have a better life.
What do you mean, "When I go full time next year"?
What's important isn't [always] necessarily the purpose of the game.
It's the chitchat which goes on whilst playing. You aren't going to talk about various things going on whilst you are swimming laps or hanging out at the local go-kart racing.
If you are good enough to play [and have enough to pay], you're stepping up to a higher level of access others may not have. Michael J. Fox steaming opening corporate mail as well as sneaking into executive meetings doesn't happen every day of the week. And should it occur, it's not going to be effective very long.
Because this is so high, I'll add it here:
Peeps are extruded marshmallow cover with all sorts of color material. They're quite pliable.
The Chicago Tribune had an article interviewing the president/CEO and said it's been determined Peeps have a three-year shelf life. (the pres offered the interviewer one and he passed it up.
I would liken this to be like the breakfast cereals which claim to be "part of this nutritional breakfast" and it's okay until they add the extra stuff which would already covers the necessary quanties.
Here's the Official Peeps web site.
Whatever they have in them, they have the bare minimum to qualify as food, just like ventored honey buns. It's like White Castle. (You can find a White Castle franchise when the bars have closed - just look for a list of cars of thirty or more. If somoeone sold White Castle & booze in the same location....
For a long time, Jim Carey had a listing in IMDB showing "The Eight Billion Dollar Man", but that seems to have been removed. This is likely for one of his most recent movies, such as See Jane Play With Dick".
But let's not forget the high school kid who had some work done on his spain and it gave him some bionic-like power, Steve's old friend who had four limbs, Max(amilion), two groups of aliens - one just visiting, the other with a hidden location, guarded by Bigfoot, etc.
I stil have (all of the) the six books.
In the original book, his left arm was bionic, not his right, and he had a dart gun in his middle finger.
Oh, and let us not omit Sandra Bullock, the "next generation" of bionics (ca. '89) where she was confined to a wheelchair as a crippled athlete until she was needed.
"Soon to be a major motion picture"
He later wrote Man-Fac. wich was like Iron Fan - the guy was crippled but used an exo-skelton. He wanted to commit suicide but his SO claime he could do so if she could assign the method - and I think it was an aquarium (self-drowning). I don't think she could have gotten away with "old age".
Particularly when all you could know he could dye his p%ss blue and pass it!
(I have no doubt there will a pacebo effect for several poeople who will want more more!)
Your logic is close...
When it comes to using free as in beer copies of Linux downloadable at a site of their choice or Windows e X treme P racy Version 2006, also "free", which are they selecting?
That doesn't bode well for Microsoft.
They can throw a fit about piracy in China and try to hold their (China's) collective feet to the fire, but secretly, they've got to see it as a compliment (albeit bad).
I still maintain Linux should build up as much of a market share as possible. Now that the Intel hardware provides a duel desktop, people (as in at work) will be more more likely to move Apple|Windows than to Linux, despite the financial investment. The UIs are more mature, and the training would be considerably less. (you've heard it here first, over & over &
Not to mention, "Bill Calling the Shot" - someone needs to make that into a graphic for all to enjoy.
Was it 2004 for 2005 or 2005 for 2006? WHG III said, "We will receive 3'500 patents this year."
They've either got a big tub 'o grease to apply to the skids or he's prescient.
Licensing is like mana from heaven for companies. It represents a long term income stream that can only add to the value of the company and the value of their patent.
Something of which Microsoft has no experience. (When offered the opportunity to sell or license DOS to IBM, they went with the quick money and just sold the software to IBM, right?) Oh, and:
I can't imagine that Lucent wants an honest (and drawn out) court case.
Maybe they do. They couldn't have enjoyed the turn your head & cough circus which was going on in parallel with IBM, but now that the money might be flowing into their pockets it may not be such a bad thing. The money certainly isn't going to rip a bigger hole in Microsoft's pockets, is it?
While it's unlikely console will be pulled from shelves, it's one way to generate some publicity.
Microsoft's most powerful offspring, the twin brothers known as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, um, Marketing and PR, certainly are not going to look away from this pissing match - a clear opportunity for them to get the cameras turned upon them. Barring, of course, the next plane crash, or something like that. They'd (Microsoft) be forced to find another patsy to throw a bag of flaming dog poo on their front porch.
As far as trusting only trusted distributions go, I don't see anyone mentioning the NSA's version LinuxSE.
Did they screw the pooch or is this a big secret?