I work for a start-up, and we've got a fairly good product compared to the competition - not only by our own account, but by the experience of our customers who've been burned by the "biggie" incumbents. Now it just so happens that one of these incumbents has a patent covering, scarily (Is that a word? It is now!), just about 100 percent of our invention, as well as that of other competitors we're currently trouncing. My fear has always been, and continues to be, that if we get big enough the incumbent owner of said patent will swoop in on us for the kill, Verizon-style.
Problem is, I brought this up to management and their attitude is basically, "Who cares? They're not taking action against us now." Maybe this will be a wake-up call for them, but somehow I doubt it.
Expect to see more of this type of action in the future, thanks to the precedent the Verizon-Vonage case sets.
News has it that a star cluster dining nearby had this conversation during this event:
MAÎTRE D: Monsieur, is there something wrong with the food? STAR A: No, the food was excellent. MAÎTRE D: Perhaps you're not... happy with the service? STAR A: No, no. No complaints. STAR A'S WIFE: It's just that we have to go. I'm having rather a heavy period. STAR B: Hmm. STAR B'S WIFE: Mm mm. STAR A: And... we... have... a... hydrogen cloud to catch. MAÎTRE D: Ah. STAR A'S WIFE: Oh. Yes. Yes, of course. We have a hydrogen cloud to catch, and I don't want to start bleeding all over the seats. Ha, hm hm hm. MAÎTRE D: Madam? STAR A: Perhaps we should be going. STAR A'S WIFE: Oh. MAÎTRE D: Oh! Very well, monsieur. Thank you so much. So nice to see you, and I hope very much we will see you again very soon. Au revoir, monsieurs. [clunk] MAÎTRE D: Oh, dear. I have trodden in monsieur's X-ray emissions.
Approximately 8 million years ago, the spot where I'm typing this reply - central Florida - was covered by sea water to a depth of 15-20 feet. The elevation, at present, of this location is 138 feet above "sea level". I can walk about 1/2 mile up the road to where a giant dragline is busy digging phosphate-laden matrix out of the ground from a depth of 15-80 feet below the present "ground level" - the overburden is simply sand. What that tells me is that, 8-10 million years ago and earlier, the surface of central Florida has risen and fallen beneath the waves. tectonic action has not been a historic driver for this region; ergo, this can at least be partially attributed to the rising and falling of the sea level. In addition, geologists tell us that during the last ice age, so much water was bound up in polar and glacial ice that the oceanfront extended many miles out into the continental shelf (where supported). So this cycle is many orders of magnitude larger than a (geologically) insignificant rise of 2-3 meters over the next 100 years. That this "insignificant" rise would cause substantial chaos along the world's coasts is an understatement... but the fact remains that the sea has been rising and falling for aeons, at least since there has been a sea.
Mankind has been around (in appreciable numbers) possibly altering the environment by burning fossil fuels and the like for perhaps 100,000 years.
Slashdot Mirror
I work for a start-up, and we've got a fairly good product compared to the competition - not only by our own account, but by the experience of our customers who've been burned by the "biggie" incumbents. Now it just so happens that one of these incumbents has a patent covering, scarily (Is that a word? It is now!), just about 100 percent of our invention, as well as that of other competitors we're currently trouncing. My fear has always been, and continues to be, that if we get big enough the incumbent owner of said patent will swoop in on us for the kill, Verizon-style.
Problem is, I brought this up to management and their attitude is basically, "Who cares? They're not taking action against us now." Maybe this will be a wake-up call for them, but somehow I doubt it.
Expect to see more of this type of action in the future, thanks to the precedent the Verizon-Vonage case sets.
News has it that a star cluster dining nearby had this conversation during this event:
MAÎTRE D: Monsieur, is there something wrong with the food?
STAR A: No, the food was excellent.
MAÎTRE D: Perhaps you're not... happy with the service?
STAR A: No, no. No complaints.
STAR A'S WIFE: It's just that we have to go. I'm having rather a heavy period.
STAR B: Hmm.
STAR B'S WIFE: Mm mm.
STAR A: And... we... have... a... hydrogen cloud to catch.
MAÎTRE D: Ah.
STAR A'S WIFE: Oh. Yes. Yes, of course. We have a hydrogen cloud to catch, and I don't want to start bleeding all over the seats. Ha, hm hm hm.
MAÎTRE D: Madam?
STAR A: Perhaps we should be going.
STAR A'S WIFE: Oh.
MAÎTRE D: Oh! Very well, monsieur. Thank you so much. So nice to see you, and I hope very much we will see you again very soon. Au revoir, monsieurs.
[clunk]
MAÎTRE D: Oh, dear. I have trodden in monsieur's X-ray emissions.
Why, the DS has built-in wifi... high availablity anywhere kids gather!
Approximately 8 million years ago, the spot where I'm typing this reply - central Florida - was covered by sea water to a depth of 15-20 feet. The elevation, at present, of this location is 138 feet above "sea level". I can walk about 1/2 mile up the road to where a giant dragline is busy digging phosphate-laden matrix out of the ground from a depth of 15-80 feet below the present "ground level" - the overburden is simply sand. What that tells me is that, 8-10 million years ago and earlier, the surface of central Florida has risen and fallen beneath the waves. tectonic action has not been a historic driver for this region; ergo, this can at least be partially attributed to the rising and falling of the sea level. In addition, geologists tell us that during the last ice age, so much water was bound up in polar and glacial ice that the oceanfront extended many miles out into the continental shelf (where supported). So this cycle is many orders of magnitude larger than a (geologically) insignificant rise of 2-3 meters over the next 100 years. That this "insignificant" rise would cause substantial chaos along the world's coasts is an understatement... but the fact remains that the sea has been rising and falling for aeons, at least since there has been a sea. Mankind has been around (in appreciable numbers) possibly altering the environment by burning fossil fuels and the like for perhaps 100,000 years.