I think it's time to review the provisions of the process. Of course, it's a valid argument that doing it all entirely by hand is a bit much work, the internet being rather large and all that. On the other hand, fully-automated "processing" yields too many false positives, and the rights-holders don't care because they want to avoid false negatives more, nevermind the damage it does to other people's trust in the DMCA, even in copyright.

So we need to give them an incentive to make them care. In the meantime, I'd propose to require all notices to be double-checked by hand. That is, you can use bots all you want, but someone must eyeball the requests before they're issued, at the very least. That, or simply no longer listen to any requests when, not if, some botted party generates too many "oi! that's not yours to take down!" complaints about their "take this down" complaints.

I think there should be a mechanism that loses you your rights to enforce the copyrights you're holding if you're abusing the enforcement mechanism, like by generating too many false positives, yes. "Running a bot that goes amok" counts as abusing. Three strikes, anyone?

There's also the multi-million deals that are made on the back on an envelope... or a beer mat.

Those tend to be the better deals.

As always, in business and in programming and most everywhere else, you really should only introduce complexity when absolutely necessary. excel is a deceptive tool in that regard, it puts a "simple" face on a large bag of unstructured complexity, and then goes about guessing about what it deigns your inputs should actually mean.

Of course, insisting on bespoke software just to "fix" the flaws in excel without understanding the domain or the problem the existing jumble "solves" is a guarantee for getting less done, because the thing is made opaque and inflexible.

But that doesn't mean excel was a good idea in the first place. At best you get poor, shoddy hacks out of it. Despite everything it does right in the eyes of the user. That last bit is important, sure. But it's also important that the solution not fall over at the first sign of trouble, that it gives you a real handle on the complexity and the problem, and for things that aren't one-offs (recall that "temporary" solutions generally outlive "permanent" ones) that the thing scales a bit, not just in size but also in time. As in, it doesn't fall over in obscure ways with the next, or the next, or the next version of the software. And ideally you'd be independent of a single vendor. All things for developers to figure out, I'm sure.

As well they should, because there's a reason excel is seen "inescapable", whether it would still be after a rigorous investigation or not. Well, not just one reason, but it's become ingrained, a habit, the go-to-tool. Even though most who know what computers can do agree that it's not a very good tool at all. It's just so... warm and fuzzy in the minds of the business and enterprise warm body. So. Let's get to it.

This is a small plant, so really only suited for assembling from parts, not creating new parts. Think batches of desktops assembled to spec, in the tens or hundreds, not thousands. If laptops, probably limited to swapping out keyboards for a different layout, change the hard drive, add more memory, or perhaps other warranty replacements.

Beyond that, the strong points of thinkpads were quality build and eclectic design focused on getting things done, like non-glare high-resolution high-quality 4:3 screens. That's not something fixed by swapping out a few parts in a laptop.

Alright, a different keyboard is easily swapped in, provided you have better quality ones in sensible layouts--like the lack of windows keys that was a feature for the longest time, leaving ctrl and alt nicely accessible without looking. But if you have better keyboards available, or other higher quality parts, why not stick'em in right away?

So, in a word, no, this isn't likely to magically improve the thinkpad range. For that to happen, lenovo has to realise that just the brand name isn't enough; you have to differentiate yourself. Instead, they've moved to become more like the rest, not less. Thus lessening the brand name in the process.

But they also have a line of desktops. I expect this plant is about order configuration management close to delivery, probably mostly for small bulk orders, likely desktops and perhaps some laptops too.

The economic foundation of the internet has nothing to do with advertising. The current state of the world wide web does, but they're different things. For a supposedly technology-focused think-tank, I'd expect them to understand that difference.

The economic foundation of the internet is the advantage gained from interconnecting networks. You care for your bit of network, yet have access to everyone else's too. In return you carry other networks' traffic just as they carry yours. As such, the internet's foundations are those of "being a cooperative".

The world wide web, now, that's something different. It's the conceptual web made out of various parties' "content" linked together. Since it can be used to show pictures and text from elsewhere, advertising is easily added to many a page. Advertising is used to fund large parts of that, and it's an interesting exercise to imagine what the www would be like without the advertising income. There'd be many fewer websites, especially since many of them currently survive by the grace of advertising income, even exist for the sole purpose of attracting "clicks" to be sold to advertisers. Those would go away right quick.

What would be left? Discuss.

Oi, you, what's with the bringing cold hard objective truth to an underbelly argument?

Point being, of course, that it'd be nice if this empire of couch potatoes would see its citizens stand up and make their government show that they indeed have learned from history by stopping acting like an evil empire while still spouting "we're so much better" propaganda. A bit more humility, a bit more putting the money where the mouth is would do America a world of good. And the rest of us too, by the by.

Cranks will be cranks. Oppressive governments will be oppressive governments. Knowing your real name is that much more power over you, that you're required to give to your enemies. The whole discussion doesn't even make sense in the USA, where the founding legalese was dicsussed together using pseudonymity.

Now unthinking and hurtful comments are arguably undesirable, but unthinking and hurtful policies are that much worse. I think I'll take the bad comments --that can be ignored and skipped over-- with the pseudonymity --that provides useful protection against people who don't know when to stop being disagreeable--, thanks.

Apparently it is the sacred duty of governments to waste money, rather give it away to random corporations than ever run the risk of making a profit or hint at competing in any market. So it looks like this government department is doing a fine job, making its corporate chums filthy rich off of taxpayer money in the process. Redistribution of money was what taxes are all about, wasn't it?

Or at least, that seems a pretty accurate description of this country's government's actions over the years. Any economist reading care to refute this? Please?

I know of at least one large company that thinks giving potential applicants a login on their SAP installation to "streamline the application process" is a good idea. Through a public-facing SAP web front-end.

How I know? I tried to apply there. Got rejected by some faceless jerk behind a SAP terminal somewhere far away, then needed HR to play helpdesk because removing my details from the system didn't work as promised. Think of it as an exit interview by email before you've even started.

Of course that system also made all sorts of assumptions about what sort of enterprise-blessed desktop and browser I would be using. Except that I wasn't an employee and I was applying for a unix position, so, er, that didn't work out very well.

Let me tell you how wonderful a first impression I got from that company: Never again. In fact, I won't ever again apply to companies that require webforms (on possibly third-party platforms, without SSL, with the wrong domain name, etc.) and that sort of crap. If you're that institutionally-stupid, well, be that way but without me, TYVM.

The plural of anecdote is not data. Since anecdote is all I have to offer, here goes: I occasionally run into its malware warnings, most, in fact all in recent memory, for some site I know for a fact has no ill intentions, though malicious adverts might always slip through, of course. What irks me most about those warnings isn't even the indiscriminate false positives, but much more the lack of detail as to just what was found to be suspicious. I for me would be much safer knowing exactly what the problem was, than having to go on vague threat warnings, that might easily be outdated to boot.

There's a couple things I'd do. First, move gTLDs like .gov and .mil under .us. That's one. Then, .edu needs to be truly world-wide, or be moved under .us also. Same with the other gTLDs, as much of what's in them really shouldn't be. This should clean things up a wee bit. Not sure how I'd get the market to comply, but we'll figure something out.

Then, kill off ICANN, and move the remaining gTLDs and the ccTLD administration to a truly international and independent organisation, in fact so independent that it is its own sovereign country, albeit a virtual one. Then engage in "extradition treaties" with all the other countries for those gTLD domains that countries take an interest in.

This should limit travesties like kentucky or ohio judges snatching domains from owners that are outside of their jurisdiction and do business outside of their jurisdiction by simple dint of ICANN and verisign being american. Even FBI 'internet vigilance' is was only so-so on the funny scale the first time. When they got outright bought by corrupt industry organisations and swooped in on a German in New Zealand, making the despicable git an instant martyr, it should have become clear to everyone else that this isn't how justice should work. So checks and balances are called for. And in the international arena that sort of thing has to come with sovereignty, or it simply won't work.

The technical alternative would be to build something without one administrative root, but so far that's been a tad too problematic to be practical. And even if it would be practical, you'd have to watch for parties playing foul, like, oh, those behind stuxnet. See a pattern here? I do. So let's solve this on the administrative level, which in international waters means, again, be your own country.