I... AGREE?! I never thought i'd ever have to defend Microsoft, but uh... Motorola is being stupid with its patents. Not that Microsoft isn't guilty of the same stuff, but uh.. yeah. Not sure about the judicial system over here trying to influence the outcomes of others though. I mean, while i can again agree that Motorola should not be allowed to use an injunction like that, i think we should have full faith in the ability of other countries to um... govern themselves.

I swear I formatted this.

I am pressured to attach high margin items by management. I am presented with numerical figures that support this strategy as ligitimently necessary for the long term survival of the company. It is difficult for me to attach these services, but i do make sure each customer is aware of their existence and i do try to tie it in to the points i am instructed to listen for in order to present the service's value. There is a second part that i usually skip. Management calls this "Overcoming Objections" and they are very vage as to what it really means. I have seen my co-workers do astonishing bits of social entering for a near mystical increase in attach rate of these value added services while mine just barely eek by the company average on a good day. However, i have never seen one of my co-workers flat out lie, as has been alleged several times in the comments i have read. However, management very, very strongly makes sure that we know to never misrepresent a product, because if it doesn't do exactly what we say the customer will return it and we will be out that margin, plus the open box discount if we even manage to sell it again. I give my customers a lot of data, and i get a lot of repeat business. However, this is usually from customers who have questions rather then those who are looking to buy. I have access every day and week if i request it to a detailed break down of the sales figures BestBuy's system has for me. Every day i go in with a bit of pride because of one of those numbers: returns. Out of every customer i've ever personally helped, 0.3% of them ever return anything. (i fully expect to be fired though, i'm honestly a horrible salesman) I think that BestBuy needs to reinvent itself to stay afloat. A few days ago I asked management about the state of the company. There is a firm air of denial in the retail outlets. I got a careful explanation about the losses posted as normal business expenses. Namely that the company had acquired some sell phone retailer overseas for something like 4 billion USD and that the retail side of things had been nothing but profitable. However, today i see the CEO has retired. This doesn't hold up to the story i was told. I wonder how much longer i'm going to be able to hold this position, it's been an interesting look either way. A year ago i'd probably be yelling about lying sales people too, but seriously, we're just... people. We don't enjoy what we have to do, even those of us who are particularly good at it. The top seller in my department hates how people react to him. Most of the time, the moment we go into services, even if we have been nothing but helpful and informative, people sour to us. I can understand this feeling, especially if someone is acting pushy, but honestly he rarely does. There is this huge stigma associated with salespeople, and even if we are just presenting a service as a viable choice (my managers probably hate me for this, they tell me i should stop asking my customers how they 'feel' about things. I just present the thing as truthfully and as relevantly as i can, then give them all the time they need to decide) we still get a measure of scorn for having the audacity to offer Accidental Damage from Handling or Technical Support, because the programs are clearly a scam (... geek squad's tech support is debatable depending on the guy you get, i'll admit that.). But seriously guys... we're not trying to screw you. Not even management really wants to screw you. We'd just prefer to make money... on every single opportunity we can... because we're a product of capitalism as an entity. But we're usually polite about it, and at least for the store i work at, i know nearly all of my co-workers are intelligent, truthful people I hope i'll do better as whatever i finally end up deciding on when i finally graduate. I hate having varied interests sometimes. .... also, entirely off topic, please remind people who rip open iPad/Tablet/Ereader/Handheld game console cases and just leave them on the floor to at least put them back together and somewhat _near_ the peg. I mean, i can understand sometimes with the android tablets because we almost never have a case made exactly for the less popular tablets, and i know 98% of sales people don't think twice about opening the things up for you to try out as long as it won't permanently destroy the box. ... but the iPad rack and the Ereader racks... i just don't understand. There are like, three models of iPad, that's it. It lists on the box the ones it fits on, why is it necessary to open up half the inventory and try it on you device? And e-readers.... i bet there are some obscure ones, but... /retail gripes.

Seriously, they do some good work. I'm excited to see if this fixes sleep on some of the more obscure devices and gives us better power management.

They must really be intimidated by rise of ARM. I wonder where this will take us in terms of the evolution of embedded computers.

I find it funny that people can even consider this an offense that requires pineal action. Issues of intelectual property notwithstanding (i disregard the notion of IP as a justifiably stable reference point for the issues at hand) this shows that vulnerabilities exist. This shows that an unauthorized third party can and did gain access to data that was supposively secure. Claiming that the man somehow cost the company money is a stupid argument, those holes existed, if you as a company want to retain trust or secrets you were going to plug them anyway, once brought to your attention. You, as a company decided to hook into an open and untrusted network, and allows communication to your information systems from that open and untrusted networks. These things are going to happen, no mater how much you prosecute offenders of archaic spacial relation laws. As a company that exists beyond a strict spacial plane, you must be savvy as to these underlying facts. If there is a hole, it will be exploited, and as the number of internet connected devices increases, so do the chances of those holes being exploited and the likelihood of a successful breach. You can't stop the curiosity of the human mind nor its ingenuity, and you should not seek to. It is simply not logistically possible to have the number of security professionals needed to have a 100% breach proof system. It is, however, possible to cultivate the huge amount of raw tallent ever steadily accumulating with those connected devices. It is not, however, possible to retain the benefit of benevolent pro-bono 'security consultants' if you demand all of them pay you money while you demonize them. You will never be able to keep your security up to snuff if your knee-jerk response is to punish curiosity. You need to be flexible. You need to be creative. You need to be curious. You need to want to improve your system in ways nor previously explored. In short, to survive, Facebook needs to learn that in being the largest information 'thief' on the internet means that it is necessary to take input form the benevolent 'thieves' pounding on their security 24/7. .... IMHO, of course.

This could be a great thing to embed into online how-tos and the like for teaching basic or even advanced linux. ... heh, embedded linux on the rise again :P

All great innovations begin as a hack, then are further polished and improved. Discounting a novel use of a previously known phenomena is pretty closed minded.

As people have pointed out, this is only a beta release, however, maybe the dialog in the Linux community will turn to evaluating the impact of this plugin on the viability of the Linux desktop. Personally I just see this as lip service to try and keep interest in Flash, which has mostly fallen out of media attention. Something tells me this will never see a finalized release, though I could be wrong. I will always personally doubt Adobe's commitment to maintaining a truly cross platform solution until we see development tools under Linux and until that day I will always advocate dropping it like three month old turkey bacon.

I'm sorry, i couldn't hear you through all these crazy hats and the Heavy quoting Sinistar at the top of his lungs.

It was about the struggle for woman's rights. You see, it was all symbolism for male oppression. You see, the phallic flack tank shot down the dreams of the the feminine invaders while skirting their attempts of rebuttal using the previously established male-bias structures in society. Very deep stuff.

It was actually intended to be an amused ironic statement. Google didn't really do anything here, the RIAA are just trying to encourage further action without understanding their goals can not be realized within the framework that has been established. Any action that hinders the flow of information will be circumnavigated faster then further action can be taken. The common maxim of "information wants to be free" holds true in a macroscope of any network. I do not mean to imply that Google is being complicit, only that they realize any actual censorship would be met with public outcry and that their blacklisting of piracy terms from auto complete was only to appese the dark gods of anti-piracy whilst still maintaining the overall neutrality that we all expect them to exhibit.

Now they will have to actually type out their coppywrite infringing query. Well thanks alot google for making illicit deeds slightly less convenient.

It's a hydroponic's gateway drug.