Is it just me.... or has Xkcd gotten a cartoon for everything [on Slashdot] now, much like the Simpsons have done everything?

Using a Company network gives the company the right to snoop the traffic and see what you are doing.

It also gives the company the right to dictate what you (the user) are allowed to do with that computer, which is their property.

With a single phone call, the employer can inform at any time they are able to make contact with you (the end user).. even 10pm on a Sunday... they might say please power off the computer immediately, do not press any keys; we have revoked your permission to access the laptop, you are no longer authorized to perform any activities on the laptop, and please return it to our offices at your earliest convenience, tomorrow morning

If you login to it after that point to grab a personal file, or delete some personal files, after that, then you would be committing the crime of unauthorized access to a computer system. So your access to "personal" files could be lost at any point in time, outside your control.

Likewise.... if they hand you a Linux system and tell you that installing software, or changing the operating system is not allowed, and you go format and install Windows 7 on it, or boot it from a Knoppix CD / Boot and Nuke CD / reimage it, or gain access to restricted accounts such as local Administrator (through hacking) to install unapproved software such as a file shredder, then you might be looking at civil or criminal charges for gaining the unauthorized access or the destruction of "personal files".

I have already set some fileserver folders to Read-Only for him and taken a backup of his mailbox in case he empties it on the last day.

Most folks aren't going to be engaged in destructive behavior when they leave ----- especially if moving to a new job. Therefore marking folders 'read-only' shouldn't be the pertinent thing. The greater danger is, they steal information. Not they destroy or corrupt information, which should be backed up anyways. And if they were going to, they probably had all the time they needed already. Why would they engage in the suspicious activity AFTER giving notice; given that they may be able to reasonably expect being released on the spot (for security reasons)? If someone wanted to be naughty..... wouldn't it make more sense to do the naughty things, and then turn in their notice after they had been doing the naughty thing for 6 months in small bite-size pieces unlikely to be noticed, or explainable away in any one instance?

I refer you to IT separation duties:

Even if IT is the custodian of the information, employee's may be able to access sensitive information. Two classic examples are contact lists and contracts. If a salesperson is leaving an organization, it is a time honored tradition to try to leave with the entire customer contact list. Receiving and providing contracts give a clear picture of the revenue and cost structure of an organization. These should be protected not only with digital means, but also with physical security protections.

Perhaps not the best idea.... unless these are permissions he wouldn't notice going away.

I would firmly suggest instead: audit all activity.

You do have file access auditing on your file server, and capture of audit logs to a safe location, right?

You might adjust the auditing parameters for the user to audit all activity, even when normally not all is audited.

Get him to delete anything personal, because chances are his co-workers are going to be asking for access to his files and emails so they can continue whatever work he was in the middle of.

No.... IT should have a backup of company computers he has access to, and they should be kept.

Anything deleted, to be done with management approval. Now is not the time to go around willy nilly deleting things.

I realize co-workers are indeed going to be asking for access to files and e-mails. The "personal files" issue, is one of the reasons co-workers should not be given blanket access to his or her files.

If the file was pertinent to the team's work, then it should have been in a shared location, unless it was a private draft they were working on but had not published out yet.

If they didn't need to be shared when (s)he was working, they shouldn't need to be shared when (s)he leaves.

In order to protect the company; management should be reviewing things before deciding if co-workers get to see it.

If the Schmuck Company sold Arduino-designed boards under the name Schmuckware, without referring to Arduino, it would infringe on the CC license.

The CC-BY-SA is not an advertising clause. They can include the attribution as a label or note attached to the product package as accompanying it. BY-SA doesn't require (Or grant permission for) them to print that the item is an Arduino or Arduino brand product in marketing material.

The sea level rise is approximately 1 to 4 millmeters per year.

Something tells me there aren't a very large number of cities within a few inches of having to relocate.

A lot, and then, a lot more. How else do you stop fossil fuel usage, ask nicely?

Build more Nuclear power plants, make the licensing easier and less expensive, and pour funding into MSR technology and making Nuclear available more safely and at smaller scales. Create a tax on industrial complexes and power plants based on Net CO2 released.

Tax vehicle owners for the expected Net release of CO2 based on their registered vehicles, and for vehicles that burn fuel: regular emissions check, with mandatory monthly reporting by the vehicle computers, and at least 1 annual check to make sure all emission controls sensors are operational.

to ensure that only the intended active pharmaceutical ingredients and excipients are in the dose

It goes beyond purity of the dose. If a person ingested some medicine containing DMSO as a delivery vector.... even if there were no contaminants in the dose, when the DMSO gets into the blood stream, it can dissolve things that are on the surface of the skin, which would not otherwise be a danger.

OK, then a clarification: Since they've lost nearly every motion and case that's been in front of a judge, it *hasn't been* going well for them.

At this point, they ought to be debating over whether the original management of SCO get tried with 51 counts of criminal charges or 52 counts.

No... you are just taking Arduino LLC's side of it.

Trademark rights derive from use, not the registration. It is similar to the manner in which a book you write is subject to copyright protection, whether or not you registered. A trademark registration is not the adjudication. Improper or unenforceable registrations sometimes happen, And sometimes enforceable marks may fail to have a registration, see Common Law Trademark rights.

Or the holder of the trademark failed to have exclusive distinctive use before or after the registration in the field they claimed.

The matters of infringement, and the possibility of tortious interference, are just legal claims that might be made, and would need to be shown based on the facts.

If they were as clean-cut as you suggest, the 'dispute' would have been settled by now.

So... what's to discuss. I don't think there's a law against being a complete asshole, so smart projects wins.

For Trademark rights to be effective, you have to both register them AND have exclusive use of the mark when you registered it, AND continue to maintain that exclusive use of the mark.

It would seem that Smart Projects might have registered first, but failed to maintain exclusive use, therefore, resulting in Arduino SRL acquiring the trademark as well.

DMSO is one of the most effective solvents known and makes the solution pass readily into the eyeball.

Wait a minute... DMSO itself is a substance thought to be explicitly harmful to the eye.

But there's a bigger problem.... it's too good a solvent... as in, exposure to Dmso can allow toxic materials to be absorbed through the skin that the skin would ordinarily protect against. Very dangerous stuff.

I could make a comment about how, since 0bama, poor is the majority -

If Obama had reduced the wealth of a majority of people, then ultimately he made everyone richer, since in the US... poor is relative. They call you poor if you want more and you have less material stuff than what the media portrays as the average person.

The rich are defined as the people who have more stuff you want, or more access to money than you.

If you had a time machine, and brought someone here from the early 1900s... they would look at all the resources the poorest of the americans have access to, and call us all rich, even the ones with the fewest resources.

Today they call you poor if you can't afford to buy a prefabricated home or apartment built by someone else located in a high-traffic area, with electricity, running water, mechanical transportation, and manufactured food products created by someone else.

By timeless standards.... if you don't have to exert your own labor to build your own shelter from parts scavenged from nature, treat your own injuries, scavenge for your water sources, walk on your own two feet to get from place to place, hunt and gather your own food using sharpened sticks, and your own bare hands, then you are probably richer than 99% of those who ever lived.

I think its going to be hard for anyone to show how Google's actions hurt them.

Buyer's remorse. Example scenario:

Google used cookies to track me and display the most effective advertising that most greatly appealed to my preferences and was most persuasive to me.

Because the advertisement shown was more persuasive; they talked me into purchasing X with a more persuasive Ad, even though buying X was not worth it.

I would not have purchased it, if the more persuasive ad wasn't shown as a result of tracking me and tailoring ad selection to my vulnerabilities (preferences).

Therefore, Google should be responsible for my lost $$$ in non-refundable digital purchases.

because they usually can hide their text messages from freedom of information act requests.

This is probably because IT policies for maintaining compliance with the law and the courts in some regards to retention of public records simply haven't caught up with the new technology.

The electronic records laws generally do not exclude new methods of stored documents or communications. Once upon a time when e-mail was brand new.... e-mail messages were also "claimed" not to be records.

It's just a matter of time, before someone is penalized legally for failure to produce SMS messages.