This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Register (from Tuesday, November 27; link good at time of posting):
A blog on a site promoting Al Gore's climate change documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has been hacked by penis pill-promoting spammers.
Links on the blog portion of the climatecrisis.net site point to websites hawking online pharmaceuticals in an apparent bid by miscreants to promote their search engine rankings.
. . . .
In the case of the climatecrisis.net hack, the links point to pages on a site hosted by Westmont College, a small Christian college in California, that's also fallen victim to hackers.
. . . .
Former vice-president Al "I invented the internet" Gore, who became a Nobel prize laureate and Oscar winner thanks to the success of An Inconvenient Truth, was unavailable for comment.
Perhaps I find it amusing only because it was not on my freeway. There was an accident reported on another Northern California freeway this morning in which a car carrier hauling junked cars suffered a mishap and spilled those flattened cars across the roadway.
As we learned from Christine, it's entirely possible that cars can be evil, but is it possible for them to be unlucky? These cars were wrecked before (and some of them multiple times, certainly) and were pounded flat for the scrap heap, only to be wrecked yet again. This is the sort of automotive pathos Pixar can only dream of achieving in Cars II: We're Now Part of Disney, So Expect More Sequels.
I wonder what the first highway patrolman on the scene must have thought. "It's a thirty vehicle pileup, but I see only one truck driver wandering about. Dear lord! We have several dozen people trapped in horribly mangled cars! Oh, the humanity!"
Thankfully, Australians aren't thankful folks, at least not this past week. While we Americans were in a collective food coma last Thursday (and possibly Friday as well -- your mileage may vary), Peter Black of the Freedom to Differ blog was hard at work, collecting worthy posts from around the legal blogosphere. The results of his efforts are featured in this week's excellent Blawg Review #136. I really pity the poor bastard who has to host next week and follow in Black's footsteps.
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Monday, November 19; link good at time of posting):
A woman whose husband has kept about $600,000 in lottery winnings from her says she has a number for him: half. And Donna Campbell is suing her husband in her attempt to get it.
But American Airlines mechanic Arnim Ramdass disappeared after his wife confronted him about the secret, so process servers haven't been able to hand him the lawsuit papers yet, Campbell's attorney said.
"Here's a guy who for years has spent marital money on the lottery and at casinos, and he's always lost," Bruce Baldwin said. "And now he finally wins, and he's trying to keep it from his wife. That's pretty low."
Campbell, Ramdass' wife since 2005 and girlfriend for five years before that, said she suspected he was hiding something when he disconnected their phone and kept their television off. A postcard offering congratulations on a new house purchase was her final clue.
So Campbell did an Internet search on "Ramdass" and "lotto" and saw a news release from the Florida Lottery about a pool of 17 airline mechanics who won the $19 million jackpot on June 20.
. . . .
"Right now, all I want is justice," Campbell said. "With time, I will file for divorce."
Jillian Todd Weiss hosts the first part of this week's Blawg Review at her Transgender Workplace Diversity blog and provides the background of Equal Opportunity Day, first proclaimed by President Eisenhower in 1957. That day was meant to promote, and much subsequent legislation and case law to effect, greater egalitarianism in the workplace.
In the president's words, we should "abolish all artificial discrimination which hinders the right of each American to advance in accordance with his merits as a human being and his capacity for productive work." That's certainly a noble sentiment and a worthy objective. Most days, however, I tend to wonder whether things have been legislated and litigated to the point where the workplace is less about ensuring the ability of a relative few to advance in accordance with their merits and capacity for productive work and more about protecting relatively many more from the repercussions of their lacks of merit and incapacity for productive work.
The second part of this week's double bill is hosted by Denise Brogan-Kator at her Rainbow Law Center blog and commemorates the Transgender Day of Rememberance. Both parts are well worth your time.
Something nasty is brewing on them thar internets today.
In the last hour alone, my personal email account on Gmail has been inundated by nearly seven hundred spam messages. How many of those made it through to my Inbox? Approximately a dozen.
I love you, Google, and I don't care who knows it.
UPDATE (15:30): It looks like whatever this is started around 13:43 Pacific time; I've received more than a thousand spam messages since then. Before that time, it looks like the usual amount of spam traffic.
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of Valleywag (from Monday, November 12; link good at time of posting):
Kevin Colvin, an intern at Anglo Irish Bank's North American arm, was busted when he told his manager, Paul Davis, that he'd miss work due to what colleagues took to be a "family emergency". Davis turned up the photo above, freshly posted to Facebook from the Halloween party Colvin apparently missed work to attend, and attached it to his reply, copying the rest of the office as he did it.
Blackfive and the Valour-IT blog both report that Team Army has come out on top of the the interbranch fundraising drive conducted over the last couple of weeks. All totals are preliminary and, as noted by the project organizers, some donations are still rolling in, but at this point $168,370.91 has been donated overall; of this total, $53,023.00 was raised by the Army-affiliated team.
Congratulations to all involved in this year's drive and my thanks again to those of you who pledged through Infamy or Praise!
I was glad to have the holiday yesterday to peruse this week's Blawg Review #134 at leisure. Hosted by Eric Turkewitz, this edition is an instant classic. Turkewitz' theme -- the New York City Marathon -- is as well-integrated into the narrative of his Blawg Review as any I can recall seeing over the more than two years this carnival's been making its rounds. There is no shortage of worthy links to follow -- highlights include an appreciation of the world's longest urinal, getting kids while they're young when it comes to profiling and indoctrination, and avoiding, embracing, or just learning to live with snitches; notwithstanding the outstanding collection of legal posts he's collected, Turkewitz' marathon Blawg Review itself is the real highlight this week. In the 1980 Boston Marathon (and, it is alleged, in the preceding year's New York City Marathon), Rosie Ruiz skipped over the bulk of the race just to get to the end ahead of the field; you don't want to make the same mistake with Blawg Review #134 -- take your time, as the joy of this edition is in the run rather than the finish.
The blogosphere's annual fundraising drive for Project Valour-IT is nearing its Veterans' Day end (you can beat the buzzer by donating via the link below). Although Team Army does not appear likely to reach its lofty fundraising goal this year, I'm pleased to report that it and the other branch-identified teams have succeeded in raising considerable amounts for this worthy cause. The Army team has, at the time of this post, raised $23,416.00; the four branches combined have raised $70,575.00.
My thanks again to those of you who contributed via Infamy or Praise!
Today is the 232d birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Happy birthday, Marines! In honor of the Corps' birthday, let's all take a moment to appreciate the heroic contributions to our nation's freedom made by Marines past and present and to donate to Project Valour-IT via the Team Army link provided below.
Two research teams exploring the anatomy of expectations offer a new perspective on the power of a positive outlook. For the first time, scientists at New York University have mapped the upbeat brain -- finding in a cluster of neurons the size of a martini olive the seed of a sunny outlook on life. At its core, the brain is built for optimism, their work suggests.
Far from deforming our view of the future, this penchant for life's silver lining shapes our decisions about family, health, work and finances in surprisingly prudent ways, concluded economists at Duke University in a new study published in the Journal of Financial Economics. "Economists have focused on optimism as a miscalibration, as a distorted view of the future," said Duke finance scholar David T. Robinson. "A little bit of optimism is associated with a lot of positive economic choices."
. . . .
Optimists, the Duke finance scholars discovered, worked longer hours every week, expected to retire later in life, were less likely to smoke and, when they divorced, were more likely to remarry. They also saved more, had more of their wealth in liquid assets, invested more in individual stocks and paid credit-card bills more promptly.
Yet those who saw the future too brightly -- people who in the survey overestimated their own likely lifespan by 20 years or more -- behaved in just the opposite way, the researchers discovered.
Rather than save, they squandered. They postponed bill-paying. Instead of taking the long view, they barely looked past tomorrow. Statistically, they were more likely to be day traders. "Optimism is a little like red wine," said Duke finance professor and study co-author Manju Puri. "In moderation, it is good for you; but no one would suggest you drink two bottles a day."
The researchers found that this optimistic predisposition was common to all professions -- except one. Hmm . . . I wonder which profession might possibly turn out to be a haven for pessimists?
Surveying law students at the University of Virginia, [University of Pennsylvania researcher Dr. Martin Seligman] found that pessimists got better grades, were more likely to make law review and, upon graduation, received better job offers. There was no scientific reason. "In law," he said, "pessimism is considered prudence."
I prefer to think of our profession as inherently neither optimistic nor pessimistic; instead, we're by nature and training primarily problem-solvers. That's why they teach us in law school that regardless whether a glass is half-full or half-empty, if you drink the rest there'll be no arguments between the optimists and pessimists around you. Problem solved.
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Tuesday, November 6; link good at time of posting):
A man was arrested for drug possession after telling authorities that two masked gunmen had stolen 150 pounds of marijuana from his home.
Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies arrived at the home near Penitas in South Texas to find the door kicked in and nearly 15 pounds of pot lying on the floor, Sheriff Lupe Trevino said.
Jose Guadalupe Flores, 35, escaped while the men ransacked the house but returned later and told the deputies he had been wrapping the drugs for shipment when the intruders arrived.
"The guy walked right up and said the drugs were his," Trevino said. "That's not the smartest move."
You have a tough exterior. No one wants to mess with you. But on the inside, you're a total pushover and completely soft. You're a traditionalist, and you don't change easily. You're likely to eat the same doughnut every morning, and pout if it's sold out.
This photo, taken recently by the amazing journalist Michael Yon in Baghdad, is the talk of the internet today (via Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit):
As Yon described to Reynolds, "I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John's Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome. A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from 'Chosen' Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John's, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope. The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. 'Thank you, thank you,' the people were saying. One man said, 'Thank you for peace.' Another man, a Muslim, said 'All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.' The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers."
Some are explicitly identifying this photo as the Iraq War's "Mount Suribachi" or "Iwo Jima" moment, referring to the iconic photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal of the flag raising on Iwo Jima during the Second World War. Others, like Day by Day's Chris Muir, make that point a little more subtly:
Whatever your view of the issue, it's safe to suggest that, like the flag raising on Iwo Jima, the cross raising in Baghdad is not the end of this war; there is a tremendous amount of hardship and bloodshed in the foreseeable future for the Iraqi people and for our own servicemen and servicewomen. Indeed, if the war were to end today, there would still be much which remains to be done to assist those men and women in our armed forces who've sacrificed so much for our benefit and to benefit millions in the Middle East and around the world.
Project Valour-IT is one way to assist and, in a small but significant way, repay those sacrifices. Please consider donating today, either at the link below or at the effort's usual donations page (also available in this blog's sidebar). As you can see, the Army Team has raised nearly $19,000 thus far during the interbranch Veteran's Day fundraising effort for Project Valour-IT; the four branches combined have raised nearly $54,000 thus far.
Well, technically speaking, there are probably many differences between the open software movement and the cantina at the Mos Eisley spaceport in Star Wars, but I'm thinking of one difference in particular today -- unlike the cantina, the open software movement is particularly welcoming to droids.
ASL, which is widely used in the open-source software community and has been approved by the Open Source Initiative, is a permissive license that is conducive to commercial development and proprietary redistribution. Code that is distributed under the ASL and other permissive licenses can be integrated into closed-source proprietary products and redistributed under a broad variety of other terms. Unlike permissive open-source licenses, "copyleft" licenses (such as the GPL) generally impose restrictions on redistribution of code in order to ensure that modifications and derivatives are kept open and distributed under similar terms.
Permissive licenses like the ASL and BSD license are preferred by many companies because such licenses make it possible to use open-source software code without having to turn proprietary enhancements back over to the open source software community. These licenses encourage commercial adoption of open-source software because they make it possible for companies to profit from investing in enhancements made to existing open-source software solutions. That potential for proprietary investment on top of an open stack is most likely what inspired Google to adopt the Apache Software License for its mobile platform. Availability of Android under the ASL will ensure that a broader number of companies will be able to adopt the platform and build on top of it without having to expose the inner workings of proprietary technologies that give them a competitive advantage.
Although using a permissive license like ASL is the best way to build support for the Android platform, critics argue that Google has sacrificed an opportunity to encourage greater openness in the broader mobile software space. If Android was distributed under the GPLv2, companies building on top of the platform would have to share their enhancements, which could theoretically lead to widespread sharing of code and a more rapid acceleration of mobile software development.
The counterargument is that distributing Android under a copyleft license could potentially limit the evolution of the mobile software ecosystem by discouraging commercial development on top of the platform. Proprietary mobile software development companies that integrate Android into their technologies would have to dramatically change their business models if they aren't given the ability to keep their enhancements proprietary.
. . . .
Ultimately, the decision to use the ASL is sensible. Although it would be beneficial to all if Google were to use Android licensing to further open the market, that likely would have stifled adoption of the platform by handset makers. When it comes right down to it, the handset makers are the developers who are most significantly affected by the Android license, since they are the primary distributors of mobile phone platforms. The ASL will allow individual handset makers to develop proprietary customizations for the platform as needed to accommodate the unique technologies in their individual products.
All in all, what's important in this announcement is not which open source license has been chosen by Google and its Open Handset Alliance; what's important is that their decision to embrace open software has provided a boost the movement. This is a good thing regardless whether you personally use open source products; the presence of open software in the marketplace drives innovation and variety in both technological terms and legal ones and that benefits us all.
After all, there's at least one more difference between open software movement and the Mos Eisley cantina -- there's a lot less "greedo" in open software.
When I wrote regularly, it was a persistent challenge to come up with suitable names for the various lead, supporting, and incidental characters in a particular work-in-process. There wasn't much that frustrated me more than finding myself halfway through something I felt could be worthwhile and realizing that I was still using placeholder names for key characters.
I've noticed, however, that the e-mail spammers who are kind enough to correspond with me on a regular basis seem to have no difficulties in creating names for their "From:" headers. Most of these names are composed as random computer-generated pairings of names and other words and, in that respect, they're like an internet version of the proverbial "monkeys with typewriters writing Shakespeare" -- given large enough dictionaries, enough e-mail addresses to spam, and a roomful of computers, the next great American literary name is sure to be produced. (Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that I've not yet received a can't miss stock tip or pharmaceutical offer from "Hester Prynne" or "Holden Caulfield".)
As such, I've decided to start stockpiling some of the spammers' better names for my possible future literary uses. What I'm wondering, though, is what sorts of copyrights accrue in these names they create (and yes, here I am assuming that "Tad Vargas" and "Saturnia Rosy" are noms-de-plume adopted for online commercial purposes only). I think I'll consult William Patry's seven-volumes copyright treatise; if the answer's not in there, it's probably not worth knowing.
Who knows? Perhaps someday a generation of readers will look back and identify this as a turning point in modern literature -- the day when "Anwar Ramsbottom" began his transition from purveyor of cut-rate erectile dysfunction medication (no prescriptions necessary!) to literary immortal.
R. David Donaghue hosts Blawg Review #133 this week at his Chicago IP Litigation blog. As Donaghue notes, in the world of intellectual property the past week has been devoted to much discussion of and angst over injunctions -- injunctions staying the USPTO's new rules, injunctions relating to patent searching technologies, and injunctions affecting Second Life.
Next week we'll experience a reversal of sorts, as Blawg Review goes from IP to PI when Eric Turkewitz hosts #134 at his New York Personal Injury Law Blog. Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.
This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Wednesday, October 31; link good at time of posting):
A Malaysian man apparently fearing he had too much to drink tried to play it safe by bribing a policeman to avoid a breath analyzer test. It turned out he passed the test, but was fined for bribery.
Aw Cheng Fatt offered a police officer 50 ringgit ($15) after his car was stopped at a police check point for drunk driving three years ago, The Star reported Wednesday.
The alcohol screening test showed the man's blood level was in fact within the permissible limit.
However, Aw wound up getting arrested for corruption and was fined 1,000 ringgit ($300) in court Tuesday, the report said.
For the last couple of years, I've periodically blogged about and blegged for the Project Valour-IT effort (see here and here).
In this year's Veteran's Day fundraising drive, I'm once again enlisted in the Blackfive-led Army team. Please spare a moment to consider and few bucks to support Project Valour-IT and their outstanding works on behalf of our injured servicemen and servicewomen.
Grant Griffiths hosts Blawg Review #132 at his Home Office Lawyer blog this week.
While I'm somewhat envious of the freedom Griffiths notes that home office and solo practitioners enjoy, relative to their professional brethren generally, I also have to admit that I personally lack the self-discipline it takes to work from home on a regular basis. There are so many distractions and, much as the commute and the office environment occasionally grind on me, that physical separation between the personal and the professional does me a world of good -- both personally and professionally. For those of you with the desire and self-discipline it takes to practice from home, however, I can't recommend Home Office Lawyer to you enough. For the rest of us, Blawg Review #132 gives us a glimpse into how the other the other half lives.
Highlights in this week's edition include using blogs as marketing tools, the payoff in saying "I'm sorry" to a client, and necessary character traits for solo practitioners. R. David Donaghue handles hosting duties for #133 next Monday at his Chicago IP Litigation Blog.
