Category Archives: bad code

In 1991, according to The Patent Wars by Fred Warshofsky, Bill Gates said this about software patents:

If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today�s ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. The solution . . . is patent exchanges . . . and patenting as much as we can. . . . A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high: Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors.

Thirteen years later, according to Brad Stone of Newsweek, Microsoft alum Nathan Myhrvold is putting this insight into action. Continue reading →

But thirteenth in broadband adoption. The amazing non-issue of this campaign. Continue reading →

A couple months ago, I bought this cool new phone by Audiovox — the CMD8900. The speaker then quit working. I returned it to the store I had bought it at (New Wireless, 107 West Portal Ave) at the end of August. Last week, when it was still not back, I called and asked why. New Wireless informed me all Audiovox repairs take “30 to 45 days.” I found that hard to believe, so I went to the Audiovox website, and posted a question asking whether that was true. A week later, no response still.
So though I have spent over $60 for wireless service this month, I’ve had no wireless phone. And indeed, if this is Audiovox’s policy, it is a really good reason not to rely upon that company. Unless of course, your cell phone is just a toy which you don’t really need, and you don’t mind spending scores of dollars for service that you cannot use. Continue reading →

I continue to be astonished at how far PFF has moved from its roots. The group has issued a press release demanding Supreme Court review of Grokster, buttressed with supporting blog entries by Bill Adkinson and a “grid” by Solveig Singleton with a six (yes, count them, six, with some including italics) factor test that courts are to apply to decide whether a technology is legal or not.
I can well understand New Dealers racing to craft multifactored tests to regulate innovation. But I thought the whole point of the conservative (economic) movement was to teach us how harmful such regulation was to innovation and growth. Any test that cannot be applied on summary judgment guarantees that federal judges will be forced into a complex balancing to decide which innovation should be allowed. And thus, any industry threatened with competition can then use the courts to extort from these new competitors payment before they are permitted to compete. That is precisely what Valenti says the VCR case was about. He didn’t want to stop the VCR, he tell us. He wanted only to force VCR manufacturers to pay for the right to sell consumers VCRs.
Courts, and lawyers, have ruled Silicon Valley long enough. The great hope of the Grokster opinion was that it would return us to the time when entrepreneurs could invent without seeking a permission slip from a federal court (to borrow from the President) . It is simply bizarre to see PFF now call for a return to the days of industrial policy regulated by federal judges. Especially bizarre when you consider how taxing this policy will be to many of the “supporters” of PFF. Many (e.g., Apple, Microsoft, Intel), but alas not all (EMI, Vivendi, BMG). Thus the danger of putting principle up for bid. Continue reading →

I’ve never really bought the conspiracy story surrounding the Diebold voting machine stuff. I’ve been happy that the issue has been raised (and even happier that the battle about copyright that Diebold’s effort at censoring criticism created also created the Free Culture movement at Swarthmore, and now spreading).
But if this story is true, I will have to rethink my view. As reported at Blackboxvoting:

By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks.

Is this really true? Continue reading →

Last month I wrote about the DRM-encumbered Constitution. Note, this is not really Microsoft’s doing — they just build the bombs, others choose to use them. But a bunch have sent links to free Constitutions. Here’s one for the iPod created by the American Constitution Society. Continue reading →

“Add digital rights management and the story becomes more complex.” Continue reading →

I’ve been begging my wife to let me close down all but one or two of our credit card accounts. The hassle of dealing each month with many different accounts is more than these fingers can handle. My latest victory was to be Chase. She has had a Chase account for ever. But I finally convinced her there was no real benefit to keeping that account open.

So she called Chase and asked that they close the account. Chase was not happy. “What can we do to keep you as a customer,” they asked. I was standing next to her when they asked her, so she asked me. I pointed to an advertisement we had just received from AT&T Universal card, promising no fees, zero interest, no payment for a year for balance transfers. She told the Chase representative we’d keep the card open if they gave us the same terms. The representative said she’d have to check, and said she’d call back later. She did. Chase offered the same terms as AT&T, and based upon that offer, we transferred a substantial chunk of airplane ticket debt to Chase. (The worse thing about traveling to speak is carrying the costs of the airplane tickets till reimbursed. At one point last year, I was carrying more receivables in conference expenses than my wife earns in a year.)

I remember thinking when this all happened how amazing it was that such a significant transaction could happen based only upon the word of a voice at the other end of the phone promising she spoke for Chase. How advanced the world had become! I thought for a second to ask that they send the offer in writing, but it seemed so 19th century. And anyway, it was Chase! And they were being so cyber! Who was I to spoil the fun?

This month we received our statement. As promised, zero interest, and zero fees for the transfer. But contrary to the promise, Chase was demanding a minimum monthly payment. When we called to say that this was not what was agreed to, we were instantly shipped back to the 19th century: “Do you have the offer in writing” the agent at the other end asked?

No, we didn’t. And after our payment for the full balance transfer is cleared, neither will we have a Chase card anymore either. Continue reading →

As Michael Geist writes, it is increasingly the practice of the US government to export its copyright policy though bi-lateral trade agreements. One example is the trade agreements being concluded with Australia right now that will require Australia to increase its copyright term to life plus 70.

The Allen Consulting Group has prepared what it apparently considers an economic analysis of the proposed Term Extension. The report was commissioned by the Motion Picture Association, among others. The report is embarrassingly poorly done.

I describe some errors in the extended entry below. But I hope for the Allen Consulting Group that this report is not representative of its work in general. Continue reading →

I got an email from a reader. “I’m reminded of ibex,” she wrote. Indeed. Here‘s a couple pages from Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Continue reading →