Sunday, April 01, 2007

Valid uses of Flash technology

Just So You Know

From the Economist’s political cartoonist, KAL (a/k/a Kevin Kallaugher).

Like all Kallaugher’s work, well done, and that’s even before he gets his character to say “big honking ears”.


Posted by Patton on 04/01/07 at 12:32 AM
Just So You Know • Permalink

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Godzilla vs. Megalon?

Filthy Lucre

image How else to describe a court battle between the two titans of enterprise software, Oracle and SAP? Heavyweights, both.

On March 22, 2007, Oracle filed suit against SAP alleging corporate theft.  Per Oracle’s filing:

“This case is about corporate theft on a grand scale, committed by the largest German software company—a conglomerate known as SAP,” the lawsuit says. “From that Web site, SAP has copied and swept thousands of Oracle software products and other proprietary and confidential material onto its own servers.”

My initial reaction to the news was “Whoa. SAP just made a big mistake”.  In the fullness of the news cycle, however, further details arrived, via a story in one of last week’s issues of the WSJ (subscription req’d) entitled “SAP Unit Denies Oracle’s Claims”:

According to the complaint, TomorrowNow in some cases accessed information using log-in information for Oracle customers with expired support contracts. In other cases, TomorrowNow accessed information beyond what customers were entitled to access, according to the suit.

My reaction after reading this bit of news, in a story focused on SAP’s proclamation of innocence, was that Oracle’s position isn’t quite as iron-clad as it had first appeared to be.


Posted by Patton on 03/31/07 at 09:14 PM
Filthy Lucre • Permalink

How to tell you might be kinda stupid

Darwin Award Contender

Symptoms to look out for:

  • You’re a cab driver
  • You work in Beverly Hills, CA
  • You get a fare to Chapel Hill, NC
  • You decide to take it

Witness:

Cabbie says he was stiffed on $8,200

Fri Mar 30, 9:19 PM ET

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A taxi driver told police he was stiffed on an $8,200 cross-country fare by a female passenger he shuttled from Beverly Hills, Calif. to North Carolina.
The meter in Levon Mikayelyan’s taxi cab hit the staggering fare after a 2,600-mile journey that ended at a Holiday Inn in Chapel Hill. Mikayelyan said the rider’s family paid him only $800, Chapel Hill police spokeswoman Jane Cousins said Friday.

“We do get reports of people who are not able to pay cab drivers, but certainly not with this amount,” Cousins said.
{...}

So Cousins is saying not all cabbies are this stupid? Good - it’s been my general experience that they’re not, though they can be a thieving lot, depending on the city you’re in.

They’re often apparent refugees of Austin Powers’ least favorite group:

Carnies. Circus folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands.

But they’re not often this stupid.


Posted by Patton on 03/31/07 at 06:26 PM
Darwin Award Contender • Permalink

Lois would like to welcome her new robot overlord

Holy Shit!

Holy Latent Homosexuality Batman!  I forget where I got this.  Maybe Rocket Jones.  Maybe Llama Butchers.  Maybe somebody else altogether.  But regardless, it is awe inspiring.

Go see Joker’s Boner, and many other horrifying comics.


Posted by Buckethead on 03/31/07 at 11:42 AM
Holy Shit! • Permalink

Since we can’t really reopen the book on Minnesota…

EntertainmentHoly Shit!Lead Pipe Cruelty

Minnesota has already had its turn in the barrel, and it’s far enough in the past (Aug 2006) that simply appending this item to it would consign the appendage to obscurity, and spare the Gopher State the additional ridicule that it so richly deserves.

So, Minnesota gets to be our first multi-part state smackdown recipient, all for a single news story from today:

Minn. lawmaker lobbies for Tilt-A-Whirl

Fri Mar 30, 5:38 AM ET

ST. PAUL - State Rep. Patti Fritz, DFL-Faribault, has introduced a bill designating the Tilt-A-Whirl the official amusement ride in Minnesota.

Fritz said she’s taking up the cause of 52 kindergarten students from her district who say it deserves special attention because it was invented in their town.

“I represent children too,” Fritz said, adding, “Minnesotans like to have fun, and it’s a fun thing to do.”

The Tilt-A-Whirl is a platform-type ride consisting of seven freely spinning cars holding up to four riders apiece.

Herbert Sellner invented it in 1926 and the first one debuted at the Minnesota State Fair a year later. Sellner Manufacturing in Faribault still makes it.

Minnesota already has a state muffin (blueberry), a state gemstone (the Lake Superior agate), a state drink (milk), a state butterfly (monarch) and seven other official symbols.

Sorry - it’s short, so I just included it all. Well, that, plus it’s a Yahoo story, so it’ll eventually disappear from the web on its own if I don’t snatch it. Can’t have the Ministry archives filled with dead links, now can we? Of course, the story itself is a bit short on important details, such as surprise vomiting attacks suffered by tilt-a-whirlers and indirectly by those to their left and right.

Another thought occurs to me, now that I’ve gone to all the trouble to lift that entire news story - we could just start another semi-regular series here at the Ministry, one devoted to ridiculing individual legislators also richly in need of such ridicule.  The potential downside, of course, is that given the size of the list of valid editorial targets, we’re woefully understaffed for such an enterprise.


Posted by Patton on 03/31/07 at 02:03 AM
Entertainment • Holy Shit! • Lead Pipe Cruelty • Permalink