Way, way more to do with patents. Owning a failing hardware business is only going to stretch its management resources and piss off antitrust regulators (who will, nonetheless, do nothing at all).

What's the basis for saying the lawsuits are frivolous?

And yes, this is really all about the IP since they've been taking a beating lately.

My son is 12 today.
Shit that makes me feel old.

I remember when even the cheap shitty cinnamon rolls you got anywhere included raisins. I miss that.

Short answer: There is a hole in the patent system with regards to software and tech "ideas" that has created a cottage industry of sharks buying up these patents and suing big tech companies. That there are A. many multiples of what are essentially the same patent by different people and B. questions as to whether some of this stuff is even patent-able[sic] brings the validity of these claims into question and meanwhile they are costing companies millions or billions to defend themselves or in this case, buy a company that has a lot of patents, which you can extrapolate out to higher prices, smaller growth, less innovation, etc.

West Memphis Three officially freed...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/1 ... unty_Court

I'm gonna give Black Flag thanks for this one.

fucking FINALLY.

The doc and its sequel are probably a bigger reason if any piece of media is to be thanked.

So, the review I read of the doc (and not a case study or anything) seemed to imply that the step dad either probably had something to do with it or had beaten the brakes off his kid that morning?

And that the main witness was basically a ra-tard that was coaxed into his story by the cops who were interrogating him?

So, was the Alford plea agreement these guys' way of saying "I don't care if you need to safe face, but let me the fuck outta jail?"

I dunno, I'm a little suspect of a lot of these celeb cases, considering both Mumia and Leonard Peltier may not have done exactly what they're in jail for, but are certainly not innocent by any means...

Fu seems to be pretty acquainted with this - so someone chime in and explain it to me so I don't have to do any work or investigation myself. KTHX!

If this is the only thing he said, is this the best pep talk ever?

cinnamon rolls with raisins should have been sold with spittoons.

Dude is a bit of a whackjob, but if I remember correctly, there are some pieces that point to the stepfather in the first doc (mainly a knife he gave the producers that had blood on it, and I think that blood belonged to him or his step-son or both), but the second doc starts by pointing at him (he had all his teeth removed, and the kids had bite marks on them) and muddies that whole picture. I think in the second one he passes a polygraph after avoiding it for a while.



Yeah, his elevator goes to the top floor, but the doors just open about halfway. They interrogated him for hours, and there are (shockingly) a few hours in the middle that weren't recorded.



More or less. They had pretty inadequate counsel from the early goings, and they exhausted state appeals within a few years (I think). They got some outside help, and I read in one article that they were looking like they could get new trials by the end of the year. Damien is our age, so imagine being on Death Row since you were in high school. I don't blame them much for just getting the fuck out. Good luck getting a job, though.



These kids seemed pretty set up on a horrible crime for dressing in black and listening to Metallica in West Memphis. When the prosecution came up short on evidence, they took the easy route and pinned it on the weird kids. After all, for a lot of uneducated, unwashed West Memphians, a full-blow child-rape and booty-biting Satanic Ritual is much more believable than a trusting adult that was able to lure three elementary school kids away without them getting scared.



I'm sure the docs seem dated now, but they were worth watching back in the day.

Thanks, Cory. This certainly seems like more of a case of "if my feet could fit a railroad track, I guess I'd have been a train" than the others I mentioned.

I know the dudes in Pearl Jam are happy.



I've gotten addicted to "Locked Up" on NatGeo channel. I just thought about this - I'm not really sure how more people don't kill themselves.

My friend texted me the other day: "Just think: we had our first two-a-days twenty years ago". Which is INSANE. But more insane is that there is a guy we played with that is a year older than us and murdered another kid over girl. He's been in prison, almost 20 years in on a life without parole bit. It blows my mind.

I only know a little bit about the West Memphis Three. Is the outrage because there is strong evidence those three didn't murder the girl, or is it that they didn't get fair trials?

In other words, is there still a good chance they're guilty, but the authorities fucked up?

It was three little boys that we're killed.

No evidence they murdered the boys and didn't get a fair trail.

Minimal to no chance they're guilty.

That is crazy. We had a member of our tight HS crew that went to jail for 5 years when we went off to college. He got out in 3.5, but FUCK.

What's this hole in the patent system? As a patent attorney, I fight with the PTO examiners every day to try to get legitimate inventions allowed.

I know that some stuff gets allowed that shouldn't, and I also know there are issues/problems with the patent system (one of which is whether "business methods" are patentable), but I am a firm believer in the patent system and its ability to promote further innovation, which is precisely why the founding fathers mandated it in the Constitution.

The cost to get patents, and especially the cost to enforce patents, has made the whole system one that is driven by corporate America, but these large corporations know the game, and should be doing patent searches and protecting themselves before they enter the market.

Wait a second, how do you reconcile these two statements?

I don't see an inconsistency. Corporations also have the money to do R&D, to design around patents, and further innovation, which is why Motorola, for instance, has 17,000 patents.

Having said that, I do believe that if the costs were lower, individual inventors and small companies would be more innovative than they are now.

Thanks.

Good ol' patent trolls

This American Life: When Patents Attack!

I can't decide if I've suddenly turned gay or just gotten suddenly fashion conscious. I totally passed on sleeping with a girl this weekend because I hated her dress.

Man-o-pause?