Category Archives: Give me a break!

Stuff that makes me just throw up my hands in frustration.

Don’t Smile(y)

… or Microsoft will sue you 🙂

United States Patent Application: 20050156873

Methods and devices for creating and transferring custom emoticons allow a user to adopt an arbitrary image as an emoticon, which can then be represented by a character sequence in real-time communication. In one implementation, custom emoticons can be included in a message and transmitted to a receiver in the message. In another implementation, character sequences representing the custom emoticons can be transmitted in the message instead of the custom emoticons in order to preserve performance of text messaging. At the receiving end, the character sequences are replaced by their corresponding custom emoticons, which can be retrieved locally if they have been previously received, or can be retrieved from the sender in a separate communication from the text message if they have not been previously received.

Ok, there have been some pretty silly patent applications in the past … Amazon’s One-click, etc … but this borders on the ridiculous.

via: Grocklaw

[tags]Microsoft, patent, smiley[/tags]

I’m Hurt

Some idiot tried to add a link to his gambling website on the midrange resources website.

Obviously I rejected it … but after I rejected it, I got this reply…

The link to your web site has also been deleted
Hate you
Jim
—– Original Message —–
From: <_____@midrange.com>
To: <_____@moneyballinsider.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 4:10 AM
Subject: Your link has been rejected.

> Your link:
>
> http://www.moneyballinsider.com
>
> that was submitted on 13-Jul-2005 has been rejected
> for one of the following reasons:
>
> 1. Unsuitable content.
> 2. Duplicate URL.
>
> If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
>
> David Gibbs
> _____@midrange.com
>

I sure hope this guy realizes how devastating this message was on my ego and psyche?

NOT!

[tags]Idiots[/tags]

Stupidest Lawsuit

… a transit company is suing a group of ten cleaning women in France, because they are car pooling instead of continuing to use their service … The transit company lawyers call that “unfair and parasitical competition.” They are asking for damages, including fines and — believe it or not — confiscation of the women’s cars.

GROKLAW

Uh huh … yeah. Right.

This falls under the: We know we can’t provide good service, so we’ll just sue the competition into oblivion … and if we can’t sue the competition, we’ll sue the end user / consumer.

Weather Report

[A] bill, introduced last week by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., would prohibit federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel, which offer their own forecasts through paid services and free ad-supported Web sites.

Palm Beach Post — Weather info could go dark

I wonder if this bill would make it illegal for us to look out the window to see if we need an overcoat or sunglasses?

I guess it was just a matter of time before the weather got political.

It’s all HER fault!

The reality is the web site is full of misinformation, including the people who are actually running it, and when you get to the point when you start to strip away the people that are in front of Groklaw I think you’ll find that Pamela Jones is not who she says she is, and the key to finding out who is behind Groklaw is to understand who is Pamela Jones

SCO blames Groklaw for IP licensing disappointment – Computer Business Review

This was from conference call when it announced a net loss of $3m on revenue down 22% from $11.4m to $8.9m.

Basically McBride is saying: It’s all HER fault!

And, in a chat with my friend Jim said …

mcbride is a raving mad lunatic who should be <censored>. pj is not a sinister person and groklaw is not some evil plot … i really wish there was some way i could take action. sco is so close you would think there is something i could do about them. mcbride’s “digging to the bottom of this (pj identity)” is unethical, immoral, … makes me mad. it turns the issue away from “is the info on groklaw accurate” to “is pj satan”

To be honest … I’m getting tired of this who SCO vs. Linux thing … I really wish the judge’s involved would just say “Ok, put your cards on the table” and get everything out so we can see the truth.

Control your children!

Oh man … talk about a scene …

I was at Galyans after work today to see about getting some stuff for our upcoming vacation.

Also at the store was a family … a mother and 3 children. Two of the children were fine… but a third (the youngest, I think, probably around 10) was absolutely pitching a huge fit. Screaming and yelling, running around, and generally carrying on. The mother was absolutely oblivious to it. She was calmly browsing through the racks of gear & clothes, without paying the slightest bit of attention (or, it seems, even noticing) her kid that was making a nuisance of herself.

As it happens Galyans doesn’t carry Teva’s or swimsuits when it’s off season… so I left. Had I not left when I did, I was sorely tempted to go up to that woman and yell at her to CONTROL YOUR DAMN CHILD.

I swear, that kid needed a good slap. The mother too for that mater.

Partnership?

I just got an email from a UK terminal emulation company … they were complementing me on my website and talking about how they were really interested in ‘partnering’ with me.

Correct me if I’m wrong … but I really don’t see how a terminal emulation company could partner with me in any way. It’s not like we’re in the same line of business.

Unfortunately, I was kind of short with the guy … I really should have at least found out what kind of partnership he was interested in. I tend to view such email contacts with quite a bit of skepticism. Heck, I almost reported the email as spam.

Tis The Season To Be Obnoxious

I just got back from a quick run to the grocery store to pick up some last minute items … of course I cam back with 8 full grocery bags.

While I was at our local mega-mart (hat tip: Alton Brown) , I observed a LOT of other people doing the same thing as me. The big difference between us, however, was our demeanor.

I tried to remain calm … and largely succeeded (slight failure when I couldn’t figure out where the frozen pie crusts were, but that was very brief) … but I saw a lot of people who were hell bent on barreling through the store and heaven help anyone who got in their way.

Seemed like they had prepared for todays shopping trip by driving a taxi in downtown Chicago … cutting people off, weaving & swerving, etc.

Heck … one guy even had his cart ripped off … inside the store.

And then there was the parking lot … here I am, pushing a full cart, and people are HONKING at me to move faster. I almost got run down twice by people who were trying to get a better parking spot.

Come one people … it’s the holidays … let’s all be nice for a little while. You can return to your normal nastiness after the first of the year.