Don't join a class action suit. Instead, individually sue in small claims court.

This may seem like a small thing, but it's really a big thing because this women won her small claims suit against Honda.  Instead of 100,000 people suing a big company after it lies to them in a class action lawsuit, and, maybe, getting a few hundred bucks each, with the lawyers getting millions, they each sue in small claims court, getting, in this case, almost $10,000.  

Instead of a $100MM settlement, it becomes a $1 Billion dollar nightmare (not counting the administrative costs, likely another billion) for the companies involved.

Maybe, just maybe, this will help keep our largest corporations just a little more in line and thinking about their customer first.

This could change the face of class actions in America.  Instead of hiring a lawyer, you go to a coordinating website to learn how to get your fair share.

This is the kind of thing that the internet is best at, leveling the playing field for the average person and, in this case, democratizing the law itself making it more accessible, with a better payoff, for all of us.

Full story here: http://usat.ly/ziYpQk

A slippery slope

A slippery slope:  It would seem the word "Freedom" doesn't really correlate with "America" like it used to.


"Reporters Without Borders released its 2011-2012 global Press Freedom Index. The indicators for press freedom in the U.S. are dramatic, with a downward movement from 27th to 47th in the global ranking, from the previous year. Much of this is correlated directly to the arrest and incarceration of American journalists covering the 'Occupy' protest movements in New York and across the country. 'This is especially troubling as we head into an election year which is sure to spark new conflicts between police and press covering rallies, protests and political events.' Only Chile, who dropped from 33 to 80, joined the U.S. in falling over 100% of their previous ranking. Similarly, Chile was downgraded for 'freedom of information violations committed by the security forces during student protests.'"


http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2011-2012,1043.html

Apple, Evil Badass

I've got to hand it to Apple. 

 They've taken this we're gonna be the most evil badass you've seen since Gates version of Microsoft in the 90's really seriously.


Love the timeline:


January 2005 – Pixar senior executives (which include Steve Jobs) draft written terms for a no-poach agreement and send them to Lucasfilm
May 2005 – Apple and Adobe make agreements
2006 – Apple and Google make agreements shortly after Eric Schmidt joined Apple’s board of directors
April 2007 – Apple and Pixar make agreements
June and September 2007 – Google enters into agreements with Intuit and Intel that are identical to the agreements between Apple and Google, Apple and Adobe, and Apple and Pixar


I'm trying to figure out why a company with $100 Billion in cash would want to cheat the employees that made that cash pile possible.  And it wasn't some low level HR person doing this.  It was Steve Jobs.  He started it, personally.


Major alien puke on the 'do no evil' company as well.  Google, we hardly knew (the non-evil) you.


I am getting very (very) tired of the Steve Jobs worship in the tech industry.  If this is the guy we want to emulate as the best of the best, long term, we are lost.


http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/26/apple-google-consipracy/

Look ma... I'm a QR code!

A future of less?

Watching the final shuttle mission, I can't help but feel sad and a little worried. Will we have the courage to dream like this again as a species? Or, will we budget cut ourselves out of space forever?



The very last few seconds of the video has a very simple graph that shows worldwide annual military spending vs. space exploration spending. 2.1 Trillion vs. 38 Billion. I guess it's a matter of balance. I'm not sure we're very balanced, as a people, on the things that inspire and compel us to greatness anymore. I have hope, but I'm still a little worried about it, and still sad about where we are and where we appear to be heading.

Mastercard Parody

Whether you agree or not with what Wikileaks is doing, you have to admire their spunk (and irony) in this spoof 'commercial'.

How software companies die

Although I'm not a big fan of Orson Scott Card as a person, I do like his stories and, in this case, his observations on programming -- what works and what doesn't.

This one nails it.

An essay by Orson Scott Card

The environment that nutures creative programmers kills management and marketing types - and vice versa. Programming is the Great Game. It consumes you, body and soul. When you're caught up in it, nothing else matters. When you emerge into daylight, you might well discover that you're a hundred pounds overweight, your underwear is older than the average first grader, and judging from the number of pizza boxes lying around, it must be spring already. But you don't care, because your program runs, and the code is fast and clever and tight. You won. You're aware that some people think you're a nerd. So what? They're not players. They've never jousted with Windows or gone hand to hand with DOS. To them C++ is a decent grade, almost a B - not a language. They barely exist. Like soldiers or artists, you don't care about the opinions of civilians. You're building something intricate and fine. They'll never understand it.

BEEKEEPING

Here's the secret that every successful software company is based on: You can domesticate programmers the way beekeepers tame bees. You can't exactly communicate with them, but you can get them to swarm in one place and when they're not looking, you can carry off the honey. You keep these bees from stinging by paying them money. More money than they know what to do with. But that's less than you might think. You see, all these programmers keep hearing their parents' voices in their heads saying "When are you going to join the real world?" All you have to pay them is enough money that they can answer (also in their heads) "Geez, Dad, I'm making more than you." On average, this is cheap. And you get them to stay in the hive by giving them other coders to swarm with. The only person whose praise matters is another programmer. Less-talented programmers will idolize them; evenly matched ones will challenge and goad one another; and if you want to get a good swarm, you make sure that you have at least one certified genius coder that they can all look up to, even if he glances at other people's code only long enough to sneer at it. He's a Player, thinks the junior programmer. He looked at my code. That is enough. If a software company provides such a hive, the coders will give up sleep, love, health, and clean laundry, while the company keeps the bulk of the money.

OUT OF CONTROL

Here's the problem that ends up killing company after company. All successful software companies had, as their dominant personality, a leader who nurtured programmers. But no company can keep such a leader forever. Either he cashes out, or he brings in management types who end up driving him out, or he changes and becomes a management type himself. One way or another, marketers get control. But...control of what? Instead of finding assembly lines of productive workers, they quickly discover that their product is produced by utterly unpredictable, uncooperative, disobedient, and worst of all, unattractive people who resist all attempts at management. Put them on a time clock, dress them in suits, and they become sullen and start sabotaging the product. Worst of all, you can sense that they are making fun of you with every word they say.

SMOKED OUT

The shock is greater for the coder, though. He suddenly finds that alien creatures control his life. Meetings, Schedules, Reports. And now someone demands that he PLAN all his programming and then stick to the plan, never improving, never tweaking, and never, never touching some other team's code. The lousy young programmer who once worshiped him is now his tyrannical boss, a position he got because he played golf with some sphincter in a suit. The hive has been ruined. The best coders leave. And the marketers, comfortable now because they're surrounded by power neckties and they have things under control, are baffled that each new iteration of their software loses market share as the code bloats and the bugs proliferate. Got to get some better packaging. Yeah, that's it.