People who live in Glaskowsky's shouldn't throw stones

Peter Principle

Just for the record, I'm not "pimping for page views". Only people who have paid advertising (as you do) pimp for page views by creating artificial controversy. We don't. I just wanted people to see my actual words. And my actual hair.

Peter N. Glaskowsky
Editor in Chief, Microprocessor Report

[Cough.... We didn't have to publish the URL from Peter G. Ed.]

A doctor writes... once

Actually, the only lies, confabulation, and transmogrification are from you guys.

I'm board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and I've got a diagnosis for you. It's not flattering. You should be very careful about the terms you use, because sometimes they reflect most on you.

Ronald Bell
Ronald J. Bell, MD

And again

Very dishonest.

It's shocking how out of control you guys are now. Here's a simple lesson I'd have thought you'd have learned in journalism school:

Quote marks are the little --> " <--- around a word or a phrase, you know.

Quote marks are for enclosing a word or a phrase that's used EXACTLY AS STATED by the quoted party.

You DON'T get to quote your personal summary/paraphrasing of a man's words. And yet you did. And when he wrote you and said you're misrepresenting him, what did you do? You did it again.

By the way, you should also look up the word 'confabulation.' Words are supposed to be your business, aren't they? Why are you so poor at this?

And by the way, the weasly [sic] way you end your article "Please don't shoot the herald"? In olden times, the herald was executed immediately if he misrepresented his message. The "please don't shoot the herald" thing only applies if you faithfully and accurately convey another person's message. What YOU did on the other hand was to convey your OWN message and blame somebody else.

Very weak
With slight regard,
Ronald J. Bell, MD

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An Indian reader writes

The INQ... is one of the finest informative sties that I've ever come across.

The info and its presentation is top class...

Kudos !

It'ss sad to learn that ur website is not widely known in the relevant circles.

As an example, cnet.com is a household name in the industry..

AniruddhaDas Binani ; Mr

We love Eva Glass... or do we?

Xeon 64 versus Opteron 64? bring 'em on, guys

Eva goes for a dip in the ocean

Its nice to have some dang good people writing this stuff. You're putting a grin on my face, keep up the good work. 8)

Darren S

Who is this woman?

After reading one of the latest of Inquirer's short but cryptic pieces entitled Xeon 64 versus Opteron 64? bring 'em on, guys, I felt the need to finally speak up.

What is the deal with The Inquirer's writing style? The amount of uneducable references leaves me feeling like I'm on the outside looking in to some secret quasi elitist club for nerds. And lest you think I am referring to the technology industry references, let me assure you by saying that about the only phrases I did understand from this article had numbers in them. No, I'm referring to the fluffy literary filler surrounding the actual information. References to people, places, and events that are as foreign to me as the words "Sorry, your bank account has been overdrawn" are to Bill Gates.

Who is Sheena, apart from the queen of the jungle? What happened to the place Sheena used to work at that caused them to resort to drinking from the tap? Why isn't Eva welcome there anymore? Did she have a part in this poor business's financial/water problems? Who is the crazy Bosnian guy from The Inquirer and why is he so crazy? Maybe a link to this "heat emitting" article would shed light on those questions. And lastly, apart from a possible previous job working in a coffee house, how has Sheena become privy to information from inside Intel? Maybe she got a job as the personal secretary to some big, male chauvinist, Intel executive and now serves him his coffee and a listening ear while he spills the proverbial java beans.

Of course it could just be my lack of understanding British humor (or is that humour). I guess I better go back and watch a few more reruns of "Are You Being Served".

Neil Axe, Web Technologist
High Industries, Inc.

Dear Mr Magee,

in your article "Copyright extensions mandate eternal soggy potato chips", Mr Charlie Demerjian writes "Is it worth it for the big boys to spend $100K a year to keep Mickey Mouse out of hentai sites?".

Two comments on this:

1) Mickey Mouse is already on Hentai sites. (Google on "Disney hentai" and you get 27,800 hits.) Porn sites are not bastions of copyrighteousness.

2) Mickey is protected by trademarks more than copyright, and trademarks do not expire if they're being used.

For instance, some of the early Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs fell into the public domain (you can find them on Project Gutenberg, legally). However, the ERB foundation has the copyright on the later ones, and controls the trademark "Tarzan", and you can't do a Tarzan book, movie, or other product without their permission.

If the early Mickey Mouse cartoons fell out of copyright, they could legally be reproduced freely; however it would be very risky to make any derivative works (hentai, lunchboxes, T-shirts) using the name, character or image, as they would likely violate trademarks.

Sincerely
Alan Sargent

Just a 'mo, SCO

Hang on there - if SCO is claiming rights to SMP code then how the hell can they charge for a single CPU? FUD? FUP more likely!

Tom Potts

And another thing

After that date, if you don't take advantage of this startlingly generous offer, you'll have to pay $1,399. SCO said that it believed Linux customers would want to "properly license SCO's IP" if they're running Linux 2.4 kernel and later.

And if you're foolish enough to pony up, let's hope that Alan Cox sues for copyright violation and demands that you remove all his code from your copy of the kernel, including the SMP support that SCO owns and has kindly licenced to you ... :-)

Cheers,
Wol

And SCO, forget the dough

Hmmm, I'll just d/l the kernel source file from ftp.sco.com, it has a cheaper license from SCO (GPL)

Name supplied

So, SCO...

Dear Inquirer,

So SCO wants $699, or more if you are bit slow complying with their request?

Let's say you bought a nice coat at a bargain price. After wearing it for a couple of years, you get a nasty letter from the legal department of Super Coats Inc, saying that the buttons on your coat look like the buttons they sometimes use on their coats, so the design of the coat must have been stolen. No proof is offered although they claim they have it. It is even possible that they stole the button design sometime in the past. They let you know in no uncertain terms, that they expect you to pay the full price of your coat (as new, and with evaluation done by them) to Super Coats Inc. If you don't pay, they want more in the future. WTF??!

The "boys" at SCO are either criminally insane or totally desperate. There have been so many nasty surprises lately with large, previously solid-looking companies on the financial brink or beyond that, that you can't help wondering whether this is the act of the poker player betting the farm after everything else is gone. "I can still win it all back!" Yes, sure, SCO...

Regards,

Sandor

And now to the Xbox

Dear theinquirer representative,

My name is Theodor Pramer and I live in Sweden. In our house we have a sony ps 2, xbox and a "regular" region free dvd player. Since we bought our xbox there has been about 15-20 dvd's that we have not been able to play. The xbox has not reckoned them as dvd discs. At first I thought it was something wrong with the discs and returned them. Later on when it happened to brand new discs we thought something was wrong, we tried them on the other players. They played without a problem, just fine! This happens both to new and old dvds. Apparently some dvds doesn't work with the xbox.

When I figured this out I contacted microsoft. I have included the answers I received. One is from an online chat with a xbox representative and the other one is from their support.

The sum up is that they are aware of the problem but don't think there is anything wrong, since the xbox above all is a gaming machine. They say they are working on a fix but when I asked how they plan to fix it and a few other questions they said it will not be through a software upgrade. Also I recall microsoft earlier has said there is no need for xbox upgrades, can't recall from where. Meaning it must be a hardware upgrade, and how likely is that? The risk for microsoft to replace the dvd player in the xbox is not even worth considering, I doubt you will find a lower prob. for anything.

Thus I believe they are not working on a fix for the problem but are just saying so. Since they do not believe it is a problem.

I have sent an email like this to theregister as well, care to beat them to it? [No, Ed.]

Best regards,
Theodor Pramer