IBM didn't like my pink hair

In your article you state that,

"No one knows why the Brits call elevators lifts, seeing as they were invented in America"

Lifts have been in use for millennia, the simplest being a bucket and a windlass (think coal mine).

Elija Otis invented a brake for a lift making it acceptably safe for use by the general public. I think this is what you are referring to.

The question you should be asking is, why Americans felt the need to replace a word, the rest of the English speaking world were quite happy with?

yours pedantically

Graham Vincent

Subject: Hitachi designs superfast lift

Perhaps we brits called them lifts, because at the time they were invented, elevators were devices used on farms and in warehouses. On farms, elevators were basically conveyer belts, on a wheeled frame, that could be raised or lowered and were used to take straw from ground level and deposit it on the top of a straw stack. Just a theory, anyway!

Simon

Subject: Silicon Graphics enters Chapter 11 protection

Hi Mike & team,

This is sad, very sad. I've never owned a SGI box, but I've seen one in production, and it was way cool.

Additionally, this may impact the F/OSS community in a way nearly no one is foreseeing right now. SGI is known to have provided Linux with one of the best filesystems available today, XFS. But the place where SGI's possible demise could hurt F/OSS is OpenGL.

The community currently has a free software implementation of OpenGL called Mesa (mesa3d.org) (which is not OpenGL compliant since that implies paying validation fees, that the Mesa project cannot afford, so the thing is called "GL" and not "OpenGL"). Mesa was started and mostly done by Brian Paul (tungstengraphics.com), carefully avoiding legal pitfalls but with SGI's tacit approval. If SGI is dismembered, and if Microsoft picks SGI's OpenGL IP portfolio, Mesa may be screwed by patents transferred to M$. Worse, both NVIDIA and ATI could be made to stop implementing OpenGL stacks for free in their drivers, hence basically stopping their 3D support on Linux.

Microsoft has been out to keep OpenGL for a long while, and this may give them the perfect chance to do it, one year (or two ? hehe) before Vista is out.

But then, if it comes to that, I may stop to try to make a living with computers and raise sheep instead.

Best,
François

Subject: Schwartz's haircut feels the heat

Hi Martin,

I am not sure if this qualifies, but surely a ponytail is a bit more common than the one I had.

When I used to work at IBM, I used to have blue hair. The management tolerated it until I made the other half of my head pink. That was a bit too much for the conservative Irish management (I was then working in Ireland), and I got a call to this meeting. I had no idea they wanted to discuss about my hair.

It was a very absurd moment. I was there because of the management had a problem with my hair. They said that it was okay as long as it was blue, but pink was out of question.

As a Scandinavian, I found the meeting absurd. I couldn't stop at laughing and pointing out that my hair is very much my private domain, and I may not agree with the fact that the corporation is intefering with that.

So, there I had a little (longer) chat with the HR people, and the next day I came to work bald.

Needless to say, I didn't stay at IBM for that long after the incident. Here's the root cause:

http://www.huima.us/repository/hairdo.jpg.

At the moment I'm in the Netherlands, and, for sure, that kind of hair would not cause a fuss.

Kind regards,
Raine Laurila

SUBJECT: Intel doth protest too much, we thinks

Cher,

I nominate you as the best scribbler at the Inq. That was a fantastic piece of writing.

Emerth

Subject: Right proper

Hi

This is the first time I have felt the need to . . . express myself on the web - though I have been using it since 1985. Your site is my home page and I find it very informative; and even better - very interesting. That said there I have one ‘bug-bear' - the poor grammar used in numerous articles - quoted is a typical example from today's selection:

"Certainly one object of desire. The Asus W5F laptop is a 12-inch subnotebook with a Core Duo CPU. Although not stylish as Apple's model - I still have to figure out why there are so much stickers on it. There are quite a few accessories including a bonus bluetooth mouse, digital audio output and even an integrated camera. The laptop is compared with the Compaq V2410 and was found to be faster than the latter. The only serious thing was the fact that there was only one SODIMM slot free."

On this occasion it's them pesky ‘stickers' - all you have to do is load it into MS Word and the green underline will point the author in the right direction.

Don't get me wrong the articles are generally well written, humorous and informative, but too often the grammar is, to say the least - poor.

Now I'm an old guy - 56 and a lecturer (not English - but Graphics), but I can't be the only one that feels the use of a spell/grammar-checker would prevent the distraction of bad grammar obscuring excellent journalism and good writing.

Still the articles are good, the wit a breath of fresh. . . something or other, and the up-to-date information second to none - keep up the good work, and keep ‘yanking those corporate chains'.

Regards

Walter

Subject: Intel moves to dismiss elements of AMD case

The motion that Intel filed may be a commentary on the quality of their defense. An old joke at the courthouse is if you have the facts in your favor argue the facts, if you have the law in your favor argue the law, and if neither of the above apply pound the table and baffle them with BS. The last looks like Intel's line. The key factors in the above cases was that one party to the suit was a foreign entity complaining about actions that took place entirely outside the United States. AMD and Intel are both US corporations. The Marine Offshore Construction antitrust litigation case in 1980 ruled that if part of the conduct(management decisions) occurrs in the United States or if all parties are US residents and any part of the cause arises from conduct in the US, jusridiction attaches. Having been one of Tenneco Inc.s' inhouse(as opposed to outhouse) lawyers at the time the issue is not new or novel to me.

Ed Hinders

Subject: asbestos, nanoparticles

But asbestos *isn't* a nanoparticle. The fibers can be over an inch long - which is a long way from being submicron, ie nano.

The reason breathing asbestos is bad for you, is precisely that the fibers are big enough to stick their little elbows in firmly, and resist your body's mechanisms for evicting them. So they accumulate.

I fail to see how a nanoparticle is gonna do that. Get into very small places, yeah, but then, so do liquids and gases.

Don

Subject: Information dearth costs UK companies "billions

Hi Paul,

I think we need a survey to assess the costs of the excessive numbers of surveys being done.

Sanford Olson
Madison, Wisconsin, USA

SUBJECT: Rabbit holds gun to Nevada Highway Patrol's head

Much fun....very enjoyable story. The subject was not all that appealing, but your Shakespeare twist was a joy to read. Did you have to explain it to McGeek? :)

avid INQ blot

Subject: Destroy Explorer

Hi,

I just read Reif's letter about how disgusting the Destroy Explorer campaign is. Excuse me but when is competition monopolistic? MS is the monopoly and the little guy Mozilla is bringing the fight to the giant. And the better product/idea/technology does not always win in the marketplace. Remember Betamax vs. VHS (predates me and I even know the history), RDRAM vs. DDR (maybe subjective, but XDR and now XDR2 should be avaialble as a RAM for a PC and for VPU/GPUs but Rambus has been black listed so it seems). Zen vs. iPod (also might be subjective), Linux vs. DOS/Windows.

It usually boils down to money and marketing, and sometimes its just the public's apathy, lack of knowledge, or just dont care (like smokers, we know better than to kill ourselves but people still smoke). So go Mozilla, fight the good fight, it's time for marketing, word of mouth is no longer enough, especially with what appears to be a polished (might just be visually, and not under the hood) IE7 on the horizon.

Oh and I am a proud Mozilla Suite user (soon to be SeaMonkey), not even a Firefox user, but I recommend Firefox for people who use IE.

Good Luck Mozilla Firefox!
Daniel Steinberg,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Subject: MSS

Cher (and Mike) MSS most likely refers to "Market Segment Share" not "Market Share."

Intel suits make a real big deal over the distinction here, as "Market Share" targets might be construed as monopolistic behavior or ambitions. "Market Segment Share" is their semantic shroud to remind us that Intel is not interested in dominating a market. Intel is interested in dominating market segments.

See the difference? Apparently the corporate law types do. So Intel practically tatoos the rule about "Market Segment Share" not "Market Share" onto each new acquiree. No mention of "Market Share"; or &"dominance" or "monopoly" in any written, verbal, or choreographic communication.

It took me about a year to rub the damned thing off.

matt

Subject: IE Update

Wow! Tabbed browsing, enhanced "security", no drop-down menus? Now THAT is innovation. Thank Bill Gates for such innovative leadership, the design team for such innovative execution, and thank the Lord we have Microsoft to provide the vehicle for such innovation.

There has to be some kind of award that can be given, I would hope, to recogzize such 21st century innovation...

Jim

Subject: RIAA, MPAA

Dear Inq,

Every day I am reading stupid things that RIAA and MPAA are doing: suing dead people, people without computers etc.The thing is, that they backup their lawsuites with evidence that is hard to collect when we know that some ISPs and torrent trackers are not releasing IP addresses of file downloaders and somehow they always have enough of it.

We can also add a fact that Bittorrent transfers are consuming the largest part of complete Internet traffic (I think 40%), so it seems to me that following question should be asked: Are they sueing people randomly?Think about it: they don't have evidence (which can be seen from their hilarious lawsuites), and there is a pretty big chance (especially with dynamic IP addresses provided to ADSL users) that if you sue one IP address, which was used by some familiy, your child or somebody else in your house, downloaded something.

Kids, if they download, download a lot of things, and in many cases cannot remember if they downloaded something or not, and it is hard to prove that you don't have any illegal content on PC (all stuff could be erased),no one is going to scan you disk once the lawsuit is given to you. Please, excuse any grammar or spelling errors, as I am not a native English speaker.

Cheers,
Tomislav

Subject: First Inqpressions Ulead Videostudio 10 Plus

After my shock when I read the new EULA of intervideo WinDVD 7, in which it states that you allow it to gather "any personal information" on you computer -and incidentally also says that it will check if your windows install is a legal version (what for exactly?)- and things like that, I wonder if this ULEAD videostudio also has such extreme things in its EULA, if as you say ULEAD was bought by intervideo.

So the question is, do you inqs read the EULA's of software you try? and if so and there was something extreme in it would you be so kind to mention it in your articles.

I for one would not click yes to EULA's such as the one from intervideo's WinDVD so it would be quite a hassle to order a software package then having to find it has such an EULA at the last moment and then having to attempt to return it although the wrapper has been opened.

It is unfortunate that you cannot even trust legal software anymore and you have to be as careful with it as with illegal stuff one would download from shady sites on the internet, but it is a reality journalist have to deal with too.

(Mainly because I should be revising, but I'm exceptionally lazy, so killing time.)

Argh, it's infuriating. I read Charlie Demerjian's "Graphics market turns on a dime" article and at the bottom it says "Of course, all this is dependent on one side or the other not pulling a 5800, that would override any advantage mere market strategy can bring."

So I wander off to the search page http://www.theinq.com/?page=2 and look for '5800'. It doesn't mention Charlie's latest article, and I'd be very surprised if the last time you mentioned a 5800 was in October last year.

Another one - recently there was an article about tweaking Windows Server 2003 so that it looks and feels a bit more like XP. I've installed 2003 and can't find the sodding page anymore. You'd think that looking for 'Windows Server 2003' might yield something useful, but no, the last time you mentioned that was in January, and apparently you've only uttered the words 4 times in the last ~18 months.

Anyways, that's my rant over. Ta for all the hard work, just please sort out the poxy search bit. I just don't believe it actually works.

Actually, rant not quite over. Try searching for 'XP', and it comes back with just 1 result since August 2004.

Then search in Google within the site... And you get 722 results. Okay, it's not comparing apples with apples, but then I don't want apples, I want good results.

Okay, I'm done

Thanks,
Duncan

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