Novell's WordPerfect Antitrust Lawsuit Against Microsoft Over Windows 95 Dismissed (Yes, This Is A 2012 Post)

from the justice-is-slow dept

Last year we noted just how odd it was that a Novell antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft over Windows 95 was still going on, but it really was. However, it may finally be over. After the jury deadlocked in December, the court has dismissed the lawsuit, claiming that Novell failed to show sufficient evidence of antitrust violations by Microsoft. But have no fear, fans of 20 years ago: Novell has promised to appeal. All I can say to that is, wait, Novell still exists?

Filed Under: antitrust, windows 95, wordperfect
Companies: microsoft, novell

Matthew Inman Takes Photos Of $211,223 In Cash To Send To FunnyJunk & Charles Carreon

from the enjoy dept

Charles Carreon dropped his highly questionable case against Matthew Inman, IndieGoGo, the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Fund last week. It was pretty clear he was going to lose (and in a big, bad way). However, he claimed “victory” because, to avoid further complications, Inman made sure that all the money went directly from IndieGoGo and/or Paypal to the charities, so there was never any question of what he might do with the money. Of course, as part of his original pitch, he had promised to photograph all of the money raised as cash and send it to Funnyjunk. Inman got around the rules by taking out the same amount of money from the bank, and photographing it in a variety of different poses, some of which I’m assuming Inman won’t mind if we reproduce here.

First up, the money in a duffel bag and laid out on a table, including a shot of Inman in front of it.

Then there’s the fun stuff, including arranging the money to show a few special messages, mainly directed at Charles Carreon, even if the original focus was on FunnyJunk.
And all of it concludes with a package which is apparently being sent to Charles Carreon: I will admit to being a bit confused about one key thing. Inman had originally promised that the photo and the drawing were to be sent to FunnyJunk. Of course, in all of this mess, it didn’t seem like FunnyJunk officially said anything, and I don’t recall FunnyJunk’s owner ever being identified. Instead, everything shifted over to being about Carreon, due to Carreon’s behavior. Remember, even though the threats were technically “from” FunnyJunk, the eventual lawsuit was from Carreon alone. We had noted that Carreon appeared to be wrong in claiming that the drawing of the mother and the bear was about his mother, when the text of the campaign seemed clearly to be indicating the mother was “FunnyJunk’s” mother. Of course, if no one knows who FunnyJunk actually is, perhaps it’s reasonable to ship this stuff to FunnyJunk’s “lawyer,” which would be Charles Carreon.

Either way, we await Carreon’s response.

Filed Under: charles carreon, matthew inman, money, photos, the oatmeal

DailyDirt: Meaty Metrics

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Analyzing baseball statistics turned into a huge field called sabermetrics. A long time ago, geeks were weird people who performed strange stunts like biting the heads off chickens. But geeks nowadays are gathering stats on just about everything, so here are just a few meaty figures to chew on.

• The Big Mac serves as an interesting economic tool — providing a global standard for comparing national currencies and economic activity. Analyzing the Big Mac consumption per country can show interesting trends in wages and how economies reacted to the Great Recession — although not every country sells Big Macs. [url]
• The price of a Big Mac jumped 26% in Argentina because the government of Argentina was playing around with its national inflation numbers — and pressuring McD’s to keep its prices low. If Big Macs didn’t lose their freshness, there might have been an arbitrage opportunity…. [url]
• The number two burger chain in the US (for 2011) goes to Wendy’s — as Wendy’s US sales topped $8.5 billion and Burger King trailed at $8.4 billion. McDonald’s crushed both of them with $34 billion in sales last year. [url]
• The US consumed almost 38 million tons of meat in 2007 (at 125.4 kg per person), but Luxembourg is the country with the highest meat consumption per capita (136.5 kg per person). Obviously, population figures into Luxembourg’s bragging rights — and likewise China’s population makes its consumption of 54.1kg of meat per person an impressive total of around 77 million tons. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what’s floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: big mac, burger chains, consumption, economics, food, meat, sabermetrics, statistics
Companies: burger king, mcdonald's, wendy's

DailyDirt: I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The Cola Wars have been over for a long time. As usual in war, there are no real winners — just a lot of wasted spending. Now that we’re giving peace a chance, here are just a few lingering concerns over these dark-colored soft drinks.

• Coca-Cola and Pepsi are going to modify their recipes a little bit to reduce the amount of caramel coloring and 4-methylimidazole in their colas. Otherwise, a California law would require a cancer warning label since the 4-methylimidazole in the coloring is a known carcinogen. [url]
• There was a fairly complex conspiracy theory behind the introduction of New Coke which suggested that Coca-Cola knew how badly the new formulation would taste to consumers, but that the company made it in order to replace sugar with HFCS. Bonus points for definitively debunking this conspiracy theory… [url]
• If you’ve ever seen a demonstration of a can of cola dissolving teeth, you might be a bit freaked out by the phosphoric acid listed in the ingredients of many sodas. But the dose makes the poison, and the concentration of phosphoric acid in soft drinks shouldn’t worry anyone. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what’s floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: cancer, caramel, coke, cola wars, formulation, phosphoric acid, poison, soda, teeth
Companies: coca cola, pepsi

DailyDirt: Burger Innovations From Around The World

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The USA has no monopoly on hamburger innovations. Sure, Americans probably eat more burgers than any other country, and we came up with the drive-thru and drive-in processes for burger orders. But the possibilities for burgers have no limits, and here are just a few global developments in the world of burger technology.

• In Germany, McDonald’s crowdsourced a few new menu suggestions which were released as actual products for sale over the month of May. The “Pretzelnator” was the first item — offering folks a ham & cheese sandwich on a pretzel-like bun. [url]
• In Japan, the phrase “have it your way” translates to “put as much bacon as humanly possible on my Whopper, please.” Japanese Burger Kings will put 15 slices of bacon on your burger for about 100 yen, and for about 7,000 yen, that’s 1,050 slices of bacon on your order. [url]
• Pizza Hut in Dubai has added cute little cheeseburgers to pizza crust. They’ve also added mini chicken fillets on pizza crusts and cream cheese, too. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what’s floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: bacon, burgers, food, pizza, pretzelnator, whopper
Companies: burger king, mcdonald's, pizza hut

DailyDirt: There's Nothing That Can't Be Deep Fried And Eaten

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We know it’s bad for our health, but somehow we just can’t get enough of artery-clogging fried foods because they taste so good. If you get tired of dry oven-roasted Thanksgiving turkeys, try deep frying them next time. Deep frying is not only a quicker way to cook a turkey, but it also produces a very moist and juicy bird with super crunchy skin. (However, deep frying whole turkeys is dangerous if not done properly — take it from William Shatner, who nearly burned down his house trying to deep fry a turkey.) Fried turkey isn’t particularly unusual, but there are some pretty crazy, deep fried food ideas out there. Here are a few examples.

• In Austria, McDonald’s recently offered a sandwich called the McRibster, which was essentially a McRib that had been breaded and fried. And as if that weren’t enough, it also came with bacon and cheese (and some healthier stuff like lettuce and onions). [url]
• Fried butter balls first debuted at the State Fair of Texas in 2009. However, the Iowa State Fair took it to the next level last year with a 2-ounce stick of butter, dipped in cinnamon honey batter, deep fried, and then covered in a sugar glaze. [url]
• Every year, the San Diego County Fair features some interesting deep fried foods. Some examples include: fried Krispy Kreme chicken sandwiches, fried Twinkies, fried avocados, fried brownies, fried Klondike bars, fried frog legs, deep fried Girl Scout cookies, and deep fried Kool-Aid. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what’s floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: butter, food, fried, girl scout cookies, kool aid, mcribster, state fairs, twinkies
Companies: krispy kreme, mcdonald's

DailyDirt: Build It And They Will Come…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Certain kinds of science fiction could almost be considered far-out predictions. Star Trek crew members used tablet computers decades ago, and now the tablet computing market looks like it could take over PCs. Certainly, there’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy for some sci-fi technology, and here are just a few examples.

• Practical fusion is always just 30 years away, but a dilithium-powered Star Trek Enterprise could take just 20 years to build. Okay, we’re joking about the dilithium chamber, but there’s an engineer who isn’t joking about building his own NCC-1701. [url]
• The Make-A-Wish Foundation helped to create a pretty cool Millennium Falcon for a 9-year-old kid. It’s obviously not a full-scale model, so no Kessel runs or hyperdrive. [url]
• Browncoats aren’t left out of the fun here: a 12-foot long Serenity ship exists in the Universal Archives. Real fans want to know if there’s a miniature dead Wash at the helm…. “I am a leaf on the wind – watch how I soar.” [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what’s floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: browncoats, enterprise, firefly, millenium falcon, ncc-1701, serenity, star trek, star wars

DailyDirt: Expensive Meals

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

A nice meal is a nice meal, regardless of the price. But if you want to show off your considerable fortunes, try serving up a few of these ingredients in your next culinary creation. (Maybe if you’re a newly-minted billionaire, recently married… and have a penchant for killing your own food?)

• If you like really expensive vegetables, forget white asparagus, hop shoots are where it’s at. But unless they’re specially cultivated, the shoots will turn green and become tough and rope-like. [url]
• European white truffles go for thousands of dollars per pound, found by trained dogs (not pigs who will sometimes eat the fungus). Time to start cultivating these in a lab — or at least a quick DNA test to confirm the species… [url]
• About 150 flowers are needed to produce one gram of saffron — and a lot of human labor. Fortunately, it doesn’t take a lot to impart its flavor into foods, but avoid the fake stuff and don’t buy ground saffron. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what’s floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: asparagus, expensive, food, fungus, hop shoots, meals, saffron, truffles

DailyDirt: Hot Dogs!

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The weather is warming up, and backyard barbecues are getting dusted off. What’s easier to grill than a good old hot dog? Absolutely nothing. Here are just a few links to get you in the mood for some delicious dogs.

• The Brits have outdone themselves with a new culinary creation: Pizza Hut UK has created a hot dog stuffed pizza crust. American ingenuity just isn’t what it used to be. [url]
• If you’re really into hot dogs with plentiful toppings, just check out some MLB ballparks. Warning: if you don’t like hot dogs, this is a slideshow of more than 20 hot dogs smothered in condiments that’ll probably make you sick. [url]
• The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is trying to get people to stop eating hot dogs… with scary billboards that suggest hot dogs are deadly. Some of the billboard ads look like parodies of anti-smoking campaigns, so it’s difficult to take them too seriously (though the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council isn’t laughing). [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what’s floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: ballparks, food, hot dogs, pizza, toppings
Companies: national hot dog & sausage council, physicians committee for responsible medicine, pizza hut

DailyDirt: Rockets, Man

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

International space races don’t quite inspire the same awe or fear as they did in the 1960s. There are a bunch of countries still trying to launch rockets into orbit for various reasons, but there are also quite a few commercial and amateur organizations working on space-worthy rockets. Here are just a few examples.

• North Korea tried to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of its national founder Kim Il-sung with a big rocket launch. The rocket was also a thinly-disguised test for a long-range missile, but it failed by blowing up a little over a minute after launching. [url]
• The world’s first student-made rocket to hit space hasn’t quite succeeded in reaching an altitude of 100 km, but there are a number of schools working on it. A pass or fail grade for this project seems like tough grading… [url]
• SpaceX is working on designing safer and cheaper manned spacecraft, anticipating an upcoming boom in commercial space ventures. For example, its launch abort system has integrated escape thrusters mounted to the side of the crew capsule, and these engines aren’t jettisoned or wasted if the mission goes as planned. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what’s floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: north korea, rockets, space, spacecraft, usc
Companies: spacex