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Tuesday, August 27, 2002 |
S
queeze Play: A curious math teacher saw through the fine print on
his Ohio Savings mortgage. Twenty years later, the bank still won't admit
it cheated customers. By David W. Martin, in Cleveland Scene.
A few centuries ago, some clever banker discovered that if he
combined elements of the pretend 360-day year with the 365- day year we
live by, he could increase his profits. It works this way: The lender
computes the daily interest charge based on a 360-day year, which is
slightly higher than it would be for a 365-day year. But when the lender
computes the monthly interest charge, he doesn't multiply by 30, as
required by the 360-day year, but by the actual number of days in the
month. Of course, by year's end, that number adds up to 365. By charging
the higher rate over more days, the lender stretches the interest like a
fitting sheet. (For you masochists, the factor is 365 divided by 360.) An 8
percent loan in theory becomes -- presto! -- an 8.11 percent loan in reality.
[ . . . ]
[B]y using the bank method only to amortize the loan, Ohio Savings was able
to quote prospective borrowers low monthly payments -- a critical sales
point. Then, once the note had been signed, Ohio Savings would begin
exacting the higher rate. As this devious scenario continues, it's unlikely
borrowers would ever know they paid the higher rate, because so few
homeowners hold their mortgages until term. Most folks either sell or
refinance, in which case Ohio Savings would quietly deduct the unpaid
interest from the proceeds.
[ . . . ]
Even by class-action standards, 17 years is an eternity to spend in
litigation. The earliest court documents bear the tactile strikes left by
typewriters.
[rre]
8:23:45 PM 
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Via
TV and the net, Iran's youth plot social revolution: Tim Judah
reports from Tehran, where rising hemlines and access to technology point
to the erosion of the mullahs' power. Guardian Unlimited Observer.
Iran's new revolution is not one that is spilling on to the
streets - or at least not yet. Although there are increasing numbers of
demonstrations by students and angry, unpaid workers, this is not where the
real force for change lies.
For the moment it is a social revolution. It is a revolution that is
transforming this country from the bottom up, whether the politicians like
it or not. Two-thirds of Iran's population is under 30 and it is clear they
have little in common with the ageing mullahs who are trying to control
their lives.
Behind closed doors, young Iranians are simply getting on with it,
especially in the cities. Across Tehran, underground rock bands are
thriving, just waiting for the day they can come out into the open. And
every month thousands more Iranians are going online.
Today there are 1.75 million Iranians with access to the internet, and in
five years that figure is expected to be five million. While the internet
is a window on the world, it is also Iran's leap into free speech. Recently
newspapers which the government has closed have continued to publish
online.
[Unknown News]
5:23:17 PM
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Taiwanese woman pleads no contest to piracy charge (Reuters)
A Taiwanese woman has pleaded no contest to charges she and her
associates imported nearly $75 million worth of counterfeit software,
including Microsoft Corp. operating systems, the Los Angeles County
District Attorney's Office said Monday.
Lisa Chen, 52, pleaded no contest to one count of failure to disclose the
origin of a recording or product. She was arrested last November along with
three other people after an 18-month, cross- agency investigation. Their
cases are pending in federal court.
1:22:39 PM
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RIAA: Feeling
Burn of Ripped CDs, by Brad King, Wired News.
RIAA Releases Mid-Year
Snapshot Of Music Industry (RIAA press release -- hey, Wired! Link to
these things!)
The RIAA says CD sales for the first six months of the year are down 7%.
The RIAA says this is due to downloads from illicit online file-trading
services. (Oddly, the RIAA does not attribute previous increases in CD
sales to online file trading.) It isn't immediately clear in the press
release, because it doesn't actually say, but later context makes me think
that these are year-to-year figures, i.e., comparing with the first six
months of 2001. The release does not say how sales for the first six months
of 2002 compare to sales for the first six months of 2000, say. It would be
worth knowing figures for eariler years
King helpfully compares the situation Cary Sherman, of the RIAA, claims
holds today with the claims of the industry in the late 1970's and 1980's,
when it said it was threatened by cassette tapes and the Sony Walkman.
Something else that would be valuable by way of comparison would be a look
at ordinary variation year to year. To even begin to judge Sherman's and
the RIAA's claims we need to know whether this is variation that calls for
explanation. How many years (even before the advent of Napster, Gnutella,
and other file-trading networks) does it happen that sales move by six to
seven percent? The release cites the change in million-selling titles (37
by mid-2001 versus 20 by mid-2000), but that depends on a number of
factors, including what titles are released in the period in question,
retailing practices, and variations in consumer demand more generally. (I
heard comment on CNBC this morning, for example, that we should expect
sales declines near-term for general retail stores, as consumers settled in
and spent a lot last fall in the wake of the September 11 attacks but won't
(presumably) be doing that again.)
We shouldn't even be considering explaining the 2001 to 2002 variation
until we know whether it is nonrandom. Moreover, any serious consideration
of the causes of these changes has to ask "compared to what?" questions.
Unless, of course, the RIAA is not interested in knowing the causes, but
only in advancing a political agenda.
12:22:32 PM
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Expert: Banks yield to
Microsoft flaw (Reuters)
The Swedish hacking expert, who is well known in computer
security circles, but asked not to be identified, demonstrated to Reuters
how it was possible within minutes to break through security on Web server
software from Microsoft.
The expert showed how to crack the security systems for Internet banking,
breaking into three of Sweden's big four banks in quick succession. He was
then able to show how to conceal his tracks, making detection difficult
afterward.
[ . . . ]
Microsoft in Sweden denied that SSL could be breached in the way shown to
Reuters.
[ . . . ]
If man can fly to the moon, sooner or later someone will be able to
circumvent the security systems, said Jesper Berggren, Swedbank's head
of press relations. [!!!]
[thanks, bna]
11:22:21 AM
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I'm tempted to post this whole thing.
Dot-com dead pool
brakes for Ford, by Paul Festa, CNET News.com. I'll try to grab just a
few grafs:
Phil Kaplan's F***edCompany.com, a Web site that has gained
fame and some fortune collecting rumors and reports of layoffs, closures
and other dot-com fiascos, found itself shut down for nearly two days after
Ford Motor complained to the site's hosting provider about alleged
trademark infringements.
[ . . . ]
The concessions come as F***edCompany is enjoying both growth and
profitability, according to its founder Kaplan. The site has risen to No.
786 in rankings of Web site popularity by Alexa, a subsidiary of
Amazon.com, from a rank in the thousands just a few months ago. . . . .
F***edCompany is no stranger to cease and desist letters or to appeasing
its critics. Early on in its career, Internet economy magazine Fast Company
prevailed on Kaplan to change his Web site's logo because of trademark
concerns.
At issue in the Ford complaint was Kaplan's headlines for items related to
Ford layoffs. For example, in a letter dated July 12, Ford lawyers said
Kaplan's headline Ford, where finding a job is job 1 was
confusingly similar to Ford's advertising slogan 'Ford, where quality is
job 1.'
Kaplan at first pulled down the passages Ford objected to but inserted
links to Ford's letter along with a crude reference to the automaker. In
response, according to Kaplan, Ford threatened to sue Hostcentric, Kaplan's
Internet service provider, which pulled Kaplan's site altogether.
Hostcentric could not immediately be reached for comment.
After a few more back and forth maneuvers, the dead pool is back in
business--but only after meeting Ford's demands.
The whole (problem) is that if you do a search on Ford and copyright
lawsuit, you'll find a million examples of Ford doing this, Kaplan
said. If you're a company that size you can do anything you want in the
world.
Well, duh the headline is similar to Ford's slogan. That's more or
less the point in parody, a form of fair use. What would be the
likelihood of confusion among readers? Imagine the conversation over
morning coffee:
''Oh, my! It seems that the Ford Corporation has changed its advertising
slogan?''
''What's that you say, Honey?''
''Yes, I see here on the Fucked Company Web site that they now say that
finding a job, rather than quality, is job one.''
''Oh. That's interesting. I am not at all surprised that a major
corporation would throw over a catchy slogan like ''Quality is Job 1'' in
favor of something derogatory at best. And I count Fucked Company as the
authoritative source for information about the Ford Corporation's strategic
plans and intentions.''
''Me, too, Dear.''
Yeah, that's probably why they complained to the host.
10:22:16 AM
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Free exchange of ideas:
- Coble
wrong about Hollywood hackers, by Edward Cone, (Greensboro) News & Record.
- Coble's
chief of staff, Ed McDonald, told me on the phone, "Now we are going
to rip your face off." Then he said he was kidding. But he wasn't, really.
Coble's piece aims at me, politely to be sure, but not at the facts or the
big paper. But it's weak, and tomorrow it will look even weaker.
- Digital
piracy bill is sound, by U.S. Representative Howard Coble.
- Coble
needs to rethink digital vigilante bill, by Edward Cone.
10:22:14 AM
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Ira
n parliament OKs divorce law, by Ali Akbar Dareini (AP).
In order to become law, the bill must be approved by the
hard-line Guardian Council, which reviews all laws passed by parliament and
oversees elections. No date has been set for its review.
"The bill is the beginning of the realization of part of a reform promise
to improve women's rights and change the male-dominated laws that have
harmed Iranian women throughout history," [Elaheh] Koolaee [a member of the
Majlis, or parliament] said.
9:22:06 AM
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King Kaufman, in Salon: So will they strike? Maybe, maybe not. But since baseball
players and owners aren't even addressing the fundamental problem, we'll be
asking the same question in a few years.
The owners say the problem they're trying to
address is competitive imbalance, the fact that small-market teams like the
Kansas City Royals and the Pittsburgh Pirates have no chance to win, and
please ignore small-market teams that do win, like the Oakland A's and
Minnesota Twins, and also if you don't mind let's call large-market teams
that lose, like the Philadelphia Phillies and the Detroit Tigers,
small-market teams, because that helps our argument, and by the way as long
as we're talking here, the money that's going to change hands will go not
from large- to small-market teams, but from high- to low-revenue teams,
which is a different matter, and if you're following all this and believing
it makes sense, I've got a beer I can sell you for $7.
Considering that none of the owners' proposals does a
single thing to address competitive imbalance, I think it's safe to say
that competitive balance is really not the major issue for them. Pretending
it is the major issue is their latest in a continuing series of lies to the
players -- and fans -- dating back to, I'm not kidding, just after the
Civil War, when professional baseball was born. The major issue for them
is, of course, maximizing profits, and except to the extent that they lie
about it, I can't think of anything wrong with that. If I were the owner of
a business, that would be my major issue, dewy sentiments about baseball as
a national treasure rather than a business aside.
But fans don't really care about owners' profits, so the
owners talk about what the fans are interested in, which is competitive
balance, the idea that the local nine ought to have a fighting chance to
win a championship from time to time, even if the local nine is not the New
York Yankees or the Atlanta Braves.
The players, on the other hand, argue that a salary cap is
simply unfair. Baseball generates profits. There is no artificial limit on
how much money an owner can put in his pocket, so there shouldn't be one on
how much money a player can put in his, especially when you consider that
it's the players who generate the revenue in the first place. After all,
you pay your money to watch Pedro Martinez pitch, not to watch John Henry
pay him.
9:22:04 AM
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Free/Libre and Open Source
Software: Survey and Study Final Report
This project remedies the lack of information on
Free/Libre/Open Source Software (1) starting at the very beginning: by
conducting surveys to generate a unique base of primary data on Free/Open
Source Software usage and development; identifying indicators to measure
value creation and dissemination in the OS/FS arena; identifying business
models based on these indicators; identifying the impact of and
recommending changes in government policy and regulatory environments with
regards to OS/FS; finally, the development of a base for extending these to
the broader economic measurement of non-monetary and trans-monetary
activity in the information society, beyond the domain of OS/FS.
The specific features of this project are:
- The collation of a base of hard data (until now no such data exist)
on the importance and role of OS/F software in today s economies and an
impact assessment for policy and decision-making.
-
The development of indicators for the measurement of value creation within
the OS/F software communities, especially in order to identify the
distribution patterns of contribution within OS/F software communities and
projects.
-
The measurement of contributions and identification of dependence on such
contributions as are provided by user organisations OS/F software,
including government/international institutions, on the developer community
and on project development at large.
-
The evaluation and identification of business models and best practices in
the OS/F software community, especially the transition to and from
commercial software operations.
[thanks, Politech]
9:22:01 AM
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