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music

Prince Tells Kids to Get Off His Lawn

July 6, 2010 11:58:30.767

Prince has crossed over from being a hip musician to being that crotchety old guy who tells those damn kids to stay off his lawn:

He went on to say: “The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated.
Prince also criticised the advent of gadgets and computers: “All these computers and digital gadgets are no good.

I'll be sure to unearth my quadrophonic stereo and unused CD player to listen to his newest stuff.... not.

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posted by James Robertson

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blog

Now With More Social Media

July 6, 2010 11:24:59.047

I was on a conference call for almost 90 minutes this morning, so while I was listening, I wrote some more social media link stuff for the blog. Check out the bottom of each post - in addition to the Facebook "Like" button, I've added a Facebook "Share" button, and a Twitter "Tweet This" button.

Of course, those only work if you're on those systems; if you're not, just ignore them :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk In Toronto

July 6, 2010 10:23:56.873

The Toronto STUG knows that it's summer, and has planned their next meeting accordingly:

The next meeting of the Toronto Smalltalk User Group will be Monday, July 12 at 6:30, on the street level outdoor patio of Pauper's Pub, 539 Bloor St. W, at Bathurst.

Sounds like it'll be a fun meeting; wish I could get to it :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 07/06/10: Classes

July 6, 2010 8:32:49.145

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at classes - specifically, at how instances are created. If you can't watch the YouTube embed below, click here to go to the video now:

You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

posted by James Robertson

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open source

No One Understands Licensing

July 6, 2010 7:44:31.431

That's the only conclusion I can draw from this:

OpenLogic's survey found that more than 65 percent of respondents who believed they were not distributing OSS actually were to customers, partners or others. And though 84 percent of all respondents were using OSS in the workplace, only 22 percent were using some sort of tool to determine whether the software they were distributing contained any of that code.

I suspect that the numbers are about the same for all licensing - including code under proprietary licenses. It's just very easy to make copies of anything digital, and the requisite license restrictions are easily lost. That sounds like an argument in favor of DRM, unless you've pondered how useful that's been over time :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk in Vancouver

July 6, 2010 6:36:40.000

Deepcove in Vancouver (BC) is looking for a Smalltalker:

We are pleased to announce that DeepCove Labs are looking for another full-time developer to join our agile team of long time Smalltalk fans. Our primary focus is evolving and maintaining mature industry leading international payment processing platform that we have built from the ground up over the past 10 years as well as developing new and exciting products for financial services industry.

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posted by James Robertson

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books

S**t My Dad Says

July 5, 2010 23:27:24.522

The title - Sh*t My Dad Says - is more crude than things I usually put on my blog, but it's a hilarious book. Justin Halpern spent a lot of time with his family going back over things his dad had said and done over the years. The result is absolutely hysterical - I read it, my wife read it, and my daughter read it - we all laughed out loud a lot.

Apparently, it all started with a Twitter feed, and grew into a book from that and some of the articles Halpern wrote. There's a lot of vulgarity in the book, so if that offends you, just avoid it. If that's not a problem, go get the book. It's a real hoot, and you'll laugh until it hurts.

On a side note, this is the first book I read on my iPad, and it's hooked me on the device for that purpose. I just grabbed a history book for the device while I sat in the living room. Cheaper than hardback or paperback, and nothing to pile up in my house :)

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Pick A Platform

July 5, 2010 18:47:37.894

Well, the mobile space fight between Apple and Google demonstrates why it's so hard for anyone else to get in there: Engadget shows this chart of the extant space of developers:

That overlap - the people developing for the two main platforms - is small. It's likely to stay that way in the short term at least, given Apple's "no cross platform tools" policy. Now imagine you are a third player trying to nose in - Microsoft, HP, whoever - you have to somehow convince people to target a smaller space than the two big players, or offer a way for those people in the middle to add your gadget - all without setting off a reaction from Apple that blows you out of the water (see: Adobe).

Fun Times :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Seaside 3.0 RC Out

July 5, 2010 6:04:41.000

Julian has announced the Seaside 3.0 RC - unless someone finds a show stopper, this is th elong awaited 3.0 shipment:

This release runs leaner, on at least six Smalltalk platforms and is, I think, easier to learn, easier to use, and easier to extend. Seaside 3.0 is the best platform out there for developing complex, server-side web applications.

There's a lot more at the link.

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posted by James Robertson

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weather

They Ran Out of Digits

July 5, 2010 0:25:51.565

Ok, it's going to be hot this week:

posted by James Robertson

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holiday

Fireworks on the Fourth

July 4, 2010 23:17:10.521

I've had some pretty cool looking fireworks lying around for awhile - a friend bought them a few years ago, and thought that there were too many trees in his yard. Tonight, we decided to try them out - my daughter caught some of it using my iPhone. Boy, were they a lot of fun - we had 12 of these rockets to fire out of a small mortar tube:

I also uploaded the two videos to YouTube:

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posted by James Robertson

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holiday

4th of July

July 4, 2010 10:50:36.853

Looks like a great day to be outside:

And here's a link to what started this fine day - The Declaration of Independence

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posted by James Robertson

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audio

Industry Misinterpretations 195: Who Put Those Comments in My Code?

July 4, 2010 10:31:07.623

This week's podcast is part 1 of 2 - Michael and I reviewed a number of packages from the public repository, and this batch - unlike the last one - had comments and usage documentation. We'll have part 2 out next week.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

To listen immediately, use the player below:

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Effortless for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

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posted by James Robertson

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podcasting

There Will be a Podcast Release This Weekend

July 4, 2010 2:25:12.964

The podcast is actually edited and ready to go - I'll be pushing it out tomorrow (either pretty early or pretty late, depending on how my day goes). We're having a 4th of July barbecue in the afternoon, so if you don't see it by then, look for it late Sunday night or early Monday morning.

Happy 4th of July!

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

The Dog Ate My Antenna

July 3, 2010 10:26:07.138

This open letter from Apple may or may not describe what's going on with the new iPhone, but it sure sounds odd:

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

Now, it's not as if I've done studies or anything - so this is all anecdotal. Having said that, I don't recall many calls dropping with my 3g phone while I was just sitting in one place - I've had that happen with the new phone a few times, and yeah - I've been holding it with the left hand at the time. Call me crazy, but that doesn't sound like a software error in signal strength display.

Again, this is all anecdotal - and I know that in the presence of a lot of media coverage of this, I could be falling sway to confirmation bias. Still - that latter just doesn't hold up well for me :)

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posted by James Robertson

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general

Getting Ready for the Fourth

July 3, 2010 2:10:24.692

Things have been a bit quiet here on the blog; there are two reasons for that:

  • I've got a new project I'm working on (in Smalltalk, of course) with some fellow Cincomers
  • I've been getting things ready for our 4th of July party

The latter one has consumed the odd hour or two here and there - weeding gardens, buying burgers (have you seen the enormous packages they have at Costco??), and general house cleaning.We're just about ready for the party though - it should be a lot of fun.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 07/02/10: Dynamic Typing

July 2, 2010 8:53:58.281

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at dynamic typing in Smalltalk, and how it simplifies things for you. If you can't watch the YouTube embed below, click here to go to the video now:

You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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general

Big Enough To Attract the Regulators

July 2, 2010 6:59:44.000

Looks like Apple has gotten big enough to get the attention of regulators on both sides of the Atlantic:

The European Commission will ensure that devices with always-on connectivity, like Apple's iPhone, don't lock consumers in to proprietary technology, Neelie Kroes, EU commissioner for the 'Digital Agenda', told EurActiv in an exclusive interview. A yearly scorecard will measure the industry's progress.

I'm not sure how well Apple will deal with this - when Microsoft got run through the wringer back in the 90's, it sure didn't help them much. Worse, I'm not convinced that anything the regulators did helped anyone else, either.

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posted by James Robertson

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stupidity

English is a Second Language...

July 2, 2010 0:35:10.878

For the RIAA:

"We believe that the district court's dangerously expansive reading of the liability immunity provisions of the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] DMCA upsets the careful balance struck within the law and is bad public policy," Cary Sherman, RIAA president, wrote in a blog post. "It will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites."

Gosh, the court actually read the law and applied it. Maybe they can order remedial english comprehension for the RIAA.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Squeak Joins the Software Freedom Conservancy

July 2, 2010 0:28:08.808

Randal Schwartz explains why the Squeak license cleanup was so important - it enabled Squeak's entry into the SFC:

This is big.  The community has been working towards having the Squeak Project join the SFC for years. And we've finally finished! Through the SFC, we can avoid duplication of legal and administrative services to accept donations and deal with copyright and license issues.

That's pretty cool, and it makes Squeak a more legally "clean" product.

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

PS3 No Longer Sucking Wind

July 1, 2010 11:22:18.000

It took Sony a long time to get to this point - the point where a sale of the PS3 doesn't cost them money:

"This year is the first time that we are able to cover the cost of the PlayStation 3," Yoshida said. "We aren't making huge money from hardware, but we aren't bleeding like we used to."

In the interim, as game development for the platform initially lagged, they lost a lot of ground on the "hardcore gamer" front to Microsoft, and got surprised on the other end by Nintendo. They run the risk of slipping again - it looks like MS will have Kinect (their answer to the Wii) out at the same time that Sony will have their version (and Sony's version looks, well, strange).

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posted by James Robertson

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law

Apple Attracts Some Ambulance Chasers

July 1, 2010 9:34:09.000

Tort lawyers doing what they do best: subtracting value:

The lawsuit was filed by Ward & Ward, PLLC and Charles A. Gilman, LLC. on behalf of Kevin McCaffrey, Linda Wrinn and a number of other iPhone 4 users. It is not the same iPhone 4 class action lawsuit currently said to be in the works by the California law firm that sued Facebook and Zynga.

I can't say I've run across this problem myself. It's been reported too widely to not be real, but it doesn't seem all that serious to me.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 07/01/10: Store Replication

July 1, 2010 8:54:08.326

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at replicating packages and bundles between store source code repositories. There's a UI for one off replication; the screencast shows you how to use the engine directly. To create replication rules, you do something like this (the repository names are the logical ones from your connection list):


replicator :=  StoreAutoReplicator new.

"Package or Bundle,Package/Bundle Name,Source Repository Name,
Destination Repository Name"
rules := #('P,NetworkAppUtilities,cincomsmalltalk,local').

rules do: [:each |
	replicator addRule: (ReplicationRule readFrom: each readStream)].
replicator replicateAll.

If you can't watch the YouTube embed below, click here to go to the video now:

You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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humor

Go Hands Free at the Stadium

July 1, 2010 8:08:17.156

This is funny because the person who got hit by the baseball didn't suffer a serious injury - but it does show why you should pay attention if you're sitting at the foul line at Yankee Stadium :)


Watch CBS News Videos Online

posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Death of a Phone

July 1, 2010 7:46:38.000

Apple knows how to launch gadgets. Then.... there's Microsoft:

Just over two months after launching it, and days after reducing the price, Microsoft has decided to kill the Kin phone.

Microsoft needs to figure out focus. They really don't need to be in every single space...

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posted by James Robertson

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social media

Where's My Facebook iPad App?

July 1, 2010 6:32:14.000

So Facebook updated their iPhone app to take advantage of fast app switching in iOS4. That's great for the iPhone, but - where the heck is my iPad scaled app? For a company the size of Facebook, can't they handle that?

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posted by James Robertson

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web

Death of Flash Continues

June 30, 2010 21:26:21.439

Looks like Flash is getting dropped by more and more sites. Campaign Monitor is the latest:

When it became clear that the iPad wouldn't be supporting Flash, and that it was likely a device many of our customers were going to view reports on, we had all the motivation we needed to overhaul our charts to work around the problems mentioned above. At the same time, JavaScript based charts that take advantage of standards like canvas and SVG had come a long way and would likely make the transition a much simpler process.

I expect this trend to continue. With Hulu coming out for the iPad and iPhone, even the streaming sites don't need Flash anymore...

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

iPhone, Verizon, and the Network

June 30, 2010 9:37:05.267

Yesterday I sounded skeptical about the latest "iPhone on Verizon" rumor. However, there is this tidbit:

This information comes from a new tipster, but we have very good reason to believe that Verizon will begin rolling out its LTE network in 25 markets starting on November 15th. While 25 markets might not sound like a lot, but apparently they’re enough to give 100 million subscribers access to the next-generation wireless network.

I'm no wireless expert, but I seem to recall that LTE merges Verizon's network with the next gen global wireless standard - which would make their network a lot more suitable for the iPhone as far as Apple is concerned. Just as the existing phone has the 2g (Edge) and 3g (GSM) radios, a Verizon edition could have a 3g (CDMA) and 4g (LTE) radio. Does that make sense? I guess we'll find out.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 06/30/10: Shared Variables

June 30, 2010 9:05:35.517

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at Shared Variables - what other Smalltalk implementations call class variables. If you can't watch the YouTube embed below, click here to go to the video now:

You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

I'll Believe it When I See it

June 29, 2010 21:12:10.775

Yet another "iPhone on Verizon" rumor has surfaced:

Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile-phone company, will start selling Apple Inc.'s iPhone next year, ending AT&T Inc.'s exclusive hold on the smartphone in the U.S., two people familiar with the plans said.

How solid a rumor? Well...

The device will be available to customers in January, according to the people, who declined to be named because the information isn't public.

Right... It would still involve a downgrade so far as Apple is concerned (the whole voice/data problem on CDMA issue), and LTE is still on the horizon. So I'll believe it when I see it :)

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posted by James Robertson

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tv

Hulu Subscriptions

June 29, 2010 14:23:03.462

If I could just stream episodes, and not have to worry about getting the (truly awful) Comcast DVR to work, I might move off cable completely. Hulu is trying to give me that option, with a monthly subscription plan:

In a first for Hulu, the shows will be accessible to subscribers on the iPhone, the iPad, and on some television sets. Soon it will also work through the PlayStation3 and Xbox video game consoles.

Between this, video games, and Netflix, I think we might be at a real inflection point for TV service. Like POTS phones, cable TV use has peaked, and will start to move downward.

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posted by James Robertson

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development

Entity Based Programming?

June 29, 2010 10:55:44.798

Last night Michael pointed me to this article on something called "Entity Based Programming" - an approach that the author claims is better than OOP for MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Games). I read it with interest - the first three sections sounded interesting, and made some good points. Part four started to lose me though, as he veered into relational technology as the answer - by part five, I was completely off board. In a discussion of metadata, he had this to say about metadata for game objects:

You can’t do that with OOP: you can get some *similar* benefits by doing C-Header-File Voodoo, and writing lots of proprietary code … but … so much is dependent upon your header files that unless you really know what you’re doing you probably shouldn’t go there

This tells me that everything he knows about OOP comes from C and C++, which doesn't give me confidence in where he's coming from. It's the rest of part five that had me losing interest - his near obeisance to relational technology as a way to proceed. Apparently, he hasn't noticed that the large scale web apps - Twitter, Facebook, Digg - have all been bailing on relational technology, because it doesn't scale for their needs.

Based on what this guy writes - the need for speed - in MMOG systems, I simply cannot see relational as a scalable response. That's too bad, because the first three parts of his article were interesting. I'm not sure I'm sold on what he's pushing, but I was intrigued. Parts four and five? Totally lost me.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 06/29/10: Smalltalk Syntax (4)

June 29, 2010 8:35:24.563

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at basic Smalltalk syntax. This is part 4. Today we look at operators in Smalltalk. If you can't watch the YouTube embed below, click here to go to the video now:

You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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law

Predatory Lawyers

June 29, 2010 7:58:39.080

I really dislike this aspect of the legal system - trial lawyers who go fishing for cases:

Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff, LLP is looking for people who "recently purchased the new iPhone and have experienced poor reception quality, dropped calls and weak signals." That's the same firm that filed a federal class action suit over deceptive "offer" ads in games like Mafia Wars and Farmville.

The "beneficiaries" in these sorts of cases get little or nothing; the lawyers, on the other hand, pocket millions for "helping" the rest of us. The worst part is that their "help" usually results in higher prices. All firms like this do is subtract value - everywhere they go, things get worse.

posted by James Robertson

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