[Ethics]

You're probably well aware about the case of Roman Polanski. The visionary filmmaker is currently under fire for his 1977 conviction of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old. That was 32 years ago, shortly before he fled to Europe to avoid jail time. Now, under arrest in Switzerland, everyone has their own opinion on whether Polanski should go free or do the time.

Polanski was born in 1933 as a Polish Jew. As a young boy he escaped and hid from the Nazis, even as his own mother died in a concentration camp. But after the war, Polanski went into filmmaking, and eventually struck gold with his 1968 masterpiece "Rosemary's Baby." He went on to create great films such as "Chinatown" (1973), "The Pianist" (2002), and "Oliver Twist" (2005).

Except for those in and around the filmmaking business, those achievements seem to pale for that one mistake he made over three decades ago. Since he fled to France in 1977, there's been a pending US arrest warrant for him (and an international one since 2005). He was only arrested in Switzerland, at the request of US authorities, when he stepped onto Zurich to pick up the Zurich Film Festival's "Golden Icon Award," a lifetime achievement award.

I think child molestation is wrong however way you look at it, and sexual predators do belong to some of the lowest tiers of humanity. To some people, this one mistake is enough to negate all his achievements and contributions to world culture and send him to the pits of Hades. It seems these people believe that if you make one slip, you're through.

Naturally, Hollywood is much more forgiving (which I think is one of its very agreeable cultures). Michael Vick got into trouble by being involved in a dog fighting gambling ring, but he's back in the NFL playing football. Mel Gibson has had more than a few scandals in his time, but he's still out there making great films. Mike Tyson. Robert Downey, Jr. Kanye West. Should Polanski's case be any different?

Besides, I believe that ultimately, if you want justice, you deal with the victim. The 13-year-old girl, now 45-year old Samantha Geimer, had already forgiven him six years ago. On no less than CNN's Larry King Live, she wished that the whole thing would be buried, and that she never wanted Polanski to go to jail.

I think it's time to bury the hatchet and send the man back home to his family.

For the longest time, doctors have been seen as some of society's most respected members, but today that distinction is getting blurry at best. The conduct of some Med students in the United States are worrying their seniors, and many fear it's much worse than it appears.

A new survey conducted among several major medical schools in the United States found a much higher number of incidents of inappropriate behavior and unprofessional conduct in medical schools. What's worse, the reported incidents were only those that reached the deans' attentions -- which is likely only the tip of the iceberg.

Many of the reported unprofessional incidents were posted on the Internet. For instance, a quick YouTube search would net you several videos made by medical students. Most are harmless -- musical numbers, for instance -- while a few are really disturbing.

One of them, a prank involving a dead body, caught the attention of many medical professionals lately. It's not known whether the cadaver was real, but even if it wasn't, what does such a video make you think? Exactly -- maybe your doctor isn't really that serious with his work.

There are other stories, as well. Some medical students post patient information on the Internet, whether on their Facebook pages or on their blogs -- obviously a breach of patient privacy. Others request inappropriate relationships with patients. Still others use profanity and even post photos of drug paraphernalia.

Sure, you could say that Med students aren't unlike every other kid on the Internet these days. But the situation is too serious to ignore -- all of a sudden, the medical profession doesn't seem so credible anymore.

But thankfully, deans and senior medical professionals are catching on to the online habits of their proteges. They're getting savvier with the Internet, blogging, and YouTube, as well as social media platforms like Facebook.

Hopefully this increased awareness will lead to better-behaved students, and much fewer embarrassments to one of the most respected professions in history.

In the latest bit of news about patent trolling, Microsoft has been ordered yesterday by a Texas federal court to stop selling Word 2003, 2007, and any other subsequent Word incarnations that can open files containing custom XML. The plaintiff was a small Canadian firm called i4i who claims they patented the technology.

Wow.

I know patent laws can be pretty crazy in the United States, and some American patent lawyers are woefully clueless when it comes to emerging technologies. This development, however, takes the cake.

Microsoft is now set to pay up to $240 million ($200 million supposedly for the amount a similar product would fetch in today's market, $40 million for "willful infringement") for infinging on the patent, as well as nullify the technology in future software updates. But knowing Microsoft, which has done pretty well on legal cases like this one, they'll probably appeal the decision and win.

Now a lot of people are saying the judge was an idiot for ruling this way, but on the other hand, other people are saying this development was actually a good thing. It proved that even small businesses can successfully fight for their property rights, even if they stood up against giants like Microsoft.

(And then there are other people who say that the name "i4i" should raise eyebrows, and others who say that Microsoft should afterwards rename itself to "2th42th.")

I also laughed when I actually saw some bloggers call for Texas to leave the United States and make Puerto Rico the new 50th state. Texas is known to be a haven for patent law cases like this one, which gives it a fair share of infamy.

The permanent injunction will take effect in 60 days -- more than enough time, I think, for Microsoft to sort out this mess. Let's just hope they use Word 2000 to be on the safe side on this case.

The Palm Pre had the unusual advantage over its competitors when it first came out, when users found that the new smartphone could actually sync itself using Apple's popular iTunes software. Naturally, it didn't evade Apple's radar for long, and the next iTunes update stamped out the possibility of syncing with the Pre.

Palm's next move was enough to make me raise an eyebrow. The latest software update to the Pre once again lets users sync their media with Apple's iTunes platform. When pressed for comment, the guys at Palm said what they did was completely legal -- when the Pre connects to a PC, it sends out a USB signature that's similar to the one assigned by the USB Implementers Forum to Apple devices.

What's more, they claimed that Apple was misusing the iTunes USB foundation by making it respond only to devices with Apple's assigned USB codes.

Hmm, okay. I think that's called "the way we do things around here."

Seriously, Palm may need to up their legal position a bit -- the USB Implementers Forum states that a device's USB code must match the USB ID given to its manufacturing company. Palm has already approached the USB industry standards group with their plans to make the Pre work with iTunes. So far, the group hasn't commented on the matter.

As usual, the blogosphere is divided on the issue. There are some who say Palm is doing the smart thing, since it's working around legal loopholes to its advantage, the same way Apple has done in the past. On the other hand, there are some who say that what Palm is doing is very unprofessional, and that they seriously should reconsider their position if they want to stay in the competition.

There's no doubt that the Pre has won some loyal followers, and Palm is hanging in there for a while yet. But this latest move seems to me like Palm's in a worse position than many think, and the company is resorting to even the dirtier tricks to get a leg up on the industry.

I doubt this move will make a dent in Apple's user base, which is why I'm confident that it'll get stamped out by Apple yet again, very soon. If you ask me where I stand, I'm naturally with Apple on this one. I don't intend to come across as a "hard-a**" for intellectual property rights, but that's the way it should be.

I found this on YouTube two days ago and told myself I *had* to write a little about this for Friday's (today) article.

If you're working for an airline company, then here's a tip you might want to share with the guys at the baggage department -- Handle baggage labeled "FRAGILE" with care. Apparently it's a lesson that United Airlines is learning the hard way.

Dave Carroll, a Canadian folk singer, debut his first of three YouTube music videos earlier this week, entitled "United Breaks Guitars." It was a way of getting back at United Airlines for breaking his precious guitar on a flight he took last year and refusing to take responsibility for the damage.

Carroll was took a United Airlines flight between his hometown of Halifax, Canada, to a gig in Omaha, Nebraska in March last year. He was traveling with his band, Sons Of Maxwell, when a passenger sitting behind the group looked out the airplane window at the baggage handling people and exclaimed, "Oh my God, they're throwing guitars out there!"

Surely enough, Carroll's TAYLOR guitar was broken badly. He then spent the next year calling up United Airline representatives in Chicago, New York, Canada, and even India, with the guys at United passing the blame and saying it was someone else's fault.

When United Airlines ultimately refused to pay for the damages (which amounted up to US$1,200), the frustrated Carroll decided to make a music video about his experience and post it on YouTube.

700,000 views later, United Airlines is now trying to make peace with Carroll and his band. They've obviously taken notice of the video (and the announcement that two more music videos were on the way) and want to treat it as a textbook case in handling customer complaints.

I'd like to say this is a good thing for United to do (since I'm pretty sure Carroll's YouTube video will cost United at least a million dollars in business), and if other airlines know what's best for them, they ought to start getting their act straight, as well. They need to stop thinking that disgruntled customers will just have to swallow the bad service -- you'll never know what they can do with the Internet.

I love weekends, since it's the only window of opportunity I get to relax, re-energize, and take in some guiltless good food. But something I saw today just ruined my weekend before it even started.

Is it just me, but is Burger King's latest ad about their Super Seven-Incher Sandwich just plain tasteless? On it, it shows the profile of a woman about to take in Burger King's new submarine sandwich. The setup would've been okay, except for three things:

#1 - The woman in the poster has fake blond hair, black eyeliner, and a lipsticked mouth wide open. The woman has a wide-eyed, expressionless look -- and her open mouth doesn't show any teeth. You'd expect your ad to be tasteless when you make your model look like an inflatable love doll.

#2 - The submarine sandwich, lined up with her open mouth, completes the sexually suggestive look.

#3 - To top things off, the caption read: "It'll BLOW your mind away."

Granted, BK's new sandwich does look pretty good, and it would've been something I'd be willing to try -- but the ad ruined everything. Seriously. I mean, after people see this ad, will they ever think of a submarine sandwich the same way again?

If the geniuses who came up with this ad thought people would find it funny, sure -- I just doubt it'll be popular with their straight male audience. Or if they thought that most people wouldn't get it anyway, well it just shows most people are smarter than they are.

Seriously, dudes, you're in the wrong industry. Quit your jobs. Change your names. Don't have kids.

To the rest of you -- if you want to see what I'm talking about,  click here.



Update:  June 25, 2009, 11:38 PM +0800 GMT
The Ad is on the website of Bon-Food Pte Ltd.
Want to know who they are? Read on.

Found on the company's website (- Link -):
About Bon-Food
Bon-Food Pte Ltd has been the authorised franchisee of BURGER KING® in Singapore since 1982. Since that time, we have served our flagship sandwich, the flame-grilled WHOPPER®, to millions of customers. Currently, all our BURGER KING® outlets are strategically located around the island. Plans are also in place for a number of new outlets that will continue to make BURGER KING® not only synonymous with great tasting flame-grilled burgers, quality and value, but also accessibility.



Update:  June 27, 2009, 10:21 PM +0800 GMT
I'm adding this image here, just in case the link above is removed. I strongly believe this ad should be made available for all to see and ponder over.

If you haven't heard of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, she's the defendant in the very first music piracy legal case against an individual. The Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) won the second of two trials against Thomas-Rasset, who was found guilty of willfully infringing copyright on 24 songs.

The minimum penalty per track according to the law is $750, and if found guilty, Thomas-Rasset would have had to pay a minimum total of $18,000. The first trial saw the jury find Thomas-Rasset guilty, making her obligated to pay $9,250 per track (a total penalty of $222,000). But the judge declared it a mistrial because he had given the jury incorrect instructions.

Back then, the jury found Thomas-Rasset guilty because of her inconsistent defenses. She had claimed that a file-sharing hack had hijacked her Wi-Fi connection, causing her to end up with the 24 tracks through the file-sharing medium Kazaa. This could have been a valid defense, but there was one problem with it -- she didn't have a Wi-Fi router.

The second trial had a different jury, but her defense was equally suspicious -- this time, Thomas-Rasset claimed that her children may have used her computer to file-share through Kazaa.

Rrriiight.

The prosecution later on presented the paper trail of evidence that led to her computer -- the MAC address of her cable modem and PC's Ethernet port were correctly identified. Her Kazaa username also gave her away. The deathblow probably came with the fact that she replaced her computer's hard drive -- and didn't tell this to the investigators.

The jury apparently realized she was lying, and were "angry about it." They went on to find her guilty and slap her a whopping $80,000 penalty per track, bringing the total fine to $1.92 million.

The story has touched off a nerve in the blogosphere. Mixed opinions, some venting anger at the jury while others claiming the fine sounded fair, are flying everywhere. But no matter what anyone says, it would seem that the RIAA is winning the war on music piracy.

Or is it?

Personally, I think the RIAA won't push to collect $1.92 from Thomas-Rasset -- it's more likely they'll offer to settle the case out of court. With the grassroots anger it'll stoke if it tried to collect, it might shoot itself in the foot and hamper their future campaigns against piracy. Let's wait and see.

Last week's guilty verdict on the proprietors of The Pirate Bay touched off a bundle of nerves all over the worldwide tech/media industry. On one side, content owners and creators cheered the decision, claiming that it's another victory against piracy and content theft. On the other side, advocates of civil liberties have amassed in protest against the decision, claiming that it's just another political move to protect the profits of the big industry names.

I'm not really surprised at the verdict – after all, most of the world's legal systems still live in the 90's, where the “best way to get your news” was still by trooping to the nearest newsstand and buying the day's broadsheet. Looking back, we see similar verdicts meted out against Napster, Grokster, and many other peer-to-peer sharing platforms in the past. A good number of lawsuits are being slapped on to other P2P platforms around the world today, as well.

The proprietors of TPB are expected to appeal the decision (one year in prison and paying over $30 million in damages), which can only mean one thing – we'll be hearing about TPB for years to come.

Here's the thing – it's mostly the content owners (not necessarily the content creators, as most could pretty much care less) who want the 20th-century business model to remain in place in the 21st. The idea of getting indirect revenue – through traffic, ads, and other ways of making money over the Internet – seems too foreign (or at least too unattractive) than through direct sales.

It's “the law,” they say. But I can pretty much draw a parallel between this situation and a piece of interesting American history.

Several decades ago, it was “unlawful” for an African American man to sit in the front of a bus. In today's standards, such beliefs of racism is barbaric and shameful, but back then it was pretty much covered by America's legal system. It took several years of civil liberty activism before the law formally changed and represented the people again, and now all races look to America as the land of the free – not just "whites".

In other words, I think when the law stops representing the people, then it's obviously not the people who need to be changed. The TPB verdict will sting for several more years, but it's going to be interesting to see which facet of society it'll change in the end.

Not many people know this, but Superman and Batman made their debuts in 1938 and 1939 respectively, when the United States were still getting back on its feet after suffering through the Great Depression. They were created by a largely-Jewish group of artists who wanted to provide some escapism for weary Americans. It's ironic how superheroes are making a massive resurgence recently – right smack in the middle of the global economic slowdown.

I'm probably going to anger the guys at theultimatejoker.com by saying this, but the Joker wasn't the first villain that Batman encountered. Back then the caped crusader was named “The Bat-Man,” and he basically cleaned the town of thieves, embezzlers, corrupt higher-ups – in other words, the villains of the Great Depression. It wasn't until later that he and Superman were pitted against Hitler and the Nazi, when World War II broke out a few years later.

Just found out a few hours ago Ramalinga Raju, Chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd, just resigned. Apparently after admitting that the corporation's accounts had exaggerated its cash reserves to be some US$1 billion.

Hmmm... I wonder what Ernst & Young and their entrepreneur award arm have to say about this :)

You can get more information on this if you click on this link: Satyam India CEO Resigns 2009

I googled "Satyam CEO Resigns 2009" to get the link above.

Other alternatives I'd suggest:

"Layoffs! Layoffs! Layoffs!"
"Not Another Accounting Scandal?!?"
"Entrepreneur Schmentrepreneur"
"OK. So, Where Am I Gonna' Go Get Work Now?"          <-- Riiiiiiiight.
"The Idiot Who Lost All My Money"
"Ponzi, Madoff, Raju, Laurel, Hardy"

Hey, the sky's the limit. Be creative.

And while you're at it, go cook your books with the help of your CFO and a reputable (or not!) accounting/audit firm.