Dislike.

[captainsblog]

Two pieces of news from today, both involving the ripples and backwashes of the Internet.

Some of you have mentioned to me the rather strange case going on here in federal court, brought by a guy from the Southern Tier who claims to own 50% of Facebook. The claim goes back to some dealings he allegedly had with the Zuckerdude almost a decade ago, back when he was still at Harvard, where a somewhat questionable contract promised him half the company if it got off the ground.

Various thrusts and parries have gone back and forth, but today’s news articles revealed that Zuckerberg may have just put a permanent “dislike” on his nemesis.  For weeks if not months, the inevitable boatload of lawyers have been struggling over “discovery orders,” in which documents, but also in this e-case a ton of actual pieces of hardware, have been made the subject of mandatory inspection and orders to preserve and not change or spoil their contents.  Last month, the plaintiff went on offense and claimed that Zuckerberg’s side  hadn’t complied. This produced a massive shitstorm in which it was first implied, and is now pretty much proven, that it’s the plaintiff who’s been hiding the ball.  On one of the computers that he did produce, Facebook’s experts  found a registry log showing the attachment of at least half a dozen never-disclosed USB and other external drives, which, they posit, he used to download, doctor and re-upload documents turning an unrelated business contract into The Deal To Own Facebook™.

The hearing is tomorrow morning. If I have to be downtown anyway and get the chance to stop in, I think I’ll do so.  It isn’t every day you get to see a federal  judge explode in anger.

And the moral for the rest of us? If you’re going to try to scam a billionaire who’s also one of the idiot-savantest computer geeks who ever lived? You MIGHT want to invest a little time in using a registry cleaner to cover your tracks.

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The other news comes from points east.  I made a trip two Marches ago, which included a stop at a bookstore in Glens Falls, New York that really impressed me. It had selection, good service, and a dedicated group of customers who came out in surprisingly large numbers on a frigid weeknight to hear a couple of authors who I know.
As of September 15th, the authors will still be authoring, but the store, sadly, will be gone- the latest victim of the Amazons of the world.

Granted, they didn’t do much to achieve an online presence until it was probably too late; when my friends’ books were coming out, I tried to order one from them through their website and found it just couldn’t be done. Best they could offer was to take my credit card information over the phone and hold it for me for my next time in town.  In the end, at least, they’d partnered with an indy seller site to take orders, but as of this time next month, that won’t be happening anymore. 

They still hold out hope that some angel will appear in the coming weeks to take over, but since this is Glens Falls, not Bedford Falls, I don’t think that particular Wonderful Life will be coming along.

Comments

[floundah.livejournal.com]

"The hearing is tomorrow morning. If I have to be downtown anyway and get the chance to stop in, I think I’ll do so. It isn’t every day you get to see a federal judge explode in anger."

Do it. I'm dying to hear about it, and at this point, I could use a good laugh.

....

On a more serious note, What a shame about the bookstore.