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TwiceHorn

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by TwiceHorn

  1. Different enough and a parody, which has gained quite a bit of traction as a trademark defense these days. You're probably good. HOWEVER, those assholes still might sue, and that could be unpleasant, even though I think you'd probably win.
  2. A recent addendum to this. The PTO wants to move its system toward text-based document filing, so everything is immediately text-searchable, which makes a certain amount of sense. To date, their systems have been agnostic as to whether the pdfs uploaded were image- or text-based. But somehow they let Microsoft weasel in and sell them on a docx encoding engine and they have proposed and required that filers upload docx files instead of pdfs, or even text-based pdf-A. So, whatever you file gets run though that engine and the output is the official filing at the USPTO. Docx started as a standard, but has gone increasingly proprietary to M$ since it's introduction/adoption. So, there are valid concerns that anyone uploading a docx made with LibreOffice, etc. or even older versions of Word, may wind up with something corrupted or slightly different once it is run through M$'s encoding engine. This is monumentally important, because a patent filer is "stuck" with whatever the PTO got on the filing date. So, it appears that the PTO has been sold a bill of goods by M$ as to whether docx and their proprietary encoding engine are actually standard and not a move to get all patent practitioners to buy the latest version of Word. But it is responding to user criticism and postponing, perhaps indefinitely, the docx filing requirement. Corporate vs. government at work.
  3. Quite the conundrum, isn't it? A lot of the things we want to happen to these people for egregiously violating norms would themselves violate norms. Yes, there are ways to differentiate "norm violating," but in broad principle, it is the same thing. It's a variant of the "how do you contend with insanity" problem. The first instinct may be with your own form of insanity, and there's some appeal to that. But is it really the long-term right thing to do?
  4. I used to think government was a complete bumbling bureaucracy, by its very nature. But, people have pointed out that corporations are mostly bumbling bureaucracies, too, also by their very nature. That nature, of course, being human nature. So, we're all right on the bumbling bureaucracy score. Corporations have one advantage (or disadvantage), though. And that is, the number of stakeholders in any corporate decision or policy is relatively a lot lower than government, and, I think government does a better job of trying to accommodate its larger number of stakeholders. The main stakeholder in a corporation being profit motive, of course, which can make things damned simple if you want to view them that way and many or most corps do. Let me give a vivid example. The US Patent & Trademark Office has had online filing for a really long time. Like 20 years, way before court systems implemented it, and contemporaneously or earlier than other patent offices, including the "gold standard" European Patent Office, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. When they went online, you uploaded pdf documents, as expected. But what then happened was clerks at the PTO printed those pdfs, scanned them, and uploaded them into the file maintenence system. LOL WTF? But then I came to understand that the PTO received protests from all those clerks that would immediately become unemployed (hundreds of them, maybe even thousands) if the electronic filings were automatically uploaded to the file maintenance system. Plus, the printing out had the salutary function of providing an avenue by which the filings were reviewed for completeness (all pages there, all drawings, all legible, etc.). And for a while, they maintained parallel paper files in case of technical glitches that might lose or corrupt electronic filings. And in those early days of this type of technology, that was probably a smart thing to do. Surprisingly, very few or no instances of galactic technical failure resulting in the loss/corruption of patent filings have occurred. Over time, the PTO has moved to a more automated system where the uploads go directly into the file maintenance system. But it has done so relatively gradually, minimizing the impact on those clerk people. There were some other issues relating to making all patent documents available online in that there were cottage industries of people who made their living going over to the PTO and copying various documents for private attorneys and couriering them over. So that was slow-rolled a bit, but less so because it wasn't government employees losing their jobs. They wound up hiring one of the prime electronic contractors (that used to fax you patent documents in close to real time) to print and scan official patent documents. So, this is an example of government being "absurdly inefficient." But, you know what? The USPTO is and almost always has been self-funded by user fees (Congress takes their revenue away and gives it back, less some). So, this didn't really cost anyone any money (patent user fees have actually been going down). And the user experience has been comparatively fantastic. And some people kept their jobs instead of just being laid off had a corporate bureaucracy made those decisions. So, what I thought was complete government idiocy, at first, has a bit more nuance to it.
  5. TwiceHorn

    9-1

    Early in the season it was the opposite. In fact the talking heads were saying how we get stronger as the game goes on and win the 4th quarter. I don't know exactly what happened since then but I'm reasonably sure attrition through injuries plays a part. Yep, and announcers mentioned, both late last season and during the Alabama game as our D really asserted itself, our pretty heavy defensive rotation keeping players fresh. But, it has been pointed out that our rotation schemes sometimes leave major holes in the lineups that opponents have learned to exploit. And, injuries are probably making that worse in that it's hard to keep at least a couple really good players on the field along with the mediocre/bad ones. So what was an advantage has turned to a disadvantage with Catalon, Watts, Barron and others being injured and either out or gimpy. I think the notion that the BigXII is really down is now overplayed. That was all based on predictions and roster losses. New lineups and QBs are getting experienced and I think some of the teams are surprising people. Just like some underperformance, perhaps, of Texas players has surprised people a bit. There have been a fairly steady number of teams cracking the top 25 (and falling right the fuck out with wtf losses to teams to whom they ostensibly should not lose).
  6. TwiceHorn

    9-1

    And, if "all" kids are really looking at is NIL, what is that doing to their motivation and concentration on the field? I'm not anti-NIL or other schemes to compensate players above board. I think that's a reasonable goal. I didn't think NIL would turn players into a bunch of money-grubbing hoes, either. But I have always been worried that it would affect things on the field and in the locker room, to one degree or another, in some adverse way. And I think it's foolish to believe that it isn't or won't, even if the effect isn't obvious or grotesque. Under the NCAA's old amateurism rules, football players lived a life of minor deprivation that could function to keep them hungry for that first or second NFL contract. That's no longer true.
  7. TwiceHorn

    9-1

    Agreed. Something is still a bit off with the confidence of the team. Most of the roster now avoided the toxicity of Herman, and, although we had one "bad" season under Sark, we have improved. Culture seems to have improved. So, you'd think this team would be better at this than they are. They have certainly progressed some, but you'd think they'd have rid themselves of whatever this is by now, or at least more than it seems. As good as our roster may be (I'm not convinced that it is as great as we tend to think, yet), we seem really prone to execution errors, particularly in critical moments and particularly in the second half of games. Just some kind of lack of concentration resulting from too-easy success in the first half? Maybe it's a combination of Sark's solid early game plan leading to success, and our own mental failure to adjust to the adversity of the other team's halftime or over-game adjustments. It does seem to me that Sark is aware of these things, at least on the micro scale, because I see a lot of second-half frustration. It's not quite Saban-level, but he does a lot of yelling at clouds between squats. All that hand-wringing aside, we are clearly on an upward trajectory from the last 10 years. Hopefully, we continue to see steady improvement and this stuff falls by the wayside.
  8. Can't see the post. But yeah, you can lose at trial, file an appeal and, especially if the appeal has potential merit, settle the case for less than the trial verdict. You can threaten bankruptcy. You can claim that the plaintiff won't find enough money to satisfy the judgment in full through ordinary collections, but here's a cashier's check for less. All time-honored ways of settling a civil case. A judgment must be enforced. That doesn't mean the cops go to their house and say "cough up" or go to debtor's prison. There is almost always some uncertainty in whether you will collect the full amount of the judgment. So if a defendant offers good funds payable today, that has a lot of appeal as long as it's not too big a discount. ETA: Now I see it. Oh hell yeah they're trying to settle. The monetary amount hasn't been fixed or ascertained, so that's negotiable. Some kind of something short of a forced sale or transfer to new owners is probably what they are trying to get. As I have mentioned, I am not 100% convinced that the court of appeals will uphold the cancellation of business licenses, so even that is a bit up in the air. Something like a transfer of the properties to something not 100% Trump controlled or something. Or five years to GTFO. Who knows.
  9. Well, two eps down. It's ok, watchable. There is something hallmark-y or lifetime-y about it, but it's got more violence and implied violence than any of those I've ever seen (which aint many).
  10. I am interested in NAPERY of every description.
  11. Can white people say "chimp out"? Because it's a very amusing expression, but the racial undertones make it a bit scary.
  12. A lot of commercial pilots are engineers.
  13. The question there is, is it Sark or is it Ewers? I suppose if JT and JWhitt are the number 1 targets, or not, that's on Sark.
  14. TwiceHorn

    9-1

    I do think we have a problem with player leadership, yes.
  15. Well, we sometimes seem to execute better in a tempo offense, for whatever reason. It really does seem the longer we sit there lined up, the more likely an OL is to jump and Ewers to get into his own head or something. I tried paying attention to the play clock in the second half, and didn't always succeed. But, most of the times I did watch, it was under 20, but rarely under 10. And those plays seemed excruciating and doomed. And it does seem to give the D more time to diagnose.
  16. Had the same thought. He still distrusts Ewers a bit, and probably just about everyone else, too. Seems to be having difficulty moderating things to match the level of execution. We execute for periods of time pretty well and maybe he lets off the brake a bit and we break out in fuckups.
  17. Seems like it's becoming a thing. It's not parity, quite. But I do wonder if NIL and the portal are making players perhaps a little less intense than they might otherwise be.
  18. I suppose everyone that thinks highly of him figures how much better he would be if he fixed his mechanics. He seems resistant to that. He's good, but not as good as the top ones. Not living up to billing.
  19. That's actually probably a pretty reasonable take. Winning the B12 was achievable with a small amount of luck. Everything after that was gravy. But the notion that we had 100% fixed last year's problems was pretty ludicrous, especially considering injuries. We have made some improvements.
  20. It's kind of what he does. He almost never actually steps into a throw, it's either back foot or flat foot. His superior arm strength has let him get away with it. A shoulder separation kind of puts some pressure on that arm strength.
  21. They never have been. That was some crack smokin shit. We have a great DL. And we had Brooks. That's about it. But, Texas teams of the last 5-10 years lose that one, and last week, and the week before that.
  22. Why stupid? One on one with AD, who had him beat. Kinda off throw by Ewers. Almost fucked by Ewers execution, saved by AD.
  23. The cunts are really oozing tonight.
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