Death in Detroit at the hands of the FBI or just due to stupidity?

The New York Times has an excellent article about the case of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who died in a shootout with the FBI in Detroit on Wednesday. Mr. Abdullah was apparently well known by the FBI, had a past criminal record, and wasn’t known for being a shrinking violet. It is possible that he also died of terminal stupidity by firing a weapon in the presence of law enforcement. As the Times and other papers report it, the FBI confronted Mr. Abdullah in a warehouse where he was housing stolen property. Once they confronted him, it’s possible there was no way for them to have avoided shooting him, given that he fired shots.

Luqman Ameen Abdullah

I wonder, however, if they confronted him in the right way. To be sure, this is Monday morning quarterbacking, but in my experience, that is how we learn. Sometimes it is possible to request that people turn themselves in. This avoids any violence, at the risk that the individual will flee. Was that a reasonable risk to take in this case?

Once they decided that they needed to arrest him, would it have made sense to do so in another venue? Certainly there is a risk to law enforcement when they arrest someone at home, as that person may be hiding weapons in the house, and certainly knows the layout better than the cops.

Would it have been better to nab him on the way out of his house? He may have been on parole. Could his parole officer have requested him to come in?

My point: it’s not clear cut to me that the FBI did the wrong or the right thing. We’ll probably never know, but hopefully someone asked and answered these questions before the they confronted Mr. Abdullah in that warehouse. Otherwise maybe it could well be that police/siege mentality contributed to this man’s death.

Does Facebook Getting Money from a Spammer help?

As many will have seen, Facebook won a court judgment today for $711 million from well-known spammer Sanford Wallace. It’s always nice when a spammer gets told “stop that”, but as bad as some people might think Wallace is, he is a walk in the park compared to the real villains out there. They are faceless, nameless, thugs who want to steal your money, your identity, and whatever else they think they can take from you and your family. They have no scruples and cannot be easily traced. The occasional bust makes the news across the world, which is one way of knowing that these miscreants are hard to find. The other way is that your mailbox is still collecting spam, some of it dangerous.

Nokia making money the old fashion way: suing Apple

Back in the early 1990s, when Apple saw the threat coming, but didn’t have a decent response, the only resort they had was to sue Microsoft in what became known as a “look and feel” lawsuit. They lost, and their fall from grace continued like a lead balloon. It was only when they came to terms with the fact that they really had no decent products that Steve Jobs was able to rescue the company.

courtesy: Yerson O

Today, the shoe is on the other foot. Once again, there has been a fall from grace, but this time the one doing the falling is Apple’s disrupted competitor, Nokia. Apple has taken huge swathes of market share away from Nokia because, quite frankly, Nokia phones aren’t what they used to be. They suck in comparison to Apple, and the reason they suck is that they attempted to cater strictly to service providers and not to the people who use the phones. Nokia’s Symbian O/S is slow and uninteresting in comparison to Apple’s OS/X. Their integration with existing products such as the iPod is so limited compared to Apple’s ecosystem as to be entirely insignificant. Nokia’s network functionality was so poor as to be unusable, except for specific applications like Good. Their IMAP functionality was just broken for mailboxes of any size.

And so Nokia has announced that they are suing Apple for infringement of ten patents, since it seems that it is the only way they will make money. I don’t know whether there is any merit to their suit, but I can say two things:

A lawsuit will not help consumers one bit; and
There is a special place in Hell for those who bring lawsuits involving technology that is standardized.

If Apple’s earlier experience is any indicator, Nokia has further to fall. They must stop suing and start innovating and catering to consumers, who Apple rightly recognized were the real customers. Apple has given Nokia a good kick in the pants, but Nokia has a long history of success. They are down but not out. To be out, they need to be thinking about new approaches to the consumer, new ways to attract developers, and it actually all has to work.

Nokia image courtesy of Yerson O

Poor Bank Executives Aren’t Getting Their Millions

I know it’s not American when the government limits pay for anyone, but that is precisely what they are doing for executives of banks that required bailouts. After all, they only lost $1.2 trillion worldwide, bringing on the worst world recession since at least 1991. And really, why should the American people control wages of people who had to borrow from us in order to stay afloat? Why don’t these people deserve their $10 mansions, yachts, and airplanes? Oh wait. They get to keep all of that? And they get to keep their jobs? Perhaps there are no qualified people to replace them, although one would think that with over 10% unemployment out there, someone would like to try. Surely the American people would do this for my industry too, so I should be quiet, right? Oh wait. Our industry did have a downturn in 2001. But unlike our industry that brought such hits as pets.com, none of this was the banks’ fault, right? Oh wait. didn’t this start with subprime loans that couldn’t be repaid because the banks were handing money to just about anyone? And weren’t the banks offering housing loans for only 5% down payment where the mortgage didn’t pay back principle? And these people still get to keep their jobs? And they’re complaining about a salary limitation?

How about this: pay back the money we lent you and then you can choose your salaries. Either that or let me buy your mansions and not pay for them.

WSJ: Let’s Differentiate!

As some may recall, I have had a love-hate relationship with the Wall Street Journal. Over the years they have had some great news, but their editorials have often been nothing short of ridiculous. I threatened some time ago to part ways with them, taking my money with me. Three changes make me think I should go ahead and cancel. First, there are videos now on the Journal home page. Here’s some news for the newspaper: if I wanted to watch the news, I could turn on CNN.

Today, however, the headline reads, “Dow Jones to Launch ‘Professional Edition’ of Wall Street Journal”. That’s right, for $45 per month, one can get news for professionals. To quote the article:

The targeted users are businesses and individuals who need more specialized information about energy or corporate bonds, for example, than is available from WSJ.com, but aren’t the large companies targeted for costlier services by Dow Jones Newswires or Bloomberg L.P.

That all sounds great, except isn’t that why I was already paying $149 per year? While the reporting on the Journal is good, it’s certainly not as good as it used to be. And indeed the New York Times has been doing a better job for all but financial news. I wonder where all the money to start up the new service is coming from? Might some of it be some of my subscription dues? Why should I believe this is anything other than a clumsy attempt to create differentiation? Sort of like when airlines added Business Class.

What’s your source for financial news? Maybe I should move my money.