This is exactly the argument that the lawyer for LSL guitars is making - who happens to be the same lawyer that beat Fender back in 2009 on behalf of the USPTO and cost them the copyright in the US :)
Setting up a business in the UK is a breeze. It takes 30 minutes, costs 20 quid and it's all done online. I'd go so far as to say the UK is the friendliest place in the world for small businesses (as long as you don't have a physical location, because business rates are incredibly regressive and backwards)
A friend of mine in Iceland literally just set up a UK ltd company today - I'm a shareholder, took 5 minutes to verify my identity - by linking it to my existing companies house account.
Sorry but as someone who has a Shopify store and also sells via Amazon - you are dead wrong.
I have much more freedom with Shopify, it's not even comparable. It's not even apples to oranges, it's apples to calculators.
Amazon places a lot more restrictions on everything, from products, product descriptions, images, it's quite difficult to list original products on Amazon (took me 2 weeks of work to register our product backlog when I started selling via Amazon, despite having GTINs and everything already in place). Cashflow etc is not comparable in ANY way.
Just wanted to call out a blatantly wrong comment.
Reaper has been growing MASSIVELY in popularity in recent years. It's actively on course to topple Pro Tools as the de factory standard for recording studios. It was considered "the little guy" and a niche product just a few years ago but industry professionals have been discovering it and it's popularity is going exponential.
Try this as a reply; "hello everyone. This seems to have all gotten out of hand. We want to continue selling teensy units, We've made a lot of sales working together and I want to salvage this working relationship and ensure we continue to do business together and sell as many Teensy units as possible. Why don't I, sparkfun and Paul Stoffregen get together for a zoom meeting next Monday and discuss this. At the end of the day I'm sure Paul S would prefer his product to be as widely available as possible and we want to help with that. Best regards - ptorrone".
That would be the mature and professional response which ensures continued sales for you, sparkfun and PJRC.
And for Christ's sake stop arguing business issues on social media and messaging boards. What are you doing, man?! :)
> if someone has deliberately hidden their identity online, knowingly disclosing that is malicious
That argument breaks down if the person hiding their identity is doing malicious things. If you hide behind anonymity and you're harassing people and sending threatening or hateful messages, disclosing their real identity is a public service.
Or could I set up an anonymous account, doxx people all day long for the lulz, and then cry wolf when you doxx me for being a prick? :)
I missed a parcel delivery because a computer server in Virginia, USA went down, and now the doorbell on my house in England doesn't work. What. The. Fork.
How the hell did Ring/Amazon not include a radio-frequency transmitter for the doorbell and chime? This is absurd.
To top it off, I'm trying to do my quarterly VAT return, and Xero is still completely borked, nearly 20 hours after the initial outage.
Go to Hagkaup or Samkaup on a Saturday (or just after midnight on Friday night, where you'll usually bump into a gaggle of teenagers in their pajama bottoms, out on a candy run) and get yourself a massive bag of pick'n'mix for half price. It's one of the few things I miss about Iceland.
I remember as a kid, I'd get 100 kronur (probably about $3 USD in today's money) on Saturday morning and go to the store to buy sweets. You'd meticulously choose which items to put in the bag to make sure you got the best value for money :)
Which jet will they prefer if they need to defend Greenland? A dated and affordable gripen, or an F35 that the Americans will just beam a kill -9 command to via a backdoor?
Google Lens has already revolutionized my search. Anything that you can see but is difficult to describe, I now have a tool for searching for.
I use it a lot to track down original sources of videos and photos on Reddit, to check authenticity. I also use it to search for hardware components other manufacturers use, that I'd like to buy. Things like specific switches, knobs, faders, displays etc. (I build audio gadgets). I just highlight the part on the picture and then restrict my search to Alibaba, digikey or mouser. It's GREAT.
How I live now, while not a particularly good movie, really sat with me. The lack of understanding of what's happening around them, as the government has crumbled there is no civil order to communicate with citizens. The parts where they traverse the abandoned motorways, encountering highwaymen and rape gangs... it all left a really weird feeling.
> I can't imagine someone using an RP2040 in a real product
Why not? It's a great chip, even if it has some limitations. I use it in several of my pro audio products (a midi controller, a Eurorack module, and a series of guitar pedals). they are absolutely perfect as utility chips, the USB stack is good, the USB bootloader makes it incredibly easy for customers to update the firmware without me having to write a custom bootloader.
I've shipped at least a thousand "real" products with an RP2040 in them.
They very much are, right now. Lots and lots of big layoffs, the FAANG/MAGMA companies have completely dropped the halo effect they had over the industry. Everyone had to chase them on comp to get the best people; now they're ejecting people left, right and centre and there's no incentive for the smaller players to try and keep up with the competition anymore, because the competition in gone.
I've definitely noticed this myself when I was working my last job (quant finance in London, startup fund). We were getting premium talent applying for roles that we never dreamt of getting before then. A lot of them were ex Meta, ex google, ex Palantir etc. Guys who were very good but went to work mindless jobs for big tech for that 300k pay package. Now they're asking for half that, and desperate for a job.
Open up any young female "influencer" video on YouTube. Look at the graph of which parts of the video are most played (hover over the playback bar and it pops up). Notice how the spikes in viewership line up with any nudity/bikini/suggestive angles.
Literally 90% or more of the viewers are just there to look at half-naked bodies. Exactly what the article is talking about.
I don't think anyone could pretend that "I just run a fashion channel" or "I just post videos from my kids gymnastics sessions" doesn't know who's really putting views on their videos. It should be blatantly clear to anyone, especially the creator who has more in-depth tools to monitor their audience. These people 100% know what they're doing and they're willing to keep going.
Good. There no reason to rewrite undergrad calculus books every semester besides money grabbing. The math hasn't changed in 100 years and there shouldn't be an incentive to write an updated version of the book for the 50th time.
(Absolutely baller move for LSL to hire that guy)