Author Archives: shaun

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The state has long been a magnet for corporate litigation because of its welcoming tax structures and the court’s business expertise. Yet the State Legislature became concerned that Delaware was losing its “pre-eminence” in corporate litigation to a growing market in private dispute resolution.

To compete, Delaware passed a law in 2009 offering new privileges to well-heeled businesses. If litigants had at least $1 million at stake and were willing to pay $12,000 in filing fees and $6,000 a day thereafter, they could use Delaware’s chancery judges and courtrooms for what was called an “arbitration” that produced enforceable legal judgments.

Instead of open proceedings, filings would not be docketed, the courtroom would be closed to the public and the outcome would be secret. The Delaware Supreme Court could review judgments, but that court has not indicated whether appeals would also be confidential.

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You can watch a video from 2006, Pharrell guesting on BET’s Rap City, promoting his solo record, achieving peak Pharrell-ness in the form of bejeweled nerd-icon: On the show he freestyles for a while and then fumbles in his pocket, finally pulling out a Rubik’s Cube, covered in diamonds on all six sides. He holds it out to the camera. It rotates and gleams in the light.

Just a quick aside here, about the diamond-covered Rubik’s Cube: It was so great when Pharrell had the diamond-covered Rubik’s Cube. Over lunch in Hollywood, I ask if he still has it, and he says yes, but these days it doesn’t come out much. “I don’t wear big, crazy stuff” anymore, he says.

What do you think about it now? Does it make you feel awesome, that you had a diamond Rubik’s Cube?

“No, I was out of my mind. It was ridiculous. But that’s how caught up I was.” You can leave it to your son. “Here’s a diamond Rubik’s Cube. This is your inheritance.”

He gives me a skeptical look. “No, hopefully his inheritance is a great education and a positive outlook on life,” he says. Then he stands up to walk across the street and get a cupcake.

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– http://ift.tt/1dGEwwo

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“In 2011, officials at the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department moved to block AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile. That kept the struggling, fourth-place carrier alive as an independent firm. And it led John J. Legere, T-Mobile’s flamboyant, foul-mouthed chief executive, to brand his company the “uncarrier,” and inaugurate a string of measures that have turned every accepted practice in the mobile business on its head. T-Mobile’s resurgence, and the effect it has had on the larger market for cellular service, may hold important lessons for regulators who will soon sit in judgment over the latest enormous broadband proposal, Comcast’s deal to gobble up Time Warner Cable.”

– http://ift.tt/1dDQmHv

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“Consensus generally favors Andre over Big Boi. This is a fatal misunderstanding of their partnership. If Andre steered more than half the journey on the first two records, Big Boi caught up by Aquemini. His flow is as liquid and low to the ground as a busted fire hydrant. Several hooks, including “Rosa Parks”, belong to him. If Andre is the interstellar satellite, Big Boi is the spy on the streets. The wildest indulgences have checks and balances. You need Big Boi to have Andre. The poet and the player was the tagline; the truth is that you never knew who was who.”

– http://ift.tt/1dL9p4K

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““We’re built to be wary of something novel, but once it’s not novel, we can develop new food preferences into old age,” said Gary Beauchamp, an expert on the science of taste at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. Precisely as a child’s diet broadens, so can a 40-year-old’s or a 50-year-old’s, because in every instance, Dr. Beauchamp said, “it’s not about something that’s going on in the mouth or the taste buds but something that’s going on further up in the brain.” Our palates matter less than our perspectives, and over those we have some control.”

– http://ift.tt/1hT0eEL

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“By refusing to acknowledge the advocates or his fellow-Justices, Thomas treats them all with disrespect. It would be one thing if Thomas’s petulance reflected badly only on himself, which it did for the first few years of his ludicrous behavior. But at this point, eight years on, Thomas is demeaning the Court. Imagine, for a moment, if all nine Justices behaved as Thomas does on the bench. The public would rightly, and immediately, lose all faith in the Supreme Court. Instead, the public has lost, and should lose, any confidence it might have in Clarence Thomas.”

– http://ift.tt/1p1q5ex

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“Over at Snapchat, Mr. Spiegel, who is 23, apparently thought $3 billion was not enough for a company that, as yet, does not turn a dime of profit. But here’s another question: When is your number big enough? The most expensive homes in the Bay Area top out at around $30 million. Pick up a few fancy cars at $100,000 a pop. Throw in a Bentley for $175,000, a weekend place in Sonoma for $5 million, a modest pied-à-terre in Manhattan for around $5 million — fine, make it $10 million. And a top-of-the-line private jet for around $50 million. With expenses, taxes and what not, you’re barely past $100 million.”

– http://ift.tt/1fwUSfd

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Data brokers organize and sell that information to retailers, lenders and other businesses that pitch their products to people grouped in categories like “rural and barely making it” and “ethnic second-city strugglers.”

Some of the information is highly personal, if clearly irrelevant to any marketing campaign. A Chicago-area man recently received a marketing offer from OfficeMax that included the line “Daughter Killed in Car Crash” between his name and address, a reference to an accident that took place a year earlier. The company says that the phrase was included in error, but it offers a clue into the kind of data being collected.

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– http://ift.tt/1fwURYE

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