David Beckham Quotes

"Pele was a complete player. I didn't see him live obviously, because I wasn't born"

"My parents have been there for me, ever since I was about 7"

"I remember so clearly us going into hospital so Victoria could have Brooklyn. I was eating a Lion bar at the time"

"Alex Ferguson is the best manager I've ever had at this level. Well, he's the only manager I've actually had at this level. But he's the best manager I've ever had"

"We're definitely going to get Brooklyn christened, but we don't know into which religion"

"I always used to go for blondes and quiet girls, but Victoria is the total opposite - dark and loud"

"Well, I can play in the centre, on the right and occasionally on the left side" -when asked if he thought that he was a volatile player"

No matter how you spun it, a lawsuit was waiting to pounce on YouTube. And when the lawsuit came, it would be from multi-billion dollar media conglomerates. Worst of all, people feared it will trigger a landslide of more lawsuits. And even still, Google bought YouTube. And now the billion dollar war has begun.

And I wondered: Maybe Google actually wanted to be sued.

Backroom Discussions

First of all, in a perfect world, no, Google wouldn’t want this. And Google, hoping that the world is close enough to perfect, did buy YouTube. But somewhere during discussions, someone must have asked, “How is this different from Morpheus and Kazaa? Won’t we be sued into oblivion?”

The smart lawyers at Google probably mentioned something about the DMCA, but honestly, would you want to buy a company that would be hated, constantly, by the very people who own the content that keeps you afloat? Or better, how will such a site remain #1 if there is a unified effort by content owners to either displace or destroy you? Most of all, media companies, who have significant clout and money, wouldn’t let YouTube host their content for free without a fight. There was more to this purchase than meets the eye.

No matter how you look at it, the purchase came with a lot of legal risk. I believe nobody at Google is surprised that Viacom is suing and wants $1 billion, A.K.A. most of the sum Google paid for YouTube. This is all part of the expected road map in owning YouTube.

So plan A was to hope people would be nice and look the other way. That worked for a year so far, and Google hoped it would continue. Plan B was to get sued.

This isn’t any ordinary “get sued and win” plan. Waiting to get sued so you can win in court is a defensive move for most companies. But for Google, this is preemptive. This is about Google defending YouTube instead of YouTube defending YouTube.

Why Getting Sued is a Preemptive Strategy

Let’s pretend that YouTube was not bought out because talks got delayed. Then realize that it would have probably been sued a lot sooner by a lot more people. Investors would flee and nobody would want the company now. If YouTube goes broke, that would have likely pushed Myspace Video to #1, giving Interactive Corp a huge edge since it happens to own Fox Entertainment. Myspace Video would become whatever was in the best interest of Big Media. Probably a DRM infested piece of crap that sued its users for uploading copyrighted material.

On the other hand, if YouTube didn’t go broke and fought the lawsuits, imagine if they had lost. Myspace Video gets to keep whatever edge it has, but virtually every other video site on the Internet becomes illegal overnight. Thousands of user records and IP addresses would get subpoenaed, and video sharing dies in one fell swoop.

Why Does Video Sharing Matter to Google?

What’s the next big thing on the net? Video. Google cares what happens in video sharing because it wants a slice of the video ad market. It doesn’t want to just be in the market, it wants to own it like it owns text ads. But that’s not the whole answer.

Google bought YouTube because it wanted to make sure of three things:

1. Google has first dibs for video ads on the biggest video site on the Internet
2. YouTube remains legal
3. Expand and protect current fair use related provisions involving copying intellectual property

The first point is obvious, and the second point feeds into point #1.

But the third point is the most important for Google. If YouTube were to lose a lawsuit for hosting intellectual property, it would severely weaken Google’s position in a variety of current and future endeavors. Any aspirations Google has of some day crawling and indexing video content (nope, they don’t have this technology yet) would now be in a legal limbo. It would also potentially re-introduce new arguments against their Google Image Search. And their book search program might suffer a similar fate once the YouTube precedent settles in. Google, being a company that spiders and indexes (stores) massive amounts of copyrighted information, would now be in serious legal jeopardy.

YouTube is Google’s Future

Thus, Google not only threw money at YouTube: it threw its lawyers at YouTube too. Google’s lawyers are some of the most well-versed copyright lawyers in the world since so many of their lawsuits deal with that issue.

The goal here is simple. Google wants to own the #1 video sharing site (completely legal), own 100% of the ads on that site, and clarify many currently-ambiguous copyright issues in their favor. If all of that goes as planned, the $1.5 billion paid to YouTube was a small price to pay. But if they had never gotten involved, the potential losses were far greater than a billion or two. Since Google has a market capitalization of over $130 billion, even a dip of 1% means losses of over $1 billion. But if entire sections of their business model became legally uncertain, you can bet they’d lose a lot more than 1%, especially with their insanely high P/E ratio (the ratio between how much they make and what their stock is worth).

By fighting a lawsuit, Google gets to prove the legitimacy of Internet video distribution - something that will probably never flourish under the “old media” regime. Unfortunately for them, the DMCA protects site owners from liability of what its users do — or at least that’s the general interpretation. Letting YouTube fight this battle alone with their own lawyers might have resulted in a very public and unnecessary loss that would have crippled Google’s video ambitions and possibly caused collateral damage to a bunch of related industries (especially search). This would have forced everybody to play by the conglomerates’ rules, and taken anyway any guarantee of Google getting any cut of the video ad pie. Video sharing needs this clarification before it can move forward. And if Google legitimizes it, they will have the biggest video site on the web for their video ads to play.

So let’s ask ourselves again: would Google pay $1.5 billion so it can fight the lawsuit on behalf of YouTube? Now that I think about it, it seems like a wise long term move.

麻坡的華語 Muar Chinese

Lorry driver Ed Nabors from Georgia said he was "still numb" as he claimed his prize of $116,557,083. After state taxes are paid, he will get $80m.

The other winning ticket was bought at a liquor store in Woodbine, New Jersey, but the holder has not come forward.

The US government is the other big winner, receiving one-third of the jackpot in taxes - $130m.

我的心現在是痛的 痛到讓我快透不過氣了

但我想當初你的心一定比我更痛

我的心會痛是因為我記起我對你的背叛 而你的心會痛是因為你最信任的我背叛了你

對不起真的對不起 心中有千萬個對不起

因為背叛了你使我痛苦萬分所以再我的淺憶識裡

我選擇了遺忘這段痛苦

經過了這麼久 我想起來了 我想起了

是我.... 確確實實的是我背叛了我們倆友情的信任 真的是我

我傷了你好深好深

現在痛苦的記憶又回來了

我又要在承擔一次痛 又要再一次的揹負背叛你的事實

而這種負擔不知道又要到何時才會散去

我想因該會背一輩子了吧

畢竟當初是我背叛了你

1. i like to sing old school hokkien songs in ktv.
   
2. i like to do forward rolls in my own living room.
3. i like to sing along to Akon's Smack That and smack the hell out of anyone in sight.
4. i set the clocks at home to 30mins faster then normal so that i wun be late. (doesn't work)
5. i dun like to sleep unless i really need it.
   
6. i like to arrange my msn windows in a particular order like below, if not i will feel uneasy chatting
   

ok, so that's 6. and i dun think i will tag 6 people to do this. cos it will be very embarrassing if they dun do it. so i think i ask 3 enough. ros, fanny and brandon. don't let me down hor. haha.

Suppose you are at a party and some hotshot intellectual is expounding on the economy of Peru, a subject you know nothing about. If you're drinking some health-fanatic drink like grapefruit juice, you'll hang back, afraid to display your ignorance, while the hotshot enthralls your date. But if you drink several large martinis, you'll discover you have STRONG VIEWS about the Peruvian economy. You'll be a WEALTH of information. You'll argue forcefully, offering searing insights and possibly upsetting furniture.

People will be impressed. Some may leave the room.

Suppose, in the Peruvian economy argument, you are trying to prove that Peruvians are underpaid, a position you base solely on the fact that YOU are underpaid, and you'll be damned if you're going to let a bunch of Peruvians be better off. DON'T say: "I think Peruvians are underpaid." Say instead:

"The average Peruvian's salary in 1981 dollars adjusted for the revised tax base is $1,452.81 per annum, which is $836.07 before the mean gross poverty level."

NOTE: Always make up exact figures.

If an opponent asks you where you got your information, make THAT up too. Say:

"This information comes from Dr. Hovel T. Moon's study for the Buford Commission published on May 9, 1982. Didn't you read it?" Say this in the same tone of voice you would use to say, "You left your soiled underwear in my bathroom."

Memorize this list:

Let me put it this way
In terms of
Vis-à-vis
Per se
As it were
Qua
So to speak

You should also memorize some Latin abbreviations such as "Q.E.D.", "e.g.", and "i.e." These are all short for "I speak Latin, and you don't."

Here's how to use these words and phrases. Suppose you want to say,"Peruvians would like to order appetizers more often, but they don't have enough money."

You never win arguments talking like that. But you WILL win if you say:

"Let me put it this way. In terms of appetizers vis-à-vis Peruvians qua Peruvians, they would like to order them more often, so to speak, but they do not have enough money per se, as it were. Q.E.D." Only a fool would challenge that statement.

You need an arsenal of all-purpose irrelevant phrases to fire back at your opponents when they make valid points. The best are:

You're begging the question.
You're being defensive.
Don't compare apples to oranges.
What are your parameters?

This last one is especially valuable. Nobody (other than engineers and policy wonks) has the vaguest idea what "parameters" means.

Don't forget the classic: YOU'RE SO LINEAR.

Here's how to use your comebacks:

You say:	As Abraham Lincoln said in 1873...
Your opponent says:	Lincoln died in 1865.
You say:	You're begging the question.
You say:	Liberians, like most Asians...
Your opponent says:	Liberia is in Africa.
You say:	You're being defensive.