Scofacts.org miscellanea

Alfa Romeo Petrofsky

Edwardalmos wrote on 2/18/2007 4:41:53 AM (-0500) in message 21278 of the
SCOX board at investorvillage.com:

http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd....n=21262&pt=msg

> One interesting thing about Al P. Both my ex-boss and I contribute
> towards Groklaw on a regular basis. A number of times I emailed Al
> and asked him if he wanted a contribution towards his legal costs
> and the costs of running his website. These offers have always been
> politely refused.

> So, either Al is a rich man and he can afford all the lawsuits
> against Merkey et al or he has another source of income. I don't
> know what, but running a website along with multiple legal cases can
> be a very expensive hobby.

> Ed Almos

(Sorry for the idiosyncratic off-board response, but it seems to me
that one is just asking for future frustration if one discusses
open-source-related topics on a proprietary forum that cannot be
freely mirrored and archived.)

I'm not sure what run-away legal expenses you think I had in the
Merkey case. Printing costs, postage stamps, and even international
registered mail to Deus Omnipotens's agent for earthly service, don't
add up to all *that* much. Perhaps you are thinking my lawyer charges
me $1,000/hour for his fabulous brief-writing skills. In truth,
though, I only charge myself for the inspirational spirits. One (1)
bottle of Southern Comfort generally suffices.

As for the total costs of running scofacts.org, I haven't bothered to
actually add those up, but I'm pretty sure that they're only a
four-digit number of dollars. My gains on short sales of SCOX, on the
other hand, were in the five-digit range. In other words, what was
that "[]other source of income" that you suspect? It was the idiots
who paid me as much as $14/share for SCOX back in 2004. (Perhaps I
should add a "Funded by Idiots" banner to the site.)

By the way, some people think that the reason I put so much time and
money into researching SCO and sharing what I found, was that I had a
financial interest in the outcome (an interest I always openly
disclosed). That's essentially correct, but in a way, the opposite is
more correct. You see, in August 2003 I only opened a token 100-share
short position. I didn't short a substantial amount until several
months later, *after* I had developed an unhealthy obsession with the
case. I opened the larger short position partly just so I wouldn't
feel so stupid about wasting so much time on following the story.

Unfortunately, although the income from my trades exceeded the costs
of running scofacts, most of that excess has long since been
squandered on booze and Czechoslovakian hookers. As Ed can attest, my
"polite refus[als]" were always careful to leave open the possibility
that at some future time I might accept donations. (That time has not
arrived, and I still don't expect that it will, but I just want to
note that my resources and pride are far from infinite.)

I apologize for my delinquency in updating the site. I swear I
actually am working on some new content. Here's a semi-rigged demo of
the improved docket tracking that will be added to the site "Real Soon
Now":

http://scofacts.org/nefomatic-test.html

P.S. For the record: even though my favorite dress is indeed a
spectacular red number (which I picked up at a thrift shop on Solano
Avenue in 1994), I am not now, nor have I ever been, Pamela Jones.