'It's not layoffs, it's operationalising our strategy'

QuoTW This week, ICANN passed the buck on .sucks, NASA warned of imminent contact with aliens and Microsoft turned everyone's old PCs into Windows 10 adverts.

Here are the best quotes we could dig up before the pub came calling:

Apple has denied fanbois their right to camp out in front of stores in the hope of getting on TV for being THE FIRST PERSON IN THE WORLD to buy the Apple Watch.

New iThing retail boss Angela Ahrendts told store staffers to push hopeful buyers online instead of in-line. She spun the no loitering mandate thusly:

The days of waiting in line and crossing fingers for a product are over for our customers.

Perhaps instead of camping out outside the Apple store, fanbois could keep a close eye on their portables to avoid the latest terrifying iOS bug.

FireEye researchers spotted a flaw in the mobile operating system, which could allow an attacker to remotely brick a device. FireEye researchers Zhaofeng Chen, Hui Xue, Tao Wei and Yulong Zhang said:

The user has done nothing wrong, but the attacker now is able to change the proxy by hijacking the legitimate PAC and to perform the Phantom attack. After being attacked, the user cannot use any networking apps which all terminate immediately.

Elsewhere, some NetApp employees will be finding themselves in another line ... at the unemployment office. The company is desperately trying to avoid using the "L" word though, offering the following bowl of word salad instead:

Our focus is on operationalising our strategy to take full advantage of the opportunity in front of us.

Whatever that means.

Meanwhile, the chips were down for Intel, after it was told that it could no longer ship its high-end Xeon processors to China. Something of a big deal, given that Chipzilla powers the world's fastest supercomputer, which happens to reside in Guangzhou.

The vendor put the blame for the blockade squarely on the shoulders of Uncle Sam, offering the following statement:

Intel was informed in August by the US Department of Commerce that an export license was required for the shipment of Xeon and Xeon Phi parts for use in specific previously disclosed supercomputer projects with Chinese customer INSPUR.

Tl;dr – China is about to become very interested in POWER chips.

ICANN, meanwhile, is tired of looking like the bad guy in the .sucks saga. The company that approved the new .gTLD now says it has no control over the domain unless the US and Canadian governments decide to be the bad guy and find domain minder Vox Populi in violation of the law. Contract compliance officer Allen Grogan tried to explain ICANN's shrug on the matter:

We can enforce the terms and conditions of our contracts with registries, but it is the responsibility of governmental regulatory agencies, law enforcement and the courts to police illegal activity.

And finally, we wrap up QuoTW with some sage advice from Adam Jacob, CTO of Chef. This one doesn't need much lead-in, so let's get right to it:

One of the most important things I've learned over the course of building Chef was that you can only have zero tolerance for assholes. If you want to have a company that's great, as soon as you see an asshole, that’s chronic and can’t quit, you've got to kick them out.

Wise words, indeed. ®