Hmmm...

I always thought antimatter was spontaneously consumed after the aperitivo and before the primo.

Furthermore, it's clear that the real reason for the pear shape has to do with an excessive indulgence of the secondo, not to mention the formaggio e frutta.

A distasteful bit of shilling

Maybe I missed a turn somewhere, but this is clearly an advertorial, yet appears to be billed as 'reportage'. For all the protestations in the "whitepaper" that it is not an advertisement, it clearly is -- not least because it has MS plastered all over it, there is a preponderance of pro-MS rhetoric, and the conclusions are remarkably kind.

This is a disappointing term for The Vulture, which in this case more closely resembles a haggard and violated chicken.

"her examination ... will encourage them to breed"

"...Edwards is now studying horny rhinos at Chester Zoo. She hopes her examination of sexy hormones in the animals will encourage them to breed."

That depends on how she examines their hormones, doesn't it? I mean, maybe she's doing her fieldwork whilst wearing that sexy off-grey number that accentuates her horn and shows off her well-muscled...

Wait, did I misunderstand that sentence?

Am I missing something?

Do people really get paid to write stuff like this? Ever? Do people pay to listen to it? People can actually make a living out of this?

I always thought you had to know something, be able to do it, get the job done, and preferably not piss off everybody in the process.

"Canadian time"??

"...FUDgasm started on Wednesday, Canadian time, when Canada.com revealed..."

Although I heartily applaud "FUDgasm" as a delightful neologism, I take exception to the phrase "Canadian time". Canada spans six time zones, which makes the reporter's word choice ironically provincial.

a poetic reflection

The hell of astronomy

is all that taxonomy.

There's an object for everyone famous.

I understand Triton

was one of the Titans.

But I don't know much of Uranus.

OR...

I'm very impressed by Uranus.

or

The cold gassy blob is Uranus.

or

...

I hate to admit it, but...

...I think Goldman Sachs are pretty close on the money here. A smartphone can certainly do some things that used to be the domain of a laptop. Tablets sound an even louder death-knell for the Windows hegemony: it's possible to use them instead of a laptop for some more purposes -- a tablet user sitting on a train, typing into GoogleDocs can get a fine start on some work that is picked up at the home or the office. Nothing to install, no licenses to worry about, no viruses...

Yes, there will be Very Loud and Impressive Boys on this board who will insist that You Cannot Do Real Work on anything other than Office on Windows... but that's a minority. Most people can do lots of work without that combination, and it is the breaking of a monopoly that bodes ill for Microsoft. When you can't count on everybody having your particular variety of application and platform, you start thinking in more heterogeneous terms -- which brings us straight to Trevor Pott's eminently sensible argument.

Yo, Freetards: Reality Check

1. He broke the law. Stupid law? Maybe. Still the law, and he knew it.

2. After he got nicked, he showed stupidity (refusing to settle), cowardice (it wasn't me!), and arrogance (c.f. Nesson).

3. Bankruptcies happen. It's not terminal. Properly handled, this could be a great career starter.

4. The court did precisely what it was supposed to do: it considered whether the law had been correctly applied, and made a ruling.

Don't like the law? Change it. Go out and do something useful rather than sitting there like a whining child caught with your hands in the cookie jar. Campaign for legal reform. Write letters (yeah, those) to your congressman. Buy (as some here honorably do) music through other channels. Make some music of your own -- invest some major effort into creating yourself.

This wholesale "sharing" puts no money into the hands of artists. The deal with the RIAA sucks, but it's where the law got us. As a creative, I'm thrilled that this has happened, because it just might galvanise one or two people into thinking and acting.

Here's something that would have gone miles toward establishing Tenenbaum's moral credentials: if Nesson had produced one -- just ONE -- street busker to come forward and say, "Yeah -- I know that kid. He always puts a couple of bucks into my hat."

You want to get worked up about something real? Look at the number of bankruptcies caused by medical expenses.

Calligraphy with Crayons

I cringe at the thought of being forced to read something that was 'published' in Word. Given the age of the software and the deep pockets of the company that produces it, you would think that they'd have decent typography worked out by now, but as of the latest version kerning didn't exist, ligatures have to be explicitly enabled, and the fonts installed by MS are usually not as good as the versions which the installer tries to replace by default. Add in the default of a san-serif font (Calibri), Word's grindingly irritating attempts to "help", and Word Art, and you have a recipe for a typographic disaster.

It might be possible to do a good layout in Word, but the inherent limitations of the software make it an uphill battle.