Much Ado About Microsofts Surface Computer - Pogue’s Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog

If this is all sounding creepily familiar, it is probably because so far, all of this is exactly what NYU researcher Jeff Han has been demonstrating for a year and a half now. I’ve written about it several times on my Pogue’s Posts blog.

I thought it sounded familiar too, but I couldn't remember the details. This must be the one.

But I'll at least give Microsoft credit for "pushing" an idea who's time may not have come yet, knowing it may lose money for a long time (whether it loses money for Microsoft or the hardware company that they rope into the deal remains to be seen). No, it's not really innovation, but it is at least more in the direction of innovations that many of the things they apply that lable to.

» Podcast: ‘Google Gears’ vies to be de facto tech for offline Web apps | Berlind’s Testbed | ZDNet.com

Google’s Upson was not shy about his company’s motives for open sourcing the technology. The idea, according to him, is to make it a standard in the marketplace now, without the need for standards bodies. With so few Web app providers offering such offline capability and with Google’s war-chest behind the effort, the tech stands a pretty good chance at becoming the overnight defacto standard for running Web apps offline. At the same time, where companies have committed to an offline architecture as Zimbra has with its Zimbra Desktop (whose offline capability is powered by Java), those companies may be forced to completely reconsider that architecture if Google Gears gets market traction.

Google moves to take on Microsoft

"Of additional concern to Microsoft will be Google’s decision to “open source” its technology. Google hopes Gears will move the industry towards a single standard for offline capabilities, potentially enabling thousands of applications to compete with Microsoft software.

“Microsoft is either going to have to support this or do something like it,” says David Mitchell Smith, analyst with the Gartner research firm."

Not unexpected, but this could be VERY big.

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

Why in the world anyone would want to post their personal stories on the Internet I don't know. But people do, and some times these stories seem so tragic and real that you just want to reach out a helping hand how could I resist?...

My own little soap opera(s) of this nature happened in the late 70s early 80s and often enough that I think of my own emotional makeup as being more scar tissue than anything else, but I allowed myself to be too self absorbed (don't we all?) and got what I probably deserved in the grand scheme of things. Suffice it to say that I've retired from romantic entanglements, more by choice than by necessity (even though two CAN live more cheaply than one, managing ones finances as a single person is MUCH easier).

So here, semi solicited, is my very jaded view of the subject:

What is there that is more important about a (with emphasis) *modern* *human* relationship than ego?

Now let that last thought sink in for a bit while I say that we (mostly) have been conditioned by Ozzie and Harriet/Bradie Bunch (substitute your own TV adolescent societal programming) to think that the only NORMAL mode of human existence is to get married and raise as many children as your income allows you to support. Not only does (did) this formula seem to work on TV, but it clearly worked in real life for long enough for us as countries world-wide to develop schemes such as Social Security that actually DEPEND upon it. Ponzi schemes collapse without an ever broadening base. But even before Social Security schemes, this system actually worked very well. One kid could support two parents into their old age, two could do so better, three better still. There was a "natural selection" advantage to larger families, but not so extreme that smaller families were wiped out. If you are a Darwinian, you probably imagine that some process sets an optimum number of kids for things to just work nicely, with variations on either side being preserved in the gene pool for, uh, lets say, GLOBAL WARMING! (Al Gore is proud when you work this into conversations on ANY other topic.)

Now back to: What is there that is more important about a (with emphasis) *modern* *human* relationship than ego? Well, if you are really paying attention, there's sex for one. Part of that involves ego too though in ways that are really hard to tease apart. Let's simplify though and factor sex out of it on the assumption that, in this modern pr0n driven Internet world you can always become a do-it-yourselfer.

Oh yes, and one more thing, (at the risk of devolving into a Monty Python sketch) a fanatical devotion to spreading our DNA all over the place.

Our world has changed much faster than any natural selection process can keep up with. If we could just keep things steady for a few thousand years, with no major new technologies, industries, disruptive housing breakthroughs and so on, I'm sure the hand of Darwin would make adjustments to our psyches, gonads and so forth (in addition to having enormous heads and longer fingers as all the sci-fi authors predict) to make everything come out just right again. Of course this is complicated by the fact that so many of us have opted out of the gene pool in one way or another. Many of us may have ideal traits, but we certainly aren't passing them on, forcing nature to constantly re-invent the wheel so to speak.

Where was I? Oh, anyway, (human) society has placed a whole new layer of pressures on us beyond the formerly natural kill-or-be-killed simplicity that various animal species have to deal with. Take birds: watching one of those nature films, when the male birds parade around, wing and tail feathers spread wide, trying to gain the "affections" of the female birds, one male bird gets selected to fertilize those eggs. What does the rejected male bird feel? I've often wondered. Is it just sexual frustrations? Are their "egos" crushed? Do they become suicidal? If birds had Civ IV to resort to would they? (I'm serious!)

I've read where many, maybe even most, animal species mate for life. Others only long enough to get one generation of offspring going followed by each partner seeking another mate for the next time around. Maybe natural selection hasn't been able to settle on a "best" formula in this area which is why there seem to still be so many people who do it successfully one way and so many other people who do it successfully another way. We've all seen, known or even been a part of a family unit with one husband and one wife, mated for life, raising children (or sometimes not) little or no infidelities, friends for life, teammates, if you will. God bless them, and by the way, in my experience these are mostly religious people, who have succeeded in this lifestyle IN SPITE of egos, IN SPITE of sexual urges and IN SPITE of Darwinian propulsions to spread the seed a little further. They got where they were by human rationality of the type that has to be intentionally exercised (whether you agree with the results or not, they got the results THEY wanted).

The other successful model that comes to mind is Hollywood. Here copulation is king. Slam, bam, thank-you mam. Why do they even bother getting married? Oh, yeah, so that they can get their pictures in Variety. Not a lot of forward thinking goes on here. Or thinking at all as far as I can tell. But it makes kids in large numbers, and these people are rich, so the kids are well provided for, at least financially. And do these "stars" get too upset during the breakups? Not so you can tell in most cases. If you lower your expectations enough you can live with almost any circumstances I suppose.

I don't know about you, but as free-thinking as I once was, I couldn't picture myself in multiple casual relationships over my lifetime. Oh I did get around for a while, but for me it was always a search for what I hoped would be an ultimate permanence. I too was more often mentor than mentee, more often financial provider, more often the emotional support rather than the one supported and certainly gave as good as I got in the sex department (or at least that's the way it seemed to me at the time).

But at some point (and it took far too long as I had been given the advice many times) I realized I had never gotten comfortable with the notion of being alone. From high school onward I was always "on the make" holding off any thoughts of marriage until after college by an extreme exercise of will (and the knowledge that parents would probably cut off funding). And then in the AM (after marriage) it was one relationship after another, all ending as soon as the sex wasn't so good any more (for one of us). Without wanting to, I was leading the Hollywood lifestyle, when what I really wanted (or thought I wanted) was the Ozzie and Harriet lifestyle.

So I went solo. It was rough. Particularly since I am not the macho type of guy who likes to do manly things like fishing, hunting, or home repair for that matter. I went to restaurants alone, even nice ones where I'd never been without a date. Quite an exercise of self confidence to go to a fancy French restaurant alone, and sit there and read a book. This will flush out any secret desire you have to be the center of attention. Yes, people will think "what's WRONG with him, why isn't he WITH someone?" and whats more you will know that is what they are thinking. But after about two years (I think that's what it took for me) you won't care. And after another two or three years you might actually start to dread the thought of another relationship. Or you may decide to dip your toe in the waters again, find a woman on an Internet dating service who "loves" you for who you are, only to find that she's married with kids.(and not all that unhappily married as it turns out). And lest you think I'm making that up, it happened to me. (TWICE!)

But enough about me, lets get to what YOU think about me? No, that's from another comedy bit. In the final years of my career, I was hit on by many women, a few of which I actually found attractive and after they asked around and found out I wasn't turning them down because I was gay or anything their efforts only increased. I've been the intended victim/subject of several matchmakers. I keep telling them they are wasting their time. They invite me and the woman over for dinner at the same time (not telling me in advance) hoping for nature to take its course. I'm polite, but I know better than to let nature take its course, because that course is for us all to breed like rabbits, and whether we call it sex, or ego, or self esteem, or even layer some societal ponzie scheme requirement, or the need to spread the faith by out producing the other faiths, you know, deep down inside you know, that human happiness of a lasting kind is not what it is all about. Lookout Jim it's a trap! (Star Trek) that is, unless you get religion or some other "ion" and make that relationship you seek secondary to some other goal (and I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this approach).

In closing, if you are not discouraged enough, consider that:

(1) All the good ones are taken. Really, there is no getting around this. Of the happy old couples that I've known that live together until they die, they either got together when they were young, or they got together when they were so old that neither of them had enough time to jump ship first. If you want someone who is not a chronic ship-jumper during middle age, your going to have to find someone who's mate has tragically taken from us in the prime of life. You will never be loved as much, if at all. Your reason for being chosen as the replacement might be a subject best never explored.

(2) No matter how objective you try and be, all is probably not as you've presented it. Maybe you snore really loudly (I do) or your farts really stink (as do mine) and those are two things she has never been able to stand, but she has never been able to confront you with them because, since those things are so important to her, she thinks they might be really devastating to you as well. One of my gals had a big nose. But I never told her I really LIKED big noses. Come to think of it, most of my gals had big noses. Darn I wish I had thought about that sooner.

Anyway. Glad I could help you out with this. I look forward to updates.

Novell/Microsoft patent deal secrets

The Microsoft/Novell patent agreement reveals that Microsoft saw this threat to its patent portfolio before hand. The relevant language from Novell's 10K reads:

"[The GPLv3] Discussion Draft 3 includes a term intended to require Microsoft to make the same patent covenants that our customers receive to all recipients of the GPLv3 software included in our products. It also includes a license condition intended to preclude companies from entering into patent arrangements such as our agreement with Microsoft by prohibiting any company that has entered into such an arrangement from distributing GPLv3 code. This license condition does not apply to arrangements entered before March 28, 2007, so as currently proposed it would not apply to our agreement with Microsoft; however, the FSF specifically indicated that this 'grandfathering' condition is tentative and may be dropped depending on feedback the FSF receives."

The agreement continued, "If the final version of GPLv3 contains terms or conditions that interfere with our agreement with Microsoft or our ability to distribute GPLv3 code, Microsoft may cease to distribute SUSE Linux coupons in order to avoid the extension of its patent covenants to a broader range of GPLv3 software recipients, we may need to modify our relationship with Microsoft under less advantageous terms than our current agreement, or we may be restricted in our ability to include GPLv3 code in our products, any of which could adversely affect our business and our operating results."

Caution: Some soft drinks may seriously harm your health

Concerns centre on the safety of E211, known as sodium benzoate, a preservative used for decades by the £74bn global carbonated drinks industry. Sodium benzoate derives from benzoic acid. It occurs naturally in berries, but is used in large quantities to prevent mould in soft drinks such as Sprite, Oasis and Dr Pepper. It is also added to pickles and sauces.

Sodium benzoate has already been the subject of concern about cancer because when mixed with the additive vitamin C in soft drinks, it causes benzene, a carcinogenic substance. A Food Standards Agency survey of benzene in drinks last year found high levels in four brands which were removed from sale.

"Reform Math" Leaves Some Perplexed, New Curriculum Has Some Parents So Concerned, They're Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands - CBS News

"Reform math isn’t exactly new. It’s been around for about 15 years. It was inspired by a group of educators to combat slumping math scores and sleeping students. But today even some of those educators say some school districts have taken it too far."

LibriVox

Sounds interesting.

I, Cringely . Pulpit . The Final Days of Google . Comments | PBS

"Remember, being number one is not about being the best, it's about preventing anyone else from being the best."

Definitely off his game on this one. Maybe the understudy wrote it?

Microsoft's New Open-Source War

"That's the sad part. Despite the fact that these 235 patent claims have essentially already been shot down, it's a guarantee that there are some IT administrators currently hearing from executives that read the headlines and think they need to stop using this open-source stuff out of patent fears."

Microsoft too busy to name Linux patents | The Register

Microsoft turns semi-transparent...

According to Ramji, the executive tasked with the difficult job of straddling Microsoft's growing support for open source in server and tools, and aggressive and unpredictable statements from management on patents, made a jaw dropping attempt to explain away the Forbes article.

"The reason we disclosed that, is because there was a request for transparency following the Novell deal Iast November. This was a response to that transparency," Ramji said. It was at that point the OSBC audience erupted.

Why Microsoft Ultimately Will Triumph Over Google (and Vice Versa)

Best Life Magazine Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we?

Steve Gillmor’s GestureLab » Click Insurance

Sounds like a plan!

A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal--Panama!

Microsoft: Cell Phone Will Replace PCs

Meanwhile, people who have already worked on it for a while claim:

Mobile is dead!

So which is it?

Am I the only person in the world that has difficulty concentrating for long periods of time on a 2-inch screen? Or a 3x4 inch screen for that matter.

Where is Goldylocks when you need her? No, I don't want something I have to use in conjunction with a magnifying glass, and no, I don't want something that takes up a whole wall in my living room. Whatever happened to "just right"?

I think this is all about consumerism. Microsoft wants to perpetuate the myth that everything will be on a cell phone. Why? Because they need something to add to their bottom line, where Windows is already about a successful as it will ever be. Meanwhile the old-guard electronics firms in Japan, China and so forth know we are all going to be replacing our old TVs sometime in the next few years and they need to sell the concept of "bigger is always better".

Nobody here is paying that much attention to what consumers actually want, what they are paying attention to is what they can brainwash consumers into wanting in the near future.

Companies can raise a lot of cash of course by selling things that people don't actually want. The question is can they use that cash to build "mindshare" to keep those customers loyal to the brand, or will they squander mindshare for short term gain that only boosts stock prices long enough for the executives to bail out?

The N800 is about as small a screen as I'd ever want to use for Internet access. I do check e-mail on my cell phone though using a specific application for just that purpose. In both cases those are temporary situations where I'd rather wait until I get back home, or at least onto a laptop to do any responding, etc.

Companies will only start listening to what consumers actually want after they have been whacked over the head a few times by consumers willing to say "I won't buy that cr*p just because you tell me it's the next big thing!"

Port 25 : Clarifications

Comedy of errors over at Microsoft gets funnier every day. Word seems to have gone out in Redmond this week to generate as much negative PR as possible.

Way to go boys!

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Setting the Battle Lines

Richard Fontana, counsel for the SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center), which works with the Free Software Foundation, said he "suggests that it is Microsoft's proprietary software that is full of IP risk, and not Linux or FOSS [free and open-source software]. In the past three years alone, Microsoft has publicly paid out more than $4 billion dollars in settlements and court awards for alleged infringements of other companies' patents. And if any of Microsoft's own patents are not novel and non-obvious, that means that Microsoft's purported IP includes property it does not actually have any right to own—property that has essentially been misappropriated from earlier inventors, or from the public."

Silicon Valley Blog: Are Leading Bloggers Getting Blog Fatigue?

Of late, I've seen signs of fatigue from a number of high-profile bloggers who are taking blog vacations, begging for guest bloggers to take their normal place, or in some cases, the bloggers are choosing to keep us updated in other ways - preferring Twitter or other venues.

Also:
Scoble
Calacanis

I read both Scoble and Calacanis (who doesn't post with nearly the frequency of Scoble) and I'm not too dismayed, or surprised by their throttling back a bit.

We live in an era of specialization and I think blogs are finally settling down out of the "gee-whiz blogs are going to replace everything" mode, into something more realistic.

The kinds of blogs that are going to survive as a money making engine are those produced by specialists who draw readers interested in that particular thing. As has been mentioned, that thing was Microsoft in Scoble's case, and in Calacanis's case that thing was... well, "How I got rich off of AOL".

Now they are both journalism school graduates I think, and as such, if any good at that profession they should both be able to hold an audience. But do most mainstream journalists write 5-10 articles a day plus handled all the reader feedback on those articles? I don't think so.

Journalism has never been a really high paying profession except for those few who hit the big time by working for either one of the larger papers or TV networks, or who write repeatably best selling books.

Now blogging COULD change that dynamic a bit, but I don't think the entire news-gathering industry is going to be replaced by blogging. Rather blogging will augment those other things.

Look at David Pogue of the New York Times. Successful book author and columnist. Now he also blogs, and does regular podcasts. Everything he does points to everything else. I never actually read his NYT column in fact until I started reading his blog, and then from that I subscribed to e-mails from the NYT to save having to check the blog which isn't even daily, and then I subscribed to the podcasts because I found them more entertaining than the writing alone, and his writing, is really aimed at novices and as such, for a true geek, more entertaining than informative. Great work by Pogue and the New York Times in building a "brand", whatever it is though.

That I think is going to be the formula for MOST people to succeed as journalists. You have to be comfortable with all, or at least most of the media formats out there. It still helps to be photogenic and have a good speaking voice, even if you can write very very well.

Now for people who thought they were going to start making a living writing a blog, reality is going to set in, or already has. I guaranty you if there are people making six-figures by only writing a blog in their PJs every morning, they aren't going to get tired of it (or if they do I want to apply for their job!).

I track a few hundred feeds via Google reader. Only now that it is keeping statistics on me, I'm noticing some that I don't actually read all of them that closely. Soon I'm going to whittle that list down a lot and I bet others are doing the same. The RSS feed may serve as the meat in my reading list every day, but that will probably get augmented by searches (some automated into my Google Homepage) that are subject based and don't lend themselves to a particular feed. I think the feed reader technology has helped many people zero in on what their daily list looks like, and that is probably making the long tail even longer than before.

For those of us who have always blogged (or done other creative writing) just because we enjoyed it (and not to make a living) nothing is going to change. But for those who had higher aspirations, I can see how "fatigue" would be a good way to describe what they are going through. If the blog is keeping such people away from some other activity that actually earns them a living, or if it is keeping them away from a normal social life (assuming they want one) then the adjustments are probably well overdue.

» Using Google to replace Sharepoint, LimitNone’s gShare bridges MS-Office/Google Apps divide | Berlind’s Testbed | ZDNet.com

"But if you're really looking for frictionless, look no further than Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets. As I've written before, compared to what's there in the mainstream now, Google Docs and Spreadsheets is like pure collaborative oxygen. I need no local software. No specific operating system. No system administrators. For you to begin collaborating with someone else, all you need is a browser. Google takes care of the rest to the point that when you make a change to a document, that change simply shows up seconds later on anybody else's screen (anybody else who currently has the document open). We could argue about whether the process of checking documents in and checking them out makes more sense in terms of avoiding conflicting changes. But I think that's secondary to the friction that Google has removed from both the end user experience as well as the implementation part."

Red Hat to build 'Global Desktop' - vnunet.com

"Red Hat has teamed up with Intel for the platform. Local PC manufacturers will build the actual systems. The compuers will target small businesses and governments in emerging economies, and the software will be made available on Intel's Classmate PC, a low cost notebook computer for students."

'bout time.

Whither television? [dive into mark]

I saw a headline today that said TV Viewership was down 2.5 million. Oh wait, I blogged that already didn't I? Well it seems to be a meme or something today. So I'm bloggin' it again dammit! Go to the title article for another switcher-offers sudden realization that they don't miss TV. My take:

Well, the headline that got my attention this morning said something about 2.5 million fewer viewers this month. But reading the article revealed that it was a drop in the number for the same month last year, which is still significant. I moved from a densly populated (Washington DC) area where I “did without” cable (but really, I wasn’t watching TV at all) to an area with exactly ZERO local TV stations. To that add that I am in a condo with no ability to have an external antena at all. With some careful manipulation of an internal antenna (with signal booster) I get a station a hundred miles off just like it was coming from Alpha-Centori, ie, no picture, fuzzy sound.

“Why don’t you get cable?” everyone asks.

Because when I first got cable it was $14 a month and there were NO COMMERCIALS! Now the minimum price starts to look like $60, but to get what I used to get for $14 it kicks up to over $100 and that includes a mandatory monthly visit from the cable company to give you a kick in the nut-sack (in my case).

I just wish people would turn them off faster, because I so want to see these companies crash and burn.

There WAS of course valuable content out there, History Channel, BBC, A&E, but to a large extent I found there was a lot of repetition, and for the outrageous fees, I could just go to a discount store and buy the content on DVDs for less. Heck I can run my own 200-hour rotation now, what do I need cable for?

What about new content you say? I’ve sampled it when I visit other people. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.

And besides, you can watch TV right here! See that post below? Better than anything I saw last time I visited one of you pathetic TV watchers! Clickity click.

Switch - AT&T? MCI? Sprint?

COMEDY GOLD - video powered by Metacafe

FOXNews.com - Network Television Viewership Plunges By 2.5 Million People, Data Shows

"In TV's worst spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS (CBS), NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show."

What a shame.

Let's all pretend to be surprised. Again.

Microsoft and Yahoo: A Really Bad Idea - Columns by PC Magazine

Dvorak is right on target with this one, he says this is not a 5+5=10 situation but a 5+5=6 situation, or 5 or 4.

But I'm all for it!

I don't like either company. If someone you didn't like was drowning, wouldn't you throw him a brick?

Well, no. But these are big EVIL companies. Kill kill kill!

Or at least if the management of these companies are as clueless as we've all believed, why not let them sink one another a bit faster?

Of course Google needs competition, so if Yahoo and Microsoft ceased to be relevant tomorrow wouldn't this be a bad thing?

Well, yes, if you consider them relevant now. I think Google has more to fear from smaller companies. From the numbers that WSJ used earlier today we can see that the per employee numbers from the three companes look like this:



What does this mean?

I have no idea. But I produced it using Google Docs and spreadsheets and that's good enough for me. No Microsoft or Yahoo software required. I won't miss the combined company as it sinks further into the deep blue sea. Blub blub.

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Lean and Mean | PBS

LEAN is about offshoring and outsourcing at a rate never seen before at IBM. For two years Big Blue has been ramping up its operations in India and China with what I have been told is the ultimate goal of laying off at least one American worker for every overseas hire. The BIG PLAN is to continue until at least half of Global Services, or about 150,000 workers, have been cut from the U.S. division.

Well, it *is* "International" Business Machines after all. I think a good case can be made that if the company wants to do more business in India, Russia, China, Brazil, etc., that it would be a good idea for it to hire more people in these countries.

As far as US Business is concerned, suppose a potential customer of IBM wants to dabble with its own offshoring effort, but with a familiar vendor who has already worked out the logistics?

Unless (as a US worker) you are a plumber, dentist, or someone else who's physical presence at the job site is required, you are probably overpriced in the world market. This imbalance will get resolved eventually, though probably not in most of our lifetimes. About time we got over being shocked about it.

Remember Ballmer saying he was going head to head with IBM in services? What ever happened to that? Unlike software sales where you can lock customers in for many years (and IBM knew about this before Microsoft even existed) the services business involves real work, and you can lose big chunks of business almost overnight. IBM is where it is because they gave the easy stuff away to Microsoft and Intel a long time ago. Comoditization has made that old turf not worth fighting over any more. The consulting business still CAN be worth fighting over, but my bet is the winners will not have all-US workforces, that is, unless isolationists take over both the Congress and White House.

Yahsoft, or Microhoo?

Whether Microsoft and Yahoo can reach an agreement remains as much of a question as it did a year ago. Microsoft has always steered clear of large acquisitions. Yahoo has about 11,700 employees and earlier this week had a market value of about $38 billion. Yahoo shares surged 15% on the Nasdaq Stock Market to $32.42 on news of the talks, raising the company's market value to around $43 billion on Friday.

Verizon Fights to Keep Its Landline Customers - WSJ.com

"As cable competitors and other Internet companies are entering the phone business, Verizon is fighting back with new high-tech services. At the same time, the New York-based company is trying to prevent phone customers from disconnecting landline service in favor of wireless or Internet-based phone service."

So far the battle has yet to reach my house. By getting a better than average deal from Sprint for Cell service I'll probably eliminate my need for Verizon LD. I'm beginning to question my need for a land line at all. With Fios I don't know how long off, some sort of price cutting would be nice.

You would THINK that companies like this could offer a better deal for people who sign up for "the works", say half price if you go with Verizon DSL, Landline, Cell, LD, but Nooooooo! they throw a 5% at you here and there (that expires after a while) and expect you to start salivating.

Microsoft "rebooted the Web" yesterday « Scobleizer

Imagine this on a blue background:

A problem has been detected and the Internet has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

BUGCODE_ISS_SERVER_TOO_SLOW

If this is the first time you have seen this Stop error screen, REBOOT THE INTERNET. If this screen appears again follow these steps:

Check to make sure there hasn't been a catastrophic nuclear event. This is most likely your fault. Do not call Microsoft until you have attempted the following....

Linux kernel webcams Driver GSPCA / SPCA5xx

My old DLink 350 Piece-o-junk may still see some use!