UPDATED

CNet’s interview with Bill Gates has any number of howlers, but a couple of them stand out.

He claims, for example, that Internet Explorer is the best browser. Insulting people’s intelligence is par for the course for Gates, but this one is beyond laughable.

More serious, and ugly, is Gates’ attack on people who want to restore a modicum of balance to today’s grossly tilted system of intellectual property. He snidely dismisses “some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist.”

The purity of this lie is remarkable. Even the most ardent of the free-software folks are not trying to remove the incentive to be creative. They believe in a different kind of incentive, just not the mercenary one that motivates Bill Gates.

The larger truth — a principle for which Gates so frequently demonstrates such contempt — is that the vast, vast majority of people who find fault with today’s system still want to reward creators for their work, financially and otherwise. But we also want a system that balances the rights of creators with the rights and needs of the larger society.

Gates and his allies in the entertainment cartel want absolute control. For them, fair use and other societal benefits are what the intellectual property holders deem them t

…excerpt from: dangillmor.typepad.com…

Of all the weblogs I read, there’s something cool to learn on Headrush almost every day.

Which would you prefer to listen to–a dry formal lecture or a stimulating dinner party conversation?
Which would you prefer to read–a formal academic text book or an engaging novel?

When I pose this question to authors or instructors, I usually hear, “You think the obvious answer is the dinner party and the novel, but it isn’t that simple.”

Followed by, “It all depends on the context. I’d much rather hear a dry formal lecture on something I’m deeply interested in than listen to inane dinner party conversation about Ashlee’s lip-syncing blunder.”

But here’s what’s weird–your brain wants to pay more attention to the party conversation than the formal lecture regardless of your personal interest in the topic.

Because it’s a conversation.

And when your brain thinks it’s part of a conversation, it thinks it has to pay attention… to hold up its end. You’ve felt this, of course. How many times have you sat in a lecture you really needed and wanted to pay attention to, but still found it hard to stay focused? Or how about the book you can’t seem to stay awake for… finding yourself reading the same paragraph over and over because you keep tuning out–despite your best effort to stay with it?

But here’s the coolest (and for me, the most fascinating) part of all this:

When you lecture or write using

…excerpt from: headrush.typepad.com…

Starbucks Drinks Simplified (kinda)
Since many people seem to be overly confused by the wide variety of options available at Starbucks, I’ve put together this handy-dandy cheat sheet to help you figure out what you want without spending hours staring blankly at a menu. It’s huge, but that’s because there’s a lot to choose from, and I’ve tried to include as much as possible. Of course, a lot of this stuff is trademarked by Starbucks Coffee Co. Drink availability will vary by location.

The always hilarious BBspot hits it out of the park again. Today, they give us The Top Eleven Geek Break Up Lines.

My personal favorite is number eleven:

(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? R
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? R
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? F
Relationship failed.

…excerpt from: www.wilwheaton.net…