In Our World

I mentioned previously that North Carolina had no-excuse early voting. Simply show up at one of the appointed locations, cast your vote, and you're done. The idea sounds pretty sweet. The problem is that we don't seem to be able to handle it. You can't handle the votes!…

There's been more than one time that I've driven past a business that doesn't know how to use the apostrophe. For instance, many times I've seen the sign out in front of The Window Pros. Presumably, the business name is short for The Window Professionals. Strangely enough, their…

It nearly always ends badly. And very rarely do you get what you want (the movie Airheads is a possible exception). Even if you manage to get some sort of escape vehicle out of the negotiations (boat, car, helicopter, plane), it's not that hard for you to be…

Who are the people who couldn't figure out John Kerry's middle name (it is Forbes), giving him the initials JFK? For a race that seems so close, if you could come up with an advertising gimmick that even remotely associated him with the prior owner of those initials,…

"Her favorite meal was Fiesta Salad with grilled children" Ooo… that's an unfortunate typo from the Charlotte Observer. They did fix the article before it hit the web….

So the Spread Firefox campaign to raise money for an ad in the New York Times appears to have been a raging success, with $250,000 in donations. That's impressive by any standard. Let me also say that I harbor no illusions that my meager software offerings will make…

I don't know if anyone else notices, but at least two companies – Home Depot and Wal-Mart – established a sort of branding with their plastic shopping bags. You know, those cheap ones into which your stuff goes when you visit the checkout counter. Home Depot's have always…

Just three years after it happened, we finally know what brought down American Airlines flight 587 in New York. Strangely enough, we've known this for three years: The tail fell off of the plane. But now, the issue is who is at fault. American says it's Airbus. Airbus…

While I'm sure the realities of this being a class for school will mean that it's nowhere near as cool as it sounds, the sheer idea of a class on hacking is sweet. I mean look at the official title: Vulnerability Assessment and System Assurance. No way can…

A story posted in the Observer on Sunday is remarkably similar to one provided by Creative Loafing on Wednesday. Yet neither credits the other. I'm not saying that either was copied verbatim – to be fair, I didn't read both verbatim in order to be able to tell….