11/6    Mark Pincus admits doing dirty things just to get revenue:
        http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zynga-scamville-mark-pinkus-faceboo
        Are there other examples of a successful company that
        does dirty things initially just to get rich? I can
        think of a few like the accusations of YouTube employees
        uploading copyrighted videos to get views, or Yelp
        extorting shops to pay up for ratings. What else?
        \_ Pretty much the entire history of M$.

10/6    Poll. Do you use the following to communicate or to
        receive information regularly?
        Twitter: .
        Facebook: ..
        RSS Reader:..
        CSUA Motd: .....
        CSUA Wall:
        E-mail: ...
        Telephone: .
        None of the above:
        \_ for some version of 'regularly'
        \_ I hate telephone. I hate how there's a long period of
           bullshit protocol exchanges like "Hi how is your kid?
           Fine, is HP doing ok? Alright, the weather is great
           too in Menlo Park, yes?"
           \_ Same reson why I don't like breakroom conversations at my
              workplace.
              \_ except conversation is a side-effect of the
                 intent of the breakroom, whereas the telephone
                 is simply an out-dated and inefficient
                 protocol to get things done ASAP.
                 \_ Interesting. I have found a phone call is the quickest
                    way to get a response versus, say, e-mail or texting
                    which is easy to ignore.
                    \_ People don't usually ignore me, so I prefer IM for
                       working on technical problems. It is hard to explain
                       things like log files and unix commands over the phone.
                       When people start trying to ignore me, I often resort
                       to the phone.

10/6    When to use apostrophe? Is there anything you haven't
        learned already?          http://apostrophe.me
        \_ I already know all that. I could use some coaching on the use
           of commas though.
        \_ This is so short.  I wonder about other usages like:
           "I have three PCs, and they run three different OS's.   One PC's
           OS's name is Linux, and the other two PCs' OS's names are not
           Linux".
           Is the above usage correct?
           \_ Generally, OSes and PCs are the preferred forms.  I'll only use
              an apostrophe if the construction is ambiguous otherwise.  (Such
              as the single-letter exception noted on that page.)  -tom