The Wii U is on life support. Can it be revived?

Let’s face facts here: The Wii U’s life so far has been an unmitigated disaster. Nintendo has struggled to sell the thing to consumers, third-party developers are hesitant to commit, and to top it all off, they seem to have had a time time convincing the public that their new system is even a system at all. More

The events of Donglegate don’t add anything to a very real discussion about gender equality in the IT workforce.

The tweet that kicked off Donglegate. Photo by https://dailymail.co.uk.

I’m going to be very upfront about my stance on the issue of ‘Donglegate’ and spell it out right here in my opening paragraph, because at the risk of mixing metaphors I fully realize how much of a tightrope I’m walking by even dipping my toes into this issue: Adria Richards is the only person whose firing was justified. Now that you’ve let the hate flow through you, allow me to explain my position, and why I believe that sexism, while certainly a factor, should not be the dominating theme of whatever lesson we as an industry choose to take away from the Donglegate incident. More

We don’t type “http://” in our browsers anymore, so why use “www”? Let’s make the traditional URL syntax sandwich more noticeable, by turning it open-faced.

Source: tasteofhome.com

Once upon a time, if you can believe it, web surfers who wanted to visit a site needed to enter in the entire URL into their browser before hitting Go. Not just the “www” prefix, but the entire line of a standard URL: http://www.sandwich.com/. Back in the nineties, browsers didn’t have autocomplete functionality, they didn’t have search engines built into the Address Bar, they only had barebones Bookmarking and History functions; they were primitive, to say the least.

Most importantly, the functionality known as “commercialization”, “.com”-ification, or “cannonicalization”, which allows browsers to essentially guess the remaining portions of a given URL based on trial-and-error, was in still its infancy. It was also extremely bandwidth-intensive on dialup modems of the day, making incomplete address entry unpalatable to users. More

It’s not often I get worked up enough about a product to want to review it. It’s even less often I feel compelled to write a negative review. But after picking up the Skullcandy 50/50 Earbuds w/ Inline Mic late last year, that’s exactly where I find myself. Here’s why you should avoid making my mistake.

Photo from www.skullcandy.com

Maybe the reason I’m so bitter is because up until I bought my Skullcandy 50/50 buds, I had nothing but great things to say about the company. My previous earbuds had been from Skullcandy, and when I bought them I had been blown away by the quality of their 11mm drivers’ sound compared to the stock Apple in-ears. The lows were rich and full, and the highs were crisp with no noticeable clipping. I heard plenty of bang for my buck. Plus, the buds were comfy.

Hell, I even had a pleasant experience with their Customer Service people. When the wire snapped near the inline mic thanks to my fidgeting with it, I emailed them and they simply had me send in the broken buds, then emailed me a voucher for a new pair (complete with hilarious redeem code). That new pair never gave me an ounce of trouble in the two years I owned it. In fact, I was so impressed with Skullcandy that I bought my cousin an identical pair as a birthday present, and she too was impressed with the quality of the sound and the product build.

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago, when my trusty buds finally gave out after a tragic vinegar spill. Naturally, I went out and bought new Skullcandy buds to replace them. I didn’t even look at what was on the shelf; I just went straight for whatever their updated offering of my trusty buds was. What I walked away with was a pair of Skullcandy 50/50 Earbuds w/ Inline Mic, for roughly the same price I had paid last time. Unfortunately, it turned out the 50/50’s were comparable to my old buds by name and price only. More

If Congress has a reasonable frame of logic for why the Obama administration’s historic mercury poisoning safeguards need to be rolled back, and why they feel it’s necessary to include a provision preventing the EPA from ever taking this issue up again, I think it’s high time they let us in on it. More