Holy crap: an honest to goodness Easter egg

Thanks to Macintouch, I just spent a virtual eternity (okay, five minutes, but these days that feels like an eternity) playing Asteroids. The original Asteroids. Tucked away inside Microsoft Office 2004.

Word was a while back that Microsoft had put a moratorium on Easter eggs. I wonder how the team slipped this one in. I wonder whether Rick Schaut would have anything to say on the topic, if we asked him nicely.

Thought for the day: Platform lock-in, good and bad

A review of a new PowerShell book on Slashdot features a great comment from an anonymous coward who gives the best argument against supporting multiple platforms that I’ve ever read:

I hate re-using code because it forces me to solve new problems every day. I’d rather create new value on Mondays only, and then spend the rest of the week re-doing the same work on my other platforms. It gives my mind a chance to rest, and I can drink heavily mid-week and still be able to do my job.

I sure hope they charge extra for it, make it a resource hog, lock out third-party extensions, and then discontinue it as soon as I’m dependent on it. I really liked the 1980s and look forward to reliving them.

The nice thing about the comment is that it contains the pro and con of supporting multiple system architectures back to back, and both perspectives are funny, and true.

Links for May 2, 2007

NY Times: No, Really, It Was Tough: 4 People, 80 Martinis. Having tried and failed to articulate the differences among six or seven types of wine, I can only imagine the challenge that this team of tasters faced in their martini-gin review. Palate fatigue, for one.

Local blogger Evan points out that only in Boston would one see the alfresco bookstore strategy that the Brattle Book Shop uses to display its merchandise. I’d go one farther: only in Boston in the spring, where the whole city temporarily goes giddy as the weather warms up and the sun comes out again.

Slashdot points to an embarrassing story for Business 2.0, a tech centered business magazine that forgot to check the integrity of its backups… and lost its entire June issue. Irony: they had mailed the text for the entire issue to their lawyers for review, so the “only” work that had to be redone was the art and layout. I guess they’d better call in Bono so he can make up the entire issue on the spot; after all, he did it for an album once.