This is probably old news to at least some of you, but I just read this interesting IBJ piece on the Indy Star's quashed effort to get its news writers to produce ad copy.

Personally, I'm with the management on this one. The newspaper business is at a serious crossroads. All options need to be on the table if anyone is going to figure out a viable business model for the twenty-first century. To see workers scoff at the notion that they must expand their skillsets and deliver more value is disheartening, though not surprising.

One place where you can really see how close we are to an exponential explosion in our societal relationship with technology is the supermarket. It's been a few years now since self-check lanes made their way into our lives. This Fast Company article takes a quick look at the future of the phenomenon and what it means to the human beings who currently make a living at the end of 4-foot conveyor belt.

My thoughts? Sure, U-Scan has improved a lot since its introduction, but my preferred way to complete any kind of grocery or general merchandise shopping experience is still at Target where they pair a real, friendly person with an extremely intuitive credit card processor that you can reliably activate before the order is tallied. So while I'm not totally impressed by the technology described in the above article, I'd be very interested in seeing how and when Target decides to put it to use.

The by-line on this eye-opening British Medical Journal editorial reads Joseph E Stiglitz, professor. What it doesn't mention is that Prof. Stiglitz is a Nobel-winning economist and what he has to say is this: Medical patents are bad.

Naturally, I agree. After all, 'intellectual property' strikes a chord of idealism in me. I believe that the American copyright and patent systems no longer perform their Constitutional function -- to promote innovation -- and instead now serve as major stumbling block to it, so it's nice to read that someone smarter than I am seems to agree.

Christmas. As a kid, it was the highlight of every year. As an adult... well... it's just hard to get into any kind of festive mood when Arnold Schwarzenegger's leg is broken.

Let's just hope this doesn't slow down his inevitable march to the White House.

Like at least one reader of my site, I have longed for an ASIMO to do my chores. Well, bad news: The UK Government thinks robots will have rights within 20 to 50 years.

The other day, as the roomate and I were recounting our hellacious ordeal waiting for the release of the Wii, we started to theorize that those frozen Japanese monks might be the very first Wii-waiters.

But not the last of course. After all, being frozen is a skill the Japanese have perfected.

As you know, I have been all over the internet. But never in all my years have I encountered a group of nerds more devoted to an irresolvable knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred argument over the significance of arcane minutiae than Legend of Zelda timeline theorists. Zelda timeline nerds will verbally eviscerate you the very instant you display the slightest logical flaw in your understanding of their vague and often mistranslated lore.

Case in point: This thoughtful, well-reasoned video would be instantaneously dismissed by any self-respecting timeline theorist on the grounds that there is no way A Link to the Past could take place after Zelda I and II nor is there any way that the Oracles games could appear in different branches of the timeline, if you even accept the speculative notion of split timeline theory at all. (Which I do.)