If You’re Feeling Sinister…

Microsoft has closed out perhaps its most difficult year as a public company in less than stellar fashion. On Thursday, the company significantly missed Wall Street’s fourth-quarter revenue target and reported the first decline in full-year revenue in its 34-year history.

Ouch. Compare that to Apple’s excellent fiscal Q3’09 and a recent report by NPD that claims that Apple has 91% of the market for $1000+ PCs.

I guess Microsoft’s snide Laptop Hunters ads haven’t work as well as they’d hoped.

Articles like this that highlight all of the little details and considerations in typefaces gives me far more pleasure and happiness than I’m willing to admit aloud. Font grades, weight duplexing, multiple-digit indices… ahh… brb I have to go change my pants.

These photographs show extreme makeovers of actual fast food items purchased at popular fast food restaurants. No additional ingredients have been added except for an occasional simple garnish.

This is oddly fascinating and disturbing to my insides at the same time. I’m following this tumblelog for future gross-outness.

(via @siracusa » @clint)

This awesome utility by Newegg gives you a general idea of what wattage PSU you’ll need for your build. I need an estimated 442W for my 2005 rig, which is pretty close to my actual 600W PSU. Good to know. Thanks, Newegg!

(via Lifehacker)

An iPhone app that tells you where to stand on the New York City subway so you would be optimally positioned near your desired street exit when you disembark. Kottke says this is called prewalking.

I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those things that once you use, you’d wonder how you ever lived without it.

(via Kottke)

Side-by-side comparison for Microsoft’s infant search engine Bing and Google’s unstoppable juggernaut. Custom tables and formatting for certain search terms puts Bing squarely between the ‘tricked out “knowledge engine” but almost useless as a search engine’ Wolfram Alpha and ‘powerful and by far the most comprehensive search engine but no frills’ Google.

_{[via @danbenjamin]}

Nifty single-serving site helps you find out how many followers two Twitter accounts have in common.

_{by Shine from Yahoo!   [via dearmary]}

1. Why can’t we be friends? This sounds nice but in reality an ex does not make a true friend, especially immediately after the breakup.
2. I must have closure. Closure can be difficult to obtain no matter how many conversations one has. The best closure can come from resisting the urge for dialogue and moving on.
3. I just need to make sense of it all, and I just have one more thing to say before you go. Another version of closure and another reason to stay in contact when in reality this just gives your ex another opportunity to hurt you. Not fun.
4. I want to be available for reconciliation. Wanting to get back together is a fair feeling to have. Even if you do end up reconciling, the relationship will undoubtedly be different. It is still important to take some time without speaking in order to mourn the relationship and contemplate how you really feel.
5. I just need to give their stuff back. Do it quickly, in the first couple days. After that, use one of our many mail services.
6. I miss the physical intimacy. And your ex is familiar because you know them (and it won’t increase your “number”). But again, this is just prolonging the inevitable and will keep you stuck in the past. Time to cut off the ex and find someone new (or maybe even just yourself) to get jiggy with.
7. We run in the same circles. If this is the case, you won’t be able to help running into your ex, but that does not mean you need to get in touch afterward. Keep your conversations polite, brief and away from anything that can bring up negative feelings from the past. Obviously easier said than done.