The utterly boring stock options fraud story got a whole lot more interesting this morning when Apple Computer revealed it may have to restate earnings back to 2002 because -- shocked, shocked! -- it may have made the same accounting "error" as other firms (such as Brocade, whose former execs face criminal charges). (If you want an explanation of the issue, see this colorfully-titled analysis piece from the San Jose Mercury News, Valley Binged On Options Like They Were Meth.)The all-too-apt cartoon on the left is from the New Yorker a few months ago. I have it hanging on my cube wall. A former employee of a prototypical turn-of-the-millienium dotcom called Commerce One, I admit I binged on a few of those stock option things myself. (The company went out of business in 2004 and its assets were famously auctioned later that year.)
The other day I wondered whether AOL's decision to stop charging for email would lead to it ending the practice of sending out those annoying CDs. Apparently so, as Silicaon Valley gossip blog Valleywag said: "Forty-five people from AOL's free CD department were given paid leave last month to look for new jobs." Hmm, I wonder how that job search is going. "Experience?" "I sent out 60 million free AOL CDs every month." "Damn you to hell, Satanic wretch!"
Elsewhere in Silicon Valley, two neo-nazis attacked a black man while shouting racist slogans and "firing off Nazi salutes." What were two thugs from the Central Valley doing in Mountain View, one of the more affluent localities that make up Silicon Valley? Construction work.
By the way, how do you simultaneously attack someone and "fire off Nazi salutes"? Do you take turns? Or has it become a sort of karate move: "Seig haaiiiiiii!!"
Finally, the award for today's neologism goes to Technorati, whose site allows you to view listings "in order of recency."
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