Brian Gongol
Happy Independence Day
Who's the worst President of all time?
China's copycat towns
China isn't just ripping off intellectual property with patent infringement...it's actually building full-scale cities that are intended to mimic the look and feel of other places. Whatever they produce by those means, it'll never be as good as the original. If you don't understand the process of how anything (a book, a machine, or even a city) came into being, you cannot adequately copy it by reverse-engineering. It's impossible. The process determines the result.
Microsoft promises a much bigger ecosystem around Bing
They're trying to morph the search engine into an "intelligent fabric" for building applications and services that depend upon searchable information
Iowa tourism on the side of a truck
The state is wrapping trucks from the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division with tourism-themed graphics. It's a decent idea for making use of the trucks, since they're on the roads already. Now, as to whether it still makes sense for Iowa to retain state control over the sale of alcohol? That's a different story.
High fashion on school picture day
A Texas teacher retires after 40 years of wearing the same polyester shirt and sweater on picture day. The guy deserves credit for taking the long view on a joke.
