Nice phone, shame about the name.

As I quipped in an earlier post, the name “Windows Phone 7 Series” is a bit long, and suggests that the people who do Microsoft’s branding get paid by the syllable. This is the sort of left-brain-lopsided mindset that has produced names like “Windows Server 2008 R2”.

My fellow Developer Evangelist John Bristowe pointed me to this Joy of Tech comic which attempts to ratiocinate the etymology of this unwieldy appellation:

It’s the second Monday in October, which means it’s Canadian Thanksgiving (or in French, Jour de l’Action de grâce)! I’d like to wish you a safe and happy holiday and remind you to think of what you’re thankful for.

My spider-sense is tingling, and not in a good way: Disney is buying Marvel Entertainment (yup, that Marvel, as in Spider-Man, the X-Men and so on) for $4 billion in stock, acquiring the rights to all their characters. Soon we’ll see the cast of High School Musical as the newest young mutants to join Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters and a Marvel Team-Up featuring Spider-Man and the Jonas Brothers.

I feel like this:

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

My friend Andrew Burke has written a blog post on staying healthy as a programmer. It’s not easy given the sedentary nature of the job. Check out his advice, which is pretty sound – but make sure you actually do something about it!

The title of Andrew’s post, Health Tips for Programmers, is somewhat reminiscent of this gem that’s been floating about “The Internets” for years: Sex Tips for Geeks, written by none other than Eric S. Raymond. See if you can read the chapter titled On Being Good in Bed without having this internal monologue:

“Must…fight…mental image…of ESR…doing it…”

“AIEEEEEE! Mental image winning! Mental image winning!”

I can’t.