Frank Field, in worrying about one of Arnold Kling‘s points in his extension of World of Ends (Frank thinks that “Intermediaries add vaue” needs to be amended to say that they sometimes add value and users should be able to disintermediate themselves), points to a really good example of how to violate the End-to-End principle: an article at InternetNews.com says that the next version of Microsoft Office will require users to lock into Windows XP in order to get the benefits of the new release. Forced agreements aren’t agreements.

Mike O’Dell, Finder of Funny Sites, recommends Ridiculopathy, an Onion-esque offering that today features a gleeful announcement by Microsoft that the new version of Office won’t be compatible even with itself.

And while we’re at, this issue of The Onion is pretty funny. I enjoyed the article about Ted Turner sending himself back in time to prevent the AOL merger with Time-Warner — it’s not just the premise that’s funny. And I also liked the one on the accidental funding of the arts…up to and including the last line.

Categories: Uncategorized dw