What a load of mendacious bullshit from Microsoft.

Not only is the Surface tablet cursed with Windows 8, its display has the resolution of a broken Etch-a-Sketch.

Microsoft claims that users can’t tell the difference. And I think of some people – perhaps even the majority – that is actually true. I am constantly amazed by how unaware of brain-shatteringly low resolution and eye-terrorizing fonts most people can be.

I remember walking into an acquisition only a few years ago where people were still using CRT monitors from the mid-90s that had aged so poorly that I literally could not read their screens, and they barely noticed. We’re not talking here about the fonts just being unpleasant but readable. From normal viewing distance, the screens were so blurry that I had absolutely no idea what more than 50% of the words on the screen were – but they were so used to the bespoke system, they didn’t really need to read much.

These people are the Surface tablet’s ideal market, I guess.

For me, I could no more use the Surface tablet than I’d go back to a mid-90s Packard Bell cheapo CRT.

1366*768? You have got to be fucking kidding me.

When the Nexus 10 with 2560*1600 comes out, I’ll have to think about that. That should be gorgeous.

This will be completely useless, and as one of the commenters points out, instead of preventing piracy it will just make Jane Consumer smarter about proxies, VPNs and the like.

Funny it’s easier in the minds of the entertainment industry to waste so much money on something so useless that is so easily circumventable and which will make piracy effectively worse and more difficult to stop, rather than just giving people the content they want when they want it.

Best thing they could do is buy The Pirate Bay, improve it a bit (parts of it are quite clunky) and charge people $30 a month for it. Which is the same thing the music industry should’ve done with the original Napster.

I would sign up for that so fast, even at $50 a month. Millions more would, too. And the entertainment execs would be rolling around in piles of $100 bills.

But no. And it amazes me that people like Matt Maroon can argue that what the entertainment industry does is rational. This only make sense if you believe that there are no other possible business models they could pursue that are less risky than what they are doing now.

But that’s really dead wrong. The most risky business model is their current one, as it is doomed to failure.

Most people can only conceive of the world as it is, though, and not as it could be, and soon will be.

Few know about them outside of the state, but some of the most beautiful places on earth are in North and North Central Florida. And I say this not just because I grew up there, but as someone who has traveled much of the world and knows it to be true.

Fern Hammock Springs, Ocala National Forest, Florida:

This photo in no way – not even minimally close, not even an iota – does the place justice. In person, it is heart-stoppingly beautiful.

I’ve been to a lot of springs in North Florida. Hundreds of them. First time I’ve ever been to this one, and when I turned the corner and saw it, I was gaping in awe.

The water is so clear that it looks what, maybe a few inches deep? Try 6-8 feet.

Even with the best medium format camera in the world with the ideal lighting, I couldn’t convey 1/1000 of what it’s like to turn the corner of the trail and see this before you in the forest. And sorry for the crappiness of the picture. I was using my little camera, in poor lighting for good photography.

If what I felt when I saw this spring is close to what people term a religious experience, I can understand how that could be addictive.

Most of these springs will be gone in my lifetime due to climate change and water extraction. Some are already dying.

If you want to see them, come now. Soon they will be no more.