We give Barbie a lot of shit here at Scanner—for her tramp stamp, for being too skinny, for not acting her age and even for making a skeezy porno—but you know what? Fuck that. Barbie brought us a lot of joy back when we were wearing Kissing Coolers and thought that Sesame Street was our &...

Once upon a time I was going to be a lawyer. One reason I didn’t go that way was to avoid running down rabbit holes like the one our own Jason Perlow offered us Thursday. (This puzzle called Down the Rabbit Hole is now on sale over at Legendary Toys.) Microsoft owns FAT32, but it didn’t ...

Friend of the blog Erica Zeidenberg, who represents the good folks at Palamida, has been flogging an “open source job hunters toolkit,” filled with open source programs you can use, free, in your job hunt. (This classic photo from the last Great Depression was done for the WPA by John E....

An Indian Web site has confirmed ASUS is developing a version of its Eee PC Netbook to run Google’s Android software. When I tested Asus’ Netbooks last year for my Linux Laptop series I found a lot of uncertainty within the company about distros. The company has not advertised which dis...

Call it the sum of Microsoft’s fears. IDC figures from the fourth quarter show a rush toward inexpensive Netbooks and away from Windows laptops. Take out sales of the Atom processor running many Netbooks and total shipments were down 20%, figures showed. Apple fans are crowing that Macs are re...

It is easy to tell the difference between a FOSS advocate and an advocate of open source, like our own Matt Asay (right). Just bring up money. FOSS advocates tend to be idealistic, open source advocates more practical. Open source advocates worry whether the business model works, and how money will ...

Amid all the hubbub over the launch of the new Amazon Kindle (at the Morgan Library in New York, 10 AM, be there and tell me what happened) two words are notably absent. Open source. (Picture from Amazon via C|Net.) There’s a tantalizing hint in word that Kindle technology will be ported to t...

Toyota continues the arduous off road testing of the Toyota Tundra with “Killer Heat�, a television commercial showing the SUV driving through a tower of flames. The latest in a series of commercials, Killer Heat demonstrates the ability for the Tundra to keep transmission cool while towing larg...

One point I must constantly make to PR folks and others is that there is a big difference between writing a blog and writing news stories or a column. News stories must be double-checked and just state what happened. Columns must stand alone, like a sermon or a jewel. Blog posts are the start of a ...

Filed under: Fun & activities, Holidays, Toys & games Hard to believe, folks, and yet it is true. Not only do we have a truly historical election and to-be presidency on our hands, but we also have a toy that has at last broken the final frontier of consumerism--outselling Elmo! For those of...