technical

With the hordes losing their shirts, trousers and camel-haired overcoats on Facebook shares, it's heartening to see that not everyone lost out.

Though Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss often thought they deserved a little more for allegedly being at the heart of Facebook's creation, they did still manage to spirit $65 million away.

Now, my religious reading of TMZ has revealed that they have used some of that money, perhaps, on an exciting new abode.

For they have reportedly dropped $18 million on a quite stunning mansion in L.A.'s Hollywood Hills.

TMZ is fully adorned with pictures … Read more

Some stories defy your emotions, making it hard to decide which part is paramount.

In this one, for example, how does one react to a gruesome version of paying it forward?

A man in Kyakabugahya LCI in Kagadi Town, Uganda, allegedly needed to steal a cell phone so badly that he went into a hospital -- where, perhaps, the marks are easy.

Gawker directed me to Uganda's Daily Monitor, which describes an unparalleled twist.

The alleged thief, aged 40, reportedly got past security at the Kagadi Hospital in the middle of the night and stole the phone from a patient who was fighting the Ebola virus. Yes, this was the isolation ward.

… Read more

Prince Harry hasn't had much luck with technology this week.

First, he goes to Vegas, invites a few girls to his suite for a royal game of strip pool, and one of them whips out her cell phone and becomes a cesspool photographer.

While one wonders whether his security detail had a full grasp of the details of security, the prince is, apparently, not taking any more technological chances.

For a report in the Sun today suggests that he has shut down his Facebook account.

You might have not been aware that the prince had his own personal Facebook … Read more

Lawyers tend to know everything.

It's just that their knowledge of everything seems occasionally to conflict with the knowledge of other lawyers, who also know everything.

However, I have been seeking legal guidance on what seems like the strangely swift decision by nine local Californians to order Samsung to pay Apple more than $1 billion.

One place where lawyers gather to read views is the award-winning site Groklaw. I fancy that many of the legal experts who post there have long blond hair and drive personalized Bentleys.

However, their sense of groundedness is often refreshing.

So I was stunned … Read more

Being different isn't always a good thing.

In a crushingly conformist world, if you stick out, then people will often stick their tongues out at you. Even when they praise you for being different at first, soon they'll decide this is all too uncomfortable.

This is surely part of what brought Samsung down in the Apple-Samsung patented grapplefest.

Samsung, in the jury's eyes, was silly enough to take products that had become cultural icons and, well, copy their icons.

This is something that one company expressly decided not to do. That company is Microsoft.

Though Redmond is … Read more

I was really looking forward to at least another week.

I was hoping to be able to digest all the nuances, potential results, pitfalls and expert predictions.

I tell you who wasn't looking forward to that: the jury at the Apple/Samsung trial.

These 9 fine members of humanity must have peered through the window and thought: "Oh, look. We're in Northern California. It's sunny outside. A perfect weekend for sailing."

The just-announced verdict showed that this magnificent nine, some of whom have worked in tech, … Read more

You're always supposed to notice when your lover has had her hair done.

You're not supposed to merely notice, however. You're supposed to comment. At the very minimum, with: "You've done something different with your hair, haven't you?"

It's supposed to be the same when a company changes its logo. "Ooh," you should coo. "You're looking younger, fitter, more startling."

And yet as Microsoft unveiled its new logo today, one had the feeling that the company had been to the hairdresser, and then merely asked for a … Read more

Few would have mustered the optimism or the ingenuity.

But Sun Jifa didn't have the money to buy replacements. What else was he supposed to do but build his own?

Did Sun, 51, of Guanmashan, northern China, need new seats for his car or coffee tables for his living room? Not quite.

He needed new hands, after he'd blown off his own.… Read more

I don't know about the trial of the century.

But in the absence of women who are accused of doing unspeakable things to their children or famous people accused of murder, Apple and Samsung have provided a spectacle that really should have attracted the intellect of Nancy Grace.

Now that the jury is going away to see if it can keep its sanity, perhaps it's worth boiling down the essences, while these fine people struggle with a verdict form that is really a multiple choice test far more taxing than the SATs.

When the respective lawyers stood up yesterday to make their final pleas, … Read more