No investigation, no scrutiny, and Robbie Bach is not even in jail. Let the following recent story teach you why the legal system in America is broken beyond repair and why Microsoft is virtually above the law. It is permitted to steal millions from investors and get away untouched.

MarketWatch.com reports that Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division, sold $6.2 million of Microsoft stock just prior to announcing that Microsoft was going to have to extend XBox 360 warranties to three years because of extensive failures. The filings note that this was not part of any scheduled diversification or selling program; this was a conscious, unscheduled sale by the guy in charge of releasing news that could affect the value of Microsoft stock.

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Insider trading is a very serious violation of the law; just ask Martha Stewart, who served five months in prison for avoiding losses of $43,000 through trades that just had suspicious timing (no insider trading was actually proven). This is $6.3 million that went straight into Robbie Bach’s pocket.

It has been weeks. No apparent action taken.

There is a tired & old argument whether one should say “Linux” or “Ga-noo Linux”. The Debian distribution contains 15% GNU software and only 3% Linux, so Richard’s argument seems justified. People just prefer short and catchy names.

[sarcastic tone filled with amazement /]

HERE’S rudeness and there’s unbelievable tactlessness. This morning I witnessed both.

So…

There I was going to the swimming pool only to find out that in a nearby jacuzzi, a couple decided it would be acceptable to have sex. Not quite so secretly, either. Later on it turned out that I was not the only one who saw this. That the couple almost refused to behave or just leave in shame. The unfortunate thing is that a father with two kids complained about it as well. Not that these very young children could actually understand what was going on…

I have a 2-year old photo of the jacuzzi that I speak of…

Sometimes, adults can act like children.

One of the beautiful things about the Internet is its ability to facilitate collaboration and sharing of information, creative art, and code. Some people realised this and created a framework that results in more output and better output. This man deserves many thanks. He recently stepped down.

The State of Massachusetts is nowadays deciding on the issue of open standards and whether to accept or reject a vendor-specific format, namely OOXML. A new article discusses how a decision about choice of format can affect the ability of a business to free itself from the shackles of one single application and platform. From the article: “An impulsive and immediate migration to Linux can sometimes lead to disappointment. Ambitious businesses are sometimes led to believe that their data can merely be be dumped from one platform onto another, but the reality is a little more complex than this.”

ODAY I received some post. It was a familiar envelope with my handwriting. It turns out that it could not be delivered. The envelope said:

“Not available at this address, return to sender”

What was it? A cheque that I had sent in December 2004 to Matt Mullenweg. How on earth did it take 2.5 years for a letter to ‘bounce’? That was eerily funny/strange.