So, does grammar matter anymore?

Yes.

...White House budget office's intelligence branch.

Too... many... oxymorons...

Cannot... resist...

Yeah. And I bet those lay-users are pissed that they're not supporting Linux yet.

Those fiendish Mozilla folks, playing their vendetta against everyday grandmas who just want to run Farmville on their latest Slackware build. Next thing you know, they'll start only supporting Unity or some crap. What's a granny to do?

In some cases, different engine authors have different ideas of what the best way to define the spec would be. And given that there's no solid standard yet, they want to do it the way they want to do it. And over time, they can even change their minds, perhaps submitting to the weight of the broader industry.

For example, consider Webkit's two implementations of a simple linear gradient, from black at the top to white at the bottom:

-webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,#000000), color-stop(100%,#ffffff)); /* older webkit method */
-webkit-linear-gradient(top, #000000 0%, #ffffff 100%); /* newer webkit method */

Note that the "new" approach to the arguments is based more on the emerging "standard" (implemented the same way with -ms-, -moz, and -o- prefixes). But when you're out there before the standard emerges (or better yet, is defined), you don't just presume to define the standard.

Or, at least that's how I imagine it went down...

Is this what you're referring to?

Maybe it's because I live in Texas where we're apparently still not sure about the whole cigarettes-cause-cancer bit... but this seems a bit ridiculous.

Who is the target audience of warning labels like this? I would think that there are two demographics relevant to such a warning:

1. 1. People who can/will read a block of text that long and know what a particulate is.
2. 2. People who are too dumb to know better than to chug motor oil.

I have a funny feeling these groups are mutually exclusive.

You know, I somehow feel like I recall people saying how Apple owned the "app" market when Android was first gaining speed. Now, you could arguably point out various places where Apple still edges out Google with regards to apps, but we can now safely refer to them both as "extensively entrenched" and not think twice.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft continues to flounder in their efforts, but it's not because someone else has a corner on the market.

Google proved that if you have a decent product, a decent business strategy, and a whole lotta money, you can successfully enter this field.

Microsoft has the money. Their modern mobile products aren't horrendous, though I still have yet to see one "in the wild" (devs don't count). Can they come up with a decent business strategy? We'll see. Here's a hint: mobile != office.

Can't he just say...

Accio lightsaber!

Oh, wait. Wrong fictional universe that people take too seriously.

It's kind of a side note, but according to TFA...

the pilot said investigators were dispatched within 20 minutes, starting a two-month investigation that led to the execution of a search warrant on Thursday

So, people were there within 20 minutes, but it took two months to investigate. What exactly took two months? Red tape?

1. Step 1: Arrive at creek.
2. Step 2: See creek is red.
3. Step 3: Walk up the creek.
4. Step 4: Arrive at meat packing plant.
5. Step 5: Have a beer.

I'm not sure how winding that creek is, but I could see it possibly taking two hours, not two months.

When I hire (web developers, specifically), I want to see code they've done, sure. But I'd rather see them write code live (yes, write). Simple live coding exercises only demonstrate how they approach simple problems, but they can also reveal good/bad programming habits.

Apart from that, I don't really do brain teasers, but I do ask questions that give me insight into creative thinking, problem solving, and hindsight/foresight.

There are a lot of textbook programmers that are pretty much useless in the real world, and there are a lot of "creative" coders that are so "out of the box" that they're impractical cowboys. A combination of live coding and conversation gives me more insight than a full library of supposedly authored code.

Basically, I draw a lot of inspiration from this old blog post I ran across a while back.