Thus, in thumbnail size for your bandwidth and sanity-roll protection: the Notbook.

And yes, if you read closely, you can see that the tech writers didn’t know whether this notbook was seven feet or seven inches in size. (I haven’t measured it, but it’s definitely not seven feet across.) You can also see that there’s no logo or manufacturer’s imprint on the manual, which continues in even more disturbing fashion on the back cover:

Clearly even the least tech-savvy have figured out by now that this is some kind of strange intellectual-property-infringing variety of machine, but shouldn’t there be a logo of some sort on the notbook? Even a fake one like “Bindows”?

All right, this whole generic concept isn’t necessarily a bad thing, given that the cool new Google Cr-48 is generic and blank and THAT doesn’t radiate an aura of weirdness and menace. That is because Google does not produce a tiny 7″ laptop with documentation clearly written by non-native English speakers that runs what purports to be….Windows CE.

The “Windows CE” desktop is also extremely strange. The right half of the screen has a permanent widget bar. You can’t see it here, but there are things missing from the Startup menu….like a command to shut the machine down.

“So, Mom, where the heck did you get this thing?”

“Oh, I don’t know….I picked it up at a seminar somewhere for free, I don’t remember.”

Right. Next thing you know the Yellow Sign will pop up as a screen saver.

But when I’m deciding to invest time reading a book, I don’t want to commit to reading (much less buying) multiple books if I don’t know I already like it. It’s a bit like agreeing to a first date and then having the other person ask you what kind of house the two of you should live in and how many kids you want to have; geez, buddy, I’m not ready for that kind of commitment!

And so it really pisses me off to get to the end of a book and only then find out it’s only Book 1 of a trilogy. Because that tells me that not only could you not fit a whole tale in a book-sized package, but you figured you needed to trick me into reading it, and then hope you’d hooked me into shelling out for two more books just to find out what happened next.

Not going to happen, hopeful author. I stopped caring about the characters right there and then.

Which is to say I’m a little stupider than average, and then xkcd goes and messes with my head.

The Queen, looking over my shoulder, asked “Are you going to get that for Daddy?”

In all seriousness, I said “Probably not. Daddy likes hexadecimal than binary, I’m not sure he’d want it.”

Clearly, there’s no hope for me. Just dip me in honey and throw me to the gazebos.

I’m sure it was, since their intent was to advise clients on how to make sure no pesky American applicants tanked their ability to hire with an H-1B visa. You know, the ones that are so desperately needed  because we just don’t have enough qualified tech workers, certainly none that we could find by putting ads in low-circulation newspapers. Why does the legal blogosphere hate America?

Skeptical? Check out this video of attorneys from “progressive law” firm Cohen & Grigsby, explaining how to get around those pesky laws that say you have to try to hire an American first.

Hat tip: My Shingle.

As the old-timers know, of course, this isn’t new to the blogosphere end of the tech world. (Usenet, anyone?) It’s the same old same old: a certain damaged segment of the geek community getting its patriarchy on, and using technology to carry out their hate fantasies instead of their weak, pasty little fists.

Perhaps some of them should learn that their house addresses show up on Google Earth, too.