Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1093

The BBC's Not Sure How to Deal with the Sudden Popularity of 'Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead'

In the handful of days since Margaret Thatcher's death, there's been no indicator of her opponents' satisfaction more troubling than the resurgence of the near-century-old song, "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead." Thanks in part to a Facebook campaign, the Wizard of Oz classic has sold 20,000 copies and shot to the top of the charts in less than four days. It's now at number four — it's number one on iTunes — and with the official chart rundown show rapidly approaching, the BBC isn't sure what to do. On Thursday, the network's chief Lord Hall refused to bar the BBC from playing the song, but he also stopped short of taking a stance on the issue. Lord Hall nevertheless described the organized campaign to take the song to number one as "rather tasteless" and said the final decision would be an "editorial decision."

The editorial team at BBC remains mum on the issue. With three days until the weekly Official Chart Show airs, "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead" certainly looks like it could make it to number one, but it seems almost certain that it will remain in the top five. In a Thursday afternoon column, The Telegraph's Neil McCormick compares the situation to the 1977 Silver Jubilee, when the BBC caught criticism for refusing to play "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols. He argues, however, that the "God Save The Queen" situation was very different since it "was a proper protest song, a righteously indignant attack on a living authority figure." The movement to shame the late Prime Minister, however, is just "a childish insult drifting in the wind after the soldiers have long since left the field," says McCormick.

Regardless of your feelings for Baroness Thatcher, it's clear to read the deeper conflict at play here. It is some form protest that we're witnessing. Thousands of Britons are expressing their enduring discontent with Thatcher's influence with their pounds and pence. Plenty of people say that it's a tasteless way of doing it, but the principles of free speech aren't supposed to revolve around subjective measures of what's tasteful and what's not. Nobody booed Billy Elliott off stage just because it had some critical things to say about Thatcher. So why should the BBC change the rules for this one song, defy protocol and not play it? Well, because it would be awful to broadcast that cheerful tune across the United Kingdom three days before Thatcher's funeral, when everyone knows that the witch in the song represents the woman who's about to be buried.

But you thought British people were supposed to be polite. Have you ever even seen British television? This is about much more than being polite, though. Who knows what the BBC will do when the time comes. At least they can probably count on good ratings for this weekend's show.

       

Apple Will Pay for Those Water-Damaged iPhones After All

Court documents show that Apple has agreed to pay $53 million to settle a class action lawsuit filed  by countless iPhone and iPod Touch owners who claim that the company failed to honor its own warranty. The consumer complaints all revolve around a tricky little strip of tape inside the phone known as the Liquid Contact Indicator (LCI) that's supposed to indicate whether or not the device has sustained water damage. If so, the tape would turn pink. So for a long time, if an Apple employee opened up a malfunctioning iPone or iPod at the Genius Bar and found pink tape, the warranty was immediately voided and the consumer invited to buy a new phone.

There's only one problem with this patented magic tape technique that the Geniuses used to determine which phones had been dropped in a toilet and which had simply stopped working. The tape didn't work. Wired's David Kravets, who broke the story about the settlement, explains that "the tape's maker, 3M, said humidity, and not water contact, could have caused the color to at least turn pink." In other words, Apple was punishing people who lived in humid climates. Arizonans were probably fine. Alabamans were certainly screwed.

Apple must've known that there was a problem for a while. A little over two years ago, the company announced that it would no longer rule out a replacement "if the customer disputes whether" the LCI had been triggered. As long as there was not corrosion present on the phone, Apple would allow for some leeway. It still refused to admit the system's shortcomings. "Note: LCI's are designed not to be activated by temperature or humidity that are within the product's operating requirements described by Apple," the company clarified in the new policy.

For many customers, this $53 million settlement serves as a suitable alternative to Apple coming clean. That money will be enough to compensate those in the class about $200, though it applies only to early iPhone models (original, 3G and 3Gs) and the first three generations of iPod Touches. If you have a newer device, you'll still need to be careful when you're texting in the restroom.

       

The Pentagon Can't Make Up Its Mind About North Korea's Nuclear Capabilities

The Pentagon is trying to be tactful about how it presents the threat of North Korea firing a nuclear missile capable of reaching the United States. But the brass is starting to seem a little cagey when it comes down to giving the American public clear answers. You can't blame them. It's a cagey situation.

Let's get specific. At exactly 7:32 p.m. on Thursday evening, Reuters published two separate stories about the Pentagon's position on North Korea's nuclear capabilities. One reflects what outlets like The New York Times are reporting about the military's latest position on the issue. The other appears to reflect the opposite. One headline reads, "Pentagon says North Korea can likely launch nuclear missile." The other reads, " 'Inaccurate' to suggest North Korea has proven nuclear missile ability: Pentagon."

Does anybody else think those two headlines about what's essentially the same story is a little misleading? Don't blame Reuters. It's simply quoting what Pentagon officials have been saying. 

It's at first unclear why the Pentagon is sending out seemingly conflicting statements, but when you read closer, you realize that the wording is carefully selected so that they're not actually conflicting. Speaking at a a hearing of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Rep. Doug Lamborn quoted a Defense Intelligence Agency paper from March. At that point in time, the Pentagon said that the "DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles, however the reliability will be low."

We've heard this before: North Korea has the weapons but they don't work well. This is pretty much the primary narrative about the country's capabilities at this point. It's negative enough so as not to scare the citizens but not so dismissive that the Pentagon would look like they're lying if (God forbid) a missile did make it over the Pacific.

But what Lamborn quoted was an internal document. A Pentagon spokesman stepped forward soon after the hearing with the au contraire rebuttal to what was in the military document just a few weeks before. "It would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage," Pentagon spokesman George Little said. Oh so we're safe? Not exactly. Little is basically just dismissing this specific passage. He's not ruling out the possibility that North Korea's developed some kind of nuclear capabilities. If they didn't have any nuclear capabilities, why would they keep carrying out these nuclear tests?

It's easy to dismiss all this as semantics, but it also serves as a sobering reminder that the military either won't tell the American people or simply doesn't know exactly what the North Koreans can or will do. Nobody does, though. Along those lines, Thursday was a refreshing day as well since we saw South Korea begin making an effort to ease the tension with their neighbors to the north. Maybe they should try a little basketball diplomacy. Or may just go with something a little bit more effective. There is a sense of urgency.

       

The Five Best Historical Graphs from the New Budget Data

One of the more interesting aspects of the release of the annual budget are updates to the historical tables, massive spreadsheets of data that show government spending stretching back decades. Here are five of the more interesting graphs that result.

Government spending, in dollars

This data comes from the table "Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789–2018." Which is isn't really — per year data is only available from 1901 on. But even that shows how much spending (outlays, in red) and income (receipts, in blue) have grown. The difference between the two (in yellow) gives the government a surplus or a deficit. (2013 data in all of the following graphs are estimates.)

If you're wondering about that pre-1900 data, from 1850 to 1900 the government spent about what it spent in 1942. Prior to 1850, it spent about what it spent in 1917.

Government spending, as a percentage of GDP

Given the regular growth of the American economy, viewing spending and receipts as a function of GDP can be more instructive.

Where the money comes from

Most of the government's receipts each year come from individual income taxes and what the government terms "social insurance and retirement."

Where the money goes

In this case, the data only goes back to 1976, but it demonstrates what the government has spent money on since then. Unsurprisingly, a lot of it goes to defense.

What the government builds

Also interesting: the government's capital project expenses. Most of it has gone to highways — just over half of all capital spending since 1941, in fact.

       

No, That German Hacker Probably Can't Hijack an Airplane with Software

An alarming dispatch from the Hack In The Box security conference in Amsterdam arrived on Wednesday: a hacker says he's found a way to take over airplane controls. That's probably not true. At least according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the European Aviation Safety Administration (EASA) and Honeywell, the maker's of the cockpit software, it's not. The FAA, for one, says, "The described technique cannot engage or control the aircraft's autopilot system using the FMS or prevent a pilot from overriding the autopilot." The agency assures America that this hack "does not pose a flight safety concern because it does not work on certified flight hardware."

So why did Hugo Teso, the German hacker in question, tell everybody at the conference as well as countless journalists who've latched on to the story that he could take over the software? Well, Teso says he's successfully taken over a plane's controls — in a flight simulator on his desktop computer at home. Hoping to expose some of the security flaws in planes' flight management system (FMS), Teso bought some FMS hardware on eBay as well as some FMS software that, according to Forbes "was advertised as containing some or all of the same code as the systems in real planes" and gave it a go. And he did it! Teso said that his technique would send radio signals to the plane and hijack its controls. "You can use this system to modify approximately everything related to the navigation of the plane," Teso told Forbes. "That includes a lot of nasty things."

To recap that order of events: Hacker buys equipment from eBay, loads up software that may contain "some or all of the same code" that's on commercial jets and — in a flight simulator — hijacks a plane. Come to think of it, that does sound a little reach-y doesn't it? The whole thing seems even less believable if you check out the slides that he used during the presentation, complete with images from The Matrix and Japanese Manga cartoons. One reason why the story felt like it could be feasible is the fact that there have been warnings from all sides of the cyber security industry about vulnerabilities in air traffic control software. This has been happening for years, and the FAA has actually admitted to risks in that arena.

We're not trying to say that Teso's making all this up. But hacking into your desktop computer's flight simulator is something that middle school kids do in technology class. It's not reason to strike fear into the hearts of millions. But hey, at least Teso seems well intentioned. You certainly can't say that about all hacker-types these days.

       

Can the NFL Catch Up on Gay Rights in Time for 'More Than a Handful' of Players to Come Out?

The National Hockey League threw down the gauntlet Thursday, announcing that it wants to become the "most inclusive professional sports league" through a partnership that commissioner Gary Bettman said would "reaffirm... that the official policy of the NHL is one of inclusion on the ice, in our locker rooms and in the stands." Which is something of a test to the National Football League, whose officials are scrambling to design a kind of prevent defense for the homophobia they're anticipating as more and more of its players appear ready to publicly announce that they're gay — maybe not all at the same time, but hopefully with enough of a support system that proves the NFL isn't the least inclusive of the leagues. Here's how the NFL and the NFL stack up right now:

The Partnerships

(Photo by Frank Polich/Reuters)

The NHL and its players association took the big step Thursday of teaming with the You Can Play project, an advocacy group that defined the deal as "a significant commitment to education and training for teams, players, media and fans plus the production and broadcast of more public service announcements. The NHL becomes the first major American professional sports league to officially partner with an LGBT advocacy group on this scale."

Indeed, according to the New York Times analysis on the deal, by the paper's chief hockey reporter Jeff Z. Klein and well sourced football reporter Judy Battista, the NFL "has had internal conversations about how to prepare for the moment when one of its players publicly discusses his homosexuality." This deal, however, is a big official step beyond off-the-record whispers. They add: 

Other major leagues — the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball — have policies that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, and various officials have spoken in support of gay athletes. But no league seems to have taken such a strong public stance on the issue.

And while NFL officials may be having those internal conversations and may officially have an anti-discrimination policy, NFL general managers are still having conversations about whether Manti Te'o and at least one other rookie are gay — conversations the NFL is looking into, just not all that impressively. Robert Gulliver, the NFL figurehead for that investigation, tells the Times that the league is "in active discussions with LGBT partners."

Edge: NHL, because talk is cheap.

The Management

One of the biggest stories in hockey over the past year has been the death of Brendan Burke, the openly gay son of former Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke. It turned one of the most powerful men in the NHL into an all-out gay rights advocate. According to the Toronto Star, the elder Burke "participated in Pride parades, first alongside Brendan, then — following a fatal car crash in Indiana in February 2010, just months after he came out publicly — in honour of him." Burke was fired shortly thereafter — for performance, not his stance on gay marriage and gay rights in sports — but he continues his advocacy.

As for the NFL, well, at least it's got the owners: New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch signed a brief filed in support of marriage equality to the Supreme Court last month, and the Times team wrote Thursday that New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft "said he thought the N.F.L. was ready for a gay player who chose to come out." But the GMs are the guys who make the personnel decisions, and those Te'o rumors — that officials "want to know" about player sexuality — surfaced at the NFL rookie scouting combine. At a different point in the recruitment process, after rookies get drafted and are getting trained at a first-year symposium, leagues have their first chance at a kind of freshman orientation — not just for media and sneaker deals, but for social conscience. And Gulliver, the NFL HR exec, tells the Times that at least the league is aware of that opportunity: "We do want to sensitize incoming rookies as to how important it is to pay attention to LGBT issues, so people have an appreciation for some of the sensitive LGBT issues that are very topical right now in the league," he said.

But the NHL, in its new partnership, is actually doing that: "You Can Play will conduct seminars at the NHL’s rookie symposium to educate young prospects on LGBT issues," reads Thursday's release.

Edge: NHL, because appreciation isn't action.

The Players

There is now a whole cadre of activist players in the NFL, and not just the usual suspects like Baltimore's Brendan Ayanbadejo, free agent Scott Fujita, and Vikings punter Chris Kluwe. The newest player pledging to make the NFL a better place for gay men is controversial wide receiver Donté Stallworth, the former teammate of recently gay-locker-room-friendly star Rob Gronkowski who was suspended for an entire season after killing someone in a car accident. He became an unlikely ally in the fight this week when he joined Athlete Ally,which The Grio describes as a "a non-profit organization aimed at educating and encouraging individual athletes to respect every member of their communities, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity." And a myriad of players signed that marriage equality brief before oral arguments at the Supreme Court last month.

The NHL has been receptive, too, not just to gay marriage but especially about the prospect of out gay players in the locker room. "There's homophobic feelings that's still out there for people in the world, and in the sports world, and it's a shame, but that's the world. There's a lot of bad things going on in the world and that's just how it is. But you can bring awareness to it and this is a good thing, this is what's right," said Rangers forward Brian Boyle, who identifies as Catholic. And Patrick Burke, a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers, is quoted as saying in the Times:

If he wants to do a thousand interviews and march in pride parades, we’re equipped to handle that. And if he wants us to pass-block for him so he never has to do another interview in his life, we’re equipped to handle that, too.”

That's a lot better than scouts asking NFL prospects if they were gay, and the NFL seems ready in the locker room, right now. Even Kluwe, the most brazenly outspoken of gay rights advocates in football, admitted in an interview this week with Sports Illustrated that the NFL is still in the hoping phase, not the action phase: 

I can see it where guys worry about it being a distraction. If it takes away from your on-field performance, you could end up getting cut. But at the same time, hopefully one day we get to a point where it’s not a big deal when someone speaks out for doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.

Edge: NFL, because at least they're talking.

The Ignorant Players

There is no doubt that the NFL is more visible than any other sport in the U.S. thanks to the Super Bowl. And on that biggest stage, a few of the San Francisco 49ers dropped the ball. Two of the team's stars adamantly denied that they were part of a gay advocacy video (even though they were part of the now pulled clip for the "It Gets Better" campaign), and the team's backup cornerback, Chris Culliver, notoriously said that "I don't do the gay guys, man," adding that "we don't need no gay people on the team" and that gay players "can't be... in the locker room." 

Wade Davis, a former NFL player who sits on You Can Play's board and is now openly gay, told the Times that NFL players' deep ties to religion may also prove to be a stumbling block in locker-room acceptance:

“The players are the ones who are going to have to interact with this first out gay athlete,” Davis said. “Instead of pushing anything on them, let’s have an honest conversation. Even if somebody has a different opinion, their opinion is valid. One great thing about sports culture is the locker room is a PC-free zone. So players will say anything with the understanding they are family. That’s where you have to start from.”

Edge: NHL, because the NFL still wants to be PC-free.

The Players Who Aren't Out

This is sort of the one that matters, since all this talk about which league "is the most inclusive" is moot if there's no one who's willing to come out and be included. While there's tons of talk from the NHL about how they're going to make things really easy for its first gay player, there's still no telling how many players might be thinking about coming out—or if there even are any.

The NFL has a different problem. Ayanbadejo (pictured at top), who was cut by the Ravens last week, started a rumor that there were three or four players thinking about coming out at the same time. He then walked back his comments in an interview with Anderson Cooper last Friday, admitting only that "potentially it's possible, it's fathomable, that they could possibly do something together, break a story together." In a new interview with the Times published today, Ayanbadejo clarifies the state of the coming out party once more: 

Ayanbadejo said that after his comments last week, "a couple of more players" had called Athlete Ally, the organization that supports gay athletes with which he is most closely affiliated, seeking guidance and connection. He said there is "more than a handful now" of gay players of whom he is aware.

It’s going to be on their times, their terms.

Edge: NFL, because they're going to have to be the first to figure this out. And maybe they will.

       

Rachel McAdams Joining Hollywood's Weirdest Romantic Comedy

Today in show business news: Rachel McAdams may have a role in the bizarre-sounding new Cameron Crowe film, Patricia Arquette washes up on the Boardwalk, and a look at a new potential indie sensation.

Rachel McAdams is "in talks" to join the new Cameron Crowe film, which already stars Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone. McAdams would play Cooper's ex-girlfriend in the romantic comedy, which is described as such: "a defense contractor (Cooper) who is overseeing a weapons satellite launch from Hawaii teams up with (and falls for) an Air Force pilot (Stone) to scuttle the launch. Mystical island forces and a talking computer also play a part." Wait I'm sorry, what? Did I just read "Mystical island forces and a talking computer also play a part"??? What in heaven's... Cameron, I thought you were trying to save your career, not make Joe vs. the Volcano meets Six Days, Seven Nights meets Lost meets 2001 meets Top Gun meets an old soiled wig lying in a Honolulu puddle. What on earth! Maybe it's just crazy enough to be good? Maybe? I mean, those are all good actors who have signed on, right? So there must be something there...? Though, Judy Greer and Susan Sarandon and Kirsten Dunst all signed on to Elizabethtown and we all know how that went. Good grief. "Mystical island forces and a talking computer also play a part." Also. Play a part. Not mainly, but also. Just also. Woof. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Patricia Arquette has been cast on the fourth season of Boardwalk Empire in what's being called a "major recurring role." She'll play Sally Wheet, a "tough-as-nails" gal from Florida who owns a speakeasy and knows gangsters. That sounds exciting. She's joining other fourth-season newbies like Jeffrey Wright, Brian Geraghty, and Ron Livingston. Between this and her role as that hooker with a heart of somethin' on Law & Order: SVU, Patricia Arquette is still carving out a nice little career for herself, isn't she? I mean she's been trucking along for quite a while now. And she'll disappear for a year or two and you'll think, "Well...? Is that it?" And then, nope! There's an Emmy for Medium or a role on Boardwalk Empire or whatever else. Might we soon see a Beyond Rangoon 2: Back to Rangoon? Let's hope so. [Deadline]

Here's a funny cast: Stanley Tucci, Anne Heche, Cedric the Entertainer, and Jason Statham. All of them, in a movie called Heat, together. Isn't that strange? The movie is a Statham vehicle, some sort of action something about "a gambling addict and ex-mercenary working for hire in Vegas." Huh, OK. But that cast! Oh and, also in the movie? Hope Davis, Milo Ventimiglia, Michael Angarano, and Sophia Vergara. Alllll of them, one single movie. A Jason Statham action movie, no less. Stanley Tucci doing a scene with Cedric the Entertainer. Sofia Vergara and Anne Heche, doing some acting together. Hope Davis looking strangely at Jason Statham, scratching her head. Man, I cannot wait to see this movie. [Deadline]

The oddball casting just keeps on coming. Connie Britton, of Friday Night Lights fame and Nashville... something, has been cast as the girlfriend of Adam Driver, aka "Adam" from Girls, in the upcoming literary adaptation This Is Where I Leave You. That's the comic family drama that already stars Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, and Jane Fonda, and is being directed by Shawn Levy. Bateman, Fey, Driver, and Corey Stoll will play siblings who've just lost their father, while Jane Fonda is of course the widowed mother. Britton plays the baby of the family's girlfriend, who is clearly too old for him. I'd be pretty excited for this movie if it wasn't for that damn Shawn Levy. I mean, how can we trust the director of Just Married and the Pepper Dennis pilot to tell us a compelling family story? I just do not know that we can. Interesting cast, though. [Entertainment Weekly]

Here is a trailer for The Way, Way Back, the recent Sundance hit that sold for $10 million after a protracted bidding war. It's written and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, the guys who shared an Oscar with Alexander Payne for adapting The Descendants. It's one of those quirky coming of age tales that good actors gravitate towards because you never know when you're going to get the next Little Miss Sunshine. This movie features two of that movie's actors, Steve Carell playing a little against type as a callous jerk and Toni Collette playing exactly to type as frazzled slightly loopy mom. Sam Rockwell plays the lead kid's scrappy mentor/water park employee, AnnaSophia Robb (pick one first name and go with that, ASR) plays the love interest, and Amanda Peet, Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry, and Allison Janney play other parts. Sounds like a quirky indie to me.

Here is a trailer for James McAvoy in Filth, a movie about a boozing, sexing, drugging, crime-ing Scottish cop, based on a novel by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh. It looks like Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call Scotland: A Comedy. If that appeals to you, have at it.

And here's a trailer for a new Morgan Freeman/Woody Harrelson/Dave Franco/Jesse Eisenberg/Michael Caine/Isla Fisher movie called Magic Thieves! Well, no, that's not what it's called, but that's what it's about. The Magician Burglars. Or, Poof!. So many title options that aren't Now You See Me, which sounds like a memoir about a girl dealing with mental issues in the late '90s. Oh well.

       

Uruguay Approves Gay Marriage, United States Waits Impatiently

Uruguay became the second predominantly Roman Catholic country to legalize gay marriage on Wednesday night, sending cheers through the streets of Monte Video. Stateside, the mood remains sober.

It wasn't much of a question whether Uruguay would follow Argentina's lead and become the second Latin American country to pass such a law. The vote wasn't even close with 71 out of the 92 members of the Uruguayan Congress voting in favor of the bill. Uruguay with its liberal abortion laws and open-minded approach to marijuana is often considered one of the most progressive countries in Latin America. This is the same country that has a president who drives a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle, never wears a tie and refuses to live in the opulent presidential palace. Not that any of that has anything to do with gay marriage. Uruguay's just laid back is all we're trying to say.

The United States is not — at least not about this issue. As same-sex Uruguayans head to the chapel, the vast majority of gay couples in America are left waiting in the dark and, let's face it, the rain. Despite the flurry of activity around oral arguments for two gay marriage-related cases in the Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago, it will be two more months before the justice's offer their decision. Only then will Americans get a clear answer back from the courts about the constitutionality of the laws preventing widespread passage of a law similar to the one that Uruguay just approved. And even then, it will be months if not years before anybody rallies enough support to push a bill lifting the national ban through Congress.

Some people disagree with this read of the situation. Others probably find it absurd that you can get gay-married in Buenos Aires and Mexico City but not Los Angeles or San Francisco or about a hundred dozen other American cities. Either way, felicidades to the newly weds in Uruguay tonight. And to the tourists: Go to Punte del Este this weekend. The parties are going to be AWESOME.

       

The PC Market Hasn't Been This Bad Since IBM Released Its First PC

When Microsoft released Windows 8 last fall, a lot of people thought it could be the PC's savior, a hip-looking new thing that made those clunky IBM-compatibles cool again. In fact, it's quite the opposite. New research from IDC shows that PC sales just dropped by the greatest margin ever — or at least in the past two decades that the firm's been keeping records. In the first quarter of 2013, the number of PCs sold dropped by 13.9 percent, the fourth consecutive quarterly decline. This sort of drop would be bad for any industry, but for one as young as computers, it's historic. The Associated Press says that "this is clearly the worst shape that the PC market has been in since IBM Corp. released a desktop machine in 1981."

Who's to blame? All signs point to Windows 8. The new operating system was supposed to be a lifeline for Microsoft's once almost monopolistic grip on the sector, but it was immediately confusing to people who tried to use it soon after launch. Even usability experts were having a hard time with the thing. (Yes, there is such a thing as a "usability expert.") Poor sales followed poor reviews, and within a few weeks, Windows 8 was pretty much considered a flop. Meanwhile, Microsoft fired the mastermind behind it. IDC vice president Bob O'Donnell sounds almost sympathetic when he said in a statement, "At this point, unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market."

Steve Jobs was right. The late Apple founder and visionary quite famously announced that we were living in a "post-PC era" a few years ago, as smartphones and tablets started to take over the market. Unfortunately for Apple, though, it's not iOS that's going to be taking over. Gartner, who measured the PC drop at a slightly less awful 11.2 percent, recently said that Google's Android will be the most popular operating system in the world on all platforms by 2017. The recent release of the Android-based Facebook Home portal — which is surprisingly addictive — certainly won't hurt that trajectory.

So love them or hate them, PCs are on their way out. Now would be a good time to pour one out for those PC companies that have already perished. (Lookin' at you General Magic, the company that once built a virtual personal assistant that worked through your very own 800-number.) Pretty soon, they'll have some company at that vaunted place beyond the blue screen.

       

People Won't Stop Sending Severed Goat Heads to Wrigley Field

Police are investigating a severed goat head that was delivered to Tom Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs, at the iconic Wrigley Field. That's weird right? Not in Chicago. Apparently this has happened before — several times.

The Cubs suffer from the Curse of the Billy Goat, you see. It's like a poor man's version of the Curse of the Great Bambino that plagued the Boston Red Sox for nearly a century. The superstition dates back to 1945 when a local tavern owner named Billy Sianis took his pet billy goat to a World Series game at Wrigley Field. The goat had its own ticket and everything, but the fans sitting near Sianis didn't take kindly to the uncommon guest. (Evidently, his breath stank.) So officials booted Sianis and his goat out of the stadium. The disgruntled fan said that the Cubs would never win a World Series again, and nearly 70 years later, they still have not.

It's unclear how many goat heads have been sent to Wrigley Field, but we count at least three: one in 2007, one in 2009 and now one in 2013. Police ultimately ruled that the two other severed goat head incidents were pranks, and there's not much of a reason to believe that this time is any different.