Matter, Energy, and Life of Michaela A. Castello.

Long Reads

Stories that take a bit longer to get through.

  • Remember Pyrrhus? Yeah, This is Kind of Like Him

    Yesterday people both on- and offline were crowing about how Pink Floyd “won” a legal battle with their record label, EMI. At last, the band can force their fans to buy digital versions of their songs as full albums, rather than individual tracks. Wait, what? This was worth fighting over? Amidst an industry segment in…


  • RAS Syndrome

    Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome: people incur it all the time. They say an acronym but repeat the final word as well: DVD disc, ATM machine, ISBN number. Were the acronym to be fully expanded, they’re duplicating that final word and saying “digital versatile disc disc.” This used to aggravate me immensely, but the other day…


  • Whoopsie

    Remember Ubisoft’s amazing new DRM scheme? The one that would stop all those nefarious “pirates” by forcing legitimate purchasers of Ubisoft games to be constantly online? Yeah, well, it got cracked. Mere hours after the release, at that. I know it’s a bit of a potshot, but I just couldn’t resist. It didn’t take a…