Gearfuse

An early draft of Aaron Sorkin’s script for the upcoming Facebook movie has leaked and, big shocker, it doesn’t totally suck! The script mixes in a healthy dose of comedy, with the antagonist being Sean Parker, co-founder of both Napster and Facebook, which we guess makes the protagonist Mark Zuckerberg himself.

Parker is said to come off as sort of a Tyler Durden-esque type character. And not surprisingly, Fight Club director, David Fincher, is among the top names being thrown around to direct the film. Hit the jump for a thoroughly comprehensive review of the script.

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Look at you over there. Thinking you’re part of the geek elite because you downloaded some polyphonic bullshit ringtone, probably either the Star Trek or Battlestar theme. That’s for posers, dood. The real cool geeks are flocking to a new source for their ringtone fix. If you’ve never heard of the TED conference, it’s pretty much an annual event where the most elite geeks get together and listen to presentations from the upper echelon of geek speakers. For example, this year featured presentations from such alpha geeks as Bill Gates of Microsoft fame and Twitter’s Evan Williams.

The real news though, lies in the newly featured TED ringtones. Featured so far are tones for both the “TEDTalks Phase II” and “TEDTalks Classic” jingles, available in both MP3 and M4R formats. And more are planned for release soon. If you want to be on top of your geek game, you’ve got to be down with the TED. You down with TED? Yeah, you know me.

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Oh, Microsoft. You love to just fuck things up royally, don’t you? You almost have a certain knack for it it seems. This time around, Microsoft is now declaring that it will no longer pay for shipping on broken Xbox 360 units. Says Consumerist reader Zach:

“My Xbox red-ringed for the second time this weekend. Which is almost a relief after hearing how bad my disc drive was sounding, but not so much after hearing the new policy. I was told that Xbox no longer ships out a box to you and you must find a box to ship it out in. Yeah I guess its not a big deal, but I think it gives them another thing to hold over your head; “We are sorry, Sir, but you didn’t back it well enough and it appears the damage was due to shipping, we cannot help you.”

See? Fucking the customer squarely in the ass once again. Get a goddamned clue, will you already, Microsoft? I’m so sick of writing about how you constantly subject the public to pain and terrible excuses. It’ll come back to haunt you fuckers one day, I’m sure of it.

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Oh quit crying, you two. You have enough money to wipe your asses with $100 bills for the rest of your natural born life. In a recent interview with Vogue, Melinda Gates stated that she keeps iPhones and iPods out of the hands of her children. The direct quote sez:

“…there are very few things that are on the banned list in our household. but ipods and iphones are two things we don’t get for our kids.”

So is this a veiled attempt at keeping Apple products out of the house or just the way the Gates family approaches parenting? I’m going to say it’s a little bit of column A, a little of column B. I’m sure the Bill has an iMac lying around his insanely large house somewhere. No iPhone, though? Someone call child services.

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Can you believe it? Microsoft, the fuckers who have made Windows forever and never make shit open-source are now calling for Apple to be more “open”. Says Steve Ballmer, douche supreme, says ‘”I agree that no single company can create all the hardware and software. Openness is central because it’s the foundation of choice.”‘

Bahahahahahahaa. Sorry, sorry. I’ll try to maintain composure. It’s important that we al-hahahahaahaha oh man Microsoft is a fucking trip. When will they learn? Never. That’s when.

LOL

Recession? What recession?

This 24-karat gold iPhone 3G has made its way onto the auction site eBay in hopes that it’ll draw a high bid. While I don’t doubt it will, whoever ends up winning must not be affected by the current economic crisis. You can buy it now for a mere $1016.72, which is pennies for people like Bill Gates and Bernie Madoff. There’s even a gold Apple logo on the back of the device for good measure.

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So the TED conferences and talks are in full effect. Imagine you were there. What’s the shittiest thing you could do to an audience listening patiently to every word you have to say? OK, so whatever you thought of, you’ll need to double it because Bill Gates pissed everyone off the other day. How so? By releasing a jar of about 10 mosquitoes inside the conference hall and letting them go after attendees.

Why do such a thing? Gates was bitching about malaria in third-world countries. Jerk off.

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Next week kicks off a new month and with a new month comes a new contest! Eat your vegetables and read your links and you’ll grow up to be healthy. Possibly. Probably not.

• Video of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates playing “The Dating Game”
• New stuff over at Loveislame.com
• Check out this new train from NJ Transit
• He’s a jukebox hero!
• The Impossible Project: Saving Polaroid Film
  
• Is Blood Bowl the new Mutant League Football?
• The physics of musical instruments

Have great links you want showcased on Afternoon Linkage? E-mail us: tips AT gearfuse DOT com.

If you were one of three people on the planet who enjoyed the Jerry Seinfeld ads from Microsoft, I’ve got some bad news: Microsoft is moving to “phase two” of its ad campaign. That means no more Jerry, no more churros and no more of Gates doing the robot.

The next phase of Microsoft’s plan is to crack counter shots back at Apple by specifically targeting its ads which have propelled the Apple Windows feud in the first place. Bill Gates will be making a reappearance alongside many new celebrities excluding Jerry Seinfeld. There will be no soup for him.

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When $300 million dollars is spent on advertisements involving Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates shopping for shoes, it makes me think, “What’s this got to do with Microsoft?” Well, Microsoft wants you to know that it’s more hip than Apple.

The two things that make Jerry Seinfeld cool in this video:

1. He’s eating a churro.

2. He showers in his clothes in the morning, “You’re dressed, then you’re clean. Open the door, go about your business.”

The sad thing about the ad is it takes an entire minute before they even mention the word “Microsoft.” And when it is mentioned, it’s in the middle of a Jerry Seinfeld ramble that makes little sense.

“You know, I imagine over the years you’ve mind-melded your magnum Jupiter brain to those other Saturn ring brains of Microsoft.”

Then it goes on to joke about an edible computer.  Is it funny? When I’m stoned, sure. But it’s not funny in the way where I have the sudden desire to go out and purchase Microsoft merchandise.  I am not sold.

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