We're the only ones obsessed with tech gossip, right? Not a chance. The New York Times can't help but slip some goss into a thorough article about Tom Perkins's angry 2004 resignation from the board of Hewlett-Packard:

However media coverage of the Hewlett-Packard board scandal goes, we all know who really wins a media-saturated fight — it's whoever gets the best photos in the press. And after seeing this photo in every damn article about this story, we declare ex-director Tom Perkins the champion.

In the latest comment on the Hewlett-Packard leaker-snooping scandal, The New York Times spanks the board by suggesting that its members need a lesson in good behavior (and a night class in ethics). "People just don't have a lot of patience with this board anymore," one analyst tells the paper.

• Hewlett-Packard won't give George Keyworth a chance at re-election for the board next March, after the director leaked info to CNET, got investigated by chairwoman Patricia Dunn, and refused to resign despite his fellow directors' demands. Meanwhile, California's attorney general is investigating HP's investigation. Dunn, Keyworth, and former director Tom Perkins are exchanging barbs, each accusing another of violating their privacy. [Bloomberg]

Q. What's the difference between HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn and once-jailed hacker Kevin Mitnick?
A. One's a pretexter, the other's a convicted pretexter!

Chief Privacy Officer of Hewlett-Packard, to a committee of U.S. Representatives this summer:

The reason for venture capitalist Tom Perkins's resignation from the HP board of directors became clear today when Newsweek reported that chairwoman Patricia Dunn sniffed out directors' home phone records using possibly illegal methods of "pretexting" (obtaining personal info under false pretenses).

Sun Microsystems is determined to turn its rivalry with Hewlett-Packard into a frat fight.

Hewlett-Packard will buy management software company Mercury Interactive, HP just announced. The hardware maker is thus entering the software biz and snapping up a big player in quality assurance.

Hewlett-Packard's new ad campaign proves that viral's just another word for nothing left to trust. The computer maker scored a New York Times piece about its viral site, FingerSkilz, in which an actor does soccer tricks with his fingers. What first looked like a personal video blog turned out to be a corporate project with highly computer-enhanced stunts.

(They meant "the opposite of offshoring," by the way — which sounds no better, but still.)

Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy (pictured, and doesn't he look cute and comfortable, and completely not posed at ergonomically disastrous angles) wrote an open letter to Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd, asking, "Let's converge [HP operating system] HP-UX with [Sun operating system] Solaris 10."