nerdfight

Steve Jobs Playwright Lacerates Stephen Fry Over Brutal Apple Factories

Ryan Tate · 02/02/12 01:51PM

Stephen Fry, the British actor and vocal Apple admirer, defended the company on Twitter against accounts of brutal working conditions in its contract factories. This did not sit well, at all, with Mike Daisey, creator of a critically-acclaimed one-man show about those very factories, and, now, of a blog post in which he says Fry "is being a total idiot" and calls him a "fanboy," "apologist" and "pathetic."

How To Go Thermonuclear in a Twitter Fight

Ryan Tate · 12/05/11 05:45PM

Ever get tired of ankle-biting haters on Twitter? Freshdesk did, and responded with a dedicated website that called the critics out for, variously, being racist, being jealous, shilling, and tolling. Thus the company went from boring business-services startup to flamewar champion of the month.

Why Are the Feds Getting Protective of Craigslist?

Ryan Tate · 09/14/11 01:30PM

Federal prosecutors just jumped into a long running slapfight between eBay and Craigslist over how the former acquired a stake in the latter. As it turns out, they're on Craigslist's side: They've opened a criminal probe into whether eBay executives used their ownership to illicitly obtain competitive information.

Yale Mocks Facebook's CEO

Ryan Tate · 11/08/10 06:43PM

The annual Yale-Harvard football game is almost upon us, and Yale's freshman class went right for the jugular with an official t-shirt mocking Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg as "antisocial." As opposed to, say, Yale freshmen.

Microsoft Hates Bill Gates' Rich People Tax

Ryan Tate · 10/28/10 02:11PM

Microsoft and its CEO Steve Ballmer vehemently oppose a state income tax, earmarked for schools and health care, on the richest 1.2 percent. Which is odd because Microsoft's founder, worth three times as much as Ballmer, is a big fan.

Mark Zuckerberg Is Preparing for War

Ryan Tate · 08/09/10 01:46PM

There's a melodramatic "war" brewing between Facebook and Google, and Facebook's CEO is seizing the opportunity to squeeze more work from his engineers, declaring a "lockdown," keeping the office open on weekends, and putting a neon sign on his door.

Writers Brawl After Nerds Stop Brawling

Ryan Tate · 11/06/09 06:27PM

You'd think tech bloggers would learn from the peacemaking founders of Skype, who just dropped lawsuits holding back the $2.8 billion sale of their former company. Instead the writers are calling one another inaccurate, spineless "toddlers."

Jealous Geeks in $2 Billion Wrestling Match Over Skype

Ryan Tate · 09/18/09 12:22PM

How did a group of private investors snag Skype for $2 billion+ when big public corporations like Google were too scared to bid, thanks to lawsuits? With stolen computer nerd sorcery, allegedly.

Chess Wizards in Huge Online Sorcery Feud

Ryan Tate · 08/11/09 01:30PM

They say bickering intensifies as stakes diminish; this helps explain the enmity engulfing the U.S. Chess Federation. A struggle over board seats turned into a flurry of lawsuits, all rooted in the following obscene and allegedly faked internet postings.

This Man Founded Everything (And So Did You)

Ryan Tate · 07/29/09 01:07PM

Elon Musk has a very loose definition of the word "founder." The Tesla CEO calls himself a PayPal founder; he isn't. He calls himself a Tesla founder; today a court begins hearings over whether he should stop saying that.