'Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for a blogger with wrapping left to do...

Interesting interview of Steve Ballmer, by AlwaysOn...  "All of the best things we've ever done from the financial perspective took many, many, many years to happen.  That doesn't mean we're going to get them all right, it's not like every one of these new things is going to work out.  But if you're not prepared to work hard at things for many, many, many years, you're probably not prepared to be in the technology business.  I think that's what most VCs sort of had to learn again, after the Bubble.  Most startups are going to have to work at something for many, many years to get the concept, get it right, refine it enough, build a real business."  Yep, virtually every overnight success takes many many nights.  My father used to say "everything comes to he who waits, so long as he who waits works like hell while he waits".  Truth!

Lore Sjöberg considers The Laser Pointer for Pets.  "How exactly does one detect intrigue in a lizard?  How do you discern it from, say, pique?  Or, for that matter, a sort of jaded disenchantment that you get when you realize that all crickets taste pretty much the same?  I hate to say it, but I distrust our nation's laser pointer package designers."

Wired on why CDs keep getting louder...  and yeah, the sound keeps getting worse.  Use up all the dynamic range, and you have mud.  [ via Ottmar Liebert, for whom louder CDs present a dilemma ]

Tim Bray discovers digital telephony.  "Restating for emphasis: whenever I'm anywhere in the world and have an Internet connection, I can have a free videophone call home, that goes on as long as I need to and nobody’s counting minutes or running up a phone bill.  Let’s see; free telephone with video, or pay-for-it telephone with no picture.  Costly and voice-only, or free with a picture.  I think this is what an inflexion point smells like."  Indeed.

The NYTimes reviews Vonage, and likes it.  How long before Vonage is bigger than Verizon?

Fast Company: Steve Jobs, Apple, and the Limits of Innovation.  "If Apple is really the brains of the industry--if its products are so much better than Microsoft's or Dell's or IBM's or Hewlett-Packard's--then why is the company so damned small?"  Well, uh, BMW is smaller than GM, too...  Actually it is a thought-provoking article, check it out.

From the department of weird USB devices, we have the Snow Globe Mouse.  Proving once again that "everything" is so much more than you thought.  I love it.