It's official. Today not only marks the death of a vicious two-year
format war, but also the death of Toshiba's much touted HD DVD. While
the demise of HD DVD has seemed imminent over the past few weeks with
the announcement of the last major studios and equipment manufacturers
going exclusively Blu-Ray, it didn't always seem that way. In fact, if
I recall, it was only a year ago that HD DVDs and HD DVD players were
out-selling Blu-Ray discs and players by more 60%. Toshiba, the
creator of the HD DVD format, thought they were a shoe-in from the
start, saying that Blu-Ray would fall just as Sony's other proprietary
BETA format had in the 1980s. The argument was that Blu-Ray was new,
its specs weren't finished, and all it had going for it was that the
PS3 had it built in. Guess they were wrong... and rightfully so.

Where Toshiba failed in all of this, was the lack of acknowledgement
of an educated consumer base. Unlike the technology consumer of the
80's, 21st century consumers are armed with a wealth of knowledge when
it comes to their next tech purchase. People can tell when picture
quality is better. People know that more storage is better than less
storage. People knew that Blu-Ray was the format of the future.

Nik Nadolski wrote the following blog entry while attending the Amnesty International 2007 Midwest Regional Conference in Omaha, Nebraska.

    Normally I avoid any website that has “free” in the URL like an evil army of puppy killers. They usually lead to things like substandard porn, a pyramid scheme for a free iPod, or some other site saying that for $39.95 you too can become a millionaire. 

    FreeRice.com is none of those. Surprisingly, it does exactly what it says it does - it gives out free rice. Now, I know what you’re asking: who the heck wants free rice? Well, a lot of people, actually. Have you not heard about the 852 million people who go hungry everyday? The goal of FreeRice.com is to provide malnourished individuals around the world with just what it sounds like - free rice.