It's one thing to sign me up for spam. It's another for a company to do it and claim it's some kind of benefit.

I'll come right out and say it - password security questions are not only insecure, they're a blatant security hole. They're worse than not being there at all, and for any of a number of reasons.

I'm an Apple guy, and while I'm not religious about it, I like that all my devices work together now and are generally portable. The UX works for me and I like having a development platform that is, under the hood, UNIX-based.

That said, Cortana kicks Siri's ass. It's not even a fair fight. What Lisa's Windows phone can do, in terms of an intelligent AI assistant is incredibly compelling.

Apple, your user experience is second to none. Now it's time to kick up the actual heft behind it. Microsoft is eating your lunch in this one, specific area. Step it up.

I spent the evening last night at an Irish Pub (yes, I know, this blog entry can just stop here) watching the Seahawks game. Remember, though I live in Silicon Valley, I'm a Seattle transplant. Go Hawks.

As I and the 50+ fans were enjoying a convincing victory, a commercial came on. It was entitled (and captioned), "The Call," and depicted a woman getting a phone call. She says hello, and her face drops as she listens, clearly being shocked at what she is hearing. I, the viewer, know only her shock - there is no indication of what's actually said.

And then the commercial ends with the call to action to go to a URL to find out what happens next.

No. Just no. Clickbait online is one thing. Doing it in a broadcast television commercial? Sorry, that's farther past a line that's already been crossed.

I encourage everyone to refuse to go to any URL presented in this manner. Please help send a message to advertisers that this simply won't work.

Oh, and get off my lawn.