Time was short today, so you've been spared the mooncake rant, the cultural relativism rant and a few other choice in-development rants. But I did notice a few articles that I though I'd pass along to readers so you can keep outta trouble.

Just because you're illegal doesn't mean you shouldn't look good
Funny post from Sam Flemming, who tracks an unusual incident of "open source marketing", where the customers of a manufacturer of pirate DVDs submitted new designs for its corporate identity. No word yet if another pirate DVD company has knocked it off.

Breakthrough, schmeakthrough
WSJ tech columnist Lee Gomes analyzes the overuse of the word "breakthrough". Superlative inflation is a serious problem in rhetoric these days, and it shames me that we practitioners of the dark art of PR have largely been the ones responsible for this. It is, in fact, a standing rule of press release writing not to include superlatives. But try sending a superlative-free draft to a client and see what happens. "Couldn't our product be just a little more 'paradigm shifting'?"

Oops, they did it @gain
Will they never learn? Singapore, the world's least original nation when it comes to branding, has once again used an "@" symbol in a brand. Welcome their new Wireless@SG citywide Wi-Fi service. Everything I have to say on this topic is here.

BOCOG to provide quality news service for journalists
A headline from BOCOG. Completely true except for the quality, news and service parts.

Deconstruct this!
The entertaining Positive Solutions blogger ruthlessly deconstructs an article he had to polish for his newspaper:
We’ve screwed up the environment? Let’s call for peace between man and nature! We’ve created a massive gap between rich and poor? Let’s call for the gap to be closed! We’ve broken down imperial society to a billion little pieces but still emerged with a system in which the executive, legislature, military and judiciary are controlled by same bloke? Let’s call for ‘development’ (whatever that means)!
Damn straight. And love the blog. I have just one request: can you please change the link color in your stylesheet? That pink color makes me hallucinate.

Baidoops
Click fraud! It's not just for breakfast American Internet companies anymore. BusinessWeek's Bruce Einhorn looks at a click fraud lawsuit that has landed on Baidu. Einhorn looks into why the Chinese market might be a click-fraudster's paradise:
Baidu uses 200 different distributors, which in turn often farm out the work to others, says Richard Ji, an Internet analyst with Morgan Stanley (MS) in Hong Kong. Ji estimates that there are close to 1,000 distributors in China selling keywords for search engines. "These search operators have to deploy their sales forces and knock on the doors of small and midsized enterprises to [get them to] buy paid listings," says Ji.

As a result, the distributors "are under enormous pressure to deliver revenue." For some, the temptation to fake some clicks may be too hard to resist.
You think?

Bad headline of the day
"China successfully tests thermonuclear device". Turns out its their experimental Tokamak fusion reactor. No need to duct-tape your windows shut. Or maybe there is.