hmmm....what about the USB flash drive? who DOESN'T have at least one?

Interesting read.

Interesting to see Apply and Microsoft fighting out all decade to have a few of their gadgets on this list. Funny though, I've always considered gadgets to be electronic or manual devices but never considered software to be a gadget, except maybe those in DesktopX but not really.

I bow to the master of all things technical...you are correct sir.

To embrace 12/31/2009 as the end of the 2010th year, then you must claim that year 2009 was the 2010th year which is really silly, though the French could have devised it so.

This whole argument started because people couldn't bear to wait for the end of 2000 to celebrate.

? I don't think so...........

fred's standing nekkid in the desert....empty handed

how many apples does he have? 0

now I hand fred an apple...how many now? 1

but by your reasoning, he has 2........

Still wrong!  He has ONE apple... cos his other hand is covering his tockley to stop it getting sunburned.

Fact is, a decade consists of 10 full years... no less!  Now in this case, the decade commenced at January 1st 2000, right, and when the first full year had elapsed it was midnight December 31st 2001, right, and if you count from whence the first year elapsed, ten full years expires on December 31st 2010 at 12.00am.

The only way it could have ended on December 31st 2009 is if one year (any year) was canceled due to lack of interest, but was still mathematically calculated in by the powers that be to stop people retiring a year early.

wrong...unless they now use a standard year at having 730 days...I believe December 31st 2000 (vs 2001) would be more accurate

My Christmas present, Canon PowerShot SX120 IS is the first on the list of a decade of Great things.    And it Rocks!!

Exactly... Fred doesn't say, when his hands are empty: "Oh look, I have zero apples in my hand!", does he?

Zero is a vacant number, in fact, and occupies a space in the mathematics table purely to add units of 10, 100, 1000 when 9,99, 9999, etc, have accrued. 

So, by using that logic, the fact that a decade is 10 full years... not a moment less, we can count the 2000's as a decade as being over only when 2010 is concluded.  This is calculation is reached purely by virtue of the mathematical fact that the first complete year of the decade hadn't elasped until 31 December 2000 at 12.00am.   Prior to that point in time, 2000 qualified only as a collection of 11 months, plus 30 days 23 houra 59 minutes and 59 seconds.