TRANSTERRESTRIAL MUSE Rand Simberg wonders why Adobe Systems would make a sizeable investment in Salon, which he characterizes as a bottomless money pit.

No big mystery here. Between Salon and Adobe, there's synergy to be had. For all its faults as a business model, and whatever you think of their politics, Salon is still a fairly well-recognized source of interesting, provocative and frequently updated reading material. Adobe's own business plan is heavily dependent upon establishing Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) as a universal electronic publishing and content distribution standard. So, it's only in Adobe's interest that they should be able to point to a steady source of content which is available as a PDF download.

(The obvious follow-up question, though, is: Where do I go to sign up for the Adobe subsidy to distribute Mind Over What Matters to the masses in PDF?)