The government stopped conducting public executions in the early 20th century for much the same reason that it will use lethal injections rather than more brutal technologies to kill Timothy McVeigh -- to reinforce the distinction between a lynching and a soberly considered act of duly authorized justice.
The odds can be especially brutal in clean technology.
The past few weeks have particularly brutal for the technology space, with substantial layoffs announced by Pioneer (10,000), Cisco (3,000), Panasonic (15,000), NEC (20,000), Electronic Arts (1100) and AOL (700).
In George Orwell's "1984," that novel of totalitarian politics whose great mistake was to emphasize the villainy of society's masters while playing down the mischief of the masses, the goal of communications technology was brutal and direct: to ensure the dominance of the state.
Social commentary aside, Fantastic Planet places the viewer into a unique and beautifully realized world accented by jarring scenes of violence and brutal indifference where futuristic technology and primal existence are side by side.
"Technology is a brutal business," says Mr Apotheker.
It will even be on Apple Music, eight years after the end of a long and brutal legal battle between the technology company and the Beatles Applee record label over the use of the Apple logo in the music business.
Those early-80s singles, recorded with a minimum of technology, still sound brutal today, and Ian Mackaye's straight-edge message - no drink, no drugs, no casual sex - helped define alternative music's sense of opposition to the mainstream.
The Taliban's Twitter account frequently issues statements and claims responsibility for attacks around the country, a remarkably different approach from when the group banned television and most technology during their brutal, six-year rule.
In the wake of the enormous declines in the United States on Friday and earlier today in Asia, European markets had been braced for a similarly brutal drop, particularly in the technology and Internet shares that seemed to have lost their appeal.
