So Mr. Romney is to blame because of decisions he didn't make at a business he didn't run that may or may not have set in train a series of random unconnected events many years apart that included Ilyona Soptic's illness.

WSJ: Review & Outlook: The Postmodern President

Their cold storage specification is for a bulk load fast archive that handles a series of sequential writes and random reads.

FORBES: Open Source Storage Changes Industry Cost Structure

Using a series of experiments on both business executives and a random selection of adults, Brescoll et al found that after the fact, firms that conveyed an empathetic, responsibility-taking message ended up losing much less public trust than those taking more defensive or noncommittal stances.

FORBES: How BP Should Respond To The Spill

The virus infects the Symbian OS found on Nokia Series 60 handsets and affects the phone directory software, selecting one directory profile at random and sending a copy of itself to that person.

ENGADGET: CommWarrior cellphone virus smolders, somewhere

Bowie appeared in series two of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's programme Extras in 2006 where a random encounter with Bowie in a pub ends with Bowie at a piano singing a song - Chubby Little Loser - which ridicules Gervais' character Andy.

BBC: Sixty-six facts about David Bowie