Month: March 2004

I need to get back into anime. Check out the trailer for this one, called Appleseed.

Thanks to the Slashdot nerds for a BitTorrent link. Well worth the wait for this.

…goes to: Reuter’s Health section.

Fitter men carry less weight around belly: study

Link

I couldn’t resist doing this….

From Slashdot:

Wired has up a story about HP, as part of a larger drive to figure out how ideas ideas (sic) ‘infect’ large groups of people, scientifically proving what most people already knew: bloggers steal their ideas from other bloggers.

The article links to the HP Blog Epidemic Analyzer (I swear that’s what they called it).

From the Wired article:

…the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers — and they often do so without attribution.

So, my posting of this “meme” (or whatever they call it now) is officially a contributory element in an epidemic of blog posts. Does this make me part of the problem, because all of my links are attributed. I’m also reversing the trend by being an almost-non-existent blog linking to huge blogs.

At some really geeky level, it’s really funny. Well, to me anyway.

Dr. Donald E. Simanek, Professor of Physics at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania is one smart guy. Plus he really likes to debunk (in great detail) myths of science and physics.

Link

Song’s not that great, but this video is awesome!

Link (via memepool)

Ted Waitt, CEO of Gateway (as in computers) is apparently one stand-up guy. Now, he’s been well compensated in the past I’m sure, so his reduction in pay is likely a large symbolic gesture. But how many other CEOs do you know that made less annually than a moderately-priced computer?

Link

It happened today. No hard numbers yet, but so far three people (in our group of 11) have been let go… the people I hear about leaving are very surprising.

This should be a productive day.

UPDATE: Not official, but estimates are 60 locally and an additional 42 in the field.

UPDATE: It’s official; 118 with a threat of more to come in the spring. Most cuts were in DI, Postal, Manufacturing and Software Engineering.

This is a very lucid and thought=provoking look at the trend of offshore outsourcing. Will this really be the peak year for the trend?

Link

One (poorly written) perspective on the outsourcing movement from someone who receives the “benefits” of the outsourcing. Company sends jobs to India; Company looses contract, but not for some high-minded morals.

Link

Lawrence Lessig argued against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in 1999. They lost (and lost on appeal to SCOTUS), which was a terrible thing for public domain works. One of the arguments lost in the (what little) reporting was done on this case is this one:

This point is rarely made, but it has far-reaching implications, and it was a key theme of our brief. When Congress decides to extend the term of existing copyrights, it is making a choice about which speakers it will favor. Not only would upholding the CTEA mean that there was no limit to the power of Congress to extend copyrights and further concentrate the market; it would also mean that there was no effective limit to Congress’s power to play favorites, through copyright, with who has the right to speak.

He looks back not with regret, but with an almost unbearable responsibility. A very poignant article from an obviously passionate man.

Link (via kottke.org)