Let’s try again in Iran
The LA Times reports in Support for War in Iraq Hits New Low that only 39% of Americans “believed the situation in Iraq was “worth going to war over”, and that “a large majority, 65%, said they believed the war …
Bill Gates, pinup hero
Bill Gates in a 1983 Teen Beat photspread.
Who makes investment choices?
Intersting column by Michael Kinsley claiming to prove that privatising Social Security won’t work. He makes a similar point to one that I have claimed several times, only to get blank stares: that whether a dollar of earnings is spent …
IBM pledges 500 patents to Open Source
IBM is pledging 500 patents to Open Source. How cool. This is an extraordinary turn-round in attitude since IBM was forced to unbundle its software, and perhaps a reason that they have thrived where DEC, Unisys and others have not.
Intelligent Design Destroys Civilisation as We Know it!
Edge has published the results of its annual question “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?” Chris Anderson writes (scroll down) that according to the standards of Intelligent Design, “virtually everything I believe in must …
Intelligent Design Destroys Civilisation as We Know it! Read more »
Reasons to break the law
Mr. Gonzales said to the Senate (NYT transcript, Friday Jan 7) “I think the decision not to apply Geneva in our conflict with al Qaeda was absolutely the right decision for a variety of reasons…. It would actually make it …
What really motivates creators?
Bill Gates’ statement on CNET that “There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist” …
Limits of Copyright
Brad DeLong writes about The Eighteenth-Century Rollback of Intellectual Property and quotes from “The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century” John Brewer (1997): As one of the judges put it… ‘the very matter and content of… …
Advice column
Garrison Keillor used to publish an advice column on Salon called Mr. Blue; wonderful words of wisdom. I missed it sorely when he retired, and it took a while for me to attune to the voice of his replacement, Cary …
Crime and Punishment
The NYTimes magazine has an interesting article Sentencing by the Numbers on how Virginia is adjusting jail sentences according to the probability of recidivism by classifying the offender according to a 71-point scale of risk assessment: “Of the felons who …