Good column on the current debate over what to do about the high price of gasoline in the US. Not only does he talk about the failure of both major parties to do anything about raising miles-per-gallon standards, he skewers the argument that drilling in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Some news and commentary on the topic these days points to refinery capacity or the switch to "summer blend" fuel as one cause of price increases. Easterbrook doesn't touch on that, or the patchwork or state laws governing what additives can be put into gasoline. But the miles-per-gallon issue is the most important.
Excellent column on the unintended consequences of armed intervention, even with the best intentions. There is much irony in the author's ability to use France under Napoleon as a historical example of the successes and failures of invasion to promote "universal" ideals.
A thoughtful piece that talks about the downsides of "opinion journalism".
This story from MSNBC indicates that the White House passed up three opportunities to kill the man they're currently blaming for a lot of the bombings happening in Iraq. I haven't seen this story anywhere else. If it's true, that's very disturbing.
Article by Clay Shirky on possible outcomes in the voice-over IP market. He includes a service I'd been completely unaware of named Skype that is offering free peer-to-peer voice communication.
Radio Hosts to Pay for Lewdness
Prosecutor in Terror Case Controversy Sues Ashcroft
Secret Report Warns of Iraq "Balkanization"
Bush on Meet the Press: A Rebuttal from Juan Cole
The CIA: Method and Madness
If there’s any problem I have with the column, it’s the idea that “scientism” has no use whatsoever. Implicit in that argument is a defense of the creation of a new intelligence unit within the Pentagon. They operated on the sort of intuition that Brooks advocates. But without the sort of processes and actual intelligence know-how that exists in the CIA and elsewhere, intelligence information of dubious credibility was put forward as fact.
While relying solely on “scientism” to predict and stop threats isn’t the best idea, neither is turning to the other extreme (going exclusively with your gut, or instinct).
Scott Ritter was Right All Along
Now that David Kay’s report has stated that they’ve found no weapons, and likely never will, Scott Ritter has been completely vindicated. Though their motives may not have been the best, one could say that the French were right as well.
Especially interesting in the Brian Lamb interview was Ritter’s response to a caller who suggested the idea of impeachment. He said the right things about having all the facts, and due process. In addition, he laid out a pretty strong case that Dick Cheney might be guilty of fraud, if he knew some statements he made prior the war to a VFW gathering regarding an Iraqi defector were false.
I especially appreciated the way Ritter placed blame at the feet of Congress for giving the president a free hand to go to war. I’ve always believed that Congress abdicated its responsibility in doing so.
The other valid point he made was that the United States needs to be a fully active member of the UN in order to prevent Iraq from descending fully into chaos. To him, bringing the UN into Iraq did not mean the US completely exiting Iraq.
Overall, a number of the points Ritter made about the war sounded like things Howard Dean has said on the election trail, most importantly that the US isn’t safer as a result of the war in Iraq. Interestingly enough, despite being a self-described “moderate conservative”, Ritter said he was going to devote all of his efforts to getting Bush defeated, despite voting for him in 2000. Hearing more from Ritter in the press about Iraq would be a good thing, especially as the election gets closer.
An Absence of Legitimacy
It’s quite fitting the organizations Bush and company heaped such scorn on earlier are precisely the ones they must ask to help them out of the mess.
NASA Cancels Trip to Supply Hubble, Sealing Early Doom
It figures. One of NASA’s most effective projects ever will be dumped in the ocean sooner or later in favor of manned spaceflight.
To me, it’s just one more decision that says we don’t have the first clue about what real science is. I still remember some of the debate over “super-conducting super-collider” vs. the International Space Station. At that time, it seemed clear to me that the likelihood of useful scientific discovery occurring was a lot lower with the ISS than with super-collider. But because it was in Texas, the Dems were in power, and they wanted to stick it to the GOP, the wrong project got killed.
History may not repeat itself exactly, but it sure does rhyme.
The Troublesome, Vote-loving Ayatollah
The troublesome, vote-loving ayatollah
This story from The Economist covers a lot of ground on America's adventure in Iraq. They do a good job of touching on the political implications for Bush's re-election plans if things go poorly. On the positive side, it looks like a significant number of our troops will get to come home soon. As misguided as I think the policy was, the men & women of our armed forces have done a great job of bringing it this close to success. I think it would be both ironic and unfortunate if after all this effort to bring democracy to the Middle East, the result was an Islamic republic in Iraq.
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years
Great essay by Peter Norvig that begins by talking about the “Learn topic X in Y Days” publishing phenomenon, and counters with how long it really takes.
His recipe for programming success, and his contention that it takes 10 years to get really good at it both make a lot of sense. Since getting my computer science degree from the University of Maryland (in 1996), the things I’ve learned about programming from doing it for a living have really added a lot to my understanding of what I was taught in school.
Working on projects with other programmers is what I enjoy most. I definitely feel like I learn more and accomplish more when I work with a team. Unfortunately, the position I’ve had the past couple of years means that I have to develop everything by myself. I’ve certainly learned a lot from not having other people to depend on, but I think teams develop the best software.
Working on projects after other programmers has been one of the most frustrating parts of my career. Too often, it’s poorly documented and written in an “ensure job security” sort of way. In other words, it’s not written in a way that easily allows someone else to understand it. Programmers only get away with that if they’re working by themselves. More often than not, if I’m confronted with that situation, I’ll rewrite the application instead of spending a lot of effort deciphering the existing code.
Talking to other programmers about programming is something I don’t do enough of. Finding time to read other good code is a challenge (trying to balance full-time work and a part-time MBA program), but I need to do that as well.
Fiber to the People
A Lawrence Lessig article on customer-owned networks. He uses examples from Boeing Corporation and the city government of Burlington, Vermont. Governments, corporations, and individuals (if they have sufficient funds) buying networks definitely has some benefits. No more worrying about Comcast being the only way to get onto the internet. The knowledge that a municipality could hire contractors to build such a network themselves could also work as an incentive to spur competition (if corporations are being too slow about providing access to certain areas). I hope more cities and counties do this.
USB FM Radio
I wasn't even aware such a thing existed until my friend Rob told me about it. The one I bought is a discontinued model from D-Link (the DSB-R100). You plug one of the antenna's connectors into a USB port, the other into the Line In port on your sound card.
I found out the hard way that it's very important to completely ignore the software that comes with it. After installing the driver and radio software on the PC, my machine crashed. Every other time I tried to start up the radio software, it would reboot my machine. So I followed the two pieces of advice I'd been given earlier:
1. Install the GemTek drivers instead
2. Install Radiator
The drivers and the software are both freely available. Now everything works like a charm. I've got the same FM radio presets on my PC that I've got in my car. The really interesting feature of the software is that it allows you to schedule the recording of broadcasts in WAV or MP3 format. You can record from other sources as well (directly from line in, microphone, CD audio, etc.) which I haven't tried (yet).
Stored Procedure Naming
I found the following note:
Note: Do not preface your stored procedure names with sp_, because doing so reduces performance. When you call a stored procedure that starts with sp_, SQL Server always checks the master database first, even if the stored procedure is qualified with the database name:
at this URL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/BOAGag.asp
Presenting Data and Information
I attended this presentation last Wednesday. If you ever do presentations for work, your MBA program, or anything else, attending this presentation is the best money you’ll ever spend. The fee includes a copy of all three of his books, and he refers to them often during the presentation. If there are two key points that can be summarized from the entire day, they would be:
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Paper is a much higher-resolution medium for communicating information than a computer screen.
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Only overhead projectors are worse for communicating information than PowerPoint.
Tufte does an excellent of substantiating each of these points. He illustrated the second point in hilarious fashion by showing us The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation, courtesy of Peter Norvig (and the Microsoft Powerpoint AutoContent Wizard).
I’ll include my notes from the course in a future post, but attending it in person is the best way to get the full effect.