a crank’s progress

[IP] the Epidemic on the Internet (or better the wreak of it)
On Aug. 11, the Blaster virus and related bugs struck, hammering dozens of corporations, including Air Canada’s reservation and airport check-in systems. Ten days later, the SoBig virus took over, causing delays in freight traffic at rail giant CSX Corp. and shutting down more [...]

Edward Tufte: Ask E.T. forum
Societies have invested more than a trillion dollars in software and have grotesquely enriched minimally competent software producers whose marketing skills far exceed their programming skills. Despite this enormous long-run investment in software, economists were unable to detect overall gains in economic productivity from information technology until perhaps the mid-1990s or [...]

Computer bugs annoying, but not a major economic threat - Aug. 22, 2003
To the extent that they force businesses and workers to waste time deleting tons of spam e-mail or loading anti-virus software, the bugs could shave about half a percentage point from productivity growth in the quarter, said Anthony Chan, chief economist at Banc [...]

The Seattle Times: Local News: Freed mink attack Sultan farms
The [10,000] mink were released Monday morning from the Roesler Brothers Fur Farm when someone cut through a fence and opened numerous cages. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a group classified as a domestic terror organization by the FBI, has claimed responsibility in an e-mail to [...]

The Seattle Times: Microsoft: Microsoft may alter browser
Microsoft, which this month was found to have infringed on a patented method for viewing Internet pages, is expected to make changes to its Web-browser software, according to the World Wide Web Consortium trade group.
Innovators don’t infringe patents, do they? Especially given the army of talent in both [...]

William Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part II.
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
Talking to (or being spoken at) by a law professor this morning, I was presented with the idea that lawyers regard themselves as self-sacrificing creatures who have to read all the things no one else wants, eating spinach, in other words. [...]

Whole Earth: Places to Intervene in a System
The higher the leverage point, the more the system resists changing it-that’s why societies rub out truly enlightened beings.
Perhaps the only provocative quote in a well-reasoned, mind-expanding article. I used to read WER but there was a time when it was on hiatus and when my subscription lapsed, [...]

Wind Power’s New Current
This story reminded of an idea that keeps popping up in my head. I have often wondered if, here in Ecotopia, there would be support for windfarms like these. I know there are some planned along the Canada-US border as well as others in place in Oregon.
But my pipe dreamplan is [...]

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Scientists discover secret that keeps French slim: eat less of everything
The lesson is that though the French diet was rich in fat, overall, the Americans consumed more calories. Over the years, this would lead to substantial differences in weight.
Add to this the amount of processed/fried foods we [...]

Business 2.0 - Magazine Article - The Coming Job Boom
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No sentient adult could have made it through the past decade without developing a healthy distrust of forecasts like these. But the case for the worker gap differs from the usual economic entrail reading in one crucial regard: It’s based on demographics, [...]