Joel Spolsky: Good Software Takes Ten Years. “But that’s just the first ten years. After that, nobody can think of a single feature that they really need. Is there anything you need that Excel 2000 or Windows 2000 doesn’t already do? With all due respect to my friends on the Office team, I can’t help but feel that there hasn’t been a useful new feature in Office since about 1995. Many of the so-called “features” added since then, like the reviled ex-paperclip and auto-document-mangling, are just annoyances and O’Reilly is doing a nice business selling books telling you how to turn them off.”
10:10:17 PM
Salon: The healthcare disaster that wasn’t. “In 1997, [Bush] said of the Texas Patient Protection Act: ‘I am concerned that this legislation has the potential to drive up healthcare costs and increase the number of lawsuits against doctors and other healthcare providers’… Far from becoming a bonanza for avaricious trial lawyers, the right to sue an HMO or insurance company in Texas has been exercised just 17 times.”
10:07:45 PM
CNET: HP patents way to wire molecular circuits. “The new technology has the potential to extend the current trend in computing that leads to new generations of chips twice as powerful as the preceding generation every 18 months, a march of progress called Moore’s Law. However, unless there’s a way for molecular electronics to communicate with the outside world, the idea will be merely an academic curiosity.”
What this article completely ignores is the potentially stifling effect that the patent itself will have on this technology. If it turns out that HP has patented the only viable technology for connecting molecular circuits to conventional circuits, then it’s possible that we won’t see molecular computing any time soon.
5:06:01 PM
CNN: FBI missing computers, weapons. “An internal FBI review has turned up hundreds of stolen or missing firearms, including submachine guns, and laptop computers, including at least one containing classified information…”
5:01:10 PM
CNET: Deadline set in Napster appeal. “Napster attorneys told the judge the system was prepared to keep more than 99 percent of unauthorized music files off its system. Judge Patel demanded the system keep 100 percent of copyrighted music off the system. [Napster] is seeking an emergency stay from the appeals court that would allow the company to relaunch its service.”
4:59:44 PM
Salon: House to vote on flag protection amendment. “As in the past, the House is expected to vote in favor of a constitutional amendment Tuesday and send it to the Senate, where it probably will be defeated by lawmakers who say saving free speech rights is more important than saving flags from desecration.”
4:57:29 PM
Ananova: SWAT team guards empty shop for six hours. Whoops.
4:54:19 PM
Independent News: Nuclear employee ‘borrows’ tube of plutonium.
4:53:16 PM
Dictionary.com Word of the Day: exegesis: Exposition; explanation; especially, a critical explanation of a text.
4:52:16 PM
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