Month: October 2005

U.S. Inquiry Cites Missteps in Iraqi Reconstruction. As money runs out for Iraq's reconstruction, there is no clear source for the additional funds needed to operate finished projects. By JAMES GLANZ. [NYT > Home Page]

Issues for Young People and Blogging. Some schools are asking students or creating policies requiring students to remove their blogs from the public internet. The article is about a Roman Catholic high school ordering its students to remove personal blogs from the Internet. They are not talking about censorship, they are trying to protect young… Continue reading Issues for Young People and Blogging

'The Assassins' Gate': Occupational Hazards. In his chronicle of the Iraq war, George Packer describes a poorly planned and executed takeover of Iraq. By FAREED ZAKARIA. [NYT > Books]

The Vice President: In Indictment's Wake, a Focus on Cheney's Powerful Role. The indictment of I. Lewis Libby Jr. lifts a veil on how aggressively the vice president's office fought to discredit Iraq war critics. By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ERIC SCHMITT. [NYT > Home Page]

Learning to separate value from cost. I spent three years at the Copenhagen Business School to largely acquire one skill: The ability to price something at its value, not cost, and feel damn good about it. It sounds trivial, but it can be the hardest thing. Russell Beattie gives you the guilt version: Let me… Continue reading Learning to separate value from cost

Mike Arrington's new stream. Most of you know Mike as the editor of TechCrunch, a phenomenal new weblog that tells the story of new web services, written from the heart of SiliconValley. I met him for the first time in a meeting in NY, in May, when we got together to talk about the sale… Continue reading Mike Arrington's new stream

The top 5 red flags of software development. “Wouldn’t it be easy to…” (the hidden cost of change) “This shouldn’t take long” (artificial time frame) “Can you make this small change real quick?” (“small” and “quick”) “Before you finish X, could you do Y?” (the mental costs of interruption) “Let’s push this today” (artificial scope)… Continue reading The top 5 red flags of software development

Lind on “processing” failed states Lind. Another reason the WMD lie matters is that the real reason the administration invaded Iraq, “to redesign the Middle East,” reveals (officially) a truly breathtaking hubris, coupled to a monumental ignorance of the region in question. Redesign the Middle East? What do the Bushies think it is, a Chevrolet?… Continue reading Lind on “processing” failed states

Swan song?. My first reaction to Delta to Eliminate Discount Carrier Song was, “of course it failed.” It failed because they didn't burn their bridges, didn't really commit, didn't do anything but a pale imitation of Jet Blue. But then I realized that Song wasn't a failure on at least one level… it allowed a… Continue reading Swan song?

Optimizing Rails Resource Usage. Hi, my name is Julik and I'm one of the new guest writers on the TextDrive weblog. Jason has given me the privilege to talk a little about performance-tuning Rails applications for deployment on TextDrive or anywhere. I've been doing Rails development since April 2005 and have deployed 3 applications already,… Continue reading Optimizing Rails Resource Usage