Reflecting these electric dreams. 2010-06-18T16:43:11-04:00 Admin http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/index.php sth@panix.com tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg Pivot Copyright (c) 2010, Authors of spencer at thorns dot org 2010-04-08T17:13:00-04:00 2010-04-08T17:13:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.470

The Astonishing Voice of Albert Hirschman "The subtitle of the book is "Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States." Hirschman's concern is with "repairable lapses" in organizational performance: declines that could be corrected with the right balance of information, incentives and flexibility of response. This is not a subject to which economists had paid much attention, and he begins by asking why"

The Astonishing Voice of Albert Hirschman "The subtitle of the book is "Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States." Hirschman's concern is with "repairable lapses" in organizational performance: declines that could be corrected with the right balance of information, incentives and flexibility of response. This is not a subject to which economists had paid much attention, and he begins by asking why" ]]> sth 2010-03-21T15:01:00-04:00 2010-03-21T15:01:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.469

Writing software is most similar to writing fiction novels. Writing novels is also an act of creation in an unconstrained and ethereal medium with few well-established construction rules. We know good writing when we see it, but it is hard to teach. Experience writing and feedback from better writers (coders) is the most reliable means of becoming a good writer (coder). Without a well understood process, software will remain more an art than a science. The term "software engineering" is more a goal than how we actually write software. http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~parrt/doc/software-not-engineering.html

http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~parrt/doc/software-not-engineering.html ]]> sth 2010-02-15T12:18:00-04:00 2010-02-15T12:18:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.468

Perfect

Perfect ]]> sth 2010-02-03T04:40:00-04:00 2010-02-03T04:40:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.467

"The Pentagon's science agency has big plans for next year: crowdsourcing military intelligence, creating an "immune system" for Defense Department networks, and even research that might one day lead to editing a soldier's DNA."http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/darpas-new-plans-crowdsource-intel-immunize-nets-edit-dna/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A wired%2Findex %28Wired%3A Index 3 %28Top Stories 2%29%29&utm_content=Google Feedfetcher

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/darpas-new-plans-crowdsource-intel-immunize-nets-edit-dna/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A wired%2Findex %28Wired%3A Index 3 %28Top Stories 2%29%29&utm_content=Google Feedfetcher ]]> sth 2010-01-05T17:10:00-04:00 2010-01-05T17:10:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.466

The Australian government is set to impose Chinese-style Internet censorship by enforcing a universal national filter that will block websites deemed controversial, as part of a wider agenda to regulate the Internet according to free speech advocates.http://afteramerica.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/australia-to-enforce-mandatory-chinese-style-internet-censorship/

http://afteramerica.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/australia-to-enforce-mandatory-chinese-style-internet-censorship/ ]]> sth 2010-01-04T15:48:00-04:00 2010-01-04T15:48:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.465

Last fall, the American Law Institute, which created the intellectual framework for the modern capital justice system almost 50 years ago, pronounced its project a failure and walked away from it.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/us/05bar.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/us/05bar.html?partner=rss&emc=rss ]]> sth 2009-12-23T22:46:00-04:00 2009-12-23T22:46:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.464

"If we consider all the possible ways that the universe could be arranged, and rank them in terms of how good they would be, Banks’ utopia certainly gets a very high rank. But it seems unlikely that it is the very best—or even close to the best. Banks’ utopia represents the limit of good experiences that we can currently think of and realize are good according to our complex values. Just how much better could it get?"http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2009/12/roko-mijic-at-goodis-the-utopia-force/

http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2009/12/roko-mijic-at-goodis-the-utopia-force/ ]]> sth 2009-12-16T10:47:00-04:00 2009-12-16T10:47:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.463

"..the belief that lower wages would raise overall employment rests on a fallacy of composition. In reality, reducing wages would at best do nothing for employment; more likely it would actually be contractionary."http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/would-cutting-the-minimum-wage-raise-employment/

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/would-cutting-the-minimum-wage-raise-employment/ ]]> sth 2008-12-08T06:44:00-04:00 2008-12-08T06:44:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.283

Photo gallery

Photo gallery ]]> sth 2008-12-04T08:36:00-04:00 2008-12-04T08:36:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.282

Amazon Launches Public Data Sets To Ease Research

Amazon Launches Public Data Sets To Ease Research ]]> sth 2008-12-04T04:05:00-04:00 2008-12-04T04:05:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.281

Prescription handguns for the elderly

Prescription handguns for the elderly ]]> sth 2008-12-02T10:34:00-04:00 2008-12-02T10:34:00-04:00 tag:pivotpowered,2010:spenceratthornsdotorg.279

Animoto: the end of slideshows. Clever.

Animoto: the end of slideshows. Clever. ]]> sth