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		<title>spencer at thorns dot org</title>
		<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/index.php</link>
		<description>Reflecting these electric dreams.</description>
		<language>en</language>
		<managingEditor>sth@panix.com</managingEditor>
                <copyright>Copyright 2010</copyright>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:43:11 -0400</pubDate>
		<ttl>60</ttl>
		
		
		
		
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			<title>The Astonishing Voice of Albert Hirschman</title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=470</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=470#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ <a href="http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/04/the-astonishing-voice-of-albert-hirschman.html" title="">The Astonishing Voice of Albert Hirschman</a>

"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" ]]></description>
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			<category>default</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:13:00 -0400</pubDate>
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			<title>Why writing software is not like engineering</title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=469</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=469#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ 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. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~parrt/doc/software-not-engineering.html" title="Why writing software is not like engineering">http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~parrt/doc/software-not-engineering.html</a> ]]></description>
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			<category>default</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:01:00 -0400</pubDate>
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			<title>The Global Climate Change debate really explained</title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=468</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=468#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ <br /><br /><a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ph/youre_entitled_to_arguments_but_not_that/1mdz" title="Steve_Rayhawk comments on You\'re Entitled to Arguments, But Not (That Particular) Proof">Perfect</a> ]]></description>
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			<category>default</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:18:00 -0400</pubDate>
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			<title>Darpa's New Plans: Crowdsource Intel, Edit DNA</title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=467</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=467#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ "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."<br /><br /><a href="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" title="Darpa%u2019s New Plans: Crowdsource Intel, Edit DNA | Danger Room | Wired.com">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</a> ]]></description>
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			<category>default</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:40:00 -0400</pubDate>
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			<title>Australia To Enforce Mandatory Chinese-Style Internet Censorship</title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=466</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=466#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ 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.<br /><br /><a href="http://afteramerica.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/australia-to-enforce-mandatory-chinese-style-internet-censorship/" title="Australia To Enforce Mandatory Chinese-Style Internet Censorship � AfterAmerica\'s Blog">http://afteramerica.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/australia-to-enforce-mandatory-chinese-style-internet-censorship/</a> ]]></description>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">466@http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/</guid>
			<category>default</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:10:00 -0400</pubDate>
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			<title>Group That Shaped Death Penalty Gives Up on Its Own Work</title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=465</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=465#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ 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.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/us/05bar.html?partner=rss&emc=rss" title="Sidebar - Group That Shaped Death Penalty Gives Up on Its Own Work - NYTimes.com">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/us/05bar.html?partner=rss&emc=rss</a> ]]></description>
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			<category>default</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:48:00 -0400</pubDate>
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			<title>Roko Mijic at Good.is: The Utopia Force</title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=464</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=464#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ "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?"<br /><br /><a href="http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2009/12/roko-mijic-at-goodis-the-utopia-force/" title="Accelerating Future Roko Mijic at Good.is: The Utopia Force">http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2009/12/roko-mijic-at-goodis-the-utopia-force/</a> ]]></description>
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			<category>default</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:46:00 -0400</pubDate>
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			<title>Would cutting the minimum wage raise employment?</title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=463</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=463#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ "..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."<br /><br /><a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/would-cutting-the-minimum-wage-raise-employment/" title="Would cutting the minimum wage raise employment? - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com">http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/would-cutting-the-minimum-wage-raise-employment/</a> ]]></description>
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			<category>default</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:47:00 -0400</pubDate>
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			<title>The 10 Most Amazing Things the Sky Can Do | Light | DISCOVER Magazine</title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=283</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=283#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ <br /><br /><a href="http://discovermagazine.com/photos/04-the-10-most-amazing-things-the-sky-can-do" title="The 10 Most Amazing Things the Sky Can Do | Light | DISCOVER Magazine">Photo gallery</a> ]]></description>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">283@http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/</guid>
			<category>linkdump</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:44:00 -0400</pubDate>
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			<title></title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=282</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=282#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ <br /><br /><a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/04/amazon-launches-public-data-sets-to-ease-research/" title="Amazon Launches Public Data Sets To Ease Research">Amazon Launches Public Data Sets To Ease Research</a> ]]></description>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">282@http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/</guid>
			<category>linkdump</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:36:00 -0400</pubDate>
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			<title></title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=281</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=281#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5101430/prescription-handguns-for-the-elderly-and-disabled-this-wont-end-well" title="">Prescription handguns for the elderly</a> ]]></description>
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			<category>linkdump</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:05:00 -0400</pubDate>
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			<title>Animoto</title>
			<link>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=279</link>
			<comments>http://spiny.thorns.org/spencer2/pivot-blog/pivot/entry.php?id=279#comm</comments>
                        <description><![CDATA[ <a href="http://animoto.com/" title="">Animoto</a>: the end of slideshows. Clever. ]]></description>
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			<category>linkdump</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:34:00 -0400</pubDate>
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