The most interesting news story of the day concerns the actual mechanism used by the Chinese authorities to censor the internet. It’s not what you’d expect — rather than a direct filter on content, it’s a 21st-century variant of the “Panopticon”. Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, El Ing...

First a couple of observations about the new sound system at the Carl May. Do we have the right kind of microphones up on the dais, and are they adjusted correctly? It seems that to be heard well a speaker must keep his mouth within just a very few inches of the microphone, suggesting these mikes wo...

15 Oct 2008 James Shore/Blog Commentary on The Art of Agile Development's Iteration Planning practice. In the last few years, Kanban Systems have become an increasingly hot topic in the Agile community, thanks in part to the Poppendiecks' wonderful introduction of Lean Manufacturing principles. Thre...

The path to modern-day computing is longer than many suspect, and strewn with interesting nuggets of information. These include: - the inventor of e-mail can't remember when he got it working- Pac-Man was modelled on a pizza and called Puck-Man until vandals forced a name change- the first hard driv...

Howzit I think that Blogger was having some problems yesterday, as the format of postings was haywire, and in the afternoon I noticed that the foreign exchange figures and my podcast had not been updated in the sidebar. Happily, this morning the changes have taken place. My apologies for this - I ha...

While majors decide where to go, maybe you like to read some more technical basic concepts. Hope you enjoy! As many of you have read before, Forex is the most amazing and popular electronic financial market: It moves 1.5 trillion dollars a day, what NY Stocks market moves in a year. A 24 hours a da...

I’m a pretty open-minded guy when it comes to music – sometimes probably too open-minded. But there’s a certain alt-rock sensibility that I feel like I’m largely immune to. I’m not sure what you’d call it; “middle alternative” (as in “middle of the road”) might work. Basically, I...

GM Should've Gotten Out Of The Car Biz Long Ago At least the American car biz. NYU Finance prof David Yermack has a smart piece in the WSJ, noting that Roger Smith, the subject of Michael Moore's take-down, "Roger and Me," was actually a pretty insightful businessman -- one who "understood all too w...

A Quantum Fractal Symbolist Perspective on the Post-Information Attention Economy Recently at an online symposium, a colleague of mine from the University of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was quoted as saying, “…the visualization of pure data will be the international language of the fu...

“Sorry, Mr. President. Please surrender your BlackBerry. Those are seven words President-elect Barack Obama is dreading but expecting to hear…For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry. The device has rarely been far from his side — on...