I wanted to post a quick response to John’s link to a new book on IT management. But the site wouldn’t let me because my reaction didn’t fit in the 5000 character box. So I’ll have to do it this way…
Inventing the Future:
My Thoughts Exactly:
Building Software the 21st Century Way!
Over on CIO.com, my friend Adam Kolawa, founder of software-tools company Parasoft, has an article called “How Better Software Can Save the World. It’s a reader’s digest condensed version of his new book The Next Leap in Productivity: What Top Managers Really Need to Know about Information Technology, for which I wrote the afterword.
Kolawa’s main point is that software is still made using artisan/guild/craftsman techniques, and the whole process can be vastly improved by automation and by using the Total Quality Management techniques (from Demming et al) that have been widely used in manufacturing for fifty years or more.
Anyway, if you’re into software process geekery, you should check it out. I think it makes sense, myself. Actually, you should probably check it out even if you’re not into software process geekery. Given the way things are going lately, anything that offers any hope at all of saving the world needs to be carefully checked out.
My Thoughts Exactly:
Nation of swine
Hello comrade piggy! here is the latest news from our departments of homeland security and justice. Although the item reported may appear unsavory, Comrade Bush and Comrade Cheney and Comrade Paulson assure me that this action is in the national interest. And who am I (or you!) to question them?
Oink! Oink!
Inventing the Future:
Long Strange Trip
The UK’s Tech Radar has a preview of a nice piece that will appear in PC Plus. It overviews Intel’s Miramar work on 3D and collaboration.
Meanwhile, there’s a nice discussion of much more of the history of Miramar on this blog.
I think the two make a nice example of the difference between blogging and first sources on the one hand, and journalism on the other.
Inventing the Future:
Killer App
Neutrino:
A Recovery Plan Which Would Actually Work (and which isn't designed by the ex-chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs for his buddies)
I have watched with a combination of amazement and horror at the way the Democratic leadership has caved in to demands that Congress enact the Paulson Plan. There are many reasons for opposing this ill-conceived plan, including the facts that it aims only at rescuing the shareholders and unsecured creditors of financial institutions and it was crafted by a former chairman of Goldman Sachs to bail his banker buddies out while leaving the rest of us with a bill for as much as $700 billion. But the worst of it is that it will do very little to address the fundamental credit contraction arising from deflation of a massive housing bubble which underlies the current crisis, as evidenced by the continued worsening of money markets even after the Senate’s adoption of the revised plan.
I have nearly laughed myself silly at Republican claims that the Paulson Plan amounts to socialism (in fact, it’s far closer to the Mefo Bill scheme that Hjalmar Schacht designed than anything the left would come up with). So I offer a plan designed by a left social democrat that would actually address the economic basis of the current credit crisis (and, thus, a socialist way to really pull capitalism’s chestnuts out of the fire). The plan is heavily influenced by Nouriel Roubini’s excellent analysis — I heartily recommend his blog for extremely insightful discussion of the credit crisis — but goes much further in remedying the underlying flaws in the financial system.
More below….
Tales of the Sausage Factory:
A Happy New Year From The Kosher Contingent In The Sausage Factory
Tonight, the Jewish month of Tishrei will begin. Tishrei ushers in a season of numerous Jewish holidays, starting with the ones everybody has heard of (Rosh Hashannah) and concluding with the ones people are convinced we are making up to get out of work (Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah). Unless you live in Israel, or it comes out as one of those years when the holidays overlap with the weekends, it tends to make for a very, very compressed month on the secular side. As a result, I expect to post a heck of a lot less than usual this month.
I just want to wish regular readers a happy New Year and trust that those of other religious faiths will forgive the hubris of those Jewish people — including me — who believe that (a) God is judging the entire world (including you guys) this Tuesday and Wed.; and, (b) the entire world hinges on our showing up in Synagogue on time to put in a good word for everyone.
And, btw, a happy Eid ul-Fitr to those celebrating that this new moon as well.
Stay tuned . . . .
Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Waxman Gets It Right On USF Reform –Use Subsidies To Open Networks.
Although it doesn’t have a chance of passing this Congress, particularly with the utter gridlock over the bail out, but I gotta give a shout out to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) for his targeted approach to solving the roaming problem in wireless. The proposed bill, H.R. 7000, says that any wireless provider that takes Universal Service Fund (USF) money needs to provide roaming to all other carriers “at just and reasonable rates, consistent with Sections 201 and 202” of the Communications Act. It does not require tariffing or rate regulation. It refers disputes over whether the terms are reasonable or the technology technologically compatible to the FCC, to handle under its well developed wireline procedures.
An entity can opt out of the program at any time by saying it no longer wants high-cost USF subsidy. But if you take government money, you need to provide roaming at just and reasonable rates.
And here is the kicker that makes it effective. The obligation to provide roaming applies to the entity accepting the USF, and any affiliates. In other words, if you have a rural subsidiary of one of the major carriers, then that carrier has to enter roaming agreements for its entire network. So if AT&T or Verizon are getting subsidies for “rural affiliate co.,” taking the money would require them to do roaming agreements on reasonable rates throughout their systems nationally. Don’t like it? Either stop taking public money or sell the rural carrier off to someone else who will do reasonable roaming.
I expect critics to say that this will mean wireless rural carriers will go under and the only thing to do is give wireless carriers money with no strings attached. I am dubious myself. Yes, the larger carriers may value their control over roaming to divest rural carriers. But there are plenty of mid-size carriers or small carriers willing to absorb these companies in exchange for federal subsidies who won’t mind making roaming agreements. Nor am I so convinced that the major carriers will actually decide they’d rather forgo the considerable subsidies they get now simply to preserve their control over roaming. Besides, if excluding parties from commercially reasonable roaming agreements is such an important element of the business model of major carriers, we have a bigger problem that needs to be more broadly addressed.
For too long, we’ve succumbed to the twin arguments that we must subsidize business to get policy goals, but we cannot actually demand anything in return because that would scare away the shy little beasties we are trying to coax, cajole and outright bribe into good behavior. I think it’s time to test that theory a bit. Although I’m doubtful the Waxman bill goes anywhere in the current Congress, I can hope that when Congress reconvenes in 2009 it will be reintroduced and given serious consideration.
Or instead, perhaps carriers will see the writing on the wall and try to solve this problem at the FCC before Congress reconvenes. Either way, its a good bill that nudges us closer to a more pro-competitive roaming policy.
Stay tuned . . . .
