Jinn of Quality and Risk

Brent's Law of CMS URLs: The more expensive the CMS, the crappier the URLs. [via Scripting News] 

fyuze works by cooperating with other sites on the internet to collect and distribute news headlines and other data. 

Finally. After 4 weeks of (delaying?) user-hostile tactics, BT admits that our new phone line is usable for ADSL connections. Placed the orders immediately (subscription, activation, and various pieces of hardware). By the end of this week, Murphy willing, we will have a Wi-Fi network up and running (using Apple AirPort and our iBooks). By early next week (praise Murphy) we will have an always-on Internet connection (using BT Broadband and an Alcatel ADSL modem/Ethernet router through the Airport base). Monthly cost of fast (512k) always-on Internet, assuming we're amortizing over 12 months: £44 ($66) — almost triple the cost of a dial-up (56k) solution. Later, I'll probably upgrade my old PowerMac and turn it into a local file+music server. 

A major e-business success at Lands' End, says the NYT: When Lands' End started selling custom-made pants on its Web site last October, even analysts who follow the business closely had trouble predicting the outcome, since no major merchant had tried anything like it. Now, after nearly a year of online tailoring, Lands' End has released results that exceed the expectations of even the most optimistic executives... 40 percent of all chino and jeans sales on the company's Web site [are] now custom orders. Another very positive aspect is the ability to offer tailor-made clothing at close to mass-market prices. They've delivered on the early e-business promise of being customer-oriented. Expect more of this kind of personalised services in other business areas, such as cars and furniture (I'm rather surprised Ikea hasn't yet stepped forward). 

Because man is the measure of all things, we find it extremely difficult to grasp relations in astronomical, geological, biological, climatic, and atomical processes. Stars are born, and explode, or collapse. Rocks form at the bottom of seas and become mountain ranges. Bananas are radioactive. Species appear, evolve, branch out, and are wiped out in massive extinctions. Ice ages come and go. Glaciers carve valleys. Seas become deserts. Electrons have spin. Neurons grow and connect. Human generations last 20-25 years. The Industrial Revolution started ten generations ago. Most of what is known and manufactured today was unknown then. USS Clueless: Most non-engineers (and even a lot of engineers) don't actually have an intuitive understanding of large numbers. (That's why people play the lottery.) For most people, any number above about a thousand is the same size. I am, perhaps, exaggerating but only a bit; people know that a billion is larger than a million but don't really understand how much larger. Maybe the reason I have some idea of the kinds of scales is that as an engineer I'm used to dealing with really vastly different time scales. I'm used to dealing with things in nanoseconds, and over the years I've come to internalize just how small a nanosecond truly is. It can be demonstrated with factoids, but that's not the same. But let's give it a try:

• KHz: A millisecond is to a second as a second is to 16 minutes and 40 seconds.
• MHz: A microsecond is to a second as a second is to 11 days, 13 [less equal] hours.
• GHz: A nanosecond is to a second as a second is to 31 years and 8 months.

My new workstation's processors are running 2.4 GHz. One clock cycle to one second is as one second to 76 years. And when you're talking about energy use at the level of big industrialized nations, the range in the scale is even bigger. 

NYT: The main rivals are all German manufacturers: BMW, which bought the Rolls-Royce trademark in 1998 and plans to roll out its first Rolls next year; Volkswagen, which bought Bentley; and DaimlerChrysler, which revived its dormant Maybach name for a new generation of limousines. ... The target consumer for the Maybach... has assets of at least $30 million. DaimlerChrysler figures there are 40,000 of these people around the world, 8,000 of whom are potential buyers each year. People spending 1% of their wealth on a luxury car every few years sounds possible. For my part, I would rather use my money in meaningful ways, e.g. to develop schools in poor countries. That may be why I don't have assets of at least $30 million.