The best argument for war from Tony Blair

But suppose I had come last year on the same day as this year - September 10. Suppose I had said to you: there is a terrorist network called al-Qaida. It operates out of Afghanistan. It has carried out several attacks and we believe it is planning more. It has been condemned by the UN in the strongest terms. Unless it is stopped, the threat will grow. And so I want to take action to prevent that.

10:10:50 PM    

Bill Biggart's photos

9:58:55 PM    

GENOME RESEARCH:
NSF's Ark Draws Alligators, Algae, and Wasps
Jennifer Couzin
Science Sep 6 2002: 1638-1639. [Summary] [Full Text]   [Science]

I remember when the first virus was sequenced. How far and fast we have come. I expect in a few years that there will be high school students doing this.  9:40:35 PM    

APPLIED PHYSICS:
Enhanced: A Dawn for Carbon Electronics?
Gehan A. J. Amaratunga
Science Sep 6 2002: 1657-1658. [Summary] [Full Text]   [Science]

Yeah, I want my next computer to be made with diamonds!! Maybe Apple can get involved with DeBeers and create a killer marketing scheme. A diaMac is forever!  9:39:08 PM    

CONFRONTING TERRORISM:
Profile: Janet Shoemaker, Shaping the Politics of Bioterrorism
David Malakoff
Science Sep 6 2002: 1632. [Summary] [Full Text]   [Science]

Man, it is scary to think what the Patriot Act would have been without people like this. (It's bad enough as it is.) I'll have to keep an eye out for her and see what else she can get done. Someone with a good perspective on the risks of bioterrorism would be extremely valuable in this times.  9:36:31 PM    

INFLAMMATORY ARTHRITIS:
How Immune System Gangs Up on Joints
Mary Beckman
Science Sep 6 2002: 1626-1627. [Summary] [Full Text]   [Science]

Immunex made tons of money with its RA drug, Enbrel. This paper may help create a better understanding of the underlying disease, [permitting the day when we can cure RA rather than stymie its progress.  9:31:38 PM    

PLANT EVOLUTION:
Elaborate Carnivorous Plants Prove to Be Kin
Elizabeth Pennisi
Science Sep 6 2002: 1626. [Summary] [Full Text]   [Science]

Man, I love carnivorous plants. It is such a wonderful example of how life figures out really bizarre ways to survive. These plants often live in an environment that makes it difficult to get nitrogen. So, they evolve to get the nitrogen from the amino acids found in insects. And, DNA evidence indicates that Darwin's original conjecture about the relatedness of some of these plants is indeed correct. That is good science, when new technologies, undreamed of by the original scientist, nevertheless support his theory 150 years later or so. Cool.  9:29:45 PM    

It's your weblog. On the difference between blogs and discsussion forums. Some people do not seem to be able to get their heads around the difference between blogs and discussion forums. To my mind, although at a surface level they have some similarities - at a deeper level they are fundamentally different.

There are two dimensions to their differences - the first the psychological dimension and the second the technology dimension. One of the major psychological differences is that you own your weblog - it is YOURS - and it represents a history of YOUR thinking - so you take pride in its ownership - something that does not make a lot of sense in a discussion forum. On the hand on the technology front - [Ray Ozzie] sums up one of the major differences:

From [Architecture Matters: The Rebirth of Public Discussion by] by [Ray Ozzie] [Gurteen Knowledge-Log]

» Excellent point.

[Curiouser and curiouser!]

I own my weblog. That is what the technology provides. News aggregators allow others to see and read what I own. If they want to comment on it, they can respond on their blogs. In this fashion, good knowledge flows easily and bad information stops dead. In my opinion, it is not simply weblogs that are a killer ap, but the combination of weblogs with newsfeeds and news aggregators. this allows people to rapidly find what I write and easily pass it on. It reduces the friction of positive information flow but increases the friction for negative information (at least for any group outside permanent pessimists and conspiracy nuts ;-)  9:22:59 PM    

KM must be about achieving strategic business objectives.

CKO mistakes. Udai Shekawat writes about Five Mistakes CKOs Must Avoid, which explores why many KM initiatives fail, from a Chief Knowledge... [Column Two]

» Really good thoughtful article.  Some highlights:

• Solution: CKOs must execute their strategies in the context of the business problem, define the criteria for an ideal solution and then identify the closest technological match.
• After all, what good is a KM solution if employees do not use it?
• While the 20% of the organizational know-how that is represented in documents is indeed important, the remaining 80% of know-how walks out the door every evening.
• There is a natural tendency in large organizations to assess what knowledge resources already exist in the company and then select a KM solution that can best enable the employees to utilize those resources.
• It is the responsibility of every person in the organization to create, share, refine knowledge.
• So, coaching is a key -- you cannot take people out of the equation, and capturing the "context" or the story or the situation around the answer is just as important as capturing the answer or solution itself.

Especially interesting was the view that a CKO must take a strategic, demand-driven approach rooted in solving business problems.  Not KM for KM's sake.  This gels with the comments at Knowledge Cafe that it was hard to justify KM.  I'm not suggesting that the person who said that was not taking a strategic approach, simply that it is not necessarily widely understood.

[Curiouser and curiouser!]

This is really important. Most companies only view KM as an attempt to archive the material it can already see, rather than trying to devise ways to capture the unseen, tacit knowledge of its workers.Companies that DO find ways to accomplish this will, in my opinion, have a distinct competetive advantage over those that do not.  9:15:46 PM    

Personal body part grown in a dish [EurekAlert!]

I love New Scientist. It is such a rag (and I mean that in the BEST possible way.) The headline does not report what body part was grown but it IS personal. It was a rabbit penis. Of all the organs to recreate!! I guess John Bobbitt would be relieved!  9:13:30 PM    

Terror warning over laptops [EurekAlert!]

Let's get really paranoid. First off, there is no way I am not going to carry my computer on board the plane. There is just too much of a danger I will never get it back. Companies would be worried about the loss of coporate secrets on the PCs. If someone simply wants to bring down a plane, which is what the Dr. postulates, I bet there are all sorts of ways. If it is that simple, they could probably get the necessary electronics on board without anyone noticing (i.e. separate pieces and put them together). Fianlly, terror only works if you know to be terrorized. A plane crash does not do that. Remember Die Hard 2. They messed up the temetry from the planes so that they thought they were 100 feet off the ground as the plane crashed. Everyone knew what they had done. How would this be different from some other sort of 'pilot error'?  9:10:22 PM