George Bernard Shaw. "It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid." [Quotes of the Day]

Victor Borge. "I only know two pieces; one is 'Clair de Lune' and the other one isn't." [Quotes of the Day]

Herbert Agar. "The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear." [Quotes of the Day]

Luis Bunuel. "I'm still an atheist, thank God." [Quotes of the Day]

David Brinkley. "The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were." [Quotes of the Day]

Voltaire. "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." [Quotes of the Day]

Bookends by Shaw and Voltaire on the meaning of dangerous, with several useful quotes in between.  7:50:03 PM    

Superman bug may be migrant from Mars. IOL Nov 17 2002 11:01AM ET [Moreover - moreover...]

At least from this article, this is bad science. Deinococcus is a bacterium that is highly resistant to radiation but that does not mean that it evovled to be radiation-resistant. This is such a common fallacy. Deinococcus had a very powerful DNA repair system. DNA damage is the main thing that ionizing radiation causes but radiation is not the only thing that causes DNA damage. Dehydration is one such thing. So, if Deinococcus evolved in a harsh environment that was dessicating, it would be a selective advantage to develop a system that repairs the DNA. It's ability to withstand radiation then becomes a useful side-effect. This sounds much more likely than that it evolved on Mars. I mean, why Mars? Why not in space where the ionizing radiation is much greater? Plus, simply because E. coli does not mutate as fast as they would propose Deinococcus does, it can not be inferred that this means ANYTHING. Even if Deinococcus did evolve purely to deal with radiation, they have done nothing to demonstrate that the primordial strain could not change very rapidly. Maybe it would take E. coli 100 million years to do something that Deinococcus' ancestor could not so it in 10 million. Life is full of things that evolved for one purpose but are used for another.  6:53:56 PM    

Flesh-eating disease linked to gene differences. New Scientist Nov 17 2002 2:21PM ET [Moreover - moreover...]

I do not find it unexpected at all that the severity of some infections would be dependent on HLA molecules. These are the proteins found on almost every cell that determine many of the aspects of immunity. Bacterial infections of any type have to deal with these. It is the amazing diversity of this system that permits some to survive any pandemic.   6:40:09 PM    

Getting the Most from IT Investments Has Never Been More Critical.

6:13:31 PM    

Visa Suit: Dictionary Discredited. A site called evisa.com loses a domain suit to the credit card giant in an unprecedented case: Corporate trademark wins, dictionary loses. By Paul Boutin. [Wired News]

This is why companies should not use common names. Exxon can only mean one thing, but visa is a real word. These sorts of things look like they will only be resolved by whomever has more money.  6:08:01 PM    

Job Cuts Reach Through The IT Spectrum. Information Week - A lot of bad news was handed out Thursday. AMD, i2, and Sprint PCS cut jobs. Software, hardware, chips, and telecom--none escaped the job-cutter's ax Thursday.
AMD to lay off 2000 workers by Q2 of 2003 IDG.com
AMD to cut 15% of workforce ITWeb
Reuters - and 6 related » [Google Technology News]

Job cuts everywhere. At the job fair I went to on Thursday, the line for MS was huge, because they are still hiring. Nice to be a monopoly, huh?  6:02:02 PM