Wednesday, July 31, 2002

Recession? What recession? Last winter the economics establishment reviewed its numbers and declared that we'd entered a "light" recession in 2001 but that it was so brief -- only one quarter of actual "negative growth" (economist-speak for "decline") -- that it didn't even technically qualify as a recession (two consecutive quarters of "negative growth"). This came as heartening news to the legions of laid-off workers, who could at least console themselves with the knowledge that the Bush administration was planning to bank some of their Social Security money in the collapsing stock market. Now it turns out that the economy actually shrank for the first three quarters of 2001 (most of which predated the 9/11 disaster). Yes, Virginia, there was a Bush recession. For much of the U.S., there still is. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment] 6:21:01 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Take the What High School Stereotype Are You? quiz, by Angel. 11:25:21 AM    trackback []     Articulate []

Another Idea I Wish I'd Thought Of..... Radio Wishlist "Far be it from me to wish for anything more from Radio.  Okay, I admit I'm overindulged and spoiled.  Nevertheless, here is what I wish for.  I would like it if Radio came with a default "category" called "Radio Questions."  And as we all know, this implies a separate XML feed for that channel.  Then the folks at Userland (and the phalanx of developers who lurk in Radio Userland) could subscribe to that channel for some of the more intrepid users (i.e. Rick) and respond on a publicly available channel.  Thus you would have an XML channel with the latest hot tips and fixes for current Radio problems.  So, it would be sort of like an online demonstration of what a corporation could use Radio for: i.e. a robust, and inexpensive KM solution.  It sounds cool, but (as the guy in the commercial says), is it implementable?" [Ernie the Attorney] This is absolutely brilliant, and I hope the folks at Userland can find the time to set something like this up. I haven't read the discussion group in weeks because I can't keep up with it, and the mailing list is for developer stuff that sails so far over my head I can't read the logo on the ball. The more I think about this, the more I want to emulate it at SLS as we begin to implement an intranet and extranet. It will take me quite some time to get my member libraries to understand the value of a news aggregator, let alone use one, but a streaming FAQ with a targeted search engine for the archives makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Ernie! [The Shifted Librarian] 9:11:07 AM    trackback []     Articulate []

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 8:45:59 AM    trackback []     Articulate []