Book Reviews
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Tuesday, January 11, 2005
![[Item Permalink]](http://radio.weblogs.com/0112083/images/ur_bullet.gif){kind=small} -- Comment()
Scientists watch matter fall into black hole: "An international team of astronomers has made direct observations of clumps of gas, orbiting a black hole at ten per cent of the speed of light. This is the first time scientists have been able to see individual X-ray- emitting lumps of matter go all the way round a black hole."
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Don't use Internet Explorer (reason number 39387) -- Comment()
IE Plagued by 'Extremely Critical' Flaws: "Millions of Internet Explorer 6 users are at risk from thre "extremely critical" security holes that give hackers open access to PCs running the browser -- even if Windows XP Service Pack Two has been installed."
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Whose side should you be on in Iraq? -- Comment()
Pick A Side: "They support a murderous tyrant in Iraq. They install sanctions to strengthen him and and end up killing 1.5M people. They then invade the country to control the area's oil resources. [...] They institute death squads to terrorize the population into submission. [...] So, on the one hand we have a murderous regime that wants to take control of a country to steal their economic resources and on the other hand we have a population resisting them. Is there any question whose side we should be on?" [Aaron Swartz: The Weblog] The world is complicated and this summary of course does not give the whole picture. The oil complicates things here. But I agree that if Iraq was primarily a question of liberty and peace, why then was North Korea not selected instead for liberation? On the other hand, if one firmly believes that USA is morally and culturally superior to the rest of Earth, invading Iraq makes sense. But the invasion itself voids any possibility of moral or cultural superiority, if you are not completely blind to the results of your actions.
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To fix or to write new code? -- Comment()
Should you write a new code, or try to fix the old one? The recent book "Joel on Software" by Joel Spolsky discusses this topic, among others. My net column on the implicit knowledge in software appeared yesterday (in Finnish, Älä väheksy hiljaista tietoa).
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