Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Tuesday, February 11, 2003

-- Comment()
Finland tops in preventing newborn deaths: "Avoidable factors such as smoking in pregnancy or inadequate medical care may have contributed to almost half of all newborn deaths in Europe between 1993 and 1998, according to a new report. Finland and Sweden had the lowest proportion of deaths attributable to such factors and England the highest, according to the survey of 10 countries published in the February 7th issue of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology." [Reuters Health eLine]

-- Comment()
Moore's law formulator bets on 10 more years: 'Moore, 74, the creator of "Moore's Law," told a meeting of many of the world's preeminent chip designers that engineers must concentrate on overcoming power leakage and reducing heat levels as more and more circuits are crammed closer together. "No physical quantity can continue to change exponentially forever," he cautioned. "Your job is delaying forever." [...] The number of transistors on a single chip has grown 300 million-fold since Intel introduced its first microprocessor 35 years ago. That represents a performance increase of about 80 percent per year. [Moore] compared transistors to the number of ants crawling around the world. Meanwhile, the cost has dropped from $1 per transistor in 1968 to $1 per 50 million transistors now, he said.' [Ars Technica]

Creating a Culture of Ideas -- Comment()
Ming the Mechanic points to Creating a Culture of Ideas: "Innovation is inefficient. More often than not, it is undisciplined, contrarian, and iconoclastic; and it nourishes itself with confusion and contradiction. [...] One of the basics of a good system of innovation is diversity. In some ways, the stronger the culture (national, institutional, generational, or other), the less likely it is to harbor innovative thinking. [...] Our biggest challenge in stimulating a creative culture is finding ways to encourage multiple points of views. Many engineering deadlocks have been broken by people who are not engineers at all. This is simply because perspective is more important than IQ."