Edge.org -- The Moral Sense Test: Blackout.  From the contribution by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, author of LINKED: THE NEW SCIENCE OF NETWORKS:

Once power is fully restored, it will take little time to find the culprit:

...

Something will be inevitably missed, however, during all this finger-pointing: this week's blackout has little to do with faulty equipment, negligence or bad design. President Bush's call to upgrade the power grid will do little to eliminate power failures. The magnitude of the blackout is rooted in an often ignored aspect of our globalized world: vulnerability due to interconnectivity.

via [Boing Boing Blog]

The study of complex adaptive networks is pretty fascinating once you start looking at it.  The interconnectivity issue has ramifications far beyond the power grid, and cuts right to the heart of how epidemics are spread, how Microsoft Windows got to be the dominant OS, even how our highway systems developed into what they are today.  The author is also right to state that these things (blackouts) are going to happen as long as we are trying to be even remotely efficient about our power use.

1:30:50 PM  #  

It seems that Firebird's graphics rendering is a lot smoother than IE's. I don't know if that is perception or reality but I like it.

However, Radio's edit buttons don't seem to work too well with it, so for the time being I'm a 2 browser man!
10:55:51 AM  #  

Windows XP: How to get rid of Windows Messenger.

"The fastest and safest way to remove Windows Messenger:

1) Click Start button
2) Click Run
3) Copy and paste this command into the Run dialog
4) RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%INFmsmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove
5) Reboot and Windows Messenger is removed cleanly"

via [evhead]

I've been wondering about this ever since I got my new laptop.

9:20:40 AM  #  

I'm currently in the process of making Mozilla Firebird my new default browser (I've already set it up at home, and am now setting it up at work).  I downloaded a copy last night and after seeing everyone rave about it, and then found NewsMonster and fell in love with it.
9:11:19 AM  #