Is McNealy adopting Jerry Pournelle's philosophy?

Sun CEO: We're "good enough". Scott McNealy says an early push to get customers on the high-end Solaris OS may have been a mistake, but not one that's slowing the company down. [CNET News.com]

Long time Byte columnist and rocket scientist Jerry Pournelle has long espoused the metric of "good enough" to grade the quality of technology offerings.  Since 90% of the users only utilize 10% of the functionality of a given product, "good enough" means better value for the dollar.

2:48:59 PM    

CONGRATS!

Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants for defeating the Atlanta Braves this evening and advancing to the National League Championship Series against the St Louis Cardinals. What a cliff-hanger, what a surprising ending. And thanks to Dan Shafer for blogging the play by play. That made it even more interesting. [Scripting News]

Well, we'll have to find something else to do in Atlanta this October (oops, wait a  minute, its football season!).  Anyway, Dave's reference to Dan led me to a comment which is interesting

I work for a newspaper in South Carolina, and we've done this sort of thing for some high school football games with tremendous response. The user demand may not be quite as great for something with as much media coverage as the NLDS, but fans love this kind of stuff, once they find it. Keep it up.

Andy Rhinehart [arhine@shj.com] • 10/8/02; 6:04:42 AM

10:47:54 AM    

House Approves Privacy Legislation

By D. Ian Hopper
AP Technology Writer
Monday, October 7, 2002; 4:53 PM

WASHINGTON -- Federal agencies would have to take privacy concerns into account when issuing new regulations under legislation passed by the House Monday.

"The bill is likely to make agencies more sensitive to privacy risk," said Chris Hoofnagle, legislative counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.

And, states should follow suit with a policy such as this...

8:28:55 AM    

washingtonpost.com

Stopped at the State Line
Cabernet-and-Contacts Coalition Fights Restrictions on E-Commerce

By Caroline E. Mayer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 8, 2002; Page E01

A native Californian, Washington lobbyist and wine lover Bob Moss has a short list of home-state favorites, many from wineries so small he can't find their labels in local stores. But ordering over the Internet for direct shipment to his home in the District is implausible because a local law permits consumers to receive only one quart of wine a month from out-of-state wineries.

Ah!  The story doesn't hit the real mark -- it is the wine and liquor distributorships which lobby against interstate shipments.  This old feudal system is a constant point of debate in many state legislatures.

8:26:49 AM    

A link to Library Web logs and RSS tech details to boot.

Thanks to Phil Windley

8:15:25 AM    

Congress Eases Copyright Restrictions on Distance Education

President Bush is expected to sign a bill, passed last week, that would open the door for professors to use some copyrighted works in online courses without having to seek permission.

On Thursday, the Senate approved HR 2215, a bill authorizing spending for the Department of Justice. The bill includes a provision that would ease copyright law for online education. The House of Representatives passed the same bill the previous week.

A small step in the right direction....

7:46:57 AM