Keep god out of it – The Daily Targum – Opinions – The reality is that those people objecting to this sort of research are mainly religionists who are strictly against any type of cloning. This cannot occur in a democracy where we are supposed to separate church and state. Advancements in medicine are going to happen in the future, but if we hinder our own progress for the sake of religious beliefs, it means the country has failed at its duty of separating church and state.

It seems to me that separation of church and state means that the government will not prefer or establish any religion (such as the Church of England). A recent interpretation of the 1st Amendment seems to imply that religious values and principals have no place in affecting civil law, and I think that statement is contrary to both the constitution and the concept of freedom of religion. Continue Reading »

Mac Word 6.0 – Shipping a crappy product is a lot like beating your head against the wall. It really does feel good when you ship a great product as a follow-up, and it really does motivate you to spend some time trying to figure out how not to ship a crappy product again. Mac Word 6.0 was a crappy product. And, we spent some time trying to figure out how not to do that again. In the process, we learned a few things, not the least of which was the meaning of the term Mac-like. [ "(extlink)Buggin' My Life Away":http://weblogs.asp.net/Rick_Schaut/ ]

A neat review of why Word 6 failed from the Developer’s point of view. It’s always interesting to see why decisions made for good reasons can unintentionally “kill the golden goose.” Continue Reading »

Fast Company | The Cannabis Conundrum – Although nonprescription medications such as aspirin kill thousands of people every year, not a single death has ever been attributed to a cannabis overdose. The “therapeutic ratio” of marijuana is estimated to fall somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000–meaning it would take that many times a normal dose to kill you. If the drug is delivered as a pill or a spray (smoking just about anything is bad for you, after all), then Russo is unequivocal: “Cannabis is a safer medicine than almost all of the standard pharmaceuticals available today.”

It does seem strange that Marijuana would be completely off limits. Why wouldn’t you allow researchers access to just about anything?

Edwards Notes Differences on Issue of World Trade – Mark Sanford, who is the Republican governor of South Carolina and who has pushed the Bush administration to be tougher on China’s trade policies, said, “Trade, in fact, is a surprisingly bipartisan issue [ "(extlink)NYTimes":http://www.nytimes.com ]

That last qoute seems to put a strong point behind what seems to be a trend in American politics – that the Senate is a poor road to the White House. In recent years governorships seem to have become the preferred entry route.

I think Senators have a hard time because we have a Federal system and they have responsibilities both towards our country and towards their home states. A governor can devote his entire attention towards his own state, making policy decisions only to please his electorate.

Senators on the otherhand are faced with a quandry. They are elected by their states, and expected to bargain for their states best interest while in the Senate. Their votors hold them responsible for how well they look after their interests, which often boils down to how much money they bring back to their state in the form of Federal grants and contracts. When you run for President however, your decisions are evaluated by people all over the country who tend not to look kindly upon pork-producing politicians.

Say I wanted to build a technology research company from scratch. I would hire all of the principal analysts and core management team (including IT) from US sources. All of the accounting, admin, international sales, research associates, call center sales, editorial support, translation services, report production, and IT services would be hired from offshore sources on the cheap. All I need is the talent at the top. How attract great people when the I can’t afford to fund, out of operations or my initial seed money, health insurance and a retirement program for three years or more? I can’t. [ John Robb ]

John Robb’s bit really addresses one of the main reasons that I’ve finally decided to throw in the towel and admit that I’m now more of a Democrat than anything else. The biggest reason for my change is that the Democrats seem to be the only party likely to address serious healthcare reform.

Much media attention has been given to outsourcing and many people have directed hostile attention towards both American Companies and Indian workers for “stealing” good paying American jobs, or the current “jobless recovery.” So many of these complaints focus only on the salary differences between the US and India, when they should be looking at the COST difference between employing an American worker and someone abroad. Because of our employer funded healthcare system, an American’s salary may not be the greatest cost of hiring him.

With many healthcare benefits approaching $600 a worker/month, we’re quickly talking about an additional $8-10,000 a year on top of other benefits. Add in dependent benefits, prescription drugs, etc. combined with our other benefits and we’re easily adding $15-20,000 to every workers salary. This doesn’t even account for providing office space, parking, computers & training, etc.

Imagine the effect that shifting healthcare away from being a per-worker tax would have on employment. Instead of encouraging companies to send jobs oversees to avoid taxes, we’d encourage them to keep them here since they pay for American’s benefits already, and it makes Americans relatively cheaper.

SYMBOL ADDED TO MORSE CODE – The 160-year-old communication system now has a new character to denote the “@” symbol used in e-mail addresses. In December, the International Telecommunications Union, which oversees the entire frequency spectrum, from amateur radio to satellites, voted to add the new character. [ "(extlink)CJ Online":http://www.cjonline.com ]

Now there’s a sign that the internet is taking over life everywhere. Ham radio operators need another symbol to share email addresses!

Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent out a letter to Apple employees: Team, Today is a historic day of sorts for our company. When I arrived back at Apple in mid-1997, the company was burdened with $1 billion of debt. Through everyone’s hard work we turned Apple around, paid off the majority of our debt and began to amass a war chest of cash in the bank which has grown to about $4.8 billion! But there was still $300 million of remaining debt, which we decided to hold to maturity. Today we used $300 million of our cash to pay off this remaining debt. Apple is now a debt-free company – for the first time in over a decade! It sure feels good. Steve

[ "(extlink)MacDailyNews":http://www.macdailynews.com ]

Getting to ” Very Satisfied” – Lewis and Brzykcy, fortysomething sisters with otherwise normal lives as a training consultant and a management consultant, respectively, in suburban Illinois, decided to channel their own mounting dissatisfaction as customers into a full-flung survey of almost 500 retailers. At home-improvement stores, gas stations, and fast-food restaurants, the sisters shopped, spent money, and took careful notes. And after a three-month, admittedly unscientific $5,000 spree, the duo came to this sad conclusion: Only 3% of their store visits had left them “very satisfied.” The remaining 97% failed mostly on the basics: lack of courtesy and skimpy product knowledge. Lewis and Brzykcy distilled their findings into a self-published booklet titled Beyond Taking the Customer’s Money (available for $5.50 [ "(extlink)Fast Company":http://www.fastcompany.com ]

The low percentage of stores able to convince 2 customers that they were very satisfied brings to mind one of the key weaknesses of the outsourcing fad. There are 2 sides to profit generation: controlling costs and increasing revenue. Outsourcing addresses the first, but often at the expense of the second, which is why it will be a passing fad. Continue Reading »

How to never lose Pepsi’s iTunes giveaway – The secret is the angle. I’ve found it to be 25 degrees, but that’s really no use when you’re out in the field. Just tilt it until it seems about that, and look up towards it (hold it above your head). With luck, you should be able to see under the cap. Here’s what a loser looks like: [ "(extlink)MacMerc":http://www.macmerc.com ]

The truly amazing bit is that this tip has gotten so much mention for what boils down to “try to peek under the cap without opening the bottle.” Seeing as that’s every 6-year old’s reaction to a contest like this, I find it amusing that the web community (including me) have seen fit to discuss this solution so heavily.

Killing the Music – When I started in the music business, music was important and vital to our culture. Artists connected with their fans. Record labels signed cutting-edge artists, and FM radio offered an incredible variety of music. Music touched fans in a unique and personal way. Our culture was enriched and the music business was healthy and strong. That’s all changed. Today the music business is in crisis. Sales have decreased between 20 and 30 percent over the past three years. Record labels are suing children for using unauthorized peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing systems. Only a few artists ever hear their music on the radio, yet radio networks are battling Congress over ownership restrictions. Independent music stores are closing at an unprecedented pace. And the artists seem to be at odds with just about everyone — even the fans. [ "(extlink)Washington Post":http://washingtonpost.com ]

Music as a business really does seem to be struggling. It’s not just sagging sales. Less albums are being released, and more of what is being released seems to be “Best of” albums, or generic sounding items. New artists are having a harder and harder time breaking into the business, and fans seem to be increasingly frustrated. Somehow, the relationship between the labels, artists, and fans have to change. Continue Reading »