His new disc will be produced using new dual-disc technology, and he’s about to hit the road on a solo tour. The rock legend performs “Jesus Was an Only Son”
Monthly Archives: April 2005
Rutherford County, TN: Fastest growth in jobs
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its figures for the fastest-growing large counties in terms of job growth last week, and Rutherford County, Tennessee came in on top at 9.2 percent.
Small businesses’ hiring habits played no small role in the number of jobs created and lost, according to Brian Headd, economist at the Small Business Administration.
“”hen a large company lays off thousands of employees it is national news, but in fact, the rise and fall of small businesses has a much greater effect on job growth than most people realize,” said Headd.
Madison Center of Wired World?
Andrew Wallmeyer argues that “Madison-area consumers have a ringside seat” to telco battles between cable, phone and internet firms. Is this true? I think not. Here’s why:
- Madison lacks wifi at the airport – lagging other communities who have had this for years.
- There is no production fiber to the home or premise happening here.
- Currently available “broadband” services (Charter cable, SBC DSL and TDS DSL) substantially lag those available in Japan & Korea, in terms of performance and cost.
I have quite a few links on broadband – click to check them out.
I think Wallmeyer should revisit this with a comparison of services available elsewhere – in the US and around the world. Fiber is coming to the home, in a few places, just not Madison. WiFi is widely available in some communities now, just not generally here. We’re behind, it’s as simple as that.
UPDATE: Japan’s NTT is now offering 100mpbs to the home for Y4,700/month ($45)…. We’re further behind….
UW Engineering Open House
Photos from the recent UW Engineering Open House.
Not a Good Day to Die
Major Donald E. Vandergriff, US Army:
Sean Naylor has just published one of the best battle narratives ever written, but more than that, he has written a powerful story of the people behind the decisions and of those charged with their execution. The book is Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (Berkley Books, March 2005), and it is now reaching the larger bookstores.
Six Nights on El Capitan
Danial Duane on seven climbers trapped in a storm on Yosemite’s El Capitan last fall for six nights.
More than 90% of Corporate Spreadsheets Have Material Errors in Them
At the highest level (at least), spreadsheets should be treated as a corporate resource. For example, if you use spreadsheets for planning then you need to do everything you can to eliminate the possibility of error. And what do you do with corporate resources? You give them to the IT department which can implement proper testing and control procedures.
The real problem, of course, is that business managers don’t know that there is a problem (actually, lots of problems) with spreadsheets, while IT regards spreadsheets as falling outside its jurisdiction. So spreadsheet management falls down a hole in the middle.
Alliant Energy’s Erroll Davis on Humility in the NYT
as told to Eve Tahmincioglu:
Enron made me very angry. We are all paying a tremendous price for the screw-up.
These are powerful positions we executives hold. I have $8 billion at my disposal. We don’t have that many checks and balances on us. You can lose perspective and start to think you’re royalty. I think of these guys with their $10,000 shower curtains and I say to myself: “I could understand how they could do that.” But I also understand why you shouldn’t.
If you lose track of where you came from – and surprisingly, a lot of these people came from humble beginnings – you lose track of your moral compass, what work means to the average employee.
Davis’s Wisconsin based Alliant Energy has been in some hot water over investments in Brazil and a Mexican resort. Interesting to see this in the NY Times. I wonder if this piece was “placed” by a pr firm?
NFL/Packer Draft Coverage
Fetal Cell Therapy for Humans
University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher said he would ask federal regulators Friday to approve the first clinical trial injecting special stem cells into the spinal cords of people with the degenerative nerve ailment called Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The trial would test whether a technique anatomy professor Clive Svendsen has pioneered on rats afflicted with the disease is safe to use on people. If successful, Svendsen said a much larger clinical trial aimed at treating the disease could be under way in two or three years.
…..
The research does not involve human embryonic stem cells, the blank-slate cells derived from human embryos that can be molded into any type of tissue cell in the body.