OverMatter

Ugly Websites

The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites

Replacing the Welfare State

In Our Hands: How to End Poverty and Restore the American Dream, by Charles Murray

"Give every American $10,000 a year -- and nothing else...

The place to start is a blindingly obvious economic reality that no one seems to notice: This country is awash in money. America is so wealthy that enabling everyone to have a decent standard of living is easy. We cannot do it by fiddling with the entitlement and welfare systems -- they constitute a Gordian Knot that cannot be untied. But we can cut the knot. We can scrap the structure of the welfare state.

Instead of sending taxes to Washington, straining them through bureaucracies and converting what remains into a muddle of services, subsidies, in-kind support and cash hedged with restrictions and exceptions, just collect the taxes, divide them up, and send the money back in cash grants to all American adults. Make the grant large enough so that the poor won't be poor, everyone will have enough for a comfortable retirement, and everyone will be able to afford health care. We're rich enough to do it."

(A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, By Charles Murray, The Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2006; Page A16)

Techdirt Greenhouse

The Big Recap

Google Finance

Google launches financial web site (MercuryNews.com)

Ultimate Tool Chest

The 20 Most Important Tools Ever - Forbes.com

Duck Tape

"Of course, for all its versatility, perhaps the most interesting thing about duct tape is also the most ironic: It's lousy for use on ducts.

In 1998, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory physicists Max Sherman and Lain Walker tested a variety of sealing materials on sheet metal ducting, then heated and cooled the ducts to simulate the aging process. They soon found that duct tape leaked air so badly much of the cooling and heating was wasted--and that the tape frequently shrunk, dried up or separated.

"It failed reliably and often quite catastrophically," said Sherman. "And nothing else except duct tape failed."

(The Other Greatest Tool Ever - Forbes.com)

The Queen Thinks the World Smells Like Fresh Paint

"Apparently, wherever the Queen of England goes, her minions feel they need to slap on a coat of fresh paint. So that, her loyal subjects say, is what she thinks the world smells like." (Conferenza: PCForum: Search)

Writely - The Back Story

"Sam, Steve, and Claudia have done it. Writely is now part of Google. Here’s the back story to this ‘overnight success’ that every Web 2.0 developer should know. Overnight success is part of the Myth of Silicon Valley. This overnight success is twenty years in the making...

Every major product they have shipped has been about “documents” but on successive platforms.

1. They were the authors of FullPaint and FullWrite -- the largest selling third party word processing and painting apps on the original Macs.
2. They developed the first cross-platform (Mac, Windows) WYSYG HTML editor which came to market as Claris Home Page.
3. They developed the re-design and built the underlying platform to Macromedia’s re-write of DreamWeaver.
4. Now they have built Writely...

Few Web 2.0 companies have this sort of prior art. Put another way, most Web 2.0 companies really are six months of engineering on a LAMP stack. From what I know of Sam and Steve’s ability to time the market’s hunger for product acquisitions. I’ve learned they are the Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger of software."

(EarlyStageVC)

Shoelace Knots

16 Different Ways To Tie Shoelaces

Google Mars

Wow!