Nothing lasts for ever

I used to work for this company when it was big and dominant, but hence it is no more:



SBC to buy AT&T:

"After 128 years as an independent company, since just after the invention of the telephone that's the centerpiece of its business, AT&T will be absorbed into its offspring SBC Communications in a stock-and-cash deal valued at $16 billion."



Nothing lasts for ever, especially in technology.

Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About

Looks lke Donald Knuth has more than Algorithms on his mind.



I'll we reading his book sometime this year.

Software IP

For most of my career I have been in application development. The idea of a patents on software seemed strange and somehow against the technology movements that I have enjoyed and admired so much, like Unix and the Internet.



I have had a change of heart about Software IP (Intellectual Propery) over the last year. As I have filed several patent applications on technology I have been working on, I have come to realize that oraganizations and indivduals need to protect the IP that they spend so much time and energy developing so that a competitor does not just walk in and duplicate the work for free. After all, this is what other industries, like pharma, do all the time. Is it evil to want to protect your investment?



One difficult thing I have had to learn is that the invention process that leads to new IP, is unlike the software development process which leads to good, supportable and resusable software. I will post more on this later.

Slack

Chad Dickerson has an interesting post: The IT staff that leaves at 5pm.



I have been thinking a lot about this while reading Tom Demarco's book, Slack. Tom makes a very good case against the myth of total efficiency and the need for slack in a knowledge worker organization.



Favorite quote: "You can't make people think faster".

More blogs

Speaking of blogs, here are 2 more that may be of interest to us ex-cnn types: Paul Holbrook and Chad Dickerson.

Grady Booch's blog

Grady Booch has a blog, where he discusses, among other things, his serious recent health issues.