dan flies

This is the translation from a Venezualan website on the presidental decree published today by El Universal newspaper.

Check it out:

Economy – eluniversal.com: “In 90 Venezuela days completely he will have opened the door to free software.

In Official Newspaper the presidential decree 3,390 was published, that establishes the priority for the use of this modality of programs in all the systems of the public administration.”

This is a terrific story of law emerging in China. Everyone should read it.

In China, Turning the Law Into the People’s Protector (washingtonpost.com): “Attorney Pu Zhiqiang sat with the two authors on trial, listening intently and taking notes, his broad shoulders hunched over a small table. Facing him on the other side of the courtroom, Zhang Xide, a short, slightly pudgy Communist Party boss, leaned back and smiled as the first witness took the stand.”

The agile development of Windows SP2? Read the article and see.

Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows: Windows XP Service Pack 2: The Inside Story: “I sent out a mail to everyone in the division saying, ‘This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to take a little bit more time to do it. And if you want to submit a security feature, you should do so, and then show up at this room.’ Well, the next day, it was standing room only, and everyone had a security feature that they wanted to check in. It went all the way down from things like the new Bluetooth stack, to the new Windows Media Player, to the new Group Policy stuff, and on, and on, and on, and on.

We started walking through this list and realized that this was now not just an SP1 plus, it was now an SP2 [as it was finally released, a major update]. We took the new DCR [Design Change Request] list and Brian and I approved those individual DCRs, and then we pulled SP2 from the Windows Sustained Engineering (WinSE) team.”

Another article on the future AG’s view of international law.

Lone Star Justice – Alberto Gonzales’ strange views of international law. By Alan Berlow: “Even before he came to Washington as chief legal counsel to President George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales demonstrated a penchant for finding ways around international law.”

Here is another good Slate.com article. This article asks the question: should the attorney general represent the interests of the american public or the president’s wishes. (One would think they would be the same, but not necessiarily).

Check out the article.

All the President’s Lawyers – Should the attorney general be the president’s yes man? By Dahlia Lithwick: “In a sense, President Bush is the quintessential rich divorce client. It’s not just that he’s wealthy; it’s that he’s accustomed to having cadres of lawyers flitting to and fro, waving their sparkly lawyer’s wands and making his every dream come true. And this is why soon-to-be Attorney General Alberto Gonzales really is any president’s dream come true. His prevailing legal principle appears to be to deliver whatever the client wants, whenever the client wants it. And one of the questions we need to contemplate is whether that’s the kind of lawyer we want for the next attorney general.”

On this side of the “pond”, and getting close to a century since the last “Irish Need Not Apply” adorned employment ads, the change in Ireland’s “ecomonic transformation” has been incrediable. Check out this article about replicating Ireland’s success in other contries that we think of as 3rd world countries.

Tiger, Tiger, Fading Fast – Could other countries replicate Ireland’s economic transformation? By Kim Iskyan: “Thirty years ago, Ireland was a Third World country, viewed through the same ‘do-they-have-indoor-plumbing-yet?’ prism that the moderately well-informed observer of today might apply to, say, Paraguay or Malawi. “

Read Slate.com’s top Jazz albums of the year. Jazz my not be at the forefront of the modern psyche, but it is the most sophiticated form of truely american music.

check ou the list:

All That Jazz – The year’s best records. By Fred Kaplan It was a good year for jazz recordings. Yes, sales continued to slip, a few more labels shut their doors, and the next John Coltrane or Charlie Parker—some genius-messiah who transcends all boundaries and pushes jazz to a startling new level—failed, once again, to materialize. Still, young musicians scaled new heights, elders renewed their spirits, and, in the reissue bins, forgotten masterworks returned to astonish us.

The New York Times > Fashion & Style > Fooey to the World: Festivus Is Come: “The first surprise is that from Tampa Bay, Fla., to Washington, from Austin, Tex., to Oxford, Ohio, many real people are holding parties celebrating Festivus, a holiday most believe was invented on an episode of ‘Seinfeld’ first broadcast the week before Christmas in 1997.”

Probably the greatest software store ever told!

An engineer loses his job, but doesn’t give up on the project. His badge still opened the door, so he kept showing up.

A must read!

The Graphing Calculator Story: “Pacific Tech’s Graphing Calculator has a long history. I began the work in 1985 while in school. That became Milo, and later became part of FrameMaker. Over the last twenty years, many people have contributed to it. Graphing Calculator 1.0, which Apple bundled with the original PowerPC computers, originated under unique circumstances.”

I’ve just added Slate to my review list after this article. We’ll see if it is any good.

The funny thing: I had to go to the New York TImes to find the story.

The NYT> Washington Post Company Buys Slate Magazine: “The Washington Post Company said yesterday that it had purchased Slate, an online magazine owned by Microsoft.

The sale completes Slate’s transformation from an experiment in the new media in 1996 to a respected brand name in journalism. Terms of the sale were not announced, but industry specialists estimated that the deal was worth between $15 million and $20 million.”