The Price Of Oil In Context

The price fluctuated through a fairly narrow band, spiking again at $30 a barrel when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. But after the first Gulf War, the price again headed south, hitting a low of close to $10 a barrel in the late 1990s. Since then, the trend has been up. There was a brief dip after the Americans toppled Saddam Hussein - but the price has now surpassed the highs it reached during the second Gulf War.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/oil/

Water Was On Mars For A While

The actual time span has not been estimated, but it reveals enough time to strengthen the possibilities that life could have evolved on Mars. The team is expects to spend most of this week analysing the razorback with the rovers various spectrographs.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996178

Coalition of the Billing

If wars for oil are bad and terror is worse, this Coalition of the Billingis a logical blend: global free-marketing at gunpoint. Its above the law,beyond the law, and worst of all, irreplaceable and utterly necessary topower the planets nations, cities, and homes. Weve suffered terror withouta country. Welcome to war without flags.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/view.html?pg=4

Fujitsu Technique Hides Data In Images

Thanks Tim...
This would allow data such as phone numbers or a URL to be planted into aposter, a magazine advertisement or business card. To extract theinformation, users would just have to point their camera phone or PDA at theimage--as long as the device was configured to find the hidden message.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5260241.html

Time For A Redesign

... thats causing the most problems is information architecture, which continues to be driven more by how the information is produced than by how its consumed. Intranets are usually divided up by which department does which things, as opposed to what tasks employees have, or which work activities people have.
http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1397,1610163,00.asp

McClellands Highland 16 Year

I took a chance on this one, never having heard of McClellands before. Its not bad, buttery with lots of fruity flavors yet with the throatyness of a highland. I hear its a rebottling of Glen Garioch, which I also like. Suprisingly mellow. Not bad.
http://www.singlemaltscotchwhiskies.com/inventory/review/mcclellands_hi.htm

The Business of Software

OK Book. Heres some coding best practice highlights:

• Focus Creativity
1. Divide large projects into milestone cycles
2. Use a vision statement and outline feature specifications
3. Base feature selection and prioritization on user activities and data
4. Evolve a modular and horizontal design architecture
5. Control by individual commitments to small tasks and fixed project resources
• Work In parallel but synchronize continuously
1. Work in parallel teams but synch up and debug daily
2. Always have a product you can ship
3. Speak a common language
4. Continuously test as you build
5. Use metric data to determine milestone completion

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/074321580X/qid=1088791120/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-5581219-8642469?v=glance&s=books&n=507846