This cool list shows the significance of EVERY number from 1-9,999 — Such as 3025 is the sum of the first 10 cubes, or 18 is the only number that is twice the sum of its digits.
Wired News: History’s Worst Software Bugs
Excellent article detailing the worst bugs of all time.
My neighbor, Marty Bahamonde, had the dubious honor of being the first FEMA official in New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit. Last week he was hauled in front of the Congress-critters to give his side of the story about what went wrong.
From the New Orleans Times Picayune:
Although Bahamonde said he had enjoyed a good relationship with Brown, who had trusted him as his “eyes and ears” for major disasters even though he lacked formal emergency management training, at one point he let loose with rage against his bosses.
On Aug. 31, he had e-mailed Brown from the Superdome to tell him that thousands of evacuees were gathering in the streets outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center without food or water and that there were “estimates that many will die within hours.”
“Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical,” he wrote.
But less than three hours later, Brown’s press secretary said in an e-mail that “it is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner” at a Baton Rouge restaurant that night before appearing on an MSNBC talk show. “We now have traffic to encounter . . . followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc.,” the e-mail said.
“OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!” Bahamonde wrote in an apparently hastily written response to a colleague at FEMA after the message was shared with him. “Just tell her (the press secretary) that I just ate an MRE and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy retaurants. Maybe tonight I will have time to move the pebbles on the parking garage floor so they don’t stab me in the back while I try to sleep.”
CNN.com has has a good article on his appearance before the Congressional committee, but the Daily Show (as usual) has my favorite coverage (see the “Relief Ditcher” link). 
The obituary of a Chicago-area WWII veteran named Theodore Roosevelt Heller requests “in lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans”. Within days, hundreds of people have left comments on his obituary page pledging their support.
Just for fun, I’ve created a Wikipedia entry for “Heller Letter”.
The Memory Hole has an interesting article showing that the Justice Department has censored a Supreme Court decision by redacting a quote that discusses the abuse of power by the Government. Talk about self-referential…
bq.. The Justice Department tipped its hand in its ongoing legal war with the ACLU over the Patriot Act. Because the matter is so sensitive, the Justice Dept is allowed to black out those passages in the ACLU’s court filings that it feels should not be publicly released.
Ostensibly, they would use their powers of censorship only to remove material that truly could jeopardize US operations. But in reality, what did they do? They blacked out a quotation from a Supreme Court decision:
_”The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect ‘domestic security.’ Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent.”_
The mind reels at such a blatant abuse of power (and at the sheer chutzpah of using national security as an excuse to censor a quotation about using national security as an excuse to stifle dissent).
It’s hard to imagine a more public, open document than a decision written by the Supreme Court. It is incontestably public property: widely reprinted online and on paper; poured over by generations of judges, attorneys, prosecutors, and law students; quoted for centuries to come in court cases and political essays.
Yet the Justice Department had the incomprehensible arrogance and gall to strip this quotation from a court document, as if it represented a grave threat to the republic. Luckily, the court slapped down this redaction and several others. If it hadn’t, we would’ve been left with the impression that this was a legitimate redaction, that whatever was underneath the thick black ink was something so incredibly sensitive and damaging that it must be kept from our eyes.
Now we know the truth. Think about this the next time you see a black mark on a public document.
So much for flying home to Boston. Logan’s radar system is out, and I’m stuck in Buffalo. I just hope that they get it fixed by tomorrow morning’s 7:00 AM flight…
My good friend Bob, from back home in Buffalo, has asked me to be the Godfather for his baby girl, Jenna. I’m flying from Boston to Buffalo tonight. My flight is at 8:10, but I had high hopes that I could catch an earlier flight. I arrived at Logan at 3:00. All earlier flights are full…so…I’ve been sitting here reading “Agile Project Management” by Jim Highsmith, and keeping an eye on the Red Sox game that’s playing on a TV in Legal Seafood. The game isn’t looking too good. Freakin’ idiots…
Here’s a great list from the book of “six questions that illustrate the damaging illusions of our 20th-century approaches to management”, originally from Phillip Hodgson and Randall White:
# Why do you believe you are in control?
# Why do you behave as if you can predict the future, its consequences and outcomes?
# Why do you think that because you’ve done it before and it worked that it will work again?
# Why do you believe everything important is measurable?
# Why do you think that words like leadership, management, and change have the same meaning to everyone?
# Why do you think that reducing uncertainty will necessarily increase certainty?
Good questions…
If there is ever a statue made in honor of good project managers, I suspect the inscription would say, “Bring me your randomized, your righteously confused, your sarcastic and bitter masses of programmers yearning for clarity.”
— Scott Berkun, “The Art of Project Management”
Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: “Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.”
“OH NO!” the president exclaims. “That’s terrible!”
His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the president sits, head in hands.
Finally, the president looks up and asks, “How many is a brazillion?”
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