Sad time for music Both Joey Ramone, of the Ramones and Francis Grasso, pioneer disc jockey have passed away.

Engineer culture A good article in the usually excerable Fast Company about the making of the new Kyocera Smartphone. It's interesting because it talks about the emotional challenges and cultural peculiarities of engineers within a corporate environment, something that has had profound implications on how technology is developed (and why most of it is so crap).

Krugman talks about business cycles (NYTimes, subscription needs) and what this means for the upcoming US recession. I personally think he misses the mark here a little -- more transparent information may increase stock price fluctuations, but it should also reduce excess inventory, and so shorten the contraction period of the cycle. Hopefully the poor luck Cisco's had at handling their own inventory is not endemic outside the tech sector. It sounds like poor management to me, not anything undermining the logic of IT powered lean inventory management. Look to Dell in the coming months, I say.

US slaps Israel on the wrist and the butchers move out of Gaza. I'm glad to see that Colin Powell blamed the Palestinians. That'll teach them to steal land and slaughter civilians!