Brian Gongol
How do you get doctors to set up practice in rural communities?
Or other professionals, like engineers and lawyers? One of the problems with the debate about this important issue in the Midwest is the language. Too many people frame it as "capturing" or "trapping" these kinds of professionals. In reality, what must be done is to make these places so attractive that people want to live there. From a broader perspective, that means it's necessary to think about the health and growth of population centers, spaced closely enough together that it's possible to travel easily from one to another. Iowa's largest population centers are spaced one to two hours apart from one another. Farther west, the spacings grow much larger very quickly. Over the very long term, it's going to become important to ensure the intermediate communities between larger ones don't shrivel and die, but rather find renewed growth. It's widely expected that the leading cities of the region will continue to grow -- but we don't want the smaller places in between to become ghost towns.
Microsoft issues an emergency security update
A problem with their ".NET" system means that crooks could gain privileges and control over users' computers
CNet offers a comprehensive overview of SOPA
The Stop Online Piracy Act has a name and an ostensible intent that both sound really good -- but the devil seems to be in the details. The proposal appears to require service providers (including the people who make the backbone of the Internet stay up) to pull the plug on websites when the government deems them to be in violation of the law. Makes sense if there's a site dedicated to hosting millions of pirated movies. Much more threatening if it means that a single infringement on a site could render the whole thing inaccessible. Opposition to the proposal is coming from respectable quarters, like Kaspersky, which makes some of the world's best antivirus software. And from musical satirist Dan Bull.
Chimps seem to understand how much their peers know
Just because someone said it a long time ago doesn't mean it's the right thing to do
"The ancients tell us what is best, but we must learn of the moderns what is fittest." - Benjamin Franklin
2011 was the year of the cameraphone
Recommendations for last-minute charitable contributions
