For more complex software, especially software tools and “platforms”, employees throughout the company and key customers should be urged to build sample applications. Trying to build something is the number one way to find new bugs, missing features and usability issues. And, after all this “testing”, a company has a large library of sample code, which is often more helpful than some of the formal doc, assuming they every get around to writing it. And don’t let editorial review bottleneck these demos - have a “quality” stamp for how polished each demo is - if it’s never even had spellcheck run on it, just label it as such and still put it online. The only real review requirement is to do a quick check for true intellectual property issues, obscenities and hardcoded passwords. Let the users flag the demos that need the most editing. Show me a company with 100+ sample apps and I’ll show you a reasonably well vetted tool.

Good to hear from you, but I believe we disagree. The sub-prime mortgages were always just a small portion of the total mortgages. In themselves, they would not be enough to bring down the credit markets.

The articles you ref are interesting, and Barney Frank made a rather unfortunately quote there in the first. But it’s also true that the leverage the banks were using, and the lack of SEC oversight in this play major roles.

The 30-1 leverage that the investment banks were using made a small number of failing mortgages able to collapse much much larger markets. In fact, it almost made it inevitable. This 30-1 leverage was made possible by exemptions that were allowed by the SEC chair. The SEC chair was appointed by Bush. The leverage that normal banks are allowed is 5-1.

The SEC oversight problem has been commented on extensively elsewhere. The US deficit issue I added here since the very large debt sets a tone in the markets as well.

And given some of the GOP attacks in the past I’m amazed at the GOP House members citing hurt feelings as a reason to vote this down. If they can dish it out, they should be able to take it.

Any way we look at this, it’s a bad situation. I’m not convinced this was the best bill. But I’ve come to just hope for “good enough” from Congress.

Ms. Pelosi said:

“Madam Speaker, when was the last time someone asked you for $700bn?

It is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush administration’s failed economic policies: policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.”

These are incendiary and demonstrably false and unnecessarily partisan statements.

The basis of the current economic problems is sub-prime mortgages enabled by the government sponsored Freddie Mac & Fannie Mac and the well-intentioned but problematic Community Reinvestment Act which encouraged the bad loans.

Let’s look at some history of attempts of regulation that Pelosi ignores:

Here is that same Bush administration trying in 2003 to add regulation to Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

In 2006, we see a well known senator attempting to add regulation to the same agencies. The bill went nowhere.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20060525-16&bill=s109-190#sMonofilemx003Ammx002Fmmx002Fmmx002Fmhomemx002Fmgovtrackmx002Fmdatamx002Fmusmx002Fm109mx002Fmcrmx002Fms20060525-16.xmlElementm0m0m0m

If Rep. Pelosi seriously wanted the bill to pass, she could have tried encouraging rather than political grandstanding. But no, for her, partisan politics was more important.

Granted, hurt feelings is a poor reason to vote for/against a bill. But let’s not forget that the bill could have passed without a single Republican vote, but a third of Democrats voted against it, too. Apparently, there were issues with the bill beyond just an offense.

Your comments on the importance of perspective are warranted. Perhaps I should have emphasized more that how those bits are interpreted is key.

And your observation as to how bits are stored is important too. Perspective goes all the way down! I love the idea of information being stored by holes - absence of electrons. A very Sherlock Holmes idea, “The dog did not bark at night”. Or like the bit about the wagon wheel and clay pitcher being useful because of the hole in the middle (from a work long before Holmes and on the other side of the world).

For instance, there is a convention that is agreed upon by both parties. There is also a shared culture and learning. There is a common viewpoint or agreement on at least some of the (sometimes extreme) basic assumptions underlying the world view.

In the same manner, the program is more than just the 1s and 0s. You do allude to that in that you state it is a matter of perspective, but the perspective is the central key point and not just a sideboard to the entree. That perspective is not just intent - how you wish to use the ones and zeroes - but is also in how they are interpreted, by what they are interpreted, etc.

It is, perhaps, more correct to say that computer languages are exactly that - an expressive language for communication. It is extremely precise and detailed but it is still communication. How it is represented in the computer (as ones and zeroes) is no more important to the central concept than how it is represented in your brain (as electro-chemical changes in neurons). And, truthfully, it is NOT stored as ones and zeroes in a computer. That is still an interpretation on our part. It is stored either as magnetic state changes (on disks, etc.), reflectivity state changes (on CDs), or other electrical phenomena (in the various memories, caches, etc. of the RAM, ROM, CPU, Peripherals, etc. - I admit I get a little fuzzy on the “holes” idea of solid state transistors).