Everyone knows that the mid-to-late 1990s was a boom period and the new millennium is a bust. But what really happened? The prevailing attitude is that the so-called "new economy" was an abberation ... that it was a fluke and not sustainable.

Lately, a few "voices in the wilderness" are saying, "wait just a minute." Weren't the technology gains real? Didn't the internet and world wide web impact the entire world? Do we really need a war to have good economic times? Does the gap between the haves and have-nots have to widen?

The most visible of these voices is Michael Moore whose "Stupid White Men: And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!" is riding the book bestseller charts. His first chapter puts the questions quite succinctly and some of his suggestions in the later chapters may have merit.

Wired magazine also explores some of the prevailing wisdom and finds it wanting. The article is "The New Economy Was a Myth, Right? ... Wrong," by James Surowiecki and is certainly worth a read.

An equally persuasive view comes from Userland's John Robb, Dave Winer's associate. His web log post, "The New Economy," puts the focus on the individual and away from organizations.

Favorites: Probability Without Tears. * John F. Simon Jr.'s Every Icon * Law of Diminishing Returns * Patently Absurd * Sir Arthur C. Clarke * W. Daniel Hillis * Claude E. Shannon -2 * The New York Times * The Buckminster Fuller Institute * Chautauqua * LuLu Press * Dan Bricklin * William Dunk

I took at least one college course in statistics and probability, but somehow never really grasped the concepts. Then, eight years ago I needed a probability proof during the USPTO evaluation of my patent.

Thankfully, I was able to solicit verification of the proof via the web from Dr. Henry G. Baker (then of Nimble Computing) and in person from my mentor at the time, Dr. Carl Bowling (then of the Computer Systems Engineering department at the University of Arkansas.)

Still, I needed to find the proof validated "in print." One day at a Barnes & Noble bookstore on a sale table I discovered Derek Rowntree's "Probability Without Tears." (The tears part no doubt refers to the two biggest fields associated with proabability theory since its invention in the eighteenth century: gambling and insurance.)

The book truly is a probability "primer for non-mathematicians" and provides a constant reference source for my software work. Bits of everything in it are buried within other books, but Rowntree is quite inclusive and lucid (there are example problems throughout each chapter and additional test problems following each chapter.)

If there is anything like this gem of a book, I have yet to find it.

Favorites: John F. Simon Jr.'s Every Icon * Law of Diminishing Returns * Patently Absurd * Sir Arthur C. Clarke * W. Daniel Hillis * Claude E. Shannon -2 * The New York Times * The Buckminster Fuller Institute * Chautauqua * LuLu Press * Dan Bricklin * William Dunk

Many of the foundation principles of mathematics are not well known among the general public. A case in point is "exponential growth."

An illustration of the principle is this problem: I give you a penny today, tomorrow I give you twice as many, two pennies. On the third day I give you four pennies, the next day eight pennies, and so on, doubling each day. How much will I be giving you on the 30th day? The answer is just short of $11 million.

An icon is a symbol to which we give meaning. Our letters and numbers are icons that probably developed from writing with a rock on cave walls. In the digital world, an icon in its simplest form is represented by a graph paper-like grid of squares in which each square may be white or black. It's called a monochrome bitmap.

The problem is that the number of possible patterns in such a grid exhibits exponential growth. It's 2 (white or black) to the power of the number of squares in the grid. Digital artist John F. Simon Jr. explores this in his "Every Icon" Java applet. He starts with a 32 x 32 grid and runs through each possible pattern at the rate of 100 per second (on the average PC.)

The entire exercise will take, get this, trillions of years! During one of those .01 second intervals, the letter A in the font Bookman Swash Italic will certainly flash across the screen. I hope I don't blink and miss it. ;-)

Favorites: Law of Diminishing Returns * Patently Absurd * Sir Arthur C. Clarke * W. Daniel Hillis * Claude E. Shannon -2 * The New York Times * The Buckminster Fuller Institute * Chautauqua * LuLu Press * Dan Bricklin * William Dunk