So many things to comment on today; too little time…  1. Scott McClellan’s new memoir about the Bush 43 White House  2. Bear Stearns disappearing into JP Morgan Chase  3. SPAM sales on the rise  4. Q1 GDP being revised up from 0.6% to 0.9%  5. …and many moreWe’ll leave most of these to another time soon, although #3 is immediately tempting, mostly due to Monty Python and to the fact that dinner time is near.No, today we’ll talk about #4.I just have one question: Do you feel luckier, now that the Q1 GDP was actually 0.3% higher in Q1 2008? Well, do ya?Not I !!. The number of US jobs lost in Q1 2008 remains at 240,000. There were still 7.6 million US people unemployed at the end of Q1, up from 6.8 million unemployed only a year earlier, and estimates still say US unemployment is gonna get worse. Oil & gas prices are still through the roof. Inflation is still too high. Consumer Confidence is still at a 16-year low. Sales of new US homes are still at their lowest level in 17 years. US housing prices still dropped...

On Tuesday May 27, 2008, the price per barrel of oil dropped from the mid-$130’s that it “achieved” last week, to end trading below $129. Hallelujah?Well, maybe not! Just as General Petraeus recently warned us all to keep the champagne in the back of the fridge when it comes to IRAQ, maybe likewise we’d better hold off on the “economic toasting” for awhile.Because the latest economic news is not good, my friends. While the price of oil did close down a few percentage points on May 27, US average gas prices hit another record high at almost $3.94 a gallon of regular, according to a survey of stations by the AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Now, enterprising thieves have added puncturing gas tanks and gas lines to steal gasoline to their previous nefarious methods of either siphoning gas, or just driving off without paying after fill ups at gas stations.While the Dow ticked up a tad (+0.6%) on May 27, the Dow lost a startling 3.91% just last week — its worst showing since February 2008. Other indexes...

Here's all you need to know about the Autodesk vs. Vernor ruling:

1. Software "licenses" where the customer pays upfront a single fee for perpetual use of the software, with no obligation to return the software, must be treated by the courts as if it were a sale. Therefore the application of copyright law follows the first-sale principle.

2. Software vendors can get avoid have this ruling apply in any one of several ways.

a. renting the software. The Autodesk vs. Vernor ruling interprets a fully paid up perpetual license as a sale. If the license is not perpetual and fully paid, the interpretation of sale would not apply.

b. require the customer to return the software at the end of use.  This would leave open the possibility of negating one of the conditions of the Wise decision on which this ruling is based.

I recommend the following CADCAMnet article for additional reading: http://www.newslettersonline.com/user/user.fas/s=63/fp=3/tp=47?T=open_article,969809&P=article 

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Here are a few more data points that have emerged since the last blog entry in this space:In 1993, the richest 1% of American families pocketed 14% of the nation’s income. By 2006, their slice had grown to 23%.In a new US corporate IT spending survey by ChangeWave Research in April 2008, 25% of the respondents said their company will spend less on software in coming months. This figure is 3 points higher than a study ChangeWave conducted in January and 11 points higher than one completed in October 2007, indicating a deepening trend.Consumer prices increased a hefty 0.6% in April 2008, the US Labor Department said on May 15, 2008, if you take out seasonal adjustments. Of course, if one does not eat or drive (i.e. ignoring price increases in food and gas), April consumer prices increased only 0.2%. During the last 12 months, overall consumer prices increased 3.9%. Food alone has risen 5.1%; gasoline has risen 20.7%.The government also reported that oil imported in April 2008 cost 67% more than oil imported a year...

Yesterday, May 2, 2008, the US Labor Department issued its monthly Jobs Report for April 2008. The Report estimates that “only” 20,000 more US net jobs were lost in the month. Hey, the recession is over, right?Not so fast!Lest we forget, April marked the fourth consecutive month of declining US jobs. During that 4-month period, 260,000 net jobs were lost –- an average of 65,000 jobs lost per month. Since it takes 127,000 new jobs every month just to stay even, that means the US has fallen behind some 192,000 jobs in each of the last four months, or 768,000 for the 4-month period.And as usual, April’s mix of jobs lost & gained was telling: 46,000 US manufacturing workers were laid off last month; 326,000 such positions have been lost over the last year. Construction lost 61,000 jobs. In April alone, that’s 107,000 more workers lost in these two key wealth-producing sectors where CAD/CAM and AEC must succeed.Then how did the US lose only 20,000 net jobs in April? Health care added 37,000. Restaurants and bars added...

I was at COE earlier this week when HP announced their new blade workstations. As a courtesy, I attended HP's product release reception, where I had the "opportunity" to learn about the announcement.  I was expecting to be politely bored.   HP is not the only company out there with a solution (IBM was showing its own workstation blade server at COE too.) But who cares about a workstation blade?

Well, now I do. This technology is a game changer. It addresses very real issues of security, intellectual property, centralized maintenance, access to power on demand, and can remove heat and noise generation to remote areas where they are not problematic and perhaps even beneficial. 

Resist the urge to ignore. Take a deep look at workstation blades -- I expect you'll be surprised too.