IEEE Spectrum September 2001 issue is pretty good. I think I read it cover to cover, which even for Spectrum (which I like quite a bit) is unusual. I like the new format, where there are more reader-submitted editorials in the beginning. We are talking about engineers and they have cogent and well- reasoned arguments, even if I don't agree with some of them.

The first editorial is "An Engineer's View of Venture Capitalists". It does not paint them in the best light, but then again VCs don't have the same priorities that engineers have. They need to make money, don't like taking big risks unless everyone else is doing it, and are very controlling. Still, if you can't raise a few million through friends and your own resources, a VC may be the only option. You just have to be careful.

Next we have "Congress Needs Nonpartisan Advice on Science, Technology". Congress used to have the Office of Technology Assessment, which was closed in 1995 -- I remember reading that news and being a bit worried. The OTA was slow and perhaps biased, reasons for its disbanding. Now Congress expects "experts" from each side of an argument to present their very biased views. The same kind of adversarial system used in our courts, though it doesn't work if only one side has good representation, such as privacy issues.

My take is that Congress does depend too much on lobbyists and letter writing to make their decisions. They don't have time to properly research every issue, so they have to base their decisions either based on recommendations from their staff or from being swayed by what essentially is political advertising. You need more impartial experts who work for Congress. Or you need Congress to do less so that they have more time -- less Federal government, perhaps more state and local government. It's not an easy answer because people and groups and companies seem to want more and more laws and want government to fix everything for them. If people were more self-reliant, you would need less government, which would mean more energy devoted by our government to the important issues rather than trivial matters.

"News Analysys" is the next section. Solar powered wing, a wing with a bigger wingspan than a 747, took off and after the better part of a day reached an altitude of 23 247 meters, a world record, beating the public SR-71 record (c'mon, I'm sure the SR-71 could fly much higher than the government admitted). Some new transistor technologies, ho hum. A short item on ratifying the Kyoto Protocols, which the US refuses to sign. Interestingly, it points out that with the US out of the picture, it gives countries like Japan more leverage for concessions.

The Kyoto Protocols seem to be much like the emission standards some states have, where you have pollution credits and if you don't pollute as much you can sell your credits to another company. All sensible and I agree with them. What I don't agree with is the statement that pollution equals higher temperatures equals global climate change for the worse. The problem I have with that analysis is that it's not really proven yet. Mostly we don't have enough data of what can cause temperature change (maybe it's natural) and what will happen if the global temperature goes up or down. Now, it's still a good idea to control pollution, but I don't want the reason to be this loosely (scientifically speaking) correlated set of observations to be the reason why people do it.

A couple of biotechnology news items that I don't really care to understand. Russia and China getting cozy, with China buying quite a bit of Russian military hardware and expertise. Makes sense, since to both countries, the US is the bigger threat. Hey, I'll be the first (or second or third or three millionth) person to say that a US-controlled world would probably be better than if any other country did it. But I can understand that other countries wouldn't want that, no matter how nice it would be. Self-government is cherised by a lot of people. So a pro-western world would not really be good news for Russia and China, historical enemies that they are. Note that one of the provisions of their pact is that China won't try to annex Russian territory for 20 years.

Last news item is Congress may offer relief to the suckers who exercised their stock options and now owe huge taxes on worthless stock. The law has it that when you exercise your stock options (i.e. actually buy them), the difference between the exercise price and the current market price is taxed at 28% (the IRS taxes the corporation for the exercise price, so the full value of the stock sale is taxed). Now, if you do that, keeping the stock, and then the stock tanks, you suddenly owe taxes for money you never earned. Tough situation to be in, but I'm thinking you shouldn't exercise your stock options until you have to, and when you do make sure you get some cash out of it. It's just people being too greedy, in my opinion, and now the US government has to bail them out. I'm so callous.