Software is too expensive to build cheaply…

There’s an opinion page on the ABC News page about the increasing rise in house prices (and the subsequent fall in housing affordability). The solution presented: build more housing (not necessarily houses – apartments are okay too), thus increasing the supply. Unfortunately, that won’t help.

One of my coworkers tossed out this line today: “We can’t just increase the minimum wage, because that would cause inflation”. I said at the time that didn’t have to be the case, and I just thought I’d capture my reasoning in writing.

Well, it’s about time, but Apple have finally rolled out the iTunes Music Store to Australia. Now I can see what all the fuss is about.
I can see that I am impressed with how easy it is – I’ll have to make a point to not impulse buy, because it’s just so easy to do. [...]

From Jason Yip:

My blog is worth $20,887.98.How much is your blog worth?

And if anyone wants to buy it at that price (that’s US currency, of course), please feel free to let me know. Contact me before the end of 2005, and I’ll even through in a 10% discount… afterwards, of course, the price may [...]

Sigh… how could anyone make a living by killing pension plans? I mean, really.

An off-hand statement in the editorial of The Australian today went like this:
Even after the threshold changes in the May budget, the top 5 per cent of taxpayers are going to be paying a quarter of Australia’s net income tax
(Look in the section about Peter Costello)

To quote the New York Times

This week’s census report showed that income inequality was near all-time highs in 2004, with 50.1 percent of income going to the top 20 percent of households. And additional census data obtained by the Economic Policy Institute show that only the top 5 percent of households experienced real income gains [...]

This has been said before, I know, but it’s worth re-iterating: a test should test one thing, and one thing only.
First, some scope definition. Using Kent Beck’s terminology, I’m talking about developer tests, not acceptance tests. Also, by one thing, I mean that there should be only one thing that breaks the test (which is [...]

Fujitsu is going to roll out trolleys with scanners so that shoppers can avoid the checkout queue. Naturally, this assumes a degree of honesty on the part of the shoppers. What’s amusing about this is how they plan to “trust, but verify”.

Hmmm… salaries are going up again Speaking as an employee, not an employer, this sounds like good news. :)