I like to watch this video every six months, Larry Lessig's presentation at OSCON.
A trascript is available: here
One of my favorite quotes from this presentation is this:
In an interview two days ago, Watts said, Here's the problem with Washington: "If you are explaining, you are losing." If you are explaining, you're losing. It's a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don't, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you're off their radar screen. Three seconds to understand, or you lose. This is our problem. Six years after this battle began, we're still explaining. We're still explaining and we are losing.
Havoc and Elijah, you might be interested in What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating Point.
Love, Miguel.
Posted on 15 Jan 2005