30 Jul 2004
Software offshoring: Big savings, quality concerns

Well, doh!

Companies can save thousands of dollars by outsourcing the development of custom-software projects to low-cost, offshore locations such as India and China, say researchers. In a new study, thye estimate the average annual decline in quality-adjusted price for software projects developed offshore is about 14 percent---or $56,000 per project. However, there are tradeoffs between the low prices customers enjoy and the potential for increased dissatisfaction due to greater uncertainties associated with distributed development.

(link) [Science Blog]

00:00 /Politics | 2 comments | permanent link

U.S. mad cow testing criticized

It's been obvious to us small farmers for years that the USDA favors large agribusiness - if BSE has done anything for US agriculture it's forced this bias into the limelight.

One quote from a "meat industry" spokesperson in this piece really struck me:

Riley said widespread testing of young and otherwise healthy animals would be unscientific and largely pointless, and allowing private companies to test their own animals would be unprecedented.

What a crock of shit! I monitor my cattle's health every day: "testing" (by eye, ear and nose) for various infections and problems. If I want or need to I can buy all manner of test kits over the counter at my local co-op to help me diagnose nearly any cattle disease - except BSE!

What's unprecendented here is the length to which the corporate ag interests are willing to go to protect their faulty business model, including endangering the health of the American people and the indeed the survival of the beef cattle ranching in the US.

In countless barns, feedlots, slaughterhouses and packing plants around the United States -- the health of cattle has become a hot-button issue.

(link) [CNN]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Research Sheds Light on Mad Cow

More mad cow news - and this is fascinating stuff. It seems to confirm the bizarre supposition that eating a folded protein (prion) causes proteins in the consumer to fold themselves, or at least modifies them genetically to be more easily folded spontaneously.

California scientists create the first synthetic rogue protein and use it to give mice a mad cow-like infection. The work has been hailed as 'a renaissance in prion research,' but it is unleashing controversy over the cause of the disease.

(link) [Wired News]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

All My Chickens

Well, all the meat chickens, anyway, are in the freezers.

I went over to Kevyn's last night about 9:30 and we drank beer and caught roosters (65 of them - he decided to take them along today to cut down on the noise at his place) and then brought the trailer over here and rounded up my meat birds. What a hoot! One should never try to catch roosters when drinking - more beer went to the land wights than to the tastebuds...

We left at 5:30 this morning, and arrived at the processor at about 8. By 8:30 all the birds were unloaded, beheaded and drained - except one. 'Lucky' was a hen that got grabbed in the dark last night by mistake. She came home with us.

I have to say I was impressed with this place. It was run by the Amish, and was very, very clean and professional. The animals were treated with respect - no tossing birds around like footballs here - and the whole thing was very professional. The finished chickens were packed in vacuum sealed bags and chilled - not flash frozen (which is good - makes for a more tender bird). The countryside over there (central Illinois) was verdent, very Amish and very friendly.

My only complaint was the time it took - we didn't get through over there until 4 pm, and so it was 6:30 by the time we got home and got everything unloaded and stored. A very long day, mostly spent sitting in blazing hot parking lots, or driving around and looking over the farms.

We lost 80 birds to predators - only took 121 with me. That's an unacceptable loss rate, and we've just got to do better than that the next time. I was quite surprised that we'd lost so many - I figured maybe 30 were gone, or 50 max. It's tough to get an accurate count of that many free ranging chickens, however, without rounding them up and stressing them out, which we didn't want to do, so the number was a bit of a surprise.

I had half my birds cut - a lot of customers have no clue how to cut up a whole chicken, and that should help sales. It was only $0.40 more to have it done, so I figured we could afford to try it out.

I'm off to the sack - it's been a long day, and promises to be just as long tomorrow, as I have to go and fetch the beef from the plant in Terre Haute. The to the market and to sell steak and chicken. Hopefully lots of steak and chicken.

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link