links for 2008-10-16

"In 1983, US companies spent $32 billion on IT, which accounted for 9.8% of their total investment in fixed assets that year. By 2006, spending had risen almost tenfold, to $294 billion, and IT accounted for 21.1% of new fixed assets purchased that year in the US. To put it mildly, this is a big change in what companies are composed of, and it has to be having an impact (or several of them)."

good to see. not that it will make any difference in the RIAA's thinking – they continue to prove themselves fundamentally unable to learn and adjust – but still, good to see.

snapshots + backups are an excellent idea, in general

a look at the storage engine question as they relate to Drizzle

nice commentary from Luis on cloud freedoms