[LINK] Einstein's fridge an example for NICTA?

[Chris Maltby]

On Mon, Dec 11, 2006 at 09:26:52AM +1100, Tom Worthington wrote:
> We should not be surprised if NICTA fails to produce any economic 
> benefit for Australia, if we fail to plan how to obtain such benefit. 

On something of a tangent, it seems that part of the NICTA idea was for
the government to claim the credit for investing in the exciting growth
area of ICT - unfortunately for the politics, but perhaps fortuitously
for the outcome, the tech bubble burst between the approval of the
funds and the establishment. As a counter-cyclical venture, NICTA has
been able to benefit from an increased pool of people suddenly at a
loose end as funding elsewhere dried up. It also took the political
pressure off for a few years as the government had no interest in
looking like it was spruiking yesterday's big ideas.

Sometimes you just have to be lucky I guess...