Slashdot Mirror

Iridigm Technology, a small company in San Francisco, developed the technology. Unfortunately, Qualcomm purchased the company in 2004. Since Qualcomm tends to charge high fees on its patents, televisions based on OIDs may not materialize any time soon.

..that cherry picked US canned tuna for it's studies to show low mercury levels, so I'm a little worried about this.

Uh, right. So since there's been more than one case of Police corruption, I better be worried whenever they arrest someone.

The sheer number of known carcinogens in the American diet worries me. Aspertame, Sodium Nitrate, Potasium Bromate; the list goes on and on.

Aspartame and Potassium bromate haven't been conclusively shown to be carcinogens. In particular the evidence for aspartame is quite dubious. Meaning that even if these substances are carcinogens, the risk is very, very, low. The laws of statistics dictate that: The lower the risk the harder it is to detect.

Sodium nitrate (and nitrite) are out of the FDA's juristdiction since they were grandfathered in in 1958 when the FDA took over the food-additive approval business from the Dept of Agriculture. The EU has stricter regulations on it, but nevertheless permits it because the cancer risks of it widely outweigh the food poisoning risks it prevents.

The argument is always either a) you're not getting enough to harm you

That's because that happens to be the case. (More on that later)

or b) it's all naturally occuring anyway.

That's ridiculous. Nobody makes that argument. Most of the most carcinogenic substances around are naturally occuring in one way or another.

Neither idea takes into account that a) if you eat a lot of prepared foods (like most poor Americans) you get way more than most studies allow

Blatantly false. Most (all, in the FDA context) carcinogenity studies involve amounts of the substance which are far beyond what any human would normally recieve. To take an example, The Economist did the math over Sudan-1 recall of Worcestershire sauce last year, arriving at the tidy figure of a human having to consume 800 liters of the stuff per day for 2 years to reproduce the effects on the mice in the study (in which none of the mice didn't actually develop cancer). Nevertheless the recall happened, and Sudan I is indeed banned.

b) is it really a good idea to add more of a naturally occuring carcinogen to a diet?

Of course not. Which is why carcinogens are not permitted in food except for in very few cases. The substances you describe are simply not known for certain if they cause cancer. And if they do, yes, then the risk is truely negligable. Except sodium/potassium nitrate/nitrite, which is known to cause cancer for sure. However, the risk of cancer there far outweighs the health risks of food poisoning. Botulism kills quite a lot of people, and would certainly kill a lot more if nitrites weren't used.

Wouldn't that raise your intake above natural limits?

There's no such thing as "natural limits". You don't reach some point where your body says "that's it!" and goes off and develops cancer. Cancer is natural. It occurs in your body many times each day. Most of the time it gets taken care of by your immune system. You get cancer from the air. From sunlight. From the food you eat. From the natural background radiation. From cosmic radiation. From the natural biological processes in your body. Yes, your body produces huge amounts of carcinogens.

All that exists is a risk you'll develop a cancer your body can't take care of. You can try to lower that risk, but if you're going to do so, you better have a sense of proportion with you. There are a large number of environmental factors which are hugely more important that any food additives. Americans first and foremost need to smoke less. They need to exersize more. (This is good for a lot of other things than just cancer prevention). They need to eat less food in general. They need to avoid polluted air. They need to wear proper sun protection. They need to stop eating fried foods. They need to stop drinking coffee.

Try to buy

to find a pioneer of cheap travel.

Now, if he only had had a website (or they existed when he was in business):

http://www.economist.com/people/displayStory.cfm?s tory_id=5518940

posted out of historical interest and because Freddie Laker had a cooler name: SkyTrain :-)

I'll leave it to the reader to work out the inflation adjusted 1977 cost of a London > New York flight, with bonus for calculating comparisons to Laker setting up straight after the last oil price shock :)

also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2283244.stm

and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Laker

(but put the Economist obit first because it's the second Google result from my search, and the first is a paywall to the same piece. Go figure :-)

I'd also take issue with the Wiki statement "Laker was popular with the public and regarded as one of Margaret Thatcher's golden boys of industry". I worked for years with a friend who (long after got a check from the class settlement for unfair costs when BA took Laker to the cleaners. BA led the pack, eliminating Laker conveniently just before Thatcher privatized them. Summary of that case: http://www.lfip.org/lawe506/documents/laker_airway s_limited.htm

So, not only did Laker get this whole thing going, he also was the first to trade jurisdictional rules (see RynanAir and other seeking preferred landing fees in backwater EU secondary airports) *AFAIK* First to mass market affordable tickets to normal people, first airline to challenge established national carrier privileges in the court . . . well and to boot he sounded like an all round nice guy. Really makes you think how sucky commercial air flight is compared to what it could be. All good reasons he hooked up with Branson to guide Virgin Airways into success and a big BA challenger. I think that kept him smiling into his old age.

Can you outline examples of these conformance tests, or even better, are they freely available? I assume these are intended to make sure things that go on the wire have a sane value, fall between certain daily trading limits etc (to prevent things like the Mizuho cock-up) [*].

I suspect that the main culprit of "dodgy doubles" is likely to be people throwing together ad hoc codes behind the scenes, not the official interface to the exchanges.. (the "front" and "back" doors I mentioned earlier).

NatW^H^Hmeless huh? That gives me some confidence. Though it still doesn't make me happy with their online banking (the numbers don't add up). I still need to find someone that can make my balance - you know - balance..... Yes, I know, "retail" banking... Yuk!

I assume you know plenty of people that work deeper in the bowls of such organisations. Would you do an unofficial survey and find out how other people implement financial numerics? I'd wager you will be shocked!

[*] Tee hee, that story did make me smile. Poor guy I bet he felt terrible....

The Economist magazine is in favour of legalising all drugs.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm? Story_ID=709603
"A legal market is the best guarantee that drug-taking will be no more dangerous than drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco. And, just as countries rightly tolerate those two vices, so they should tolerate those who sell and take drugs."

Even without groups of people, individual predictions of phenomena for which there is a common intuition can be surprisingly accurate. See "Optimal predictions in everyday cognition", reviewed in the Economist.

From The Economist:

Finland:
Government consumption (% of GDP) 21.90
USA:
Government consumption (% of GDP) 18.72

The real way to compare effective overall tax rates is by using that statistic.

From The Economist:

Finland:
Government consumption (% of GDP) 21.90
USA:
Government consumption (% of GDP) 18.72

The real way to compare effective overall tax rates is by using that statistic.

The thing I like most is that, when they write about technology, the articles are (in almost all cases) timely and accurate, written for a reader who is presumed to be not especially well acquainted with the subject at hand, but intelligent nonetheless. This makes it much easier to trust them when they write about subjects about which I know little or nothing.

(Compare that with drivel like Time, whose shameful "Cyberporn" issue was the last I ever bought from them. Written for twelve-year-olds, and possibly by them.)

Actually, the Economist just posted an article on how Americans have plently of free time. http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm ?story_id=5476124
BTW, what does Mechanical Engineering have to do with IT?

While india isn't perfect, Pakistan is a complete basket case. The US's financial support of the current regime is madness.

Read more in the economist's special report

To prove the point, they actually did such a reversal in the case of telephone-queue waiting times. Traditionally, these have been assumed to follow a Poisson distribution, but some recent research suggests they actually follow a power law. Analysing the participants’ responses suggests that a power law, indeed, it is.

——

Science & Technology / Psychology

Bayes rules
Jan 5th 2006
From The Economist print edition

A once-neglected statistical technique may help to explain how the mind works

IMAGE

SCIENCE, being a human activity, is not immune to fashion. For example, one of the first mathematicians to study the subject of probability theory was an English clergyman called Thomas Bayes, who was born in 1702 and died in 1761. His ideas about the prediction of future events from one or two examples were popular for a while, and have never been fundamentally challenged. But they were eventually overwhelmed by those of the “frequentist” school, which developed the methods based on sampling from a large population that now dominate the field and are used to predict things as diverse as the outcomes of elections and preferences for chocolate bars.

Recently, however, Bayes’s ideas have made a comeback among computer scientists trying to design software with human-like intelligence. Bayesian reasoning now lies at the heart of leading internet search engines and automated “help wizards”. That has prompted some psychologists to ask if the human brain itself might be a Bayesian-reasoning machine. They suggest that the Bayesian capacity to draw strong inferences from sparse data could be crucial to the way the mind perceives the world, plans actions, comprehends and learns language, reasons from correlation to causation, and even understands the goals and beliefs of other minds.

These researchers have conducted laboratory experiments that convince them they are on the right track, but only recently have they begun to look at whether the brain copes with everyday judgments in the real world in a Bayesian manner. In research to be published later this year in Psychological Science, Thomas Griffiths of Brown University in Rhode Island and Joshua Tenenbaum of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology put the idea of a Bayesian brain to a quotidian test. They found that it passes with flying colours.

Prior assumptions
The key to successful Bayesian reasoning is not in having an extensive, unbiased sample, which is the eternal worry of frequentists, but rather in having an appropriate “prior”, as it is known to the cognoscenti. This prior is an assumption about the way the world works—in essence, a hypothesis about reality—that can be expressed as a mathematical probability distribution of the frequency with which events of a particular magnitude happen.

The best known of these probability distributions is the “normal”, or Gaussian distribution. This has a curve similar to the cross-section of a bell, with events of middling magnitude being common, and those of small and large magnitude rare, so it is sometimes known by a third name, the bell-curve distribution. But there are also the Poisson distribution, the Erlang distribution, the power-law distribution and many even weirder ones that are not the consequence of simple mathematical equations (or, at least, of equations that mathematicians regard as simple).

With the correct prior, even a single piece of data can be used to make meaningful Bayesian predictions. By contrast frequentists, though they deal with the same probability distributions as Bayesians, make fewer prior assumptions about the distribution that applies in any particular situation. Frequentism is thus a more robust approach, but one that is not well suited to

To prove the point, they actually did such a reversal in the case of telephone-queue waiting times. Traditionally, these have been assumed to follow a Poisson distribution, but some recent research suggests they actually follow a power law. Analysing the participants’ responses suggests that a power law, indeed, it is.

——

Science & Technology / Psychology

Bayes rules
Jan 5th 2006
From The Economist print edition

A once-neglected statistical technique may help to explain how the mind works

IMAGE

SCIENCE, being a human activity, is not immune to fashion. For example, one of the first mathematicians to study the subject of probability theory was an English clergyman called Thomas Bayes, who was born in 1702 and died in 1761. His ideas about the prediction of future events from one or two examples were popular for a while, and have never been fundamentally challenged. But they were eventually overwhelmed by those of the “frequentist” school, which developed the methods based on sampling from a large population that now dominate the field and are used to predict things as diverse as the outcomes of elections and preferences for chocolate bars.

Recently, however, Bayes’s ideas have made a comeback among computer scientists trying to design software with human-like intelligence. Bayesian reasoning now lies at the heart of leading internet search engines and automated “help wizards”. That has prompted some psychologists to ask if the human brain itself might be a Bayesian-reasoning machine. They suggest that the Bayesian capacity to draw strong inferences from sparse data could be crucial to the way the mind perceives the world, plans actions, comprehends and learns language, reasons from correlation to causation, and even understands the goals and beliefs of other minds.

These researchers have conducted laboratory experiments that convince them they are on the right track, but only recently have they begun to look at whether the brain copes with everyday judgments in the real world in a Bayesian manner. In research to be published later this year in Psychological Science, Thomas Griffiths of Brown University in Rhode Island and Joshua Tenenbaum of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology put the idea of a Bayesian brain to a quotidian test. They found that it passes with flying colours.

Prior assumptions
The key to successful Bayesian reasoning is not in having an extensive, unbiased sample, which is the eternal worry of frequentists, but rather in having an appropriate “prior”, as it is known to the cognoscenti. This prior is an assumption about the way the world works—in essence, a hypothesis about reality—that can be expressed as a mathematical probability distribution of the frequency with which events of a particular magnitude happen.

The best known of these probability distributions is the “normal”, or Gaussian distribution. This has a curve similar to the cross-section of a bell, with events of middling magnitude being common, and those of small and large magnitude rare, so it is sometimes known by a third name, the bell-curve distribution. But there are also the Poisson distribution, the Erlang distribution, the power-law distribution and many even weirder ones that are not the consequence of simple mathematical equations (or, at least, of equations that mathematicians regard as simple).

With the correct prior, even a single piece of data can be used to make meaningful Bayesian predictions. By contrast frequentists, though they deal with the same probability distributions as Bayesians, make fewer prior assumptions about the distribution that applies in any particular situation. Frequentism is thus a more robust approach, but one that is not well suited to

Someone posting as anonymous coward should be less flippant asking for references. But I love shutting assholes up.

Business / Face value

Ozzie the wizard
Jun 22nd 2006
From The Economist print edition

Bill Gates replaces himself as Microsoft’s software boss with Ray Ozzie, his top choice but one

IMAGE (AP)

THE co-founder, chairman and “chief software architect” of Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, would deny it on his life, but the one person Bill Gates admires most for his geeky prowess—and might have chosen to succeed him as software architect—is almost certainly Steve Jobs. Unfortunately, Mr Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer and victim of Mr Gates’s predatory business instincts during the 1980s and 1990s, cannot be considered available, since he is busy leading Apple’s renaissance as a builder of gadgets and software that, in the opinion of his fans, put Microsoft to shame. So Mr Gates spent years courting the geek he admires second most, a software pioneer named Ray Ozzie.

After many overtures, Microsoft last year bought Mr Ozzie’s company, Groove Networks, and thus brought Mr Ozzie and his brother Jack inside the Microsoft tent. Mr Gates then groomed Mr Ozzie to take the lead in defining Microsoft’s direction at the highest (ie, software) level, alongside Steve Ballmer, the chief executive, who will continue to use his prodigious energies to bash heads together in the name of implementation, and Craig Mundie, who will oversee Microsoft’s research efforts and policy lobbying. On June 15th Mr Gates made the transition official, announcing that he would hand over his role as chief software architect to Mr Ozzie in two years’ time, in order to concentrate on becoming the world’s greatest philanthropist.

Mr Ozzie, at 50, is one month younger than Mr Gates and nine months younger than Mr Jobs. Like the other two, he has been admitted to the Computer History Museum’s “hall of fame” for his role in bringing about the PC era. As a kid in suburban Chicago, Mr Ozzie was already soldering all sorts of dangerous circuits together in a guest bedroom, but it was at college in the 1970s that he discovered his passion, which was, as he once put it, “to augment relationships” among human beings through technology. The catalyst was his encounter with PLATO, a cluster of a thousand dumb terminals that were connected to a mainframe and that Mr Ozzie and his friends playfully used to communicate, by exchanging what would today be called e-mails and instant messages. This experience so captured his imagination that he devoted his next three decades to writing software that enables “collaboration”.

His single biggest breakthrough came in the 1980s, when Mr Ozzie personally wrote a million of the first 3.5m lines of code for the first successful collaboration software, Lotus Notes. At a time when nobody had heard of the world wide web, Lotus Notes already offered “workspaces” not unlike today’s wikis. Mr Gates watched with his usual mixture of emotions towards innovations by others—envy and grudging admiration. These probably gave way to anxiety when IBM, Microsoft’s partner-turned-enemy, bought Lotus in 1995 for $3.5 billion.

Mr Ozzie soon parted with IBM and again set out to take collaboration to the next level, this time by using new ideas about decentralised networks between people and their computers. This approach would subsequently be called “peer-to-peer” and has since been made famous by Napster, a method for “sharing” music, and Skype, a service for free internet telephony. Mr Ozzie’s company, Groove, was not a commercial success this time, but Mr Gates and others in the industry nonetheless saw the idea and recognised its potential. Last April Messrs Gates and Ozzie joined forces.

One reason why Mr Gat

Business / Face value

Ozzie the wizard
Jun 22nd 2006
From The Economist print edition

Bill Gates replaces himself as Microsoft’s software boss with Ray Ozzie, his top choice but one

IMAGE (AP)

THE co-founder, chairman and “chief software architect” of Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, would deny it on his life, but the one person Bill Gates admires most for his geeky prowess—and might have chosen to succeed him as software architect—is almost certainly Steve Jobs. Unfortunately, Mr Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer and victim of Mr Gates’s predatory business instincts during the 1980s and 1990s, cannot be considered available, since he is busy leading Apple’s renaissance as a builder of gadgets and software that, in the opinion of his fans, put Microsoft to shame. So Mr Gates spent years courting the geek he admires second most, a software pioneer named Ray Ozzie.

After many overtures, Microsoft last year bought Mr Ozzie’s company, Groove Networks, and thus brought Mr Ozzie and his brother Jack inside the Microsoft tent. Mr Gates then groomed Mr Ozzie to take the lead in defining Microsoft’s direction at the highest (ie, software) level, alongside Steve Ballmer, the chief executive, who will continue to use his prodigious energies to bash heads together in the name of implementation, and Craig Mundie, who will oversee Microsoft’s research efforts and policy lobbying. On June 15th Mr Gates made the transition official, announcing that he would hand over his role as chief software architect to Mr Ozzie in two years’ time, in order to concentrate on becoming the world’s greatest philanthropist.

Mr Ozzie, at 50, is one month younger than Mr Gates and nine months younger than Mr Jobs. Like the other two, he has been admitted to the Computer History Museum’s “hall of fame” for his role in bringing about the PC era. As a kid in suburban Chicago, Mr Ozzie was already soldering all sorts of dangerous circuits together in a guest bedroom, but it was at college in the 1970s that he discovered his passion, which was, as he once put it, “to augment relationships” among human beings through technology. The catalyst was his encounter with PLATO, a cluster of a thousand dumb terminals that were connected to a mainframe and that Mr Ozzie and his friends playfully used to communicate, by exchanging what would today be called e-mails and instant messages. This experience so captured his imagination that he devoted his next three decades to writing software that enables “collaboration”.

His single biggest breakthrough came in the 1980s, when Mr Ozzie personally wrote a million of the first 3.5m lines of code for the first successful collaboration software, Lotus Notes. At a time when nobody had heard of the world wide web, Lotus Notes already offered “workspaces” not unlike today’s wikis. Mr Gates watched with his usual mixture of emotions towards innovations by others—envy and grudging admiration. These probably gave way to anxiety when IBM, Microsoft’s partner-turned-enemy, bought Lotus in 1995 for $3.5 billion.

Mr Ozzie soon parted with IBM and again set out to take collaboration to the next level, this time by using new ideas about decentralised networks between people and their computers. This approach would subsequently be called “peer-to-peer” and has since been made famous by Napster, a method for “sharing” music, and Skype, a service for free internet telephony. Mr Ozzie’s company, Groove, was not a commercial success this time, but Mr Gates and others in the industry nonetheless saw the idea and recognised its potential. Last April Messrs Gates and Ozzie joined forces.

One reason why Mr Gat

In 1980, the average pay for the CEOs of America's biggest companies was about 40 times that of the average production worker. In 1990, it was about 85 times. Now this ratio is thought to be about 400. Profits of big firms fell last year and shares are still well down on their record high, but the average remuneration of the heads of America's companies rose by over 6%.

Furthermore, I have seen statistics showing that salary now represents the majority of income for those in the top 10%, compared to the seventies, where investment returns greatly overshadowed salary. Unfortunately, can't find a reference at the moment, nor can I remember if the top 10% was based on income or wealth.

Still can't find the link, but here is another article from the economist complaining that american shareholders are too generous with their CEOs.

In 1980, the average pay for the CEOs of America's biggest companies was about 40 times that of the average production worker. In 1990, it was about 85 times. Now this ratio is thought to be about 400. Profits of big firms fell last year and shares are still well down on their record high, but the average remuneration of the heads of America's companies rose by over 6%.

Furthermore, I have seen statistics showing that salary now represents the majority of income for those in the top 10%, compared to the seventies, where investment returns greatly overshadowed salary. Unfortunately, can't find a reference at the moment, nor can I remember if the top 10% was based on income or wealth.

Still can't find the link, but here is another article from the economist complaining that american shareholders are too generous with their CEOs.

Leaders / Copyrights

A radical rethink
Jan 23rd 2003
From The Economist print edition

The best way to foster creativity in the digital age is to overhaul current copyright laws

IMAGE (Reuters)

CRITICS have derided a 1998 extension of American copyrights as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” because it stopped early images of the Disney company’s mascot from entering the public domain. But such laws, they argue, are no joke. Extending and strengthening copyrights, they claim, will help a handful of big corporations crush creativity in the digital age. On the contrary, say Hollywood studios and big record companies. Without stronger copyright protection, a wave of piracy will destroy their industries, depriving consumers everywhere of a broad choice of movies, music and books.

Last week America’s Supreme Court weighed into what is rapidly becoming a nasty worldwide battle about the scope and enforcement of copyrights, by rejecting a challenge to the 1998 law on constitutional grounds. But even as it upheld the law, the court expressed misgivings. Blistering dissents from two justices dismissed the 20-year extension of copyright as unwarranted, and even the majority’s opinion hinted that Congress’s decision may have been “unwise”.

The court’s ambivalence is understandable. The growing quarrel over copyright is just one of the many difficult issues thrown up by the spread of the internet and related technologies (see our survey of the internet society in this issue). But of all these issues, the copyright battle is becoming one of the most urgent, and bitterly fought, because it could yet determine the future character of cyberspace itself.

Both sides have a point. Digital piracy does indeed threaten to overwhelm so-called “content” industries. As the power and reach of the internet continue to grow, the illicit trading of perfect copies may well devastate the music, movie and publishing industries. The content industries want to protect themselves with anti-copying technology, backed by stronger laws. So far, they have been at loggerheads with technology firms about how to implement such schemes (see article). But a deal between Hollywood and Silicon Valley is likely eventually. Critics are right to fear that, when such a deal is struck, it will be in the interests of big firms, not the public.

A grand new bargain
The alternative is to return to the original purpose of copyright, something no national legislature has yet been willing to do. Copyright was originally the grant of a temporary government-supported monopoly on copying a work, not a property right. Its sole purpose was to encourage the circulation of ideas by giving creators and publishers a short-term incentive to disseminate their work. Over the past 50 years, as a result of heavy lobbying by content industries, copyright has grown to such ludicrous proportions that it now often inhibits rather than promotes the circulation of ideas, leaving thousands of old movies, records and books languishing behind a legal barrier. Starting from scratch today, no rational, disinterested lawmaker would agree to copyrights that extend to 70 years after an author’s death, now the norm in the developed world.

Digital technologies are not only making it easier to copy all sorts of works, but also sharply reducing the costs of creating or distributing them, and so also reducing the required incentives. The flood of free content on the internet has shown that most creators do not need incentives that stretch across generations. To reward those who can attract a paying audience, and the firms that support them, much shorter copyrights would be enough. The 14-year term of the original 18th-centur

Leaders / Copyrights

A radical rethink
Jan 23rd 2003
From The Economist print edition

The best way to foster creativity in the digital age is to overhaul current copyright laws

IMAGE (Reuters)

CRITICS have derided a 1998 extension of American copyrights as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” because it stopped early images of the Disney company’s mascot from entering the public domain. But such laws, they argue, are no joke. Extending and strengthening copyrights, they claim, will help a handful of big corporations crush creativity in the digital age. On the contrary, say Hollywood studios and big record companies. Without stronger copyright protection, a wave of piracy will destroy their industries, depriving consumers everywhere of a broad choice of movies, music and books.

Last week America’s Supreme Court weighed into what is rapidly becoming a nasty worldwide battle about the scope and enforcement of copyrights, by rejecting a challenge to the 1998 law on constitutional grounds. But even as it upheld the law, the court expressed misgivings. Blistering dissents from two justices dismissed the 20-year extension of copyright as unwarranted, and even the majority’s opinion hinted that Congress’s decision may have been “unwise”.

The court’s ambivalence is understandable. The growing quarrel over copyright is just one of the many difficult issues thrown up by the spread of the internet and related technologies (see our survey of the internet society in this issue). But of all these issues, the copyright battle is becoming one of the most urgent, and bitterly fought, because it could yet determine the future character of cyberspace itself.

Both sides have a point. Digital piracy does indeed threaten to overwhelm so-called “content” industries. As the power and reach of the internet continue to grow, the illicit trading of perfect copies may well devastate the music, movie and publishing industries. The content industries want to protect themselves with anti-copying technology, backed by stronger laws. So far, they have been at loggerheads with technology firms about how to implement such schemes (see article). But a deal between Hollywood and Silicon Valley is likely eventually. Critics are right to fear that, when such a deal is struck, it will be in the interests of big firms, not the public.

A grand new bargain
The alternative is to return to the original purpose of copyright, something no national legislature has yet been willing to do. Copyright was originally the grant of a temporary government-supported monopoly on copying a work, not a property right. Its sole purpose was to encourage the circulation of ideas by giving creators and publishers a short-term incentive to disseminate their work. Over the past 50 years, as a result of heavy lobbying by content industries, copyright has grown to such ludicrous proportions that it now often inhibits rather than promotes the circulation of ideas, leaving thousands of old movies, records and books languishing behind a legal barrier. Starting from scratch today, no rational, disinterested lawmaker would agree to copyrights that extend to 70 years after an author’s death, now the norm in the developed world.

Digital technologies are not only making it easier to copy all sorts of works, but also sharply reducing the costs of creating or distributing them, and so also reducing the required incentives. The flood of free content on the internet has shown that most creators do not need incentives that stretch across generations. To reward those who can attract a paying audience, and the firms that support them, much shorter copyrights would be enough. The 14-year term of the original 18th-centur

Leaders / Copyrights

A radical rethink
Jan 23rd 2003
From The Economist print edition

The best way to foster creativity in the digital age is to overhaul current copyright laws

IMAGE (Reuters)

CRITICS have derided a 1998 extension of American copyrights as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” because it stopped early images of the Disney company’s mascot from entering the public domain. But such laws, they argue, are no joke. Extending and strengthening copyrights, they claim, will help a handful of big corporations crush creativity in the digital age. On the contrary, say Hollywood studios and big record companies. Without stronger copyright protection, a wave of piracy will destroy their industries, depriving consumers everywhere of a broad choice of movies, music and books.

Last week America’s Supreme Court weighed into what is rapidly becoming a nasty worldwide battle about the scope and enforcement of copyrights, by rejecting a challenge to the 1998 law on constitutional grounds. But even as it upheld the law, the court expressed misgivings. Blistering dissents from two justices dismissed the 20-year extension of copyright as unwarranted, and even the majority’s opinion hinted that Congress’s decision may have been “unwise”.

The court’s ambivalence is understandable. The growing quarrel over copyright is just one of the many difficult issues thrown up by the spread of the internet and related technologies (see our survey of the internet society in this issue). But of all these issues, the copyright battle is becoming one of the most urgent, and bitterly fought, because it could yet determine the future character of cyberspace itself.

Both sides have a point. Digital piracy does indeed threaten to overwhelm so-called “content” industries. As the power and reach of the internet continue to grow, the illicit trading of perfect copies may well devastate the music, movie and publishing industries. The content industries want to protect themselves with anti-copying technology, backed by stronger laws. So far, they have been at loggerheads with technology firms about how to implement such schemes (see article). But a deal between Hollywood and Silicon Valley is likely eventually. Critics are right to fear that, when such a deal is struck, it will be in the interests of big firms, not the public.

A grand new bargain
The alternative is to return to the original purpose of copyright, something no national legislature has yet been willing to do. Copyright was originally the grant of a temporary government-supported monopoly on copying a work, not a property right. Its sole purpose was to encourage the circulation of ideas by giving creators and publishers a short-term incentive to disseminate their work. Over the past 50 years, as a result of heavy lobbying by content industries, copyright has grown to such ludicrous proportions that it now often inhibits rather than promotes the circulation of ideas, leaving thousands of old movies, records and books languishing behind a legal barrier. Starting from scratch today, no rational, disinterested lawmaker would agree to copyrights that extend to 70 years after an author’s death, now the norm in the developed world.

Digital technologies are not only making it easier to copy all sorts of works, but also sharply reducing the costs of creating or distributing them, and so also reducing the required incentives. The flood of free content on the internet has shown that most creators do not need incentives that stretch across generations. To reward those who can attract a paying audience, and the firms that support them, much shorter copyrights would be enough. The 14-year term of the original 18th-centur

This post should be deleted as the poster had no right to post this article to slashdot.

United States / Death and taxes

Gilding the elite
Jun 8th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

Whatever its outcome, the battle in Congress over the estate tax bodes badly for America’s fiscal future

IMAGE (Corbis)

WHAT weighty issues were preoccupying America’s Senate this week? Soaring health-care costs perhaps, or the fiscal consequences of retiring baby-boomers? Dream on. The country’s top lawmakers argued about a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, which had no hope of passing; a daft law to give native Hawaiians their own government; and repeal of the estate tax, a levy that affects only the richest 0.5% of Americans.

These skewed priorities may be blamed on Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, who sets the agenda and is an aspiring presidential candidate. To bolster his appeal to the Republican Party’s conservative base, he has been pushing for votes on issues the right cares about: flag-burning, gay marriage and, above all, getting rid for ever of the estate tax.

America has had this tax, a levy on the transfer of large fortunes between generations, since 1916. Like Britain, America taxes the estate of the deceased; most other countries which impose such a tax target heirs and their inheritances. The estate tax affects very few Americans (never much over 2% in recent decades, and now far fewer). In the late 1990s it generated just over 1.5% of all tax revenue, or around 0.3% of GDP. Conservatives long for its abolition, which is now tantalisingly close.

George Bush’s 2001 tax cuts created a paradox: the estate tax is in terminal decline, but only temporarily so. Under current law, only estates worth more than $7m for a couple will be taxed in 2009 (compared with a joint exemption of $1.35m in 2000). In 2010 the tax goes altogether. But since all Mr Bush’s tax cuts technically expire in 2011, the abolition lasts only one year. In 2011 the estate tax returns to its pre-Bush form.

This mess clearly needs fixing, if only to avoid a surge in suspicious deaths in Palm Beach in 2010. But how? The House of Representatives has voted several times to make repeal permanent. The Senate meant to do so last year, until Hurricane Katrina’s havoc made it look too callous to give a big tax break to multi-millionaires.

IMAGE

As The Economist went to press, it was not clear whether Mr Frist would succeed this time. Several Democratic senators support the tax’s abolition, but a handful of Republicans think full repeal is too expensive. By one estimate, repealing the estate tax would reduce federal revenues by some $776 billion, or around 0.4% of GDP, between 2012 and 2021. (The costs of repeal are more than the tax actually raises because the bean-counters assume that rich people will shift their assets in a way that reduces income taxes.) One possibility is a “compromise” proposal that would increase the exemption per couple to $10m and cut rates to 15%, a combination that would, in fact, cost almost as much as repeal. Even ardent Democrats agree that a big chunk of estate-tax relief must be kept permanently, perhaps by setting the rates and exemptions of 2009 in stone. That would cost “only” 40% as much as full repeal.

The eve of the baby-boomers’ retirement seems an odd time to abandon a small, but significant, source of tax revenue. If the tax permanently raised 0.3% of GDP, for instance, it would fix about half the hole in Social Security, the public pension plan. And with income becoming ever more concentrated among America’s richest—since 1980, the share of overall income going to the top 1% has doubled from 8% to 16%—it seems an odd time to abandon the country’s

United States / Death and taxes

Gilding the elite
Jun 8th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

Whatever its outcome, the battle in Congress over the estate tax bodes badly for America’s fiscal future

IMAGE (Corbis)

WHAT weighty issues were preoccupying America’s Senate this week? Soaring health-care costs perhaps, or the fiscal consequences of retiring baby-boomers? Dream on. The country’s top lawmakers argued about a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, which had no hope of passing; a daft law to give native Hawaiians their own government; and repeal of the estate tax, a levy that affects only the richest 0.5% of Americans.

These skewed priorities may be blamed on Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, who sets the agenda and is an aspiring presidential candidate. To bolster his appeal to the Republican Party’s conservative base, he has been pushing for votes on issues the right cares about: flag-burning, gay marriage and, above all, getting rid for ever of the estate tax.

America has had this tax, a levy on the transfer of large fortunes between generations, since 1916. Like Britain, America taxes the estate of the deceased; most other countries which impose such a tax target heirs and their inheritances. The estate tax affects very few Americans (never much over 2% in recent decades, and now far fewer). In the late 1990s it generated just over 1.5% of all tax revenue, or around 0.3% of GDP. Conservatives long for its abolition, which is now tantalisingly close.

George Bush’s 2001 tax cuts created a paradox: the estate tax is in terminal decline, but only temporarily so. Under current law, only estates worth more than $7m for a couple will be taxed in 2009 (compared with a joint exemption of $1.35m in 2000). In 2010 the tax goes altogether. But since all Mr Bush’s tax cuts technically expire in 2011, the abolition lasts only one year. In 2011 the estate tax returns to its pre-Bush form.

This mess clearly needs fixing, if only to avoid a surge in suspicious deaths in Palm Beach in 2010. But how? The House of Representatives has voted several times to make repeal permanent. The Senate meant to do so last year, until Hurricane Katrina’s havoc made it look too callous to give a big tax break to multi-millionaires.

IMAGE

As The Economist went to press, it was not clear whether Mr Frist would succeed this time. Several Democratic senators support the tax’s abolition, but a handful of Republicans think full repeal is too expensive. By one estimate, repealing the estate tax would reduce federal revenues by some $776 billion, or around 0.4% of GDP, between 2012 and 2021. (The costs of repeal are more than the tax actually raises because the bean-counters assume that rich people will shift their assets in a way that reduces income taxes.) One possibility is a “compromise” proposal that would increase the exemption per couple to $10m and cut rates to 15%, a combination that would, in fact, cost almost as much as repeal. Even ardent Democrats agree that a big chunk of estate-tax relief must be kept permanently, perhaps by setting the rates and exemptions of 2009 in stone. That would cost “only” 40% as much as full repeal.

The eve of the baby-boomers’ retirement seems an odd time to abandon a small, but significant, source of tax revenue. If the tax permanently raised 0.3% of GDP, for instance, it would fix about half the hole in Social Security, the public pension plan. And with income becoming ever more concentrated among America’s richest—since 1980, the share of overall income going to the top 1% has doubled from 8% to 16%—it seems an odd time to abandon the country’s

United States / Death and taxes

Gilding the elite
Jun 8th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

Whatever its outcome, the battle in Congress over the estate tax bodes badly for America’s fiscal future

IMAGE (Corbis)

WHAT weighty issues were preoccupying America’s Senate this week? Soaring health-care costs perhaps, or the fiscal consequences of retiring baby-boomers? Dream on. The country’s top lawmakers argued about a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, which had no hope of passing; a daft law to give native Hawaiians their own government; and repeal of the estate tax, a levy that affects only the richest 0.5% of Americans.

These skewed priorities may be blamed on Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, who sets the agenda and is an aspiring presidential candidate. To bolster his appeal to the Republican Party’s conservative base, he has been pushing for votes on issues the right cares about: flag-burning, gay marriage and, above all, getting rid for ever of the estate tax.

America has had this tax, a levy on the transfer of large fortunes between generations, since 1916. Like Britain, America taxes the estate of the deceased; most other countries which impose such a tax target heirs and their inheritances. The estate tax affects very few Americans (never much over 2% in recent decades, and now far fewer). In the late 1990s it generated just over 1.5% of all tax revenue, or around 0.3% of GDP. Conservatives long for its abolition, which is now tantalisingly close.

George Bush’s 2001 tax cuts created a paradox: the estate tax is in terminal decline, but only temporarily so. Under current law, only estates worth more than $7m for a couple will be taxed in 2009 (compared with a joint exemption of $1.35m in 2000). In 2010 the tax goes altogether. But since all Mr Bush’s tax cuts technically expire in 2011, the abolition lasts only one year. In 2011 the estate tax returns to its pre-Bush form.

This mess clearly needs fixing, if only to avoid a surge in suspicious deaths in Palm Beach in 2010. But how? The House of Representatives has voted several times to make repeal permanent. The Senate meant to do so last year, until Hurricane Katrina’s havoc made it look too callous to give a big tax break to multi-millionaires.

IMAGE

As The Economist went to press, it was not clear whether Mr Frist would succeed this time. Several Democratic senators support the tax’s abolition, but a handful of Republicans think full repeal is too expensive. By one estimate, repealing the estate tax would reduce federal revenues by some $776 billion, or around 0.4% of GDP, between 2012 and 2021. (The costs of repeal are more than the tax actually raises because the bean-counters assume that rich people will shift their assets in a way that reduces income taxes.) One possibility is a “compromise” proposal that would increase the exemption per couple to $10m and cut rates to 15%, a combination that would, in fact, cost almost as much as repeal. Even ardent Democrats agree that a big chunk of estate-tax relief must be kept permanently, perhaps by setting the rates and exemptions of 2009 in stone. That would cost “only” 40% as much as full repeal.

The eve of the baby-boomers’ retirement seems an odd time to abandon a small, but significant, source of tax revenue. If the tax permanently raised 0.3% of GDP, for instance, it would fix about half the hole in Social Security, the public pension plan. And with income becoming ever more concentrated among America’s richest—since 1980, the share of overall income going to the top 1% has doubled from 8% to 16%—it seems an odd time to abandon the country’s

“Although the United States is seen as a world of opportunity, the reality may be different. Some studies have shown that it is easier for poorer children to rise through society in many European countries than in America. There is a particular fear about the engine of American meritocracy, its education system. Only 3% of students at top colleges come from the poorest quarter of the population. Poor children are trapped in dismal schools, while richer parents spend ever more cash on tutoring their offspring.”

——

Leaders / The United States

Inequality and the American Dream
Jun 15th 2006
From The Economist print edition

The world’s most impressive economic machine needs a little adjusting

IMAGE

MORE than any other country, America defines itself by a collective dream: the dream of economic opportunity and upward mobility. Its proudest boast is that it offers a chance of the good life to everybody who is willing to work hard and play by the rules. This ideal has made the United States the world’s strongest magnet for immigrants; it has also reconciled ordinary Americans to the rough side of a dynamic economy, with all its inequalities and insecurities. Who cares if the boss earns 300 times more than the average working stiff, if the stiff knows he can become the boss?

Look around the world and the supremacy of “the American model” might seem assured. No other rich country has so successfully harnessed the modern juggernauts of technology and globalisation. The hallmarks of American capitalism—a willingness to take risks, a light regulatory touch and sharp competition—have spawned enormous wealth. “This economy is powerful, productive and prosperous,” George Bush boasted recently, and by many yardsticks he is right. Growth is fast, unemployment is low and profits are fat. It is hardly surprising that so many other governments are trying to “Americanise” their economies—whether through the European Union’s Lisbon Agenda or Japan’s Koizumi reforms.

Yet many people feel unhappy about the American model—not least in the United States. Only one in four Americans believes the economy is in good shape. While firms’ profits have soared, wages for the typical worker have barely budged. The middle class—admittedly a vague term in America—feels squeezed. A college degree is no longer a passport to ever-higher pay. Now politicians are playing on these fears. From the left, populists complain about Mr Bush’s plutocratic friends exporting jobs abroad; from the right, nativists howl about immigrants wrecking the system.

A global argument
The debate about the American model echoes far beyond the nation’s shores. Europeans have long held that America does not look after its poor—a prejudice reinforced by the ghastly scenes after Hurricane Katrina. The sharp decline in America’s image abroad has much to do with foreign policy, but Americanisation has also become synonymous with globalisation. Across the rich world, global competition is forcing economies to become more flexible, often increasing inequality; Japan is one example (see article). The logic of many non-Americans is that if globalisation makes their economy more like America’s, and the American model is defective, then free trade and open markets must be bad.

This debate mixes up three arguments—about inequality, meritocracy and immigration. The word that America should worry about most is the one you hear least—meritocracy.

Begin with inequality. The flip-side of America’s economic dynamism is that it has become more unequal—but in a more complex way than fir

“Although the United States is seen as a world of opportunity, the reality may be different. Some studies have shown that it is easier for poorer children to rise through society in many European countries than in America. There is a particular fear about the engine of American meritocracy, its education system. Only 3% of students at top colleges come from the poorest quarter of the population. Poor children are trapped in dismal schools, while richer parents spend ever more cash on tutoring their offspring.”

——

Leaders / The United States

Inequality and the American Dream
Jun 15th 2006
From The Economist print edition

The world’s most impressive economic machine needs a little adjusting

IMAGE

MORE than any other country, America defines itself by a collective dream: the dream of economic opportunity and upward mobility. Its proudest boast is that it offers a chance of the good life to everybody who is willing to work hard and play by the rules. This ideal has made the United States the world’s strongest magnet for immigrants; it has also reconciled ordinary Americans to the rough side of a dynamic economy, with all its inequalities and insecurities. Who cares if the boss earns 300 times more than the average working stiff, if the stiff knows he can become the boss?

Look around the world and the supremacy of “the American model” might seem assured. No other rich country has so successfully harnessed the modern juggernauts of technology and globalisation. The hallmarks of American capitalism—a willingness to take risks, a light regulatory touch and sharp competition—have spawned enormous wealth. “This economy is powerful, productive and prosperous,” George Bush boasted recently, and by many yardsticks he is right. Growth is fast, unemployment is low and profits are fat. It is hardly surprising that so many other governments are trying to “Americanise” their economies—whether through the European Union’s Lisbon Agenda or Japan’s Koizumi reforms.

Yet many people feel unhappy about the American model—not least in the United States. Only one in four Americans believes the economy is in good shape. While firms’ profits have soared, wages for the typical worker have barely budged. The middle class—admittedly a vague term in America—feels squeezed. A college degree is no longer a passport to ever-higher pay. Now politicians are playing on these fears. From the left, populists complain about Mr Bush’s plutocratic friends exporting jobs abroad; from the right, nativists howl about immigrants wrecking the system.

A global argument
The debate about the American model echoes far beyond the nation’s shores. Europeans have long held that America does not look after its poor—a prejudice reinforced by the ghastly scenes after Hurricane Katrina. The sharp decline in America’s image abroad has much to do with foreign policy, but Americanisation has also become synonymous with globalisation. Across the rich world, global competition is forcing economies to become more flexible, often increasing inequality; Japan is one example (see article). The logic of many non-Americans is that if globalisation makes their economy more like America’s, and the American model is defective, then free trade and open markets must be bad.

This debate mixes up three arguments—about inequality, meritocracy and immigration. The word that America should worry about most is the one you hear least—meritocracy.

Begin with inequality. The flip-side of America’s economic dynamism is that it has become more unequal—but in a more complex way than fir

“Although the United States is seen as a world of opportunity, the reality may be different. Some studies have shown that it is easier for poorer children to rise through society in many European countries than in America. There is a particular fear about the engine of American meritocracy, its education system. Only 3% of students at top colleges come from the poorest quarter of the population. Poor children are trapped in dismal schools, while richer parents spend ever more cash on tutoring their offspring.”

——

Leaders / The United States

Inequality and the American Dream
Jun 15th 2006
From The Economist print edition

The world’s most impressive economic machine needs a little adjusting

IMAGE

MORE than any other country, America defines itself by a collective dream: the dream of economic opportunity and upward mobility. Its proudest boast is that it offers a chance of the good life to everybody who is willing to work hard and play by the rules. This ideal has made the United States the world’s strongest magnet for immigrants; it has also reconciled ordinary Americans to the rough side of a dynamic economy, with all its inequalities and insecurities. Who cares if the boss earns 300 times more than the average working stiff, if the stiff knows he can become the boss?

Look around the world and the supremacy of “the American model” might seem assured. No other rich country has so successfully harnessed the modern juggernauts of technology and globalisation. The hallmarks of American capitalism—a willingness to take risks, a light regulatory touch and sharp competition—have spawned enormous wealth. “This economy is powerful, productive and prosperous,” George Bush boasted recently, and by many yardsticks he is right. Growth is fast, unemployment is low and profits are fat. It is hardly surprising that so many other governments are trying to “Americanise” their economies—whether through the European Union’s Lisbon Agenda or Japan’s Koizumi reforms.

Yet many people feel unhappy about the American model—not least in the United States. Only one in four Americans believes the economy is in good shape. While firms’ profits have soared, wages for the typical worker have barely budged. The middle class—admittedly a vague term in America—feels squeezed. A college degree is no longer a passport to ever-higher pay. Now politicians are playing on these fears. From the left, populists complain about Mr Bush’s plutocratic friends exporting jobs abroad; from the right, nativists howl about immigrants wrecking the system.

A global argument
The debate about the American model echoes far beyond the nation’s shores. Europeans have long held that America does not look after its poor—a prejudice reinforced by the ghastly scenes after Hurricane Katrina. The sharp decline in America’s image abroad has much to do with foreign policy, but Americanisation has also become synonymous with globalisation. Across the rich world, global competition is forcing economies to become more flexible, often increasing inequality; Japan is one example (see article). The logic of many non-Americans is that if globalisation makes their economy more like America’s, and the American model is defective, then free trade and open markets must be bad.

This debate mixes up three arguments—about inequality, meritocracy and immigration. The word that America should worry about most is the one you hear least—meritocracy.

Begin with inequality. The flip-side of America’s economic dynamism is that it has become more unequal—but in a more complex way than fir

Not really... Conservative is usually used as they antonym for liberal in the political use of the word. As in "Conservatives want to stay the course in Iraq while liberals want to pull out now". I've at least never heard it used as the antonym for the economical use of the word (as in a term for laissez faire capitalism). And I really hope such a use of the word conservative in that sense never takes off, its already bad enough that liberal trade policies are often supported by the conservative party, if conservative policies were also supported by the liberal party...

H-1bs and other guest workers are part of the class warfare to dismantle the middle class- and that is wrong.

You may be interested in an interesting Economist mag article on changing wealth distribution in the US:

http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?st ory_id=7055911

Technology Quarterly

How to build a Babel fish
Jun 8th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Translation software: The science-fiction dream of a machine that understands any language is getting slowly closer

IMAGE

IT IS arguably the most useful gadget in the space-farer’s toolkit. In “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, Douglas Adams depicted it as a “small, yellow and leech-like” fish, called a Babel fish, that you stick in your ear. In “Star Trek”, meanwhile, it is known simply as the Universal Language Translator. But whatever you call it, there is no doubting the practical value of a device that is capable of translating any language into another.

Remarkably, however, such devices are now on the verge of becoming a reality, thanks to new “statistical machine translation” software. Unlike previous approaches to machine translation, which relied upon rules identified by linguists which then had to be tediously hand-coded into software, this new method requires absolutely no linguistic knowledge or expert understanding of a language in order to translate it. And last month researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh began work on a machine that they hope will be able to learn a new language simply by getting foreign speakers to talk into it and perhaps, eventually, by watching television.

Within the next few years there will be an explosion in translation technologies, says Alex Waibel, director of the International Centre for Advanced Communication Technology, which is based jointly at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany and at CMU. He predicts there will be real-time automatic dubbing, which will let people watch foreign films or television programmes in their native languages, and search engines that will enable users to trawl through multilingual archives of documents, videos and audio files. And, eventually, there may even be electronic devices that work like Babel fish, whispering translations in your ear as someone speaks to you in a foreign tongue.

This may sound fanciful, but already a system has been developed that can translate speeches or lectures from one language into another, in real time and regardless of the subject matter. The system required no programming of grammatical rules or syntax. Instead it was given a vast number of speeches, and their accurate translations (performed by humans) into a second language, for statistical analysis. One of the reasons it works so well is that these speeches came from the United Nations and the European Parliament, where a broad range of topics are discussed. “The linguistic knowledge is automatically extracted from these huge data resources,” says Dr Waibel.

Statistical translation encompasses a range of techniques, but what they all have in common is the use of statistical analysis, rather than rigid rules, to convert text from one language into another. Most systems start with a large bilingual corpus of text. By analysing the frequency with which clusters of words appear in close proximity in the two languages, it is possible to work out which words correspond to each other in the two languages. This approach offers much greater flexibility than rule-based systems, since it translates languages based on how they are actually used, rather than relying on rigid grammatical rules which may not always be observed, and often have exceptions.

Examples abound of the ridiculous results produced by rule-based systems, which are unable to cope in the face of similes, ambiguities or bad grammar. In one example, a sentence written in Arabic meaning “The White House confirmed the existence of a new bin Laden tape” was translated using a standard rule-based translator and became “Alpine white new presence tape registered for cof

Technology Quarterly

How to build a Babel fish
Jun 8th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Translation software: The science-fiction dream of a machine that understands any language is getting slowly closer

IMAGE

IT IS arguably the most useful gadget in the space-farer’s toolkit. In “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, Douglas Adams depicted it as a “small, yellow and leech-like” fish, called a Babel fish, that you stick in your ear. In “Star Trek”, meanwhile, it is known simply as the Universal Language Translator. But whatever you call it, there is no doubting the practical value of a device that is capable of translating any language into another.

Remarkably, however, such devices are now on the verge of becoming a reality, thanks to new “statistical machine translation” software. Unlike previous approaches to machine translation, which relied upon rules identified by linguists which then had to be tediously hand-coded into software, this new method requires absolutely no linguistic knowledge or expert understanding of a language in order to translate it. And last month researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh began work on a machine that they hope will be able to learn a new language simply by getting foreign speakers to talk into it and perhaps, eventually, by watching television.

Within the next few years there will be an explosion in translation technologies, says Alex Waibel, director of the International Centre for Advanced Communication Technology, which is based jointly at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany and at CMU. He predicts there will be real-time automatic dubbing, which will let people watch foreign films or television programmes in their native languages, and search engines that will enable users to trawl through multilingual archives of documents, videos and audio files. And, eventually, there may even be electronic devices that work like Babel fish, whispering translations in your ear as someone speaks to you in a foreign tongue.

This may sound fanciful, but already a system has been developed that can translate speeches or lectures from one language into another, in real time and regardless of the subject matter. The system required no programming of grammatical rules or syntax. Instead it was given a vast number of speeches, and their accurate translations (performed by humans) into a second language, for statistical analysis. One of the reasons it works so well is that these speeches came from the United Nations and the European Parliament, where a broad range of topics are discussed. “The linguistic knowledge is automatically extracted from these huge data resources,” says Dr Waibel.

Statistical translation encompasses a range of techniques, but what they all have in common is the use of statistical analysis, rather than rigid rules, to convert text from one language into another. Most systems start with a large bilingual corpus of text. By analysing the frequency with which clusters of words appear in close proximity in the two languages, it is possible to work out which words correspond to each other in the two languages. This approach offers much greater flexibility than rule-based systems, since it translates languages based on how they are actually used, rather than relying on rigid grammatical rules which may not always be observed, and often have exceptions.

Examples abound of the ridiculous results produced by rule-based systems, which are unable to cope in the face of similes, ambiguities or bad grammar. In one example, a sentence written in Arabic meaning “The White House confirmed the existence of a new bin Laden tape” was translated using a standard rule-based translator and became “Alpine white new presence tape registered for cof

“The trouble is, the evidence does not back up this litany. First, energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so since the Club of Rome published ‘The Limits to Growth’ in 1972. Second, more food is now produced per head of the world’s population than at any time in history. Fewer people are starving.”

--

The story of wheat

Ears of plenty
Dec 20th 2005
From The Economist print edition

The story of man’s staple food

[Image] (Still Pictures)

IN 10,000 years, the earth’s population has doubled ten times, from less than 10m to more than six billion now and ten billion soon. Most of the calories that made that increase possible have come from three plants: maize, rice and wheat. The oldest, most widespread and until recently biggest of the three crops is wheat (see chart). To a first approximation wheat is the staple food of mankind, and its history is that of humanity.

Yet today, wheat is losing its crown. The tonnage (though not the acreage) of maize harvested in the world began consistently to exceed that of wheat for the first time in 1998; rice followed suit in 1999. Genetic modification, which has transformed maize, rice and soyabeans, has largely passed wheat by--to such an extent that it is in danger of becoming an “orphan crop”. The Atkins diet and a fashion for gluten allergies have made wheat seem less wholesome. And with population growth rates falling sharply while yields continue to rise, even the acreage devoted to wheat may now begin to decline for the first time since the stone age.

It is time to pay tribute to this strange little grass that has done so much for the human race. Strange is the word, for wheat is a genetic monster. A typical wheat variety is hexaploid--it has six copies of each gene, where most creatures have two. Its 21 chromosomes contain a massive 16 billion base pairs of DNA, 40 times as much as rice, six times as much as maize and five times as much as people. It is derived from three wild ancestral species in two separate mergers. The first took place in the Levant 10,000 years ago, the second near the Caspian Sea 2,000 years later. The result was a plant with extra-large seeds incapable of dispersal in the wild, dependent entirely on people to sow them.

The story actually starts much earlier, around 12,000 years ago. At the time, after several warm millennia, a melting ice sheet in North America collapsed and a gigantic lake drained into the North Atlantic through the St Lawrence seaway. The torrent of cool, fresh water altered the climate so drastically that the ice age, which had been in full retreat, resumed for a further 11 centuries. The Scandinavian ice sheet surged south. Western Asia became not only cooler, but much drier. The Black Sea all but dried out.

People in what is now Syria had been subsisting happily on a diet of acorns, gazelles and grass seeds. The centuries of drought drove them to depend increasingly on wild grass seeds. Abruptly, soon after 11,000 years ago, they began to cultivate rye and chickpeas, then einkorn and emmer, two ancestors of wheat, and later barley. Soon cultivated grain was their staple food. It happened first in the Karacadag Mountains in south-eastern Turkey--it is only here that wild einkorn grass contains the identical genetic fingerprint of modern domesticated wheat.

Who first replanted the seeds and why? For a start, he was probably a she: women have primary responsibilities for plant gathering in hunter-gatherer societies. The time was certainly ripe for agriculture: the ability to make tools and control fire (cooking makes many plants more digestible) was already well established. But was it an act of inspiration or desperation? Did it perhaps happen by accident, as discarded grains germinated around human settlements?

“The trouble is, the evidence does not back up this litany. First, energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so since the Club of Rome published ‘The Limits to Growth’ in 1972. Second, more food is now produced per head of the world’s population than at any time in history. Fewer people are starving.”

--

The story of wheat

Ears of plenty
Dec 20th 2005
From The Economist print edition

The story of man’s staple food

[Image] (Still Pictures)

IN 10,000 years, the earth’s population has doubled ten times, from less than 10m to more than six billion now and ten billion soon. Most of the calories that made that increase possible have come from three plants: maize, rice and wheat. The oldest, most widespread and until recently biggest of the three crops is wheat (see chart). To a first approximation wheat is the staple food of mankind, and its history is that of humanity.

Yet today, wheat is losing its crown. The tonnage (though not the acreage) of maize harvested in the world began consistently to exceed that of wheat for the first time in 1998; rice followed suit in 1999. Genetic modification, which has transformed maize, rice and soyabeans, has largely passed wheat by--to such an extent that it is in danger of becoming an “orphan crop”. The Atkins diet and a fashion for gluten allergies have made wheat seem less wholesome. And with population growth rates falling sharply while yields continue to rise, even the acreage devoted to wheat may now begin to decline for the first time since the stone age.

It is time to pay tribute to this strange little grass that has done so much for the human race. Strange is the word, for wheat is a genetic monster. A typical wheat variety is hexaploid--it has six copies of each gene, where most creatures have two. Its 21 chromosomes contain a massive 16 billion base pairs of DNA, 40 times as much as rice, six times as much as maize and five times as much as people. It is derived from three wild ancestral species in two separate mergers. The first took place in the Levant 10,000 years ago, the second near the Caspian Sea 2,000 years later. The result was a plant with extra-large seeds incapable of dispersal in the wild, dependent entirely on people to sow them.

The story actually starts much earlier, around 12,000 years ago. At the time, after several warm millennia, a melting ice sheet in North America collapsed and a gigantic lake drained into the North Atlantic through the St Lawrence seaway. The torrent of cool, fresh water altered the climate so drastically that the ice age, which had been in full retreat, resumed for a further 11 centuries. The Scandinavian ice sheet surged south. Western Asia became not only cooler, but much drier. The Black Sea all but dried out.

People in what is now Syria had been subsisting happily on a diet of acorns, gazelles and grass seeds. The centuries of drought drove them to depend increasingly on wild grass seeds. Abruptly, soon after 11,000 years ago, they began to cultivate rye and chickpeas, then einkorn and emmer, two ancestors of wheat, and later barley. Soon cultivated grain was their staple food. It happened first in the Karacadag Mountains in south-eastern Turkey--it is only here that wild einkorn grass contains the identical genetic fingerprint of modern domesticated wheat.

Who first replanted the seeds and why? For a start, he was probably a she: women have primary responsibilities for plant gathering in hunter-gatherer societies. The time was certainly ripe for agriculture: the ability to make tools and control fire (cooking makes many plants more digestible) was already well established. But was it an act of inspiration or desperation? Did it perhaps happen by accident, as discarded grains germinated around human settlements?

Google is your friend. This were just from the front page.

Science & Technology / Private spaceflight

Rocket renaissance
May 11th 2006 | LOS ANGELES
From The Economist print edition

The era of private spaceflight is about to dawn

IMAGE (Mary Evans)

TWO years ago next month space travel underwent its Wright-brothers moment with the first flight of SpaceShipOne. The roles of Orville and Wilbur were played by Burt Rutan, who designed the craft, and Mike Melvill, who flew it—although they were ably assisted by Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft, who paid for it. Of course, history never repeats itself exactly. Unlike the brothers Wright, who were heirs to a series of heroic failures when it came to powered heavier-than-air flight, Messrs Rutan and Melvill knew that manned spaceflight was possible. What they showed was that it is not just a game for governments. Private individuals can play, too.

Now, lots of people want to join in, and most of them have just met up at the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles, to engage in that mixture of camaraderie and competition that characterises the beginnings of a new technology. And, as might be expected, they are brimming with two of the necessary ingredients of success: ideas and money.

First, the money. So far, more than $1 billion is known to have been committed to building private spaceships and the infrastructure to support them. For example, Mr Rutan’s follow-up vehicle, SpaceShipTwo, is expected to cost its backers, Virgin Galactic, $240m for a fleet of five. The spaceport in New Mexico from which these are intended to fly will account for another $225m, although New Mexico’s government is planning to raise this money itself.

These are not small sums, of course. On the other hand, Virgin Galactic has already banked $14m of deposits towards the $200,000 fare from people who want to travel on SpaceShipTwo, even though it has yet to be built, let alone flown.

All this suggests that spaceflight, if not exactly entering the age of the common man, is at least entering the age of the moderately prosperous enthusiast. For entrepreneurs, it is no longer necessary to have billions of dollars to get into space; millions will now do. And for those who merely wish to travel there, and have a few hundred thousand in the bank, reality beckons—provided that at least one of the ideas actually works.

Chocks away
As with aircraft a century ago, a plethora of designs are competing with each other, and there is no certainty about which will prevail. The initial goal is to build a “suborbital” vehicle. This will not have to develop the tremendous speed needed to go into orbit around the Earth. Instead, it will travel briefly into space, offering a short thrilling ride out of the atmosphere, a few minutes of weightlessness, and a spectacular view of the planet from about 100km. Four important criteria are how you take off, what fuel you use, what your craft is made of, and how you come back.

Most people’s vision of a rocket launch is straight up from the ground. But, of the five vehicles most likely to be developed (see table), two will actually be launched from the air. SpaceShipTwo will be carried to high altitude by a purpose-built aircraft known as Eve before its rocket motor is ignited. And Explorer, a vehicle being designed by Space Adventures, will be launched from the top of a high-altitude Russian research plane called the M-55X, according to Eric Anderson, the firm’s president and chief executive.

As Dennis Jenkins, a consultant engineer at NASA, America’s space agency, points out, this is similar to using a two-stage rocket to get into space, with the aircraft acting as the first stage. However, a plane offers several advantages over a throw-away boos

Science & Technology / Private spaceflight

Rocket renaissance
May 11th 2006 | LOS ANGELES
From The Economist print edition

The era of private spaceflight is about to dawn

IMAGE (Mary Evans)

TWO years ago next month space travel underwent its Wright-brothers moment with the first flight of SpaceShipOne. The roles of Orville and Wilbur were played by Burt Rutan, who designed the craft, and Mike Melvill, who flew it—although they were ably assisted by Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft, who paid for it. Of course, history never repeats itself exactly. Unlike the brothers Wright, who were heirs to a series of heroic failures when it came to powered heavier-than-air flight, Messrs Rutan and Melvill knew that manned spaceflight was possible. What they showed was that it is not just a game for governments. Private individuals can play, too.

Now, lots of people want to join in, and most of them have just met up at the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles, to engage in that mixture of camaraderie and competition that characterises the beginnings of a new technology. And, as might be expected, they are brimming with two of the necessary ingredients of success: ideas and money.

First, the money. So far, more than $1 billion is known to have been committed to building private spaceships and the infrastructure to support them. For example, Mr Rutan’s follow-up vehicle, SpaceShipTwo, is expected to cost its backers, Virgin Galactic, $240m for a fleet of five. The spaceport in New Mexico from which these are intended to fly will account for another $225m, although New Mexico’s government is planning to raise this money itself.

These are not small sums, of course. On the other hand, Virgin Galactic has already banked $14m of deposits towards the $200,000 fare from people who want to travel on SpaceShipTwo, even though it has yet to be built, let alone flown.

All this suggests that spaceflight, if not exactly entering the age of the common man, is at least entering the age of the moderately prosperous enthusiast. For entrepreneurs, it is no longer necessary to have billions of dollars to get into space; millions will now do. And for those who merely wish to travel there, and have a few hundred thousand in the bank, reality beckons—provided that at least one of the ideas actually works.

Chocks away
As with aircraft a century ago, a plethora of designs are competing with each other, and there is no certainty about which will prevail. The initial goal is to build a “suborbital” vehicle. This will not have to develop the tremendous speed needed to go into orbit around the Earth. Instead, it will travel briefly into space, offering a short thrilling ride out of the atmosphere, a few minutes of weightlessness, and a spectacular view of the planet from about 100km. Four important criteria are how you take off, what fuel you use, what your craft is made of, and how you come back.

Most people’s vision of a rocket launch is straight up from the ground. But, of the five vehicles most likely to be developed (see table), two will actually be launched from the air. SpaceShipTwo will be carried to high altitude by a purpose-built aircraft known as Eve before its rocket motor is ignited. And Explorer, a vehicle being designed by Space Adventures, will be launched from the top of a high-altitude Russian research plane called the M-55X, according to Eric Anderson, the firm’s president and chief executive.

As Dennis Jenkins, a consultant engineer at NASA, America’s space agency, points out, this is similar to using a two-stage rocket to get into space, with the aircraft acting as the first stage. However, a plane offers several advantages over a throw-away boos

For tech jobs an extremely important factor is the quantity and calibre of university graduates. India has for many years had an education system far better than their GDP would indicate. According to the Economist, India produces 2.5 million graduates a year, of whom 250,000 are engineers. Whether many african countries can match this, I don't know.

And the Economist's comprehensive survey of India from a couple weeks ago, IMO, is even better for understanding the changes taking place in the nation from the perspective of the Western corporate world, particularly the rise of "indigenous" business. India right now is a pretty damn exciting place to be.

And the Economist's comprehensive survey of India from a couple weeks ago, IMO, is even better for understanding the changes taking place in the nation from the perspective of the Western corporate world, particularly the rise of "indigenous" business. India right now is a pretty damn exciting place to be.

Technology Quarterly

Sounds good?
Jun 8th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Software: “Music intelligence” systems that can distinguish hits from misses could change the way pop music is made and marketed

IMAGE

THE versificator, a machine described in George Orwell’s novel “1984”, automatically generated music for the hapless masses. The idea of removing humans from the creative process of making music, an art form so able to stir the soul, made for a good joke when the book was published in 1949. But today, computer programmers working in a new field called “music intelligence” are developing software capable of predicting which songs will become hits. This surprisingly accurate technology could profoundly change the way pop music is created.

The software uses a process called “spectral deconvolution” to isolate and analyse around 30 parameters that define a piece of music, including such things as sonic brilliance, octave, cadence, frequency range, fullness of sound, chord progression, timbre and “bend” (variations in pitch at the beginning and end of the same note). “Songs conform to a limited number of mathematical equations,” says Mike McCready of Platinum Blue, a music-intelligence company based in New York, that he founded last December. Platinum Blue has compiled a database of more than 3m successful musical arrangements, including data on their popularity in different markets.

To the human ear, music has changed a lot over the years. Music-intelligence software, however, can reveal striking similarities in the underlying parameters of two songs from different eras that, even to a trained ear, seem unrelated. According to Platinum Blue’s software, called Music Science, for example, a number of hit songs by U2 have a close kinship to some of Beethoven’ s compositions. If a song written today has parameters similar to those of a number of past hits, it could well be a hit too.

Carlos Quintero, a producer and remixer at Orixa Producciones in Madrid, recently tried out another music-intelligence system, called Hit Song Science (HSS). “It practically left me in shock, it’s stunning,” he says. Mr Quintero’s production company now has the most promising demo songs it receives from aspiring musicians evaluated by Polyphonic HMI, the Barcelona-based developer of HSS and Platinum Blue’s only serious competitor. (Both companies perform analyses in-house, rather than selling software.) The results—consisting of a graph, numerical scores, computer-generated comments and suggested changes—help Orixa’s managers decide which songs to produce. Then, during the recording and post-production phases, Orixa uses HSS to reanalyse successive versions of each track for fine-tuning.

Belief in music intelligence is spreading, as Polyphonic HMI and Platinum Blue rack up bull’s-eye predictions of success, including “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent, “Be the Girl” by Aslyn, “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield, “She Says” by Howie Day, and “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt. Still, labels that use music intelligence generally prefer to keep quiet about it, so non-disclosure agreements are common. “No one wants people to think their decisions are coming from a box,” says Ric Wake, an American producer of two Grammy-winning acts who routinely employs Music Science. Even so, the names of many customers have leaked out. They include Capitol Records, Universal Music Group, Sony Music, EMI and Casablanca Records. Labels sometimes don’t tell even their established artists when they use music intelligence to help decide which singles to promote.

Revenues at Polyphonic HMI will exce

Technology Quarterly

Sounds good?
Jun 8th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Software: “Music intelligence” systems that can distinguish hits from misses could change the way pop music is made and marketed

IMAGE

THE versificator, a machine described in George Orwell’s novel “1984”, automatically generated music for the hapless masses. The idea of removing humans from the creative process of making music, an art form so able to stir the soul, made for a good joke when the book was published in 1949. But today, computer programmers working in a new field called “music intelligence” are developing software capable of predicting which songs will become hits. This surprisingly accurate technology could profoundly change the way pop music is created.

The software uses a process called “spectral deconvolution” to isolate and analyse around 30 parameters that define a piece of music, including such things as sonic brilliance, octave, cadence, frequency range, fullness of sound, chord progression, timbre and “bend” (variations in pitch at the beginning and end of the same note). “Songs conform to a limited number of mathematical equations,” says Mike McCready of Platinum Blue, a music-intelligence company based in New York, that he founded last December. Platinum Blue has compiled a database of more than 3m successful musical arrangements, including data on their popularity in different markets.

To the human ear, music has changed a lot over the years. Music-intelligence software, however, can reveal striking similarities in the underlying parameters of two songs from different eras that, even to a trained ear, seem unrelated. According to Platinum Blue’s software, called Music Science, for example, a number of hit songs by U2 have a close kinship to some of Beethoven’ s compositions. If a song written today has parameters similar to those of a number of past hits, it could well be a hit too.

Carlos Quintero, a producer and remixer at Orixa Producciones in Madrid, recently tried out another music-intelligence system, called Hit Song Science (HSS). “It practically left me in shock, it’s stunning,” he says. Mr Quintero’s production company now has the most promising demo songs it receives from aspiring musicians evaluated by Polyphonic HMI, the Barcelona-based developer of HSS and Platinum Blue’s only serious competitor. (Both companies perform analyses in-house, rather than selling software.) The results—consisting of a graph, numerical scores, computer-generated comments and suggested changes—help Orixa’s managers decide which songs to produce. Then, during the recording and post-production phases, Orixa uses HSS to reanalyse successive versions of each track for fine-tuning.

Belief in music intelligence is spreading, as Polyphonic HMI and Platinum Blue rack up bull’s-eye predictions of success, including “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent, “Be the Girl” by Aslyn, “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield, “She Says” by Howie Day, and “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt. Still, labels that use music intelligence generally prefer to keep quiet about it, so non-disclosure agreements are common. “No one wants people to think their decisions are coming from a box,” says Ric Wake, an American producer of two Grammy-winning acts who routinely employs Music Science. Even so, the names of many customers have leaked out. They include Capitol Records, Universal Music Group, Sony Music, EMI and Casablanca Records. Labels sometimes don’t tell even their established artists when they use music intelligence to help decide which singles to promote.

Revenues at Polyphonic HMI will exce

Private industry is making significant steps. After winning the X-prize in fall of 2004, Rutan estimated that it would take about 4-5 years until SpaceshipTwo was ready for regular flights. That schedule still looks reasonable, with the first flight around 2008, and passenger flights around 2009. Furthermore, several other groups are continuing to work on suborbital vehicles to compete with Virgin Galactic, including XCOR and Blue Orgin. Bigalow is progressing far better than people expected and will be launching a proof-of-concept space station shortly (russian launcher). SpaceX had their first launch recently, and while it failed, this is normal for new rockets. They are making good progress, and still have enthusiastic customers. Not to mention all the established private industry like Orbital Sciences, who are great guys and consistently do good work.

This stuff takes time - it took Nasa time, and while these entrepreneurs have Nasa's mistakes to learn from, they also have a much smaller budget. What they are achieving with that budget is impressive. I am really looking forward to seeing these people start making money off the suborbital rides, so they have a solid revenue stream for more development. Of all the plans Bigalow's is the most risking, and most interesting. If he can create a profitable space hotel - if he can do for LEO space stations what Orbital Sciences did for satellite lauches, then the government can just rent whatever space they need from him, and get it's manned space program back to what it should be doing - pushing the boundries on human colonization, not draining money on the ISS.

"If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we've already failed"

- Peter Lee, Disney executive

"I am a developer in India. All my college buddies are too. Not one of us gets less than $800 per month."

That's interesting. But to put the number in context, maybe you could tell us a bit about your cost of living? What is a flat per moth? What about cars and computers?

Domestic servants, hair cuts, medical service etc would be very very cheap. He would pay higher percentage of his salary than his US counterpart for things like diapers, rubber foam inner coil mattresses, cars, electronics, etc.

If any of you find a good source of PPP conversion factors for countries, especially with historical trends and fluctuations, please do post. Most of the links make assertions like "India is the fourth largest economy after adjusting for PPP" or "China jumps from fourth to second position after adjusting for PPP", without actually specifying the number. The PPP figure seems to be mostly popular with macro economists. In US one can find the cost-of-living adjustment numbers for any city quite easily. May be once a mobile global workforce develops such numbers will be availble for all countries and cities.

[1] http://internationalecon.com/v1.0/Finance/ch30/F30 -1.html

[2] http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/displaySto ry.cfm?story_id=2708584

Your "reasonable level" doesn't apply to small labels who barely break even on most of their stuff. Thankfully most of the people
who are into music of this kind flock to messageboards & such where the consensus is that allofmp3 and their brethren have no
place in the music business. I'm with you in that piracy is good to a certain point to give people a taste of what's good and worth
supporting. But supporting these people like allofmp3 who don't have any deals with the music makers, people who don't have
in my opinion moral rights to copy and sell their music, is just... well why do it when you can just download from p2p?

Looking at that ROMS.ru site gives you no direct info on how to proceed in collecting your money. And lets not forget Russia
is kinda corrupt. http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id =5061669. Where does the money go?

Over four years of intifada, and Israel's consequent clampdown, have hammered the Palestinian economy, once a source of cheap labour and goods to Israel. The 130,000-odd Palestinians who worked in Israel in the 1990s dwindled nearly to zero though since a peace summit at Sharm el-Sheikh two weeks ago a few thousand have been let back in.

Lengthy border checks, with trucks sometimes waiting for weeks, delay imports and strangle exports. The haulage price from Israel's Ashdod port to Gaza has quadrupled, says Alaa Eddin al-Araj of Gaza's contractors' union. The number of construction companies in the strip has fallen from 300 to 120. Private-sector investment, says Mohammed el-Samhouri, an adviser to the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), has fallen by two-thirds. Overall, Palestinian GDP per capita has dropped by around a third, similar to America's collapse in the Great Depression, and the poverty rate has nearly doubled--even as foreign aid has roughly doubled too, to nearly $1 billion a year, the highest per capita rate in the world. ...

In a small, closed-off strip of land, with a population of 1.3m that will nearly double by 2020, what sort of economy can there be? Many of Gaza's orange groves have been razed by Israeli bulldozers on security operations; its exporters, shorn of a market, have collapsed; it suffers from high (ie, Israeli) costs compared to other Arab countries, a shattered infrastructure and a flimsy legal system.

Now, military coups in established democracies are remarkably absent, probably because in a functioning democracy it's unnecessary.

I could not have said it better myself. However since the current administration seems to be openly ignoring the will of the people, it only stands to reason that the US is no longer a "functioning democracy".

Assuming George Bush is the evil power grubbing wannabe dictator your first paragraph would predict (if government attracts bad people then the top job of the most powerful government in the world should attract the worst of the worst, right?), why did he take the chance of being defeated in the last presidential election? What do you suppose would happen if he issued a presidential order that the next election was to be cancelled? I suspect the secret service would quietly take him into custody. If they didn't, the military would.

Many Americans now believe that he did not take any signifigant chances because the last two presidential elections have been rigged. (another example of a non funtioning democracy). As have many house and senate elections.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
* John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, (1962)

I'm curious who you (Silicon Valley centrically) defined as the 4 internet Giants?

Amazon, EBay, Google, and Yahoo. You can get that list from The Economist.

Yeah, we only have tiny companies here. AOL, PSInet, MCI, Verisign, Network Solutions, UltraDNS, RSA Security,

I was speaking of internet-based companies, rather than ISPs. If you are planning on starting up your own telecommunications company, you sound like you're in a great place. Let me know how you and a couple of college buddies do this summer laying that fiber.

Someone already addressed the thing about the poor indeed being poorer today than they were, but here's something about social mobility. It's declining:

An article from the Economist

An article originally published in Business Week

And ancedotally, it would seem to me that the rich are screwing over the poor (or at least the non-rich), at least to an extent. I can't think of the companies, but I've heard of at least two companies that recently did pretty big layoffs (one was 3600 employees, iirc), and proceeded to give their top executives massive pay raises. It seems that those layoffs weren't so necessary, though I'd be willing to hear an explanation that put layoffs and pay raises in sync with one another.

And here's some outright bias for you: nobody should be earning what top executives do now. I don't know where I'd draw the line between a high, but legitimate salary and an exorbitant one, but for instance, it's ridiculous to have someone making 50 million a year. That salary could be defensible if trickle-down economics worked, but it doesn't. That's an exaggeration; tt can and undoubtedly does sometimes work, but there's nothing to make it inevitable. People are free to sit on enormous piles of cash that never do much but collect interest, or to spend their money outside the country. There's no guarantee that the money goes back into the economy from which it came. It also assumes a system which isn't gamed to disproportionately reward those already with money.

That said about structural factors working against the poor, they do also have self-defeating economic habits. Positing either of these as the sole cause is wrong.