Slashdot Mirror

The AP story linked in the article isn't particularly informative. It picked up on the old features of the story. Linguists have been studying Nicaraguan Sign Language for over a decade now. The interesting thing about NSL is that older signers use it as a pidgen (no consistent grammar), but younger signers use it as a creole (i.e., they have created a fully-formed language with consistent grammatical structures.) This transition point has generally passed by the time scientists get around to studying the language. This story from the economist: http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm? story_id=2441743 gives more details of the actual study, which apparently involves some tests of syntactic ability in older signers in comparison to younger ones. It's not ground-breaking stuff, but it does help fill out the big picture.

This is actually one of the few areas where the FCC should be regulating things - their job was (and still should be limited to) regulating the use of the airwaves and preventing interference. 2.4GHz is declared as free to all comers with some power restrictions, so declaring that all bans on equipment use (outside of FCC rules) makes perfect sense.

Actually, there is fairly strong evidence that even the FCC's original regulatory job is obsolete. Here's the article link at the economist, should be free to read by all, at least for a while longer:

On the same wavelength

Unfortuntely when the UK last tried that (with the pre-euro Exchange Rate Mechanism - ERM) it caused amazing problems, the peg wasn't at the right value (how can you determine the right value?) and the economy really suffered. Finally the UK dropped out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in September 1992 and the scheme was abandoned.

The problem with pegging is that the real value of the currencies fluctuate and central banks then need to spend reserves to keep the peg in place, which is fantastically expensive as the Bank of England found out in 1992. George Soros was the main speculator who caused the withdrawl after realising the situation was unstable.

China's economy really isn't that good a position either for various reasons (economist article)

After the call-centre, now the IT department is off to India

I work in the UK and Sweden and the job market for IT people is pretty damn good.

I'm reading a lot of comments by Americans here and it's all negative. Are there any Europeans reading this who want to confirm/deny that the IT market - after a prolonged recession - is good?

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, I can't help feeling it's because European management has recognised that throwing the requirements over the wall and some dude in India coding them is not a great business model. Programmers need to sit and talk to the business people.

Even the feverish hacks at The Economist seem less certain that offshoring will change the IT landscape. Compare:

"The shift of service jobs to low-cost countries has only just begun"
(The Economist, Relocating the Back Office December 13, 2003)

with:

"So even the bullish-sounding projections about 'infrastructure-management services' hardly suggest a revolution either in the global outsourcing market or in the structure of India's information-technology industry: not so much one big wave; more a rising tide."
(The Economist, After the call-centre, now the IT department is off to India, September 10, 2004)

Mr. Badnarik,

I have several questions.

(1) As a Republican-turned-Democrat-turned-very-briefly-Soc ialist-turned-Libertarian-turned-libertarian (all changes occurring throughout my undergrad years as a Comp. Sci major, Economics minor), in the 2 years since I've become a convert to the libertarian mindset, (specifically to Milton Friedman's very-rational, very-reasonable brand of libertarianism - I am a diehard Friedmanite), I've seriously considered starting a Libertarian organization at my university. But I am faced with the realization of a few problems:

1) It is difficult for me personally in good conscience to found a big-'L' Libertarian organization which would promote the Libertarian Party, a party which I have always seen as having at least 2 distinct problems:
A) The "Ralph Nader Effect." No matter the few advances the LP makes, it is not going to be very effective. Nor has the LP ever been effective; the highest popular vote for any LP Presidential was for Ed Crane, back in 1980 -- and he received about 1% of the popular vote. Even Socialist Eugene Debs did better during the 1912 and 1920 elections (6% and 3.2%, respectively, the latter of which he received while sitting in jail).

Love it or hate it, the LP is a 3rd party, and no 3rd party in the 228 year history of the U.S. has ever had any real significance. Ross Perot ran as an independent, once winning some 18% or so of the popular vote. But he was pulling votes from the left and right, so he wasn't blamed for "stealing" votes from the GOP or Dems (as though by rightful barony they should be given those votes).

And where is Perot now? Sitting on an oil rig somewhere, surely still listening for that "giant sucking sound" he thought he heard with those big ears.

B) The extremism and Randian doggedness to stick to principle. Love it or hate it, politics in a democracy is necessarily a game of compromise, because the votes of a diverse set of individuals remove the extrema of points from most actions in government. The LP takes a no-compromise, highly-principled stance on all its issues; this makes working with the LP in a practical sense rather difficult. This problem, I believe, contributes strongly back to problem A.

2) The LP is filled with nuts, and I'm sorry, but to be bluntly honest, you fit that stereotype like an expensive suit. Who else but a big-'L' Libertarian would be caught dead saying they would blow up the U.N. building on their eighth day of office, or avoiding registering for a driver's license?

Look, I agree with your principles 100%. I agree we should keep the U.N. at arm's-length and not let them make any decisions whatsoever about the direction of this country. And I agree that driver's licenses shouldn't require a fingerprint or SSN; nor should they have a barcode or really any other identifying info besides one's name, DOB, and license expiration date. But let's be serious -- these things exist whether we like them or not, and unless you take the issue to the courts, they are not going to be changed anytime soon, and childish daydreams of blowing up the property of those we don't like and running from the cops don't help your case in the eyes of most of the public.

Hence, do I want to start an organization promoting people whose intentions and general views I sympathize with very strongly, but the principles of which I realize cannot reasonably be fulfilled without compromise? Why, as a rational user of my time, should I waste my time starting such an organization in that case?

Mr. Badnarik, it is in my view that organizations such as the Cato Institute and The Economist magazine, and Reason magazine do a vastly-superior job of promoting libertarian philosophy than the LP ever has. Why should I start an organization which p

You may be interested in The Economist's take on the issue, particularly its analysis of the argument that "the expansion of government under Mr Bush is the unfortunate consequence of events, particularly the September 11th attacks" (under the heading "Not just homeland security").

----

George Bush

The contradictory conservative

Aug 26th 2004 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

Despite the narrowness of his mandate, George Bush has done more to alter America's profile abroad, and its government at home, than any president in years

NEXT weekend, the Republicans, meeting in New York, will anoint George Bush as their candidate for a second term. His approval ratings in his own party stand at around 86%. Among Democrats, they run at around 8%. Few presidents have been loved and loathed as heartily as Mr Bush; few have so starkly polarised the country; and few have done so much to change both the way America's government behaves at home, and the way it is perceived abroad.

The Bush presidency has proved a radical unsettling force, from AIDS policy in Africa to education reform at home; in different ways, for good and ill, it has undermined the rulers of both Saudi Arabia and San Francisco. Rather than offering a compendium of all that Mr Bush has achieved, this special report will focus on three projects that history may eventually judge the most controversial: the alleged "revolution" in foreign policy, the pursuit of big-government conservatism and the dramatic expansion of presidential powers. These may not prove the deciding factors in the coming election; but they may be the ones that resonate longest.

Begin with foreign policy. Mr Bush has had a bigger impact on diplomacy than any president since Harry Truman. After the second world war, Truman set up the system of alliances that ensured the Soviet threat would be contained and American leadership of the West would continue after Europe recovered. Ronald Reagan turned Truman's creation into more of a public challenge to what the Soviet Union stood for, but he did not fundamentally alter its structure.

Mr Bush did. After the end of the cold war--long after, in fact--he argued that the old world order had run its course. He rejected both a supposed cornerstone--the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty--and some later additions, such as the Kyoto accords and the International Criminal Court, both also rejected by Congress.

But Mr Bush's foreign-policy revolution actually came in two steps. The rejection of the treaties was the first and, since it came to terms with a geopolitical fact, the Soviet collapse, it may well prove the more lasting. The second step came only after the September 11th attacks, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In response to the atrocity, NATO for the first time invoked its article 5 provision that an attack on one member is an attack on all, signalling a willingness to help America militarily. The Bush administration was slow to pick up the offer. "Coalitions of the willing" took the place of traditional alliances. Then, in Iraq, Mr Bush put his doctrine of prevention and possible pre-emption into effect. In an age of global terror, this said, self-defence meant acting alone and pre-emptively, if need be. Working through the United Nations--ie, waiting for others--could be suicide.

These two steps obviously had much in common. Both said that treaties can constrain America's freedom of action and that, when they do, they should be ignored. Both imply that the exercise of power alone may be enough to achieve American aims. Still, the second step went beyond the first. It proposed new rules for going to war and a substitute for traditional alliances--the willing coalitions.

Over the past few weeks, however, these additions have begun to look shaky. Is the Bush revolution in foreign affairs reaching its limits?

I

Please allow me to highlight the most important part of the article you forgot to include:

Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2004. All rights reserved.

As you are obviously incapable of understanding rudimentary concepts like copyrights, then I will not explain them to you. Perhaps someone else reading this who might be confused by your flagrant violation of the law will first check out common copyright myths before deciding to emulate you.

As it happens, The Economist recently ran an article addressing some of these issues. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online (may require paid subscription).

----

Bushnomics

A boundless vision, alas

Sep 9th 2004 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

George Bush's economic agenda is full of bold ideas, but it does not add up

[Image]

FOR the past four years George Bush's economic strategy has consisted of one idea: tax cuts. Whether the economy was growing or in recession, the budget in surplus or deficit, Mr Bush's prescription remained the same. While the White House developed a bold new vision for America's role in the world, economic policy boiled down to ad hoc justifications for more tax cuts.

This changed last week. In his speech to the Republican convention in New York, the president came much closer than before to articulating a coherent economic vision. It was an ambitious one too. It purported to define the proper role of government in the modern economy. To prosper, Mr Bush argued, America had to be the best place in the world to do business; and Americans must be equipped to deal with an economy where people change jobs frequently.

That, he said, required reforms to basic economic institutions: the tax code, health coverage, pensions. It meant creating an "ownership society" where people could prepare for retirement and meet their medical costs with individual accounts. It required a busy government. "Government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives," Mr Bush intoned.

This is far from the government-is-the-problem rhetoric that Republicans have touted for years. Great chunks of Mr Bush's economic vision sound more like Bill Clinton than Ronald Reagan. In his convention speech in 1992, Mr Clinton talked of a government that "expands opportunity, not bureaucracy", a government that helps people succeed in a changing economy.

Mr Bush did more than steal the New Democrat rhetoric. He also copied Mr Clinton's strategy of using myriad small initiatives to show his desire to help Americans succeed. Mr Bush's speech (with accompanying details on his website) offered a slew of voter-friendly policies. There were plans to double the number of people in job training, increase money for community colleges, put a health centre in every poor county and begin a "Cover the Kids" campaign to extend health-care coverage to more poor children. Mr Bush pledged to increase Pell grants, which help the poor to pay for college. And he promised to make workplaces friendlier to families, by pushing for "comp time" and "flex time".

But if half his vision was Clintonomic, the other half was more straightforwardly conservative. Tax cuts were still to the fore. "My plan will encourage investment...by restraining federal spending, reducing regulation, and making the tax relief permanent," Mr Bush promised. Goals that many conservatives value even more highly--tax reform and pension privatisation--also got a mention. Mr Bush promised to lead a bipartisan commission to reform the tax code, to make the system simpler, fairer and more pro-growth. And he repeated his pledge from 2000 that younger workers should be allowed to divert some of their payroll taxes into individual retirement accounts (though there was no more detail on this than there was four years ago).

Just what does it all add up to? Even conservatives disagree. David Brooks of the New York Times saw it as a transformational speech that broadened "compassionate conservatism" into a new governing philosophy. Others saw only blatant vote-buying. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economic analyst, argued that

As it happens, The Economist recently ran an article addressing some of these issues. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online (may require paid subscription).

----

Bushnomics

A boundless vision, alas

Sep 9th 2004 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

George Bush's economic agenda is full of bold ideas, but it does not add up

[Image]

FOR the past four years George Bush's economic strategy has consisted of one idea: tax cuts. Whether the economy was growing or in recession, the budget in surplus or deficit, Mr Bush's prescription remained the same. While the White House developed a bold new vision for America's role in the world, economic policy boiled down to ad hoc justifications for more tax cuts.

This changed last week. In his speech to the Republican convention in New York, the president came much closer than before to articulating a coherent economic vision. It was an ambitious one too. It purported to define the proper role of government in the modern economy. To prosper, Mr Bush argued, America had to be the best place in the world to do business; and Americans must be equipped to deal with an economy where people change jobs frequently.

That, he said, required reforms to basic economic institutions: the tax code, health coverage, pensions. It meant creating an "ownership society" where people could prepare for retirement and meet their medical costs with individual accounts. It required a busy government. "Government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives," Mr Bush intoned.

This is far from the government-is-the-problem rhetoric that Republicans have touted for years. Great chunks of Mr Bush's economic vision sound more like Bill Clinton than Ronald Reagan. In his convention speech in 1992, Mr Clinton talked of a government that "expands opportunity, not bureaucracy", a government that helps people succeed in a changing economy.

Mr Bush did more than steal the New Democrat rhetoric. He also copied Mr Clinton's strategy of using myriad small initiatives to show his desire to help Americans succeed. Mr Bush's speech (with accompanying details on his website) offered a slew of voter-friendly policies. There were plans to double the number of people in job training, increase money for community colleges, put a health centre in every poor county and begin a "Cover the Kids" campaign to extend health-care coverage to more poor children. Mr Bush pledged to increase Pell grants, which help the poor to pay for college. And he promised to make workplaces friendlier to families, by pushing for "comp time" and "flex time".

But if half his vision was Clintonomic, the other half was more straightforwardly conservative. Tax cuts were still to the fore. "My plan will encourage investment...by restraining federal spending, reducing regulation, and making the tax relief permanent," Mr Bush promised. Goals that many conservatives value even more highly--tax reform and pension privatisation--also got a mention. Mr Bush promised to lead a bipartisan commission to reform the tax code, to make the system simpler, fairer and more pro-growth. And he repeated his pledge from 2000 that younger workers should be allowed to divert some of their payroll taxes into individual retirement accounts (though there was no more detail on this than there was four years ago).

Just what does it all add up to? Even conservatives disagree. David Brooks of the New York Times saw it as a transformational speech that broadened "compassionate conservatism" into a new governing philosophy. Others saw only blatant vote-buying. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economic analyst, argued that

There was also an article on the subject in The Economist a couple of weeks ago. The Economist story refers to a paper by Chris Duif that looks at other gravitational anomolies. Specifically there is something called the "Allais effect" which describes a measurable change in the force of gravity during solar eclipses. The effect has been experimentally confirmed by a number of observations with different measurement methods - and is also inconsistent with General Relativity. It will be interesting to see what - if anything - comes from the NASA Gravity Probe experiments.

As it happens, The Economist ran an article in 1997 addressing some of these issues. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online (may require paid subscription).

----

A space oddity

Sep 24th 1998
From The Economist print edition

A tiny error in the paths of two spacecraft may require the rewriting of some of the laws of physics

OUT in the far reaches of the solar system, beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, something strange is going on. Two space probes, now speeding away into the interstellar void, are not behaving as they should. They appear to be experiencing an unexplained extra tug from the sun--raising the possibility that there is something amiss with the laws of gravity.

Physicists are used to predicting spacecraft trajectories with great accuracy. For the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 probes, launched towards Jupiter in 1972 and 1973 and now heading away from the sun in opposite directions, they have done it with the help of a piece of computer software called the Orbit Determination Program (ODP). This calculates how the gravitational influence of the sun and the planets--suitably tweaked to fit with the general theory of relativity--affects each probe's motion.

At the same time, by analysing radio signals from the two probes, precise measurements of the Pioneers' actual trajectories can be made. As each craft zooms away from the solar system, the radio waves it transmits back to earth are slightly stretched out, causing a change in frequency (known as a Doppler shift) that depends on the craft's speed relative to the earth. With enough number-crunching--taking into account the motion of the earth around the sun and its wobbles as it spins on its axis--the position and acceleration of each Pioneer can then be worked out.

The trouble is that the predicted and measured trajectories do not match. Instead, there seems to be an additional pull (in effect, an acceleration) in the direction of the sun that is not predicted by the ODP. The anomaly is almost imperceptible: about one ten-billionth of the acceleration due to gravity at the earth's surface (at that rate, an apple would take a day to drop to the ground from the branch of a tree). But that is still big enough to raise questions.

Send for the detectives

Astronomical discoveries often hinge on the analysis of wobbles, discrepancies and errors. The existence of Neptune was deduced from minute deviations between the predicted and observed orbits of Uranus. An anomaly in the orbit of Mercury provided one of the first clues that the laws of gravity as described by Newton were incomplete, which, in turn, led Einstein to general relativity. So John Anderson, one of the members of the Pioneer 10 navigation team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, says he feels a professional responsibility to make his sums add up. His latest attempts to explain the anomalous acceleration will be published next month in Physical Review Letters.

Dr Anderson and his team start by considering all the possible forces that might be acting on the Pioneer craft but have not been included in the ODP. Could any of them account for the slight acceleration towards the sun? Gas leaks, and the minuscule push provided by infra-red radiation from the crafts' electricity generators, were ruled out. Both would be too feeble, and would be unlikely to press in the sun's direction anyway. Similarly, the pressure exerted by sunlight, and the force exerted by the emissions from each probe's radio antenna, were dismissed: again, both are too weak, and they would tend to push the probes away from the sun, not towards it.

Next, the gravitational influence of objects

As it happens, The Economist recently ran an article addressing some of these issues. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online (may require paid subscription).

----

Gravitational anomalies

An invisible hand?

Aug 19th 2004
From The Economist print edition

[Image]

An unexplained effect during solar eclipses casts doubt on General Relativity

"ASSUME nothing" is a good motto in science. Even the humble pendulum may spring a surprise on you. In 1954 Maurice Allais, a French economist who would go on to win, in 1988, the Nobel prize in his subject, decided to observe and record the movements of a pendulum over a period of 30 days. Coincidentally, one of his observations took place during a solar eclipse. When the moon passed in front of the sun, the pendulum unexpectedly started moving a bit faster than it should have done.

Since that first observation, the "Allais effect", as it is now called, has confounded physicists. If the effect is real, it could indicate a hitherto unperceived flaw in General Relativity--the current explanation of how gravity works.

That would be a bombshell--and an ironic one, since it was observations taken during a solar eclipse (of the way that light is bent when it passes close to the sun) which established General Relativity in the first place. So attempts to duplicate Dr Allais's observation are important. However, they have had mixed success, leading sceptics to question whether there was anything to be explained. Now Chris Duif, a researcher at the Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, has reviewed the evidence. According to a paper he has just posted on arXiv.org, an online publication archive, the effect is real, unexplained, and could be linked to another anomaly involving a pair of American spacecraft.

Three different types of instrument have been used to detect the Allais effect. The first are conventional pendulums, such as the one Dr Allais used originally. The second are torsion pendulums, which work by hanging a bar that has weights at each end from a wire. As the wire twists back and forth, the bar rotates in pendulum-like motion. The third are gravimeters, which are, in essence, very precise scales. All of these instruments measure the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface, a quantity known as g. The Allais effect is a small additional acceleration, so tiny that it would take an apple about a day to fall from a tree branch if it were the only gravitational effect around.

Allez, Allais

Dr Duif has examined various conventional explanations for the Allais effect. He finds the most obvious suggestion--that it is a mere measuring error--unlikely, because similar results have been found by many different groups, operating independently and, in at least one case, without knowledge of Dr Allais's results.

He also discounts several explanations that rely on conventional physical changes that might take place during an eclipse. One of these is that the anomaly is caused by the seismic disturbance induced as crowds of sightseers move into and out of a place where an eclipse is visible. That seems unlikely, given that one of the experiments with a positive result was conducted in a remote area of China while another that had a negative result took place in Belgium, one of the most crowded parts of the planet. Dr Duif also considered the possibility that, because the moon's shadow cools the air during an eclipse, this cooler, and thus denser, air might exert a different gravitational pull on the instruments. This change could, he reckon

As it happens, The Economist recently ran an article addressing some of these issues. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online (may require paid subscription).

----

Gravitational anomalies

An invisible hand?

Aug 19th 2004
From The Economist print edition

[Image]

An unexplained effect during solar eclipses casts doubt on General Relativity

"ASSUME nothing" is a good motto in science. Even the humble pendulum may spring a surprise on you. In 1954 Maurice Allais, a French economist who would go on to win, in 1988, the Nobel prize in his subject, decided to observe and record the movements of a pendulum over a period of 30 days. Coincidentally, one of his observations took place during a solar eclipse. When the moon passed in front of the sun, the pendulum unexpectedly started moving a bit faster than it should have done.

Since that first observation, the "Allais effect", as it is now called, has confounded physicists. If the effect is real, it could indicate a hitherto unperceived flaw in General Relativity--the current explanation of how gravity works.

That would be a bombshell--and an ironic one, since it was observations taken during a solar eclipse (of the way that light is bent when it passes close to the sun) which established General Relativity in the first place. So attempts to duplicate Dr Allais's observation are important. However, they have had mixed success, leading sceptics to question whether there was anything to be explained. Now Chris Duif, a researcher at the Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, has reviewed the evidence. According to a paper he has just posted on arXiv.org, an online publication archive, the effect is real, unexplained, and could be linked to another anomaly involving a pair of American spacecraft.

Three different types of instrument have been used to detect the Allais effect. The first are conventional pendulums, such as the one Dr Allais used originally. The second are torsion pendulums, which work by hanging a bar that has weights at each end from a wire. As the wire twists back and forth, the bar rotates in pendulum-like motion. The third are gravimeters, which are, in essence, very precise scales. All of these instruments measure the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface, a quantity known as g. The Allais effect is a small additional acceleration, so tiny that it would take an apple about a day to fall from a tree branch if it were the only gravitational effect around.

Allez, Allais

Dr Duif has examined various conventional explanations for the Allais effect. He finds the most obvious suggestion--that it is a mere measuring error--unlikely, because similar results have been found by many different groups, operating independently and, in at least one case, without knowledge of Dr Allais's results.

He also discounts several explanations that rely on conventional physical changes that might take place during an eclipse. One of these is that the anomaly is caused by the seismic disturbance induced as crowds of sightseers move into and out of a place where an eclipse is visible. That seems unlikely, given that one of the experiments with a positive result was conducted in a remote area of China while another that had a negative result took place in Belgium, one of the most crowded parts of the planet. Dr Duif also considered the possibility that, because the moon's shadow cools the air during an eclipse, this cooler, and thus denser, air might exert a different gravitational pull on the instruments. This change could, he reckon

Yeah, years of reading the excellent and very numerate general newsweekly The Economist have pretty much spoiled other media for me.

One big one that makes me crazy is use of percentage measures. E.g., a reporter will say that this year 10% of kids failed some test, and that this is up 3% from last year. So what was last year's value, 9.7% (a 3% difference) or 7% (a 3 percentage point difference, but a 43% increase)? Often, they say the former but mean the latter.

Another is the giving of numbers without context. For example, somebody will claim that a city's legal system is racially biased because X% of the people incarcerated are black. They might be right, but their number doesn't help me at all unless I also know what percentage of the city's population are black. And I've frequently heard about the shocking size of California's budget defecit of N billion dollars, but it's the rare article that tells me how big the whole budget is, or how big tax revenues are, or any number that might let me see how big the problem really is.

My interpretation of this: most journalists don't do math unless forced, so they never notice that it's impossible to do math with the numbers they give out.

I think The Economist put it best: "Government is by its nature a knife that cuts to the left, in part because government employees tend to be on the left, in part because government programmes promote dependency." Ten to one odds against the magazine endorsing Bush again this year.

Check this out (stolen from another post)

We're not strong enough to be able to stare down America.

Again, by "we", you mean our govenment. And by "our government", you mean the Liberal party. And by the "Liberal party", you mean John Howard.

Mark Latham put it more concisely.

I second your recommendation of "The Economist".

It's pricey, at $130/year (and a still-steep $77/year at the rate offered to us college students on campuses by various subscription orgs), but certainly worth reading in the library or subscribing if you can afford it...

It's really sad when you hear about china making these ambitious pans and really moving forward.
When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me to eat all my food because there were poor kids in china dying of starvation.
Technologically and economically we used to use china as an example of what is wrong with communism. Now china is growing.

1. A space Program
2. A nuclear power program, based on the safest design available.
3. An economy that is growing
4. More land mass
5. and more people.

It is obvious that the grandchildren of todays china will be telling their children to eat all their food because of the poor starving children in America. People will look at America with pity and revulsion. And our country will probably no longer be a superpower (we'll probably be speaking mandarin).
WHY
because.
Like fahrenheit, 451 this country is being torn apart by petty monopolistic groups bent on dominating each other.
If were lucky this might happen.

Just so there is clarity on what a monopoly is: A monopoly arises, "when the production of a good or service with no close subsititutes is carried out by a single firm with the market power to decide the price of its output." That's "Economics A - Z" as the Economist calls it, and you can find a more complete definition here.

To give a few examples, Apple doesn't really qualify as a monopoly because there are a number of 'close substitutes' available to buyers and, with respect to the content itself, one can always buy a CD instead of using iTMS if they want DRM-free music.

Now, as far as the law is concerned: Even assuming Apple were a monopoly, simply enjoying monopoly status is not illegal; however, abusing monopoly stauts is illegal. Courts draw a distinction between the act of monopolizing and the mere possession of a monopoly. As in the Alcoa case, a company that has a monopoly "thrust upon it" or that becomes a monopoly through "superior skill, foresight and industry" should not be "turned upon."

Microsoft got spanked (in theory, anyway) because the court found it had violated the Sherman Act by maintaining its monopoly power by anticompetitive means and attempting to monopolize the Web browser market. Apple appears a far cry from that position for the time being.

The alternatives to the mainstream media already exist, and people that want alternatives readily find them. Barriers to entry simply are not an issue with the media. Sure it may irritating to be bombarded by the Scott Peterson trial and all but thats why I read magazines like The Economist. If I was a right wing wackjob, I would get a subscription to National Review or watch Fox News listen to Rush on the air, and if I was a far left loon, I would be reading IndyMedia.

The local newsstand generally has all of these publications from all ends of the political spectrum. Hell, the Maoist international newspaper (which regularly denounces modern China as a far right regime that betrayed Mao's legacy) floats around where I live. While I do find sensationalism in the media irriating, I believe that this demonstrates that barriers to entry are simply not an issue. It might be different if you want to make a living, but frankly broadband will not help that.

Having said all that, assuming that I'm wrong and barriers to entry are an issue, why do you think that we will become more liberal? It seems that for every 60% tax ceiling universal healthcare type, you have a gun nut or a religious wacko.

Nope - Hopkins's is perfectly acceptable (and preferred by many). See The Economist Style Guide for example.

There are now fruit flies that turn gay depending on the temperature. http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,51 14041%255E13762,00.html There are mice that get addicted at the same rate humans do. http://www.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id =45450&cat=World Our feelings can be affected by chemicals in ways similar to country voles. http://www.economist.com/printedition/PrinterFrien dly.cfm?Story_ID=2424049

As a matter of science, people may not have as much control over their psyche classically believed. But this research isn't to explain away personal responsibility as much as it understand why we are the way we are. Perhaps people used to look down at the mentally ill for not taking responsibility for their actions, but we eventually created drugs to treat some mental illnesses. Society may later choose to decide how it will accomodate scientific knowledge. However, judgmental cries have no place against science seeking to discover how we tick.

another thing that needs to be remembered, is that these article writers have a schedule.

they've got to output something every month/week/whatever whether or not they actually have got anything worthwhile to say.

this explains a lot of the mountain-out-of-molehill projections/fantasies that are based on half-understood premises.

i actually gave up my businessweek subscription a long time ago when i came to the realisation one day that they are consistently wrong.

Any of you guys who want to actually read a business/economy related paper that actually is written by guys who usually know what they are talking about, check out The Economist.

Whats next? A patent on $ or # as a prompt?

How about this one: Microsoft patents human body.

And the reason money gets wasted on fusion is that the program is on continual life-support due to being cronically underfunded. Sure, if you pay the absolute minimum you can get away with over a long time, you can spend an impressive sum without getting very far. The vast numbers of americans who struggle with credit-card debt could tell you as much. It says nothing about the value of the program.

At the end of the day, we need fusion if our civilization is going to survive. Fossil fuels are limited, and will run out in a relatively short timescale. Fission is nice, but there isn't really all that much in the way of fuels sitting around on Earth, so we'd just run into the same problem. Alternative energy sources like wind and ground-based solar are stopgaps at best, and are ultimately limited in the amount of power obtainable from them. even if you could create a closed system which supplies our needs for today, the 2nd Law says there will always be losses and wastage, and the end is that we all live in little thatch huts. If we haven't nuked each other out of existence earlier than that.

Bottom line, if we don't get fusion working in 50 years or so (and we probably will, at the rate we're going), you're going to see the nastiest wars over diminishing oil supplies you've ever seen, followed by population collapse, and if we're not lucky, the collapse of whatever passes for civilization these days.

If we fall now, there won't be any second chance for our descendants in a few hundred years --they won't have the easy access to oil that we enjoyed. We'll be back to pre-industrial days, with whatever tiny bits of tech we can hang onto and keep running with 'renewable' energy sources until it all breaks and can't be replaced because the assembly plant doesn't run.

So yeah, I think fusion is important.

" In 1954, a man named Maruice Allais spent a month studying and measuring the swing of a Foucault pendulum in his Paris laboratory. He dutifully recorded the direction of rotation, which corresponds to the spin of the Earth. Allais' experiment happened to coincide with a solar eclipse, and while the moon blotted out the sunlight, something strange happened to the pendulum: It slowed. "

Unfortunately inside the economist article http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm? story_id=3104321 the editors claim the opposite :

""ASSUME nothing" is a good motto in science. Even the humble pendulum may spring a surprise on you. In 1954 Maurice Allais, a French economist who would go on to win, in 1988, the Nobel prize in his subject, decided to observe and record the movements of a pendulum over a period of 30 days. Coincidentally, one of his observations took place during a solar eclipse. When the moon passed in front of the sun, the pendulum unexpectedly started moving a bit faster than it should have done."

Geez if one tells a nice story, get all the contributing parties synchronized :)

Robert

The Economist has a good article giving analysis of the IPO.

It will be remaining a Dutch auction, yes. But if it wasn't, the share price would have to come down even further from the 85-95 range for investment banks to be able to get the same kind of pop for their preferred investors. There is a decent article in The Economist here. the $135 share price had Google valued at 187 times earnings. Even with the lower price their p/e ratio is pretty absurd. They would have to go much lower get anything like the netscape IPO.

You're right. We should be more responsible with our lakes. Like our neighbours to the south. Lord knows, they have enough uninformed criticism to spew, but not so many answers

Is here.

John.

As it happens, The Economist recently ran an article addressing some of these issues. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online (may require paid subscription).

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Sport and drugs

Ever farther, ever faster, ever higher?

Aug 5th 2004
From The Economist print edition

[Image]

The Athens Olympics will be a crucial battle in sport's war on drugs

"OLYMPISM seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of a good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles." So said Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic games. Alas, there is every chance the 28th summer Olympiad, which opens in Athens on August 13th, will make headlines less for the joy of effort--and still less for good example or respect for universal ethics--than for athletes caught cheating with performance-enhancing drugs.

The past year has brought plenty of evidence that "doping" is rife. In June 2003, a syringe containing a hitherto unknown and undetectable steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), was sent to America's Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), apparently by a disaffected coach. Speedily designed tests, some applied retrospectively to old urine samples, showed that use of THG had been widespread among top athletes. The drug was allegedly made by BALCO (the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative), in California, as a "nutritional supplement". BALCO's clients included many top sports stars, such as Tim Montgomery, world champion in the 100m sprint; his partner, Marion Jones, the reigning women's Olympic 100m champion; Shane Mosley, a former boxing world champion; several members of the Oakland Raiders American football team; and Barry Bonds, who holds baseball's record for the most home runs in a season.

Although some of these athletes deny using THG, others have already been banned from their sport for doing so, including Dwain Chambers, a top British sprinter. The USADA is seeking a lifetime ban for Mr Montgomery. After wide investigations, criminal charges have been brought against several people connected with BALCO--though no athletes, as yet--including its boss, Victor Conte, who has been indicted for allegedly supplying illegal drugs and laundering money. A lawyer for Mr Conte has hinted that other well-known athletes, due to compete in the Olympics, have yet to be identified as THG users, and that his client may be prepared to name them as part of a plea-bargain.

But the litany of recent illegal drug use stretches far beyond BALCO. Even cricket, the sport of gentlemen, has been tainted. Shane Warne, an Australian spin bowler, was banned for a year for taking a drug that can be used to mask steroids; on his return, he rivalled the record for the highest number of wickets taken in a Test (a record he shares, ironically, with a Sri Lankan who has been accused of cheating in a more old-fashioned way, by using an illegal bowling action). In soccer, England's top defender, Rio Ferdinand, was banned for eight months for failing to take a mandatory drug test.

Another Briton, Greg Rusedski, escaped a ban this year despite testing positive for nandrolone. The tennis star argued that he had been given the steroid without his knowledge by officials of the sport's governing body, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). In 2003, the ATP let off seven unnamed players who failed drug tests, apparently for the same reason. Drug scandals have erupted in rugby league, ice hockey, orienteering, the triathlon and so on and on.

Cycling has provided many milestones in the history of doping in sport, including the first sportsman allegedly to die as a result of

As it happens, The Economist recently ran an article addressing some of these issues. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online (may require paid subscription).

----

Sport and drugs

Ever farther, ever faster, ever higher?

Aug 5th 2004
From The Economist print edition

[Image]

The Athens Olympics will be a crucial battle in sport's war on drugs

"OLYMPISM seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of a good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles." So said Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic games. Alas, there is every chance the 28th summer Olympiad, which opens in Athens on August 13th, will make headlines less for the joy of effort--and still less for good example or respect for universal ethics--than for athletes caught cheating with performance-enhancing drugs.

The past year has brought plenty of evidence that "doping" is rife. In June 2003, a syringe containing a hitherto unknown and undetectable steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), was sent to America's Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), apparently by a disaffected coach. Speedily designed tests, some applied retrospectively to old urine samples, showed that use of THG had been widespread among top athletes. The drug was allegedly made by BALCO (the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative), in California, as a "nutritional supplement". BALCO's clients included many top sports stars, such as Tim Montgomery, world champion in the 100m sprint; his partner, Marion Jones, the reigning women's Olympic 100m champion; Shane Mosley, a former boxing world champion; several members of the Oakland Raiders American football team; and Barry Bonds, who holds baseball's record for the most home runs in a season.

Although some of these athletes deny using THG, others have already been banned from their sport for doing so, including Dwain Chambers, a top British sprinter. The USADA is seeking a lifetime ban for Mr Montgomery. After wide investigations, criminal charges have been brought against several people connected with BALCO--though no athletes, as yet--including its boss, Victor Conte, who has been indicted for allegedly supplying illegal drugs and laundering money. A lawyer for Mr Conte has hinted that other well-known athletes, due to compete in the Olympics, have yet to be identified as THG users, and that his client may be prepared to name them as part of a plea-bargain.

But the litany of recent illegal drug use stretches far beyond BALCO. Even cricket, the sport of gentlemen, has been tainted. Shane Warne, an Australian spin bowler, was banned for a year for taking a drug that can be used to mask steroids; on his return, he rivalled the record for the highest number of wickets taken in a Test (a record he shares, ironically, with a Sri Lankan who has been accused of cheating in a more old-fashioned way, by using an illegal bowling action). In soccer, England's top defender, Rio Ferdinand, was banned for eight months for failing to take a mandatory drug test.

Another Briton, Greg Rusedski, escaped a ban this year despite testing positive for nandrolone. The tennis star argued that he had been given the steroid without his knowledge by officials of the sport's governing body, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). In 2003, the ATP let off seven unnamed players who failed drug tests, apparently for the same reason. Drug scandals have erupted in rugby league, ice hockey, orienteering, the triathlon and so on and on.

Cycling has provided many milestones in the history of doping in sport, including the first sportsman allegedly to die as a result of

As it happens, The Economist recently ran an article addressing some of these issues. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online (may require paid subscription).

----

Sport

Drugs and the Olympics

Aug 5th 2004
From The Economist print edition

They are going to mix, whether you like it or not

[Image]

"WHERE does the power come from, to see the race to its end?" asks Eric Liddell in that cinematic celebration of the Olympian ideal, "Chariots of Fire". The runner's answer? "From within." Eighty years after Liddell won his gold medal, for competitors at the Olympic games starting next week in Athens that power may come instead from without--in the form of drugs designed to maximise performance.

There was "doping" in sport even before the days of Liddell; cyclists, boxers, swimmers and others made use of alcohol, strychnine, cocaine and sundry other substances to ease the pain and give them an edge. But by 1988, when a Canadian runner, Ben Johnson, was stripped of his 100m gold at the Seoul Olympics for failing a drugs test, it was clear that doping had become rife--not just in nasty communist regimes such as East Germany and China, with their famously manly female athletes, but in western countries too. If doping may play a lesser role than it might have done this month in Athens, it is only because allegations about the use of the steroid tetrahydrogestrinone by clients of BALCO, a dietary supplements firm in California, have deprived the Olympics of some of its likeliest medallists--as well as highlighting the pervasive use of steroids in some non-Olympic sports such as America's Major League Baseball, now dubbed the "new East Germany".

The evidence of doping has been greeted with almost universal condemnation, at least from those parts of the media that love a scandal and the chance to bring down a hero, and from politicians. George Bush has added the war on doping to his broader war on drugs, using this year's state-of-the-union address to urge sport to "get rid of steroids now" and bringing high-profile indictments against sporting dope-peddlers. Those in charge of sport are rapidly losing any ambivalence they once had, and joining a crusade against doping led by the redoubtable head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Dick Pound (see article). Driving doping out of sport may prove impossible, however--especially as undetectable gene therapies may soon be on the market. But in any case, is it really so obvious that doping is wrong?

Though they come in many forms, there are really two main arguments made against doping. One is that it harms athletes--or, if the argument is made by someone willing to admit that putting athletes in harm's way is an integral part of many sports (boxing, rugby, American football and so on), that it harms them unnecessarily. The other is that it is against the spirit of sport: it is cheating or, at the very least, it destroys the mystical quality that gives sport its appeal. There is something to both arguments, but neither is wholly convincing.

For a start, how harmful are the performance-enhancing drugs used by today's athletes, or likely to be used in the future? Certainly, there have been heavily publicised cases suggesting that excessive use can sometimes have nasty consequences--cyclists suffering heart attacks, perhaps because of the oxygen-storage boosting but blood-thickening steroid EPO, or drug-expanded body-builders who are deeply depressed--though these examples are isolated, and may not be entirely as they appear. Some of the drugs used in East Germany had severe consequence

As it happens, The Economist recently ran an article addressing some of these issues. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online (may require paid subscription).

----

Sport

Drugs and the Olympics

Aug 5th 2004
From The Economist print edition

They are going to mix, whether you like it or not

[Image]

"WHERE does the power come from, to see the race to its end?" asks Eric Liddell in that cinematic celebration of the Olympian ideal, "Chariots of Fire". The runner's answer? "From within." Eighty years after Liddell won his gold medal, for competitors at the Olympic games starting next week in Athens that power may come instead from without--in the form of drugs designed to maximise performance.

There was "doping" in sport even before the days of Liddell; cyclists, boxers, swimmers and others made use of alcohol, strychnine, cocaine and sundry other substances to ease the pain and give them an edge. But by 1988, when a Canadian runner, Ben Johnson, was stripped of his 100m gold at the Seoul Olympics for failing a drugs test, it was clear that doping had become rife--not just in nasty communist regimes such as East Germany and China, with their famously manly female athletes, but in western countries too. If doping may play a lesser role than it might have done this month in Athens, it is only because allegations about the use of the steroid tetrahydrogestrinone by clients of BALCO, a dietary supplements firm in California, have deprived the Olympics of some of its likeliest medallists--as well as highlighting the pervasive use of steroids in some non-Olympic sports such as America's Major League Baseball, now dubbed the "new East Germany".

The evidence of doping has been greeted with almost universal condemnation, at least from those parts of the media that love a scandal and the chance to bring down a hero, and from politicians. George Bush has added the war on doping to his broader war on drugs, using this year's state-of-the-union address to urge sport to "get rid of steroids now" and bringing high-profile indictments against sporting dope-peddlers. Those in charge of sport are rapidly losing any ambivalence they once had, and joining a crusade against doping led by the redoubtable head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Dick Pound (see article). Driving doping out of sport may prove impossible, however--especially as undetectable gene therapies may soon be on the market. But in any case, is it really so obvious that doping is wrong?

Though they come in many forms, there are really two main arguments made against doping. One is that it harms athletes--or, if the argument is made by someone willing to admit that putting athletes in harm's way is an integral part of many sports (boxing, rugby, American football and so on), that it harms them unnecessarily. The other is that it is against the spirit of sport: it is cheating or, at the very least, it destroys the mystical quality that gives sport its appeal. There is something to both arguments, but neither is wholly convincing.

For a start, how harmful are the performance-enhancing drugs used by today's athletes, or likely to be used in the future? Certainly, there have been heavily publicised cases suggesting that excessive use can sometimes have nasty consequences--cyclists suffering heart attacks, perhaps because of the oxygen-storage boosting but blood-thickening steroid EPO, or drug-expanded body-builders who are deeply depressed--though these examples are isolated, and may not be entirely as they appear. Some of the drugs used in East Germany had severe consequence

As it happens, The Economist recently ran an article addressing some of these issues. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online (may require paid subscription).

----

Sport

Drugs and the Olympics

Aug 5th 2004
From The Economist print edition

They are going to mix, whether you like it or not

[Image]

"WHERE does the power come from, to see the race to its end?" asks Eric Liddell in that cinematic celebration of the Olympian ideal, "Chariots of Fire". The runner's answer? "From within." Eighty years after Liddell won his gold medal, for competitors at the Olympic games starting next week in Athens that power may come instead from without--in the form of drugs designed to maximise performance.

There was "doping" in sport even before the days of Liddell; cyclists, boxers, swimmers and others made use of alcohol, strychnine, cocaine and sundry other substances to ease the pain and give them an edge. But by 1988, when a Canadian runner, Ben Johnson, was stripped of his 100m gold at the Seoul Olympics for failing a drugs test, it was clear that doping had become rife--not just in nasty communist regimes such as East Germany and China, with their famously manly female athletes, but in western countries too. If doping may play a lesser role than it might have done this month in Athens, it is only because allegations about the use of the steroid tetrahydrogestrinone by clients of BALCO, a dietary supplements firm in California, have deprived the Olympics of some of its likeliest medallists--as well as highlighting the pervasive use of steroids in some non-Olympic sports such as America's Major League Baseball, now dubbed the "new East Germany".

The evidence of doping has been greeted with almost universal condemnation, at least from those parts of the media that love a scandal and the chance to bring down a hero, and from politicians. George Bush has added the war on doping to his broader war on drugs, using this year's state-of-the-union address to urge sport to "get rid of steroids now" and bringing high-profile indictments against sporting dope-peddlers. Those in charge of sport are rapidly losing any ambivalence they once had, and joining a crusade against doping led by the redoubtable head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Dick Pound (see article). Driving doping out of sport may prove impossible, however--especially as undetectable gene therapies may soon be on the market. But in any case, is it really so obvious that doping is wrong?

Though they come in many forms, there are really two main arguments made against doping. One is that it harms athletes--or, if the argument is made by someone willing to admit that putting athletes in harm's way is an integral part of many sports (boxing, rugby, American football and so on), that it harms them unnecessarily. The other is that it is against the spirit of sport: it is cheating or, at the very least, it destroys the mystical quality that gives sport its appeal. There is something to both arguments, but neither is wholly convincing.

For a start, how harmful are the performance-enhancing drugs used by today's athletes, or likely to be used in the future? Certainly, there have been heavily publicised cases suggesting that excessive use can sometimes have nasty consequences--cyclists suffering heart attacks, perhaps because of the oxygen-storage boosting but blood-thickening steroid EPO, or drug-expanded body-builders who are deeply depressed--though these examples are isolated, and may not be entirely as they appear. Some of the drugs used in East Germany had severe consequence

According to Economist.com, a natural monopoly is a monopoly that "occurs because it is more efficient for one firm to serve an entire market than for two or more FIRMS to do so, because of the sort of ECONOMIES OF SCALE available in that market."

By this definition, Microsoft is not a natural monopoly because it not clear that it is more efficient for one company (Microsoft) to serve the entire desktop operating system market as opposed to several companies doing so. In software, it is hard to argue economies of scale since software may be scaled indefinitely, effectively making it a commodity that may be produced by anybody.

Although government has not played a significant role in Microsoft's development as a near-monopoly, neither has that situation developed in an organic way. Rather, Microsoft used its increasing market share to unfairly compete in other areas that tend to enforce its position in its core market segments. That has negatively affected the overall market, distorting it to the point that it is now trying to correct itself.

It is most certainly not the tuition that's sending people to USA. It's the hope that the student visa gets turned into a work visa which gets turned into a green card, which means that some day 17 years from the time of getting your student visa, you may be an American, provided you aren't murdered for being a no-good-foreigner-living-off-the-fat-o-the-land, and that your boss doesn't fire you when the going gets rough. There's that and the fact that in my country at least(India), it's exactly 15,000 times harder to get into a local college, considering the size of our population. The hardest b-school to get into in the entire world is IIM Ahmedabad. Compare that to the Admissions Page for Stanford. The same is true for engineering schools...We're leaving India for a lot of reasons, and one of them is the past few generations' high fornication (and fertility) rate. That's one of the reasons why there are so many non-resident aliens in yer schools

1. Each share is priced well over US$100 and the MINIMUM bid is FIVE shares. That's over ~US$550 if you want to own a tiny piece of the company.
2. The two founders will own a minority stake but retain 60% of the voting rights. WHAT? Where's the accountability (especially after Enron, Worldcom...) Too much power concentrated on top of the foodchain. Investors have TINY input on decisions, i.e. no input how to make their investment better.
3. Slate article on Dutch Auction. Quote:

   First, auctions are not a new IPO mechanism. They have been tried in numerous countries over the last 25 years (including the United States) and, in almost all cases, have been discarded in favor of the traditional American IPO method. Second, what's good for the company (high price) is often bad for investors (less upside). Third, those willing to pay the most for shares may not be those best qualified to evaluate their worth. Fourth, and relatedly, auctions are generally not better for individual investors (i.e., us). When individuals "win" auctions (e.g., get stock), it is often because they outbid professional investors who have better information and/or a better sense of value. In such cases, the future stock performance is usually lousy, and the "winners" end up losing.

4. Google at $3B is overvalued at a P/E of over 100. Yahoo! is valued at the same but has a LONGER and MORE PERSISTENT performance record. Microsoft made MSN Search in mere 11 months. Search market is cooling down in the fall (temporarily or - worse - permanently), so to bank on Google making lots of profits and continue to do so for next few decades in order to justify $100/share is more of a gamble than a investment.

5. Just go to MarketWatch, last week's Economist (subscr.), and a whole load other places and they will all tell you how short sighted this MSN article is. Yes, it will avoid the pop. But that does NOT necessarily make it better. The way it's being conducted now, it remains to be seen.

McDonalds? Ugh.

Here's the Economist's Big Mac index, which compares the price of a Big Mac in various countries, in an attempt to discover which currencies were overvalued.

It costs the equivalent of $US 3.37 to purchase the hamburger in Britain, but only $US2.27 in Australia. The US price was $US 2.90.

Because, as has been demonstrated, the UN always does a bang-up job...

A similar article should be available online in the Apologist for another 5 days or so, if you're so inclined.

Corporations act like corporations, ... They're neither evil nor benevolant.

saying-good-bye-to-the-middle-class dept.

Forget the many economist that make arguments like this one, stating that outsourcing will ultimately benefit consumers...

Forget government data that downplays the significance of offshore work...

Forget the fact that companies like Microsoft sell millions of dollars worth of software to foreign countries around the world...

...and just jump to the conclusion that the entire US middle class is doomed.

Nice!

There's an interesting (one month old) article in the Economist about how Segway isn't doing as well as the makers expect.

I'm not one bit surprised. For me the thing is an amazing solution to a non-existent problem. Can someone explain to me how is this better from a bike?

I mean for the price of Segway I can buy the same bike Lance Armstrong rides, or nearly any mountain bike. (actually I just checked the price and Trek 5.9 is slightly more pricey then the Segway). Anyway, I do easily average 20mph when I cycle around London. The Segawy has a top speed of 12mph. Oh yes and my bike does not need recharging.

Just what programming language is the code in this image written in? You'd think for Unix they'd use C or bourne shell, but it seems apparently not..

Can you spell the difference between 'consenting adult' and 'child'?

The adult porn industry (of which the global epicenter is Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley) is pretty heavily regulated or self regulating, while the child porn industry is obviously not.

I'm not arguing that abuse isn't happening in the adult porn industry, but in the case of of kiddie porn abuse of the child is inevitable.

I told them indirectly in a similar fashion as the parent poster: I bought an iRiver.

Why this matters is interop. If most people can't make good use of your favorite format, you'll continue to see a limited amount of material available in that format. If you want to get the majority vendors' attention, flying under their radar doesn't accomplish much. That's why it's good to contact them.

http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory .cfm?Story_ID=2540181

There is one item on the opposition's agenda, however, that Mr Badawi seems likely to neglect. So far, he has barely mentioned, let alone dismantled, the various repressive measures that Dr Mahathir employed to dampen dissent. The government still controls the airwaves, potential critics have difficulty obtaining newspaper licences, opposition politicians are jailed without trial, protest rallies are banned. As one activist points out, when the government's critics are cowed, the corruption and inefficiency Mr Badawi says he is battling are sure to thrive.