The key quote from the article states, "Just over a third of the bloggers said they often conduct journalistically appropriate tasks such as verifying facts and linking to source material."
Given such low journalistic integrity, we should view the typical blog as merely an opinion piece.
Still, a blog is useful in offering a unique perspective on a political issue; this perspective can spur actual journalists to re-think the issues on which they report. For example, conservative blogs gave a convincing analysis questioning the veracity of documents presented by Dan Rather in his report aired on "60 Minutes". Soon afterwards, actual journalists examined the suspect documents in detail and concluded that their are likely fake. Rather eventually apologized for using unverified documents to slander a political candidate.
In short, blogs (like other forms of expression) play an important role in a democracy, but we should never use blogs as a final, reputable source on par with a story by actual journalists at "The Economist", the "Wall Street Journal", or the "New York Times". Conferring the status of journalist on the typical blogger is equivalent to saying that 4 years of undergraduate study leading to a journalism degree from Harvard University is a waste of time.
As the size of features on an integrated circuit continues to shrink, we eventually reach a point at which the width of the gate of an NMOS transistor is only 1 atom. Other features have dimensions that measure only 1 atom. The charges (i.e., the collection of electrons) that these features house are so tiny that failure due to alpha particles, cosmic rays, etc. are quite common.
The only solution to the curse of infinitesimally small features is modular redundancy: hardware duplication. Triple modular redundancy is common in fault-tolerant computer design. As hardware becomes increasingly fragile due to decreasingly small features, the amount of redundancy must increase to cope with the problem of transient failure.
The implication is that the per-dollar amount of computing power which the typical consumer can buy will not increase indefinitely. As feature sizes shrink (and concurrently as the amount of computing power increases), we eventually reach a point at which the additional amount of required hardware redundancy will start to reverse the decline in dollar per unit (e.g., SPECint2005 or SPECfp2005) of computing power. Are we close to reaching that point?
I suspect that we are within 10 years of that point.
The problem of shrinking features is already manifesting itself. Microsoft now recommends that users buy computers with ECC (error-correcting code) memory if the users plan to install Vista.
That the human population is descended from a tiny group of people has another, more deadly, implication, according to "New Scientist". The relative inbreeding increased our susceptibility to genetic disease.
Curiously, the nature of genetic disease suggests that if you want to ensure the survival of your descendants into the eons upon eons, you should marry outside of your ethnic group. The offspring of an Eskimo-African couple will typically have a stronger set of genes than the offspring of an Eskimo-Eskimo couple, a German-German couple, or a Vietnamese-Vietnamese couple.
In the market for food, Safeway provides shelf space to food producers: Kraft, Coca-Cola, etc. Without shelf space at a major supermarket, a food producer could, theoretically, sell food but would face insurmountable problems in growing sales. If a customer at Safeway did know whether a particular brand of food exists, then there is no way for her to buy the brand. For all practical purposes, the food producer cannot sell its product even though, in theory, the producer is free to sell. "Forbes" provides a good analysis of the shelf-space issue and the anti-trust implications.
In the market for online products and services, Google provides shelf space by returning links to the sellers (of such products and services) in the Google web page of search results. The analogy between shelf space at Google and shelf space at Safeway is quite strong, and anti-trust laws apply in both cases.
How does Kinderstart fit into this picture? Well, first, consider the case of shelf space at Safeway. Kroger is a direct competitor of Safeway. Both Safeway and Kroger produce their own in-house-branded versions of many foods. For example, Kroger sells Kroger-branded frozen vegetables, and Safeway also sells Safeway-branded frozen vegetables. Should Safeway be expected to give shelf space to Kroger-branded frozen vegetables? Can Kroger's president claim anti-trust violations if Safeway refuses shelf space to Kroger. The answer is "no". Kroger and Safeway are direct competitors, and Safeway cannot be expected to help a direct competitor.
As for Kinderstart, it is a direct competitor of Google. Google is a general search engine that handles all searches in the known universe. Kinderstart deals with only a subset (of that universe): search results dealing with only parenting. Since Google and Kinderstart are direct competitors, we cannot expect Google to help a direct competitor. Google's management is well within its right to even remove Kinderstart from all of Google's search results (i.e. Google's shelf space).
By the way, Google now owns more than 60% of the market for search queries, and Google's marketshare is growing. Google has now entered monopoly territory, and we must keep a watchful eye over Google. Google is fully capable of evil (like catering to Beijing in censoring search results). However, in this particular case involving Kinderstart, Google has not done any evil -- yet.
The key quote from the article states, "Poehlman, a specialist in exercise physiology, changed and made up research in applications and papers on the effect of menopause on women's metabolism, the impact of aging on older men and women, the impact of hormone replacement therapy on obesity in post-menopausal women, the study of metabolism in Alzheimer's patients and the effect of endurance training on metabolism."
Based solely on this quote, we can conclude that faking the results of medical research could potentially kill people. Faking research about a new method for vectorizing signal-processing algorithms might result in a poorly performing compiler for a multiprocessor. Faking research about a medical therapy might result in real people being subjected to a lethal cocktail of drugs.
The doctor who faked the results of his medical research deserved prison time. For once, justice was served.
In order to maximally accelerate the commercialization of space, NASA should open up the competition to all companies located in Western nations that qualify as America's top military allies. The qualification of "top military ally" is needed to ensure that the developed technology does not fall into the hands of the wrong government: e.g., Beijing.
Qualifying allies would include Japan, Australia, Great Britain, and other NATO countries.
The need for competition is best exemplified by the American automobile industry. The Ford Mustang of 2006 (after nearly 26 years of intense competition with Japanese automobiles like the Honda Prelude) is vastly superior in quality to the Ford Mustang of 1980.
Based on the 26 years of quality improvements in American automobiles due to Japanese competition, we can surmise that opening the NASA contracts to non-American Western companies will likely accelerate space-vehicle development to such an extent that, by 2032 (i.e., 26 years later), the Western allies will launch the first intersellar starship, powered by warp drive and armed with phase cannons. From 2032, the Western alliance has 31 years before first contact in 2063 -- with the Vulcans.
There is a fundamental difference between Amazon and Safeway, and you can see the difference at the checkout lane at Safeway. Each cashier booth is equipped with a bottle of disinfectant lotion. When the cashier blows her runny rose in a handkerchief, she immediately applies the disinfectant lotion before resuming the handling of the customer's items of food. Safeway regulations require her to do so.
Amazon, being a general-merchandise store like Target, does not employ such sanitary procedures. The Amazon employees packing the non-perishable foods (for shipment to the customer) could very well have just used the toilet without washing hands before resuming the handling of the customer's items of food. These observations also apply to Walmart and other general-merchandise stores.
If you buy food, buy food from stores that specialize in selling food.
I buy stuff from Amazon and Target often, but I never buy food from those stores.
peterdaly (123554) wrote, "1680x1050 is horrible resolution for 20" of screen
space, but I guess if you value size more than pixels, then this is the laptop for you."
Due to the horrible resolution, if you viewed DVD movies close-up on this laptop, then
you would see the square-ish outline of each pixel. However, this laptop would
make a great portable, large-screen television. Just place it about 15 feet away
from your sofa in the living room and crank up the brightness of the LCD panel.
At 15 feet, your eyes would blur the outline of each pixel and would form a
smooth contour of each object in the scene.
Incidentally, this portable television would be excellent for viewing pornography
when your wife has taken the kids to soccer practice on Saturday. About 5 minutes
before she returns, you quickly delete the porn mpeg file, close the lid of the
laptop, and shove it into the closet. No one would be the wiser.
In a declaration in 2006 January, Reporters without Borders issued the following recommendation.
No US company would be allowed to host e-mail servers within a repressive country*. So, if the authorities of a repressive country want personal information about the user of a US company's e-mail service, they would have to request it under a procedure supervised by US.
Yahoo has, thus far, refused to move its servers from China to the USA.
Both Microsoft and Google have, thus far, declined to locate their servers in China.
In other words, Yahoo has the power to make substantive changes to its business model (to protect human rights) without significantly injuring its position in China. Unfortunately, the entire management of Yahoo, up to Jerry Yang (who is Chief Yahoo and has strong affinity to Chinese values), supports catering to Beijing.
We, in the West, should hit Yahoo as hard as we can by hitting its bottom line. Until Yahoo rises to the decency of Google, which itself is no angel of goodness, we should financially pummel Yahoo by boycotting its services.
This legal action that Beijing has taken against Intel is not the first instance of Chinese hypocrisy.
Consider the princelings of China. They and their parents are members of the Chinese communist party. These princelings live, for long stretches, in the West and enjoy its freedoms and prosperity. Yet, the parents of the princelings fully support and enforce the draconian Chinese "laws" that crush human rights in China.
I have personally met some of these princelings.
Do they realize their hypocrisy? Yes. Do they care? No.
Here is another, more damning, example. In 2001 in Northern California, the Chinese consulate in San Francisco sponsored an anti-Falun-Gong meeting conducted in Santa Clara, California. Chinese students from San Jose State University, Stanford University, and other neighboring universities, attended the meeting. The Chinese student associations at the respective universities fully supported the anti-Falun-Gong meeting.
These Chinese students enjoy the freedom and prosperity in the West but, actually, support the draconian Chinese "laws" that crush human rights in China.
Do they realize their hypocrisy? Yes. Do they care? No.
By now, you should realize that the authoritarian government in China exists for one reason: the majority of Chinese either support the authoritarian government or are indifferent to it.
Microsoft spends $6.2 billion on R&D.
on
How the PS3 Hit $600
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
The research division at Microsoft is the #1 industrial laboratory in the United States. To understand the magnitude of the largesse, note that Microsoft succeeded in convincing several tenured/tenure-tracked professors at top-notch private universities (e.g. Stanford University) to quit the university and to join Microsoft.
Google understands the formidable threat posed by Microsoft's research division. Google's management rushed to IPO, fearing that Microsoft would crush Google and would prevent the management from cashing in a multi-billion-dollar IPO.
Price Premium for Being a Sony
on
How the PS3 Hit $600
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I am not surprised by the $600 being charged for a Sony Playstation 3. Sony products traditionally command a high price: a competing non-Sony product offering identical functionality costs 25% less. Just look at the prices of televisions, computer monitors, and VCRs from Sony versus Panasonic versus Philips.
What Sony management does not seem to realize is that the American middle class will pay a premium only if the product offers premium quality. Nowadays, I do not see much difference, in quality, between a Sony electronic gadget and, say, a Panasonic electronic gadget. I refuse to pay the Sony premium. Increasingly, other potential and current Sony customers refuse to pay a premium without a corresponding premium in quality. For the year ending on 2006 March 31, the electronics divison of Sony lost $0.6 billion ($1.1 billion - $1.7 billion).
If Sony maintains the $600 price tag, Sony will lose the gaming console market to Microsoft. Armed with a well-funded research division, Microsoft poses a formidable threat to Sony.
P.S.
Curiously, with the fading away of Bell Laboratory as the premier industrial laboratory, Microsoft's research division now assumes the mantle of America's #1 industrial laboratory. It is certainly the coziest laboratory, funded by an almost limitless supply of money from Microsoft.
One form is simply that a game player likes the computer game.
The player might spend hours on playing the game. A good example
of an absorbing game is Netrek of the early
1990s. Many geeks at UC-Berkeley spent hours on playing this
game instead of working on their Ph.D. dissertations.
Another form is a means to escape an abusive household. The article
at the "Washington Post" states, "'I can understand my son's suffering,'
she said. 'He could never satisfy his father and was failing at school.
But when he plays his games, he becomes an undefeatable warrior.'"
When parents physically or emotionally brutalize their children,
the victims try to flee to safety. In a Western nation, most people
oppose child abuse and would offer to help the victims of abuse.
In Korea, the story is quite different. In Korea, you would consider
someone with
different blood to be inferior and to be not worthy of your help.
The overwhelming majority of adopted Korean orphans are adopted by Westerners.
The typical Korean could not care less about orphans -- or abused children.
In this kind of cold, brutal environment, an abused child has nowhere
to run. So, the child escapes into on-line gaming: a fantasy world where
the abused child can have the wonderful childhood that he cannot have in real life.
The first form of addiction is probably acceptable, but the second form
of addiction is not. The second form is a terrible cry for help.
Among textbooks teaching general (i.e., not highly specialized) discrete mathematics, the Mathematical Association of America assigns a two-star (**) recommendation to Discrete Mathematics by Kenneth A. Ross and Charles R. B. Wright. Two stars means "highly recommended". Only one other textbook on general discrete mathematics received two stars. No textbook on general discrete mathematics received the highest rating: 3 stars.
The book by Ross and Wright is quite good.
The mediocre reviews at Amazon are likely at anomaly.
Technologists who understand the fundamental theory can generally write more elegant, more efficient computer programs than pseudo-technologists who are ignorant of the science in computer science.
Once you have trained your mind on the fundamental theory, you will discover that most information technologies are quite simplistic.
Finally, one often overlooked subject is English. Learn to write and speak well in English. It is the fundamental mode of communication in the world of advanced science and technology. You may have great ideas, but if you cannot them to your English-speaking peers, then you are no better than a pseudo-technologist.
Like Zolpidem, L-DOPA produces a similar effect in patients who are afflicted with encephalitis lethargica. The illness causes its victims to enter a motionless, sleep-like state.
Once they receive a dose of L-DOPA, the victims immediately awake and behave normally
until the drug wears off.
The movie, "Awakenings", accurately portrayed the sleep-like state that befell the victims of this terrible illness. The
movie started Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro.
eldavojohn (898314) surmises, "Modern man has an impeccable record for destroying the natural environment that produces his fruits & resources."
What is amazing is that even as modern man harvests his latest wonder drugs from the environment, he simultaneously wrecks it by (1) dumping chemicals into the seas, (2) burning the rain forests, etc.
One of the key forces spurring the destruction of the environment is population growth. Expanding populations need living space: in a battle between human population and mother nature, the human population always wins.
Indeed,
Consider the recent attempt to add immigration-control to the platform of the Sierra Club: immigration-control would curb the population growth of the United States. The attempt completely failed because no one cares about the environmental destruction that population growth facilitates.
To quote a cliched phrase, "the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth." Wrecking the earth is equivalent to long-term suicide.
However, I am not a fan of Star-Trek conventions. 99% of the content of a typical convention is whoring (a.k.a. selling) memorabilia: photos with the aging actors, cards, spacecraft models, etc. The entire convention is lined with booths hawking memorabilia.
Yet, the best part of "Star Trek" cannot be bought. It is a story about how humankind transcends the suffering and limitations of life in the 20th century and 21st century. The Enterprise's entering warp is a metaphor for our breaking the bonds of our limitations as we soar to a greater, better future.
The best part of "Star Trek" is the message of hope. (I have read the profiles of many felony convicts and have yet to come across one who is a Trekkie.)
Hope is not what Christie's auction will sell. This auction is a bigger, more expensive version of a typical convention.
Though mental illness may prompt laughter from some quarters, mental illness is a serious issue.
In the issue at hand, there may be a common, tangible factor causing the numerous instances of Morgellon's Syndrome. Given the horrendous amount of chemicals that accumulate in non-organic foods, would anyone be surprised that these chemicals may be affecting the operation of the human brain?
Has anyone done an analysis of the types of food that victims (of Morgellon's Syndrome) eat? Is there a pattern?
For another perspective on this new antibiotic, read the article by "Scientific American".
Of course, a new antibiotic is never the final word in the war on bacteria. The introduction of this new antibiotic, platensimycin, provides yet another opportunity for bacteria to mutate and to develop defenses against it. Eventually, the bacteria will become resistant to platensimycin.
What is not known is whether we can continuously develop new antibiotics that kill new antibiotic-resistant strains of germs and that will not kill human cells. As each successive generation of new antibiotics bombards the bacteria and as it adapts to the new medicines, will the bacteria become so powerful that it cannot be killed?
When will Washington ban the feeding of antibiotics to cattle? I am referring to the use of antibiotics as a food supplement. It is insane.
Up until about 1981, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) did amazing things: e.g., sending Americans to the moon and sending a probe to Mars. The competition between the Russian space agency and NASA really spurred the latter agency to new heights of excellence. From about 1981, the Soviet Union was economically crumbing and faded as a competitor.
Nowadays, the main problem with the NASA is that
it has lacked serious competiton for the last 25 years. Just like General Motors (GM) and Ford,
NASA lost its focus on quality due to the lack of competition.
The tide may be turning. NASA now faces renewed competition from Russia (which is flush with cash from sales of oil and natural gas) and Japan. Just as Honda drove both GM and Ford to improve their products, the Russian space agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will drive NASA to significantly improve its services and products.
After decades of a confused space agenda, the Tokyo combined its 3 independent space agencies into the new JAXA. JAXA's only mission is space supremacy.
I prefer Tor because it is affiliated with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
A page on the EFF website states, "A branch of the U.S. Navy uses Tor for open source intelligence gathering, and one of its teams used Tor while deployed in the Middle East recently. Law enforcement uses Tor for visiting or surveilling web sites without leaving government IP addresses in their web logs, and for security during sting operations."
The issue is trust. I trust the EFF.
On the other hand, some anonymous proxy servers are located in Mexico. Do I
trust that Mexican society is a staunch advocate of privacy rights and other
civil rights?
Some people have old computers that function fine with their slower processors and more limited memory. Unfortunately, these computers run on older versions of Microsoft Windows (like Windows 98) and cannot handle Microsoft XP. If the owners of these old computers ever lost their recovery CDs, then they would be hosed: these people cannot re-install Windows in the event of a catastrophic operating-system (OS) failure (e.g. accidentally deleting some of the critical OS files).
If Microsoft management wants to generate some goodwill, then the management should open-source old versions of Microsoft Windows that are no longer being sold. In this way, people who have the older computers could easily get a copy of the older versions of Windows.
There are two types of books: cold (paper-based) books and cozy (paper-based) books.
Examples of cold books are the books that you use at work. You have no attachment to these books. They are there to provide information.
Digital books will wipe out the market for cold books. Digital book have one crucial advantage over cold books. You can use a search engine to search the content of a digital book.
In the bad old days, an investment analyst may have remembered reading an insightful analysis about hedging. She wants to re-read the analysis but, unfortunately, cannot remember which bloody book contained the analysis.
In the present day, that same analyst can just use a search engine to find the precise book by quickly scanning the list of books that she has read.
The opposite of cold books is cozy books. These are books that you read while you are curled up in a comfy sofa or bed. As you sip hot chocolate spiked with whipped cream, you devour every word of the book. You lovingly flip the pages as you quickly follow the heroine of your chick-lit novel.
No computer or search-engine will ever replace the cozy books. There will always be a market for cozy books. The phrase, "curling up with your high-performance notebook computer popping up page after page of the novel", just does not have that same cozy feel.
Note that the notions of "cozy books" and "cold books" are relative. A female engineer may consider a book about advanced quantum physics to be a "cozy book" for leisure reading, but a middle-aged housewife may consider a romance novel to be a "cozy book". The point is that digital books will never eliminate all paper-based books simply because cozy books will continue to survive in the digital age.
Although no one, in theory, controls the Internet, a dominant
search portal like Google could
control the Internet for all practical commercial purposes.
Suppose that Google had 95% of the search market. Then, if Google either denies
advertising space to a small company or lowers its page ranking (so that the
company appears at the bottom of a list of 666 other businesses selling the same product),
then the company could be hurt irrevocably. There is no viable way for the company to
use an alternative search portal since since its tiny search of the search market
reaches too small an audience. "Too small an audience" means "too few potential customers".
Slashdot Mirror
Given such low journalistic integrity, we should view the typical blog as merely an opinion piece.
Still, a blog is useful in offering a unique perspective on a political issue; this perspective can spur actual journalists to re-think the issues on which they report. For example, conservative blogs gave a convincing analysis questioning the veracity of documents presented by Dan Rather in his report aired on "60 Minutes". Soon afterwards, actual journalists examined the suspect documents in detail and concluded that their are likely fake. Rather eventually apologized for using unverified documents to slander a political candidate.
In short, blogs (like other forms of expression) play an important role in a democracy, but we should never use blogs as a final, reputable source on par with a story by actual journalists at "The Economist", the "Wall Street Journal", or the "New York Times". Conferring the status of journalist on the typical blogger is equivalent to saying that 4 years of undergraduate study leading to a journalism degree from Harvard University is a waste of time.
The only solution to the curse of infinitesimally small features is modular redundancy: hardware duplication. Triple modular redundancy is common in fault-tolerant computer design. As hardware becomes increasingly fragile due to decreasingly small features, the amount of redundancy must increase to cope with the problem of transient failure.
The implication is that the per-dollar amount of computing power which the typical consumer can buy will not increase indefinitely. As feature sizes shrink (and concurrently as the amount of computing power increases), we eventually reach a point at which the additional amount of required hardware redundancy will start to reverse the decline in dollar per unit (e.g., SPECint2005 or SPECfp2005) of computing power. Are we close to reaching that point?
I suspect that we are within 10 years of that point.
The problem of shrinking features is already manifesting itself. Microsoft now recommends that users buy computers with ECC (error-correcting code) memory if the users plan to install Vista.
The "New York Times" gives a detailed analysis of genetic disease in Saudia Arabia, where more than 50% of marriages are ones between blood relatives.
Curiously, the nature of genetic disease suggests that if you want to ensure the survival of your descendants into the eons upon eons, you should marry outside of your ethnic group. The offspring of an Eskimo-African couple will typically have a stronger set of genes than the offspring of an Eskimo-Eskimo couple, a German-German couple, or a Vietnamese-Vietnamese couple.
In the market for online products and services, Google provides shelf space by returning links to the sellers (of such products and services) in the Google web page of search results. The analogy between shelf space at Google and shelf space at Safeway is quite strong, and anti-trust laws apply in both cases.
How does Kinderstart fit into this picture? Well, first, consider the case of shelf space at Safeway. Kroger is a direct competitor of Safeway. Both Safeway and Kroger produce their own in-house-branded versions of many foods. For example, Kroger sells Kroger-branded frozen vegetables, and Safeway also sells Safeway-branded frozen vegetables. Should Safeway be expected to give shelf space to Kroger-branded frozen vegetables? Can Kroger's president claim anti-trust violations if Safeway refuses shelf space to Kroger. The answer is "no". Kroger and Safeway are direct competitors, and Safeway cannot be expected to help a direct competitor.
As for Kinderstart, it is a direct competitor of Google. Google is a general search engine that handles all searches in the known universe. Kinderstart deals with only a subset (of that universe): search results dealing with only parenting. Since Google and Kinderstart are direct competitors, we cannot expect Google to help a direct competitor. Google's management is well within its right to even remove Kinderstart from all of Google's search results (i.e. Google's shelf space).
By the way, Google now owns more than 60% of the market for search queries, and Google's marketshare is growing. Google has now entered monopoly territory, and we must keep a watchful eye over Google. Google is fully capable of evil (like catering to Beijing in censoring search results). However, in this particular case involving Kinderstart, Google has not done any evil -- yet.
Based solely on this quote, we can conclude that faking the results of medical research could potentially kill people. Faking research about a new method for vectorizing signal-processing algorithms might result in a poorly performing compiler for a multiprocessor. Faking research about a medical therapy might result in real people being subjected to a lethal cocktail of drugs.
The doctor who faked the results of his medical research deserved prison time. For once, justice was served.
The need for competition is best exemplified by the American automobile industry. The Ford Mustang of 2006 (after nearly 26 years of intense competition with Japanese automobiles like the Honda Prelude) is vastly superior in quality to the Ford Mustang of 1980.
Based on the 26 years of quality improvements in American automobiles due to Japanese competition, we can surmise that opening the NASA contracts to non-American Western companies will likely accelerate space-vehicle development to such an extent that, by 2032 (i.e., 26 years later), the Western allies will launch the first intersellar starship, powered by warp drive and armed with phase cannons. From 2032, the Western alliance has 31 years before first contact in 2063 -- with the Vulcans.
Amazon, being a general-merchandise store like Target, does not employ such sanitary procedures. The Amazon employees packing the non-perishable foods (for shipment to the customer) could very well have just used the toilet without washing hands before resuming the handling of the customer's items of food. These observations also apply to Walmart and other general-merchandise stores.
If you buy food, buy food from stores that specialize in selling food.
I buy stuff from Amazon and Target often, but I never buy food from those stores.
Due to the horrible resolution, if you viewed DVD movies close-up on this laptop, then you would see the square-ish outline of each pixel. However, this laptop would make a great portable, large-screen television. Just place it about 15 feet away from your sofa in the living room and crank up the brightness of the LCD panel. At 15 feet, your eyes would blur the outline of each pixel and would form a smooth contour of each object in the scene.
Incidentally, this portable television would be excellent for viewing pornography when your wife has taken the kids to soccer practice on Saturday. About 5 minutes before she returns, you quickly delete the porn mpeg file, close the lid of the laptop, and shove it into the closet. No one would be the wiser.
Yahoo has, thus far, refused to move its servers from China to the USA.
Both Microsoft and Google have, thus far, declined to locate their servers in China.
In other words, Yahoo has the power to make substantive changes to its business model (to protect human rights) without significantly injuring its position in China. Unfortunately, the entire management of Yahoo, up to Jerry Yang (who is Chief Yahoo and has strong affinity to Chinese values), supports catering to Beijing.
We, in the West, should hit Yahoo as hard as we can by hitting its bottom line. Until Yahoo rises to the decency of Google, which itself is no angel of goodness, we should financially pummel Yahoo by boycotting its services.
Consider the princelings of China. They and their parents are members of the Chinese communist party. These princelings live, for long stretches, in the West and enjoy its freedoms and prosperity. Yet, the parents of the princelings fully support and enforce the draconian Chinese "laws" that crush human rights in China.
I have personally met some of these princelings.
Do they realize their hypocrisy? Yes. Do they care? No.
Here is another, more damning, example. In 2001 in Northern California, the Chinese consulate in San Francisco sponsored an anti-Falun-Gong meeting conducted in Santa Clara, California. Chinese students from San Jose State University, Stanford University, and other neighboring universities, attended the meeting. The Chinese student associations at the respective universities fully supported the anti-Falun-Gong meeting.
These Chinese students enjoy the freedom and prosperity in the West but, actually, support the draconian Chinese "laws" that crush human rights in China.
Do they realize their hypocrisy? Yes. Do they care? No.
By now, you should realize that the authoritarian government in China exists for one reason: the majority of Chinese either support the authoritarian government or are indifferent to it.
The research division at Microsoft is the #1 industrial laboratory in the United States. To understand the magnitude of the largesse, note that Microsoft succeeded in convincing several tenured/tenure-tracked professors at top-notch private universities (e.g. Stanford University) to quit the university and to join Microsoft.
Google understands the formidable threat posed by Microsoft's research division. Google's management rushed to IPO, fearing that Microsoft would crush Google and would prevent the management from cashing in a multi-billion-dollar IPO.
What Sony management does not seem to realize is that the American middle class will pay a premium only if the product offers premium quality. Nowadays, I do not see much difference, in quality, between a Sony electronic gadget and, say, a Panasonic electronic gadget. I refuse to pay the Sony premium. Increasingly, other potential and current Sony customers refuse to pay a premium without a corresponding premium in quality. For the year ending on 2006 March 31, the electronics divison of Sony lost $0.6 billion ($1.1 billion - $1.7 billion).
If Sony maintains the $600 price tag, Sony will lose the gaming console market to Microsoft. Armed with a well-funded research division, Microsoft poses a formidable threat to Sony.
P.S.
Curiously, with the fading away of Bell Laboratory as the premier industrial laboratory, Microsoft's research division now assumes the mantle of America's #1 industrial laboratory. It is certainly the coziest laboratory, funded by an almost limitless supply of money from Microsoft.
-
One form is simply that a game player likes the computer game.
The player might spend hours on playing the game. A good example
of an absorbing game is Netrek of the early
1990s. Many geeks at UC-Berkeley spent hours on playing this
game instead of working on their Ph.D. dissertations.
-
Another form is a means to escape an abusive household. The article
at the "Washington Post" states, "'I can understand my son's suffering,'
she said. ' He could never satisfy his father and was failing at school.
But when he plays his games, he becomes an undefeatable warrior.'"
When parents physically or emotionally brutalize their children,
the victims try to flee to safety. In a Western nation, most people
oppose child abuse and would offer to help the victims of abuse.
The first form of addiction is probably acceptable, but the second form of addiction is not. The second form is a terrible cry for help.In Korea, the story is quite different. In Korea, you would consider someone with different blood to be inferior and to be not worthy of your help. The overwhelming majority of adopted Korean orphans are adopted by Westerners. The typical Korean could not care less about orphans -- or abused children. In this kind of cold, brutal environment, an abused child has nowhere to run. So, the child escapes into on-line gaming: a fantasy world where the abused child can have the wonderful childhood that he cannot have in real life.
The book by Ross and Wright is quite good.
The mediocre reviews at Amazon are likely at anomaly.
1. Discrete Mathematics (recommended textbook: Discrete Mathematics by Kenneth A. Ross and Charles R. Wright)
2. Finite Automata and Computability (recommended textbook: Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation by John E. Hopcroft, Rajeev Motwani and Jeffrey D. Ullman)
Technologists who understand the fundamental theory can generally write more elegant, more efficient computer programs than pseudo-technologists who are ignorant of the science in computer science.
Once you have trained your mind on the fundamental theory, you will discover that most information technologies are quite simplistic.
Finally, one often overlooked subject is English. Learn to write and speak well in English. It is the fundamental mode of communication in the world of advanced science and technology. You may have great ideas, but if you cannot them to your English-speaking peers, then you are no better than a pseudo-technologist.
The movie, "Awakenings", accurately portrayed the sleep-like state that befell the victims of this terrible illness. The movie started Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro.
What is amazing is that even as modern man harvests his latest wonder drugs from the environment, he simultaneously wrecks it by (1) dumping chemicals into the seas, (2) burning the rain forests, etc.
One of the key forces spurring the destruction of the environment is population growth. Expanding populations need living space: in a battle between human population and mother nature, the human population always wins. Indeed, Consider the recent attempt to add immigration-control to the platform of the Sierra Club: immigration-control would curb the population growth of the United States. The attempt completely failed because no one cares about the environmental destruction that population growth facilitates.
To quote a cliched phrase, "the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth." Wrecking the earth is equivalent to long-term suicide.
However, I am not a fan of Star-Trek conventions. 99% of the content of a typical convention is whoring (a.k.a. selling) memorabilia: photos with the aging actors, cards, spacecraft models, etc. The entire convention is lined with booths hawking memorabilia.
Yet, the best part of "Star Trek" cannot be bought. It is a story about how humankind transcends the suffering and limitations of life in the 20th century and 21st century. The Enterprise's entering warp is a metaphor for our breaking the bonds of our limitations as we soar to a greater, better future.
The best part of "Star Trek" is the message of hope. (I have read the profiles of many felony convicts and have yet to come across one who is a Trekkie.)
Hope is not what Christie's auction will sell. This auction is a bigger, more expensive version of a typical convention.
In the issue at hand, there may be a common, tangible factor causing the numerous instances of Morgellon's Syndrome. Given the horrendous amount of chemicals that accumulate in non-organic foods, would anyone be surprised that these chemicals may be affecting the operation of the human brain?
Has anyone done an analysis of the types of food that victims (of Morgellon's Syndrome) eat? Is there a pattern?
Of course, a new antibiotic is never the final word in the war on bacteria. The introduction of this new antibiotic, platensimycin, provides yet another opportunity for bacteria to mutate and to develop defenses against it. Eventually, the bacteria will become resistant to platensimycin.
What is not known is whether we can continuously develop new antibiotics that kill new antibiotic-resistant strains of germs and that will not kill human cells. As each successive generation of new antibiotics bombards the bacteria and as it adapts to the new medicines, will the bacteria become so powerful that it cannot be killed?
When will Washington ban the feeding of antibiotics to cattle? I am referring to the use of antibiotics as a food supplement. It is insane.
Nowadays, the main problem with the NASA is that it has lacked serious competiton for the last 25 years. Just like General Motors (GM) and Ford, NASA lost its focus on quality due to the lack of competition.
The tide may be turning. NASA now faces renewed competition from Russia (which is flush with cash from sales of oil and natural gas) and Japan. Just as Honda drove both GM and Ford to improve their products, the Russian space agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will drive NASA to significantly improve its services and products.
After decades of a confused space agenda, the Tokyo combined its 3 independent space agencies into the new JAXA. JAXA's only mission is space supremacy.
Look at the artist's rendition of a future moon base manned by Japanese astronauts.
I prefer Tor because it is affiliated with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). A page on the EFF website states, "A branch of the U.S. Navy uses Tor for open source intelligence gathering, and one of its teams used Tor while deployed in the Middle East recently . Law enforcement uses Tor for visiting or surveilling web sites without leaving government IP addresses in their web logs, and for security during sting operations."
The issue is trust. I trust the EFF.
On the other hand, some anonymous proxy servers are located in Mexico. Do I trust that Mexican society is a staunch advocate of privacy rights and other civil rights?
If Microsoft management wants to generate some goodwill, then the management should open-source old versions of Microsoft Windows that are no longer being sold. In this way, people who have the older computers could easily get a copy of the older versions of Windows.
Examples of cold books are the books that you use at work. You have no attachment to these books. They are there to provide information.
Digital books will wipe out the market for cold books. Digital book have one crucial advantage over cold books. You can use a search engine to search the content of a digital book.
In the bad old days, an investment analyst may have remembered reading an insightful analysis about hedging. She wants to re-read the analysis but, unfortunately, cannot remember which bloody book contained the analysis.
In the present day, that same analyst can just use a search engine to find the precise book by quickly scanning the list of books that she has read.
The opposite of cold books is cozy books. These are books that you read while you are curled up in a comfy sofa or bed. As you sip hot chocolate spiked with whipped cream, you devour every word of the book. You lovingly flip the pages as you quickly follow the heroine of your chick-lit novel.
No computer or search-engine will ever replace the cozy books. There will always be a market for cozy books. The phrase, "curling up with your high-performance notebook computer popping up page after page of the novel", just does not have that same cozy feel.
Note that the notions of "cozy books" and "cold books" are relative. A female engineer may consider a book about advanced quantum physics to be a "cozy book" for leisure reading, but a middle-aged housewife may consider a romance novel to be a "cozy book". The point is that digital books will never eliminate all paper-based books simply because cozy books will continue to survive in the digital age.
Suppose that Google had 95% of the search market. Then, if Google either denies advertising space to a small company or lowers its page ranking (so that the company appears at the bottom of a list of 666 other businesses selling the same product), then the company could be hurt irrevocably. There is no viable way for the company to use an alternative search portal since since its tiny search of the search market reaches too small an audience. "Too small an audience" means "too few potential customers".