There is no national-security issue when another Western nation (which is Japan, in this case) buys an energy producer or an energy facilitator (like companies that produce nuclear power plants).
I do see a larger issue: business acumen. Most American businesses knew, for a while, that nuclear power would come into vogue again. Did they not read the comments by Patrick Moore? He co-founded Greenspeace, the pinnacle of pro-environment thought. Even Moore supports the use of nuclear power and sees that we must use it in order to protect the environment.
I just read that GM may go into bankruptcy. 10 years later, will ExxonMobile follow? Why didn't ExxonMobile buy Westinghouse?
Why are American business conglomerates so sluggish in responding to business opportunities? Small American companies like Google are swift and nimble, but American conglomerates are slow as a snail. Clearly, size is not the problem because Toshiba just snatched Westinghouse.
As the population has grown, humankind has resorted to increasing use of pesticides, cow-based feed (for other cows), and other extreme measures to grow the food supply. When I say, "cow-based feed", I am referring to rendering cow carcasses into foodstuffs that is fed to other cows. Some scientists suspect that cow-based feed may be the catalyst behind mad-cow disease.
Also, "other extreme measures" include farming fish, like salmon, in confined ponds where heavy metals and other chemicals can accumulate because the farmer does not bother to clean the water. Numerous government studies show that farmed salmon had much higher concentrations of toxic metals and chemicals than wild salmon like that in Alaska.
The key question is whether there is a correlation between the increasing contamination of our food and the behavior of the brain. Has anyone noticed the increasing amounts of psychotherapeutic drugs consumed by people in developed countries? What is happening to our brains? Did people in 1850 need to consume Prozac just to cope with their own lives?
Several Republicans did not like the number, 500000.
Soon afterwards, Shinseki was forced to retire from the army. Yet, the fiasco in Iraq proved that Shinsek was right -- all along. We needed 500,000 troops.
My take on this strange behavior of Washington is the following. Clearly, global warming is a reality. The majority of scientists believe that it is happening right now, and given the choice of believing the bigwigs at MIT and the loudmouths on the Rush Limbaugh show, I support the bigwigs at MIT.
I certainly do not believe that our elected leaders are idiots. If they have the IQ to engage in mud politics to win an election, they have the IQ to understand the seriousness of global warning.
The problem is that American agribusiness is a huge and powerful lobby.
Think about this scenario. Washington concedes that global warming is real. Then, immediately, Washington must switch to a carbon-neutral fuel system like ethanol. To get enough ethanol, Washington would need to drop the 54-cent tariff per gallon of ethanol imported from Brazil. Dropping the tariff would cause Midwest corn farmers and their lobby to cry, "Uncle Sam!"
To understand the power and influence of American agribusiness, consider the Japanese ban on American beef. Tokyo demanded that we Americans test 100% of our cattle meat destined for the Japanese market. The management of Creekstone Farms actually proposed a plan to test all its cattle meat so that it could be exported to Japan. Tokyo was happy. Creekstone Farms was happy, and its management would happily shoulder 100% of the cost of the tests in order to re-enter the highly profitable Japanese market. Yet, the U.S. Department of Agriculture refused to sell the necessary chemicals (for the tests) to Creekstone so that its chemists could conduct the tests. The reason is that American Agribusiness was very unhappy. Who would have thought that Washington would be so opposed to free enterprise and capitalism? The management of Creekstone had every right to satisfy its primary customer: Japan. After all, in a free market, businesses make their own decisions about how to win business. Yet, Uncle Sam blocked this decision (to test all cattle for madcow disease) by a private business.
If you aren't angry yet, consider this fact. If Washington dropped the 54-cent tariff per gallon of imported ethanol, everyone would pay $1.50 per gallon of fuel for their vehicles. What's the cost of fuel now? $2.70 per gallon and climbing.
Pedophiles are scumbags, and so are child abusers.
However, the court overreached in this case, and I hope that the decision is annulled on appeal. If the decision is upheld, then technically a file that is cached by Firefox in its cache directory falls under the definition of "make".
Note that many Slashdotters view pornography online. We cannot be 100% sure that all pictures are those of women exceeding the age of 21. Most pornographic sites do not offer PDF files containing the signed consent of the women in the pictures. There is no way to be certain of their ages. If any Slashdotter accidentally viewed a picture of an underaged youth, then that Slashdotter would be headed straight to prison -- under the scope of this court decision.
Caching a file of an image is essentially "making" or "creating" something that did not previously exist -- on your computer.
Given the fact that most of the staff at Google reaped $500,000 (or more) in stock valuation after the IPO, complaints from the staff amount to little more than whining about annoyances. Put yourself in their shoes. If you reaped that amount of money, would the morphing of Google into a high-tech beast really bug you?
I certainly would not be bugged. I could care less.
On a more positive note, my colleagues and I support Google 100% in its attempt to defy the Department of Justice. Despite Google's supporting Beijing in its attempt to suppress human rights and democracy, the company has taken a courageous stand in supporting human rights in the USA. Google was the last place where I would expect to find a champion of privacy rights.
Go, Google! You are now my preferred search engine.
There is a touch irony here. The major justification for non-socialized medicine like that in the United States is that private enterprise will provide the economic rewards which will spur innovation in developing new drugs. However, what happens when the capitalistic system does not provide the necessary rewards?
Such is the case with new antibiotics. Typically, patients take antibiotics for a week and never consume the stuff again until the next infection arises. By contrast, drugs treating chronic conditions like excessive cholesterol are consumed daily and hence provide signficant financial rewards. As a result, American companies have abandoned the development of new antibiotics in favor of drugs treating chronic conditions.
What is the point of using superbugs in the soil to test the efficacy of new antibiotics when Americans companies are not developing new antibiotics?
What is even more interesting is that the proposed self-healing mechanism is similar to that used in tires which Sears once sold (still sells?). If a nail punctured the tread of one of these tires, a gooey liquid would ooze out of the hole. Exposure to air caused the liquid to quickly solidify, plugging up the hole.
I tried to search for more information about those tires but was not successful. Perhaps, another Slashdotter will have better luck. (Please use Google. It is the only search-engine company willing to stand up to "Big Brother".)
On 2006 January 5, Slashdot reported that Washington is working to develop warp engines.
Perhaps, now would be the right time to work on developing shields. They could protect starships from both phasers and space garbage. Is anyone developing shields?
These advances in artifical retina and the batteries to power them are amazing, but scientists rarely talk about how the human body would react to these foreign objects. Will the body accept these objects or attempt to fight them by forming clots or by summoning a white-cell army to attack them?
In the case of breast enhancements, the body forms scar tissue around the silicone implants.
In the case of artifical hearts, the patients faces the serious risk of blood clotting. The blood clots can flow into the brain and cause a stroke.
Advances in science are great, but we've "just gotta know its limitations".
The rate of software piracy in Taiwan is just under 50%; in other words, for each legitimate copy of software, there is a pirated copy. So, even if the Taiwanese government succeeds in reducing the use of Microsoft software, the impact would be 1/2 of what you would expect on Microsoft's bottom line.
Also, note that Taiwanese have already integrated their economy into the economy of mainland China although the political systems remain separate. There is the distinct possibility that the Taiwanese government may standardize on the Chinese version of Linux: that version is Red Flag Linux.
The Taiwanese have already invested more than $100 billion into more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China. Following the example set by mainland Chinese companies, Taiwanese companies have also sold weapons technology to Iran: Washington slapped sanctions against both Taiwanese companies and Chinese companies. (My source is "The Federal Register" for January 2005.)
More than 1 million Taiwanese have already emigrated to mainland China. They voluntarily choose to live under the authoritarian rules of Beijing and view being ruled by Beijing as simply an inconvenience. I suspect that most Taiwanese have used Red Flag Linux; certainly, most of the Taiwanese emigrants to China have used it.
As a side note, we Americans should never sacrifice our time, our money, or even our lives to prevent a mere inconvenience for the Taiwanese, and we should terminate our support for Taiwan. The Taiwanese have manipulated us Americans completely. (The Taiwanese constitution even insists that Tibet should be integrated into "One China".)
Apple management wants to protect its hardware profits, so Apple lawyers are threatening to sue anyone who attempts to hack the Mac OS onto some common PC hardware.
Here's the rest of the story. The hardware that goes into personal computers built by Dell, Lenovo, etc. is dirt cheap, and the profit margins are ultra-thin. Meanwhile the x86 Macs command a price premium because Apple builds them. If everyone could run the new Mac OS on an regular PC, who would want to buy the x86 Macs?
Hence, Apple management is flashing its lawyers in front of all the hackers.
Apple management will fail in its attempts to thwart the hackers. The hackers are clever, and some web site in Mongolia will soon feature a new download that enables you to run the new Mac OS on a regular PC. Are there extradition agreements between Mongolia and the USA?
Given that Apple management has embraced the x86, Jobs and his ilk should just admit that the value of Apple is its OS and jettison the hardware business. Apple could morph into a pure software house specializing in multimedia OSes, software for music gadgets like iPods and Sony MP3 players, etc. Sony just builds the hardware and licenses Apple's software for the new Sony MP3 players.
Regrettably, many Americans view Europeans as uncompetitive. The American urban legend says that the socialist states in Europe destroy economic growth and that, as a consequence, Europe lacks the economic structure to build competitive products.
Americans conveniently overlook the fact that Europeans have chosen to be a bit more socialist in their economic policies in order to build kinder and gentler societies. Just compare the crime rates between the USA and Europe. The Europeans have largely succeeded.
This Galileo system launched by Europe also demonstrates that Europe continues to be technologically competent and that slightly socialistic economic policies have not diminished Europe's ability to compete.
The Europeans should continue to build competitive national projects to demonstrate (1) that they can continue to compete with the USA and (2) that you do not need a huge military budget to spur innovation. Civilian budgets work just fine. The military industrial complex be damned.
Now, according to the present thread of discussion, the European space agency is developing a new ion engine. In essence, we are talking about an impulse-powered engine.
Warp engines. Impulse power. Hmmm.
So, when do we make "first contact" with the Vulcans?
Everyone seems to be optimistic about Apple. So, its stock may be at a peak. Now may be the right time to short Apple's stock.
The huge looming threat to Apple is Sony. Its management has refocused Sony on innovation and (if I recall correctly) hired a non-Japanese outsider to be Sony's CEO.
iPod is a cool gadget, its innards are mostly built outside of Apple. Sony is an R&D and manufacturing juggernaut and could outengineer Apple to build a better iPod.
You can indeed see the effect of a thousand years of conditioning on the island of Japan. For 2000 years, the Japanese people have lived on a resource-poor island. When resources are scarce, everyone in the village is forced to share and to cooperate. Only through cooperation as a group can everyone expect to survive.
If a person does not cooperate with the group and stakes his own territory, then he risks his own survival. By himself, he will have a hard time in finding the necessary food and hospitable living space on a tiny island constantly ravaged by tsunamis, volcanoes, and earthquakes.
What is the result of these 2000 years of group think? It has produced a nation where the group has more value than the individual. Such thinking is perfect for mass production, where each worker must be a cooperating cog in the great wheel of industrial manufacturing. Toyota is hard to beat for this very reason.
The fact of the matter is that Brazilian scientists have perfected a technique for extracting ethanol from sugarcane. That technique ensures that the fuel from sugarcane offers more energy than what is consumed for producing the fuel.
If we dropped the tariffs on ethanol imported from Brazil, then you would see E100 (pure ethanol) or E85 (85% ethanol) fuel costing $1.50 at your local gas station.
Why is this energy wonderland not happening? The answer is that American agribusiness's lobbyists have succeeded in putting a permanent tariff on imported ethanol. Worse, those same lobbyists have now forced corn-based ethanol down everyone's throats. Corn is a very poor source of ethanol; you consume more energy in harvesting ethanol from corn than the energy that corn-based ethanol provides.
Of course, there is also the possibility that a research lab at MIT will genetically engineer a non-edible plant that offers even better energy production than sugarcane. However, you can bet your buttocks that American agribusiness will suppress this non-edible plant as surely as agribusiness has suppressed ethanol from Brazil.
What is interesting to note is that many Koreans support what "Dr." Woo Suk Hwang did and claim that he did nothing wrong. The Korean government, in an investigation of the matter, concluded that Hwang acted ethically.
As I have said repeatedly, the Chinese and Korean notion of right and wrong is vastly different from the standard of right and wrong in the West: USA, Canada, Japan, etc. Mark my words. A Chinese or Korean scientist will develop and rear the first human-animal hybrid creature. Already, the Chinese created a human-rabbit-hybrid embryo but destroyed it after a few days.
I actually submitted this news story to SlashDot. Regrettably, the screener did not include the full text of the article.
Below is the full text of the article from the "Wall Street Journal".
U.S. Scientist Quits Stem-Cell Alliance
By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter
November 12, 2005; Page A5A
A prominent U.S. scientist is withdrawing from an international collaboration to create human embryonic stem cells.
Gerald Schatten, a cell biologist at the University of Pittsburgh, said he was severing all collaborations with the laboratory of Dr. Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul University.
Dr. Hwang, a veterinarian, has drawn international applause for leading the first effort to clone human embryos and extract their stem cells. Last month, he announced the formation of the World Stem Cell Foundation, an international alliance aimed at spreading that technology.
Dr. Schatten, who was to have led the organization's board of directors, says he is now severing collaboration with Dr. Hwang, due to questions over the source of human eggs used in a 2004 cloning project, and errors in a 2005 paper coauthored by the scientists.
A 2004 news report in the journal Nature said at least one female laboratory worker had provided eggs for the project, an allegation that Dr. Hwang has denied on several occasions. Under U.S. rules, collecting eggs from women working on a cloning project would be considered unethical. In the original paper, published by the journal Science last year, the scientists said the eggs all came from anonymous donors.
The above article does not state explicitly the matter of coercion, but the article strongly implies it. The pressure to produce results at Seoul University (and other Korean universities) is very intense, yet unfortunately, Korean society rejects the ethical standards that are routinely practiced and implemented in universities and laboratories in the West. Hence, American rules forbid workers on a research project from donating their own eggs for the research: the aim is to prevent any pressure from being applied to the workers. In Korea, the female lab worker most definitely felt pressure to "put out", and no one gave a damn.
For the old timers in this forum, I encourage you to do a search for the original story of the "cloning breakthrough". SlashDot had started a thread about it in 2004 or early 2005.
I will reiterate what I said in previous Slashdot threads about cloning. I salute the go-slow approach that the West (which includes Japan) has taken. Its people have repeatedly debated the ethics of the subject and enacted laws ensuring an ethical approach to the matter.
Such is not the case in Korea and, especially, China (which includes Taiwan province and Hong Kong). No national debate on the subject ever arose in Korea or China. The Koreans and the Chinese view cloning humans as merely another bland step in science. Hence, last year, the Chinese created a human-rabbit embryo but destroyed it after a couple of days.
I forgot to add the following.
In short, Mozilla Corporation (MC) would be similar to IBM Global Services. Services is a very profitable business. Unlike IBM Global Services (which handles all kinds of software), MC specializes in modifying open-source code generated by the Mozilla Foundation.
Since the code developed by the Mozilla Foundation is open-source code which can be freely distributed, how could Mozilla Corporation possibly make money?
Well, Mozilla Corporation (MC) will sell one thing: programming services that tailors Mozilla Foundation's software for the customer. Suppose that a corporate client wants a version of Firefox to uses a special type (e.g., 256-bit ?)of encryption. Then, the programmers at MC modify Firefox's code to incorporate that encryption. The corporate client does not pay for the software but, rather, pays for the programmer's time spent in modifying Firefox.
why can't NASA work with private contractors to outsource their delivery vehicle research?
According to an MSNBC article, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is now exploring the possibility of developing a manned spacecraft. The article has an artist's rendering. The picture is slick and looks like something out of "Star Trek: Enterprise".
NASA should open up the competitive bidding process to Japanese companies. If American companies cannot design a safe reusable spacecraft, then perhaps Japanese companies can.
NASA will not shape up until there is serious competion: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). This latest incident in which yet another chunk of foam flies off the boosters is a crisis. NASA spent millions of dollars since the last accident in order to prevent any more foam from flying and hitting the wings of the shuttle. What exactly did that bucket of money buy?
Reading the article about JAXA's space plans, I am mighty impressed. That proposed spacecraft to the moon bears a vague resemblance to the early prototype spacecraft imagined by the writers of "Star Trek".
Washington should open up competitive bidding (for space projects) to JAXA. If JAXA has the better ideas and the better technology, then Washington send some money over to JAXA. For too long, NASA has been a space monopoly. A little competition from JAXA will improve the quantity and quality of NASA's production.
We should ask Moscow to send a spacecraft to the space station and to safely return the American and Japanese crew members back home. Then, we give the American and Japanese engineers time to simulate and study the mechanisms that caused the cloth to dangle loosely. Also, the engineers simulate what would happen if someone attempts to yank the cloth off. In other words, we make 100% sure that all is well.
Then and only then, we send up another Western crew via a Russian spacecraft. That crew will then fix the space shuttle and fly it back home.
The whole process might take 2 months, but at least, we can be certain that our American and Japanese crew members will be safe.
The danger is that tugging and pulling at the cloth just might loosen some vital piece (e.g. a tile) of the spacecraft.
In order to deal with this matter appropriately, the engineers in Houston should create a similar scenario (i.e. a loose cloth) on the remaining shuttle and attempt to yank at it. Then, the engineers should determine whether another piece of vital equipment might be dangerously and excessively dislodged by the yanking. This sort of simulation and estimation should be done before you tell the astronauts in orbit to do the same thing.
I have a sneaking hunch that, due to time limitations and overbearing managers, the engineers have not done the simulation.
Buddha be with our American and Japanese crew members and deliver them safely to the West.
Slashdot Mirror
I do see a larger issue: business acumen. Most American businesses knew, for a while, that nuclear power would come into vogue again. Did they not read the comments by Patrick Moore? He co-founded Greenspeace, the pinnacle of pro-environment thought. Even Moore supports the use of nuclear power and sees that we must use it in order to protect the environment.
I just read that GM may go into bankruptcy. 10 years later, will ExxonMobile follow? Why didn't ExxonMobile buy Westinghouse?
Why are American business conglomerates so sluggish in responding to business opportunities? Small American companies like Google are swift and nimble, but American conglomerates are slow as a snail. Clearly, size is not the problem because Toshiba just snatched Westinghouse.
Also, "other extreme measures" include farming fish, like salmon, in confined ponds where heavy metals and other chemicals can accumulate because the farmer does not bother to clean the water. Numerous government studies show that farmed salmon had much higher concentrations of toxic metals and chemicals than wild salmon like that in Alaska.
The key question is whether there is a correlation between the increasing contamination of our food and the behavior of the brain. Has anyone noticed the increasing amounts of psychotherapeutic drugs consumed by people in developed countries? What is happening to our brains? Did people in 1850 need to consume Prozac just to cope with their own lives?
Several Republicans did not like the number, 500000.
Soon afterwards, Shinseki was forced to retire from the army. Yet, the fiasco in Iraq proved that Shinsek was right -- all along. We needed 500,000 troops.
I certainly do not believe that our elected leaders are idiots. If they have the IQ to engage in mud politics to win an election, they have the IQ to understand the seriousness of global warning.
The problem is that American agribusiness is a huge and powerful lobby.
Think about this scenario. Washington concedes that global warming is real. Then, immediately, Washington must switch to a carbon-neutral fuel system like ethanol. To get enough ethanol, Washington would need to drop the 54-cent tariff per gallon of ethanol imported from Brazil. Dropping the tariff would cause Midwest corn farmers and their lobby to cry, "Uncle Sam!"
To understand the power and influence of American agribusiness, consider the Japanese ban on American beef. Tokyo demanded that we Americans test 100% of our cattle meat destined for the Japanese market. The management of Creekstone Farms actually proposed a plan to test all its cattle meat so that it could be exported to Japan. Tokyo was happy. Creekstone Farms was happy, and its management would happily shoulder 100% of the cost of the tests in order to re-enter the highly profitable Japanese market. Yet, the U.S. Department of Agriculture refused to sell the necessary chemicals (for the tests) to Creekstone so that its chemists could conduct the tests. The reason is that American Agribusiness was very unhappy. Who would have thought that Washington would be so opposed to free enterprise and capitalism? The management of Creekstone had every right to satisfy its primary customer: Japan. After all, in a free market, businesses make their own decisions about how to win business. Yet, Uncle Sam blocked this decision (to test all cattle for madcow disease) by a private business.
If you aren't angry yet, consider this fact. If Washington dropped the 54-cent tariff per gallon of imported ethanol, everyone would pay $1.50 per gallon of fuel for their vehicles. What's the cost of fuel now? $2.70 per gallon and climbing.
However, the court overreached in this case, and I hope that the decision is annulled on appeal. If the decision is upheld, then technically a file that is cached by Firefox in its cache directory falls under the definition of "make".
Note that many Slashdotters view pornography online. We cannot be 100% sure that all pictures are those of women exceeding the age of 21. Most pornographic sites do not offer PDF files containing the signed consent of the women in the pictures. There is no way to be certain of their ages. If any Slashdotter accidentally viewed a picture of an underaged youth, then that Slashdotter would be headed straight to prison -- under the scope of this court decision.
Caching a file of an image is essentially "making" or "creating" something that did not previously exist -- on your computer.
I certainly would not be bugged. I could care less.
On a more positive note, my colleagues and I support Google 100% in its attempt to defy the Department of Justice. Despite Google's supporting Beijing in its attempt to suppress human rights and democracy, the company has taken a courageous stand in supporting human rights in the USA. Google was the last place where I would expect to find a champion of privacy rights.
Go, Google! You are now my preferred search engine.
There is a touch irony here. The major justification for non-socialized medicine like that in the United States is that private enterprise will provide the economic rewards which will spur innovation in developing new drugs. However, what happens when the capitalistic system does not provide the necessary rewards?
Such is the case with new antibiotics. Typically, patients take antibiotics for a week and never consume the stuff again until the next infection arises. By contrast, drugs treating chronic conditions like excessive cholesterol are consumed daily and hence provide signficant financial rewards. As a result, American companies have abandoned the development of new antibiotics in favor of drugs treating chronic conditions.
What is the point of using superbugs in the soil to test the efficacy of new antibiotics when Americans companies are not developing new antibiotics?
Then again, in the end, we are all dead.
What is even more interesting is that the proposed self-healing mechanism is similar to that used in tires which Sears once sold (still sells?). If a nail punctured the tread of one of these tires, a gooey liquid would ooze out of the hole. Exposure to air caused the liquid to quickly solidify, plugging up the hole.
I tried to search for more information about those tires but was not successful. Perhaps, another Slashdotter will have better luck. (Please use Google. It is the only search-engine company willing to stand up to "Big Brother".)
On 2006 January 5, Slashdot reported that Washington is working to develop warp engines.
Perhaps, now would be the right time to work on developing shields. They could protect starships from both phasers and space garbage. Is anyone developing shields?
In the case of breast enhancements, the body forms scar tissue around the silicone implants.
In the case of artifical hearts, the patients faces the serious risk of blood clotting. The blood clots can flow into the brain and cause a stroke.
Advances in science are great, but we've "just gotta know its limitations".
Also, note that Taiwanese have already integrated their economy into the economy of mainland China although the political systems remain separate. There is the distinct possibility that the Taiwanese government may standardize on the Chinese version of Linux: that version is Red Flag Linux.
The Taiwanese have already invested more than $100 billion into more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China. Following the example set by mainland Chinese companies, Taiwanese companies have also sold weapons technology to Iran: Washington slapped sanctions against both Taiwanese companies and Chinese companies. (My source is "The Federal Register" for January 2005.)
More than 1 million Taiwanese have already emigrated to mainland China. They voluntarily choose to live under the authoritarian rules of Beijing and view being ruled by Beijing as simply an inconvenience. I suspect that most Taiwanese have used Red Flag Linux; certainly, most of the Taiwanese emigrants to China have used it.
As a side note, we Americans should never sacrifice our time, our money, or even our lives to prevent a mere inconvenience for the Taiwanese, and we should terminate our support for Taiwan. The Taiwanese have manipulated us Americans completely. (The Taiwanese constitution even insists that Tibet should be integrated into "One China".)
Here's the rest of the story. The hardware that goes into personal computers built by Dell, Lenovo, etc. is dirt cheap, and the profit margins are ultra-thin. Meanwhile the x86 Macs command a price premium because Apple builds them. If everyone could run the new Mac OS on an regular PC, who would want to buy the x86 Macs?
Hence, Apple management is flashing its lawyers in front of all the hackers.
Apple management will fail in its attempts to thwart the hackers. The hackers are clever, and some web site in Mongolia will soon feature a new download that enables you to run the new Mac OS on a regular PC. Are there extradition agreements between Mongolia and the USA?
Given that Apple management has embraced the x86, Jobs and his ilk should just admit that the value of Apple is its OS and jettison the hardware business. Apple could morph into a pure software house specializing in multimedia OSes, software for music gadgets like iPods and Sony MP3 players, etc. Sony just builds the hardware and licenses Apple's software for the new Sony MP3 players.
Americans conveniently overlook the fact that Europeans have chosen to be a bit more socialist in their economic policies in order to build kinder and gentler societies. Just compare the crime rates between the USA and Europe. The Europeans have largely succeeded.
This Galileo system launched by Europe also demonstrates that Europe continues to be technologically competent and that slightly socialistic economic policies have not diminished Europe's ability to compete.
The Europeans should continue to build competitive national projects to demonstrate (1) that they can continue to compete with the USA and (2) that you do not need a huge military budget to spur innovation. Civilian budgets work just fine. The military industrial complex be damned.
Now, according to the present thread of discussion, the European space agency is developing a new ion engine. In essence, we are talking about an impulse-powered engine.
Warp engines. Impulse power. Hmmm.
So, when do we make "first contact" with the Vulcans?
The huge looming threat to Apple is Sony. Its management has refocused Sony on innovation and (if I recall correctly) hired a non-Japanese outsider to be Sony's CEO.
iPod is a cool gadget, its innards are mostly built outside of Apple. Sony is an R&D and manufacturing juggernaut and could outengineer Apple to build a better iPod.
If a person does not cooperate with the group and stakes his own territory, then he risks his own survival. By himself, he will have a hard time in finding the necessary food and hospitable living space on a tiny island constantly ravaged by tsunamis, volcanoes, and earthquakes.
What is the result of these 2000 years of group think? It has produced a nation where the group has more value than the individual. Such thinking is perfect for mass production, where each worker must be a cooperating cog in the great wheel of industrial manufacturing. Toyota is hard to beat for this very reason.
If we dropped the tariffs on ethanol imported from Brazil, then you would see E100 (pure ethanol) or E85 (85% ethanol) fuel costing $1.50 at your local gas station.
Why is this energy wonderland not happening? The answer is that American agribusiness's lobbyists have succeeded in putting a permanent tariff on imported ethanol. Worse, those same lobbyists have now forced corn-based ethanol down everyone's throats. Corn is a very poor source of ethanol; you consume more energy in harvesting ethanol from corn than the energy that corn-based ethanol provides.
Of course, there is also the possibility that a research lab at MIT will genetically engineer a non-edible plant that offers even better energy production than sugarcane. However, you can bet your buttocks that American agribusiness will suppress this non-edible plant as surely as agribusiness has suppressed ethanol from Brazil.
What is interesting to note is that many Koreans support what "Dr." Woo Suk Hwang did and claim that he did nothing wrong. The Korean government, in an investigation of the matter, concluded that Hwang acted ethically.
As I have said repeatedly, the Chinese and Korean notion of right and wrong is vastly different from the standard of right and wrong in the West: USA, Canada, Japan, etc. Mark my words. A Chinese or Korean scientist will develop and rear the first human-animal hybrid creature. Already, the Chinese created a human-rabbit-hybrid embryo but destroyed it after a few days.
Below is the full text of the article from the "Wall Street Journal".
U.S. Scientist Quits Stem-Cell Alliance
By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter
November 12, 2005; Page A5A
A prominent U.S. scientist is withdrawing from an international collaboration to create human embryonic stem cells.
Gerald Schatten, a cell biologist at the University of Pittsburgh, said he was severing all collaborations with the laboratory of Dr. Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul University.
Dr. Hwang, a veterinarian, has drawn international applause for leading the first effort to clone human embryos and extract their stem cells. Last month, he announced the formation of the World Stem Cell Foundation, an international alliance aimed at spreading that technology.
Dr. Schatten, who was to have led the organization's board of directors, says he is now severing collaboration with Dr. Hwang, due to questions over the source of human eggs used in a 2004 cloning project, and errors in a 2005 paper coauthored by the scientists.
A 2004 news report in the journal Nature said at least one female laboratory worker had provided eggs for the project, an allegation that Dr. Hwang has denied on several occasions. Under U.S. rules, collecting eggs from women working on a cloning project would be considered unethical. In the original paper, published by the journal Science last year, the scientists said the eggs all came from anonymous donors.
The above article does not state explicitly the matter of coercion, but the article strongly implies it. The pressure to produce results at Seoul University (and other Korean universities) is very intense, yet unfortunately, Korean society rejects the ethical standards that are routinely practiced and implemented in universities and laboratories in the West. Hence, American rules forbid workers on a research project from donating their own eggs for the research: the aim is to prevent any pressure from being applied to the workers. In Korea, the female lab worker most definitely felt pressure to "put out", and no one gave a damn.
For the old timers in this forum, I encourage you to do a search for the original story of the "cloning breakthrough". SlashDot had started a thread about it in 2004 or early 2005.
I will reiterate what I said in previous Slashdot threads about cloning. I salute the go-slow approach that the West (which includes Japan) has taken. Its people have repeatedly debated the ethics of the subject and enacted laws ensuring an ethical approach to the matter.
Such is not the case in Korea and, especially, China (which includes Taiwan province and Hong Kong). No national debate on the subject ever arose in Korea or China. The Koreans and the Chinese view cloning humans as merely another bland step in science. Hence, last year, the Chinese created a human-rabbit embryo but destroyed it after a couple of days.
I forgot to add the following. In short, Mozilla Corporation (MC) would be similar to IBM Global Services. Services is a very profitable business. Unlike IBM Global Services (which handles all kinds of software), MC specializes in modifying open-source code generated by the Mozilla Foundation.
Well, Mozilla Corporation (MC) will sell one thing: programming services that tailors Mozilla Foundation's software for the customer. Suppose that a corporate client wants a version of Firefox to uses a special type (e.g., 256-bit ?)of encryption. Then, the programmers at MC modify Firefox's code to incorporate that encryption. The corporate client does not pay for the software but, rather, pays for the programmer's time spent in modifying Firefox.
According to an MSNBC article, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is now exploring the possibility of developing a manned spacecraft. The article has an artist's rendering. The picture is slick and looks like something out of "Star Trek: Enterprise".
NASA should open up the competitive bidding process to Japanese companies. If American companies cannot design a safe reusable spacecraft, then perhaps Japanese companies can.
Reading the article about JAXA's space plans, I am mighty impressed. That proposed spacecraft to the moon bears a vague resemblance to the early prototype spacecraft imagined by the writers of "Star Trek".
Washington should open up competitive bidding (for space projects) to JAXA. If JAXA has the better ideas and the better technology, then Washington send some money over to JAXA. For too long, NASA has been a space monopoly. A little competition from JAXA will improve the quantity and quality of NASA's production.
So help me Buddha!
The safest thing to do is the following.
We should ask Moscow to send a spacecraft to the space station and to safely return the American and Japanese crew members back home. Then, we give the American and Japanese engineers time to simulate and study the mechanisms that caused the cloth to dangle loosely. Also, the engineers simulate what would happen if someone attempts to yank the cloth off. In other words, we make 100% sure that all is well.
Then and only then, we send up another Western crew via a Russian spacecraft. That crew will then fix the space shuttle and fly it back home.
The whole process might take 2 months, but at least, we can be certain that our American and Japanese crew members will be safe.
In order to deal with this matter appropriately, the engineers in Houston should create a similar scenario (i.e. a loose cloth) on the remaining shuttle and attempt to yank at it. Then, the engineers should determine whether another piece of vital equipment might be dangerously and excessively dislodged by the yanking. This sort of simulation and estimation should be done before you tell the astronauts in orbit to do the same thing.
I have a sneaking hunch that, due to time limitations and overbearing managers, the engineers have not done the simulation.
Buddha be with our American and Japanese crew members and deliver them safely to the West.