Does the fate of Amazon hang on which its exclusive rights to 1-click shopping? I am incredulous. What matters to me is the variety of the products, the quality of the products, the prompt arrival at my condominium, and the state of the product upon arrival. Amazon has defied the critics and proven to be a successful business model due to those 4 aspects.
Often, customers cannot find the right product in the local store, which has a policy that "if it is not on the shelf, it is not in stock"; in response, customers can go to Amazon and likely find the exact product that they want. Amazon is the ultimate mail-order company online. it has taken the traditional Montgomery-Wards catalog, increased its size by a factor of 1000, and put it on the Web. Gosh. Can you even buy polonium-210 at Amazon?
In short, Amazon is wasting money in trying to defend this patent. Can the typical customer be so stupid that 1-less-mouse-click is the deciding factor in whether to buy stuff at Amazon?
The management of Sun Microsystems believed that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". So, Sun proceeded to ally with SCO and put the screws to the entire Linux community.
The management of Novell should now deal aggressively with Sun's dirty triangulation. Novell should demand huge royalties on any UNIX code that Sun is using in Solaris. The royalties should be sufficiently large to ensure that any Sun server solution using Solaris is more expensive than any generic non-Sun x86 server solution using Linux.
The likely source of the problem is an unscrupulous manufacturer in China. The Sony batteries that spontaneously burst into flames were manufactured in China.
The seafood imported from China -- and tainted with deadly chemicals -- has not yet killed any American. However, long-term consumption of the contaminated seafood will eventually cause agonizing health problems.
AT&T should immediately identify the country where its batteries were manufactured. Chances are good that a Chinese factory is the culprit.
The American official who leaked the warrantless wiretapping program to the media is a hero, not a culprit. Such leakers are people with conscience. The leaker was likely shocked by the gross violation of civil rights (which the warrantless wiretapping program trampled) and gave vital information about the wiretapping program to the media. The media then informed the American public.
Without the leaker, we -- the American public -- would still be in the dark. Without the leaker, our government would still be conducting warrantless wiretapping. The leaker actually helped to strengthen our democracy. He did not endanger it.
Yet, why is Washington trying to send the leaker to federal prison? This massive raid by the FBI smacks of Russian-style fascism.
Only monopolies can afford pure-research laboratories. Examples include the pre-breakup AT&T and pre-Lou-Gerstner IBM. AT&T had Bell Laboratory, and IBM had Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Bell Laboratory is basically dead. IBM still has the Watson center, but Lou Gerstner ended basic research and ordered IBM scientists to focus on research that enhances IBM products.
In the USA, the only industrial laboratory that still does significant pure research is Microsoft Research. It enjoys an annual funding of about $7 billion, a level that can be provided by only a monopoly.
In Japan, the only industrial laboratory that does signficant pure research is NTT Laboratory.
The management of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation acted appropriately in shutting down the pure-research arm of Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory (MERL). Although MERL is part of the huge Mitsubishi conglomerate, it is not a monopoly in any industry and cannot afford pure research.
Read the shocking report at the web site of the "National Geographic". The report states, "In India, for example, more than 5,000 brides die annually because their dowries are considered insufficient, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Crimes of passion, which are treated extremely leniently in Latin America, are the same thing with a different name, some rights advocates say."
The year of the report is 2002. The report proceeds to note the similarity between Indian culture and Islamic culture.
Note that "5000" is the number for only murdered brides. That number does not include the many Indian women murdered by Indian man for supposedly shaming the Indian family.
Also, according to a disturbing CNN report, Indian has 3 million prostitutes, of whom many are the victims of trafficking. Of these victims, at least 40% are children; 40% translates to 1.2 million Indian children working as prostitutes, who are raped numerous times, per day, by Indian customers.
The parent article tries to paint India as a Western nation. The facts indicate otherwise.
Vietnam is more Western than India. Honor killings are extremely rare in Vietnam. It has a much lower rate of children prostitution than India because Vietnamese law enforcement actually punishes the customers of child prostitutes. Note that Vietnam is still a relatively poor nation, so poverty cannot explain the popularity of honor killings and children prostitution in India. The explanation is in the non-Western culture of India.
Reliable news is delivered through 3 dominant means: radio/television, Internet, and print media. Print media is most easily blocked by authoritarian governments like those in Russia, Singapore, and China. Arresting the distributors or (in the case of Russia) subjecting them to tax audits is easy.
However, blocking the Internet is very difficult. Anyone -- even a person with no technical knowledge -- can use a proxy server to bypass the blockage. Just pick a proxy server that anonymizes the user. Then, enter the URL of the "dangerous" site like, say, CNN. The proxy server will fetch the content of the site.
The only way for a brutal society like China to truly block the Internet is to sever the Chinese Internet from the rest of the global Internet.
Also, blocking radio news is difficult since these days, almost anyone can buy a shortwave radio for under $50. A shortwave radio enables you to listen to Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, etc.
The above observations lead to the interesting conclusion that most Russian citizens can still access fair and balanced news by (1) accessing Western web sites like CNN and Fox News and (2) tuning into Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. Statistics indicate that about 20% of Russians have regular access to the Internet. The other 80% could easily buy a shortwave radio. I recommend a Panasonic one.
The main problem in Russia is not government control of the Russian radio and television stations. The main problem is that most Russians genuinely support Putin and his authoritarian polices.
Similar comments apply to mainland China. Most Chinese who study at American universities support the occupation and brutalization of Tibetans. The Chinese in the USA know the truth (from CNN, Fox News, etc.) but reject it. They prefer Chinese nationalism.
The Call That Changed a Life
on
The Apple II At 30
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· Score: 3, Insightful
In a report issued today, the Bloomberg news service is also asking why Russia is in the G-8. The report states, "The tensions are again raising questions about why Putin is even a member of the [G-8] club. The original Group of Six leading industrialized nations -- the U.S., Japan, U.K., France, Germany and Italy -- first met in 1975, and Canada joined a year later. While Russia's economy is only the world's 10th largest -- behind nonmembers China and Spain -- it was admitted to the club in 1997 as President Boris Yeltsin struggled to manage the nation's transition to a capitalist democracy. G-8 membership was an 'advance payment' that assumed Russia would gradually move closer to the values of the other members, Volk says. Among leaders of the other nations, there were 'a lot of illusions that by engaging Russia they can influence Russia,' Volk says. That hasn't happened. These days, 'there's a consensus among every major western country' that Russia is going backward on democracy, says Masha Lipman, a political analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center."
When the Kremlin threatens nuclear annihilation against Eastern Europe, the very least that we can do is to expel Russia from the G-8. Expulsion from the G-8 does not terminate relations between Russia and the West. Those relations shall continue. However, expulsion does send a strong, symbolic message that we Westerners condemn the authoritarian impulses of the Russian government.
"The Economist" recently published a concise summary of relations between the West and Russia. The summary stated, "DEMONSTRATORS thrashed on the streets of Moscow; the impending mugging of another big energy firm, this one part-owned by BP; cyberwarfare against a small neighbour; the bellicose testing of a new ballistic missile, supposedly able to bypass the American missile-defence system about which the Kremlin fulminates--and all that was only in the past fortnight. When the G8 group of rich countries meets next week in Germany, one of its biggest if unadvertised concerns will be the snarling behaviour of one of its own members, Vladimir Putin's Russia--and the urgent need for a more coherent Western policy towards it."
One of the biggest mistakes that we Westerners committed was to admit the Russians into the G-8. The original G-7 was intended to be the group of leading industrialized democracies committed to Western values.
We admitted the Russians in the hope that, although Russia was still highly non-Western (in, for example, its treatment of sexual-orientation or ethnic minorities), being lenient on Russia would encourage the Russians to modernize their society along Western lines. Well, we were wrong. Just last week, the Russian police smiled in approval as ordinary Russians violently beat up participants in a demonstration calling for rights for homosexuals. Some of the victims of the violence were European politicians who had participated into the demonstration.
The Russians make a mockery of the G-8 and its principles. Now, Putin is idly threatening to point his nuclear missiles at Eastern Europe. Nuclear annihilation is serious business. Before Russia joined the G-8, no member of the G-7 ever threatened nuclear annihilation against a prosperous, Western democracy.
The time has come for us to end this nonsense. We should expel Russia from the G-8, restoring the orignal name of "G-7".
That John McCain would consider picking Steve Ballmer to serve in the cabinet just affirms the stupidity of the American voter. Flash, not substance, appeals to the typical voter. Ballmer has plenty of flash; he is the high-profile leader of one of the most well-known companies in America. To the dumb American voter, Ballmer is good, and the chairman of the electrical enginering department at MIT is bad. The likelihood that McCain would pick a good choice -- like the EE department chairman at MIT -- is zero.
Among the Republican candidates, both John McCain and Ron Paul are the least dishonest candidates -- even if you disagree with their political positions. McCain is honest in saying that a substantial increase in troops in Iraq can transform the country. He is correct. Increasing the number of Western occupying soldiers to 400,000, pushing aside the Iraqi government, and running Iraq as a colony on the basis of Western values (e.g., equality for women) will transform Iraq into a prosperous, liberal Western nation. At the end of 20 years of occupation, we can relinquish control to democratically elected Iraqi politicians who spent most of their youth in a Western-value-dominated colony.
At the same time, Ron Paul is correct when he says that American foreign policy (like deposing the democratically elected government of Iran in the 1950s) is, at least partially, responsible for Arab attacks (like the 9/11 incident) against American citizens.
Note that neither men can win this election. American voters do not want to hear truth. Neoconservative voters especially do not want to hear the truth. They wanted war on the cheap and cheered using a pathetic force of 160,000 soldiers to occupy Iraq. Of course, these voters refuse to support making sacrifices for the war; their attitude is, "You make all the sacrifies for the war. You die for the war. As for me, I make no sacrifices. I will not support even a tax increase to pay for this war. Excuse me! I must hop in my SUV and head off to the baseball game!"
When Ron Paul told the truth during the recent debate, the Republican voters booed and condemned him. They do not want to hear about American responsibility for the 9/11 incident. In the debate, Ruddy Giuliani viciously attacked Paul and his utterance of the truth. Few politicians are as dishonest as Giuliani, so he has the best chance of being nominated as the Republican candidate. The American voter prefers hearing lies.
On the Democratic side, the least dishonest politicians are Hillary Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, and Barack Obama.
Okay. Clinton has a good chance of being president. However, she keeps saying the truth. She refuses to apologize for her vote authorizing the use of force against Iraq. Although we now know that the CIA intelligence data was wrong, supporting the use of force was appropriate since, in 2003, we believed that the intelligence data was correct. If a nation with a leader making violent threats does have weapons of mass destruction, authorizing the use of military force against this nation is appropriate -- maybe, even, desirable. Clinton voted correctly. She correctly refuses to apologize for the vote.
However, if she keeps sticking to the truth, she will ruin her chances to win in the election. The dumb American voter does not want to hear the truth. So, henceforth, Clinton should avoid talking about her vote on the use of force -- if she wants to win. She must focus on flashy superficialities -- just like Giuliani.
Of course, Fred Thompson has an excellent chance to win. Nothing is more superficial and flashy than an actor.
"The Economist" recently published a concise summary of relations between the West and Russia. The summary stated, "DEMONSTRATORS thrashed on the streets of Moscow; the impending mugging of another big energy firm, this one part-owned by BP; cyberwarfare against a small neighbour; the bellicose testing of a new ballistic missile, supposedly able to bypass the American missile-defence system about which the Kremlin fulminates--and all that was only in the past fortnight. When the G8 group of rich countries meets next week in Germany, one of its biggest if unadvertised concerns will be the snarling behaviour of one of its own members, Vladimir Putin's Russia--and the urgent need for a more coherent Western policy towards it."
One of the biggest mistakes that we Westerners committed was to admit the Russians into the G-8. The original G-7 was intended to be the group of leading industrialized democracies committed to Western values.
We admitted the Russians in the hope that, although Russia was still highly non-Western (in, for example, its treatment of sexual-orientation or ethnic minorities), being lenient on Russia would encourage the Russians to modernize their society along Western lines. Well, we were wrong. Just last week, the Russian police smiled in approval as ordinary Russians violently beat up participants in a demonstration calling for rights for homosexuals. Some of the victims of the violence were European politicians who had participated into the demonstration.
The Russians make a mockery of the G-8 and its principles. This demand for licensing fees on supposed patents of a 60-year-old technology is the latest in a string of non-Western activities.
The time has come for us to end this nonsense. We should expel Russia from the G-8, restoring the orignal name of "G-7".
Interestingly, "Star Trek: Enterprise" (STE) also ended after 4 seasons. It started okay but gradually degenerated into a final episode in which weak characters from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (STTNG) flashback to the past.
STE ended on a whimper. By contrast, Battlestar Galactica ends with a bang.
"Right, you are! That Star Wars I & II sucked, also forget not!" exclaims Yoda.
The conflict between the newspapers and Google is due to financial issues. With nearly 100% of news being free, newspaper revenue is declining rapidly. The newspaper companies just want Google to pay them for the free news.
However, Google has no legal obligation to do so.
Google is not causing the newspapers to lose money. Google is just a pointer to the news. The news organizations are the ones who actually provide the news -- for free.
So, the solution is obvious. The "Wall Street Journal" (WSJ) has already implemented the solution: charge for news. The readership of the WSJ has declined little since the start of the Internet Age. Revenue has also been relatively stable.
Now, look at the "Los Angeles Times". Every bit of news and opinion at the "Times" is free. Why would anyone subscribe to the "Times" when she can get the news for free?
The trouble with Americans is that we devalue science education. Creationism is making a comeback in parts of the deep south. Several presidential candidates claim that evolution is a lie.
With this attitude, naturally we Americans reject scientific conclusions: e.g., the warming of the globe due to human activity.
Doubtless, some very reputable scientists reject the notion that global warming is due to human activity. However, on crucial matters of national importance, the right approach is to seek the consensus opinion. When the federal government mandated vaccinating all American school children, some reputable scientists dissented. They believed that some children might be killed via allergic reactions or the weakened pathogens (used as the basis of the vaccine). Yet, because the majority of reputable scientists favored vaccinations, the government proceeded to require immunizations for all school children.
The consensus approach is the right approach. It also works in the case of global warming. The consensus among reputable scientists is that human activity is causing global warming. We must immediately deal with the situation by reducing the production of greenhouse gases.
Here is where Nicolas Sarkozy enters the picture. As the leader of a nation that has resolutely declared the supremacy of Western values, he has the political power to confront Washington. If we Americans are too stupid to control greenhouse gases and too stupid to curtail the importation of Chinese products (of which much is toxic -- e.g., toothpaste, catfish, and the like), then Sarkozy should lead the European Union in banning imports of American products. If Americans want to destroy the environment and their health, the Europeans should refuse to be an accomplice to this idiocy.
Sarkozy shows that you can be simultaneously pro-environment, pro-business, and pro-labor -- without being an idiotic cowboy.
P.S.
Perhaps, Sarkozy should consider taking military action against the United States. Destroying the environment is equivalent to brutally using a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) against Europe.
The motivation for corn-based ethanol is political. While Washington advocates "free markets", American politicians of all political persuasions advocate subsidizing the production of corn-based ethanol because American agribusiness nearly owns the government.
Generally speaking, subsidies cost taxpayers dearly but do not pose a hazard. Corn-based ethanol is an exception. It drives up the price of corn and could lead to severe malnutrition in Mexico and other poor countries which cannot afford higher prices for basic food items. Subsidies for corn-based ethanol could indirectly kill people (via starvation) in the 3rd world.
Do American politicians care? No. They care only about making American agribusiness happy.
The "International Herald Tribune" has just published a report summarizing the state of independent journalism in Russia. The Kremlin is trying to seize the offices of the Russian Union of Journalists, which is the largest organization of independent journalists. Meanwhile, the Russian government uses its satellites to transmit "Russia Today", a government-funded pro-Kremlin program, to audiences in foreign countries like the USA and Germany. Also, Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian News Service (RNS) to broadcast pro-Kremlin news. One Russian listener of RNS commented on the new format by writing, on the RNS web site, "Down with Kremlin censorship! Yesterday elevators were discussed. Today, buckwheat. Are not there any other topics?"
Gas prices in the USA are not particularly high -- even at $3.50 per gallon. Gas in Europe costs $10 per gallon.
Such high prices in Europe does not hurt the European standard of living because many Europeans use public transportation; bus and trains are relatively cheap to ride. In the USA, many Americans refuse to use public transportation due to class snobbery. In my neck of the woods, about 80% of the passengers on the bus is either impoverished Americans (from ghetto neighborhoods) or illegal aliens from Mexico. The occupancy of the buses is about 50% during most of the day. Meanwhile, the freeways are packed with late-model cars driven by the wealthier class.
Frankly, even if gas prices increased to $10 per gallon in the USA, Americans would not necessarily experience a decline in their standard of living -- if they use public transportation. It is cheap although it may be slighly inconvenient because you must time your life according to the bus or train schedule.
Note that American politicians never compare European gas prices to American gas prices. The politicians just tell Americans what they want to hear: "Gas at $3.50 is too expensive. We Americans are a sad, pathetic victim of the greedy oil companies. We should force them to lower gas prices back to $1.50 per gallon so we can enjoy your monster SUV."
These are the same Americans who overwhelmingly supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
This study by the Open Net Initiative is a very big deal. Look at the countries identified to be censoring the net. They include Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Burma/Myanmar, China, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, UAE, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yemen.
From this list, we can conclude that Asia really has only 3 Western nations: Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Neither Singapore nor South Korea is Western though they are economically prosperous. Both Singapore and South Korea censor the Internet.
In Asia, the natural allies of the USA and the European Union are only the Western countries. They share similar values. Our energies should be focused on building strong economic and military ties with Japan, New Zealand, and Australia.
Our relationship with South Korea should be downgraded to the level of China or Thailand. Ditto for Turkey.
The election in France will almost prove to be the single most important event in this decade, for this election signals a tidal shift back to asserting that Western values are superior. This tidal shift will be resolutely proved if the French citizens give control of the French National Assembly to pro-Sarkozy politicians in June.
Note that Sarkozy is not a neoconservative in the American sense. In European culture, he may seem very conservative, but in American culture, he is mostly a moderate populist. He wants to maximize the wealth for the middle class, not the upper class.
Allow me to elaborate. First, he opposes an open-border policy. Most American neoconservatives favor an open-border policy because they like to use illegal and legal immigration to suppress wages. American agribusiness, not just Hispanic groups like La Raza, are the strongest advocates for allowing the importation of desperate foreign labor.
Sarkozy supports strong restrictions on immigration but favors treating immigrants kindly. The concept of immigrants working 14+ hours per day is considered to be cruel. He does not favor such brutal working conditions. Note that both parents of Seung Hui Cho, the mass murderer at Virginia Tech, worked 14+ hours per day. Neoconservatives applaud this situation: with glee, they self-servingly "praise" the hardworking nature of the Korean parents are. The consequence is that his parents were just too busy at work to give Seung Hui Cho the proper care that he needed. They never even noticed his rapid mental degeneration.
Second, Sarkozy supports globalization with only other free markets. So, he supports the European Union. However, he opposes fake free trade with non-free markets like India. He realizes that this kind of trade drives down the quality of life in France. He realizes that combining a free market and a non-free market damages the operation of the free market.
By contrast, American neoconservatives favor fake free trade with non-free markets like India.
Nonetheless, Sarkozy will (if the legislative election in June is favorable) will vastly transform France. It will not be the brutal kind (i.e., 14+ hours of work by illegal aliens) of capitalism in America. Rather, France will be a kinder, gentler economic superpower. If he succeeds (and I think that he will), I would likely prefer to live in France instead of America.
The election in France will almost prove to be the single most important event in this decade, for this election signals a tidal shift back to asserting that Western values are superior. This tidal shift will be resolutely proved if the French citizens give control of the French National Assembly to pro-Sarkozy politicians in June.
Note that Sarkozy is not a neoconservative in the American sense. In European culture, he may seem very conservative, but in American culture, he is mostly a moderate populist.
Allow me to elaborate. First, he opposes an open-border policy. Most American neoconservatives favor an open-border policy because they like to use illegal and legal immigration to suppress wages. American agribusiness, not just Hispanic groups like La Raza, are the strongest advocates for allowing the importation of desperate foreign labor.
Sarkozy supports strong restrictions on immigration but favors treating immigrants kindly. The concept of immigrants working 14+ hours per day is considered to be cruel. He does not favor such brutal working conditions. Note that both parents of Seung Hui Cho, the mass murderer at Virginia Tech, worked 14+ hours per day. Neoconservatives applaud this situation: with glee, they self-servingly "praise" the hardworking nature of the Korean parents are. The consequence is that his parents were just too busy at work to give Seung Hui Cho the proper care that he needed. They never even noticed his rapid mental degeneration.
Second, Sarkozy supports globalization with only other free markets. So, he supports the European Union. However, he opposes fake free trade with non-free markets like India. He realizes that this kind of trade drives down the quality of life in France. He realizes that combining a free market and a non-free market damages the operation of the free market.
By contrast, American neoconservatives favor fake free trade with non-free markets like India.
Nonetheless, Sarkozy will (if the legislative election in June is favorable) will vastly transform France. It will not be the brutal kind (i.e., 14+ hours of work by illegal aliens) of capitalism in America. Rather, France will be a kinder, gentler economic superpower. If he succeeds (and I think that he will), I would likely prefer to live in France instead of America.
The key for this experiment is whether the output energy is greater than the input energy. If the former exceeds the latter, then some experimentation may harness the excess energy.
Does anyone know how the output energy compares to the input energy for this military experiment?
Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and Georgetown University conducted an extensive study of the cost of nuclear power generation via current and future nuclear technologies. The conclusion is that the cost of nuclear power falls in the range: "3 cents per kilowatt hour to nearly 14 cents per kilowatt hour". That cost is much lower than the solar-cell power plant and, on average, is cheaper than wind power. Nuclear power is almost as "clean" as wind power.
Building a solar-panel power station is "cool", "neat", and "oh, so hip". However, it makes no economic sense. Solar power is about 3x the cost of the most expensive nuclear power.
In the simulation of the mouse brain, IBM is making a big assumption: the brain operates only in the domain of Newtonian (a.k.a. classical) physics. So, the IBM programmers just encode the simple physical laws (governing the flow of electrical energy) in the C language.
However, there is an alternate theory of consciousness, based on quantum physics. It is inherently non-deterministic and cannot be modeled in a computer.
Hence, IBM's big assumption may be wrong. However, at least, the IBM experiment will tell us whether the operation of the brain is strictly Newtonian. If this artifical brain behaves differently from a mouse brain, then we would know that non-Newtonian physics is crucial to the operation of a flesh-and-blood brain.
Slashdot Mirror
Often, customers cannot find the right product in the local store, which has a policy that "if it is not on the shelf, it is not in stock"; in response, customers can go to Amazon and likely find the exact product that they want. Amazon is the ultimate mail-order company online. it has taken the traditional Montgomery-Wards catalog, increased its size by a factor of 1000, and put it on the Web. Gosh. Can you even buy polonium-210 at Amazon?
In short, Amazon is wasting money in trying to defend this patent. Can the typical customer be so stupid that 1-less-mouse-click is the deciding factor in whether to buy stuff at Amazon?
The management of Novell should now deal aggressively with Sun's dirty triangulation. Novell should demand huge royalties on any UNIX code that Sun is using in Solaris. The royalties should be sufficiently large to ensure that any Sun server solution using Solaris is more expensive than any generic non-Sun x86 server solution using Linux.
Recently, defective tires manufactured in China killed two motorists.
The seafood imported from China -- and tainted with deadly chemicals -- has not yet killed any American. However, long-term consumption of the contaminated seafood will eventually cause agonizing health problems.
AT&T should immediately identify the country where its batteries were manufactured. Chances are good that a Chinese factory is the culprit.
Without the leaker, we -- the American public -- would still be in the dark. Without the leaker, our government would still be conducting warrantless wiretapping. The leaker actually helped to strengthen our democracy. He did not endanger it.
Yet, why is Washington trying to send the leaker to federal prison? This massive raid by the FBI smacks of Russian-style fascism.
In the USA, the only industrial laboratory that still does significant pure research is Microsoft Research. It enjoys an annual funding of about $7 billion, a level that can be provided by only a monopoly.
In Japan, the only industrial laboratory that does signficant pure research is NTT Laboratory.
The management of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation acted appropriately in shutting down the pure-research arm of Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory (MERL). Although MERL is part of the huge Mitsubishi conglomerate, it is not a monopoly in any industry and cannot afford pure research.
The morphing of Solaris into a Linux clone is best described by the well-known pithy aphorism: "If you cannot beat them, join them."
The year of the report is 2002. The report proceeds to note the similarity between Indian culture and Islamic culture.
Note that "5000" is the number for only murdered brides. That number does not include the many Indian women murdered by Indian man for supposedly shaming the Indian family.
Also, according to a disturbing CNN report, Indian has 3 million prostitutes, of whom many are the victims of trafficking. Of these victims, at least 40% are children; 40% translates to 1.2 million Indian children working as prostitutes, who are raped numerous times, per day, by Indian customers.
The parent article tries to paint India as a Western nation. The facts indicate otherwise.
Vietnam is more Western than India. Honor killings are extremely rare in Vietnam. It has a much lower rate of children prostitution than India because Vietnamese law enforcement actually punishes the customers of child prostitutes. Note that Vietnam is still a relatively poor nation, so poverty cannot explain the popularity of honor killings and children prostitution in India. The explanation is in the non-Western culture of India.
However, blocking the Internet is very difficult. Anyone -- even a person with no technical knowledge -- can use a proxy server to bypass the blockage. Just pick a proxy server that anonymizes the user. Then, enter the URL of the "dangerous" site like, say, CNN. The proxy server will fetch the content of the site.
The only way for a brutal society like China to truly block the Internet is to sever the Chinese Internet from the rest of the global Internet.
Also, blocking radio news is difficult since these days, almost anyone can buy a shortwave radio for under $50. A shortwave radio enables you to listen to Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, etc.
The above observations lead to the interesting conclusion that most Russian citizens can still access fair and balanced news by (1) accessing Western web sites like CNN and Fox News and (2) tuning into Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. Statistics indicate that about 20% of Russians have regular access to the Internet. The other 80% could easily buy a shortwave radio. I recommend a Panasonic one.
The main problem in Russia is not government control of the Russian radio and television stations. The main problem is that most Russians genuinely support Putin and his authoritarian polices.
Similar comments apply to mainland China. Most Chinese who study at American universities support the occupation and brutalization of Tibetans. The Chinese in the USA know the truth (from CNN, Fox News, etc.) but reject it. They prefer Chinese nationalism.
call -151
When the Kremlin threatens nuclear annihilation against Eastern Europe, the very least that we can do is to expel Russia from the G-8. Expulsion from the G-8 does not terminate relations between Russia and the West. Those relations shall continue. However, expulsion does send a strong, symbolic message that we Westerners condemn the authoritarian impulses of the Russian government.
One of the biggest mistakes that we Westerners committed was to admit the Russians into the G-8. The original G-7 was intended to be the group of leading industrialized democracies committed to Western values.
We admitted the Russians in the hope that, although Russia was still highly non-Western (in, for example, its treatment of sexual-orientation or ethnic minorities), being lenient on Russia would encourage the Russians to modernize their society along Western lines. Well, we were wrong. Just last week, the Russian police smiled in approval as ordinary Russians violently beat up participants in a demonstration calling for rights for homosexuals. Some of the victims of the violence were European politicians who had participated into the demonstration.
The Russians make a mockery of the G-8 and its principles. Now, Putin is idly threatening to point his nuclear missiles at Eastern Europe. Nuclear annihilation is serious business. Before Russia joined the G-8, no member of the G-7 ever threatened nuclear annihilation against a prosperous, Western democracy.
The time has come for us to end this nonsense. We should expel Russia from the G-8, restoring the orignal name of "G-7".
Among the Republican candidates, both John McCain and Ron Paul are the least dishonest candidates -- even if you disagree with their political positions. McCain is honest in saying that a substantial increase in troops in Iraq can transform the country. He is correct. Increasing the number of Western occupying soldiers to 400,000, pushing aside the Iraqi government, and running Iraq as a colony on the basis of Western values (e.g., equality for women) will transform Iraq into a prosperous, liberal Western nation. At the end of 20 years of occupation, we can relinquish control to democratically elected Iraqi politicians who spent most of their youth in a Western-value-dominated colony.
At the same time, Ron Paul is correct when he says that American foreign policy (like deposing the democratically elected government of Iran in the 1950s) is, at least partially, responsible for Arab attacks (like the 9/11 incident) against American citizens.
Note that neither men can win this election. American voters do not want to hear truth. Neoconservative voters especially do not want to hear the truth. They wanted war on the cheap and cheered using a pathetic force of 160,000 soldiers to occupy Iraq. Of course, these voters refuse to support making sacrifices for the war; their attitude is, "You make all the sacrifies for the war. You die for the war. As for me, I make no sacrifices. I will not support even a tax increase to pay for this war. Excuse me! I must hop in my SUV and head off to the baseball game!"
When Ron Paul told the truth during the recent debate, the Republican voters booed and condemned him. They do not want to hear about American responsibility for the 9/11 incident. In the debate, Ruddy Giuliani viciously attacked Paul and his utterance of the truth. Few politicians are as dishonest as Giuliani, so he has the best chance of being nominated as the Republican candidate. The American voter prefers hearing lies.
On the Democratic side, the least dishonest politicians are Hillary Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, and Barack Obama.
Okay. Clinton has a good chance of being president. However, she keeps saying the truth. She refuses to apologize for her vote authorizing the use of force against Iraq. Although we now know that the CIA intelligence data was wrong, supporting the use of force was appropriate since, in 2003, we believed that the intelligence data was correct. If a nation with a leader making violent threats does have weapons of mass destruction, authorizing the use of military force against this nation is appropriate -- maybe, even, desirable. Clinton voted correctly. She correctly refuses to apologize for the vote.
However, if she keeps sticking to the truth, she will ruin her chances to win in the election. The dumb American voter does not want to hear the truth. So, henceforth, Clinton should avoid talking about her vote on the use of force -- if she wants to win. She must focus on flashy superficialities -- just like Giuliani.
Of course, Fred Thompson has an excellent chance to win. Nothing is more superficial and flashy than an actor.
One of the biggest mistakes that we Westerners committed was to admit the Russians into the G-8. The original G-7 was intended to be the group of leading industrialized democracies committed to Western values.
We admitted the Russians in the hope that, although Russia was still highly non-Western (in, for example, its treatment of sexual-orientation or ethnic minorities), being lenient on Russia would encourage the Russians to modernize their society along Western lines. Well, we were wrong. Just last week, the Russian police smiled in approval as ordinary Russians violently beat up participants in a demonstration calling for rights for homosexuals. Some of the victims of the violence were European politicians who had participated into the demonstration.
The Russians make a mockery of the G-8 and its principles. This demand for licensing fees on supposed patents of a 60-year-old technology is the latest in a string of non-Western activities.
The time has come for us to end this nonsense. We should expel Russia from the G-8, restoring the orignal name of "G-7".
STE ended on a whimper. By contrast, Battlestar Galactica ends with a bang.
"Right, you are! That Star Wars I & II sucked, also forget not!" exclaims Yoda.
However, Google has no legal obligation to do so. Google is not causing the newspapers to lose money. Google is just a pointer to the news. The news organizations are the ones who actually provide the news -- for free.
So, the solution is obvious. The "Wall Street Journal" (WSJ) has already implemented the solution: charge for news. The readership of the WSJ has declined little since the start of the Internet Age. Revenue has also been relatively stable.
Now, look at the "Los Angeles Times". Every bit of news and opinion at the "Times" is free. Why would anyone subscribe to the "Times" when she can get the news for free?
With this attitude, naturally we Americans reject scientific conclusions: e.g., the warming of the globe due to human activity.
Doubtless, some very reputable scientists reject the notion that global warming is due to human activity. However, on crucial matters of national importance, the right approach is to seek the consensus opinion. When the federal government mandated vaccinating all American school children, some reputable scientists dissented. They believed that some children might be killed via allergic reactions or the weakened pathogens (used as the basis of the vaccine). Yet, because the majority of reputable scientists favored vaccinations, the government proceeded to require immunizations for all school children.
The consensus approach is the right approach. It also works in the case of global warming. The consensus among reputable scientists is that human activity is causing global warming. We must immediately deal with the situation by reducing the production of greenhouse gases.
Here is where Nicolas Sarkozy enters the picture. As the leader of a nation that has resolutely declared the supremacy of Western values, he has the political power to confront Washington. If we Americans are too stupid to control greenhouse gases and too stupid to curtail the importation of Chinese products (of which much is toxic -- e.g., toothpaste, catfish, and the like), then Sarkozy should lead the European Union in banning imports of American products. If Americans want to destroy the environment and their health, the Europeans should refuse to be an accomplice to this idiocy.
Sarkozy shows that you can be simultaneously pro-environment, pro-business, and pro-labor -- without being an idiotic cowboy.
P.S.
Perhaps, Sarkozy should consider taking military action against the United States. Destroying the environment is equivalent to brutally using a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) against Europe.
The motivation for corn-based ethanol is political. While Washington advocates "free markets", American politicians of all political persuasions advocate subsidizing the production of corn-based ethanol because American agribusiness nearly owns the government.
Generally speaking, subsidies cost taxpayers dearly but do not pose a hazard. Corn-based ethanol is an exception. It drives up the price of corn and could lead to severe malnutrition in Mexico and other poor countries which cannot afford higher prices for basic food items. Subsidies for corn-based ethanol could indirectly kill people (via starvation) in the 3rd world.
Do American politicians care? No. They care only about making American agribusiness happy.
The "International Herald Tribune" has just published a report summarizing the state of independent journalism in Russia. The Kremlin is trying to seize the offices of the Russian Union of Journalists, which is the largest organization of independent journalists. Meanwhile, the Russian government uses its satellites to transmit "Russia Today", a government-funded pro-Kremlin program, to audiences in foreign countries like the USA and Germany. Also, Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian News Service (RNS) to broadcast pro-Kremlin news. One Russian listener of RNS commented on the new format by writing, on the RNS web site, " Down with Kremlin censorship! Yesterday elevators were discussed. Today, buckwheat. Are not there any other topics? "
Such high prices in Europe does not hurt the European standard of living because many Europeans use public transportation; bus and trains are relatively cheap to ride. In the USA, many Americans refuse to use public transportation due to class snobbery. In my neck of the woods, about 80% of the passengers on the bus is either impoverished Americans (from ghetto neighborhoods) or illegal aliens from Mexico. The occupancy of the buses is about 50% during most of the day. Meanwhile, the freeways are packed with late-model cars driven by the wealthier class.
Frankly, even if gas prices increased to $10 per gallon in the USA, Americans would not necessarily experience a decline in their standard of living -- if they use public transportation. It is cheap although it may be slighly inconvenient because you must time your life according to the bus or train schedule.
Note that American politicians never compare European gas prices to American gas prices. The politicians just tell Americans what they want to hear: "Gas at $3.50 is too expensive. We Americans are a sad, pathetic victim of the greedy oil companies. We should force them to lower gas prices back to $1.50 per gallon so we can enjoy your monster SUV."
These are the same Americans who overwhelmingly supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
From this list, we can conclude that Asia really has only 3 Western nations: Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Neither Singapore nor South Korea is Western though they are economically prosperous. Both Singapore and South Korea censor the Internet.
In Asia, the natural allies of the USA and the European Union are only the Western countries. They share similar values. Our energies should be focused on building strong economic and military ties with Japan, New Zealand, and Australia.
Our relationship with South Korea should be downgraded to the level of China or Thailand. Ditto for Turkey.
Note that Sarkozy is not a neoconservative in the American sense. In European culture, he may seem very conservative, but in American culture, he is mostly a moderate populist. He wants to maximize the wealth for the middle class, not the upper class.
Allow me to elaborate. First, he opposes an open-border policy. Most American neoconservatives favor an open-border policy because they like to use illegal and legal immigration to suppress wages. American agribusiness, not just Hispanic groups like La Raza, are the strongest advocates for allowing the importation of desperate foreign labor.
Sarkozy supports strong restrictions on immigration but favors treating immigrants kindly. The concept of immigrants working 14+ hours per day is considered to be cruel. He does not favor such brutal working conditions. Note that both parents of Seung Hui Cho, the mass murderer at Virginia Tech, worked 14+ hours per day. Neoconservatives applaud this situation: with glee, they self-servingly "praise" the hardworking nature of the Korean parents are. The consequence is that his parents were just too busy at work to give Seung Hui Cho the proper care that he needed. They never even noticed his rapid mental degeneration.
Second, Sarkozy supports globalization with only other free markets. So, he supports the European Union. However, he opposes fake free trade with non-free markets like India. He realizes that this kind of trade drives down the quality of life in France. He realizes that combining a free market and a non-free market damages the operation of the free market.
By contrast, American neoconservatives favor fake free trade with non-free markets like India.
Nonetheless, Sarkozy will (if the legislative election in June is favorable) will vastly transform France. It will not be the brutal kind (i.e., 14+ hours of work by illegal aliens) of capitalism in America. Rather, France will be a kinder, gentler economic superpower. If he succeeds (and I think that he will), I would likely prefer to live in France instead of America.
Note that Sarkozy is not a neoconservative in the American sense. In European culture, he may seem very conservative, but in American culture, he is mostly a moderate populist.
Allow me to elaborate. First, he opposes an open-border policy. Most American neoconservatives favor an open-border policy because they like to use illegal and legal immigration to suppress wages. American agribusiness, not just Hispanic groups like La Raza, are the strongest advocates for allowing the importation of desperate foreign labor.
Sarkozy supports strong restrictions on immigration but favors treating immigrants kindly. The concept of immigrants working 14+ hours per day is considered to be cruel. He does not favor such brutal working conditions. Note that both parents of Seung Hui Cho, the mass murderer at Virginia Tech, worked 14+ hours per day. Neoconservatives applaud this situation: with glee, they self-servingly "praise" the hardworking nature of the Korean parents are. The consequence is that his parents were just too busy at work to give Seung Hui Cho the proper care that he needed. They never even noticed his rapid mental degeneration.
Second, Sarkozy supports globalization with only other free markets. So, he supports the European Union. However, he opposes fake free trade with non-free markets like India. He realizes that this kind of trade drives down the quality of life in France. He realizes that combining a free market and a non-free market damages the operation of the free market.
By contrast, American neoconservatives favor fake free trade with non-free markets like India.
Nonetheless, Sarkozy will (if the legislative election in June is favorable) will vastly transform France. It will not be the brutal kind (i.e., 14+ hours of work by illegal aliens) of capitalism in America. Rather, France will be a kinder, gentler economic superpower. If he succeeds (and I think that he will), I would likely prefer to live in France instead of America.
Does anyone know how the output energy compares to the input energy for this military experiment?
Building a solar-panel power station is "cool", "neat", and "oh, so hip". However, it makes no economic sense. Solar power is about 3x the cost of the most expensive nuclear power.
Nuclear power is the way to go.
However, there is an alternate theory of consciousness, based on quantum physics. It is inherently non-deterministic and cannot be modeled in a computer.
Hence, IBM's big assumption may be wrong. However, at least, the IBM experiment will tell us whether the operation of the brain is strictly Newtonian. If this artifical brain behaves differently from a mouse brain, then we would know that non-Newtonian physics is crucial to the operation of a flesh-and-blood brain.