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Of Survival and Science: Scientific American

From street waif in war-torn Italy to "knocking out" the genes of mice--Mario R. Capecchi shows how genius springs from the most unlikely beginnings.

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Personal MagLev Train Pods Presented At CEATEC

It would seem that Tyco and Gakken have had a glimpse of the future. At the recent CEATEC exhibition they presented a personal Magnetic Levitation (MagLev) transportation system, which uses a magnetic field to make the vehicle hover around 1.2-inches above the track whilst propelling it along.

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Shi Huang on Creativity and Prime Numbers

Shi Huang  has just posted a paper at the  Los Alamos National Laboratory's electronic repository on his studies. The tile is:

Modeling the creative process of the mind by prime numbers and a simple proof of the Riemann Hypothesis

and the Abstract is:

" Numbers (positive integers) are the most fundamental creatures of the human mind and the foundation to the scientific understanding of nature. Some mathematicians have suspected a link between prime numbers and secrets of creation. Understanding creativity may help resolve the deepest mysteries of primes. The algorithm that programs the mind and makes the mind creative must be sufficient for the mind to create primes. I found that primes are directly linked to the creation algorithm of the mind. The essence of primes is the duality of uniqueness and uniformity together with the creation algorithm of the mind. The creative process of the mind is lawfully determined but the outcome is unpredictable. The mathematical equivalent or model of this process is the creation of primes. Primes have the inherent property of unpredictability but can be generated by the creation algorithm of the mind, termed the Prime Law, via a fully deterministic lawful process. This new understanding of the essence of primes can deduce some of the best-known properties of primes, including the Riemann Hypothesis (RH). Understanding human creativity is obviously the most fundamental of all scientific enquiries. That this understanding can directly lead to a solution to the RH, widely considered the most important unsolved problem in mathematics, shows a deep connection between creativity and mathematics."

Very intriguing.

Professor Hansen and Fascism

Inside the parameters of a free society, James Hansen has faced censorship. Some nobody named by the Bush administration to lead a Government agency actually tried to stop Professor Hansen from presenting his scientific results.

That person was eventually fired because he did not even have the bachelor's degree. In his application this person lied, he was caught by a watchful blogger. This blogger happened to know about this government official  from university days.

I hope this is the extent to which I have to report on Professor Hansen and fascism.

Scenario

Imagine, that as Jim Hansen is saying, global warming is here, and as Naomi Wolf says, Martial Law is here: What then?

Bush knows, he lied to get elected. Oil people know; they have enough money to know. They are getting prepared for what they KNOW will happen. Martial Law, seems more plausible this way.

I'll keep looking into it.

Martial Law and Environmental Crisis

I think the weather is odd.

I think that the Bush administration is authoritarian.

But do I believe that one plus the other means we are in a constitutional crisis as Wolf (below) claims?

I am not convinced.

Nevertheless this is one of those Black Swans that Nassim Taleb   writes about in his book, "The Black Swan", that one should take a look at, given the high stakes involved.

Interview - Naomi Wolf - Give Me Liberty

Interview with Naomi Wolf author of "Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries" given October 4, 2008 on Mind Over Matters, KEXP 90.3 FM Seattle.

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Martial Law in US?

Naomi Wolf, is warning us, we are in a state of emergency since October 1. Should we believe her?
Check it out.
There is a You Tube piece link above.
Bush should be arrested. She says.
Bush and Cheney are not allowed in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Palin on Global Warming

Here at RealClimate we understandably have an intense interest in the positions of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates regarding global warming and carbon emissions. What the stance bodes for future action on climate change is consequential in itself, but beyond that the ability to use sound science in this case serves as a ..

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Is Earth's Temperature Rising?

This is the poll's question this week. Below you can read about a hero of mine, Professor James Hansen.

I do believe it is rising. The first person that warned me to the seriousness of the problem was Senator John McCain!

I was watching c-span one day, and there it was, a Republican accepting the obvious! He talked about Inuit people having to move from the land. By the life of me I can't understand how did he chose a woman from Alaska, that doesn't seem to have a clue, about global warming, or about anything.

I knew about Al Gore, of course; but it really struck a chord to find out that an American ex-prisoner of war, was concerned also.

We should pay attention.

Here in Chilpancingo, we have a nice rainy day today.

Global Warming: Are We Beyond the Tipping Point?

The basic proposition behind the science of climate change is so firmly rooted in the laws of physics that no reasonable person can dispute it. Adding carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere will make it warm up. The world's most outspoken climatologist argues that today's carbon dioxide levels are already dangerously too high. What can we do?

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Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Scientific American P

Germany's Harald Zur Hausen and France's Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi share this year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. The two French scientists discovered HIV, which quickly led to blood screening and treatments. The German showed that cervical cancer was caused by the human papilloma virus, paving the way to a vaccine. Stev

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Keep SASOL stock; buy more shares, too- Syracuse.com

A. It's a common perception that the United States imports most of its oil from the Middle East. Actually our largest source of oil is Canada and our second largest source of oil is Mexico. Saudi Arabia and the Middle East rank a distant third and fourth.

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Repeat after me: pigs can’t fly. Kipling on Palin.

Some truths seem self-evident. But let’s face it, the whole Wall Street debacle was based on the fathomless human ability to disregard facts and believe in cloud-cuckoo-land. Palin just doesn't get it.

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Health Care Destruction

Republicans still hate Medicare and have not been able to kill it. Since that is out, John McCain is going after insurance of nonelderly Americans instead.

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Building Malls and Houses?

To tell you the truth the year I lost my job at Lucent, I did not like what I saw. Instead of pouring in money to beat the rest of the world in building the next Internet; all I saw was more malls. Who ordered that ? I thought. The simple answer I gave myself, is that  investors were clueless, just following dad's advice. Now we have this mortgage crisis.

I am afraid I was right.

White men with cash and no imagination. If it turns out differently, I'll be happy, my family lives in the States, but I have the odd feeling that I was right.

The Chinese did invest in the new Internet. As opposed to the fifties, we should say now: the Chinese are coming, instead of the Russians are coming. And  you know what? They want back the money they loaned us.

So it goes.

Swedish Spoken Here

The current crisis has made the United States a debtor nation. By being more intertwined and dependent on the rest of the world, the country’s power has been diminished.

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Pitbull Palin Mauls McCain

The 2008 election is now an Obama-Palin race about “the future,” and the only person who doesn’t seem to know it is Mr. Past, poor old John McCain.

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Economic Unrest Shifts Electoral Battlegrounds

Barack Obama’s ambitious strategy to make incursions into Republican territory is gaining new force, while John McCain is scaling back his efforts to capture Democratic states. Mr. McCain’s advisers said their only hope was that the issue of the economy would recede somewhat from the public consciousness.

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Palin’s Alternate Universe ( or reality challenged?)

In such a serious moment in American history, it’s hard to believe that someone with Sarah Palin’s limited skills could possibly be playing a leadership role.

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Krugman: Raising the white flag of surrender — to Medicare

Unbelievable. Sarah Palin finished her closing remarks by quoting Ronald Reagan. It was on a recording he made for Operation Coffeecup — a campaign organized by the American Medical Association to block the passage of Medicare.

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Obama Has Met Ayers, but the Two Are Not Close

Records suggest Barack Obama has played down contacts with Bill Ayers, who helped found the Weathermen.

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Joe Biden's Tears: the Political Power of Paternal Love

Joe Biden did more for the equality of the sexes with his honest display of paternal emotion during the vice presidential debate than Sarah Palin's presence on the executive ticket has or will ever do. Biden visibly teared up when he rebutted the idea that "just because I am a man" he didn't understand what it was like to wonder whether a child wou

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House Nears Vote on Bailout Bill

The debate was a do-over for the House, which rejected the $700 billion economic bailout package on Monday.

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Mexican Peso Drops to One-Year Low on Economic Growth Concer

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Mexico's peso dropped to a one-year low amid concern a global economic slowdown will reduce demand for emerging-market assets.

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Latin America's economies Keeping their fingers crossed

In Latin America, the most trenchant opponents of globalised finance look most likely to suffer at its hands

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Falling Oil Price Is a Positive Note Amid Turmoil

If prices keep dropping, consumers will have billions more dollars in their wallets, giving the economy some support.

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Paul Krugman: Edge of the Abyss

The financial news since the middle of last month has been grim. And what’s truly scary is that we’re entering a period of severe crisis with weak, confused leadership.

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William Rowan Hamilton

This great Irish scientist of the nineteenth century invented quaternions.

Kinematics is the mathematical part of Mechanics. Hamilton contributed to Kinematics greatly, his contributions also allowed a unified description of waves and particles, before Quantum Mechanics.

I wonder how much of Mechanics is Kinematics and how much is Dynamics. The latter contains the Natural Laws, the former the mathematical description. The question has to do with how much our mathematics reflect the world out there.

Were quaternions purely kinematical?

It comes to mind the case of quarks, the "quaternions of SU(3)".  Murray Gell-Mann got a Nobel Price for using this "Dynamics" (?) to describe components of protons and neutrons.

When does mathematics stop being mere description, and becomes Natural Law?

Mexican Farm Leader Dies After Lighting Himself on Fire in P

A Mexican man who doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire as a political protest has died.

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Hortensia Fernández Fuentes

When I was living in Puebla, Mexico, Prof. Fernández was the principal of my daughter's grammar school, she writes this today:

"Hortensia Fernández Fuentes, directora del Centro Freinet Prometeo. Fue detenida en Ciudad Universitaria de la UNAM el 18 de septiembre, y estuvo encarcelada tres días. El 2 de octubre de 1968, en la mañana y tarde estuvo en la UAP, en la Escuela de Psicología de la que era alumna y por la noche estuvo en casa. “Me ha costado trabajo recordar esto, el recuerdo de la masacre de Tlatelolco ocupa la memoria de ese y muchos otros días de mi vida”.

“Me dedicaba a estudiar y a cumplir con mi tarea ciudadana de protestar contra la represión gubernamental, defender la educación pública, el derecho de opinión y a pedir la excarcelación de los detenidos injustamente en el movimiento estudiantil y popular”.

“El movimiento permitió que mucha gente tomara conciencia de la condición de sumisión ante el poder que vivía, y aún vive en muchos ámbitos el pueblo de México. Mostró la dignidad de quienes tuvieron el valor de protestar aún a pesar de la represión armada. El movimiento del 68 cambió nuestro país para siempre; fue un paso de grandes alcances de los que incluso todavía no nos damos cuenta. Lamentablemente, 40 años después, las luchas para abatir la injusticia y la desigualdad siguen siendo necesarias; baste como una muestra la inmolación reciente de un campesino veracruzano  que protestó así por la desatención de las autoridades ante el problema agrario de su pueblo. ¡Sólo les habían cancelado la audiencia 107 veces! Y el gobierno veracruzano ‘asegura que no hubo omisión de su parte para atender el caso’. Es terrible, no queda otra que apretar el paso y seguir en la lucha”."

My translation is:

Hortensia Fernández Fuentes, principal of Centro Freinet Prometeo. She was detained at the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City on September 18, and she was jailed for three days. On October 2, 1968, during the morning and afternoon she was at the Autonomous University of Puebla, at the Psychology School where she was a student  and at night she was home."I had trouble recalling this; the thought of the Tlateloco massacre occupies the memory of that and many other days of my life".

"I studied and satisfied my civilian duty to protest government repression, to defend public education, free speech, and to ask for the release of the unjustly detained in the student and popular movement".

"The movement allowed many people to acknowledge the subjugation to power the Mexican people suffers in many areas of life then and still now.   It showed the dignity of those with the courage to protest despite the armed repression. The 68 movement changed our country forever; it was a step of great consequences, some of which we still are not aware of. Unfortunately, 40 years later, the battles to abolish injustice and inequality are still necessary; just as an example we have the recent self-immolation of  a Veracruz peasant in protest for the lack of attention by the authorities of the agrarian problem of his people. They had only canceled the appointment 107 times! And the Veracruz government "assures us that there was no lack of attention, on their part, to this case." It is terrible, there is nothing left but steady the march and continue the fight."

Well said Hortensia.

Roger Cohen

I regularly read this journalist's opinions in the NYT. Today he writes in Nixon, Bush, Palin:

"The lesson of the last eight years is this: when power is a passport to gamble, people can end up seriously broke or seriously dead."


"And people’s houses across America really did go up in smoke.

And fear stalked the land."

President Bush's tenure will likely be remembered as one of the dark periods of US History.


I hope this is over soon.

Priest-Cosmologist Wins $1.6 Million Templeton Prize

Professor Heller was born in 1936 in Poland, one of five children in a deeply religious family devoted to intellectual interests. His mother, a schoolteacher, and his father, an engineer, fled to Russia in 1939 before the Nazi occupation. On returning years later to Poland, Heller found shelter for his work in the Catholic Church.

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October 2, 1968

Twenty years ago today I had just turned nineteen, and some young people of my generation died in the worst day of our political life. I saw the tanks from my house, and chose not to go to the meeting. The Mexican Government killed more than five hundred people. Officially there were a few students dead; nobody in Government said then, nor now, how many really died.

I want to remember this today.

Now the political landscape is better, there are more parties vying for power, and I feel this cannot happen today.

The killer was Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, then President of México.

California-Mexico border technology park gets green boost -

Silicon Border Development will move ahead with a science park in Mexicali, Mexico, targeting solar energy firms.

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Nixon, Bush, Palin

The lesson of the last eight years is this: When power is a a passport to gamble, people can end up seriously broke or seriously dead. Does America want to roll the dice again?

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Mars Weather Forecast: Snow

The latest findings from the Martian Arctic offer more hints of a wet past but paint a very arid present, scientists reported Monday.

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Paul Krugman: Stockholm Syndrome

On Olbermann a few minutes ago (that basement classroom with the heavy paper over the windows and camera sure has come in handy lately!) a phrase popped out of my mouth: “Stockholm Syndrome”, with regard to the bailout rescue.Here’s the thing: it’s very hard for Congress to originate complex financial rescues, so it’s

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“Creative destruction” vs bailout of US financial system

“For the sake of the altar of the Free Market system, do you accept a Great Depression?"

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A Good Jewish Joke, Anyone?

I read Tom Friedman' Rabbi Joke:

"My rabbi told this story at Rosh Hashana services on Tuesday: A frail 80-year-old mother is celebrating her birthday and her three sons each give her a present. Harry gives her a new house. Harvey gives her a new car and driver. And Bernie gives her a huge parrot that can recite the entire Torah. A week later, she calls her three sons together and says: “Harry, thanks for the nice house, but I only live in one room. Harvey, thanks for the nice car, but I can’t stand the driver. Bernie, thanks for giving your mother something she could really enjoy. That chicken was delicious.”"


I am not Jewish, but I married one. I guess that makes me somewhat Jewish by association. Mexicans also have their jokes, I wrote one about Proculo's Fart  sometime ago.


Under stress, like many Mexicans and Jewish people live, for no fault of their own, some humor is needed.

Rescue the Rescue

Our leaders have gotten so out of practice of working together that even in the face of this meltdown they could not agree on a rescue package.

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FTP Down?

Another message from a dying company?

"Dear AOL Hometown/FTP user,

We’re sorry to inform you that on Oct. 31, 2008, AOL® Hometown and FTP will be shut down permanently. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Though you will be able to modify your Hometown site and access FTP until this date, we urge you to save your AOL Hometown/FTP content immediately, and consider other options for hosting your site. Read more about how to download and save your Hometown/FTP files here.

In the meantime, please bookmark the People Connection Blog, where you can find out more about AOL Hometown/FTP. You can also subscribe to the People Connection Blog RSS feed to stay informed about any changes. We’ll be updating the People Connection Blog often, so please check it regularly.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we make this transition. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Sincerely,

The AOL Hometown Team"

Mexico: 18 Bodies Found in Tijuana

The police discovered a dozen partly clothed bodies on Monday, most of which had been bound and tortured, dumped next to an elementary school in Tijuana.

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Is AOL Dying?

I received this notification:

Dear AOL Journals user,

We’re sorry to inform you that on Oct. 31, 2008, AOL® Journals will be shut down permanently. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

It’s very important that you save your Journals content before the shutdown. We're working on a way to easily move your Journal to another blogging service -- you can expect an email within the next week with more details about how to do it. We want the transition to go as smoothly as possible for you, so you’ll have two choices. You can either save your information manually and find another place to blog on your own, or choose to automatically transfer your Journal to a different blogging service we’ve selected.

In the meantime, please bookmark the People Connection Blog, where you can find out more about AOL Journals. You can also subscribe to the People Connection Blog RSS feed to stay informed about any changes. We’ll be updating the People Connection Blog often, so please check it regularly.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we make this transition.

Sincerely,

The AOL Journals Team

When Madmen Reign

The question voters should be asking John McCain is whether he has stopped serving his party’s economic Kool-Aid and is ready to change his ways.

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Paul Krugman: People I agree with, part two

Jamie Galbraith, pre-House-debacle, offers a jaundiced pro-Dodd-Frank argument essentially the same as mine:In short, as I said at the beginning, the bill is a vast improvement over the original Treasury proposal. Given the choice between approving or defeating the bill as it stands, I would urge supporting the bill. I do so without illusions.

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Paul Krugman: Where Will the Money Come From?

In the end, the US government will rescue the financial system — not today or tomorrow, maybe not Thursday, but soon, and for the rest of our lives, or anyway until the next crisis.But, people ask me, where will we get the money? Won’t we have to borrow it from the Chinese?Actually, no. Ten years [...]

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The Most Dangerous Job on Earth

If Pakistan is the most dangerous country on earth, then Asif Ali Zardari has taken one of the world’s least enviable posts as president.

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Jewish New Year

Happy New Year

Today we celebrate the year 5769 in the Jewish Calendar.

It is a composite number 3x1923.

Lawmakers Defy Bush and Party Leaders, Rejecting Bailout

In a moment of historic drama in the Capitol and on Wall Street, the House of Representatives voted 228-205 to reject a $700 billion rescue of the financial industry.

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Paul Krugman: OK, we are a banana republic

House votes no. Rex Nutting has the best line: House to Wall Street: Drop Dead. He also correctly places the blame and/or credit with House Republicans. For reasons I’ve already explained, I don’t think the Dem leadership was in a position to craft a bill that would have achieved overwhelming Democratic support, so make or [...]

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Active Time in the Galaxy?

I am reading the results of Profs. Napier and Wickramasinghe (below):

"Almost exactly two cycles ago, in fact.  The figures show that we're very close to another danger zone, when the odds of asteroid impact on Earth go up by a factor of ten.  Ten times a tiny chance might not seem like much, but when "Risk of Extinction" is on the table that single order of magnitude can look much more imposing.  Worse, Bruce Willis will only be available to save us for another fifty years at most.  But you have to remember that ten times a very small number is still a very small number - and Earth has been struck by thousands of asteroids without any exciting extinction events.  A rock doesn't just have to hit us, it has to be large enough to survive the truly fearsome forces that cause most to burn up on re-entry."

It seems the Solar System is getting into dangerous regions of the Milky Way. As if we needed another worry.

Nobel Laureate: Bush's Economic Time Bomb. Cover story 2007

Joseph Stiglitz warns: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt increased 70 percent; a record $850 billion trade deficit; record oil prices; weak dollar. In addition, the US has not been educating enough engineers and scientists, nor investing in the kinds of basic research we need to lead in the 21st cent.

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Our Solar System's Deadly Journey Through the Milky Way

Professor William Napier and Dr Janaki Wickramasinghe have completed computer simulations of the motion of the Sun in our outer spiral-arm location in the Milky Way (image left of spiral arms). These models reveal a regular oscillation through the central galactic plane, where the surrounding dust clouds are the densest.

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House Locked in Vote on Bailout Plan

With enough “no” votes recorded to defeat the measure, barring a change in position by some lawmakers, the markets were plunging early in the afternoon.

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Today 25 Years Ago

Richard Stallman started a revolution with a few friends twenty five years ago. I was far from Boston then. I was in Puebla Mexico as a Professor of Theoretical Physics.  The initial group is an inspiration for me, how they achieved so much with so litle. I left Boston the Summer before the Fall announcement. I did not know Stallman and his friends then. 

Thanks to the Not Unix Group of Friends.

Happy Anniversary!

Markets Retreat in Europe and Asia

European and Asian stocks fell Monday, as the agreement on the $700 billion U.S. plan to rescue Wall Street failed to improve investor confidence or stimulate inter-bank lending.

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Richard Stallman Looks Back at 25 Years of The GNU Project

On September 27, 1983, Richard M. Stallman announced his intention to found the GNU project in order to build a free operating system. Now, 25 years later, the Free Software Foundation is marking the anniversary of the announcement with a month-long celebration. Looking back at the last quarter century, Stallman expresses some guarded satisfaction

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Chrome in Linux!

My Mandriva installation is rendering this note in Chrome for Linux!

Chromium: Google’s Browser on Linux and Mac

Jeremy White, the CEO of Codeweavers, decided to take matters into his own hands. So on September 4th he summoned his army to get Chromium (which is the open source project behind Chrome) ported to Linux and Mac ASAP. Long story short, they achieved that in only 11 days! Boy Wine has matured!

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Citigroup Buys Banking Operations of Wachovia

The sale would further concentrate Americans’ bank deposits in the hands of just three banks: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup.

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The 3 A.M. Call for the President

The next president will likely have to deal with some major financial emergencies. Barack Obama seems well informed. John McCain, on the other hand, scares me.

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Brazil and China?

Today Wall Street is falling. The Bush Administration could still stop the worst financial crisis in a long time. This is not the end of the world, but as far as crises go, this one is up high in anybody's scale. Mexico is not much better, nowadays there is no center of power, it is ironic coming from somebody like me; I am a liberal, not an authoritarian, but I can see that if power leaves the President, then power is up for grabs.

I see a deeper problem though; it is not only the "Laissez-faire" policies of the Republican Party in the US, or the inexperience of the Mexican President's National Action Party (PAN for its initials in Spanish) to run the country. It is the idea of progress at the expense of the other, and the environment, which to me, seems to be the root cause of what we see now. I have a sense of our species being at odds with Nature itself.

Of course if it is so, one could ask why now?

It is a historic fact that systems end, what one has to argue is why now is the time of reckoning for the tenets of laissez fair capitalism. I am not going to answer that, If I knew, I would've bought the right kind of stock and I would be a wealthy man by now, far from it. All I intend to do here is write a few post mortem ideas on the Bush Administration and the PAN failures to do what they were elected to do, to promote their respective ideologies, and their more important task, to protect their material base, the treasure of their countries.

Condoleeza Rice leaves a world in disarray for her successor. Almost all of Latin America jumped ship on the American model, from Nicaragua to Argentina the IMF does not set financial policies as it once did.

Countries that went their own way, like Brazil, seem to be faring better than the US right now. The media barons, Murdoch in the US, and Azcarraga in Mexico, are doing their best to keep people distracted while they keep the capital they can keep. I am not in the pay of neither man, so I can write here, what I think is wrong. The US and Mexico stopped producing goods and only managed the wealth they inherited, other countries filled the void, China and Brazil, among them. What we see now is one of the biggest capital transfers in history. In twenty years time it will be more important what the presidents in Brasilia, and Beijing, think, than whoever is in Washington D.C., thinks.

For my readers I know that this conclusion is not unexpected coming from me.

But there it is. The King is Dead, Long Live the King!

Besides you do not have to believe me, you can read Nobel Laurate Joseph E. Stiglitz:

"And it gets worse. After almost seven years of this president, the United States is less prepared than ever to face the future. We have not been educating enough engineers and scientists, people with the skills we will need to compete with China and India. We have not been investing in the kinds of basic research that made us the technological powerhouse of the late 20th century. And although the president now understands—or so he says—that we must begin to wean ourselves from oil and coal, we have on his watch become more deeply dependent on both."

"The continuing reliance on oil, regardless of price, points to one more administration legacy: the failure to diversify America’s energy resources. Leave aside the environmental reasons for weaning the world from hydrocarbons—the president has never convincingly embraced them, anyway. The economic and national-security arguments ought to have been powerful enough. Instead, the administration has pursued a policy of “drain America first”—that is, take as much oil out of America as possible, and as quickly as possible, with as little regard for the environment as one can get away with, leaving the country even more dependent on foreign oil in the future, and hope against hope that nuclear fusion or some other miracle will come to the rescue. So many gifts to the oil industry were included in the president’s 2003 energy bill that John McCain referred to it as the “No Lobbyist Left Behind” bill."

"Globalization means that America’s economy and the rest of the world have become increasingly interwoven. Consider those bad American mortgages. As families default, the owners of the mortgages find themselves holding worthless pieces of paper. The originators of these problem mortgages had already sold them to others, who packaged them, in a non-transparent way, with other assets, and passed them on once again to unidentified others. When the problems became apparent, global financial markets faced real tremors: it was discovered that billions in bad mortgages were hidden in portfolios in Europe, China, and Australia, and even in star American investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns. Indonesia and other developing countries—innocent bystanders, really—suffered as global risk premiums soared, and investors pulled money out of these emerging markets, looking for safer havens. It will take years to sort out this mess."

Biggest Mersenne So Far

You can read in the AOL site about this landmark:

Biggest Mersenne So Far.

61 Nobel Laureates can’t be wrong

"When 61 Nobel Laureates express such dismay at the current state of affairs, and such uniform and clear conviction that Obama is the best candidate, perhaps it’s time to take notice?"

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Is the $700 Billion Really for Bailing Out the Fed?

Is the $700 billion being disguised as a bailout for banks, when it is really for bailing out the Federal Reserve? Is it a way of avoiding the embarrassment of walking into Congress and admitting the truth of the need for Congress to authorize issuance of new Treasury bills to recapitalize the nation’s central bank?

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Paulson Goes on His Knees!

"In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Ms. Pelosi not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal."

This seems like a scene out of the Nixon Kissinger Era, when the President resigned. How I wish this would happen again.

Where Are the Grown-Ups?

The grown-up thing to do is to rescue the financial system. If Mr. Paulson isn’t the grown-up we need, are Congressional leaders able to fill the role?

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Talks Implode During a Day of Chaos; Fate of Bailout Plan Re

Lawmakers are gearing up for a second day of negotiations on a financial rescue plan after a deal fell apart on Thursday amid a flurry of finger pointing. This sounds like an Onion article.

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Oil prices retreat: Nearing $104

SINGAPORE (AP) — Oil prices fell to near $104 a barrel Thursday in Asia as investors weighed supply delays in the Gulf of Mexico against concerns that the U.S. credit crisis may slow global economic growth and hurt crude demand.

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Speculation: A Closer Look at Oil Price Hikes

MANILA — The market price of crude oil has more than doubled over the past year to reach record-high levels of over US$147 per barrel last July. And oil prices continue to fluctuate, with industry players blaming a number of factors, including jitters caused by the current financial crisis in the US. Skyrocketing oil prices have thus become a...

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VCs shovel another $28.7 million into Digg

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Digg Inc., an Internet startup that specializes in rating news stories, is making a little news of its own with a $28.7 million round of financing. The investment announced Wednesday should squelch recurring rumors of a sale to Google Inc. or Microsoft Corp.

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Pascual Monje Solis

This Mexican Robin Hood, appeared dead yesterday in the state of Guerrero.

The Government announced:

"“Este mediodía se tuvo conocimiento que en las orillas del Río Balsas, cerca de la comunidad La Calera, del municipio de Zirándaro, se encontraba un hombre ahogado; esta persona fue identificada por su medio hermano (Marcelo Cárdenas Solís) como la persona que respondía al nombre de Pascual Monje Solís, de 48 años de edad, el que presentaba escoriaciones causadas por el arrastre del río."

My translation:

Today at noon it was known that on the shores of Balsas River, near the community of La Calera, in Zirandaro County, there was a drowned man; this person was identified by his half brother (Marcelo Cardenas Solis) as the person known as Pascual Monje Solis, 48, with scars caused by the river."

There goes another hope for the poor people of Mexico.

I had written about Monje before, you can read here.

Collider Operations on Hold Until Next Year

The world’s newest and largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, will not begin operations again until April, officials at CERN said.

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Dear Iraqi Friends

As Americans lose their homes and sink into debt, they no longer understand why we are spending $1 billion a day to make Iraqis feel more secure in their homes.

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15 Great Quotes from Torvalds and Stallman

“Software is like sex: it's better when it's free.”

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Google mobile due to be unveiled

It will be available on the US network of T-Mobile and is expected to be on sale in October. The first device to run the search giant's operating system will be a handset from Taiwanese firm HTC called the "Dream".

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Oil price jumps $25 in a day

Crude oil prices jumped $25 a barrel on Monday – the largest one-day rise – as financial investors betting on falling oil prices were forced to cover their positions ahead of the expiry of the current benchmark futures contract.

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Samso, the Danish island living off-grid (PICS)

Photographer Nicky Bonne travels to the Danish island of Samso, where the residents have completely eradicated its carbon footprint by using wind power. Everyone on the island owns a turbine, and with its simple grid of solar power, wind farms and sheep, it's selling its power to the mainland

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Advanced Python Programming

Advanced Programming Topics in Python

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Rubik's Mirror Blocks: Multi-Shape Blocks Of Frustration

Remember the good ol' Rubik's Cube? Ah, good times. There have been some variations over the years, but this latest version gets a truly modern makeover. Called Mirror Blocks, it does away with colored tiles and instead consists of differently shaped blocks. The aim of the game is to bring the puzzle back into a cube shape by matching up these diff

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Rubik Like Puzzle

Bailout Plan Talks Advance in Congress

Discussions with the Bush administration have addressed measures such as increased oversight and aid for homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

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Mexico May Say Oil Output Fell, Pressuring Congress: Week Ah

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, Mexico's state- owned oil company, may report that crude output fell for the 25th consecutive month in August, adding pressure on Congress to take up delayed legislation aimed at increasing production.

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GEARS+ANDROID+CHROME+LINUX: Everything Makes Sense Now!

Until Chrome came along, Google's Master Mobile Plan didn't quite add up. Now it does. Chrome -- Google's new superbrowser -- is cream on the top of a new mobile software stack. Let's call it GACL, for Gears, Android and Chrome on Linux.

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Rescue Plan Seeks $700 Billion to Buy Bad Mortgages

The proposal would allow the Treasury to buy and resell mortgage debt as it sees fit, and would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion.

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Best Buy Pays $121M For Napster

Once the king of illegal file-sharing protocols, Napster operated in the law's gray area for a few years before 'going legal' not long ago. The firm's owners have now cashed in on their reputation -- good or bad -- after being bought out by Best Buy for $121 million.

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Stanford Engineering Launches Free Computer Science Classes

This fall, SEE launches its programming by offering one of Stanford’s most popular sequences: the three-course Introduction to Computer Science taken by the majority of Stanford’s undergraduates and seven more advanced courses in artificial intelligence and electrical engineering.

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Whos.amung.us Blog Maps Widget with a New Look

widget among bloggers, whos.amung.us has got a new look.

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Pawns

I've been thinking about my friends at Lucent and myself.

The big wigs got other challenging opportunities. Carly Fiorina, a rising star during my tenure at Lucent, went to become Hewlett-Packard CEO. She failed. Now she is advising John McCain, I hope she fails again, but the point here is that my friends and I didn't land those high paid positions. I for one, went from bad to worse; now I am happy teaching math, but not wealthy by any means.

We are pawns to the kings and queens; and do you know what? I don't envy them. I'll blame those heads of industry and finances for the mess we are in.

Paul Krugman (below, Crisis Endgame), like always explains to us simple mortals, the big mistakes the big wigs have made.

“Black Monday,” Hurrican Ike, and Falling Oil Prices: What I

On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average - the bluest of Wall Street’s blue chips - lost 4.4% in a single day. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been “seized” by the government. Oil continues to drop while gas prices rise. Inflation runs high while jobless claims continue to soar and gold falters. What a strange economic cocktail! Let’s look at ..

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Crisis Endgame

On Sunday, Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, tried to draw a line in the sand against further bailouts of failing financial institutions; four days later, faced with a crisis spinning out of control, much of Washington appears to have decided that government isn’t the problem, it’s the solution. The unthinkable — a government buyout of much..

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Fed and Treasury Offer to Work With Congress on Bailout Plan

Top officials at the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve began discussing with Congressional leaders a plan to buy up large numbers of distressed mortgages held by ailing financial institutions.

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Cloud computing with Linux

Cloud computing and storage convert physical resources (like processors and storage) into scalable and shareable resources over the Internet (computing and storage "as a service"). Although not a new concept, virtualization makes this much more scalable and efficient through the sharing of physical systems through server virtualization. Cloud compu

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It's twins! Two massive new primes (in numbers) discovered

So after two years of silence, the emergence of a pair of new Mersenne primes nearly simultaneously—one on August 23, one on September 6—is an unexpected burst of productivity.

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The King Is Dead

Why do freshmen bursting to change the world morph into investment bankers? It’s time for young minds to rediscover the public sphere.

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Google’s $199 phone to compete with the iPhone

The price of the new Google smart phone would put the device head-to-head with Apple’s $199 iPhone. The Google phone, which features a touchscreen and is made by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC, faces some stiff competition. The iPhone 3G has generated significant interest among consumers for redefining touch-screen technology,popularizing mobile apps

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Mathematicians predicted stock market volatility years ago:

Crash, crash. Doom, doom. Panic on the Street. Wall Street yesterday suffered its worst decline since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks – and the free fall suggests it may be time to consider burying the family stash of Krugerrands under the rose garden or tool shed.

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Financial Times: Depression Panic Hits World Markets

Barometers of financial stress hit record peaks across the world. Yields on short-term US Treasuries hit their lowest level since the London Blitz, while gold had its biggest one-day gain ever in dollar terms. Lending between banks, in effect, stopped.

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