If global warming is, by some remote possibility, neither real nor caused by human activities, then the current convulsions about who should do what to save the planet will be much noise about nothing.

On the other hand, suppose that global warming is real and is caused by human activities. Then, who shall be responsible for the oceans flooding nations like Great Britain and Japan, shrinking their territories to one-tenth of the original size?

Common sense tells us that if a nation -- e. g. , China -- pumps greenhouse gases into the atmosphere with wild abandon and if such an act causes global warming which greatly enlarges the oceans, thus flooding much of Great Britain and Japan, then such an act is essentially an act of war against the British and the Japanese. The British and the Japanese then have the moral right to initiate war against China in order to seize Chinese territory for settlement by the Japanese and the British.

Losing 90% of Japanese (or British) territory due to Chinese thoughtlessness is not a laughing matter and is an act of war. Military force is a legitimate way to eradicate Chinese thoughtlessness and to compel the Chinese to protect the environment.

Physicist Tim Garret is correct when he observes "that conserving energy doesn't reduce energy use, but spurs economic growth and more energy use". That is another way of saying that society grows and expands up to the constraints of the system.

When we conserve energy, we can and do use the saved energy for other activities. "conservation" is not really conservation if we promptly use the saved energy for another activity.

Consider the food supply. The population has now reached a size at which the current amount of food is not sufficient for everyone to eat well. So, scientists at ADM and other companies are trying to invent new ways to increase food production. Suppose that the scientists succeed and that we increase food production by 20%. The population, enjoying this additional food, now grows by an additonal 20%: we return to the original problem.

In the long run, the 4 horsemen will eventually impose their own solution on humankind. Many people will die in the process.

Inevitably, some Slashdotter will claim that yet-to-be discovered technology will always provide a fix for the problem. Believing that yet-to-be discovered technology will be discovered (and will be the salvation) is exactly equivalent to believing the numerous claims of religion. Often, the same Slashdotter who is atheist does not hestitate to believe in yet-to-be discovered technology. A hypocrite, a fool, or both?

The price for the laptop made by Kohjinsha (based in Japan) is $900. The price for a laptop having similar features and made by Lenovo (based in China) is $2000. This pricing is quite surprising.

All Lenovo laptops are made in China, and the Kohjinsha laptop is made in Japan. How can a Japanese product be cheaper than a Chinese product, given that the cost of labor in Japan is much higher than the cost of labor in China?

The Kohjinsha product is the 2nd instance of such unusual pricing.

In 2008, a quick scan at Frys (the local electronics store) shows that all Fujitsu laptops are made in Japan. Most Sony laptops are made in China. (Only Sony laptops costing more than $2200 are made in Japan). What is interesting is that the made-in-Japan Fujitsu laptops have prices and features that are similar to the prices and the features of the made-in-China Sony laptops.

What is happening here? How can certain Japanese manufacturers (like Kohjinsha and Fujitsu) possibly price their products so low, keep their high-value manufacturing in Japan, yet still be profitable? What is the secret formula?

The persistent reports of tantalizing evidence does not substitute for methodical research. It would involve going to Mars, collecting samples from various locations on the surface of the planet, and bringing the samples back to earth for analysis.

Under the present circumstances, such methodical research is not possible. A nuclear-powered spaceship, like the one proposed by Russia, would still take months to make the round-trip to and from Mars.

Humankind's only hope is the development of a hyper-drive (a. k. a. warp-drive) engine based on the science discovered by Burkhard Heim. The Pentagon is currently exploring the construction of such an engine.

The person who lead the research in using plasma to disinfect the human body is Gregor Morfill. Who is Gregor Morfill?

The Max Planck Institute has a Web page that tells us who he is. Below is a quote from his resume.

"Born on July 23, 1945 in Oberhausen. Study of physics, doctorate Imperial College of Science and Technology (1971), German Habilitation in physics Heidelberg Univ. (1977), Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (since 1984)."

Below is a list of his awards.

Patten Prize of Indiana University
Science Award of the Donors' Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanites in Germany
Honorary Professor Univ. of Arizona, Tucson
Honorary Doctor Technical Univ. Berlin
Honorary Professor Univ. of Leeds, England
Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Dr. Morfill must be a brilliant scholar as the Russian Academy of Sciences rarely grants membership to scientists who are not Russian citizens.

Here is an interesting question. Why have Germans (like Dr. Morfill) accomplished so much in science and technology? Does culture, genetics, or a combination (of both) explain their scientific prowess? Note that Albert Einstein is a German (with a Jewish heritage).

This progression toward using English words and syntax to program a computer is less about dumbing down code and more about encouraging people to document their code.

Ideally, a programmer should document each section of code by writing a block of comments explaining (1) why the code is used and (2) how the code works -- in plain English. However, given the intense pressure to produce code by an unreasonable deadline (imposed by brutal managers risking a bullet through their head), the first thing that is sacrificed is comments. Not writing comments saves several minutes per section of code and -- in total -- saves days of work over the course of the project. In other words, not writing comments means that an impossible deadline becomes slightly more possible.

A programming language that uses mostly English words and syntax is essentially an environment for self-documentating code: the holy grail of brutal managers everywhere. However, this self-documentation addresses only "how the code works". The programmer must still write comments explaining "why the code is used". Still, getting half of a loaf is better than getting nothing at all.

In the above article, I made a serious typing error. The following statements in point 2

2. Massive importation of foreign engineers is vital to being competitive in engineering. (Japanese companies, which typically hire only native-born Japanese, hold the majority of patents in LCD displays.)

should be changed to the following.

2. Massive importation of foreign engineers is NOT vital to being competitive in engineering. (Japanese companies, which typically hire only native-born Japanese, hold the majority of patents in LCD displays.)

Most Japanese do not subscribe to the American idea that the only way to "fix" an aging population is to open the doors on immigration. So, despite the fact that the percentage of elderly people in the Japanese population continues to steadily increase, Tokyo has restricted immigration and demanded that those who do immigrate must assimilate into Western culture and, specifically, Japanese culture.

This muscle suit will fit the aging Japanese quite well. As a person progresses beyond 60 years of age, her mobility and strength decline rapidly. This suit will help to compensate for the declination.

On a side note, observe that Japan has long challenged conventional wisdom in the USA. In addition to proving that massive uncontrolled immigration is not the only answer to an aging population, the Japanese have proven the following.

1. Class size is not the prime determinant of academic success. Culture is the prime determinant. (The average number of pupils in a typical high-school class in Japan is much larger than the number in California.)

2. Massive importation of foreign engineers is vital to being competitive in engineering. (Japanese companies, which typically hire only native-born Japanese, hold the majority of patents in LCD displays.)

3. A military solution can transform a backward, ignorant society into a 1st-world society. (The Japanese military transformed Taiwan into a modern society. Under Japanese colonial rule, attendance in public school up to the 6th grade was mandatory; many Taiwanese eventually obtained postsecondary degrees from elite Japanese universities. The military solution was possible in Iraq; the Americans failed because they refused to enact a military draft supplying the 400,000 troops needed for a long-term military occupation and colonial rule.)

You may be shocked by point 3, but I challenge you to study the history of Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule. If the Chinese army under Dictator Chiang-kai Shek had not seized Taiwan in the late 1940s and destroyed much of what the Japanese -- with cooperation from the Taiwanese -- had built, then Taiwan would have been the post-war economic and hi-tech superpower of the Pacific long before the Japanese economic titan appeared in the 1970s.

This story is surprising. Why does the military buy critical electronic components from minor distributors?

The military spends billions of dollars and has the money to buy directly from known, reputable firms like AMD, Siemens, Mitsubishi, NEC, Toshiba, etc. Doing so would ensure the quality of the electronic components.

Why is the military dealing with relatively unknown distributors of suspicious origin? This story is fishy.

The military probably did not intend to use anything "purchased" from unknown distributors. This "purchase", from the onset, was intended to be a honey pot attracting unscrupulous businesses connected to hostile governments like Beijing. The purchased components were never intended to be used. The aim was to find such unscrupulous businesses, to determine the network that Beijing has established in the USA, and to shutdown American traitors who participate in such a network.

In the United States, political correctness has concluded that all human behavior (in a "normal" person) is due to nurture and free will. To even hint that human behavior is due, in part, to genetics is taboo: it quickly leads to the conclusion that different races and ethnic groups can have different inclinations. This conclusion is forbidden.

So, brain scans of a criminal defendant will not carry any weight. If his environment (e. g., an abusive childhood) did not cause him to commit the crime, then he must have done it out of his own free will. Since he "freely and deliberately" committed the crime, then he shall be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

That is how American justice works. How does justice work in Europe?

Professor Petr Hoava has proposed a new theory of gravity; it is winning accolades from the physics community.

Yet, who is Petr Hoava? He maintains a Web page that offers the following biography.

"Petr Horava received his Ph.D. in 1991 at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. He was awarded the Robert McCormick Research Fellowship at the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, worked as a Research Associate at Princeton University, and won a Sherman Fairchild Senior Research Fellowship at Caltech, before joining the New High Energy Theory Center at Rutgers University in 2000 as an Associate Professor. In 1997, he was awarded the Junior Prize of the Czech Learned Society, and in 1999 he appeared on the list of top three scientists of the Czech Republic of the 90's. He joined the Physics Department at UC Berkeley in 2001."

The liberation of Eastern Europe in 1989 has unleashed an intellectual force that will advance human knowledge by leaps and bounds. 2009 is the 20th anniversary of that liberation.

Buddha bless the Eastern Europeans.

Like other brick-and-mortar stores, Walmart has a distinct advantage over Amazon and other stores that have only an online presence.

Namely, products at Walmart can be sold through 2 channels: online visitors and in-store visitors. If a product cannot be sold online, then the product can remain on the shelf for an in-store visitor to buy.

If a product offered by Amazon cannot be sold online, the product sits in the warehouse. The product in the warehouse is a continuing drain on Amazon's finances since Amazon must pay the cost of maintaining the warehouse.

Amazon has been competitive against smaller retailers like Mervyns (which never survived bankruptcy) because the warehouses of Amazon are huge and offer much variety. If you cannot find a pair of pants with the right size, you can likely find the right size at Amazon.

However, this advantage is ineffective against Walmart. It is the largest retailer in the world. The variety that Walmart offers rivals Amazon.

Walmart will crush Amazon. The bell tolls for Amazon.