"The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42"
--- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Brain is the most wonderful organ there is

If they can regenerate brain cells using the stem cells, a lot of brain-related illnesses / injuries might be cured - from ALS to Alzheimer Disease to people suffering from brain hemorrhages / tumors / cancers to diseases such as Japanese Encephalitis which affected the brain, and so on

Who knows? They might even find ways to cure stupidity

I said "many", not "most"

Glad to read your reply, very thought provoking, even when you post it under an AC

Thanks !

Technically you are correct, Sir

There is nothing wrong with having fun and sharing a good time with someone you love

But what I am talking about is not that fun-saturday-night-in-a-cabin-with-girlfriend

The gist of my point is on the "life-is-good" part. Too many of my fellow Americans only care about that part and never pay any attention to what the government is doing

The "good life" that my fellow Americans are having is like a frog being slowly boiled - and before long, all of us will be cooked

With the climate nowadays 1st Amendment does not offer any real protection of free speech anymore

You can be accused of "hate speech", you can be prosecuted under whatever trumped up charge they can cook up, and they can silence you with their "national security" privileges - and the unknown number of secretive laws there are (so secret that we may not know the extent of those laws) can be used at any given time to shut anybody and everybody up, by any mean

Back when I arrived in America I had no passport. I was a refugee from a Communist Country, yearning for freedom, liberty and democracy, a place where I can think freely, without being told how to think or what to think

When I reached America, to me, at least, it was paradise - I felt that "freedom" that I never got to enjoy when I was in China

Of course I did not know anything about "Operation Mocking Bird", or anything similar - but even if I did know, at that time, America was still "free-ier" than the China that I ran away from

Today, however, if I were to be truthful to myself, I could no longer say the same thing

Sure, China is still a repressive country, but the America that I loved so much has slowly creeping towards the authoritarian style of government

And the worse part is, many of my fellow Americans are supporting that change --- for they want the government to make the "hate things"(like "hate speech") illegal, and they want the government to take away all the firearms (for safety), and they want to government to take away their liberty so that the government could "protect them"

That is the America of today, very different from the America when I first arrive in, some decades ago

... than Obama does for America

No matter how you hate Putin, that fella at least did something for *HIS* country ... unlike that guy in the White House, the one with "no strategy"

As late as the 1980's there were still true independent press in America

Yes, there were the "fringe", but at the very least, they were around

Nowadays? The so called indie-press are no longer truly independence - they either belong to the extreme-left-wing, or extreme-right-wing, subscribing to either the view of the ultra-liberal, or those of the ultra-conservative

I came from China

I ran away from China during the Cultural Revolution. During that time, the so-called "Press" in China are but mouthpiece of the CCP - every piece of "news" from them are of the excellence of Chairman Mao and the Communist Party, and how the people must defeat the ugly filthy enemy of the revolutionaries

I ran away from China because I couldn't stand such thing. I ended up in the United States of America because back then the U. S. of A. was the epitome of liberty, freedom and democracy (at least to a Chinese refugee)

Nowadays America, my adopted country, has turned into something that I ran away from, where the "Press" no longer collaborate with the authority, where the "Media" willingly becomes the mouthpiece of the power that be

Many of my fellow Chinese from China - especially the older generation - know how bad such system can be, and the sufferings of the people under that kind of depressive government

On the other hand, many of my fellow Americans do not understand the situation they are in - for them, as long as they get to kick back with their girlfriend in a cabin on Saturday night, life is good

All I can say is that I am sad, very sad

Why are the link to Marching ants got screwed ?

Here I post the link as it is - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

Truth is that nobody has any clue as to how to contain this ebola epidermic in West Africa

The fact that WHO came out with this "blood transfusion" idea tells us that they have run out of ideas on what to do next

Liberia is issuing a total clamp down on its local population for 3 days, starting September 18th - which in theory can allow the medical personnel to check who is sick, who is not, who to isolate, and whatnot - but which will not work in the reality since there are so many unknowns, so many other things that nobody has yet to considered that will come into play when the things actually transpire

While this case is a little bit odd (with all the mixed-up parties, mixed up copyrights, mixed-up codes, mixed-up claims) we shouldn't let ourselves be confused by it

Instead, if we take a step back the picture looks clear --- it's the DMCA that is fueling all these takedown requests

When I landed in the States I found myself amazed with all the grizzly things and I found myself, a refugee fresh from communist China, being the dumb one, as everybody else was smarter than me

Later on as I enrolled into college, I found that my professors were very smart, because they knew things that I didn't know

And more later on when I got out of college I found many other people, people of the company I worked for and people outside of the company but still in the same job field, were much smarter than me because there were so many things that I could learn from them

I have worked with some legendary programmers in the more than 30 years I have been in this field, and yes, there were all much smarter than me

So, how do you define "smart" ?

For me, that goal post of "smartness" kept on shifting, as I grew from a stage of my life to another - For example: those Americans whom I found so smart when I first arrived in America, in hindsight, were not smart at all. They were lucky to be born in this country, that's all

Plus I sincerely doubt that the students from elite universities are "smarter" - In my own experience, most of those who came working with me with sheepskin issued by elite universities are not really smarter than those who came without any official sheepskin

Connections are crucial, but, there is a very BIG but, if one solely relies on the connections he or she fosters when the individual was in the college, then that individual is a loser

I did what I did, from a refugee, into someone who have thousands of co-workers all around the world, partly because of the connections that I have fostered through all the stages of my life

The kicker is, over 90% of those connections that I rely on are the connections I've made _after_ I came out of college

Connections I have from the Silicon Valley enable me to enjoy a certain "respectable" position when I am in Asia, which open a lot of doors for me, even the doors to foreign governments

Which is why I am always amused by those who stress so much on the connections that they foster through their alma mater --- life does not only evolve around college

Couples of years ago I invested in startups doing apps as at that time the app market has yet to mature

After the 'angry bird' phenomena when everyone and their dog wants to get in, I started to divest

Now, I still invest in startups, but none of them are in the "app business" - the app market is a fools' gold right now

I am not saying that there is no more new idea in the App space - what I am saying is that with so many people getting involve, the _noise_ level has gotten so loud it even genuinely clever ideas might not get noticed anymore