In an opinion piece published by the New York Times, an economics professor at Yamanashi Gakuin University (in Japan) confirms what American intelligence officers already know. Specifically, the Chinese habitually conceal the truth.

The professor explains how behavior which is endemic in Chinese culture facilitated the coronavirus' spreading beyond the borders of China. He wrote, "As far as the current outbreak goes, two cultural factors help explain how the natural occurrence of a single virus infecting a single mammal could have cascaded into a global health crisis. And now for the controversial aspect of this argument: Both of those factors are quintessentially, though not uniquely, Chinese.

The first is China's long, long history of punishing the messenger [who warns of danger or government corruption]."

Beijing should subsidize the development of the home-testing kits because Chinese culture is the catalyst for spreading the coronavirus.

In an opinion piece published by the New York Times, an economics professor at Yamanashi Gakuin University (in Japan) explains how behavior which is endemic in Chinese culture facilitated the new coronavirus' spreading beyond the borders of China. He wrote, "As far as the current outbreak goes, two cultural factors help explain how the natural occurrence of a single virus infecting a single mammal could have cascaded into a global health crisis. And now for the controversial aspect of this argument: Both of those factors are quintessentially, though not uniquely, Chinese.

The first is China's long, long history of punishing the messenger [who warns of danger or government corruption]. ...

A second cultural factor behind the epidemic are traditional Chinese beliefs about the powers of certain foods, which have encouraged some hazardous habits [that facilitate a virus' hopping from a wild animal to a human host]. ..."

The ARM processor, which is the dominant microprocessor for low-power devices, is an indirect descendant of the 6502.

An insightful report by The Register explains, "[Sophie] Wilson's affection for the 6502 also took them, in October of 1983, to the Western Design Centre in Phoenix, Arizona, where Bill Mensch was working on a version of the chip that would support 24-bit addressing.

The place was a revelation. As [Steve] Furber recalls: 'We went there expecting big shiny American office buildings with lots of glass windows, fancy copy machines... And what we found was... a bungalow in the suburbs... Yeah, they'd got some big equipment, but they were basically doing this [enhanced 6502] on Apple IIs.' ... As Wilson tells it: 'A couple of senior engineers, and a bunch of college kids... were designing this [enhanced 6502] thing... We left that building utterly convinced that designing processors was simple.'

Simple? IBM's own commercially unsuccessful first attempt at a Risc processor had taken months of instruction set simulation on heavy mainframes. Wilson, however, just plunged right in. Herman Hauser remembers: 'Sophie did it all in her brain.'"

In other words, the visit to the Western Design Centre, where the enhanced 6502 was being developed, helped Sophie Wilson to realize that a simple yet powerful processor can be designed and implemented by her small team of 3 engineers. She did not need the army of H-1B visa holders that Intel uses. She and her 2 British colleagues (Steve Furber and Hermann Hauser) were sufficient if she made the instruction set architecture (and its implementation) simple.

A benefit of simplicity is low-power consumption. The first incarnation of ARM consumed so little power that it could operate with only the leakage current of the logic circuit to which it was attached.

Another perspective of 6502 and ARM appears in the transcript of an interview with Sophie Wilson.

The Apple II, the Atari 800, and the Commodore 64 have one common element: the 6502 microprocessor.

If you are nostalgic for those home computers, you can relive part of the past by buying a laptop with an ARM microprocessor. When Sophie Wilson designed it, she was inspired by the 6502 and the Berkeley RISC II. In other words, the ARM is a descendant of the 6502.

The other popular processor in the late 1970s and early 1980s is the 8085. Its descendants are Celeron, Pentium, and Xeon.

In other words, the current battle between x86 and ARM is a replay of the battle between 8085 and 6502 in the 1970s.

That the Chinese government continues to harvest organs from prisoners is not surprising.

What is surprising (to us Westerners) is that the majority of Chinese support this government.

A scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong recently wrote, "What is most shocking is the unprecedented way in which ordinary mainland Chinese people around the world have organized themselves in defense of Beijing's rhetoric. One of the most noticeable incidents occurred at the University of South Australia in Adelaide. After hearing pro-Hong Kong protesters shout, 'Hong Kong, stay strong,' many mainland Chinese students cursed at them."

The time has come for us Westerners to finally admit that Western notions of human decency are not universal. Different cultures can have radically different morals.

The ethical standards practiced by us Westerners are a reflection of who we are. Western ethical standards include supporting democracy and human rights and refusing to harvest organs from unwilling prisoners.

The ethical standards practiced by the Chinese are a reflection of who the Chinese are. Chinese ethical standards include opposing democracy and human rights (for Hong Kong) and harvesting organs from unwilling prisoners.

The report by CNBC stated, "As both companies look to cut costs, sources told the Journal that combining the companies could save more than $2 billion in expenses."

Combining 2 struggling companies may produce only a bigger struggling company.

The precedent is the merger of Sears and Kmart into the Sears Holdings Corporation (SHC). SHC has been shrinking into an oblivion.

In 2000, Linux became an operating system for commercial purposes. A report by CNN in December of that year states, "IBM on Tuesday said it is building the world's largest Linux-based supercomputer for petroleum manufacturer Royal Dutch/Shell and pledged to invest nearly $1 billion in Linux efforts next year." After IBM took the initial step, other computer systems builders adopted Linux. It has become a success in the business market.

The failure of Linux in the consumer market is not due to lack of commercial support but is due to the lack of a friendly user interface (UI). Linux needs a UI like the one for MacOS. Both Linux and MacOS are descendants of the original Unix at Bell Labs and have a common set of commands. Yet, MacOS is a success in the consumer market.

The crash of the satellite is a serious matter. If the falling object had hit a person, it could have killed him.

The euphemistic manner in which Samsung described the incident masks an ugly truth about the company.

A recent report by the New York Times stated the ugly truth. "Internally, Samsung's corporate culture may also have compounded any issues. Two former Samsung employees, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation from the company, described the workplace as militaristic, with a top-down approach where orders came from people high above who did not necessarily understand how product technologies actually worked."

The popularity of a language does not imply that it has high quality.

COBOL has been popular due to the fact that the Department of Defense required its use in systems supplied by contractors. How many computer scientists today would recommend COBOL as an example of the best that their profession offers?

An "A" at one high school is not equivalent to an "A" at another high school. The admissions committee of reputable universities need a standardized test to distinguish the same letter grades at 2 different high schools.

For that purpose, the SAT general test is less appropriate than the SAT subject tests. The latter measures what a student actually learned during his K-12 education.

Caltech requires that its applicants take SAT subjects test for mathematics and science.