Freetopia

Ten Global Issues of 2006

2006-03-02T22:45:00.000+08:00

The global economy will grow at a relatively steady pace in
2006. By region, the United States will grow slowly, while Japan and Europe will see a recovery. Asia as a whole will achieve a relatively strong growth. Notably, the "Asian Corridor" nations encompassing Northeast Asia, China, Southeast Asia, and India will emerge as a new growth engine, attracting more trade and investment.

from seri

[The Economist] The arms race

2005-11-12T15:19:00.000+08:00

Companies are preparing for the intellectual-property battle

AS A 23-year-old engineer working for Hewlett-Packard in 1975, Joe Beyers had a clever idea. The new desktop computers, he thought, should be able to work on more than one task a time (something that at that point only much bigger computers could do), rather than forcing users to twiddle their thumbs as they waited for new applications to launch. After many late nights in the lab, he devised a way to make it happen, and duly had a patent granted on his invention—his first of many. Yet within a few years, all computer-makers were using the same technique.

Mr Beyers told Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, the company's founders, that the idea was being copied, and tried to persuade them to enforce the patent. But both said no; the firm was benefiting from the invention in its own products, and that was enough. “I was disappointed,” says Mr Beyers. “I thought it was a very valuable patent, and HP deserved some value from it. I put it aside and moved on. But in the back of my mind, I felt that we had not done enough to get the full value of it.”

Times change, and so did Mr Beyers's role in the company. Thirty years on, he now manages a team of 50 people in HP's intellectual-property division. When he meets the boss, it is to report on the group's patenting and licensing business, an area where engineers and lawyers work hand in glove. Since the unit was created in 2002, HP's licensing revenue has increased from $50m to over $200m. “It represents a fairly dramatic shift in how HP treats IP,” Mr Beyers concedes.

The changes at HP are mirrored throughout the technology sector. Companies are now treating intellectual property as a business asset not very different from a product on a shelf. They are spending more on R&D, filing for more patents and licensing out their ideas, as well as licensing in other people's. They are also increasingly asserting their patents against others, demanding royalties and going to court to get them. “We are in the middle of an explosion in the use of IP to try to protect market positions,” says Intel's Mr Sewell.

The biggest reason for relying more heavily on intellectual property is that other firms are doing the same. Most companies readily admit to the drawbacks. It can make it tougher to build new products without accidentally infringing someone else's patents, as well as increasing costs and sometimes leading to spurious lawsuits. Yet technology executives insist they must harness the system lest they be crushed by it. Pressed on why his company is pushing to obtain more and wider patents, Henning Kagermann, the boss of SAP, a large German software firm, exclaims in exasperation: “These are the rules of the game!”

“There is certainly a level of mutually assured destruction among the big companies. If you build up your patent portfolio, I build up mine—nukes pointing at each other,” says Mr Papadopoulos at Sun Microsystems. But he sees it as an advantage rather than a problem. “That has exactly the right outcome. We sit here and exchange patents with each other. Ultimately, that's great: you have a set of companies doing more innovation than they would have otherwise,” he says.

Those inventions increasingly get turned into property rights. For example, Nokia has over 12,000 existing patents globally, and 10,000 innovations in the process of being patented. It files around 1,500 applications a year. IBM has around 40,000 patents and is granted 3,000 more every year, which has made it the number one recipient at America's patent office for the past 12 years. HP last year ranked fourth in America, with 1,783 patents; worldwide, it holds around 25,000. Microsoft has recently sprinted into the market, with around 10,000 applications pending.

Patents have grown in parallel with an increase in spending on research and development. One rule of thumb is that tech companies file almost two patents for every $1m they spend on R&D. The likelihood that research will yield a patent has increased hugely, thanks in good part to the growth in software patents. According to a 2004 study by James Bessen, a researcher at Boston University's School of Law, and Robert Hunt, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, by the end of the 1990s firms were able to obtain more than twice as many software patents for every R&D dollar they spent than at the start of the decade.

Messrs Bessen and Hunt find it worrying that the growth in the number of patents exceeds the increase in R&D expenditure. They believe it indicates that these are “cheap” patents being used as a substitute for more R&D. In other words, the cake is not getting much bigger, it is merely being cut into more and ever thinner slices. Is the industry doing too much patenting merely for the sake of it?

“We have 10,000 patents—it's an awful lot of patents,” says Mr Sewell at Intel. “Would I be happy with 1,000 patents rather then 10,000? Yes, provided the rest of the world did the same thing.” John Kelly, who directs IBM's intellectual-property strategy, explains that: “Even though we have 3,000 patents [awarded annually in America], if we had to, I could make that number 10,000.”

Despite this proliferation, numerous economic studies show that only about 5% of patents end up having any value, and that a small handful of those account for most of the income received from patents. Moreover, according to a study by America's National Bureau for Economic Research in 2000, patents were less effective in protecting innovation than things like secrecy, speed to market and complementary manufacturing, sales or service.

With firms acquiring more patent ammunition each year, what if someone were to pull the trigger? “Should one company use its portfolio against another, it faces potential retaliation. The best that can happen is nothing happens,” says Joe LaSala, general counsel of Novell, a software company that sells proprietary applications along with the open-source Linux operating system.

With the plethora of patents swishing around the system, it is impossible to avoid potential infringement, so self-defence becomes imperative. One former executive at a search-engine company says that all the major search firms—Google, Yahoo! and MSN—actually infringe each other's patents in some way. Their intellectual-property strategies are designed to ensure a balance of power. The same is true in nearly all other areas of IT and telecoms. Everyone has an interest in preserving this precarious equilibrium lest the whole edifice come crashing down.

Pure intellect
Qualcomm is the very model of an intellectual-property company. Where many companies line their walls with pictures of their products, in the firm's San Diego headquarters the corridors are covered with plaques of its patents. Qualcomm created a technology called CDMA, which now forms the basis of third-generation wireless networks. Around one-third of the company's revenues (and 60% of its profits) come from royalties on all equipment that uses the technology; the remainder comes from selling the chips that rely on that intellectual property, where it has a market share of over 80%.

Because its technology underlies the third-generation mobile-phone standard, Qualcomm has become a toll bridge that all equipment-makers must cross. “Our licensees don't like to pay us royalties, but they forget the work we put in to get the business. We provide them with quite a bit more than a patent licence,” explains Steve Altman, Qualcomm's president. “If we were just an IP shop, we would not have been successful. What caused us to be a success was that very early on we didn't just license patents, we enabled the manufacturers to get to market quickly.”

The licensing practice began when Qualcomm was young and struggling in the early 1990s, helping its cashflow. At first, the company made the mobile phones as well as developing the underlying technology, but in 1999 it sold its handset division in order to focus on the less tangible—and more lucrative—part of the business. Today, it spends almost $1 billion a year, or 19% of revenue, on R&D. It has amassed 1,800 patents, and 2,200 applications pending.

“We could have very easily said, ‘Let's close up shop, sit back and wait for royalties to come’. But that would have been a short-lived business: the technology evolves very quickly,” says Mr Altman. In August, Qualcomm paid $600m for Flarion, a firm with little revenue but around 100 patents either issued or pending on a new generation of wireless technology. If all goes as planned, this will allow Qualcomm to dominate the next phase of high-speed mobile communications too.

“IP companies can be very profitable. That doesn't mean we are extortionists by any means. If you get the technology right, you get to license it many times,” explains Tudor Brown of ARM, a British firm that creates the intellectual property behind microchips used in nearly all mobile phones and other wireless devices. ARM is the most ubiquitous company no one has ever heard of, with its technology in use in over 70% of all mobile phones. Whereas Qualcomm still keeps a foothold in the physical world by supplying chips, ARM does nothing but R&D and licensing.

But Mr Tudor has a warning for firms that want to concentrate exclusively on the intellectual-property business: licensing usually works only alongside a basket of products or services. For IBM, for example, the majority of its intellectual-property revenue comes from the sale of know-how, not patent licences alone. In essence, the difference is that between the recipe for a dish and a list of ingredients.

ARM was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, when numerous chip-design firms all wanted to outsource the basic technology for wireless chips so they could innovate on top of it. Also, ARM understood that it needed to offer a lot more than just patent licences, such as documentation and support for its licensees. “They are successful only if they get it right, and we are here to help them get it right,” Mr Tudor says.

Yet it is easy to get it wrong. Take BT, Britain's telecoms incumbent, which in 2000 announced that it had a patent on hyperlinks, a technology that allows people to click on a web-page link to go to another web address. BT claimed it had developed this innovation more than a decade earlier, before the web even existed. Its executives whispered that it was worth billions. The company sent out menacing letters to firms, seeking to enforce its “rights”. But an American judge laughed its claims out of court.

Mr Beyers at HP says he also gets many demands to pay up for infringing someone else's patents. But he is often able to show that the accusers are themselves infringing HP patents, and occasionally ends up getting them to pay him instead.

The Microsoft factor
One of the newest entrants to the intellectual-property game is also the most feared: Microsoft. In the past two years, the company has reshaped its entire strategy around innovation and patents. This will have serious consequences for the rest of the industry.

In 2003, Bill Gates, Microsoft's founder and chairman, faced a number of problems that centred around intellectual property. First, the company found it was being sued for patent infringement more often and had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Second, antitrust regulators were forcing Microsoft to open its technology to rivals to allow different systems to work together. Third, the company recognised that its monopoly on its operating system and desktop software would be eroded over time, in part by open-source alternatives, and wanted to delay that process. Lastly, Microsoft was spending around $5 billion a year on R&D and wanted some revenue to help offset that outlay.

Mr Gates summoned the father of IT patent licensing, Marshall Phelps, a cheerful lawyer in his 60s who had recently retired after 28 years with IBM, where he set up and ran the company's highly regarded licensing programme. Mr Phelps told Mr Gates that he had three options: keep the firm's intellectual property within the company to use in its products but make no ancillary revenue from it; assert the company's patents against others (and face the wrath of regulators and rivals); or license it. In June 2003, Mr Gates plucked Mr Phelps out of retirement; by December, Microsoft's intellectual-property licensing division was born.

Since then, in addition to offering technology to other firms, Microsoft has struck a score of cross-licensing deals with big companies. Last May the company started a new business unit, Microsoft Intellectual Property Ventures, to license technology—in areas such as graphics, security and databases—to venture capitalists and start-up firms, sometimes in return for stakes in the companies. That is a new departure: in the past, Microsoft has tried to “cut off the air supply” of rivals, in the celebrated phrase of one Microsoft executive.

Microsoft is coming quite late to the patent game, for the obvious reason that it enjoyed a monopoly in its business area (albeit one judged illegal) for a long time and had little need of patents to protect it. Software copyrights and trade secrets sufficed.

The change in the company's strategy mirrors the wider shifts taking place in the industry as a whole. In 1976, Bill Gates wrote an “open letter to hobbyists”, asking people not to copy the firm's software illegally but to pay for it instead, because that would enable him to fund further improvements in the product. At the time, software was protected by copyright, which automatically comes with any creative work; software patents started to be allowed only in the 1980s, but were rarely sought. When they were first introduced, Mr Gates did not think much of them. In 1991, he wrote in a company-wide memo:

If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. What changed, explains Mr Kaefer of Microsoft, was the need to make the technology more open to others, to share it and to interconnect with other firms' technology. “Software patents take the place of trade secrets that we relied on before,” he says. “Software is built on the shoulders of giants—no one can build the whole thing. Patents are a property right that allow the innovation to be exchanged.”

However, there is a controversial side to Microsoft's intellectual-property ambitions. Since 2003, the company has claimed patents on some basic aspects of information technology that many computer scientists say are well established already and should be open to all, such as the “file allocation table” system that computers use to manage files. It has also asserted rights over file formats and so-called “application programming interfaces” that let different types of software interact. These things, critics argue, are not truly intellectual property but merely translations to allow interoperability. Moreover, Microsoft has used its recent multi-billion-dollar antitrust settlements with AOL, Sun, Novell and others to strike broad cross-licensing agreements, thus neutralising potential patent foes.

Taken together, Microsoft seems to be preparing to use its intellectual property as a way to demand a sort of “interconnection fee” from competitors so that their software can interact with Microsoft's (in the same way as a dominant telecoms operator uses interconnection to its network to thwart rivals). The company, suggest the critics, is simply trading its illegal monopoly for a legal one.

No wonder that Microsoft is strongly resisting a requirement by the European Union's antitrust regulators to disclose its networking protocols, which enable different software to interact, arguing that it should be compensated for its intellectual property. This, in particular, hurts open-source software developers, who lack the formal corporate structure (and funds) to license the code. This summer Microsoft took the EU to court over the matter.

In fact, the chief challenge to the company comes from open-source software, whose supporters insist that innovations should be shared, not kept proprietary. Mr Gates calls them “new, modern-day sort of communists” who “don't think that those [intellectual-property] incentives should exist.” And Microsoft has trumpeted that it will indemnify its users against potential patent-infringement liability—which is clearly meant to show up open-source software, where some infringement cases have been brought.

All in all, it looks as though Microsoft is preparing to use intellectual property as a new competitive weapon. Last year, Mr Gates told financial analysts that the firm would increase its patent filings to around 3,000 in 2005, up from 2,000 the year before and the low hundreds in the 1990s. The company currently holds over 6,000 patents, and has around 10,000 applications pending.

At the same time, Microsoft is among the companies most frequently sued for patent infringement: it is currently involved in 32 patent disputes, and spends close to $100m a year in legal costs. Conversely, in the area of copyright, Microsoft's software is the most pirated in the world, causing billions of dollars of potentially lost sales each year.

Industry-wide, there is a danger that big technology firms' infatuation with intellectual property may cause them to exploit their dominant role, forcing smaller firms to pay up or go under. If that happened, only the biggest companies with stacks of patents could hope to survive comfortably. Smaller companies would have to start taking out ever more patents to defend their interests.

To critics of the patent system, this is a sign that the pendulum has swung too far in favour of intellectual-property owners, resulting in an inefficient market for technology. There have been calls for legal reforms and changes in business culture in favour of a more balanced and open approach. But in fact these changes are already taking place—and the impetus is coming not from policymakers or lawyers, but from within the technology industry and from the marketplace itself.

Sprite Invites Teens to 'Spray It'

2005-11-08T14:12:00.000+08:00

Coca-Cola's Sprite brand is inviting teens to digitally spray paint a virtual city in a just-launched branded entertainment campaign on MSN.

"The Wall," which debuted this week, lets site visitors choose their canvases -- anything from the back of a bus, to a messenger bag, to a person's upper arm. Then they can use the provided stencils, images, text and colors to create virtual graffiti artwork. Sprite-related imagery like lemons and limes, along with the brand-associated colors like yellow and green, feature prominently in teens' toolkits. While people create their graffiti or look at others' work, Sprite digital spokesperson "Miles Thirst" pops up occasionally to comment.

"'The Wall' is designed to be the ultimate self-expression site for teens on the Web," Gayle Troberman, director of branded entertainment at MSN, told ClickZ. "I always like to think of experiences like this as a little bit like a karaoke bar," she said, in which some come to show off and others come to observe.

Once people create an image or find an image they like, they can e-mail it, use it as a background in MSN Messenger, or download it as a wallpaper or screensaver. Site visitors can also rate others' graffiti.

MSN will promote the microsite, at thewall.msn.com, via text links on the home page and other house ads throughout the network. Ads will be targeted specifically to teenagers and will appear primarily in areas of the network -- such as Messenger and Music -- popular with teens. The Wall will also be cross-linked with Sprite's last endeavor with MSN, "The Scenario". Additionally, links to "The Wall" will appear on the Sprite.com home page.

Tonight in Atlanta, Coca-Cola's home town, Sprite will be projecting graffiti images onto well-known buildings in the downtown area, as part of a buzz-building effort for the site.

MSN and Sprite will judge success three ways: through a study that measures site visitors' perceptions of the brand as compared with those who haven't been exposed; through a demographic analysis of those who MSN drives to the site; and by measuring how long people interact with the experience.

By Pamela Parker | November 4, 2005

Korea?

2005-11-06T21:22:00.000+08:00

Location: Eastern Asia, southern half of the Korean Peninsula bordering the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea.
Capital: Seoul.
Population: 48,289,037.
Languages: Korean, English widely taught in schools.
Currency: South Korean won (KRW).
Country Structure: Nine provinces (Cheju-do, Cholla-bukto, Cholla-namdo, Ch'ungch'ong-bukto, Ch'ungch'ong-namdo, Kangwon-do, Kyongsang-bukto, Kyongsang-namdo and Kyonggi-do) and seven metropolitan cities (Inch'on-gwangyoksi, Kwangju-gwangyoksi, Pusan-gwangyoksi, Soul-t'ukpyolsi, Taegu-gwangyoksi, Taejon-gwangyoksi and Ulsan-gwangyoksi).

Did you know...

- Spas and saunas are common throughout the country. They are very cheap and a great way to relax after a hard day’s travelling. Men and women are separated into their own areas and all clothes must be taken off. This is not as daunting as it sounds, but quite refreshing. I recommend an exfoliation scrub - painful to start with, but you will be feel refreshing. You can even get your hair cut, get your shoes polished or have a bite to eat in the communal areas while watching TV.

- Don’t be surprised if you are going up to your hotel room and the lift goes to floors 1, 2, 3, 5... this is simply because the number ‘4’ is associated with death. This superstition is similar to the number ‘13’ in the west.

- 552 out of every 1000 Koreans use the internet, so no problems finding an internet café.

- Yongsan Electronics Market in Seoul has 7,000 shops housed in 20 buildings and is the largest shopping area in Asia for electronic products.

- Mountains cover 70% of Korea’s land area, making it scenically stunning and perfect for soft adventure.

- There are 5 major theme parks in Korea such as Everland and Lotte World which are comparable to those in Europe and USA.

- Direct flight time from the UK is under 11 hours.

- Korea Local time is GMT +9.

- UK passport holders can stay for 90 days without a visa.

Asia Economy News

2005-11-05T20:09:00.000+08:00

Taiwan revives bank restructuring plan , 2005.11.04, International Herald Tribune
India to bid for foreign coal mines, 2005.11.04, The Standard
Singapore's jobless rate falls slightly, 2005.11.04, Independent Bangladesh
East Asian economies to slow 'severely' if bird flu pandemic breaks out , 2005.11.03, Forbes
China puts pressure on Japan's steel firms , 2005.11.03, International Herald Tribune
Currencies protected from yen downturn, 2005.11.03, The Standard
Indonesia inflation surges 18 percent, 2005.11.02, Business Week
Beijing in $1bn loan to Vietnam, 2005.11.02, Financial Times
Outsourcers in India fight for skilled labor , 2005.11.02, International Herald Tribune
China falling victim to trade protectionism, 2005.11.01, Chinadaily

Reform and Recovery of Japan's Economy

2005-11-05T20:02:00.000+08:00

1. Korea-US Interest Rate Reversal and Capital Outflow
2. Financial markets
3. Reform and Recovery of Japan's Economy
4. Major events of the week
5. Economic Indicators

KT's New Slogan

2005-11-02T20:16:00.000+08:00

KT has currently changed its slogan. That is "Life is Wonder Full"

It was a very neat idea to English speakers but it might not be attracting to whom is not fluent in English. But it's not the point of today's murmur.

People might say Life is

- Wonder Full

- Joy Full

- Beauty Full

However, the flip side of Life is,

- Doubt Full

- Sorrow Full

- Regret Full

We got many things to make our life full. Our life can be full with the things we have in our minds. What do you want to fill your life with?

According to the things you filled with, your life can be changed.

That's why our lives are so wonder full.

Anyway, I sorta like their new slongan.

(i felt sorry about the fact that i couldn't come up with their previous slogan.)

Jusan( A Part of South Korea)

2005-11-01T02:06:00.000+08:00

missing
you

Corporate Blogs: Measure Their Value!

2005-10-30T13:55:00.000+08:00

Media placements. Like traditional PR efforts, blogs generate media placements. Though these don't readily translate to financial numbers, at a minimum you can monitor for the quantity, media format, quality, brand, and reach. Based on your specific business needs and culture, establish a method to assess these factors value. (Check out this site for insights on evaluating PR.)

Alternatively, assign a dollar equivalent for placements using the outlet's ad rates as a guide. This assumes the value of editorial and advertising media impressions are similar. Many PR professionals don't approve of this approach as they believe it undervalues editorial endorsement. Further, they claim it doesn't take into consideration quality differences in placements (e.g., a technology mention by Walt Mossberg in "The Wall Street Journal" versus a minor mention buried in Yahoo!) and whether it's on message. While I appreciate their perspective, companies need a way to assign a value to placement results. Ad cost equivalents are a good starting point.

Direct revenues or traffic. When the objective is to grow a business or create an alternative media venue, new leads and ad revenue can be tracked directly. Blogs drive site traffic in a trackable manner, such as the GoDaddy Super Bowl ad discussed on GoDaddy CEO blog.

Consider discreetly and judiciously placing offers in your blog. Use a unique URL, and they're measurable. Readers received a special NetFlix offer on Steve Rubel Micro Persuasion blog, for example. If the blog is the only component of the mix that changed during this period, any sales left can be attributed to it.

Improved search rankings. Because blogs are spidered by search engines, monitor links and trackbacks for measures influencing branding and revenues. Many companies pay for search placement, so assign an equivalent dollar amount based on average placement cost or by use of a search engine calculator.

Brand effect.Use surveys to monitor consumer perception of your brand and company before and after blogging. In some businesses, a percentage point change in mind share has a dollar value, making this calculation relatively straightforward. If not, create an equivalent metric based on the amount of marketing investment needed to achieve similar results.

Increased buzz. Monitor improved consumer perception. This can translate into increased sales using word-of-mouth measures or surveys. Like other branding efforts, give an approximation for sales lift. At a minimum, you know what it would cost to drive equivalent buzz using another format.

Promotion generation. Consider the value created by similar promotions, such as a microsite or guerilla marketing effort, as a measure.

refer : Corporate Blogs: Measure Their Value!

How To Make Money With Your Blog Site

2005-10-30T13:52:00.000+08:00

1) Google AdSense
2) Blogads
3) Amazon Associate
4) Text Links
5) Premium Content Sponsorships
6) Related Reports
7) Affiliate Sales
8) Online Guides and E-Books
9) Bookstore Distribution and POD Publishing You can also increase profitability
10) Merchandising
11) Collections - Anthologies - Compilations - Curated content on CD-ROM
12) Paid Assignment
13) Donations(Paypal)

- Make Money off Your Blog
- How To Make Money With Your Blog Site

Online Social Networking Goes Mobile

2005-10-30T13:50:00.000+08:00

First there was Friendster, which introduced the concept of six degrees of separation to the Internet. Then came MySpace.com, which more than 26 million people now use to make friends, date, or post their blog or music recordings. It has more monthly page views than any site on the Web other than Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft MSN or eBay. And now there's Rabble, which creator Intercasting Corp. says is the first piece of software designed to allow people to create and publish their own content -- whether photos, video clips or a blog entry -- to a personal channel from a mobile phone. Users can also search for others who share an interest or location, since all content includes location tags, or what Intercasting chief executive Shawn Conahan calls "virtual breadcrumbs." < more >

Jo says writers must face truth of history

2005-10-27T14:35:00.000+08:00

FRANKFURT, Oct. 21 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's best-selling novelist, Jo Jung-rae, has lived a life as turbulent as modern Korean history torn apart by ideological conflicts.

"I've received tremendous physical and mental abuse over the past decades," Jo recalled Friday in an interview with Yonhap during the Oct. 19-23 Frankfurt Book Fair. He is one of the 12 writers selected to represent South Korea, the fair's guest of honor this year.

Soon after his 1980s epic novel series, "Taebaek Sanmaek," or the Taebaek mountains, made a splash at bookstores, conservatives derided them as pro-North Korean. The novel's name Taebaek means the mountain chains which stretch down almost vertically through the length of the Korean Peninsula.

For years, the novel was a must-read for the country's university students. It was the first Korean novel to deal with the pro-North Korean partisan fighters' dream of establishing a communist regime in pro-Western South Korea. The series also had historical value as a spotlight on lives torn apart by the 1950-53 Korean War.

But in focusing on the human side of communist fighters, Jo broke a long-standing taboo and suffered heavy consequences. He was suspected of violating the nation's tough anti-communist National Security Law.

Jo's long ordeal ended in April of last year, when prosecutors decided not to file charges against him.

"I want to cry out to the world that oppressing a writer simply because of the idea that he preaches is a political evil that the entire human society might commit, not just South Korea," he said.

Jo maintains that novelists must step in where historians fail.

"When there is something wrong with historians who have a mission of writing down what is worth being remembered, writers should do that," he emphasized. "If they disregard the truth, they are no longer writers."

After a year of study and research, Jo began another multi-volume epic novel, "Arirang," a story of farmers who lost land during the 1910-1945 Japanese colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula and moved to Hawaii, Manchuria and Russia with anti-Japanese sentiments. The novel was completed in 1995.

After traveling himself to such countries as Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Germany, Jo in 1997 embarked on his third historical novel series, "Han River," and completed it four years later. Han is the river running through Seoul, the South Korean capital.

Today, at 62, he looks back on 20 years of writing that has produced 51,500 manuscript pages, forming a stack three times as tall as he.

Jo was an elementary school student when the Korean War broke out. His still-fresh memories of the war inspired him to write a novel set in that period.

"I still feel the pain that I felt at the time. As other Koreans in my age might do, I always try to eat three meals a day. I already bought an woolen robe because it was too cold here in Germany. That's a kind of mental disease. But the scars of war remain in mind," he said.

This is borne out at the South Korean box office, where most hits are about the Korean War or ideological confrontation, he said, citing "Taegukgi," "Silmido," "JSA (Joint Security Area)" and "Welcome to Dongmakgol."

"South Koreans have aspirations for inter-Korean reunification and to wash out scars of war in their mind," he said.

"Taebaek Sanmaek" was published in Japan eight years ago and the complete 12-volume series of "Arirang" was published in France by the country's L'Harmattan publishing house in 2003. The same publisher is translating the "Taebaek Sanmaek" series in French with two of the 10 volumes already published.

"The Japanese publisher of 'Taebaek Sanmaek' told me that the books are not simply a story of the Korean War, but about how superpowers torment people of a weak country," he said. "The message of 'Arirang' is the same. That's how imperialists persecuted people of smaller countries. That's exactly what I meant to say in these novels."

The common virtue of human beings is "co-existence and peace," he emphasized.

Scientists Gain Insight Into Earth

2005-10-26T20:37:00.000+08:00

By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter

A team of Korean scientists has analyzed magma in precision, which may be described as a crystal ball to occurrences in the mysterious innermost part of the earth.

The team, led by Prof. Lee Sung-keun at Seoul National University, Tuesday said they found how magma’s atomic structure changes with increased pressure inside the earth.

``When we racked up pressure on borate glass, which constitutes magma, its atomic structures and properties changed,’’ the 34-year-old said.

``Up until now, the study of magma has been difficult due to a lack of technology to measure microscopic atomic structures of non-crystal lines like liquid and glass. However, we could view the alteration of magma through X-ray scattering,’’ he added.

The finding is expected to ignite brisk research on magma, the molten rock located beneath the surface of the earth.

``If we dig a little deeper, we will be able to gauge the amount of radioactive isotopes in magma, a turbine engine of the earth. Then we can determine the life expectancy of this planet by projecting when the fuels will run out,’’ Lee claimed.

In addition to the academic purposes, Lee said the new finding can be applied for commercial use.

``Glasses used as advanced optical materials have similar atomic structures to borate glass. Subsequently, we can apply our new technology to make new substances,’’ Lee said.

The breakthrough will be featured in the next edition of the Nature Materials, a Britain-based peer-reviewed scientific journal published every month.

from the korea times

How to Spark More Consumption

2005-10-24T14:07:00.000+08:00

Focus of the week
Impact of the US Rate Hike on Korea

Financial markets
Money & Bond Markets (Oct. 12 ~ 18)Stock MarketForeign Exchange Market

Issue report
How to Spark More Consumption

Major events of the week
Major Events of the Week (Oct. 12 ~ 18)

Economic Indicators
Macroeconomic IndicatorsIndustrial ActivityInternational TradeBalance of Payments & Foreign ExchangeMajor Economic Indicators of North Korea

< Link >

Poll : Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi

2005-10-22T16:17:00.000+08:00

Do you think Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is justified in making annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine?

Yes, it's purely an internal political issue.
No, the visit is an affront to Japan's WWII victims.
Maybe he should put a stop to it.
I'm not sure.

* Vote to see the result.

English Premier League footballers Lee Young Pyo and Park Ji Sung go head to head

2005-10-22T16:05:00.000+08:00

In the 24-hour society that is modern Korea, 11 p.m. on Saturday night is hardly considered late but this weekend there will be even less people tucking into bed at that time.

The reason is that 9,000 kilometers away in northwest England, Park Ji Sung and Lee Young Pyo will go head to head for the first time in their careers, as Manchester United host Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League.

This is a big game in its own right, as second and third in the standings do battle. A year ago, such a meeting would have seemed impossible with both players starting for PSV Eindhoven.

Though a last minute coaching decision could leave one or both off the roster for Saturday's game, a number of factors seem to hint at their being called up.

Tottenham's Lee has played every game he has been fit, while Park's chief rival in United, Ryan Giggs, fractured his cheekbone in a Wednesday match.

South Korea's two most famous soccer stars are starting to make waves after summer moves north from the southern Netherlands. The fact that the "Taeguk Duo" spent almost three years together near the North Sea under Guus Hiddink only makes their encounter on Saturday all the more fascinating.

Lee and Park are firm friends and have played on the same team, the national team and PSV, so often that they know each other's games inside out. It will be in the Old Trafford Stadium, on a late autumn afternoon in Manchester, that the pair will get a chance to apply that knowledge.

After an indifferent start at the home of global giants, Manchester United, Park has shone in recent weeks in wins against Fulham and Sunderland. Tottenham, in second place, will be a tougher place but the frontrunner to be the Asian Player of the Year is full of confidence, especially upon being made captain for 10 minutes in United's midweek Champions League game with Lille.

Lee has slotted into the left side of the Spurs defense and already plays like he has been at the London club for years. The game at United will be big one for the 28-year-old but with a wealth of World Cup and Champions League experience already under his belt, Lee, like his junior, will have no problems performing in front of 68,000 fans.

To make the encounter yet more salivating is the highly possible prospect of Park lining up on the right side of United's attack and Lee taking his usual position on the left of Tottenham's defense. It all presents a delicious dilemma for all involved in South Korean soccer and OhmyNews spoke to a few of those and asked them for their take on the clash.

Ian Porterfield (Busan I'Park coach)

The Scot has a wealth of experience around the world and has managed Chelsea, succeeded present United boss Sir Alex Ferguson at Scottish club Aberdeen and has coached various national teams.

"I spoke to Sir Alex Ferguson by phone recently and he was delighted with Park -- his attitude, work ethic, desire to win-everything is impressive.

The arrival of the two boys in England shows the great progress that has been made in Korean football - it is really good. It's a message to all the young players; that it's possible to play in the Premier League. In my opinion, it's the most exciting league in the world, the one that everyone looks to."

Ka Sam Hyun (Director General of the Korean Football Association)

"It's important that both players play.

Both Manchester United and Tottenham Hotpsur are in good positions and I hope that Lee and Park play well and get the result according to their performances."

As for the result - how could I possibly say? I wish them good luck, 50 percent to each player.

I hope many Korean fans watch the game on Saturday night and I'm sure that they will."

Lee Eun Ho (Public Relations Manager of Suwon Samsung Bluewings- Park's hometown club)

"It's a milestone. One year ago there were no Koreans playing in the Premier League but now we have two players.

It is a milestone that we've passed, one that shows how much we've improved. We have two players in one of the best leagues in the world.

As for the result, Lee Young Pyo said that the ideal scenario is for Park Ji Sung to score but Tottenham to win and I agree with that.

My only hope is that both players put on good performances."

Choi Sung Dae (Marketing Manager FC Seoul -- the club formerly known as Anyang Cheetahs, Lee's former team)

"There's a lot of expectation as these two players are representing Korean in one of the biggest leagues in the world - we are very happy to see that.

Lee used to play for Anyang Cheetahs before it became FC Seoul and some of the staff have special feelings for him and feel very proud.

Tottenham is playing well this season in second and United always do well -- it's great."

Yang Te Sam (Yonhap News Soccer Reporter)

"Park is excellent for South Korea -- very physical and clever, he's the most crucial player in the team. All Korean fans hope that he can start instead of Ryan Giggs or Christiano Ronaldo.

We hope that both play well but Park Ji Sung wins. I hope he scores, the time has come for him to score."

Kim Myung Joo (Fan)

"I feel so happy that our players are in the English Premier League. It's a big league and they play for big teams, I feel so proud.

I hope they both play well but I want United to win because Park needs more support. Of course I hope Lee does well as he has been injured recently.

Ideally they both score and get in the spotlight but don't meet on the pitch. If Park plays on the left and Lee also, they won't meet - they know each other so well."

from ohmynews

The 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair

2005-10-20T21:57:00.000+08:00

The 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair opens on Wednesday, and Korea is the "Guest of Honor." This year's event will be the largest ever, with approximately 12,000 printing houses from 110 nations will be participating and some 300,000 visitors and 10,000 news crew members. We inevitably have special expectations for this year's book fair, because the nation chosen as "Guest of Honor" is given a special opportunity to show off its cultural past, present, and future. It is a "cultural oympics," in the spirit of the Olympics and the World Cup.

During the course of the fair Korea will hold special events large and small in 29 areas, not just in publishing and literature but including also music, drama, and art. The traditional Jongmyo Jerye'ak and the modern musical "Subway Line #1" will go on stage simultaneously, and Korea's Jikji Simgyeong, the world's earliest book published with metal type, will be displayed next to the German Gutenberg Bible. It is welcome news to learn that the "100 Korean Books – Ubiquitous Books" program, which demonstrates Korea's excellence in information and communication technology, is already attracting a lot of interest.

This year's fair will be a fine opportunity for the Republic of Korea to rise as a culturally advanced nation in the international community. When Japan was the Guest of Honor in 1990, it worked hard at planting Japanese culture around the world. It is probably not entirely a coincidence that four years later Kenzaburo Oe won the Nobel prize for literature.

They say that about 4,000 local news reports are filed about Guest of Honor events alone. We call on officials to work hard at making the fair, in the words of fair president Juergen Boos, "a chance to let Europe and the whole world know of the identity and excellence of Korean culture." We hope to see the hard work and many complications over the past two years of preparations move the hearts of the world's people.

The Hankyoreh, 19 October 2005.

Turning on the Tap: Is Water the Next Oil?

2005-10-20T21:15:00.000+08:00

Water, not petroleum, may emerge as this century's most essential—and contested—product. Here's how new, private enterprises are exploring the complexities of water delivery and treatment globally. From HBS Alumni Bulletin.

by Garry Emmons

Flush, shower, rinse, swallow—fumbling through their first waking moments, most Americans are probably too groggy to see competitive advantage in their early morning routine. But there it is: All the H2O they need—cheap, clean, treated, pressurized, and home-delivered—available at the turn of a faucet. Not so for 1 billion other residents of planet Earth, whose day begins quite differently. With their basic health already compromised for lack of water-based sanitation, those less fortunate must also worry that their drinking water—often requiring several hours each day to collect—may sicken or even kill them.

The ocean-dominated Earth is indeed the "blue planet," but only 1 percent of its water, the equivalent of one tablespoonful in a gallon, is fresh and accessible. Agriculture and industry are thirsty for that limited supply, too. They consume—often inefficiently—amounts that far exceed residential and personal use. And with the global population skyrocketing, the demand for water to sustain, feed, and employ the world's people is projected to double by 2025. By that date, nearly half of the estimated population of more than 6 billion will be living in "water-stressed" countries, where either the quantity or the quality of water supplies will have sunk to levels ranging from inadequate to economically crippling. At the same time, another valuable water-infrastructure system, the environment, is in steep decline because of human mismanagement. All these competing forces lead some experts to believe that water will replace petroleum as the twenty-first century's core commodity, with nations rich in water enjoying enormous social and economic advantages over those that are not.

Water is a $400 billion global industry.
In an age of global water scarcity, with governments scrambling to create new water systems or repair deteriorating ones, there is money in water. Already a big business attracting major corporate players such as General Electric, Siemens, ITT, Suez, and Tyco, water is a $400 billion global industry. While just 15 percent of U.S. drinking water is delivered by for-profit, or "investor-owned," entities, with the remaining 85 percent operated by municipalities themselves, the Environmental Protection Agency says that the U.S. water industry needs $500 billion of infrastructure investment over the next twenty years. All this portends opportunity for private companies and for investors, who've sent water-related stocks soaring 113 percent over the last five years. As replacement costs for old facilities and equipment combine with increasingly stringent and expensive regulations, more and more communities are also contending with municipal budget squeezes and tax-averse citizens. Turning over water operations to private companies that can offer economies of scale, financial resources, expertise, and efficiency is an attractive option.

Privatization, however, troubles some consumer advocates and other activists. Critics argue that water is an essential human need and should not be subject to the vagaries of profit-driven management or the potential manipulation of markets. But it is these same market forces that could well drive crucial changes in water use. In theory, when water becomes expensive, it will be used more efficiently.

"The really important point is not whether public or private providers deliver the service but the efficiency, quality, and cost-effectiveness of that service," says Jeremy Pelczer (AMP 162, 2002), president and CEO of American Water. "We agree that water is a human and social right and understand that it deserves special public protections and oversight. Because it's scarce, it has an economic value, but that value must be affordable to the communities we serve."

Water for People

Based in New Jersey, American Water is part of the British multinational RWE Thames Water, which operates in twenty-five countries. American Water is responsible for water services and wastewater treatment for 17 million people in 1,800 communities in the United States and Canada. American Water typically owns and/or operates the municipal water system in a community, while the community continues to "own" the local water supply. The company agrees that it will provide necessary capital investment and expertise, treat and deliver drinking water, and bill and collect revenue. Treatment and quality standards for that water, how much of it can be extracted, and how much the company can charge are all determined and regulated by public authority. Compared with other developed countries, U.S. consumers pay relatively little for water, mostly because of public subsidies. But as demand and infrastructure needs grow, public authorities may decide cheap water can no longer be justified.

Another major opportunity in the water business lies in the industrial sector. From 2003 until earlier this year, Doug Brown (MBA '85) was CEO of Ionics, Inc., a company based, aptly, in Watertown, Massachusetts, that specializes in water treatment and desalination. Brown points out that many diverse industries (e.g., food, pharmaceuticals, computer chips, electric-power generation) require purified water that is treated to much higher standards than drinking water. He observes, "In North America and around the world, industrial customers are increasingly interested in how water quality affects the economics of their manufacturing operations. They're willing to outsource water treatment because of its increasing complexity and strict regulatory requirements. Industrial water treatment is a capital-intensive industry, so that tends to drive it into the hands of large multinationals." Indeed, Ionics itself was purchased last February for $1.3 billion by General Electric and its CEO Jeff Immelt (MBA '82). GE has announced its intention to reach $10 billion in water-business sales over the next decade.

Worldwide, as water becomes increasingly precious, it is often predicted that more conflicts will arise as several nations compete for the same limited source of water. Indeed, tensions have emerged in such situations, as is the case with the aquifers of the Middle East. But water strains can also breed cooperative efforts, such as the Nile River pact involving some ten countries. As it happens, water fights are just as likely to be intranational, between sectors within countries, as international.

Agriculture will need ever-greater amounts of water to feed growing populations, even as burgeoning cities—with their greater wealth and political clout—typically draw off more water for their residents, industries, and power plants. With their huge populations, China and India (where groundwater supplies in Delhi are expected to run dry by 2015) are especially susceptible to these water stresses. Dry nations will increasingly abandon agriculture because of water scarcity, as is now happening in the Middle East and North Africa, and will turn to the water-rich countries for grains and other foods. This trade in comestibles—flowing from lush lands to parched places—has earned wheat, rice, and other crops the sobriquet "virtual water."

For most water-stressed or water-scarce countries, essential steps, along with conservation, are more efficient and productive use of water in irrigation and industrial processes. A primary aspect of this is the upgraded and expanded treatment of industrial wastewater and sewage water, which can then be reused for irrigation and industrial applications. Currently in the developing world, some 90 percent of sewage and 70 percent of industrial wastewater are untreated, frequently finding their way into the usable water supply. As Doug Brown observes, "Water infrastructure in the developing world is generally inferior to that of the industrialized countries; in addition, many of those nations now view water as a strategic asset. So for them, making unusable water usable again is in effect making a valuable product. The technology, capital, expertise, and managerial know-how to accomplish this is required all over the developing world, thus offering an array of opportunities for water multinationals."

The municipal water sector in Third World countries is also in need of support. The World Bank, which advocates privatization, reports that a third of public utilities in developing countries lose up to 40 percent of their water due to poor infrastructure and mismanagement. That's one reason why communities outside the United States, Brown notes, have been more inclined than their American counterparts to outsource their local operations.

As demand and infrastructure needs grow, public authorities may decide cheap water can no longer be justified.
Seeking new sources of supply, many coastal regions are turning to desalination technology. General Electric, for one, says it will be opening several "desal" plants a year worldwide, costing up to $300 million each. "Seawater desalination provides the ultimate answer for water-supply problems because its source is effectively limitless," says Brown. "Its drawbacks are that even though technology is rapidly reducing costs, it still remains the most expensive way to produce usable water. In addition, water is not economically transportable from coastal to inland areas. Right now, for agricultural and industrial use, it's more cost-effective by half to recycle municipal wastewater."

Equitable and efficient use of the world's water is becoming an ever-more urgent issue and one that inevitably will mean increased involvement for the private sector. Says American Water's Jeremy Pelczer, "On their own, or working with NGOs, or in public-private partnerships, investor-owned companies have a role to play in managing the world's water. But at the end of the day, it starts with governments implementing the correct policies, not just regarding water reform, but in matters such as poverty alleviation, environmental regulations, and so forth. We need to focus on the UN Millennium Development Goals of halving the number of people without water and sanitation by 2015. The essential element is leadership from the public sector."

Doug Brown agrees. "Water issues are addressable, but they require a commitment of resources and capital. That people drink water downstream from where waste is disposed of is completely avoidable. Water issues can definitely be fixed. The technology, experience, and management expertise exist. What's required is the will to do it."

Reprinted with permission from "Water Ltd.," HBS Alumni Bulletin

Garry Emmons is the senior associate editor of the HBS Alumni Bulletin.

Marzipan???

2005-10-20T21:02:00.000+08:00

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm^^;;

from empas_korea

Social Marketing Comes In Four Flavors

2005-10-19T15:49:00.000+08:00

Consumers' trust in traditional forms of advertising is waning. In 2004, less than 50% of consumers trusted TV and radio ads, and only slightly more trusted print ads. What's more, consumers increasingly say they're bombarded with too many irrelevant ads. These negative attitudes toward traditional marketing have led consumers to take measures to block direct mailers, telemarketers, and TV advertisers from their homes in an accelerating consumer ad backlash.

Social or viral marketing -- with its minimal obtrusiveness and trustworthy sources (often other consumers) -- avoids most of the anti-ad reactions that fuel the backlash. By engaging consumers in a dialogue about their products or encouraging consumer-to-consumer dialogue, marketers inevitably lose some control over the message of their campaigns. But what marketers may lose in control, they gain in audience attention, velocity of communication, and much-needed trust from loyal consumers.

Tools For Social Marketing
How can marketers connect with jaded consumers who avoid traditional campaigns with spam-blockers, DVRs, and Do-Not-Call lists? Four flavors of social marketing can help:

1: Word-of-mouth (WOM) Marketing
Disillusioned consumers -- those who've lost trust in marketers -- now turn to each other for trustworthy product information. This consumer-to-consumer "buzz" naturally occurs without the intervention of marketers -- 46% of North American consumers often tell friends and family about products that interest them. When marketers get involved to stimulate WOM activity -- like P&G did when it offered to donate money to an energy-saving charity if Tide Coldwater users sent along product samples -- they must relinquish the control they would have had over a traditional campaign. But this is a small price to pay for the increase in consumer trust created by WOM marketing. While Tide created a buzz arou! nd Coldwater based on environmental awareness, Burger King's successful "Subservient Chicken" Webcast created a humorous buzz for its BK Tender Crisp.

2: Blogs
Blogs (think: online journal) provide a venue for marketers and consumers to open a dialogue and facilitate WOM marketing among consumers. Blogs can be a space where corporate executives post their musings and consumers respond, marketers solicit consumers to post reviews of products, or consumers connect and recommend products to each other. Blogs about kids' issues help Stonyfield Farm create a dialogue with parents. Vespa's blogs give its consumers the opportunity to share Vespa scooter experiences.

3: RSS
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an XML standard that gives consumers the opportunity to aggregate all of their information into one location. RSS provides marketers with many options to reach consumers: Feed sponsorships, ad placements within feeds, and ad headlines are only a few. Though current adoption of RSS is relatively low (only 2% of North American online adults use RSS today), those who use this technology now are the valuable, information-hungry consumers of tomorrow (see figure above). Marketers like Purina and Apple use RSS to inform consumers about new products, send updates about product support, and disseminate consumer-generated content from their Web sites.

4: Podcasting
Like RSS, podcasting separates media from a single channel, delivering audio content in a new way. For marketers, podcasts provide opportunities for sponsorships, on-air ads, and original product-specific content. The upside? A captive audience. The downside? A small audience (only 10% of online adults are familiar with podcasting) but a growing one, especially with the addition of a podcasting library in iTunes, which lists more than 600 podcasts about technology and 100 about travel. Marketers looking to repeatedly reach a valuable, younger, tech-savvy crowd should actively explore this new medium.

So while traditional one-way marketing campaigns are losing their audience to consumers' ad fatigue, multitasking, and distrust of marketing messages, marketing itself is not dead. It's just gone to the masses. Get involved in the dialogue.

reference : Forrester Research

How Does Cubism Really Work in Asia?

2005-10-18T16:32:00.000+08:00

'Misunderstanding' the essence of the genre leads to a unique interpretation

Soon after the introduction of cubism by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in early 20th century, it spread widely across other European nations, going through Eastern Europe, Russia, the United States, and later onto Asia. As one of the forces of Western modernism, cubism brought a kind of revolutionary approach in portraying an object. With cubism, the essence of an object might be captured by looking at the painting from different points simultaneously.

An early work of Picasso, "Landscape with Posters" (1912), might be a good example for a beginner to understand the genre. This painting produces three-dimensional effects of flat and sharp planes of the objects. If we look closely at the painting from different angles, we might have a multidimensional view of the same object.

As for Asia, Western contemporary theory suggests that Asian artists experienced less influence compared with Westerns artists. The problem occurred as Asian artists merely interpreted the genre as a technique to draw objects using firm, straight lines and planes. Cubism as a driving force of Western Modernism was acknowledged by Asian artists as being an innovative idea, although the concept was received with various interpretations. Japan was the first Asian country, followed by China, 100 years later. Meanwhile, other Asian countries experienced the influence in 1950s and 1960s, mostly after gaining their independence from Western colonization.

Earlier this month, I had a chance to confirm what contemporary art theory suggests about cubism in Asia, by looking at 120 works of Asian artists from 11 countries in the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. It was the first time in the world to examine comprehensively, cubism in Asia. Researchers and curators worked for years to compile 120 paintings from 11 Asian countries. While some might easily find a misconception of cubism, I, however, argue that Asian artists with their lack of theory in cubism have developed the idea in unique ways.

Some experts might call them misunderstandings, because they could not assess the works using text-book-based criteria. But for Asian painters who are more familiar with other genres such as surrealism, cubism is perhaps just another gate to generate their own style, later called semi-transparent shapes, which does not appear in Western artists' work. Vincente Manansala from the Philippines, for example, is one prominent artist that promotes semi-transparent shapes. His works are really eye-catching and produce the multidimensional effect found in any cubist's work.

Again, some experts and scholars might argue that a misunderstanding does exist among Asian painters, but in the later period, explorations performed by Asian painters are easily found during 1990s, and they do not merely obey the firm and sharp-lined doctrines of cubism.

Prominent Indian artist Jehangir Sabavala in his work "Jugs in Consonance" (1959) translated this genre not merely into sharp and straight lines and planes, but also into semi-transparent planes, curves and round shapes in the late 1950s, when the genre was just spreading in Asian countries.

Akira Tatehata, one of the researchers examining cubism in Asia, argues that there is a kind of misconception or misunderstanding of cubism among Asian artists. As the result, some paintings from Asian countries might not fit into any genre of cubism.

However, if the misconception ends up creating a unique and extraordinary work, regardless if it does not fit into any cubism category based on Western modern art theories, why should we worry? So, let cubism be spread in an unusual way in Asia.

Lily Yulianti Farid is a writer based in Tokyo.

From eCRM to SEM

2005-10-17T23:28:00.000+08:00

Digital marketing is growing fast. But it is still a mystery to many people. Case studies help to explain what works, and why

Do you know your search engine marketing from your search engine optimisation? Should you use pay-per-click deals or plan online media on the number of eyeballs they will reach? Sometimes, the best lessons come from other companies which have already considered the same questions.

A range of digital marketers offer the benefit of their experience at this year's DM Show. Rachel Johnson, vice-president of marketing, Europe, at Ask Jeeves, together with Matt Powell, creative director of Profero, present the session "Best practice online creative" on Wednesday, October 26, at 11.15am. Among the issues they will consider are optimising campaigns, testing variables, and how much you can really say in a banner.

"Maximising the effect of your search engine marketing strategy" is the theme for Martin McNulty, head of online marketing at Thomas Cook, as part of the same session. He will reveal how the company has deployed search engine marketing (SEM) to great effect in building its online presence to match its retail status.

Mobile marketing is becoming a critical new route to market because it offers the chance to reach consumers anywhere, any time. Sally-Anne Burwell, head of marketing at Vodafone Target, considers "Overcoming the mobile challenge to improve CRM and maximise ROI" on Wednesday, October 26, at 1.30pm. She will examine the role of content and how to integrate mobile phones with other marketing channels.

Search engines are steadily claiming a place as the epicentre of consumer demand. Google explains "A customer-centric approach to ensuring the effectiveness of online campaigns", with head of the vertical markets group James Cashmore speaking in the same session as Burwell. If you want to know how to use offline campaign performance as an indicator of online marketing effectiveness, he has the answer.

"Customers now have a choice, and their decisions will shape the market going forward. This is something the mailing industry needs to do better," says Ivers.

TNT Mail is aiming to provide the full spectrum of deregulated postal services. This degree of change will take some time, but David Higham, business development director at TNT Mail, is confident it will come.

"The more people who use our services, both downstream access and eventually end-to-end, the more confident they will get," he told Precision Marketing earlier this year. The company already works for Sky, Call All, Booker and Express Gifts.

Royal Mail still holds 99 per cent of the market, and erosion is likely to be slow, but steady.

It has faced its own challenges this year, from making its first ever loss to missing performance targets.

There have also been long wrangles with the direct marketing industry about introducing a new pricing system based on size and weight, rather than weight alone.

Some observers believe that the future of the sector will mean more electronic communication. "Direct marketing will increasingly have to embrace new media channels, because that is what consumers are doing," says Mike Dodds, managing director of OgilvyOne, a participant in the opening keynote session on the future of the industry (Tuesday, October 25, 10am).

He points to Ford, which has found that 80 per cent of its customers do research online before visiting a dealership. There will be more options in the future - the question is how to mix them. According to Dodds: "Clients are very clear that it's not about one media taking over from another. It's about how on- and offline direct media work in a more integrated way."Digital marketing service providers, covering data to email distribution, will be highly visible at this year's DM Show. Buoyed by figures showing expenditure on new media marketing growing to an estimated £1.5bn this year, from £1.2bn in 2004, they are operating in a space that is getting hotter.

Interactive Prospect Targeting (IPT) recently published a five-volume guide to email marketing. It provides a step-by-step guide to the basics of campaign planning, intelligent data management for email marketing, writing and creating emails that get results, understanding the art of email broadcasting, and measuring email marketing effectiveness. The company also recently added a guide to questions clients should ask a managed solutions provider.

Prospects can ask IPT about its services by visiting the company at the exhibition, having taken advantage of the free download from its website (www.ipt-ltd.co.uk). As a data owner, the company offers nearly 5 million opted-in email addresses, with hundreds of selectable variables. It also has 2.1 million postal prospects with lifestyle information.

If you are looking for freshly captured permission marketing data, IPT runs www.myoffers.co.uk - a data collection website that, together with partner brand sites, has acquired over 7 million registered members. New registrations are running at 170,000 per month.

Youdata will also be at the show promoting its 5 million-strong, opt-in email database - 45 per cent of the online market. Set up by Unanimis Consulting, the dataset has been built by asking consumers what products they are interested in, via co-registration and the Youdata anonymity programme. Offers and competitions are also delivered to specified target groups via the www.youdirect.net site.

Email delivery has become a more technically complex and difficult proposition as a result of the rising tide of spam. As many as nine out of ten emails carried by Internet service providers (ISPs) may be bulk emailings or fraudulent messages.

To cope with this deluge, ISPs have put in place spam filters. The problem is, these also take out legitimate marketing communications. The level varies. Yahoo! filters 25 per cent of opted-in messages, while Hotmail only takes out around 12 per cent. To make sure your campaign results are not affected by this situation, you need to work with a company

For more information and stories in this area visit the UK's top direct marketing title at http://www.precision-marketing.co.uk

David Levine's Economic and Game Theory

2005-10-15T14:25:00.000+08:00

This site uses the tools of modern economics and game theory to explore how the interaction of intelligent goal-seeking individuals determines social outcomes. Find out more about game theory.

by David K. Levine

Proop that girls are evil and..

2005-10-15T14:17:00.000+08:00

A Soft-Landing for China's Economy

2005-10-15T14:08:00.000+08:00

Focus of the week
New Market for NAND Chips

Financial markets
Money & Bond Markets (Oct. 5 - 11)Stock MarketForeign Exchange Market

Issue report
A Soft-Landing for China's Economy

Major events of the week
Major Events of the Week (Oct. 5 - 11)

Economic Indicators
Macroeconomic IndicatorsIndustrial ActivityInternational TradeBalance of Payments & Foreign ExchangeMajor Economic Indicators of North Korea

Daniel Bell

2005-10-13T22:26:00.000+08:00

A Harvard academic and prominent figure in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Bell is best known as one of the theorists of post-industrialism. Bell's best known works are The End of Ideology (1960) and The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973).

The End of Ideology has been a seminal text in the development of what has been called 'endism': the notion that history and ideology have come to an end thanks to the twin triumphs of Western democratic politics and the economic system underpinning it, capitalism. Bell himself in his later career has become somewhat worried by the right-wing slant of much 'endist' theory; although it is worth pointing out that in its day The End of Ideology was vigorously attacked by left-wing critics who claimed that it ignored the reality of life in the Third World and helped to maintain their status quo. For such critics, endism was merely another ideology, that of Western political liberalism, whose concern was to discourage the view that any opposition was possible.

The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, subtitled A Venture in Social Forecasting, suggested that we were on the brink of a new kind of information-led, service-oriented society that would replace the industrial-based model that had been dominant in the West in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A post-industrial society has for Bell three main components: 'a shift from manufacturing to services'; 'the centrality of the new science-based industries'; and 'the rise of new technical elites and the advent of a new principle of stratification'.

Since The Coming of Post-Industrial Society was published, much of what Bell has forecast has indeed come to pass in the 'mass consumption' societies of the West, although, as many critics would be quick to point out, not without considerable social cost in terms of unemployment and job insecurity. Bell has, however, clearly foreseen the direction Western culture would take, and his work now looks to prefigure much postmodern thought, which has similarly emphasized the socially transforming power of information technology.

The need to break with the outdated narrative of modernism, which included within it an uncritical belief in industrial progress and exploitation of the material world, has come to be widely recognized, and in a very real sense most of the advanced Western economies could be described as post-industrial to at least some degree. Certainly, service-industries, knowledge-production, and information technology form an increasingly important part of Western life, particularly as regards wealth-creation. Whether they agree with Bell's particular vision or not, the kind of ideal society envisaged by most postmodernists is unmistakably post-industrial . (ed. Stuart Sim: Routledge)

How earthquakes happen

2005-10-12T21:52:00.000+08:00

How and why the earth moves, and different types of quake

from bbc

15th European Union Film Festival 2005

2005-10-11T14:31:00.000+08:00

7.00pm ONE DAY IN EUROPE(Germany) directed by Hannes Stoehr
9.30pm EVERYBODY FAMOUS!(Belgium) directed by Dominique Deruddlere
< Link>

I hope you enjoy this film festival^^*

Singapore 3rd-Qtr GDP Probably Expanded at 3.7% Annualized Pace

2005-10-09T11:28:00.000+08:00

The following table gives forecasts for the percentage change in gross domestic product from a year earlier, the annualized, seasonally adjusted change from the previous quarter, and estimates for 2005:

Korea's Export Strategy

2005-10-09T11:21:00.000+08:00

Focus of the week
Factors Behind Korea's Bull Market

Financial markets
Money & Bond Markets (Sept.28-Oct.4)Stock MarketForeign Exchange Market

Issue report
Korea's Export Strategy

Major events of the week
Major Events of the Week (Sept.28-Oct.4)

Economic Indicators
Macroeconomic IndicatorsIndustrial ActivityInternational TradeBalance of Payments & Foreign ExchangeMajor Economic Indicators of North Korea

'Dongmakgol' deeply touching with imagination, humor

2005-10-07T23:02:00.000+08:00

By Shim Sun-ahSEOUL

The feature debut by director Park Gwang-hyeon, "Welcome to Dongmakgol," is set in a tiny mountain village in South Korea in the early stages of the 1950-53 Korean War.

It begins with the arrival in the village of Dongmakgol of wounded Allied Forces U.S. naval pilot Smith (played by American actor Steve Taschler) after his plane crashed on a nearby hillside.

More strangers then find their way to the remote village apparently oblivious to the war outside: Three North Korean soldiers accidentally isolated from their unit amid the confusion of the battle and two South Korean deserters. Magic butterflies and a cheerful simpleton village girl called Yeo-il (Kang Hye-jeong) draw the visitors into the peaceful hamlet so far unaffected by the war due to its location deep inside the Taebaek mountains of Gangwon Province.

For the people of the village, the newcomers are viewed simply as people "wearing a round gourd and holding long sticks" and who "look irritated a lot," because they have never seen a gun nor military helmet. When the soldiers explain war has broken out across the Korean Peninsula, the villages ask with surprise, "Who invaded? The Japanese or Chinese?"

This is an amusing prologue to a film that portrays the tragedy and absurdity of war.

The soldiers from the opposing sides initially confront each other with their weapons, but the warmheartedness and innocence of the villagers starts to open their minds and bring them together. When they later become aware of an Allied Forces plan to destroy the village in a bombing raid, the soldiers combine forces to defend and protect it.

Adapted from the popular play of the same title staged by movie director Jang Jin and with a soundtrack composed by Joe Hisaishi, renowned for the theme music for Japanese animation hits by Miyazaki Hayao such as "Howl's Moving Castle" and "Spirited Away," this film is packed with fun, energy and deeply touching moments.

Park, a veteran of television commercials, adds artistry, fantasy and imagination to the original story. Contrasted with the tranquil Dongmakgol, where butterflies fly among wild flowers and children play a wide grassy fields, the war feels more tragic.

The fable-like film has two scenes that rank among the greatest in recent films: Popcorn falling like a snow after a grenade explodes in the village's corn storehouse. The other impressive scene is of the indiscriminate aerial bombing of a snow-covered hill as if a fireworks.

Of special visual attraction was the folk festival in which villagers dance to the rhythm of percussion instruments and some children play on bamboo stilts. The beautiful pumpkin lamps lightening up the path leading to the village serve to add to the festive mood. Combined with Hisaishi's music, the scene bring to mind the festival scenes that often appear in Japanese films.

The movie never feels rushed in allowing the South and North Korean soldiers to develop real relationships during a lull in action.

Park was not foolish enough to have the U.S. pilot engage in the battle to defend Dongmakgol. If the American had eventually involved in the fight against the Allied Forces, the film could have been criticized for overindulging in sentimentality.

The battle scene at the end of "Dongmakgol" is spectacular to all the senses, and audiences can fully appreciate the 8 billion won (US$7.7 million) spent producing the film.The leading North Korean and South Korean soldiers are played respectively by Jeong Jae-yeong of "Someone Special" and Shin Ha-gyun of "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Save the Green Planet!."

"Welcome to Dongmakgol" opens Thursday nationwide. It was produced by Film It Suda and is distributed by Showbox.The running time is 133 minutes.

Michelle Wie Turns Pro

2005-10-07T22:50:00.000+08:00

Michelle Wie has turned pro, the Korean golf phenomenon announced on at the Kahala Mandarin Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii on Thursday.

Wie will be turning 16 on Oct. 11 and two days later take part in the Samsung World Championship in Palm Desert, California, which will mark her pro debut. Flanked by Mike Fasulo, chief marketing officer of Sony, and Bob Wood, president of Nike Golf, Wie confirmed she signed endorsement deals with the two companies worth $10 million a year and will use Nike golf clubs.

However, except extraordinary measures are taken, it is impossible for Wie to join the LPGA Tour until she turns 18. LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens, sent Wie a welcome message, congratulating her on taking the next step in her golf life. She said Wie had the qualifications and talent to attract global golf fans and would help open a new chapter for women's golf.

Wie, who is still in high school, held the press conference at 8:00 a.m. local time to get to school on time.
She looked like a mere teenage girl, but in answering questions from reporters at the press conference, she boldly announced her ambition to become the world’s greatest golfer. Excerpts follow.

Your life will change a lot from now on. How do you feel now?
I felt a little nervous in the morning, but now I am very excited and buoyant. I will do my best to become the best golfer in the world. I know there is much expectation about me. Just thinking of becoming a pro makes me feel excited.
When did you make up your mind to turn pro?
I thought about it for a long time and felt this is the right time. I feel I am well prepared and comfortable to play as a pro. Everything is going well.
What are you going to do with your studies?
My first priority is school. I will finish high school and go on to college.
What are your immediate and long-term plans?
I will play the Samsung World Championship on the LPGA tour next week, and in the men’s Casio World Open in Japan next month. I want to play on both LPGA and PGA tours. And I really want to become the fist female golfer to play in the Masters at Augusta National.
What level do you think you are at now?
I always tell myself that I can beat any players on the LPGA tour, but I am not at that level yet.

from chosun

How To Build 6,000 Nuclear Plants

2005-10-05T15:43:00.000+08:00

We asked nuclear engineer James Muckerheide how many nuclear plants would be needed to bring the world's population up to a decent standard of living, and how to do it. Here are his answers.
In 1997-1998, I made an estimate of how many nuclear plants would be needed in the world by 2050. It reflects an economy that is directed to provide the energy necessary to meet basic human needs, especially for the developing regions.
The initiative required is not unlike what the U.S. government did to build the nation: for example, to bring electric power to rural areas; to provide transportation by building roads and highways and canals, and the intercontinental railroads, and airlines; to develop water supplies and irrigation systems; to provide telephone service, medical and hospital services; and many other programs that were essential to develop an advanced society, and to lift regions out of poverty.
However, we need to do more to meet those needs, both within the United States and for the developing world, to bring those people into the economic mainstream, instead of leaving them to be just cheap sources of our labor and raw materials.

The Role of Nuclear Energy
My projections simply envisioned nuclear energy growing from supplying 6% of world energy needs today to one third of the energy demand in 2050, which was taken to grow by about a factor of 3 from 2000. But, of course, that begs the question: Can fossil fuels continue to provide energy at or slightly above present levels, to produce about one third of the energy demand in 2050? And is it likely that hydro, wind energy, and other alternatives can provide the other third, which is also the equivalent of 100% of today's total energy use?
So, nuclear power in 2050 would be roughly 18 times its current use. This requires fewer than the number of plants I projected in 1997, and is equivalent to about 5,100 1,000-megawatt-electric (MWe) plants.
But nuclear energy must produce more than just electricity; it must produce fresh water by desalination of seawater, hydrogen production to displace gasoline and diesel fuel for transportation, process heat for industry, and so on.
Note that, in this case, nuclear energy does not displace coal, oil, and gas. About 200% of current energy use would still have to come from fossil fuels and alternative sources. If oil and gas production cannot be maintained up to about 100 millions barrels per day, this would require an even greater commitment to nuclear energy, especially if nuclear energy is needed to extract oil from tar sands, oil shales, and coal.
There are pollution-control and other cost pressures limiting supply that will make fossil fuels more costly in any event. We need to consider this in the light that nuclear energy can be produced indefinitely at roughly the cost that it can be produced today.
The alternative is to continue "business-as-usual." These conditions are even now producing international conflicts over oil and gas supplies, large environmental pollution costs in trying to increase fossil fuel production, and high costs to try to subsidize uneconomical "alternative" energy sources. This is leading the world into economic collapse, without adequate energy supplies, where the rich feel the need to acquire the significant resources of the economy, with growing disparities in income and wealth, even in the developed world, and frustration in the developing and undeveloped world from the limits on their ability to function economically.

Calculating Energy Demand
By 2050, given current trends, world population will increase from today's 6 billion-plus people to an estimated 9 to 10 billion people, with most of the increase coming from the developing world. The current development in China, India, and elsewhere, indicates the enormous growth now in progress. Today, if anything, such development projections may be understated.
The industrialized world per capita energy use may drop to 65 to 75% of current use, with increased efficiency, however there will be greater energy demands for the new, non-electrical applications, using more energy to extract end-use energy such as oil and hydrogen.
The developing world will substantially increase per capita energy use, to 40 to 50% of current use in the developed world. Going from a bicycle to a motor scooter, may require only a few gallons of fuel per year, but it's a large increment over the amount being used with the bicycle. And motorbikes lead to cars. Even in the last 5 to 10 years, there has been an enormous increase in vehicles, in China especially, and in other developing regions. These are large population—more than 2 billion people—and their need for oil is becoming enormous.
Therefore, if we are to achieve a world that is providing the energy required for developed and developing societies, along with substantial relief of human suffering and deprivation, energy use will be around three times that of today.

Nuclear Energy is Competitive and Cost-effective
Nuclear power is currently competitive and cost-effective. Numerous pragmatic current and recent construction projects around the world provide a strong basis for cost projections in the United States, Europe, and other locations that do not have current experience. Electricity from available nuclear power plant designs is lower than current costs from recent coal and gas plants, and reasonable projections of electricity costs from future coal and gas plants.
There is a popular view that nuclear power is the high-cost option. However, during the 1968 to 1978 nuclear power construction period, there were economic benefits even when there were almost 200 plants ordered and being procured and constructed, with massive construction costs. All of those plants established strong competition with oil, gas, and coal, and the competitive pressure brought down the cost of fossil-fuel-generated electricity a great deal. Ratepayers in the United States saved billions of dollars in fossil fuel costs over almost three decades.
Without the nuclear option, we have lost that competitive pressure. Prices are not constrained by that competition and have been increased, along with increased demand for scarce oil, gas, and coal resources. So, if we build nuclear power plants, even before a significant number of plants are operational, and especially if we have the ability to build plants in a timely manner, we will have an effect of reducing the excessive demand for, and costs of, coal and gas for providing electricity—to the benefit of the whole economy. We must consider that as part of the economic equation that doesn't presently exist in the way we evaluate nuclear power costs: the externalized benefits to society.
We know about calculating externalized costs, but we do not adequately calculate externalized benefits. It's time to do so.
Of course, people still consider the very high costs of the large nuclear plants ordered in the early 1970s. But these suffered the unanticipated effects of high component and labor costs, design changes in process after the Three Mile Island accident, and long construction times with high financing costs.
Today, we are prepared to manufacture and pre-build modules, reducing construction schedules to limit that long-term financial exposure, even if there were increases in interest rates. Future projects will undertake plant construction with approved designs, with "constructability" incorporated. The current generation of early plants are simply artifacts of the historical first phase of nuclear power plant design and construction, just as the Ford Tri-Motor and the DC-3 are artifacts of the first phases of passenger aircraft.

The Mass Production Road to 2050
Because the time frames for these construction requirements are long, and we need significant contributions to power supplies by 2020, we can't just increase production exponentially to put a lot of the power on line in the decade from 2040-2050. We need a substantial amount of nuclear electricity before 2030, and need to install a construction capacity that would produce a stable plant production rate for the future, to meet both a nominal energy growth and to replace old nuclear, and other energy plants. Consider that China is building roughly one new coal plant per week now, and the United States has about 100 coal plants on the drawing board. These plants and hundreds of others will need to be replaced after 2050.
Obviously, we would install much of that capacity between 2030 and 2050. But to get from here to 2030, we have to re-examine how we plan, and commit, to installing nuclear plants. The current idea in the United States, of building one plant by 2010, and 10 more by 2020, is a long way from the needed 2,000 or so in the world by 2030. Fortunately, other countries are doing more to meet the need.
We have to commit now to manufacturing the pressure vessels and other large components in mass quantities, instead of waiting for future ad hoc contracts from individual companies. Waiting leads to substantial overheads and delays to develop contracts, which are subject to the ad hoc process of integrating such plans into the production capabilities of vendors, with, again, rising costs and/or extended schedules, as negotiations are entered for limited production capacity, with high risks perceived for commitments to expand manufacturing capacity vs. the assurance that the industry will not collapse again. Individual companies would still have to develop plans and contracts for new plants, but those plants would come from national policies that engage the developed and developing countries to commit to the production and installation of nuclear power plants to produce a large, worldwide plant manufacturing capacity.
We must also commit to working on evolutionary designs that can reduce the cost of current and future plants. For example, current requirements for containment pressure and leakage, radiation control, including ALARA (the as low as reasonably achievable standard), and so on, can be made more reasonable, along with designs that have less conservatism in design and analysis, without reducing nuclear power plant safety. In addition to engaging the manufacturing industries directly, we must engage the major national and international standards organizations, and other international non-governmental organizations, in this effort.
A plan for rapid growth to a level long-term production capacity to support long-term energy growth and replacement of old plants and fossil fuels, would result in producing roughly 200 new units per year. We can plan for 6,000 equivalent units, taking our present operating plant capacity as about 300 1,000-MWe equivalent units (from about 440 actual units).
There are about 30 units now in construction in the world, with construction times of five to six years, so we are now building about 6 units per year. This will substantially increase in the next two to three years, so we can take something more than 10 units per year as a current baseline, and can plan for a rapid increase in current capacity to a level of about 200 units per year after 2040. We would use current and near-term nuclear power plant construction experience to adopt initial plant designs and major suppliers. We would focus primarily on the required fuel cycle capacity and major component manufacturing, and primary materials and infrastructure, including the required people, to produce nuclear units more like the way we build 747s, with parts in modules being delivered for assembly from around the world, while moving to a more regional manufacturing strategy.
Note that "manufacturing" applies to on-site and near-site support of construction by producing major modules outside of the construction area of the plant itself. The modules built on-site in Japan to construct the two 1,356-MWe ABWRs (advanced boiling water reactors) in about four years, which came on line in 1996 and 1997, weighed up to 650 tons and were lifted into the plant.

The World War II and TVA Precedents
We have the experience of the expansion of production capacity in a few years before and during World War II. President Roosevelt anticipated the need, by engaging industry leaders before the U.S. entry into the war, including earlier production to support U.S. merchant marine shipbuilding, and to supply Britain and Russia using the "lend-lease" program. Henry Kaiser built Liberty ships, which took six months before the war, delivering more than one per day.
The early TVA experience built large projects that integrated production and construction, with labor requirements and capabilities. Unfortunately, as with many large organizations, the later management failed to fully understand and maintain the capabilities that were largely taken for granted as the historical legacy of the organization, with inadequate commitments to maintain that capability. However, there are examples of maintaining those capabilities, in organizations like DuPont and the U.S. Nuclear Navy. These principles must be applied.
In addition, our original nuclear power construction experience demonstrates that these capabilities are readily achievable. Today there are 103 operating nuclear units in the United States, ordered from 1967 to 1973. There were about 200 units in production and construction by the late 1970s. So, even with little management coordination—poor management by many owners and constructors, with plant owners, vendors, and constructors jockeying for position and running up costs in the marketplace—we were building about 20 units per year.
But we got ahead of ourselves. Costs were driven up by competitive bidding and capital constraints, but more important, there was much lower electricity growth following the 1973 oil embargo, which had not returned to near pre-embargo rates as had been expected by many in the industry. The then-existing excess baseload plant capacity was sufficient to satisfy the slower growth in demand for two decades, relying primarily on coal, which we have in abundance, and in the 1990s, by building low-cost natural gas-burning plants, when the cost of gas was low. But that was an obvious failure to do competent planning, which has clearly exacerbated our current inadequate ability to provide for long-term energy needs of the U.S. and the world, with rising costs that will threaten the world economy.

The Industrial Gear-up Required forMass Production
What kind of industries would have to gear up—steel, concrete, new materials, nuts and bolts, and reactor vessel producers?
The cornerstone of manufacturing for an accelerated program is in fuel supplies and reactor pressure vessels, along with steam generators and turbines, and large pumps. Much of the piping and plumbing, power systems, cables, instrumentation and other systems, plus the concrete and steel for the containment and other buildings, are high volumes of materials, but these should be more readily met within the general industrial production of concrete and steel, and other industrial components and equipment.
This also contributes to redevelopment of essential production capacities that need to expand and to be retooled, along with reactivating substantial steel capacity.
The fuel supply is critical. Initially, uranium mining can be substantially expanded. However, high-grade uranium supplies will be exhausted, along with surplus nuclear weapons materials, requiring the use of lower-grade ores. Ultimately, uranium can also be extracted from ocean water, at only about 10 times the extraction costs of lower grade ore, where it is replenished from natural discharges into the oceans. Because, unlike other fuels, the cost of uranium is a relatively small fraction of the cost of producing nuclear energy, such an increase does not substantially affect the costs and advantages of nuclear power. Extraction of uranium might be effectively done in conjunction with desalination plants. Uranium from seawater, combined with breeder reactors, makes it clear that these resources are good for thousands of years.
The need for conversion and enrichment capabilities would be substantial, along with fuel assembly manufacturing, including the need to establish large-scale ceramic fuel manufacturing for the high-temperature gas reactors, and develop reprocessing facilities to extend uranium fuel supplies. Initially, this would be done by making plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuels, and then later developing breeder reactor fuels. India, for example, is developing a thorium-based breeder reactor to take advantage of its thorium resources, and limited uranium.

Production to Follow the Eurasian Land-Bridge
As to where the facilities would be located: The idea of Land-Bridge development applies here. Today, pressure vessels are built in a few locations and transported around the world. But in planning for necessary nuclear power plant construction, it would be rational to locate pressure vessel, steam generator, large pump and valve manufacturing, and other major component facilities relative to the major plant construction and transportation locations, along with steel sources. These decisions would be made with the industries and countries that would produce the components.
Initially, two or more major pressure vessel facilities might need to be developed to be able to produce about 20 vessels per year. These would be massive facilities. With an initial target to ultimately produce 200 plants per year in the 2040s, we would decide later whether to develop 10 to 20 such facilities around the world, or to make larger and fewer facilities. This will reflect the capabilities of the various companies that must do the work. We can get that capability into simultaneous production. We can construct the large PWRs in four to five years, even three-and-one-half years or so, and down to two years for the gas reactors, using factory production, and on-site manufacturing production of modules. On-site plant construction is therefore more of an assembly process, as well as the construction process that we normally think of in building large concrete and steel structures and facilities.
Manufacturing facilities would be located with consideration of the known and anticipated locations of future power plants, steel suppliers, transportation capabilities, and so on. A constructive competitive environment can be established to keep the system dynamically improving and reducing costs, with necessary elements of competition and rewards to the companies and people producing the components.
Strategic development and implementation of nuclear plants, like the Eurasian Land-Bridge concept, lies in building networks, not just building out linearly as the United States did in moving to join the East and West in building the transcontinental railroad. It is more like the following period in railroad history, when simultaneous railroad lines were tying together the country; for example, the north and south in bringing Texas cattle to the Chicago stockyards, supported by the telegraph with its ability to implement network communications. The process is explicitly oriented to develop along a strategic path, rather than ad hoc plans to develop energy sources and communications around cities that grow as a result of a non-planned, non-networked, model. To be more precise, in the 1800s the city-region was the network, even in large cities where water and power had to be brought from hundreds of miles away. Today, intercity infrastructure needs to be integrated with intracity-regional systems.
Such strategic plans anticipate growth of large nodes that require substantial infrastructure, which rely on and include power requirements—as in industrial complexes and large cities of more than a few hundred-thousand people. We can consider somewhat separately the mega-cities of 20-plus million people that are being created. They require an obvious, localized, large energy component, with a primary role for electricity, but with a heavy demand on the transportation capacity to supply the population and industries, and export the products of the cities. The growing cities of an integrated industrial economy are networked by transportation and communications. Electrification of the railways, and non-electric energy for heat, for example, to provide desalinated water, must be considered.
Electric grids also require that power loads be balanced, which further requires planning in a network strategy, instead of linear development as occurred in the early United States, where, even after the beginning of installing electricity, "the grid" was essentially localized to cities.
In building out a network, we can take a manufacturing mode with the construction of nuclear plants to supply the network that is growing an industrial economy, instead of a focus on the major cities, as occurred with the original U.S. electric power system development. This fragmented result of ad hoc private decisions, responding to individual profit opportunities, had to later be fixed by government, including, for power, government agencies like the great Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the creation of the Rural Electrification Administration, and so on, to bring the nation together. As still is true today, this could not have happened effectively by leaving ad hoc decisions with the private financial interests, focussing on assured quick-return profit opportunities in individual projects. It could be delivered by corporate America when given the opportunity, just as with the great dam projects, providing power and water for cities and irrigation, and even recreation, with the associated economic development of the American West.
So, nuclear power plant construction should be transformed from the mode of plant-by-plant construction of ad hoc projects, into a manufacturing-based strategy. France is a prototype. In 1973-1974 a national decision was made to build nuclear plants in convoy series, to make decisions on designs and to install those designs multiple times, with evolutionary enhancements in size, costs, and safety for future plants. Many plants are put on line in a manufacturing planning mode, not constrained by plant-by-plant decision-making and plant construction mode only as individual project profits can be reasonably assured.
This allows the advantage of mass production, with programmatic commitments to make the vessels and major components to support a plant assembly approach. Individual plants would be installed to meet the electric power market needs. This is especially true of the modular gas reactors.
There are areas that have high power demands now—southern China for example. In addition, there are developing areas extending inland to produce energy for local development along a Silk Road model. Initial energy demands in such areas are not enormous, so that instead of large light water reactor plants, we could incrementally build dozens of modular units over decades, combined with evaluating power to eventually be fed to, and supplied from, the growth of the larger regional and national grid.
Installation sequences would dynamically respond, to both lead and follow growth. We could build two or four plants in one location, and move down the road 200 miles and build two or four more; then build two or four more at the original location as the demand grows. This would be very responsive to local conditions and growing demand over time, while the central facilities would build units in a long-term planned strategy for a number of pressure vessels per year. Although the 285-MWe GT-MHR (General Atomics' gas-turbine modular helium reactor) modular plants are small, compared to light water reactors, the pressure vessels are as large as 1,200-MWe pressurized water reactors (PWRs). When, 10 or 20 years later, we need to expand the capacity to build pressure vessels, we will work with the manufacturers either to expand existing facilities or to select and develop other locations.

Political Framework: The Rai1roads as a Model
So, we have the intercontinental railroad model: Start at key nodes, and expand toward other nodes. The railroad development in the United States is a paradigm. It shows that we need a central strategy, to empower the private sector to build in the national interest. The people doing the work were competing for contracts and building from, and developing, private industrial growth. Meanwhile, President Lincoln and the Congress made national decisions to establish routes, resolve public domain issues, provide incentives, and so on, that were required to support that strategic development. So, governmental direction and vision are needed, with private development, initiative and competition. This has to establish the framework in which the private industries can compete and succeed, to implement that vision in the national economic interest.
COMSAT is another model. Congress chartered a for-profit corporation to build a global system based on geosynchronous satellites instead of having to later fix a system that AT&T was ready to build based on low earth-orbit satellites with tracking-antenna to address the most profitable city links first, but would have left much of the world without satellite communications. COMSAT also developed contracts with many nations for their own communications development.
We need a similar government vision now on behalf of the nation, and the world, as a whole, with an orientation to critical infrastructure, that recognizes the human and economic needs, that rely primarily on low-cost energy. This does not need to be done by government directly, as was done, for example, with the TVA. But it must reflect a vision that engages the private sector and the public, to inspire people to see that their future security and opportunities are going to be provided by adequate development and growth in national and world economies, that are geared to meet human needs.
Otherwise, we are all going to be in a real crisis. That will become increasingly visible to the general public as our lack of adequate economic infrastructure, especially for energy supplies, with associated environmental and financial costs, as overwhelming the nation, and the world.
So, how do we proceed with this ambitious building and development program? We need both top-level direction and authorization, and private-sector initiatives.
Certainly, the fundamental decisions can only be made at the top. An organization must be created that has the resources and authority to make plans and commitments. But just how centralized that would be beyond the essential commitments and responsibilities for infrastructure planning and financing, how it works as a government/private sector implementation program, is flexible. It does not have to be large.
Private initiatives can be authorized, directed, and supported by government, more like the transcontinental railroad development. It was justified by national needs for mail delivery and military purposes, which also supported stage coaches and early airlines development, providing guarantees and funds for services. Or it can be a more centralized government role, like the TVA development, but thinking of this like Admiral Rickover thought of it, in using the private sector and competition to build the U.S. Nuclear Navy: Get the private sector to develop and deliver the technology, while government makes major strategic and programmatic decisions, contracting to undertake production capacity to meet demanding specifications and performance requirements.
We need a dynamic, competitive, management-driven enterprise, to prevent becoming trapped or captured by either private interests or self-serving government bureaucracies that don't, or don't continue to, perform well, either on the technology side or on the economic side. Such failures leave the national interest hostage to self-serving organizations and financial interests, whether private or governmental.
Consider the building of the transcontinental railroads in the United States, where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific were chartered to do the job, with subsidies, but they had to raise their own money, with government direction and guarantees. This was compromised in many ways, however, including buying Congressional support with Credit Mobilier stock for changes favorable to the owners, and so on. That was not a clean process.
Thomas Durant, who headed the Union Pacific effort, saw that most of the wealth would be generated from developing the track-side land and resources. The companies weren't making much progress on actually building the railroad, so Lincoln worked to shift incentives to have to build so many miles of track, and the company with the most miles of track at the end was going to make more money. Without that, the Union Pacific would have built out only slowly, focussing more on developing the more valuable land resources. So, for many years it was a substantial competition that had them going "hammer and tong." When they were building out, the Central Pacific was trying to get past Salt Lake City, Utah, to the coal deposits in the Wasatch mountains. They failed to do that when they could only get to Promontory Point, where the railroads joined up. But construction was being driven by rewards in obtaining such resources.
But historically, the transcontinental railroads, originally championed by Stephen Douglas, even with the major scandals, were a great and economically important success, as a national economic and political achievement. They captured the imagination of the country.
Achieving a great project transcends such details, and provides for the generation of great wealth for the economy as a whole, for the nation and the world. This wealth is greatly out of proportion to the costs from any such malfeasance.
So, there are lessons from considering where the interests and values are in developing an economy, beyond just thinking of it as a point A to point B transportation construction project, unlike ocean shipping. Or the need to have airlines serve smaller cities as well as the large cities.

What a Nuclear Energy InitiativeCan Bring to the World
First, even though such a nuclear power enterprise is an enormous project to salvage the world energy lifeline and to limit conflicts, while being a primary economic development engine, it is just the core of the larger decisions to provide adequate energy from coal and other technologies, plus other critical infrastructure required to provide for the human needs of the developing and undeveloped world, and expanding productive wealth in the developed world.
In addition, such a nuclear power and/or energy technology development initiative is also a foundation of common science and technology, and common purpose, for the world. It can be a model. It is a national and international enterprise, founded on government and private industry participation. It has the power to limit those non-productive machinations of both government and private financial interests that are in conflict, which constrain responsible government and private interests from working for greater general wealth and constructive progress for both the developed and developing world, while being enormously successful financially.
Nuclear power also has the advantage that it currently has a high international profile, and substantial, if relatively non-productive, ongoing national and international government organizations. For example, the United Nations, especially with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Energy Agency, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is essential to our need to safeguard uranium enrichment and plutonium production, plus many other institutional components. The major industry organizations are also more coordinated and compatible, with technologies and capabilities that are more complementary than other equivalent industries.
In addition, such actual public/private mechanisms can transcend some of the destructive national conflicts and destructive financial conditions, to meet actual worldwide energy needs, and to actually implement essential nuclear power energy supplies to prevent world conflicts over energy—in the real world. This can provide an initiative with a productive purpose that can push current non-productive governmental organizations to replace non-productive dialogue and make actual progress in meeting the human needs of the world.
With any success, these mechanisms can also contribute to models that can address other substantial national and international purposes, to engage the developed and developing nations to enable solutions, beyond current "policy discussions." These mechanisms can enable productive cooperation, along with healthy competition, that can enhance relevant technologies, and lower costs, instead of seeing little actual progress in major projects. This can include basic infrastructure, health care, and drug delivery, education and communications, and so on. These initiatives can constrain costs, and preclude destructive financing costs on developing and undeveloped nations.
The nuclear power enterprise can reduce the coming world energy conflicts, create wealth, and be a model to address the inability to deliver technology and services to the developing and undeveloped world and bring these societies into the economic mainstream. This can be the primary economic engine, the wealth-generating machine, for the 21st Century.
James Muckerheide, the State Nuclear Engineer for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a founder and President of Radiation, Science, & Health. He is also director of the Center for Nuclear Technology and Society at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, which is working to establish a level playing field for decisions on the costs and benefits of nuclear technologies that are essential to human prosperity in the 21st Century.

A full version of this article < 21st Century Science & Technology magazine >

from Executive Intelligence Review

Coping With Anxiety

2005-10-04T20:34:00.000+08:00

Tip: Change What You Can, Accept the Rest

Part 1: What's normal?

Part 2: What are symptoms of harmful anxiety?

Part 3: How can you cope?

Divorce, layoffs, threat of terrorism -- there's plenty of anxiety around for everyone these days. And very often, the source is something we can't change. How do you know when it's time to get help dealing with your anxieties?

By Jeanie DavisWebMD Features

-----------------------------------------

Corporate Blogs: Measure Their Value!

2005-10-02T15:48:00.000+08:00

Media placements. Like traditional PR efforts, blogs generate media placements. Though these don't readily translate to financial numbers, at a minimum you can monitor for the quantity, media format, quality, brand, and reach. Based on your specific business needs and culture, establish a method to assess these factors value. (Check out this site for insights on evaluating PR.)

Alternatively, assign a dollar equivalent for placements using the outlet's ad rates as a guide. This assumes the value of editorial and advertising media impressions are similar. Many PR professionals don't approve of this approach as they believe it undervalues editorial endorsement. Further, they claim it doesn't take into consideration quality differences in placements (e.g., a technology mention by Walt Mossberg in "The Wall Street Journal" versus a minor mention buried in Yahoo!) and whether it's on message. While I appreciate their perspective, companies need a way to assign a value to placement results. Ad cost equivalents are a good starting point.

Direct revenues or traffic. When the objective is to grow a business or create an alternative media venue, new leads and ad revenue can be tracked directly. Blogs drive site traffic in a trackable manner, such as the GoDaddy Super Bowl ad discussed on GoDaddy CEO blog.

Consider discreetly and judiciously placing offers in your blog. Use a unique URL, and they're measurable. Readers received a special NetFlix offer on Steve Rubel Micro Persuasion blog, for example. If the blog is the only component of the mix that changed during this period, any sales left can be attributed to it.

Improved search rankings. Because blogs are spidered by search engines, monitor links and trackbacks for measures influencing branding and revenues. Many companies pay for search placement, so assign an equivalent dollar amount based on average placement cost or by use of a search engine calculator.

Brand effect.Use surveys to monitor consumer perception of your brand and company before and after blogging. In some businesses, a percentage point change in mind share has a dollar value, making this calculation relatively straightforward. If not, create an equivalent metric based on the amount of marketing investment needed to achieve similar results.

Increased buzz. Monitor improved consumer perception. This can translate into increased sales using word-of-mouth measures or surveys. Like other branding efforts, give an approximation for sales lift. At a minimum, you know what it would cost to drive equivalent buzz using another format.

Promotion generation. Consider the value created by similar promotions, such as a microsite or guerilla marketing effort, as a measure.

from Corporate Blogs: Measure Their Value!

The hegemony of the world

2005-09-30T22:18:00.000+08:00

What do you think about this map?

-------------------------------------------

Korea Cannot Be Peacefully Unified??

US will support united Korea??

----------------------------------------

Goguryeo(B.C.37~A.D.668)

- Goguryeo covered large parts of present-day Manchuria.

Korean Mobile Phone Diverts Deadly Bullet

2005-09-29T21:05:00.000+08:00

A Korean-made mobile phone has performed a trick folklore traditionally reserves for the Bible, saving the life of an Englishman by absorbing the bullet that was meant for him.
The BBC News and daily tabloid The Sun on Tuesday reported Darren Prior (23), the manager of a jewelry shop in West Sussex, was shot by an armed robber but survived as the bullet hit the cell phone in his breast pocket.
The reports said a masked armed robber broke into the store, took the jewelry and ran away. With Prior in hot pursuit, the man turned back and shot him twice. One bullet missed and the other killed the phone.
The projectile lodged in the battery of the LG model.
Prior said he felt the shot drilling into his chest. He thought he would find himself bleeding but was baffled to find a clean hole on his shirt.
LG Electronics is so pleased with the PR coup that it has decided to give Prior its latest third-generation mobile phone along with another home appliance of his choice such as a plasma display panel (PDP) TV or washing machine. The company said Prior would also be invited to launches of new LG products.
from www.mydaily.co.kr

S. Korea's ranking rises in global competitiveness

2005-09-29T17:30:00.000+08:00

Korea moved up to 17th position in the global competitiveness ranking this year, achieving the biggest advancement among 117 economies, according to the World Economic Forum's annual study.

The Global Competitiveness Report 2005-2006 released yesterday showed that Asia's fourth-largest economy climbed 12 notches. It is the second time that Korea placed within the top 20 since 2003, as it continued to advance for the past three years.

The annual study touted by the WEF as a "valuable tool for shaping economic policy and guiding investment decisions," attributed Korea's sudden rise to its ability to enter a stage of economic recovery despite the strengthening won against the U.S. dollar. The stronger domestic currency threatened to dampen exports, which have been the country's main economic driver amid sluggish consumption.

Finland retained the No. 1 spot for the third consecutive year. The United States has remained second since Finland replaced the world's-largest economy in the 2003-2004 report.

The remainder of the top 10 were Sweden, Denmark, Taiwan, Singapore, Iceland, Switzerland, Norway and Australia.

In Asia, Taiwan continued to be the most competitive, placing fifth, followed by Singapore at sixth place. The WEF report described them as "Asia's two dragons."
Japan, the world's second-largest economy, ranked 12th, sliding three notches.

The WEF report has been published for the past 26 years, serving as an authoritative guide to the competitive condition of economies worldwide.

from The Korea Herald

These Young Spendthrifts...

2005-09-28T18:45:00.000+08:00

As Unification Minister Chung Dong-young tells lawmakers to ready W6-11 trillion to provide energy aid to North Korea, former president Kim Dae-jung looks on and says, "Boy, young people these days are free-handed. When we gave to the North, we spent most of our time watching the public mood."

Luxury Customers Getting Younger

2005-09-28T18:25:00.000+08:00

The main customers of luxury brands are getting younger, with shoppers in their 20s and 30s outnumbering those in their 40s and 50s at high-end department stores like Lotte’s Avenuel and Galleria. The industry targets them as “young luxury customers,” but there are fears that that will aggravate an unhealthy consumption habit since few of them are economically independent.

People in their 20s and 30s accounted for 48 percent of customers who bought luxury goods at Avenuel in July, 10 percentage points more than those in their 40s and 50s. The proportion of 20-somethings has been going up by a percentage point a month from 12.3 percent in April to 16.9 percent in July. The same goes for Galleria Department Store with its longer history of selling luxury goods. People in their 20s and 30s constituted 57.1 percent of the store’s luxury customers in July.

Ha Seong-dong of Lotte Department Store says the young, unlike their parents, have grown up surrounded by luxury goods, and to them designer brands are simply a means to express themselves rather than an unnecessary indulgence.

Department stores are competing to woo these young customers. Galleria says it is displaying more trendy goods and increasing the number of multi-shops. It is also strengthening marketing strategies for young luxury customers such as events for soon-to-be-married couples. It has also become a home to high-end restaurants and cultural spaces to fit the taste of the new customers.

Yet many of them do not earn the money they spend on luxury goods. Students or jobless people account for over 10 percent of 20-something customers of luxury departments.

from chosun

Letter from China Written by a Defector

2005-09-26T21:33:00.000+08:00

“Please get rid of the rotten Kim Jong Il regime”

Last March, Citizens' Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees (CHNK) received a letter. It was a letter requesting for rescue written by a North Korean defector.

The writer letter is Ms. Park, who attempted defection to South Korea through Mongolia in December 2003, but got arrested by the Chinese police and repatriated to North Korea. He was released by many injuries on his body from torture. He attempted defection again and arrived in China, but had to have both of his legs amputated.

With the contribution by the CHNK. The DailyNK releases the letter in full text to the readers. Ms. Park is currently making a stay in Thailand, waiting to come to South Korea.

Following is the letter in full text.

I want to go to South Korea!

Dear Respected Misters! How do you do?I am Park **, a defector from ** City of South Hamkyung province.
I defected to China and lived Jangchun (China) with my son, but having been treated like pebbles on the streets, I realized where I must go is South Korea, where my freedom and human rights will are secured. To realized my dream, I left for Manzhouli(a name of a place, China) but instead of paradise, I was taken to North Korea, arrested by Chinese police and forcefully repatriate, and I returned to China handicapped.

December 12, 2003, everyone was excited for the coming Christmas, and I, with faith in God that I will be able to make it to South Korea, left alone leaving my son in Changchun with the help of the cook of the restaurant I was working for. Once I made up my mind to defect, there was nothing I was afraid of. However, I was arrested on December 20 in Nei Monggol by Chinese police, and was sent back to North Korea. First I was sent to Jipkyulso in Chungjin City, then to Forced Labor Concentration Camp located in Shinpo City in South Hamkyung province. I cannot write down all the sufferings I have experienced in my homeland with few words or in few pages.

When I first arrived in North Korea, my feet were not that bad, they were only a little swollen. However, in the cold prison cell of Onsung Security Department the next January, they pierced my feet with oxidized metal, and I was beat up and kicked with boots that my eyes bled.

I was beat up like that everyday, and my feed were chained that feet were metal poisoned and became more swollen. From the parts where they were pieced came out blood and puss, and started to rot.

I suffered of pain and cried every night, and they hit my feel even more saying that my feet should rot up to my knees so I will never attempt to defect to South Korea again. In such fearful pain, I promised myself that if I cannot make it to South Korea walking on my feel, then I will make to by my elbow crawling and testify the crimes of the Kim Jong Il regime. That determination kept me alive until today.

Looking at my rotting feet with puss gushing out, I prayed again and again for God to bring an end to the Kim Jong Il, a government as rot as my feet, under which the people die away everyday and where no human dignity could be found.

With time I was bruised all over my body, even the white parts of my eye balls became blue, and I looked like a monster, not a human being. But they still beat me and kicked me and said that they are letting me live.

They were right though. If it were no for my rotten feet, I would not have made out. After a month, they showed me a written page of which they wrote testifying that I have attempted to defect to China and was arrested by the Chinese police.

I was dumbfounded.

Then they released me looking at my feet that have turned black by then, so I can be treated. I looked at my feet, which gave me so much pain, and was happy because they let me live. Misters!

Does this make sense anywhere in the world? Is this what a normal person can imagine? The screams and moans that came out of my mouth for pain… I do not even want to remember ever again. My feet that gave me so much pain are gone now so I no longer can stand.

That scream and moaning were not only mine but were of out parents and bothers, and also of that Kim Jong Il regime that is so rot that it can no longer stand alone.

After that, with the least treatment I could get, pain was reduced. Despite my parents’ and sister’s tears, I left them with canes, I fell on ground because of hunger and I crawled because I could not longer walk, but I made it do China. My son and my friends cried when they saw me, but I did not cry because I escaped from the hell and will find a way to South Korea

However, now, seven months here, it seems like my dream to go to South Korea is so far in distance. Instead, I suffer of threat of arrest by Chinese police everyday, and the fear drives me nearly crazy.

As if it were my business, I look at the clothes everyday and search for the land I want to be in, but it makes more suffer even more that I cannot even imagine the place.

Respected misters! Help me. Make my wish to go to that place come true. I ask you with all and all my heart. Please pray for me so the fair God will forgive all my sins and guide me to South Korea.I will wait for your reply with hope.

March 25, 2005
Written by Park **

from donga
----------------------------------------
Stills 'Show N.Korean Soldiers Abusing Woman' < Link >

Global Competitiveness Report 2004-2005

2005-09-26T17:05:00.000+08:00

Country Rankings 2004-2005
1. Finland

2. USA

3. Sweden

4. Taiwan

5. Denmark

>>Full rankings
-------------------------------------

Global Information Technology Report 2004-2005 < Link >

Country Rankings
1. Singapore

2. Iceland

3. Finland

4. Denmark

5. US

>>Ranking in full

Seoul to spend 8.6 tln won in expanding social safety net

2005-09-26T16:55:00.000+08:00

SEOUL, Sept. 26 (Yonhap)
The government has decided to spend a total of 8.6 trillion won (US$8.3 billion) over the next four years to strengthen the country's social safety net, officials said Monday.

The decision was made at a government-ruling party meeting earlier in the day, where the sides also resolved to ease requirements that make citizens eligible for state subsidies.

To that end, the government will raise the poverty line to add 120,000 more to the list of recipients of government aid. Currently, 1.49 million people on the list.In an effort to reduce the income gap between the rich and poor, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) system, a refundable tax credit for low-income workers outside the social safety net, will be introduced in 2007.

The EITC system is designed to help people in the low-income groups with subsidies and tax benefits .

The government also decided to expand medical subsidies. Originally given to households with incomes below the minimum living cost of 1.13 million won a month, households in the bracket above will also be included by 2009.

To cope with the problems of a rapidly aging society, the government will introduce nurses to low-income families who support their elderly with serious diseases like Alzheimer's in July 2008.As many as 110 more sanitariums will also be constructed by that deadline to help the elderly.

Recall the conferences

2005-09-24T20:26:00.000+08:00

The Web 2.0 Conference is of, for and about the leading figures and companies driving innovation in the Internet economy. The conference will debut with the theme of "The Web as Platform," exploring how the Web has developed into a robust platform for innovation across many media and devices - from mobile to television, telephone to search. < Link >

The Web 2.0 conference 2004

Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle on the big themes of the conference:
-The web is a development environment.
-Websites are now software components that you can call as services.
-PC application stack was Intel-Others-Windows, with third party applications to lock in at the top.
-Web application stack is NetworkSolutions - OpenSource/Browsers - BigGuysLikeAmazonAndMapquestAndGoogle, with network effects to lock in at the top.
-Customers build businesses -- tons of people are putting content on the Internet to help eBay, Google, Blogging, Amazon, Flickr, etc.
-Microsoft won the browser war but saw no financial gains from the win. All the value has migrated to the applications.
-We're seeing the end of the software upgrade cycle, because Web applications are always up-to-date.
-"The Power of the Tail" means you can have a lot of small players that all survive. Google AdSense takes advantage of the tail. < More >

-------------------------------------------------------------
Supernova 2005
MeshForum 2005
ETech 2005
OSBC2005
Software 2005
SDForum
SofTECH

Contemporary Philosophy

2005-09-23T14:56:00.000+08:00

Critical Theory and
Postmodern Thought
Resources
Readings

Theodor Adorno
Louis Althusser
Roland Barthes
Michael Bakhtin
Jean Baudrillard
Walter Benjamin
Maurice Blanchot
Kenneth Burke
Jacques Derrida
Gilles Deleuze
Terry Eagleton
Stanley Fish
Michel Foucault
Frankfurt School
Hans-George Gadamer
Anthony Giddens
Antonio Gramsci
Felix Guattari
Jurgen Habermas
Donna Haraway
Martin Heidegger
Agnes Heller
Max Horkheimer
Edmund Husserl
Fredric Jameson
Julia Kristeva
Jacques Lacan
Bruno Latour
Jean Francois Lyotard
Georg Lukács
Paul de Man
Herbert Marcuse
Karl Marx
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Richard Rorty
Jean-Paul Sartre
Edward Said
Charles Taylor
Paul Virilio
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Related pages:Semiotics Critical Pedagogy Qualitative Research Constructivism Theory of Technology Corollary Sites

BasicsWhat is Postmodernism?
Postmodernism (Wikipedia)
What is Postmodernism? (Mary Klages)
What is Postmodernism? (Jay Lemke)
etymology: post modern (John Unsworth)
Basic terms and definitions (Tim Spurgin)
Postmodern, Postmodernism, Postmodernity (Martin Irvine)
Postmodernism, Pedagogy, and Philosophy of Education (Clive Beck)
Postmodernism and its Critics (Shannon Weiss & Karla Wesley) What is Critical Theory?
Critcal Theory (James Bohman, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) archive
Critical Theory (Wikipedia)
What is Critical Theory? (University College Chichester)
What is Critical Theory? (Bob Nowlan)
Introductory Guide to Critical Theory (Dino Felluga)
Critical Theory and the Limits of Sociological Positivism (R. George Kirkpatrick) mirror
Resources
Groden and Kreiswirth (eds) The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism Online
Cultural Studies and Critical Theory (Geoffrey Sauer)
Critical Pedagogy
Logos A quarterly journal of modern culture, politics and society.
Essays on the Philosophy of Technology an extensive collection of essays in contemporary philosophy (Frank Edler, Metropolitan Community College Omaha, Nebraska)
CTheory (an international journal of theory, technology, and culture)
Critical Inquiry (University of Chicago)
Postmodern Culture (University of Virginia, Vassar, JHU Press)
Theory.org (David Gauntlett)
Contretemps (Univ of Sydney)
University of Minnesota Press Literary and Critical Theory
Guide to Philosophy on the Internet (Peter Suber)
Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind (Chris Eliasmith)
Dear Habermas, A Journal of Postmodern Thought (Jeanne Curran)
Continental Philosophy (Bruce Janz)
French Nietzsches: Links (Duncan Large)
Irreverence Anti-essentialist perspectives (Fayaz Chagani)
Univ of Chicago Conference: After Postmodernism online papers Louis Althusser
Althusser profile (Mary Klages)
Althusser profile (Andy Blunden)
Althusser profile (Daniel Chandler)
Althusser profile (Garth Kemerling)
Louis Althusser Internet Archive (Marxists.org)
Falluga Louis Althusser on Ideology
Taccheri Louis Althusser's " Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses"
Jean Baudrillard
Baudrillard profile (Wikipedia)
Baudrillard profile (Byron Hawk)
Baudriallard profile and annotated bibliography (Ben Attias)
Felluga Jean Baudrillard on Postmodernity
Falluga Jean Baudrillard on Simulation
The "ecstasy" of Jean Baudrillard (Richard Vine)
Baudrillard Home Page (European Graduate School)
Baudrillard on the Web (Alan Taylor)
Baudrillard Home Page (European Graduate School)
Kellner (1989) Baudrillard: A New McLuhan?
Boundaries and Borderlines: Reflections on Jean Baudrillard and Critical Theory (Doug Kellner)
Simulacra and Simulations from Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster (Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1988).
book announcement (FrontList Books)
summary (Paul Smethurst)
short reviews (Stanford University Press)
Norris (2004) Hannah Arendt and Jean Baudrillard: Pedagogy in the Consumer Society
Baudrillard Links (Richard Pope)
Maurice Blanchot
Blanchot obituary (Douglas Johnson)
Michelmore The Absent Voice: on the writings of Maurice Blanchot
Barker (1995) Nietzsche/Derrida, Blanchot/Beckett: Fragmentary Progressions of the Unnamable (PMC)
Lier (2002) The City and the Stars: Politics and Alterity in Heidegger, Levinas and Blanchot
Lier (2001) Our Responsibility: Blanchot's Communism pdf document
Jacques Derrida
Remembering Jacques Derrida July 15, 1930 - October 8, 2004
London Daily Telegraph
Expatica
BBC News
the Jerusalem Post
Sophia News Agency
Voice of America
Channel News - Asia
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Times of London
FrontPageMag.com
U.C. Irvine News
the Times of India
The Australian
Cornell Daily Sun
Christian Science Monitor
Lewis and Klein
Derrida profile (Wikipedia)
Derrida profile (Garth Kemerling)
Derrida profile (Ron Turner quoting Microsoft Encarta)
Derrida profile (Jahsonic.com)
Jacques Derrida (Stanford Humanities Symposia)
Derrida Interview a discussion about 'law' with Michael Rosenfeld
Derrida and Deconstruction (David Arnason)
Derrida Timeline (Tim Spurgin)
Derrida - the film by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman
review by Elvis Mitchell
review by Holly Wills
production notes IAPL
review by Tim Merrill
review by V.A. Musseto
review by Edward Guthmann
review by Jeff Vorndam
review by Marjorie Baumgarten
Kofman and Dick interviewby Michelle Handelman
Structuralism/Poststructuralism (Mary Klages)
Of Grammatology
Linquistics and Grammatology (from Of Grammatology, courtesy Marxists.org)
Derrida (1994) What is Ideology? (Marxists.org)
Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences (a reading guide by Mary Klages)
On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (2001) review (by David Reinhart)
Egéa-Kuehne (1996) Neutrality in Education And Derrida's Call for "Double Duty"
Olson (1990) Jacques Derrida on Rhetoric and Composition: A Conversation
Derrida Bibliography (Eddie Yeghiayan)
Derrida Bibliography (Peter Krapp)
Deleuze and Guattari
An Introduction to Deleuze and Guattari (David Arnason)
Deleuze and Guattri on the Web (Alan Taylor)
Deleuze and Guattari on the Web (Charles Stivale)
L'Abécédaire (Summary by Charles Stivale)
The Movement-Image (Book announcement)
Terry Eagleton
Literary Theory, an introduction
Book Announcement (Univ of Minnesota Press)
Illusions of Postmodernism
Calder (1997) Postmodernism and its Ironies
Literary Theory 2nd edition (Book announcement)
Eagleton review of Conrad, Modern Times, Modern Places
Stanley Fish
Fish profile (Reed Way Dasenbrock)
Stanley Fish Resource Center (Kyösti Niemelä)
Michel Foucault
Foucault profile (Wikipedia)
Foucault profile (Mark Poster)
Foucault profile (David Vessey and Stephen Watson)
Foucault profile (Ron Turner)
Foucault profile (Garth Kemerling)
Foucault profile (Sebastian Foti)
Foucault profile and readings (Generation Online)
Foucault (David Gauntlett)
Foucault Home Page (Ben Attias)
Foucault Resources (Clare O'Farrell)
Theatrum Philosophicum (1970) (Courtesy, Generation Online)
Archeology of Knowledge (1969) (courtesy, Marxists.org) part 2
Falluga (2003) Foucault on Gender and Sex
The History of Sexuality
review (by Dale Lakevold)
Thorp (1990) The Social Construction of Homosexuality
Mark Poster (1984) Foucault, Marxism and History Mode of Production Versus Mode of Information
Miller (1994) Foucault's Virtual Passion
Author Function
Covaleskie (1993) Power Goes to School: Teachers, students, and discipline
Palermo (1994) I'm not Lying, This is not a Pipe:Foucault and Magritte on the art of Critical Pedagogy
Mayo (1997) Foucauldian Cautions on the Subject and the Educative Implications of Contingent Identity
Spurgin Reader's Guide to 'What is an Author'
the Frankfurt School
Profile (Wikipedia)
Profile (Daniel Chandler)
Profile (Garth Kemerling)
Profile (Henk Tuten)
Profile (Jahsonic.com)
Illuminations (Doug Kellner and Brian Hawk)
Kellner (1997) The Frankfurt School and British Cultural Studies: The Missed Articulation
Kellner Critical Theory and the Crisis of Social Theory
Kellner Critical Theory Today: Revisiting the Classics
O Ruairc (2003) The Politics of Despair: The Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School
Cowen (2003) The Significance of the Frankfurt School and Critical Theory
Bronner Dialectics at a Standstill
Wiggershaus (1994) The Frankfurt School. Its History, Theories, and Political Significance (review by Douglas Kellner)
Dialectiques (P. Deramaix)
Theodor Adorno
Adorno profile (Wikipedia)
Adorno profile (Michael Jones)
Adorno profile (Garth Kemerling)
Adorno profile (Jahsonic.com)
In perspective: Theodor Adorno (Dave Harker)
Adorno: Aesthetic Theory (Book announcement)
Adorno Why Still Philosophy (exerpts)
Cook (1996) The Culture Industry Revisited (Review by Doug Kellner)
Bronner Dialectics at a Standstill: A Methodological Inquiry Into the Philosophy of Theodor W. Adorno
Adorno Study Guide (Ralph Dumain)
The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1944)
Marxists.org
Adorno Study Guide (Ralph Dumain)
Adorno corollary sources (ErraticImpact.com)
Walter Benjamin
Benjamin profile (Wikipedia)
Benjamin profile (Encyclopedia of Marxism)
,a href=http://www.jahsonic.com/WalterBenjamin.html>Benjamin profile (Jahsonic.com)
The Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate
Walter Benjamin (erraticimpact.com)
Lloyd Spencer lectures on Benjamin
Bronner (1991) Reclaiming the Fragments: On the Messianic Materialism of Walter Benjamin
Berman Angel in the City (reviews of Brodersen, Bullock & Jennings, and Parini)
Max Horkheimer
Horkheimer profile (Wikipedia)
Horkheimer profile (Jahsonic.com)
Adorno and Horkheimer (1944) The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception (courtesy Marxists.org)
Materialism and Metaphysics (exerpts)
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse Homepage (Harold Marcuse)
Marcuse profile (Wikipedia)
Marcuse profile (Douglas Kellner) mirror
Marcuse profile (Douglas Kellner)
Marcuse profile (Garth Kemerling)
Marcuse profile (Tad Beckman)
Marcuse profile (Lloyd Spencer)
Marcuse profile (Anne Shaw)
Marcuse profile (Bob Trubshaw) mirror mirror mirror
Marcuse bio (Harold Marcuse)
Marcuse bio (Douglas Kellner) Marcuse Archive (Marxists.org)
Marcuse Archive (Christian Fuchs)
Marcuse Bibliographie (P. Deraimaix)
One-Dimensional Man
One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (1964) (Full text courtesy, Christian Fuchs)
One Dimensional Thought (courtesy, Marxists.org) mirror
Kellner From 1984 to One-Dimensional Man: Critical Reflections on Orwell and Marcuse
Aggressiveness in Advanced Industrial Society (1967) from Negations: Essays in Critical Theory Beacon Press mirror
From Philosophy to Social Theory (1941) (Courtesy Andy Blunden)
Hegel's First System (Courtesy Andy Blunden, Marxists.org)
Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (1969)
review by Robert Young
Reason and Revolution (1941)
Feenberg (1996) Marcuse or Habermas: two critiques of technology
Feenberg (1992) Marcuse: Obstinacy as a Theoretical Virtue
Kellner (1982) Marcuse, Liberation, and Radical Ecology
Kellner (1998) Technology, War and Fascism, Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse review (by Marsha Hewitt)
Langston (1968) Herbert Marcuse and Marxism
Fucks On the Topicality of Selected Aspects of Herbert Marcuse's Works
Buick Marcuse: professor behind 1960s rebellion
Georg Lukács
Lukács profile (Pegasos)
Lukács profile (Marxists.org)
Lukács profile (Akamac)
Lukács profile (Garth Kemerling)
Lukács Archive (Marxists.org)
Blanc (1977) Georg Lukács: The Antinomies of Melancholy
Feenberg (1981) Lukács, Marx and the Sources of Critical Theory (Preface and TOC)
Sharp (1999) We are all Kantian
Hans-George Gadamer
Gadamer profile (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Gadamer profile (Wikipedia)
Gadamer profile (the Literary Encyclopedia)
Gadamer biography (European Graduate School)
Gadamer obituary (Washington Post / Reuters)
Gadamer obituary (Zouhair Ghazzal)
Gadamer home page (Etsuro Makita)
Arthos (1993) To Be Alive When Something Happens: Retrieving Dilthey's Erlebnis
Bilen (1995) The Historicity of Understanding and The Problem of Relativism in Gadamer.s Philosophical Hermeneutics
Blacker (1993) Education as the Normative Dimension of Philosophical Hermeneutics
Grondin (2004) Gadamer's Hope
Hogan (2000) Gadamer and the Philosophy of Education
Holub (1997) Hermeneutics
Vessey (2003) Gadamer's Theory of Time Consciousness
Anthony Giddens
Giddens profile (Edge Foundation)
Intro to Giddens (David Gauntlett)
Giddens on Globalization (BBC News)
Antonio Gramsci
Gramsci profile (Monica Stillo and David Gauntlett)
Gramsci profile (Barry Burke and Mark Smith)
Gramsci profile (Monica Stillo)
Gramsci profile (Garth Kemerling)
An Introduction to Gramsci's Life and Thought (Frank Rosengaden)
Gramsci and Hegemony (Daniel Chandler)
International Gramsci Society
Gramsci Internet Archive (Marxists.org)
The Study of Philosophy (from the Prison Notebooks)
The Organisation of Education and Culture (exerpted by Carl Gutierrez-Jones)
Brandist (1995) Bakhtin, Gramsci and the Semiotics of Hegemony
Martin (2002) Antonio Gramsci: Critical Assessments of Leading Political Philosophers (review by Adam David Morton)
On Intellectuals (Gramsci quote from MarxMail.org)
Jurgen Habermas
Habermas profile (Wikipedia)
Habermas profile (Steve Robinson)
Habermas profile (Mitchell Stephens)
Habermas profile (Jahsonic.com)
Habermas (1991) Middle of Nowhere: Destruction of Reason
Habermas (1968) The Idea of the Theory of Knowledge as Social Theory
Grady and Wells Toward A Rhetoric of Intersubjectivity: Introducing Jurgen Habermas
Ó Baoill (2000) Slashdot and the Public Sphere
Dahlberg (2000) Extending the Public Sphere through cyberspace: the case of Minnesota E-democracy
Poster (1995) CyberDemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere
Donna Haraway
Haraway profile and bibliography (Elisa Kay Sparks)
Haraway Home Page (Univ of California, Santa Cruz)
Hyperlink to Donna Haraway (Toyofuku, Tsuyoshi)
Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium. FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouse™. Feminism and Technoscience (1996)
Exerpts from The Cyborg Manifesto
An Ironic Dream of a Common Language for Women in the Integrated Circuit
The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others (1992)
Haraway () The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others mirror
Writing, Literacy and Technology: Toward a Cyborg Writing (Gary Olson interview with Donna Haraway)
Art and Science in Chaos: Contesting Readings of Scientific Visualisation (Richard Wright)
Carubia (1998) Haraway on the Map
Edmund Husserl
Husserl profile (Wikipedia)
Husserl Profile Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
the Origin of the Modern Opposition between Physicalistic Objectivism and Transcendental Subjectivism. (1937) (courtesy Marxists.org)
The Way into Phenomenological Transcendental Philosophy from Psychology (1937) (courtesy Marxists.org)
Martin Heidegger
Heidegger profile (Wikipedia)
Heidegger Profile (Ron Turner)
Heidegger Profile (Garth Kemerling)
Heidegger Profile (Samuel Ebersole)
Heidegger Profile (Bedford St. Martins press)
The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (1927) (Courtesy, Marxists.org)
Existence and Being (1949) (Courtesy, Marxists.org)
Dreyfus Being and Power: Heidegger and Foucault
Dreyfus Heidegger and Foucault on the Subject, Agency and Practices
Dreyfus Highway Bridges and Feasts: Heidegger and Borgmann on How to Affirm Technology
Çüçen (1998) Heidegger's Reading of Descartes' Dualism: The Relation of Subject and Object
Ereignis a comprehensive Heidegger site by Pete Ferreira
Some Writings of Heidegger by Jud Evans
Heidegger Athenaeum (A site critical of Heidegger, by Jud Evans)
Hornsby (2002) What Heidegger Means by Being-in-the-World
Ereignis Heidegger and Technology Links
Gorner Heidegger, Phenomenology and the Essence of Technology
XuanmengHeidegger on Technology, Alienation and Destiny
Vessey Martin Heidegger: The Question Concerning Technology
See Theory of Technology
Agnes Heller
Heller Curriculum Vita
Heller Interview (Csaba Polony)
Tormey Agnes Heller Socialism, Autonomy and the Postmodern
Beyond Justice (1987) (Courtesy, Marxists.org)
Fredric Jameson
Jameson profile (Doug Kellner)
Jameson profile (Doug Kellner)
Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) (courtesy Marxists.org)
reviews (Stanford Presidential Lectures and Symposia in the Humanities and Arts)
exerpts (Stanford Presidential Lectures and Symposia in the Humanities and Arts)
Seeds of Time
excerpt (Primitivism.com)
The Prison-House of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism
exerpts (Stanford Presidential Lectures and Symposia in the Humanities and Arts)
The Political Unconscious (1981)
exerpts (Stanford Presidential Lectures and Symposia in the Humanities and Arts)
Marxism and Form: Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of Literature
exerpts (Stanford Presidential Lectures and Symposia in the Humanities and Arts)
Late Marxism: Adorno or the Persistence of the Dialectic
Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and space in the world system
Falluga Fredric Jameson on Ideology
Homer (1994) Fredric Jameson and the Limits of Postmodern Theory
Jameson Bibliography Eddie Yeghiayan
Longer Texts on Jameson (Wellek Library, UC Irvine)
Julia Kristeva
Kristeva profile (Wikipedia) mirror
Kristeva profile (Kelly Oliver)
Kristeva profile (Alice Kelsey)
Kristeva profile (Columbia Encyclopedia)
Kristeva profile (Dino Felluga)
Lechte (1990) Julia Kristeva
review (by Claire O'Farrell)
In the name of the Father, the Son . . . and the Woman? (Kristeva web resource by Lynn Chrenka)
Kristeva Bibliography (Hélène Volat)
Powers of Horror (1982)
review (by Trudy Mercer)
Kelly (ed) Ethics, Politics, and Difference in Julia Kristeva.s Writing
Kristeva (1994) On Yury Lotman
Oliver (1998) Kristeva and Feminism
Ziarek (1995) The Uncanny Style of Kristeva's Critique of Nationalism
Jean-François Lyotard
Lyotard Profile (Garth Kemerling)
Lyotard profile (FOLDOP: Free On Line Dictionary Of Philosophy)
Lyotard Biography (Ashley Woodward)
Lyotard Home Page (European Graduate School)
Jean-François Lyotard: A Bibliography (Eddie Yeghiayan)
Books about Lyotard(Eddie Yeghiayan)
The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979) (ch 1-5, courtesy, Marxists.org) mirror (Athenaeum Reading Room) mirror (Rathbone)
Postmodern Fables (book announcement)
Libidinal economy
precis (FrontList Books)
book announcement (Indiana Univ Press)
Libidinal Philosophy (Ashley Woodward)
Economy (David Corker)
Roberts 1998) Rereading Lyotard: Knowledge, Commodification and Higher Education
Karl Marx
Marxism (Wikipedia)
Marx profile (Wikipedia)
Marx and Engles profile (James Winders)
Marx and Engels Internet Archive (Marxists.org)
Karl Marx and Informal Education (Barry Burke)
Marxist Media Theory (Daniel Chandler)
Marx on Ideology (Dino Falluga)
Gouldner The Two Marxs: Contradictions and Anomalies in the Development of Theory
Mark Poster Existential Marxism in Postwar France
Mary Klages Marxism and Ideology
Karl Marx's Sociology (Frank Elwell)
Paul de Man
de Man profile (Cynthia Chase)
de Man profile (Bedford/ St. Martin's Publishing)
Aesthetic Ideology (Book announcement)
Texts by Paul de Man Eddie Yeghiayan
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Merleau-Ponty profile (Wikipedia)
Merleau-Ponty profile (Columbia Encyclopedia)
Merleau-Ponty: Le visible et l'invisible (Claude Lefort, 1988)
The Merleau-Ponty Circle (Binghamton University)
Dreyfus (1998) Intelligence Without Representation: Merleau-Ponty's Critique of Mental Representation: The Relevance of Phenomenology to Scientific Explanation
Marjorie O'Loughlin (1995) Intelligent Bodies and Ecological Subjectivities: Merleau-Ponty's Corrective to Postmodernism's "Subjects" of Education
reply by Shari Popen
Richard Rorty
Rorty profile (Bjørn Ramberg, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) mirror mirror
Rorty profile (Richard Shusterman)
Rorty Home Page (Stanford)
An Interview with Richard Rorty by Joshua Knobe
Consequences of Pragmatism (1982) (Courtesy, Marxists.org)
Phony Science Wars (1999) (the Atlantic)
Feminism, Ideology, and Deconstruction: a Pragmatist View
Truth and Progress (1998)
review (by Michael Albert)
Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America
Scott Stossel interviews Richard Rorty (the Atlantic, April 1988)
Douglass (1977) Political Liberalism and Universalism: Problems in the Theories of David Gauthier and Richard Rorty
Haber Rorty on Feminism
Rockwell Critique of Rorty's analysis of Modern Epistemology
Rothfork (1994) Postmodern Ethics: Richard Rorty & Michael Polanyi
Smuts American Philosophy/Emerson & Rorty
Collins (1993) Truth as a Communicatitive Virtue in a Postmodern Age: From Dewey to Rorty
Coombs (1997) Rorty, Critical Thought, and Philosophy of Education
Okshevsky (1977) Richard Rorty on the Power of Philosophical Reflection and the Pragmatist Conception of Critical Thinking: A Redescription
Reich (1996) The Paradoxes of Education in Rorty's Liberal Utopia
Pendlebury (1996) Response to Reich
Jean-Paul Sartre
Sartre profile (Wikipedia)
Sartre profile (Garth Kemerling)
Sartre profile (Steven Ungar)
Edward Said
Remembering Edward Said November 1935 - September 2003
Reuters
Boston Globe
Guardian (London)
London Daily Telegraph
Democracy Now!
Michael Wood
Sherri Muzher
Saveed Ahmad
The Economist
Partners for Peace
Ramzy Baroud
Mustafa Barghouti
Australian Broadcasting
Nigel Parry
Said profile (Bedford/ St. Martin's Publishing)
Edward W. Said Bibliography (Eddie Yeghiayan)
Reviews of Edward Said's Works (Eddie Yeghiayan)
Orientalism
Review by Danielle Sered
summary by Kumiko Sato
Reviews in print Eddie Yeghiayan
Peace and its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process
review by Matthew Dallek
review by Eric Rouleau
Miller (1991) Privacy and Pleasure: Edward Said on Music
Miracle of Oslow response by Ronald Bleier
Bahri (1996) Introduction to Postcolonial Studies
Charles Taylor
Taylor on the Web (Scott Moore)
Ethics of Authenticity
Review by Michael Novak
Malaise of Modernity Review by Russell McNeil

Readings
Banerjee (1995) Alienation, Power, and Gender in Sociological Theory: A Study of Marx, Foucault, and Feminism
Beck (1993) Postmodernism, pedagogy, and Philosophy of Education
Best and Kellner (1991) Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations (review by Dick Richter)
Bonner (1993) Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists
Burbules (1995) Postmodern Doubt and Philosophy of Education
Burbules (1997) Aporia: Webs, Passages, Getting Lost, and Learning to Go On
Barry Burke Post-modernism and Post-modernity
Ron Burnett Postmodern Media Communities
Chagani (1998) Postmodernism
Easthope & McGowan (eds)(1992) A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader
Review by Danny Yee
Andrew Feenberg
Feenberg Home Page
Critical Theory of Technology (1991)
Alternative Modernity: The Technical Turn in Philosophy and Social Theory (1995)
From Essentialism to Constructivism: Philosophy of Technology at the Crossroads (1996)
Escaping the Iron Cage, or, Subversive Rationalization and Democratic Theory (1998)
Fox (1995) Intertextuality and the Writing of Social Research
Giroux (1994) Slacking Off: Border Youth and Postmodern Education
James Heartfield Intellectual currents of the twentieth century
Analytic Philosophy
Pragmatists
Phenomenologists
Existentialists
Structuralists
Post-structuralists and postmodernists
Denis Hlynka
Hlynka (1994) Six Postmodernisms in Search of an Author
Hlynka and Yeaman (1992) Postmodern Educational Technology
Douglas Kellner
Crossing the Postmodern Divide with Borgmann: Adventures in Cyberspace (1997)
Critical Theory, Poststructuralism, and the Philosophy of Liberation
Globalization and the Postmodern Turn
New Technologies, TechnoCities, and the Prospects for Democratization (1997)
Intellectuals, the New Public Spheres, and Techno-Politics (1997)
Lawley (1992) Discourse and Distortion in CMC
Lemke (1994) Semiotics and the Deconstruction of Conceptual Learning
Postmodernism and Critical Theory (Jay Lemke)
Lemke (2002) Alternative Perspectives on Education and Curriculum
John Lye
John Lye home page
Deconstruction: Some Assumptions
Some Post-Structural Assumptions
différance
Some Factors Affecting/Effecting the Reading of Texts
Theory Checklist 1997: a working document
Some Characteristics of Contemporary Theory
Some Issues in Postcolonial theory
Vadim Linetski
The Promise of Expression to the 'Inexpressible Child': Deleuze, Derrida and the Impossibility of Adult's Literature (1999)
Lynch (1992) Preventing Play: Annotating the battle of the books.
Minock (1995) Toward a Postmodern Pedagogy of Imitation
Morningstar (1993) How to Deconstruct Almost Anything
Murphy Postmodernism and its Critics
Andrew Noselli Deconstruction: Putting the Truth Up For GrabsS
Olsen Gender Representation and History des Mentalités
Rapaport French Theory and Criticism 1945-1968
Rheingold The Virtual Community: Chapter Ten: Disinformocracy
Sokal and Bricmont (1999) Intellectual Impostures: Postmodern Philosophers' Abuse of Science
review by Danny Yee
review by Richard Dawkins
Styhre (2000) Escaping the Subject: Organization Theory, Postpositivism and the Liberation of Transgression
Unsworth (1991) Practicing Postmodernism
Villegas (1997) Culture & the Evolution of Educational Technology
Vitanza (1990) Habermas, Lyotard, and the problem of the Ethical Subject

All links verified September 23, 2005.

15th European Union Film Festival 2005

2005-09-22T15:05:00.000+08:00

Shades Of Happiness (Onnen Varjot)
Directed by Claes Olsson, Finland, 2005, 98 minutes, NC16
Told with a painful yet comic touch, this is the story of two couples whose lives and destinies become intertwined in surprising ways. Paula, an arts teacher, and her therapist husband, Jarkko, have tried for years to have a child. Helena and her husband, Mikko, both work at an IT company, and are both career-minded, enjoying a perfect relationship until Helena realises that she wants a child. An obsessive dream and an unintended affair have unexpected consequences.

From Zero To Ten (Da Zero A Dieci)
Directed by Luciano Ligabue, Italy, 2002, 99 minutes, M18
Biccio, a doctor. Giove, an aspiring rock star. Baygon, a worker and sex maniac. Libero, an aspiring pilot. These four friends return to Rimini to finish a weekend that was interrupted twenty years ago. Rimini represents a return to their youth. Rimini is like a mirror of one's true self. The reunion becomes a report card of sorts, allowing the four friends to exchange notes and calibrate their lives, achievements, disappointments and triumphs. Festivals: Annecy Cinema Italien; Cannes; Cinema Mediterranean Montpellier.

Children (Hijos-Figli)
Directed by Marco Bechis, Italy, 2001, 100 minutes
Argentina. A woman in labour. Two soldiers wait to take the child…but she bears twins. The soldiers take the boy, while the girl is hidden and saved. Twenty years later, Rosa finds and contacts her brother, Javier, who lives in Milan. He is a student, loves parachuting, and has an apprehensive mother and a pilot father. Rosa decides to meet him. Doubts enter his life…..Festivals: Caracas; Shanghai; Tokyo; Rio; Sao Paolo; Stockholm; Awards: David di Donatello for Best Supporting Actress.

In Orange (In Oranje)
Directed by Joram Lürsen, The Netherlands, 2004, 93 minutes, PG
Remco is 12 years old, a talented and fanatical soccer player with only one dream - to play on the Dutch national team. His equally fanatical father, Erik, coaches him. His mother, Sylvia, mediates between the two when there are arguments. Remco's world falls apart when his father dies, but the grandmother of his soccer mate, Winston, tries to help the boy contact his father's spirit. Then Remco gets injured. His girlfriend, Anneke, daughter of the local chemist, will try to help him make his dream come true.

Aftermath
Directed by Paprika Steen, Denmark, 2004, 104 minutes, M18
A couple in their mid-thirties lose their only child, and struggle to overcome their grief in different ways. Britt buries herself in her job as a social worker, and far exceeds the boundaries of her professional interest in a young single mother and her baby. Claus is unable to function at work, and is sent home on leave. He begins to stalk the woman who ran over their daughter. When Britt clashes with the young mother and Claus finally confronts the woman, it becomes clear that revenge cannot conquer grief.

Beware Of Greeks Bearing Guns (Fovou Tous Ellines)
Directed by John Tatoulis, Greece, 2000, 88 minutes
A charming, romantic comedy about a vendetta that goes wrong. The story begins on the island of Crete in 1943, where Maria vows vengeance on Vassilis Philipakis, the man who killed her husband, and raises her twin grandsons to continue her vendetta. Years later, when Philipakis is spotted in Melbourne, it is the duty of the elder grandson Manos to kill the fugitive. The problem is Manos is a gentle soul and the exact opposite of his brother George, a gun-toting, lazy, drunken lout. Cast: Lakis Lazopoulos, Zoe Carides, Tasso Kavadia.

Everybody Famous! (Iedereen Beroemd!)
Directed by Dominique Deruddere, Belgium, 2000, 100 minutes, NC16
Seventeen-year-old Marva is a regular at singing contests, which she never wins. Nevertheless, her father, Jean Vereecken, dreams of a beautiful career for his daughter. But one day, Jean gets laid off. By way of revenge, he decides to kidnap the number one singer in the country, Debbie. The kidnapping sends great waves of turmoil through the country, and sales of Debbie's latest single soar sky-high, much to the pleasant surprise of Michael, Debbie's manager, who proposes a secret deal to make Marva a star if Jean agrees to keep Debbie out of the way for as long as Michael wants. Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Missing Half (L'autre)
Directed by Benoît Mariage, Belgium, 2003, 71 minutes, PG
Claire is pregnant with twins. Strangely enough, this gives her feelings of profound anguish. Little by little, she loses her grip on life. Faced with his wife's neurosis, Pierre, the father-to-be, feels helpless. As a last resort, they decide to do a 'pregnancy reduction', terminating one of the embryos. Filled with remorse, Pierre transfers all his affection away from Claire and the unborn baby, to the 20-year-old Laurent from his ophthalmology clinic. Laurent's personality has an unexpected effect on the estranged couple...

Cuban Rafters (Balseros)
Directed by Carles Bosch and Josep Ma Domènech, Spain, 2002, 120 minutes
In the summer of 1994, a team of public television reporters filmed and interviewed seven Cubans and their families, beginning a few days before their risky venture of setting out to sea on homemade rafts to reach the coast of the United States. The film crew recorded their months of confinement at a naval base, as well as their subsequent migration to various U.S. cities. Seven years later, the film crew visits them again, to discover what their destiny has been. Theirs is a true story about some of the authentic survivors of our times, the adventure of people shipwrecked between two worlds.
Festivals
Toronto, Sundance.

Mensaka
Directed by Salvador García Ruiz, Spain, 1998, 105 minutes
Set against the backdrop of Madrid's sizzling urban rock 'n' roll scene, MENSAKA is a spicy tale of a group of young aspiring musicians trying to strike it rich, while holding on to their creative ideals and friendships. David is a mensaka (motorbike messenger) who also plays the drums in a band with Fran and Javier. The band is on the verge of signing a record contract with a sleazy agent, but tempers flare over their being promoted as young urban poets. As David, Fran and Javi struggle to find their professional identities, each also faces the changing demands of their personal relationships.

Kebab Connection
Directed by Anno Saul, Germany, 2004, 96 minutes
Kebabs, kung fu and forbidden romance are the ingredients of this multicultural comedy set in Hamburg. Young Turk Ibo is a film director who dreams of making the first German kung fu epic. To convince investors he's up to the task, Ibo makes a spectacular martial arts flavoured commercial for his uncle's take-away kebab shop. The ad is a raging success, and everything on Ibo's horizon looks bright until his German girlfriend, Titzi, tells him she's pregnant. Thrown out of home, his follow-up commercial is a flop, and Titzi leaves him. In desperation he agrees to make a "comeback" ad for a rival Greek restaurant. Cast: Nora Tschirner, Denis Moschitto, Güven Kirac. Winner of Audience Awards at the Turkish-German Film Festival in Nuremberg and Festival of German Cinema in Madrid (both in 2005).

One Day In Europe
Directed by Hannes Stoehr, Germany, 2005, 100 minutes
Four colourful and light-hearted stories about quirky characters and the amusing misunderstandings that cross-cultural communication often entails. All take place on one single day in different cities, and in each case those language barriers are compounded by chaos of another sort: on this particular day, the whole of Europe is in high fever over soccer's Champion's League final between Galatasaray Istanbul and Deportivo La Coruña, which is taking place in Moscow. Cast: Megan Gay, Luidmila Tsvetkova, Florian Lukas. Nominated for a Golden Bear in Berlin this year.

A Good Woman
Directed by Mike Barker, United Kingdom, 2004, 93 minutes, PG
Based on Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, A GOOD WOMAN is set in New York and on the Amalfi coast during the 1930s. Mrs Erlynne is an audacious woman of a certain age, with a reputation for entertaining wealthy, married men. Leaving her problems and unpaid bills in New York, she sets sail for the Amalfi Coast to pursue Meg and Robert Windermere, one of the most prominent couples in high society. Once in Europe, she becomes embroiled in a family scandal which becomes an intriguing story of betrayal, and, ultimately, surprising loyalty. With sterling performances from Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johansson, Milena Vukotic, Stephen Campbell Moore.

Playtime
Directed by Jacques Tati, 1967/restored in 2003, France, 126 minutes
Monsieur Hulot has to contact an American official visiting Paris, but he gets lost in the maze of modern architecture filled with the latest gadgets and a balletic roundabout of cars. Roaming around a high-tech Paris of the 1960s, Hulot causes chaos everywhere, in his usual manner. This is one of the most famous and influential movies by Jacques Tati, reflective of his signature style. This restored version had its world premiere in Cannes in 2003. The 15th European Union Film Festival in Singapore is proud to present its Southeast Asian premiere. Cast: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Rita Maiden.

The Wedding
Directed by Wojtek Smarzewski, Poland, 2004, 109 minutes, PG
In contemporary Poland, a peasant from the Carpathians prepares for his daughter's marriage, buying a brand new Audi TT for her. On the way from the church to the wedding banquet, the father of the bride pays the priest's brother-in-law what he owes for the luxury car. Unfortunately, it's not quite a done deal, since there are a couple of acres missing from what's been agreed, that are still in the possession of the bride's grandfather. The father promises it will all be worked out during the wedding meal, but the mistrustful seller holds on to the car's papers. Negotiations and celebrations proceed in parallel.

As White As In Snow (Så Vit Som En Snö)
Directed by Jan Troell, Sweden, 2000, 160 minutes
Elsa Andersson grows up with her father, his new wife, and two siblings, on a farm at the beginning of this century. When Elsa turns 21, she decides to become a pilot and enrols, as the only female student, at the new flying school at Ljungbyhed. Several men at the school fall in love with Elsa, and, after a tragic love affair, she returns home. In her twenties, she spends some time in Berlin. Back in Sweden, she is offered a job parachuting with a travelling circus. Won three prestigious Guldbagge awards in 2002, for Best Film, Director, and Cinematography. Cast: Amanda Ooms, Björn Granath, Stina Ekblad.

Cosy Dens (Pelíšky)
Directed by Jan Hrebejk, Czech Republic, 1999, 115 minutes, PG
Set at the end of the 1960s, this film is about everyday family fun and hardship; the drama inherent in relationships and differing opinions; and the awakening of first love. The story unfolds in a gently poetic and humorous way. The Šebeks and Krauses live side by side. Mr Šebek is a simple-minded, good-natured officer. Mr Kraus is a former resistance fighter with bitter war experience. The Soviet invasion of August 1968 radically changes the world of these two families. Cast: M. Donutil, J.Kodet, S.Stašová.

Accumulator I (Akumulator I)
Directed by Jan Sverák, Czech Republic, 1994, 102 minutes, M18
Ridiculed and overlooked, protagonist Olda spends his evenings alone in front of his TV set, and his life becomes emptier and emptier until, one day, he is unable to leave his bed, and is taken to hospital with an unidentified ailment. Folk therapist Fisarek finds a name for his strange disease - "total loss of energy". When Olda manages to successfully recharge himself from trees, art, and people, what remains is to find out why and to where his vitality disappears so quickly. It soon becomes apparent that the mysterious 'vampire' is the television screen. Cast: Zdenek Sverák, Petr Forman, Edita Brychta.

Stop Mom Theresa!
Directed by Péter Bergendy, Hungary, 2004, 127 minutes
Bridget Jones goes to Budapest in this romantic comedy. Kata Kéki (Cathy) is an attractive girl with a loving mother, a younger brother, and three girlfriends who stick to her like sisters. She also has a reliable boyfriend who is eager to become bridegroom, husband, and even father. Nevertheless, Cathy is not happy at all, because she has no real job and no real love. She is, all at once, a sensitive woman to whom unpredictable things happen all the time, and a gifted story-teller with an irresistible sense of humour.

Control
Directed by Antal Nimród, Hungary, 2003, 106 minutes
This film is a unique blend of science fiction and reality. It is about a strange young man, Bulcsú, his mates, and a rival group of ticket inspectors; about the sometimes dramatic, sometimes comic relationship between travellers and inspectors. The strange character makes an appearance from time to time, annoying the inspectors and inciting them to chase him across corridors, platforms, escalators, and tunnels. At stake is public confidence in the underground transit system.
Festivals
Edinburgh, Toronto, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Helsinki, Vancouver (all 2004).

Night Train
Directed by John Lynch, Ireland, 1999, 92 minutes
Poole, just released from prison, owes his former gangster boss a lot of money. Before long, his whereabouts are discovered by his acquaintances, and Poole finds himself on the run. Homeless, he takes a room in the quiet, suburban home of a middle-aged woman and her irascible mother. When Alice, his landlady, is invited into Poole's room, she is charmed by the world he has created there. They find themselves falling in love. Inevitably, Poole's past catches up with him, and Alice finds herself drawn into the murky intrigue of his unsavoury friends. Cast: John Hurt, Brenda Blethyn, Pauline Flanagan.

Device Seeks to Jam Covert Digital Photographers

2005-09-21T17:43:00.000+08:00

Paparazzi and other snooping shutterbugs take note: Soon there may be a high-tech way to thwart digital cameras and to ensure some places remain photo-free zones.

Shwetak Patel, a Georgia Institute of Technology computer science graduate student, says he and his fellow researchers have developed a device that can detect the presence of digital imaging devices — including camcorders and cell phone cameras — and then blur the image by using simple blasts of light.

"The basic idea is that camera phones are becoming more and more ubiquitous. In Japan, it's something like 95 percent of [mobile] phones sold are camera phones," says Patel.

Because people are taking pictures where they didn't used to be able to in Japan, "there are a lot of places putting up 'no photography' signs."

Many museums, public security zones, locker rooms and other camera-sensitive places now try to bar or even confiscate camera equipment. But Patel and many privacy experts say such efforts aren't effective or practical against camera phones.

"In a research lab, for example, you can prohibit visitors from bringing in a camera or taking pictures. But how do you prevent someone from bringing in a [camera] phone that they might need for an important call?" asks Patel. "We wanted to develop a system that would allow the phone in, but disallow pictures."

Forgetting the Most Important Thing?

2005-09-21T17:23:00.000+08:00

As the chief delegates of the six-party talks celebrate their last-minute joint declaration, they slap their heads as a reporter asks, “Does this mean that North Korea won’t leave the NPT in the future as well?”

Can Korea Be Peacefully Unified?

2005-09-20T13:21:00.000+08:00

Here are two opinions about "Korea Cannot Be Peacefully Unified"

by "Samuel Lee" in his blog "http://eastasiaaffairs.blog.com/328632/#cmts"

North Korea

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has ruled the North with an iron fist and fear; they have suppressed and eliminated any opposition to their power by brutal means. The North has put the well-being of their army first at the expense of millions of starving North Korean civilians.

The DPRK is the most brutal and merciless dictatorship in the world (not including China). They are responsible for the longest state of misery and despair the Korean people have ever experienced, even longer than the Japanese occupation of Korea. The dictatorship's ruthlessness and stubbornness has resulted in their refusal to acknowledge faults. They have put on the masquerade that North Korea is strong, while millions have died through starvation, public and private executions and torture or "re-education."

When Madeline Albright, the United States Secretary of State during the Clinton Administration, visited North Korea, Kim Jong Il put on a show that mesmerized her and her aides. An aide described it as "a show to end all shows," while the timing and synchronization amazed himself and his colleagues.

As he arrived at the 100,000-plus seat stadium, he thought it was empty; there was no sound, you could hear a pin drop. When they entered the stadium, a tidal wave of sound hit them as the capacity crowd let out a great roar. The choreography put the opening and closing ceremonies of the Sydney Olympics to shame.

There are some questions that must be asked: if the DPRK did not have enough money to feed their citizens, how were the performers paid, how long were they rehearsing? If they were not in perfect unison were they threatened with starvation or with a free-paid trip to Club DPRK for re-education and a therapeutic session of torture?

South Korea

After coups and dictatorships, invasions of privacy, the restriction of the freedom of the press, and an endless supply of corrupt government officials from all administrations, the Kim and Roh administrations are left with some corruption. The level of corruption in their administrations alone is more than in the entire history of Australian politics.

The South Korean people do not use logic when it comes to politics, they use emotion-- a very dangerous thing. Ever seen a 386er (a Korean in his or her 30s, educated in the 80s and born in the 1960s) wielding a metal pipe during a riot? The conservatives abused their power and revoked South Korea's civil liberties, the liberals overthrow the conservatives, they vow to maintain a free, democratic government, then turn around and do the same thing as the conservatives.

There are several questions pro-North and pro-unification activists refuse to ask themselves about North Korea and themselves.

Can Kim Jong Il, a man that has murdered millions to maintain control, relinquish his power over North Korea and restrain himself from taking the reins of a unified Korea? Will North Korean hardliners allow a democratic, unified Korea?

Will South Koreans be content with no human rights, are they willing to call Kim Jong Il, "Dear Leader," are they willing to undo the economic and technological supremacy they have built during their democratic era? Are these emotional, self-righteous and sometimes downright violent South Koreans willing to bow down and submit their lives to the DPRK?

The answer to all these questions is "No." Kim Jong Il would rather "burn Seoul in a sea of fire" than see a unified democratic Korea and South Koreans would rather die than give up their freedom. Remember, next time you decide to riot, a democratic government would shoot over you, while the DPRK would shoot at you. A democratic government is answerable to the people and the media, but the DPRK is answerable to no one.

Unification cannot be done peacefully with the DPRK still controlling the North and emotion is clouding this glaring fact.

Korea peacefully united

by che

Korea will be unified under South Korea. Kim Jong il understands that his reign is not eternal with the awareness of the international community, thus, accepting change. He knows his time is around the corner. Therefore, he might be trying to end his regime on a positive note bringing in capitalism and possibiliy democracy. China's recent reforms have played a major role allowing Kim Jong il to sense the potential of capitalism.

As a result, 6 party talks have resulted in a very positive note today. (We shall see the Korean stock market fly in the coming weeks.)

The only thing I'm really considered about is how N.Korea has been very friendly towards S.Korea with Roh in the govt. Things are going too smoothly for S.Korea. Something I consider very fishy.

I believe SK and NK had been very close in creating new scenarios for the Korean peninsula before 6 party talks began. This is very good and bad. For the short term, we shall see positive outcomings in S.Korea but I'm not sure why N.Korea has been very aggressive in softening their stance towards S.Korea. I am hoping that it is just an outcome of the two Koreas realizing the need for unification and putting an end to dividing this land that should be one and most likely N.Korea realizing the limitations of communist ideology.

The way I see it, United States had to make this deal. They know and we all know that they can't go to war with N.Korea and ignite a two front war with depleted resources and the twin deficit. N.Korea was also inadvertently affected by Hurricane Katrina. This was an exclamation mark on United States depleting resources. With Bush's approval rate continuously falling, his entourage most likely wanted to complete this deal to add one to the category of success in its foreign policy. But the fact of the matteris they probably lost on this deal too. If they didn't agree, they knew China and S.Korea would of took the matter in their control leaving United States out as a lameduck. In ways, United States were forced into this agreement, not by any nation or power, but naturally due to the shifting of power to China and S.Korea, in dealing with N.Korea.

A loss of United States foreign policy is evident with United States accepting N.Korea's sovereignty. This is quite shocking for what United States had been stating regarding N.Korea as terrorists and an Axis of Evil status.

The biggest prize of this closure is that now we know that United States and N.Korea does not want to enter a war with each other and that N.Korea has no interests in entering a war with S.Korea. Therefore, the potential of war had been eradicated, clearing S.Korea of possible nuclear clouds.

South Korea has most to gain from the talks. President Roh is probably one the luckiest President in Korea's history. He is in position to bare fruits from this advancement. But we also have to give him credit for some of the workings behind these results. Roh is in seat to see the potential beginning of the re-unification and economically seeing the stock market reach new highs in the midst of political turmoil nationally and the domestic economy lagging.
I see positive days ahead of S.Korea. We are probably seeing Korea leaving the shadows of the Korean War, moreover the Cold War finally.

But there is one thing we have to keep an eye out for and that is the ambiguity behind N.Korea's softening stance towards S.Korea. This might be a far fetched conspiracy theory, but the chance of Roh and some of his party members actually wanting Korea to be united under N.Korea's manipulated communist policies. And that there might be some relation between Roh and Kim that we don't know. Otherwise, I don't have an explanation of N.Korea's exaggerated amicable stance towards S.Korea. Or maybe we have again secretly sent our taxpayers money funding N.Korea. Its just probably N.Korea seeing China becoming a true hegemonic power, as a result of opening up to it doors to capitalism and that they want to be part of this before its too late.

But this is a far fetched scenario and I hope it's not true. Otherwise, we are in an era of Korea....

N.Korea's Reactor Dreams Should not Grow Further

2005-09-20T12:48:00.000+08:00

Six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear arms program on Monday adopted a statement of principles after all. Its gist is that North Korea will scrap all its nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs, and that the United States will guarantee the North's security and start normalizing relations with the North. On the point that had threatened to derail the talks once again until the last minute, the statement acknowledged North Korea's right to a peaceful nuclear program, and the other participating countries agreed to discuss the issue of offering North Korea light water reactors at an appropriate time.

The statement comes a grueling two years since the six-party talks started in August 2003. Had the current round failed to reach agreement, that would have essentially been the end of their credibility and created yet another crisis. That danger has been averted, and a fresh round of six-party talks in November is tasked with working out the details of what the participants have agreed on in the statement and formulating an order of priorities and schedule for them, which would then be the formula for resolving the nuclear dispute to replace the 1994 Geneva Accords. The steps Pyongyang takes in scrapping its nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs will be answered with a timetable for rewards such as diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Japan and free electricity from South Korea.

But whether or not things will ever get that far depends on the reactor problem. The international community shares a view that although the provision of light water reactors to Pyongyang was promised a decade ago on the assumption that it is very difficult to make weapons-grade nuclear materials from this type of reactor, it can be done, and it is therefore better for North Korea to have no nuclear facilities at all.

At the latest round of the talks, the government persuaded the U.S. to include in the statement of principles a recognition of the North’s right to civilian use of nuclear energy and that commitment to “discuss” the question of the light-water reactors. The concessions may have been inevitable to prevent the talks from collapsing altogether.

But our government must now cease the next phase, where the details of give-and-take are worked out, to persuade the North. It must make Pyongyang clearly understand that the provision of 2 million kilowatts of free electricity is premised on North Korea giving up any thought of nuclear reactors. North Korea must be made to realize that any notion it may have entertained of taking the free electricity from the South and getting the reactors as well is a pipe dream.

from chosun

N Korean talks: Who wants what [2]

2005-09-19T22:26:00.000+08:00

Full text: N Korea nuclear agreement

the six parties held in a spirit of mutual respect and equality serious and practical talks concerning the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula on the basis of the common understanding of the previous three rounds of talks and agreed in this context to the following:

1. The six parties unanimously reaffirmed that the goal of the six-party talks is the verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes and returning at an early date to the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT) and to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards.

The United States affirmed that is has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons.

The ROK (South Korea) reaffirmed its commitment not to receive or deploy nuclear weapons in accordance with the 1992 joint declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, while affirming that there exist no nuclear weapons within its territory.

The 1992 joint declaration of the Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula should be observed and implemented.

The DPRK stated that it has the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

The other parties expressed their respect and agreed to discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of light-water reactor to the DPRK.

2. The six parties undertook, in their relations, to abide by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and recognised norms of international relations.

The DPRK and the United States undertook to respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalise their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies.
The DPRK and Japan undertook to take steps to normalise their relations in accordance with the (2002) Pyongyang Declaration, on the basis of the settlement of unfortunate past and the outstanding issues of concern.

3. The six parties undertook to promote economic cooperation in the fields of energy, trade and investment, bilaterally and/or multilaterally.

China, Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Russia and the US stated their willingness to provide energy assistance to the DPRK. The ROK reaffirmed its proposal of 12 July 2005, concerning the provision of 2 million kilowatts of electric power to the DPRK.

4. Committed to joint efforts for lasting peace and stability in northeast Asia, the directly related parties will negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at an appropriate separate forum.

The six parties agreed to explore ways and means for promoting security cooperation in northeast Asia.

5. The six parties agreed to take coordinated steps to implement the aforementioned consensus in a phased manner in line with the principle of "commitment for commitment, action for action".

6. The six parties agreed to hold the fifth round of the six-party talks in Beijing in early November 2005 at a date to be determined through consultations.

from bbc

North Korea agreed that in the process of scrapping its nuclear programs it will return to the NPT and embrace IAEA safeguard regimes.

The U.S. in turn offered reassurances that it had “no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons.” Japan also pledged to continue work towards normalizing its chilly relationship with North Korea, reaffirming a 2002 agreement between Tokyo and Pyongyang to normalize ties once a number of thorny bilateral issues have been resolved.

The “win-win” statement, in the words of U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill, also puts in writing South Korea’s pledge to provide the North with 2 million kilowatts of free electricity a year, with other parties also pledging energy aid to the North.

The parties agreed to set up a separate forum to discuss a permanent peace framework for the Korean Peninsula. The Korean War ended with only an armistice which theoretically remains in force until today.

I thought the statement was an important step toward a resolution of the conflict but warned of a tug of war later over concrete measures.

Anyway

“North Korea made a big decision, but they got everything they wanted from the United States and other countries. Well done”

N Korean talks: Who wants what [1]

2005-09-19T19:37:00.000+08:00

Representatives from six countries are meeting in Beijing for talks aimed at breaking the impasse over North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes.

United States
Washington wants North Korea to agree to end its nuclear programmes, and rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
In return, the US is understood to be willing to grant Pyongyang a guarantee of non-aggression, but it is unlikely that this would be the formal treaty that North Korea ideally wants.
It is also likely to promise the impoverished North Korea more aid, including food and fuel, as part of any deal.
Washington wants to ensure that, this time, any settlement cannot be broken.
The US says Pyongyang violated a 1994 pact to halt its nuclear ambitions, and the Bush administration is anxious that this does not happen again.
The US is likely to want North Korea to destroy, not just close down, its nuclear reactors. It also wants a reliable system of verifying that North Korea is keeping to its agreements.
United Nations inspectors, who were expelled by Pyongyang in 2002, failed to spot an enriched uranium programme which the US says North Korea admitted to have been developing.
In the long term, the US says diplomatic ties with North Korea are not possible until Pyongyang agrees to observe international human rights conventions, adopt a less aggressive outlook and stop selling its missile technology to other rogue states.

North Korea
North Korea claims to have nuclear weapons and to be working on building up its arsenal.
The problem for the US, and the rest of the world, is that it is very difficult to verify these claims.
North Korea says US hostility against it has forced it to seek a nuclear deterrent - and it appears worried that, like Iraq, it could be the victim of a pre-emptive US attack.
Pyongyang says it would be willing to give up its nuclear programme, provided the US sign a security guarantee which is more substantial than a general statement.
The beleaguered regime also wants an easing of economic sanctions, and additional aid to support its creaking economy, especially its energy needs.
It also became clear as the talks continued that North Korea wants the right to have and develop a civilian nuclear programme. During the talks, it also tabled a demand that the other countries build it a light water nuclear reactor, to make up for the graphite moderated reactors it was being pressed to give up under the proposed deal.

China
China is likely to seek a middle-ground policy of containment during the six-nation talks.
Even though Pyongyang is one of its closest allies, Beijing does not want to see a nuclear North Korea on its border.
But nor does it want Kim Jong-il's regime to come under more pressure, economically or militarily.
If North Korea collapsed, China's border would be flooded with hundreds of thousands of hungry North Koreans - a problem it is already experiencing, albeit at a much lower level.
As North Korea's largest source of humanitarian support and energy supplies, China is in a strong bargaining position.
It has already used its influence to bring several rounds of six-party talks to fruition.
Beijing's increasingly proactive role marks a significant departure in Chinese foreign policy regarding Pyongyang, which used to be confined to behind-the-scenes negotiations.
But the extent of China's leverage over North Korea remains in doubt. And Beijing's principal concern is its relationship with the US.

South Korea
South Korea has always vehemently opposed its neighbour's nuclear ambitions.
But it has often taken a less confrontational stance than the US, concerned that threats to apply economic or even military pressure would only provoke North Korea further.
South Korea has good reason to be anxious about the continuing crisis.
Thousands of North Korean weapons are already poised on the border, well within range of Seoul.

Japan
Japan, like the US, wants to maintain a tough line against North Korea.
Tokyo feels threatened by nearby Pyongyang's weapons programme, especially since the communist state test-fired a suspected Taepodong-1 missile over Japan's main island of Honshu in 1998.
Japan also says the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by the North Koreans decades ago should be raised at the Beijing talks.
In the past, Tokyo has made clear that this issue is just as important to Japan as the nuclear stand-off.

Russia
Russia is opposed to the idea of a nuclear North Korea, but it also has ties with Pyongyang which it would be loath to jeopardise.
Like China, Russia provides much-needed aid to North Korea, and also has business interests in the country.
Moscow has retained links with its communist neighbour ever since the Soviet Union helped set up the country in the aftermath of World War II.
But correspondents say that Moscow's influence may be limited, primarily because Russia cannot commit a large financial outlay to help North Korea economically.

from BBC

Q&A: North Korea's nuclear threat

2005-09-19T14:49:00.000+08:00

Six-nation talks on North Korea's controversial nuclear programme are underway in Beijing.

The BBC News website analyses the crisis over the North's nuclear ambitions, and examines the background to Western and Asian policy on the issue.

Do these talks matter?
Yes. The stand-off between North Korea and the US is possibly the most serious threat to East Asia's short- and long-term security.
With each month that passes, the risk of some misunderstanding or escalation increases, while North Korea claims to be using the time to add to its nuclear capability.
Despite such cause for urgency, little substantive progress was achieved at three rounds of talks which have taken place.
The US and North Korea, at least in public, appeared to be too far apart on the key issues to make any kind of breakthrough.

What do we know about North Korea's nuclear weapons programme?
North Korea claims to have nuclear weapons and to be working on building up its arsenal.
The problem for the rest of the world is that it is very difficult to verify these claims.
Most arms control experts suspect North Korea did pursue an active weapons programme - certainly up to 1994, when it signed a landmark agreement to freeze all nuclear-related activities.
But in December 2002, it restarted its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and forced two UN nuclear monitors to leave the country.
It is unclear how far work has progressed at Yongbyon since then.
If the reactor were fully operational, some analysts believe it could produce enough plutonium to build approximately one weapon per year.
America's CIA says a separate, enriched uranium programme could be producing "two or more" bombs each year by the middle of this decade.

How many weapons does North Korea already possess?
This is very hard to say without full IAEA inspections. Experts believe that North Korea may have extracted sufficient plutonium for a small number of bombs.
US officials have put the number at "one or two".
About 8,000 spent fuel rods that were put into storage in 1994 could also be used to extract enough weapons-grade plutonium for a handful more weapons, the US believes.
North Korea has said it has already finished reprocessing these fuel rods, although South Korean and US intelligence are unsure whether to believe that claim.

What is this crisis really about?
Relations between the US and North Korea have deteriorated since President George W Bush labelled North Korea part of an "axis of evil" in January 2002.
Tensions really started escalating the following October, when the US accused North Korea of developing a secret, uranium-based nuclear weapons programme.
Washington is not only concerned about the development of such weapons in North Korea, but also wants to curb Pyongyang's capacity to export missile and nuclear technology to other states or organisations.
Since the October 2002 confrontation, North Korea has restarted a mothballed nuclear power station, thrown out inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency and pulled out of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
It has also upped its frequently doom-laden rhetoric, warning of the risk of nuclear war.
It is often very difficult to tell what lies behind North Korea's moves. Pyongyang and its mercurial leader Kim Jong-il act in erratic and contradictory ways.
But it seems possible that North Korea has been trying to use the nuclear issue as a hard-line ploy to negotiate a non-aggression pact and improved economic aid from the US.
Alternatively, the paranoid North may have decided the US intends to attack it anyway, and has been readying its defences while the US was preoccupied with places like Iraq.
Following Mr Bush's re-election, there were hopes the two sides could be brought back to the negotiating table.
North Korea's latest statement appears to rule out that chance for now.

Can diplomacy resolve it?
Maybe, but not easily.
Almost everyone - except North Korea - agrees the secretive state should not be allowed to continue with its nuclear weapons programme.
The difficulty will be finding enough diplomatic and economic carrots to persuade North Korea's leaders to give the programme up.
The Bush administration is especially wary because it says North Korea has already broken exactly that kind of nuclear deal - the 1994 Agreed Framework.
And although the North's most pressing problem is its moribund economy, Kim Jong-il's first concern is the survival of himself and his backers in the North Korean military.
From his perspective, he is being asked to give up his only guarantee against US attack, nuclear weapons.

Should we be worried?
Yes. Arms proliferation matters, especially when weapons of mass destruction fall into the hands of secretive, unpredictable regimes which may well be heading for catastrophic failure.
Many experts believe that the North Korean system is in terminal decline. Its people suffer great poverty and frequent famine. How the regime ends matters, and managing this potential crisis is made harder if it has nuclear arms.
There is also the danger that an unstable regime like this could provide such weaponry to third parties. North Korea already has a bad track-record in the proliferation of missile technology.

Hasn't North Korea threatened nuclear blackmail before?
Yes, in 1993. That time North Korea was persuaded to suspend its nuclear programme by negotiations which led to the 1994 agreement.
North Korea agreed to halt all its nuclear activities and in due course allow full inspections of its materials and facilities. In return it was to be supplied with heavy fuel oil and two power-generating reactors of a type less likely to prove a source of weapons-grade materials.
The reactors, which were to be supplied by an international consortium known as Kedo, were badly behind schedule when the latest crisis hit.
Their future is now uncertain.

What difference does the US see between North Korea and somewhere like Iraq?
They are different cases. North Korea is already an isolated regime with huge domestic problems. Two of America's regional allies - South Korea and Japan - have an active policy of engagement to try to win Pyongyang round to a more compliant line.
Perhaps more importantly, North Korea is believed to have the bomb, while Iraq did not. The view in the Bush administration is that action has to be taken before a country gets a nuclear capability. With North Korea it is just too late, so Washington has to manage the consequences as best it can.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don’t know why Kim Jong-Il would suddenly give up his favorite horse.
What the US offered???
Why does South Korea always give?

Retail sales rise 10.1% in Singapore

2005-09-17T12:15:00.000+08:00

By Sara Webb Bloomberg News

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2005

SINGAPORE Retail sales in Singapore rose 10.1 percent in July from a year earlier, government figures showed Thursday, as residents bought more cars and higher visitor arrivals increased department store sales.

The increase in the Statistics Department's retail sales index compares with a 9.4 percent gain in June. Excluding vehicles, retail sales rose 9.9 percent from a year earlier, following a gain of 6.5 percent in June.

Singaporeans are spending more as Southeast Asia's fourth-biggest economy rebounded in the second quarter, creating more jobs. The economy expanded at an annual 18 percent pace in the second quarter following a 4.6 percent first-quarter contraction. The city received a record 876,561 visitors in July, up 9.2 percent from a year earlier.

"Car sales have been holding up retail sales this year," Song Seng Wun, an economist at CIMB-GK Research in Singapore, said before the data was released. "We've had the strongest rise in tourist numbers in several months and that's probably contributing to sales."

Singapore held its so-called Great Singapore Sale, an annual shopping festival which attracts both local and overseas shoppers, between May 27 and July 24 this year. Visitor arrivals and spending got an additional boost this year from the International Olympic Committee, which met in the city from July 6-9 to pick the host of the 2012 Summer Games.

The "retail trade industry performed well in July 2005 as Great Singapore Sale went on till late July," the Statistics Department said in its news release. Most sectors reported higher sales compared with the previous month, it said.

The $107 billion economy added 14 percent more jobs than originally estimated in the second quarter, helped by a recovery in the economy and a positive business outlook for the next six months, the Ministry of Manpower said in a statement Monday.

The economy added 31,700 jobs in the three months ended June, higher than the 27,700 the ministry estimated in August and almost double the number of jobs created in the first quarter.

The report Thursday suggested high oil prices had not curbed Singaporeans' spending, Song said.

Adjusted for seasonal factors, retail sales in July fell 3 percent from the previous month, the Department of Statistics said Thursday. Excluding cars, the index rose 2 percent from June, the government said.

Vehicle sales in July rose 10.2 percent from a year earlier based on current prices, compared with a gain of 12.5 percent in June.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in his National Day message in August that his government expected the $107 billion economy to expand by between 3.5 percent and 4.5 percent this year. The economy expanded 8.4 percent in 2004.

SINGAPORE Retail sales in Singapore rose 10.1 percent in July from a year earlier, government figures show

Inside of iPod Nano [1]

2005-09-17T01:38:00.000+08:00

Inside of iPod Nano [2]

2005-09-17T01:34:00.000+08:00

Inside of iPod Nano [3]

2005-09-17T01:27:00.000+08:00

Inside of iPod Nano [4]

2005-09-17T01:10:00.000+08:00

Blog Names Top 10

2005-09-16T17:24:00.000+08:00

Elliot Back releases a list of words most used in blog names:

blog - 9.986%
life - 2.619%
weblog - 1.841%
world - 1.296%
from - 1.226%
journal - 1.139%
news - 1.087%
thoughts - 1.039%
with - 0.670%
daily - 0.660%

Here’s the underlying blog names data file used.

from http://blog.outer-court.com/

Six Sigma: The Present and Future

2005-09-15T22:54:00.000+08:00

I. Global Fever
This is the age of Six Sigma power. Achieving Six Sigma quality has become a veritable battle-cry in the global business community, as a growing number of companies in Europe, and even those in China, embrace it to minimize product defects or enhance management effectiveness.

Broadly, Six Sigma is a body of management tools designed to achieve quality or perfection by holding down defects, whether it is in production, management or organization. Specifically, the Six Sigma process has the goal of reducing defects to 3.4 cases per one million opportunities. An "opportunity" here refers to a produced good or service.

Quite remarkably, Chinese companies that once took a cavalier attitude towards product or management innovation are quickly catching up with Six Sigma concepts. And globally, Six Sigma tools have already become a dominant trend in the world of business. According to one recent survey, over 40% of the Fortune 500 companies operate on Six Sigma process.

The Six Sigma concept is also infiltrating the public sector and financial services industry. A US naval base in San Diego has taken to using the innovative process. So does the city administration in Fort Wayne, Indiana. For their part, financial service providers have also been willing to introduce Six Sigma. Among those using Six Sigma tools for more innovative management are Bank of America, Citibank, JP Morgan & Co. and American International Group Inc. Healthcare providers use it, such as Commonwealth Health Corporation, Virtual Health, and North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System. To them, Six Sigma is the way to achieve a near-perfection standard in medical procedures.

This global trend has changed the way Korean companies regard the Six Sigma process. Shortly after Samsung SDI Co., Ltd. and LG Electronics began accepting Six Sigma tools in 1996, other big companies like POSCO and KT Corporation have taken them. Today, it is fashionable for small and medium-sized companies to use Six Sigma ways to try emulating the stellar performances of their larger cousins. The public sector is also catching on to the new wave. The Ministry of Information and Communication, Korean Intellectual Property Office, Supreme Prosecutors' Office and Korea Railroad - just to name a few - have taken to using Six Sigma. The Korean government now encourages more agencies to use Six Sigma tools.

What explains this popular process that is taking the world by storm? It is due largely to the demonstrated success case of General Electric or GE. So dramatic has been the success of GE's Six Sigma process that it has drawn the attention of companies all over the world, fuelling a global fever for Six Sigma tools by other world-class companies.

II. Six Sigma Concepts
Six Sigma process started from Motorola's "zero-defect" manufacturing campaign back in the mid-1980s. Today, it is the most widely accepted management innovation process, moving through a variety of development stages or changes over the years, constantly improving along the way, not only reducing product defects but also enhancing management effectiveness and employee engagement. As more and newer innovative tools are added to the existing menu of Six Sigma process, new techniques and formulas have become increasingly powerful, thus collecting more enthusiasts. Six Sigma tools therefore have gone through the following stages of transformation and improvement over the years:

1. Stage one: Motorola's defect elimination campaign

Growing threats from formidable Japanese competitors challenged Motorola to come up with exceptional ideas to enhance its product quality. At that time, Motorola's products were lagging so far behind their Japanese rivals in quality that minimizing product defects had become an urgent matter. Motorola's initial focus was on finding out the root cause of product defects from its shop-floor operation. At that time, Six Sigma was only used in manufacturing activities and its major goal was set to minimizing defect rates.

2. Stage two: GE's campaign

But it was until GE adopted the process that Six Sigma went through a big change. In 1995, GE introduced the Six Sigma innovation process under leadership of its legendary chairman Jack Welch, after having pursued restructuring and the Change Acceleration Program. While Motorola in earlier cases used Six Sigma tools for improving its manufacturing process, GE was improvising it for innovating its management process. In this way, not only was the application of Six Sigma process drastically expanded, but the tools acquired more precision in the way of their methodology.

Application of Six Sigma's tools had turned more diverse. Under GE's application, Six Sigma process also developed the so-called DFSS (Design for Six Sigma), a method that brought Six Sigma tools to product development and design. Today, these tools have evolved into a comprehensive method to statistically find, measure and analyze defects throughout the management process across an organization.

After passing through a variety of transformations in the past decades, Six Sigma has also developed a process that stresses effective management and employee engagement, the two crucial criteria for evaluating innovation activities. This transformation has changed the perception of Six Sigma practitioners on: how its process could be used; who must participate in the innovation process; how changes should be pursued; and which business areas really need Six Sigma tools.

As a result, Six Sigma tools are applied to sales and R&D, as well as to the manufacturing process. Six Sigma practitioners have developed a certification system called the "Belt System" to foster in-house Six Sigma professionals. Sharing information and experience on Six Sigma success cases have helped employees to become more actively engaged in company management innovations.

3. Future course
Six Sigma tools will evolve further over time. Blending with tools and ideas developed by practitioners earlier and elsewhere, Six Sigma process is expected to be upgraded in the years ahead. For example, GE applied the concept of "lean production," a system first used by Toyota Motor Corporation to improve worker productivity, to its Six Sigma process, thereby reinventing the existing Six Sigma process. GE not only successfully reduced the product defect ratio but also accelerated its work process with the new evolved innovative tools.

Companies using Six Sigma tools encourage their employees to hone skills in using them and participate in Six Sigma activities more actively. Certainly, companies seek to motivate their employees to pursue innovation at all levels of the work process. To make this happen, all CEOs should be encouraged to become Six Sigma professionals.

As Six Sigma process becomes increasingly important for management, more companies will embrace it. Financial service providers are likely to be at the forefront of this growing movement because they have already seen how beneficial this innovative management tool can be. Healthcare professionals to whom perfection is crucial will also embrace it because any professional missteps could result in unforeseen fatalities or enormous financial risk.
The Six Sigma process is moving into areas like business planning and product development. It will help overcome the limitations of existing innovation tools that lack linkage with organization-wide business strategies.

III. Recommendations
In view of its evolutionary course over the years, in the short run, the importance of Six Sigma appears unlikely to be overshadowed by another innovative movements. For a more successful promotion of this process, we need to think of Six Sigma as a conceptual framework for greater change and innovation, not just a simple product innovation process. A simple innovative tool can change anytime, but a conceptual framework lasts longer.

It is also important for CEOs to understand the Six Sigma process as an instrument for firm-wide innovative activity, not just a way for improving production. In other words, Six Sigma process should by no means be narrowly regarded as the interest of production managers focused on raising their product quality. Six Sigma tools are the processes that go beyond such a simple purpose to touch all aspects of management areas, ranging from marketing to sales, R&D to product development, to business planning itself.

Finally, companies using Six Sigma tools should not mindlessly emulate success cases of their rivals, but use creativity to tailor their needs to specific goals. Ultimately, the goal of the Six Sigma process is to create a culture of innovation. Corporate executives therefore should acquire the routine of engaging in all forms of Six Sigma activities along with their employees.

No company should rush to use the Six Sigma process without meticulous preparation. Plenty of study and discussion should come before using the Six Sigma process as a means of reducing the risk of error and misjudgment.

The writer is a senior researcher at the Six Sigma Department, Samsung Economic Research Institute.

More < Six Sigma: The Present and Future > , < Six Sigma mind map >

Software tracks online comments

2005-09-15T22:46:00.000+08:00

September 15, 2005 - A new software program, designed to help stamp out online crime and conduct more sophisticated market research, will make possible more intrusive searches of cyberspace, a prospect that alarms many Internet users.

Jointly developed by Sookmyung Women's University and a public relations consulting firm, the software scours portal sites, Web sites and bulletin boards like a regular search engine. But it also checks personal Web logs, homepages and online clubs, and organizes the findings into graphs, said Jo Jung-yul, the university's professor of public relations.

For example, if one used the program to search for the name of a politician, not only would a list of relevant Web pages appear, but one could also have the computer produce a graph showing how many times the politician was discussed in a positive or negative light.

Mr. Jo said the cyberspace-monitoring tool, called "Merry Christmas," will offer accurate data on public opinion on politicians, entertainers and brand names.

It will also be able to detect sources of online libel, enabling authorities to block it.

But it is the program's ability to record who says what about whom that concerns privacy activists.

Despite the developer's optimism, the new software is likely to stoke the current controversy over alleged privacy violations committed by Internet search engines such as Google.

Worried that the new invention might facilitate a crackdown in cyberspace, some Internet users argue that collecting Web posts without consent from the writers is an infringement of privacy. Others are concerned that the software's analysis may be used to try and manipulate public opinion over political issues.

"The act of gathering posts on private homepages is a downright violation of privacy," wrote one member of Korea's largest portal site, Naver. A spokesperson from a Web portal forecast that the new search tool may result in many people cutting back on how often they use their computers.

by Chang Chung-hoon, Seo Ji-eun

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

2005-09-14T14:46:00.000+08:00

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who published in his book Motivation and Personality (1943) his famous Hierarchy of Needs.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
-Self Actualization Needs (full potential)
-Ego Needs (self respect, personal worth, autonomy)
-Social Needs (love, friendship, comradeship)
-Security Needs (protection from danger)
-Physiological Needs (warmth, shelter, food)

To describe self actualization,
Maslow pointed out that these people had virtues he called B-Values:
-Truth
-Goodness
-Beauty
-Unity
-Transcendence
-Aliveness
-Uniqueness
-Perfection
-Justice
-Order
-Simplicity

Body (Physiological) Needs such as air, warmth, food, sleep, stimulation and activity. This need concerns biological balance and stable equilibrium (homeostasis). These needs can be very strong because if deprived over time, the person will die.

Security (Safety) Needs such as living in a safe area away from threats. This level is more likely to be found in children as they have a greater need to feel safe.

Social (Love and Belongingness) Needs such as the love of family and friends.

Ego (Self esteem) Needs such as healthy pride The Ego needs focus on our need for self-respect, and respect from others.

Self Actualization (Fulfillment) Needs such as purpose, personal growth and realization of potentials. This is the point where people become fully functional, acting purely on their own volition and having a healthy personality.

Reference: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This theory has been criticized but I do not mention about it in this post:)

Anyway

Question!

Then, why many people take part in Café/Group/Community services on this internet? Personal growth?
What's a farther stage of development of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?

A New Format, Wiki

2005-09-13T18:00:00.000+08:00

WIKI; Why people don't stop talking about You?

There were lots of on-going discussions on Wiki System. Among those, I'd like to introduce this article since it is easy to understand and well explained.

Wiki is definately a very interesting and reasonable format. It helps you oranize what you think, what you know and everything that you can make with a doc-ument. Some of people are very very positive about the future of wiki saying that the whole world, the way people read and write, can be changed by Wiki system.

However, it seems still far from the public. Since I personally think publics are so evil and dumb. Or they become so numb to very unreasonable formats, veiled under the name of 'Usuability'.

[Quote]

Why wiki is Good?
1. Allows anyone to edit a page without the hassle of logging in
2. Web-editable, from pretty much any web browser these days.
This makes it very cross-platform for end users.
3. Less thought-time from looking at a page to correcting it.
4. Simple layout / Simple Structure
5. Where other systems allow one to comment, leaving a static note
which isn't integrated into a greater body of work, a wiki allows one
to add to a pool of knowledge and re-edit a topic.
6. Important key words do not need to be formatted in bold,
because the text already highlighted by coloured text to another wiki link.
7. principle of voluntary cooperation allows for unfinished or incomplete work
to be placed in a wiki so it is shared and easily improved or added to by
others at their discretion.

Why wiki is Bad?
1. A wiki goal, manifesto or mission statement is not directly enforcable.
2. Refactoring (rewriting a topic) may be a barrier to some, who would consider
such an action to be almost impolite or even arrogant.
3. Many users are so used to viewing web content from a consumer-perspective
that the only additions they make are comments. Users must understand
that they are both a consumer (reader), and a producer (editor).
4. Where multiple authors may work on a topic, there can exist conflicts of goals
or personality.
5. Some pages may collect cruft or linkrot after a time.
6. Many wikis are so vulnerable that all data can be destroyed, disrupted or
displaced by way of an automated attack.

See its original: http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Wiki_pros_and_cons

View point

2005-09-13T17:45:00.000+08:00

I have gotten some questions about views include racism.

If one Korean talked about Japan and US, many people would think the Korean would have racism. Does the Korean have it??

If one Singaporean talked about Malaysia, many people would think the Singaporean would have racism. Does the Singaporean have it??

What makes the different views is who saw the matters.

Tottenham Hotapur & Liverpool

2005-09-12T17:33:00.000+08:00

well done!! Lee, Young-pyo

September 2005
H Sat 10 Sep Liverpool PREM. 15:00 0 : 0

GUIDE TO THE ACTION

6mins: First effort on goal after plenty of possession football by both teams. Carrick's intended pass for Lennon read by Riise, he cushioned a header down to Cisse who turned and fired wide from 20 yards.
6mins: Straight up the other end, Defoe sharp turn in box but lashed over from tight angle.
11mins: CLOSE. Lee break down left won a throw that he took quickly to Davids, he forced a pass to Defoe who turned Carragher and curled inches wide from 16 yards.
13mins: Carrick lined up shot from 35 yards blocked by Gerrard.
14mins: Defoe dinked cross in from left aimed towards the onrushing Jenas, Reina always favourite but completely missed ball, luckily for Liverpool is ran out safely.
15mins: Garcia connected sweetly with Riise's cross but Lee there to block volley.
21mins: Gerrard's pass released Cisse down left, good hold up play before whipping in dangerous cross that Crouch was a yard away from.
26mins: Deep cross from Warnock picked out Garcia who could only volley into side-netting from tight angle.
28mins: Lovely football from right to left ended with Lee skipping past Finnan and winning corner.
29mins: CLOSE. Corner from left caused all sorts of problems, ball just poked away from Defoe in front of goal, possibility of a handball and then King thwarted by Reina.
32mins: DISALLOWED. Exchange of passes between Lennon and Stalteri saw Lennon get to byline, dangerous cross cut out by Carragher. Ball eventually fell to Carrick who didn't get hold of 25-yarder, Defoe then netted but offside.
34mins: CHANCE. Closest yet for Liverpool as Crouch rose to head Gerrard's free-kick a couple of feet over.
36mins: Cisse onto pass in right channel, up against Gardner, opted to shoot and drilled wide into crowd.
40mins: SAVE/WOODWORK. Davids cracked 20-yard free-kick that Reina beat out at full stretch, Rasiak there for rebound, tricky ball, floated header back onto the crossbar and Liverpool cleared.
Half-time: Spurs 0, Liverpool 0
Half-time: SUB. Sissoko for Hamann.
46mins: Garcia worked a yard of space in the left corner of the area, low cross cut out by sliding Carrick.
47mins: Garcia tried his luck from 25 yards, left-foot curler that bounced as it reached Robinson but keeper gathered comfortably.
49mins: BLOCK. Cisse got away down the right, low cross picked out supporting Garcia who struck ball well from just inside box, on target, King there to make saving block.
52mins: SAVE. Gerrard's crossfield pass knocked down by Crouch for Cisse to strike crisply on volley from 20 yards, Robinson alert to make reaction save as ball aimed towards top corner.
54mins: SAVE. Riise picked up loose ball 35 yards out, steadied himself and struck low from 30 yards, Robinson saw it all the way and made smart diving save to his left.
56mins: Davids fed supporting Stalteri who stepped inside Warnock and dinked pass into Defoe, Hyypia tight on him but managed to get shot away, no problems for Reina.
56mins: CROSSBAR. Riise smashed spectacular dipping volley that hit underside of crossbar and bounced out.
57mins: SAVE/MISS. Carrick fierce drive from 30 yards that Reina could only parry out to six-yard box, Defoe first to react but couldn't wrap foot around bouncing ball under pressure from Carragher and slid over.
59mins: YELLOW. Hyypia for foul on Defoe.
61mins: DISALLOWED. Rasiak met Carrick's corner and powered home header from 10 yards. No-one got near him so no foul, assuming linesman flagged for Carrick's corner going out of play on its way into the box.
68mins: SUB. Alonso for Warnock.
69mins: DISALLOWED. Crouch met Gerrard's corner and looked all over Gardner as he headed home, goal disallowed.
73mins: CHANCE. Sissoko's toe-poke into the box somehow found its way to Cisse but the striker completely missed his kick 16 yards out.
76mins: YELLOW. Davids for foul on Alonso.
76mins: SUB. Traore for Crouch.
77mins: Rasiak did well to fashion header on target from Defoe's cross but not enough power to trouble Reina.
80mins: Gerrard did well to reach Finnan's cross from right, Stalteri there to deflect volley for corner.
81mins: SUBS. Brown and Defoe for Rasiak and Lennon.

Full-time: Spurs 0, Liverpool 0

A Sat 17 Sep Aston Villa PREM. 17:15

H Mon 26 Sep Fulham PREM. 20:00

October 2005
A Sat 01 Oct Charlton Athletic PREM. 15:00

H Sat 15 Oct Everton PREM. 15:00

A Sat 22 Oct Manchester United PREM. 15:00

H Sat 29 Oct Arsenal PREM. 13:00

November 2005
A Mon 07 Nov Bolton Wanderers PREM. 20:00

H Sun 20 Nov West Ham United PREM. 13:00

A Sat 26 Nov Wigan Athletic PREM. 15:00

December 2005
H Sat 03 Dec Sunderland PREM. 15:00

H Mon 12 Dec Portsmouth PREM. 20:00

A Sun 18 Dec Middlesbrough PREM. 13:30

H Mon 26 Dec Birmingham City PREM. 13:00

A Wed 28 Dec West Bromwich Albion PREM. 19:45

H Sat 31 Dec Newcastle United PREM. 13:00

A girl's guide to finding happiness in Japan

2005-09-11T20:01:00.000+08:00

When No Choice is a Good One By Mimei Sakamoto

2005-09-11T13:50:00.000+08:00

Thinking about my life...

Youth is not a time of life

2005-09-10T20:52:00.000+08:00

Youth is not a time of life--
it is a state of mind; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years;
people grow old only by deserting their ideals.
Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, doubt, self distrust, fear and despair--
these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.

Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every beings heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and thoughts,
the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next,
and the joy and the game of life.

You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt;
as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear;
as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer,
courage,grandeur and power from the earth, from man and from the Infinite, so long your are young.

When the wires are all down and all the central place of your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then you are grown old indeed and may God have mercy on your soul.

- Samuel Ullman -

I am loving Singapore and I am considering emigration

2005-09-10T15:28:00.000+08:00

I read an essay today. < Link >
I have remained an enigma to its.
where can we voice our thoughts without having to rebut anbody?

Wish Singapore can see our ardent desire.

China Business Summit 2005 Cartoons

2005-09-09T20:59:00.000+08:00

Do you need my comment?

Slavemaker

2005-09-09T20:27:00.000+08:00

Do you know slavemaker ants?

There are slavemaker ants that go into other nests and steal the pupae, so when the pupae grow into adults, they’re like the slaves of the other ants. And these “slave” they actually do the work that the other ants would have to do themselves.
Maybe you can find an e.g. “Amason ant” if you are interested in this post.

And they can also take over a whole colony.
The queen ant of the slavemakers, after she mates, she’s carrying her own eggs, and what she does is she goes to another colony of another species. She takes over the colony, and those other ants – the “slaves” – start working for her, and then she lays her eggs.

But the colony she invades, it’s already got its own queen.
If she doesn’t cooperate, then the slavemaker ant will kill that queen. And then when she has her own eggs, they become adults, and they become slavemaker ants too.

Why am I post this article?

Trio Montmartre - Autumn Leaves

2005-09-07T21:03:00.000+08:00

Oil and the global economy

2005-09-06T20:01:00.000+08:00

Counting the cost
Aug 25th 2005 From The Economist print edition

Can the world economy continue to shrug off high oil prices?

HAD you been told in late 2001—not long after that September's terrorist attacks, and when stockmarkets had been tumbling for 18 months or so—that the price of crude oil would more than triple within four years, you might well have predicted global economic meltdown. The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate has risen from $18 in November 2001 to record levels: it hit yet another new high, above $67, this week. This is similar in scale to the price jumps of 1973-74, 1978-80 and 1989-90, all of which were followed by worldwide recession and rising inflation. Today, though, global GDP growth is well above trend, while inflation remains low. Why has the world economy fared so comfortably this time?

There are several popular explanations. The simplest is that, although the latest price increase is about as big as those in previous episodes, it has been more gradual. In 1979 the price of oil doubled in six months; this time it took 18 months, giving households and firms more time to adjust and so doing less damage to their confidence and finances and hence to economic activity. This is plausible, but unlikely to be the whole story: no matter what the pace of the increase, it pains Americans to pay $3-plus for a gallon of petrol.

Another common line is that in real terms oil is not terribly expensive. True, adjusted for American consumer-price inflation, the price of a barrel of crude would have to be about $90 to beat the mark it set in 1980. But this is small comfort: thus measured, the real price is already above its peaks of 1974 and 1990, which were high enough to bring on recession.

Moreover, a calculation of real prices depends on the deflator used. Relative to American producer output prices, the appropriate measure for businesses, real oil prices are already close to their 1980 peak. For an oil-importing economy as a whole, however, the relevant deflator is arguably export prices, since the main way that dearer oil causes pain is through the terms of trade. Relative to global export prices, oil prices are at an all-time high (see chart).

A third argument used by the sanguine is that the modern economy now runs on brain power and microchips rather than on oil. Developed countries use half as much oil per real dollar of GDP as in the mid-1970s, thanks to improved energy efficiency, a switch to other sources of energy and the shift from manufacturing to services. This means that a given rise in oil prices makes a smaller dent in output. However, while rich countries have greatly reduced the oil content of their GDP, many emerging economies are still big energy guzzlers. Some Asian economies, such as India and South Korea, use more oil per dollar of GDP today than they did in the 1970s.

Furthermore, even if America consumes less oil relative to GDP than it did 30 years ago, it also produces less, so its net oil imports are roughly the same as a percentage of GDP (just under 2%). And the impact of oil prices on GDP depends on net imports not on consumption, because oil producers gain when prices rise.

Crude analysis

According to the IMF's model, an increase of $10 a barrel in oil prices should knock three-fifths of a percentage point off the world's output in the following year. Thus the increase of $30 over the past year or so should have reduced global growth by almost two percentage points. However, all such ready-reckoners are based on previous oil shocks, when the main cause of higher prices was a disruption to oil supplies: the OPEC oil embargo in 1973-74; the Iranian revolution in 1979; and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The current episode, however, has its origin in increasing demand, notably in China, the rest of Asia and the United States. Last year's increase in global oil consumption was the biggest for almost 30 years. The old rules of thumb based on supply shocks do not work for price increases driven by rising demand. If oil prices rise because of a shortfall in supply, they will unambiguously cause GDP growth to fall. However, if higher oil prices instead reflect strong demand, then they are the product of healthy global growth. They will therefore be less damaging.

The downside is that, if prices are high because of strong demand rather than a supply shock, they are likely to stay high for longer. In past oil shocks, a rise in price as a result of a temporary supply disruption caused oil consumption to decline, so that when supply returned to normal prices promptly fell. But if oil prices are being pushed higher largely by rising demand in China and other emerging economies, a sudden collapse is less likely.

This is not to deny the role of speculators, whose bets that prices have further to climb have given the market an extra momentum—perhaps leaving it vulnerable to a future drop. Even so, with demand growing strongly and supply unusually tight as a result of years of inadequate spending on exploration, development and refining capacity, any serious supply disruption would push prices yet higher. The basic fact is that the equilibrium price of oil has risen: analysts at Goldman Sachs expect oil to fetch an average of $68 a barrel next year and $60 for the next five years. In the long run, such high prices will encourage exploration and bring forth increased supply that will eventually dampen prices, but this will take time.

The inflation novelty

The relatively gradual rise in prices, the lower oil-intensity of many economies and the role of strong demand rather than a fall in supply all go some way to explaining why this time the effects of higher oil prices on world GDP have so far been muted. However, perhaps the biggest difference between today's high oil prices and earlier bouts lies in the response of inflation and interest rates. In the past, rising oil prices pushed inflation up sharply; sooner or later, central banks raised interest rates. And this time? Figures out last week showed that the headline rate of inflation in America leapt to 3.2% in July from 2.5% in June, largely because of higher oil prices, yet the core rate of inflation only edged up from 2% to 2.1%. Indeed, inflation worldwide is unusually low, thanks partly to global competitive pressures from China and elsewhere. Subdued inflation, and the expectation that it will stay that way, have allowed central banks to hold interest rates lower than in the past.

As a result of low interest rates, America and some other economies have enjoyed a boom in house prices, accompanied by a surge in household borrowing and a falling saving rate. Higher oil prices have acted like a tax on consumers, leaving them less money to spend on other goods. But in America this has been fully offset by borrowing against soaring home prices. This explains why higher oil prices appear to have depressed domestic demand by more in Europe than in America: in most euro-area economies there has been little or no cushion from increased borrowing against property.

The fact that America's economy has been able to shrug off higher oil prices mainly as a result of a housing and mortgage bubble is hardly a comforting thought. What happens when house prices flatten, or even fall? Consumers will then feel the full force of dearer oil. Come to think of it, a further spike in oil prices could even be what pops the housing bubble, if it unsettles consumers enough. So far, the rising oil price has done little harm; but worse may well be on the way.

Mobile social applications ( MoSoSo & LoMoSos )

2005-09-06T18:10:00.000+08:00

Mobile Social Software - MoSoSo
Location-based Mobile Social networks - LoMoSos

A growing list of social applications that work in a mobile context.

Jabberwocky / Familiar Strangers
This research project explores our often ignored yet real relationships with Familiar Strangers. We describe several experiments and studies that lead to a design for a personal, body-worn, wireless device that extends the Familiar Stranger relationship while respecting the delicate, yet important, constraints of our feelings and relationships with strangers in pubic places.
Encounter bubbles
A visualization tool based on Mobster that enables users to explore their social encounters in new ways. Designed to be an open framework on which locative (meaning location-based) networking applications can be built.
Fluidtime
The first of these services is aimed at public transport users in Turin. While on the move, travellers can find dynamic information on mobile screen-based devices while at home or at the office, people can find the same information on physical display units. The other service is a personalised and flexible scheduling system to help Interaction-Ivrea students organise shared laundry facilities; mobile and stationary tools give them constant updates about the progress of their laundry cycle.
Mobster
Affords the social creation and excavation of proximity history. At its core is a simple question: Who was near who when? Software on users’ mobile devices (laptops, cell phones, PDAs) monitors the presence of nearby devices (Wi-Fi hotspots, cell towers, Bluetooth devices), from which Mobster infers historical proximity models. We call these sociospatial histories.
WiFi Bedouin
Expanding the possible meaning and metaphors about access, proximity, wireless and WiFi. This access point is not the web without wires. Instead, it is its own web, an apparatus that forces one to reconsider and question notions of virtuality, materiality, displacement, proximity and community.
Tuna
A mobile wireless application that allows users to share their music locally through handheld devices.
Jukola
An interactive MP3 Jukebox device designed to allow a group of people in a public space to democratically choose the music being played. A public display is used to nominate songs which are subsequently voted on by people in the bar using networked wireless handheld devices.
Mamjam
One of the first location-based instant messaging platform for mobile phones. Asks the user to input location, and then creates links to others in the same space. (Case study here)
Dodgeball
Tell us where you are and we’ll tell you who and what is around you. We’ll ping your friends with your whereabouts, let you know when friends-of-friends are within 10 blocks, allow you to broadcast content to anyone within 10 blocks of you or blast messages to your groups of friends. BEDD
A Bluetooth-enabled mobile social medium that allows people to meet, interact and communicate.
BuzZone
Using Bluetooth-enabled laptops and PDAs to find new contacts, communicate over small distances, and share information related to their business.
IcyPole
Uses Bluetooth to detect the proximity of other devices and determine whether there is a match between users’ entertainment profiles. The application can be used as a platform for personal area network music discovery, file exchange and/or sampling, as well as for social networking based on similar entertainment interests.
Peepsnation
Enables users to connect with others with a similar interest that meet your filter criteria using user-definable groups tied to a specific location.
Proxidating
Using bluetooth technology, ProxiDating allows you to meet people with common interests.
Plazes
Plazes is a web service offering information on people and places based on your location. It enables you to tag your location and announce it to your friends or the world. You can find other Plazes in your vicinity or see where your friends are at the moment. It also allows you to see other people you do not know yet at the same Place.
Plink mobile
A ‘people search engine’ and social networking application. You can search for friends, see who they know and who knows them, find people with shared interests. Can use an SMS interface in the UK.
Saw you
Saw-You allows u 2 chat 2 people who go to the same social venues you do on your mobile phone. U don’t see their number and they don’t see yours.
Mobule serendipity
An application for mobile phones that can instigate interactions between you and people you don’t know. A profile, along with your mobile phone provide a connection a community of people around you.
Who at
Lets you find dates and friends anywhere, anytime. Tell WhoAt where you are and we tell you who’s nearby – all from your mobile phone, PDA, or PC.
Hocman
We have performed an ethnographic study that reveals the importance of social interaction, and especially traffic encounters, for the enjoyment of biking. We summarized these findings into a set of design requirements for a service supporting mobile interaction among motorcyclists.
ImaHima
The Japanese expression for “are you free now?”. A mobile, location-integrated, community and instant messaging service allowing users to share their current personal status (location, activity, mood) publicly and privately with their buddies and send picture and instant messages to them.
Socialight
A location-aware mobile social networking platform that allows people to connect with their friends and friends of friends in new, expressive ways.
Socializer
A distributed, peer-to-peer platform that connects a person to people and services in the same location. An open, extensible platform. New features can be developed and propagated by an open-source community running on wired as well as wireless networks.
Aware
A flexible platform that operates a spatio-temporal moblog (mobile log) allowing collective contribution and distribution of media. Considering scalable systems, comprehensive and inclusive models for participation, the project has focused upon how to communicate context-awareness, mobile experience, and its narrative potential.
Meetup
A technology platform and global network of local venues that helps people self-organize local group gatherings on the same day everywhere.
Modus
Music in a venue should reflect the taste of the people in that space, not the owner of the jukebox or the people working behind the bar. What if a jukebox allowed people to add their own music or could help you remember what was played at a particular time? What if the box was aware of who was in the room and could queue up your favorite songs as you walked through the door?
Traces of fire
Transmitters, embedded in cigarette lighters deliberately lost in carefully chosen pubs, illuminate the social relationships underlying daily habits of travel, entertainment and (nicotine) gifting.
Ashphalt games
An Internet-enhanced street game in which players stage and document small interventions or “stunts” on the street corners of New York in order to claim turf on a virtual map of the city. The game is an experiment in collectively reimagining commonplace views of New York. By providing an online counterpart to the urban environment, it allows players to share their visions of the city with others.
Crowd surfer
Enables a user to surf for other Bluetooth devices and get in contact with them, primarily designed for a campus environment.
Pocket rendezvous
A web server for the Pocket PC that advertises itself to other Pocket PCs in the neighbourhood wirelessly using ad-hoc WiFi networks and Rendezvous.
Meetingpoint
A contact/messaging application using Bluetooth wireless technology. Runs on Smartphones/PDA or PC and helps people to meet in mobile situations.
Activematch
Enables users to find their ‘ideal partner’ on the spot (unity of time and venue). Works in any GPRS network and on all mobile phones with Symbian OS and Nokia’s Series 60 platform.
Mtone
A social networking multi-user game “Cell Phone” is based on the popular Chinese movie of the same name.This comedy movie was directed by one of China’s best known directors, Feng Xiaogang. Customers play this multi-combining romance and SMS and MMS.
Tagtext
Download pictures, wallpapers, screensavers and avatars to use for Bluejacking.
Bluetooth against Bush
Uses bluetooth enabled devices (mobile phones, PDA’s, laptop computers) to create moments of ad-hoc solidarity for people opposed to George W. Bush.
Wavemarket
A suite that can turn a mobile phone user into an on-location broadcaster. You can add information and commentary about restaurant reviews to safety tips. You can find a buddy, or track a truck, inspect a neighborhood for real estate or child safety. It’s good for both social and business and it puts the power of blogging technology into the hands of the masses.

----------------------------------------------

Update MoSoSo sites -All links verified 2 OCT, 2005.

BEDD
Bedouin
Bemovil
BusyThumbs
Earthcomber
Flickr
Jabberwocky
JAMDAT
Jambo
MeetingPoint
Mobido
MobiLuck
Mooble
nTAG
Playtxt.net
Pocketster
Portabible
Proxpro
PurpleAce
Serendipity
SoundPryer
Speck
TxtMob
Urban Plexus
weemee

If Thou Must Love Me

2005-09-06T00:54:00.000+08:00

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"--
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,--
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore

Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

--Elizabeth Browning

Wealth effect on consumption and consumption recovery outlook ( Korea )

2005-09-05T20:29:00.000+08:00

The wealth effect of rising asset prices (housing prices, stock prices, etc.) inducing consumption growth has increased substantially following the 1997 financial crisis, but it is found that the wealth effect is weakening again, dampening expectations for any significant recovery in consumption.

It will be interesting to see how the recent movements in property and stock prices affect the Korean economy. There are those expecting the rise in property and stock prices to add some bounce to consumption. And there are those concerned that the soon-to-be-released real estate policies will result in a big drop in real estate prices and stamp any sign of recovery in domestic demand.

We will examine to what degree the change in asset prices affected private consumption in the past to help better predict the outlook for the Korean economy.

WEALTH EFFECT APPEARS IN 1992

Before 1992, the relationship between housing prices and private consumption, and stock prices and private consumption was that they had moved in different directions to each other. But, after 1992, they generally moved in the same direction and this indicates that the wealth effect appeared around 1992. As the adverse effects of the boom in speculative real estate investment activity and the 2 million housing unit campaign subsided, the wealth effect of housing prices slowly grew. Meanwhile, capital market liberalization had led to significant improvements in Korea’s stock market, both quantitatively and qualitatively. As a consequence, the ratio of stocks owned to total assets among Korean households greatly increased.

More recently, the relationship between asset prices and consumption appears to be undergoing changes unseen before. Noticeably, the time lag between the low of the consumption growth rate and the low of the housing sales price has increased from ± 1~2 quarters in the past to more than 4 quarters. The increase rate of private consumption is gradually moving upward after hitting the bottom of –2.0% in the third to fourth quarter period of 2003. But the housing sales price increase rate bottomed a year later in the fourth quarter of 2004. Despite the big jump in the composite stock price index this year, the increase rate of private consumption has been quite low compared to the past. These trends suggest that the wealth effect on consumption is weakening. For a clearer picture of wealth effect, econometric models are applied.

HOUSING PRICE EFFECT 10 TIMES GREATER

The data from the first quarter of 1986 to the second quarter of 2005 has been applied to a time-varying parameter model and an OLS model. And the results are as follows.

First, we found that housing prices have a greater wealth effect than stock prices. According to our OLS model, when housing and stock prices increases by 1%, private consumption will expand by 0.17%p and 0.03%p, respectively, showing that housing prices have an effect about 6 times greater than that of stock prices. The similar results were found by the time-varying parameter model. As of the second quarter of 2005, private consumption would have increased by 0.11%p and 0.011%p if housing and stock prices were to rise by 1%, respectively, and so the wealth effect of housing price is about 10 times greater than that of stock price. These results, showing housing prices with substantially larger effect than stock prices, seem to be a reflection of the fact that about 80% of all assets owned by Korean households consists of tangible assets.

WEALTH EFFECT RISES AFTER THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

Second, wealth effect on consumption has increased considerably during the post-crisis years. It was estimated that the response (elasticity) of consumption to the change in asset prices grew from 0.07%p (housing price) and 0.001%p (stock price) during the pre-crisis years to 0.15%p (housing price) and 0.011%p (stock price) during the post-crisis years.

The wealth effect of housing price on consumption increased due to the increase in the rate of home ownership. The census data indicates that the home ownership rate climbed up from 49.9% in 1990 to 53.3% in 1995, to 54.2% in 2000. Also, the National Statistical Office’s sample survey shows that the home ownership rate increased from 58.9% in 2001 to 62.9% in 2004.

The post-crisis years have also seen an increase in the effect of financial asset price on consumption. This is believed to have been induced by the expansion in the size of the stock market, and the increase in the number of households making direct and indirect investments in stocks and beneficiary certificates, for example.

RECENT WEAKENING IN WEALTH EFFECT

A third finding from the econometric models was that wealth effect is weakening more towards the recent years. In the post-crisis period, the wealth effect of a 1% increase in housing price led to a 0.18% increase in consumption in 2001, but the figure dropped to 0.11% in the second quarter of 2005. The wealth effect of housing price has begun to fall since 2002, as household debt has increased to the extent of having to deal with household insolvency. Hence, despite the sharp slowdown in the increase rate of household borrowing since 2003, it has taken more time than anticipated to restructure the excessive household debt and this dramatically lowered the consumption capacity of Korean households irrespective of the rise in the value of their homes.

The wealth effect of stock prices on consumption has also waned. In the fourth quarter of 2002, a 1% in stock prices would generate 0.014% growth in consumption, but the effect weakened to 0.11% in the second quarter of this year. The ratio of foreign investors in Korea’s main bourse and KOSDAQ has steadily increased, while the market value of stocks owned by domestic investors has declined from 68% (KOSPI, 64.3%; KOSDAQ, 89.4%) in 2002 to 60.5% (KOSPI, 58.2%; KOSDAQ, 86.4%) in the second quarter of this year. The increase in the ratio of investment by foreigners in Korean stock markets erodes away the wealth effect of stock price gains on domestic consumption.

Together, housing and stock prices, generated a wealth effect of 0.20% in 2000, but this has plunged to 0.12% during the second quarter of 2005.

GRADUAL CONSUMPTION RECOVERY LIKELY

In Korea the wealth effect of such asset prices as housing and stock on consumption has increased considerably compared to the pre-crisis years, but this analysis has found that such wealth effect has been decreasing in recent years, making it difficult to expect any significant improvement in consumption.

Of course, it is more desirable that consumption recovery is induced by sufficient purchasing power of individual households if we are to achieve a more stable and sustainable consumption growth.

A slow recovery in consumption is projected for the second half of this year. Although the economic growth rate reached 3.0% in the first half, the GNI only grew 0.4% so there is very little to support consumption. Moreover, the Korean economy’s structural issues of income polarization and household debt restructuring will continue to hinder consumption recovery. Except, the recent strength in stock prices indicates that the domestic stock market has factored in the expectations for economic rebound and this will offer some help stimulate consumption.

by LGERI < Link >

Indian property

2005-09-05T20:09:00.000+08:00

Another boom
Aug 25th 2005 MUMBAI From The Economist print edition

Why foreigners are so keen on India's property market

THIS year's monsoon may have brought terrible suffering to Mumbai, but nothing seems to dampen the property market in India's commercial capital. At a recent government auction, the prime eight-acre (3.2-hectare) site of the former Elphinstone textile mill was bought for 4.4 billion rupees ($101m) by Indiabulls Real Estate, a subsidiary of Indiabulls, a local securities broker firm. In recent months Mumbai has seen the pricey sales of five large pieces of land on which its now defunct textile mills once stood; Indiabulls Property, a related company, snapped up another of these, Jupiter Mills, in May.

Like those of many other countries, India's property market is booming. The difference is that India's was long out of bounds to institutional investors, particularly foreigners. That appears to be changing: 60% of Indiabulls Property is owned by Farallon Capital Management, a San Francisco hedge fund. This month Indiabulls closed a $150m offering of global depository receipts to fund its recent property acquisitions; Fidelity, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch were large investors.

Two forces lie behind the boom. First, investors are betting on the consumption-driven growth of India's economy that is spawning glitzy shopping malls, entertainment centres, multiplexes and luxury hotels. Some reckon that the retail trade will soon be opened to foreign investment and that the likes of Wal-Mart will fuel the demand for commercial property. The second factor is India's emergence as a hub for global outsourcing. Last month GE Commercial Finance, General Electric's investment arm, said it would put $63m into a $350m fund sponsored by Ascendas, a property developer and asset manager from Singapore. The fund will finance information-technology parks; the idea is to make money from capital gains and leases. GE is already a large investor in business-process outsourcing in India; this marks its entry into commercial property.

The immediate attraction for foreigners is the easing of restrictions on direct investment in the property market in February this year. Foreign companies can set up subsidiaries or joint-ventures to develop property, provided that their money is locked in for three years and that plots are of at least a minimum size.

Locals have also joined in. HDFC, India's largest mortgage lender, and State Bank of India, the largest commercial bank, closed a seven-year, 10 billion rupee property fund for Indian investors in July. ICICI Venture, a subsidiary of another big bank, is raising a $250m venture fund to finance commercial and residential property development.

However, India's property market remains unorganised and underdeveloped. This creates risks for investors. In the absence of clear title to property, the risk of litigation is high, says Gagan Banga, a director at Indiabulls. The Elphinstone property is mired in a high-court action because the previous private owner challenged its nationalisation. And for those who invest in India via real estate investment trusts, there are no rules on the marking of their stakes to market or on whether they must pay stamp duty on transactions, says Renuka Ramnath, who heads ICICI Venture.

Also, as property prices have shot up, by over 20% in places in recent months, some give warning of a bubble. Deepak Parekh, chairman of HDFC, says that prices in Gurgaon, a satellite town outside Delhi that has attracted many outsourcing companies, are now falling, having doubled in the past year. The central bank raised the risk weight assigned by banks to their loans on commercial property to 125% from 100% in late July.

For some, the dizzying rise in Indiabulls' shares is an uncomfortable reminder of the dotcom boom. The five-year-old company, founded by three smart engineers and in which Lakshmi Mittal, a steel magnate, was an early investor, floated shares in September at 19 rupees apiece. They now trade at around 225 rupees, having topped 250 this month. The company's market capitalisation has risen from 2 billion rupees to 30 billion. Perhaps it is time to get those seatbelts on.

Music and the Brain

2005-09-04T14:19:00.000+08:00

What is the secret of music's strange power? Seeking an answer, scientists are piecing together a picture of what happens in the brains of listeners and musicians By Norman M. Weinberger Music surrounds us and we wouldn't have it any other way. An exhilarating orchestral crescendo can bring tears to our eyes and send shivers down our spines. Background swells add emotive punch to movies and TV shows. Organists at ballgames bring us together, cheering, to our feet. Parents croon soothingly to infants.And our fondness has deep roots: we have been making music since the dawn of culture. More than 30,000 years ago early humans were already playing bone flutes, percussive instruments and jaw harps--and all known societies throughout the world have had music. Indeed, our appreciation appears to be innate. Infants as young as two months will turn toward consonant, or pleasant, sounds and away from dissonant ones. And when a symphony's denouement gives delicious chills, the same kinds of pleasure centers of the brain light up as they do when eating chocolate, having sex or taking cocaine.

Therein lies an intriguing biological mystery: Why is music--universally beloved and uniquely powerful in its ability to wring emotions--so pervasive and important to us? Could its emergence have enhanced human survival somehow, such as by aiding courtship, as Geoffrey F. Miller of the University of New Mexico has proposed? Or did it originally help us by promoting social cohesion in groups that had grown too large for grooming, as suggested by Robin M. Dunbar of the University of Liverpool? On the other hand, to use the words of Harvard University's Steven Pinker, is music just "auditory cheesecake"--a happy accident of evolution that happens to tickle the brain's fancy?

Neuroscientists don't yet have the ultimate answers. But in recent years we have begun to gain a firmer understanding of where and how music is processed in the brain, which should lay a foundation for answering evolutionary questions. Collectively, studies of patients with brain injuries and imaging of healthy individuals have unexpectedly uncovered no specialized brain "center" for music. Rather music engages many areas distributed throughout the brain, including those that are normally involved in other kinds of cognition. The active areas vary with the person's individual experiences and musical training. The ear has the fewest sensory cells of any sensory organ--3,500 inner hair cells occupy the ear versus 100 million photoreceptors in the eye. Yet our mental response to music is remarkably adaptable; even a little study can "retune" the way the brain handles musical inputs.

Inner Songs/Well-Developed Brains < Link >

ⓒ 1996-2004 Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved.Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

Singapore's Internet controls shun filters

2005-09-04T00:54:00.000+08:00

反客爲主

http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/singapore/

What's Singlish?

2005-09-04T00:08:00.000+08:00

Singlish, being the "National" language used in Singapore, is a mixture of dialects and english, making the language as another "foreign" language. To allow people to learn Singlish faster, A brand new Coxford Singlish Dictionary is here.

Asking_lah?

Roh Must Stop the Brinkmanship

2005-09-01T17:54:00.000+08:00

President Roh Moo Hyun keeps dropping bombs and each one seems to have greater intensity. Speaking recently about his call a coalition government, he shocked people by saying he would even "consider handing over power altogether." Now he is using extreme expressions such as "taking a backseat" and "shortening [his] term." Ruling Uri Party members of the National Assembly left a recent gathering at Cheong Wa Dae saying they felt "shocked," "frustrated," "dumbfounded," and that is what the majority of ordinary people in the country are feeling, too. President Roh of course included a clear condition for relinquishing authority, namely that there be "reform of the culture and structure of politics," but there is clearly concern spreading among the people that if things continue we might actually see the president's time in office cut short.

Watching the president obsessing with his ideas about a coalition government you are reminded of a prophet or person who predicts the future and is on fire with religious belief and passion. He is full of belief in his own inerrancy, a belief that there's absolutely no way his judgment could be wrong. There's no room for members of the ruling party or the general public to offer alternative views. Politicians and the people are just "lower-level students" who must learn to understand his lofty sermons and thereby be enlightened. It is terribly dangerous for a political leader to act like a soothsayer who is no longer part of the present, who does not walk on terra firma in the real world.

"Politics is the art of choice. If you measure my experience at making choices, I've achieved global senior elder status," says Roh. Maybe he's even right. What made him what he is today was the way he rushed the wall of regionalism with all he had, at risk of defeat, and because of his superb abilities at political bets, which surpassed the predictions of those who knew him. The problem is that Roh sees the past and the present as the same, and is hanging on to the same old brinkmanship tactics.

The road Roh once took is consistent with the course history has taken and with the will of the people. His election victory, therefore, was not a victory for him as an individual but a victory for history, a victory for the people. Now things are different. He talks about "sacrifice and difficult decisions," but many in the country are not finding it easy to be in agreement. Reforming Korea's political culture is an important task, but you wonder if it is so important that all other issues on the reform agenda should be abandoned to have the president give it the highest priority. Furthermore Roh is no longer just one man who has little to care about if he loses. You cannot use the presidency for gambles like when you say "oh well that didn't work out."

We call on the National Assembly. Start discussing in earnest issues such as the reorganization of electoral districts, regardless of the president's statements about a coalition government. External changes in the country's political structure are not all it's going to take to resolve regional confrontation, but whatever the case it's clear there needs to be improvement. Members of the Assembly need to negotiate on improving the system, emptying their hearts of private ambition as they go. Doing so will act to prevent even greater national misfortune.

The Plitical Compass

2005-08-31T16:00:00.000+08:00

Today i found this web-site. Really interesting :D
Have you checked your Plitical style? Click and Check!!

The test is entirely anonymous. None of your personal details are required, and nothing about your result is recorded or logged in any way. The answers are only used to calculate your reading, and cannot be accessed by anyone, ever.

The idea was developed by a political journalist with a university counselling background, assisted by a professor of social history. They're indebted to people like Wilhelm Reich and Theodor Adorno for their ground-breaking work in this field. We believe that, in an age of diminishing ideology, a new generation in particular will get a better idea of where they stand politically - and the sort of political company they keep. So are you ready to take the test? Remember that there's no right, wrong or ideal response. It's simply a measure of attitudes and inevitable human contradictions to provide a more integrated definition of where people and parties are really at. Click here to start.

@@ps!!
Economic Left/Right: -0.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.23

Communities and Technologies Conference

2005-08-30T17:53:00.000+08:00

Communities Vs Networks, as the extremes of a continuum of social containers for innovation

Our research and workshop proposal comes from the observation that in much of the scientific literature in the field of sociology of innovation, the concept of community and the concept of network are used in a very undifferentiated way.

This workshop proposal aims at raising the reflection and discussion about the opportunity of differentiating the use of these concepts, linking them to the concept of innovation in an original way: if communities represents social containers for specialization-based (and hence linear) innovation, networks are the place for boundary spanning learning and, as a consequence, for breakthrough innovation.

The objective of the proposed workshop is that of shaping a new research and knowledge exchange network, not only to shape original theoretic perspectives but also to reflect upon possible new application fields or case studies.

Think! and Link!!

Work, Dance, Love like what?

2005-08-29T23:25:00.000+08:00

Work like you don't need the money
Dance like no one is watching
Love like you've never been hurt before

Hum..

Is Blogging an alternative plan of Freedom of Press in Singapore[2]?

2005-08-29T21:39:00.000+08:00

Before reading my opinion please check these Internet Usage & Population Statistics < Link1 & Link2 >

Looking at it positively, there is much infinite space for growth & improvement. In future blogs could change our society in much bigger way. The power of blogs is not weak and emaciated in our future - i guess.

Turning to our point
Is Blogging possible as alternative plan of Freedom of Press in Singapore?
The blogs/blogging powor comes from Dissemination & Sharing information faster than other media can. In this case we have to check the influence & possibility of blogs.
Do you think the views of blogs affect a lot of people?
I think, so sad, it’s hard to get good affection on the blogs but judging from the regular commentators I would say that the few people we do reach & affect are already themselves. And there could be hundreds of people out there who never comment or otherwise identify themselves, but we wouldn’t know.

Secondly, possibility, the problems could be that many Singaporeans are not very interested in politics (include Freedom of Press) as stated by Dr Randy Kluver. (I said in my previous posting) and the Singapore Dilemma ( Singaporean media is government controlled )

Here we have to check Dr Randy Kluver saying. It has been true so far.
But thinks are beginning to change. These days I found a lot of Singapore political blogs -Not only did middle-age have political blogs, but also young people were voicing their political views. And as public opinion is getting stronger, S-government could be pay careful attention to the trends of public opinion and strong probably; S-government has to make an alternative plan for us. Hum.. but to be honest, not very much at present.

Blogs/Bloggings are insignificant compared to other media & other sources of information for our society now. I tell myself again "It's just the beginning."

Six Recommendations to Ensure Freedom of Expression on the Internet

I have seen to this article a long time ago. And now I am recalling Human Rights.

Reporters Without Borders and the OSCE make six recommendations to ensure freedom of expression on the Internet.This declaration by Reporters Without Borders and the representative of the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) on Freedom of the Media aims to deal with the main issues facing countries seeking to regulate online activity.

Reporters Without Borders thinks the six recommendations go beyond Europe and concern every country. It hopes they will provoke discussion in the run-up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

Full text of the Declaration :

1. Any law about the flow of information online must be anchored in the right to freedom of expression as defined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

2. In a democratic and open society it is up to the citizens to decide what they wish to access and view on the Internet. Filtering or rating of online content by governments is unacceptable. Filters should only be installed by Internet users themselves. Any policy of filtering, be it at a national or local level, conflicts with the principle of free flow of information.

3. Any requirement to register websites with governmental authorities is not acceptable. Unlike licensing scarce resources such as broadcasting frequencies, an abundant infrastructure like the Internet does not justify official assignment of licenses. On the contrary, mandatory registration of online publications might stifle the free exchange of ideas, opinions, and information on the Internet.

4. A technical service provider must not be held responsible for the mere conduit or hosting of content unless the hosting provider refuses to obey a court ruling. A decision on whether a website is legal or illegal can only be taken by a judge, not by a service provider. Such proceedings should guarantee transparency, accountability and the right to appeal.

5. All Internet content should be subject to the legislation of the country of its origin ("upload rule") and not to the legislation of the country where it is downloaded.

6. The Internet combines various types of media, and new publishing tools such as blogging are developing. Internet writers and online journalists should be legally protected under the basic principle of the right to freedom of expression and the complementary rights of privacy and protection of sources.

I believe that freedom in the 21st century means the liberty of individuals, regardless of age, race, gender, or class, to express themselves in their own words, and to use those words to shape history. I am young, and I am free. I speak not always articulate, not often right, but always in my own words. I speak, and I listen.

Is Blogging an alternative plan of Freedom of Press in Singapore[1]?

2005-08-28T16:29:00.000+08:00

The main purpose of blogs is to enable individuals to have a space to express their own opinions and views about important and not-so-important matters around them. In the US especially, blogs have actively been used for political purposes. For example, Garett Graff was probably the first blogger to be given a daily White House pass based on his blogging of Washington news media.

Singaporean bloggers tend to focus more on personal and daily issues, some of the more popular local blogs. However, there are a few which are dedicated to topics related to travel, culture, language and technology such as Commentary Singapore and Singapore Ink. This in itself is an issue that seems to be widely discussed within the Singapore blogging community.

There are two possible reasons for the lack of politically related activity of Singaporean bloggers in comparison to their counter-parts in other parts of the world.

Firstly, as stated by Dr Randy Kluver from the Singapore Internet Research Center it could be that Singaporeans are not very interested in politics or secondly, Singaporeans just need more time to develop into 'citizen jounalists' as explained by Mr Brown, another popular Singaporean blogger.
Singapore has over 22,000 registered blogs ranking it as one of the top ten countries with the largest number of registered blogs according to Bloggers Blog. In Iran alone surprisingly, there are more than 100,000 registered blogs according to Time Magazine.

refer to http://www.ntu.edu.sg/sci/sirc/index.html

In addition, the third possible answer is valid. Namely that politics, in Singaporean has as a result of media attention on defamation cases and banning of NGO memebers from speaking, has been 'criminalised'. < Link >

Now we are here. Is it possible as alternative plan of Freedom of Press in Singapore?

Freedom of Press Ranking Report 2004

2005-08-27T14:54:00.000+08:00

Government sometimes withhold information and sometimes lie to the people. In a free society, however, it is desirable to keep this to a minimum.
The difference between what is withheld or false and what is released and is true is sometimes referred to as the 'credibility gap.' Newspapers and magazines help inform the public and narrow the credibility gap.
Freedom of the Press is inseparable from Freedom of Information. As the citizen has a right to know, the press has a right to tell him. And the right of the press to tell is also its duty to tell the truth.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Asean's Press Freedom
by Erwan Shah Bin Abdullah @ Wolfgang Holzem

It is often said, that the “Pen is mightier than the sword”. While this may be true in many countries due to press freedom and laws that allow freedom of speech, in some countries within ASEAN the “Sword” still rules the “Pen”.

While freedom of the press is one of the main pillars of many developed countries—such as Hong Kong, the US, Germany, UK or even Australia, the same thing cannot be said about some of the member nations of the Assocation of Southeast Asian Nations.

In 1989, ASEAN countries created a “Programme For the Enhancement of Press Cooperation Among ASEAN Countries” to address issues relating to the cooperation amongst the various ASEAN press and news networks. It was believed that General Suharto of Indonesia, Mr. Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore and Dr. Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia called for the Programme.
The ASEAN countries unanimously agreed on several issues that were put forward in that program.

Amongst other things, there was the issue of foreign media. It was agreed that ASEAN countries would:

a.) “seek ways to ensure that press reports on ASEAN countries in the foreign media are more balanced and objective” and
b.) “that the foreign media take into consideration the values and sensitivities of ASEAN peoples before writing reports on ASEAN members countries.”

These two clauses perhaps were the final death knells for the freedom of press in ASEAN because they gave authority to the governments of ASEAN countries the green light to manipulate the local and foreign media (or more specifically, Western media) that are impartial in their reporting compared to the local media.

The pact would have given the governments of the ASEAN members nations the right to “edit”, “delete”, “manipulate” news that they feel are inappropriate to their regime.

Freedom of the press is not a favorable phrase with some ASEAN countries and this pact, instead of encouraging press freedom ended up supporting censorship of the press!< More >

That's too much!!

2005-08-27T12:44:00.000+08:00

Today morning i got a this message.
Copy here:

I hv been keep missing u. I know u r still in my heart.
U r still very important to me.
I know u still LOVE me..so do i. To find me, call quickly.

I really didn't know it was a fraudulent mail.
Indeed, i'm wating someone and when i saw this sms..could you image?

Sacrifice Needed for Unification

2005-08-26T23:04:00.000+08:00

Many Koreans and foreigners may wonder as they watch the six-party talks drag on whether it is at all possible for North and South Korea to ever reunite, given the fundamental differences in their ideologies of how it should take place.

The division of the two countries only serves to remind us of how necessary and appropriate reunification would be. As even Jesus pointed out thousands of years ago, division is a crippling disease that no one benefits from.

We see that unification only creates peace whereas division, for example, in the case of a divorce between a man and a woman, leads to the eventual break-up and destruction of the family.
Indeed, this idea of unification seems not only a desire of all Korea and Koreans, but a desire that burns deep within the heart of man. The idea of becoming one is expressed in all of the great religions of the world.

If we consider what God’s will may be for the two Koreas, we might recognize that it would favor unification, just as it would do so on the relationships between father and son, husband and wife, parents and children, world and country, for there we would all be united with God and God with us, and was that not, after all, the real crux of Jesus’ message when he talked about himself being one with God and us all having to be like him?

Still, the question remains, is the goal of unification possible, and how can the international community help the two Koreas achieve unification? Without doubt, the answer would seem to be: yes, unification is possible. Jesus’ example provides us the answer as to how it can be attained. The way that goal can be achieved is therefore clear, and can be summed up in one word _ sacrifice.

Sacrificing the differing ideologies and visions for the sake of unification may present the solution to what may seem to be an unsolvable problem. If the two Koreas could do this, and certainly this would require great humility from both sides of the divided peninsula, and if the world around it were able to follow suit and supported the idea of unification, perhaps the frustration, vexation and anguish of so many people might erode. Maybe the answer to a lot of the problems of the world, not only Korea, may become a little clearer for us all.

Old Boy

2005-08-25T21:42:00.000+08:00

One day in 1988, an ordinary man named OH Dae-su, who lived with his wife and adorable daughter, was kidnapped and later waked up to find himself in a private makeshift prison.

Dae-su made numerous attempts to escape and to commit suicide, but they all ended up in failure. All the while Dae-su asked himself what had made a man hated him so much enough to imprison him without any reason.
While suffering from his debacle, Dae-su was shocking when he watched the news and heard that his beloved wife had been brutally murdered.

At this very moment, Dae-su swore to take revenge on the man who had destroyed his happy life. Fifteen years had passed and Dae-su was released with a wallet filled with money and a mobile phone. An unknown man called Dae-su and asked him to figure out why he had been imprisoned.

PLOT:

A man, with a lovely wife and child, wakes up to find that he is locked up in a room/prison for a reason about which he's never told, by someone who he's never told about.

Fifteen years later, he is let go, only with more questions than answers. He spends the rest of the film trying to find out who incarcerated him for all those hellish years and for what reason-and in relation to that...to get revenge!!!

The future of blogging

2005-08-24T21:45:00.000+08:00

Recently, blogs have been credited with everything from CBS News anchorman Dan Rather's departure, to unauthorized previews of the latest Apple Computer products, to new transparency in presidential campaigns. The big question is whether blogs, short for Web logs, have the staying power to become more than just online diaries.

Will bloggers upend the mainstream media? What legal protections should bloggers have? Is there a blogger business model? While no definitive answers exist just yet, experts at Wharton advise questioners to be patient. Blogging, they note, will be around for a long time.

Wharton legal studies professor Dan Hunter puts blogging right up there with the printing press when it comes to sharing ideas and disseminating information. "This is not a fad," Hunter says. "It's the rise of amateur content, which is replacing the centralized, controlled content done by professionals."

The growth rate of blogs is impressive. Technorati, a search engine that monitors blogs, tracked more than 8 million online diaries as of March 21, up from 100,000 just two years ago. A new blog is created every 7.4 seconds. That adds up to 12,000 new blogs a day, 275,000 posts a day and 10,800 updates an hour.

"At its most basic level, it's a technology that is lowering the cost of publishing" and turning out to be "the next extension of the Web," says Wharton legal studies professor Kevin Werbach. "Blogging is still in its early days. It's analogous to where the Web was in 1995 and 1996. It's not clear how it will turn out."

What is clear is that opportunities for blogging abound. Companies can use bloggers to put a more human face on interactions between employees and customers; marketers can create buzz through blogs; and bloggers can act as fact checkers for the mainstream media.

more informaion<Link>

Two things are certain:

Blogging will remain disruptive to the traditional media, and new uses will surface.
"You are going to see blogging move to video and instant messaging," says Werbach.
"It's just the beginning."

Steps to a Strong Strategy

2005-08-24T21:42:00.000+08:00

1. If you don’t make a difference, you don’t matter.

2. You can’t make a difference to everyone.

3. Strategy must enable your organization to make a difference that matters to a critical mass of the "right" customers.

4. Strategy connects the purpose and values of your organization with those of its customers and other external stakeholders.

5. It may be easy to clone a product, but it’s impossible to clone a community. So a vital goal of strategy is to create and sustain a unique community.

6. Purpose and values hold a community together, drive teams to seek their potential, and provide the context in which individuals will volunteer their imagination and spirit.

7. Shared ideas lead to shared meaning. The more openly and honestly ideas are shared, the greater the level of trust will be, the more efforts will be aligned – and the more ideas will emerge.

8. People value work that makes them feel valued. When they make strategy, they matter. And they own the results, so effective execution is more likely.

9. Strategic management is conversation. It informs, focuses attention and effort, triggers fresh insights, lights up the imagination, energizes people, and inspires performance.

10. Strategic conversation provides a context for personal and group learning. Your message must be compelling, simple, clear, and believable, or you won’t sell it. It must also be complex and challenging, or no one will buy it. And it must be repeated with relentless consistency.

from Making Sense of Strategy, by Tony Manning

Why blood really is thicker than water?

2005-08-23T20:50:00.000+08:00

Have you ever thought that?

The reasons are here.

Keep your eyes!!

UNTIL about a century ago, the old Gaelic naming tradition still applied widely in Scotland. By these rules, the first son was named after his paternal grandfather, the second after his father, the third after a father's brother, with the equivalent rules on the maternal side applying to daughters.

I actually owe my first name to a revolt on the part of my mother who refused to have yet another George in the family - otherwise, if my father had had his way, I was about to be the fifth George Dunbar in a row.

But why should naming have followed these kinds of rules?

One obvious answer is that bearing the same name identifies family membership. This much is self-evident from the way we use surnames. And some surnames are clearly considerably better for this than others. While Bakers and Smiths must sadly conclude that they are unlikely to be related to strangers bearing the same name, the many variants on Gaelic family names do provide clear indications of common ancestry, partly because of their many variants.

Many name lineages are of quite modest size, and many had quite localised origins. The seaport up the road from Edinburgh notwithstanding, Dunbar is a Moray name and was rare elsewhere. A mere 16,000 or so people have held this name in the three centuries since birth (mainly baptismal) registrations became common.

Studies of parish registers from the Krummhörn area in northwest Germany show that children who survived the first year of life had more Christian names than those who did not: since names were conferred when the child was baptised on its eighth day of life, this suggests that parents already knew who would survive and who not, and hence for which children it was worth making the effort of soliciting godparents.

This sense of implied kinship even seems to persist today. This was put to direct test in a recent study carried out by evolutionary psychologists from Canada's McMaster University. They used the US census to select a set of common and rare English surnames and first names, and then e-mailed nearly 3,000 Hotmail accounts with different combinations of these names asking for help with a project on local sports team mascots, ostensibly from someone with the same or different combination of names. The test was whether the recipients took the trouble of replying. Just 2 per cent of recipients replied when they shared neither first nor surnames, but 12 per cent did so when they shared both. Shared surnames (6 per cent replies) did better than just shared first names (4 per cent of replies).

But when the names were rare in the population at large, reply rates soared to 27 and 13 per cent, respectively, when sender and recipient shared both names or just their surname. As many as a third of those replying when rare names were shared commented on the coincidence, often asking about family origins.

I recognise these response patterns in my own behaviour. Finding someone with the surname Dunbar invariably arouses my interest. But I am only mildly excited when I come across a MacDonald - surely the commonest of all Scottish surnames - even though it has been a middle name for several generations in my lineage.

Evolutionary biologists have long understood the significance of kinship (shared descent from a common ancestor) in animal and human biology. The essence of this is summed up in what has become known as Hamilton's Rule, one of the cornerstones of modern evolutionary biology named after the late WD Hamilton. While a PhD student in the 1960s, he pointed out that two individuals have a common genetic interest in each other that is proportional to the likelihood of their sharing a given gene by descent from a common ancestor, and hence that, when all else is equal, they should be more likely to behave altruistically towards each other than less closely related individuals.

Blood, as the saying goes, is thicker than water. It is a finding demonstrated by observation and experiment in organisms ranging from tadpoles to humans. Naming patterns seem to capitalise on this. In fact, the biological intuition of relatedness seems to be so strong that, in the absence of anything else, shared names can trigger sentiments of kinship even where none actually exists.

by ROBIN DUNBAR

Odeo

2005-08-22T21:12:00.000+08:00

People are quickly changing.
some of ppl, they read texts thru RSS aggregator.

Along with the popularity with iPod and its casting,
Odeo started aggregating the audio feed.
(Looks cool and comfy.)

You just can subscribe audio feed,
and the what you have to do is,
JUST TO LISTEN TO IT.

go to http://www.odeo.com/

Landing on Google News Home Page

2005-08-22T20:09:00.000+08:00

Google News is rising in popularity and that means publishers want their content syndicated in Google News, I know I do (Matt???). A thread at Cre8asite Forums named Tips on getting on the Google News homepage asks the member base for advice on how to get your articles featured on the home page of Google News.

This assumes you have been approved for syndication at Google News. After that, Bill Slawski gives his rundown of patents and articles written about this topic. I’ll try to summarize the thread here for you.

The most juicy part of the thread is when Bill links to Systems and methods for improving the ranking of news articles patent application by some of Google’s engineers including Krishna Bharat. Bill summarizes:

One or more metric values based at least in part on at least one of a number of articles produced by the source during a first time period,

- an average length of an article produced by the source,
- an amount of important coverage that the source produces in a second time period,
- a breaking news score,- an amount of network traffic to the source,
- a human opinion of the source,
- circulation statistics of the source,
- a size of a staff associated with the source,
- a number of bureaus associated with the source,
- a number of original named entities in a group of articles associated with the source,
- a breadth of coverage by the source,
- a number of different countries from which network traffic to the source originates, and
- a writing style used by the source;

and determining a quality value for each source of the plurality of sources based at least in part on the determined one or more metric values for the source.

But moderator ProjectPHP is most probably right;

Despite what anyone tells you, Google put a lot of editorial control on News.google.com, and my guess would be that, unless you are triple approved by everyone including Sergey, you will have buckley’s of getting on those pages.

-
Barry Schwartz is the Editor of Search Engine Roundtable and President of RustyBrick, Inc., a Web services firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales.

Posted by — Barry Schwartz, Rusty Brick, Inc. and SERoundtable

Should think about their rules.