(até agora)
An interesting piece at the Asia Times Onlines:
Emperor Hu’s new clothes for Africa
The whole China-in-Africa thing is hard for me to get my head around. On the one hand, investment is the best medicine for Africa. On the other hand, well, Darfur.
I guess saying “China is footing the bill for Darfur” would be deliberately provocative, so, “China is footing the bill for Darfur.”
We’ll see, I guess.
The Swiss company Novartis is taking the Indian government to court over its legislation pertaining to generic drugs. Novartis wants to make it more difficult for Indian companies to produce generic drugs. According to a report at nature.com MSF is collecting signature under a petition calling on Novartis to drop the case. The medical charity points out that ‘India is the pharmacy for the developing world’.
Further information about the background to the MSF campaign can be found here:
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070115/full/070115-1.html
The petition is available here
Via technoliberation
BBC: $100 laptop could sell to public
Mr Bletsas said that a philanthropic organisation would be formed to organise the orders and delivery of the laptops.
“It’s much more difficult to do this than making the laptop,” he said.
The aim is to connect the buyer of the laptop with the child in the developing world who receives the machine.
“They will get the e-mail address of the kid in the developing world that they have, in effect, sponsored.”
Wow, I’ll buy two, maybe four. That’s so awesome.
However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes which do fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem. I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it. Do not believe—and I am dead serious when I say this—do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization, because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life. Unless we can psychologically accommodate change, we ourselves begin to die, inwardly. What I am saying is that objects, customs, habits, and ways of life must perish so that the authentic human being can live. And it is the authentic human being who matters most, the viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new.
How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later Philip K. Dick
Er, wow: Roots of human family tree are shallow
The math is so obvious I never thought about it:
It’s simple math. Every person has two parents, four grandparents and eight great-grandparents. Keep doubling back through the generations — 16, 32, 64, 128 — and within a few hundred years you have thousands of ancestors.
It’s nothing more than exponential growth combined with the facts of life. By the 15th century you’ve got a million ancestors. By the 13th you’ve got a billion. Sometime around the 9th century — just 40 generations ago — the number tops a trillion.
But wait. How could anybody — much less everybody — alive today have had a trillion ancestors living during the 9th century?
The answer is, they didn’t.
You know, as a guy whose entire financial existence is due to Linux and open source software, I find it pretty surprising to find myself just straight up rooting for Bill Gates. But I really am.
Especially when he leaves Microsoft! Eheh.
Seriously, with a wad of cash like he has, plus the one that Warren Buffett just handed him, he and his wife can do an incredible amount of good for an incredible number of people.
That’s pretty awesome.
So, amazing as it sounds to hear it clicking out on my keyboard, ‘Go Bill!’
Not Far From Forsaken - New York Times
There was something strangely seductive about the description of North Dakota in this article. It has the highest rate of emmigration in the country, and it’s filled with ghost towns — increasingly so. The stories about cities unincorporating are downright shocking when all one seems to read about in the news is urban and (even more often) suburban sprawl.
On the other hand, I think that somewhere down the line, a place like North Dakota could really be in for a revival — once we get the transportation thing worked out (hybrid robotic cars, stuff like that (no, I’m not kidding)). Open, beautiful spaces, friendly neighbors, living expenses such that even my month-to-month generation could afford to buy (gasp!) a house…
Yeah, I have to admit, when they said they were more or less giving land away, I thought about it for a second.
My home is the internet, anyway.
There sure isn’t much good news in the north and east of Africa of late, but this sounds pretty good:
You got Bill O’Reilly to have a downright rational conversation!
You’re my hero!
I HAVE THE FACTS AND I’M VOTING DANA.
ps go bears