Random Thoughts

  • There are four options to develop Rich Internet Applications: Java Applet, Flash, Silverlight, and HTML5.  It will take a long time - many years - before HTML5 is widely supported. Java Applet is fading, what a pity! Adobe Flash is most widely supported among the options. Silverlight has been catching up rapidly in terms of browser support.  It stands at about 70% today.  Microsoft provides extremely productive tools for Silverlight application development. The territory of Silverlight has been expanding.  It has reached the deskp app arena.  It may eventually the RIA field and the desktop app field into one.  Silverlight is the technology to embrace for at least the next few years.

  • Does the person depicted by A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash have a truly beautiful mind? He used a nurse as a sex toy for a long time and fathered a boy who was moved from one foster home to another while he was a professor at MIT, and refused to support his own son and his sex toy nurse.
  • Over 100 million trees are used for junk mail every year in the US, according to New American Dream.
  • A survey of about 30 thousand high school students shows that 64% of them cheat. This should surprise no one, considering many of them grew up watching adults, including their parents, admiring a president who cheats in the highest office and does extremely well politically and financially for himself.
  • The cause of the financial market crisis in late 2008 is not complicated. It comprises three factors: 1. Loose lending standard leading to high loan default rates mainly in the housing market; 2. Unregulated astronomic leverage level of financial companies that were trading to drain capital from the capital market for many years;  3. Drunk style spending of the American government and the American people, whose saving rates were about zero or even negative. Americans were spending $2 billion more every day than they were making. The expensive war in Iraq seemed to be cost-free to many Americans. Unless America robs other countries, the debt needs to be paid back one way or another, leading inevitably to lower living standards.
  • On the eve of the 29th Olympia, Georgian President Saak'ashvili launched a military attack on Russian peacekeepers, claiming to attempt to take back South Ossetia. As expected, the Georgian military troops were defeated quickly by much stronger Russian troops, but Mr. Saak'ashvili has achieved stunning political success - putting Georgia in the world spotlight, getting the West behind him, and winning one billion tax dollars from the USA, and probably securing his presidency against any competition.(more...)
  • The slogan of the Beijing 29th Olympic Games is "One World One Dream". Do Chinese people have the right to publicly express their dreams, especially if the dream is to have the most fundamental natural human right - freedom of speech?
  • In the US, one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars. Is incarceration the most effective way to deter people of no hope from committing crimes?
  • To capture Iwo Jima, 6,821 US Marines were killed and 19,189 were wounded from February 19 to March 26, 1945. This happened when the Japanese navy and air force were essentially paralyzed, US warships or bombers could bomb the island freely with little resistance at any time. The intended benefit of using Iwo Jima's airfield for long-range fighter escorts was proved unnecessary or impractical. The actual benefit, 2,251 lands of B-29, has only a small proportion that was out of necessity. Essentially, the 26,000 marine casualties saved some fuel, a few B-29 bombers, and even fewer crewmen who could always be rescued from the sea that was completely under the control of the US Navy. Are soldiers' lives always adequately appreciated?
  • Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy had little executive experience prior to their presidency. Did the American people make mistakes in electing their presidents?
  • Can you trust a nation to a person who cheats his or her own family?
  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights was ratified by the UN with no country against it, though with eight abstentions (all from former Soviet Bloc States) on December 10, 1948. It is the most translated document in the world. Article 5 states:
  • "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
  • The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam was adopted by 45 countries that are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. It is essentially a version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights modified to comply with Islamic Shari'ah. Its article 20 states:
  • "It is not permitted without legitimate reason to arrest an individual, or restrict his freedom, to exile or to punish him. It is not permitted to subject him to physical or psychological torture or to any form of maltreatment, cruelty, or indignity. Nor is it permitted to subject an individual to medical or scientific experiments without his consent or at the risk of his health or of his life. Nor is it permitted to promulgate emergency laws that would provide executive authority for such actions."
  • Families of 9-11 civilian victims receive $3.1 million each in average (RAND, 2004). Survivors of a killed US soldier receive about $500,000 (including life insurance up to $400,000) followed by various other regular payments to support his/her spouse and children. The compensation for Iraqi civilians killed mistakenly by the Coalition varies widely, ranging from a few hundred dollars (in most cases) to a few thousand dollars for each death. Every innocent life is precious.
  • Just in the United States, 800,000 children disappear every year, and 5,000 to 10,000 of them are not found. Every day, 10 to 30 children are missing and will not be found. Every child's life is precious. You can help:
  • Association of Missing and Exploited Children's Organizations

  • Health care cost and outcome

     U.S.A

    OECD

    (22 other most affluent countries )

    Spending per Capita ($)
    6400
    2700
    Spending (% of GDP)
    15
    8
    Life Expectancy (Yr)
    77.8
    80