Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Software
Looking for a job, I am talking with my friend Don Summers. The way I see it, he discovered that ever decreasing computer prices together with the Internet protocol, TCP/IP, could do the same as a supercomputer for certain problems, with a fraction of the cost. As I can see, reading the Wired Magazine interview with Marc Andreessen, and as I had figured it out before that, Google, and Amazon should give a prize to my friend Don. But the world is not fair, as our professor Hal Lewis used to say.
Don is a prolific scientist, I hope I can work with him.
Andreessen believes that the next big thing is Software.
This reminds me of a scene in the Graduate, the Mike Nichols film, where an experienced adult tells a young man; the future is in Plastics. Now I will tell any young man that wants to hear me, the future is in Software. I hope that this will be less obnoxious than all the plastic that surrounds us now.
Now that every coffeepot in the world is in the Internet, the Internet of things, we need all the software we can produce. I already see that in my field of High Energy Physics; I have seen the future, and the future is Software!
Don is a prolific scientist, I hope I can work with him.
Andreessen believes that the next big thing is Software.
This reminds me of a scene in the Graduate, the Mike Nichols film, where an experienced adult tells a young man; the future is in Plastics. Now I will tell any young man that wants to hear me, the future is in Software. I hope that this will be less obnoxious than all the plastic that surrounds us now.
Now that every coffeepot in the world is in the Internet, the Internet of things, we need all the software we can produce. I already see that in my field of High Energy Physics; I have seen the future, and the future is Software!
Friday, April 27, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Growth in China
Today in the NYT Ruchir Sharma writes that China is slowing down. He wrote a book: Breakout Nations. If you follow this blog, you may know that I am reading Daron Acemoglu et al.'s book : Why Nations Fail.
I see a pattern here.
To advance, a country needs Inclusive Institutions, as opposed to Exclusive ones. Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the US, have Inclusive Institutions. In a nutshell, almost everybody benefits by the rule of law. Laws apply to everybody. Kings and Presidents do not get a pass. Check Richard Milhous Nixon in Wikipedia.
Therefore China has to slow down, like Japan before,
Investors will come back to the US!
I see a pattern here.
To advance, a country needs Inclusive Institutions, as opposed to Exclusive ones. Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the US, have Inclusive Institutions. In a nutshell, almost everybody benefits by the rule of law. Laws apply to everybody. Kings and Presidents do not get a pass. Check Richard Milhous Nixon in Wikipedia.
Therefore China has to slow down, like Japan before,
Investors will come back to the US!
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
This Line Could Have Come From the Book by Acemoglu and Robinson!
“My father’s biggest achievement was to motivate the South Korean people, to show them we could become prosperous if we worked hard,” she said in an interview last year. “He taught me to love my country, and serve my country.”
NYT
Read the book: Why Nations Fail.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
More on Constructal Law
I wrote a note on inventors in this blog. Can social processes be understood with the Constructal Law?
I will, and of course errors will be made, by me.
Kwasi Kwarteng writes today in the NYT, that England could not maintain the British Empire after Second World War. He points out, that the US may be in the same situation now. My point on inventors also speaks to us, of constraints on the flow of Information. Inventors invent, but we do not get the inventions. "Something" is in the way. I claim the "something" is the 1 % getting most of the cash in the current economic arrangement of the world. They are an obstacle to the free flow of Information.
In this view, Participatory Democracy is a manifestation of the Constructal Law, Information flows in such a way to make flow better.
This post tries to unlock the obstacles to the free flow of Information.
There is a Norwegian mathematician, Johan Galtung, that believes the US is also in a similar declining state, you can watch the Democracy Now! interview here.
I will, and of course errors will be made, by me.
Kwasi Kwarteng writes today in the NYT, that England could not maintain the British Empire after Second World War. He points out, that the US may be in the same situation now. My point on inventors also speaks to us, of constraints on the flow of Information. Inventors invent, but we do not get the inventions. "Something" is in the way. I claim the "something" is the 1 % getting most of the cash in the current economic arrangement of the world. They are an obstacle to the free flow of Information.
In this view, Participatory Democracy is a manifestation of the Constructal Law, Information flows in such a way to make flow better.
This post tries to unlock the obstacles to the free flow of Information.
There is a Norwegian mathematician, Johan Galtung, that believes the US is also in a similar declining state, you can watch the Democracy Now! interview here.
Where Are They?
The Fermi Paradox is about aliens.
Today I ask another question. You can read here, about the paradox of too many inventors and too few new products.
Where Are the Inventors?
They are around us, but the 1 % has neutralized them.
The solution is to fight for a Participatory Democracy. I mean to fight, because it won't come by itself. Now the oppressors and the oppressed move in another sphere, the sphere of ideas, aka as Noosphere.
Today I ask another question. You can read here, about the paradox of too many inventors and too few new products.
Where Are the Inventors?
They are around us, but the 1 % has neutralized them.
The solution is to fight for a Participatory Democracy. I mean to fight, because it won't come by itself. Now the oppressors and the oppressed move in another sphere, the sphere of ideas, aka as Noosphere.
Searching for the Next Snuggie Is This Really the Golden Age for Inventors?
By ADAM DAVIDSON
The Inventors Association of Manhattan meets on the second Monday of each month in the conference room of a Times Square law firm. I went to their most recent meeting to explore an idea that I’ve been hearing a lot about lately — that we are living in a golden age of the independent inventor. Or as Ron Reardon, a patent agent who was a guest speaker that evening, explained, the odds of making money “aren’t good — 1 in 100, 1 in 1000, I’m not sure — but they are better than the lottery.”
Gathered around the room that evening were 55 people, old and young, in suits and T-shirts, everyone hoping that his or her idea could buck the odds. Chris Landano, a young, wiry firefighter, told me about his TrakPak360, a utility belt — perfect for photographers, carpenters, “anybody who carries tools!” — which is equipped with a plastic track that allows pouches to swing around easily. Lorraine Muriello, a woman from New Jersey, described her borderline-brilliant (but extremely easy to rip off) idea: No Sweat Towels, gym towels with zippered pouches for keys and cellphones. Her friend, Cheryl Manzone, told me she has filed countless patents over the past few decades (shoes with interchangeable heels, a compact diaper travel kit) and is now pitching her latest innovation, Stickpods, which are like straws with legs. They’re for holding lollipops, among other treats. The one invention already on sale came from Gregory Quinn, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union. Quinn, a veteran driver (“Truck, taxi, limo, you name it”) has begun selling his Stimulus Pad, a kind of massaging car-seat cover that offers the equivalent of 15 masseurs’ hands on your back all at once. And this is only a small sample of the ideas I heard about.
America has always been the land of tinkerers, from Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford to Steve Jobs and the guy who created the Flowbee. But today’s basement inventors have it easy in ways their predecessors couldn’t have imagined. In the past, someone with a new idea would have had to actually build the thing themselves, find a market for it and figure out how to get it mass-produced. Now inexpensive technology means that anybody can quickly transform an idea into a physical product. Google SketchUp makes it easy for even the sloppiest untrained draftsperson to mock up a 3-D digital model. Any inventor can contact a Chinese factory, many of which are so hungry for American business that they will create a prototype for next to nothing. Sites like Etsy.com make it easier to reach a market, and others, like Quirky.com, allow users to simply suggest an idea and share the royalties if it makes it to the market.
This environment approaches the ideal economy that Adam Smith wrote about — one in which size and power don’t always beat good ideas in the market. Comprehensive data are difficult to come by, but the largest inventor’s organization, the United Inventors Association, says their membership has tripled to 12,000 in the last 18 months. This spike is undoubtedly due in part to the economic slowdown and high unemployment, but the new tools seem likely to inspire a permanent increase in amateur inventing when the economy starts growing more aggressively (whenever that is).
This is good news for noninventors too. Many of the things that make life better started off in the brain of some lonely experimenter: the steam engine, airplanes, antibiotics, maybe even self-supporting lollipop holders. But after leaving the meeting, I felt less convinced than ever that we are living in a golden age of invention. Sure, the Internet and other tools have made the inventing process easier; but the entrepreneurial landscape hardly seems dominated by small inventors. Actually, the new-idea supply chain has some considerable rough patches that, in many ways, are harder to overcome than ever. Once invented and prototyped, those new products have to compete for space in a very narrow pipeline. Retail has become so concentrated that three companies (Walmart, Kroger and Target) control about a fifth of all United States in-store sales, and a tiny number of Internet and made-for-TV giants (Amazon, QVC) dominate in-home sales.
Another huge barrier to independent inventors is, paradoxically, the system set up to protect them. “The patent system has become rather costly for a small inventor,” says James Bessen, a lecturer at the Boston University School of Law. “Go back 100 years, and patents were very inexpensive to get. You didn’t have to have a lawyer to get one. The system is working in a very different way than it did years ago, and that favors large corporations.”
These days, the average costs for a patent are about $10,000 — chump change for a corporation, but a considerable amount for many home inventors. And even when they spend that much, they often see their patent applications rejected. Even if an application is approved, larger companies have become adroit at swooping in and copying the product with just enough changes to make it legal. As a result, many give up on the process altogether. Gary Clegg invented the Slanket before Allstar Products Group introduced its near-identical Snuggie. Allstar outmarketed the unpatented Slanket, and the rest is history.
Since he took over the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 2009, David Kappos says, he has thought every day about a man he met from northern Vermont (“He was dressed, literally, in overalls with a red-and-white checkered shirt”) who had invented a brilliant, transformative two-cycle engine for a snow blower. “If you don’t protect your invention with intellectual property,” Kappos says, “it will be copied almost immediately if it’s good.” So Kappos has initiated a host of initiatives to help the small inventor with cheaper patent filing fees, pro bono legal help and a more responsive patent office.
It probably won’t matter, though, says Paul Romer, an economist at N.Y.U. and perhaps the leading thinker of our time on economic growth. It costs around $1 million to defend a patent-infringement lawsuit, Romer says. So even if a lone inventor has a legitimate patent claim, a large company can sue and force the person into bankruptcy. Romer says that our patent-law system is one of the key barriers to progress, because wealth typically wins out, which would set Adam Smith spinning in his grave. The problem, Romer says, is not simply that the amateur snowblower tinkerer is cheated out of some profit; it’s that people with real world-improving ideas may ignore them because they think the system is stacked against them. If that’s the case, winning the lottery might be their best hope.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Flow
I got this book, Flow, free. I am reading an article in the NYT (below) about Amazon. From the link in this paragraph you can see that Amazon sells it for $11 plus shipping.
I was expecting tornadoes in Chicago today; fortunately they didn't show up.
I am broke.
"If publishers and wholesalers feel threatened, writers are caught in the middle — both pawns and prize."
"“I worked so hard to sell those books,” Mrs. Reed said. “I had to talk to so many different people. Then I lost the sale to a couple of clicks on the computer.”"
These quotes are from the article above.
May you live in interesting times.
I know writers, and I am myself a creator of ideas. Here is my 5 cent contribution to this very interesting development with Mr, Bezos company, Amazon.
I feel I can do better than many members of the old economy, most of the people in the marketplace.
Jeff Bezos is a new kind of businessman, his day under the Sun has come. I side with him. He took advantage of information and computation ideas with a long history in the West. Now competitors do not know what hit them. For them, he is the ogre that took away the livelihood of 7,000 "consultants", that went around their small economic networks selling books to their friends in the school board. I find that uninteresting and not creative, but then again most people on this Earth make their living that way.
I do not see 7,000 Bezos changing the economic landscape tomorrow, and for this he may be defeated soon. Nonetheless I aspire to be another Jeff Bezos.
I was expecting tornadoes in Chicago today; fortunately they didn't show up.
I am broke.
"If publishers and wholesalers feel threatened, writers are caught in the middle — both pawns and prize."
"“I worked so hard to sell those books,” Mrs. Reed said. “I had to talk to so many different people. Then I lost the sale to a couple of clicks on the computer.”"
These quotes are from the article above.
May you live in interesting times.
I know writers, and I am myself a creator of ideas. Here is my 5 cent contribution to this very interesting development with Mr, Bezos company, Amazon.
I feel I can do better than many members of the old economy, most of the people in the marketplace.
Jeff Bezos is a new kind of businessman, his day under the Sun has come. I side with him. He took advantage of information and computation ideas with a long history in the West. Now competitors do not know what hit them. For them, he is the ogre that took away the livelihood of 7,000 "consultants", that went around their small economic networks selling books to their friends in the school board. I find that uninteresting and not creative, but then again most people on this Earth make their living that way.
I do not see 7,000 Bezos changing the economic landscape tomorrow, and for this he may be defeated soon. Nonetheless I aspire to be another Jeff Bezos.
Daring to Cut Off Amazon
"“Amazon wants the price of books to be very, very low — lower than the publishing community can support,” said Curt Matthews, IPG’s chief executive. “Making a book is still a craft industry. Books need to be edited, to be publicized. Someone needs to say this is good and this is not. If there is not enough money to support that whole chain, the system will break down.”"
NYT
NYT
Amazon’s E-Book Pricing a Constant Thorn for Publishers - NYTimes.com
Amazon’s E-Book Pricing a Constant Thorn for Publishers - NYTimes.com: "“Amazon wants the price of books to be very, very low — lower than the publishing community can support,” said Curt Matthews, IPG’s chief executive. “Making a book is still a craft industry. Books need to be edited, to be publicized. Someone needs to say this is good and this is not. If there is not enough money to support that whole chain, the system will break down.”"
'via Blog this'
'via Blog this'
Saturday, April 14, 2012
It Is Raining
I just went to Fermilab. Great talks, and dire forecasts. Now it is raining.
Oh Mama, can this really the end ..
Oh Mama, can this really the end ..
Business
Since I was Academic Secretary at the Physics and Mathematics Department in Puebla, Mexico, I had this idea, that businesses did not know how to use the talent of scientists in general, and mathematicians in particular.
A storm is coming to Chicago today, and very likely I am the only scientist wandering right now how businesses and authorities are protecting us now.
They are not. At least not as well as they could, with the latest scientific knowledge available.
Many people in authority got the authority, not by knowing how nature works, but instead by the social connections and the inherited wealth they have.
Of course, scientist or not, I am just a regular citizen, and should be ready for the storm, using my knowledge; however I spend more time understanding, than executing plans. I do not have authority over funds, you know?
If I had money, I should buy rain barrels: Trib Local Warrenville.
But that is not what I do; for instance, my last business transaction was: I bought donated library books at a dollar each, and then I sold them at two dollars to a business woman. With the profit I bought another used book from her, and spent the rest on a cup of coffee.
That is lame; coffee does not let me sleep.
I have to improve a lot in this category!
Read more on storm protection here.
Read on the coming storm here.
Read about a Fermilab lecture here.
Read about a New Type of School here.
A storm is coming to Chicago today, and very likely I am the only scientist wandering right now how businesses and authorities are protecting us now.
They are not. At least not as well as they could, with the latest scientific knowledge available.
Many people in authority got the authority, not by knowing how nature works, but instead by the social connections and the inherited wealth they have.
Of course, scientist or not, I am just a regular citizen, and should be ready for the storm, using my knowledge; however I spend more time understanding, than executing plans. I do not have authority over funds, you know?
If I had money, I should buy rain barrels: Trib Local Warrenville.
But that is not what I do; for instance, my last business transaction was: I bought donated library books at a dollar each, and then I sold them at two dollars to a business woman. With the profit I bought another used book from her, and spent the rest on a cup of coffee.
That is lame; coffee does not let me sleep.
I have to improve a lot in this category!
Read more on storm protection here.
Read on the coming storm here.
Read about a Fermilab lecture here.
Read about a New Type of School here.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Trust
A friend received an E-Mail from me that I did not send.
I sent an apology to those I thought received such fake. I reset my password, and now I even have my cell phone account involved in the security guard. It is unlikely somebody will know my security word, and my other E-Mail account.
Am I safe?
Of course not, but I have to trust that people will rather collaborate with me than attack me.
One can even write computer programs that cooperate: Scientific American Link.
I am asking friends to help me get a job.
I trust them.
I sent an apology to those I thought received such fake. I reset my password, and now I even have my cell phone account involved in the security guard. It is unlikely somebody will know my security word, and my other E-Mail account.
Am I safe?
Of course not, but I have to trust that people will rather collaborate with me than attack me.
One can even write computer programs that cooperate: Scientific American Link.
I am asking friends to help me get a job.
I trust them.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Fundamental vs. Effective Field Theory
"We do not have a deep understanding of why this is happening and it would clearly be of interest to find an analytic derivation of this result."
arXiv
General Relativity has been applied to real many body systems, see link above; the reason being that a mathematical transformation expresses a connection between fundamental theory, and many body systems, which may describe high temperature superconductivity.
This could just be a mathematical similarity discovered by physicists, or it could be something deeper.
To begin with, there is a jargon, or language problem, general relativists do not talk solid state shop. Every community develops their own workshop talk. This is not that serious, in the case in question, Professor Scalapino, has been talking to people in the "Fundamental" side of the aisle, at least since I was at UCSB in 1973. I see a deeper problem. General relativists do not believe that General Relativity is a theory for solids. The issue is Fundamental vs. Effective Theory.
I do not have a suggestion to the authors, beyond the general advice to keep their eyes open to find more than what they think they'll find. It may be more than just mathematical similarity. Maybe the Constructal Law is at work.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Free College?
I posted today's Krugman NYT piece on Digg.com; I got the comment below from my own comment on more college opportunities for Americans. I just wrote Universal College Education.
I was thinking just in terms of civics. If you vote, you know what you are voting for. Then other posts pointed out the costs of Universal College Education.
In Mexico College is free. I guess there is a disconnect there. Americans are not used to think in these terms.
I was thinking just in terms of civics. If you vote, you know what you are voting for. Then other posts pointed out the costs of Universal College Education.
In Mexico College is free. I guess there is a disconnect there. Americans are not used to think in these terms.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Speak So You Can Speak Again
NPR Books
Black people discovered the Structural Law of Professor Adrian Bejan, for literature. Lucy Ann Hurston titled this way the book she wrote about her aunt, Zora Neale Hurston.
For some time now, I have been trying to apply this Law to Physics. In particular to the Expanding Proton problem, which is the basis of my PhD thesis: Third Eikonal in Quantum Electrodynamics.
It is not easy.
Here I write what this title brings to my mind.
Listen to Lucy Ann here.
I've heard Zora (below), I believe the title means the following:
According to the Constructal Law, flow makes further flow possible. The surroundings are changed so next time around, flow is easier. Physics is the study of motion; according to Bejan now, Physics is the study of Flow.
When I was a student at Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Mecánica y Eléctrica, ESIME for short. in Mexico. I was deeply affected by the concept of Flux.
Wikipedia
Gauss became my hero. Such simple concept, such beautiful mathematics. I am very impressed by Professor Bejan's insight to the importance of flux in Physics. I studied in a technical institution, the Instituto Politécnico Nacional, thus I didn't have an education in History, otherwise I would've known that Isaac Newton pointed us in the right direction from the very beginning, with his Method of Fluxions. Fortunately, it is never too late, as long as I'm alive I will pursue this line of thought.
Shape and Motion, Motion and Shape. Mass curves space, space directs mass. Albert Einstein understood Galileo's principle of free fall this way. Three centuries apart! We are so deaf to the clear messages of Nature.
Speak So You Can Speak Again!
The first time Zora spoke to a stranger, that stranger paid attention, and was ready to hear her again. She was not a meek black woman asking for permission to exist, she was telling him, that she was a force to be reckoned with: They listened. They understood so clearly, that they buried her in an unmarked lot, until Alice Walker revived her soul, so we will all listen to her.
Black people discovered the Structural Law of Professor Adrian Bejan, for literature. Lucy Ann Hurston titled this way the book she wrote about her aunt, Zora Neale Hurston.
For some time now, I have been trying to apply this Law to Physics. In particular to the Expanding Proton problem, which is the basis of my PhD thesis: Third Eikonal in Quantum Electrodynamics.
It is not easy.
Here I write what this title brings to my mind.
Listen to Lucy Ann here.
I've heard Zora (below), I believe the title means the following:
According to the Constructal Law, flow makes further flow possible. The surroundings are changed so next time around, flow is easier. Physics is the study of motion; according to Bejan now, Physics is the study of Flow.
When I was a student at Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Mecánica y Eléctrica, ESIME for short. in Mexico. I was deeply affected by the concept of Flux.
Wikipedia
Gauss became my hero. Such simple concept, such beautiful mathematics. I am very impressed by Professor Bejan's insight to the importance of flux in Physics. I studied in a technical institution, the Instituto Politécnico Nacional, thus I didn't have an education in History, otherwise I would've known that Isaac Newton pointed us in the right direction from the very beginning, with his Method of Fluxions. Fortunately, it is never too late, as long as I'm alive I will pursue this line of thought.
Speak So You Can Speak Again!
The first time Zora spoke to a stranger, that stranger paid attention, and was ready to hear her again. She was not a meek black woman asking for permission to exist, she was telling him, that she was a force to be reckoned with: They listened. They understood so clearly, that they buried her in an unmarked lot, until Alice Walker revived her soul, so we will all listen to her.
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I see these second and third year college students who can barely read and write in the English language and they are getting B's and C's. Many college graduates have math skills that really should be considered "high school" level (I don't believe there should be such a thing as "college algebra")
If we increased the standards for high-school diplomas to "general basic modern workforce skills" like being able to count out change correctly, capability to send an email with correct punctuation, capitalization and spelling, and without any "txt" abbreviations, we'd probably have less people passing high-school, but the college crop would be a hell of a lot more worthwhile.
For those who can't make the cut for college there's technical training out there. But you cannot convince me that some of these people (a lot of them upper middle class and planning on skating by on daddy's money) are really going to benefit from a four year degree.
So if you want to talk about making education free for students (and I do think there's a strong case to be made here, as it's a cultural investment that has a massive effect on domestic economics: take a look at Taiwan) you have to sit down and think about what you really mean by that.