Happy Birthday

Today is the iPod's birthday. Five years and many supposedly ipod-killers have gone by. The iPod is still the best selling digital music player, dominating the market. The latest want-to-be iPod-killer is Microsoft's Zune. I wonder if the Zune will live up to all the hype and be the iPod-killer that Apple/iPod detractors are claiming that it would be. I don't think so. iPod is more than just a fad. It is 5 years old and it is still go strong. Long live the iPod.

The biggest flop

A few of the sites that I visit regularly (gizmodo, engadget, and crave to name a few) all have coverage of 10 Biggest Computer Flops of all time. This is a first so I had to check the list out. I was very surprise as to what make the top two entries of the list. I wonder how many of the "flops" the author of the list has actually hand-on experience with. I had actually have the pleasure of working on the NeXT computer. No only was the hardware very fast, the OS (NEXTSTEP) is one of the best that I have ever worked with (and I have woked with a few since I have been working in the IT industry for a long time). Yes, commercally speaking NeXT was not a successful. But its technology is still around. It is the basis of Mac OS X after NexT was bought by Apple when Steve Jobs returned to save the company he founded. The only thing that was worse than puting NeXT at number two is to put the Xerox Alto at number one. I still remember the times when computer users all used terminals to connect to large, centralized computers (I told you I have been in IT for a long time). The Alto was way ahead of it times and praved the way for WYSIWYG, GUI, point-and-click computing. Yes, it didn't make Xerox any money. But it is research like this that makes the US the leader in high-tech. The transistor did not make AT&T (Bell Labs) any money, so is it one of the biggest flop in electronics? I would definitely not call them mistakes, they are actaully early versions (call them beta if you like) of two of the biggest successes in computing history. If anyone is going to start a list of the ten biggest flop in making a top ten list, I would like to nominate this list to the list.

BOOM

After repeatedly being warned of grave consequences for nuclear testing, North Korea went ahead anyway. And there are indications that they may do it again. After not being able to stop North Korea from developing and testing nuclear weapon, the world is now warning North Korea not to export its nuclear weapon or know-how. I wonder why North Korea would listen this time. Even if they agree not to do it, they may just be doing it in secret anyway. After all, back in the days when the US was still talking to North Korea one-on-one, they signed the Agreed Framework. But North Korea cheated. I wonder what would stop them from cheating again. Since we can't stop them and we can't trust them, I wonder if there is anything anyone can do but to live with the fact the North Korea will have nuclear weapon and will sell that technology if they chose to. Or maybe we should just evacuate Seoul and bomb them back to the stone age. Since that's (the bombing part for sure, not sure about the evacuation part) what we are going to do when some terrorists buy an A-Bomb from them and set it on in the US anyway.

One <your favorite cause here> Per Child

The BBC is reporting that Libya has agreed to provide its 1.2 million school children with the $100 laptop. Note that it says school children. So I guess children not going to school are not counted. I wonder how close that is to One Laptop per Child in Libya.

Everytime I think about the One Laptop per Child project, I can't help it but wonder what good does a laptop do to a child who is lacking life's basic necessities. I am talking about the really basic stuff, like pottable water, food, and basic health care. According to the FAQ on OLPC's web site, laptops are:

are a wonderful way for all children to learn learning through independent interaction and exploration.

But what about children who are too thirsty, hungry, or sick to learn? Wouldn't it be better to channel our effort into projects like:

Pottable Water per Child

Food per Child

Basic Health Care per Child

Actually someone is working on pottable water, check out PlayPumps. Bringing clean water to 10 million people over the next three years is a pretty good start to pottable water per child.

superpower

They say that after the Cold War there is only one superpower left. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of superpower is:

a: an extremely powerful nation; specifically : one of a very few dominant states in an era when the world is divided politically into these states and their satellites
b : an international governing body able to enforce its will upon the most powerful states

I wonder which country they are referring to as the superpower. If you ask me the United States does not fit the definition above since it is not very successful in enforcing its will up other states. The US has made it very clear that it does not want either Iran or North Korea to have nuclear weapons. Well, North Korea has just tested one, and Iran is on its way to getting one. Nothing the US has done in stopping them has worked. Along with Iraq, these two countries are labelled as the Axis of Evil by President Bush so I don't think the US isn't trying hard enough. One may argue that it still fits the first definition since it is extremely powerful. But if it is so powerful, why is it not winning the war in Iraq? Many people would actually say that it is losing that war. Maybe North Korea should be the sole superpower since it has been able to ignore what all the other nations warning and do the things that it was told it cannot do.

trans fat tax

It seems to me the ban on trans fat is picking up momentum. I heard on the radio this morning that my home state, New Jersey, is considering doing so. I wonder where they will draw the line. After all, there are many things that are just as bad (if not worse) for us. How about a ban on tobacco? Tobacco is certainly worst since second hand smoke hurts non-smokers also. Oh yeah, I forgot about the big tobacco company and their lobbyists. The US had tried out-lawing alcohol before and we all know how that turned out. So how about if we following the tobacco example and impose a trans fat tax. Afterall, we are charging people so that they can get lung cancer. Why not also charge people so that they can clog up their arteries?