‘I will state that there will be a polarization of society here in the United States. People who are using their brains are moving up. Then you have another part of society that is doing services. These services will not be paid well. But you would need services. You would need restaurants, you would need cooks, you would need drivers et cetera. You will be losing your middle class.

‘This I would not see in the same fashion in Europe, because the manufacturing base there today can compete anywhere, anytime with China or India. Because their productivity and skill sets more than offset their higher costs. You don’t see this everywhere, but it’s Germany, it’s France, it’s Sweden, it’s Austria, it’s Switzerland…. So I feel Europe still will have a middle level of people. They also have people who are very rich, they also have people doing services. But there is a balance. I don’t see the balance here in the US.’

Dr. Bharat was here mainly to talk about engineering developments at Mercedes, notably a car designed to respond to collisions just before they occur (via radar and other sensors to detect imminent crashes) and apply a variety of pre-protective, hunkering-down measures. Details on the ‘Pre-Safe’ system here. But his matter-of-fact observation of why companies in the United States might match any firms anywhere in raw innovativeness and profitability, while American society as a whole becomes more polarized and caste-like, was sobering to put it mildly. Not a new theme, obviously, but presented quite starkly. Andy Grove of Intel to the same effect here;  background from the Atlantic here and here.

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Bonus ‘it’s a big world’ note: Dr. Bharat is originally from Madras/Chennai and is an alum of the storied Indian Institute of Technology/Bombay. But he went to work for Daimler as a very young man and (as he jokingly pointed out himself) now speaks English with a rich Jawohl!-style German accent rather than Indian English. This is a more charming combination than you might think.

A hostile Asian bloc combining the most populous nations of the world and vast resources with some of the most industrious peoples would be incompatible with the American national interest. For this reason, America must retain a presence in Asia, and its geopolitical objective must remain to prevent Asia’s coalescence into an unfriendly bloc (which is most likely to happen under the tutelage of one of its major powers). Americas relationship to Asia is thus comparable with that of Britain toward the content of Europe for four centuries. Winston Churchill described that situation eloquently:

For four hundred years the foreign policy of England has been to oppose the stronger, most aggressive, most dominating Power on the Continent… These four centuries of consistent purpose amid so many chances of names and facts, of circumstances and conditions, must rank as one of the most remarkable episodes which the records of any race, nation, state, or people can show. Moreover, on all occasions England took the more difficult course. Faced by Philip II of Spain, against Louis XIV under William III and Marlborough, against Napoleon, against Wiliam II of Germany, it would have been easy and must have been very tempting to join the stronger and share the fruits of his conquest. However, we always took the harder course, joined with the less strong Powers, made a combination among them, and thus defeated and frustrated the continental military tyrant whoever he was, whatever nation led. Thus we preserved the liberties of Europe, protected the growth of its vivacious and varied society… It is a law of public policy which we are following and not a mere expedient dictated by accidental circumstances, or likes and dislikes, or any other sentiment.

In the twenty-first century, an analogous objective for the United States in Asia poses a more complex challenge. The European balance of power was sustained by nation states of substantially homogeneous ethnic composition (with the exception of Russia); many of the major Asian states (China, Russia, India, Indonesia) are continental in size and multiethnic in composition. The European equilibrium was seamless in the sense that all major states were part of it – that is, the interplay of their alliances constituted the balance of power; thus a crisis over Serbia in the Balkans escalated into the First World War. The Asian balance of power is more differentiated and therefore more complex.

In Europe, two world wars and the insufficient scale of the European nation-state in the face of global challenges have made the nineteenth-century balance of power irrelevant. The nations of Europe no longer treat one another as strategic threats; threats from outside Europe have been dealt with by the alliance with the United States.

By contrast, the nations of Asia have never acknowledged a common danger, having quite differing views about what threatens their security. Some have historically feared Russia; others worry mostly about China; still others are concerned about a resurgent Japan; some in Southeast Asia consider Vietnam the principal danger. India and Pakistan are each obsessed with the threat of the other.

To be sure, it is in the American national interest to resist the effort of any power to dominate Asia – and, in the extreme, the United States should be prepared to do so without allies. But a wise American policy would strive to prevent such an outcome. It would nurture cooperative relations with all of the significant nations of Asia to keep open the possibility of joint action should circumstances require it. But it would also seek to convey to China that opposition to hegemony is coupled with a preference for a constructive relationship and that America will facilitate and not obstruct China’s participation in a stable international order. Confrontation with China should be the ultimate recourse, not the strategic choice.

We can’t afford another so-called economic “expansion” like the one from the last decade — what some call the “lost decade” — where jobs grew more slowly than during any prior expansion; where the income of the average American household declined while the cost of health care and tuition reached record highs; where prosperity was built on a housing bubble and financial speculation.

Interesting that this sounds a whole lot like the so-called economic “expansion” here in China…

On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it. Now, this challenge may be new, but our responsibility to help ensure the free exchange of ideas goes back to the birth of our republic. The words of the First Amendment to our Constitution are carved in 50 tons of Tennessee marble on the front of this building. And every generation of Americans has worked to protect the values etched in that stone.

There are, of course, hundreds of millions of people living without the benefits of these technologies. In our world, as I’ve said many times, talent may be distributed universally, but opportunity is not. And we know from long experience that promoting social and economic development in countries where people lack access to knowledge, markets, capital, and opportunity can be frustrating and sometimes futile work. In this context, the internet can serve as a great equalizer. By providing people with access to knowledge and potential markets, networks can create opportunities where none exist.

States, terrorists, and those who would act as their proxies must know that the United States will protect our networks. Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government, and our civil society. Countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation. In an internet-connected world, an attack on one nation’s networks can be an attack on all. And by reinforcing that message, we can create norms of behavior among states and encourage respect for the global networked commons.

Taken in context, this reads to me like a veiled threat against China. Of course, the NSA’s job is cyber-espionage and cyber-terrorism, so it’s not really something new. Just part of The Great Game.

To use market terminology, a publicly listed company in Tunisia or Vietnam that operates in an environment of censorship will always trade at a discount relative to an identical firm in a free society. If corporate decision makers don’t have access to global sources of news and information, investors will have less confidence in their decisions over the long term. Countries that censor news and information must recognize that from an economic standpoint, there is no distinction between censoring political speech and commercial speech. If businesses in your nations are denied access to either type of information, it will inevitably impact on growth.

As it stands, Americans can consider information presented by foreign governments. We do not block your attempts to communicate with the people in the United States. But citizens in societies that practice censorship lack exposure to outside views. In North Korea, for example, the government has tried to completely isolate its citizens from outside opinions. This lopsided access to information increases both the likelihood of conflict and the probability that small disagreements could escalate. So I hope that responsible governments with an interest in global stability will work with us to address such imbalances.

And censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere. And in America, American companies need to make a principled stand. This needs to be part of our national brand. I’m confident that consumers worldwide will reward companies that follow those principles.

In fact, I would like to see more governments, if you disagree with what a blogger or a website is saying, get in and argue with them. Explain what it is you’re doing. Put out contrary information. Point out what the pitfalls are of the position that a blogger might be taking.

One trip to Macau and you’ll probably be asking yourself what the numbers really mean. In typical China Fashion, it means less than you think.

'07 Gambling Revenues: Macau  $7.0B   Vegas   $6.5B

VIP Rooms:             Macau    65%   Vegas      0%

Slot Machine Revenue:  Macau     5%   Vegas     60%

Gambling % of Revenue: Macau    95%   Vegas     40%

Length of Avg Visit:   Macau      1   Vegas       4

Hotel Rooms:           Macau 13,000   Vegas 130,000

65% of money bet in Macau is in the “VIP Rooms”, which typically equals money laundering. Without that, Macau is at about $2B/year. In terms of pure table games, Macau and Vegas are nearly equal – around $2B/Y, but Slot Machines contribute more than double table game revenues, and the vacation/convention business accounts for 2.5x the gaming total. In summary:

Macau: $2.5B (less money laundering)

Vegas:  $16B (including slots and retail)

Those numbers basically match what you feel when you’re in Vegas.

You may be wondering how VIP Rooms work. James Fallows’s new book “Postcards from Tomorrow Square” explains.

The Chinese government doesn’t allow rich people to take their money out of the country easily, it allows them to convert only small amounts of renminbi each year. So a factory owner from the Pearl River Delta or a corrupt public official who has grown wealthy, will head to Macau.

One Western banker with extensive experience in Macau pointed out that the city functions as one big, quasi-official money-laundering site via the numbers gold dealer’s shops on either side of its border with mainland China.

Chinese visitors buy bold with RMB from shops on their side of the border and then sell to dealers on the Macau side for Hong Kong dollars – a ‘hard’ currency that can be converted into U.S. dollars or euros and sent anywhere in the world.

Something similar can go on when wealthy Chinese visit a VIP room. The room’s operator lends them money for gambling – often large sums, worth thousands or millions of U.S. dollars. The loan is in Hong Kong dollars, the main betting currency of Macau (its own currency is the pataca). If the Chinese gambler wins, he now has hard currency. If he loses, he settles the debt back in China, in RMB. A related practice is “doubling down” which the bets are made in one currency, say Hong Kong dollars, but the players agree to settle later in another, like U.S. dollars. Exactly how the debts are paid, and just where the touts get their substantial operating capital, is obscure. But the rooms and other Macau-based services are assumed to be a major channel for money flowing illegally out of China – and North Korea.

Fallows also wrote one of my favorite quotes ever summarizing doing business in China:

“These standards include such vague-sounding principles as rule of law, transparency, and accountability, which in practice mean: Can you trust a contract? Can you win a lawsuit? Do you know who’s really making a decision? Will the decision be made in favor of whoever provides a “red envelope” containing the biggest bribe? How many sets of books should a company be keeping, anyway? How much money laundering is too much?”
“Postcards from Tomorrow Square” p108

• You’re ssh tunnel to your server outside the GFW will be active *whenever* your online
• When you need to bypass the GFW, simply select “SSH” from your locations menu
• When you don’t need to use your proxy, simply switch your location back to Automatic

What you need:

• SSH access to a server outside the GFW (See: ServerAge in Hong Kong)
• SSH Key Authentication configured (See: ssh-keygen, id_pub.rsa and ~/.ssh/authorized_keys)
• AutoSSH to auto-restart SSH sessions and keep SSH on forever (See: OS X Binary or Source)
• Instructions assume your on Mac OS X, but can be applied to any version of Linux

Configuring SSH key based authentication can be very difficult if you haven’t configured it previously. The idea is:

• Generate a key set on your local computer (with ssh-keygen on the local system)
• The Key Set will make two files on your hard drive, a “Private Key” and a “Public Key” (~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub on the local system)
• Note that the “Private Key” is many “lines” long, but the “Public Key” is a single line (no newlines/returns)
• The server that you’re logging into keeps a list of keys that are authorized to access the system (in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the server)
• Copy the single line of your “public key” file onto any line of your “authorized keys” file.
• Make sure the permissions of both your public keys and private keys are “correct”. “Insecure” file permissions are the most common cause of SSH key’s failing to authenticate.
• Always keep your .ssh dir and all your keys chmodded to 700 and 600 respectively.
• Use “ssh -vvv” if you have trouble logging in, this will give you diagnostic output.

Verify that you’re able to connect to the system you’ll be using to proxy via SSH.

If you’ve got the Apple Developer Tools installed, then go directly to the AutoSSH website, download the source, compile and install. In case you don’t, I’ve complied a copy that you can download here.

Just extract with:

tar zxvf autossh.tgz -C /

Use foreground mode to verify that you’re able to connect to the system of your choice via AutoSSH.

autossh -M 19999 -D 9999 -N example.com

Use cURL to verify that your proxy is working

curl —socks4a localhost:9999 -v www.facebook.com

Now that your proxy is online, the next step is to define a new location in your Mac OS X “Network” Profiles.

In System Preferences / Network:

• From the Locations dropdown choose “Edit Locations” then add a new location called “SSH”
  
• Return to the main Network window and choose “Advanced” then “Proxies”
  
• Enable “SOCKS Proxy” setting the proxy server to “localhost” and port “9999”
  
• Under bypass proxy setting for these hosts and domains, you can enter any sites that will be slowed down by proxing via your SSH connection:
  

  *.local, 169.254/16, *.cn, *.163.com, *.baidu.com, *.youku.com, *.toudou.com, *.sina.com, *.chinesepod.com

Last, we just need to configure autossh to start when our Mac boots up. We’ll use a Login Hook so that the script will run regardless of which user logs in.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2420

You’ll need to create the shell script to use as the Login Hook, save it as /usr/local/bin/loginhook, and make it executable (chmod 755).

    #! /bin/bash</p>

<pre><code>if [ &amp;quot;$(ps ax | grep autossh | grep -vc grep)&amp;quot; -lt 1 ]; then
  sudo -u {USER} /usr/local/bin/autossh -f -M 19999 -D 9999 -N -o ServerAliveInterval=3 {SERVER}
fi
</code></pre>

<p>

If you have trouble connecting and need to debug the autossh line, first try disabling the “-f” so that the program runs in the foreground and returns output. If you need to send the output to a log file, you can edit the loginhook script to something like:

sudo -u {USER} autossh -M 19999 -D 9999 -N {SERVER} 2&>1 >> /tmp/loginhook.log

(Note that you’ll need to replace {USER} with the short name of the user account that is providing the SSH public key and {SERVER} with the host your connecting to)

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /usr/local/bin/loginhook

If your ever in doubt as to weather or not your new Proxy is running correctly, save the following script as /usr/local/bin/gfw. Run this script to instantly check on the status of your proxy.

curl --socks4a localhost:9999 -v www.facebook.com

Reboot, Test and Enjoy!

China Unicom’s “3G Network” goes live on 10/1 (National Day).

Now is the time to stock up on CHU.

Photos from signing ceremony.

Groundbreaking for the US pavilion will be on July 17 at 10:30 AM. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke will be present.

See: histogram_sly.ppt

－万圣节 (Oct 31st Halloween)
－圣诞夜 (Dec 24th Christmas Eve)
－圣诞节 (Dec 25th Christmas Night)
－元旦前夕 (Dec 31st New Years Eve)
－春节（春节中有几个日子很热闹）
－情人节（Feb 14th Valentines)
－国庆节（Oct 1st)

等一下会添加更多节日。。。

Summary

We often change our decisions and judgments to conform with normative group behavior. However, the neural mechanisms of social conformity remain unclear. Here we show, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, that conformity is based on mechanisms that comply with principles of reinforcement learning. We found that individual judgments of facial attractiveness are adjusted in line with group opinion. Conflict with group opinion triggered neuronal response in the rostral cingulate zone and the ventral striatum similar to the prediction error signal suggested by neuroscientific models of reinforcement learning. The amplitude of the conflict-related signal predicted subsequent conforming behavioral adjustments. Furthermore, the individual amplitude of the conflict-related signal in the ventral striatum correlated with differences in conforming behavior across subjects. These findings provide evidence that social group norms evoke conformity via learning mechanisms reflected in the activity of the rostral cingulate zone and ventral striatum.

Translation: Agreeing with people makes you feel high.

November, December and January have been too busy and too cold…

See the complete list:

- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3362603.stm