McDonald’s takes hit from Japanese PC police

Here’s an interesting cross-cultural take on political correctness courtesy of Japan Times and latest mascot for McDonald’s (yeah, that McDonald’s) Japan.

From the link:

If you want to sell stuff, it helps to have a recognizable mascot representing your company. Disney has Mickey Mouse, Sanrio Hello Kitty, Studio Ghibli Totoro. These imaginary characters grace many a product and ad campaign.

However, McDonald’s Japan dropped a clanger on Aug. 10 with its new burger meister, Mr. James.

Fronting the Nippon All Stars campaign (American hamburgers with a Japanese twist) for three months is a bespectacled, grinning Caucasian wearing a mismatched red shirt and chinos. Created by ad agency Dentsu, Mr. James is touring the burghers of Japan offering money for photo ops. His blog effuses perpetual wonderment at all things Japanese. His obsession is McDonald’s: He’s a burger nerd.

Not necessarily a problem so far. But some non-Japanese residents have protested that this (human, not imaginary) character perpetuates Japanese stereotypes about other humans — foreigners.

Mr. James (defying standard etiquette of addressing adults with “last name plussan,” reflecting how Japanese manners aren’t always applied to Caucasians) effuses in fluent katakana only. Everything is in broken, accented Japanese. “Watakushi Nippon daisuki,” etc.

What’s the matter? Put the shoe on the other foot. Imagine McDonald’s, a multinational that has long promoted cultural diversity, launching a McAsia Menu in America featuring a deep-bowing, grimacing Asian in a bathrobe and platform sandals saying “Me likee McFlied Lice!” or “So solly, prease skosh honorable teriyaki sandrich?”

The health care debate is officially out of hand

Everyone needs to take this “discussion” down several notches. At least one grumpy old person now really has something to yell about.

From the first link:

California authorities say a clash between opponents and supporters of health care reform ended with one man biting off another man’s finger.

Ventura County Sheriff‘s Capt. Frank O’Hanlon says about 100 people demonstrating in favor of health care reforms rallied Wednesday night on a street corner. One protester walked across the street to confront about 25 counter-demonstrators.

O’Hanlon says the man got into an argument and fist fight, during which he bit off the left pinky of a 65-year-old man who opposed health care reform.

A hospital spokeswoman says the man lost half the finger, but doctors reattached it and he was sent home the same night.

(Hat tip: the Daily Dish)

Business travelers want inflight wi-fi

This is one straight from the news department of, “No duh!”

From the link:

Three-quarters of frequent business travelers said in a survey they would choose an airline based on whether a flight offers Wi-Fi, with half saying they would even move a reservation by a day to get access to in-flight Wi-Fi.

he survey, conducted by Wakefield Research for the Wi-Fi Alliance, bolsters the move by at least eight U.S. airlines to equip their fleets with Wi-Fi. Already, more than 500 planes offer Wi-Fi and several major airlines are hurrying to get their entire fleets equipped, partly so that passengers will pick their airline over a competitor’s.

The survey involved 480 frequent business travelers, of whom 150 had used in-flight Wi-Fi in early August.

Nearly all the respondents, 95%, said in-flight Wi-Fi access would make them more productive, and half reported that they had often taken a red-eye flight so they could remain reachable during business hours.

Sony Vaio’s pre-loaded with Google Chrome

Not just pre-loaded, but set as the default web browser. I’m deep into a week-long Chrome test run and I have to say I’ve been very, very impressed. So impressed unless something really wonky happens Google Chrome is going to be my default browser going forward.

From the Technology Review link:

Sony Corp. is giving Google Inc.’s fledging Chrome browser a boost by installing it as the primary browser on Vaio-brand computers sold in the United States and Europe.

The Sony devices continue to provide Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer — the world’s most widely used Web browser — allowing users to have a choice between the two. But many users stick with the browser that is preset as the default, meaning they are likely to experience Chrome as their primary — perhaps only — gateway to the Web.

Sony is the first PC maker to sell computers with Chrome pre-installed. Sony said Wednesday it has been doing so on Vaio computers in the U.S. and Europe since May.

NanoPen to improve nanotech manufacturing

Nanotech news from the American Chemical Society:

‘NanoPen’ may write new chapter in nanotechnology manufacturing

		IMAGE: These highly-magnified images are composed of tiny nanoparticles produced by a “NanoPen. “ Click here for more information.

Researchers in California are reporting development of a so-called “NanoPen” that could provide a quick, convenient way of laying down patterns of nanoparticles — from wires to circuits — for making futuristic electronic devices, medical diagnostic tests, and other much-anticipated nanotech applications. A report on the device, which helps solve a long-standing challenge in nanotechnology, appeared in ACS’ Nano Letters, a monthly journal.

In the new study, Ming Wu and colleagues point out that researchers have already developed several different techniques for producing patterns of nanoparticles, which are barely 1/50,000th the width of a human hair. But current techniques tend to be too complex and slow. They require bulky instrumentation and take minutes or even hours to complete. These techniques also require the use of very high temperatures to apply the nanostructures to their target surfaces. Such limitations prevent widespread application of such techniques, the researchers say.

The scientists say their NanoPen solves these problems. In lab studies, the researchers used it to deposit various nanoparticles into specific patterns in the presence of relatively low light and temperature intensities. The process, which requires the use of special “photoconductive” surfaces, takes only seconds to complete, they note. Manufacturers can adjust the size and density of the patterns by adjusting the voltage, light intensity, and exposure time applied during the process, the researchers say.

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ARTICLE #4 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
“NanoPen: Dynamic, Low-Power, and Light-Actuated Patterning of Nanoparticles”

DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE: http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/nl901239a

NYT calls for Cheney’s scalp

Well not quite, but pretty darn close. This New York Times editorial is asking for far reaching investigation into the Bush 43 torture regime and specifically calls out Dick Cheney for his self-admitted role in this disgraceful period of United States history.

Quite a turnaround from a newspaper that notoriously refused to use the word “torture” with U.S. activities for many, many years.

From the first link:

After the C.I.A. inspector general’s report on prisoner interrogation was released last week, former Vice President Dick Cheney settled into his usual seat on Fox News to express his outrage — not at the illegal and immoral behavior laid out in the report, of course, but at the idea that anyone would object to torturing prisoners. He was especially vexed that the Obama administration was beginning an investigation.

In Mr. Cheney’s view, it is not just those who followed orders and stuck to the interrogation rules set down by President George Bush’s Justice Department who should be sheltered from accountability. He said he also had no problem with those who disobeyed their orders and exceeded the guidelines.

It’s easy to understand Mr. Cheney’s aversion to the investigation that Attorney General Eric Holder ordered last week. On Fox, Mr. Cheney said it was hard to imagine it stopping with the interrogators. He’s right.

The government owes Americans a full investigation into the orders to approve torture, abuse and illegal, secret detention, as well as the twisted legal briefs that justified those policies. Congress and the White House also need to look into illegal wiretapping and the practice of sending prisoners to other countries to be tortured.

Mr. Cheney was at the center of each of these insults to this country’s Constitution, its judicial system and its bedrock democratic values. To defend himself, he offers a twisted version of history:

Update — The Daily Dish ran a post today clarifying that the main issue is the NYT news department, and not the editorial board, avoiding the word “torture” in context of U.S. activities that amount to, well, torture.

Pee + ash = fertilizer

You too can make your own environmentally-friendly fertilizer …

Seriously though, this sounds pretty effective for easy to create organic plant food.

The release:

Sustainable fertilizer: Urine and wood ash produce large harvest

		IMAGE: Human urine and wood ash appear to make a potent, inexpensive fertilizer combination for boosting the productivity of food crops, scientists say. Click here for more information.

Results of the first study evaluating the use of human urine mixed with wood ash as a fertilizer for food crops has found that the combination can be substituted for costly synthetic fertilizers to produce bumper crops of tomatoes without introducing any risk of disease for consumers. The study appears in the current issue of ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication.

In the study, Surendra Pradhan and colleagues point out that urine, a good source of nitrogen, has been successfully used to fertilize cucumber, corn, cabbage, and other crops. Only a few studies, however, have investigated the use of wood ash, which is rich in minerals and also reduces the acidity of certain soils. Scientists have not reported on the combinaton of urine and wood ash, they say.

The new study found that plants fertilized with urine produced four times more tomatoes than nonfertilized plants and as much as plants given synthetic fertilizer. Urine plus wood ash produced almost as great a yield, with the added benefit of reducing the acidity of acid soils. “The results suggest that urine with or without wood ash can be used as a substitute for mineral fertilizer to increase the yields of tomato without posing any microbial or chemical risks,” the report says.

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RTICLE #2 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
“Stored Human Urine Supplemented with Wood Ash as Fertilizer in Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) Cultivation and Its Impacts on Fruit Yield and Quality”

DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE: http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/jf9018917

Monetizing YouTube …

… through streaming movie rental. Interesting idea since YouTube is currently something of a monetary black hole with massive bandwidth costs.

From the WSJ link:

Google Inc.’s YouTube is in discussions with major movie studios about allowing users to stream movies on a rental basis, according to people familiar with the company’s plans, marking one of the video giant’s first moves toward charging for content instead of making it available free with advertising.

While some studios already make full-length movies available on YouTube, they tend to be older, lesser-known titles. Now YouTube is talking to Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.,Sony Corp. and Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. about integrating newer titles into the existing YouTube site.

Most newer titles would carry a rental charge. In some cases, these titles might be available the same day they come out on DVD. It is unclear to what extent older movies or television shows will be part of the new agreements.

A YouTube spokesman said the company is always working to expand on “its great relationships with movie studios and on the selection and types of videos we offer our community.”

While details vary from studio to studio, generally speaking the agreements would allow consumers to stream movies for a fee. However, in some cases, the movies would be available the same way that they have been previously on YouTube — free, with advertising.

Negotiations are continuing and there are no guarantees a deal will be struck. Many details remain in flux, including whether users also will eventually be able to download movies.

Magnetic graphene

Graphene news from Virginia Commonwealth University:

Researchers design new graphene-based, nano-material with magnetic properties

A possible pathway to simply synthesize ferromagnetic graphene

Ferromagnetic Graphone Sheet. Puru Jena/VCU.

An international team of researchers has designed a new graphite-based, magnetic nano-material that acts as a semiconductor and could help material scientists create the next generation of electronic devices like microchips.

The team of researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University; Peking University in Beijing, China; the Chinese Academy of Science in Shanghai, China; and Tohoku University in Sedai, Japan; used theoretical computer modeling to design the new material they called graphone, which is derived from an existing material known as graphene.

Graphene, created by scientists five years ago, is 200 times stronger than steel, its electrons are highly mobile and it has unique optical and transport properties. Some experts believe that graphene may be more versatile than carbon nanotubes, and the ability to make graphene magnetic adds to its potential for novel applications in spintronics. Spintronics is a process using electron spin to synthesize new devices for memory and data processing.

Although graphene’s properties can be significantly modified by introducing defects and by saturating with hydrogen, it has been very difficult for scientists to manipulate the structure to make it magnetic.

“The new material we are predicting – graphone – makes graphene magnetic simply by controlling the amount of hydrogen coverage – basically, how much hydrogen is put on graphene. It avoids previous difficulties associated with the synthesis of magnetic graphene,” said Puru Jena, Ph.D., distinguished professor in the VCU Department of Physics.

“There are many possibilities for engineering new functional materials simply by changing their composition and structure. Our findings may guide researchers in the future to discover this material in the laboratory and to explore its potential technological applications,” said Jena.

“One of the important impacts of this research is that semi-hydrogenation provides us a very unique way to tailor magnetism. The resulting ferromagnetic graphone sheet will have unprecedented possibilities for the applications of graphene-based materials,” said Qiang Sun, Ph.D., research associate professor with the VCU team.

The study appeared online Aug. 31 in the journal Nano Letters, a publication of the American Chemical Society. The work was supported by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, The National Science Foundation and by the U.S. Department of Energy. Read the article abstract here.

The first author of this paper is Jian Zhou, a Ph.D. student at Peking University. The other authors include Qian Wang, Ph.D., a research associate professor at VCU; Xiaoshuan Chen, Ph.D., a professor at the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics; and Yoshiyuki Kawazoe, Ph.D.,  a professor at Tohoku University.

About VCU and the VCU Medical Center:

Virginia Commonwealth University is the largest university in Virginia with national and international rankings in sponsored research. Located on two downtown campuses in Richmond, VCU enrolls 32,000 students in 205 certificate and degree programs in the arts, sciences and humanities. Sixty-five of the programs are unique in Virginia, many of them crossing the disciplines of VCU’s 15 schools and one college. MCV Hospitals and the health sciences schools of Virginia Commonwealth University compose the VCU Medical Center, one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers. For more, see www.vcu.edu.

Small business and capitalization

Looks like entrepreneurs are turning more often to alternate finance in this weak credit and economic climate.

From the link:

The credit binge and the crash that followed have left entrepreneurs in a bind. Banks, faced with rising defaults, dramatically tightened lending standards to reduce their risk. Small business owners who borrowed liberally when credit was easy were blindsided by the downturn, and many now find their credit scores wrecked. Those with little debt on their books but facing slipping sales are also perceived as risky: They’re shut out of traditional loans and even credit cards, and represent a growing market of businesses that banks won’t touch.

Enter the alternative finance companies. They include asset-based lenders (which make secured loans for purchases of equipment or inventory), factors (which buy unpaid invoices at a discount), and merchant cash advance providers (which pay up front for the right to collect a share of a retailer’s future credit-card sales). These sources of funds generally cost more, sometimes much more, than bank credit. But businesses that survived the recession will need to buy inventory and equipment, expand operations, and hire workers during a recovery—and they are finding few other options to fund their growth.

U.S. productivity up to 2003 level

Food for economic thought:

U.S. non-farm productivity was stronger than initially thought in the second quarter as companies slashed costs to protect profits, data showed on Wednesday.

The Labor Department said non-farm productivity rose at a 6.6% annual rate, rather than the 6.4% pace it reported last month. That was the biggest increase since the third quarter of 2003.

Productivity rose at a 0.3% pace in the first quarter.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast productivity, which measures the hourly output per worker, rising at a 6.4% rate in the second quarter.

Despite the increased productivity, output fell at a 1.5% rate in the second quarter, the department said, unchanged from its previous estimate, as over 6 million jobs have been cut since the recession began in December 2007. Output, measured on a year-on-year basis, was 5.5% lower.

Economic sanctions, Google Ads and propping up despots

Interesting bit of analysis on the unintended consequences of government sanctions against out-of-favor regimes.

From the link:

Recently I’ve been studying the Iranian new media space in order to understand its key players and how they all relate to each other. I had a hunch that Twitter isn’t one of them and so far my findings confirm it. But something else has recently caught my attention:  popular Iranian social news sites do not display Google Ads. This seemed strange to me, because many of them have high traffic and would probably generate a lot of cash this way.

After researching the issue, I found out that Google doesn’t allow to target visitors from Iran (as well as Cuba, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) because of – you guessed it – the economic sanctions imposed by the US government. Now, this is something that I entirely cannot understand: how exactly would Google AdSense strengthen the Iranian regime? The Iranian state media doesn’t need to use Google Ads to generate its revenue: they are lavishly funded by the state.

The only people who suffer because of these sanctions are the Iranian Web entrepreneurs who are cut off from a guaranteed source of funding. The appearance of Google Ads as a source of funding for small-scale Web ventures has been one of the key drivers of the Web2.0 era. In my professional experience in Eastern Europe, projects that were built with Google Ads and other business models in mind have usually fared much better than those that only relied on external non-profit funding.

(Hat tip: the Daily Dish)

The adults are now running the web 2.0 asylum

In news that isn’t all that surprising at this point, but would have been a jaw-dropper as recently as three, or so, years ago, over 34s dominate social networking websites. Web 2.0 has come a long ways from the heyday of MySpace.

From the link:

Companies can begin to target people over the age of 34 with media campaigns that leverage social networks as that age group has become the largest segment using Facebook, Twitter and other social media, a new study from Forrester Research claims.

While people in their teens and 20s were the first to adopt social networks for everyday use, they aren’t just for the younger crowd anymore, according to the report, “The Broad Reach of Social Networks,” by Forrester analyst Sean Corcoran. The report is based on a May 2009 survey of 4,455 people between the ages of 18 and 88 in the U.S.

“Much of the growth in social networks today comes from people older than 34,” he wrote. Compared with last year, adults over the age of 34 increased their participation in social networks by more than 60 percent. “Now more than half of adults ages 35 to 44 are in social networks,” Corcoran wrote.

People in their 40s and 50s still lag behind this age group in participation, but they, too, are beginning to use social networks more than in the past, the study found. And even adults 55 and older are starting to share and connect more online, Corcoran wrote.

“Seventy percent of online adults ages 55 and older tell us they tap social tools at least once a month; 26 percent use social networks and 12 percent create social content,” he wrote. “As a result, social applications geared toward older adults will now reach a healthy chunk of their audience.”

And here’s an interesting psychographic breakdown of social networkers:

Corcoran categorizes people who use social networks as “creators,” or people who write blogs and upload audio and video or post stories on social networks; “critics,” those who take part in online discussions; “collectors,” or people who organize online content by using RSS feeds and sites like “Digg” to rate content; “joiners,” or people who actually subscribe to social networks; and “spectators,” those who view user-generated content online.

Blame quantum amnesia for lack of time travel

Via KurzweilAI.net — And if quantum amnesia is a real phenomena without a solution time travel would be a one-way affair. I’m not sure if anyone would sign up for a one=way ticket to an uncertain future.

Quantum amnesia gives time its arrow

NewScientist Physics & Math, Aug. 26, 2009 The forward-only direction of time is the result of quantum-mechanical amnesia that erases any trace thattime has moved backwards, says Lorenzo Maccone of MIT. Read Original Article>>

The internet turns forty

People carry on about how it’s well past the year 2000 and just exactly where is the future we all imagined — flying cars, jet packs, the works.

Well, think about what someone from 1985 would say about pretty much everyone carrying tiny devices that combine cordless phones, mini-televisions, the internet, etc. Put their jaw back in place and go to a hoary old desktop computer with a broadband connection. The computer might look somewhat similar, but even a user of the internet (probably a scientist or academic) from that year would be bowled over by the sheer volume of information, rich media and connectivity availble today.

From the link:

Goofy videos weren’t on the minds of Len Kleinrock and his team at UCLA when they began tests 40 years ago on what would become the Internet. Neither was social networking, for that matter, nor were most of the other easy-to-use applications that have drawn more than a billion people online.

Instead the researchers sought to create an open network for freely exchanging information, an openness that ultimately spurred the innovation that would later spawn the likes of YouTube, Facebookand the World Wide Web.

There’s still plenty of room for innovation today, yet the openness fostering it may be eroding. While the Internet is more widely available and faster than ever, artificial barriers threaten to constrict its growth.

Call it a mid-life crisis.

A variety of factors are to blame. Spam and hacking attacks force network operators to erect security firewalls. Authoritarian regimes block access to many sites and services within their borders. And commercial considerations spur policies that can thwart rivals, particularly on mobile devices like the iPhone.

“There is more freedom for the typical Internet user to play, to communicate, to shop — more opportunities than ever before,” saidJonathan Zittrain, a law professor and co-founder of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. “On the worrisome side, there are some longer-term trends that are making it much more possible (for information) to be controlled.”

Few were paying attention back on Sept. 2, 1969, when about 20 people gathered in Kleinrock’s lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, to watch as two bulky computers passed meaningless test data through a 15-foot gray cable.

IRS to use mortgage data to track down cheaters

The IRS has really been stepping up enforcement over the last couple of years. Sometimes (rarely really) you get the warm and fuzzy IRS, other times you get the buzzsaw.

I do agree with the point made below on the odd timing of this potential tax cheat catching tool.

From the link:

The Internal Revenue Service might scrutinize mortgage interest data more closely to help catch tax cheats, after prompting from an IRS auditor.

The tax collector said it will study whether it should make greater use of mortgage interest data provided to the IRS by banks, to target audits against individuals who do not file tax returns, according to a letter released Monday by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

However, a stepped-up IRS focus on homeowners whose reported income falls below their mortgage interest obligations could attract criticism at a time when many have fallen behind on mortgage payments.