The Recession is A Year Old

Yes, we have been in a recession for a year—even though real GDP is up. The current downturn began in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Part of the reason why we are in this mess is that GDP and productivity growth looked reassuringly high in most of this decade. That helped convince banks to keep lending—even as real wages were falling—and reassured the Fed that everything was okay.

For the foreseeable future, globalization will distort real GDP growth so much that it is no longer a reliable guide for policy. If it feels like a bad slump, it is—even if GDP says differently

Internet Routing in Space (IRIS)

"By the time astronauts make humanity's next giant leap, they may well be getting their e-mail via a dot-space address. "

Internet Routing in Space, also known as IRIS, is a project being conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense to place an IP (Internet protocol) router on a geostationary satellite. The project is intended for military communications but may eventually be used by the private sector as well. If widely implemented, this technology has the potential to dramatically increase flexibility and traffic handling capability compared with existing satellite Internet systems.

In the IRIS system, the satellite will receive packets directly from the source and transmit them directly to the destination, eliminating all intermediate surface nodes and requiring only one round trip to the satellite. This will reduce the latency, simplify the system, improve reliability and lower the overall maintenance cost.

The IRIS project is scheduled to be completed and the satellite launched in 2009. Cisco Systems is designing the software for the on-board router. The hardware is being built by Intelsat, the largest provider of fixed satellite services worldwide. Overall coordination will be done by the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency.

你可以成佛，卻不能成為悉達多: 吳九箴

佛法在世間，不離世間覺。

修行是你個人的功課，關佛什麼事？

人生是苦，這是佛陀的體悟，如果你沒有自己去人生苦海裡痛苦一番，你永遠不知苦是什麼滋味，佛陀的苦是佛陀的，永遠不可能是你的。同樣的，佛陀的覺悟和快樂，也是屬於佛陀自己的，如果你不自己去體驗、觀照，你永遠不知道佛陀的悟和快樂是怎麼一回事，頂多是多唸幾次經，根據佛經的描述，自己用頭腦想像罷了。

也希望大家一起推廣「自力覺醒」這個理念，不分宗教、種族、國籍或身份，人人可用，人人都可覺醒，因為，佛說的眾生皆有佛性，是真實不虛的真理，如果你也看見這個真理，就先從自己開始，去找回自己的本來面目吧！

Petaflop, Transforming Science

"Breaking the petaflop barrier, a feat that seemed astronomical just two years ago, won't just allow faster computations. These computers will enable entirely new types of science that couldn't have been done before."

A new crop of supercomputers is breaking down the petaflop speed barrier, pushing high-performance computing into a new realm that could change science more profoundly than at any time since Galileo, leading researchers say.

In June, 2008, IBM's Roadrunner supercomputer was the first to break what has been called "the petaflop barrier." In November 2008, when the annual rankings of the Top 500 supercomputers were released, there were two computers to do so. At 1.105 petaflops, Roadrunner retained its top place from the previous list, ahead of Cray's Jaguar, which ran at 1.059 petaflops.

Petaflop computing will enable much more accurate modeling of complex systems. Applications are expected to include real-time nuclear magnetic resonance imaging during surgery, computer-based drug design, astrophysical simulation, the modeling of environmental pollution, and the study of long-term climate changes.

Today's computer scientists can barely contain their excitement as they imagine what is now possible. "It's very exciting to be alive today and doing computer science. Now we can do some spectacular things."

Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring (Movie)

A stunning tale of now and Zen

A Bumpy road to adulthood -- and to enlightenment

It's a Buddhist fable made to last, a masterful portrait of the seasons of a life. Combining visual luster and stunning emotion, it endorses the heartening idea that a spirit needs not be pristine to be worthy. The film is as spare and unvarnished as a wooden temple floating on a lake, but its reflections run deep, and it can ripple your thoughts for months.

The plot is deceptively simple. Each season is a chapter in the young monk's life, separated by a decade or so.

In Buddhism, we know the "noble truth" that desire is the root cause of suffering, that craving nothing is the path to everything. The young monk learns this the hard, human way, leaving the island and returning years later, still carrying that invisible stone. As the symbolic door represents self-respect more than religious reverence. By circumventing it, the young man is ultimately betraying himself.

Shot in the environs of a 200-year-old man-made body of water in Korea's North province, "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. . . and Spring" has a rural beauty so timeless that it's a shock when the director drops hints that we're in the present day. The images turn pungent, hyperreal, and mythic over the course of the decades: The boat that ferries the elder monk to shore becomes both a symbol and a plain character in its own right, as does the ornamental gate on the shore, and the wintry ice that chokes both. A cat's tail becomes a calligraphy pen; a foundling child becomes a savior; the seasons swing 'round as cyclic existence in samsara.

Gettysburg (Movie)

Fate made them soldiers;

War made them brothers;

Courage made them heroes.

"Gettysburg" avoids all of those war movie cliches. This is a film, pure and simple, about the Battle of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863, about the strategies, calculations, mistakes and heroism that turned the tide of the Civil War decisively against the South.

With stars such as Martin Sheen (Robert E. Lee), Jeff Daniels (Joshua Chamberlain), and Sam Elliot (Kentucy-born,Union Calvary General Buford), there's plenty of talent on board to pull it off. Sheen's Lee is surprisingly convincing, and Daniels is outstanding as the principled Chamberlain. Yes, it's long but it's also very engaging.

And most of all, we experience the horrifying reality of battle itself. What Lee called on his men to do was walk a mile across open ground, in the face of withering fire, and engage Union troops who were fortified behind a stone wall. That they would do this - that they still had the will to fight when they got there - is evidence of the deep, almost fanatical conviction that both sides brought into the war.

It has drama, action and character development. An important movie which also happens to entertain! Although it gave me chills with some war scenes, I still highly recommend it for movie-goers.

Noise Violators Sentenced to Listen to Barry Manilow

Barry Manilow's "I Write the Songs" may begin with the line, "I've been alive forever,"' but for noise ordinance violators, listening to Manilow may feel like forever.

Fort Lupton Municipal Judge Paul Sacco says his novel punishment of forcing noise violators to listen to music they don't like for one hour has cut down on the number of repeat offenders in this northwestern Colorado prairie town. About four times a year, those who plead guilty to noise ordinance violations are required to sit in a room and listen to music from the likes of Manilow, Barney the Dinosaur, and The Platters' crooning "Only You".

"These people should have to listen to music they don't like," said Judge Paul Sacco. Sacco began the program years ago when he noticed that many of the repeat offenders simply showed up at his courtroom to pay their fine with cash.

Fantastic idea. Don't you think?