Trans-Siberian Highway

Motivated by China's plan to rebuild the silk road, Russia Russian Railways president Vladimir Yakunin has proposed a plan for a massive trans-Siberian highway to link America. Yakunin said the road would connect Russia with North America via Russia's far eastern Chukotka region, across the Bering Strait and into Alaska's Seward Peninsula, the CNN reported based on the Siberian Times dated 23 March 2015. According to the Alaska Public Lands Information Centers, the shortest distance between mainland Russia and mainland Alaska is approximately 88 kilometers (55 miles).

The project is dubbed the Trans-Eurasian Belt Development (TEPR). It will put up a new train network and oil and gas pipelines alongside the existing Trans-Siberian Railway. The distance between Russia's western and eastern borders is roughly 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles). The main route of the Trans-Siberian railway runs from Moscow to Vladivostok and covers 9,258 kilometers.

The main obstacle would be the isolated region of Alaska. Nome would be the nearest town after crossing the Bearing Strait. The next major city would be Fairbanks which is separate by 836 kilometers (520 miles) of desolate terrain. Being the second largest city in Alaska, Canada and 48 contiguous U.S. states can be reached by road. On the European side CNN fancifully calculated the trip from London to Alaska via Moscow might cover about 12,978 kilometers (8,064 miles). Assuming a road to Nome were ever built a fantasy road trip from London to New York might cover 20,777 kilometers (12,910 miles).

Anything Under the Sun: Gambling Requires Skills

REBLOG>Anything Under the Sun: Gambling Requires Skills

SavySeph's Original Blog

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I tried to convince my readers that gambling requires skill. There are tons of researches that would conclude otherwise. In a recent (2012) study Professor Gerhard Meyer, of the University of Bremen's Institute of Psychology and Cognition Research, suggested that poker was chiefly a game of chance. There were 300 participants in Prof Meyer's research. They played 60 hands poker each, on tables of six. The players were classified as 'expert' and 'average' players based on their ability to make money from good, bad and average hands. The research found that 'expert' players lost less money on bad hands, but did no better than 'average' players on mediocre hands - and made slightly less on good ones. Prof Meyer concluded that 'poker players overestimate the skill factor in their play'.

A research studied 456 million hands of poker from a year's worth of online game. In just a few hands the better-performing players fared better half the time. Their success rate gradually increased until they played 1,471 hands. Given that frequency, they could do better at least 75 per cent of the time. Dr Dennie van Dolder, of the University of Nottingham's School of Economics, said the study showed 'skilled players will consistently outperform less skilled players if enough hands...are played.'

Researchers from the University of Nottingham, working with colleagues from Erasmus University Rotterdam and VU University Amsterdam, also noted that players who finished in the top one per cent in the first half of the year were 12 times more likely than others to repeat the feat in the second half. Writer and TV presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell, one of Britain's top professional players, has won more than £1.5m - including £400,000 at a single event. Dr van Dolder said, "It's up to legislators to decide whether the role of chance diminishes fast enough for poker to be considered a game of skill," the Daily Mail reported on 25 March 2015.

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My Comments

The researchers think the taxman will pounce on poker player.

Light and Easy Talk: Middle-class Kids' Poor Academics

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Veronica Glowsome's Original Blog

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According to the Department of Education 40% of middle-class college entrants who were high school graduates in 2004 had obtained bachelor's degrees by 2012. This implies that the ability to maintain status quo or achieve upward social mobility on the economic ladder is endangered. A college degree used to be a stepping stone to the middle class. Today had become a prerequisite to sustain the status.

The reasons for the failure were not known as researchers focus were on lower-income children getting through college. The Department of Education tracks high school graduates for the year 2004 whose families earned between $46,000 and $99,000 for the first case periodically check on them until 2012. In the second study they kept track of freshmen in 2003 from families with incomes between $60,000 and $92,000 and check on them until 2009. Both stats found that fewer than half leaving with a bachelor's degree. The first case recorded 40 percent graduated while the second chalked 45 percent.

Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce said bachelor degree holders earn $2.3 million over their lifetime, on average. That's $600,000 more than someone with an associate degree and $800,000 more than those who left college with no diploma. "It's a lot harder to maintain your middle class status without a degree," Carnevale told CNN Money on 25 March 2015.

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My Comments

I guess intelligence is dwindling with each generation. This is a serious problem.

The Corporate Spy Game

Insider threat is an expansive affair for companies where information is vital for business. "In an embarrassing episode for Morgan Stanley, the bank dismissed an employee earlier this year for taking information about an estimated 350,000 clients of its wealth-management division [Bloomberg 12 March 2015]." The dangers of hiring a Trojan Horse is ever-present in this business.

Professional Input

This Bloomberg article had given some insights on corporate espionage. It reported that about 20 companies sell tools to monitor employee behavior. Dune Lawrence, Bloomberg's journalist, interviewed some players that sells software to spy on your employee. Most of them were former FBI agents and their inputs can be used to understand the espionage game.

Financial Stresses

Stroz Friedberg, a New York-based consulting firm, specializes in digital forensics. They use linguistic and behavioral analysis techniques developed by the FBI. It evaluates the content of employees e-mails and other communications. Warning will be triggered if terms indicating financial stresses were encountered. "Late rent" or "medical bills" are cited as instances of keywords the software seeks.

Behavioral Patterns

Employees activities were monitored to create a profile of each employee and establish a "normal" behavior. Suspicious activities will be flag when there is a deviation from the norm. An algorithm is used to place to risk score for users based on what danger they may pose to the organization. Employees getting ready to leave with highly sensitive data start doing things they hadn’t before, such as changing their e-mail habits or downloading thousands of documents from a database.

Privacy Issues

Edward Stroz, founder Stroz Friedberg and a former FBI agent, says companies have found this idea too intrusive in the past but the perception had changed in the past year. Like it or not, competitors will send spies to get information from the inside. They also prey on dissatisfied employes or those with financial stresses. Some form of monitor is better than none at all. Conscience had Securonix, a spy on employee software firm based in Los Angeles, raising the question on how much is too much. Dune Lawrence recorded Igor Baikalov, a former security executive at Bank of America and chief scientist at Securonix, with this dilemma.

New Human Species

Discovery at Penghu

Local fishermen in the Penghu Channel, 15 miles off the Taiwanese coast, netted in a jawbone with large teeth.

Comparing the Discovery

The jawbone doesn't seem to match any other genus of early humans.



Picture from Dr. Yousuke Kaifu, an anthropologist at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo showing the jawbone discover in Penghu (center, Homo Erectus' jawbone from Java (left), and Homo Erectus jawbone from China (right).

The Penghu 1

The jawbone name "Penghu 1" by experts is believe to it existed in a time range of 200,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Source : MailOnline

Don't Eat Three Meals A Day

REBLOG> Carpe Diem: Seize the Day: Don't Eat Three Meals A Day:

Phil Andows' Original Blog

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Partaking three meals a day is now termed as a racist act. Research had shown that taking breakfast had zero effect on metabolism. Historian Abigail Carroll, author of the book Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal, told Kiera Butler, senior editor at Mother Jones that the thrice-daily eating schedule was brought to North America by European settlers.

"Civilized" Eating Habits.

The Europeans continued to eat at ridged times when they settled in America. Their meals were made up of light meal in the morning, a heavier cooked meal at midday, and a meal similar to the first later in the day. In contrast, the native eating times and portion varied according to the season. Since this eating pattern is similar to animals, the settlers reasoned that the natives were uncivilized.

Change in Lifestyle and Eating Habits

Meat was added to breakfast and dinner as the settlers prosper. The industrial revolution brought people away from their homes and turned lunch into a casual affair. The cooked meal was shifted to dinner when the people get back from work. Although lunch and dinner were switched, the amount of food consumed daily did not change.

The Heavy Breakfast

From an active farming lifestyle to a sedentary one, "People were still eating these giant country breakfasts," says Carroll. Soon, doctors reported that more of their patients were suffering from indigestion. Nutritionist suggested a lighter breakfast and the Kellogg brothers took this opportunity to promote corn flakes as a healthy alternative to heavy breakfasts. As time progresses breakfast became known as a meal for health food. Fruit-grower associations began their ad campaigns to choke the world with newly discovered vitamins.

Science Indifferent to Breakfast

Breakfast gets glorified and the interested party warn about skipping the most important meal of the day. This doctrine continues until today but science showed otherwise. A 2014 study by the University of Bath showed that breakfast had zero effect on metabolic rate. The University of Alabama concurred the finding with a similar study. These researches affirm a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2010. In the study one group ate three meals a day, while another ate six with the same total calorie count. No weight or hormonal differences between the groups were found. Similarly in 2014, University of Warwick researchers found no difference in metabolism between a group of women that ate two meals a day and another group that ate five.

Fasting Improves Metabolic Rate

As it turn out research are proving that fasting improves metabolism. Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging, has observed mice for over two decades. He found that mice who skip feedings are leaner and live longer than who don't fast. The fasting mice also have more robust brain cells. Mattson theorizes that caloric deprivation acts as a mild stress to trigger the self-defense. This wards off damage from aging, environmental toxins, and other threats. In another research, Satchidananda Panda of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, shown that periodic fasting may also prevent heart disease. Panda observed that mice consuming all of their calories within an eight-hour window were less likely to develop metabolic diseases like diabetes than those who ate whenever they pleased.

Back to Nature

Wooh the civilized settlers regiment were wrong and the dictated by nature indigenous were right. While eating dinner with your family to keep your girlish figure becomes a myth, it is very essence that keeps family together.

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My Comments

It seems like back to nature helps. If we listen to our bodies we will eat to live. That is the best diet plan. This essentially the meaning behind the lion's share. Live to eat brings obesity.

On Empty Thoughts: Ecstasy Drugs Temporarily Legal in Ireland

REBLOG> On Empty Thoughts: Ecstasy Drugs Temporarily Legal in Ireland:

Guerrilla Gamblers' Original Blog

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A written judgment by the Irish court of appeal declared part of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 unconstitutional. This would render government's orders banning substances such as ecstasy and magic mushrooms void.

Stanislav Bederev was charged for having the substance in 2012 and brought a high court challenge in Dublin seeking to stop his trial. His legal team argued the substance on the controlled drug list were no passed in consultation with the Irish parliament. The court found that the act was added by ministerial order and consulting of both houses of the Irish parliament was bypass. With their hands tied the court deemed the act unconstitutional, the Guardian reported on 10 March 2015.

The Irish government will have to go through some red-tape to rectify this matter. For the time being there will be a window of opportunity for offenders even though it could be rectify in a day through emergency legislation and laws. This case will be a point of academic discussion for a long time.

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My Comments

The Irish government better work fast to rectify this mess. There is no telling what will happen in this window of opportunity for offenders.

The Silk Road

The Silk Road's Recent Development

China's proposals to build a modern-day trading route on the skeleton of the ancient traders' trail, known as the silk road, have been welcomed by its neighbor. The China Daily reported on 9 March 2015 that the project had led to misunderstanding and criticism. Oppositions fear this ambitious and long term project would be derailed. The Polish were supportive of the project and pledge to be part of the project. First secretary of the Polish embassy in Beijing, Wojciech Jakobiec, said "for us, the Silk Road Economic Belt is an especially important project, and we would like to participate in it."

Europeans Understanding of the Silk Road

Based on UNESCO's understanding, silk road was a recent term. They traced it to German geologist, Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen. He called the trade and communication network Die Seidenstrasse (the Silk Road). The silk road is sometimes used in the plural term because the network extend to a web of sea and land routes.

Baron Coining Silk Road Don't Jive

With due respect to the UNESCO, I do not think that the silk road is a recent term. The Baron lived from 5 May 1833 – 6 October 1905. UNESCO had established that silk was a monopoly of China and found its way to Rome "at some point during the first century". Such and important route could not have been named in 1877 [see Wikipedia] by the baron. I believe it had some reference to it since if was even in existence until the 17th century.

China Reference to the Silk Road

The Chinese had referred to the silk road as "silu" form as far as the recording of their chronicles existed. That goes back to the time that the prominent Chinese diplomat Zhang Qian of the Han Dynasty (206BC—220AD). The UNESCO article also concur with this date. Since this is not about conquest there was not much to hide. The Chinese account had not been inconsistent with the accounts of those they had traded with.

The Meaning of Silu

Out of curiosity, I looked up the translation for "silu". Actually I was not surprised it meant silk road. Si is the word for silk while lu is the Chinese word for road. It is whimsical to think that such a simple name is coined up in 1877 when people who traveled the road to buy or sell silk for ages would refer to it as silk road for simplicity.