ANSYS to help productivity

Recent issue of Business week had an article for temperature-regulated baby bottle design by using ANSYS, a time-honored simulation tool that basically corners the CAE market. 25 years ago when I used ANSYS to analyze electromagnetic field through Maxwell equations, it was a painstaking task since mesh generation was not fully automatic and data analysis was a long-drawn-out work. Now, you can use ANSYS to analyze several hundreds designs before making the final prototype to physically prove the design. Another example of the surging productivity by advanced technology.

Ansys Aids Innovation With Its Simulation Software

Fukushima disaster

Just watched PBS 1-hour report of Fukushima nuclear disaster. It seems like Fukushima disaster can be avoided if one of the following three conditions was met: 1) Diesel generators are placed high above ground 2) Backup mobile electric trucks, if all Diesel generators fail, should be always available next to nuclear power plants in case of totally ravaged connection roads 3) Mechanical pressure values, rather than the electrically controlled values, should be designed on the roof of protective dome to release the build-up of hydrogen before the fuel rods start to melt. Actually, the turning point of Fukushima disaster did not happen until the Tokyo firefighters risked their lives to spend one hour to ship the water hose next to the highly radioactive plants. After water cannon from the hose was working to cool the core, the crisis started to subside significantly, 9 days after the tsunami struck.

Pay big bucks to marriage scout?

Paying US$30,000 to a "marriage scout" for a sylphlike girl as prospective wife? Another economic wonder in China. Recent article in NY Times, "The price of marriage in China", has a story of a nouveau riche in China who pays a big money to "love hunter" in order to find a svelte belle for his wife. Another example of the emerging China's societal problem, "Cannot find the prospective wife/husband"

In a Changing China, New Matchmaking Markets

www.nytimes.com

China’s economic surge — and vast wealth inequality — have bred a new type of matchmaker, referred to as love hunters.

A lot of commodities are consumed in China

China's GDP is only 9.4% of the whole world's GDP. However, its percentages of commodities consumption are really astonishing as in the following 2010 table.

income inequality

Just watched the video clip of the lecture, "Income Inequality" by UC Berkerley economist Emmanuel Saez. A very cruel reality for all developed countries to face: "Only the people with skills and capitals will be the fittest to survive in any society with more automation". Stock may continue to go up, with reasonable corrections, since productivity will continue to go up. High unemployment will be persistent since less labor force is required to sustain high productivity. The following two graphs show both productivity and top 10% income share start to shoot up around 1975. Why? probably because computerization start to help the productivity since 1975 and low-skill labor force started to become less important since 1975.

heated debate between Krugman and Scarborough

Watched the heated debate last night in PBS between Paul Krugman (Nobel prize laureate in Economics) and Joe Scarborough about the U.S. debt and deficit issues. As expected, Krugman was pretty brash but his ad hominem attack was quickly refuted by his opponent. As always, "You are absolutely wrong and I am totally right" attitude only makes the debate more polarized than ever.

CEO of ExxonMobil

Just finished watching the 1-hour interview of Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil by Charlie Rose in PBS. He is articulate, reasoned and analytic. Always have a lot to learn from the methodologies how they present their ideas from these top CEOs.

genome sequencing

From the cover story of the latest issue of IEEE Spectrum, "The Gene Machine and Me", the cost of human genome sequencing has dropped to $1000 nowadays. ($10M 8 years ago). Though you may be able to find the lurking bad genes in the genome sequencing, it is only good for the monitoring purpose; basically impossible to ask your doctor to build a treatment plan from the results of genome sequencing at this moment. However, with pricing dropping precipitously, more people may do the genome sequencing and, therefore, more statistically significant database will be built to make the interpretation of genome sequencing more "medically actionable" in the future. (If this miracle can happen 20 years from now, well, I probably don't care since a shadowy Grim Reaper will be waving at me at that time anyway.)