Grandfather of Silicon Valley

Just read a story I have always been intrigued in the last 30 years, story of the W. Shockley. Shockley, a Nobel-prize laureate in transistor invention and the "grand-father" of Silicon Valley (The "child" of his "Shockley Semiconductor Lab" was Fairchild Semiconductor and the "children" of Fairchild Semiconductor are Intel and many others). In 1980s, I was amazed by his ingenious theory of PN junction. He filed the 1st patent about robotic eyes in 1948 and pursued a career to implement robots and automation but fizzled out. As in my ingrained belief, "God is always fair": Shockley was endowed with incredible IQ but his capricious temper led him nowhere to his coveted goal, a company of his own.   
http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/innovation/how-william-shockleys-robot-dream-helped-launch-silicon-valley

osseointegration

Just had three dental implants in my mouth. Five hours have passed and no pain at all. It is amazing that titanium metal inside the jawbone can have basically perfect osseointegration within 4-5 months and not being rejected as foreign materials.  

supercomputer competition

In recent supercomputer competition, China's Tianhe-2 (天河二號) retains its No. 1 perch with 33.86 petaflops/s (毎秒3.4萬兆次數學運算). Even its electrical bill is staggering ( 一年一仟七百萬美元電費) . A few supercomputer applications: weather forecast (good for human beings), nuclear weapons simulations (garbage for human beings), decipherment of password (even 天河二號 will need 幾百萬兆年 to crack 256-bit encryption), simulation of molecular dynamics (good for human welfare development). It was guessed that one of the applications in 天河二號 is to develop C919 airliner.

The power of the underdog

Seldom did I get touched so much by any episode as in tonight's CBS 60 Minutes, "The power of the underdog". Never imagine a kid with dyslexia can climb all the way to the president of Goldman Sacks simply because he, Gary Cohn, can develop much better entrepreneurial capabilities despite the dyslexia handicap.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/malcolm-gladwell-power-of-the-underdog/

A country destined to be inundated

BusinessWeek has a sobering article of global warming related to Kiribati (基里巴斯共和國) in Pacific Ocean. This country only has 32 atolls, max. height is only 3m above sea level and max. width of the whole nation is less than 1km. It will be inundated by ocean in the years to come since people sometimes can find fishes jumping around in their living room. We probably don't feel global warming substantially; but for them, it is the devastation of the whole nation.

Aging in China and Taiwan

Latest issue of TIME magazine talked about the recent reform of one-child policy in China and the aging problem in China. In 2050, one of 3 Chinese will be older than 60, more than the total population in U.S. Taiwan has exactly the same problem. 屆時 (2050年 ) 人囗老化將使得臺灣和中國都是一人養3個 (夫妻二人共養六個) 健保費用那時侯將是 flabbergasting (即使在民國99年， 臺灣60歲以上人囗雖僅佔15% 但醫療費用已超過40%) 

U.S. still the most favorite for foreign students

Students from China accounts for more than 25% of all foreign students in U.S. (India No. 2, S. Korean No. 3 and Taiwan No. 6) in the latest Economist. U.S. is still the favorite destination for foreign students but its market share has dropped from 23% in 2000 to 17% in 2011. The trend is obvious since Chinese schools in Princeton area continue to expand for students from China but shrink steadily for students from Taiwan.

Donate at least 50% of your wealth only if you have more than $1B

You are allowed to join the "The Giving Pledge" club if you are worth more than $1B and pledge to donate at least 50% of your wealth in your life time or in your will as in tonight's CBS "60 Minutes". Top 400 wealthiest Americans are worth the total sum of all bottom half of Americans. But many of them are willing to donate their wealth for philanthropic purposes (Bill Gates donates 95% and Warren Buffet donates 99%). It probably will take many years to change the mindsets of Chinese wealthiest to dedicate themselves for philanthropy instead of showing off their wealth and passing it to their sons/daughters.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57612677/the-giving-pledge-a-new-club-for-billionaires/?pageNum=2

Soaring Medical Devices Market

Latest issue of BusinessWeek has an article about the soaring market of medical devices. For example, China's market in 2012 was valued at USD $20B and will grow to $53.5B in 2020. Taiwan's market growth rate in 2013 for medical devices is expected to be 7% (lower than the global growth rate of 10%). It seems like most of the market is on the less-complicated electronic blood sugar, blood pressure monitors and thermometers. (See Figure). Taiwan should be able to tap much more into this market with integrated system of hardware and real-time monitoring app on smartphones.

Shrinking middle class

Another grueling chart to show the accelerated shrinking of middle class after the financial meltdown in late 2007. Shrinking middle class, expanding low-income households and the soaring wealthy households are the inevitable trends. It is probably true for most of the countries. As in today's local newspaper, "In 1980s, all the better-paying jobs for low-skill workers were there for the taking. Those are not there any more."

Inevitable Income Inequality

Latest issue of Economist has an article, "Labor Pains", which basically describes the percentage of labor share continues to decrease year by year, i.e., share of GDP growth going to labors continues to decrease due to technology advancement such as utilization of robots and automation software/hardware. It is pretty pessimistic if any government can do anything to slow or even stop this inevitable trend.

Productivity Comparison

美國人生產能力全世界第三 (見下表，在調整各國不同購買能力後，每一個工作者每小時實際生產的金額。臺灣約每小時40美元)