A better deal than freebie

Oil price has plummeted all the way to abyss. Now, producers need to pay (yes, pay) customers in order to take their crude oil away. This happens to the low-grade oil, North Dakota Sour crude oil, which was $13.50/barrel one year ago and $47.60/barrel two years ago.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-north-dakota-oil-worth-less-than-nothing-20160119-story.html

holy grail from aspiring voters

Ritual as ever, Taiwan's election is among today's New York Times front-line stories. To ride the stagnant economy out, a holy grail in every country, will be a vexing challenge to the new administration.    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/world/asia/taiwan-elections.html?_r=1 

shortcut to strike it rich

China might try to become an innovative country but they also took an alternative but unscrupulous approach; stealing of trade secret. Tonight's CBS 60 Minutes vividly reported how Sinovel (華銳風電) took this short-cut.     http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-great-brain-robbery-china-cyber-espionage/

mecca of innovation

最近一期的Wired雜誌報導的中國創新能力的擴張速度, 讓我非常驚訝. 2014年美國的創業基金總共有480億美金, 中國雖"只有"155億美金， 但是在急速上升。 中國中產階級的人數急速增加，使得很多20幾歲的年輕人不再需要為衣食煩惱，可以從事高風險性的創業。 由於創業風氣鼎盛，一個新的idea在中國出現，很可能有上百個競爭者，最後存活的都是 battle-hardened 的青年創業家。 而且中國青年創業家有獨天獨厚的好處: 1) 鄰近全世界最急速膨脹的消費市場 2)鄰近累積30年的全世界最有效率的製造基地。 而且還有很多創業諮詢機構，付一點錢就可以得到專家的創業建議， 眾多青年創業家的互相切磋討論，還有仲介公司能幫你找到願意承擔風險, 幫一個無名小卒做 prototype 的製造公司，像上海的新車間( xingchejian.com) 和 深圳的 HAXLR8R ( 7個月前改名叫 HAX Accelerator). 中國創業風氣的擴散，已經使得全世界(包括美國)的創業家來到中國取經和利用中國的創業環境.  http://www.wired.com/2015/12/tech-innovation-in-china/

Assortative mating is the origin of income inequality

門當户對(assortative mating)是造成 貧富不均的最重要原因之一? 前幾天的紐約時報指出 ，這可能是貧富不均 的最長久, 也是最不可能解決的問題。 假如50年前的婚姻配對形態和今天一樣的話，貧富不均的指數(Gini coefficient) 可以由0.43降成0.34。 50年前銀行家要找銀行家配偶，醫生要找醫生配偶，律師要找律師配偶，有實際上的 困難。 門當戶對的比例增加，所造成的影響是，教育小孩的資源的差距增加。 當然第二代在以後工作上的 收入差距也會增加。 這殘酷的社會貧富不均的現象擴大，勢必無法避免。 即使是國家的社會福利制度改善，也無法抗衡門當戶對所造成的影響。 追根究底這還是教育資源的分配差距增加，也許均一教育的這個方向， 是唯一 有可能和門當戶對相抗衡的大方向。 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/upshot/marriages-of-power-couples-reinforce-income-inequality.html

Battle royal in elite high-achieving schools

Battle royal in elite high-achieving school districts roots in Palo Alto, CA and Newton, MA. Now, it is West Windsor-Plainsboro NJ as in the New York Times two days ago. An obvious mindset divide manifests itself along the racial lines between white parents and Asian parents. WW-P school district in which my two sons attended for 13 years has accounted for 65% Asian American students. A recent reform advocated by school district superintendent with the goal to relieve the students' stress has faced a fierce resistance from most of the Asian parents. White parents prefer a more relaxed learning atmosphere without worrying about futuristic job or internship bias against their children. In the same breath, Asian parents ask for stellar academic performances from their children to counter-balance the perceived bias expected in their children's future career. No ending in this ethnic divide. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/26/nyregion/reforms-to-ease-students-stress-divide-a-new-jersey-school-district.html

You may not reap what you sow

加拿大現在也開始感受到跟台灣同樣的問題: 人才外流. 10年前在多倫多的 Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (cifar) 在加拿大政府的強力支持下，展開了當時很冷門的神經網路人工智慧的研究。 直到三年前矽谷驚覺deep learning的重要, 開始了一連串的神經網路人工智慧的人才獵奪。當時的三位"加拿大黑手黨", Geoffrey Hinton ( 兩年前開始主持Google的AI部門), Yann Lecun ( 兩年前開始主持臉書的AI部門), Yoshua Bengio ( 六個月前宣佈將和 IBM的Watson計畫合作)， 現在都在為美國效力. 此外兩位在加拿大長期任教的 神經網路人工智慧的泰斗，Nando De Freitas ( 現在主持 Google的 AI 臭鼬鼠獨立科技重地的 DeepMind), Ruslan Salakhutdinov ( 現在主持Carnegie Mellon machine-learning部門) 也不再為加拿大效力了。 加拿大政府先知先覺地大量投資在 人工智慧的研究，但是後續 的研究環境和鼓勵創業的環境沒有規劃好，現在人才全被美國搶走了。 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-17/google-raids-threaten-canada-s-lead-in-artificial-intelligence