The Economist does a feature on the emerging technologies of cloud computing. “Cloud computing” is a catch-phrase used to refer to a shift in the way computers are being used, one which is ushered in by services like Google Docs or online services that seem to do the same things that desktop applications once did. Technological shifts have enabled this shift, as “data centres are becoming factories for computing services on an industrial scale; software is increasingly being delivered as an online service; and wireless networks connect more and more devices to such offerings.”
Fittingly, the report ends in its last part on the deeper, ethical-political issues that the cloud will force us to face:
It is when computers become virtual machines that things get really tricky. These days IT systems are at the core of many companies—and just like data, these systems can now live in a variety of places. What happens if they start to migrate to another country where power is cheaper or regulation laxer? Similarly, if services are a combination of elements provided in different jurisdictions, who is liable if something goes wrong?
We’ve come a long way since the dawn of Web2.0 and all the gushing (mine included) about the new shape of the Internet. Here’s to hoping that new surprises continue to lie in store.
In my system, overall points would be weighted by how popular the sport is, as determined by television ratings. You got a bronze in the gymnastic floor competition? That’s 100 Olympic points. You nailed a gold in the modern pentathlon? (That’s pistol-shooting, épée fencing, swimming, horse-jumping and a run.) You get two points and the right to keep whatever European royal title your family is holding on to. Boxing champions get only three points, since everyone would clearly rather watch ultimate fighting. Sports in which competitors wear makeup get a deduction, as do sports played in only one area of the world: badminton (Asia), water polo (California), field hockey (Smith College).
Under Mao Tse-tung, the country used a basic but effective network of so-called “barefoot doctors”. But since the introduction of sweeping economic reforms in the past two decades, everything has changed. The reforms have brought new wealth but the collapse of many local clinics and free services mean that poorer families simply can’t afford health care and serious illness can bankrupt them.
Heard this short radio documentary on BBC World yesterday when I was driving. I ended up stopping the car and sat in the parking lot of a store so I could finish listening. The funny thing about growing up along with your home country is you don’t notice your country’s peculiarities until much later. For me, the idea of walking in off the street and getting hospital care seemed entirely natural, until I went back to China a few years ago and found it really strange to go to the doctor as easily as I could buy candy. But then again, how else would China provide adequate health-care to 1.3 billion people?
This is actually part two of two in a series about health-care systems around the world. Part one is about health-care in the US and the UK.
China’s idea of what makes for a better Olympics for foreign consumption—tightened security and cleaning up marginal elements—is exactly what makes Western reporters crazy…you want to clean things up, but the West wants to see the dirt, not the rug it was swept under. It’s the dishonesty, as much as the substance of what’s wrong in China, that seems to get under the skin of Western reporters.
Beijing itself is an expression of the problem…It suffers from the current obsession with fazhan (”development”), which in urban-planning terms replicates the “giant soulless block” development style of Robert Moses and the American 1950s. Authenticity, which Western culture valorizes, isn’t something that Chinese people or planners go for right now. There’s a tendency to either modernize or tear down old structures, instead of trying to preserve their decay in the way Westerners like. It’s all just a little too nouveau riche to get much respect.
As the author of the article later puts it, there’s “a sense that no matter what China does, it won’t really be accepted as an equal on the world stage, that it will always be left cleaning the toilet at the OECD country club.” Maybe that’s why there is such a wide audience for the sentiments expressed in this video:
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