Hedy Lamarr : Movie Star and InventorU.S. Patent Number 2,292,387 granted on August 11, 1942, to Hedy Keisler Markey aka Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil for a "Secret Communications System."
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Brain and Beauty: Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr : Movie Star and InventorU.S. Patent Number 2,292,387 granted on August 11, 1942, to Hedy Keisler Markey aka Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil for a "Secret Communications System."
Wealth of a Nation
The only nation that is long-term investable is America.
zt真正财富的本质定义
战略层面，真正的财富是对一种稳定发展的生产关系和社会结构的逐渐变大比例的占有。这里的表达有个关键，对一种稳定发展的生产关系和社会结构的占有是财富（这种财富已经超越了看得见摸得着的物质财富），但逐渐变大比例的占有才是真正的财富，这里有持续智力的投入，必须要把现有资源、运行和人才结合起来，实际上是一种机制。
巴菲特的投资理念实际上就是如此。巴菲特买入并持有，以大股东的身份改造公司运营并且整合行业，辅以自然人口增长的预期、自然地域扩展和基本衣食住行的需求增长以及生产和消费模式的进化，形成对生产关系和社会结构的逐渐扩大的有利占有。这种投资基本是零风险。值得一提的是科技投入不在此列，但科技投入的结果，比如导致生产和消费模式的进化在此列，而这种投资略去了科技投入的巨大风险。所以，科技公司即使赔钱也很有价值是有其策略原因和意义的。
一个典型的案例：军队是100%的负回报投资，账面回报为零，而投入巨大，是大国和像样国家的最大单项政府开支。但几乎所有的高科技都是军事研发首先需要和获得的，这表明科技投入即使没有账面回报，也价值巨大。如果对潜在不稳定生产关系和社会结构进行投资，则要看能不能对不稳定进行定向控制，或者在不稳定的发展过程和形成结果时，能够有实力保护已有利益或将来的利益。从国家利益上来说，现在只有美国及其盟国（英、德、日、加、澳），俄罗斯和法国能做到这样，实质上是以科技和军事做后盾，当然政治运行（表现为资源配置和智力发挥）也不能太差劲。这已经超越了投资理论模型的边界条件界定，但这正是发达国家对弱小国家剥削的本质优势和原因。比如，中国在非洲经营多年，而那里是法国的固有地盘，中法两国有杯葛，有时就是因为非洲的资源占有。中国在非洲有大量的投入，比如无偿援助医院和铁路等。以利比亚为例，中国在利比亚有大量的建筑订单和石油份额，然而，利比亚一政变或陷入目前的动荡，中国所有的曾经努力都付诸东流；这并不是个别现象，以前伊拉克买入中国军火的巨额帐单是要以将来多年向中国出口石油来偿付，实际上是分期易货，但萨达姆政权一被推翻，这些债务都成了泡影。所以，中国对这两个国家曾经的物质或资源占有都不是真正的财富，其两个原因是：1，在其稳定期间，没有能控制其社会和经济结构的运行；2，不稳定时，没有实力保证当前的帐面利益，甚至没有能力预见这种潜在不稳定性，当然更谈不上控制。
战术和个人层面，在任何事情都是投资的社会里，比如美国，只有有效的正现金流是真正的财富。对工薪阶层来说，就是Job Security；对实业运营者来说，就是行业的可预期稳定发展。所有其它都是负资产或者消费。比如，汽车就占据着常人较大一笔支出，包括油费，维修保养费，保险、折旧、牌照和罚单等等。常误以为资产的房地产，实际上也是消费，即使是全额付清了的房子，也是消费，因为还是有地税、保险、维护保养和折旧，而地皮的增值是不定的，需要专业打理能力。在这个意义上，一般商业意义上的公司，只要能产生正现金流，即使不赚钱，也有相当的价值（因为是生产关系和社会结构的稳定部分，比如，解决了大量就业）。P/E理论是错误的，至少是有大缺陷的，只具有纸面的模型价值。 旧的殖民主义方法是把被殖民国生产的物质财富用垄断性低价运回殖民国。比如，英国把印度的香料和南美、太平洋、大西洋、印度洋岛国生产的糖以低价运回。现在，则更多的是利用金融和人才的系统性优势全面控制被殖民国的经济结构和社会运行。比如，美国收购并整合中国的油脂压榨生产线、肉食饲养生产线、引诱中国使用外资建立依赖出口的低级加工基地，在南美种植大豆，在非洲种植咖啡等等。其核心理念和优势是金融基础上的定价权，科技优势和商业积累带来的高效生产体系以及发挥其金融货币政策话语权优势的、并成功洗脑各国领袖和精英令他们认可的全球化理念（这一点上，经济全球化对应政治民主化，都是为新时代殖民服务的）。
美国的真正财富是一种运行机制，涵盖了智力（全球人才的发现、培养、吸引和利用），全球自然资源占有、整合和有效利用，科技研发在军用和民用两方面的低成本有效产出和转化为生产力，国家利益、财团利益、精英个人利益的清晰界定和分配以及在此基础上解决与大比例国内普通民众利益冲突的低成本Controllable Self-evolving政治体系（低成本：不会造成社会动荡）。
zt真正财富的本质定义
战略层面，真正的财富是对一种稳定发展的生产关系和社会结构的逐渐变大比例的占有。这里的表达有个关键，对一种稳定发展的生产关系和社会结构的占有是财富（这种财富已经超越了看得见摸得着的物质财富），但逐渐变大比例的占有才是真正的财富，这里有持续智力的投入，必须要把现有资源、运行和人才结合起来，实际上是一种机制。
巴菲特的投资理念实际上就是如此。巴菲特买入并持有，以大股东的身份改造公司运营并且整合行业，辅以自然人口增长的预期、自然地域扩展和基本衣食住行的需求增长以及生产和消费模式的进化，形成对生产关系和社会结构的逐渐扩大的有利占有。这种投资基本是零风险。值得一提的是科技投入不在此列，但科技投入的结果，比如导致生产和消费模式的进化在此列，而这种投资略去了科技投入的巨大风险。所以，科技公司即使赔钱也很有价值是有其策略原因和意义的。
一个典型的案例：军队是100%的负回报投资，账面回报为零，而投入巨大，是大国和像样国家的最大单项政府开支。但几乎所有的高科技都是军事研发首先需要和获得的，这表明科技投入即使没有账面回报，也价值巨大。如果对潜在不稳定生产关系和社会结构进行投资，则要看能不能对不稳定进行定向控制，或者在不稳定的发展过程和形成结果时，能够有实力保护已有利益或将来的利益。从国家利益上来说，现在只有美国及其盟国（英、德、日、加、澳），俄罗斯和法国能做到这样，实质上是以科技和军事做后盾，当然政治运行（表现为资源配置和智力发挥）也不能太差劲。这已经超越了投资理论模型的边界条件界定，但这正是发达国家对弱小国家剥削的本质优势和原因。比如，中国在非洲经营多年，而那里是法国的固有地盘，中法两国有杯葛，有时就是因为非洲的资源占有。中国在非洲有大量的投入，比如无偿援助医院和铁路等。以利比亚为例，中国在利比亚有大量的建筑订单和石油份额，然而，利比亚一政变或陷入目前的动荡，中国所有的曾经努力都付诸东流；这并不是个别现象，以前伊拉克买入中国军火的巨额帐单是要以将来多年向中国出口石油来偿付，实际上是分期易货，但萨达姆政权一被推翻，这些债务都成了泡影。所以，中国对这两个国家曾经的物质或资源占有都不是真正的财富，其两个原因是：1，在其稳定期间，没有能控制其社会和经济结构的运行；2，不稳定时，没有实力保证当前的帐面利益，甚至没有能力预见这种潜在不稳定性，当然更谈不上控制。
战术和个人层面，在任何事情都是投资的社会里，比如美国，只有有效的正现金流是真正的财富。对工薪阶层来说，就是Job Security；对实业运营者来说，就是行业的可预期稳定发展。所有其它都是负资产或者消费。比如，汽车就占据着常人较大一笔支出，包括油费，维修保养费，保险、折旧、牌照和罚单等等。常误以为资产的房地产，实际上也是消费，即使是全额付清了的房子，也是消费，因为还是有地税、保险、维护保养和折旧，而地皮的增值是不定的，需要专业打理能力。在这个意义上，一般商业意义上的公司，只要能产生正现金流，即使不赚钱，也有相当的价值（因为是生产关系和社会结构的稳定部分，比如，解决了大量就业）。P/E理论是错误的，至少是有大缺陷的，只具有纸面的模型价值。 旧的殖民主义方法是把被殖民国生产的物质财富用垄断性低价运回殖民国。比如，英国把印度的香料和南美、太平洋、大西洋、印度洋岛国生产的糖以低价运回。现在，则更多的是利用金融和人才的系统性优势全面控制被殖民国的经济结构和社会运行。比如，美国收购并整合中国的油脂压榨生产线、肉食饲养生产线、引诱中国使用外资建立依赖出口的低级加工基地，在南美种植大豆，在非洲种植咖啡等等。其核心理念和优势是金融基础上的定价权，科技优势和商业积累带来的高效生产体系以及发挥其金融货币政策话语权优势的、并成功洗脑各国领袖和精英令他们认可的全球化理念（这一点上，经济全球化对应政治民主化，都是为新时代殖民服务的）。
美国的真正财富是一种运行机制，涵盖了智力（全球人才的发现、培养、吸引和利用），全球自然资源占有、整合和有效利用，科技研发在军用和民用两方面的低成本有效产出和转化为生产力，国家利益、财团利益、精英个人利益的清晰界定和分配以及在此基础上解决与大比例国内普通民众利益冲突的低成本Controllable Self-evolving政治体系（低成本：不会造成社会动荡）。
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Next Crisis around the Corner?
Nothing was done after 1998 LTCM crisis - we know what happened next, the crisis of 2008.
If nothing is done again except printing money to paper things over, the next crisis will be even more devastating.
Financial reform is a necessity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/magazine/28Reform-t.html?ref=us
If nothing is done again except printing money to paper things over, the next crisis will be even more devastating.
Financial reform is a necessity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/magazine/28Reform-t.html?ref=us
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Vinod Kholsa Strikes Again
This time in Clean Tech.
http://www.khoslaventures.com/resources.html
Op-Ed Columnist
Dreaming the Possible Dream
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 6, 2010
The thing I love most about America is that there’s always somebody who doesn’t get the word — somebody who doesn’t understand that in a Great Recession you’re supposed to hunker down, downsize and just hold on for dear life. I have a couple of friends who fit that bill, who think a recession is a dandy time to try to discover better and cheaper ways to do things. They both happen to be Indian-Americans — one a son of the Himalayas, who came to America on a scholarship and went to work for NASA to try to find a way to Mars; the other a son of New Delhi, who came here and found the Sun, Sun Microsystems. Both are serial innovators. Both are now shepherding clean-tech start-ups that have the potential to be disruptive game changers. They don’t know from hunkering down. They just didn’t get the word.
As a result, one has produced a fuel cell that can turn natural gas or natural grass into electricity; the other has a technology that might make coal the cleanest, cheapest energy source by turning its carbon-dioxide emissions into bricks to build your next house. Though our country may be flagging, it’s because of innovators like these that you should never — ever — write us off.
Let me introduce Vinod Khosla and K.R. Sridhar. Khosla, the co-founder of Sun, set out several years ago to fund energy start-ups. His favorite baby right now is a company called Calera, which was begun with the Stanford Professor Brent Constantz, who was studying how corals use CO2 to produce their calcium carbonate bones.
If you combine CO2 with seawater, or any kind of briny water, you produce CaCO3, calcium carbonate. That is not only the stuff of corals. It is also the same white, pasty goop that appears on your shower head from hard (calcium-rich) water. At its demonstration plant near Santa Cruz, Calif., Calera has developed a process that takes CO2 emissions from a coal- or gas-fired power plant and sprays seawater into it and naturally converts most of the CO2 into calcium carbonate, which is then spray-dried into cement or shaped into little pellets that can be used as concrete aggregates for building walls or highways — instead of letting the CO2 emissions go into the atmosphere and produce climate change.
If this can scale, it would eliminate the need for expensive carbon-sequestration facilities planned to be built alongside coal-fired power plants — and it might actually make the heretofore specious notion of “clean coal” a possibility.
In announcing in December an alliance to build more Calera plants, Ian Copeland, president of Bechtel Renewables and New Technology — a tough-minded engineering company — said: “The fundamental chemistry and physics of the Calera process are based on sound scientific principles and its core technology and equipment can be integrated with base power plants very effectively.”
A source says the huge Peabody coal company will announce an investment in Calera next week. “If this works,” said Khosla, “coal-fired power would become more than 100 percent clean. Not only would it not emit any CO2, but by producing clean water and cement as a byproduct it would also be taking all of the CO2 that goes into making those products out of the atmosphere.”
John Doerr, the legendary venture capitalist who financed Sun, once said of Khosla: “The best way to get Vinod to do something is to tell him it is impossible.”
Sridhar’s company, Bloom Energy, was featured last week on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” Several months ago, though, Sridhar took me into the parking lot behind Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters and showed me the inside of one of his Bloom Boxes, the size of a small shipping container. Inside were stacks of solid oxide fuel cells, stored in cylinders, and all kinds of whiz-bang parts that I did not understand.
What I did understand, though, was that Google was already getting part of its clean-energy from these fuel cells — and Wal-Mart, eBay, FedEx and Coca-Cola just announced that they are doing the same. Sridhar, Bloom’s co-founder and C.E.O., said his fuel cells, which can run on natural gas or biogas, can generate electricity at 8 to 10 cents a kilowatt hour, with today’s subsidies. “We know we can bring the price down further,” he said, “so Bloom power will be affordable in every energy-poor country” — Sridhar’s real dream.
Attention: These technologies still have to prove that they are reliable, durable and scalable — and if you Google both, you will find studies saying they are and studies that are skeptical. All I know is this: If we put a simple price on carbon, these new technologies would have a chance to blossom and thousands more would come out of innovators’ garages. America still has the best innovation culture in the world. But we need better policies to nurture it, better infrastructure to enable it and more open doors to bring others here to try it.
Our politics has gotten so impossible lately, too many Americans have stopped dreaming. Not these two. They just never got the word. As Sridhar says: “We came to America for the American dream — to do good and to make good.”
http://www.khoslaventures.com/resources.html
Op-Ed Columnist
Dreaming the Possible Dream
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 6, 2010
The thing I love most about America is that there’s always somebody who doesn’t get the word — somebody who doesn’t understand that in a Great Recession you’re supposed to hunker down, downsize and just hold on for dear life. I have a couple of friends who fit that bill, who think a recession is a dandy time to try to discover better and cheaper ways to do things. They both happen to be Indian-Americans — one a son of the Himalayas, who came to America on a scholarship and went to work for NASA to try to find a way to Mars; the other a son of New Delhi, who came here and found the Sun, Sun Microsystems. Both are serial innovators. Both are now shepherding clean-tech start-ups that have the potential to be disruptive game changers. They don’t know from hunkering down. They just didn’t get the word.
As a result, one has produced a fuel cell that can turn natural gas or natural grass into electricity; the other has a technology that might make coal the cleanest, cheapest energy source by turning its carbon-dioxide emissions into bricks to build your next house. Though our country may be flagging, it’s because of innovators like these that you should never — ever — write us off.
Let me introduce Vinod Khosla and K.R. Sridhar. Khosla, the co-founder of Sun, set out several years ago to fund energy start-ups. His favorite baby right now is a company called Calera, which was begun with the Stanford Professor Brent Constantz, who was studying how corals use CO2 to produce their calcium carbonate bones.
If you combine CO2 with seawater, or any kind of briny water, you produce CaCO3, calcium carbonate. That is not only the stuff of corals. It is also the same white, pasty goop that appears on your shower head from hard (calcium-rich) water. At its demonstration plant near Santa Cruz, Calif., Calera has developed a process that takes CO2 emissions from a coal- or gas-fired power plant and sprays seawater into it and naturally converts most of the CO2 into calcium carbonate, which is then spray-dried into cement or shaped into little pellets that can be used as concrete aggregates for building walls or highways — instead of letting the CO2 emissions go into the atmosphere and produce climate change.
If this can scale, it would eliminate the need for expensive carbon-sequestration facilities planned to be built alongside coal-fired power plants — and it might actually make the heretofore specious notion of “clean coal” a possibility.
In announcing in December an alliance to build more Calera plants, Ian Copeland, president of Bechtel Renewables and New Technology — a tough-minded engineering company — said: “The fundamental chemistry and physics of the Calera process are based on sound scientific principles and its core technology and equipment can be integrated with base power plants very effectively.”
A source says the huge Peabody coal company will announce an investment in Calera next week. “If this works,” said Khosla, “coal-fired power would become more than 100 percent clean. Not only would it not emit any CO2, but by producing clean water and cement as a byproduct it would also be taking all of the CO2 that goes into making those products out of the atmosphere.”
John Doerr, the legendary venture capitalist who financed Sun, once said of Khosla: “The best way to get Vinod to do something is to tell him it is impossible.”
Sridhar’s company, Bloom Energy, was featured last week on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” Several months ago, though, Sridhar took me into the parking lot behind Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters and showed me the inside of one of his Bloom Boxes, the size of a small shipping container. Inside were stacks of solid oxide fuel cells, stored in cylinders, and all kinds of whiz-bang parts that I did not understand.
What I did understand, though, was that Google was already getting part of its clean-energy from these fuel cells — and Wal-Mart, eBay, FedEx and Coca-Cola just announced that they are doing the same. Sridhar, Bloom’s co-founder and C.E.O., said his fuel cells, which can run on natural gas or biogas, can generate electricity at 8 to 10 cents a kilowatt hour, with today’s subsidies. “We know we can bring the price down further,” he said, “so Bloom power will be affordable in every energy-poor country” — Sridhar’s real dream.
Attention: These technologies still have to prove that they are reliable, durable and scalable — and if you Google both, you will find studies saying they are and studies that are skeptical. All I know is this: If we put a simple price on carbon, these new technologies would have a chance to blossom and thousands more would come out of innovators’ garages. America still has the best innovation culture in the world. But we need better policies to nurture it, better infrastructure to enable it and more open doors to bring others here to try it.
Our politics has gotten so impossible lately, too many Americans have stopped dreaming. Not these two. They just never got the word. As Sridhar says: “We came to America for the American dream — to do good and to make good.”
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
It is good to be a survivor
Financial Crisis? What financial crisis?
Larry Fink is a 12Tillion dollar man!
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/04/fink-201004
15 Years Ago, the Combined Assets of the 6 Biggest Banks Totaled 17% of GDP... By 2006, 55% ... Now, 63%
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/15-years-ago-combined-assets-6-biggest-banks-totaled-17-gdp-2006-55-now-63
Larry Fink is a 12Tillion dollar man!
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/04/fink-201004
15 Years Ago, the Combined Assets of the 6 Biggest Banks Totaled 17% of GDP... By 2006, 55% ... Now, 63%
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/15-years-ago-combined-assets-6-biggest-banks-totaled-17-gdp-2006-55-now-63
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Course of the Empire
Thomas Cole's "Course of the Empire" series
http://www.isu.edu/~wattron/OLCole2c.html
Cole chose something from Byron to help describe this work:
There is the moral of all human tales;
'This but the same reheasal of the past
First Freedom, and then Glory: when that fails
Wealth, vice, corruption
Niall Ferguson just wrote " Complexity and Collapse", using Cole's painting to muse about the fate of American Empire.
http://laudyms.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/niall-ferguson-complexity-and-collapse/
http://www.isu.edu/~wattron/OLCole2c.html
Cole chose something from Byron to help describe this work:
There is the moral of all human tales;
'This but the same reheasal of the past
First Freedom, and then Glory: when that fails
Wealth, vice, corruption
Niall Ferguson just wrote " Complexity and Collapse", using Cole's painting to muse about the fate of American Empire.
http://laudyms.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/niall-ferguson-complexity-and-collapse/
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Steve Job's "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish"
Overcome youself, reinvent yourself. stay hungry. stay foolish.
http://www.hrmbusiness.com/2009/03/stay-hungry-stay-foolish-steve-jobs.html
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.htm
Steve Jobs on Living a Purposeful Life
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Steve Jobs on Resiliency in Joblessness and Loving What You Do
“I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
http://www.hrmbusiness.com/2009/03/stay-hungry-stay-foolish-steve-jobs.html
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.htm
Steve Jobs on Living a Purposeful Life
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Steve Jobs on Resiliency in Joblessness and Loving What You Do
“I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
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