Oleg Zabluda's blog: April 17, 2012

Oleg Zabluda's blog

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Steve Blank maintains correct history of Silicon Valley.
Steve Blank maintains correct history of Silicon Valley. Not "SV started in HP garage" legend. The tag on his blog is here
http://steveblank.com/category/secret-history-of-silicon-valley/

and the key post i shere:
http://steveblank.com/2009/04/20/the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley-part-v-happy-100th-birthday-silicon-valley/

Secret History of Silicon Valley talk at Computer History Museum (Nov, 20 2008)
Secret History of Silicon Valley

Secret History of Silicon Valley talk at Google Tech Talk (Dec 18, 2007)
The Secret History of Silicon Valley

Slides
http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/secret-history-of-silicon-valley-rev-4-dec-09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

Firefly pose (Titibasana) got out of hand.
Firefly pose (Titibasana) got out of hand.
Firefly pose (Titibasana) got out of hand.

Push Him Down
artist: Dan Wheetman

Push Him Down -
Just will make him stronger.
Push him down -
He'll rise up some day.
Push him down -
When the belly hungers,
Heart grows stronger,
Then no longer,
Will you push him down.

Chain a man -
Take away his liberty.
Push Him down -
Force him into poverty.
Then the dream inside will blossom,
And his heart will learn to sing,
And you can't stop a man from flying,
When his soul has found it's wing.

Freedom is the right of everyone,
It can not be taken at the point of a gun (no no no),
And those who steal from others
Their pride and dignity,
Are lost inside their wickedness,
And never shall be free.
And no matter how hard you haul
Their spirit will slip, slip through your control.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAlcyRMshbw

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

The Kobe Beef brouhaha continues, now generalized to the whole World-Wide Great American Food Piracy conspiracy.
The Kobe Beef brouhaha continues, now generalized to the whole World-Wide Great American Food Piracy conspiracy.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryolmsted/2012/04/14/kobe-beef-scam-part-3-why-the-u-s-government-wants-you-to-buy-fake-foods/

I just don't see as a big problem it is made out to be.

First of all, it clearly says right there on the packaging "Made in USA" [1]

Second of all, it's a time-honored American tradition, starting with "Turkey".

Third of all, at least in US, you can get the correct nutrition info with the list of ingredients [1, 2]. If you go to an ethnic store with imported food, especially Russian, you'll often see the original info pasted over with a different label. That's because the original one, for the native market, is a lie.

Fourth of all, for most of the "geographic" names of foods, American consumers otherwise never heard of those geographic names, don't know which country they are in, don't know what or where they are, and don't know the foods are named after those locales. Apparently, the conspiracy is so total that it is self-defeating.

Previous installment of the series, explained how nobody in US ever tried real Japanese Kobe Beef. That all the reviews, books, TV shows, restaurants, etc were fawning about American Kobe Beef. Such totality ensures that as long one is on a US soil and watches American Iron Chef, instead of the original [Japanese] Iron Chef, you are good. Everything is fine and consistent. You were fooled so totally that it amounts to not being fooled. Extremes coincide.

There is also a good chance that American Kobe Beef is better anyway. If Japanese Kobe Beef was really that good, somebody would have stolen some long time ago, like silkworms and cofee, or would be caught smuggling it, like butter into Norway.
https://plus.google.com/112065430692128821190/posts/4iZh3QAaL2w

[1] Except in the restaurants, where you can't get any info whatsoever, and which blatantly lie "Japanese Restaurant", while brazenly standing right there in NYC.
[2] with melamine correctly listed most of the time
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryolmsted/2012/04/14/kobe-beef-scam-part-3-why-the-u-s-government-wants-you-to-buy-fake-foods/

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

There is a persistent talk about how Titanic didn't have enough lifeboats, which is a bit misguided.
There is a persistent talk about how Titanic didn't have enough lifeboats, which is a bit misguided.

From: http://lewrockwell.com/orig5/cox-s6.1.1.html
"""
Titanic had lifeboat spaces for only about 1200 of its 2200 passengers and crew. The Costa Concordia was known to have lifeboats for all [1]. Yet the presence or absence of these life-saving devices wasn’t the end of the tale, for either the Titanic or the Costa Concordia.

The Titanic didn’t have lifeboats for all, but it turned out to have lifeboats to spare. Only 700 of its lifeboat spaces were used. Some boats were over-filled; more were under-filled.

Generations of pseudo-Titanic propaganda have led people to believe that all risks to life can be averted – if only government regulations are followed and sufficient lifeboats appear on deck. The mere fact that such provisions have been made may lull both passengers and crew into thinking that it is the boats themselves, rather than human intelligence, good order, calm, and courage that are necessary to save human lives.

When Costa Concordia’s lifeboats proved not to be readily available [OZ: due to the listing] , the passengers panicked, as they believed that the Titanic’s passengers had panicked. That wasn’t true either; there was remarkably little panic on the night of April 14-15, 1912. But when people think that panic is called for, that is what they will probably get – panic. If they don’t get something worse.
"""

Or compare it to the "The Eastland Disaster" in 1915.
"""
In 1915, the new federal Seaman's Act had been passed and signed by President Woodrow Wilson because of the RMS Titanic disaster. This required retrofitting of a complete set of lifeboats on the Eastland as on many other passenger vessels. This additional weight, ironically, probably made the Eastland more dangerous and it worsened the already severe problem of being top heavy. On 24 July 1915 the ship rolled over while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew were killed.
"""
[1] Costa Concordia, had lifeboats for 125% of max capacity of 5000 people, while having only 4252 on board.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Eastland#The_Eastland_Disaster
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/1/15/1326652779749/Costa-Concordia-runs-agro-007.jpg

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

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