The world needs to be much tougher on Iran, but an Israeli attack would still be a disaster
THE debate about timelines is almost over. This week's report on Iran's nuclear programme by the UN'S watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is its most alarming yet. Although no "smoking gun" proves beyond doubt that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, the evidence gathered in a 12-page annex is hard to interpret in any other way.
Concerted efforts by Western intelligence agencies and the Israelis to sabotage the Iranian programme have been less effective than was previously believed. Iran has already begun moving part of its uranium-enrichment capacity to Fordow, a facility buried deep within a mountain near Qom. Intelligence sources estimate that if Iran opted to "break out" from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it could have at least one workable weapon within a year and a few more about six months after that. Iran's leaders may not choose that path. But what happens next depends less on Iran's technical or industrial capabilities than on politics. For the time being at least, ambiguity almost certainly serves Iran's purposes better than a confrontation. But in Israel, talk of a pre-emptive attack against Iran's nuclear facilities is increasing. Publicly, Israel has stuck to its well-worn line that no option should be ruled out. But well-placed leaks suggest that the prime minister, Binyarnin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Ehud Barak, are exploring the possibility of a pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Their cabinet colleagues seem less persuaded and Israel's powerful military and intelligence establishment is against a strike. Polls show that Israelis are split on the issue. But Mr Netanyahu is determined not to go down in history as the prime minister who allowed Israel to become threatened by a hostile, regional nuclear power.
Rising fear, rising danger
The Israelis' anxiety is understandable. They fear a theocratic regime that embraces the Shia tradition of martyrdom may not be deterred by a nuclear balance of terror. For a country as small as Israel, even a small-scale nuclear attack could be an existential threat. Two of Mr Netanyahu's predecessors took action, against Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007, to prevent just such a threat; and it worked. The opportunity to attack Iran is now, before it is too late-or so the argument goes in many Israeli households.
Yet the arguments against an attack are still overwhelming, even for Israel. A sustained bombing campaign would take weeks and set off a firestorm in the Middle East, with Iran counter-attacking Israel through its proxies. It would do nothing to help regime change in Tehran. The economic consequences could be catastrophic. And to what end? A successful campaign would still only delay Iran, not stop it. The technical difficulties for Israel's armed forces of carrying out such a broad mission over such a long time are immense. Indeed, the suspicion is that Mr Netanyahu would be betting that what Israel started, America would feel forced to finish. Barack Obama should make it very clear to Mr Netanyahu that he would not do that. At the same time, he should pursue two courses: pushing sanctions, on the one hand, and preparing for a nuclear-armed Iran on the other.
So far, attempts to impose punitive sanctions have fallen short. Russia and China (Iran's biggest trading partner) have refused to support efforts at the UN Security Council to beef up the sanctions regime, for instance by limiting Iran's imports of refined petroleum or targeting the activities of its central bank. Yet the West should not give up the effort: there is a (slim) possibility that, as the prospect of an Iranian bomb and an Israeli strike draw near, Russia and China might shift their positions.
If Iran does not halt its nuclear programme, its rulers should expect their country to be treated as an international pariah. That means not just pushing for more serious sanctions, but also stepping up the covert campaign to disrupt Iran's nuclear facilities. It also means preparing for the day when Iran deploys nuclear weapons. To that end, America must demonstrate to its allies who feel threatened by Iran- not just Israel, but Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states too- that its commitment to extending nuclear deterrence to them is as firm as it was to Europe at the height of the cold war. America must also be willing to make available to its allies advanced ballistic missile defences.
Iran must be made to understand that owning nuclear weapons is a curse for it rather than a blessing. And Israel must be persuaded that striking Iran would be far more dangerous than living with its nuclear ambitions.
Source of Information : [The.Economist] Volume 401 Number 8759 Nov 12th - Nov 18th 2011
2011年12月31日
2011年12月28日
Suns truck - How Norsemen found their way round in cloudy weather
CENTURIES before Columbus, Viking adventurers ruled the North Atlantic. They sailed as far as America without the aid of magnetic compasses, which was no mean feat. They were, however, assisted in their travels by another sort of magical device. According to the sagas they had stones which could point to the sun, even when the sky was cloudy. No such sunstone has survived. But Guy Ropars of the University of Rennes, in France, thinks he knows what they were. He and his colleagues have been experimenting with a mineral called Iceland spar. Their results, just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, suggest they are on to something.
The passage of sunlight through the air polarises it. That means light from the sky itself points towards the sun, if you have the necessary equipment to detect the polarisation. Dr Ropars has shown that a piece of Iceland spar is sufficient. Iceland spar is a form of calcite that splits light into two beams. If the light is polarised, there is only one way to orient the crystal to produce beams of equal intensity. Find this orientation by looking through the crystal at the sky at a time when you can see the sun, mark the sun's direction on the crystal, and your mark will always point towards the sun when you match the beams from even a tiny patch of blue in an otherwise overcast sky. Dr Ropars's experiments suggest the method is accurate to within 5°. That is good enough for navigation of the sort the Vikings managed.
Though no sunstones have survived from Viking days, despite the frequency of ship burials of Viking chiefs, there is one tantalising find from a more recent shipwreck. This is a large calcite crystal recovered from a vessel that went down off the coast of Alderney, in the Channel Islands, in Elizabethan times. Several centuries underwater have rendered the Alderney crystal opaque, but Dr Ropars and his team are now examining it, and believe it may be Iceland spar. Dr Ropars suspects it was being used as a sunstone because the magnetic compasses of the day were thrown out of kilter by iron cannon.
The true nature of the sunstone will probably not be settled until and unless one turns up in either a sunken Viking vessel or a ship burial. Perhaps, though, they not only permitted the Vikings to reach America, but also helped save England from the Spanish Armada.
Source of Information : The Economist Volume 401 Number 8758 Nov 05th - Nov 11th 2011
The passage of sunlight through the air polarises it. That means light from the sky itself points towards the sun, if you have the necessary equipment to detect the polarisation. Dr Ropars has shown that a piece of Iceland spar is sufficient. Iceland spar is a form of calcite that splits light into two beams. If the light is polarised, there is only one way to orient the crystal to produce beams of equal intensity. Find this orientation by looking through the crystal at the sky at a time when you can see the sun, mark the sun's direction on the crystal, and your mark will always point towards the sun when you match the beams from even a tiny patch of blue in an otherwise overcast sky. Dr Ropars's experiments suggest the method is accurate to within 5°. That is good enough for navigation of the sort the Vikings managed.
Though no sunstones have survived from Viking days, despite the frequency of ship burials of Viking chiefs, there is one tantalising find from a more recent shipwreck. This is a large calcite crystal recovered from a vessel that went down off the coast of Alderney, in the Channel Islands, in Elizabethan times. Several centuries underwater have rendered the Alderney crystal opaque, but Dr Ropars and his team are now examining it, and believe it may be Iceland spar. Dr Ropars suspects it was being used as a sunstone because the magnetic compasses of the day were thrown out of kilter by iron cannon.
The true nature of the sunstone will probably not be settled until and unless one turns up in either a sunken Viking vessel or a ship burial. Perhaps, though, they not only permitted the Vikings to reach America, but also helped save England from the Spanish Armada.
Source of Information : The Economist Volume 401 Number 8758 Nov 05th - Nov 11th 2011
2011年12月22日
Cristina the alchemist BUENOS AIRES
Argentina is trying to build a scientific establishment
SOUTH AFRICA is not the only middleincome country which aspires to join the world's scientific powers (see previous story). Argentina would like to as well. The place is proud of its three Nobel science prizes-the largest haul of any Latin American nation-even if the most recent was awarded in 1984. But many researchers fled in the 1990s, when budgets were slashed. Now the government is trying to attract them back, and to encourage younger talent to consider a scientific career.
When Nest or Kirchner, the predecessor and late husband of the current president,
Cristina Fermindez, took office in 2003, Argentina was spending just 0-41% of its GDP on research and development (R&D). Now, that figure is 0.64%. (Brazil, by comparison, spent 0.95% in 2003 and 1.18% in 2009.) Kirchner raised researchers' salaries, launched a scheme to repatriate departed scientists and gave tax breaks to software companies. Ms Fernandez followed suit by creating a science ministry and putting a biologist, Lino Baraiiao, in charge of it. She also increased grants to firms that try to develop new products. Many of the Kirchners' critics were sceptical, seeing the ministry either as a political marketing ploy or as a soft touch for lobbyists seeking unjustified subsidies.
But the strategy seems to be working. With help from the Inter-American Development Bank the government has, since 2004, lured back 854 expatriate scientists. It has done so by providing new laboratories and equipment for them, moving their families, and forking out extra money for their salaries. As a consequence, according to Dr Baraiiao, Argentine researchers have published179 articles in leadingjournals in the past decade, compared with just 30 in the1990s.
Most of the returners are academics. But commercial science has benefited, too. In dear, a joint public-private biotechnology-research centre based in Santa Fe, recently worked out how to transfer a gene for drought resistance from sunflowers to crops such as maize, soya beans and wheat.
That can increase yields in droughts by up to 40%. And the government has also doled out $54m in grants for the development of products that include coagulant factors to treat haemophilia, transgenic cattle which secrete valuable hormones in their milk, and better ways of probing for oil deposits.
Help for high-tech innovation comes in other forms, too. The state offers, for example, to pay the cost of patenting inventions in foreign jurisdictions and of hiring lawyers to defend those patents. It also acts as a headhunter for information-technology firms seeking employees with PhDs, and will pay part of the salaries of such recruits. None of these programmes has faced allegations of corruption. Whether all this activity will have the effect of stimulating high-tech industry, as Ms Fernandez hopes, remains to be seen. Argentine scientists are happy to take taxpayers' money but according to Luis Dambra, a professor at the IAE business school in Buenos Aires, they look down their noses at the idea of actually getting their hands dirty by going into industry. Mr Dambra, though, says industry is equally to blame. In 2009 (the latest year for which data are available), only 21% of Argentine R&D was paid for by the private sector, compared with 44% of Brazil's. Firms that might recruit academic scientists often do not see the point. Even those that do may struggle to accommodate people with a non-commercial background into the business world.
Attitudes can change, of course. In the 1980s many British academics were as snobbish about commerce as Argentina's are now. These days, Britain's top universities are gung-ho for spin-outs and the revenue they can provide. But it takes time and consistent policy to make such changes and Argentina is notorious for sudden alterations in the political weather. That makes the country a perilous place to invest, whatever the current climate.
Source of Information : The Economist Volume 401 Number 8758 Nov 05th - Nov 11th 2011
SOUTH AFRICA is not the only middleincome country which aspires to join the world's scientific powers (see previous story). Argentina would like to as well. The place is proud of its three Nobel science prizes-the largest haul of any Latin American nation-even if the most recent was awarded in 1984. But many researchers fled in the 1990s, when budgets were slashed. Now the government is trying to attract them back, and to encourage younger talent to consider a scientific career.
When Nest or Kirchner, the predecessor and late husband of the current president,
Cristina Fermindez, took office in 2003, Argentina was spending just 0-41% of its GDP on research and development (R&D). Now, that figure is 0.64%. (Brazil, by comparison, spent 0.95% in 2003 and 1.18% in 2009.) Kirchner raised researchers' salaries, launched a scheme to repatriate departed scientists and gave tax breaks to software companies. Ms Fernandez followed suit by creating a science ministry and putting a biologist, Lino Baraiiao, in charge of it. She also increased grants to firms that try to develop new products. Many of the Kirchners' critics were sceptical, seeing the ministry either as a political marketing ploy or as a soft touch for lobbyists seeking unjustified subsidies.
But the strategy seems to be working. With help from the Inter-American Development Bank the government has, since 2004, lured back 854 expatriate scientists. It has done so by providing new laboratories and equipment for them, moving their families, and forking out extra money for their salaries. As a consequence, according to Dr Baraiiao, Argentine researchers have published179 articles in leadingjournals in the past decade, compared with just 30 in the1990s.
Most of the returners are academics. But commercial science has benefited, too. In dear, a joint public-private biotechnology-research centre based in Santa Fe, recently worked out how to transfer a gene for drought resistance from sunflowers to crops such as maize, soya beans and wheat.
That can increase yields in droughts by up to 40%. And the government has also doled out $54m in grants for the development of products that include coagulant factors to treat haemophilia, transgenic cattle which secrete valuable hormones in their milk, and better ways of probing for oil deposits.
Help for high-tech innovation comes in other forms, too. The state offers, for example, to pay the cost of patenting inventions in foreign jurisdictions and of hiring lawyers to defend those patents. It also acts as a headhunter for information-technology firms seeking employees with PhDs, and will pay part of the salaries of such recruits. None of these programmes has faced allegations of corruption. Whether all this activity will have the effect of stimulating high-tech industry, as Ms Fernandez hopes, remains to be seen. Argentine scientists are happy to take taxpayers' money but according to Luis Dambra, a professor at the IAE business school in Buenos Aires, they look down their noses at the idea of actually getting their hands dirty by going into industry. Mr Dambra, though, says industry is equally to blame. In 2009 (the latest year for which data are available), only 21% of Argentine R&D was paid for by the private sector, compared with 44% of Brazil's. Firms that might recruit academic scientists often do not see the point. Even those that do may struggle to accommodate people with a non-commercial background into the business world.
Attitudes can change, of course. In the 1980s many British academics were as snobbish about commerce as Argentina's are now. These days, Britain's top universities are gung-ho for spin-outs and the revenue they can provide. But it takes time and consistent policy to make such changes and Argentina is notorious for sudden alterations in the political weather. That makes the country a perilous place to invest, whatever the current climate.
Source of Information : The Economist Volume 401 Number 8758 Nov 05th - Nov 11th 2011
2011年12月19日
All squared - A new radio telescope may catalyse African science
THE idea for the world's most powerful radio telescope, capable of seeing back nearly to the origins of the universe, has been around for some time. Known as the Square Kilometre Array, or SKA -as that was originally planned to be the total collecting area of its thousands of dishshaped antennae-it was conceived of by an international group of astronomers in the early1990s. No construction has yet begun.
Indeed, no site has yet been chosen. However, in the vast quietness of the Karoo, a semi-desert in South Africa, a small prototype is already operating and its first images are, by all accounts, remarkable. The Karoo Array Telescope (KAT-7) consists of seven steerable dishes, each 12 metres across. As such, it is already the most powerful array-based telescope in Africa. It is, though, merely a test bed for MeerKAT, a device that will consist of 64 somewhat larger dishes and will be the most powerful instrument in the southern hemisphere as well as one of the three most sensitive in the world.
The SKA will dwarf these minnows. It will be so-lOo times more powerful than any predecessor, and will be able to peer back through time almost to the Big Bang itself, exploring the formation of the first stars and galaxies, the role of magnetism in the early cosmos, what exactly dark matter and dark energy are, the nature of gravity, whether intelligent life has ever existed anywhere other than on Earth, and the validity of such fundamental scientific concepts as Einstein's theory of relativity. The world's astronomers are, understandably, fizzing with excitement.
Astronomical sums
There is, though, the small matter of money. The SKA will cost a lot: €1.5 billion-2 billion ($2 billion-2.75 billion), according to the nine-country consortium behind the project; nearer $6 billion, according to America's National Science Foundation. On November 23rd those nine countries Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany,
Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and South Africa-and possibly China as well, are due to commit themselves to paying €90m for the initial engineering-planning phase. But it will be when the megabuck work on the actual telescope begins in 2016, that the crunch comes. This is where MeerKAT-named after a species of mongoose found in arid areas of south-western Africa such as the Karoocould play a crucial role. The construction of its dishes is about to be put out to tender, and it is expected to be fully operational by 2016. If MeerKAT succeeds, it might help persuade sceptical governments to cough up for the SKA. It will also enhance South Africa's chances of hosting this much larger project.
Originally, America had been expected to participate. But it has now cried off, at least until 2020. The disappointment of this withdrawal, however, is mitigated by the keen interest being shown by China. The country with the world's second-biggest economy has never invested in a big global science project before. China was one of the places originally considered as host for the telescope. But it and Argentina have since been dropped, leaving just South Africa and Australia in the race. They are said to be neck and neck.
Both offer remote, sparsely populated areas with low levels of man-made radio interference, along with world-class teams of astronomers. Australia has more experience with radio astronomy, but South Africa has the advantage of lower costs and ease of access. As a developing country in which over a third of the population still live on less than $2 a day, it might also be considered to have the greater moral claim. And it has KAT-7, and will shortly have MeerKAT.
The victor will be announced in February by the board of the not-for-profit company that is to be formed by the participating countries when they formally sign up to start paying for the project. Regardless of who wins, some critics say South Africa's contribution would be better spent feeding and housing the country's poor. But if South Africa did succeed, that would mean part of everybody else's contribution would be spent there as well-a prize worth fighting for. Moreover, the government believes projects like this help inspire people and encourage young South Africans to consider scientific careers. Naledi Pandor, the science and technology minister, is particularly supportive. She sees the SKA as a way to broaden the country's scientific base and diversify its current white, male-dominated complexion.
The bid also involves eight of South Africa's neighbours-Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia-and could be the launch pad for a wider scientific renaissance in Africa. Australia will not give up easily, and the outcome may be that the telescope is shared, with some of the antennae in one country and the rest in the other. But even that half loaf would be a useful boost for South African science, and a sign that the traditional powers of the subject are willing to share the goodies.
Source of Information : The Economist Volume 401 Number 8758 Nov 05th - Nov 11th 2011
Indeed, no site has yet been chosen. However, in the vast quietness of the Karoo, a semi-desert in South Africa, a small prototype is already operating and its first images are, by all accounts, remarkable. The Karoo Array Telescope (KAT-7) consists of seven steerable dishes, each 12 metres across. As such, it is already the most powerful array-based telescope in Africa. It is, though, merely a test bed for MeerKAT, a device that will consist of 64 somewhat larger dishes and will be the most powerful instrument in the southern hemisphere as well as one of the three most sensitive in the world.
The SKA will dwarf these minnows. It will be so-lOo times more powerful than any predecessor, and will be able to peer back through time almost to the Big Bang itself, exploring the formation of the first stars and galaxies, the role of magnetism in the early cosmos, what exactly dark matter and dark energy are, the nature of gravity, whether intelligent life has ever existed anywhere other than on Earth, and the validity of such fundamental scientific concepts as Einstein's theory of relativity. The world's astronomers are, understandably, fizzing with excitement.
Astronomical sums
There is, though, the small matter of money. The SKA will cost a lot: €1.5 billion-2 billion ($2 billion-2.75 billion), according to the nine-country consortium behind the project; nearer $6 billion, according to America's National Science Foundation. On November 23rd those nine countries Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany,
Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and South Africa-and possibly China as well, are due to commit themselves to paying €90m for the initial engineering-planning phase. But it will be when the megabuck work on the actual telescope begins in 2016, that the crunch comes. This is where MeerKAT-named after a species of mongoose found in arid areas of south-western Africa such as the Karoocould play a crucial role. The construction of its dishes is about to be put out to tender, and it is expected to be fully operational by 2016. If MeerKAT succeeds, it might help persuade sceptical governments to cough up for the SKA. It will also enhance South Africa's chances of hosting this much larger project.
Originally, America had been expected to participate. But it has now cried off, at least until 2020. The disappointment of this withdrawal, however, is mitigated by the keen interest being shown by China. The country with the world's second-biggest economy has never invested in a big global science project before. China was one of the places originally considered as host for the telescope. But it and Argentina have since been dropped, leaving just South Africa and Australia in the race. They are said to be neck and neck.
Both offer remote, sparsely populated areas with low levels of man-made radio interference, along with world-class teams of astronomers. Australia has more experience with radio astronomy, but South Africa has the advantage of lower costs and ease of access. As a developing country in which over a third of the population still live on less than $2 a day, it might also be considered to have the greater moral claim. And it has KAT-7, and will shortly have MeerKAT.
The victor will be announced in February by the board of the not-for-profit company that is to be formed by the participating countries when they formally sign up to start paying for the project. Regardless of who wins, some critics say South Africa's contribution would be better spent feeding and housing the country's poor. But if South Africa did succeed, that would mean part of everybody else's contribution would be spent there as well-a prize worth fighting for. Moreover, the government believes projects like this help inspire people and encourage young South Africans to consider scientific careers. Naledi Pandor, the science and technology minister, is particularly supportive. She sees the SKA as a way to broaden the country's scientific base and diversify its current white, male-dominated complexion.
The bid also involves eight of South Africa's neighbours-Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia-and could be the launch pad for a wider scientific renaissance in Africa. Australia will not give up easily, and the outcome may be that the telescope is shared, with some of the antennae in one country and the rest in the other. But even that half loaf would be a useful boost for South African science, and a sign that the traditional powers of the subject are willing to share the goodies.
Source of Information : The Economist Volume 401 Number 8758 Nov 05th - Nov 11th 2011
2011年12月17日
Better Health for the Uncounted Urban Masses
Most of the people who moved to London, New York City, Chicago, Berlin and other big cities during the 19th century traded away their health to make better wages. Crowding, unsafe drinking water, bad sanitation, harsh working conditions and industrial pollution made them sicker than their cousins back home in the countryside and shortened their life spans. But starting in the middle decades of the 1800s, government reforms and urban leaders began turning the health of these cities around by investing in water, sanitation, waste removal, education and more. Today affluent cities are among the healthiest places to live. Even in many middle-income countries urban dwellers go about their lives largely unthreatened by the classic epidemics.
Yet the 800 million to 900 million people living in the informal settlements that make up modern-day slums still await such miracles. They suffer the effects of overcrowding, contaminated water and lack of affordable health care. In many of these places one in six children dies before the age of five, and life expectancies are less than half as long as those in the healthiest cities. The situation will not get better until governments take greater responsibility for the wellness of the poorest residents. Governments are often a large part of the problem, however. Most of the poorest settlements are on land that is illegally occupied or subdivided, so urban bureaucracies may ignore their existence. In addition, formal laws and institutions tend to assume that people can afford to live in sanitary homes and therefore often do more to marginalize communities that are at the edge of subsistence than to help them. Governments may also shy away from engaging with activists who encourage impoverished residents to organize around demands for improvements, but these organizers must be engaged if government programs that are put in place can hope to succeed.
Bright spots exist, however. Some local governments are now acknowledging the informal settlements and are collaborating with the inhabitants to install the health infrastructure and services needed. One of the most effective initiatives is the secure housing program run by the government of Thailand’s Community Organizations Development Institute, which has supported hundreds of community-driven upgrading schemes, including paying for better water and sewage infrastructure and lending money to shack dwellers to improve their homes. Federations of slum dwellers are working with local authorities to change conditions in more than 15 other nations. As these programs show, poor people’s health and their economic status both benefit most when governments, international agencies and slum dwellers work together to plan, implement and manage changes. More cities must see their “uncounted, unhealthy masses” as partners with resources and capacities if they want to complete a meaningful urban revolution.
Source of Information : Scientific American Magazine
Yet the 800 million to 900 million people living in the informal settlements that make up modern-day slums still await such miracles. They suffer the effects of overcrowding, contaminated water and lack of affordable health care. In many of these places one in six children dies before the age of five, and life expectancies are less than half as long as those in the healthiest cities. The situation will not get better until governments take greater responsibility for the wellness of the poorest residents. Governments are often a large part of the problem, however. Most of the poorest settlements are on land that is illegally occupied or subdivided, so urban bureaucracies may ignore their existence. In addition, formal laws and institutions tend to assume that people can afford to live in sanitary homes and therefore often do more to marginalize communities that are at the edge of subsistence than to help them. Governments may also shy away from engaging with activists who encourage impoverished residents to organize around demands for improvements, but these organizers must be engaged if government programs that are put in place can hope to succeed.
Bright spots exist, however. Some local governments are now acknowledging the informal settlements and are collaborating with the inhabitants to install the health infrastructure and services needed. One of the most effective initiatives is the secure housing program run by the government of Thailand’s Community Organizations Development Institute, which has supported hundreds of community-driven upgrading schemes, including paying for better water and sewage infrastructure and lending money to shack dwellers to improve their homes. Federations of slum dwellers are working with local authorities to change conditions in more than 15 other nations. As these programs show, poor people’s health and their economic status both benefit most when governments, international agencies and slum dwellers work together to plan, implement and manage changes. More cities must see their “uncounted, unhealthy masses” as partners with resources and capacities if they want to complete a meaningful urban revolution.
Source of Information : Scientific American Magazine
2011年12月14日
Password Prevented
In a world drowning in absurd security requirements, it’s nice to see a few islands of reason
Nobody seems to think_ much about passwords. After all, isn’t their purpose obvious? You need one on your bank account so that nobody else can use your money. You need one on your e-mail account so that strangers can’t find out your innermost thoughts. But I was astonished when my daughter told me that her school has instituted a new security initiative. Student passwords must now be at least eight characters long, must contain letters, numbers and punctuation, and may not incorporate any recognizable English word. And the password must be changed every 30 days.
Can you guess what this password is meant to lock down? The fifth-grade homework downloading Web page. That’s right. All of that inconvenience, memorization
And hassle is intended to make sure some disturbed maniac doesn’t read this week’s spelling list. Then there’s the video production company I worked with recently, which hired a new tech guy. The first thing he did was to declare the company’s network to be unsafe. He decided that workers could no longer choose their own passwords; he would supply them. They would be 12 characters long and consist of alphanumeric gibberish, and they would have to be changed every month.
He also blocked chat programs, e-mail attachments and YouTube. So is the production company more secure? That’s hard to say. They haven’t had any hacker break-ins—of course, they had never had any before, either. But there is a difference. Now the employees watch YouTube videos on their phones, use Gmail to get file attachments and keep their unmemorizable passwords on Post-It notes taped to the monitor. Nice going, Mr. Security.
My point, of course, is that while it’s important to be secure, it’s equally important to ask why—and to consider the trade-off between security and convenience. Obscure and harmless entities sometimes get locked up like Fort Knox, punishing nobody but the legitimate users. (Don’t even get me started on the Transportation Security Administration.) Other entities, such as Sony, Citibank and Lockheed Martin, are apparently not locked up enough. (Their computer systems were all hacked this past spring.)
It is actually possible to devise a system that ensures both security and convenience—if you’re smart. For example, if you reserve a room as a member of Omni Hotels’s Select Guest loyalty program, you can check in just by walking up to the counter and giving your name. They hand over your key and say, “Good evening, [your name here]. Have a great stay.”
They don’t ask for your ID. They don’t say, “May I have your credit card for incidentals?” They don’t tap on their keyboard for five minutes. They don’t ask you any questions. No interrogation of any kind. They have your key waiting, and they just hand it over. How can they get away with such lax security? Couldn’t some ruffian pose as you, take your key and crawl into the bed in your hotel room? It’s never happened in the history of the Omni’s Express check-in program. Why not? Because theru ruffians don’t know who you are or that you’ve booked a hotel room. And if you ever did arrive and find some evildoer in your bed, you would be able to clear up the confusion pretty quickly by showing your ID.
Here’s another example: When you buy a program from Apple’s online Mac App Store, the program is downloaded and installed on your Mac automatically. You are not prompted for your system password, you don’t click through any installer screens, there’s no warning about software downloaded from the Internet. It’s the height of convenience.
Shouldn’t Apple be more worried about security? No, because it’s done some thinking. It controls both ends of the transaction. It’s not worried about viruses or malware, because it’s providing the software itself. It doesn’t have to ask you if you want to install the software—of course you want to (otherwise, why would you be buying it?). Whether you’re an administrator, designer or consumer, in other words, it’s worth putting some thought into the security/convenience trade-off. Passwords have their place—but it’s not every place.
Source of Information : Scientific American Magazine
Nobody seems to think_ much about passwords. After all, isn’t their purpose obvious? You need one on your bank account so that nobody else can use your money. You need one on your e-mail account so that strangers can’t find out your innermost thoughts. But I was astonished when my daughter told me that her school has instituted a new security initiative. Student passwords must now be at least eight characters long, must contain letters, numbers and punctuation, and may not incorporate any recognizable English word. And the password must be changed every 30 days.
Can you guess what this password is meant to lock down? The fifth-grade homework downloading Web page. That’s right. All of that inconvenience, memorization
And hassle is intended to make sure some disturbed maniac doesn’t read this week’s spelling list. Then there’s the video production company I worked with recently, which hired a new tech guy. The first thing he did was to declare the company’s network to be unsafe. He decided that workers could no longer choose their own passwords; he would supply them. They would be 12 characters long and consist of alphanumeric gibberish, and they would have to be changed every month.
He also blocked chat programs, e-mail attachments and YouTube. So is the production company more secure? That’s hard to say. They haven’t had any hacker break-ins—of course, they had never had any before, either. But there is a difference. Now the employees watch YouTube videos on their phones, use Gmail to get file attachments and keep their unmemorizable passwords on Post-It notes taped to the monitor. Nice going, Mr. Security.
My point, of course, is that while it’s important to be secure, it’s equally important to ask why—and to consider the trade-off between security and convenience. Obscure and harmless entities sometimes get locked up like Fort Knox, punishing nobody but the legitimate users. (Don’t even get me started on the Transportation Security Administration.) Other entities, such as Sony, Citibank and Lockheed Martin, are apparently not locked up enough. (Their computer systems were all hacked this past spring.)
It is actually possible to devise a system that ensures both security and convenience—if you’re smart. For example, if you reserve a room as a member of Omni Hotels’s Select Guest loyalty program, you can check in just by walking up to the counter and giving your name. They hand over your key and say, “Good evening, [your name here]. Have a great stay.”
They don’t ask for your ID. They don’t say, “May I have your credit card for incidentals?” They don’t tap on their keyboard for five minutes. They don’t ask you any questions. No interrogation of any kind. They have your key waiting, and they just hand it over. How can they get away with such lax security? Couldn’t some ruffian pose as you, take your key and crawl into the bed in your hotel room? It’s never happened in the history of the Omni’s Express check-in program. Why not? Because theru ruffians don’t know who you are or that you’ve booked a hotel room. And if you ever did arrive and find some evildoer in your bed, you would be able to clear up the confusion pretty quickly by showing your ID.
Here’s another example: When you buy a program from Apple’s online Mac App Store, the program is downloaded and installed on your Mac automatically. You are not prompted for your system password, you don’t click through any installer screens, there’s no warning about software downloaded from the Internet. It’s the height of convenience.
Shouldn’t Apple be more worried about security? No, because it’s done some thinking. It controls both ends of the transaction. It’s not worried about viruses or malware, because it’s providing the software itself. It doesn’t have to ask you if you want to install the software—of course you want to (otherwise, why would you be buying it?). Whether you’re an administrator, designer or consumer, in other words, it’s worth putting some thought into the security/convenience trade-off. Passwords have their place—but it’s not every place.
Source of Information : Scientific American Magazine
2011年12月10日
A new x-ray technique may herald improved baggage screening and mammograms
Can You See Me Now?
X-rays can help reveal anything from bombs hidden in luggage to tumors in breasts, but some potentially vital clues might be too faint to capture with conventional methods. Now a new x-ray technique adapted from atom smashers could resolve more key details. Conventional x-ray imaging works much like traditional photography, relying on the light—in this case, x-rays—that a target absorbs, transmits and scatters. To make out fine details, one typically needs a lot of x-rays, either over time, which can expose targets to damaging levels of radiation, or all at once from powerful sources such as circular particle accelerators, or synchrotrons, which are expensive.
Instead physicist Alessandro Olivo of University College London and his colleagues suggest imaging an object by looking for very small deviations in an x-ray’s direction as it moves through that object. Their idea is to take such x-ray phase-contrast imaging, which has been used in synchrotrons for more than 15 years, and use it with conventional x-rays.
The scientists rig conventional x-ray sources with gold grates that are 100 microns or so thick— one in front of a target and one behind it. The holes on one grate do not line up exactly with the holes on the other, meaning x-rays that passed in straight lines through the first grate would get filtered out by the second, lowering background noise. The detector then analyzes only the photons that deviated in direction as they passed through the object. This can lead to at least 10 times greater contrast than conventional imaging—“ all details are more clearly visible, and details classically considered very hard to detect become detectable,”
Olivo says of findings reported recently in Applied Optics. Whereas bombs are usually visible in conventional x-ray imaging, they can be confused with other materials such as plastics or liquids. The scientists are now pushing imaging sensitivity even further with new grating designs and are working on 3-D scanning techniques by coming at the target from multiple angles.
This system can generate images in just seconds, far quicker than other x-ray phase-contrast techniques, which cannot exert as much power during scanning and thus require minutes, says radiation physicist David Bradley of the University of Surrey in England, who did not take part in this study. But it remains unclear if this system could work fast enough for security scanning, says materials scientist Philip Withers of the University of Manchester in England. Withers does think the technology could lead to better medical imaging, as well as improvements in detecting defects in materials used in aerospace work.
Source of Information : Scientific American Magazine 2011
X-rays can help reveal anything from bombs hidden in luggage to tumors in breasts, but some potentially vital clues might be too faint to capture with conventional methods. Now a new x-ray technique adapted from atom smashers could resolve more key details. Conventional x-ray imaging works much like traditional photography, relying on the light—in this case, x-rays—that a target absorbs, transmits and scatters. To make out fine details, one typically needs a lot of x-rays, either over time, which can expose targets to damaging levels of radiation, or all at once from powerful sources such as circular particle accelerators, or synchrotrons, which are expensive.
Instead physicist Alessandro Olivo of University College London and his colleagues suggest imaging an object by looking for very small deviations in an x-ray’s direction as it moves through that object. Their idea is to take such x-ray phase-contrast imaging, which has been used in synchrotrons for more than 15 years, and use it with conventional x-rays.
The scientists rig conventional x-ray sources with gold grates that are 100 microns or so thick— one in front of a target and one behind it. The holes on one grate do not line up exactly with the holes on the other, meaning x-rays that passed in straight lines through the first grate would get filtered out by the second, lowering background noise. The detector then analyzes only the photons that deviated in direction as they passed through the object. This can lead to at least 10 times greater contrast than conventional imaging—“ all details are more clearly visible, and details classically considered very hard to detect become detectable,”
Olivo says of findings reported recently in Applied Optics. Whereas bombs are usually visible in conventional x-ray imaging, they can be confused with other materials such as plastics or liquids. The scientists are now pushing imaging sensitivity even further with new grating designs and are working on 3-D scanning techniques by coming at the target from multiple angles.
This system can generate images in just seconds, far quicker than other x-ray phase-contrast techniques, which cannot exert as much power during scanning and thus require minutes, says radiation physicist David Bradley of the University of Surrey in England, who did not take part in this study. But it remains unclear if this system could work fast enough for security scanning, says materials scientist Philip Withers of the University of Manchester in England. Withers does think the technology could lead to better medical imaging, as well as improvements in detecting defects in materials used in aerospace work.
Source of Information : Scientific American Magazine 2011
2011年12月6日
Cooking That Sucks
Vacuum pumps in the kitchen
Nature, famously, abhors a vacuum. But some cooks have learned to feel differently. Step through the swinging doors at the back of a top restaurant like Alinea in Chicago, and you may find vacuum pumps being used to reduce cooking juices into concentrated sauces, to distill essential oils from fruits and vegetables, to dehydrate chips or to brew coffee.
Many of these techniques originated in chemistry laboratories or industrial food-processing operations, and the equipment involved still evokes the bench scientist more than the top chef. But with all those Erlenmeyer flasks, innovative cooks have discovered ways to achieve culinary feats that are impractical by any conventional means.
Consider the common problem of concentrating the flavors and aromas that are in a dilute liquid mixture, such as a broth. The old-fashioned method—a long stovetop simmer to boil off the water—allows many of the most piquant and fragrant compounds to escape with the steam. The kitchen may smell great—but at the cost of a duller sauce. A lengthy sit over the heat also chemically alters many of those compounds that remain, so they no longer taste or smell fresh. A vacuum-reduction setup does a better job because it uses low pressure, rather than high heat, to accelerate evaporation. Pour the liquid into a Pyrex flask that has a side port and connect the flask to a vacuum pump with a rubber hose. Then drop in a magnetic rod, stopper the flask and put it on a hot plate, which uses a spinning magnet to stir and gently warm the broth while the pump reduces the air pressure inside the flask. As the pressure drops, the boiling point of the liquid falls as well; the goal is to sustain a mild, low-temperature boil.
That relatively simple setup greatly reduces chemical changes, but it still permits some aromatics to escape through the hose. A more expensive and complex bit of gear, called a rotary evaporator, can capture those vaporized essences and condense them back into liquid form. The cooks at our research kitchen in Bellevue, Wash., use this technique to concentrate apple juice, cabbage juice and vinegar to make a fantastic red coleslaw. Concentrated watermelon juice is also a delight.
Source of Information : Scientific American Magazine 2011
Nature, famously, abhors a vacuum. But some cooks have learned to feel differently. Step through the swinging doors at the back of a top restaurant like Alinea in Chicago, and you may find vacuum pumps being used to reduce cooking juices into concentrated sauces, to distill essential oils from fruits and vegetables, to dehydrate chips or to brew coffee.
Many of these techniques originated in chemistry laboratories or industrial food-processing operations, and the equipment involved still evokes the bench scientist more than the top chef. But with all those Erlenmeyer flasks, innovative cooks have discovered ways to achieve culinary feats that are impractical by any conventional means.
Consider the common problem of concentrating the flavors and aromas that are in a dilute liquid mixture, such as a broth. The old-fashioned method—a long stovetop simmer to boil off the water—allows many of the most piquant and fragrant compounds to escape with the steam. The kitchen may smell great—but at the cost of a duller sauce. A lengthy sit over the heat also chemically alters many of those compounds that remain, so they no longer taste or smell fresh. A vacuum-reduction setup does a better job because it uses low pressure, rather than high heat, to accelerate evaporation. Pour the liquid into a Pyrex flask that has a side port and connect the flask to a vacuum pump with a rubber hose. Then drop in a magnetic rod, stopper the flask and put it on a hot plate, which uses a spinning magnet to stir and gently warm the broth while the pump reduces the air pressure inside the flask. As the pressure drops, the boiling point of the liquid falls as well; the goal is to sustain a mild, low-temperature boil.
That relatively simple setup greatly reduces chemical changes, but it still permits some aromatics to escape through the hose. A more expensive and complex bit of gear, called a rotary evaporator, can capture those vaporized essences and condense them back into liquid form. The cooks at our research kitchen in Bellevue, Wash., use this technique to concentrate apple juice, cabbage juice and vinegar to make a fantastic red coleslaw. Concentrated watermelon juice is also a delight.
Source of Information : Scientific American Magazine 2011
2011年12月1日
Wikipedia's fund-raising - Free but not easy
The online encyclopedia needs its users' money and volunteers' time. Gaining the first is the easier task
MANY mocked, but the money rolled in. For the last few weeks of 2010 Jimmy Wales fixed his piercing gaze on Wikipedia users, imploring them from banner ads to help "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" pay its bills for this year. The founder's plea worked. Wikipedia reached its target of $16m in just so days (compared with $8.7m in 67 days at the end of 2009).
This month those pleading banners will return-but with many sets of eyes. Backing up the earnest Mr Wales in the attempt to raise $25m by the year-end will be Brandon Harris, a long-haired programmer wearing a full-sleeved T-shirt and a surly expression, who says he quit his job building "some crappy thing that's designed to steal money from some kid who doesn't know it" to work with Wikipedia. 400m unique users every month make it the world's fifth-biggest website, according to Alexa, an internet research company. It also has a good claim to be the world's most important provider of non-entertainment content.
Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit company that runs the online encyclopedia, has devoted much effort towards finding a way around its reliance on its founder. The banner featuring Mr Harris was the first to outperform the one with Mr Wales, and more successes have followed. Though Wikimedia received $3.6m from a charity, the Stanton Foundation, it wants to raise money from large numbers of happy users rather than big donors who might want some clout for their cash.
Wikipedia has just 78 full-time staff (due to reach 117 in 2012) and 370 servers, against some 6o,ooo for Facebook and over 1m for Google. Unlike other internet giants, its content comes from unpaid editors. It spends 44% of its income on technology (including programmers); other administration costs make up just under a quarter. Fund-raising takes up 8% of the budget. It accepts no advertising.
Raising time
But raising cash to keep Wikipedia running is an easier task than getting people to donate time. Month-on-month article growth in the English Wikipedia was as high as 5% in 2006 but has stayed stubbornly at1% for the past two years. Worse, Wikipedia fears that without remedial steps, the number of active editors will decline to below 8o,ooo by the middle of next year (in March, the figure was 90,000).
Editors are a scarce and hardy breed. They must understand the site's policies, gain authority among other Wikipedians so that their decisions stick, and be able to write in the cumbersome code required by Wikipedia's software. Moreover, says Harry Newstead, Wikimedia's chief global development officer, 90% of users outside Wikipedia's "core community" aren't even aware that they can edit the encyclopedia. Users seem to ignore the plentiful invitations to get involved: "We're furniture in the living room," he says plaintively.
Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, says she wants to break down the "psychological barrier" between reading and editing, so that improving an article feels like a natural extension of reading it. Attracting people dedicated (and thick-skinned) enough to fend off special interests and trolls (internet hooligans) is tough. So Wikipedia is trying to make its editors' lives simpler and more attractive. One move is to try to cut the number of discouraging automated messages warning editors of style breaches and other peccadillos.
Another change, due by the end of 2012, will make editing a lot easier, and more like using popular blogging software. But the Wikinauts are steering clear of the bandwidth- hungry features favoured by other content-rich websites. The aim is that a humble user visiting the site from a cheap mobile phone in Africa will find loading a page just as quick and simple as a richworld user with a powerful computer and a broad band connection.
By the end of this year, Wikimedia will have opened an office in India, its first outside the United States. Branching out to the far side of the world (rather than opening an office in somewhere comfortable like Europe) is meant to signal the foundation's global ambitions. India is a sensible choice for an outfit with limited resources: a large, English-speaking Wikipedia community already exists there. Indians are the fifthlargest donors and rank sixth among mostactive editors. The encyclopedia has two dozen versions in Indian languages. But even the largest of these, Hindi, has only 100,000 articles (against over 3.8m for English). 300m Hindi speakers mean plenty of scope for growth. India alone is expected to triple the number of its internet users to nearly 300m by 2014. The push should provide useful know-how for expansion under way in two other big growth areas: Brazil and the Arab-speaking world.
Despite rosy forecasts for emerging market growth, Wikipedia still faces two big obstacles. It is good that so many people in the developing world now access the encyclopedia from mobile phones, but such devices are ill-suited to editing. In deferential cultures and those with little experience of public participation, Wikipedia has also had particular trouble explaining that every single user has the right (and indeed the duty) to edit an article if he thinks he can improve it.
One solution is partnerships with universities. Wikipedia works with three institutions in the western Indian town of Pune, an education hub. Students are assigned a theme-corporate social responsibility, for example-and must write articles for course credit. They are happy to gain a wider readership than just their professors, while Wikipedia gets an enthusiastic batch of new recruits. Articles created through these partnerships range from topics as broad as "output (economics)" to an arcane entry on a 1985 committee on Indian monetary policy.
The aim is to encourage the indigenous creation of information and to lessen reliance on imports from outside. The university focus also helps Wikipedia inch closer to meeting one of its diversity targets-increasing the share of women editors from 9% in 2011 to 25% by 2015.
Wikipedia has suffered in the past from ill-informed criticism from outside, and complacency on the inside. Signs now are that both are diminishing. The idea that an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit can provide high-quality content is increasingly established. Wikipedia entries are rarely perfect, but their flaws are always open to instant remedy; that is a big plus. The outfit also seems to be moving away from its dependence on the charismatic Mr Wales, and from its over-reliance on a narrow caste of Anglophone enthusiasts. Wikipedia's survival and expansion are also encouraging signs for those that worry the internet is in danger of becoming too commercial and closed off. Wikipedia is not just collating knowledge: it is making news too.
Source of Information : The Economist Volume 401 Number 8758 Nov 05th - Nov 11th 2011
MANY mocked, but the money rolled in. For the last few weeks of 2010 Jimmy Wales fixed his piercing gaze on Wikipedia users, imploring them from banner ads to help "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" pay its bills for this year. The founder's plea worked. Wikipedia reached its target of $16m in just so days (compared with $8.7m in 67 days at the end of 2009).
This month those pleading banners will return-but with many sets of eyes. Backing up the earnest Mr Wales in the attempt to raise $25m by the year-end will be Brandon Harris, a long-haired programmer wearing a full-sleeved T-shirt and a surly expression, who says he quit his job building "some crappy thing that's designed to steal money from some kid who doesn't know it" to work with Wikipedia. 400m unique users every month make it the world's fifth-biggest website, according to Alexa, an internet research company. It also has a good claim to be the world's most important provider of non-entertainment content.
Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit company that runs the online encyclopedia, has devoted much effort towards finding a way around its reliance on its founder. The banner featuring Mr Harris was the first to outperform the one with Mr Wales, and more successes have followed. Though Wikimedia received $3.6m from a charity, the Stanton Foundation, it wants to raise money from large numbers of happy users rather than big donors who might want some clout for their cash.
Wikipedia has just 78 full-time staff (due to reach 117 in 2012) and 370 servers, against some 6o,ooo for Facebook and over 1m for Google. Unlike other internet giants, its content comes from unpaid editors. It spends 44% of its income on technology (including programmers); other administration costs make up just under a quarter. Fund-raising takes up 8% of the budget. It accepts no advertising.
Raising time
But raising cash to keep Wikipedia running is an easier task than getting people to donate time. Month-on-month article growth in the English Wikipedia was as high as 5% in 2006 but has stayed stubbornly at1% for the past two years. Worse, Wikipedia fears that without remedial steps, the number of active editors will decline to below 8o,ooo by the middle of next year (in March, the figure was 90,000).
Editors are a scarce and hardy breed. They must understand the site's policies, gain authority among other Wikipedians so that their decisions stick, and be able to write in the cumbersome code required by Wikipedia's software. Moreover, says Harry Newstead, Wikimedia's chief global development officer, 90% of users outside Wikipedia's "core community" aren't even aware that they can edit the encyclopedia. Users seem to ignore the plentiful invitations to get involved: "We're furniture in the living room," he says plaintively.
Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, says she wants to break down the "psychological barrier" between reading and editing, so that improving an article feels like a natural extension of reading it. Attracting people dedicated (and thick-skinned) enough to fend off special interests and trolls (internet hooligans) is tough. So Wikipedia is trying to make its editors' lives simpler and more attractive. One move is to try to cut the number of discouraging automated messages warning editors of style breaches and other peccadillos.
Another change, due by the end of 2012, will make editing a lot easier, and more like using popular blogging software. But the Wikinauts are steering clear of the bandwidth- hungry features favoured by other content-rich websites. The aim is that a humble user visiting the site from a cheap mobile phone in Africa will find loading a page just as quick and simple as a richworld user with a powerful computer and a broad band connection.
By the end of this year, Wikimedia will have opened an office in India, its first outside the United States. Branching out to the far side of the world (rather than opening an office in somewhere comfortable like Europe) is meant to signal the foundation's global ambitions. India is a sensible choice for an outfit with limited resources: a large, English-speaking Wikipedia community already exists there. Indians are the fifthlargest donors and rank sixth among mostactive editors. The encyclopedia has two dozen versions in Indian languages. But even the largest of these, Hindi, has only 100,000 articles (against over 3.8m for English). 300m Hindi speakers mean plenty of scope for growth. India alone is expected to triple the number of its internet users to nearly 300m by 2014. The push should provide useful know-how for expansion under way in two other big growth areas: Brazil and the Arab-speaking world.
Despite rosy forecasts for emerging market growth, Wikipedia still faces two big obstacles. It is good that so many people in the developing world now access the encyclopedia from mobile phones, but such devices are ill-suited to editing. In deferential cultures and those with little experience of public participation, Wikipedia has also had particular trouble explaining that every single user has the right (and indeed the duty) to edit an article if he thinks he can improve it.
One solution is partnerships with universities. Wikipedia works with three institutions in the western Indian town of Pune, an education hub. Students are assigned a theme-corporate social responsibility, for example-and must write articles for course credit. They are happy to gain a wider readership than just their professors, while Wikipedia gets an enthusiastic batch of new recruits. Articles created through these partnerships range from topics as broad as "output (economics)" to an arcane entry on a 1985 committee on Indian monetary policy.
The aim is to encourage the indigenous creation of information and to lessen reliance on imports from outside. The university focus also helps Wikipedia inch closer to meeting one of its diversity targets-increasing the share of women editors from 9% in 2011 to 25% by 2015.
Wikipedia has suffered in the past from ill-informed criticism from outside, and complacency on the inside. Signs now are that both are diminishing. The idea that an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit can provide high-quality content is increasingly established. Wikipedia entries are rarely perfect, but their flaws are always open to instant remedy; that is a big plus. The outfit also seems to be moving away from its dependence on the charismatic Mr Wales, and from its over-reliance on a narrow caste of Anglophone enthusiasts. Wikipedia's survival and expansion are also encouraging signs for those that worry the internet is in danger of becoming too commercial and closed off. Wikipedia is not just collating knowledge: it is making news too.
Source of Information : The Economist Volume 401 Number 8758 Nov 05th - Nov 11th 2011
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