What's Old Is New Again In High Tech

Well the day has finally arrived. The New Apple i-Phone 4 has just been released and the number of individuals that have camped out in front of the Apple i-Store in Midtown Manhattan can finally go in and get one. One of the biggest features of this new version of the I-Phone is that it can allow you to see the person that you are talking to live on a video camera when you call them to chat as long as they too have an i-phone 4. This technology sounds amazing and it has been impressing the heck out of a lot of people who are hearing about it for the first time. Few people seem to realize that this video phone capability goes all the way back to the World's Fair of 1964 when it was first debuted. Back at the fair (in a section of high tech displays known as "Futurama") The Video Phone was a lot bigger and bulkier than the slick I-Phones of today of course. It was basically a telephone with a TV like monitor attached to it. If the person you were calling had the same set up you could dial the number and when the call connected you would be able to see the other person on the other end of your call as long as they were standing in front of their monitor. For some reason the video phone back then did not take off and the idea died for many decades. Now 50 years later it is coming out again and the public seems to think it is state of the art technological advancement and they are jumping all over themselves to own one. It is the same kind of story that happened with the wireless remote control for televisions. The wireless remote debuted in the 1950's but again for some reason the public was not interested in it and it did not sell. Because of this rejection the American public opted to stick with their old style TV sets with the little knob tuners that they had to get up from their couches to turn in order to change the channel. The wireless remote control was again re-introduced in the 1980's and then it took off big. Now we have a generation of young people who don't even know what a TV with knobs on it even looks like. That kind of TV would probably look to them like what a cave man's eating utensils would have looked like to my generation back when I was a kid watching a TV with knob tuners on it.

Presidents And The Generals They Fire

With the firing of General Stanley McChrystal from his position running the war in Afghanistan (and for demonstrating the monumental lapse in judgement of actually saying to a reporter what he actually thinks about the President and the Vice-President and several other members of his cabinet) one has to take note that it is not the first time in history that this kind of thing has occurred. A similar conflict happened between President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur in 1951 during the Korean War. General MacArthur wanted two things from Truman. The first one was that he wanted the president to give him the green light to fight all the way up the Korean peninsula and actually take the war over the North Korean border and go right into China which would have greatly expanded the war. The second thing was that MacArthur wanted the president to authorize the use of nuclear weapons to settle the conflict. When Truman refused MacArthur took his complaints about the president to the press more than once and then he wrote an open letter to the U.S. Congress criticizing Truman. MacArthur even gave Truman the ultimate act of disrespect when he deliberately failed to salute the president when he came off his plane when Truman went to the war front in Korea to discuss matters directly with him. MacArthur got canned. It effectively ended his career as a military man. The same kind of thing occurred between General George McClellan and President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. McClellan was in charge of the Union Army when a disagreement occurred between him and the President about how to prosecute the war. McClellan was relieved of his command. In the weeks and months that followed McClellan referred to Lincoln both as an idiot and also as a well meaning buffoon. He even ran for president against Lincoln in the 1864 election but his candidacy never got any real traction and Lincoln was re-elected.

Sea Life In Pacific Indicating A More Polluted Ocean

On April 18, 2010 an event occurred on the shores of Seattle, Washington that does not bode well for the long term well being of sea life in the Pacific Ocean. On that morning a 38 foot black and white whale appeared dead on the shores of one of Seattle's waterways. Scientists and researchers were of course curious to find out what had caused the whale to die so they undertook an autopsy. Inside the stomach of the whale they found a pair of sweat pants, a total of 20 plastic bags, several golf balls, several discarded dirty rags, and a couple of rolls of duct tape among several other items. It has been known for a long time that the Pacific Ocean is getting more and more polluted with this kind of waste material. There is a section of the ocean known as the "Pacific Gyre" where the water gyrates and swirls in a circle where there is all kinds of junk like empty plastic bottles, bottle caps, various assorted pieces of plastic, plastic toys, tooth brushes, floating pieces of wood of all sizes, even some furniture such as pieces of couches and chairs have been spotted. It was concluded that the dead whale died simply from consuming these various pieces of garbage that float on the surface of the Pacific and are now ubiquitous along that entire body of water.

Female Executives Around The World

The number of female executives inhabiting a corporate board room varies widely around the world. The reasons it varies are sometimes cultural and sometimes a matter of law. In Norway 40% of the execs at major corporations are female nowadays. They have to be by law. In 2002 the Norwegian Parliament passed a law mandating this figure to their corporate world and gave them 6 years in which to comply. Its been a success. So much so that other European countries are following suit. Spain has introduced a similar law now and has given their corporations until 2015 to meet the same 40% figure for female employment. France is looking to do the same but has not put anything into law yet. These laws are in response to a long standing practice in corporations around the world to under represent women in board rooms. In some countries women make up the majority of the population yet have been almost totally shut out of the business hierarchy. In some parts of the world it is worse than in others. In the U.S. women make up about 15% of the corporate population. In the European Union they only currently make up less than 10%. In Asia it is the lowest at under 5%.

World Cup Far Outshines Super Bowl In Popularity Worldwide

If you are a sports fan in America you would immediately believe the The Super Bowl is by far the biggest sports event that takes place on earth every year. That would be due to the fact that you would not have noticed the 800 pound gorilla in the room, known as the World Cup, that far surpasses it in terms of an overall worldwide audience. Soccer is by far the world's most popular sport hands down. There is not even any other sport that begins to get even close to its worldwide appeal. The last World Cup that was played gained an audience of over 700 million viewers around the World. To give you an idea of just how big that is the last Super bowl game that was played in early February achieved a record audience of over 100 million. Usually its rating is around 80 million or so. A particularly interesting World Series game would get you about 20 million or so viewers in a typical year. An NBA Finals game is usually well under 9 million.

The Oilest Country On Earth

As far as oil consumption goes worldwide there is and has always been only one all time champion. The United States by far consumes most of the world's oil. The U.S. population makes up about 5% of the world population and consumes about 25% of the world's total oil usage every year. It is estimated that America on average consumes about 15 barrels of oil per person each year which is far and away the most by any country. If the entire world population consumed oil at the rate the U.S. does the remaining oil supply would not last much longer. A good way to put it would be like this: If the entire world were to consume oil at the rate that the nation of India consumes oil the remaining supply would last about 225 years. If it were to consume it at the rate China does it would last about 100 more years. If it consumed it at the rate Britain does it would last only 17 more years. If the whole world were to consume oil at the rate the U.S. presently does the world's remaining supply would last only 7 more years.

U.S. And Friends Reveal Nuclear Figures

There is some good news and bad news if you are wanting to feel optimistic about the future of mankind. The bad news is that there are tons of nuclear warheads that are still possessed by the world's nuclear nations and a bunch of other unstable countries that either have or are trying to join the club. The good news is that the number of nukes is way down from its highs during the Cold War. The U.S. announced the total number of warheads that are currently in its nuclear arsenal to date. The number now is 5113 in total. This figure represents a serious decline from its high of 31,255 in 1967. The French and British also released their nuclear figures too. France lists its total number of nuclear warheads at 355. Most of them are bomber based and not based in missile silos or anything of that kind. They also report that they have about 4 nuclear subs. The British list their total at 225 and that their warhead stockpile is largely bomber based as well. An important thing to understand about nuclear warheads is that many of the ones in the U.S. stockpile are MIRV capable. MIRV is short for Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicle. What that means is that one missile that has MIRV capability may have as many as ten separate nuclear warheads in its missile head that can be each programmed to hit a separate target city. Its kind of like a gun with more than one bullet. Although it is just one gun each bullet inside the chamber can be shot at a different target. The U.S. nuclear arsenal that is land based in silos in the Midwest features this capability. It is also present in its submarine based nuclear force. So when The U.S. states that it has 5113 warheads it does not mean that it possesses 5113 nuclear missiles. It means that its missile force contains a total of 5113 warheads. That is to say 5113 nuclear bullets in all its guns.

Working Conditions In China Leading To Suicides

If you think that you have a long, busy work week consider what a typical worker in China has to go through. It is not uncommon in that nation for a worker in a factory to be on the job for 18 hours a day seven days a week. There is no union activity allowed, no benefits offered, and they are paid well under $200 dollars a month and they can be fired at any whim by their employer with no legal recourse. In some cases wages are as low as 9 cents an hour in some factories. It can be enough to drive some Chinese employees to commit suicide. Consider a company called Foxxconn. It is a factory that employs over 300,000 people. They assemble products for American companies that do not want to hire and employ American workers in order to save money on labor costs and thereby increase their profit margins. Foxxconn factory puts together products like The I-Phone for Apple. They also assemble computers for Dell. On May 25th they suffered their ninth suicide of the year by an employee when a worker jumped out of a window rather than go back to work to do another grueling shift. The company and factory have been singled out and criticized in the past for stressful working conditions but the owner of the company has long denied that he runs a "sweatshop."

The Day They Burned The White House Down

Many Americans believe that after the Revolutionary War was won in 1781 that hostilities ceased between Britain and The Colonies. It was not the case. The bad blood and fighting went on well into the 19th century. Probably its zenith occurred on August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812. There had been on going disputes between England and the United States involving land in the Northwest territory. There also continued the problem of British Impressment of U.S. sailors on the high seas. The British would seize U.S. vessels and sailors and get them to change sides and fight for them against the U.S. They would use threats usually. Most of the sailors refused. The British were stopping U.S. shipping which was interfering with commerce and damaging the economy by preventing goods from reaching the country. In retaliation for this the U.S. Army set fire to the city of York in Canada. That city is today known as Toronto. The British responded by heading straight for the capitol. They met only light resistance on their march to Washington because most of the U.S. Army was up further north around Toronto. Once they got into the city they went right for the White House and lit it up. They sent President Madison fleeing into the night as the building burned.