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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Canada has a budget surplus of CA$13.8 billion for the 2006–2007 fiscal year, totaling 1% of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP), Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced today. The record surplus was boosted by revenue from government corporations to $14.2 billion, far exceeding the government’s projections of $9.2 billion and surpassing the record set by the previous year’s $13.2 billion surplus.

By federal law, all surplus must be used to pay down Canada’s debt, and is not available for spending. $90 billion in debt payments over the last ten years have reduced its debt to $467 billion or 32.3% of national GDP, its lowest level in a quarter century. The announced debt payment is the largest in Canadian history.

The payment also reduced Canada’s annual interest payments by $725 million, which the government pledged to pass on to taxpayers through tax returns and reduced income taxes. The Conservative’s “Tax Back Guarantee”, proposed in the March budget, promises that money saved on interest payments will be deducted from Canadians’ taxes. The Globe and Mail predicts the tax returns will be 30–40 dollars per taxpayer.

Canada has posted ten consecutive budget surpluses in the last decade. The Canadian economy, the 8^th largest in the world, has benefited from rising global demand for its export commodities, particularly oil and copper, as well as record corporate profits. This surplus was further increased by a $700 million drop from expected government spending.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper cautioned that the Canadian economy is still facing “tough times” in its forestry, manufacturing, and some export industries. Critics point out that the Conservative government had said Canadians were overtaxed when they took office, and had vowed to eliminate “surplus surprises”.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Yesterday at 6:00 UTC at 60° S 78° E , a Japanese whaling ship detained two Sea Shepherd Conservation Society activists in the Southern Ocean. Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research (IRC) deny Sea Shepherd claims that they have been abused. The Japanese government has assured the Australian Government the release of the men.

According to the conservation agency Sea Shepherd, Australian Benjamin Potts, 28, a helicopter assistant, and Briton Giles Lane, an engine room worker, were detained on board a Yushin Maru No. 2 after delivering a letter asking the ship to exit Antarctic waters .

Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd’s vessel, Steve Irwin, said that the Japanese “tried to throw them overboard, then they tied them to a bulkhead and were beating them”.

He alleged that the men were tied to the radar masts before being brought below deck after which the men were not seen. Sea Shepherd’s international director, Jonny Vasic, claimed that they were “basically strapped by the arms with zip-ties and tied with rope around their chests” for 2½ to three hours.

The captain said he was surprised as he expected Japanese whale ships to treated his men more decently.

“We are concerned but I know the Australian and British governments are in touch with the Japanese government.”

Sea Shepherd said it has photographic evidence that the whalers were abusing the men.

However, the Japanese ship refuted the allegations.

“Any accusations that we have tied them up or assaulted them are completely untrue,” Director-general of the IRC Minoru Morimoto said in the press release, “It is illegal to board another country’s vessels on the high seas.”

Detaining the activists was the “only way”, he said. “You couldn’t have them running around the deck not knowing what they’re going to do.”

He said that the activists were making attempts to entangle the screw and were throwing bottles of butyric acid, as rancid butter, onto the deck of the vessel before boarding the vessel. Mr Watson has confirmed this and said that they were to act as a stink bomb but their actions were still peaceful.

Hideki Moronuki, the chief of the whaling section of The Fisheries Agency of Japan, claimed that “nobody took violent action against the two illegal intruders”.

Mr. Moronuki said that they were treated “very, very humanely” and were provided with “a warm, delicious hot meal”, “[a] warm, nice bath” and “[a] nice bed with clean white sheets”.

Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith said that the Japanese government promised him the release of the men late yesterday night.

“Late last night I was advised the Japanese had agreed to this and they had instructed the relevant whaling ship to return the men to the Steve Irwin,” he told ABC radio.

Mr. Moronuki said the “two illegal intruders” will not be released by the vessel’s captain until “Paul Watson has accepted the conditions of the safety of the Japanese vessel”. He said he knew nothing of the comments that the Japanese government agreeing to release the men.

Mr. Watson said the Japanese were “[holding] hostages and make demands” and were acting like “a terrorist organisation”. A press release said Sea Shepherd “will not negotiate with poachers and demands that the Japanese whalers release Benjamin Potts and Giles Lane as soon as possible”.

Mr. Watson said he would not send a zodiac to collect the men as requested in an email because it “endangers the life of the crew, to put them out in these waters in a small boat, 10 miles out of view”.

On Sky TV, IRC spokesman Glenn Inwood said Sea Shepherd were “not answering phone calls or emails at this stage” to take advantage of “fair amount of media coverage” but they were “still making attempts to contact them”.

An Australian Federal Police spokeswoman said that Sea Shepherd made a police report at around 7:00 UTC.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

NASA’s Cassini–Huygens spacecraft has discovered evidence for a large-scale saltwater reservoir beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The data came from the spacecraft’s direct analysis of salt-rich ice grains close to the jets ejected from the moon. The study has been published in this week’s edition of the journal Nature.

Data from Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer show the grains expelled from fissures, known as tiger stripes, are relatively small and usually low in salt far away from the moon. Closer to the moon’s surface, Cassini found that relatively large grains rich with sodium and potassium dominate the plumes. The salt-rich particles have an “ocean-like” composition and indicate that most, if not all, of the expelled ice and water vapor comes from the evaporation of liquid salt-water. When water freezes, the salt is squeezed out, leaving pure water ice behind.

Cassini’s ultraviolet imaging spectrograph also recently obtained complementary results that support the presence of a subsurface ocean. A team of Cassini researchers led by Candice Hansen of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, measured gas shooting out of distinct jets originating in the moon’s south polar region at five to eight times the speed of sound, several times faster than previously measured. These observations of distinct jets, from a 2010 flyby, are consistent with results showing a difference in composition of ice grains close to the moon’s surface and those that made it out to the E ring, the outermost ring that gets its material primarily from Enceladean jets. If the plumes emanated from ice, they should have very little salt in them.

“There currently is no plausible way to produce a steady outflow of salt-rich grains from solid ice across all the tiger stripes other than salt water under Enceladus’s icy surface,” said Frank Postberg, a Cassini team scientist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

The data suggests a layer of water between the moon’s rocky core and its icy mantle, possibly as deep as about 50 miles (80 kilometers) beneath the surface. As this water washes against the rocks, it dissolves salt compounds and rises through fractures in the overlying ice to form reserves nearer the surface. If the outermost layer cracks open, the decrease in pressure from these reserves to space causes a plume to shoot out. Roughly 400 pounds (200 kilograms) of water vapor is lost every second in the plumes, with smaller amounts being lost as ice grains. The team calculates the water reserves must have large evaporating surfaces, or they would freeze easily and stop the plumes.

“We imagine that between the ice and the ice core there is an ocean of depth and this is somehow connected to the surface reservoir,” added Postberg.

The Cassini mission discovered Enceladus’ water-vapor and ice jets in 2005. In 2009, scientists working with the cosmic dust analyzer examined some sodium salts found in ice grains of Saturn’s E ring but the link to subsurface salt water was not definitive. The new paper analyzes three Enceladus flybys in 2008 and 2009 with the same instrument, focusing on the composition of freshly ejected plume grains. In 2008, Cassini discovered a high “density of volatile gases, water vapor, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, as well as organic materials, some 20 times denser than expected” in geysers erupting from the moon. The icy particles hit the detector target at speeds between 15,000 and 39,000 MPH (23,000 and 63,000 KPH), vaporizing instantly. Electrical fields inside the cosmic dust analyzer separated the various constituents of the impact cloud.

“Enceladus has got warmth, water and organic chemicals, some of the essential building blocks needed for life,” said Dennis Matson in 2008, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“This finding is a crucial new piece of evidence showing that environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life can be sustained on icy bodies orbiting gas giant planets,” said Nicolas Altobelli, the European Space Agency’s project scientist for Cassini.

“If there is water in such an unexpected place, it leaves possibility for the rest of the universe,” said Postberg.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

On Tuesday, Microsoft launched BizTalk Server 2006 R2 with Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) technology in Taiwan. Microsoft Taiwan held a launch seminar with “Pulse the Operations with the Communication of Enterprises” topic and invited hardware and software companies to highlight the integration of RFID, SOA, and EDI with BizTalk Server 2006 R2.

At the press conference, Steven Martin (Director of Product Management for BizTalk® Server Product Group at Microsoft Corp.) mentioned the improvements to BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and the lower costs, which could increase the opportunities for enterprises. Martin also praised Taiwan for having an environment conducive to the development of RFID technology, and suggested that was the reason Microsoft Global Headquarters chose Taiwan as the first location for the product launch.

Aside from seminars and exhibitions, Microsoft Taiwan also welcomed Chang Jung Christian University, Telecommunication Laboratories of Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd., Tekho Inc., Formosa Petrochemical Co., Ltd., and Quanta Computer lnc. to introduce their solutions from their earlier integration and show the strength of RFID technologies in Taiwan.

After the launch series in Taiwan, Microsoft Global Headquarters announced that the next launch for BizTalk Server 2006 R2 would be Sydney, Australia on September 13, followed by Chicago, United States on October 2.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

India is the latest of the countries where the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) experiment has started. Children from the village of Khairat were given the opportunity to learn how to use the XO laptop. During the last year XO was distributed to children from Arahuay in Peru, Ban Samkha in Thailand, Cardal in Uruguay and Galadima in Nigeria. The OLPC team are, in their reports on the startup of the trials, delighted with how the laptop has improved access to information and ability to carry out educational activities. Thailand’s The Nation has praised the project, describing the children as “enthusiastic” and keen to attend school with their laptops.

Recent good news for the project sees Uruguay having ordered 100,000 of the machines which are to be given to children aged six to twelve. Should all go according to plan a further 300,000 machines will be purchased by 2009 to give one to every child in the country. As the first to order, Uruguay chose the OLPC XO laptop over its rival from Intel, the Classmate PC. In parallel with the delivery of the laptops network connectivity will be provided to schools involved in the project.

The remainder of this article is based on Carla G. Munroy’s Khairat Chronicle, which is available from the OLPC Wiki. Additional sources are listed at the end.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Developers involved in open source products across Taiwan gathered together at the 2008 Taiwan Open Source Development Conference on Saturday and Sunday to present a variety of research relevant to the open-source community.

A variety of different issues were discussed at the conference, including 3D Graphical User Interfaces,web developing tools, new software platforms,and various hardware. Google, Yahoo, and Canonical also gave talks about Google Gears, Yahoo UI, and Ubuntu Mobile.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Described in press materials as a “low budget” production, the crew of Bratz: The Movie turned to a busy LA high school to film the picture’s main scenes.

Shot in 30 days, during February and March 2007, the film had to work around the roughly 3,500 students at Santee Educational Complex in South Los Angeles, California. Most productions, like High School Musical and Degrassi: The Next Generation, do principal photography shoots during the summer. Since the Bratz film had a summer release, and the Santee school goes year-round, such a pattern was impossible.

Director Sean McNamara “was adamant about using this school”, named in the film as “Carry Nation High”, said production designer Rusty Smith. “We knew it was going to be complicated, and it was, but we pulled it off. I’m sure it was a big distraction for us to be there and it’s really a compliment to the principal and the students’ cooperation because we couldn’t have done it without them.”

One of the stars, Chelsea Staub, agreed. “I was amazed at how orderly and respectful the students at Santee High were during our invasion.” She admits that she “would have had issues walking by our heavenly omelet station every morning,” if she were a Santee student.

Such good behavior could be deemed extra surprising considering the school, which opened in 2005, is located in an area known for its amount of gangs. Some students walk through 50 different gang “territories” on the way to school, 18 of which have documented members enrolled as students. Students have brought AK-47s to class, and jumped police officers for their guns. A two day melee at the school, whose principal is a former cop, resulted in 34 arrests and 10 hospitalizations, mostly for pepper-spray-related injuries. Half of the instructors, as of March 2006, were in their first year of teaching.

The school board superintendent and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa rode the bus to the first day the bus was routed through the neighbourhood; a photographer for the Los Angeles Times caught a 10th grader tagging a window. The first gun shots rang out the second day the school was open.

Bratz: The Movie is a story based on an internationally successful line of dolls. Three “best friends forever” are forced by the queen bee of the high school to separate into various existing cliques. Growing lonely, they rebel by choosing to be true to themselves.

“Filming at a real high school was interesting because you could see real cliques and compare them to the simulated cliques in the movie,” commented Logan Browning, one of the movie’s stars, herself a senior in high school.

Staub, who plays the antagonist Meredith, also felt the real-life location was beneficial to the movie. “All the sounds and background images helped make it real for me. The shifting echoes of students on the bleachers and school bells that released the chaos of kids changing classes made me feel like I was truly a part of the high school experience as opposed to doing a scene on a soundstage.”

“The presence of that school and the way it’s laid out, almost like a prison, became a major character in the film,” said production designer Rusty Smith. (Interestingly, Meredith’s mantra in the movie is “take no prisoners”.) The school, devoid of color, easily contrasted against the vibrant and unique bedrooms of the Bratz girls. “We knew it was going to be complicated and it was but we pulled it off. I’m sure it was a big distraction for us to be there and it’s really a compliment to the principal and the students’ cooperation because we couldn’t have done it without them.”

A 16-foot high sculpture was added to the school courtyard, to help transform it into Carry Nation. The sculpture was of Nation, the most infamous and formidable member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in pre-prohibition America, wielding her hatchet in one hand and Bible in the other.

The production also filmed in the residential neighborhood of Studio City, and The Grove, a popular shopping centre at the heart of West Hollywood, both areas of Los Angeles.

The film opens in theaters across the United States and Canada on August 3, in the United Kingdom on August 17, in Spain on August 24, and Australia and New Zealand September 20.