lao dan

In noting the importance of propaganda work in Chongqing, Bo said that “certain people were more interested in their own “individual performance,” and gave “extravagant descriptions” of their own accomplishments, “instead of focusing on work on behalf of the masses.” They were too much the “trumpeter,” Bo insisted, blowing their own horns to attract attention. - lao dan

High gas prices? Purchase restrictions in mega cities? Neither can keep China from pursuing its ardent love affair with the automobile. Such at least is the view of senior J.D. Power analyst Geoff Broderick, who says the power of that love could push vehicle sales in China to as high as 35 million a year by 2018 — a near doubling of the market. Auto sales hit 18 million vehicles in China last year. In the U.S., meanwhile, overall auto sales last year totaled 12.7 million. - lao dan

Soon after arriving in New York in 1958, Kusama boasted to a Japanese magazine: "I am planning to create a revolutionary work that will stun ... the New York art world'' (Y. Kusama, quoted in "Kusama Dot Com," New York Times Style Magazine, February 24, 2008). Deeply ambitious, despite little formal artistic training, Kusama strove to create an innovative response to the Abstract Expressionist painting that still dominated the New York art scene. - lao dan

In a timely and incisive talk at TEDxWaterloo, Michael Nielsen made the case for open science — the idea that research data and results should be freely available to the public, and that scientists should collaborate more freely with each other and with the public. Since the talk, his book, Reinventing Discovery, has been released, and even more recently the US Congress has introduced controversial legislation to prohibit funding agencies from requiring open access. - lao dan

Not so long ago, if you wanted to learn something, you had to find an expert. These experts resided in universities, and were often off limits if one wasn't a matriculated student. Then in 1999, MIT announced they were putting their course online. In the last 12 years many other institutions have followed suit. Then came the Khan Academy, ALISON, and others. Today knowledge is freely accessible to anyone. Last fall, Stanford made the bold announcement that two of their courses would be taught online--artificial intelligence and machine learning classes. No one expected hundreds of thousands of people to sign up for the courses. - lao dan

The Obama administration, which arrived in Washington promoting “sunshine” in government, turned out to be committed to silence and the censoring of less-than-positive news about its workings. While it has pursued no prosecutions against CIA torturers, senior leaders responsible for Abu Ghraib or other war crimes, or anyone connected with the illegal surveillance of American citizens, it has gone after whistleblowers and leakers with ever increasing fierceness, both in court and inside the halls of various government agencies. - lao dan

Concrete pump manufacturer Putzmeister is the first top-tier German company to be acquired by a Chinese company eager to get its hands on Western know-how, but it is unlikely to be the last. The acquisition could be the start of a new strategy as China tries to transform itself into a high-tech economy. And the Germans might even benefit too. - lao dan

Slide-show of Yayoi Kusama's dizzying, dotty installations. They have landed at Tate Modern. Adrian Searle enters her kaleidoscope world. - lao dan

In another sign that Democrats have embraced income inequality as a cause célèbre, the Senate Budget Committee held a hearing on the subject today. The committee's ranking Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, managed to look concerned during two hours of testimony about the kneecapping of the Middle Class—not that it should have been all that difficult. Here are some of the hearing's most striking charts: - lao dan

Les sommets de dirigeants européens se suivent et échouent ; la Maison Blanche et le Congrès se querellent sans résultat. « Les marchés » l’ont compris, et traitent dorénavant les élus comme des canards sans tête, simples jouets des forces qu’ils ont eux-mêmes enfantées et qu’ils ne savent plus maîtriser. .... Si cette année électorale ne témoigne pas d’une volonté politique et des moyens appropriés pour reprendre à la finance le pouvoir qu’elle détient, les prochains scrutins ne serviront à rien. - lao dan

An artist of extreme and extremely variable works, Kusama is a phenomenon. She has been a maker of happenings, orgies and performances, and a political and sexual activist; she performed a theatrical gay wedding in New York in 1968, designing a conjoined polka-dotted outfit for the happy couple. She has been an installation artist, dress designer, art dealer, sculptor, pianist, poet and novelist (at least 18 novels, as well as an autobiography). Phew. - lao dan

So you have these two different blind spots on the Left and Right, but I’ve been more interested in their common blind spot, which we’re less likely to discuss as a society: technological deceleration and the question of whether we’re still living in a technologically advancing society at all. I believe that the late 1960s was not only a time when government stopped working well and various aspects of our social contract began to fray, but also when scientific and technological progress began to advance much more slowly. - lao dan

Like haute cuisine, avant garde art may seem an unlikely cultural form to inspire nationalism. Yet that is what it has inspired since the 1990s. Why did a middle-class public traditionally disdainful of "pretentious" conceptual art suddenly take it to heart? The fact that our young artists in the 90s were making waves around the world appealed to patriotic pride. From bashing them, newspapers became their boosters. British modern art is now seen as a national asset. In 2012, Damien Hirst will have a Tate Modern show, representing us culturally alongside the Olympics. Just this week, Sam Taylor-Wood collected an OBE and Tracey Emin was elected Professor at the Royal Academy. What's next – an artist in parliament? - lao dan

For $25, Daniel H will help debug your software. Valerie asks just $20 to pick your folks up from the airport. Miss Minty, for $50, will teach you to drive a stick-shift. Those are some of the services being offered on Coffee and Power, a web site that looks to match up tasks with willing workers. Like it or not, it may be the future of work — and pay. - lao dan

Here we present a model of primate social evolution, whereby sociality progresses from solitary foraging individuals directly to large multi-male/multi-female aggregations (approximately 52 million years (Myr) ago), with pair-living (approximately 16 Myr ago) or single-male harem systems (approximately 16 Myr ago) derivative from this second stage. - lao dan

studies have shown some music has a negative affect on fact retention if you're studying numbers or lists. Still, performing music has been proven to increase memory and language skills, but for listeners, it's better used as a means to recall memories. It has been shown in Alzheimer's patients to help with memory recall, and even restore cognitive function. - lao dan

yWriter is a word processor which breaks your novel into chapters and scenes, helping you keep track of your work while leaving your mind free to create. It will not write your novel for you, suggest plot ideas or perform creative tasks of any kind. yWriter was designed by an author, not a salesman! - lao dan

how did we become social in the first place? Researchers have long believed that it was a gradual process, evolving from couples to clans to larger communities. A new analysis, however, indicates that primate societies expanded in a burst, most likely because there was safety in numbers. - lao dan

Their website provides a lot of links to live performance videos, as well as a link to the lyrics to their songs. They also have three live shows available for free download. As well as an album available for purchase. - lao dan

How do you promote a passion for scientific literacy? Create a video series with lectures from Feynman or Carl Sagan and then add incredible video. The Feynman series includes Beauty,Honours, and Curiosity. There Sagan series includes The Frontier is Everywhere, Life Looks for Life, ...entire Sagan Series here. - lao dan

AN ERA of ice that has gripped Earth's poles for 35 million years could come to an end as extreme global warming really begins to bite. Previously unknown sources of positive feedback - including "hyperwarming" that was last seen on Earth half a billion years ago - may push global temperatures high enough to send Earth into a hothouse state with tropical forests growing close to the poles. - lao dan

Occupy Wall Street and the global Occupy Movement have inspired some striking artwork. Graphic artists from around the world (including Shepard Fairey mentioned here earlier today) have contributed their talents to the movement. Many of their posters are available for free or at low cost, either directly from the artist or through organizations like Occuprint and OccupyTogether. You can post them in your town. - lao dan

Today, Cohen is among Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney’s top campaign advisers. He is the primary author of Romney’s foreign policy white paper, which attacks Obama for “currying favor with [America’s] enemies” and “ostentatiously shunning Jerusalem.” The paper urges a policy of regime change in Iran including possible coordination with Israel on military strikes to prevent the Iranian regime from developing a nuclear weapon. It is an aggressive Republican election season document presenting a concoction of post-9/11 unilateralism and unvarnished neo-imperialism as the antidote to a sitting president Cohen accused of “unilateral disarmament in the diplomatic and moral sphere. - lao dan

It's not news that Noam Chomsky's views on foreign policy are controversial. Paul Bogdanor's The Chomsky Hoax collects links to articles critiquing those views, including the Top 200 Chomsky Lies (pdf) and economist J. Bradford Delong's My Very, Very Allergic Reaction to Noam Chomsky. Other prominent critiques include Noam Chomsky: A Critical Review (by MeFi's own Russil Wvong), George Shadriou's Dissecting Chomsky and Anti-Americanism, and David Horowitz's series of articles on Chomsky in Frontpage Magazine (Part I, Part II, response to rebuttals). - lao dan

The EU has long been the single largest donor to the organisation of 53 African states. But for all the financial support, European delegates were comprehensively upstaged by the hundreds of Chinese present at this year’s African Union summit, just as European companies, and governments are increasingly upstaged in their relations across the continent. Europeans are struggling to learn from past mistakes in Africa. The Chinese know this and occasionally appear to relish the discomfort. - lao dan

Here is a link to a list of 129 training programs for officials and nominees from Asian countries, sponsored by China's foreign aid program, and held in China, in 2011. (This particular list was circulated in Pakistan.) Most seminars are about a month. The list has the implementing organization - lao dan

All art today is for sale, and the defence of art such as Murakami's is that it accepts this honestly. Instead of deluding himself about inner depths, he denies having them. The big problem for art now is its association with big money. It is so blatant that so much of global art is a thrill for the rich – as easy as fashion, yachts and cars. Everyone is angry at banker's bonuses, but where do you think they spend that free money? At art fairs. Is art a profound cultural enterprise, or just a very expensive way for the rich to avoid thinking? - lao dan

There should no longer be any doubt: global capitalism is fast approaching its terminal crisis. Slavoj Zizek identifies the four horsemen of this coming apocalypse: the worldwide ecological crisis; imbalances within the economic system; the biogenetic revolution; and exploding social divisions. - lao dan

UCLA neuroscientists have demonstrated that they can strengthen memory in human patients by stimulating a critical junction in the brain. Published in the Feb. 9 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, the finding could lead to a new method for boosting memory in patients with early Alzheimer's disease. - lao dan

Is there something here? Or is it only smoke to confuse the common Joe? "Let me briefly sum up Svensmark's theory. The temperature of the Earth, he argues, is regulated by the intensity of solar radiation, but not in the obvious way. It is not that the increase is solar radiation heats the Earth directly. (It does, of course, but not to a sufficient degree to explain climate variations.) Rather, an increase in solar radiation extends the Sun's magnetic field, which shields Earth from cosmic rays (highly energetic, fast-moving charged particles that come from deep space). How does this affect the climate? Here is the crux of Svensmark's argument. When cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, he argues, their impact on air molecules creates nucleation sites for the condensation of water vapor, leading to an increase in cloud-formation." - lao dan