doubleplusundead

The Telegraph – China may not overtake America this century after all

Ooops, awkward. 

Seriously though I think if you thought this thru you kind of had to see it coming.  China is aging itself out of competition with it’s one child policy, and there have been rumors about them cooking the books on their economic growth for a long time.  This reminds me of the “Rising Sun” era in the 80’s and early 90’s when the fear was Japan was going to dominate the world and buy out the US.  Look how well that worked out. 

If I was betting on a country that might (might mind you) eventually supplant America as the dominant world power I would bet on India, except they are so damn resource poor, but the have the population and it is a growing young population and they have the educational infra structure and are making market reforms that have already substantially expanded their economy.  If they play it right they could really explode over the next few years.

Endgadget – So about those Indian reforms (subtitle “Chad you F’in idiot”)

A new system for monitoring almost everything that’s going on inside India’s telecoms network has been quietly launched. The Central Monitoring System will offer tax collectors, law enforcement and and other agencies the ability to scrutinize phone calls, text messages, emails, social networking and general web activity.

So possibly a little hiccup in the general reform policy, but I think in general my theory still holds since I offered the massive qualifiers about them playing their cards right. 

Gizmodo – Be a superspy like the NSA

Following a Freedom of Information Act request by MuckRock, the National Security Agency has been forced to make public a book it produced called Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research. Understandably, it’s full of gems

Whoo-hoo let the games begin.

New York Times – Stephen Hawking joins anti-Israel boycott.

Personally I am not a fan of Israel, purely on the basis of some of their past actions not because I think the state is illegitimate of some simmering anti-Semitism, but when comparing the two sides to decide that the Palestinians are the good guys is just retarded.

TechCrunch – Watch the Earth change on Google maps.

a series of interactive time lapse images that progress year-by-year, showing exactly how things have changed in key areas like the Brazilian Amazon Rain Forest, booming metropolitan areas like Las Vegas and Dubai, and the progress of large bodies of water like the Aral Sea.

Interesting.