Anyone who knows the story of Britannica will find this a bit of dejavu. From The Independent.

The brave new world of instant enlightenment at the touch of a computer key has claimed a heavyweight victim. The 2008 edition of Quid, France’s favourite encyclopaedia, has been cancelled by its publisher for lack of interest. The annual sales of the 2,000-page tome, which reached more than 400,000 in the mid-1990s, collapsed to just over 100,000 last year.

The book’s publisher, Robert Laffont, says the whole concept of the print encyclopedia can no longer compete with the free information available on the internet. Quid, produced by a family team for the past 45 years, has suffered especially at the hands of the French-language version of Wikipedia, the do-it-yourself web encyclopaedia.

I have never been a political animal and have purposely steered clear of cheerleading in that arena. But when the very core of civil liberties in my ‘homeland’ of the US are being flushed down the toilet, it’s not politics but an absolute imperative to wake people up.

This is the case with telecom immunity, the move by Bush and every single Republican senator to give blanket immunity to whatever actions the telcos took to assist the US government to tap phones or monitor conversations (with or without a warrant) since Sepember 11, 2001. What’s even more disgraceful is the “opposition” party — voted in as a check to the corporate friendly Republicans — has been splintered and cannot even fight this provision.

So let’s just take a look at the big three candidates left, all senators, on this issue. Their vote on Feb 12.

• Bill: S 2248
• Vote description: Dodd Amdt. No. 3907; To strike the provisions providing immunity from civil liability to electronic communication service providers for certain assistance provided to the Government.

• McCain: no
• Obama: yes
• Clinton: no vote

That by itself makes up my mind, unequivocally, who should be America’s Next Top Leader.

Thanks to all the well wishers who have sent me kind notes after I cracked my radius head (elbow) after a nasty snowboarding accident. I’d been going down the mountain fine all day, did some jumps and never felt better. That apparently was my downfall (no pun intended). At the end of the day I hung out in the snowboard park with the young Beijing grunge snowboarders. After I glided over a box (about two feet off the ground) I slipped off and apparently my entire body weight came down on my right arm, shattering the radius in the forearm where it connects to the elbow.

It was the snowboarding gods saying, “How dare anyone the age of forty enter the domain of the young. Out you go now.”

So while the last two years when I’ve had to help other family members with cervical spine and lumbar spine issues by using my tech geek powers with MRI, CAT scans, Xrays, DICOM images and researching surgical options, its finally my turn on figuring out how to hack my own body back to shape.

Now, in China getting your arm shattered and needing surgery on the eve of Chinese New Year is about the worst timing one could have. China’s medical system is not one you’d choose anyway, but with top doctors and staff on holiday it’s even more dubious. SOS International, the international expat medical care specialists there, did a great job on triage and trying to setup alternatives, including flying to Hong Kong for surgery, their usual recommendation. But even Hong Kong, with higher standards, would likely have a lesser crew because of holidays.
Thanks to my wife and generous friends with expert connections in Malaysia, we were able to combine our CNY homecoming visit with seeing an excellent orthopedic doctor and surgeon in Kuala Lumpur at a hospital that caters to foreigners and medical tourism. You also see the benefit of a multicultural society, as the Malays and Indians don’t mind working while the Chinese have a week off. My surgeon was Malay and the anesthesiologist Indian. Attending staff were a mix of the ethnicities. The hospital had all the modern amenities including live Xray on my arm during surgery.

In the end, the doctor used three nonmetallic BioScrews that will be absorbed into the bone and be part of my body. There’s also a wire for now to stabilize the whole elbow area and will be taken out later.

After surgery, my rowdy nephews saw the new cast and asked, “Is your arm fixed now?”

I told them it had three screws and now it would be a cyborg arm.

They thought that was really cool.

PS: Since typing with one hand is not very efficient, check out my Twitter feed or Facebook page for more frequent updates. I had not really been convinced of the case for Twittering and microblogging… until now.

(more…)

James Fallows has a new piece in The Atlantic about the Great Firewall, and is largely on target. I particularly like the analysis in the kicker:

It would be wrong to portray China as a tightly buttoned mind-control state. It is too wide-open in too many ways for that. “Most people in China feel freer than any Chinese people have been in the country’s history, ever,” a Chinese software engineer who earned a doctorate in the United States told me. “There has never been a space for any kind of discussion before, and the government is clever about continuing to expand space for anything that doesn’t threaten its survival.” But it would also be wrong to ignore the cumulative effect of topics people are not allowed to discuss.

It’s pretty tough to relate all the tech details in a literary magazine and I spent some time with Fallows in  Beijing Starbucks going over the nitty gritty. Hope to post the entire details sometime soon.