Akta

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Workplace stress is a problem all over the world.But only the Japanese suffer it acutely enough to have a word - karoshi - that means "sudden death from overwork". Now, Japan's health ministry has announced that there were 143 cases of karoshi last year, the highest level since it took notice of the problem in 1987. The news comes as a surprise: as Japan's economy fell into recession over the past few years - sending unemployment spiralling higher - the need to overwork should have receded.

At the heart of karoshi is Japan's extraordinary long-hours working culture. In 1990, the average Japanese worker put in 2,124 hours a year - fully 500 hours more than the Germans or French. Last year, according to the health ministry, that figure had fallen to a more manageable 1,843 hours, still well above the global average, but low by Japanese standards. At the same time, however, the level of workplace anxiety has been heightened by the economic slump, which has forced many firms to cut jobs for the first time since World War II. Even companies that have not sacked workers have tended to shift from hierarchies based purely on seniority to more meritocratic, performance-based systems. And Japanese offices, still largely male-dominated, are notorious for their punishing culture, where hard work is matched by heavy drinking and smoking in the evenings.

Last year's figures disguise a statistical discrepancy: according to new procedures, the ministry now applies a far broader definition of karoshi, examining the deceased's working conditions in the six months before death. The more liberal application is indicative of growing official concern over the phenomenon, long laughed off by macho Japanese bosses. The ministry is also keen to uncover hidden karoshi - those employees who play down their stress in order not to appear weak in front of colleagues. The official aim is to reduce the average working year to 1,800 hours by 2005 - something that the slowing economy is helping to achieve. It has a strong incentive to help reduce stress: over the past few months, a number of high-profile legal cases have been brought against supposedly insensitive employers, including some in the public sector.

Death from Overwork

This picture is taken from the 3rd building before the Osaka station says the photographer "Toshi". Nice site. Dont' miss the skyscrapers area.

Technology guru Ray Kurzweil offers a vision of future fighting machines.

At the 24th Army Science Conference, held in Orlando, Florida last December, Ray Kurzweil gave a keynote address entitled "Warfighting in the 21st Century". News at nature quizzed this renowned commentator on robotics about his views on future warfare.

How will warfare change in the next 50 years?

Within 25 years, non-biological intelligence will match human intelligence in areas in which humans now excel, principally in pattern recognition. It will combine these abilities with the inherent advantages of machine intelligence, such as speed, easy sharing of knowledge and skills. One implication will be that we will enhance our own biological intelligence through direct connection with non-biological intelligence.

=> Read more!

Robots could fight wars, drive cars and patrol data centers.

Robots, from mechanical dogs that can learn new tricks to automated vacuum cleaners that avoid furniture, are steadily becoming a part of everyday life. But the real robot boom lies just ahead, experts say.

In the future, robots could help determine the outcome of wars and identify problems in data centers. Office buildings may come to life as they use Wi-Fi to dispatch robots to control human access, test heating and cooling systems, and fetch tools for workers.

=> Read more!

From an article at Robotic Nation Evidence:

Pilots more than 7,000 [miles] away in Nevada, control the unmanned planes from their post at Nellis Air Force Base. Their sophisticated cockpits resemble a high-priced video game.

Predator crews, which have a pilot and sensor operator, run the craft 24 hours, rotating in three-hour shifts. Predator teams are trained to look for signs of insurgent activity such as the planting of roadside bombs.

From this description you can imagine a very different kind of warfare in the not-too-distant future. Imagine 150,000 soldiers, but they are not stationed in Iraq. They are living in the United States and telecommuting from home. Instead of personaly being on the battlefield, they pilot vehicles remotely that act as their proxies -- planes, robotic soldiers, missile launchers, etc. There is no family stress, no dying in battle, no friendly fire.

Then, as the technology becomes available in 2025 or 2030, all of those vehicles become completely autonomous and no longer need human drivers.

The "Robotic Attack Jets article" is here

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SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea (news - web sites) publicly admitted Thursday for the first time that it has nuclear weapons, and said it wouldn't return to six-nation talks aimed at getting it to abandon its nuclear ambitions

Diplomats have said that North Korea has acknowledged having nuclear arms in private talks, but this is the first time the communist government has said so directly to the public.

"We had already taken the resolute action of pulling out of the (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) and have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's ever-more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

DPRK refers to the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

More here

Berezovsky Claims Chechen Rebels Have A-bomb

Created: 08.02.2005 11:16 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:17 MSK

MosNews

Chechen rebels could have an atomic bomb, Boris Berezovsky, Russian tycoon currently living in self-imposed exile in Great Britain, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily on the phone. Russian security officials refused to comment on Berezovsky’s statement.

Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondents got in touch with the controversial tycoon and harsh critic of Vladimir Putin, asking him to comment on the Chechen rebels’ call for a cease-fire issued last week. Berezovsky denied allegations that it was he who had originally come up with the cease-fire initiative.

“I am truly flattered, I have been away from Chechnya and Russia for five years now and I am still believed to be in charge of all the comings and goings there. No, it was not me,” Berezovsky said.

More here

Most people have heard of an iPod, but what about a GodPod?

It is a solar-powered speaking Bible which fits neatly into the pocket, is multi-lingual and designed to help people who have reading difficulties.

This ecclesiastical marvel is one of the products up for an award during a church exhibition in Belfast this week.

Other items vying for the "My Church Needs One of Those" award are "holy" golf balls and t-shirts with the JCUK (Jesus Christ United King) logo.

A Bible which bursts into flames at the touch of a button will also be on show during the Christian Resources Exhibition at the King's Hall.

=> Read more!

So about a year ago, the SO finally upgraded her Net connection to DSL, carefully installed the Yahoo! DSL software into her creaky Sony Vaio PC laptop and ran through all the checks and install verifications and appropriate nasty disclaimers.

And all seemed to go smoothly and reasonably enough considering it was a Windows PC and therefore nothing was really all that smooth or reasonable or elegant, but whatever. She just wanted to get online. Should be easy as 1-2-3, claimed the Yahoo! guide. Painless as tying your shoe, said the phone company.

She got online all right. The DSL worked great. For about four minutes.

Then, something happened. Something attacked. Something swarmed her computer the instant she tried to move around online and the computer slowed and bogged and cluttered and crashed, and multiple restarts and debuggings and what-the-hells only brought up only a flood of nightmarish pop-up windows and terrifying error messages and massive system slowdowns and all manner of inexplicable claims of infestation of this worm and that Trojan horse and did we want to buy McAfee AntiVirus protection for $39.95?

More here

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — Shaken by scandals involving the black-market sale of body parts, University of California officials are considering inserting supermarket-style barcodes or radio frequency devices in cadavers to keep track of them.

The high-tech fix is one of a number of reforms UC is proposing to reassure people that bodies donated to science will be used as intended and treated with respect.

“We want these to be programs that really do work so we can maintain the public trust and know that we are doing everything possible to maintain and respect the great donation that these gifts represent,” said Michael Drake, UC vice president for health affairs.

Every year, thousands of bodies are donated to U.S. tissue banks and medical schools. Skin, bone and other tissue are often used in transplants. New medical treatments and safety equipment such as bicycle helmets are tested on various body parts. And cadavers are used to teach medical students surgical skills and anatomy.

But there is also a lucrative underground trade in corpses and body parts, despite federal laws against the sale of organs and tissue.

=> Read more!

MSN Belgium to use eID cards for online checking
By Jan Libbenga
Published Tuesday 1st February 2005 14:34 GMT

Microsoft will integrate the Belgian eID Card with MSN Messenger. Microsoft's Bill Gates and Belgian State Secretary for e-government Peter Vanvelthoven announced the alliance today in Brussels. "We’re working to ensure that our technologies support e-ID, to help make online transactions and communications more secure," Gates said. eID stands for Electronic Identity Card. The card contains an electronic chip and gradually will replace the existing ID card system in Belgium. By end-2005, over 3 million eID cards will be distributed in the country.

Microsoft believes that combined with the eID Card MSN Messenger chatrooms will be much safer. Users would have a trustworthy way of identifying themselves online. The Belgian Federal Computer Crime Unit (FCCU) could even refuse young children access to certain chatrooms based on their electronic identity.

"We're not sure yet when we will be able to deliver this integration," Bill Gates said. "But developers here in Belgium and the US have proven the concept and are working already on the actual solution." (The Register)