2005, 2006, and 2008 (we're now in the top 10):

1       Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA
1       Stanford University Stanford, CA
1       University of California--Berkeley Berkeley, CA
4       Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA
5       University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign Urbana, IL
6       Cornell University Ithaca, NY
6       Princeton University Princeton, NJ
6       University of Washington Seattle, WA
9       Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA
9       University of Texas--Austin Austin, TX
11      California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA
11      University of Wisconsin--Madison Madison, WI
13      University of California--Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA
13      University of Maryland--College Park College Park, MD
13      University of Michigan--Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI
16      Columbia University New York, NY
16      Harvard University Cambridge, MA
16      University of California--San Diego La Jolla, CA
19      Purdue University--West Lafayette West Lafayette, IN
20      Brown University Providence, RI
20      Duke University Durham, NC
20      Rice University Houston, TX
20      University of Massachusetts--Amherst Amherst, MA
20      University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC
20      University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA

DHS Signs Visa Waiver Program Agreements with Slovakia, Hungary and Lithuania

"Release Date: March 17, 2008

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff signed today Visa Waiver Program (VWP) Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with Slovak Minister of the Interior Robert Kaliňák, Hungarian Ambassador Ferenc Somogyi and Lithuanian Ambassador Audrius Brūzga. The security enhancements outlined in the agreements put all three countries on track for visa-free travel to the U.S., and potential designation as VWP members later this year."

Canada lifts visa requirements for travelers from Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania and Hungary
"Mississauga, March 1, 2008 — The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, announced today that citizens of Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania and Hungary no longer require a temporary resident visa to visit Canada."

Georgia Tech in the Hungarian news: gatech.blog.hu

Rep. Tom Lantos Dead at 80, Hungary loses its most influential contact in the US.

Prof. Charles Gati of Johns Hopkins U spoke in Budapest about what's wrong with Hungary (and Central-Eastern Europe in general). I translated some portions from Index.hu's report on the speech's 6 points:

• Disappointment stemming from the overly optimistic expectations of 1989-90. People expected that they would get the wealth of the West without changing their work style, and that "when the commies go away, everything will be great". (see: Recession psychology)
• The archaic nation-state concept lives on, and integration is feared as something negative. The root of the problem is gazing into the past.
• Polarization and lack of political tolerance, where "this" side always knows everything better than "that" side. There is an implicit assumption of the "others" acting in bad faith, whenever there is a disagreement.
• A confusion of political concepts. Political left and right are incomprehensible from someone from the West. The left-right scale is an economic frame of reference in the West, where a party on the "right" would be pro-market and for a small government. The concepts in Hungary are in no relation to this. (see: General elections in Hungary, 2006)
• Misjudging the relationship with Russia: acting overly paranoid or overly naive; with the latter happening most often.
• Lack of real political leadership figures. It is also unacceptable in a parliamentary democracy that the opposition is talking about using methods outside of the parliament to force the government to step down. This is a Leninian style, which is very brave in a dictatorship, but unacceptable in a parliamentary democracy. Even greater mistake is that the Hungarian political elite doesn't learn from either the mistakes or successes of others.

You can find a Hungarian interview video of Prof. Gati by Friderikusz here, from 05/17/2006, where he talks about provincialism in the region.

Regardless of bubble or not, here is a great summary of the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) in the tech world of America in 2007:

Richter Scales: Here Comes Another Bubble music video:



(via Kara Swisher, via Scoble)

BKV (Budapest Public Transport Ltd) stops are displayed on Google Maps!

Budaörsi lakótelep, végállomás (Budaörs Housing Estates, Terminus) and Patkó utca stop:



...and in real life:





Gimnázium (High School) stop:



...and in real life:



And finally, the other terminus of Bus 40, Móricz Zsigmond körtér (square), a major public transit hub:

Index.hu reported on the Solaris City office, retail and housing development in Budaörs East, scheduled for completion in 2009, just north of the M1/M7 freeway, at this location:


View Larger Map

Some concept photos:

Looking northwest:


Looking north:


Looking northeast:

Jeff Foxworthy: "Budapest is the capital of what European country?"
Kellie Pickler: "This might be a stupid question... But like... I thought Europe was a country. Let's see... Buddhist... Budapest? I never even heard of that! Like, I know they speak French there... don't they? Like I wanna say, is France a country?"
  [...]
Jeff: "The right answer is Hungary."
Kellie: "Is what?!"
Jeff: "Hungary."
Kellie: "Hungry?!"
Jeff: "Like I'm hungry."
Kellie: "That's a country?!"


Poor girl... she's the exact walking stereotype of Americans as it lives in the popular Hungarian folk imagination. Not that those folks know about Nashville or Tennessee... or the obscure state of Georgia, for that matter, which is like... hmm... where, exactly?

Kellie Pickler on "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?"

I was surprised and delighted to catch Nimród Antal's Kontroll movie on the Showtime Showcase cable channel while in Bellevue during the summer. The movie was filmed in the Budapest subways...











Take a peek:

The news of the week was that Paris Hilton is signing up for cryonic suspension with the Cryonics Institute, and thus has a pretty good chance of living, like, forever.


(Image from The Superficial)



The idea of cryonics, in brief, is that a person whose deteriorating bodily condition (due to illness or aging) cannot be helped by contemporary medical procedures is put in deep-freeze until later (about 2030-2050), when molecular nanotechnology allows the atom-by-atom repair of both the deadly condition and the freezing damage. Former director of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center, Dr. Ralph Merkle has an extensive page on cryonics, and sums up the idea this way:

"1. The purpose of cryonics is to save lives and restore health.
2. Today's medical technology can't always keep us alive, let alone healthy.
3. A future medical technology based on a mature nanotechnology should be able to preserve life and restore health in all but the most extreme circumstances.
4. Tissue preserved at the temperature of liquid nitrogen does not deteriorate, even after centuries of storage.
5. Therefore, if current medical technology can't keep us alive we can instead choose to be preserved in liquid nitrogen, with the expectation that future medical technology should be able to both reverse any cryopreservation injury and restore good health."

This then, is what Ms. Hilton signed up for, making her smarter than, like, almost everybody else. She is most definitely smarter than most reports on her signup, which attempt to make fun of her -- out of ignorance. One says: "What if she lives till she's 112 and dies of old age? We can't really see that ever being medically reversible." Well, I would recommend these:

Dr. Aubrey de Grey: Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime book (Amazon link)


And this video:
Aubrey de Grey: Prospects for extending healthy life - a lot (61 min) [Google TechTalks]
(particularly notable is the concept of "longevity escape velocity")


And this previous post: Singularity, AI, nanotech, cryonics. What's this crazy talk and am I on crack?

---

And since we're talking Paris... :)

"The San Diego Freeway's congestion problems are legendary, leading to the joke that the Interstate was named 405 because traffic moves at "four or five" miles an hour." (From Wikipedia)



(August 2007)

The parking lot on the other side of the Volkswagen/Audi Design Center California (in Santa Monica) was of course filled with brand new Audis; quite a sight in the US. (August 2007)

A two-photo panorama, taken from Klaus' ground floor vantage point, towards 5th Street. Click for the full-size version...

(March 2007)

January 2007: the ice is melting in the Wollman/Trump Skating Rink in Central Park.

Central Park felt like Spring approaching in Paris, during some exceptionally warm days in January 2007.

(January 2007)