In an age of mass tourism, it unabashedly revives the venerable, romantic notion that travel can enlarge the soul, and even change the world.

On the Road With Young Che

In commercial buildings, lighting consumes more electric energy than any other building end-use. It accounts for more than a third of all electricity consumed for commercial use in the United States.

Way cool. I remember, back in high school, thinking about how to do something like this. These "large-diameter" optical fibers are just the ticket.

Hybrid Lighting

This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on December 16, 2003. If you missed it then, it's worth a read, especially in light of the Democrats' failures in October 2004.

The Democrats' platforms range from Howard Dean's "Bush is the devil" to everybody else's "I'll make you rich, and Bush is quite similar to the devil." Since President Bush is quite plainly not the devil, one wonders why anyone in the Democratic Party thinks this ploy will play with the general public.

There are Democrats, like me, who think it will not play, and should not play, and who are waiting in the wings until after the coming electoral debacle in order to try to remake the party into something more resembling America.

The Campaign of Hate and Fear, by Orson Scott Card

Gran Turismo 4 also brings you broadcast-quality graphics, including competitor car reflections and leaves on a tree shaking in the wind. With 650 authentic automobiles and up to 100 tracks, Gran Turismo 4 takes you to a whole new level in racing.

From IGN: Where one car could be finished in one day by a skilled programmer for GT2, the same job would take about a month in GT4.

If anyone ever begins to wonder what has taken Polyphony so long to deliver this game, it's because they want to make it as good as they can and apparently they never sleep.

In stores on January 17, 2005.

Gran Turismo 4

In a seven-part series on Morning Edition, NPR's Rob Gifford sets out on a 3,000-mile, 14-day trek across China, and discovers just how far the world's most populous nation has to go to catch up with its potential.

This excellent radio series aired on NPR back in August. Definitely worth checking out. I always enjoy Rob Gifford's reporting, and this trek provides him with first-rate material.

On the Road in China | NPR

This is the web site for a trip that actors Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman took around the world on motorcycles. It's a documentary miniseries, airing on Bravo in the US. They have also published a travelogue of their trip, available in bookstores.

::..:. Long Way Round .:..::

James Lilley served for twenty-five years in the CIA in Laos, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Taiwan before moving to the State Department in the early 1980s to begin a distinguished career as the US's top-ranking diplomat in Taiwan, ambassador to South Korea, and finally, ambassador to China. From helping Laotian insurgent forces assist the American efforts in Vietnam to his posting in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square crackdown, he was in a remarkable number of crucial places during challenging times as he spent his life tending to America's interests in Asia.

China Hands: Nine Decades of Adventure, Espionage, and Diplomacy in Asia

Has anyone played this yet?

To celebrate the release of MGS3 in North America, Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa will take part in signing events in Los Angeles on November 30, 2004.

By going online, you can download "Special Camouflage Patterns" that are not available in the game.

MGS3 won the "Best PS2 Game" Award for unprecedented levels of new ideas and designs, especially in the creation of an actual ecosystem for the player to experience survival, in addition to its cinematic style.

There was a secret condition in the deal that put an end to the Cuban Missile crisis. Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov, a Soviet scientist who had defected to the West, was to be sent back to the Soviet Union. The US government agreed to this stipulation, and returned Sokolov to his native land. Little did they know that Sokolov was to be the designer of a nightmarish weapon. Now, with Sokolov back in their hands, the Soviets are ready to resume its development. If this weapon is completed, it will mark the beginning of a new age of fear.

August 1964. Realizing at last the urgency of the situation, the CIA forms a plan to recapture Sokolov. They dispatch the covert FOX unit to Sokolov's research facility.

August 24. A lone soldier swoops down from out of the blue. The man's code name is Naked Snake.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

It's a "Guns, Germs, & Steel"-informed retelling of the Thanksgiving story by the author of a forthcoming book on pre-Columbian America.

In Jennie Augusta Brownscombe's 1914 painting "The First Thanksgiving," as in other depictions of the first Thanksgiving meal, natives and newcomers share their feast on a field of bluegrass, dandelion and clover - three species that did not exist in the Americas before colonization.

Clover and bluegrass, tame as accountants at home, transformed themselves into biological Attilas in the Americas. The peach proliferated in the Southeast with such fervor that farmers feared the Carolinas would become a wilderness of peach trees.

According to the Pilgrims' own accounts, natives outnumbered newcomers at the meal by almost two to one. But soon after Europeans arrived, European diseases killed 90 percent or more of the hemisphere's original inhabitants.

The huge herds and flocks seen by Europeans were evidence not of American bounty but of Indian absence.

Unnatural Abundance

To me, civility means thoughtful and well-informed debate. Constructive criticism can help. Tirades and hyperbole will not.

This op-ed by John McLaughlin, deputy director of central intelligence, appeared in Wednesday's Washington Post.

The CIA Is No 'Rogue' Agency