The Zichuan District Court in east China’s Shandong province has installed programs on judges’ computers that provide advice on the proper verdicts in criminal cases, the state-run China Daily reported.

In the Shandong experiment, judges simply enter the relevant details of the crimes plus mitigating circumstances — and the program immediately comes up with an appropriate verdict, according to the paper.  More …

When you look at the people who succeed, you will find that there is a ‘timing’ in the business. We just overcame the dot com boom where almost every business that was in the frenzy lost money. Now we are in what many would call the web 2.0

Who are the people who are succeeding now? It is businesses like Google who was able to extend their operations while everybody was scaling down theirs. They had money during the lean months which allowed them to get the talent, and the publicity because competition was less.

As the old business principle says, “He who has money during the panic and continues to build and invest wisely is a wise person indeed!’

This is a famous anecdote about Andrew Carnegie which illustrates his understanding on motivation.

During one of his meetings with his sister Lucy, she heard her sister complained that her son was not answering her mail while he was in college. Without missing a beat, Carnegie told her sister that he could bet her $10 that he would write the young boy, and get a response.

Andrew drafted a nice letter to his nephew, and added a postcript that he was enclosing a cheque for $10 ( this was during the 1880s) as a gift. He then deliberately left the check out of the envelope.

Indeed the young boy wrote back immediately to his uncle, telling him that he is gratified by the gift but distressed that probably the cheque has been lost. Carnegie immediately presented the letter to his sister. His sister paid him $10 for losing the bet and Carnegie immediately sent off the $10 off to his nephew.