Szilárd VAJDA's blog

Ez tortent az RMDSZ kongresszusan. A nagy valtozas elmaradt, semmi nem tortent, kicserelodott egy nev, mert a kinezet es vizio (ha beszelhetunk egyaltalan ilyenrol, de ketlem) marad minden a regi. Folytatjuk a ket kulacsos politikat, es barmit(!) vallalunk a pozicioert. Kiderul jobb lett volna, ha maradt volna M.B. elnok, mert legalabb o mar nem tud meglepetest okozni.

Beleneztem a kongresszus munkalataiba (lasd Erdely TV) es szomoruan vettem eszre, hogy semmi nem valtozott es ugy viselkedtek, mint a rendszervaltas elotti Roman Kommunista Part ulesein, ahol szoltak az odak a szeretett vezernek es mindenki boldog volt, mosolygott es senkinek eszebe nem jutott megemliteni a szegeny sorsu erdelyi magyarokat, hisz ok nem szamitanak, csak akkor mikor szavazni kell.

Astazi a inceput congresul UDMR la Oradea, Romania. Si dupa atatia ani sub umilita presedintie a lui M.B., partidul minoritatilor maghiare (cum se auto proclama dansii) va organiza alegeri "libere" pentru a desemna noul presedinte in persona domnilor Eckstein-Kovacs Peter, Kelemen Hunor sau Olosz Gergely.

Cum sunt candidatii, asa este si UDMR-ul. Unul e sluga unui marinar de care mi-ar fi rusine sa-i servesc drept consilier, celalt este sluga si continuatorul ideirol unui regim de demult, caci din pacate idei proprii nu prea are, iar celalalt e marele necunoscut in politica romaneasca, care si-a definit platforma pe 7 puncte. E ridicol si grotesc sa ai astfel de candidati. Dar nu suntem capabili sa facem mai mult, asta e adevarul. Poate am putea, dar cei care intradevar ar avea talentul de a conduce si de a uni fortele, stau pe banca de rezerva si fac lucrurile doar pentru nevoile proprii.

Ce e si mai grotesc, cum celelalte partide cum PSD sau PNL se ingramadesc la poarta UDMR pentru a le oferi favoruri in cazul ruperii aliantei cu partidul de guvernare PDL. Iar pentru UDMR conteaza doar functiile si pozitiile si catusi de putin dorinta electoratului care i-a trimis sa ii reprezinte.

Ps. Ma intreb cum va sta Kelemen Hunor pe scaunul de vicepremier si de ministru in acelasi timp, daca domnia sa va accede la functia suprema de presedinte al partidului. Nu. Mi-am dat seama. Va schimba functia de ministru cu cel de vicepremier, caci asa trebuie sa faci si mai putin si trebuie doar sa dai din cap la tot ce zice premierul. Si nu ai treaba cu graitul in romaneste, care e cam slab la unii dintre prea distinsii candidati.

Unfortunately, once you work in the academia you face such side effects of research/publications such as plagiarism. 30 years ago was less as there was no Internet and open access to publications all over the world.

However, nowadays it is quite common to find some interesting idea in some paper, journal, book or website and include the work totally or partially in your work and "sell it" as your own product. You can do it, and many guys do so. It is immoral, unethical and unprofessional. However, either we like it or not it exists and it will never disappear. However, we should not tolerate such misconduct.

A few years ago, university personnel realized that many assignment handed in by the students were just some "copy-paste" works as we would say nowadays. They downloaded some existing documents publicly available on the Internet, change the author and the affiliation and "voila" the magic. There is nothing wrong to use some others work but at least a reference (citation) or a quotation mark is mandatory. To avoid such things, please refer to the guideline provided by the University of Washington.

A regrettable plagiarism scandal started a few days ago, here in Germany. The main "actor" was Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the young, promising Minister of Defense of Germany in the second cabinet of chancellor Angela Merkel. First, once he was accused of plagiarism he stated not to use his doctor title temporally, but once the allegations were investigated by the University of Bayreuth the title was revoked permanently. Doing such a thing is immoral and reveals a certain type of conduct but even worse, the guy is a lawyer and the "borrowed" many unattributed passages from others. There are no proper words to characterize this... I would also question the implication of the supervisor, Prof. D-Jur. Peter Haberle who qualified the thesis as "summa cum laude". Either he was not aware what kind of work is he grading either he was part of the mascarade. In both cases, the particular quilt should be defined as the role of such a supervisor is to guide and lead the PhD candidate.

Interestingly, it seems, even though the German society is divided on the question, it is not affecting the political carrier of the young minister, a possible successor of the current chancellor seen by some political analysts. Even the chancellor Merkel, herself being as well a scientist, supports still zu Guttenberg.

The question is, even though he is a very popular politician, showing such wrongdoing raise many ethical questions. Can we trust anymore such a cheater? Is the Bundestag tolerating such plagiarism at the highest level? Can be a lazy, cheating so-called scientist be a remarkable public servant? Is he gone face any legal consequences? Is possible to sue him for this plagiarism? All these questions should be discussed sooner or later ....

Ps. The author of this blog entry also detected such a plagiarism attempt during a scientific paper review. Of course he managed to stop it right on time!

Reading the different blogs and sites either you see something pro Apple either not. The opinions are really harsh and the two camps really can not stand each other. What about the facts?

Apple is a company producing its own products like iMac, iPod, iPad, iPhone and lately those impressive laptops called MacBook Air and of course the underlaying MacOS. So they do not care about the rest of the market, they do their business, they do their marketing strategy and everything is coordinated by Steve Jobs, the CEO of the company. It is really expensive but it is working incredibly. What is the deal?

To be honest, looking only for the iPhone and the MacBook product lines we can state the following. They did it first (iPhone) and nobody can do yet such thin laptop as the MacBook Air. Nobody can deny this. Nobody. The agressive marketing strategy designed with specific care and probably made by hundreds of communication and advertisement strategiests designed around Jobs has an enormous success. Definitely, the show around the MacBook Air was something totally shocking. Getting a laptop out of an envelope, ..... there is nothing to comment. It was just perfect! Simply perfect.

However, even though their products are good, the price strategy applied for the different items is more than expensive. This is something which can be their success or their failure. Until now it seems to work, but somehow it is not realistic to buy 3 "almost similar" laptops from a price of a MacBook Air. The market is free and the price is decided by the producer but something is still wrong here.

This huge price deviation is separating the users and they really hate each other. Yes, indeed their products are good, the batteries included are really resistent, some design and software solutions are really innovative but I have not seen something till now, which can not be done with other products which no not "wear" the Apple logo. Some nice laptops can be also found with HP, IBM Lenovo or Dell logo and the same for HTC phones running Android OS.

I personally think it should be not about choosing a product just because of some logo but rather on the job and the best device should be selected with respect to that. Unfortunately, this Apple brand is quite costly and in some cases people just show off with these products. I do not agree with this attitude but the choice is yours dear Reader. Buy whatever you like but try not to be "You are what you buy" (I have seen this advertisement in Japan back in 2007.)

Ps. This blog entry was typed on a MacBook Pro and the owner it is quite satisfied with this laptop, however, he still thinks the price of these Apple products is not realistic.

This is research. You are driven by those numbers and results and the time does not matter anymore. I like doing this.

I have right now the feeling that I am not counting anymore the minutes and the hours. I just exist in the space.

Ps. It is 1:25 am and I am stilll in my office but finally I got the results which I expected. I could work till morning because you feel that force.

Astazi, in emisiunea "Ora de foc" de la Televiziunea Realitatea, ziaristul Cornel Nistorescu a declarat ceva de nota 10. Fiind intr-o discutie directa cu senatorul Gyorgy Frunda, acesta din urma declara faptul ca si in cazul unui nou presedinte in fruntea partidului, acesta va continua drumul bine stabilit de "altii", argumentand ca cei de la UDMR au "coloana vertebrala".

Replica lui Nistorescu era foarte transanta. Avind in vedere cit s-a perindat UDMR de la o coalitie la alta, exista deja mari indoieli in ce priveste aceasta "coloana vertebrala". Din pacate senatorul s-a facut de ras in fata intregii natiuni. Se mai intimpla si la case mari....

Ps. Sper din tot sufletul ca electoratul romanesc de etnie maghiara sa sanctioneze ca atare aceasta asa zisa "coloana vertebrala".

Probably you might know, there was scheduled the extension of the Schengen agreement with two new members: Bulgaria and Romania later this year (March 2011). Even myself I wrote a short blog entry on this topic. However, this accession was stopped by the big shots in the EU: Germany and France. The reason is, these two new member states do not comply with the regulations and requirements for such membership and the high level corruption is not stopped and in some cases is even encouraged. While Romania was able to manage all the technical details, Bulgaria was not even able to meet those requirements.

Now in Romania we have a huge scandal concerning border patrols taking bribes (several thousands of euros per day) from the passengers in order let them in or out. So we want to join Schengen but we can not control not even our private borders. How could you imagine to do such thing once we became the borders of the European Union? I think we should be grateful to those nations not to kick us out for good. Somehow Romania and Bulgarian and in general the Balkan countries (even though Romania is not considered as being part of that region) can not get rid of corruption and bribes and illegal issues. Shame on us!

This weekend some high rank officials coming from different countries gathered in Munich for the Munich Security Conference 2011. PM David Cameron had a nice and interesting speech. Somehow, he continued the statement of Chancellor Merkel about the failure of the multiculturalism concept in the British society.

It seems something will happen soon. As mentioned in the speech is not anymore an option to tolerate segregated communities. The immigrants or the minorities should adopt the values and ideology of the country and they should identify themselves with the majority.

Such a clear statement coming from the British establishment probably will start a new wave of protests among the different immigrant communities. The problem is, these western countries need desperately a considerable amount of skilled work force in order to maintain their economical growth but they want to impose rules to those entering into the country. How it is possible to apply all these? I fear new conflicts will arise ...

As you might see, all over Africa the population is rising against the tyrants ruling their countries for decades. Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, etc.

Either you like it or not, these riots or popular uprisings are really organized and helped over social network sites like Facebook or Twitter. While during the communist regimes in Eastern Europe there was the samizdat (starting a complete literature trend), nowadays there is a new form of protest using Internet and the different social networks or micro blog systems.

The world is changing, the world is changing!