Yuri Panchul: Mr.McFaul: You said B-2 visas are OK, but what about B-1 visas?

You got a question during the meeting from a teacher who wanted to get B-2 tourist
visa to go to a vacation in Florida. You told her "no problem, you are
likely to get a visa".

Is it the same situation for B-1 business/scientific visitor visa? I
noticed that a lot of business travelers and scientists working in the
areas of semiconductors, solid state physics, embedded systems, image
recognition etc - have serious problems getting B-1 visas. Because of the
delays in processing due to some sort of extra checking they cannot attend
meetings and conferences on time.

For example, I am making a presentation on a conference in Arizona next
year with a lot of invited Russian scientists ( http://rustec.asu.edu/ ),
and I noticed they warn for my Russian colleagues about such delays.

From an external observer these actions of the US Government send the
following message: "We would like Russians to like America and be stupid.
We support their vanity desires to go to Disneyworld in Florida but oppose
their intents to connect with their US colleagues in anything important
like real science or technology. Weak things like Skolkovo is OK;
everybody else will be scrutinized like potential spies, delayed and rejected".

Yuri Panchul: I read these slides with great interest. However I can identify a few
issues with the 'innovation' part. The slides emphasize Skolkovo-MIT deal
and Intel, but they ignore the US-created obstacles with export control and
unreasonable scrutinizing business and scientific visitors to the US.

Let's enumerate some of these issues:


1. The reaction of people in scientific and technological community to
Skolkovo-MIT deal is not entirely positive. One issue is a transparency in
spending $302M of Russian taxpayer's money. Another issue is the value of
abstract classes on 'multidisciplinary entrepreneurship' and 'innovation' -
versus more traditional classes on computer architecture, system on chip
design, embedded systems and other real stuff Silicon Valley is quietly
doing under the flashy PR events of Intel and Apple.

2. As far as I know Intel is mostly doing compiler and other software work
in Russia. It is not clear whether Intel can drive the development of
Russian chip design and related hardware areas.

3. The current practices of US export control, governed by Bureau of
Industry and Security, are not transparent. The hitech business community
at large still has no clue about the reasons of BIS blacklisting a Russian
supercomputer company T-Platforms that had customers even in the United
States.

4. Many Russian scientists and business people working in semiconductor,
embedded systems, computer vision and other areas - face significant delays
when they are trying to get visas to go to US conferences and to meet with
US partners. Apparently some recent laws (back in 2008? under Obama?) made
these problems worse.

5. The actions of the US government create an impression that the US
government would like to suppress the technological development in Russia
in certain areas to avoid creating another China ('modernization without
democratization'). This is consistent with the following statements from
the book of Michael McFaul 'Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should and
How We Can':

Michael McFaul: 'In the developing world over the past 50 years, there is
no correlation between modernization and democratization'

Michael McFaul: 'In the economic growth race in the developing world,
autocracies are the hares and the snails, while democracies are the
tortoises. On average, democracies have a slower rate of growth than the
best autocratic performers but a much better rate of growth than most
autocratic regimes'

Michael McFaul: 'Over the past 10 years, economic modernization in Russia
has undermined, not promoted, democratic development.'

#define PIC32_STARTER_KIT

// DEVCFG3
// USERID = No Setting

#pragma config FMIIEN = ON
#pragma config FETHIO = ON
#pragma config PGL1WAY = ON
#pragma config PMDL1WAY = ON
#pragma config IOL1WAY = ON
#pragma config FUSBIDIO = OFF

// DEVCFG2

#pragma config FPLLIDIV = DIV_3
#pragma config FPLLRNG = RANGE_8_16_MHZ
#pragma config FPLLICLK = PLL_POSC
#pragma config FPLLMULT = MUL_50
#pragma config FPLLODIV = DIV_2
#pragma config UPLLFSEL = FREQ_24MHZ
#pragma config UPLLEN = ON

// DEVCFG1

#pragma config FNOSC = SPLL
#pragma config DMTINTV = WIN_127_128
#pragma config FSOSCEN = OFF
#pragma config IESO = OFF
#pragma config POSCMOD = EC
#pragma config OSCIOFNC = ON
#pragma config FCKSM = CSDCMD
#pragma config WDTPS = PS1048576
#pragma config WDTSPGM = STOP
#pragma config WINDIS = NORMAL
#pragma config FWDTEN = OFF
#pragma config FWDTWINSZ = WINSZ_25
// DMTCNT = No Setting
#pragma config FDMTEN = OFF

// DEVCFG0

#pragma config EJTAGBEN = NORMAL
#pragma config DBGPER = PG_ALL
#pragma config FSLEEP = OFF
#pragma config FECCCON = OFF_UNLOCKED
#pragma config BOOTISA = MIPS32
#pragma config TRCEN = OFF
#pragma config ICESEL = ICS_PGx2
#pragma config JTAGEN = OFF
#pragma config DEBUG = ON

// DEVCP0

#pragma config CP = OFF

#include "p32xxxx.h"

void main (void)
{
TRISH = 0;
PORTH = 7;
}

http://camellia-sasanqua.com/2013/11/30/gingetsu-perkins/

I got this plant from Tom Nuccio. Tom told me that he got it from a person named Perkins under the name 'Gingetsu'. Obviously this plant is not 'Gingetsu' because the real 'Gingetsu' is a well-known white Camellia sasanqua, from Higo-sazanka group of cultivars, originated in Japanese province of Kumamoto.

I suspect this misnamed 'Gingetsu Perkins' might be a cross between C. sasanqua and C. reticulata. Its flower size is unusually big for sasanqua, but it has a good sun tolerange. It is also fast growing, upright and somewhat loose. It is much easier to cross C. sasanqua with C. reticulata than to cross C. sasanqua with C. japonica because of their chromosome counts. Both C. sasanqua and C. reticulata usually have 90 chromosomes, while C. japonica - just 30. For more information about Camellia chromosomes see Camellia sasanqua botany (with pictures).




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One of my 'Gingetsu Perkins' plants got what looks like a bud mutation, and produced a flower with petaloids: