Random facts

• According to the official definition by European Union, an SME has less than 250 employees, and less than 50 million € of revenue or balance sheet total less than 43 million €.

starting from here

Cool tech and gadgets

Water-powered mobile phones www.cellular-news.com/story/18289.php 

Underwater MP3 player Listen while swimming! www.waterproofmusic.com/swimp3.html

Open source biotechnology www.tropicaldisease.org www.thesynapticleap.org/malaria www.cambia.org

Berlin Brain-Computer Interface (BBCI) http://ida.first.fraunhofer.de/bbci/index_en.html

DNA Computer http://www.quantumbiocommunication.com/projects/the-smallest-biological-computing-device-ever-constructed.html

MAXFACTOR illume collagening water: cream or gel that turns into water when you rub it http://www.illume.com/ja_JP/index.html

Teleportation http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3811785.stm  http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/  http://www.its.caltech.edu/~qoptics/teleport.html

Near-infrared detector: recognizes a person by the veins in his or her palm http://www.fcpa.fujitsu.com/download/download/new-technologies/PalmSecure.pdf

Cleaning by supercritical CO2: non-toxic dry cleaning of clothes and a technique for next generation semiconductor industry (1) http://www.pprc.org/pubs/techreviews/co2/co2intro.html (2) http://www.reed-electronics.com/semiconductor/article/CA271877?pubdate=2%2F1%2F2003 Patented! http://www.bocedwards.com/r.cfm?a=news/nws_detail_5.cfm?article=207

Fuel cell car, for example GM AUTOnomy, Hy-wire and Sequel. Wired.com wrote of AUTOnomy ”It dispenses with just about everything that makes a car a car, such as the engine, transmission, steering wheel, and gas tank. Rather than spitting out carbon monoxide and other smog-causing gases, it emits nothing but water because it runs on hydrogen. With few moving parts, it will last for decades. It will generate more electricity than it uses and be equipped to apply the surplus to power the owner’s house.”  The steering system is wireless. Each wheel has its own fuel cell and can be controlled separately, which enables driving sideways… For a list of vehicles, see here http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv_tech/400_fcv/fact_sheets.html

Robots. Not my favourite subject until someone comes up with modular systems so you can assemble your own! Lego has… but still at toy level… unless the fall 2006 release of Mindstorms changes things http://mindstorms.lego.com/ What is needed are comprehensive and interoperable control interfaces, and programmability. Here one more robot, from KDDI http://www.pinktentacle.com/2006/03/pirkus-r-the-bluetooth-bot/ And here the new Pleo dinosaur robot http://www.robots-dreams.com/2006/02/pleo_robot_dino.html  Robotic design http://www.brotron.com/

Personality tests

www.personaldna.com According to this, I am a “benevolent inventor”. Haha!

Predicting the future (technology foresight, trends etc.)

My collection of interesting resources, starting with www.futurepundit.com

Open source everything !

Learner’s paradise! Knowledge and learning resources are being thrown open all around the world. Will collect some here. Starting with this: Open source biotechnology www.tropicaldisease.org www.thesynapticleap.org/malaria www.cambia

Weird and less weird things in Japan

This must be such a typical blog topic… "gaijin saw weird things in Japan". I could call it interesting things in Japan, but w-words such as weird or wacky seem to fit much better

Contemporary issues in no particular order:

Kouda Kumi 　幸田久美　倖田來未　Singer. The word on the street in Tokyo was that she is really in. She writes her name in a weird way, which means "not arrived yet". www.koudakumi.com

Imo shochu potato liquor. This must be Japan's answer to single malt whisky.

109. Shopping tower in Shibuya. Still popular.

Dog life counselor. Saw it on tv. Shrink for dogs. This is a job that requires a license in Japan. Here is an example http://www.petshousemaid.com/aboutus.htmm

Nomaneko. Another cat from Japan! Hugely popular! Press start. Move over Kitty and Norakuro!
http://mysohko.up.seesaa.net/image/maiyahii.swf

Mobile Suica. Japan is rushing ahead in mobile services as they mostly have in the recent years. An RFID chip in your mobile phone enables you to use it as an instant credit card, train ticket, info collection device, and so on and on. There are services in planning that will enable you to just point at a restaurant, and the menu & food reviews & rankings by recent customers will instantly be downloaded onto your phone. Maybe these services are already in place. Finding city maps and train timetables onto your mobile phone in a few seconds is already old stuff. It was around already in 2001. http://ubiks.net/local/blog/jmt/archives3/003483.html

Ni-to (niito) Young people who do nothing. Just stay at home and lead an uninspired existence. I wonder if the word has something to do with the American native Arapaho word for "timid"?  I am timid = niito'einoo. He (she) is timid= niito'eit.

Kirin beer. The beer label supposedly has “Kirin” written somewhere on the animal. I could not find it.

Hard Gay. Fooo!!! He holds Yahoo Japan accountable "for stealing his trademark shriek" (in Japan, Yahoo is pronounced YAFOO) The man dresses in a black leather or latex vest, shorts and hat. Tokyo has now several types of Hard Gay clothes sets on sale. Total makeover and all the clothes, or just the hat, sunglasses and studded collar. From 4000 Yen up to around 7000. Check out at Don Quijote stores near you….. www.boingboing.net/2005/09/11/hard_gay_visits_yaho.html http://blog.kung-foo.tv/archives/001535.php

Don Quijote (popular shop chain in Japan) Incredible collection of anything you may or may not want. For some reason I could not find their homepage.

Gorie. I dont know what to say. Check out this website for upcoming performances. She(?) is probably the little sister of Hard Gay. www.randc.jp/gorie/profile.html

Toyoko Inn / Livedoor & Horiemon. Recent corporate scandals in Japan. Maybe this is a sign that the economy is picking up?

Roppongi Hills & Roppongi Heartland. Quite cool complex of hotels, bars etc in Roppongi area. Go to Heartland bar to be seen and more with the young, beautiful and upwardly mobile.  www.kirin.co.jp/brands/HL/shop/main_eng.html

Maid Cafe. "Welcome back my Master!" Get served your coffee by a cute Japanese maid in a cartoon-type dress. For example here. http://www5f.biglobe.ne.jp/~miacafe/miaeng   Someone is commenting on stuff like this here: http://blog.myspace.com/ojiimachiemi, and here is a clip from what happens inside: www.zippyvideos.com/2427358083579486/cafe/

Akiba kei. People who like to frequent the Tokyo Akihabara area. www.marchen.to/~picasso/cg/foool/train/ A cartoon about it. Whats going on here?? (update: the "Train Man" or Densha Otoko was supposedly an otaku guy who helped a cute young girl on the train when she was harassed by a group of drunkards. He seeked help from people at 2Channel chat site for conquering her heart. And he succeeded. Now they are together and a movie has come out about it.) 

2 Channel. Hugely popular discussion site for everything. http://www.2ch.net/

Moe- もえー 萌えっ I am not exactly sure what this word means. I guess it is supposed to describe cute cartoon charater-like girls or cute small animals. A search with the Japanese word yields photos of girls and fluffy puppies.

Takakura Ken. Always popular actor even outside Japan
www.japan-zone.com/modern/takakura_ken.shtml

Tokyo Tower (a bestselling book) Written by Ekuni Kaori.

Guguru. To google something. The imperative form is "gugutte".

Privatization of Japan Post

Zannen

Nandedayo-

Shiga!! Saga!! Chiba!! http://www.geocities.co.jp/Milkyway-Aquarius/9603/sabfile/shinbashi.swf

Darts

Capsule hotel

Mundane sociology

Rather than study extraordinary phenomena, livelihoods or massive movements created by people, why not focus on the small moments and habits in life? There is a very interesting journal, but for some reason defunct… Past issues available here: Journal of Mundane Behavior http://www.mundanebehavior.org/index2.htm

Ethnomusicology. How do different tones, rhytms etc. combine to create moods and how do these connect with the emotions, or the air of a culture? 

How about doing a through time-motion study of a week everyday life? Compare it with a thorough narrative of the thoughts and feelings of the subject? Some interesting insights will surely surface…

When concentrating on work in the office, then leaning back with a stretch and sigh, what are the feelings and thoughts that pop to mind while leaning back and disengaging from the work?

Why do pedestrians sometimes feel they are on a collision course with the person walking towards them in the opposite direction, and how do they decide who should slightly change walking direction to avoid collision?

How do people move in a crowded or empty elevator? What is the effect of elevator music?

What is the effect of colors in the room you live or work in?

Why, how and when are we suckers for flattery?

What do we look at in a person (physical) and what elements of their appearance fills our consciousness (mental)? A statistical or time-motion study is also possible…

What catches our attention in a painting?

Will keep adding my silly questions

Kafka quotes translated more

Found this: www.kafka.org for “publishing online all Kafka texts in German, according to the manuscripts.” Pretty cool, considering that K. wanted all his papers burnt unread. Talk about copyright there  :D

Maurice Blanchot has written some interesting stuff on Kafka. I believe it was in the book L’Entretien infini. Working on that one now…

Some favorite K. quotes…

Es ist hier die Redensart, vielleicht kennst du sie: “Amtliche Entscheidungen sind scheu wie junge Mädchen”. “Das ist eine gute Beobachtung”, sagte K., er nahm es noch ernster als Olga, “eine gute Beobachtung, die Entscheidungen mögen noch andere Eigenschaften mit Mädchen gemeinsam haben.” – “Vielleicht”, sagte Olga. “Ich weiß freilich nicht, wie du es meinst. Vielleicht meinst du es gar lobend.” (Das Schloss)

We have a saying which suits this situation, maybe you know it: “Administrative decisions are shy like young maidens”. “That’s a good observation”, said K. who took it even more seriously than Olga, “a good observation, and the decisions may well have even more qualities in common with young maidens.” “Maybe”, said Olga. “Although I am not sure how you mean it. Maybe you mean it even as a compliment.” (The Castle)

Es ist als hätte der behördliche Apparat die Spannung, die jahrelange Aufreizung durch die gleiche vielleicht an sich geringfügige Angelegenheit nicht mehr ertragen und aus sich selbst heraus ohne Mithilfe der Beamten die Entscheidung getroffen. (Das Schloss)

It was as if the small question, quite unimportant in itself, had totally worn out the patience of the administrative organization over the years, and the organization had reached a decision all by itself without any participation by the officials. (The Castle)

On shame and guilt:

Und was taten wir unterdessen? Das Schlimmste was wir hätten tun können, etwas wofür wir gerechter hätten verachtet werden dürfen, als wofür es wirklich geschah – wir verrieten Amalia, wir rissen uns los von ihrem schweigenden Befehl, wir konnten nicht mehr so weiter leben, ganz ohne Hoffnung konnten wir nicht leben und wir begannen, jeder auf seine Art, das Schloß zu bitten oder zu bestürmen, es möge uns verzeihn. Wir wußten zwar, daß wir nicht imstande waren etwas gutzumachen, wir wußten auch, daß die einzige hoffnungsvolle Verbindung, die wir mit dem Schlosse hatten, die Sortinis, des unserem Vater geneigten Beamten, eben durch die Ereignisse uns unzugänglich geworden war, trotzdem machten wir uns an die Arbeit.

And what did we do in this situation? Wir did the worst thing we could have done, and it would have been more justified to despise us for this rather what we actually were despised for – we abandoned Amalia, we tore ourselves away from her silent command, we could no longer live that way – without hope – and we all started to beg in our various ways for the Castle to forgive us. But we knew that we could not achieve anything, and we knew also that our only promising contact with the Castle, the officials Sortini who were positively inclined towards our father, were now unreachable due to what had happened. But we still made the effort.

Der Vater begann, es begannen die sinnlosen Bittwege zum Vorsteher, zu den Sekretären, den Advokaten, den Schreibern, meistens wurde er nicht empfangen und wenn er durch List oder Zufall doch empfangen wurde, – wie jubelten wir bei solcher Nachricht und rieben uns die Hände – wurde er äußerst schnell abgewiesen und nie wieder empfangen. Es war auch allzu leicht ihm zu antworten, das Schloß hat es immer so leicht. Was wollte er denn? Was war ihm geschehn? Wofür wollte er eine Verzeihung? Wann und von wem war denn im Schloß auch nur ein Finger gegen ihn gerührt worden? …er beklage sich ja nicht wegen der Verarmung, alles, was er hier verloren habe, wolle er leicht wieder einholen, das alles sei nebensächlich, wenn ihm nur verziehen würde.

Father started the futile begging rounds with representatives, secretaries, lawyers, scribes; for the most part they did not receive him, and when he sometimes got an audience by chance or negligence – how we celebrated such news and rubbed our hands – he was promptly dismissed and never received again. It was also easy to answer him, the Castle has it always easy. What did he want? What had happened to him? What did he want forgiveness of?  When and by whom from the Castle had he been harmed in any way? …he was not complaining about the poverty, all that he had lost he could easily gain again and that was beside the point; all he wanted was to be forgiven.

Aber was solle ihm denn verziehen werden? antwortete man ihm, eine Anzeige sei bisher nicht eingelaufen, wenigstens stehe sie noch nicht in den Protokollen, zumindest nicht in den der advokatorischen Öffentlichkeit zugänglichen Protokollen, infolgedessen sei auch, soweit es sich feststellen lasse, weder etwas gegen ihn unternommen worden, noch sei etwas im Zuge. Könne er vielleicht eine amtliche Verfügung nennen, die gegen ihn erlassen worden sei? Das konnte der Vater nicht. Oder habe ein Eingriff eines amtlichen Organes stattgefunden? Davon wußte der Vater nicht. Nun also wenn er nichts wisse und wenn nichts geschehen sei, was wolle er denn? Was könne ihm verziehen werden? (Das Schloss)

But what could be forgiven to him? it was said to him. No official notice had been given, or at least such a notice had not been recorded in the official protocols, at least not in the protocols accessible by the lawyers, and therefore it could be concluded that no examination or trial against him had been conducted nor was in process. Could he perhaps name some official action that had been taken against him? No, father could not. Or had some office taken measures concerning him? Father did not know of any. Well, if he knew of none and nothing had happened, what did he want? What could be forgiven to him?

Now having finished “Das Schloss”, I had an idea that a lot of the book’s themes could be connected to chapter 22. Lots of stuff happens there that sort of tie up loose ends in the narrative and give the reader a climax that then tapers off towards the end of the book. At least this was my experience. It would be interesting to start reading the whole thing at chapter 22 then just proceed to the previous chapters one by one… Thus unraveling the book from the wrong end. One more question remains of course: what did Gerstäcker’s mother say?

Modern Chinese writers and literature

My random collection.

Shou Huo 收获, a literary magazine http://www.qikan.com/gbqikan/mag.asp?issn=0583-1288

Beijing Wenxue, Zhongpian Xiaoshuo Yuebao 北京文学 中篇小说月报, literary magazine from Beijing which I am exploring right now.

Qiao Ye 乔叶, a writer who has a nice fresh style! http://www.qikan.com/gbqikan/view_article.asp?titleid=rmwx20060102&yuedu=1

Oldest extant philosophy

Text borrowed from Stanford University. Please pardon me for the moment. Planning to gather some relevant intercontinental philosophical texts here.

Plus links to Laozi resources

Chinese Ancient Texts Database http://www.chant.org

National Digital Library of China http://www.nlc.gov.cn

One version of Laozi Daodejing 唐 易 州 龍 興 觀 道 德 經 碑 本 http://ef.cdpa.nsysu.edu.tw/ccw/01/lg0.htm

Searchable database of Laozi and other ancient texts http://210.69.170.100/s25/index.htm

Impressive collection of Laozi originals and translations http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/TTK/_IndexTTK.html

A Laozi database project http://www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/MPC/datab.html

Very interesting Chinese text reading interface, not only for Laozi http://zhongwen.com/dao.htm

Another Laozi text online http://www.cnd.org/Classics/Philosophers/Lao_Zi/

Guodian bamboo slip Laozi online http://bamboo.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/

Guoxue http://www.guoxue.com/

www.chinapage.com/laozi.html

www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Daoists/daojia.html

Until recently, the Mawangdui manuscripts have held the pride of place as the oldest extant manuscripts of the Laozi. In late 1993, the excavation of a tomb (identified as M1) in Guodian, Jingmen city, Hubei province, has yielded among other things some 800 bamboo slips, of which 730 are inscribed, containing over 13,000 characters. Some of these, amounting to about 2,000 characters, match the Laozi (see Allan and Williams 2000, and Henricks 2000). The tomb is located near the old capital of the state of Chu and is dated around 300 B.C.E. Robbers entered the tomb before it was excavated, although the extent of the damage is uncertain. The bamboo texts, written in a Chu script, have been transcribed into standard Chinese and published under the title Guodian Chumu zhujian (Beijing: Wenwu, 1998), which on the basis of the size and shape of the slips, calligraphy, and other factors divides the Laozi material into three groups. Group A contains thirty-nine bamboo slips, which correspond in whole or in part to the following chapters of the present text: 19, 66, 46, 30, 15, 64, 37, 63, 2, 32, 25, 5, 16, 64, 56, 57, 55, 44, 40 and 9. Groups B and C are smaller, with eighteen (chs. 59, 48, 20, 13, 41, 52, 45, 54) and fourteen slips (chs. 17, 18, 35, 31, 64), respectively.

On the whole, the Guodian “bamboo-slip Laozi” is consistent with the received text, although the placement or sequence of the chapters is different and there are numerous variant and/or archaic characters. Particularly, whereas chapter 19 of the current Laozi contains what appears to be a strong attack on Confucian ideals — “Cut off benevolence (ren), discard rightness (yi)” — the Guodian “A” text directs its readers to “cut off artificiality, discard deceit.” This has been taken to suggest that in the course of its transmission, the Laozi has taken on a more “polemical” outlook. However, the Guodian “C” text indicates that ren and yi arose only after the “Great Dao” had gone into decline, which agrees with chapter 18 of the current Laozi.

It is not clear whether the Guodian bamboo manuscripts were copied from one source and were meant to be read as one text divided into three parts, whether they were “selections” from a longer original, or whether they were three different texts copied from different sources at different times. The “A” and “C” texts give two different versions of what is now part of chapter 64 of the Laozi, which may suggest different sources. One scholar at least has suggested a chronology to the making of the Guodian Laozi bamboo slips, with the “A” group being the oldest of the three, copied around 400 B.C.E. (Ding 2000, 7-9). It is possible that the Guodian texts only furnished some of the textual “raw material” or “building blocks” that were used later to create the Laozi (Boltz 1999). In other words, they were independent writings and not versions of or excerpts from the Laozi, which in this scenario did not yet exist when the Guodian texts were made. Nevertheless, taking into account all the available evidence, it seems likely that a body or bodies of sayings attributed to Laozi gained currency during the fourth century B.C.E. They may have been derived from earlier, oral or written sources. By the mid-third century if not earlier, the Laozi probably reached more or less its final form and began to attract commentarial attention.

…

The Guodian and Mawangdui manuscripts are certainly older than the received text of the Laozi, but this does not necessarily mean that they are therefore closer to the “original,” if there was an original. As opposed to a linear evolutionary model, it is conceivable that there were several overlapping collections of sayings attributed to Laozi from the start, each inhabiting a particular interpretive context, from which different versions of the Laozi were derived. Although some key chapters in the current Laozi that deal with the nature of Dao (e.g., chs. 1, 14) are not found in the Guodian corpus, the idea that the Dao is “born before heaven and earth,” for example, which is found in chapter 25 of the received text is already present. The critical claim that “being [you] is born of nonbeing [wu]” in chapter 40 also figures in the Guodian “A” text. This seems to argue against any suggestion that the Laozi, and for that matter ancient Chinese philosophical works in general were not interested or lacked the ability to engage in abstract philosophic thought, an assumption that sometimes appears to underlie evolutionary approaches to the development of Chinese philosophy.

The Guodian and Mawangdui finds are extremely valuable. They are syntactically clearer than the received text in some instances, thanks to the larger number of grammatical particles they employ. However, they cannot resolve all the controversies and uncertainties surrounding the Laozi. Perhaps the two approaches identified above are not mutually exclusive. Different written collections of Laozi sayings, leaving open the time and the way in which they were first formed, circulated during the fourth century. Overlapping in some cases and with varying emphases in others, they address both the nature of Dao and Daoist government. These were then developed in several ways — e.g., some collections were combined; new sayings were added; and explanatory comments, illustrations, and elaboration on individual sayings were integrated into the text. The demand for textual uniformity rose when the Laozi gained recognition, and consequently the different textual traditions eventually gave way to the received text of the Laozi.

(dis?)information society

Update: the WSIS Golden Book has been published on 24th February 2006. It is supposed to be a record of the commitments made at the Tunis information society summit in 2005. So, now it is time for implementation… http://www.itu.int/wsis/goldenbook/

Read some web & book sources on the issue of global information society. There are fresh plans being put into action around the world, by governments academia and various types of organizations. To quote the Berkman Center: what the heck does it all MEAN? If you have good analyses or websites on this, especially concerning Asia, please do submit to me =)

Besides new sources and analyses, I would like to collect a comprehensive and comprehensible list of indicators that help in analyzing what’s going on. Statistics… and qualitative signals.

Some relevant sources:

“What is information society and what are all these summits?”; basic info from Switzerland & other sources. This kind of info aggregation should be done in media better and more often. What kind of information society is it that leaves 75% of the population in the dark about what’s happening because they are not familiar with the jargon..? How many people know exactly what a “summit” is? www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=2104&sid=4486550 www.answers.com/topic/information-society 

UNESCO texts on information society http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=12845&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html 

Europe’s Information Society. Ambitious website name. http://europa.eu.int/information_society/index_en.htm

Innovative Actions Network for the Information Society, funded by the European Commission www.ianis.net

“Road map towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration” 2001 http://www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/56/a56326.pdf 

World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) website www.itu.int/wsis. Info on the 2003 and 2005 summits can also be found here.www.worldsummit2005.org 

WSIS timeline www.apc.org/english/wsis/#timeline

News service for the WSIS www.wsis-wire.net

EU portal on WSIS http://europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/internationalrel/global_issues/wsis/index_en.htm

Commentary on WSIS by Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Uni http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/wsis

United Nations ICT Task Force www.unicttaskforce.org

Building the Information Society, agenda for change by the International Telecommunications Union (which is a part of United Nations activities). They have a meeting coming up on February 1st. http://www.itu.int/reform/index.html ”Two discussion forums on this topic are now available to collect inputs and opinions… Member States and Sector Members, as well as those stakeholders that have an interest in ITU activities, are requested to provide comments and inputs on how ITU might further adapt itself to the post-WSIS environment” so go ahead and get involved.

Singapore Infocomm Development Authority www.ida.gov.sg/idaweb/marketing/index.jsp

List of reports by the Ireland Information Society Commission (Ireland has been doing well in the ICT sector; this could be worthy reading..) www.isc.ie/about/reports.html

“All about Finland’s information society” http://e.finland.fi

Information Society Germany 2006 plan http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/1857/336

“Zambia’s readiness for the information society” http://cinsa.info/portal/index2.php?option=content&do_pdf=1&id=132

EU China Information Society Project www.eu-china-infso.org

List of information society related web pages for Asia Pacific http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_observatory/pages/Regions/Asia_and_Pacific/index.shtml

Global Competitiveness Report. ICT & information society has a lot to do with competitiveness of a country or economic unit. www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Global+Competitiveness+Programme%5CGlobal+Competitiveness+Report

Tech pioneers in ICT sector www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/2006+Tech+Pioneers+in+Information+Technology

Just for fun at the end… Japanese emoticons! http://club.pep.ne.jp/~hiroette/en/facemarks

Learning Czech language

Vubec na tom nezáleži, že jsi modelka, zamiloval jsem se jen do tvé vnitřní krásy.

(It does not matter that you are a model, I only fell for your inner beauty)

Astronomy

Circumference of the Earth: about 40,000 km.

Lets start from this piece of data :]

Will elaborate later

What is systems biology?

Interpreting and predicting whole-cell physiology brought about by a highly interconnected network of biochemical components. Quantitative methodology is needed.

Basic data is the genome datasets of various species.

Uses bioinformatic tools and computers.

Output: Open Reading Frames (ORF) and their approximate chromosomal location, function and associated regulatory sequences. Gene expression and regulation patterns of cells and tissues on genome scale. Protein expression, protein-protein interactions, metabolite concentrations.

ETC! Reading into this…

Some nice related animations here http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/biology/units/genom/images.html