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Linux Grows 27.1% in China
prostoalex writes "Boosted by government purchases and SCO UNIX replacements, Linux grew by 27.1% in China in 2005 and generated $11.8 mln for the companies involved."
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In the US, there seems to be a myth that in Europe one can rely on public transportation all the time. This is true in the big metropolitan areas, but most people still live outside such areas. Going to my work with public transportation would take over 3 hours. With my car, I can make it in an hour in peak times and in less than 40 minutes out of peak times.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Modify and distribute it and don't provide the source.
In fact, everything there seems to be designed for driving.
The car culture creates a pull towards car-friendlyness. If people have cars, distances grow. Studies at the Technical University Vienna have shown that the average time we spend for transportation is pretty much constant. If you can go faster, you go farther.
Therefor in a car culture, the shops move to the outskirts where they have less costs, and get away with it because people can drive there for the cheaper prices. The shops offer bigger and bigger packages of household goods, to be chearper, and because people drive there as rarely as possible. The parking lots are huge. The local shops go bankrupt. Suddenly you can't go shopping without a car.
Other example: cars make streets deserted. If people use cars a lot in a city, it gets lonely on the streets. Instead of walking together, people drive by each other. In addition, the noise makes the residents turn away from the street. They close windows, try to be in rooms away from the street. Given time, the architecture will change and turn inwards, presenting cold walls to the outside, with only bathroom and hallway windows. The bed and living room windows face to a courtyard or similar.
These changes slowly make the streets uncomfortable and possibly dangerous, and gradually more people switch to cars. Soon there is no space for pedestrians any more, let alone a sidewalk, or anything to walk to.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
The oil companies and the tire companies basically bribed/paid the cities with great public transit systems to dismantle them around 1950. LA is a good example of this. It used to have one of the best public transit systems in the country. Now it's so spread out public transit is useless.
Gore also wanted to impose a $0.50 per gallon gas tax. Personally, I think that that is the best idea I've heard from a politician in a very long time. That would have the effect of lowering the demand for gas, thus hastening the adoption of policies and practices that would reduce our need for gas. It would also be a good source of revenue for our government which has the fiscal acumen of a flock of teenage girls with daddy's credit card.