Nothing inconvenient about the results
on
An Inconvenient Truth
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I don't think the reason that nobody initially wanted to listen had to do with the story, but rather the storyteller. Gore was about as charming and captivating as an endangered sea turtle. Had some other high profile public figure attacked the problem with the same gusto, there may have been a little more initial acceptance of the core message, which I actually feel would have harmed the result.
Why? Because if anyone else had tried to get congress to act on Global Warming, there would have never been An Inconvenient Truth. Had Gore been more successful in convincing congress to join the Kyoto treaty or strengthen EPA guidelines, I don't believe there never would have been the movie. Which just means that the public would remain uncommitted/unconvinced, and future administrations would have just reversed what the more convincing version of an Al Gore could have achieved in Congress.
What's amazing is that Al Gore's movie really IS engrossing. He comes across as a man with a mission. While he may sensationalize the risk a little at times, he delivers a message that is irrefutable: we must act now. I believe he has helped increase awareness of the problem, and the greater the awareness the greater the chance for long term change. Governments will act on ridiculously expensive endeavours only in the face of overwhelming public support... An Inconvenient Truth is one big step in the right direction.
So basically, the California Supreme Court has just provided a fantastic shield to online news channels and even tabloids against libel suits. The work-around would look something like this:
News site writes libelous story that's too slanderous to publish
The company has one of their employee anonymously publish the story on a newsgroup, forum, or blog
Since the story is now "out", they now republish the story citing the now anonymous (and mostly forgotten) source
News company basks in their immunity
I'm no fan of lawsuits, and this decision is certainly a win for bloggers and most honest web publishers, but it sounds like the consequences of this decision were not well thought out (particularly in respect to the larger news organizations or tabloids).
From a sales standpoint, Microsoft is pretty smart with Office. They always make sure it's 100% backwards compitable, but add enough changes to the.doc and.xls format to ensure that a document from the new version cannot always be opened in a prior version. At the companies I've worked for, this has typically been the driving force of upgrading.
There's nothing more annoying than receiving an e-mail with a Word 2003 document and not being able to open it in Word 2000... after a while there's real benefit in upgrading vs. replying to hundreds of messages with "Can you please save this in an earlier version of Word, I haven't upgraded yet". As long as Microsoft can give away or sell enough O2007 copies to large corporate accounts, there will be a trickle down effect to the rest of corporate America.
Exactly. Once again, Yahoo is playing follow the leader. Given the number of newspapers they are partnering with, it sounds like it will certainly help increase Hotjobs lagging user base (or at least the quantity of their postings). But this certainly is not going to impact Yahoo's prospects by any stretch of the imagination, particularly since CareerBuilder has already been doing this with the big conglomerates such as Gannett and Knight Ridder for at least 6 years.
The #1 portal honor is still Yahoo's to lose, but if they don't make some major changes to their search and advertising network Google will soon gain an advantage that Yahoo may not be able to counter. Considering where they get their revenue, responding to critics and investors by spending a lot of time and money propping up their ancillary businesses while search enhancements continually get delayed is just completely counterintuitive.
Maybe, but corporate clients need interoperability, and this relationship will eventually provide them with a greater degree of Windows/Linux interop than they have today (while providing them with some of the legal protections they desire). I'm also hopeful that better interoperability will eventually lead to greater adoption of Linux, as it's much easier to transition to a new platform if you're already using it.
Isn't the following statement in effect confirming Ballmer's ascertation that Linux users are violating Microsoft's patents?
"In this agreement, Novell and Microsoft each promise not to sue the other's customers for patent infringement. The intended effect of this agreement was to give our joint customers peace of mind that they have the full support of the other company for their IT activities."
If Novell did not believe that Linux users were accountable to Microsoft for using these technologies, why would they look to protect these users? Sure, it's great to offer this indemnification clause for the largest of corporate clients (who have at least some reason to be cognizant of the risk of MS litigation), but by doing so he seems validate Ballmer's views.
I can see it now... The next big legal battle will be Microsoft vs. the world.
Great point. It's unfortunate, but global corporations need to abide by their host country's rules, or they need to pull out. Case in point is Microsoft, who has been forced to hand over information to the Chinese government and ban Chinese Bloggers. In the end though, both sides lose... Microsoft may end up leaving China altogether, and other companies may follow suit in China and elsewhere.
It should be no surprise that countries with little or no protection of free speech are arresting people for their comments online. Many bloggers use their real names (or make it easy for police to trace them. The people who would be arrested for public dissent should not be surprised if they are arrested for dissent online... I would hope that many of these people relish the thought of being arrested for blogging, as it sometimes creates worldwide recognition to their cause or their plight.
It certainly seems that blogger arrests are on the rise, such as the recent Greek blogger arrested for content he didn't write, and the constant string of arrested bloggers and other internet users in China (such as documentary filmmaker Hao Wu). This is probably an indication that Governments are just now learning about the influence commanded by a popular blogger rather than a change in policies around the globe... it's not like governments are quick to catch up with technical trends.
This seems like the perfect solution for driving desktop capabilities to smaller devices (such as a PDA or portable game system). I realize they'd need to work out heat dissipation, but a low wattage fusion device seems like a viable solution for enabling quality 3d graphics on the next gen PSP or similar.
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I don't think the reason that nobody initially wanted to listen had to do with the story, but rather the storyteller. Gore was about as charming and captivating as an endangered sea turtle. Had some other high profile public figure attacked the problem with the same gusto, there may have been a little more initial acceptance of the core message, which I actually feel would have harmed the result.
... An Inconvenient Truth is one big step in the right direction.
Why? Because if anyone else had tried to get congress to act on Global Warming, there would have never been An Inconvenient Truth. Had Gore been more successful in convincing congress to join the Kyoto treaty or strengthen EPA guidelines, I don't believe there never would have been the movie. Which just means that the public would remain uncommitted/unconvinced, and future administrations would have just reversed what the more convincing version of an Al Gore could have achieved in Congress.
What's amazing is that Al Gore's movie really IS engrossing. He comes across as a man with a mission. While he may sensationalize the risk a little at times, he delivers a message that is irrefutable: we must act now. I believe he has helped increase awareness of the problem, and the greater the awareness the greater the chance for long term change. Governments will act on ridiculously expensive endeavours only in the face of overwhelming public support
I'm no fan of lawsuits, and this decision is certainly a win for bloggers and most honest web publishers, but it sounds like the consequences of this decision were not well thought out (particularly in respect to the larger news organizations or tabloids).
From a sales standpoint, Microsoft is pretty smart with Office. They always make sure it's 100% backwards compitable, but add enough changes to the .doc and .xls format to ensure that a document from the new version cannot always be opened in a prior version. At the companies I've worked for, this has typically been the driving force of upgrading.
... after a while there's real benefit in upgrading vs. replying to hundreds of messages with "Can you please save this in an earlier version of Word, I haven't upgraded yet". As long as Microsoft can give away or sell enough O2007 copies to large corporate accounts, there will be a trickle down effect to the rest of corporate America.
There's nothing more annoying than receiving an e-mail with a Word 2003 document and not being able to open it in Word 2000
Exactly. Once again, Yahoo is playing follow the leader. Given the number of newspapers they are partnering with, it sounds like it will certainly help increase Hotjobs lagging user base (or at least the quantity of their postings). But this certainly is not going to impact Yahoo's prospects by any stretch of the imagination, particularly since CareerBuilder has already been doing this with the big conglomerates such as Gannett and Knight Ridder for at least 6 years.
The #1 portal honor is still Yahoo's to lose, but if they don't make some major changes to their search and advertising network Google will soon gain an advantage that Yahoo may not be able to counter. Considering where they get their revenue, responding to critics and investors by spending a lot of time and money propping up their ancillary businesses while search enhancements continually get delayed is just completely counterintuitive.
Maybe, but corporate clients need interoperability, and this relationship will eventually provide them with a greater degree of Windows/Linux interop than they have today (while providing them with some of the legal protections they desire). I'm also hopeful that better interoperability will eventually lead to greater adoption of Linux, as it's much easier to transition to a new platform if you're already using it.
Isn't the following statement in effect confirming Ballmer's ascertation that Linux users are violating Microsoft's patents?
... The next big legal battle will be Microsoft vs. the world.
"In this agreement, Novell and Microsoft each promise not to sue the other's customers for patent infringement. The intended effect of this agreement was to give our joint customers peace of mind that they have the full support of the other company for their IT activities."
If Novell did not believe that Linux users were accountable to Microsoft for using these technologies, why would they look to protect these users? Sure, it's great to offer this indemnification clause for the largest of corporate clients (who have at least some reason to be cognizant of the risk of MS litigation), but by doing so he seems validate Ballmer's views.
I can see it now
Great point. It's unfortunate, but global corporations need to abide by their host country's rules, or they need to pull out. Case in point is Microsoft, who has been forced to hand over information to the Chinese government and ban Chinese Bloggers. In the end though, both sides lose ... Microsoft may end up leaving China altogether, and other companies may follow suit in China and elsewhere.
It should be no surprise that countries with little or no protection of free speech are arresting people for their comments online. Many bloggers use their real names (or make it easy for police to trace them. The people who would be arrested for public dissent should not be surprised if they are arrested for dissent online ... I would hope that many of these people relish the thought of being arrested for blogging, as it sometimes creates worldwide recognition to their cause or their plight.
... it's not like governments are quick to catch up with technical trends.
It certainly seems that blogger arrests are on the rise, such as the recent Greek blogger arrested for content he didn't write, and the constant string of arrested bloggers and other internet users in China (such as documentary filmmaker Hao Wu). This is probably an indication that Governments are just now learning about the influence commanded by a popular blogger rather than a change in policies around the globe
This seems like the perfect solution for driving desktop capabilities to smaller devices (such as a PDA or portable game system). I realize they'd need to work out heat dissipation, but a low wattage fusion device seems like a viable solution for enabling quality 3d graphics on the next gen PSP or similar.