The problem is that Sony is also a content company. You can bet that they aren't going out of their way to make it easy to copy and share music, but apparently they don't mind if you copy television, since they don't produce any of it.
In all seriousness, however, the problem is that the current systems, whether you are talking about cable, satellite, or worst of all broadcast television, can all be tapped quite easily. And once they can be tapped skipping commercials and sharing become ridiculously easy. Microsoft's solution to this problem is replacing these open standards and networks with their own proprietary closed system. It's attractive to Hollywood because it is the only system that is likely to actually have any chance of being accepted by consumers, and it would almost certainly be well beyond the average person's ability to "hack." Even better the DMCA should make people attempting to break the system into criminals.
Of course, this isn't going to happen. If Hollywood is stupid enough to put Microsoft in that sort of a position of power then they enjoying the raping that they would get once this system became widespread. Making Microsoft the cornerstone of your business is like putting a cannibal in charge of babysitting your children.
In other words, I don't think that this is going to work, but you can bet that Microsoft thinks it is going to work.
Microsoft simply knows which side their bread is buttered on. As the article states Sony already has a non-DRM version of the same gizmo, and Microsoft isn't a content company. People buying new computers to copy and share television shows is good for them.
Microsoft is waiting for Hollywood to become desperate, and then they will promise to secure digital media from one end to the other. Microsoft will promise to deliver Hollywood content directly from their ultra-secure servers in Redmond to the XBox2 on the customer's television. The agreements, of course, will be very exclusionary. Alternative formats, operating systems, or software will not be tolerated. If you want to see "Leave it to Beaver" then you will have to own an XBox2, and you will have to subscribe to MSN.
Microsoft figures that if they wait until Hollywood is desperate that there is some chance that they will turn their entire distribution and broadcast businesses over to Microsoft and MSN. Microsoft will become the new keystone of Entertainment, and we all know that the gate-keeper at the toll booth is the one that makes all the money on a new road.
Right now the media companies see Microsoft as a greater threat than the folks copying content. They know that if they give Microsoft control that they will all become subsidiaries of MSFT.
MS has just realized that they aren't a media company, and that people buying new computers to copy music, movies, and television to share with their friends is good for their business.
Microsoft will revive their encryption work when Hollywood gives Microsoft and Windows exclusive access their content. In other words Microsoft won't lift a finger to encrypt Hollywood's content until Hollywood promises to lock out all of Microsoft's competitors. Hollywood is opposing Microsoft in their bid to become the "one ring to rule them all," because they know that if they let Microsoft become the gatekeeper then Microsoft will rig the rig the deck so that Microsoft is the future keystone of broadcasting and distribution. And we all know that the toll-gate keeper makes all the money on a new road.
It's basically a choice between the lesser of two evils. Right now the folks pirating content seem like the lesser evil. Microsoft has enough clout so that they could force the market into using their DRM solution, but Hollywood doesn't trust Microsoft with that kind of power. Hollywood is hoping that they can get Congress to legislate DRM. That would allow them to get an industry standard instead of a proprietary Microsoft solution. Personally I don't see that happening, but Hollywood lives in a land of make believe.
It's not just scripting either. Text-based config files go a long way as well. Configure one Windows box and you have a fat pile of registry changes. With the right tools you might be able to turn that into a package that you can apply against other machines, but it certainly ain't the same as blasting foo.conf over to a double handful of machines via scp. Not too mention the fact that you can easily include comments in text based configuration files and you can version control these files as well.
This is an excellent example of the UNIX industry's support KDE. They are happy to say good things about KDE, but when it comes to write their own software, they invariably choose GTK due to licensing issues. The single exception to this rule that I can think of is Kylix.
I certainly agree that QT is likely to go anywhere, but savvy developers have realized that in most cases there is a useable alternative to QT that is under a more friendly license than the GPL.
Last I checked RedHat sold RedHat Linux, and that's almost certainly the catch. It's easy enough to take Thomson's word that they aren't going to prosecute, but the fact of the matter is that you don't need to protect patents like you protect trademarks. As long as RedHat doesn't have it in writing that they are free to distribute MP3 codecs then RedHat is liable for royalties (and penalties as well should it go to court).
Thomson probably isn't going to go after the folks working on XMMS, but RedHat Linux could easily be categorized as a "commercially sold decoder." Nullsoft pays licensing fees, by the way, and they clearly give their WinAmp away as well. The world of law is a murky place where it is always better to be safe than sorry. You can't blame RedHat for staying clear of potential problems.
Programming under Linux is a bit tricky. Basically its a tradeoff between using the libraries specified in the LSB (which doesn't help you at all for GUI programming), or to simply target a specific set of libraries (probably the ones bundled with the newest RedHat). Too many of Linux's APIs are currently in flux, and so it is a crapshoot which versions people will have installed.
The good news is that fixing the problem is usually as easy as making sure the right libraries are installed.
This problem, however, is a horse of a different color. This doesn't have anything to do with shifting APIs or the difference between distributions. This has to do with the fact that MP3 compression is patented, and the patent holders have changed the terms for use of the patents. RedHat can't distribute MP3 codecs without paying royalties, and so they don't distribute the libraries that XMMS uses to decode MP3s.
Uh... XBoxes are made in plants in Mexico and China. So both companies support giving paying jobs to people in less countries with depressed economies.
I take it you have never actually lived in the third world. Jobs at these types of factories are highly sought after. You see, bad as these jobs might be, the alternative is worse. You can call it slave labor if you want, but it's not. People that work in these factories are almost certainly very thankful to be employed. Low wages, long hours, and poor working conditions are simply what happens when the local job market is so depressed that workers don't have any bargaining power.
If you really want to fix the problem the solution is to create more jobs in these areas. Unfortunately, the corruption of the local political machine usually makes that easier said than done.
Are you actually reading my posts? Here's a bit you appear to have skipped.
This isn't to say that you aren't somewhat correct. It was a low water year, but the water flow that the farmers in Oregon used is supposed to help the smolts get to the sea, not help the adults get back to the spawning ground. Four years from now when this years smolts return we will almost certainly have a bad salmon year.
This quoted bit of my post said almost precisely what your links did. The waters were dangerously low for smolts heading out to sea, and the farmers aren't helping at all. We agree on this point. When I said that there were record salmon that is also true. I know, I went fishing for them. The difference is that you are not differentiating between adult salmon coming upstream (of which there were record levels) and salmon smolts returning to the sea (which got screwed). Are we clear now?
Notice I said nothing about dams anywhere in this post or any other.
The problem with this is that it all comes back to the dams. If there weren't dams in the river then the farmers wouldn't be able to get the water out that they are using. It's the dams that caused the problem. Without the dams man would have no way to control the flow or water level in the rivers, and the fish would always get 100% of the water provided. If it wasn't for the dams Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington would be almost completely unusable as farmland, but the salmon would be completely safe.
The problem in this case, is that the farmers and the environmentalists both want guaranteed rights to a certain minimum amount of water. In high water years very little friction is generated, but in low water years there are almost always fireworks. The environmentalists want the water for the fish, and the farmers want it for their crops. The farmers have gotten so fed up with the situation that many of them draw their full water alotment even when they don't need it. They know that the presence of salmon puts a shadow over their farms.
I don't know how you fix the problem, but as someone who grew up in a farming community in Eastern Washington I can understand why the farmers react as they did. As for George Bush turning on the water, there is no question that Republicans tend to tilt towards the farmers, but it's not as straightforward as that either. Water rights are a big political issue out West.
That's a good point. However, the iPod is basically a commodity device. Heck, it is basically just a hard drive. Apple isn't dumb enough to think that they aren't going to get serious competition in that market. iPod rip-offs have already appeared, and they will undoubtedly push down iPod prices much closer to the cost of components, probably in the near term.
Apple's real business is selling Macs, the iPod is simply a Mac accessory. They hope that cool toys like the iPod will sell more Macs. Of course, they make some money on the iPod itself, but not compared to selling computers. If DRM was good for their computer business they would dump the iPod faster than you could say "Newton."
They want people to see the Mac as the platform for folks who are making their own cool mix CDs, and that are making their own movies. DRM would put kinks in these kinds of uses, and so Apple opposes DRM. Besides, they have seen the writing on the wall, a lot of people actually like getting on Kazaa (or whatever, I have never really gotten into P2P) and sharing music, videos, and other assorted files. For many people that is their primary reason for owning a computer. The last thing Apple wants is to be cut off from this market.
Apple knows that as the little guy they have to actually make their users happy. DRM doesn't make for happy users, but "Rip, Mix, Burn" commercials do.
If Microsoft thinks that they can take on the hardware OEMs then they are in for a shock. Apple made the mistake of thinking that hardware was the place to be, and look what that bought them. For years their Macs were light-years ahead of the DOS based competitors (I am talking about the days before Windows), but people bought PCs because they were good enough and cheaper.
If Microsoft tries to control the hardware companies like Dell will have no choice but to go to war, and part of that war will include getting Linux to the point where grandma could use it. And the Dells, Compaqs, and the folks down on the corner are going to be able to build computers cheaper Microsoft.
I personally am hoping that Microsoft starts to get serious about being a hardware manufacturer, because that would very likely guarantee the success of Linux.
So what about enough of the specification of the hardware and TCP/IP hacks so that someone else could write a Linux driver? You wouldn't have to support it, you wouldn't have to write it, and your competitors are probably already reverse engineering your work in order to pick up anything not patented. I can totally understand why you don't want to be in the business of writing and supporting drivers, but Linuxers aren't really asking you to write the drivers.
It's funny that you have labeled me a Republican and a tool for "big business" because I am not. It is also funny that you don't find the article to be alarmist. The article claims that global warming could trigger a mini ice-age, but then goes on to state that they don't know how much of the fresher water the North Atlantic could absorb and it even states that they don't know what is causing the water to be less saline. In other words there is a big fat pile of guesswork involved, and yet they still talk apocalyptically about a mini ice age.
So what? Sorry we took it all. We screwed not only the third world but future generations as well. Sorry so sad you don't get to play our game until you build up a military more powerful then ours. There is only so much atmosphere to go around and if we fucked it up then they don't get to use those SUVs
What isn't funny is your opinion on the third world. These people want a better life for themselves, and who are you to try and deny it from them? Peruvians and Bolivians aren't salmon. If you tell them that they have to stay poor forever they are quite likely to sharpen their machetes and come hunting for your scalp. Unless you are willing to go to war to stop these people from industrializing you aren't going to be able to stop them. They certainly aren't going to be concerned about a North American mini ice age.
As for the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, last year was a banner year for Salmon. There were record numbers of Salmon all over the Pacific Northwest. In fact, the migration was at a 30 year high. The Federal hatcheries had all of the Salmon they needed for breeding and then some. Most of the fish were simply destroyed.
This isn't to say that you aren't somewhat correct. It was a low water year, but the water flow that the farmers in Oregon used is supposed to help the smolts get to the sea, not help the adults get back to the spawning ground. Four years from now when this years smolts return we will almost certainly have a bad salmon year.
However, blaming the dams on the Republicans hardly seem fair. The Grand Coulee Dam, for instance, was planned and built on FDR's watch. In fact, most of the dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers were built by a Democratic president. And saying that the dams have created an unsustainable way of life is simply not true. While the dams are certainly hard on salmon, they have allowed us to irrigate some of the best farm land in the nation. I grew up in a town in the shadow of the Grand Coulee Dam, and I can guarantee you that there was a net gain of food production even with the loss of most of the fishing.
Actually, if the point is to put pressure on Microsoft then the smartest thing to do would be to advertise that you are getting ready to switch 45 kajillion desktops to Linux. Microsoft can't afford to let even one large company switch to Linux, because if they did then lots of other smaller companies would start to have second thoughts about Windows licensing. One successful Linux desktop implementation on the scale Telstra is talking about and Microsoft would no longer be a given on the corporate desktop.
So Telstra threatens to switch to Linux and the next thing you know Balmer is sweating and dancing his way down under with a big fat discount on Windows licenses.
Personally I think that it makes more sense to simply push for a switch to OpenOffice on Windows with Linux servers. That way you don't have to worry about migrating your entire desktop, but you still save a substantial amount of dinero.
First of all, this article clearly is apocalyptic in nature. It is talking about a potential mini ice-age, for crying out loud. Now, I realize that the article stops short of declaring that "Jesus will reign fire and blood on the land," but Dr. Gagosian is almost certainly talking about the end of the world as we know it. Here's a quote from the text to back up my point:
We could downplay the relevance of past abrupt events and deny the likelihood of future abrupt climate changes. But that could prove costly. With growing globalization, the adverse impacts of climate changes are likely to spill across national boundaries--through migration, economic shocks, and political aftershocks.
I might have overstated the case slightly, but I am certainly no liar.
In addition to being a liar you are an idiot. How is conserving gasoline, driving more fuel efficient cars, using cleaner fuels worse then the problem?
I agree that we should try to be more fuel efficient. After all, not only would it free us from our dependence on foreign oil, and be good for our air quality and our economy. Heck, the car I drive gets between 40 and 45 MPG, how does yours compare? I just don't believe that mixing in scare-tactic stories about the possibilities of climate change are particularly helpful (or honest). We all know that the climate has changed dramatically over time, and we can assume that it is going to change in the future as well. In fact, our current weather pattern is, historically speaking, somewhat of a freak occurrence. Yet somehow this doesn't stop the environmentalists from tying climate change to their political agenda. The article itself says that they have no idea how much of the relatively fresh water the North Sea can absorb, and it also states that they don't know why the sea water is freshening, and yet they imply that the cause is industrialization and that an ice age is imminent. The reason for this is simple. WHOI needs to make these types of predictions to make the news and get the funding they need to keep their boats running. Pretending that these folks don't make a living scary the populace is a farce.
In addition to being a lying idiot it's obvious you have no imagination. Apparently you think the only way to help the atmosphere is to turn off all machines and the only way to control the population is by military force.
Even if WHOI was 100% right and the western world was creating a mini ice age with their industrialization it still wouldn't help, and this is why. Right now the first world enjoys the benefits of massive industrialization, but the rest of the world isn't that far behind. I have lived all over Central and South America, and those folks want what the U.S has. They want SUVs and microwaves. They want to heat their house in the winter and cool it in the summer. They want computers, well lit streets, and all the resty of the trappings that come with industrialization. And they are going to get these things whether we want them to or not. The only thing holding back many of these nations is the rampant corruption of their political systems, but even so they are all making headway. In other words, these countries are going to pollute more and more no matter what happens in the first world, and these countries are also not particularly concerned with the niceties of emissions. What's worse, until they do enter the first world these countries are going to continue to have a high birth rate (lots of children is their version of the 401K), and these expanding populations are going to continue to push into the pristine wildernesses of the Amazon basin, Southern Chile, and others. Even if the first world decided to cut back their emissions to pre-1970's levels the world would still be faced with ever increasing greenhouse gasses, pollution, etc.
Now, I personally believe that there is a solution to this mess, but I don't think that the solution is nearly as straightforward as most environmentalists seem to think.
Still, why should these waters become more salty during this period than they were in say at the beginning of the 20th century? Are you trying to tell me that a little bit of industrialization causes the North Atlantic to become more saline but more causes it to become less saline? Even the shallow end of the curve shouldn't have caused the North Atlantic to become more salty.
The answer to this inconsistency is obvious. These groups monitor all sorts of variables, and every time they see a change they start talking about THE END OF THE WORLD.
Now, I am not saying that man doesn't have an enormous impact on the earth. I just don't see the point in worrying about potential catastrophes where the fix is worse than the problem. It's not like we can simply turn off all the machines, and we also aren't likely to slow down population growth without the extreme use of military force.
Yes, the Chinese can afford to do a lot of things by themselves. However, it's not as if they have a lot to gain by not sharing. If they wanted to go it alone they could easily have started from scratch like RMS did so many years ago.
The reason that the Chinese are using Linux instead of starting from scratch is simple. It's a lot less expensive to borrow from Linux. And that's also why China is not likely to fork the Linux kernel or any other Free Software project. Maintaining your own version of a software project is, generally speaking, more expensive than cooperating. There are some instances where this isn't the case, but they are few and far between.
Think about it for a moment. Let's say that the Chinese did create a proprietary binary only version of Linux. Who would use this beast? If it was substantially better than the Free Software version (and that's a big if) some folks would maybe use it, but the Chinese would almost certainly have a hard time actually charging money for it. After all, if you wanted a commercial OS, you could always purchase Windows or Solaris, or HPUX, or whatever else. In other words the free version of Linux would live on, and in time it would probably equal or surpass the non-free Chinese version. That's an awful lot of work for very little gain, if you ask me. My guess is that Chinese would agree.
Now let's imagine that the Chinese sponsored a whole pile of talented hackers to work on the Free version of Linux. Chances are good that the center of development would shift from the U.S. to China (which would certainly be beneficial to the Chinese).
The reason that Free Software is taking off is that more and more people are realizing the economic benefits of sharing source code and spreading development costs. If the Chinese don't understand that, then they might try and go it alone. I just don't believe that they are likely to do a better job than the folks that are currently working on these Free Software projects. If the Chinese had some sort of secret sauce that made their software developers better than the rest of the world's developers then they wouldn't need to borrow Linux in the first place. They would be stupid to fork off their own versions and try and do without the support of the hackers currently working on the projects, which doesn't mean that they won't try just that. If China does decide to fork, then I wish them the best of luck, they will almost certainly need it.
No, the US is responsible for Global Warming, remember. If we have an ice age the rest of the world is responsible because they clearly are not emitting enough greenhouse gases. And yes, I read the article, and I realize that the author believes that the "trigger" to this catastrophe is melting polar cap ice.
The problem with this whole deal is this. Climate changes have happened throughout recorded history. In fact, no matter what we do the climate is going to change. There is no question that humans play a significant role in these changes, but no scientist worthy of the name actually pretends that they understand completely what is going on. They can't even tell you what caused the historical climate shifts (chances are it wasn't the internal combustion engine).
There are plenty of reasons to research means of energy that produce less polution than our current mix of energy sources. Adding "global warming" to the mix is nothing but pure unadulterated crap. The environmentalists felt that they needed some sort of a scare tactic, and global warming is what they came up with. With this new wrinkle environmentalists can say that the problem is increased industrialization whether temperatures raise or fall. No matter what happens the Yankee industrialists are too blame; never mind that climate is constantly in flux and always has been.
Not that people are likely to change the way they live because Dr. Gagosian says they should. The fact of the matter is that there are already too many of us on this planet to go back to hunter/gatherer lifestyles. Our only real hope is to industrialize the rest of the world and hope that their birth rates level out on their own like it has in the rest of the industrial world. Or, I suppose that the Western countries could use their military might to force people to stop having babies, but I can't imagine that going over very well.
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The problem is that Sony is also a content company. You can bet that they aren't going out of their way to make it easy to copy and share music, but apparently they don't mind if you copy television, since they don't produce any of it.
Tin foil is for amateurs, I use MindGuard!
In all seriousness, however, the problem is that the current systems, whether you are talking about cable, satellite, or worst of all broadcast television, can all be tapped quite easily. And once they can be tapped skipping commercials and sharing become ridiculously easy. Microsoft's solution to this problem is replacing these open standards and networks with their own proprietary closed system. It's attractive to Hollywood because it is the only system that is likely to actually have any chance of being accepted by consumers, and it would almost certainly be well beyond the average person's ability to "hack." Even better the DMCA should make people attempting to break the system into criminals.
Of course, this isn't going to happen. If Hollywood is stupid enough to put Microsoft in that sort of a position of power then they enjoying the raping that they would get once this system became widespread. Making Microsoft the cornerstone of your business is like putting a cannibal in charge of babysitting your children.
In other words, I don't think that this is going to work, but you can bet that Microsoft thinks it is going to work.
Microsoft simply knows which side their bread is buttered on. As the article states Sony already has a non-DRM version of the same gizmo, and Microsoft isn't a content company. People buying new computers to copy and share television shows is good for them.
Microsoft is waiting for Hollywood to become desperate, and then they will promise to secure digital media from one end to the other. Microsoft will promise to deliver Hollywood content directly from their ultra-secure servers in Redmond to the XBox2 on the customer's television. The agreements, of course, will be very exclusionary. Alternative formats, operating systems, or software will not be tolerated. If you want to see "Leave it to Beaver" then you will have to own an XBox2, and you will have to subscribe to MSN.
Microsoft figures that if they wait until Hollywood is desperate that there is some chance that they will turn their entire distribution and broadcast businesses over to Microsoft and MSN. Microsoft will become the new keystone of Entertainment, and we all know that the gate-keeper at the toll booth is the one that makes all the money on a new road.
Right now the media companies see Microsoft as a greater threat than the folks copying content. They know that if they give Microsoft control that they will all become subsidiaries of MSFT.
MS has just realized that they aren't a media company, and that people buying new computers to copy music, movies, and television to share with their friends is good for their business.
Microsoft will revive their encryption work when Hollywood gives Microsoft and Windows exclusive access their content. In other words Microsoft won't lift a finger to encrypt Hollywood's content until Hollywood promises to lock out all of Microsoft's competitors. Hollywood is opposing Microsoft in their bid to become the "one ring to rule them all," because they know that if they let Microsoft become the gatekeeper then Microsoft will rig the rig the deck so that Microsoft is the future keystone of broadcasting and distribution. And we all know that the toll-gate keeper makes all the money on a new road.
It's basically a choice between the lesser of two evils. Right now the folks pirating content seem like the lesser evil. Microsoft has enough clout so that they could force the market into using their DRM solution, but Hollywood doesn't trust Microsoft with that kind of power. Hollywood is hoping that they can get Congress to legislate DRM. That would allow them to get an industry standard instead of a proprietary Microsoft solution. Personally I don't see that happening, but Hollywood lives in a land of make believe.
It's not just scripting either. Text-based config files go a long way as well. Configure one Windows box and you have a fat pile of registry changes. With the right tools you might be able to turn that into a package that you can apply against other machines, but it certainly ain't the same as blasting foo.conf over to a double handful of machines via scp. Not too mention the fact that you can easily include comments in text based configuration files and you can version control these files as well.
In other words, outsourcing is great if your organization is so screwed up that it is costing you money.
I'm bookmarking your post as prior art.
This is an excellent example of the UNIX industry's support KDE. They are happy to say good things about KDE, but when it comes to write their own software, they invariably choose GTK due to licensing issues. The single exception to this rule that I can think of is Kylix.
I certainly agree that QT is likely to go anywhere, but savvy developers have realized that in most cases there is a useable alternative to QT that is under a more friendly license than the GPL.
That's the beauty of wxPython. All the cross platform goodness of wxWindows, and the development speed and ease of Python.
Last I checked RedHat sold RedHat Linux, and that's almost certainly the catch. It's easy enough to take Thomson's word that they aren't going to prosecute, but the fact of the matter is that you don't need to protect patents like you protect trademarks. As long as RedHat doesn't have it in writing that they are free to distribute MP3 codecs then RedHat is liable for royalties (and penalties as well should it go to court).
Thomson probably isn't going to go after the folks working on XMMS, but RedHat Linux could easily be categorized as a "commercially sold decoder." Nullsoft pays licensing fees, by the way, and they clearly give their WinAmp away as well. The world of law is a murky place where it is always better to be safe than sorry. You can't blame RedHat for staying clear of potential problems.
Programming under Linux is a bit tricky. Basically its a tradeoff between using the libraries specified in the LSB (which doesn't help you at all for GUI programming), or to simply target a specific set of libraries (probably the ones bundled with the newest RedHat). Too many of Linux's APIs are currently in flux, and so it is a crapshoot which versions people will have installed.
The good news is that fixing the problem is usually as easy as making sure the right libraries are installed.
This problem, however, is a horse of a different color. This doesn't have anything to do with shifting APIs or the difference between distributions. This has to do with the fact that MP3 compression is patented, and the patent holders have changed the terms for use of the patents. RedHat can't distribute MP3 codecs without paying royalties, and so they don't distribute the libraries that XMMS uses to decode MP3s.
Uh... XBoxes are made in plants in Mexico and China. So both companies support giving paying jobs to people in less countries with depressed economies.
I take it you have never actually lived in the third world. Jobs at these types of factories are highly sought after. You see, bad as these jobs might be, the alternative is worse. You can call it slave labor if you want, but it's not. People that work in these factories are almost certainly very thankful to be employed. Low wages, long hours, and poor working conditions are simply what happens when the local job market is so depressed that workers don't have any bargaining power.
If you really want to fix the problem the solution is to create more jobs in these areas. Unfortunately, the corruption of the local political machine usually makes that easier said than done.
WalMart. Where else?
Are you actually reading my posts? Here's a bit you appear to have skipped.
This quoted bit of my post said almost precisely what your links did. The waters were dangerously low for smolts heading out to sea, and the farmers aren't helping at all. We agree on this point. When I said that there were record salmon that is also true. I know, I went fishing for them. The difference is that you are not differentiating between adult salmon coming upstream (of which there were record levels) and salmon smolts returning to the sea (which got screwed). Are we clear now?
Notice I said nothing about dams anywhere in this post or any other.
The problem with this is that it all comes back to the dams. If there weren't dams in the river then the farmers wouldn't be able to get the water out that they are using. It's the dams that caused the problem. Without the dams man would have no way to control the flow or water level in the rivers, and the fish would always get 100% of the water provided. If it wasn't for the dams Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington would be almost completely unusable as farmland, but the salmon would be completely safe.
The problem in this case, is that the farmers and the environmentalists both want guaranteed rights to a certain minimum amount of water. In high water years very little friction is generated, but in low water years there are almost always fireworks. The environmentalists want the water for the fish, and the farmers want it for their crops. The farmers have gotten so fed up with the situation that many of them draw their full water alotment even when they don't need it. They know that the presence of salmon puts a shadow over their farms.
I don't know how you fix the problem, but as someone who grew up in a farming community in Eastern Washington I can understand why the farmers react as they did. As for George Bush turning on the water, there is no question that Republicans tend to tilt towards the farmers, but it's not as straightforward as that either. Water rights are a big political issue out West.
That's a good point. However, the iPod is basically a commodity device. Heck, it is basically just a hard drive. Apple isn't dumb enough to think that they aren't going to get serious competition in that market. iPod rip-offs have already appeared, and they will undoubtedly push down iPod prices much closer to the cost of components, probably in the near term.
Apple's real business is selling Macs, the iPod is simply a Mac accessory. They hope that cool toys like the iPod will sell more Macs. Of course, they make some money on the iPod itself, but not compared to selling computers. If DRM was good for their computer business they would dump the iPod faster than you could say "Newton."
They want people to see the Mac as the platform for folks who are making their own cool mix CDs, and that are making their own movies. DRM would put kinks in these kinds of uses, and so Apple opposes DRM. Besides, they have seen the writing on the wall, a lot of people actually like getting on Kazaa (or whatever, I have never really gotten into P2P) and sharing music, videos, and other assorted files. For many people that is their primary reason for owning a computer. The last thing Apple wants is to be cut off from this market.
Apple knows that as the little guy they have to actually make their users happy. DRM doesn't make for happy users, but "Rip, Mix, Burn" commercials do.
If Microsoft thinks that they can take on the hardware OEMs then they are in for a shock. Apple made the mistake of thinking that hardware was the place to be, and look what that bought them. For years their Macs were light-years ahead of the DOS based competitors (I am talking about the days before Windows), but people bought PCs because they were good enough and cheaper.
If Microsoft tries to control the hardware companies like Dell will have no choice but to go to war, and part of that war will include getting Linux to the point where grandma could use it. And the Dells, Compaqs, and the folks down on the corner are going to be able to build computers cheaper Microsoft.
I personally am hoping that Microsoft starts to get serious about being a hardware manufacturer, because that would very likely guarantee the success of Linux.
So what about enough of the specification of the hardware and TCP/IP hacks so that someone else could write a Linux driver? You wouldn't have to support it, you wouldn't have to write it, and your competitors are probably already reverse engineering your work in order to pick up anything not patented. I can totally understand why you don't want to be in the business of writing and supporting drivers, but Linuxers aren't really asking you to write the drivers.
Just curious.
It's funny that you have labeled me a Republican and a tool for "big business" because I am not. It is also funny that you don't find the article to be alarmist. The article claims that global warming could trigger a mini ice-age, but then goes on to state that they don't know how much of the fresher water the North Atlantic could absorb and it even states that they don't know what is causing the water to be less saline. In other words there is a big fat pile of guesswork involved, and yet they still talk apocalyptically about a mini ice age.
What isn't funny is your opinion on the third world. These people want a better life for themselves, and who are you to try and deny it from them? Peruvians and Bolivians aren't salmon. If you tell them that they have to stay poor forever they are quite likely to sharpen their machetes and come hunting for your scalp. Unless you are willing to go to war to stop these people from industrializing you aren't going to be able to stop them. They certainly aren't going to be concerned about a North American mini ice age.
As for the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, last year was a banner year for Salmon. There were record numbers of Salmon all over the Pacific Northwest. In fact, the migration was at a 30 year high. The Federal hatcheries had all of the Salmon they needed for breeding and then some. Most of the fish were simply destroyed.
This isn't to say that you aren't somewhat correct. It was a low water year, but the water flow that the farmers in Oregon used is supposed to help the smolts get to the sea, not help the adults get back to the spawning ground. Four years from now when this years smolts return we will almost certainly have a bad salmon year.
However, blaming the dams on the Republicans hardly seem fair. The Grand Coulee Dam, for instance, was planned and built on FDR's watch. In fact, most of the dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers were built by a Democratic president. And saying that the dams have created an unsustainable way of life is simply not true. While the dams are certainly hard on salmon, they have allowed us to irrigate some of the best farm land in the nation. I grew up in a town in the shadow of the Grand Coulee Dam, and I can guarantee you that there was a net gain of food production even with the loss of most of the fishing.
Actually, if the point is to put pressure on Microsoft then the smartest thing to do would be to advertise that you are getting ready to switch 45 kajillion desktops to Linux. Microsoft can't afford to let even one large company switch to Linux, because if they did then lots of other smaller companies would start to have second thoughts about Windows licensing. One successful Linux desktop implementation on the scale Telstra is talking about and Microsoft would no longer be a given on the corporate desktop.
So Telstra threatens to switch to Linux and the next thing you know Balmer is sweating and dancing his way down under with a big fat discount on Windows licenses.
Personally I think that it makes more sense to simply push for a switch to OpenOffice on Windows with Linux servers. That way you don't have to worry about migrating your entire desktop, but you still save a substantial amount of dinero.
First of all, this article clearly is apocalyptic in nature. It is talking about a potential mini ice-age, for crying out loud. Now, I realize that the article stops short of declaring that "Jesus will reign fire and blood on the land," but Dr. Gagosian is almost certainly talking about the end of the world as we know it. Here's a quote from the text to back up my point:
I might have overstated the case slightly, but I am certainly no liar.
I agree that we should try to be more fuel efficient. After all, not only would it free us from our dependence on foreign oil, and be good for our air quality and our economy. Heck, the car I drive gets between 40 and 45 MPG, how does yours compare? I just don't believe that mixing in scare-tactic stories about the possibilities of climate change are particularly helpful (or honest). We all know that the climate has changed dramatically over time, and we can assume that it is going to change in the future as well. In fact, our current weather pattern is, historically speaking, somewhat of a freak occurrence. Yet somehow this doesn't stop the environmentalists from tying climate change to their political agenda. The article itself says that they have no idea how much of the relatively fresh water the North Sea can absorb, and it also states that they don't know why the sea water is freshening, and yet they imply that the cause is industrialization and that an ice age is imminent. The reason for this is simple. WHOI needs to make these types of predictions to make the news and get the funding they need to keep their boats running. Pretending that these folks don't make a living scary the populace is a farce.
Even if WHOI was 100% right and the western world was creating a mini ice age with their industrialization it still wouldn't help, and this is why. Right now the first world enjoys the benefits of massive industrialization, but the rest of the world isn't that far behind. I have lived all over Central and South America, and those folks want what the U.S has. They want SUVs and microwaves. They want to heat their house in the winter and cool it in the summer. They want computers, well lit streets, and all the resty of the trappings that come with industrialization. And they are going to get these things whether we want them to or not. The only thing holding back many of these nations is the rampant corruption of their political systems, but even so they are all making headway. In other words, these countries are going to pollute more and more no matter what happens in the first world, and these countries are also not particularly concerned with the niceties of emissions. What's worse, until they do enter the first world these countries are going to continue to have a high birth rate (lots of children is their version of the 401K), and these expanding populations are going to continue to push into the pristine wildernesses of the Amazon basin, Southern Chile, and others. Even if the first world decided to cut back their emissions to pre-1970's levels the world would still be faced with ever increasing greenhouse gasses, pollution, etc.
Now, I personally believe that there is a solution to this mess, but I don't think that the solution is nearly as straightforward as most environmentalists seem to think.
Still, why should these waters become more salty during this period than they were in say at the beginning of the 20th century? Are you trying to tell me that a little bit of industrialization causes the North Atlantic to become more saline but more causes it to become less saline? Even the shallow end of the curve shouldn't have caused the North Atlantic to become more salty.
The answer to this inconsistency is obvious. These groups monitor all sorts of variables, and every time they see a change they start talking about THE END OF THE WORLD.
Now, I am not saying that man doesn't have an enormous impact on the earth. I just don't see the point in worrying about potential catastrophes where the fix is worse than the problem. It's not like we can simply turn off all the machines, and we also aren't likely to slow down population growth without the extreme use of military force.
Yes, the Chinese can afford to do a lot of things by themselves. However, it's not as if they have a lot to gain by not sharing. If they wanted to go it alone they could easily have started from scratch like RMS did so many years ago.
The reason that the Chinese are using Linux instead of starting from scratch is simple. It's a lot less expensive to borrow from Linux. And that's also why China is not likely to fork the Linux kernel or any other Free Software project. Maintaining your own version of a software project is, generally speaking, more expensive than cooperating. There are some instances where this isn't the case, but they are few and far between.
Think about it for a moment. Let's say that the Chinese did create a proprietary binary only version of Linux. Who would use this beast? If it was substantially better than the Free Software version (and that's a big if) some folks would maybe use it, but the Chinese would almost certainly have a hard time actually charging money for it. After all, if you wanted a commercial OS, you could always purchase Windows or Solaris, or HPUX, or whatever else. In other words the free version of Linux would live on, and in time it would probably equal or surpass the non-free Chinese version. That's an awful lot of work for very little gain, if you ask me. My guess is that Chinese would agree.
Now let's imagine that the Chinese sponsored a whole pile of talented hackers to work on the Free version of Linux. Chances are good that the center of development would shift from the U.S. to China (which would certainly be beneficial to the Chinese).
The reason that Free Software is taking off is that more and more people are realizing the economic benefits of sharing source code and spreading development costs. If the Chinese don't understand that, then they might try and go it alone. I just don't believe that they are likely to do a better job than the folks that are currently working on these Free Software projects. If the Chinese had some sort of secret sauce that made their software developers better than the rest of the world's developers then they wouldn't need to borrow Linux in the first place. They would be stupid to fork off their own versions and try and do without the support of the hackers currently working on the projects, which doesn't mean that they won't try just that. If China does decide to fork, then I wish them the best of luck, they will almost certainly need it.
No, the US is responsible for Global Warming, remember. If we have an ice age the rest of the world is responsible because they clearly are not emitting enough greenhouse gases. And yes, I read the article, and I realize that the author believes that the "trigger" to this catastrophe is melting polar cap ice.
The problem with this whole deal is this. Climate changes have happened throughout recorded history. In fact, no matter what we do the climate is going to change. There is no question that humans play a significant role in these changes, but no scientist worthy of the name actually pretends that they understand completely what is going on. They can't even tell you what caused the historical climate shifts (chances are it wasn't the internal combustion engine).
There are plenty of reasons to research means of energy that produce less polution than our current mix of energy sources. Adding "global warming" to the mix is nothing but pure unadulterated crap. The environmentalists felt that they needed some sort of a scare tactic, and global warming is what they came up with. With this new wrinkle environmentalists can say that the problem is increased industrialization whether temperatures raise or fall. No matter what happens the Yankee industrialists are too blame; never mind that climate is constantly in flux and always has been.
Not that people are likely to change the way they live because Dr. Gagosian says they should. The fact of the matter is that there are already too many of us on this planet to go back to hunter/gatherer lifestyles. Our only real hope is to industrialize the rest of the world and hope that their birth rates level out on their own like it has in the rest of the industrial world. Or, I suppose that the Western countries could use their military might to force people to stop having babies, but I can't imagine that going over very well.