See what I posted about the Works Progress Administration. A LOT of the most famous and important public works projects were built with WPA funds during the 1930's, including dams on the Columbia River.
Yet, some of those "big public works" projects did do a lot of good--the Works Progress Administration built many transportation bridges and tunnels during the 1930's, and the Tennessee Valley Authority essentially modernized the South by providing both hydroelectric power and irrigation water for farms in the area.
By the way, if it weren't for the WPA, the state of the fine arts in the USA would have been much poorer--for example, well-known watercolor artist Dong Kingman became famous through a WPA arts program.
I think we're going to see a lot more of this because the high price of transportation and the poor economy are going to drive more people to communicate via webcam, especially if the distances are over a day's driving time (about 350-400 miles).
Actually, you can hear the difference between an MP3-compressed file and the original CD--for one thing, the treble tends to sound quite a bit more harsh on the MP3 version. That's why I would support a lossless format such as Apple Lossless or FLAC once broadband speeds improve.
But what will really spur on digital sales is the possibility of music in downloadable digital form using Apple Lossless or FLAC "lossless" compression. With broadband speeds now increasing and hard disk storage so cheap nowadays, using these formats is less of an issue, and wouldn't you love to hear truly CD-quality digital music you can download legally that sounds great even on a high-end stereo system?
Apple already has all the pieces in place for a very nice mini-tower machine about the size of the smaller HP Pavilion PC's such as the a64xxf and a65xxf series models. A lot of users would love to see Apple build a smaller-case tower unit because frankly, the Mac Pro tower is too big of a machine to be placed on a desktop and the iMac's difficulty in upgrading internal components is also a turnoff, too.
The problem with Sun is that they're WAY behind the curve compared to even IBM in supporting Open Source (remember, IBM spent a huge amount of money porting Linux to run on their "big iron" platforms back in better economic times).
Because IBM has a great reputation as a computer services company nowadays, they can easily offer powerful enterprise-wide computing platforms at reasonable prices--and IBM has much more name recognition than Sun.
(And I'll probably get modded way down for saying it.)
...But in the end Mystery Science Theater 3000 has actually contributed to making going to see a movie in a theater less pleasant. That's because MST3K made it "hip" to do a snide running commentary on a movie being shown on-screen in a movie theater, something that a LOT of moviegoers dislike for a lot of obvious reasons! You really have to wonder how many home theater systems got sold because moviegoers got tired of this very problem.
Besides, they're testing a version of Windows 7 that is not even a beta drop. As such, it has yet to get its full code optimization, and by the time Windows 7 finally ships at the retail level expect substantial performance increases.
I'm using Norton Internet Security 2008 on my current PC and actually find it fast, stable and works quite well. It appears Synmantec learned their lessons about older versions of Norton Internet Security causing performance issues and NIS 2008 and the new NIS 2009 are getting good reviews.
I think because of Circuit City's poor treatment of their customers, they have driven away potential customers in droves--right into the hands of Best Buy, Costco and even Wal-Mart (Wal-Mart made a very smart decision several years ago to aggressively pursue the consumer electronics business, and they are now among the largest sellers of flat-panel TV's in the USA).
I tried to wave the OGG flag for a couple years and threw in the towel.
Not hard to figure out why: Ogg Vorbis files don't support DRM, while AAC and WMA compression do. MP3 compatibility is being maintained since just about every portable media player out there support the MP3 format. I do think AAC will become more prominent in the future, since many newer portable music players now can play back non-DRM'd AAC files.
However, why are Apple's iTunes Plus store and the Amazon MP3 Download store use 256 kbps variable bit rate encoding? The reason is obvious: near-CD sound quality without requiring a long download time for the music file with lower-speed broadband connections.
In fact, for my 3G iPod nano (8 GB model), the CD's I "rip" for the player are all encoded 192 kbps VBR AAC format for the best balance between reasonable sound quality and file size.
Most non-Apple portable media players support MP3 and MA compression formats. But with more and more portable media players supporting the AAC format, I think in the end we could see AAC as the mainstream alternative to MP3 format in the near future.
Actually, I would prefer music--if digitally compressed--stored as AAC files with 256 kbps variable data rate compression. The reason is simple: iPods support this format, and a lot of new portable music players now support AAC format files (at least in non-DRM'd form). AAC files are reasonably small in size, and being a newer compression format it often means better sound quality, too.
I support your suggestion of people pushing the AAC format. After all, the number of iPods out there is HUGE, and many newer non-Apple portable music players can decode unprotected AAC files, too.
While this is a great idea, I still think with server storage being so cheap nowadays they should also offer it in non-DRM'd WMA and AAC formats, too. The reason is simple: most non-Apple portable music players can play unprotected WMA files, and many newer portable music players can play unprotected AAC files, too.
Ballots must be filled out in permanent-ink pen or marker.
There's good reason for this: pencil marks can be erased or easily smudged, and we'll be right back at the same old "hanging chad" fiasco that nearly ruined the 2000 Presidential elections.
I can understand why you prefer Firefox--it's got a lot more development history and third-party support in terms being an alternative to Internet Explorer compared to its competition (Opera doesn't have the third party support that Firefox enjoys now).
But don't dismiss Chrome just yet--Google can easily throw a lot of resources at it to quickly develop the browser and offer a lot of enticements for third-party support (they have the liquid assets to do this). I've been playing around with the current public beta release and it's actually pretty stable for the most part, with only a few few pages that won't load correctly.
Go read my suggestion about the FairTax concept I suggested further up this message thread. Can you imagine what happens to the US economy if we can bring back a huge fraction of that US$11 trillion to US$16 trillion "offshored" and get maybe US$9 trillion invested into the US economy by foreigners because of our improved tax status? Our economic ills will vanish almost in a blink of an eye!:-) And it will be way more effective than any government bailout, too.
I don't favor higher gasoline taxes--that ends up punishing lower-income people.
An excise tax based on engine displacement and vehicle size makes a lot more sense, since that encourages automakers to build more small cars to start with. And today's small cars aren't slouches, either, as the second-generation Honda Fit and fourth-generation Ford Fiesta demonstrates.
In fact, if you've read what the FairTax supporters say, FairTax essentially replaces ALL current Federal income taxation with a single 23% consumption tax, with a "prebate" of that tax up to the poverty line.
What you just said is all the MORE reason why need to pass something like FairTax or something similar.
Remember what I said earlier:
1) We have 35,000 lobbyists trying to "warp" the income tax code to satisfy narrow constituencies.
This is at the very essence of the problem itself--politicians are using the Federal tax code to affect economic behavior and support narrow constituencies, when it should be the other way around. This is why we need something like FairTax--it takes this very frightening power away.
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See what I posted about the Works Progress Administration. A LOT of the most famous and important public works projects were built with WPA funds during the 1930's, including dams on the Columbia River.
Yet, some of those "big public works" projects did do a lot of good--the Works Progress Administration built many transportation bridges and tunnels during the 1930's, and the Tennessee Valley Authority essentially modernized the South by providing both hydroelectric power and irrigation water for farms in the area.
By the way, if it weren't for the WPA, the state of the fine arts in the USA would have been much poorer--for example, well-known watercolor artist Dong Kingman became famous through a WPA arts program.
I think we're going to see a lot more of this because the high price of transportation and the poor economy are going to drive more people to communicate via webcam, especially if the distances are over a day's driving time (about 350-400 miles).
Actually, you can hear the difference between an MP3-compressed file and the original CD--for one thing, the treble tends to sound quite a bit more harsh on the MP3 version. That's why I would support a lossless format such as Apple Lossless or FLAC once broadband speeds improve.
But what will really spur on digital sales is the possibility of music in downloadable digital form using Apple Lossless or FLAC "lossless" compression. With broadband speeds now increasing and hard disk storage so cheap nowadays, using these formats is less of an issue, and wouldn't you love to hear truly CD-quality digital music you can download legally that sounds great even on a high-end stereo system?
Apple already has all the pieces in place for a very nice mini-tower machine about the size of the smaller HP Pavilion PC's such as the a64xxf and a65xxf series models. A lot of users would love to see Apple build a smaller-case tower unit because frankly, the Mac Pro tower is too big of a machine to be placed on a desktop and the iMac's difficulty in upgrading internal components is also a turnoff, too.
The problem with Sun is that they're WAY behind the curve compared to even IBM in supporting Open Source (remember, IBM spent a huge amount of money porting Linux to run on their "big iron" platforms back in better economic times).
Because IBM has a great reputation as a computer services company nowadays, they can easily offer powerful enterprise-wide computing platforms at reasonable prices--and IBM has much more name recognition than Sun.
(And I'll probably get modded way down for saying it.)
Besides, they're testing a version of Windows 7 that is not even a beta drop. As such, it has yet to get its full code optimization, and by the time Windows 7 finally ships at the retail level expect substantial performance increases.
I'm using Norton Internet Security 2008 on my current PC and actually find it fast, stable and works quite well. It appears Synmantec learned their lessons about older versions of Norton Internet Security causing performance issues and NIS 2008 and the new NIS 2009 are getting good reviews.
I think because of Circuit City's poor treatment of their customers, they have driven away potential customers in droves--right into the hands of Best Buy, Costco and even Wal-Mart (Wal-Mart made a very smart decision several years ago to aggressively pursue the consumer electronics business, and they are now among the largest sellers of flat-panel TV's in the USA).
I tried to wave the OGG flag for a couple years and threw in the towel.
Not hard to figure out why: Ogg Vorbis files don't support DRM, while AAC and WMA compression do. MP3 compatibility is being maintained since just about every portable media player out there support the MP3 format. I do think AAC will become more prominent in the future, since many newer portable music players now can play back non-DRM'd AAC files.
However, why are Apple's iTunes Plus store and the Amazon MP3 Download store use 256 kbps variable bit rate encoding? The reason is obvious: near-CD sound quality without requiring a long download time for the music file with lower-speed broadband connections.
I agree with your sentiments 100%. :-)
In fact, for my 3G iPod nano (8 GB model), the CD's I "rip" for the player are all encoded 192 kbps VBR AAC format for the best balance between reasonable sound quality and file size.
Most non-Apple portable media players support MP3 and MA compression formats. But with more and more portable media players supporting the AAC format, I think in the end we could see AAC as the mainstream alternative to MP3 format in the near future.
Actually, I would prefer music--if digitally compressed--stored as AAC files with 256 kbps variable data rate compression. The reason is simple: iPods support this format, and a lot of new portable music players now support AAC format files (at least in non-DRM'd form). AAC files are reasonably small in size, and being a newer compression format it often means better sound quality, too.
I support your suggestion of people pushing the AAC format. After all, the number of iPods out there is HUGE, and many newer non-Apple portable music players can decode unprotected AAC files, too.
While this is a great idea, I still think with server storage being so cheap nowadays they should also offer it in non-DRM'd WMA and AAC formats, too. The reason is simple: most non-Apple portable music players can play unprotected WMA files, and many newer portable music players can play unprotected AAC files, too.
Ballots must be filled out in permanent-ink pen or marker.
There's good reason for this: pencil marks can be erased or easily smudged, and we'll be right back at the same old "hanging chad" fiasco that nearly ruined the 2000 Presidential elections.
I can understand why you prefer Firefox--it's got a lot more development history and third-party support in terms being an alternative to Internet Explorer compared to its competition (Opera doesn't have the third party support that Firefox enjoys now).
But don't dismiss Chrome just yet--Google can easily throw a lot of resources at it to quickly develop the browser and offer a lot of enticements for third-party support (they have the liquid assets to do this). I've been playing around with the current public beta release and it's actually pretty stable for the most part, with only a few few pages that won't load correctly.
Go read my suggestion about the FairTax concept I suggested further up this message thread. Can you imagine what happens to the US economy if we can bring back a huge fraction of that US$11 trillion to US$16 trillion "offshored" and get maybe US$9 trillion invested into the US economy by foreigners because of our improved tax status? Our economic ills will vanish almost in a blink of an eye! :-) And it will be way more effective than any government bailout, too.
If he tries #1 he will face a voter revolt in 2010 as Congress goes heavily Republican. It'll be 1994 all over again.
I don't favor higher gasoline taxes--that ends up punishing lower-income people.
An excise tax based on engine displacement and vehicle size makes a lot more sense, since that encourages automakers to build more small cars to start with. And today's small cars aren't slouches, either, as the second-generation Honda Fit and fourth-generation Ford Fiesta demonstrates.
In fact, if you've read what the FairTax supporters say, FairTax essentially replaces ALL current Federal income taxation with a single 23% consumption tax, with a "prebate" of that tax up to the poverty line.
What you just said is all the MORE reason why need to pass something like FairTax or something similar.
Remember what I said earlier:
1) We have 35,000 lobbyists trying to "warp" the income tax code to satisfy narrow constituencies.
This is at the very essence of the problem itself--politicians are using the Federal tax code to affect economic behavior and support narrow constituencies, when it should be the other way around. This is why we need something like FairTax--it takes this very frightening power away.