Ouch. It's finally happened. I've been accused of being over the hill.:)
If RCA lost Aguilera *right now* (not 15 years from now when she's back-catalog!) they might notice. I'm not so sure Atlantic cares one way or another about Phil Collins, at least, not in the sense that losing his support would lead to bankruptcy.
You're probably right. There's probably more money in Aguilera or this Britney girl. Maybe. Although Phil Collins still sells a heck of a lot of CDs. Usually as part of soundtracks now, but he's definitely not to be ignored.
That said, I gave the examples I did (Madonna, Phil Collins, etc.) not so much as their dollar value to the RIAA but rather their clout in the industry as seen from other artists. If Britney jumps ship, Phil Collins and Madonna and all the other artists (both new and old) probably won't care. If a big name like Madonna or Phil jump, however, that WILL be noticed by everyone. By other big names, by N'Syncs, by Britney's, etc.
Old or not, the Madonnas and Phils of the music industry have a lot more clout than Britney and Aguilera. I'd actually be curious to see how their incomes compare and for how long. A no-brianer: How much money will Britney be making from music when she's been in the music business as long as Phil Collins?:)
Nah, I think the big names would impact the RIAA more than one of their "big tickets for a year" bands. Heck, wasn't Britney the big thing LAST year? And Aguilera the year before that? It's amazing how short 15 minutes really is...
The vast majority of music buyers have only the vaguest understanding of the issues around copy protection/intellectual property/fair use, and that is all the understanding they will ever have.
True. Most people don't understand all those issues. They WILL understand when their CDs don't work in their CD players.
How many people take their CDs to the office and listen to them on their office PC? How many people bring a few CDs along with them when they're on business and listen to them on their laptop in the hotel room? How many people move their music to MP3 format for convenience reasons, or to load on their MP3 players to go jogging?
Believe me, most people DON'T need to understand the legal or technical details involved. But when what they want to do can't be done they'll either complain loudly (not just geeks), will stop buying the broken CDs, and/or will learn how to get copy-friendly music off of the P2P client of their choice.
My 20-year-old Mexican sister-in-law in Mexico with a 56k modem has something like 3000 MP3 files, half of which she has apparently downloaded and the other half she copied because there was a CD-ROM filled with 650MB of MP3 circulating at her university--everyone took it home, made a copy, and passed the CD-ROM on to their next friend.
Conclusion? It's not really that complicated to get copy-friendly music, even if you're not a geek.
RIAA. Gotta hate them, gotta love them. They give you a day's worth of frustration, but they also give you a day's worth of humor. How often does an industry invest so much time, money, political and legal capital into driving itself out of business?
My conclusion is that the RIAA *KNOWS* they are obsolete. Remember, the RIAA serves a DISTRIBUTION function. Sure, by controlling that function they were able to decide who made music and who didn't and set prices, etc. and build their empire. But at the end of the day, all they are are distributors to get music from the artist to the listener.
Internet serves the EXACT same function. But since both artists and listeners can access the Internet, there literally is no middle man. The function on which the RIAA empire was built on has been made completely obsolete. Well, maybe not completely--not everyone has Internet yet, but in developed countries it's a matter of years before 90%+ of the population can download and burn their own music--if not at home at a local Internet cafe, etc.
So at this point I think the RIAA knows this. I think they KNOW they are obsolete. They have two options: 1) Admit defeat now. 2) Use copy protection, lawyers, and politicians to maintain their empire for a few more years. After all, their empire is worth billions per year.
Yes, the RIAA is going to put itself out of business. But with all their nonsense they might be able to extend their functional lifetime by a few billion dollars. In the end, they're history anyway--they might as well eek out a few more dollars if they can.
I'm just waiting for ONE major artist (Madonna, Phil Collins, Elton John, etc.) to publically refuse to resign with the RIAA and to go to a pure Internet-based distribution system and playing concerts. Once one bails, the RIAA is going to fold like a house of cards. Don't know if we'll see a major artist bail in 2003, 2004, or 2005... but it will happen. It'll be fun to watch.
If you ain't sellin', it's time to upgrade your product!
I disagree that adding a bunch of "fluff" is going to make a big difference. People that buy CDs do so, primarily, for the music. To be honest, I could care less whether or not there is a cool insert, a large poster, or an exclusive video. I buy a CD for music. If I want a poster, I'll buy that and if I want a video, that's what I'll buy.
RIAA is desperate to keep prices as they are. They either want to add more fluff to hopefully make their product more attractive or add copy-protection to try to give consumers no choice but to pay the bucks. While offering a better product is always a good idea, in the case of the RIAA a better product would be better MUSIC, not full-color posters of some dorky singer.
In the end, they will have to lower prices. They may waste time and money exploring inserts, "activation codes," copy protection, and legal battles. But in the end, they need to reduce the price of their product. People don't want more crap to justify a $20 CD. They want a $5 or $6 CD, maximum.
A $5 CD? Yeah, I'll buy that just out of convenience. $6? Better be good. As soon as the price hits $7, no thanks. $20? You're kidding, right? Unless it includes a CD player in the purchase price I'll just keep on downloading...
But I don't have to and the beggar has no business EXPECTING me to give him $10 just because I can.
No, but if you offer to give the begger a dollar as long as he first pays you 10, the begger is free to tell you where to stuff that dollar--and probably WILL tell you to.
Good for Namibia. Poorer people can sometimes be taken advantage of, but often they are very frugal and logical when it comes to making good financial decisions because they don't have money to flush down the toilet on mistakes.
Closing source isn't like sealing a tank. It's more like building a beaver-dam.
While I agree that closing the source isn't the solution, your beaver-dam analogy isn't very good. Beaver dams can be VERY strong. When they sufficiently block a small river or stream it often takes dynamite to destroy the dam.
It's ok to criticize closed-source, but not beaver damns.:)
Free trade IS fair trade. The problem is an entitlement attitude whereby some people believe they have some right to continue doing business as they have done business in the past, and that anyone that undercuts them is unfair. This is true of U.S. industries that are afraid of Mexico, India, or China because of low labor costs. This is true of Mexico that is afraid of the U.S. because they fear our efficiency. This is true of the RIAA because their business model is dead and they fear free music.
Fact is, everyone "knows" free trade is fair trade. At the same time, many, many people who knows this also fear this. They claim they want free trade but complain when they get it.
Actually, the USA lacks one tax common to almost every other country: taxes on exports.
Who has taxes on exports? I've heard of export licenses (with some fee, surely), but never heard of export taxes.
That'd be counterproductive to ANY country and instituting such a tax would be silly and insane. While some people believe that taxing imports is good to try to keep your money "at home," I don't know anyone that advocates taxing your EXPORTS which just means you are selling less product abroad and, thus, limiting your cash inflows and reducing your income.
It might not push the consumption down in the short term but in the longer term I believe it would. Over time some people would purchase more efficient vehicles or (*gasp*!), take the bus or train or maybe even a bicycle to work.
Don't count on it. Instituting a steep tax on gas probably would generate some massive turnover in Congress due to pissed-off voters, though, so it might not be entirely bad. You'd get new legislators which would give the people what they want: cheap gas.
The idea of using government to tax activities or products that certain people think are undesirable is wrong, period. It's a free country, or at least it was. If gas costs $1/gallon and I have enough money to burn a thousand gallons per month, that's my business. I don't need someone telling me (through taxation) that I shouldn't do that. If it's not illeal, leave me alone.
Of course since the government gave the taxes collected back to the people, they (the taxpayers) have more money to spend...
It's not clear what you're suggesting there. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and NOT assume that you are suggesting that the government taking money from us and then giving it back to us is somehow going to HELP the economy or stimulate spending? Because that'd just be silly. When you take money away from the people--be it in higher prices or higher taxes--people have less money to spend. If you take it away and give it back, people still have less money because you wasted a lot of it on the agencies that collect and distribute that money.
The funny thing is that if you string a powerline through an otherwise desolate forest it suddenly isn't wilderness? I know some enviromental extremists are in favor of keeping forests absolutely prestine, completely untouched by the evil hands of man.
But, in truth, if you clear cut a 20-foot cooridor through a desolate forest hundreds of miles from nowhere and the only impact is that 20-foot cooridor going through the forest, that's still wilderness and it's still remote and it's still prestine. And not a single deer is going to be phased when they have to prance across that 20-foot cooridor.
The only difference is if you get stranded there perhaps you could cut one of the power cables and someone would come out to see what happened and rescue you.:)
Of course you have to pipe this through your standard envirowackobabble filter. It's a slow week in terms of stories reporting that we are destroying the environment since more important subjects are making news (snipers, Iraq, North Korea, etc.). Can't let a week go by without reminding the world how we are destroying the world...
That said, so what? The vast majority of that 83% is agricultural use or just because there happens to be a road in the area. Yeah, we've touched that area but we're using it to GROW crops, which is a good use of land and hardly means we've destroyed it.
If you look at the "About the Data" link on wcs.org, the first sentence reads: "The maps of the human footprint and of the last of the wild should not be read too literally." Wow, at least they open with a surprisingly honest sentence!
They then continue: "These maps are based on geographic proxies for drivers of human impact: human population density, land cover and land use mapping, lights regularly visible from satellite at night, locations of roads, rivers and coasts, settlement patterns, etc. However drivers are not inevitably impacts."
In other words, this shows where we COULD be impacting the environment. This is no indication of whether we actually ARE impacting the environment in these locations, or if the impact might even be good.
Like I said, it's a slow week for environmental news...
But every time I see something about her speaking out against the RIAA and state of music industry today I'm wondering if anyone else in the industry is speaking out as well or is it just her?
Are you serious? It seems to me every week there's another well-known artist either advocating the Internet as a form of distribution, saying that the RIAA is obsolete, or basically just complaining about the RIAA's treatment of artists in general.
No, I don't have links. But this person is definitely not the only "name" in the industry that's stepping up. I've seen other big names saying similar stuff. Do a search on google and I'm sure you'll find something.
All in all, I've been pleasantly surprised how many artists ARE stepping up to the plate and taking a stand to the RIAA. Well, I wouldn't go so far as taking a stand. That would be renouncing the RIAA. But at least they are being vocal about their opinions. At some point it may hit critical mass and you will see a group of prominent artists renounce the RIAA. Once a big name does it I think you'll see an exodus...
And if you look at the last 50 years, Muslims have definitely killed more people in the "name of Islam" than Christians in the name of Christianity. Funny how those hell-bent on slinging mud at Christians always have to come back with "Remember the Crusades!" Yeah... how many centuries ago was that? Do you think anyone will really pay much attention to what happened on 9/11 in, say, 300 or 400 years??
Pretty much all cable and ADSL connections for home users use dynamic IP, admittedly with large lease times. Why?
I live in Mexico. Dynamic 256/128k DSL goes for about $49/month while Static 256/128k DSL goes for like $89/month. Static would be kind of cool, but not THAT cool.
Besides, there's a certain additional amount of anonymity that one achieves with dynamic IP. If you always come from the same IP it's much easier to track you. Not that coming from dynamic IPs protects you, but it at least adds one more step to figuring out who came from a given IP address on a given day/time. It will generally require the cooperation of your ISP.
That said, my IP address hasn't changed in months. Static IP for the price of dynamic.:)
but we seem to be ignoring one important detail:
The top if Mt. Kilimanjaro is freaking melting.
And perhaps 15000 years ago the natives were scared and crying, "The top of the mountain is freezing!" If they were still around they'd probably be thrilled to see their mountain returning to its pre-frozen state.
Fact is, the only thing constant about climate is that it changes. It changed in the past, it is changing now, and it will change in the future. Only humans are so arrogant as to think we can freeze the planet's climate "as-is" because that's what we're used to. We don't even know if the current climate is even our best option, it's just what we're used to.
My Sendmail server already hangs up as soon as it sees an IP address coming from South Korea. They might have 67% broadband penetration, but none of them are going to use my mail server.
I haven't had TOO bad luck with China. As long as you hang-up ony any incoming email that mentions btmail.cn (or whatever) you won't get much from China.
For the last 420,000 years, atmospheric CO2 concentration has remained in a semistable equilibrium, between 180 and 280 ppm. Since 1750 the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has risen to 367 ppm. That's a global change.
Sure, but where's the proof that that change in CO2 is the cause of any affects on the climate? Your climate models and broken surface record aint it.
I guess you're saying the planet can't be getting hotter because we can't steer hurricanes around? Our lack of fine grained control over weather events doesn't somehow imply that we have no influence over climate in general.
No, I'm saying that enviromentalists have been predicting more and more powerful storms as a result of global warming. So far, we aren't seeing it. All we keep seeing is "See, glaciers and ice fields are melting." So? They've been melting since the end of the last ice age.
All your examples are local or regional. If we wanted to raise or lower sea level by a meter, could we do it? Can we stop a hurricane from destroying Lousiana, or cause some flooding to occur in northwestern Mexico that needs it? No.
Fact is, weather will do what it wants. At the beginning of this year's hurricane season they were predicting a large number of named storms and hurricanes. So far, it's been a dud of a season. And the only reason there are as many named storms as there are is because they started naming storms that were previously just numbered. Even the prediction that global warming will cause more and more destructive storms isn't even turning out to be more than theory. There's no evidence of it.
The problem with global warming isn't that it is or isn't happening. It's that it's a purely political issue at this point because the science is completely inadequate to base any reasonable decisions on.
if you think there is a monetary reason to believe in global warming, what is it?
Research dollars, of course.
Anti-global warming research (what little there is, or what little is published) is often funded by industry.
The pro-global warming research that usually happens in environmental groups and universities is funded, directly or indirectly, by the government. If everyone were to agree that global warming was not a problem those research dollars would dry up.
Let's talk about the real issues of global warming, let's discuss the fact. But be under no illusion that those that promote global warming are any "purer" or less financially motivated than "industry pawns" who say that global warming isn't happy. There's money in it for both sides.
I'm an American but have lived in Mexico for the last 7 years. My Mexican sister-in-law camps online at 56k and has about 3000 MP3s last time I asked her...
Of course, I'm writing from Mexico on my DSL line. But most people in Mexico don't even have a phone.
A brochure? That's one of the first things that any defense contractor comes up with, long before they even have a contract--along with t-shirts, patches, caps. It gets done in the bidding phase.
So all that brochure means is that the thought existed. Whether or not they were awarded the contract, completed it, and/or ran into subsquent problems is an entirely different story.
The funny thing is, this will be the end of the "Messenger" service. I haven't used it for years, but it's history now. Why?
The spam will be annoying enough. If more than a few spammers use it you will get pop-ups throughout the day. But I'm sure it's a matter of weeks or months until a virus comes out that does nothing more than infect a local machine and periodically query an "ad server" and then send that ad to other machines on the local network. Thus even if the spammer can't get through your firewall, if someone installs a virus then they'll be the local distributor of the spam.
The end effect will be that everyone will end up disabling the messenger service.
Doesn't matter to me. I'm currently migrating to Linux on all my machines. It'll be fun to watch incoming messenger spam being caught by my firewall, though.
So what you are effectively saying is that a blind person should not be allowed the same rights as _you_ until everyone else in the US has that right first?
He has the right to open the website just like anyone else. What he can (or can't) do with it is not my problem. Do I have to translate my website to every language that a potential user knows how to speak?
Of course it matters, disabled people have as much right as you to participate in society.
Within their capabilities. Anyone has the right to run in a marathon, but is the marathon to modify rules/accessibility so people in a wheelchair can participate? Likewise, the web is a visual medium. That used to mean mostly text, but it is moving towards graphics. Are we going to say that the web cannot progress in the direction that 95% of the users want it to because 0.05% of the users have a physical limitation?
In the real world, people without legs can't run. But that doesn't mean the rest of us can't participate in marathons.
Likewise, in the real world people that are blind can't perceive everything visual. But that doesn't mean that webmasters shouldn't be able to choose a graphical presentation for their website.
Slashdot Mirror
Ouch. It's finally happened. I've been accused of being over the hill. :)
If RCA lost Aguilera *right now* (not 15 years from now when she's back-catalog!) they might notice. I'm not so sure Atlantic cares one way or another about Phil Collins, at least, not in the sense that losing his support would lead to bankruptcy.
You're probably right. There's probably more money in Aguilera or this Britney girl. Maybe. Although Phil Collins still sells a heck of a lot of CDs. Usually as part of soundtracks now, but he's definitely not to be ignored.
That said, I gave the examples I did (Madonna, Phil Collins, etc.) not so much as their dollar value to the RIAA but rather their clout in the industry as seen from other artists. If Britney jumps ship, Phil Collins and Madonna and all the other artists (both new and old) probably won't care. If a big name like Madonna or Phil jump, however, that WILL be noticed by everyone. By other big names, by N'Syncs, by Britney's, etc.
Old or not, the Madonnas and Phils of the music industry have a lot more clout than Britney and Aguilera. I'd actually be curious to see how their incomes compare and for how long. A no-brianer: How much money will Britney be making from music when she's been in the music business as long as Phil Collins? :)
Nah, I think the big names would impact the RIAA more than one of their "big tickets for a year" bands. Heck, wasn't Britney the big thing LAST year? And Aguilera the year before that? It's amazing how short 15 minutes really is...
His timing was wrong.
True. Most people don't understand all those issues. They WILL understand when their CDs don't work in their CD players.
How many people take their CDs to the office and listen to them on their office PC? How many people bring a few CDs along with them when they're on business and listen to them on their laptop in the hotel room? How many people move their music to MP3 format for convenience reasons, or to load on their MP3 players to go jogging?
Believe me, most people DON'T need to understand the legal or technical details involved. But when what they want to do can't be done they'll either complain loudly (not just geeks), will stop buying the broken CDs, and/or will learn how to get copy-friendly music off of the P2P client of their choice.
My 20-year-old Mexican sister-in-law in Mexico with a 56k modem has something like 3000 MP3 files, half of which she has apparently downloaded and the other half she copied because there was a CD-ROM filled with 650MB of MP3 circulating at her university--everyone took it home, made a copy, and passed the CD-ROM on to their next friend.
Conclusion? It's not really that complicated to get copy-friendly music, even if you're not a geek.
My conclusion is that the RIAA *KNOWS* they are obsolete. Remember, the RIAA serves a DISTRIBUTION function. Sure, by controlling that function they were able to decide who made music and who didn't and set prices, etc. and build their empire. But at the end of the day, all they are are distributors to get music from the artist to the listener.
Internet serves the EXACT same function. But since both artists and listeners can access the Internet, there literally is no middle man. The function on which the RIAA empire was built on has been made completely obsolete. Well, maybe not completely--not everyone has Internet yet, but in developed countries it's a matter of years before 90%+ of the population can download and burn their own music--if not at home at a local Internet cafe, etc.
So at this point I think the RIAA knows this. I think they KNOW they are obsolete. They have two options: 1) Admit defeat now. 2) Use copy protection, lawyers, and politicians to maintain their empire for a few more years. After all, their empire is worth billions per year.
Yes, the RIAA is going to put itself out of business. But with all their nonsense they might be able to extend their functional lifetime by a few billion dollars. In the end, they're history anyway--they might as well eek out a few more dollars if they can.
I'm just waiting for ONE major artist (Madonna, Phil Collins, Elton John, etc.) to publically refuse to resign with the RIAA and to go to a pure Internet-based distribution system and playing concerts. Once one bails, the RIAA is going to fold like a house of cards. Don't know if we'll see a major artist bail in 2003, 2004, or 2005... but it will happen. It'll be fun to watch.
I disagree that adding a bunch of "fluff" is going to make a big difference. People that buy CDs do so, primarily, for the music. To be honest, I could care less whether or not there is a cool insert, a large poster, or an exclusive video. I buy a CD for music. If I want a poster, I'll buy that and if I want a video, that's what I'll buy.
RIAA is desperate to keep prices as they are. They either want to add more fluff to hopefully make their product more attractive or add copy-protection to try to give consumers no choice but to pay the bucks. While offering a better product is always a good idea, in the case of the RIAA a better product would be better MUSIC, not full-color posters of some dorky singer.
In the end, they will have to lower prices. They may waste time and money exploring inserts, "activation codes," copy protection, and legal battles. But in the end, they need to reduce the price of their product. People don't want more crap to justify a $20 CD. They want a $5 or $6 CD, maximum.
A $5 CD? Yeah, I'll buy that just out of convenience. $6? Better be good. As soon as the price hits $7, no thanks. $20? You're kidding, right? Unless it includes a CD player in the purchase price I'll just keep on downloading...
No, but if you offer to give the begger a dollar as long as he first pays you 10, the begger is free to tell you where to stuff that dollar--and probably WILL tell you to.
Good for Namibia. Poorer people can sometimes be taken advantage of, but often they are very frugal and logical when it comes to making good financial decisions because they don't have money to flush down the toilet on mistakes.
While I agree that closing the source isn't the solution, your beaver-dam analogy isn't very good. Beaver dams can be VERY strong. When they sufficiently block a small river or stream it often takes dynamite to destroy the dam.
It's ok to criticize closed-source, but not beaver damns. :)
Free trade IS fair trade. The problem is an entitlement attitude whereby some people believe they have some right to continue doing business as they have done business in the past, and that anyone that undercuts them is unfair. This is true of U.S. industries that are afraid of Mexico, India, or China because of low labor costs. This is true of Mexico that is afraid of the U.S. because they fear our efficiency. This is true of the RIAA because their business model is dead and they fear free music.
Fact is, everyone "knows" free trade is fair trade. At the same time, many, many people who knows this also fear this. They claim they want free trade but complain when they get it.
Free trade is inevitable.
Who has taxes on exports? I've heard of export licenses (with some fee, surely), but never heard of export taxes.
That'd be counterproductive to ANY country and instituting such a tax would be silly and insane. While some people believe that taxing imports is good to try to keep your money "at home," I don't know anyone that advocates taxing your EXPORTS which just means you are selling less product abroad and, thus, limiting your cash inflows and reducing your income.
Don't count on it. Instituting a steep tax on gas probably would generate some massive turnover in Congress due to pissed-off voters, though, so it might not be entirely bad. You'd get new legislators which would give the people what they want: cheap gas.
The idea of using government to tax activities or products that certain people think are undesirable is wrong, period. It's a free country, or at least it was. If gas costs $1/gallon and I have enough money to burn a thousand gallons per month, that's my business. I don't need someone telling me (through taxation) that I shouldn't do that. If it's not illeal, leave me alone.
Of course since the government gave the taxes collected back to the people, they (the taxpayers) have more money to spend...
It's not clear what you're suggesting there. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and NOT assume that you are suggesting that the government taking money from us and then giving it back to us is somehow going to HELP the economy or stimulate spending? Because that'd just be silly. When you take money away from the people--be it in higher prices or higher taxes--people have less money to spend. If you take it away and give it back, people still have less money because you wasted a lot of it on the agencies that collect and distribute that money.
Yes, it's appropriated. No, it doens't make a different.
Parent's comments remain valid.
But, in truth, if you clear cut a 20-foot cooridor through a desolate forest hundreds of miles from nowhere and the only impact is that 20-foot cooridor going through the forest, that's still wilderness and it's still remote and it's still prestine. And not a single deer is going to be phased when they have to prance across that 20-foot cooridor.
The only difference is if you get stranded there perhaps you could cut one of the power cables and someone would come out to see what happened and rescue you. :)
That said, so what? The vast majority of that 83% is agricultural use or just because there happens to be a road in the area. Yeah, we've touched that area but we're using it to GROW crops, which is a good use of land and hardly means we've destroyed it.
If you look at the "About the Data" link on wcs.org, the first sentence reads: "The maps of the human footprint and of the last of the wild should not be read too literally." Wow, at least they open with a surprisingly honest sentence!
They then continue: "These maps are based on geographic proxies for drivers of human impact: human population density, land cover and land use mapping, lights regularly visible from satellite at night, locations of roads, rivers and coasts, settlement patterns, etc. However drivers are not inevitably impacts."
In other words, this shows where we COULD be impacting the environment. This is no indication of whether we actually ARE impacting the environment in these locations, or if the impact might even be good.
Like I said, it's a slow week for environmental news...
Are you serious? It seems to me every week there's another well-known artist either advocating the Internet as a form of distribution, saying that the RIAA is obsolete, or basically just complaining about the RIAA's treatment of artists in general.
No, I don't have links. But this person is definitely not the only "name" in the industry that's stepping up. I've seen other big names saying similar stuff. Do a search on google and I'm sure you'll find something.
All in all, I've been pleasantly surprised how many artists ARE stepping up to the plate and taking a stand to the RIAA. Well, I wouldn't go so far as taking a stand. That would be renouncing the RIAA. But at least they are being vocal about their opinions. At some point it may hit critical mass and you will see a group of prominent artists renounce the RIAA. Once a big name does it I think you'll see an exodus...
And if you look at the last 50 years, Muslims have definitely killed more people in the "name of Islam" than Christians in the name of Christianity. Funny how those hell-bent on slinging mud at Christians always have to come back with "Remember the Crusades!" Yeah... how many centuries ago was that? Do you think anyone will really pay much attention to what happened on 9/11 in, say, 300 or 400 years??
I live in Mexico. Dynamic 256/128k DSL goes for about $49/month while Static 256/128k DSL goes for like $89/month. Static would be kind of cool, but not THAT cool.
Besides, there's a certain additional amount of anonymity that one achieves with dynamic IP. If you always come from the same IP it's much easier to track you. Not that coming from dynamic IPs protects you, but it at least adds one more step to figuring out who came from a given IP address on a given day/time. It will generally require the cooperation of your ISP.
That said, my IP address hasn't changed in months. Static IP for the price of dynamic. :)
And perhaps 15000 years ago the natives were scared and crying, "The top of the mountain is freezing!" If they were still around they'd probably be thrilled to see their mountain returning to its pre-frozen state.
Fact is, the only thing constant about climate is that it changes. It changed in the past, it is changing now, and it will change in the future. Only humans are so arrogant as to think we can freeze the planet's climate "as-is" because that's what we're used to. We don't even know if the current climate is even our best option, it's just what we're used to.
I haven't had TOO bad luck with China. As long as you hang-up ony any incoming email that mentions btmail.cn (or whatever) you won't get much from China.
Sure, but where's the proof that that change in CO2 is the cause of any affects on the climate? Your climate models and broken surface record aint it.
I guess you're saying the planet can't be getting hotter because we can't steer hurricanes around? Our lack of fine grained control over weather events doesn't somehow imply that we have no influence over climate in general.
No, I'm saying that enviromentalists have been predicting more and more powerful storms as a result of global warming. So far, we aren't seeing it. All we keep seeing is "See, glaciers and ice fields are melting." So? They've been melting since the end of the last ice age.
Fact is, weather will do what it wants. At the beginning of this year's hurricane season they were predicting a large number of named storms and hurricanes. So far, it's been a dud of a season. And the only reason there are as many named storms as there are is because they started naming storms that were previously just numbered. Even the prediction that global warming will cause more and more destructive storms isn't even turning out to be more than theory. There's no evidence of it.
The problem with global warming isn't that it is or isn't happening. It's that it's a purely political issue at this point because the science is completely inadequate to base any reasonable decisions on.
Research dollars, of course.
Anti-global warming research (what little there is, or what little is published) is often funded by industry.
The pro-global warming research that usually happens in environmental groups and universities is funded, directly or indirectly, by the government. If everyone were to agree that global warming was not a problem those research dollars would dry up.
Let's talk about the real issues of global warming, let's discuss the fact. But be under no illusion that those that promote global warming are any "purer" or less financially motivated than "industry pawns" who say that global warming isn't happy. There's money in it for both sides.
Of course, I'm writing from Mexico on my DSL line. But most people in Mexico don't even have a phone.
So all that brochure means is that the thought existed. Whether or not they were awarded the contract, completed it, and/or ran into subsquent problems is an entirely different story.
The spam will be annoying enough. If more than a few spammers use it you will get pop-ups throughout the day. But I'm sure it's a matter of weeks or months until a virus comes out that does nothing more than infect a local machine and periodically query an "ad server" and then send that ad to other machines on the local network. Thus even if the spammer can't get through your firewall, if someone installs a virus then they'll be the local distributor of the spam.
The end effect will be that everyone will end up disabling the messenger service.
Doesn't matter to me. I'm currently migrating to Linux on all my machines. It'll be fun to watch incoming messenger spam being caught by my firewall, though.
He has the right to open the website just like anyone else. What he can (or can't) do with it is not my problem. Do I have to translate my website to every language that a potential user knows how to speak?
Of course it matters, disabled people have as much right as you to participate in society.
Within their capabilities. Anyone has the right to run in a marathon, but is the marathon to modify rules/accessibility so people in a wheelchair can participate? Likewise, the web is a visual medium. That used to mean mostly text, but it is moving towards graphics. Are we going to say that the web cannot progress in the direction that 95% of the users want it to because 0.05% of the users have a physical limitation?
In the real world, people without legs can't run. But that doesn't mean the rest of us can't participate in marathons.
Likewise, in the real world people that are blind can't perceive everything visual. But that doesn't mean that webmasters shouldn't be able to choose a graphical presentation for their website.