I think the consequences are a little different. Google's data gathering isn't destroying the Earth.
Honestly, BP isn't going to destroy the Earth either.
Global Warming isn't going to destroy the Earth.
An all-out nuclear war probably wouldn't destroy the Earth.
It may make the Earth inhospitable to many known forms of life... But the planet would keep spinning on its merry way, and new forms of life would likely emerge.
Re:Was Not Impressed at All
on
Lost Ends
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· Score: 1
Did you watch Star Wars and complain that the Force was never explained?
"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."
No, we would be in IT support hell, maintaining our dads and moms P2P servers......
I do maintain computers/routers for my family members. I've done it for years. The lack(?) of P2P hasn't changed that at all.
But, supposing that P2P was some kind of nightmare to deal with... Why couldn't we make it work better? Build protocols that played nicer with NAT tables... Or build UPnP that works better... Or just throw out the whole IPv4 thing and go to v6?
They seemed so busy turning their superior burning tool into another bloated intrusive dog.
I'm genuinely curious here...
I've been using an older version of Nero for years now. I recently had to install Nero on a Windows 7 machine, which my old version wouldn't support, and acquired a copy of Nero Burning ROM 10.
There were other things I could have installed... I didn't really pay much attention to the options... I just installed Burning ROM 10... And it looks pretty much like my old version. I'm not seeing a whole lot of bloat there.
I hate Charter, our local cable company, with a passion. We still use them for Internet only because we don't really have another choice. As soon as something else becomes available we'll drop them like a hot potato.
I didn't hate them originally... We've been Charter customers for years - basically because that's the only option for cable TV in our town. We had Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) DSL for Internet, and Charter for TV. I wouldn't have changed anything, but we were moving out of town and couldn't get DSL there. Had to switch to Charter Internet.
On the move day we had a call scheduled with Charter.
We had Vonage for phones, so I'd explained to them that they couldn't call that phone number to confirm that somebody was home. I gave them my cell phone number to call.
We waited and waited... Couldn't make as many trips with the U-Haul because somebody had to hang around the house. Nobody ever called. Nobody ever showed up.
Turns out they were calling the disabled Vonage account, instead of my cell phone.
We scheduled a second call... Made sure they had the cell phone on record... Took out the Vonage number entirely...
They showed up this time. But then they decided that we were actually some previous owner who'd failed to pay some bills. So instead of hooking up our Internet (the TV was already working for some reason) they turned off our TV.
We had to go down to the local Charter offices with various forms of ID to prove that we weren't actually that previous owner who'd failed to pay the bills. Then we got another install date scheduled. And they actually showed up to install things - about a month after we'd moved at this point.
And since we used Vonage for our phones, we were without phones (besides my cell) for that month.
Since that time we've had an assortment of issues. It's horribly unreliable. So much so that we gave up on Vonage and got everyone cell phones.
And the prices keep going up. Eventually we dropped them for TV and went with DirecTV.
The Internet performance is crap. When I call technical support I have to use my old cell phone number to look up the account, because they can't manage to update their records. Their technicians aren't even in the same state as me, so they never know if we're having issues in the local area or not. They just want me to reboot my modem - over and over again. And then they tell me that my wireless is bad, when I don't have any wireless, and try to sell me an upgrade.
Seriously, I will drop Charter Internet as soon as it is possible.
Oooh, ooh, you also forgot "green cars". Attention, ecomentals: what do you think is generating the electricity to power the (energy intensive) construction and use of your "green" car? Fairy farts?
Electric cars will drive demand for electricity that may (and should, but who knows?) be generated from renewables or even (hold your nose) "clean" coal, but right now? You're just moving the emissions from your exhaust to the dirty old coal plant up the road, plus the even worse one in China where they dug up the Unobtanium to make your car.
Two problems with your complaint here.
One, you have to start the ball rolling somewhere. If we want to move to 100% electric cars powered by 100% clean/renewable/green electricity, then we need to start rolling out the electric cars sometime.
Two, centrally generated electricity is generally going to be cleaner than all these scattered combustion engines we've got now. Even if you're burning smelly ol' coal, you've got a single source of pollution to monitor/control.
I guess I wouldn't personally describe 0.0 in general as "elite." Maybe specific systems... Or regions... But 0.0 as a whole is full of some pretty useless space. And there are plenty of very valuable areas of highsec and lowsec space.
I guess maybe I'm overthinking things... But "elite" seems like an odd adjective to use for a chunk of geography in EVE. I could easily quantify elite players, or elite corporations... But elite geography just seems vague to me.
It doesn't even need player-killers though, because you can screw yourself over just by making a stupid mistake.
That's what makes EVE what it is. And that's what makes EVE so popular with its players.
They don't want to be coddled.
CCP does listen to its players... But only to the elected representatives, not every single whiner on the boards.
If they listened to every single whiner on the boards it would have long ago become WoW-in-space... Which would have removed the cut-throat nature... And then those loyal players would have left... And EVE would have wound up competing directly against WoW, a fight which it could not win. And EVE would have gone away.
The reason EVE is still around is because it delivers a different player experience. It is not WoW with space ships. Even if it was set in a fantasy setting with elves and magick, it would still be a different player experience from WoW. It is that player experience that keeps the paying customers there.
Perhaps UO would have done better had it retained what made it unique, instead of trying to cater to absolutely everyone.
The actual gameplay is no more complicated than any other MMOG out there. The GUI is a little ugly... But it still basically comes down to selecting a target and then mashing a few buttons on your screen.
There are almost no other games with a learning curve as steep as Eve's, and certainly no MMOs.
The learning curve was originally steep due to some very crappy in-game tutorials. Those have now been improved. It's really fairly easy to get started in EVE these days.
The real complexity comes from understanding all the various interactions... How the danger of gathering certain resources increases their price, and ultimately the price of gear made from those resources. How various factions control the politics of certain regions. How political actions can affect various prices.
But you don't really need to understand all those interactions to jump in a ship and start shooting stuff.
This has as a consequence that Eve has a relatively small player base.
(emphasis mine) It's interesting how the market has changed... EVE has thousands of players and is making plenty of money. A few years ago that would have been more than enough. But because WoW now has millions of players, EVE is considered "relatively small."
A further consequence of the small player base is that CCP, the company that makes Eve, needs to make sure that they can retain as many players as possible and not run the risk of making the player base so angry with any mistake so as to lose a significant amount of players. In a bigger MMO, this would perhaps be less consequential, but in Eve it would seriously damage the game.
I suspect that you've got things a bit backwards here...
The playerbase is relatively small due to CCP's choices. They've chosen to create a niche product. The game they make does not appeal to a large audience.
Folks complain on the forums that the game is too hard... Too complicated... Too unforgiving... CCP could certainly make changes to make the game more accessible to more people... But that would change the nature of EVE.
CCP actually told the last CSM that they were not actually interested in the majority of the players but only in a subsection that lived in a specific "elite" part of Eve space
I'm not sure what "elite" part of EVE space you're referring to...
But the fact of the matter is that the big players (not necessarily individuals, but corporations and alliances as well) have a huge impact on the game. They literally change the geography of the game. Depending on who controls what space it may or may not be safe to travel through there... Prices might change... Availability of materials changes... The amount of combat changes...
Obviously CCP needs to look at what these big players are doing more closely than what I'm doing.
I played EVE for a few years. This is the first I've heard of the CSM.
Note to CSM members: Improve public image of CSM, improve awareness.
I don't know how you can be unaware of the CSM...
It's featured heavily on the EVE homepage for weeks before the election. You'll see folks campaigning on the forums... Supporters will throw slogans and "vote for..." messages in their signatures... You'll see mention of it in various in-game channels...
There's even a message on the login screen reminding you to go vote...
EVE is still as much a game as anything else out there...
Yes, the meta-game is hugely important in EVE... Maybe more-so than in most games... But it is still just a game... At least, as much as any popular MMOG is just a game.
Yes, people take EVE seriously... But they take WoW and EverQuest and StarCraft and everything else seriously too.
Or it's just a creative way to foster elitism - which is a fundamental part of the competitive motivations of the game.
The meta-game in EVE is huge. Tons of business is conducted on forums, in person, and over the phone. EVE really extends beyond the GUI running on your computer.
The CSM is just another arena for the players to compete in.
Maybe if we ask people what they want and then give it to them, they will tell their friends, blog positively, continue to subscribe to our subscription-based service instead of wandering off in boredom.
A key part of this, though, is filtering out the noise.
There are a lot of whiners on the EVE boards (just like pretty much any game's forum). Lots of the them think the game is too tough, too time-consuming, and too unforgiving. Lots of them would like it to be friendlier and more casual in nature.
CCP doesn't respond to every single whine on the boards like some companies do.
Instead, they ask the players to elect folks who actually represent them. And then they ask the representatives what to do with EVE.
You'll see CSM members of a piratical disposition... Folks from large alliances... Folks who are carebears at heart... Folks from tiny corporations... All sorts of different people represented... But you won't see a whole lot of folks who whine that EVE needs to be more friendly and forgiving.
Oil contaminating our food supply is a bad thing. Oil killing off our food supply is a bad thing
Obviously the goal is to clean things up before that happens... And I'm skeptical that this one disaster in the Gulf is going to be enough to start killing anyone...
Radioactive water will. Radioactivity in the food chain will.
Again, I'm skeptical that one nuke in the Gulf is going to be enough to start killing everyone. It could, theoretically, contaminate stuff there in the Gulf. But I don't know that it would be any worse in the long run than letting everything get contaminated with oil.
But, in theory, you'd have very little radiation. If you did it right. Of course... If we'd done it right, we wouldn't have the current problem either.
What if you had to apply for the copyrights to your work but in doing so you have to turn over a master to the copyright office and when the copyright expires the copyright office turns the master over into public domain,
I think Richard is saying that if the Owners of Avatar want the original movie to sit in a vault and rot, that is up to them. You don't get a right to copy someone's stuff if they don't want you to. Is it a loss? oh yes. But it's the right of the owner.
Avatar did not spring into being in a void. It is based heavily on a shared culture that's built up of all the creative works that have come before it. Avatar, as it is, would not exist if it weren't for all the shared works that came before it. If Shakespeare had decided to cram his stuff in a vault and let it rot, Avatar simply would not be the movie that we have today.
To a certain degree, the owners of Avatar owe it to the shared culture that allowed them to make this movie.
They can still chose (for the exact same reasons that they currently chose) not to release theie archival copies into the wild.
But at least there would be a choice.
Anyone remember one of the first times they re-released Star Wars? The original stock had degraded so much that Darth Vader's lightsaber was a lovely shade of pink.
Sure... If you want to be a dick and hang on to your archival copy you can. But if the copyright term is so long that the question doesn't even come up until the archival copy is dust, it's kind of a moot point.
How would shorter copyright terms solve that issue?
Well, if the copyright term was shorter, the copy in the vault may not have degraded by the time copyright expired. And then you could release that vault copy into the wild.
Copyright law didn't prevent someone else storing an archival copy until copyright expiration
Actually, it does.
Copyright law means that I can dictate who makes copies and under what conditions. So if the only copies I allow are low-quality, or severely edited, or DRM-encumbered, or self-destructing... Then there's no way anyone out there can store an archival copy.
Frankly, unless I'm handing out copies of my original filmstock with no DRM or anything like that, folks are going to have one hell of a time using any of their copies for archival purposes.
and you would still have no right to go and take those original negatives...
Generally speaking, you don't want the original negatives.
The original negatives for Avatar, for example, are just going to be a bunch of people running around in front of a green screen.
What you want is a clean, full copy of the work as it appeared for public consumption. Without any DRM or encryption or limitations. Without it being reformatted for fullscreen TVs or anything like that.
A good, clean, full copy that can then be used to master additional copies in various formats.
I thought the GoM was already a giant dead zone from all the fertilizer leaking down the Mighty Mississippi? I could swear I've seen satellite pics of the GoM with giant black dead zones.
Certain portions are definitely dead zones. I believe there's a seasonal dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi, for example.
Certain portions are definitely not dead zones. There's some very good fishing around the Florida/Alabama region, for example.
There is no oxygen under water, so the oil and gas can not ignite.
There most certainly is oxygen under water... And one of the major concerns with this oil spill is that it is depleting the oxygen - possibly leading to the creation of a dead zone.
It is also possible for things to burn underwater.
I'm not suggesting that we're going to wind up with a big ol' submarine fireball... But just saying "duh, it's underwater, it can't burn" isn't really accurate.
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I think the consequences are a little different. Google's data gathering isn't destroying the Earth.
Honestly, BP isn't going to destroy the Earth either.
Global Warming isn't going to destroy the Earth.
An all-out nuclear war probably wouldn't destroy the Earth.
It may make the Earth inhospitable to many known forms of life... But the planet would keep spinning on its merry way, and new forms of life would likely emerge.
Did you watch Star Wars and complain that the Force was never explained?
"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."
No, we would be in IT support hell, maintaining our dads and moms P2P servers......
I do maintain computers/routers for my family members. I've done it for years. The lack(?) of P2P hasn't changed that at all.
But, supposing that P2P was some kind of nightmare to deal with... Why couldn't we make it work better? Build protocols that played nicer with NAT tables... Or build UPnP that works better... Or just throw out the whole IPv4 thing and go to v6?
They seemed so busy turning their superior burning tool into another bloated intrusive dog.
I'm genuinely curious here...
I've been using an older version of Nero for years now. I recently had to install Nero on a Windows 7 machine, which my old version wouldn't support, and acquired a copy of Nero Burning ROM 10.
There were other things I could have installed... I didn't really pay much attention to the options... I just installed Burning ROM 10... And it looks pretty much like my old version. I'm not seeing a whole lot of bloat there.
What's so bad about Nero these days?
I hate Charter, our local cable company, with a passion. We still use them for Internet only because we don't really have another choice. As soon as something else becomes available we'll drop them like a hot potato.
I didn't hate them originally... We've been Charter customers for years - basically because that's the only option for cable TV in our town. We had Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) DSL for Internet, and Charter for TV. I wouldn't have changed anything, but we were moving out of town and couldn't get DSL there. Had to switch to Charter Internet.
On the move day we had a call scheduled with Charter.
We had Vonage for phones, so I'd explained to them that they couldn't call that phone number to confirm that somebody was home. I gave them my cell phone number to call.
We waited and waited... Couldn't make as many trips with the U-Haul because somebody had to hang around the house. Nobody ever called. Nobody ever showed up.
Turns out they were calling the disabled Vonage account, instead of my cell phone.
We scheduled a second call... Made sure they had the cell phone on record... Took out the Vonage number entirely...
They showed up this time. But then they decided that we were actually some previous owner who'd failed to pay some bills. So instead of hooking up our Internet (the TV was already working for some reason) they turned off our TV.
We had to go down to the local Charter offices with various forms of ID to prove that we weren't actually that previous owner who'd failed to pay the bills. Then we got another install date scheduled. And they actually showed up to install things - about a month after we'd moved at this point.
And since we used Vonage for our phones, we were without phones (besides my cell) for that month.
Since that time we've had an assortment of issues. It's horribly unreliable. So much so that we gave up on Vonage and got everyone cell phones.
And the prices keep going up. Eventually we dropped them for TV and went with DirecTV.
The Internet performance is crap. When I call technical support I have to use my old cell phone number to look up the account, because they can't manage to update their records. Their technicians aren't even in the same state as me, so they never know if we're having issues in the local area or not. They just want me to reboot my modem - over and over again. And then they tell me that my wireless is bad, when I don't have any wireless, and try to sell me an upgrade.
Seriously, I will drop Charter Internet as soon as it is possible.
Oooh, ooh, you also forgot "green cars". Attention, ecomentals: what do you think is generating the electricity to power the (energy intensive) construction and use of your "green" car? Fairy farts?
Electric cars will drive demand for electricity that may (and should, but who knows?) be generated from renewables or even (hold your nose) "clean" coal, but right now? You're just moving the emissions from your exhaust to the dirty old coal plant up the road, plus the even worse one in China where they dug up the Unobtanium to make your car.
Two problems with your complaint here.
One, you have to start the ball rolling somewhere. If we want to move to 100% electric cars powered by 100% clean/renewable/green electricity, then we need to start rolling out the electric cars sometime.
Two, centrally generated electricity is generally going to be cleaner than all these scattered combustion engines we've got now. Even if you're burning smelly ol' coal, you've got a single source of pollution to monitor/control.
Might elite have been 0.0?
It could be...
I guess I wouldn't personally describe 0.0 in general as "elite." Maybe specific systems... Or regions... But 0.0 as a whole is full of some pretty useless space. And there are plenty of very valuable areas of highsec and lowsec space.
I guess maybe I'm overthinking things... But "elite" seems like an odd adjective to use for a chunk of geography in EVE. I could easily quantify elite players, or elite corporations... But elite geography just seems vague to me.
I haven't been to university for 9 years, but are students really using laptops during class???
Laptops, netbooks, smart phones, tablets... Yup.
In theory they're typing notes or recording the lecture or something.
In practice, I suspect it is more of a distraction than anything else.
EVE was designed to be a cut-throat game.
It has player-killers.
It doesn't even need player-killers though, because you can screw yourself over just by making a stupid mistake.
That's what makes EVE what it is. And that's what makes EVE so popular with its players.
They don't want to be coddled.
CCP does listen to its players... But only to the elected representatives, not every single whiner on the boards.
If they listened to every single whiner on the boards it would have long ago become WoW-in-space... Which would have removed the cut-throat nature... And then those loyal players would have left... And EVE would have wound up competing directly against WoW, a fight which it could not win. And EVE would have gone away.
The reason EVE is still around is because it delivers a different player experience. It is not WoW with space ships. Even if it was set in a fantasy setting with elves and magick, it would still be a different player experience from WoW. It is that player experience that keeps the paying customers there.
Perhaps UO would have done better had it retained what made it unique, instead of trying to cater to absolutely everyone.
Eve is a very hard game to play.
EVE is a very easy game to play.
The actual gameplay is no more complicated than any other MMOG out there. The GUI is a little ugly... But it still basically comes down to selecting a target and then mashing a few buttons on your screen.
There are almost no other games with a learning curve as steep as Eve's, and certainly no MMOs.
The learning curve was originally steep due to some very crappy in-game tutorials. Those have now been improved. It's really fairly easy to get started in EVE these days.
The real complexity comes from understanding all the various interactions... How the danger of gathering certain resources increases their price, and ultimately the price of gear made from those resources. How various factions control the politics of certain regions. How political actions can affect various prices.
But you don't really need to understand all those interactions to jump in a ship and start shooting stuff.
This has as a consequence that Eve has a relatively small player base.
(emphasis mine) It's interesting how the market has changed... EVE has thousands of players and is making plenty of money. A few years ago that would have been more than enough. But because WoW now has millions of players, EVE is considered "relatively small."
A further consequence of the small player base is that CCP, the company that makes Eve, needs to make sure that they can retain as many players as possible and not run the risk of making the player base so angry with any mistake so as to lose a significant amount of players. In a bigger MMO, this would perhaps be less consequential, but in Eve it would seriously damage the game.
I suspect that you've got things a bit backwards here...
The playerbase is relatively small due to CCP's choices. They've chosen to create a niche product. The game they make does not appeal to a large audience.
Folks complain on the forums that the game is too hard... Too complicated... Too unforgiving... CCP could certainly make changes to make the game more accessible to more people... But that would change the nature of EVE.
CCP actually told the last CSM that they were not actually interested in the majority of the players but only in a subsection that lived in a specific "elite" part of Eve space
I'm not sure what "elite" part of EVE space you're referring to...
But the fact of the matter is that the big players (not necessarily individuals, but corporations and alliances as well) have a huge impact on the game. They literally change the geography of the game. Depending on who controls what space it may or may not be safe to travel through there... Prices might change... Availability of materials changes... The amount of combat changes...
Obviously CCP needs to look at what these big players are doing more closely than what I'm doing.
Shame that good MMORPGs don't make financial sense and MMORPGs that make financial sense aren't good.
I assume you're suggesting that EVE doesn't make financial sense.
This is incorrect.
EVE is making plenty of money. If it wasn't, it would have folded up like so many of the other MMOGs launched over the years.
I played EVE for a few years. This is the first I've heard of the CSM.
Note to CSM members: Improve public image of CSM, improve awareness.
I don't know how you can be unaware of the CSM...
It's featured heavily on the EVE homepage for weeks before the election. You'll see folks campaigning on the forums... Supporters will throw slogans and "vote for..." messages in their signatures... You'll see mention of it in various in-game channels...
There's even a message on the login screen reminding you to go vote...
They do not represent the players. They're elected by 4-6% of the player base.
Sure they do.
If you don't care enough to go and vote, that's hardly the CSM's fault, is it?
The CSM is as representative as the playerbase wants it to be.
EVE is still as much a game as anything else out there...
Yes, the meta-game is hugely important in EVE... Maybe more-so than in most games... But it is still just a game... At least, as much as any popular MMOG is just a game.
Yes, people take EVE seriously... But they take WoW and EverQuest and StarCraft and everything else seriously too.
Or it's just a creative way to foster elitism - which is a fundamental part of the competitive motivations of the game.
The meta-game in EVE is huge. Tons of business is conducted on forums, in person, and over the phone. EVE really extends beyond the GUI running on your computer.
The CSM is just another arena for the players to compete in.
Maybe if we ask people what they want and then give it to them, they will tell their friends, blog positively, continue to subscribe to our subscription-based service instead of wandering off in boredom.
A key part of this, though, is filtering out the noise.
There are a lot of whiners on the EVE boards (just like pretty much any game's forum). Lots of the them think the game is too tough, too time-consuming, and too unforgiving. Lots of them would like it to be friendlier and more casual in nature.
CCP doesn't respond to every single whine on the boards like some companies do.
Instead, they ask the players to elect folks who actually represent them. And then they ask the representatives what to do with EVE.
You'll see CSM members of a piratical disposition... Folks from large alliances... Folks who are carebears at heart... Folks from tiny corporations... All sorts of different people represented... But you won't see a whole lot of folks who whine that EVE needs to be more friendly and forgiving.
Yes, it's worse. The oil won't kill humans.
Sure it will.
Oil contaminating our food supply is a bad thing. Oil killing off our food supply is a bad thing
Obviously the goal is to clean things up before that happens... And I'm skeptical that this one disaster in the Gulf is going to be enough to start killing anyone...
Radioactive water will. Radioactivity in the food chain will.
Again, I'm skeptical that one nuke in the Gulf is going to be enough to start killing everyone. It could, theoretically, contaminate stuff there in the Gulf. But I don't know that it would be any worse in the long run than letting everything get contaminated with oil.
But, in theory, you'd have very little radiation. If you did it right. Of course... If we'd done it right, we wouldn't have the current problem either.
What if you had to apply for the copyrights to your work but in doing so you have to turn over a master to the copyright office and when the copyright expires the copyright office turns the master over into public domain,
Sounds good to me.
I think Richard is saying that if the Owners of Avatar want the original movie to sit in a vault and rot, that is up to them. You don't get a right to copy someone's stuff if they don't want you to. Is it a loss? oh yes. But it's the right of the owner.
Avatar did not spring into being in a void. It is based heavily on a shared culture that's built up of all the creative works that have come before it. Avatar, as it is, would not exist if it weren't for all the shared works that came before it. If Shakespeare had decided to cram his stuff in a vault and let it rot, Avatar simply would not be the movie that we have today.
To a certain degree, the owners of Avatar owe it to the shared culture that allowed them to make this movie.
They can still chose (for the exact same reasons that they currently chose) not to release theie archival copies into the wild.
But at least there would be a choice.
Anyone remember one of the first times they re-released Star Wars? The original stock had degraded so much that Darth Vader's lightsaber was a lovely shade of pink.
Sure... If you want to be a dick and hang on to your archival copy you can. But if the copyright term is so long that the question doesn't even come up until the archival copy is dust, it's kind of a moot point.
How would shorter copyright terms solve that issue?
Well, if the copyright term was shorter, the copy in the vault may not have degraded by the time copyright expired. And then you could release that vault copy into the wild.
Copyright law didn't prevent someone else storing an archival copy until copyright expiration
Actually, it does.
Copyright law means that I can dictate who makes copies and under what conditions. So if the only copies I allow are low-quality, or severely edited, or DRM-encumbered, or self-destructing... Then there's no way anyone out there can store an archival copy.
Frankly, unless I'm handing out copies of my original filmstock with no DRM or anything like that, folks are going to have one hell of a time using any of their copies for archival purposes.
and you would still have no right to go and take those original negatives...
Generally speaking, you don't want the original negatives.
The original negatives for Avatar, for example, are just going to be a bunch of people running around in front of a green screen.
What you want is a clean, full copy of the work as it appeared for public consumption. Without any DRM or encryption or limitations. Without it being reformatted for fullscreen TVs or anything like that.
A good, clean, full copy that can then be used to master additional copies in various formats.
Generally speaking, this is not available.
I thought the GoM was already a giant dead zone from all the fertilizer leaking down the Mighty Mississippi? I could swear I've seen satellite pics of the GoM with giant black dead zones.
Certain portions are definitely dead zones. I believe there's a seasonal dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi, for example.
Certain portions are definitely not dead zones. There's some very good fishing around the Florida/Alabama region, for example.
I'm not certain that nuking the oil well is actually a bad idea.
It might be a good idea... It might not...
Nukes allow you to pack an awful lot of explosive power into a very small package, which may be exactly what we need. Or maybe it isn't.
The problem is that as soon as you say the word "nuke" everyone freaks out.
What happens when you hit underwater sea life with a nuke?
The same thing that happens to anything else.
It dies?
And that's worse than letting the oil spill kill things?
There is no oxygen under water, so the oil and gas can not ignite.
There most certainly is oxygen under water... And one of the major concerns with this oil spill is that it is depleting the oxygen - possibly leading to the creation of a dead zone.
It is also possible for things to burn underwater.
I'm not suggesting that we're going to wind up with a big ol' submarine fireball... But just saying "duh, it's underwater, it can't burn" isn't really accurate.