I'm sure I must have played a bunch of video games on various crappy, er, classic computers, but the one that stands out in my mind is Sneakers. Not the cheesy Microsoft title, but the timeless classic published by Sirius Software. Or the space-shooter game, Hadron. Come to think of it, I bet the theme music (go Apple ][ sound chip, go!) was inspired by the theme from Star Wars. (This was 1981; what in the burgeoning computer industry wasn't inspired by the theme from Star Wars at that point?)
from the and-you-care-because-why? dept... a post-LinuxPPC story.
A year or so after the dust had settled following my departure from and the subsequent implosion of LinuxPPC, I got a call from some southeast Wisconsin consulting group. The woman who called admitted she didn't know what she was talking about, but here it was: "Linux development on an embedded PowerPC processor." Apparently one of the people there, whose name I recognized at the time, had said "find Jason Haas! we need to find Jason Haas! He'd be perfect!" I laughed and told the nice woman that I honestly had no clue how to do what she was talking about, but I knew just the person for it... and I gave them Jeff Carr's phone number. She thanked me and we hung up.
Time passes...
A few months later I get a call from jcarr. "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!!!" (this will sound very familiar to anyone who knows jcarr!) It took a few minutes for me to be able to tell what he was saying, as he was rather excited.
Turns out I'd gotten him a job subcontracting for GE Medical Systems. What I like to refer to the military-media-medical industrial complex.
That was 2001 or 2002... and now jcarr's out in the Valley, hooked up with old school Mac developers like Chuck Boich, and Linux folks too. We'll see about working on The Next Big thing some time soon. (RSN!)
I thought the U.S. missiles in Turkey were removed as part of negotiation that ended the Cuban-Turkish Missile Crisis. I believe that was one of the terms Robert Kennedy worked out with the Soviets: we'll withdraw our missiles from your backyard if you'll withdraw your missiles from our backyard.
Also, rumor has it the Soviet submarine K129 was hijacked by elite troops, and tried to launch a missile at Pearl Harbor. If this happened, and the sub did try to launch a missle, the missile's safety mechanisms caused it to self-destruct, taking the sub down to the bottom of the sea. There's a lot of rumor and conspiracy theory about it, but Project Jennifer seems to have been about recovering the sunken Soviet sub.
I think we saw a ground change with DOOM -- no points, no score, just survive and kill everything in sight. I don't pay a lick of attention to scores nowadays unless they're really obviously pointed out, such as on a transition between levels.
Zuma, currently one of my favorite games, does have scores and levels, although the levels are much more important, as it changes the map the balls roll through. The score is less relevant, but it's there. Most of PopCap's games seem to have both scores and levels. (Dave, any comment on that?)
This is almost like that time the Bush Administration "accidentally" leaked the identity of an .
The scary thing is, I put the word "accidentally" in there with quotation marks to suggest full-on irony. But it turns out to really have been spun that way. Look at the Media Matter article: "Matthews, others uncritically reported Novak's claim that Plame leak was 'inadvertent'".
I was getting ready to post something about how a diesel-powered hard disk would be better in terms of long-term performance, the eventual need to replace batteries, and the ability to use alternative, non-gasoline fuels. But I realized then I realized, that's not what it's about.
Which is good, because as much as I like the smell of my car's biodiesel exhaust, I really wouldn't want my computer belching it out in my house all the time.
the idiot that tried to turn me into street pizza back in 2000 was driving very erratically, as I saw him a while before he hit me. But he was also putting that Chevy Tahoe's engine to the max, and going FAST. But speed control eliminates the whole point of having a car... the gear shift alcohol-sensing lever may fare better. Of course this is not much good if it's only in Nissans and not the billion-odd cars already in the world. (I'm really not that bitter/angry about it now, despite the tone of this post.)
It's terribly ironic that this link/story comes just below the article entitled "Science: Brain Electrodes Help Injured Man To Speak Again." I hope none of you ever have to experience the many layers of horror for those involved in a person surviving a traumatic brain injury.
Back in the day (Q4 2000) I proposed having an environment for OS X apps to on LinuxPPC. (At the time, Macs were PowerPC-based.) Reviewing the plans for OS X, we saw two major components would run atop the microkernel, the native OS X environment, "Blue Box", and a Mac OS 9.x compatibility engine called "Yellow Box." If this was possible, why not do something similar for LinuxPPC?
So one night, I diagrammed "Green Box" on a bar napkin. This would be the layer atop the Linux kernel (we were at 2.2, I think) that would fool OS X into thinking it was in charge of the Mac. Hypothetically, this would work, as it was already running on the microkernel and had an innate flexibility -- at least on top of the microkernel. (Insert rants decrying microkernel's performance hit, superiority of monolithic builds, etc.)
As I was more of an Ideas Man, community builder, media whore, and recovering from that car crash, I showed and discussed the napkin with jcarr and a few of our programmers.
Because this was the last project I proposed in the months before I resigned, it never went anywhere despite having very high level contacts at Apple. The rest (mv linuxppcinc/dev/null) is more or less unwritten history.
Yup. A favorite south side Milwaukee cafe was feeling pressure from someone (possibly from satellite radio?) to either pay up for the music they were playing on their CD player or face huge fines that could put them out of business. The owner buckled and got satellite radio.
Since he did that, the music has sucked in there. I've heard Nickelback more time than I can count on one hand -- and that is far too many.
As it turned out, when I went in there the other day, the kids behind the counter were playing the radio. As in FM radio.
Not only that, they were playing the "smooth jazz" station.
Kids, in their early 20s. Playing "smooth" jazz. Why? It's not even REAL jazz!@# Why?!!
My Volkawagen Jetta TDI gets 50 MPG on the highway, and has 5-star crash rating from the NHSB or whatever the acronym is. It cost $20,000 after a trade in, which is more than the described car. But, it gets 50 on the highway, is plenty safe, and, in addition to beating most hybrids in terms of mileage (and cost), I use biodiesel. That's tough to beat. A hybrid diesel... ooouh, that could be hot.
I should read the article before dismissing the "smart" car, but still, I'm not inclined to do it. (Partially because my girlfriend is hovering over me here at the Apple Store.;-)
In short, a man was home brewing his own biodiesel from grease. (Yes, it is possible. But do not approach it lightly, as caustic chemicals such as methanol and NaOH are involved.) Somehow, the state Dept. of Revenue got wind of his activities, and fined him for not paying road tax. Alas, it is a legitimate tax, as he used his homemade biodiesel in his car.
While I want to help my colleagues who make homebrew, at the same time, I want to help the state recover from its Thompson-legacy budget deficits. And alas, tax revenue is about the only way out of that.
(Imagine, if they passed TABOR here as the Republicans have tried and tried (and failed each time)... I would have to get a state referendum on it! blech.)
In other news, my Volkswagen Jetta TDI is the single best car I've ever had. It gets 49.9 miles per gallon on the highway! According to the trip meter, I'm at 400 miles with one-quarter of a tank remaining. And it's running 100% biodiesel -- all taxes paid. Hells yes!
My spidey sense has him pegged as the winning Vice Presidential candidate. It's been right every time in predicting the successful Veep candidate since 1992. I called Al Gore before he was declared, and knew Dick Cheney would choose himself, although he wouldn't "win" as we're accustomed to candidates doing. Sure enough...
Zimbra is making major in-roads at a huge corporation (think 3x10^5 employees), and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is switching to it within a year. The service contract can't be beat, nor can the cost: free. It's a win-win for everyone, and I know a lot of the IT people are excited about it. Personally, I use Zimbra for my e-mail, so if anything it may be confusing when I'm looking at two tabs, both with Zimbra... which is which again? Feel my pain...;-)
much change in the U.S. has come from the wills and wants of middle class people. the women's rights movement was in many ways a product of the antebellum (pre-Civil War) middle class. Wives of men who worked could organize and work for change. how many middle class people voted for Ronald Reagan thinking he could ensure their continuation of middle class okayness after President Carter's apparent fumbles, or for that matter, enough to give the current 'resident a close enough margin to fudge the vote?
this is a messy way of saying "we have money, mobility, and means to organize." disrupting middle class comfort leads to disruptions of the incumbent regime in America. granted, you'd have to really do something big to disrupt people out of the suburbs and into action. everyone can be motivated to do something, is what I'm saying. I don't know how you'd motivate the suburban middle class to have an organized revolt, but it's happened via the ballot box, with religion to a certain extent. it's all about the marketing I guess.
"Marxism, NOW EXTRA CRUNCHY!"
but then... if Marxism is hypothetically about evening distribution of wealth... the middle class has just enough (sometimes quite a lot) wealth to be materially comfortable. It seems contradictory with contemporary consumer American middle class.... hmmm... hmm.....::beard-sipping, latte-stroking::
I am starting a biodiesel co-op here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I've read Monbiot's arguments. Every few months, someone brings them up. While I greatly respect The Guardian, they insist on printing his stuff. A lot of what I so vehemently dislike about Monbiot is not necessarily what he's saying. It is possible to easily produce sound counterarguments. Soy-based biodiesel and corn-based ethanol are temporary bases for fuel. Another reader pointed out that there is great potential for making biodiesel from algae. One plant apparently made it from turkey carcases. You can make biodiesel from a huge variety of sources, including fry grease.
If biodiesel production causes food prices to spike, capitalists will find something different that does not cause this to occur. It may take longer than we wish, but it will happen.
As for land-stripping, it is well known tht most stripping has occurred to plant inefficient farms. This was happening well before the recent enthusiasm for biofuels, and it will continue. I'd love to see it stop. But I'm not going to give up biodiesel to try and stop it or even help it. My fuel comes from America, not Saudi Arabia, Brazil, or even Canada, as does a great deal of our oil.
The last thing I have to say about Monbiot, the most insulting, doubtlessly the one thing that will make people say "you lose this argument because you got personal, hell, you might as well just get it over with and violate Godwin's Law," is about his style of presentation. George Monbiot makes himself out being omniscient, and if only the world would listen to him, all would be well and people would live in peace. I had enough of that sort of person when I lived in Madison, Wisconsin. They're everywhere there. It is, IMNSHO, this sort of person that enrages the reactionaries among us like no other, the ones who think that they know better than everyone else how to live, function, even breathe.
Okay, let's put ALL biofuels on hold for five years. With that sweeping generalization, all work on it comes to an crashing end for five years. In April 2012, we will resume. And know what? We'll be right where we left off, only to find that we're five years behind, as we finally had the wisdom to listen to the one guy who knows better than us how to run the world. At least, we thought he was. You'd think we'd have learned by now to listen to people who claim to know better than everyone else, but our race is notorious for its memory deficiency.:::end of rant:::
1. This will be very good for that part of New Mexico. As a whole, the state is relatively poor.
2. What on earth would you use a spaceport for? I don't think in terms of eighth grade pulp sci-fi these days (think Tek Jansen), so seriously, what would a spaceport be for?
It is relieving to read this report of a report (how meta) that we may not be wholly responsible for climate change. However, that does not mean we should lighten up our efforts to move away from petroleum-based fuels and the larger petroleum-based economy and towards non-petrol fuels that have been proven to be as efficient and effective as biodiesel. (For a variety of reasons, I do not consider ethanol to be such a fuel.)
Nor does reading this mean I will relax my efforts in starting the Milwaukee Biodiesel Co-op. The biggest reason to get away from petroleum-based fuels is rooted in the one of the classic planks of the Republican Party: local control. No, I'm not a Republican, but one thing I have come to appreciate as a lowercase-d democratic activist is the Republican's old platform is the concept of local control. Biodiesel fuel lets us have local control over virtually all aspects of fuel production, from growing the crop which it is made from on American farms to where the production plants are located. For people in the upper Midwest, it's even more local. Farmers in my state of Wisconsin benefit from it. My city of Milwaukee benefits when it's used, as unlike emissions from burning gasoline or petrol diesel, emissions from burning biodiesel in vehicles or generators are much less toxic. In fact, they are non-toxic. There are higher emission of some smog-creating chemicals, but we already seeing solutions to this. For example, the forthcoming Volkswagen TDIs will meet California's tough emissions standards for the first time, as VW engineers came up with a way to trap the nitrous fumes prior to release to the atmosphere.
(Now if American car makers got smart and emphasized biodiesel rather than ethanol, we'd all benefit a lot more. Lobbyists have seen it's gone the other way, but that may yet come around.)
Out of all the people who may buy an iPhone, presumably with a "discount" from a years-long contract with AT&T -- how many millions of folks might that be? -- 347 is an awfully small sample. Of course, it's easy to publish crappy surveys and get substantial coverage of it online.
Thank you! I agree. Also, in the future the good writer may want to proof read things before posting them. Unless, as the article suggets, Vista includes two instances of DVD Maker...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure I must have played a bunch of video games on various crappy, er, classic computers, but the one that stands out in my mind is Sneakers. Not the cheesy Microsoft title, but the timeless classic published by Sirius Software. Or the space-shooter game, Hadron. Come to think of it, I bet the theme music (go Apple ][ sound chip, go!) was inspired by the theme from Star Wars. (This was 1981; what in the burgeoning computer industry wasn't inspired by the theme from Star Wars at that point?)
from the and-you-care-because-why? dept... a post-LinuxPPC story.
A year or so after the dust had settled following my departure from and the subsequent implosion of LinuxPPC, I got a call from some southeast Wisconsin consulting group. The woman who called admitted she didn't know what she was talking about, but here it was: "Linux development on an embedded PowerPC processor." Apparently one of the people there, whose name I recognized at the time, had said "find Jason Haas! we need to find Jason Haas! He'd be perfect!" I laughed and told the nice woman that I honestly had no clue how to do what she was talking about, but I knew just the person for it... and I gave them Jeff Carr's phone number. She thanked me and we hung up.
Time passes...
A few months later I get a call from jcarr. "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!!!" (this will sound very familiar to anyone who knows jcarr!) It took a few minutes for me to be able to tell what he was saying, as he was rather excited.
Turns out I'd gotten him a job subcontracting for GE Medical Systems. What I like to refer to the military-media-medical industrial complex.
That was 2001 or 2002... and now jcarr's out in the Valley, hooked up with old school Mac developers like Chuck Boich,
and Linux folks too. We'll see about working on The Next Big thing some time soon. (RSN!)
cool, thank you!
I thought the U.S. missiles in Turkey were removed as part of negotiation that ended the Cuban-Turkish Missile Crisis. I believe that was one of the terms Robert Kennedy worked out with the Soviets: we'll withdraw our missiles from your backyard if you'll withdraw your missiles from our backyard.
Also, rumor has it the Soviet submarine K129 was hijacked by elite troops, and tried to launch a missile at Pearl Harbor. If this happened, and the sub did try to launch a missle, the missile's safety mechanisms caused it to self-destruct, taking the sub down to the bottom of the sea. There's a lot of rumor and conspiracy theory about it, but Project Jennifer seems to have been about recovering the sunken Soviet sub.
I think we saw a ground change with DOOM -- no points, no score, just survive and kill everything in sight. I don't pay a lick of attention to scores nowadays unless they're really obviously pointed out, such as on a transition between levels.
Zuma, currently one of my favorite games, does have scores and levels, although the levels are much more important, as it changes the map the balls roll through. The score is less relevant, but it's there. Most of PopCap's games seem to have both scores and levels. (Dave, any comment on that?)
This is almost like that time the Bush Administration "accidentally" leaked the identity of an .
The scary thing is, I put the word "accidentally" in there with quotation marks to suggest full-on irony. But it turns out to really have been spun that way. Look at the Media Matter article: "Matthews, others uncritically reported Novak's claim that Plame leak was 'inadvertent'".
Cripes. This is The Daily Show come to life.
I was getting ready to post something about how a diesel-powered hard disk would be better in terms of long-term performance, the eventual need to replace batteries, and the ability to use alternative, non-gasoline fuels. But I realized then I realized, that's not what it's about.
Which is good, because as much as I like the smell of my car's biodiesel exhaust, I really wouldn't want my computer belching it out in my house all the time.
You, sir, have out-funnied me. Well done. 8-)
I can never remember if my MacBook has a dual core Core Duo 2 or if it's a duo core Core 2 Dou Dual II or a Coral Dualo Duex 2. :-\
the idiot that tried to turn me into street pizza back in 2000 was driving very erratically, as I saw him a while before he hit me. But he was also putting that Chevy Tahoe's engine to the max, and going FAST. But speed control eliminates the whole point of having a car... the gear shift alcohol-sensing lever may fare better. Of course this is not much good if it's only in Nissans and not the billion-odd cars already in the world. (I'm really not that bitter/angry about it now, despite the tone of this post.)
It's terribly ironic that this link/story comes just below the article entitled "Science: Brain Electrodes Help Injured Man To Speak Again." I hope none of you ever have to experience the many layers of horror for those involved in a person surviving a traumatic brain injury.
Back in the day (Q4 2000) I proposed having an environment for OS X apps to on LinuxPPC. (At the time, Macs were PowerPC-based.) Reviewing the plans for OS X, we saw two major components would run atop the microkernel, the native OS X environment, "Blue Box", and a Mac OS 9.x compatibility engine called "Yellow Box." If this was possible, why not do something similar for LinuxPPC?
/dev/null) is more or less unwritten history.
So one night, I diagrammed "Green Box" on a bar napkin. This would be the layer atop the Linux kernel (we were at 2.2, I think) that would fool OS X into thinking it was in charge of the Mac. Hypothetically, this would work, as it was already running on the microkernel and had an innate flexibility -- at least on top of the microkernel. (Insert rants decrying microkernel's performance hit, superiority of monolithic builds, etc.)
As I was more of an Ideas Man, community builder, media whore, and recovering from that car crash, I showed and discussed the napkin with jcarr and a few of our programmers.
Because this was the last project I proposed in the months before I resigned, it never went anywhere despite having very high level contacts at Apple. The rest (mv linuxppcinc
Yup. A favorite south side Milwaukee cafe was feeling pressure from someone (possibly from satellite radio?) to either pay up for the music they were playing on their CD player or face huge fines that could put them out of business. The owner buckled and got satellite radio.
Since he did that, the music has sucked in there. I've heard Nickelback more time than I can count on one hand -- and that is far too many.
As it turned out, when I went in there the other day, the kids behind the counter were playing the radio. As in FM radio.
Not only that, they were playing the "smooth jazz" station.
Kids, in their early 20s. Playing "smooth" jazz. Why? It's not even REAL jazz!@# Why?!!
I have not been back since.
Oooo, 40 MPG. Crash protection.
;-)
Whoopee.
My Volkawagen Jetta TDI gets 50 MPG on the highway, and has 5-star crash rating from the NHSB or whatever the acronym is. It cost $20,000 after a trade in, which is more than the described car. But, it gets 50 on the highway, is plenty safe, and, in addition to beating most hybrids in terms of mileage (and cost), I use biodiesel. That's tough to beat. A hybrid diesel... ooouh, that could be hot.
I should read the article before dismissing the "smart" car, but still, I'm not inclined to do it. (Partially because my girlfriend is hovering over me here at the Apple Store.
In short, a man was home brewing his own biodiesel from grease. (Yes, it is possible. But do not approach it lightly, as caustic chemicals such as methanol and NaOH are involved.) Somehow, the state Dept. of Revenue got wind of his activities, and fined him for not paying road tax. Alas, it is a legitimate tax, as he used his homemade biodiesel in his car.
What I will work on through the Milwaukee Biodiesel Co-op (shiny new site coming at RSN) is to bring the state tax policy in line with the federal government's. Currently, the IRS does not tax on homemade fuel produced in quantities below 500 gallons. Go over, and they want their cash. The State of Wisconsin, however, does not have any ceiling above which they tax. That is to say, they will tax any and all fuel you make. We will be working with some allies in the state legislature on this.
While I want to help my colleagues who make homebrew, at the same time, I want to help the state recover from its Thompson-legacy budget deficits. And alas, tax revenue is about the only way out of that.
(Imagine, if they passed TABOR here as the Republicans have tried and tried (and failed each time)... I would have to get a state referendum on it! blech.)
In other news, my Volkswagen Jetta TDI is the single best car I've ever had. It gets 49.9 miles per gallon on the highway! According to the trip meter, I'm at 400 miles with one-quarter of a tank remaining. And it's running 100% biodiesel -- all taxes paid. Hells yes!
My spidey sense has him pegged as the winning Vice Presidential candidate. It's been right every time in predicting the successful Veep candidate since 1992. I called Al Gore before he was declared, and knew Dick Cheney would choose himself, although he wouldn't "win" as we're accustomed to candidates doing. Sure enough...
SBC (and Cingular) is now the "new" AT&T.
AT&T. Your World. Delivered. Straight to the NSA.
Zimbra is making major in-roads at a huge corporation (think 3x10^5 employees), and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is switching to it within a year. The service contract can't be beat, nor can the cost: free. It's a win-win for everyone, and I know a lot of the IT people are excited about it. Personally, I use Zimbra for my e-mail, so if anything it may be confusing when I'm looking at two tabs, both with Zimbra... which is which again? Feel my pain... ;-)
Yes, that was my first thought on reading the headline. We're so fixed on eliminating the use of oil that sometimes it's all we can think about...
But, biodiesel would be A) home grown, B) non-toxic, C) nice-smelling, and D) reusable in to make DIESELPOWAH.
much change in the U.S. has come from the wills and wants of middle class people. the women's rights movement was in many ways a product of the antebellum (pre-Civil War) middle class. Wives of men who worked could organize and work for change. how many middle class people voted for Ronald Reagan thinking he could ensure their continuation of middle class okayness after President Carter's apparent fumbles, or for that matter, enough to give the current 'resident a close enough margin to fudge the vote?
::beard-sipping, latte-stroking::
this is a messy way of saying "we have money, mobility, and means to organize." disrupting middle class comfort leads to disruptions of the incumbent regime in America. granted, you'd have to really do something big to disrupt people out of the suburbs and into action. everyone can be motivated to do something, is what I'm saying. I don't know how you'd motivate the suburban middle class to have an organized revolt, but it's happened via the ballot box, with religion to a certain extent. it's all about the marketing I guess.
"Marxism, NOW EXTRA CRUNCHY!"
but then... if Marxism is hypothetically about evening distribution of wealth... the middle class has just enough (sometimes quite a lot) wealth to be materially comfortable. It seems contradictory with contemporary consumer American middle class.... hmmm... hmm.....
I am starting a biodiesel co-op here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I've read Monbiot's arguments. Every few months, someone brings them up. While I greatly respect The Guardian, they insist on printing his stuff. A lot of what I so vehemently dislike about Monbiot is not necessarily what he's saying. It is possible to easily produce sound counterarguments. Soy-based biodiesel and corn-based ethanol are temporary bases for fuel. Another reader pointed out that there is great potential for making biodiesel from algae. One plant apparently made it from turkey carcases. You can make biodiesel from a huge variety of sources, including fry grease.
:::end of rant:::
If biodiesel production causes food prices to spike, capitalists will find something different that does not cause this to occur. It may take longer than we wish, but it will happen.
As for land-stripping, it is well known tht most stripping has occurred to plant inefficient farms. This was happening well before the recent enthusiasm for biofuels, and it will continue. I'd love to see it stop. But I'm not going to give up biodiesel to try and stop it or even help it. My fuel comes from America, not Saudi Arabia, Brazil, or even Canada, as does a great deal of our oil.
The last thing I have to say about Monbiot, the most insulting, doubtlessly the one thing that will make people say "you lose this argument because you got personal, hell, you might as well just get it over with and violate Godwin's Law," is about his style of presentation. George Monbiot makes himself out being omniscient, and if only the world would listen to him, all would be well and people would live in peace. I had enough of that sort of person when I lived in Madison, Wisconsin. They're everywhere there. It is, IMNSHO, this sort of person that enrages the reactionaries among us like no other, the ones who think that they know better than everyone else how to live, function, even breathe.
Okay, let's put ALL biofuels on hold for five years. With that sweeping generalization, all work on it comes to an crashing end for five years. In April 2012, we will resume. And know what? We'll be right where we left off, only to find that we're five years behind, as we finally had the wisdom to listen to the one guy who knows better than us how to run the world. At least, we thought he was. You'd think we'd have learned by now to listen to people who claim to know better than everyone else, but our race is notorious for its memory deficiency.
And my two thoughts are:
1. This will be very good for that part of New Mexico. As a whole, the state is relatively poor.
2. What on earth would you use a spaceport for? I don't think in terms of eighth grade pulp sci-fi these days (think Tek Jansen), so seriously, what would a spaceport be for?
Yes, what would Siva Vaidhyanathan do?
It is relieving to read this report of a report (how meta) that we may not be wholly responsible for climate change. However, that does not mean we should lighten up our efforts to move away from petroleum-based fuels and the larger petroleum-based economy and towards non-petrol fuels that have been proven to be as efficient and effective as biodiesel. (For a variety of reasons, I do not consider ethanol to be such a fuel.)
Nor does reading this mean I will relax my efforts in starting the Milwaukee Biodiesel Co-op. The biggest reason to get away from petroleum-based fuels is rooted in the one of the classic planks of the Republican Party: local control. No, I'm not a Republican, but one thing I have come to appreciate as a lowercase-d democratic activist is the Republican's old platform is the concept of local control. Biodiesel fuel lets us have local control over virtually all aspects of fuel production, from growing the crop which it is made from on American farms to where the production plants are located. For people in the upper Midwest, it's even more local. Farmers in my state of Wisconsin benefit from it. My city of Milwaukee benefits when it's used, as unlike emissions from burning gasoline or petrol diesel, emissions from burning biodiesel in vehicles or generators are much less toxic. In fact, they are non-toxic. There are higher emission of some smog-creating chemicals, but we already seeing solutions to this. For example, the forthcoming Volkswagen TDIs will meet California's tough emissions standards for the first time, as VW engineers came up with a way to trap the nitrous fumes prior to release to the atmosphere.
(Now if American car makers got smart and emphasized biodiesel rather than ethanol, we'd all benefit a lot more. Lobbyists have seen it's gone the other way, but that may yet come around.)
Out of all the people who may buy an iPhone, presumably with a "discount" from a years-long contract with AT&T -- how many millions of folks might that be? -- 347 is an awfully small sample. Of course, it's easy to publish crappy surveys and get substantial coverage of it online.
Thank you! I agree. Also, in the future the good writer may want to proof read things before posting them. Unless, as the article suggets, Vista includes two instances of DVD Maker...