NIMBYs a front for the OIl Industry
on
Tilting At Windmills
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I have really strong feelings about this, so excuse me if I rant a bit.
The so-called Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, i.e. those people trying to stop wind turbines in the water off of cape cod, is headed by William I. Koch, who is a billionaire by way of his family's Oil & Gas fortune. The Alaska congressmen are just trying to protect the value of the what Alaska is worth - which is a lot of money when the US can get oil from nowhere else -- of course they don't want competition from states who would rather generate the power at home without expensive Alaskan oil. Ted Kennedy is opposed for an unknown reason - but the other Massachusetts senator, the famous John Kerry, is a supporter of Wind Power.
There was a document leaked a while back showing the fund raising strategy of the professional fund raising company from new york who was hired by this Alliance - and the strategy biols down to "Don't bother with the poor or middle class - raise money from the ultra-rich" -- the rich who don't have to suffer from energy crisis that we are going through, or some who even get richer because of it.
I am going to stop now, before I burst an artery...
This story is just more BS. First, the photos look staged...no one would hammer a CRT at that angle. But the real problem is the issue of the guilt trip.
First, we but the stuff from China, exporting our jobs. Then we send it back, often as a gift for the underprivileged, and then we get blamed for dumping 'toxic waste'. What BULLSHIT.
There's still the question of the need to upgrade every three years, which is the cycle a lot of organizations use. It's plainly not neccessary for most users. Even using bloated Windows XP, it will run just fine for web browsing and word processing on a 800 mhz machine with 256mb of ram, and yet machines twice as powerful as this are being tossed because they are 'outdated'. I was just at a meeting where there was discussion of giving corporate leftovers to the underprivileged, and there was scoffing at "one gigiahertz junk". Instead, there's a push on to scrap all this stuff (sending it to China I guess) and spend $500 on new computers (Apples, no less) for the needy. What arrogance. What greed. It makes me sick.
Thanks for the BlueMug link. I found it most informative. I do have two problems with it, however. First is that I would have liked more details, especially in relation to pixmap and any changes they made. The second problem is that the article is over four years old - So the work is probably closer to five. Lots has happened since then - and most of it bad, in terms of trying to make minimalist X. It would be good if the software and procedures could be revisited and updated. This, my friends, is exactly what Negroponte & Co. should be doing. I hope they already are.
Linux doesn't have to be fat, it can be slimmed. That's how it runs on embedded systems. THe problem is X is huge, and not just the core X but once you add all of the things people expect, it takes a lot of ram and disk space.
There are alternative windowing system to X. The problem is, last I looked, none of them have gained much traction, and I believe this is because Mozilla won't work on them. So, someone needs to port Mozilla to their favorite X alternative. This is something that someone with tons of money, publicity, and connections like Negro Ponte can do.
I feel funny replying to my own mesage, but -- does anyone know of a free (or dirt cheap) VoIP service with voicemail that can provide me a phone number in Leipzig, Germany (country code 49, city code 341)? How about a mail drop service?
I registered 8.eu domains on friday. I got my last name, three three-letter domains, and my company name. I used godaddy for them all. They're still "Pending Application" - I wonder how much BS I am going to have to go through before any or all of these are active. I would have thought with all that 'sunrise' stuff that any checking as far as an existing legitimate claim would have been taken care of already, and that the domains would be active within a couple of hours.
I did use a European address and phone number, but maybe they are checking on a business registered at that location? How much do they really care?
Is anyone else having this type of trouble? Has anyone else been successful in getting a.eu domains with a less-than-perfect contact address?
If you are an anarcho-capitalist, that sounds almost like a Libertarian. In which case, you may want to check out The Free State Project - and move to New Hampshire.
Back on the topic at hand: I too am wary of government money being spent in this way. But if the money is going to be spent, I'd rather it be spent to build the network that is the least offensive to my libertarian sensibilities as possible.
What we're calling, alternately, 'User-Driven Infrastructure Development' or 'Bring Your Own Router', is a minimal city backbone mesh network, with the majority of the coverage being provided by users buying and installing their own equipment. Want to extend the mesh down your street? Go buy a $100 mesh router, put it in your window, and plug it in. Your neighbor can get onto the mesh using your router, but maybe in her house the signal is only available in one room...so she goes out and buys a mesh router, places it in that one room, and extends the signal throughout her house and to the next street over, where the other guy has a week signal, so he goes out to the store....
You get the idea. There's a lot of refinements that can be made to make it work faster, have better coverage, etc. I am not going to go over them here. This is all built on the high-quality, open-source mesh networking technology RoofNet, which can run on commodity hardware. I am doing some improvements to it and building mesh routers for rooftops, etc. You can do the same. Excuse me while I tout my business, but you may be interested, and it is relevant: XA Networks.
As I mentioned in another post on article, we are building this for the City of Cambridge (of which Boston is a suburb). I've also sold equipment to other places in the US, Africa, and India. It's good, cheap technology...and it's NOT PROPRIETARY!
The Google/Earthlink deal is not good for consumers: The use of proprietary technologies and hand-picked 'competitors' promise nothing more than another tightly controlled network. So now there will be Cable, DSL, and Googlink. Whoop-de-doo - the illusion of freedom.
It would have been better to implement something like RoofNet, which is fully open source and runs on off-the-shelf components. It's high performance, well tested, and in use here in Cambridge. There will be some add-ons to it made by my company, XA Networks, but compatibility with the open-source software is guaranteed.
OK, so you used BSD instead. That's fine -- but from what I've seen the BSDs embedded abilities are far less than Linux. So you probably had to do a lot of work.
Most of the time, the worries about the GPL are nonsense. But there are a few cases where there is a possible rationale, and embedded is one of them. Sometimes, in order to save space, you customize an existing program (ifconfig, for example) instead of writing a wrapper around the existing program. But if that's GPL, you owe the source to your customers. If that's a bit of tricky and clever code that you don't want anyone else to see, that could be a problem. So in that case, BSD would be appropriate. I think these cases aren't very common. But I wonder if some developers aren't starting to use BSD for their product development because they think that somewhere down the development road there might be some change they want to make and keep secret..somethng like writing a backdoor for homeland security of some such. So they figure it's better to start using BSD now rather than switch later. So, that's some rationale, but I still don't see it as being a very strong one.
I am doing embedded development with Linux, and you're right - Linux has become to FAT. There are a few project to slim it down, and they do good work, but the fact remains that VxWorks is smaller.
However, I have heard that the newer Linksys WRT54G router (v. 5), the one that now uses Linux instead of VxWorks, does not perform as well. I am not talking about its complete incompatibility with Linux, but rather it's every-day consumer use. Wind River convinced Linksys (and others) that they could save money by licensing VxWorks and lower their parts cost through reduced memory requirements, but it doesn't really pan out that way, in the end.
Linksys realized this, and continued to produce the older WRT54G, renaming it the WRT54GL, but now charges more money for it. But the price difference is small in comparisor to what you get.
Really, though, I don't think that the Linksys is as good as it could be, because you are stuck with their Broadcom wifi chipset. While there is now an open-source driver for it, there are features in Atheros chipsets that aren't in Broadcom's (open-source or proprietary) which are important for some applications. Since the newer WRT54Gs have all their wifi chips integrated, there is no longer the option of replacing the broadcom card with an Atheros. Luckily, there are other routers that have more ram, and use an atheros wifi chipset on a mini-pci card. Too bad such routers are in short supply.
Yes, Linux does need some slimming. Or perhaps GCC has to produce smaller kernels. But the problem isn't really as bad as some would say. Take a look at what the Linux-Tiny people have been able to accomplish - a bootable and usable Kernel 2.6 system which will fit inside of 2MB (I have no connection to this project other than being a fan).
Easterbook just doesn't get it. Earth observation is nice, but it can be done with existing technology - commercial space satellites, high atmosphere observation balloons and planes. It doesn't require the scientific and organizational might that NASA embodies. The moon base does have uses. Firstly, there is the study of human phisiology in space. Second, there is the construction of telescopes and sensors of various types to give us a much better understanding of space. Third, is the mining of HE3 (heavy helium) for propulsion purposes. Fourth, is a platform for other space operations. It is going to be expensive. No doubt.
I agree that the space shuttle is a problem. But I don't understand why he brings up the two disasters seen on TV. It is as though he thinks that the real disaster was the PR problems which resulted. If that is the case, he is only making it worse. What we need is a redesigned shuttle. The Shuttle is out of date. There are new technologies that could be harnessed to make it better. In addition, there is the very real problem that the shuttles wear out. They may be reusable, but that doesn't mean they are going to last forever.
I want to see more funding on long term programs, the far-out stuff like NERVA, anti-gravity, and the like. These are the kind of programs that NASA was chartered for.
Sendmail is one of the most successful remote-access programs ever.
Sendmail has provided the essential r00t access for hax0rz to improve their skills in the past. Before Linux was cheap and available, one had to go out, and like a predator, acquire one's operating system privs. Sendmail was teh great enabler. Though I have moved on to better and brighter things, I thank Alman, and Vixie, for their great success in bringing r00t to the large number of adolescents everywhere.
I predict that within three hundred years humans will be able to travel faster than the speed of light, without worm-holes, space folding, warping, or whatever you call it. Einstein is proven wrong, or at least, incomplete.
It is pretty strange how language evolves. German has evolved quite a bit in the past century. A good demonstration of this is the two volume German-English dictionary. It was published in America during WW2, though it had been written in 1931 (you should see the copyright..."Published and Distributed in the Public Interest by Authority of the Alien Property Custodian under Lince No. A-548...". Anyhow, the Germanic script is very difficult to read. There are extra letters and signs that I did not learn in German class (Yes, I know the S-tet has only recently been abolished, and I still use it because I think it looks cool. But I am not talking about that character). And of course the words have changed meanings as well. I bet a lot of the change is due to the devastation the German culture has gone on during and since WW2.
Where do you get your news, bathroom walls?! - no, Clinton was NOT impeached! He served out his term in office! There WERE attempts to impeach him, but they were not successful.
As it turns out, we do have a pretty decent mesh protocol: RoofNet - open source, works well, continuously maintained and updated. But a good mesh protocol doesn't solve all the problems in providing ubiquitous broadband. It's hard to reach rural areas, without doing some tricky antenna placement and other things that are simply beyond most peoples' ability. Now, we could train a vast force of radio techs to go do this, but I am sure that this won't happen. I am sure that the democrats will continue to screw us, just like republicans, by giving more power to the telcos and shipping more jobs overseas.
OK So you think I am an ignorant moron. Big deal. Now, to test your theory about freedom of speech in Europe, Go write a letter to the editor claiming anything less than 6 million jews died during the holocaust. Go ahead, I dare ya.....
Yes, it's true, there are some cheap real estate ventures that are less risky than others. For instance, if you buy timber property cheap enough, you can make some good money based on statistics.
As far as eastern germany - yes, I have been looking there. Some wonderful old buildings, some very 'renovierungsbedurftig' (needing renovation). My worry would be that many of them are 'Denkmalschutz', ie. preserved under law from some type of demolition. I'd worry too much about exactly how close to the original it has to be preserved -- with coal heat? One toilet for four apartments? Or just basically that you can't tear it down and build a wal-mart?
I also investigated property auctions in germany. Alas, you have to be a german resident or german corporation to buy.
The way the govermint (read: The FRB) is going to get the country out from the insanly high mortgages now being paid, once the market collapses, is to debase the currency. I mean massive inflation. Suddenly, that $2500/mo mortage will seem like peanuts and the administration will stay in power.
The other thing that's interesting is that the economy is moving from one based upon capital to one based upon debt. Americans, supposedly, owe more on credit cards than their net worth - as a whole (not the average!). This, combined with insane mortgages, and huge trade and federal budget defecits, will eventually weaken the military power of the United States, which is why it was allowed to happen in the first place. Americans are basically being sucked into the biggest usury racket ever.
Damn right. In fact, any money spent online that doesn't go to well-established companies should always be money that you are willing to lose.
This is an idiotic statement. There are plenty of good companies and individuals which are 'less well known'. Your ultra-conservative sentiment means you'll often end up paying more, getting less, and wondering why there's practical monopolies in the economy. Beyond this, even well known brands can be rip-offs - Radio Shack for instance, has knowningly sold completely defective products and left the consumer in the lurch. Enron and Parmalat were household names. Your statment is similar to the one "You get what you pay for" - which is also untrue and even dangerous. You pay what you negotiate, through some method or another.
This isn't to say that your sentiments aren't useful. If you and others spread the FUD about small companies, there will be less competition on ebay for the really good deals.
Typical European-style censorship. Every time I read about something like this, or of David Irving being jailed in Austria, I find myself happy I live in the US where I can say rude things about people if I want to.
But the US doesn't have freedom of expression, either. It's illegal for people to wear KKK garb in Virginia, and I think that's wrong. There's also the problem of the prudish attitude towards sexuality in the US.
What's surprising about this is the old slogan "Of course it runs NetBSD" - when in fact a lot of the listed NetBSD listed platforms are in fact not really operational. It's as though there's kudos for getting netbsd to boot on your coffee maker, and then after the kudos and high-fives are exchanged, it's back to working in x86 land. I was hoping that I could spend a bit of money with tools from Wasabi and change this, but instead I found out that Wasabi doesn't even support most of the listed BSD platforms. It's kind of pathetic.
I contacted Wasabi hoping to buy some tools from them for BSD development on embedded platforms. When I asked about a platform they didn't support, the proceeded to criticize that CPU and Linux saying they were underpowered and immature, basically, they want you to buy their favorite CPU. Sadly, this company is made from NetBSD developers, who I had previously thought were among the less rabid BSD zealots.
I stayed with Linux for embedded systems, and probably will forever, unless embedded BSD is freed from the grips of these people.
First, thanks for quoting Peter Gabriel - that song was the first that came to my mind when I read (red) this story.
Second, my first guess is industrial pollution. India isn't very good at such things as industrial hygene (part of the reason why they can underprice Europe & N. America). But this, supposedly, has been disproved. I'd look again.
Unlike many people however. I think that panspermia is possible, perhaps even ikely. But that doesn't mean it happens a lot, and it doesn't mean I believe that panspermia happened with the Kerla Event. It's had to tell, because there doesn't seem to be any case of a known untainted sample. Still, there's a LOT of this Red Rain which has been collected, so perhaps by finding what is common to all these sample, and different than what's normally in Kerla rain, we can figure out what this stuff really is.
What puzzled me is that the rain fell over a number of months, was strong in its concentration (not just a little pink) and fell only in a limited area (Kerala's not even the largest state in India). If there was an upper atmosphere dispersal (exploding meteor), it may take some time for the debris to settle to earth. However, winds would tend to disperse it. The fact that it was concentrated would seem to point to a low-atmosphere dispersal (exploding meteor or something else). The only thing that account for both of these is multiple events in the low atmosphere. Such a thing doesn't often happen for meteors.
My personal believe is that this was a man-made event. If it is not an artifact of pollution, then in may be some sort of attempt at either weather control, biological transformation, or psychological manipulation. Weather control: you can seed rain with dust (though CO2 snow works better), but why use something so exotic? Biological transformation - kill crops, kill weeds, or fertilize crops. Or possibly kill pests, or animals. Psychological manipulation - damn, I am sure that many people would feel that red rain might be some sign of impending apocalpyse.
Slashdot Mirror
I have really strong feelings about this, so excuse me if I rant a bit.
The so-called Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, i.e. those people trying to stop wind turbines in the water off of cape cod, is headed by William I. Koch, who is a billionaire by way of his family's Oil & Gas fortune. The Alaska congressmen are just trying to protect the value of the what Alaska is worth - which is a lot of money when the US can get oil from nowhere else -- of course they don't want competition from states who would rather generate the power at home without expensive Alaskan oil. Ted Kennedy is opposed for an unknown reason - but the other Massachusetts senator, the famous John Kerry, is a supporter of Wind Power.
There was a document leaked a while back showing the fund raising strategy of the professional fund raising company from new york who was hired by this Alliance - and the strategy biols down to "Don't bother with the poor or middle class - raise money from the ultra-rich" -- the rich who don't have to suffer from energy crisis that we are going through, or some who even get richer because of it.
I am going to stop now, before I burst an artery...
This story is just more BS. First, the photos look staged...no one would hammer a CRT at that angle. But the real problem is the issue of the guilt trip.
First, we but the stuff from China, exporting our jobs. Then we send it back, often as a gift for the underprivileged, and then we get blamed for dumping 'toxic waste'. What BULLSHIT.
There's still the question of the need to upgrade every three years, which is the cycle a lot of organizations use. It's plainly not neccessary for most users. Even using bloated Windows XP, it will run just fine for web browsing and word processing on a 800 mhz machine with 256mb of ram, and yet machines twice as powerful as this are being tossed because they are 'outdated'. I was just at a meeting where there was discussion of giving corporate leftovers to the underprivileged, and there was scoffing at "one gigiahertz junk". Instead, there's a push on to scrap all this stuff (sending it to China I guess) and spend $500 on new computers (Apples, no less) for the needy. What arrogance. What greed. It makes me sick.
Thanks for the BlueMug link. I found it most informative. I do have two problems with it, however. First is that I would have liked more details, especially in relation to pixmap and any changes they made. The second problem is that the article is over four years old - So the work is probably closer to five. Lots has happened since then - and most of it bad, in terms of trying to make minimalist X. It would be good if the software and procedures could be revisited and updated. This, my friends, is exactly what Negroponte & Co. should be doing. I hope they already are.
Linux doesn't have to be fat, it can be slimmed. That's how it runs on embedded systems. THe problem is X is huge, and not just the core X but once you add all of the things people expect, it takes a lot of ram and disk space.
There are alternative windowing system to X. The problem is, last I looked, none of them have gained much traction, and I believe this is because Mozilla won't work on them. So, someone needs to port Mozilla to their favorite X alternative. This is something that someone with tons of money, publicity, and connections like Negro Ponte can do.
I went with Axxeso. 3eu to start, .50 per month, decent per minutes rates. The problem is, my phone number is so damned long.
I feel funny replying to my own mesage, but -- does anyone know of a free (or dirt cheap) VoIP service with voicemail that can provide me a phone number in Leipzig, Germany (country code 49, city code 341)? How about a mail drop service?
I registered 8 .eu domains on friday. I got my last name, three three-letter domains, and my company name. I used godaddy for them all. They're still "Pending Application" - I wonder how much BS I am going to have to go through before any or all of these are active. I would have thought with all that 'sunrise' stuff that any checking as far as an existing legitimate claim would have been taken care of already, and that the domains would be active within a couple of hours.
.eu domains with a less-than-perfect contact address?
I did use a European address and phone number, but maybe they are checking on a business registered at that location? How much do they really care?
Is anyone else having this type of trouble? Has anyone else been successful in getting a
Back on the topic at hand: I too am wary of government money being spent in this way. But if the money is going to be spent, I'd rather it be spent to build the network that is the least offensive to my libertarian sensibilities as possible.
What we're calling, alternately, 'User-Driven Infrastructure Development' or 'Bring Your Own Router', is a minimal city backbone mesh network, with the majority of the coverage being provided by users buying and installing their own equipment. Want to extend the mesh down your street? Go buy a $100 mesh router, put it in your window, and plug it in. Your neighbor can get onto the mesh using your router, but maybe in her house the signal is only available in one room...so she goes out and buys a mesh router, places it in that one room, and extends the signal throughout her house and to the next street over, where the other guy has a week signal, so he goes out to the store....
You get the idea. There's a lot of refinements that can be made to make it work faster, have better coverage, etc. I am not going to go over them here. This is all built on the high-quality, open-source mesh networking technology RoofNet, which can run on commodity hardware. I am doing some improvements to it and building mesh routers for rooftops, etc. You can do the same. Excuse me while I tout my business, but you may be interested, and it is relevant: XA Networks.
As I mentioned in another post on article, we are building this for the City of Cambridge (of which Boston is a suburb). I've also sold equipment to other places in the US, Africa, and India. It's good, cheap technology...and it's NOT PROPRIETARY!
The Google/Earthlink deal is not good for consumers: The use of proprietary technologies and hand-picked 'competitors' promise nothing more than another tightly controlled network. So now there will be Cable, DSL, and Googlink. Whoop-de-doo - the illusion of freedom.
It would have been better to implement something like RoofNet, which is fully open source and runs on off-the-shelf components. It's high performance, well tested, and in use here in Cambridge. There will be some add-ons to it made by my company, XA Networks, but compatibility with the open-source software is guaranteed.
OK, so you used BSD instead. That's fine -- but from what I've seen the BSDs embedded abilities are far less than Linux. So you probably had to do a lot of work.
Most of the time, the worries about the GPL are nonsense. But there are a few cases where there is a possible rationale, and embedded is one of them. Sometimes, in order to save space, you customize an existing program (ifconfig, for example) instead of writing a wrapper around the existing program. But if that's GPL, you owe the source to your customers. If that's a bit of tricky and clever code that you don't want anyone else to see, that could be a problem. So in that case, BSD would be appropriate. I think these cases aren't very common. But I wonder if some developers aren't starting to use BSD for their product development because they think that somewhere down the development road there might be some change they want to make and keep secret..somethng like writing a backdoor for homeland security of some such. So they figure it's better to start using BSD now rather than switch later. So, that's some rationale, but I still don't see it as being a very strong one.
However, I have heard that the newer Linksys WRT54G router (v. 5), the one that now uses Linux instead of VxWorks, does not perform as well. I am not talking about its complete incompatibility with Linux, but rather it's every-day consumer use. Wind River convinced Linksys (and others) that they could save money by licensing VxWorks and lower their parts cost through reduced memory requirements, but it doesn't really pan out that way, in the end.
Linksys realized this, and continued to produce the older WRT54G, renaming it the WRT54GL, but now charges more money for it. But the price difference is small in comparisor to what you get. Really, though, I don't think that the Linksys is as good as it could be, because you are stuck with their Broadcom wifi chipset. While there is now an open-source driver for it, there are features in Atheros chipsets that aren't in Broadcom's (open-source or proprietary) which are important for some applications. Since the newer WRT54Gs have all their wifi chips integrated, there is no longer the option of replacing the broadcom card with an Atheros. Luckily, there are other routers that have more ram, and use an atheros wifi chipset on a mini-pci card. Too bad such routers are in short supply.
Yes, Linux does need some slimming. Or perhaps GCC has to produce smaller kernels. But the problem isn't really as bad as some would say. Take a look at what the Linux-Tiny people have been able to accomplish - a bootable and usable Kernel 2.6 system which will fit inside of 2MB (I have no connection to this project other than being a fan).
Easterbook just doesn't get it. Earth observation is nice, but it can be done with existing technology - commercial space satellites, high atmosphere observation balloons and planes. It doesn't require the scientific and organizational might that NASA embodies. The moon base does have uses. Firstly, there is the study of human phisiology in space. Second, there is the construction of telescopes and sensors of various types to give us a much better understanding of space. Third, is the mining of HE3 (heavy helium) for propulsion purposes. Fourth, is a platform for other space operations. It is going to be expensive. No doubt.
I agree that the space shuttle is a problem. But I don't understand why he brings up the two disasters seen on TV. It is as though he thinks that the real disaster was the PR problems which resulted. If that is the case, he is only making it worse. What we need is a redesigned shuttle. The Shuttle is out of date. There are new technologies that could be harnessed to make it better. In addition, there is the very real problem that the shuttles wear out. They may be reusable, but that doesn't mean they are going to last forever.
I want to see more funding on long term programs, the far-out stuff like NERVA, anti-gravity, and the like. These are the kind of programs that NASA was chartered for.
Sendmail is one of the most successful remote-access programs ever.
Sendmail has provided the essential r00t access for hax0rz to improve their skills in the past. Before Linux was cheap and available, one had to go out, and like a predator, acquire one's operating system privs. Sendmail was teh great enabler. Though I have moved on to better and brighter things, I thank Alman, and Vixie, for their great success in bringing r00t to the large number of adolescents everywhere.
I predict that within three hundred years humans will be able to travel faster than the speed of light, without worm-holes, space folding, warping, or whatever you call it. Einstein is proven wrong, or at least, incomplete.
Now, THAT'S a prediction !
It is pretty strange how language evolves. German has evolved quite a bit in the past century. A good demonstration of this is the two volume German-English dictionary. It was published in America during WW2, though it had been written in 1931 (you should see the copyright..."Published and Distributed in the Public Interest by Authority of the Alien Property Custodian under Lince No. A-548...". Anyhow, the Germanic script is very difficult to read. There are extra letters and signs that I did not learn in German class (Yes, I know the S-tet has only recently been abolished, and I still use it because I think it looks cool. But I am not talking about that character). And of course the words have changed meanings as well. I bet a lot of the change is due to the devastation the German culture has gone on during and since WW2.
Where do you get your news, bathroom walls?! - no, Clinton was NOT impeached! He served out his term in office! There WERE attempts to impeach him, but they were not successful.
As it turns out, we do have a pretty decent mesh protocol: RoofNet - open source, works well, continuously maintained and updated. But a good mesh protocol doesn't solve all the problems in providing ubiquitous broadband. It's hard to reach rural areas, without doing some tricky antenna placement and other things that are simply beyond most peoples' ability. Now, we could train a vast force of radio techs to go do this, but I am sure that this won't happen. I am sure that the democrats will continue to screw us, just like republicans, by giving more power to the telcos and shipping more jobs overseas.
OK So you think I am an ignorant moron. Big deal. Now, to test your theory about freedom of speech in Europe, Go write a letter to the editor claiming anything less than 6 million jews died during the holocaust. Go ahead, I dare ya.....
Yes, it's true, there are some cheap real estate ventures that are less risky than others. For instance, if you buy timber property cheap enough, you can make some good money based on statistics.
As far as eastern germany - yes, I have been looking there. Some wonderful old buildings, some very 'renovierungsbedurftig' (needing renovation). My worry would be that many of them are 'Denkmalschutz', ie. preserved under law from some type of demolition. I'd worry too much about exactly how close to the original it has to be preserved -- with coal heat? One toilet for four apartments? Or just basically that you can't tear it down and build a wal-mart?
I also investigated property auctions in germany. Alas, you have to be a german resident or german corporation to buy.
The way the govermint (read: The FRB) is going to get the country out from the insanly high mortgages now being paid, once the market collapses, is to debase the currency. I mean massive inflation. Suddenly, that $2500/mo mortage will seem like peanuts and the administration will stay in power.
The other thing that's interesting is that the economy is moving from one based upon capital to one based upon debt. Americans, supposedly, owe more on credit cards than their net worth - as a whole (not the average!). This, combined with insane mortgages, and huge trade and federal budget defecits, will eventually weaken the military power of the United States, which is why it was allowed to happen in the first place. Americans are basically being sucked into the biggest usury racket ever.
This is an idiotic statement. There are plenty of good companies and individuals which are 'less well known'. Your ultra-conservative sentiment means you'll often end up paying more, getting less, and wondering why there's practical monopolies in the economy. Beyond this, even well known brands can be rip-offs - Radio Shack for instance, has knowningly sold completely defective products and left the consumer in the lurch. Enron and Parmalat were household names. Your statment is similar to the one "You get what you pay for" - which is also untrue and even dangerous. You pay what you negotiate, through some method or another.
This isn't to say that your sentiments aren't useful. If you and others spread the FUD about small companies, there will be less competition on ebay for the really good deals.
Typical European-style censorship. Every time I read about something like this, or of David Irving being jailed in Austria, I find myself happy I live in the US where I can say rude things about people if I want to.
But the US doesn't have freedom of expression, either. It's illegal for people to wear KKK garb in Virginia, and I think that's wrong. There's also the problem of the prudish attitude towards sexuality in the US.
What's surprising about this is the old slogan "Of course it runs NetBSD" - when in fact a lot of the listed NetBSD listed platforms are in fact not really operational. It's as though there's kudos for getting netbsd to boot on your coffee maker, and then after the kudos and high-fives are exchanged, it's back to working in x86 land. I was hoping that I could spend a bit of money with tools from Wasabi and change this, but instead I found out that Wasabi doesn't even support most of the listed BSD platforms. It's kind of pathetic.
I contacted Wasabi hoping to buy some tools from them for BSD development on embedded platforms. When I asked about a platform they didn't support, the proceeded to criticize that CPU and Linux saying they were underpowered and immature, basically, they want you to buy their favorite CPU. Sadly, this company is made from NetBSD developers, who I had previously thought were among the less rabid BSD zealots.
I stayed with Linux for embedded systems, and probably will forever, unless embedded BSD is freed from the grips of these people.
First, thanks for quoting Peter Gabriel - that song was the first that came to my mind when I read (red) this story.
Second, my first guess is industrial pollution. India isn't very good at such things as industrial hygene (part of the reason why they can underprice Europe & N. America). But this, supposedly, has been disproved. I'd look again.
Unlike many people however. I think that panspermia is possible, perhaps even ikely. But that doesn't mean it happens a lot, and it doesn't mean I believe that panspermia happened with the Kerla Event. It's had to tell, because there doesn't seem to be any case of a known untainted sample. Still, there's a LOT of this Red Rain which has been collected, so perhaps by finding what is common to all these sample, and different than what's normally in Kerla rain, we can figure out what this stuff really is.
What puzzled me is that the rain fell over a number of months, was strong in its concentration (not just a little pink) and fell only in a limited area (Kerala's not even the largest state in India). If there was an upper atmosphere dispersal (exploding meteor), it may take some time for the debris to settle to earth. However, winds would tend to disperse it. The fact that it was concentrated would seem to point to a low-atmosphere dispersal (exploding meteor or something else). The only thing that account for both of these is multiple events in the low atmosphere. Such a thing doesn't often happen for meteors.
My personal believe is that this was a man-made event. If it is not an artifact of pollution, then in may be some sort of attempt at either weather control, biological transformation, or psychological manipulation. Weather control: you can seed rain with dust (though CO2 snow works better), but why use something so exotic? Biological transformation - kill crops, kill weeds, or fertilize crops. Or possibly kill pests, or animals. Psychological manipulation - damn, I am sure that many people would feel that red rain might be some sign of impending apocalpyse.
Or it could have been some practical jokers.