Personally, I'm thrilled they're doing this. The more they automate the process, the less they'll have to depend on people keeping diaries. It saddens me to think that the fates of shows I love are determined by little notebooks that may or may not have been filled in correctly by people who may or may not have actually been watching the shows they said they did.
I remember hearing a piece on NPR's "On The Media" a while ago that pointed out that many people don't mark down shows they only watched part of (i.e., 45 minutes of an hour-long show) and some people even lie to make themselves look more cultured. Hardly a reliable method for getting accurate viewing numbers...
The freaky thing is, I can see Mugabe's point on this particular issue. If Zimbabwe lost its ability to export corn and/or cattle to Europe, it'd be a hefty economic blow to the country.
Granted, right now, that would simply mean that Mugabe wouldn't be quite as rich a despot, but sooner or later, we can only hope that someone better will replace him. Then that person will be stuck with trying to boost the economy without being able to export crops & cattle to Europe.
If Mugabe truly cared about saving his people (ha!), probably his best bet is to get the corn milled ASAP, then get the farms ruined by "land-reform" working again.
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My thoughts exactly. While I was reading his arguments, I was thinking "Y'know, half of these reasons are *why* more people don't use Linux...".
I remember hearing a piece on NPR's "On The Media" a while ago that pointed out that many people don't mark down shows they only watched part of (i.e., 45 minutes of an hour-long show) and some people even lie to make themselves look more cultured. Hardly a reliable method for getting accurate viewing numbers...
Granted, right now, that would simply mean that Mugabe wouldn't be quite as rich a despot, but sooner or later, we can only hope that someone better will replace him. Then that person will be stuck with trying to boost the economy without being able to export crops & cattle to Europe.
If Mugabe truly cared about saving his people (ha!), probably his best bet is to get the corn milled ASAP, then get the farms ruined by "land-reform" working again.