probably people need two more criteria. What is the budget in terms of $$, top end, and do you need a real keyboard integrated?
Without knowing those things, I think that any notebook or subnotebook (really no industry cutoff point there I think, it's a matter of taste) used that has a known track record of running and installing linux easily will narrow it down, then look at that list for best battery life. Virtually all decent used notebooks nowadays accept pcmcia cards, so wireless is just a matter of putting the appropriate card in.
Also, you have to ask yourself, is one or two lbs difference really a deal breaker? You might be able to get a pretty decent machine if you are willing to lug around 2 more lbs in gross weight. It seems like every pound subtracted from a "normal" laptop costs another 500 bucks or something like that and makes it harder to see and use. Me, I'd just as soon hump the extra weight and have a bigger screen and bigger battery, etc, for cheaper cost. For your needs, the older and slightly heavier used laptop would be cheaper to buy, then you could spend the savings on more ram, the wireless card, etc. Anything 200 mghz or larger runs linux in graphics mode just fine with enough ram, so text mode should be a piece of cake.
--the next "killer app" is here, the deal is, it's not a singularity any longer, like when it was 'visicalc" or "lotus i-2-3". The "app" is that now computers are universal, and with sharing and P2P, this "the people", the "sociality" aspect is the app, because now we can combine all the other singularity apps into "one". It's the COMBINATION that is the killer app, the tool is the ACCUMULATION and adoption of the previously built tools. Stores and business? We have ebay, anyone can be a store now, and we can already manage, file, graph, plot, utter, whatever bits of human data we need to, any new advances will just be variations on those themes, nothing really "new". We hit it already, that "car" has been invented and is on the road, with the only thing chaning is paint and engine advances whatever. News? Large news organizations are beoming redundant, because anyone so inclined can be a reporter and "broadcaster' or "publisher", you can-and we do- get "news" instantly from around the planet, increasingly from just people reporting what they are seeing outside, bypassing the old news orgs. Entertainment? What used to take a troupe or a band can now be created by a single individual, then shared, copied, distributed. And because of storage, anything can be archived, modified, sold, given away, rented-whatever floats your boat. Education? All the homeschoolers I know use computers and the internet, they don't NEED massive government expenditures and brick and mortar buildings and daily two way commutes and yearly property tax increases, and frankly, seem to be doing an admirable job of it. And it has happened with higher education, and will most likely become more and more common.
The biggest problem (my list here is obviously just an opinion) will be the frantic machinations of older style monopolies to hang on to what they have, but still be "the big dogs", both government and busy-ness. What we own, what we can do with it. They are trying now with legislation, restrictions, etc. In fact I'd say they are going out of their way to create artifical problems, just because the "new" way of doing things is a direct threat to their buggy whip notions of what "stuff" should be as it relates to "society".
The second tier problems are the struggle between anonymity and building online trust, as anyone who has used any chat or forums for any length of time can tell you, you have NO idea who you are speaking with at any time. The old style of "only" face to face that had that instant verification got replaced with various communications advances, where at one time say you needed face to face where visual and auditory combined to help you discern reality, now you have to trust electronics which may or may not be "real". Using one to verify the other as indicated in the articles is a great way to do this, but we are still somewhat constreained, even with distance travelling being so much easier now than even 100 years ago.
Third tier is just "security" in general, whereas we used to rely on stout construction, door locks and the old 12 bore in the corner to make sure we were "safe", now you must devle into the arcane world of bits and bytes and packets which may be "spoofed" or "intercepted" or otherwise and are the newest in sociopathic maladjustment, ie, criminality.
It's saturated. I honestly don't think most of the old stereotypes about massive regional differences are all that relevant any more. There are *some* obviously, but not very many.
Well, OK, here's a hoot, I'll modify that to be more accurate. EVERY old stereotype about regional differences is still true, just that all the differences are equally represented now around the nation, or getting there fast. It doesn't matter where you live, you'll find "all the (stereo)types" there, and with immigration just exploding, the US is a microcosm of "the planet earth" now for variety.
I live in georgia, and although I don't live atlanta metro right now, I did for 15 years. Who told you that there aren't widely diverse cultures and languages spoken? I can take you to generic waffle houses just a few miles apart where in one all you will hear is mostly african dialects(like somali,ethiopian,etc), drive a few miles, various asian, another few miles pure normal bubba, another few miles spanish, then another few miles pure ebonics that can be as incomphrehensible as to classify as a foreign language. There's an area outside atlanta so completely asian it's called "chambodia" a mix of "chamblee" the suburb and cambodia. There's a huge mix, people from all over the planet live here, you will definetly hear different languages spoken when you go out to the store, etc.
Sounds more like typical regional bias "elitness" to me. Everyone's pet area is "the best" or "well, WE have such and such and THEY don't and....." and everyone else's area is "weird and has such and such a stereotype attributed to it". That's just bogus man, typical jingoism.
Here's a sterotype buster for you. I used to live in rural vermont for awhile. Some of the most inbred brain dead redneck hillbillies I ever met lived there,beat the pants off some of the good ole boys around here where I live now in north georgia with just sheer lameness, along with pleasant people, and people who could hold up their end of a conversation without effort. Now you wouldn't think that because of the "understood stereotype" of various regions, but really, regional bias based on false claims is just as bogus a junk science as any other loon concept.
--sending a long obviously ill meaning string of packets is not a normal challenge/accept for http or dns access. And there's an easy analogy. If I walk to someone's door and knock, and wait for an answer, that is a normal understandable challenge/response. the person inside can answer the door, agree or not agree to converse or allow me in. that's as far as anyone may legally go. If I walk up to the door with a sledge hammer and mash it on the lock and the door swings in, it is not. Sending something that causes a buffer overflow that allows access is clearly breaking, then entering. Sending the malformed packets is swinging the sledgehammer.
...they call it various things but falls roughly under "maintaining a public nusiance" or some such. You don't even have to be aware of it, or you can claim stupid, and it doesn't matter. Hmm, for instance, having a full swimming pool with no fence around it, some kid falls in, whoops! It's happened to people. I could see it easily applied to running a totally unsecured computer that is used as a spammer relay or zombie machine in an attack.
AND THEN, in turn, once clueless computer owner gets shafted, THEY can turn around and sue the OS distributor for selling an operating system that installs broken,and is wide open. Using the same law.
THAT would sort these things out a bit.
Just as a matter of discussion, I'd class millions of wide open computers out there as a major public nusiance. People who aren't consciously running a server by choice-shouldn't be running a server! It's a completely simple and logical concept.
I'm not saying the law is 100% correct or "fair" in that regard, but the case law and precedent is out there in spades. Not sure if it was ever applied to computers though, but it would be an interesting case if it occurred. Follow culpability and "who suffers". Why should innocent person A suffer because computer user B allowed his machine to be used by haxor C in an attack? And I don't mean a really exotic take over situation, I mean using computers that ship and install with extremely insecure OS and apps that are obviously "too loose" for someone who isn't a server? Anyway, an argument along those grounds.
Any manned mission to other planets or the moon will require the shielding and food, and also a crew cabin that is verifiably functional. Ya, so???? You would still have to boost the shielding no matter what, if the compartments could be shielded with robots and some eva, well maybe. Not all of it needs to be shileded, just the parts where humans hang out./the bulk cargo is just that, bulk cargo. Here's your alternative then, start from scratch, build something that can launch something x-times heavier from the surface. Seems like you'd need a heckuva big rocket then. And also, why is it you can only use ONE shuttle for the new and improved rocket modding plan??? No air friction loss in space, use the modular concept, bolt them suckers all together, span them. 150 years ago it was called the "wagon train" concept, seemed to work then.
I just think it's a heckuva waste to ground functional craft.
As to food and cabin fever, I have a years worth of food here,(several really) staring at it out in the shed through an open door,one takes up not all that much space, roughly 8 feet by 4 feet by 2 feet. Granted, you need water to go with that, again, dittos for anything else you take with you, or any other design you can come up with. One shuttle hauls water then, or two if you need it, or 3, WHATEVER. How many in the fleet again? And they could bolt some more launched "things" to the contraption, it doesn't have to be streamlined, it just needs motive power. We're gonna need huge amounts of fuel, launch throw away fuel tanks then, and etc. Once up there,with the existing shuttles, you have a multiple of crew cabins, fuel tanks, cargo holds, etc, all the stuff you need rather than building a brand new deal from scratch. NASA struggling to keep 20 billion, the US public ain't gonna buy a 200 billion project, so recycle as much as possible.
Or let em rot in some museum on the ground, build from scratch. gonna cost some......
Or maybe we just don't want humans to go anyplace in space until some gravitational sci-fi drive is perfected.
I'm old enough, I clearly remember sputnik, I remember going out with binocs and seeing echo. Followed all the earlier missions when every channel (all three) caried total TV coverage for the entire missions. Just giving up on travel-not floating around in orbit, but traveling, point A to B seems like such a bummer to me.
Cabin fever? ha! I live in an rv less than 20 feet long, I got a good idea on that. It's funny but I think having a mixed sex crew might help along those lines! hahahaha! Nothing like a useful hobby!
I can't really see us using chemical rockets from the earth without doing it in steps, modular, the sheer size is just too much.
I think they should be used for something practical, that's all, seems just an incredible waste to ground them. It's like they are half way to being real "space ships", seems just so...wrong to not use them better. Even if all they are is storage containes at the space station, with carrying up one last useful cargo apiece, that would be better than grounding them. Dang it! I'm a tax payer! I paid my x-amount for them dang SPACE frikking ships I want them UP IN SPACE not sitting on the ground someplace. OK, one maybe, we already got that,the rest of them, NO,NO,NO, ABSOLUTELY NO! UP there, If they need to be boneyarded, then do it IN SPACE. There's some things that humans GOT to have, it is unexplainable in terms of money! Un-ex-plainable, it's like...explain geekhood, science in general, exploration--can't explain it any better. Don't let the government dangle "man in space" at us for half a centry then give up! If they abandon hoomans in space I'm gonna go wherever them PHB live and get medieval on their sorry butts! They think their budget is low now, just take away from the people "man in space", they'll have to chip in for a pack of bottle rockets. You see just how thrilled the US tax payer would be with a NASA budget for just "unmanned and that's it" space exploration. I s
don't stop at your comfort level when assigning total blame. I agree, it was a pretty dastardly deed. But I think it needs a wee bit more "investigations" then what have transpired so far. Go all the way, yep, some saudis/al queda/taliban and whatever involved, but chew on some of this stuff for awhile, and see perhaps if there might not be more than brown skinned humans wearing robes and turbans involved. I'd like to see a "regime change" of ALL the perps involved, even the more "embarrasing" ones. A good start would to have credible investigations, not warren commission part deux.
--the POINT was we already have the things. Yes, what you said is true, what I said is true as well. Scrapped on the ground they are about useless except to gawk it. My reply was to counter the original idea from the congressman-you know, the article?- To just ground them. And they DO undergo the most stress on take offs and landings, that's what beats on them and wears them out the most. I say, before they are so used up and worn out that we re-think their missions as shuttles up and down from earth and park them up there where they will be more useful. And if they aren't coming back down to earth, we can REMOVE THE FREEKING LANDING GEAR and other heavy stuff we won't be needing before the last launch up, maybe the wings, or maybe retro fit the wings to store and deploy a big solar array-whatever, those partsd aren't as important as the concept of using what we have that is still working. You'd want to retrofit them anyway for their new "pure in-space" missions, any of the "reentry" stuff becomes redundant and yes, useless mass and weight, SO, we would replace it with useful stuff.
I thought this was so obvious it didn't need mentioning, guess I was wrong on that. sheesh
Use a user name if you want to troll and flame, at best, I will only do one reply to an AC, and you just got yours.
--I don't want them grounded, but I would like to see them all used for one more trip up, then left up there. Turn them into the first step of having a shuttle fleet between LOE and the moon and mars. It's the take off and landing to earth that beats on them bad, but they are fine once in orbit. They could be additions to the space stations, perhaps the cargo bays retrofitted before last launch to additional fuel tanks and better crew cabin areas, purposes like that. No need to waste them, just use them more efficiently. On the ground they would just be stupid tourist traps, up in space, still dang useful. I see little reason a shuttle couldn't have smaller boosters installed and a larger fuel tank filled once in orbit, then used for manned missions to mars and whatnot. It's that HUGE fuel cost to escape earth and reach orbit that is expensive and dangerous, so WHY keep doing that over and over and over again? A fraction of that fuel used once leaving from orbit would take you to mars. Launch them up there ONCE, then it's UP there and we got us "space rockets" then. We're reinventing the wheel every time we launch and re land one. OK idea when first proposed, now time to move on. I see it just exactly like they have done with B-52's, they have thought of so many uses for them that go beyond their original missions and specs. Let's just do some more creative modding with what we got and paid for already instead of throwing them away or continual beating on them.
I've thought this for more than a decade now, seems a duh to me.
Dumb rockets can carry cargo and occasional passengers up better, and we can land passengers better too, our old "splashdown" into the water worked quite well..
Are people really replacing their computers at the rate they were two years ago? I know much better computers are being sold, but isn't there a consumer backlash that started when computers got "good enough" combined with an economy slow down?
I can see a niche market for software coded for older standards of performance. Call it "Classic Coded" "Optimized for the Family Computer". Some marketing buzz phrase like that. I know people who have serious folding green, buying a brand new turbo 3 ghz whizzbang is definetly in the budget-but they already got a pentium 800 or something that is totally functional for everything they do now. Maybe they'll add a bigger drive, but not seeing the same amount of "new" purchases I used to see, and the amount of whitebox shops are dropping and those remaining have slimmer margins. It's like they don't care, they don't see "upgrading" with the same "must do" fanaticism once some sort of "good enough" threshold got reached 2-3 years ago. Getting different gadgets-yes, seeing that, new cell phones and pdas and digicams and whatnot, but not seeing people bragging about their "new computer they just got" like you used to see.
Not counting hard core geeks, I mean joe regular old consumer. Not sure on businesses either, don't get exposed to it to see if it's happening.
Perhaps,the scientific jury is out on that, and I am not so convinced that it might not be from natural cataclysmic change as gradual and man made. Frankly, man made is easier to deal with, especially on smaller scales, again, see my various postinhgs above. larger scales-no, I sincerely doubt any international agreements that don't somehow down in the fine print still benefit the large konzerns will be written. I am, as always, skeptical. it may *look* good, sound good, have all the appropriate buzzwords, but in it's implementations I expect *the same* as with every other international "treaty". Like, we got rid of biowarfare, because of a "treaty", right?
Naw, I'm a skeptic. Show me the money with any other large scale treaty being actually useful and not corrupted, I've never seen many of them, nor heard of any. I think the same way I do of such pronouncements as "the patriot act", or "the war on drugs", or "the war on poverty" and now "war on tarrRrrR...". We got more jingoistic fanatics, more drugs, and more poverty,so not especially looking for a global "war on pollution" being successful, based on such past institutions. Any large nations, if push came to shove (which it will with this "energy" deal) is going to burn any stuff they got to get it once they start running out. Madmax is a documentary, it's not especially sci-fi. We pretty much got a pretty good handle on oil reserves, etc now, they about know what we got. the modeling is just so much better now. and with 3 billion more people right this second wanting some sort of technologically accessible middle class-the indians, chinese and various islamic nations-there is no way to stop this fuel burning juggernaut. Ain't happening, because human nature will cause mass revolts if just the elites of the world have energy and joe and abdullay and wong lee don't. It's happening right now as far as I am concerned, we have been in the "resource wars" of the 21st century, and we will remain in them from here on out..forever. At a buck a gallon, no grumbling, people will take and support "fight pollution" laws. 2$ starts to get grumbling. 5$ (and the ancillary costs of everything else that makes up peoples lives related to technology) will have politicians hanging from lamposts. they will be quite eager to not sign such laws, and even all but the most diehard enviros will abandon their beliefs if it means they are paupers to 'enforce" the laws. People lose courage and conviction really quickly when they have to LIVE what they claim they would "live without". You tell any westerner from the industrialised nations that from now on they will have to live second or third world status, well, good lucksi, and that is what the game plan is, that's why I am skeptical. the numbers will not add, they look like arthur andersen cooked them up. they are DOABLE, I will not dispute that, but the WILL isn't there, not yet anyway, because if there was you would already see massive adoption of alternatives, and you see a lot more nascar, music concerts, take out pizzas, DVDs, vacations, flashy new cars, yada yada yada. Look around, what do you see? I see a big ole fat case of the "who cares?" Now I care, you care, some more do, but what is it, less than 1/100th of 1/100th of one percent of the population who are willing now to take the SLIGHTEST reduction in the 'comfort levels"? something like that? sure, they might donate some money to this or that org, even vote "for" this or that, but when it gets down to it, when they are forced to walk the walk? Nope, people will revert back most of the time. And force them hard enough, they will just revolt.
If basic human nature wasn't stupid and greedy, we wouldn't have seen the excesses of the dotcom market. But we sure did. Still seeing it now, the stock market was only one shoe of an entire shoe tree to drop. Humansd mostly don't care, never learn and don't WANT to learn. People already know they can be part of the solution by having smaller houses, driving less, etc, and you just aren't seeing it. people live at the highe
Living with the small footprint is in itself such a wonderful personal reward. I am happy with that, and I can show people that even with a small footprint, you can still take large strides.
bummer man, sorry to hear it. This whole email "problem" and crooks and badguys on the net is just so dismal. Lot of guys here been on the net way longer than me, but I've been on long enough to remember when spam was pretty rare, and not a lot of "hack" attempts, at least on a joe user desktop situation, never been in the "server" business so I really don't know how "bad" it's always been.
Maybe bring back old testament styled REVENGE justice?? hahahahahaha Get caught massive spamming or black hatting,too bad, your victims get to bash you with your own equipment then. Skip fines and jail time, a nice sound mega thrashing!
Anyway, I was suspicious of this exploit when I read how they did it. Sounds almost doable in some other situations, but I'm not an IT security expert so am not sure on it.
CFC's became totally e-vile when the patent ran out. It sure wasn't all altrusim. CO2 I am not gonna worry about, I plant a lot of trees and plants, and try to never be forced into harvesting live ones except as absolutely necessary. that's what I personally do about it. I keep my machinery tuned as good as possible, and try to use hand tools whenever possible. I try to only drive when I absiolutely have to, I use little fuel really. I shiver in the winter some and I'm sitting here sweating now, keep the heat low in the winter and I don't use AC. I'll switch to better sorts of engines when I can get one, so far, best I can do is to not create demand for so much "new" stuff. The electric stuff on the market is just way out of my price range and I don't have the infrastructure handy to build one from scratch yet, sometime I may though, just depends, I do a lot of projects. Just fixing busted stuff that other people throw away keeps me pretty busy.
There's layers of reality and perceptions, never stop at your "comfortable" level to look at large geopolitical and economic events, you'll blind side yourself and wonder how it happened then. I do that when looking at anything new, use the cleanroom concept, and the scientific model.
As to "how to do it?" in general? Show by personal example. What a concept, I "do" not just talk, or if you talk, do the "do" as well. You want revolutionary and effective change, then you act and do and talk and work actively towards revolutionary change, WITHOUT being a predator on fellow humans. You do it yourself, personally, humans hate to be told what to do, but can be persuaded if you can show them, "YES, look, here's another way to do this, check this out...." THERE is the major difference.
In the big picture, it makes little sense to replace one set of tyrannical goons with another, that never works in the long run. Replacing some industry scam with a government boondoggle scam just slap hardly ever works. It's just more cons and scams. Not every single time, but so much that I take it as a default, both government and whopper industry and whopper "not for profit" scam orgs have to prove they aren't crooks before I believe them any more. That's just been beaten into me over the years, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me a thousand times, shame on me"..
You want to mandate and add so many laws and regulations to people and nations that half the planet needs to become a government worker,and everyone else needs a personal lawyer to follow them around, well, you won't get that far. I convince people to get hip and change for the better by SHOWING them there are alternatives, I don't just flap my jaws and DEMAND more laws. I boycott big corporations whenever I see evidence they are crooks and slimeballs, I don't vote for slimeball pols, I won't support slimeball forked tongue orgs that claim such and such then you see they are liars at the top. Been there, seen that, no thanks. I put my wallet where my mouth is, I don't have a 2gigz chip computerwith a 128 meg video card and a 120 gig hdd, I am "struggling" with a recycled 200 mhz and an old modem costed me 50 cents, but I own solar panels. I don't have a 50 inch HDTV with a whole house entertainment service, but I hand work some pretty snazzy gardens and produce a lot of my own food, when maybe I could be sitting watching the boob toob instead, complaining the government needs to "do something, pass this law to save the..." whatevers.. That's what I do, stuff like that, and if every person could influence just a few more to just DO instead of bitching about stuff,by personal example, by showing and by using normal logic and appealing to what goodness still exists in people instead of just using some other flavor of force, then we wouldn't NEED massive governments, 50 buhzillion laws, and we could knock the monopolists down to size. We'd have better stuff, cleaner stuff, less completely destitute people, a much larger global middle class, less wars and good stuff like that there.
..initial impression of the article as a "joe consumer" is, that with this new machine/OS hybrid, "stuff" I would normally be doing is going to be a lot more expensive. Third party apps will have to be microsoft approved to even run on your machine, or the machine won't run correctly or at all if you insist on trying, probably phone home and report on you as well. Massive and expensive catch 22 there. I am assuming that validation will cost app developers serious folding scratch, so there won't be as many freebies or shareware being developed. Media and content providers will be forced to choose, basically from cost, "do we code for this new stuff, or abandon the market, or code for both styles of internet and try to pass the costs on, or what?". There will be MANY conversations along those lines.
I could EASILY see that joe average, in addition to his internet account costs, could rack up 100 clams a month or more in various fees just to "do stuff" with his computer, almost a pay as you use a byte concept, and not be able to do what they are accustomed to doing now. the spooky part is, how much will this be tied into new laws? It could get way out of hand, and quickly.
And I'm sure this won't be classified as a monopoly by most pro MS marketing people or enthusiasts, and government will have a committee study it, forever.
Uhh, we need internet version 2, and yesterday, or the net is just going to be another cable TV monopoly deal. I sorta thought that would happen anyway, to be honest, I figured eventually you would just get one whopper bill a month, and "the net" would be more along "somebody's net you pay access to", sort of like telephony is now, package deals, the rest off limites unless you pay "more". An "AOL with a license to print laws and money" type of deal.
Hey! Still kinda nice to be enjoying the wild, wild west days of the internet, yes?
Fox news is just as much propaganda as any other junk science source. I'dclass the bulk of the profit media as being mostly "junk science"qand sensationbalism, and I don't worship at the gaia shrine of the united nations, either, just for your clarification. My reasons would take days to type, so I ain't gonna. And for that matter I don't hardly watch television. I flick it on to see weather radar maps, that's about it, very occassionaly watch a tape on the vcr.
Kyoto is an attempt to deal with a set of extemely complex and overlapping problems that are faulty on several levels, so many it's a waste of time to even get into it right now. It's like the OS debates., I agree that much work needs to be done, I just disagree on using the kyoto protocols as *the* tool to accomplish those tasks.
I've been working environmental issues since 62,general politics since 63 for the 64 elections, in fact, one year (at 12 years old) I won a week in a wilderness summer camp by winning a state wide conservation essay contest. I've been in the alternate energy business before, worked on/with active solar heated greenhouses, windchargers, solar air heaters, solar water heaters, methane digesters, superinsulated homes,owned a bicycle shop for a long time,including early custom and prototype work on what turned into the "mountain bike" concept,that in the mid 70's, and currently get all my electric from solar PV panels. I've lobbied for organic farming a lot, shown by example, run a profitable organic farming operation before, still do extensive organic gardening. And yada yada yada I don't feel like even mentioning. My conservation "cred" is just fine, thank you very much Mr. Hyper Assumption. IMO, Kyoto is a piece of global tyrannical triple speak lawyerese garbage. Badly written, overly stupid, bureaucratically obtuse and top heavy, little to no basis in any practicality, rife with fraud and abuse potential. In short, it sucks. That's my opinion on it. That this "something should be done" is obvious, it's also obvious that big governments are incapable of running themselves without becoming corrupt and inefficient, along with their partners in crime, and I DO mean crime, international mega monopolistic corporations. I want nothing to do with their sort of "solutions". In slashdot terms, "they fail it!" in most instances.
Does this exploit or similar affect yahoo mail and other similar web based free email services? Anyone check yet? Looks like there isn't a coding fix for hotmail yet, only that they turned it off, just wondering if this is going to bork all the other free web based email systems out there.
--you seem to be asking how to become a salesman when you are a technician by trade. It's not your expertise to do "sales".. You know what tools and products you need to accomplish your IT tasks. You then assemble the list that fits the criteria that you know will *work*, with the included contacts to the shops that actually sell the 24/7 support. You can make the initial contact, seek bids and some additional information, narrow your list to the best possible contacts, then introduce these people to the people in your shop who will be making the decisions. Your boss gets to be "the boss",make the decisions, he's happy, the service contract guys are happy-everyone wants the work, you are happy, you get the products you want and that back up service from when the problem or you are out of the loop for one reason or another. Everyone is a winner! It's up to THOSE shops sales staff to "sell" YOUR bosses on their service, initially based on your analysis and recommendations. They are way more suited to the task, that's their job, and if you are a good IT tech, you will know what you want, what is the best for your corp, and will be able to sort through the market speak in the first contacts. In a specialised industry, use the appropriate specialists.
well, how can I put this delicately. Hmm. I can not. Your analysis that I am "marxist" based on some word combinations and guessing is just totally incorrect. I am an independent US constitutionalist as perhaps the closest to a "label" that you might be comfortable with. That's pretty far away from total centralised governmental marxist control. I also am against treating international corporations as "persons" mostly to avoid responsibility and to hide behind lawyers and daisy chained shell companies, and to further compound the problem by allowing thei directors to remain US voting citizens and to allow their bribery efforts to hijack the government and the economy. that is still not "marxism". Seeing as how that was your main premise,on which the rest of your reply rested, that that opinion on business makes me "marxist", I really can't reply to you beyond that point of clarification. Sorry. Just because a person doesn't approve of global thievery and advanced buncoism and scamistry doesn't mean they are anti business or makes them a marxist. I totally reject those sorts of antiquated left/right artificial forced paradigms,they are at best extremely simplistic theories, and those sorts of concepts and divisions are many decades in my past political and intellectual evolution. It was fun way back then to debate on those topics, but frankly, I am most weary of them. IMO, neither the concept of "marxism" or total global monopolistic "capitalism" has very much to offer humanity beyond concentrating wealth and power in the hands of the few from predatory actions, based mostly on greed, avarice and lust.
Sure, I agree modern geopolitics and economics are more complex than what I addressed in the parent, but this is an ad-hoc blog after all, sort of limits it. I also admit to normal human frailities of the written word, often times I fail to adequately express myself. Oh well. Thanks for replying with a real user name though, I do appreciate it.
read that one before, some interesting premises. I like the easter island story. I think part of why they did it was because they were stuck on a relatively small island. Pretty easy for some nut job "leader" to take over with his bully boys and insist on his particular views on life, which following the patterns of most "leaders" are centered around megalomania, meaning all the other decisions had no default basis in rationality. and all of them always seem to fixate on "I have the vision! And everyone else is the infidel!" Usually some variation on that anyway. Another disaster then, happened too many times in human history to not take note of it.
A good rule of thumb (IMO of course) is to treat any "leaders" who actively seek out leadership and power as being nutjobs in waiting. In effect, guilty until proven otherwise. Sad but true in most cases. They need to be watched constantly. Any nation, religion, corporation, organization-you name it, no exceptions. Apply the "grain of salt" to their statements and "visions".
Back to the trees. Billions of them over the last 3-4 years out west were burnt to the point of "not being alive" but still harvestable. There's a two year (+ or -) window where good lumber may be taken, after that they get so bug infested and rotten that their value and usefullness drops. And there's some rationale for using them in more efficient and cleaner burning multi fuel electric generating plants as well. I just dislike waste, sems a better idea to salvage and recycle what you can. Composting theory on steroids. Taking the already dead trees and leaving enough of the branches, etc, to add carbon back to the soil for adequate humus generation seems the most rational. I'm aware that western forests needed periodic fires for development of certain species. So the rational view would be-granted my opinion-neither "no fires ever, constant heroic efforts" or "let it burn constantly forever". Something in the middle seems the best idea for healthy forest + human use for necessary products. I see no reason to destroy living trees at this time when so many already burnt trees may be harvested, canada, US, amazon, wherever. Another good point is that by allowing the harvesting of that particular burnt timber, many more smaller independent loggers and mills remain productive, as it stands now, like with food and farming, the industry is falling into just the complete dominance of a handful of large international concerns (read the source of bribery to pols), never a good idea on that monopoly angle. I like a return to more decentralization,more providers, more competition, less dominance in various industries. I don't want to see THE global food company and THE global computer company and THE global forest products company and THE global energy company. That's just nuts. Using the "commons" FOR the commons seems a better idea, BUT, we won't have that with international controls and mandates. Those sorts of schemes in the past have lead to corruption and entrenched bureaucracy and massive bribery, etc. All you have to do is look at any political system, the farther away you get from the individual person the less 'human" the system becomes, the larger the governmental body the larger the schisms that develop. There needs 'balance" more, instead of utter top to down dictates and edicts. The altrusitic goals never seem to reflect reality down on the ground. Allowing some freedom, property rights, civil and human rights, less intrusive government and less stifling bureaucracy always seems to work out the best. Granted it isn't perfect, but it's the best arrangements humans have come up with. It's a case by case and industry by industry deal, of course, and should be debated. Debate is good! Not having any majority trample on any minority is good! As in the easter island example, "might" a lot of times does not equate "right", or "correct". And it doesn't matter which over whelming force is applied in the name of "right and might", because if it gets TOO powerful, the default human psychology tak
I AGREE with you on several levels, I just think it's swung way too far in the opposite direction, to follow a pendulum analogy, and that also there are some veryhigh level fake outs going on. The fires in a lot of cases were not put out in an efficient or timely manner, politics definetly came into play, and it is suspicious to me following the rural ethnic cleansing agendas. Example, firebreaks needed cutting, and pronto, private concerns had some very large cats ready and willing to rock. ORDERED to not cut by "government". Eventually they were used, after considerable delay, after the fire had wiped out a million more acres. that was an agenda, not science. Another example, four (?I think) firefighters trapped, needed immediate airdrop of water, DENIED, an "endangered minnows" in the local creek. Those kids are DEAD, burned alive, water dropping helos ordered to stand down. that was another political agenda, sorry, humans are 'worth" more than minnows in an emergency. Junk scinece and hideos politics. Example, russia offered many large antonov water bombers, canada uses them all the time, DENIED, all they wanted was fuel and expenses, basically a free deal. Politics? The fire needed to keep buirning? which was it, put it out or let it burn?
There's a lot more, people losing stock to artifical wolf introduction and mountain lion introduction,basically put out of business, burden of proof very hard when you can't actually shoot the wolf to prove it. Government workers caught "salting" with lynx hairs to "prove" an area should be made "off limits"for some political agenda. Lots of examples. This could get way past a small post obviously, just wanted to show it's not all cut and dried black and white with all these issues.
I agree on banning such things as the mercury in the mining and etc, all that makes sense and isn't junk science or junk politics mixed in with science. it's logical, makes sense, makes 'common" sense, and is proper. Other facets of it in general-no, very questionable. That's the parts I am against. Like right now, they aren't allowing even the burnt over timber to be harvested. Why is that, more expensive wood is good for the economy?? It's junk science mixed with junk politics that I disagree with.
Both extremes are that-extremes. If you read any of my stuff you'll know I am no fan of international artificial person corporations or over intrusive government. I am sincerely concerned over that partnership getting even more command and control than what they already have. You see, I see those two entities as "the same thing", I don't see them as being seperate. And I for SURE don't want to see that partnership instituted on a total global scale. It's hard enough keeping them under control at lower levels. The answer to the problems caused by huge international industries and their partners government is NOT to make that alliance (and it is an alliance everywhere) bigger and more powerful, IMO.
.. now that is really superior point. I think you might have hit on an inkling of a class action case there. WHAT IF, all the thousands of companies who WEREN'T running microsoft anywhere could show an historical record of constant microsoft vulnerabilites that actually caused THEM verifiable business loses? Over and over and over yet again? You can show the court you are trying your best to run a business, but constantly you suffer losses. show the judge and jury the hard figures. How many hosters and non microsoft users could you get to sign on for a class action, and pick a judicial venue with a chance to at least get heard?
It's (the debate on eula and liability) always been about people who installed microsoft and clicked the EULA. To stick with the beat into the ground car analogy, how long would the driving public at large put up with broken down belchfires littered all over the roads, just causing a mess, knowing they will always cause a mess, with belchfire rakeing in the profits to beyond ridiculous levels, before belchfire, inc. wound up in court?
Any reasonable judge and jury would conclude thaty belchfire wqas a public menace and ban their cars from the roads after the third time the nations interstates got shutdown almost completely. I mean, they probably would do that. Well???? Between viruses and worms and whatnot, that's a LOT of money lost over the years while microsoft stands back and goes "neener neener neener, we have a get out of jail free card, neener neener, suckers" whilst standing on top of cash mountain..
--didn't think of that one. If software isn't a product, then what is it?
I am not sure on the entire liability issue right this second, but comes a time that any "industry" needs to come to grips with reality, and I think that time will be soon probably. Computers and the software to run them have had decades now to get established and to come out of thier "honeymoon" stage, with the EULA "get out of jail free" cards. the hardware is warrantied. The software sure needs something.
There needs to be some sort of consumer protection and warranty. Eventually there will have to be, it's about inevitable. Everything else man made has one. If that means much less "new" is released and a lot more "improved", I'm all for it. If it means less variety but better quality, I am all for it. If it means that "paid for-sale" software with a warranty gets so expensive that "free" dominates with a shareware and volunteer concept, I'm all for it. and I see that as an EXACT dividing line, it's for sale, it needs a warranty, if it's a "freebie, here try this, see if you like it" type deal, it doesn't need a warranty. I think that is fair and rational.
OR, wait until a few more worms or whatever hit all one day, the mother of all net shutdowns, and have the government force something down your throat that is beyond a warranty into planned, controlled, licensed.
As an aside, can you imagine the first major software vendor TO offer a warranty? How much of a marketing edge would that be, given they had really done their auditing and were actually confident their offering was decent enough to offer the warranty? I think they would get uberrich, well deserved cash for superior outstanding coding efforts. I know some custom stuff does, but anything major mass market? Does it even exist yet? I honestly don't know, but myself as joe consumer, I might just be tempted to purchase an OS offering like that, and pay much serious cash for it.
--ya know, I think people would take projects/agreements like the kyoto treaty a little more seriously once we see UN fatcats and various national and corporate "leaders" jets gathering cobwebs someplace and black limosines being scrapped and turned into mopeds, and see these fatcat goons driving them, and we see more "scientists" and enviro org "leaders" living in tents full time and not travelling all over the world for *very important conferences*. It's this stance of "ooooh, you are a bad human! You are using energy and causing pollution, whereas WE of the global political and intellectual elite, who are your betters, well, our lifestyle is very pure and clean and produces zero pollution" and etc.
The hypocrisy and idiocy is just so annoying.
These are the same bozos more or less who kept freaking out over global cooling and the new ice age coming. I just SO remember that,I used to BE in some enviro groups then,and was more of an activist on those matters, then I started smelling a rat with the junk science and political agendas once I started getting exposed to the group think as you went up the leadership foodchain. Well, I done seen de light on what's going down with them..political control agendas are tops, it has little to do with "pollution" except to extract cash and to create more "laws" and for sound bytes in the media. It's at least 1/2 con job racket. Well, that's my O anyway on it.
Now I am all for doing what we can to eliminate pollution. I think we can do a lot with waste and whatnot that we aren't, and I'm a proponent - and user - of "alternative energy", I grow a ton of my own organic food, only drive the shortest I can get away with once a week, yada yada, but these guys pushing this stuff are just out to lunch nuts. Example, western US, disallow any logging most places last several years, make "off limits" huge vast areas, save the owl and the dead trees, etc. Nuts, everyone with a normal rural clue kept telling them it was gonna catch fire and burn up. Result,it caught fire and all burnt up! Massive humongous wildfires, enough pollution from the fires to bork up any savings we might have gotten, and any number of toasted spotted owls and flying three eyed newts and thousands of people forced out of a living. Huh? This is supposed to be a compromise, to be logical? Let alone shafting a lot of people completely into bankruptcy, not huge rich corporations, I mean joe bubba small time logger and rancher and farmer, not fatcats, just regular ole people. Hundreds of square miles all burnt down, columns of smoke to the stratosphere practically, who knows how many zillions of tons of pollution, lives lost, not one single solitary therm of usable energy extracted from any of it, not a single board to build a home or stick of furniture, millions of wild animals burnt up? Huh? Water pollution now, huge top soil runoffs to the streams? I thought the idea was to have that stuff not happen, plus let humans live and be happy? Gee, maybe junk science with a weird political agenda ain't a good idea?
Triple phooie. Needs to be scrapped, start over with a basic premise, and this has got to be BEATEN into their pointy little heads, that A-humans have a right to exist, B-humans have a right to pursue employment that is necessary, like farming and logging and mining (uh, that's where all this stuff we want comes from, dumb stuff like food, shelter, something to sit on, manufactured goods, ya know, dumb stuff like that), and C-a better compromise must be the goal, to balance it better between the two retarded extremes of rape the planet or return to some pre industrial state. And no, some global bureaucratic boondoggle of "pollution credits" is NOT any sort of rational answer, it's no better than the international corporate chuck-it attitude, both extremes are just...wrong.
What to replace it, not sure, but if they want to jet me here and there and ride me around in a black limo and give me a lot of shapely "scientific research assistants" and a nice fat UN salary I'll be glad to "study it" for a few years and report back with my "findings".....
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probably people need two more criteria. What is the budget in terms of $$, top end, and do you need a real keyboard integrated?
Without knowing those things, I think that any notebook or subnotebook (really no industry cutoff point there I think, it's a matter of taste) used that has a known track record of running and installing linux easily will narrow it down, then look at that list for best battery life. Virtually all decent used notebooks nowadays accept pcmcia cards, so wireless is just a matter of putting the appropriate card in.
Also, you have to ask yourself, is one or two lbs difference really a deal breaker? You might be able to get a pretty decent machine if you are willing to lug around 2 more lbs in gross weight. It seems like every pound subtracted from a "normal" laptop costs another 500 bucks or something like that and makes it harder to see and use. Me, I'd just as soon hump the extra weight and have a bigger screen and bigger battery, etc, for cheaper cost. For your needs, the older and slightly heavier used laptop would be cheaper to buy, then you could spend the savings on more ram, the wireless card, etc. Anything 200 mghz or larger runs linux in graphics mode just fine with enough ram, so text mode should be a piece of cake.
--the next "killer app" is here, the deal is, it's not a singularity any longer, like when it was 'visicalc" or "lotus i-2-3". The "app" is that now computers are universal, and with sharing and P2P, this "the people", the "sociality" aspect is the app, because now we can combine all the other singularity apps into "one". It's the COMBINATION that is the killer app, the tool is the ACCUMULATION and adoption of the previously built tools. Stores and business? We have ebay, anyone can be a store now, and we can already manage, file, graph, plot, utter, whatever bits of human data we need to, any new advances will just be variations on those themes, nothing really "new". We hit it already, that "car" has been invented and is on the road, with the only thing chaning is paint and engine advances whatever. News? Large news organizations are beoming redundant, because anyone so inclined can be a reporter and "broadcaster' or "publisher", you can-and we do- get "news" instantly from around the planet, increasingly from just people reporting what they are seeing outside, bypassing the old news orgs. Entertainment? What used to take a troupe or a band can now be created by a single individual, then shared, copied, distributed. And because of storage, anything can be archived, modified, sold, given away, rented-whatever floats your boat. Education? All the homeschoolers I know use computers and the internet, they don't NEED massive government expenditures and brick and mortar buildings and daily two way commutes and yearly property tax increases, and frankly, seem to be doing an admirable job of it. And it has happened with higher education, and will most likely become more and more common.
The biggest problem (my list here is obviously just an opinion) will be the frantic machinations of older style monopolies to hang on to what they have, but still be "the big dogs", both government and busy-ness. What we own, what we can do with it. They are trying now with legislation, restrictions, etc. In fact I'd say they are going out of their way to create artifical problems, just because the "new" way of doing things is a direct threat to their buggy whip notions of what "stuff" should be as it relates to "society".
The second tier problems are the struggle between anonymity and building online trust, as anyone who has used any chat or forums for any length of time can tell you, you have NO idea who you are speaking with at any time. The old style of "only" face to face that had that instant verification got replaced with various communications advances, where at one time say you needed face to face where visual and auditory combined to help you discern reality, now you have to trust electronics which may or may not be "real". Using one to verify the other as indicated in the articles is a great way to do this, but we are still somewhat constreained, even with distance travelling being so much easier now than even 100 years ago.
Third tier is just "security" in general, whereas we used to rely on stout construction, door locks and the old 12 bore in the corner to make sure we were "safe", now you must devle into the arcane world of bits and bytes and packets which may be "spoofed" or "intercepted" or otherwise and are the newest in sociopathic maladjustment, ie, criminality.
It's saturated. I honestly don't think most of the old stereotypes about massive regional differences are all that relevant any more. There are *some* obviously, but not very many.
Well, OK, here's a hoot, I'll modify that to be more accurate. EVERY old stereotype about regional differences is still true, just that all the differences are equally represented now around the nation, or getting there fast. It doesn't matter where you live, you'll find "all the (stereo)types" there, and with immigration just exploding, the US is a microcosm of "the planet earth" now for variety.
I live in georgia, and although I don't live atlanta metro right now, I did for 15 years. Who told you that there aren't widely diverse cultures and languages spoken? I can take you to generic waffle houses just a few miles apart where in one all you will hear is mostly african dialects(like somali,ethiopian,etc), drive a few miles, various asian, another few miles pure normal bubba, another few miles spanish, then another few miles pure ebonics that can be as incomphrehensible as to classify as a foreign language. There's an area outside atlanta so completely asian it's called "chambodia" a mix of "chamblee" the suburb and cambodia. There's a huge mix, people from all over the planet live here, you will definetly hear different languages spoken when you go out to the store, etc.
Sounds more like typical regional bias "elitness" to me. Everyone's pet area is "the best" or "well, WE have such and such and THEY don't and....." and everyone else's area is "weird and has such and such a stereotype attributed to it". That's just bogus man, typical jingoism.
Here's a sterotype buster for you. I used to live in rural vermont for awhile. Some of the most inbred brain dead redneck hillbillies I ever met lived there,beat the pants off some of the good ole boys around here where I live now in north georgia with just sheer lameness, along with pleasant people, and people who could hold up their end of a conversation without effort. Now you wouldn't think that because of the "understood stereotype" of various regions, but really, regional bias based on false claims is just as bogus a junk science as any other loon concept.
--sending a long obviously ill meaning string of packets is not a normal challenge/accept for http or dns access. And there's an easy analogy. If I walk to someone's door and knock, and wait for an answer, that is a normal understandable challenge/response. the person inside can answer the door, agree or not agree to converse or allow me in. that's as far as anyone may legally go. If I walk up to the door with a sledge hammer and mash it on the lock and the door swings in, it is not. Sending something that causes a buffer overflow that allows access is clearly breaking, then entering. Sending the malformed packets is swinging the sledgehammer.
...they call it various things but falls roughly under "maintaining a public nusiance" or some such. You don't even have to be aware of it, or you can claim stupid, and it doesn't matter. Hmm, for instance, having a full swimming pool with no fence around it, some kid falls in, whoops! It's happened to people. I could see it easily applied to running a totally unsecured computer that is used as a spammer relay or zombie machine in an attack.
AND THEN, in turn, once clueless computer owner gets shafted, THEY can turn around and sue the OS distributor for selling an operating system that installs broken,and is wide open. Using the same law.
THAT would sort these things out a bit.
Just as a matter of discussion, I'd class millions of wide open computers out there as a major public nusiance. People who aren't consciously running a server by choice-shouldn't be running a server! It's a completely simple and logical concept.
I'm not saying the law is 100% correct or "fair" in that regard, but the case law and precedent is out there in spades. Not sure if it was ever applied to computers though, but it would be an interesting case if it occurred. Follow culpability and "who suffers". Why should innocent person A suffer because computer user B allowed his machine to be used by haxor C in an attack? And I don't mean a really exotic take over situation, I mean using computers that ship and install with extremely insecure OS and apps that are obviously "too loose" for someone who isn't a server? Anyway, an argument along those grounds.
Any manned mission to other planets or the moon will require the shielding and food, and also a crew cabin that is verifiably functional. Ya, so???? You would still have to boost the shielding no matter what, if the compartments could be shielded with robots and some eva, well maybe. Not all of it needs to be shileded, just the parts where humans hang out. /the bulk cargo is just that, bulk cargo. Here's your alternative then, start from scratch, build something that can launch something x-times heavier from the surface. Seems like you'd need a heckuva big rocket then. And also, why is it you can only use ONE shuttle for the new and improved rocket modding plan??? No air friction loss in space, use the modular concept, bolt them suckers all together, span them. 150 years ago it was called the "wagon train" concept, seemed to work then.
I just think it's a heckuva waste to ground functional craft.
As to food and cabin fever, I have a years worth of food here,(several really) staring at it out in the shed through an open door,one takes up not all that much space, roughly 8 feet by 4 feet by 2 feet. Granted, you need water to go with that, again, dittos for anything else you take with you, or any other design you can come up with. One shuttle hauls water then, or two if you need it, or 3, WHATEVER. How many in the fleet again? And they could bolt some more launched "things" to the contraption, it doesn't have to be streamlined, it just needs motive power. We're gonna need huge amounts of fuel, launch throw away fuel tanks then, and etc. Once up there,with the existing shuttles, you have a multiple of crew cabins, fuel tanks, cargo holds, etc, all the stuff you need rather than building a brand new deal from scratch. NASA struggling to keep 20 billion, the US public ain't gonna buy a 200 billion project, so recycle as much as possible.
Or let em rot in some museum on the ground, build from scratch. gonna cost some......
Or maybe we just don't want humans to go anyplace in space until some gravitational sci-fi drive is perfected.
I'm old enough, I clearly remember sputnik, I remember going out with binocs and seeing echo. Followed all the earlier missions when every channel (all three) caried total TV coverage for the entire missions. Just giving up on travel-not floating around in orbit, but traveling, point A to B seems like such a bummer to me.
Cabin fever? ha! I live in an rv less than 20 feet long, I got a good idea on that. It's funny but I think having a mixed sex crew might help along those lines! hahahaha! Nothing like a useful hobby!
I can't really see us using chemical rockets from the earth without doing it in steps, modular, the sheer size is just too much.
I think they should be used for something practical, that's all, seems just an incredible waste to ground them. It's like they are half way to being real "space ships", seems just so...wrong to not use them better. Even if all they are is storage containes at the space station, with carrying up one last useful cargo apiece, that would be better than grounding them. Dang it! I'm a tax payer! I paid my x-amount for them dang SPACE frikking ships I want them UP IN SPACE not sitting on the ground someplace. OK, one maybe, we already got that,the rest of them, NO,NO,NO, ABSOLUTELY NO! UP there, If they need to be boneyarded, then do it IN SPACE. There's some things that humans GOT to have, it is unexplainable in terms of money! Un-ex-plainable, it's like...explain geekhood, science in general, exploration--can't explain it any better. Don't let the government dangle "man in space" at us for half a centry then give up! If they abandon hoomans in space I'm gonna go wherever them PHB live and get medieval on their sorry butts! They think their budget is low now, just take away from the people "man in space", they'll have to chip in for a pack of bottle rockets. You see just how thrilled the US tax payer would be with a NASA budget for just "unmanned and that's it" space exploration. I s
don't stop at your comfort level when assigning total blame. I agree, it was a pretty dastardly deed. But I think it needs a wee bit more "investigations" then what have transpired so far. Go all the way, yep, some saudis/al queda/taliban and whatever involved, but chew on some of this stuff for awhile, and see perhaps if there might not be more than brown skinned humans wearing robes and turbans involved. I'd like to see a "regime change" of ALL the perps involved, even the more "embarrasing" ones. A good start would to have credible investigations, not warren commission part deux.
here, check it out
http://www.libertythink.com/911.htm
--the POINT was we already have the things. Yes, what you said is true, what I said is true as well. Scrapped on the ground they are about useless except to gawk it. My reply was to counter the original idea from the congressman-you know, the article?- To just ground them. And they DO undergo the most stress on take offs and landings, that's what beats on them and wears them out the most. I say, before they are so used up and worn out that we re-think their missions as shuttles up and down from earth and park them up there where they will be more useful. And if they aren't coming back down to earth, we can REMOVE THE FREEKING LANDING GEAR and other heavy stuff we won't be needing before the last launch up, maybe the wings, or maybe retro fit the wings to store and deploy a big solar array-whatever, those partsd aren't as important as the concept of using what we have that is still working. You'd want to retrofit them anyway for their new "pure in-space" missions, any of the "reentry" stuff becomes redundant and yes, useless mass and weight, SO, we would replace it with useful stuff.
I thought this was so obvious it didn't need mentioning, guess I was wrong on that. sheesh
Use a user name if you want to troll and flame, at best, I will only do one reply to an AC, and you just got yours.
--I don't want them grounded, but I would like to see them all used for one more trip up, then left up there. Turn them into the first step of having a shuttle fleet between LOE and the moon and mars. It's the take off and landing to earth that beats on them bad, but they are fine once in orbit. They could be additions to the space stations, perhaps the cargo bays retrofitted before last launch to additional fuel tanks and better crew cabin areas, purposes like that. No need to waste them, just use them more efficiently. On the ground they would just be stupid tourist traps, up in space, still dang useful. I see little reason a shuttle couldn't have smaller boosters installed and a larger fuel tank filled once in orbit, then used for manned missions to mars and whatnot. It's that HUGE fuel cost to escape earth and reach orbit that is expensive and dangerous, so WHY keep doing that over and over and over again? A fraction of that fuel used once leaving from orbit would take you to mars. Launch them up there ONCE, then it's UP there and we got us "space rockets" then. We're reinventing the wheel every time we launch and re land one. OK idea when first proposed, now time to move on. I see it just exactly like they have done with B-52's, they have thought of so many uses for them that go beyond their original missions and specs. Let's just do some more creative modding with what we got and paid for already instead of throwing them away or continual beating on them.
I've thought this for more than a decade now, seems a duh to me.
Dumb rockets can carry cargo and occasional passengers up better, and we can land passengers better too, our old "splashdown" into the water worked quite well..
Are people really replacing their computers at the rate they were two years ago? I know much better computers are being sold, but isn't there a consumer backlash that started when computers got "good enough" combined with an economy slow down?
I can see a niche market for software coded for older standards of performance. Call it "Classic Coded" "Optimized for the Family Computer". Some marketing buzz phrase like that. I know people who have serious folding green, buying a brand new turbo 3 ghz whizzbang is definetly in the budget-but they already got a pentium 800 or something that is totally functional for everything they do now. Maybe they'll add a bigger drive, but not seeing the same amount of "new" purchases I used to see, and the amount of whitebox shops are dropping and those remaining have slimmer margins. It's like they don't care, they don't see "upgrading" with the same "must do" fanaticism once some sort of "good enough" threshold got reached 2-3 years ago. Getting different gadgets-yes, seeing that, new cell phones and pdas and digicams and whatnot, but not seeing people bragging about their "new computer they just got" like you used to see.
Not counting hard core geeks, I mean joe regular old consumer. Not sure on businesses either, don't get exposed to it to see if it's happening.
Perhaps,the scientific jury is out on that, and I am not so convinced that it might not be from natural cataclysmic change as gradual and man made. Frankly, man made is easier to deal with, especially on smaller scales, again, see my various postinhgs above. larger scales-no, I sincerely doubt any international agreements that don't somehow down in the fine print still benefit the large konzerns will be written. I am, as always, skeptical. it may *look* good, sound good, have all the appropriate buzzwords, but in it's implementations I expect *the same* as with every other international "treaty". Like, we got rid of biowarfare, because of a "treaty", right?
Naw, I'm a skeptic. Show me the money with any other large scale treaty being actually useful and not corrupted, I've never seen many of them, nor heard of any. I think the same way I do of such pronouncements as "the patriot act", or "the war on drugs", or "the war on poverty" and now "war on tarrRrrR...". We got more jingoistic fanatics, more drugs, and more poverty,so not especially looking for a global "war on pollution" being successful, based on such past institutions. Any large nations, if push came to shove (which it will with this "energy" deal) is going to burn any stuff they got to get it once they start running out. Madmax is a documentary, it's not especially sci-fi. We pretty much got a pretty good handle on oil reserves, etc now, they about know what we got. the modeling is just so much better now. and with 3 billion more people right this second wanting some sort of technologically accessible middle class-the indians, chinese and various islamic nations-there is no way to stop this fuel burning juggernaut. Ain't happening, because human nature will cause mass revolts if just the elites of the world have energy and joe and abdullay and wong lee don't. It's happening right now as far as I am concerned, we have been in the "resource wars" of the 21st century, and we will remain in them from here on out..forever.
At a buck a gallon, no grumbling, people will take and support "fight pollution" laws. 2$ starts to get grumbling. 5$ (and the ancillary costs of everything else that makes up peoples lives related to technology) will have politicians hanging from lamposts. they will be quite eager to not sign such laws, and even all but the most diehard enviros will abandon their beliefs if it means they are paupers to 'enforce" the laws. People lose courage and conviction really quickly when they have to LIVE what they claim they would "live without". You tell any westerner from the industrialised nations that from now on they will have to live second or third world status, well, good lucksi, and that is what the game plan is, that's why I am skeptical. the numbers will not add, they look like arthur andersen cooked them up. they are DOABLE, I will not dispute that, but the WILL isn't there, not yet anyway, because if there was you would already see massive adoption of alternatives, and you see a lot more nascar, music concerts, take out pizzas, DVDs, vacations, flashy new cars, yada yada yada. Look around, what do you see? I see a big ole fat case of the "who cares?" Now I care, you care, some more do, but what is it, less than 1/100th of 1/100th of one percent of the population who are willing now to take the SLIGHTEST reduction in the 'comfort levels"? something like that? sure, they might donate some money to this or that org, even vote "for" this or that, but when it gets down to it, when they are forced to walk the walk? Nope, people will revert back most of the time. And force them hard enough, they will just revolt.
If basic human nature wasn't stupid and greedy, we wouldn't have seen the excesses of the dotcom market. But we sure did. Still seeing it now, the stock market was only one shoe of an entire shoe tree to drop. Humansd mostly don't care, never learn and don't WANT to learn. People already know they can be part of the solution by having smaller houses, driving less, etc, and you just aren't seeing it. people live at the highe
Living with the small footprint is in itself such a wonderful personal reward. I am happy with that, and I can show people that even with a small footprint, you can still take large strides.
political and economic aikido
bummer man, sorry to hear it. This whole email "problem" and crooks and badguys on the net is just so dismal. Lot of guys here been on the net way longer than me, but I've been on long enough to remember when spam was pretty rare, and not a lot of "hack" attempts, at least on a joe user desktop situation, never been in the "server" business so I really don't know how "bad" it's always been.
Maybe bring back old testament styled REVENGE justice?? hahahahahaha Get caught massive spamming or black hatting,too bad, your victims get to bash you with your own equipment then. Skip fines and jail time, a nice sound mega thrashing!
Anyway, I was suspicious of this exploit when I read how they did it. Sounds almost doable in some other situations, but I'm not an IT security expert so am not sure on it.
CFC's became totally e-vile when the patent ran out. It sure wasn't all altrusim. CO2 I am not gonna worry about, I plant a lot of trees and plants, and try to never be forced into harvesting live ones except as absolutely necessary. that's what I personally do about it. I keep my machinery tuned as good as possible, and try to use hand tools whenever possible. I try to only drive when I absiolutely have to, I use little fuel really. I shiver in the winter some and I'm sitting here sweating now, keep the heat low in the winter and I don't use AC. I'll switch to better sorts of engines when I can get one, so far, best I can do is to not create demand for so much "new" stuff. The electric stuff on the market is just way out of my price range and I don't have the infrastructure handy to build one from scratch yet, sometime I may though, just depends, I do a lot of projects. Just fixing busted stuff that other people throw away keeps me pretty busy.
There's layers of reality and perceptions, never stop at your "comfortable" level to look at large geopolitical and economic events, you'll blind side yourself and wonder how it happened then. I do that when looking at anything new, use the cleanroom concept, and the scientific model.
As to "how to do it?" in general? Show by personal example. What a concept, I "do" not just talk, or if you talk, do the "do" as well. You want revolutionary and effective change, then you act and do and talk and work actively towards revolutionary change, WITHOUT being a predator on fellow humans. You do it yourself, personally, humans hate to be told what to do, but can be persuaded if you can show them, "YES, look, here's another way to do this, check this out...." THERE is the major difference.
In the big picture, it makes little sense to replace one set of tyrannical goons with another, that never works in the long run. Replacing some industry scam with a government boondoggle scam just slap hardly ever works. It's just more cons and scams. Not every single time, but so much that I take it as a default, both government and whopper industry and whopper "not for profit" scam orgs have to prove they aren't crooks before I believe them any more. That's just been beaten into me over the years, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me a thousand times, shame on me"..
You want to mandate and add so many laws and regulations to people and nations that half the planet needs to become a government worker,and everyone else needs a personal lawyer to follow them around, well, you won't get that far. I convince people to get hip and change for the better by SHOWING them there are alternatives, I don't just flap my jaws and DEMAND more laws. I boycott big corporations whenever I see evidence they are crooks and slimeballs, I don't vote for slimeball pols, I won't support slimeball forked tongue orgs that claim such and such then you see they are liars at the top. Been there, seen that, no thanks. I put my wallet where my mouth is, I don't have a 2gigz chip computerwith a 128 meg video card and a 120 gig hdd, I am "struggling" with a recycled 200 mhz and an old modem costed me 50 cents, but I own solar panels. I don't have a 50 inch HDTV with a whole house entertainment service, but I hand work some pretty snazzy gardens and produce a lot of my own food, when maybe I could be sitting watching the boob toob instead, complaining the government needs to "do something, pass this law to save the..." whatevers.. That's what I do, stuff like that, and if every person could influence just a few more to just DO instead of bitching about stuff,by personal example, by showing and by using normal logic and appealing to what goodness still exists in people instead of just using some other flavor of force, then we wouldn't NEED massive governments, 50 buhzillion laws, and we could knock the monopolists down to size. We'd have better stuff, cleaner stuff, less completely destitute people, a much larger global middle class, less wars and good stuff like that there.
It's all con
..initial impression of the article as a "joe consumer" is, that with this new machine/OS hybrid, "stuff" I would normally be doing is going to be a lot more expensive. Third party apps will have to be microsoft approved to even run on your machine, or the machine won't run correctly or at all if you insist on trying, probably phone home and report on you as well. Massive and expensive catch 22 there. I am assuming that validation will cost app developers serious folding scratch, so there won't be as many freebies or shareware being developed. Media and content providers will be forced to choose, basically from cost, "do we code for this new stuff, or abandon the market, or code for both styles of internet and try to pass the costs on, or what?". There will be MANY conversations along those lines.
I could EASILY see that joe average, in addition to his internet account costs, could rack up 100 clams a month or more in various fees just to "do stuff" with his computer, almost a pay as you use a byte concept, and not be able to do what they are accustomed to doing now. the spooky part is, how much will this be tied into new laws? It could get way out of hand, and quickly.
And I'm sure this won't be classified as a monopoly by most pro MS marketing people or enthusiasts, and government will have a committee study it, forever.
Uhh, we need internet version 2, and yesterday, or the net is just going to be another cable TV monopoly deal. I sorta thought that would happen anyway, to be honest, I figured eventually you would just get one whopper bill a month, and "the net" would be more along "somebody's net you pay access to", sort of like telephony is now, package deals, the rest off limites unless you pay "more". An "AOL with a license to print laws and money" type of deal.
Hey! Still kinda nice to be enjoying the wild, wild west days of the internet, yes?
Fox news is just as much propaganda as any other junk science source. I'dclass the bulk of the profit media as being mostly "junk science"qand sensationbalism, and I don't worship at the gaia shrine of the united nations, either, just for your clarification. My reasons would take days to type, so I ain't gonna. And for that matter I don't hardly watch television. I flick it on to see weather radar maps, that's about it, very occassionaly watch a tape on the vcr.
Kyoto is an attempt to deal with a set of extemely complex and overlapping problems that are faulty on several levels, so many it's a waste of time to even get into it right now. It's like the OS debates., I agree that much work needs to be done, I just disagree on using the kyoto protocols as *the* tool to accomplish those tasks.
I've been working environmental issues since 62,general politics since 63 for the 64 elections, in fact, one year (at 12 years old) I won a week in a wilderness summer camp by winning a state wide conservation essay contest. I've been in the alternate energy business before, worked on/with active solar heated greenhouses, windchargers, solar air heaters, solar water heaters, methane digesters, superinsulated homes,owned a bicycle shop for a long time,including early custom and prototype work on what turned into the "mountain bike" concept,that in the mid 70's, and currently get all my electric from solar PV panels. I've lobbied for organic farming a lot, shown by example, run a profitable organic farming operation before, still do extensive organic gardening. And yada yada yada I don't feel like even mentioning. My conservation "cred" is just fine, thank you very much Mr. Hyper Assumption. IMO, Kyoto is a piece of global tyrannical triple speak lawyerese garbage. Badly written, overly stupid, bureaucratically obtuse and top heavy, little to no basis in any practicality, rife with fraud and abuse potential. In short, it sucks. That's my opinion on it. That this "something should be done" is obvious, it's also obvious that big governments are incapable of running themselves without becoming corrupt and inefficient, along with their partners in crime, and I DO mean crime, international mega monopolistic corporations. I want nothing to do with their sort of "solutions". In slashdot terms, "they fail it!" in most instances.
Does this exploit or similar affect yahoo mail and other similar web based free email services? Anyone check yet? Looks like there isn't a coding fix for hotmail yet, only that they turned it off, just wondering if this is going to bork all the other free web based email systems out there.
--you seem to be asking how to become a salesman when you are a technician by trade. It's not your expertise to do "sales".. You know what tools and products you need to accomplish your IT tasks. You then assemble the list that fits the criteria that you know will *work*, with the included contacts to the shops that actually sell the 24/7 support. You can make the initial contact, seek bids and some additional information, narrow your list to the best possible contacts, then introduce these people to the people in your shop who will be making the decisions. Your boss gets to be "the boss",make the decisions, he's happy, the service contract guys are happy-everyone wants the work, you are happy, you get the products you want and that back up service from when the problem or you are out of the loop for one reason or another. Everyone is a winner! It's up to THOSE shops sales staff to "sell" YOUR bosses on their service, initially based on your analysis and recommendations. They are way more suited to the task, that's their job, and if you are a good IT tech, you will know what you want, what is the best for your corp, and will be able to sort through the market speak in the first contacts. In a specialised industry, use the appropriate specialists.
well, how can I put this delicately. Hmm. I can not. Your analysis that I am "marxist" based on some word combinations and guessing is just totally incorrect. I am an independent US constitutionalist as perhaps the closest to a "label" that you might be comfortable with. That's pretty far away from total centralised governmental marxist control. I also am against treating international corporations as "persons" mostly to avoid responsibility and to hide behind lawyers and daisy chained shell companies, and to further compound the problem by allowing thei directors to remain US voting citizens and to allow their bribery efforts to hijack the government and the economy. that is still not "marxism". Seeing as how that was your main premise,on which the rest of your reply rested, that that opinion on business makes me "marxist", I really can't reply to you beyond that point of clarification. Sorry. Just because a person doesn't approve of global thievery and advanced buncoism and scamistry doesn't mean they are anti business or makes them a marxist. I totally reject those sorts of antiquated left/right artificial forced paradigms,they are at best extremely simplistic theories, and those sorts of concepts and divisions are many decades in my past political and intellectual evolution. It was fun way back then to debate on those topics, but frankly, I am most weary of them. IMO, neither the concept of "marxism" or total global monopolistic "capitalism" has very much to offer humanity beyond concentrating wealth and power in the hands of the few from predatory actions, based mostly on greed, avarice and lust.
Sure, I agree modern geopolitics and economics are more complex than what I addressed in the parent, but this is an ad-hoc blog after all, sort of limits it. I also admit to normal human frailities of the written word, often times I fail to adequately express myself. Oh well. Thanks for replying with a real user name though, I do appreciate it.
read that one before, some interesting premises. I like the easter island story. I think part of why they did it was because they were stuck on a relatively small island. Pretty easy for some nut job "leader" to take over with his bully boys and insist on his particular views on life, which following the patterns of most "leaders" are centered around megalomania, meaning all the other decisions had no default basis in rationality. and all of them always seem to fixate on "I have the vision! And everyone else is the infidel!" Usually some variation on that anyway. Another disaster then, happened too many times in human history to not take note of it.
A good rule of thumb (IMO of course) is to treat any "leaders" who actively seek out leadership and power as being nutjobs in waiting. In effect, guilty until proven otherwise. Sad but true in most cases. They need to be watched constantly. Any nation, religion, corporation, organization-you name it, no exceptions. Apply the "grain of salt" to their statements and "visions".
Back to the trees. Billions of them over the last 3-4 years out west were burnt to the point of "not being alive" but still harvestable. There's a two year (+ or -) window where good lumber may be taken, after that they get so bug infested and rotten that their value and usefullness drops. And there's some rationale for using them in more efficient and cleaner burning multi fuel electric generating plants as well. I just dislike waste, sems a better idea to salvage and recycle what you can. Composting theory on steroids. Taking the already dead trees and leaving enough of the branches, etc, to add carbon back to the soil for adequate humus generation seems the most rational. I'm aware that western forests needed periodic fires for development of certain species. So the rational view would be-granted my opinion-neither "no fires ever, constant heroic efforts" or "let it burn constantly forever". Something in the middle seems the best idea for healthy forest + human use for necessary products. I see no reason to destroy living trees at this time when so many already burnt trees may be harvested, canada, US, amazon, wherever. Another good point is that by allowing the harvesting of that particular burnt timber, many more smaller independent loggers and mills remain productive, as it stands now, like with food and farming, the industry is falling into just the complete dominance of a handful of large international concerns (read the source of bribery to pols), never a good idea on that monopoly angle. I like a return to more decentralization,more providers, more competition, less dominance in various industries. I don't want to see THE global food company and THE global computer company and THE global forest products company and THE global energy company. That's just nuts. Using the "commons" FOR the commons seems a better idea, BUT, we won't have that with international controls and mandates. Those sorts of schemes in the past have lead to corruption and entrenched bureaucracy and massive bribery, etc. All you have to do is look at any political system, the farther away you get from the individual person the less 'human" the system becomes, the larger the governmental body the larger the schisms that develop. There needs 'balance" more, instead of utter top to down dictates and edicts. The altrusitic goals never seem to reflect reality down on the ground. Allowing some freedom, property rights, civil and human rights, less intrusive government and less stifling bureaucracy always seems to work out the best. Granted it isn't perfect, but it's the best arrangements humans have come up with. It's a case by case and industry by industry deal, of course, and should be debated. Debate is good! Not having any majority trample on any minority is good! As in the easter island example, "might" a lot of times does not equate "right", or "correct". And it doesn't matter which over whelming force is applied in the name of "right and might", because if it gets TOO powerful, the default human psychology tak
I AGREE with you on several levels, I just think it's swung way too far in the opposite direction, to follow a pendulum analogy, and that also there are some veryhigh level fake outs going on. The fires in a lot of cases were not put out in an efficient or timely manner, politics definetly came into play, and it is suspicious to me following the rural ethnic cleansing agendas. Example, firebreaks needed cutting, and pronto, private concerns had some very large cats ready and willing to rock. ORDERED to not cut by "government". Eventually they were used, after considerable delay, after the fire had wiped out a million more acres. that was an agenda, not science. Another example, four (?I think) firefighters trapped, needed immediate airdrop of water, DENIED, an "endangered minnows" in the local creek. Those kids are DEAD, burned alive, water dropping helos ordered to stand down. that was another political agenda, sorry, humans are 'worth" more than minnows in an emergency. Junk scinece and hideos politics. Example, russia offered many large antonov water bombers, canada uses them all the time, DENIED, all they wanted was fuel and expenses, basically a free deal. Politics? The fire needed to keep buirning? which was it, put it out or let it burn?
There's a lot more, people losing stock to artifical wolf introduction and mountain lion introduction,basically put out of business, burden of proof very hard when you can't actually shoot the wolf to prove it. Government workers caught "salting" with lynx hairs to "prove" an area should be made "off limits"for some political agenda. Lots of examples. This could get way past a small post obviously, just wanted to show it's not all cut and dried black and white with all these issues.
I agree on banning such things as the mercury in the mining and etc, all that makes sense and isn't junk science or junk politics mixed in with science. it's logical, makes sense, makes 'common" sense, and is proper. Other facets of it in general-no, very questionable. That's the parts I am against. Like right now, they aren't allowing even the burnt over timber to be harvested. Why is that, more expensive wood is good for the economy?? It's junk science mixed with junk politics that I disagree with.
Both extremes are that-extremes. If you read any of my stuff you'll know I am no fan of international artificial person corporations or over intrusive government. I am sincerely concerned over that partnership getting even more command and control than what they already have. You see, I see those two entities as "the same thing", I don't see them as being seperate. And I for SURE don't want to see that partnership instituted on a total global scale. It's hard enough keeping them under control at lower levels. The answer to the problems caused by huge international industries and their partners government is NOT to make that alliance (and it is an alliance everywhere) bigger and more powerful, IMO.
.. now that is really superior point. I think you might have hit on an inkling of a class action case there. WHAT IF, all the thousands of companies who WEREN'T running microsoft anywhere could show an historical record of constant microsoft vulnerabilites that actually caused THEM verifiable business loses? Over and over and over yet again? You can show the court you are trying your best to run a business, but constantly you suffer losses. show the judge and jury the hard figures. How many hosters and non microsoft users could you get to sign on for a class action, and pick a judicial venue with a chance to at least get heard?
It's (the debate on eula and liability) always been about people who installed microsoft and clicked the EULA. To stick with the beat into the ground car analogy, how long would the driving public at large put up with broken down belchfires littered all over the roads, just causing a mess, knowing they will always cause a mess, with belchfire rakeing in the profits to beyond ridiculous levels, before belchfire, inc. wound up in court?
Any reasonable judge and jury would conclude thaty belchfire wqas a public menace and ban their cars from the roads after the third time the nations interstates got shutdown almost completely. I mean, they probably would do that. Well???? Between viruses and worms and whatnot, that's a LOT of money lost over the years while microsoft stands back and goes "neener neener neener, we have a get out of jail free card, neener neener, suckers" whilst standing on top of cash mountain..
--didn't think of that one. If software isn't a product, then what is it?
I am not sure on the entire liability issue right this second, but comes a time that any "industry" needs to come to grips with reality, and I think that time will be soon probably. Computers and the software to run them have had decades now to get established and to come out of thier "honeymoon" stage, with the EULA "get out of jail free" cards. the hardware is warrantied. The software sure needs something.
There needs to be some sort of consumer protection and warranty. Eventually there will have to be, it's about inevitable. Everything else man made has one. If that means much less "new" is released and a lot more "improved", I'm all for it. If it means less variety but better quality, I am all for it. If it means that "paid for-sale" software with a warranty gets so expensive that "free" dominates with a shareware and volunteer concept, I'm all for it. and I see that as an EXACT dividing line, it's for sale, it needs a warranty, if it's a "freebie, here try this, see if you like it" type deal, it doesn't need a warranty. I think that is fair and rational.
OR, wait until a few more worms or whatever hit all one day, the mother of all net shutdowns, and have the government force something down your throat that is beyond a warranty into planned, controlled, licensed.
As an aside, can you imagine the first major software vendor TO offer a warranty? How much of a marketing edge would that be, given they had really done their auditing and were actually confident their offering was decent enough to offer the warranty? I think they would get uberrich, well deserved cash for superior outstanding coding efforts. I know some custom stuff does, but anything major mass market? Does it even exist yet? I honestly don't know, but myself as joe consumer, I might just be tempted to purchase an OS offering like that, and pay much serious cash for it.
--ya know, I think people would take projects/agreements like the kyoto treaty a little more seriously once we see UN fatcats and various national and corporate "leaders" jets gathering cobwebs someplace and black limosines being scrapped and turned into mopeds, and see these fatcat goons driving them, and we see more "scientists" and enviro org "leaders" living in tents full time and not travelling all over the world for *very important conferences*. It's this stance of "ooooh, you are a bad human! You are using energy and causing pollution, whereas WE of the global political and intellectual elite, who are your betters, well, our lifestyle is very pure and clean and produces zero pollution" and etc.
The hypocrisy and idiocy is just so annoying.
These are the same bozos more or less who kept freaking out over global cooling and the new ice age coming. I just SO remember that,I used to BE in some enviro groups then,and was more of an activist on those matters, then I started smelling a rat with the junk science and political agendas once I started getting exposed to the group think as you went up the leadership foodchain. Well, I done seen de light on what's going down with them..political control agendas are tops, it has little to do with "pollution" except to extract cash and to create more "laws" and for sound bytes in the media. It's at least 1/2 con job racket. Well, that's my O anyway on it.
Now I am all for doing what we can to eliminate pollution. I think we can do a lot with waste and whatnot that we aren't, and I'm a proponent - and user - of "alternative energy", I grow a ton of my own organic food, only drive the shortest I can get away with once a week, yada yada, but these guys pushing this stuff are just out to lunch nuts. Example, western US, disallow any logging most places last several years, make "off limits" huge vast areas, save the owl and the dead trees, etc. Nuts, everyone with a normal rural clue kept telling them it was gonna catch fire and burn up. Result,it caught fire and all burnt up! Massive humongous wildfires, enough pollution from the fires to bork up any savings we might have gotten, and any number of toasted spotted owls and flying three eyed newts and thousands of people forced out of a living. Huh? This is supposed to be a compromise, to be logical? Let alone shafting a lot of people completely into bankruptcy, not huge rich corporations, I mean joe bubba small time logger and rancher and farmer, not fatcats, just regular ole people. Hundreds of square miles all burnt down, columns of smoke to the stratosphere practically, who knows how many zillions of tons of pollution, lives lost, not one single solitary therm of usable energy extracted from any of it, not a single board to build a home or stick of furniture, millions of wild animals burnt up? Huh? Water pollution now, huge top soil runoffs to the streams? I thought the idea was to have that stuff not happen, plus let humans live and be happy? Gee, maybe junk science with a weird political agenda ain't a good idea?
Triple phooie. Needs to be scrapped, start over with a basic premise, and this has got to be BEATEN into their pointy little heads, that A-humans have a right to exist, B-humans have a right to pursue employment that is necessary, like farming and logging and mining (uh, that's where all this stuff we want comes from, dumb stuff like food, shelter, something to sit on, manufactured goods, ya know, dumb stuff like that), and C-a better compromise must be the goal, to balance it better between the two retarded extremes of rape the planet or return to some pre industrial state. And no, some global bureaucratic boondoggle of "pollution credits" is NOT any sort of rational answer, it's no better than the international corporate chuck-it attitude, both extremes are just...wrong.
What to replace it, not sure, but if they want to jet me here and there and ride me around in a black limo and give me a lot of shapely "scientific research assistants" and a nice fat UN salary I'll be glad to "study it" for a few years and report back with my "findings".....