His opinion of the software problem, in passing he goes like paraphrased (I already closed the tab, no cut n paste) "linux doods won't pay for software". ISVs as a corporate structure are reluctant to develop speciality software, because they would be almst forced to give it away. I don't know if that is entirely accurate, but that was the gist of it. And they dislike having to recode their stuff every few months because there is no "linux" target to shoot at like there is osx or xp.
Those are somewhat valid points. And if you are trying to persuade some well established company to just stop with the closed source and go freebie open source...well...not happening real soon. Some will, most won't.
In my experience using newer OSes on older hardware, RAM is way more important than CPU speed. I would suggest a minimum of half a gig if you want the latest gnome and kde desktops to function well without driving you nuts. Up to last year when a very strong surge borked my machine, I was still using a real old IBM with a PP200 as my main desktop. At half a gig, it ran the latest fedora at the time (FC2) quite well. At a quarter a gig RAM it sucked.
Of course, you might have a hard time trying it on a 3 gig hard drive(every release gets bigger), be very picky what you install from the disks. Do a semi bare minimum then download the rest application by application using yum (I use yumex the gui for yum). And be sure to add in the Livna repo if you want to get any propietary multimedia running, and he is good for later on tweaking the ATI and nvidia video drivers so they install and work without headaches..
Kudos for keeping old hardware running! I honestly don't know how well it installs on laptops (or runs sleep, etc), but on the desktops I like fedora. As an alternative small nice linux distro, you can always run one of the minis like puppy, damn small, or austrumi,etc if you have an optical drive in the machine. They give you "one of each" of the normal things you might need, no bloat.
They have been doing that, the open source devs making things better, but the game is rigged against them. It's reached a sticking point now, obvious to see, patents, big companies buying legislation, etc. Hmm, example, look at FF adoption, more or less stuck at 10%, and that is much less of a change than an entire operating system. Why the recalictrance? it's because there's little option to get it preinstalled. We are geeks here, we have no problems installing this or that or the other, whereas the bulk of the computing public is either forced at work or school to use brand expensive, or they are just so buffaloed by complexity that they give upo, stick with the lowest common denominator. In a lot of cases, they aren't even aware of any alternatives, because they don't even *see* it out there.
You can't change that with wishful thinking, not too fast anyway. And it's because the game is rigged! If you can't break that deadlock, you'll continue to bump heads constantly. You can't win in a rigged game. Look at that poor massachusetts state government CIO forced out of his job because he dared promote open standards. That's an example of behind the scenes power, from the game being rigged. Look at all the people who were handicapped in the past who were forced out of access to buildings. That was an example of behind the scenes monetary power, it was 'too expensive" for them to change voluntarily, they never did it until forced to by law. That's just hard data. Same with overt heinous raw pollution, there was never any voluntary change of note( I worked there way back then, it was a rough row to hoe), despite people begging and asking nicey nice, it took actual laws to end the rigged game.
Comes a time enough concerned people can force government to level the playing field a bit. Now is such a time with some accessible computing and some choices in the market. If the distro makers want to include even more accessibility functions-great! I see it in the repo lists already. But that isn't going to translate to more open standards and choices at the hardware store and vendors becoming more open until the monopoly/cartel is broken,smashed, and unfortunately, it looks seriously like it will take legislative action or judicial judgements to make this happen, just like it took to get wheelchair ramps in.
I don't think the lead will come from the US at this point, it is just too obvious that the 800lb gorilla is still calling the shots, but overseas it might kick in, and there it is taking both voluntary action *and* legislative/commissioner edict action, ie, the EU Commission forcing some issues with the gorilla to get it to comply.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I maintain "market forces" will just let the status quo continue, with very little if any slow change, because cartels like being cartels.
I remember when all the choice you had was ma bell and rented equipment and OMG long distance rates or tin cans and a string. It took legislative action to get things fixed, we had stagnant development for decades. If you are willing to wait that long for more accessible and free-er computing and more choices in the market-swell, let it happen that way. I would prefer a few simple laws to demand universal accessibility and choice and at least a few "open standards".
I would also like a software "lemon law" but that's another subject for another time, but warranties are desperately needed now that the industry is mature enough and makes enough money to deal with the changes required to switch from "release often, who cares how good it is, we have no liability, sock it to the suckers" to something more similar to what other industries have to deal with,i.e; normal consumer warranties.
The feds routinely arrest quite sick people who are growing medical marijuana at their homes, in states that passed laws to "legalize" it. Yet, they still send brave and honorable jack booted thugs to arrest those people.
There's an exact medical case, where patients are denied access to medicine, all the way to threat of violence against their person if they "resist arrest", and they routinely get incarceration after guaranteed prosecution.. In this case, collusion with big pharma and artificial drugs (reefer is just too cheap, no profits if it was legit, so it stays illegal) and government surveil/command/control aspects against normal small time docs and patients.
Big money and politics of state control win. And the "courts" think that is just swell.
Good luck on class actions against the government/entrenched pharmcos, medical needs or not. The closest we have are called "elections", and those are more or less totally rigged now. Once in awhile they might re-ban a drug,slap a little fine on some company, but all in all "legitimate" medical care offs more people in the US every year than what they like to call "gun violence", yet it still goes on. If they want to deny you cheap drugs they will. If they want to deny treatments available elsewhere on the planet, they will. Just depends who is shelling out the cash this week.
...consists of not only smalltime freebie devs, but big companies as well, with full time devs. There would be a LOT more incentive to make linux even better and more assessible for *all people*, not just the perfectly able or the not so able, IF the major hardware vendors would offer some Linux or BSD or whatever instead of just XP on the desktop. Then perhaps a point there. but they aren't doing it. A few smaller comapnies are, but none of the majors, where it counts.
Human nature is just that, we have governments because without them it gets pretty hairy. Governments are bad enough, but without them...well...just look to some places like the horn of africa or elsewhere that have little to no functioning government. It doesn't work out very well. Human nature is not all that great or altrusitic. It is somewhat, but it's not universal yet. If we didn't have regs, big companies would still be dumping unlimited toxic waste in streams for instance, "market forces" didn't mandate that, severe government regulations did after people noticed they slap refused to do it on their own. "market forces" were telling them to not give a care and just dump, they "made more money" that way.
As to whether or not people will do this or that voluntarily, the various industries and this exact problem prove that left to their own devices, you would never see any accessibility features in buildings, etc, so I imagine it's close enough in software as well. It's a teeny niche market, not much interest until it becomes more of a niche-and we don't want to see that if possible-or it is just mandated.
The "market" is not even close to perfect, when the market offers no choice or a choice of sucky or suckier.
Linux on the desktop, for sighted or blind, is going to continue to be an also ran until such a time as either large governments mandate choice and universal access, or humans become universally non greedy, and the latter I sincerely doubt is going to be happening anytime soon..
The point was, for the blind guy, he needed someone to help him just get it installed. Why is that again? If it CAME PRE INSTALLED ON HIS COMPUTER then he wouldn't have had that problem, once there he had enough to go on.
That is primarily the computer makers deal there, because MOST people get their OS preinstalled. and it is governments fault because they are not stopping the illegal computer near monopolies and collusion that is going on.
I can't fault the relatively poor distro vendors (compared to MS/Dell, etc) for not including this or that feature, they have come an amazing long way DESPITE the failure of government to actually regulate monopolies and closed cartels better.
If we only relied on "the market" we would wind up with one huge company owning the world, that's the nature of concentrated capital, it flows uphill until it is in fewer and fewer hands.
Personally, I think raw pure capitalism is just as sucky as total complete governmental control or total socialism. I think some place in the middle hits a proper balance. It would be *nice* if people were universally all just wonderful folks, but sadly, this isn't the case.
People with special needs have a lot to thank government for in mandating access. I remember before all those laws were in place, I have friends who got stuck at the bottom of stairs for instance with no ramps into buildings, *government buildings*, let alone private ones, places they had to get to. . The "market" did jack and squat, zilch, nada, to help them, it took passing laws to alleviate that dismal situation.
Computing is going to be the same, and now that it is so important in most peoples lives, we are starting to see more regs passed, because companies mostly won't do it if it only affects less than 1% of their customers. Heck, I still see "sorry get lost, windows/IE only" websites, hit one just the other day looking for small engine parts.
"For now, Marini says that the only solution is to find somebody without impaired vision who is willing to help install Linux"
Seems like a hardware vendor problem to me as much as anything else. Maybe perhaps if they offered some *choice* in OSes at ye olde computer store? If the EU commission was *really* serious about MS and monopoly abuse, they would turn to the vendors and tell them to shape up "or else" (caveat:waste of time to consider the US DOJ in this regard). Once MS knew that their pre-installed lock in monopoly was at risk, they would improve their products, and that would also make FOSS products better, etc. It works across the board once you get serious about fixing monopoly abuse.
...are examples of "mob rule". The only variances are which mob is doing what ruling. Even single named individual autocratic leadership organizations, from a nation to a..kernel,say, are still examples of "mob rule" as ultimate dictates still need to be carried out by a *willing* mob. So called "democratic" organizations-mob rule. A private corporation? Mob rule. Representative republic? Mob rule.
About the only thing that isn't, is a project that is totally conceived, implemented and deployed by a single human. Everything else is an example of a mob, although no one wants to admit they are in a mob, it has a negative connotation and only ever applies to "the other guys" and their "mob".
Not a big point, but helpful in cutting through propoganda and media spin and manipulation.
...exactly parallels the huge increase in consumers having their own burners, then buying blanks by the small quantity. Then they hit the pre recorded rack and look at the titles and prices. Hmmmm. It ain't rocket surgery then.
nConsumers found out how much they were being ripped off/gouged by a quarters worth of plastic and 10 cents worth of paper and revolted. Napster came about because people got *tired* of shelling out big bucks for music CDs.
And to this day, the millionaires who have no coneption of what a dollar is worth to joe working stiff and who make the decisions on pricing for discs at the RIAA vendors are STILL clueless to this. To them, 10 to 20 bucks is like a nickle or a dime to regular people, they think it's cheap! They simply *don't* get it. They are incapable of relating because they are millionaires. They can intellectualize it all day long, they just won't understand it was the pricing that lead to "piracy" way more than just the ability to do so. In fact, the "ability to do so" has been driven precisely by outrageous pricing on music and movies.
Those over priced bit sellers are their own worst enemies.
And I don't want to hear it can't be done, you can walk into any walmart and see older movies on DVD for two dollars.
And that's all bits on a disk are worth. Bit sellers need to get a clue back to the "volume sales" concept. At two bucks, they would sell a lot more disks, and make more money, even if the net per disk was lower.
I burn mmy junk mail in my woodstove. I call it the designer delivered kindling. At least I get some BTUs out of it. And, I also burn banana peels, but pot roast trimmings go to the canines. Recycle! heh
Digital age meet gutenberg age. How about something like a TiVo, but for dead tree media? A programmable dedicated printer/box/appliance that automatically printed out YOUR idea of what should be in your "newspaper" or magazine? Every morning, get up, there's today's "news" all printed out, updated, and waiting for you? And your monthly magazines, and updated tech manuals, or latest novel or short story from your favorite writer, and so on? Leave it up to the subscriber what they really wanted on paper, not a one size fits no one exactly deal like they have now. Say you want just the latest politics, favorite market analysts, a few selected sports, and you didn't want latest household tips, brides, real estate classifieds and horoscope. And so on, serious customizable choice.
The bad part about dead tree papers and print magazines is you get so much you DON'T want, serious waste of paper and energy. I know you get this with RSS feeds, etc, I mean taking that idea a little bit further into the simple and functional electronic appliance realm.
There's a lot more out there on this "capacity" deal. And the figures for 'superfields are well known, there just aren't finding them anymore..
The bottom line is they can cut production, or production can get cut due to outside unplanned for forces, but as to adding to production, very few places can do that now,the article claims only saudi arabia has any spare capacity at all. If we are taking the whole supply chain into account, it's even more iffy, given recent geopolitical events and natural disaster events..
I'm basing that on the commodities markets, published reserve numbers,then the 8revised* numbers, several of the sisters have had to go back and drop what they were claiming previously, industry analysts opinions, and other such assorted data I've socked away in the biodrive over many years now. It's my best futurist extrapolation.
I think we screwed the pooch and waited too long to get things sorted out and fixed, by roughly 3 decades.
Like I said previously, I don't *want* to have that opinion, but every time I look at it, that's what comes up. The numbers won't jive. I don't think drunk arthur andersen accountants could make the numbers jive.
There ain't enough "stuff".
I'm not saying we can't produce some amazing tech, we obviously do, just we are running out of the stuff we need to produce amazing tech, *enough for everyone*, and now the secret is out, and all the 6 billion want a big chunk.
We are still far away from universal replicators on the atom or molecule scale, which is what it would take to pull this off. And we don't have backyard Mr.Fusion yet, either. We need both those things to do this task.
And, more or less, it DID start heavily going downhill a hundred years ago when serious mass production and assembly lines began. Amazing new business practices, lead to huge tech advances and short term wealth production and enjoyment all over, and equally amazing resource depletion. All of that is true facts. The 20th century was built on amazing cheap resources, amazing cheap energy costs, and zero environmental awareness almost. All of that has now come to bite us, soon hard, the first nibbles we are feeling now from that beast.
Hubert's peak is *real*, it happened exactly around when he said it would with the US, and chances are very good it will happen internationally as well. It's just..numbers. It isn't rocket surgery.
I am a BIG alternative technology/energy proponent, I am one of only maybe at best a few dozen slashdotters who actually own solar PV and use it. I encourage others to use the alternatives, but I tell you, it is worse than getting linux on the desktop when it comes to adoption rates. It's much easier for "the market" to sell big screen plasma TVs to most people, because they just will not, can not, or aren't able to see coming serious resource depletion, because most of them aren't looking and won't want to deal with it..it's frightening to contemplate, so they "don't believe it". NO ONE asks "what is the energy payback scheme" for their big screen plasma Tvs, or new gaming rigs, etc. but, they use resources to build, finite ones for the most part, and resources to run, finite sources for the most part. That's what most people care about, the "right now this second" deal. Ten twenty thirty years down the road is equal to infinity, it's *guaranteed* procrastination.
I just use data, clunky old plain jane science, boring numbers, simple graphs, etc. I mean, EEK! The other is more a cult belief system, near as I can see.
I look around and see the resources going into anything *but* for 99% of the population. Most everyone is cruising on "business as usual" when the resource peaks or near peaks are right at hand, and YEP, I think it's damn **&^%%$ scary because all the warning sirens are going off, the data is there to see, some big names even try to say it out loud, but they get drowned out by "business as usual"--for now anyway..
I remember putting gas in my first car at twelve cents and tax a gallon. I also remember ten dollars a gallon during the OPEC embargo. I remember just last year watching prices jump a buck in one week after katrina.
Shift happens
I am now reminded of these things called "big wars" and places like the middle east where an area as large as Indiana holds 1/2 the remaining light sweet crude that is not that bad energy wise to get extracted.
And you touched on why this is so. As technology increases, demand for raw materials and the energy needed to work those into products then to power them then increases.
It just plain isn't there right now. All the increased demand will do is drive up the prices and make it so the already well off can continue that way. You can go right down the list of raw materials and it is getting harder and harder to extract them. I'll cite two of them , both critical for modern tech advances. Look at the battle right now over silicon chips or silicon to make solar panels. Solar panels were a better deal two years ago then they are now, and efficiency increases are not keeping pace. Too much demand, not near enough supply is the problem. And energy is in even worse shape. We aren't hitting oil gushers anymore, they have to inject water or CO2 to get them to flow. Mexico is just reached peak, north sea has hit peak, US is well past peak. And demand is set to just explode during the next decade, like 3 or 4 times current demand, yet we just are not finidng the "superfields" that we need, that we relied on during the 70s,80s and 90s. they just aren't being found.. Look at world wide demand for oil right now, are prices dropping because "increased demand and market forces" just makes more oil happen? Nope, prices are a lot higher than they were a decade ago, and most refinery and pipeline and tanker capacity is already maxed out. All the oil rigs are out there working, all the drilling rigs are working, and they aren't making enough to drop oil prices back down, because it doesn't exist in the forms and quantities we used during the big growth phase of the 20th century. It's just...gone.
There are going to be a lot of tech and food hungry people but only enough to sustain maybe 1/2 of them at the rate things are going. This is coming very soon to a planet near you. We could double the efficiency of everything already made and the things to come, and there still won't be enough. Yes, technically the planet is "supporting" 6 billion people right now, and how many of them are not even close to being what would be considered poverty level in western nations? This isn't a case of the planet "supporting" 6 billion, this is around 3 billion barely managing to survive with the specter of drought/famine/disease/war etc always right in their face. Let alone getting them all cars and iPods and nintendos and houses with air conditioning and big screen TVs and various et cetera that a lot of us take for granted.
Of the other three billion, only one billion can be considered to be living in relative middle class status, the other two are still pretty bad off.
There's really only a shade over a billion people on the planet living more or less cool now, call it a billion and half to be overly generous, all the others are *wanting to* of course, but where are the resources for that? We're as close to being maxed out as you can get for most things.
I am afraid that what the world might get to enjoy in the way of universal high tech in the next generation will be dwindling resources put to advanced weaponry to fight over shrinking resource reserves. We needed a global manhattan project 30 years ago to develop alternative resources, for just about everything, and we should have been using the cheap raw materials and cheap energy that still existed then to accomplish that goal, and it just plain didn't happen. We wasted that time and opportunity because there wasn't any immediate bottom line payback, nothing for politicians and nothing for big business. So it didn't happen. We got academic "studies" and political committees mostly out of it.
The planet has been eating what seed corn there is ever since then, that's why a lot of these areas of the world that still have the resources all seem to be "contentious". This is only going to get worse as demand goes up, not better.
I don't wish it so, far from it, but this is just observable data. The "market" is not a panacea, in fact, the "mar
A pandemic is a global disease outbreak. A flu pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus emerges for which people have little or no immunity and for which there is no vaccine. The disease spreads easily person-to-person, causes serious illness, and can sweep across the country and around the world in very short time.
It is difficult to predict when the next influenza pandemic will occur or how severe it will be. Wherever and whenever a pandemic starts, everyone around the world is at risk. Countries might, through measures such as border closures and travel restrictions, delay arrival of the virus, but cannot stop it
Health professionals are concerned that the continued and expanded spread of a highly pathogenic-and now endemic-avian H5N1 virus across eastern Asia and other countries represents a significant threat. The H5N1 virus has raised concerns about a potential human pandemic because:
Like other influenza viruses, it continues to evolve.
Since 2003, a growing number of human H5N1 cases have been reported in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam, and more than half of the people infected with the H5N1 virus have died. These cases are all believed to have been caused by exposure to infected poultry. The concern is that H5N1 will evolve into a virus capable of human to human transmission.
A pandemic vaccine cannot be produced until a new pandemic influenza virus emerges and is identified. Even after a pandemic influenza virus has been identified, it could take at least 6 months to develop, test and produce vaccine. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has made the establishment and expansion of U.S.-based manufacturing facilities for influenza vaccine a key component of its strategy to improve the security of the influenza vaccine supply.
Antivirals are drugs that may help prevent infection in people at risk and lessen the impact of symptoms in those infected with influenza. It is unlikely that they would substantially modify the course or effectively contain the spread of an influenza pandemic. See Vaccines & Medications.
A pandemic may come and go in waves, each of which can last for six to eight weeks. An especially severe influenza pandemic could lead to high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss. Everyday life would be disrupted because so many people in so many places become seriously ill at the same time. Impacts can range from school and business closings to the interruption of basic services such as public transportation and food delivery.
Pandemics Death Toll Since 1900
1918-1919
U.S....
500,000+
Worldwide...
40,000,000+
1957-1958
U.S....
70,000+
Worldwide...
1-2,000,000
1968-1969
U.S....
34,000+
Worldwide...
700,000+
A substantial percentage of the world's population will require some form of medical care. Health care facilities can be overwhelmed, creating a shortage of hospital staff, beds, ventilators and other supplies. Surge capacity at non-traditional sites such as schools may need to be created to cope with demand.
The need for vaccine is likely to outstrip supply and the supply of antiviral drugs is also likely to be inadequate early in a pandemic. Difficult decisions will need to be made regarding who gets antiviral drugs and vaccines.
Death rates are determined by four factors: the number of people who become infected, the virulence of the virus, the underlying characteristics and vulnerability of affected populations and the availability and effectiveness of preventive measures.
The United States has been working closely with other cou
Any new built home should be ultra insulated and be self powered. The concept is called "zero energy homes". By using "superinsulation" techniques, combined with intelligently purchased home appliances, and then adding in such things as active and passive solar heating, hotwater, and garnering your own electrical supply with PV or wind, etc, you can get down to about zilch for "energy bills" and always have your home be powered and heated and cooled.
In addition, they should be built to be storm proof as much as possible, ice, wind, even fire can be dealt with using more advanced construction techniques like earthships, cordwood masonry, concrete domes, earth bermed,etc, plenty of different styles and techniques. There's no one size fits all, it really depends on geographical location and budget.
Basically, ANYTHING but normal energy hog and fragile square stick built framed housing. That is so 20th century. Oil is not two dollars a barrel anymore, yet most homes are built about the same way they were back when that was true. You got to ask yourself, is that just plain nuts, or what? I vote "plain nuts". There are better ways to do things now...
...swinish one. Google *has* a "long term strategy", it is to explore new technologies. You don't know what that is until you get there, hence the word explore. Google is a company run by techs. They do tech. New cool tech is their primary focus. It is that simple, but apparently that is just too complex an idea for these sniveling analysts. If people want to give them money to do tech, that's their decision. If they can't read, they need to go back to school.
Not google's fault or my fault if these perpetual quick buck hustling middlemen skimmers can't understand that part, or the "do no evil" part. Like I said, let them go find the next enron complete with megacrooked CEOs if that is what they want. They are so used to that's how business is usually done, when it's not they start whining like little babies. Tough noggies for them!
I could care less about the profits of the wallstreet skimmers and hucksters, let THEM go do something unusual and useful and productive.
....short term profits mentality. They buy into the casino game, and when the rules are different-just slightly-and they KNEW that in advance-they claim foul?
Nope, it's their loot, they could have decided to go elsewhere in advance. This is sour grapes on steroids from the "greed is good" crowd.. Google was very careful upfront to say what they would or wouldn't do, just because they aren't acting like other corporations with short term profits mentality isn't Google's fault, it's Wallstreet's fault for thinking they would, based entirely on something they dragged out of their lardish butts, because it wasn't based on any actual data. I think it's funny really, because you could see those neurons all scrambling to throw money at google, they got completely coldcocked.
Google said that they actually didn't know what they would be doing in the future, just exploring wild new technology and see what might work and what might not. It is loosely based on advertising sales, and that's it. Google is an *exploring new tech* company. Every single exploration left turn or right turn is not guaranteed to make some investor money. If the investors didn't understand that going in, perhaps they should have taken their money and started their own business and done something useful and productive instead, ie "get a job".
Frankly, the entire idea of investing has just turned into wild ass speculation based on the really quick buck and frantic share turn arounds. They should pass a law requiring a minimum hold period on shares between trades anyway,like one or two years, not a few hours or days or weeks, to discourage short term profits casino mentality. Put the "invest" part back into "investing".
I have zero sympathy for the stockholders and analysts in this case who were looking for the quick easy buck. None. There are plenty of other enron-esque companies out there for them to choose from if that is what they are looking for. It's like the bulk of the stockmarket,so there should be enough there for them to check out. The few companies who DARE to try something quite different in a business model and to perhaps follow at least semi ethical guidelines are *quite rare enough* without the jackals and hyena scavengers braying at them.
The way it is setup now, one has to violate a law, at your great expense and peril, take it or get taken to some state or fed "supreme" court, their to plead your case. If you win, it sucks, you've just spent a ton of money just to get back to where you started from. If you lose, the same, except now it costs you even more and you might wind up in the pokey.
Nuts! That's mind boggling INSANE
Whenever they pass ANY law, it should immediately be run through the state supreme court or fed supreme court FIRST before it is inflicted on the public. There's no reason to run some poor guy through the wringer over these things, just because they do it BACKWARDS.
And all laws need an automatic timeout sunshine clause, to see if they did what they were intended for, or to see if it turned out to be a big fat waste of time.
Near as I can see, it's an "all of the above" situation. Natural terran and solar cycles combined with a lot of man induced climate altering activity. Stuff happens. Best we can do is work towards lessening our footprint while also advancing technologically. The two go hand in hand, so, no longer term problems, as long as we address it, which is the ultimate crapshoot. Bread and circuses business as usual and stay in denial of massive change, or will we actually do the necessary work? That part is a huge variable.
I wouldn't do it. I'm against it, using embryos, and yes it is a slippery slope that was passed into barbarism as far as I am concerned, a long time ago. I am way pro technology, but also pretty strong proponent of human rights, ALL humans, not just the ones certain groups pick and choose from. I was a civil rights worker, meaning I think we all have them, born with them, back when it meant personal physical danger. I feel that strongly about this issue of human rights. Not rights for this human but not that human, ALL humans.
I think the entire idea of farming humans for parts is disgusting, it is a violation of civil rights deluxe, and just because something is currently legal doesn't make it un-disgusting to me. I'm against current "war on some drug" laws. it's still a law or "legal" that they can restrict hemp for medicinal purposes for instance. Ethically I think that's wrong. I don't care if it is the law, it's still wrong and I'll say so if I think it.
And so on. I am not the least bit shy on ethical issues as opposed to "laws". When you restrict someone's freedoms, you restrict all of ours, and starting with the very very very youngest then switching to the most elderly, our society is de-evolving into a "too inconcenient, get rid of them, or use them for some commercial purpose" mentality.
Disgusting.
And yes, given the utterly shameful and disgusting track record of the "eugenics movement" in the 20th century, I think it's safe to say that people would eventually be killed for parts, in fact, I think the practice goes on in china openly right now, where a variety of "crimes" get you the death sentence pretty readily and your parts sold. Maybe a quick buck might have something to do with sentencing? And no telling if it is going on other places, I bet it is though.
And the potential for on purpose human cloning for parts is right here right now with the tech we have. And it all starts with embryos, and treating them as commercial products to be bought and sold and fooled around with, and works up from there. And I don't have a dividing line, because none exist that are of any credible worth (IMO), so you are left with the creation of the embryo as the starting point.
Just because something is possible to do is no reason it should be done. For another for instance, I would support a global ban on nuclear weapons research, period, right this second if such a thing was possible.
Humans won't be able to socially evolve until we become mature enough to say NO to some things based on collective ethics. We've tried the mass "yes, anything goes" method, it is somewhat lacking... Once you drop everything to a dollars and cents level as your primary criteria of "worth", then life becomes too cheap, and it gets treated as a commodity. Once "convenience" becomes acceptable in disposing of humans, then life has gotten too cheap, something socialy is out of whack. what do souless corporations call their employees now again? Oh ya, "human resources" like so many tons of coal. Who has the best deal on a wholesale lot of "human resources" today?
See? Disgusting.
I'm still *totally in favor of stem cell research*, to be clear, there's a ton of promise there and I welcome all of it, just not embryonic. As to the other issues about how all those embryos get there in the first place where they become "disposable" and "we might as well use them then", that's another topic for another time.
There are a lot of stem cells out there. There is no actual need to use embryonic cells. The popular press and most people think of the two as the same thing, they are not, one is specific, the other is general. There is a clear cut and obvious (and quite dangerous) slippery slope using embryos, so it is better to focus research on all the other sources.
I'd like a search engine I could toggle between all results, and then be able to filter out all commercial results in the actual "search" main column. I don't have a problem with the text ads on the side so they could leave those, I understand they need to make a buck for providing the service. I guess originally that was what the.net and.com and.org domains were supposed to do, but that is long gone.
it was dang funny. If you get a chance to (shades of being on thread topic) find it on the net, BT it and laff at it. Shatner addressing a trekker convention.
Besides, who cares what NON TREKKERS think? Really.....buncha double dumasses...
It's still much cheaper and easier than it was a few decades ago, especially in getting your production *broadcast* out to the potential viewers. No comparison. In the US when I was a kid there was ABC, NBC, CBS and a little weird educational programming, not even like PBS is now and that's it. It ALL poofed at midnight, test pattern ville on the 9 inch philco room heater... There wasn't even UHF broadcast then, let alone cable or satellite. I remember we were the first on the block to get a TV and all the neighbors would come over and watch it some nights. It was definetly only the very rich corps who did any TV shows then, and very limited. Now look at it today, all the liitle niche shows on cable, etc, now extrapolate just a few years into the future a little as affordable broadband penetrates more....
Going to be a LOT more shows out there, so it must be "affordable enough". Maybe not dirt cheap, but when you can drop an industry from where it used to cost millions for a show and now down to the thousands, that's an order of magnitude cheaper. As to human wages, meh, same as everything else, you can get fantastic for free or a few bucks or utter crap for a million bucks, and everything humanly possible in between.. that's a crapshoot that will never change.
OK, look at just word publishing, the progression..a few monks could write, very expensive paper, they had to be subsidised by kings and taxes and tithes. thousand years later we had the printing press, now people could afford at least a few books and a lot more took up reading..and writing. another hundred years, now you are talking, books are everywhere, writing has exploded. Now, today, EGADZOOKS there's a LOT of writers out there, must be millions on the planet earth now-yet still only a small handful percentage wise do it all the time or make all their money from it. It still happens though, doesn't it? Humans just *like* being creative and will do it regardless of pay, or just for very cheap pay, if it's something they want to do.
It'll be the same with video, and TV shows and movies and documentaries and "newscasts" and whatnot. They'll be more of them, a lot more. The tech makes it possible, just like it did with writing and making music..
Slashdot Mirror
His opinion of the software problem, in passing he goes like paraphrased (I already closed the tab, no cut n paste) "linux doods won't pay for software". ISVs as a corporate structure are reluctant to develop speciality software, because they would be almst forced to give it away. I don't know if that is entirely accurate, but that was the gist of it. And they dislike having to recode their stuff every few months because there is no "linux" target to shoot at like there is osx or xp.
Those are somewhat valid points. And if you are trying to persuade some well established company to just stop with the closed source and go freebie open source...well...not happening real soon. Some will, most won't.
In my experience using newer OSes on older hardware, RAM is way more important than CPU speed. I would suggest a minimum of half a gig if you want the latest gnome and kde desktops to function well without driving you nuts. Up to last year when a very strong surge borked my machine, I was still using a real old IBM with a PP200 as my main desktop. At half a gig, it ran the latest fedora at the time (FC2) quite well. At a quarter a gig RAM it sucked.
Of course, you might have a hard time trying it on a 3 gig hard drive(every release gets bigger), be very picky what you install from the disks. Do a semi bare minimum then download the rest application by application using yum (I use yumex the gui for yum). And be sure to add in the Livna repo if you want to get any propietary multimedia running, and he is good for later on tweaking the ATI and nvidia video drivers so they install and work without headaches..
Kudos for keeping old hardware running! I honestly don't know how well it installs on laptops (or runs sleep, etc), but on the desktops I like fedora. As an alternative small nice linux distro, you can always run one of the minis like puppy, damn small, or austrumi,etc if you have an optical drive in the machine. They give you "one of each" of the normal things you might need, no bloat.
They have been doing that, the open source devs making things better, but the game is rigged against them. It's reached a sticking point now, obvious to see, patents, big companies buying legislation, etc. Hmm, example, look at FF adoption, more or less stuck at 10%, and that is much less of a change than an entire operating system. Why the recalictrance? it's because there's little option to get it preinstalled. We are geeks here, we have no problems installing this or that or the other, whereas the bulk of the computing public is either forced at work or school to use brand expensive, or they are just so buffaloed by complexity that they give upo, stick with the lowest common denominator. In a lot of cases, they aren't even aware of any alternatives, because they don't even *see* it out there.
You can't change that with wishful thinking, not too fast anyway. And it's because the game is rigged! If you can't break that deadlock, you'll continue to bump heads constantly. You can't win in a rigged game. Look at that poor massachusetts state government CIO forced out of his job because he dared promote open standards. That's an example of behind the scenes power, from the game being rigged. Look at all the people who were handicapped in the past who were forced out of access to buildings. That was an example of behind the scenes monetary power, it was 'too expensive" for them to change voluntarily, they never did it until forced to by law. That's just hard data. Same with overt heinous raw pollution, there was never any voluntary change of note( I worked there way back then, it was a rough row to hoe), despite people begging and asking nicey nice, it took actual laws to end the rigged game.
Comes a time enough concerned people can force government to level the playing field a bit. Now is such a time with some accessible computing and some choices in the market. If the distro makers want to include even more accessibility functions-great! I see it in the repo lists already. But that isn't going to translate to more open standards and choices at the hardware store and vendors becoming more open until the monopoly/cartel is broken,smashed, and unfortunately, it looks seriously like it will take legislative action or judicial judgements to make this happen, just like it took to get wheelchair ramps in.
I don't think the lead will come from the US at this point, it is just too obvious that the 800lb gorilla is still calling the shots, but overseas it might kick in, and there it is taking both voluntary action *and* legislative/commissioner edict action, ie, the EU Commission forcing some issues with the gorilla to get it to comply.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I maintain "market forces" will just let the status quo continue, with very little if any slow change, because cartels like being cartels.
I remember when all the choice you had was ma bell and rented equipment and OMG long distance rates or tin cans and a string. It took legislative action to get things fixed, we had stagnant development for decades. If you are willing to wait that long for more accessible and free-er computing and more choices in the market-swell, let it happen that way. I would prefer a few simple laws to demand universal accessibility and choice and at least a few "open standards".
I would also like a software "lemon law" but that's another subject for another time, but warranties are desperately needed now that the industry is mature enough and makes enough money to deal with the changes required to switch from "release often, who cares how good it is, we have no liability, sock it to the suckers" to something more similar to what other industries have to deal with,i.e; normal consumer warranties.
The feds routinely arrest quite sick people who are growing medical marijuana at their homes, in states that passed laws to "legalize" it. Yet, they still send brave and honorable jack booted thugs to arrest those people.
There's an exact medical case, where patients are denied access to medicine, all the way to threat of violence against their person if they "resist arrest", and they routinely get incarceration after guaranteed prosecution.. In this case, collusion with big pharma and artificial drugs (reefer is just too cheap, no profits if it was legit, so it stays illegal) and government surveil/command/control aspects against normal small time docs and patients.
Big money and politics of state control win. And the "courts" think that is just swell.
Good luck on class actions against the government/entrenched pharmcos, medical needs or not. The closest we have are called "elections", and those are more or less totally rigged now. Once in awhile they might re-ban a drug,slap a little fine on some company, but all in all "legitimate" medical care offs more people in the US every year than what they like to call "gun violence", yet it still goes on. If they want to deny you cheap drugs they will. If they want to deny treatments available elsewhere on the planet, they will. Just depends who is shelling out the cash this week.
I am way past cynical about it.
...consists of not only smalltime freebie devs, but big companies as well, with full time devs. There would be a LOT more incentive to make linux even better and more assessible for *all people*, not just the perfectly able or the not so able, IF the major hardware vendors would offer some Linux or BSD or whatever instead of just XP on the desktop. Then perhaps a point there. but they aren't doing it. A few smaller comapnies are, but none of the majors, where it counts.
Human nature is just that, we have governments because without them it gets pretty hairy. Governments are bad enough, but without them...well...just look to some places like the horn of africa or elsewhere that have little to no functioning government. It doesn't work out very well. Human nature is not all that great or altrusitic. It is somewhat, but it's not universal yet. If we didn't have regs, big companies would still be dumping unlimited toxic waste in streams for instance, "market forces" didn't mandate that, severe government regulations did after people noticed they slap refused to do it on their own. "market forces" were telling them to not give a care and just dump, they "made more money" that way.
As to whether or not people will do this or that voluntarily, the various industries and this exact problem prove that left to their own devices, you would never see any accessibility features in buildings, etc, so I imagine it's close enough in software as well. It's a teeny niche market, not much interest until it becomes more of a niche-and we don't want to see that if possible-or it is just mandated.
The "market" is not even close to perfect, when the market offers no choice or a choice of sucky or suckier.
Linux on the desktop, for sighted or blind, is going to continue to be an also ran until such a time as either large governments mandate choice and universal access, or humans become universally non greedy, and the latter I sincerely doubt is going to be happening anytime soon..
The point was, for the blind guy, he needed someone to help him just get it installed. Why is that again? If it CAME PRE INSTALLED ON HIS COMPUTER then he wouldn't have had that problem, once there he had enough to go on.
That is primarily the computer makers deal there, because MOST people get their OS preinstalled. and it is governments fault because they are not stopping the illegal computer near monopolies and collusion that is going on.
I can't fault the relatively poor distro vendors (compared to MS/Dell, etc) for not including this or that feature, they have come an amazing long way DESPITE the failure of government to actually regulate monopolies and closed cartels better.
If we only relied on "the market" we would wind up with one huge company owning the world, that's the nature of concentrated capital, it flows uphill until it is in fewer and fewer hands.
Personally, I think raw pure capitalism is just as sucky as total complete governmental control or total socialism. I think some place in the middle hits a proper balance. It would be *nice* if people were universally all just wonderful folks, but sadly, this isn't the case.
People with special needs have a lot to thank government for in mandating access. I remember before all those laws were in place, I have friends who got stuck at the bottom of stairs for instance with no ramps into buildings, *government buildings*, let alone private ones, places they had to get to. . The "market" did jack and squat, zilch, nada, to help them, it took passing laws to alleviate that dismal situation.
Computing is going to be the same, and now that it is so important in most peoples lives, we are starting to see more regs passed, because companies mostly won't do it if it only affects less than 1% of their customers. Heck, I still see "sorry get lost, windows/IE only" websites, hit one just the other day looking for small engine parts.
That's leaving out roughly 10% of potential custo
"For now, Marini says that the only solution is to find somebody without impaired vision who is willing to help install Linux"
Seems like a hardware vendor problem to me as much as anything else. Maybe perhaps if they offered some *choice* in OSes at ye olde computer store? If the EU commission was *really* serious about MS and monopoly abuse, they would turn to the vendors and tell them to shape up "or else" (caveat:waste of time to consider the US DOJ in this regard). Once MS knew that their pre-installed lock in monopoly was at risk, they would improve their products, and that would also make FOSS products better, etc. It works across the board once you get serious about fixing monopoly abuse.
...are examples of "mob rule". The only variances are which mob is doing what ruling. Even single named individual autocratic leadership organizations, from a nation to a ..kernel,say, are still examples of "mob rule" as ultimate dictates still need to be carried out by a *willing* mob. So called "democratic" organizations-mob rule. A private corporation? Mob rule. Representative republic? Mob rule.
About the only thing that isn't, is a project that is totally conceived, implemented and deployed by a single human. Everything else is an example of a mob, although no one wants to admit they are in a mob, it has a negative connotation and only ever applies to "the other guys" and their "mob".
Not a big point, but helpful in cutting through propoganda and media spin and manipulation.
...exactly parallels the huge increase in consumers having their own burners, then buying blanks by the small quantity. Then they hit the pre recorded rack and look at the titles and prices. Hmmmm. It ain't rocket surgery then.
nConsumers found out how much they were being ripped off/gouged by a quarters worth of plastic and 10 cents worth of paper and revolted. Napster came about because people got *tired* of shelling out big bucks for music CDs.
And to this day, the millionaires who have no coneption of what a dollar is worth to joe working stiff and who make the decisions on pricing for discs at the RIAA vendors are STILL clueless to this. To them, 10 to 20 bucks is like a nickle or a dime to regular people, they think it's cheap! They simply *don't* get it. They are incapable of relating because they are millionaires. They can intellectualize it all day long, they just won't understand it was the pricing that lead to "piracy" way more than just the ability to do so. In fact, the "ability to do so" has been driven precisely by outrageous pricing on music and movies.
Those over priced bit sellers are their own worst enemies.
And I don't want to hear it can't be done, you can walk into any walmart and see older movies on DVD for two dollars.
And that's all bits on a disk are worth. Bit sellers need to get a clue back to the "volume sales" concept. At two bucks, they would sell a lot more disks, and make more money, even if the net per disk was lower.
I burn mmy junk mail in my woodstove. I call it the designer delivered kindling. At least I get some BTUs out of it. And, I also burn banana peels, but pot roast trimmings go to the canines. Recycle! heh
Digital age meet gutenberg age. How about something like a TiVo, but for dead tree media? A programmable dedicated printer/box/appliance that automatically printed out YOUR idea of what should be in your "newspaper" or magazine? Every morning, get up, there's today's "news" all printed out, updated, and waiting for you? And your monthly magazines, and updated tech manuals, or latest novel or short story from your favorite writer, and so on? Leave it up to the subscriber what they really wanted on paper, not a one size fits no one exactly deal like they have now. Say you want just the latest politics, favorite market analysts, a few selected sports, and you didn't want latest household tips, brides, real estate classifieds and horoscope. And so on, serious customizable choice.
The bad part about dead tree papers and print magazines is you get so much you DON'T want, serious waste of paper and energy. I know you get this with RSS feeds, etc, I mean taking that idea a little bit further into the simple and functional electronic appliance realm.
I thought I would add a link for fairness. Just coincidently a recent article. The last sentence from an oil analyst.
u siness/09opec.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/business/worldb
There's a lot more out there on this "capacity" deal. And the figures for 'superfields are well known, there just aren't finding them anymore..
The bottom line is they can cut production, or production can get cut due to outside unplanned for forces, but as to adding to production, very few places can do that now,the article claims only saudi arabia has any spare capacity at all. If we are taking the whole supply chain into account, it's even more iffy, given recent geopolitical events and natural disaster events..
Your contention is..contentious. Lately a lot in the news about production levels and their ability to meet much in the way of any increases.
I'm basing that on the commodities markets, published reserve numbers,then the 8revised* numbers, several of the sisters have had to go back and drop what they were claiming previously, industry analysts opinions, and other such assorted data I've socked away in the biodrive over many years now. It's my best futurist extrapolation.
I think we screwed the pooch and waited too long to get things sorted out and fixed, by roughly 3 decades.
Like I said previously, I don't *want* to have that opinion, but every time I look at it, that's what comes up. The numbers won't jive. I don't think drunk arthur andersen accountants could make the numbers jive.
There ain't enough "stuff".
I'm not saying we can't produce some amazing tech, we obviously do, just we are running out of the stuff we need to produce amazing tech, *enough for everyone*, and now the secret is out, and all the 6 billion want a big chunk.
We are still far away from universal replicators on the atom or molecule scale, which is what it would take to pull this off. And we don't have backyard Mr.Fusion yet, either. We need both those things to do this task.
And, more or less, it DID start heavily going downhill a hundred years ago when serious mass production and assembly lines began. Amazing new business practices, lead to huge tech advances and short term wealth production and enjoyment all over, and equally amazing resource depletion. All of that is true facts. The 20th century was built on amazing cheap resources, amazing cheap energy costs, and zero environmental awareness almost. All of that has now come to bite us, soon hard, the first nibbles we are feeling now from that beast.
Hubert's peak is *real*, it happened exactly around when he said it would with the US, and chances are very good it will happen internationally as well. It's just..numbers. It isn't rocket surgery.
I am a BIG alternative technology/energy proponent, I am one of only maybe at best a few dozen slashdotters who actually own solar PV and use it. I encourage others to use the alternatives, but I tell you, it is worse than getting linux on the desktop when it comes to adoption rates. It's much easier for "the market" to sell big screen plasma TVs to most people, because they just will not, can not, or aren't able to see coming serious resource depletion, because most of them aren't looking and won't want to deal with it..it's frightening to contemplate, so they "don't believe it". NO ONE asks "what is the energy payback scheme" for their big screen plasma Tvs, or new gaming rigs, etc. but, they use resources to build, finite ones for the most part, and resources to run, finite sources for the most part. That's what most people care about, the "right now this second" deal. Ten twenty thirty years down the road is equal to infinity, it's *guaranteed* procrastination.
I just use data, clunky old plain jane science, boring numbers, simple graphs, etc. I mean, EEK! The other is more a cult belief system, near as I can see.
I look around and see the resources going into anything *but* for 99% of the population. Most everyone is cruising on "business as usual" when the resource peaks or near peaks are right at hand, and YEP, I think it's damn **&^%%$ scary because all the warning sirens are going off, the data is there to see, some big names even try to say it out loud, but they get drowned out by "business as usual"--for now anyway..
I remember putting gas in my first car at twelve cents and tax a gallon. I also remember ten dollars a gallon during the OPEC embargo. I remember just last year watching prices jump a buck in one week after katrina.
Shift happens
I am now reminded of these things called "big wars" and places like the middle east where an area as large as Indiana holds 1/2 the remaining light sweet crude that is not that bad energy wise to get extracted.
Shift happens sometimes. Planetary
And you touched on why this is so. As technology increases, demand for raw materials and the energy needed to work those into products then to power them then increases.
It just plain isn't there right now. All the increased demand will do is drive up the prices and make it so the already well off can continue that way. You can go right down the list of raw materials and it is getting harder and harder to extract them. I'll cite two of them , both critical for modern tech advances. Look at the battle right now over silicon chips or silicon to make solar panels. Solar panels were a better deal two years ago then they are now, and efficiency increases are not keeping pace. Too much demand, not near enough supply is the problem. And energy is in even worse shape. We aren't hitting oil gushers anymore, they have to inject water or CO2 to get them to flow. Mexico is just reached peak, north sea has hit peak, US is well past peak. And demand is set to just explode during the next decade, like 3 or 4 times current demand, yet we just are not finidng the "superfields" that we need, that we relied on during the 70s,80s and 90s. they just aren't being found.. Look at world wide demand for oil right now, are prices dropping because "increased demand and market forces" just makes more oil happen? Nope, prices are a lot higher than they were a decade ago, and most refinery and pipeline and tanker capacity is already maxed out. All the oil rigs are out there working, all the drilling rigs are working, and they aren't making enough to drop oil prices back down, because it doesn't exist in the forms and quantities we used during the big growth phase of the 20th century. It's just...gone.
There are going to be a lot of tech and food hungry people but only enough to sustain maybe 1/2 of them at the rate things are going. This is coming very soon to a planet near you. We could double the efficiency of everything already made and the things to come, and there still won't be enough. Yes, technically the planet is "supporting" 6 billion people right now, and how many of them are not even close to being what would be considered poverty level in western nations? This isn't a case of the planet "supporting" 6 billion, this is around 3 billion barely managing to survive with the specter of drought/famine/disease/war etc always right in their face. Let alone getting them all cars and iPods and nintendos and houses with air conditioning and big screen TVs and various et cetera that a lot of us take for granted.
Of the other three billion, only one billion can be considered to be living in relative middle class status, the other two are still pretty bad off.
There's really only a shade over a billion people on the planet living more or less cool now, call it a billion and half to be overly generous, all the others are *wanting to* of course, but where are the resources for that? We're as close to being maxed out as you can get for most things.
I am afraid that what the world might get to enjoy in the way of universal high tech in the next generation will be dwindling resources put to advanced weaponry to fight over shrinking resource reserves. We needed a global manhattan project 30 years ago to develop alternative resources, for just about everything, and we should have been using the cheap raw materials and cheap energy that still existed then to accomplish that goal, and it just plain didn't happen. We wasted that time and opportunity because there wasn't any immediate bottom line payback, nothing for politicians and nothing for big business. So it didn't happen. We got academic "studies" and political committees mostly out of it.
The planet has been eating what seed corn there is ever since then, that's why a lot of these areas of the world that still have the resources all seem to be "contentious". This is only going to get worse as demand goes up, not better.
I don't wish it so, far from it, but this is just observable data. The "market" is not a panacea, in fact, the "mar
just some official background from the government site (some removed to get it to post correctly, more at the URLs)
http://pandemicflu.gov/
related link and info
http://pandemicflu.gov/general/
A pandemic is a global disease outbreak. A flu pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus emerges for which people have little or no immunity and for which there is no vaccine. The disease spreads easily person-to-person, causes serious illness, and can sweep across the country and around the world in very short time.
It is difficult to predict when the next influenza pandemic will occur or how severe it will be. Wherever and whenever a pandemic starts, everyone around the world is at risk. Countries might, through measures such as border closures and travel restrictions, delay arrival of the virus, but cannot stop it
Health professionals are concerned that the continued and expanded spread of a highly pathogenic-and now endemic-avian H5N1 virus across eastern Asia and other countries represents a significant threat. The H5N1 virus has raised concerns about a potential human pandemic because:
Like other influenza viruses, it continues to evolve.
Since 2003, a growing number of human H5N1 cases have been reported in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam, and more than half of the people infected with the H5N1 virus have died. These cases are all believed to have been caused by exposure to infected poultry. The concern is that H5N1 will evolve into a virus capable of human to human transmission.
A pandemic vaccine cannot be produced until a new pandemic influenza virus emerges and is identified. Even after a pandemic influenza virus has been identified, it could take at least 6 months to develop, test and produce vaccine. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has made the establishment and expansion of U.S.-based manufacturing facilities for influenza vaccine a key component of its strategy to improve the security of the influenza vaccine supply.
Antivirals are drugs that may help prevent infection in people at risk and lessen the impact of symptoms in those infected with influenza. It is unlikely that they would substantially modify the course or effectively contain the spread of an influenza pandemic. See Vaccines & Medications.
A pandemic may come and go in waves, each of which can last for six to eight weeks. An especially severe influenza pandemic could lead to high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss. Everyday life would be disrupted because so many people in so many places become seriously ill at the same time. Impacts can range from school and business closings to the interruption of basic services such as public transportation and food delivery.
Pandemics Death
Toll Since 1900
1918-1919
U.S....
500,000+
Worldwide...
40,000,000+
1957-1958
U.S....
70,000+
Worldwide...
1-2,000,000
1968-1969
U.S....
34,000+
Worldwide...
700,000+
A substantial percentage of the world's population will require some form of medical care. Health care facilities can be overwhelmed, creating a shortage of hospital staff, beds, ventilators and other supplies. Surge capacity at non-traditional sites such as schools may need to be created to cope with demand.
The need for vaccine is likely to outstrip supply and the supply of antiviral drugs is also likely to be inadequate early in a pandemic. Difficult decisions will need to be made regarding who gets antiviral drugs and vaccines.
Death rates are determined by four factors: the number of people who become infected, the virulence of the virus, the underlying characteristics and vulnerability of affected populations and the availability and effectiveness of preventive measures.
The United States has been working closely with other cou
Any new built home should be ultra insulated and be self powered. The concept is called "zero energy homes". By using "superinsulation" techniques, combined with intelligently purchased home appliances, and then adding in such things as active and passive solar heating, hotwater, and garnering your own electrical supply with PV or wind, etc, you can get down to about zilch for "energy bills" and always have your home be powered and heated and cooled.
s tart=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
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In addition, they should be built to be storm proof as much as possible, ice, wind, even fire can be dealt with using more advanced construction techniques like earthships, cordwood masonry, concrete domes, earth bermed,etc, plenty of different styles and techniques. There's no one size fits all, it really depends on geographical location and budget.
here are a some useful links to get you started
http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar_decathlon/ (check the homepages of last years entries to see the completed structures, the homes even run the car!)
http://www.google.com/search?q=zero+energy+homes&
http://www.google.com/search?q=earthships&start=0
Basically, ANYTHING but normal energy hog and fragile square stick built framed housing. That is so 20th century. Oil is not two dollars a barrel anymore, yet most homes are built about the same way they were back when that was true. You got to ask yourself, is that just plain nuts, or what? I vote "plain nuts". There are better ways to do things now...
...swinish one. Google *has* a "long term strategy", it is to explore new technologies. You don't know what that is until you get there, hence the word explore. Google is a company run by techs. They do tech. New cool tech is their primary focus. It is that simple, but apparently that is just too complex an idea for these sniveling analysts. If people want to give them money to do tech, that's their decision. If they can't read, they need to go back to school.
Not google's fault or my fault if these perpetual quick buck hustling middlemen skimmers can't understand that part, or the "do no evil" part. Like I said, let them go find the next enron complete with megacrooked CEOs if that is what they want. They are so used to that's how business is usually done, when it's not they start whining like little babies. Tough noggies for them!
I could care less about the profits of the wallstreet skimmers and hucksters, let THEM go do something unusual and useful and productive.
....short term profits mentality. They buy into the casino game, and when the rules are different-just slightly-and they KNEW that in advance-they claim foul?
Nope, it's their loot, they could have decided to go elsewhere in advance. This is sour grapes on steroids from the "greed is good" crowd.. Google was very careful upfront to say what they would or wouldn't do, just because they aren't acting like other corporations with short term profits mentality isn't Google's fault, it's Wallstreet's fault for thinking they would, based entirely on something they dragged out of their lardish butts, because it wasn't based on any actual data. I think it's funny really, because you could see those neurons all scrambling to throw money at google, they got completely coldcocked.
Google said that they actually didn't know what they would be doing in the future, just exploring wild new technology and see what might work and what might not. It is loosely based on advertising sales, and that's it. Google is an *exploring new tech* company. Every single exploration left turn or right turn is not guaranteed to make some investor money. If the investors didn't understand that going in, perhaps they should have taken their money and started their own business and done something useful and productive instead, ie "get a job".
Frankly, the entire idea of investing has just turned into wild ass speculation based on the really quick buck and frantic share turn arounds. They should pass a law requiring a minimum hold period on shares between trades anyway,like one or two years, not a few hours or days or weeks, to discourage short term profits casino mentality. Put the "invest" part back into "investing".
I have zero sympathy for the stockholders and analysts in this case who were looking for the quick easy buck. None. There are plenty of other enron-esque companies out there for them to choose from if that is what they are looking for. It's like the bulk of the stockmarket,so there should be enough there for them to check out. The few companies who DARE to try something quite different in a business model and to perhaps follow at least semi ethical guidelines are *quite rare enough* without the jackals and hyena scavengers braying at them.
The way it is setup now, one has to violate a law, at your great expense and peril, take it or get taken to some state or fed "supreme" court, their to plead your case. If you win, it sucks, you've just spent a ton of money just to get back to where you started from. If you lose, the same, except now it costs you even more and you might wind up in the pokey.
Nuts! That's mind boggling INSANE
Whenever they pass ANY law, it should immediately be run through the state supreme court or fed supreme court FIRST before it is inflicted on the public. There's no reason to run some poor guy through the wringer over these things, just because they do it BACKWARDS.
And all laws need an automatic timeout sunshine clause, to see if they did what they were intended for, or to see if it turned out to be a big fat waste of time.
Near as I can see, it's an "all of the above" situation. Natural terran and solar cycles combined with a lot of man induced climate altering activity. Stuff happens. Best we can do is work towards lessening our footprint while also advancing technologically. The two go hand in hand, so, no longer term problems, as long as we address it, which is the ultimate crapshoot. Bread and circuses business as usual and stay in denial of massive change, or will we actually do the necessary work? That part is a huge variable.
I wouldn't do it. I'm against it, using embryos, and yes it is a slippery slope that was passed into barbarism as far as I am concerned, a long time ago. I am way pro technology, but also pretty strong proponent of human rights, ALL humans, not just the ones certain groups pick and choose from. I was a civil rights worker, meaning I think we all have them, born with them, back when it meant personal physical danger. I feel that strongly about this issue of human rights. Not rights for this human but not that human, ALL humans.
I think the entire idea of farming humans for parts is disgusting, it is a violation of civil rights deluxe, and just because something is currently legal doesn't make it un-disgusting to me. I'm against current "war on some drug" laws. it's still a law or "legal" that they can restrict hemp for medicinal purposes for instance. Ethically I think that's wrong. I don't care if it is the law, it's still wrong and I'll say so if I think it.
And so on. I am not the least bit shy on ethical issues as opposed to "laws". When you restrict someone's freedoms, you restrict all of ours, and starting with the very very very youngest then switching to the most elderly, our society is de-evolving into a "too inconcenient, get rid of them, or use them for some commercial purpose" mentality.
Disgusting.
And yes, given the utterly shameful and disgusting track record of the "eugenics movement" in the 20th century, I think it's safe to say that people would eventually be killed for parts, in fact, I think the practice goes on in china openly right now, where a variety of "crimes" get you the death sentence pretty readily and your parts sold. Maybe a quick buck might have something to do with sentencing? And no telling if it is going on other places, I bet it is though.
And the potential for on purpose human cloning for parts is right here right now with the tech we have. And it all starts with embryos, and treating them as commercial products to be bought and sold and fooled around with, and works up from there. And I don't have a dividing line, because none exist that are of any credible worth (IMO), so you are left with the creation of the embryo as the starting point.
Just because something is possible to do is no reason it should be done. For another for instance, I would support a global ban on nuclear weapons research, period, right this second if such a thing was possible.
Humans won't be able to socially evolve until we become mature enough to say NO to some things based on collective ethics. We've tried the mass "yes, anything goes" method, it is somewhat lacking... Once you drop everything to a dollars and cents level as your primary criteria of "worth", then life becomes too cheap, and it gets treated as a commodity. Once "convenience" becomes acceptable in disposing of humans, then life has gotten too cheap, something socialy is out of whack. what do souless corporations call their employees now again? Oh ya, "human resources" like so many tons of coal. Who has the best deal on a wholesale lot of "human resources" today?
See? Disgusting.
I'm still *totally in favor of stem cell research*, to be clear, there's a ton of promise there and I welcome all of it, just not embryonic. As to the other issues about how all those embryos get there in the first place where they become "disposable" and "we might as well use them then", that's another topic for another time.
There are a lot of stem cells out there. There is no actual need to use embryonic cells. The popular press and most people think of the two as the same thing, they are not, one is specific, the other is general. There is a clear cut and obvious (and quite dangerous) slippery slope using embryos, so it is better to focus research on all the other sources.
I'd like a search engine I could toggle between all results, and then be able to filter out all commercial results in the actual "search" main column. I don't have a problem with the text ads on the side so they could leave those, I understand they need to make a buck for providing the service. I guess originally that was what the .net and .com and .org domains were supposed to do, but that is long gone.
it was dang funny. If you get a chance to (shades of being on thread topic) find it on the net, BT it and laff at it. Shatner addressing a trekker convention.
Besides, who cares what NON TREKKERS think? Really.....buncha double dumasses...
It's still much cheaper and easier than it was a few decades ago, especially in getting your production *broadcast* out to the potential viewers. No comparison. In the US when I was a kid there was ABC, NBC, CBS and a little weird educational programming, not even like PBS is now and that's it. It ALL poofed at midnight, test pattern ville on the 9 inch philco room heater... There wasn't even UHF broadcast then, let alone cable or satellite. I remember we were the first on the block to get a TV and all the neighbors would come over and watch it some nights. It was definetly only the very rich corps who did any TV shows then, and very limited. Now look at it today, all the liitle niche shows on cable, etc, now extrapolate just a few years into the future a little as affordable broadband penetrates more....
Going to be a LOT more shows out there, so it must be "affordable enough". Maybe not dirt cheap, but when you can drop an industry from where it used to cost millions for a show and now down to the thousands, that's an order of magnitude cheaper. As to human wages, meh, same as everything else, you can get fantastic for free or a few bucks or utter crap for a million bucks, and everything humanly possible in between.. that's a crapshoot that will never change.
OK, look at just word publishing, the progression..a few monks could write, very expensive paper, they had to be subsidised by kings and taxes and tithes. thousand years later we had the printing press, now people could afford at least a few books and a lot more took up reading..and writing. another hundred years, now you are talking, books are everywhere, writing has exploded. Now, today, EGADZOOKS there's a LOT of writers out there, must be millions on the planet earth now-yet still only a small handful percentage wise do it all the time or make all their money from it. It still happens though, doesn't it? Humans just *like* being creative and will do it regardless of pay, or just for very cheap pay, if it's something they want to do.
It'll be the same with video, and TV shows and movies and documentaries and "newscasts" and whatnot. They'll be more of them, a lot more. The tech makes it possible, just like it did with writing and making music..