Has China shown a willingness to do whatever it takes to become a world economic power. Yes. They have shown the kind of take-no-prisoners attitude we have always admired in our entrepreneurs.
One other thing they have shown is that they do not like having to depend on foreign countries for anything important. That includes energy. I would be shocked if they don't already have their own Manhattan Project for energy, and I suspect it is very well funded. They have a system that can make this happen.
If China or India does find a way to produce the energy they need without having to ship money out of the country, they will have a tremendous economic advantage over countries that still have business models tied to old money business models.
Of course, we would never try to steal useful technology from them. That would be wrong.
I'm not going to argue whether opening the coastal areas and Alaska to more drilling is a solution. Maybe so, maybe not. What does seem fairly obvious is that the people running the oil industry in the U.S. aren't really eager to invest in the drilling. If they had really wanted to drill in the off-limits areas, the executive and congressional bans would have been lifted shortly after 9-11.
Remember those days? Bush in charge, a solid Republican rubber-stamp congress, and the country whipped into a fervor to do anything Bush said was necessary to fight terrorists. Why weren't the bans lifted then? Maybe, the folks who run the oil companies and set the Bush energy policies have no interest in investing heavily in a dying business model. They're making huge profits on existing investments.
Most of the big oil companies have already begun devoting resources to the next generation of energy, including wind, solar and biofuels. In the past, OPEC could always kill off alternatives by dropping the price-per-barrel below the break-even point for the alts. Most likely, they will try again, but it looks like the big oil companies are seeing the writing on the wall, and they are moving on.
So, why is Bush pressuring congress to lift it's bans on drilling now? Because it puts the Dems in a tight spot. He could have gotten the bans lifted almost any time from 2001 to 2006, but then his oil buddies would have had the pressure on them to spend big bucks to increase production and more big bucks to build refinery capacity. Why invest in technology that could easily be obsolete before production begins?
It would be useful to know what the author's latest software switch was and what old system he preferred. It certainly wouldn't be surprising if the new stuff is from MS.
I work for a company with 700 or more Windows boxes and a big room full of Windows servers. My department, Marketing, has the six Macs. Despite our hordes of support people in IS, the overwhelming majority of computer users in the company could have written the article. They are, for the most part, terrified of their computers and completely lost if they have to do something outside of their narrow skill sets. They don't know how to do much beyond checking e-mail and using six or seven basic skills in MS Word.
Over the years, we've had people come and go in my department, but all have been comfortable with computers and confident they can get them to do whatever task is required. All but one came from Mac backgrounds. In the 16 years since we bought our first Mac Plus, we've never had any formal training other than a one-day Photoshop seminar I attended back before Photoshop had layers.
I'm a techie, and my boss for six years was a techie, but none of the others had technical backgrounds. Most have been art types with a proper terror of electronic gizmos. Despite that, my department has been the unofficial tech support area for the whole company for years. We are the department that has "the computers that work."
Occasionally, I have to show someone in the department how to do something new, like navigate in column view in OS X, but usually we all just train ourselves by poking around and experimenting. I think that's the key to the Mac experience. Take a guess and try something. Chances are you'll be rewarded, even if you're not a tech wizard. The little wins the Mac delivers so often make users want to try more.
So yeah. The simple answer is "Get a Mac."
Does anyone else recall all the Microsoft supporters a couple of years ago claiming the case against MS was bogus because the monopoly caused no harm to consumers? If a little competition causes MS prices to plummet, what becomes of that argument?
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One other thing they have shown is that they do not like having to depend on foreign countries for anything important. That includes energy. I would be shocked if they don't already have their own Manhattan Project for energy, and I suspect it is very well funded. They have a system that can make this happen.
If China or India does find a way to produce the energy they need without having to ship money out of the country, they will have a tremendous economic advantage over countries that still have business models tied to old money business models.
Of course, we would never try to steal useful technology from them. That would be wrong.
I'm not going to argue whether opening the coastal areas and Alaska to more drilling is a solution. Maybe so, maybe not. What does seem fairly obvious is that the people running the oil industry in the U.S. aren't really eager to invest in the drilling. If they had really wanted to drill in the off-limits areas, the executive and congressional bans would have been lifted shortly after 9-11. Remember those days? Bush in charge, a solid Republican rubber-stamp congress, and the country whipped into a fervor to do anything Bush said was necessary to fight terrorists. Why weren't the bans lifted then? Maybe, the folks who run the oil companies and set the Bush energy policies have no interest in investing heavily in a dying business model. They're making huge profits on existing investments. Most of the big oil companies have already begun devoting resources to the next generation of energy, including wind, solar and biofuels. In the past, OPEC could always kill off alternatives by dropping the price-per-barrel below the break-even point for the alts. Most likely, they will try again, but it looks like the big oil companies are seeing the writing on the wall, and they are moving on. So, why is Bush pressuring congress to lift it's bans on drilling now? Because it puts the Dems in a tight spot. He could have gotten the bans lifted almost any time from 2001 to 2006, but then his oil buddies would have had the pressure on them to spend big bucks to increase production and more big bucks to build refinery capacity. Why invest in technology that could easily be obsolete before production begins?
It would be useful to know what the author's latest software switch was and what old system he preferred. It certainly wouldn't be surprising if the new stuff is from MS. I work for a company with 700 or more Windows boxes and a big room full of Windows servers. My department, Marketing, has the six Macs. Despite our hordes of support people in IS, the overwhelming majority of computer users in the company could have written the article. They are, for the most part, terrified of their computers and completely lost if they have to do something outside of their narrow skill sets. They don't know how to do much beyond checking e-mail and using six or seven basic skills in MS Word. Over the years, we've had people come and go in my department, but all have been comfortable with computers and confident they can get them to do whatever task is required. All but one came from Mac backgrounds. In the 16 years since we bought our first Mac Plus, we've never had any formal training other than a one-day Photoshop seminar I attended back before Photoshop had layers. I'm a techie, and my boss for six years was a techie, but none of the others had technical backgrounds. Most have been art types with a proper terror of electronic gizmos. Despite that, my department has been the unofficial tech support area for the whole company for years. We are the department that has "the computers that work." Occasionally, I have to show someone in the department how to do something new, like navigate in column view in OS X, but usually we all just train ourselves by poking around and experimenting. I think that's the key to the Mac experience. Take a guess and try something. Chances are you'll be rewarded, even if you're not a tech wizard. The little wins the Mac delivers so often make users want to try more. So yeah. The simple answer is "Get a Mac."
Does anyone else recall all the Microsoft supporters a couple of years ago claiming the case against MS was bogus because the monopoly caused no harm to consumers? If a little competition causes MS prices to plummet, what becomes of that argument?