Or are you trying to say that only some offensive speech should be protected?
I'll type this slowly: I d o n ' t t h i n k t h a t t h e o r i g i n a l j o k e r s h o u l d h a v e b e e n a r r e s t e d .
I think that all speech that is not actually dangerous--i.e. instruction or incitement to do harm--should be protected, even my lecturing of a friend whose jokes I find offensive (were that to be a friend of mine).
This joke is incredibly, incredibly offensive, and and the maker deserves to be shunned by whomever chooses to shun him, but there's no way you could convince me that this should be an arrest-able offense.
If he were a friend of mine, I'd have at least thought about lecturing him on the value of keeping some of one's thoughts to one's self. Depending on whether this sort of joke were some sort of indicator of a pattern in his thinking, I might even stop answering his calls. But as offensive as his joke is, it's not a crime.
Now, if this guy had previous arrests for pedophilia, and if he was on some sort of a watch list, that'd be a different story altogether. If Hannibal Lecter were on work release and started making jokes on Facebook about eating his landlord's liver, well, I'd suggest that'd be enough to bring him on in again.
I guess I'm living in the past:) I remember buying an iBook around the turn of the century, and getting the FedEx notification that it had left Shenzen, and it took the better part of a week to be tagged as having arrived for customs in Alaska. After that, it bounced to Memphis, then a couple more little bounces before it landed on a truck for my house in Oakland.
Packaging was pretty good back then, but it's gotten even better since then; Apple has really gone far in reducing the space and weight of all the items they ship. It would make sense that--at least with some of them--they could justify shipping by plane, since they can fit so many in one cargo hold.
That would also fit with Tim Cook's assertion that "inventory is, be definition, evil". If you've got $100,000 worth of goods on a plane that will be in customers' hands in three days, with two more planes to follow, that's way better than $300,000 worth of goods on a ship that will get into customers' hands in 9 days.
That's exactly right. I actually stay away from the term "global warming" because, while the overall trend is indeed warming, I know that in colder climes, winters have been much harsher. I know a lot of folks in Quebec City, and a couple of winters ago, just about all of them were posting pictures of their snowed-in homes and the tunnels they'd dug to get out to the street. I don't remember the averages, but it seems to me that they got something like 30% more snow--like 8 meters instead of 6--than they had in recent years.
And yet, the spring thaw still came two weeks earlier than normal.
My own comments are based on anecdotal data, combined with a layman's understanding of the scientific data. Don't quote me for any studies, but as a shortcut, your comment about global warming's effects on the world's weather systems are basically right on.
I did see a terrifying TED Talk about one theory of what could happen: Once the icecaps melt, the temperature differentials that power the ocean currents go away, and the oceans stagnate. Large life in the ocean dies off, replaced by plankton and its ilk. There's a huge change in the make-up of our atmosphere, and thus, there are greater temperature changes, as well as shifts in what will grow. A land-animal die-off will follow. Including many (most? all?) of us.
The scientist in question came up with this idea based on evidence that it had happened before, hundreds of thousands of years ago. Based on that, some of the folks who don't believe we should do about global warming would point out, "See, this has happened before; it's cyclical." The point, however, is that our addition of CO2 to the atmosphere is accelerating the process; what might have happened in another 10,000 years from now may instead happen in 100 or 200 years.
Of course, don't forget, some of those who are railing the hardest against climate-change-influenced reform have religious motivations to see the end of the world come sooner than later. They think they can accelerate the return of some hippy guy who lived 2000 years ago.
...is it worth the shipping costs? Believe it or not... shipping costs... even with todays gas prices are still quite low relative to the costs of everything else.
If you believe that global temperature shifts are causing greater weather destabilization, then--regardless of gas prices--that could shift significantly. Shipping is cheap because, let's say you're sending phones--you can fit thousands of them into a container, probably more than 100,000 on a single ship, maybe more. But there's always a non-zero chance of losing that cargo, and if you suddenly can't make a trans-Pacific journey for six months out of the year because of constant hurricanes, production in China won't seem to be such a great deal.
Of course, by that point, we'll probably have bigger fish to fry. Assuming there are any fish left.
They could have said everything they said, and just added, "This service is in beta." Maybe a little more color, would have even helped more, but even some acknowledgement that it's still a work-in-progress could have been made. I'm not alone in thinking this.
The whole reason I moved from my corporate issued Blackberry to my own personal smartphone was to get better mapping.
First, since you say "smartphone" instead of "iPhone", shall we assume that you're an Android user, that this issue doesn't affect you and your comment about the mapping app sucks is based entirely on anecdotal data?
When the CEO of Apple apologizes for the poor quality of their mapping app and recommends that dissapointed users download a different app, it's no longer "anecdotal data". This isn't a case of one guy saying "omg, I can't map my street! Apple maps suck!"
Fair enough, although I'd suggest that the biggest factor in his deciding to apologize is not the objective quality of the maps app (or lack thereof), but rather quality in the context of the demo that was done and the expectations that were set. They portrayed it as best in class and it's obviously not. If they had been a little more humble in advance, we might not be seeing an apology today.
The next question is, if you are indeed an iPhone user, then is your experience with the new maps app--as bad as it may be--better than or worse than the Blackberry experience you were trying to get away from? As a former Blackberry user myself, I'm going to guess it's still way way way better. iOS 6 maps are certainly a step backwards, so it's worth complaining about. But don't add to the argument that this application was the very reason you moved away from another platform that was and probably still is several orders of magnitude worse.
I was careful to not say whether I moved to Android or iPhone, you made the (correct) assumption that it was Android, even if I moved to an iPhone 2 years ago, that doesn't change my basic point that maps are important to many people so a bad map implementation is worse than, say, not enough Fart applications.
I chose Android for reasons other than mapping (at the time, IOS was using Google Maps), but if I were going to buy a Smartphone today, I'd rule out iPhone based on the mapping problems alone. The iPhone is a good phone and until the Android ICS release, I'd say that most consumers would be more satisfied with iPhone than Android, but now I see little overall usability difference.
Fair enough; you're free to make your own decisions and even broadcast them. What I take exception to is the attempt to imply that you personally have been affected and that you're speaking from personal experience.
I think that's an acceptable interpretation. I just think that they were on the left end of the Dem Party spectrum, but the Dem Party moved right-of-center.
The whole reason I moved from my corporate issued Blackberry to my own personal smartphone was to get better mapping.
First, since you say "smartphone" instead of "iPhone", shall we assume that you're an Android user, that this issue doesn't affect you and your comment about the mapping app sucks is based entirely on anecdotal data?
The next question is, if you are indeed an iPhone user, then is your experience with the new maps app--as bad as it may be--better than or worse than the Blackberry experience you were trying to get away from? As a former Blackberry user myself, I'm going to guess it's still way way way better. iOS 6 maps are certainly a step backwards, so it's worth complaining about. But don't add to the argument that this application was the very reason you moved away from another platform that was and probably still is several orders of magnitude worse.
I agree that the maps app is a step backwards. But calling it "cutting customers' throats" is, you have to admit, a bit of hyperbole. I live in a mid-sized city, I've used iOS6 maps a half-dozen times in the last week, and it's been perfectly fine every time. I know anecdotes are not data, but I'd be willing to wager that for most people, in most areas, doing most searches, it's acceptable.
Best ever? No. Flawless? Certainly not. As good as we've come to expect from iOS? Nope. But it's not cutting anyone's throat by any stretch of a sane imagination.
I absolutely agree. I think it's a travesty that CFLs were foisted on us as the next great solution when breakage implies that the guys in the HAZMAT suits have to come out and do their dirty work. It reminds me of when doctors were touting Seldane as the next great allergy cure until people started dying of heart attacks by the dozens.
LED's are indeed getting cheaper, and while it'll be a while until they're truly price-competitive with incandescents, the only way to get there is through mass adoption. You may agree or disagree with the government having a role in this, but it's my impression that the change-over would have taken another 20 years if we'd waited for the invisible hand to nudge us in this direction. If ever.
This is practically a Godwin response. Manufacturing light bulbs is not free speech.
And speaking of Godwin responses, I'm not sure what Elie Wiesel has to do with this. Unless you meant "weasel words". Even then, you're wrong; just because you disagree with something doesn't mean that something is "weasel words". That's what's called an ad hominem attack, and it's not the most constructive way to discuss a point.
You're right on the "mass scale" vs. "manufacturing". I believe that "manufacturing" implies some level of mass scale; that is to say, if you blow your own glass bulbs and thread your own filament, that's not manufacturing in the common sense. If you build an infrastructure to automate your own bulbs, that implies that they are not simply for your own use; the scale is beyond a personal one. But the implications of the particular wording could certainly be different from how I read them.
The penalties are probably simple; if such manufacture is discovered, it will be shut down. Maybe equipment will be confiscated, maybe a fine will be levied. But no, it's not censorship any more than any number of other regulations are not censorship. If, for instance, you want to brew your own beer, there's nothing stopping you from doing so. If you want to sell that beer on an open market, you need to get a license, and you need to conform to certain laws in order to do so. If you want to manufacture light bulbs, on a scale which will receive attention, you can do so; however, just as you can't brew and sell beer made with hemp resin extract, you can't make incandescent lights.
Now I've gone and done it: I've included marijuana legalization in the debate. Also a worthwhile discussion to have, but just as with the manufacture of light bulbs, it is not a freedom-of-speech issue.
If you believe that wasting energy is contributing to global warming, and if you believe that global warming will--if unchecked--have a deleterious effect on the health and well-being of humanity, then yes, incandescent bulbs are indeed bad for consumers. If the long term effects are real, then whatever we can do to minimize those effects will be an improvement. It's very similar to tobacco and asbestos, just with a longer time-frame. Again, if you believe the scientific community on those points.
If you don't believe that inefficient use of our energy resources will ultimately reduce our ability to survive and prosper on this planet, then obviously, you won't agree with my point.
The government does periodically get involved with tobacco and unhealthy foods--often to the chagrin of Libertarian-leaning members of the citizenry--imposing taxes on tobacco which help fund anti-smoking education for children and cancer research for those afflicted by the long-term effects, for instance. On the food side, they do things like banning Happy Meals (unhealthy meals incentivised with toys) from San Francisco, soft drinks not being sold on school grounds, and the requirement of making all nutritional information about food being sold at restaurants available to consumers.
But in the end, the great majority of the effect of these things lands on the individual partaking in them. Smokers are no longer allowed to smoke within 10 feet of a door, vent or openable window of any public building (restaurant, office, etc). So if they want to pay their taxes and slowly kill themselves, that's fine. They're not taking anyone down with them.
The idea behind the light bulbs is that, if you're burning 500 watts when you could be burning 80, you're not just paying a higher bill--affecting you--but you're slowly taking everyone down with you. And while the effect of one person doing so is minimal, the effect of hundreds of millions is significant. If this law means that, in 5 years, our resource use and associated carbon emissions from energy production for lighting are 20% of where they are today, that's a very good thing.
Again, only if you agree that these resources are finite and/or the effects of their usage are damaging. If you don't believe one or both of those, then you won't agree with the government's involvement. I'm guessing you do not agree with either of those ideas based on your post, and I'm not going to try to convince you. I'm simply trying to illustrate why someone in the position to make such a ban might feel like it is not only acceptable but also appropriate.
I didn't mean to suggest that there weren't frothies on either end of the spectrum, but it almost seems like the Dem standards-bearers keep moving to the right (some say center, but I think they've moved a bit past that). This has the effect of marginalizing the ultra-lefties, while at the same time making the ultra-righties seem to be the core of the party.
Let's put it this way: there are not a large number of candidates claiming to be Occupy Wall Street candidates running under the Dem flag. However, a significant number of GOP candidates are indeed avowed Tea Party members. On one side, they may be living in encampments, doing drugs and throwing molotov cocktails, but nobody credits them with providing the Democratic Party with a new identity. On the other side, they're calling for the disembowlment of the Federal Government, carrying guns around and making not-so-veiled threats against the President, and they are considered by many to be the new face of the GOP.
To some degree, it's the Democratic Party's fault; they've done an almost-microsoft-ian embracing of ideals historically attributed to the GOP, forcing those who don't want to be identified as Dem to move even further to the right.
Whenever I see someone using MapQuest, I take five minutes out of my day and show them how to use Google Maps. SOOO much better. MapQuest sucks so badly iOS 6 Maps is an improvement.
One thing that's interesting about your list is that at least two of those vendors (plus Google, and Yahoo, who use Nokia) have a web presence. I wonder if Apple is going to put Maps into iCloud. It'd be nice if you could do a search while at your desk at work, say, and save the search to iCloud and have it ready and waiting on your phone when you pick it up.
To be fair, there are economies of scale involved. If "the same" bulb is only being made at 1/100 the production scale following the ban dates, it will likely be tangibly more expensive.
That being said, all I could think was, "OMG! HASN'T ANYONE CONSIDERED THE TURTLES?!?!" I can think of a lot of good reasons for keeping a light bulb around, but taking a turtle that would be perfectly happy in its natural habitat and boxing it up with a light bulb is not one of them.
It's not just energy use. The old bulbs were extremely profitable, as they'd been manufactured for decades. I'd be surprised if it cost more than a penny to make a bulb that would sell for 50-60c. Pretty nice mark-up if you can get it. Add in packaging, promotion and distribution, and you're still probably talking about a 1000% margin. Moving to LEDs changes that equation; manufacturing costs go up, distribution costs go up (they're heavier and thus take more fuel), and volumes go down because of cost and because they last so long. All in all, the price to the consumer has to go way up to make up for all of that, and in the end, the consumer is thinking, "Why do I suddenly have to pay $20 for something that used to cost me 60c?"
It's hard for a company to give up such easy profits.
Slashdot Mirror
Or are you trying to say that only some offensive speech should be protected?
I'll type this slowly: I d o n ' t t h i n k t h a t t h e o r i g i n a l j o k e r s h o u l d h a v e b e e n a r r e s t e d .
I think that all speech that is not actually dangerous--i.e. instruction or incitement to do harm--should be protected, even my lecturing of a friend whose jokes I find offensive (were that to be a friend of mine).
More likely, the Samsung lawyers who couldn't figure out how to counter the redacted documents will likely be sacked.
This joke is incredibly, incredibly offensive, and and the maker deserves to be shunned by whomever chooses to shun him, but there's no way you could convince me that this should be an arrest-able offense.
If he were a friend of mine, I'd have at least thought about lecturing him on the value of keeping some of one's thoughts to one's self. Depending on whether this sort of joke were some sort of indicator of a pattern in his thinking, I might even stop answering his calls. But as offensive as his joke is, it's not a crime.
Now, if this guy had previous arrests for pedophilia, and if he was on some sort of a watch list, that'd be a different story altogether. If Hannibal Lecter were on work release and started making jokes on Facebook about eating his landlord's liver, well, I'd suggest that'd be enough to bring him on in again.
I guess I'm living in the past :) I remember buying an iBook around the turn of the century, and getting the FedEx notification that it had left Shenzen, and it took the better part of a week to be tagged as having arrived for customs in Alaska. After that, it bounced to Memphis, then a couple more little bounces before it landed on a truck for my house in Oakland.
Packaging was pretty good back then, but it's gotten even better since then; Apple has really gone far in reducing the space and weight of all the items they ship. It would make sense that--at least with some of them--they could justify shipping by plane, since they can fit so many in one cargo hold.
That would also fit with Tim Cook's assertion that "inventory is, be definition, evil". If you've got $100,000 worth of goods on a plane that will be in customers' hands in three days, with two more planes to follow, that's way better than $300,000 worth of goods on a ship that will get into customers' hands in 9 days.
That's exactly right. I actually stay away from the term "global warming" because, while the overall trend is indeed warming, I know that in colder climes, winters have been much harsher. I know a lot of folks in Quebec City, and a couple of winters ago, just about all of them were posting pictures of their snowed-in homes and the tunnels they'd dug to get out to the street. I don't remember the averages, but it seems to me that they got something like 30% more snow--like 8 meters instead of 6--than they had in recent years.
And yet, the spring thaw still came two weeks earlier than normal.
My own comments are based on anecdotal data, combined with a layman's understanding of the scientific data. Don't quote me for any studies, but as a shortcut, your comment about global warming's effects on the world's weather systems are basically right on.
I did see a terrifying TED Talk about one theory of what could happen: Once the icecaps melt, the temperature differentials that power the ocean currents go away, and the oceans stagnate. Large life in the ocean dies off, replaced by plankton and its ilk. There's a huge change in the make-up of our atmosphere, and thus, there are greater temperature changes, as well as shifts in what will grow. A land-animal die-off will follow. Including many (most? all?) of us.
The scientist in question came up with this idea based on evidence that it had happened before, hundreds of thousands of years ago. Based on that, some of the folks who don't believe we should do about global warming would point out, "See, this has happened before; it's cyclical." The point, however, is that our addition of CO2 to the atmosphere is accelerating the process; what might have happened in another 10,000 years from now may instead happen in 100 or 200 years.
Of course, don't forget, some of those who are railing the hardest against climate-change-influenced reform have religious motivations to see the end of the world come sooner than later. They think they can accelerate the return of some hippy guy who lived 2000 years ago.
...is it worth the shipping costs? Believe it or not... shipping costs... even with todays gas prices are still quite low relative to the costs of everything else.
If you believe that global temperature shifts are causing greater weather destabilization, then--regardless of gas prices--that could shift significantly. Shipping is cheap because, let's say you're sending phones--you can fit thousands of them into a container, probably more than 100,000 on a single ship, maybe more. But there's always a non-zero chance of losing that cargo, and if you suddenly can't make a trans-Pacific journey for six months out of the year because of constant hurricanes, production in China won't seem to be such a great deal.
Of course, by that point, we'll probably have bigger fish to fry. Assuming there are any fish left.
I don't agree. That scene in I Am Legend where he kills his dog is pretty well done...
For some reason, this reminds me of the "How is babby formed" meme.
How is iphonn formed?
All of them.
No, not right, LEFT
Bon weekend, my friend.
They could have said everything they said, and just added, "This service is in beta." Maybe a little more color, would have even helped more, but even some acknowledgement that it's still a work-in-progress could have been made. I'm not alone in thinking this.
The whole reason I moved from my corporate issued Blackberry to my own personal smartphone was to get better mapping.
First, since you say "smartphone" instead of "iPhone", shall we assume that you're an Android user, that this issue doesn't affect you and your comment about the mapping app sucks is based entirely on anecdotal data?
When the CEO of Apple apologizes for the poor quality of their mapping app and recommends that dissapointed users download a different app, it's no longer "anecdotal data". This isn't a case of one guy saying "omg, I can't map my street! Apple maps suck!"
Fair enough, although I'd suggest that the biggest factor in his deciding to apologize is not the objective quality of the maps app (or lack thereof), but rather quality in the context of the demo that was done and the expectations that were set. They portrayed it as best in class and it's obviously not. If they had been a little more humble in advance, we might not be seeing an apology today.
The next question is, if you are indeed an iPhone user, then is your experience with the new maps app--as bad as it may be--better than or worse than the Blackberry experience you were trying to get away from? As a former Blackberry user myself, I'm going to guess it's still way way way better. iOS 6 maps are certainly a step backwards, so it's worth complaining about. But don't add to the argument that this application was the very reason you moved away from another platform that was and probably still is several orders of magnitude worse.
I was careful to not say whether I moved to Android or iPhone, you made the (correct) assumption that it was Android, even if I moved to an iPhone 2 years ago, that doesn't change my basic point that maps are important to many people so a bad map implementation is worse than, say, not enough Fart applications.
I chose Android for reasons other than mapping (at the time, IOS was using Google Maps), but if I were going to buy a Smartphone today, I'd rule out iPhone based on the mapping problems alone. The iPhone is a good phone and until the Android ICS release, I'd say that most consumers would be more satisfied with iPhone than Android, but now I see little overall usability difference.
Fair enough; you're free to make your own decisions and even broadcast them. What I take exception to is the attempt to imply that you personally have been affected and that you're speaking from personal experience.
True, but still, it's not "cutting customer throats".
Additionally, there are reports that in some areas, like China, it's apparently much better than Google's maps were.
I do like the vector maps. That's an improvement for sure.
I think that's an acceptable interpretation. I just think that they were on the left end of the Dem Party spectrum, but the Dem Party moved right-of-center.
The whole reason I moved from my corporate issued Blackberry to my own personal smartphone was to get better mapping.
First, since you say "smartphone" instead of "iPhone", shall we assume that you're an Android user, that this issue doesn't affect you and your comment about the mapping app sucks is based entirely on anecdotal data?
The next question is, if you are indeed an iPhone user, then is your experience with the new maps app--as bad as it may be--better than or worse than the Blackberry experience you were trying to get away from? As a former Blackberry user myself, I'm going to guess it's still way way way better. iOS 6 maps are certainly a step backwards, so it's worth complaining about. But don't add to the argument that this application was the very reason you moved away from another platform that was and probably still is several orders of magnitude worse.
I agree that the maps app is a step backwards. But calling it "cutting customers' throats" is, you have to admit, a bit of hyperbole. I live in a mid-sized city, I've used iOS6 maps a half-dozen times in the last week, and it's been perfectly fine every time. I know anecdotes are not data, but I'd be willing to wager that for most people, in most areas, doing most searches, it's acceptable.
Best ever? No. Flawless? Certainly not. As good as we've come to expect from iOS? Nope. But it's not cutting anyone's throat by any stretch of a sane imagination.
I like that rule. I'm going to use it on my next project!
I absolutely agree. I think it's a travesty that CFLs were foisted on us as the next great solution when breakage implies that the guys in the HAZMAT suits have to come out and do their dirty work. It reminds me of when doctors were touting Seldane as the next great allergy cure until people started dying of heart attacks by the dozens.
LED's are indeed getting cheaper, and while it'll be a while until they're truly price-competitive with incandescents, the only way to get there is through mass adoption. You may agree or disagree with the government having a role in this, but it's my impression that the change-over would have taken another 20 years if we'd waited for the invisible hand to nudge us in this direction. If ever.
This is practically a Godwin response. Manufacturing light bulbs is not free speech.
And speaking of Godwin responses, I'm not sure what Elie Wiesel has to do with this. Unless you meant "weasel words". Even then, you're wrong; just because you disagree with something doesn't mean that something is "weasel words". That's what's called an ad hominem attack, and it's not the most constructive way to discuss a point.
You're right on the "mass scale" vs. "manufacturing". I believe that "manufacturing" implies some level of mass scale; that is to say, if you blow your own glass bulbs and thread your own filament, that's not manufacturing in the common sense. If you build an infrastructure to automate your own bulbs, that implies that they are not simply for your own use; the scale is beyond a personal one. But the implications of the particular wording could certainly be different from how I read them.
The penalties are probably simple; if such manufacture is discovered, it will be shut down. Maybe equipment will be confiscated, maybe a fine will be levied. But no, it's not censorship any more than any number of other regulations are not censorship. If, for instance, you want to brew your own beer, there's nothing stopping you from doing so. If you want to sell that beer on an open market, you need to get a license, and you need to conform to certain laws in order to do so. If you want to manufacture light bulbs, on a scale which will receive attention, you can do so; however, just as you can't brew and sell beer made with hemp resin extract, you can't make incandescent lights.
Now I've gone and done it: I've included marijuana legalization in the debate. Also a worthwhile discussion to have, but just as with the manufacture of light bulbs, it is not a freedom-of-speech issue.
If you believe that wasting energy is contributing to global warming, and if you believe that global warming will--if unchecked--have a deleterious effect on the health and well-being of humanity, then yes, incandescent bulbs are indeed bad for consumers. If the long term effects are real, then whatever we can do to minimize those effects will be an improvement. It's very similar to tobacco and asbestos, just with a longer time-frame. Again, if you believe the scientific community on those points.
If you don't believe that inefficient use of our energy resources will ultimately reduce our ability to survive and prosper on this planet, then obviously, you won't agree with my point.
The government does periodically get involved with tobacco and unhealthy foods--often to the chagrin of Libertarian-leaning members of the citizenry--imposing taxes on tobacco which help fund anti-smoking education for children and cancer research for those afflicted by the long-term effects, for instance. On the food side, they do things like banning Happy Meals (unhealthy meals incentivised with toys) from San Francisco, soft drinks not being sold on school grounds, and the requirement of making all nutritional information about food being sold at restaurants available to consumers.
But in the end, the great majority of the effect of these things lands on the individual partaking in them. Smokers are no longer allowed to smoke within 10 feet of a door, vent or openable window of any public building (restaurant, office, etc). So if they want to pay their taxes and slowly kill themselves, that's fine. They're not taking anyone down with them.
The idea behind the light bulbs is that, if you're burning 500 watts when you could be burning 80, you're not just paying a higher bill--affecting you--but you're slowly taking everyone down with you. And while the effect of one person doing so is minimal, the effect of hundreds of millions is significant. If this law means that, in 5 years, our resource use and associated carbon emissions from energy production for lighting are 20% of where they are today, that's a very good thing.
Again, only if you agree that these resources are finite and/or the effects of their usage are damaging. If you don't believe one or both of those, then you won't agree with the government's involvement. I'm guessing you do not agree with either of those ideas based on your post, and I'm not going to try to convince you. I'm simply trying to illustrate why someone in the position to make such a ban might feel like it is not only acceptable but also appropriate.
I didn't mean to suggest that there weren't frothies on either end of the spectrum, but it almost seems like the Dem standards-bearers keep moving to the right (some say center, but I think they've moved a bit past that). This has the effect of marginalizing the ultra-lefties, while at the same time making the ultra-righties seem to be the core of the party.
Let's put it this way: there are not a large number of candidates claiming to be Occupy Wall Street candidates running under the Dem flag. However, a significant number of GOP candidates are indeed avowed Tea Party members. On one side, they may be living in encampments, doing drugs and throwing molotov cocktails, but nobody credits them with providing the Democratic Party with a new identity. On the other side, they're calling for the disembowlment of the Federal Government, carrying guns around and making not-so-veiled threats against the President, and they are considered by many to be the new face of the GOP.
To some degree, it's the Democratic Party's fault; they've done an almost-microsoft-ian embracing of ideals historically attributed to the GOP, forcing those who don't want to be identified as Dem to move even further to the right.
Whenever I see someone using MapQuest, I take five minutes out of my day and show them how to use Google Maps. SOOO much better. MapQuest sucks so badly iOS 6 Maps is an improvement.
One thing that's interesting about your list is that at least two of those vendors (plus Google, and Yahoo, who use Nokia) have a web presence. I wonder if Apple is going to put Maps into iCloud. It'd be nice if you could do a search while at your desk at work, say, and save the search to iCloud and have it ready and waiting on your phone when you pick it up.
To be fair, there are economies of scale involved. If "the same" bulb is only being made at 1/100 the production scale following the ban dates, it will likely be tangibly more expensive.
That being said, all I could think was, "OMG! HASN'T ANYONE CONSIDERED THE TURTLES?!?!" I can think of a lot of good reasons for keeping a light bulb around, but taking a turtle that would be perfectly happy in its natural habitat and boxing it up with a light bulb is not one of them.
It's not just energy use. The old bulbs were extremely profitable, as they'd been manufactured for decades. I'd be surprised if it cost more than a penny to make a bulb that would sell for 50-60c. Pretty nice mark-up if you can get it. Add in packaging, promotion and distribution, and you're still probably talking about a 1000% margin. Moving to LEDs changes that equation; manufacturing costs go up, distribution costs go up (they're heavier and thus take more fuel), and volumes go down because of cost and because they last so long. All in all, the price to the consumer has to go way up to make up for all of that, and in the end, the consumer is thinking, "Why do I suddenly have to pay $20 for something that used to cost me 60c?"
It's hard for a company to give up such easy profits.