And that is scary as hell. If the wealth of a country is tied up in "IP" it can be lost for the cost of a few hundred (or thousands) $ worth of CDs. More frightening still, if ideas are wealth, then to cement control of wealth, the "IP" "owners" must ultimately assert absolute and unbreakable control over the thought processes of the rest of us.
That makes the assumption that culturally and economically the world does not change. An economy based entirely on wants, is fundamentally different one that also must take care of needs. Think along the lines of Star Trek replicators, where physical objects are trivially created. What is the impact of piracy when you no longer threaten someone's means of survival (as is the case right now)? Socially there may be a shift to something like an Open Source model where it does not hurt you to share, and it actually may be benificial.
The ancient world had no concept of "intellectual property", and creators of content in Greece and Rome understood that their work would be freely copied without compensation.
People have since the beginning of civilization tried to claim things. In ancient times "intellectual property" mostly existed in the form of trade secrets. Recipes and processes that were closely guarded family trade secrets passed down from generation to generation. The primary reasons there were no laws for written works were: the high cost of reproduction, lack of audience, lack of awareness (how would somebody in Italy know their book was copied and taken to Greece). Modern changes like mass production and digital communication, have also shifted the economy from valuing physical labor, to valuing IP. Hence the focus of ownership has also shifted from physical objects to ideas.
Although I agree with ClamIAm, who said "I don't think this would work in the US",
I disagree, I think this would work in the US. US companies have long developed ways to discount to large groups, both to increase revenue, and to increase marketing reach. On a grassroots level, youth sports teams usually negotiate discounts with local equipment shops, and churches or other large organizations negotiate discounts at restaurants for their events. In fact, mob based sales is so much a part of the business culture, that corporations take care of the mob formation themselves. For example Discount Club Stores (Costco, Sam's Club), Corporate partnerships (eg GM employees get 10% off Dell computers), or Black Friday sales events (There's going to be mobs, so discount stuff to get them into your store).
games today are lacking in story and adventure when compared to games of old. Sure they look great, but they lack that compelling factor.
How can we forget the amazing plot twists of Pac-Man, not to mention the surprise ending! And no other game tells the story of the futility of mankind's survival like Asteroids.
Actually, the truth of the matter is that semiconductors NEED defects. Implanting phosphorus atoms (or whatever dopant you choose to use) induces defects - the atoms are injected into the silicon wafers at very high energies, battering their way into the silicon lattices. These are defects, but they're essential to semiconductor operation - without those defects, there would be no conduction at all (silicon by itself doesn't conduct electricity).
Typcially dopants are called "impurities," not defects.
What the research is showing is you don't need to actually have a camera. Just the psychological effect of the thought of being watched is enough to trigger people to pay. It plays to the idea of "keeping honest people honest," by reducing temptation. "Maybe people can't pay for coffee because they don't have the cash on hand, and they will pay later." is a rationalization of a wrong action. Unless there Is an explicit policy that you are allowed to drink now and pay later, the idea of "paying later" is a psychological crutch many people use to make themselves feel better, when they know their action is wrong. How many actually come back later to pay, how many "forget"?
Or, maybe it is just better to get a pay coffee machine?
Basically you agree with the big brother types... people can't be trusted.
it follows mostly console development and visual development and is severely biased towards shoot-em-up retards and their taste. The other branches of game genealogy are not followed at all.
I think it focuses on commercial success paths rather than industry innovation. Sometimes the two intersect, but more often they do not, that is why the adventure, strategy, and RPG genres tend to be downplayed.
Indeed. Just because you have some mathematical equations that do a good job of describing what you can observe does not mean you actually know what's happening, or that your equations are even correct under all circimstances.
Exactly! Science can only describe the universe, we can never be sure we are actually explaining it... truth is the domain of philosophy and religion.
That's really what the RIAA really is affraid of. Artists now have a way to have vertical control, marketting, distribution etc. They claim to fight piracy but really want to make this come as late as they can.
How does this pertain the RIAA? The people they go after are the ones sharing material to which the RIAA has rights to. Nothing is stopping individual artists from doing what you describe, in fact there are many independent artists on the net doing their thing and the RIAA/MPAA leaves them alone. Stephen King did his own online distribution of "The Plant" and while it did disturb the publishers, there wasn't a frenzy of lawsuits to shut him down. The strength of the labels, studios, and publishers isn't distribution itself. It's the hype machine, that creates markets and encourages people to try something and like it (even though it sucks). Distribution control of their material, is merely a method to collect money from people. The labels are also changing, to capitalize on their marketing strength. American Idol is a perfect example. Not only do they make money selling CDs by some no talent pop singer, they are making money on the show whose main purpose is to create a frenzy around a disposable one-hit wonder.
Considering the direction laws are headed in the United states in this past decade, I would beg differ (sad day indeed.)
I would say given the direction of laws in the US, they are in fact designed to protect us, from everything including ourselves. What is Utopia, absolute freedom, or absolute security? Civilizations volley back-and-forth between the two, neither ever giving people what they want.
That is, if there were no humans on the earth, spotted owls, cuddly koalas, and majestic eagles would still have "value" and a right to exist, etc.
Disease can wipe out species; insects can destroy local ecosystems; meteors can cause mass extinctions. Why is there "value" in these events? Why aren't people part of natural process? What is the difference between people building houses and eagles building nests?
Neither "inflation" nor "deflation" are the hazard where money is concerned. The hazard is manipulation.
Both uncontrolled inflation and deflation can be a serious hazard to an economy. And I'd rather have the transparency of manipulation by the government than hidden manipulation by private interests.
The rest of the world (FIFA especially) spend a lot of time wondering about why the USA doesn't really get into 'soccer', and the theory is put forward that it's because you are not interested in sports you're not going to win.
A few theories: a) Money - you can't make millions domestically playing soccer b) Fame - A soccer star isn't going to get the chicks while pimpin' on the LA club scene. Most don't realize how well they would do with the ladies internationally.;) c) Toughness - at least the perception. I understand soccer "gamesmanship" where a guy gets fouled lightly and gets carted off on a stretcher. But most people in the US just see it as weakness. d) TV - most US sports are TV friendly. Play is typically chest level or higher, making it easy to track the ball (this is why hockey sucks on TV, but is awesome in person). And the gameplay starts and stops allowing for commercial breaks. This makes the networks more interested in broadcasting and promoting such events e) Ties - in the US it's all about winning and losing, ties are worse than losses. f) Game flow - or rather lack of in US games. The start-stop nature of US sports means every play has a result. A 4 yard run is a "win" for the offense, while a 0 yard stop is a "win" for the defense. The flow of soccer means exciting results only happen from a build-up of plays.
It's not like people hate soccer in the US. Most athletic kids played in a soccer league at some point of their life, it just isn't seen as a "professional" sport. Baseball and hockey are dying, maybe it will give room for soccer to take more of the limelight. Though please let me see games from Europe because MLS is the equivalent of the XFL.
I disagree only in the particular that substituting the medium of exchange isn't inflation, because the explicit "money supply" is still fixed in terms of whatever the standard is. Other commodities don't change the availability of a gold standard, for example, they merely allow greater fungability of the currency. Hmmm.... how to word this.....
It depends on how it is done, alternative currency (which almost never happens) or expansion on the money supply by alternate backing. In the former, dollar value is reduced by reducing demand when an acceptable alternative is available. The latter case is an explicit increase in the money supply by printing of dollars now backed by silver. For either case, the result is the same, reduction in the value of the dollar.
In a commodity money environment, as deflationary pressure exists, something like the dime, nickle and penny are utilized.
The problem remains, the government can't make more dimes, nickels, or pennies instantly. It has to accumulate and destroy higher value currency first. Worse deflationary pressure hurts market liquidity, not because people having access to the correct change, but it increases the cost of lending. The economic risk to invest in an inflationary market is less than that of a deflationary market.
Having silver available doesn't change the value of gold, having copper available doesn't change silver, having nickel available doesn't change copper.
Having silver or copper backed currency just allows the government to print more money = inflation.
Actual inflation, the changing in the value of money itself, can only occur when, for instance, today there are more "dollars" in circulation than there were yesterday. The central banks talk about simply matching the increasing supply with the rate of what-would-have-been deflation, but in reality they give lots of new money to the governments to spend, who get to spend it at the old rate, and by the time it filters down through the contractors and sub-contractors to use common citizens, prices have adjusted to the new supply and you and I experience "inflation".
The central banks want a low inflation market to encourage investment which results in overall economic growth. Historically, the fixed money supply of the gold standard hurt farmers in the late 19th century. The silver standard was proposed as a solution, however, it was opposed by the rich industrialists since it would reduce their wealth.
Commodity money is far, far less subject to such creation of money from nowhere. In every example of inflation some government (or central bank, same thing) was behind it. From Roman coin-clipping to fractional reserve banking, it's all just fraud.
So what if money comes out of nowhere, as long as it is limited and controlled? As I mentioned earlier, adding silver or copper standard is essentially the same thing, an increase of the money supply. Taken to extremes the governent could just go on the leaf standard and print all the money it wanted to. All backing does is give people confidence to use and accept the currency. So long as "In God We Trust" is enough for people to accept dollar bills then there is no need for backing.
Sure you can. But most cops I know would investigate the guy before calling for back-up. Conversely, the guy behind the video screen can do nothing but call for back-up.
Which most likely isn't an escalation to the FBI, but rather, contacting a cruiser in the area to check out the situation.
The cop would watch what he does and at some point during his walk home, would pull over and ask him a few questions and say something to the effect of "Stop doing that." Maybe even give him a ticket for trespassing or something.
Or call the FBI & SWAT team because he thinks its a potential suicide bomber, innocent guy is surrounded, a couple helicoptors circle round plastering his face all over the news. Maybe in his nervousness the guy reaches for his wallet to show his ID and is shot. You can come up with all sorts of results from any scenario.
Just because something is not going to be a money maker doesn't necessarily make it bad. I think a lot of americans (especially in the west) seem to think that if something is not profitable it is by definition bad. We went through this here in Denver as the city started building out light rail and commuter rail. Opponents argued that is wasn't going to make any money. Which completely misses the point, if mass transit made money private companies would do it. But mass transit makes cities better and improves the quality of life of the citizens. It can also be argued that intermodal transportation improves the economic viability of a city, but that is not proven.
Usually companies look at Return on Investment, rather than profit. For example losing money on consoles creates a short term loss while there is a long-term positive ROI from games & licensing fees. In the example you gave, while an individual company would lose money on a light rail venture, as a public works project it creates a positive ROI by stimulating economic growth and saving costs from road expansions.
Ok, so we all agree then that GM killed the product because it wasn't going to be particularly profitable compared to other products (trucks/suvs). In fact, if they knew it wouldn't make any (or enough) money they would do whatever it took to make sure the product failed. The problem was that they had already hyped their involvement.
Sometimes companies put out products on a limited basis to get a market reaction. Others have mentioned the California mandate for electric vehicles, but also other states like Arizona offered tax credits for purchases of electric vehicles. There was a potential market, and GM wanted to see what the reaction was to it's technology would be. They didn't like the results, be it market reaction or the economics just didn't work, so put it on the shelf for later. Did McDonald's cave into the pressure of "Big Beef" because it realeased the McRib only for a limited time?
The problem is that in this country we are so worried about big companies making money that we aren't worrying about the consequences. The government needs to actively invest in energy and transportation alternatives because business is just not going to do it on their own. Maybe if GM invested 15 billion dollars they could come up with a nice green care that made them money, but the up-front R&D is so costly they can't afford it. This is what governments are for. They allow all of us, as a county, to invest in something that may not generate profits next quarter, or next year. But twenty years down the line we will all be glad we made the investment.
I totally agree with you. Part of that is done through such things as the space program, DARPA, and other research grants, unfortunately such areas are woefully underfunded. Or in the most tyranical of methods, government can just give business an edict and you'll see them scurry to make it happen. That's part of the reason the EV1 was released (though California's mandate that never materialized), and the reason electronics are becoming more and more lead-free (EU RoHS directive)
Great post! This makes more sense than all the consipiracy theories.
Working in the electronics industry RoHS has had a similar effect for lead-free R&D. You see similar dropping of Pb-free technology development not because of pressure by "big lead," but rather, whenever there is an exemption added to the list.
Programming is mostly a solitary career without people contact.
That's part of the problem, the perception of what programming is. There are many roles for CS majors, most of which do not involve sitting in a dark basement coding all day.
Slashdot Mirror
And that is scary as hell. If the wealth of a country is tied up in "IP" it can be lost for the cost of a few hundred (or thousands) $ worth of CDs. More frightening still, if ideas are wealth, then to cement control of wealth, the "IP" "owners" must ultimately assert absolute and unbreakable control over the thought processes of the rest of us.
That makes the assumption that culturally and economically the world does not change. An economy based entirely on wants, is fundamentally different one that also must take care of needs. Think along the lines of Star Trek replicators, where physical objects are trivially created. What is the impact of piracy when you no longer threaten someone's means of survival (as is the case right now)? Socially there may be a shift to something like an Open Source model where it does not hurt you to share, and it actually may be benificial.
The ancient world had no concept of "intellectual property", and creators of content in Greece and Rome understood that their work would be freely copied without compensation.
People have since the beginning of civilization tried to claim things. In ancient times "intellectual property" mostly existed in the form of trade secrets. Recipes and processes that were closely guarded family trade secrets passed down from generation to generation. The primary reasons there were no laws for written works were: the high cost of reproduction, lack of audience, lack of awareness (how would somebody in Italy know their book was copied and taken to Greece).
Modern changes like mass production and digital communication, have also shifted the economy from valuing physical labor, to valuing IP. Hence the focus of ownership has also shifted from physical objects to ideas.
Asking journalists to help them with their marketing is inappropriate.
No it's not, just as it's fine for journalists to ask for exclusive information so they can attract readers. It's a give-take relationship.
Although I agree with ClamIAm, who said "I don't think this would work in the US",
I disagree, I think this would work in the US. US companies have long developed ways to discount to large groups, both to increase revenue, and to increase marketing reach.
On a grassroots level, youth sports teams usually negotiate discounts with local equipment shops, and churches or other large organizations negotiate discounts at restaurants for their events.
In fact, mob based sales is so much a part of the business culture, that corporations take care of the mob formation themselves. For example Discount Club Stores (Costco, Sam's Club), Corporate partnerships (eg GM employees get 10% off Dell computers), or Black Friday sales events (There's going to be mobs, so discount stuff to get them into your store).
games today are lacking in story and adventure when compared to games of old. Sure they look great, but they lack that compelling factor.
How can we forget the amazing plot twists of Pac-Man, not to mention the surprise ending! And no other game tells the story of the futility of mankind's survival like Asteroids.
I believe it is about European mounted infantry who do female impersonations.
your laundry gets done in 15 minutes? *boggles*
Sure, just put it in the dryer for 15 min, and then throw it on the clean pile on the floor
It follows Moore's Law
180^2/130^2 = 1.9
130^2/90^2 = 2.1
...
45^2/32^2 = 1.98
32^2/22^2 = 2.1
Actually, the truth of the matter is that semiconductors NEED defects. Implanting phosphorus atoms (or whatever dopant you choose to use) induces defects - the atoms are injected into the silicon wafers at very high energies, battering their way into the silicon lattices. These are defects, but they're essential to semiconductor operation - without those defects, there would be no conduction at all (silicon by itself doesn't conduct electricity).
Typcially dopants are called "impurities," not defects.
What the research is showing is you don't need to actually have a camera. Just the psychological effect of the thought of being watched is enough to trigger people to pay. It plays to the idea of "keeping honest people honest," by reducing temptation.
"Maybe people can't pay for coffee because they don't have the cash on hand, and they will pay later." is a rationalization of a wrong action. Unless there Is an explicit policy that you are allowed to drink now and pay later, the idea of "paying later" is a psychological crutch many people use to make themselves feel better, when they know their action is wrong. How many actually come back later to pay, how many "forget"?
Or, maybe it is just better to get a pay coffee machine?
Basically you agree with the big brother types... people can't be trusted.
it follows mostly console development and visual development and is severely biased towards shoot-em-up retards and their taste. The other branches of game genealogy are not followed at all.
I think it focuses on commercial success paths rather than industry innovation. Sometimes the two intersect, but more often they do not, that is why the adventure, strategy, and RPG genres tend to be downplayed.
Indeed. Just because you have some mathematical equations that do a good job of describing what you can observe does not mean you actually know what's happening, or that your equations are even correct under all circimstances.
Exactly! Science can only describe the universe, we can never be sure we are actually explaining it... truth is the domain of philosophy and religion.
The jokes are either funny, or unfunny. They cannot be half-funny. And you'll never know until you load the page. Heisenjokes
Murphy's Law applies to jokes: The more you test how funny a joke is, the greater the chance it will be unfunny.
That's really what the RIAA really is affraid of. Artists now have a way to have vertical control, marketting, distribution etc. They claim to fight piracy but really want to make this come as late as they can.
How does this pertain the RIAA? The people they go after are the ones sharing material to which the RIAA has rights to. Nothing is stopping individual artists from doing what you describe, in fact there are many independent artists on the net doing their thing and the RIAA/MPAA leaves them alone. Stephen King did his own online distribution of "The Plant" and while it did disturb the publishers, there wasn't a frenzy of lawsuits to shut him down.
The strength of the labels, studios, and publishers isn't distribution itself. It's the hype machine, that creates markets and encourages people to try something and like it (even though it sucks). Distribution control of their material, is merely a method to collect money from people. The labels are also changing, to capitalize on their marketing strength. American Idol is a perfect example. Not only do they make money selling CDs by some no talent pop singer, they are making money on the show whose main purpose is to create a frenzy around a disposable one-hit wonder.
I'm guessing you're also looking forward to the collapse of the food chain that a bit of warming could bring?
Not my food chain... cheetos can survive global warming.
Considering the direction laws are headed in the United states in this past decade, I would beg differ (sad day indeed.)
I would say given the direction of laws in the US, they are in fact designed to protect us, from everything including ourselves.
What is Utopia, absolute freedom, or absolute security? Civilizations volley back-and-forth between the two, neither ever giving people what they want.
That is, if there were no humans on the earth, spotted owls, cuddly koalas, and majestic eagles would still have "value" and a right to exist, etc.
Disease can wipe out species; insects can destroy local ecosystems; meteors can cause mass extinctions. Why is there "value" in these events?
Why aren't people part of natural process? What is the difference between people building houses and eagles building nests?
Neither "inflation" nor "deflation" are the hazard where money is concerned. The hazard is manipulation.
Both uncontrolled inflation and deflation can be a serious hazard to an economy. And I'd rather have the transparency of manipulation by the government than hidden manipulation by private interests.
The rest of the world (FIFA especially) spend a lot of time wondering about why the USA doesn't really get into 'soccer', and the theory is put forward that it's because you are not interested in sports you're not going to win.
;)
A few theories:
a) Money - you can't make millions domestically playing soccer
b) Fame - A soccer star isn't going to get the chicks while pimpin' on the LA club scene. Most don't realize how well they would do with the ladies internationally.
c) Toughness - at least the perception. I understand soccer "gamesmanship" where a guy gets fouled lightly and gets carted off on a stretcher. But most people in the US just see it as weakness.
d) TV - most US sports are TV friendly. Play is typically chest level or higher, making it easy to track the ball (this is why hockey sucks on TV, but is awesome in person). And the gameplay starts and stops allowing for commercial breaks. This makes the networks more interested in broadcasting and promoting such events
e) Ties - in the US it's all about winning and losing, ties are worse than losses.
f) Game flow - or rather lack of in US games. The start-stop nature of US sports means every play has a result. A 4 yard run is a "win" for the offense, while a 0 yard stop is a "win" for the defense. The flow of soccer means exciting results only happen from a build-up of plays.
It's not like people hate soccer in the US. Most athletic kids played in a soccer league at some point of their life, it just isn't seen as a "professional" sport. Baseball and hockey are dying, maybe it will give room for soccer to take more of the limelight. Though please let me see games from Europe because MLS is the equivalent of the XFL.
I disagree only in the particular that substituting the medium of exchange isn't inflation, because the explicit "money supply" is still fixed in terms of whatever the standard is. Other commodities don't change the availability of a gold standard, for example, they merely allow greater fungability of the currency. Hmmm.... how to word this.....
It depends on how it is done, alternative currency (which almost never happens) or expansion on the money supply by alternate backing. In the former, dollar value is reduced by reducing demand when an acceptable alternative is available. The latter case is an explicit increase in the money supply by printing of dollars now backed by silver. For either case, the result is the same, reduction in the value of the dollar.
In a commodity money environment, as deflationary pressure exists, something like the dime, nickle and penny are utilized.
The problem remains, the government can't make more dimes, nickels, or pennies instantly. It has to accumulate and destroy higher value currency first. Worse deflationary pressure hurts market liquidity, not because people having access to the correct change, but it increases the cost of lending. The economic risk to invest in an inflationary market is less than that of a deflationary market.
Having silver available doesn't change the value of gold, having copper available doesn't change silver, having nickel available doesn't change copper.
Having silver or copper backed currency just allows the government to print more money = inflation.
Actual inflation, the changing in the value of money itself, can only occur when, for instance, today there are more "dollars" in circulation than there were yesterday. The central banks talk about simply matching the increasing supply with the rate of what-would-have-been deflation, but in reality they give lots of new money to the governments to spend, who get to spend it at the old rate, and by the time it filters down through the contractors and sub-contractors to use common citizens, prices have adjusted to the new supply and you and I experience "inflation".
The central banks want a low inflation market to encourage investment which results in overall economic growth. Historically, the fixed money supply of the gold standard hurt farmers in the late 19th century. The silver standard was proposed as a solution, however, it was opposed by the rich industrialists since it would reduce their wealth.
Commodity money is far, far less subject to such creation of money from nowhere. In every example of inflation some government (or central bank, same thing) was behind it. From Roman coin-clipping to fractional reserve banking, it's all just fraud.
So what if money comes out of nowhere, as long as it is limited and controlled? As I mentioned earlier, adding silver or copper standard is essentially the same thing, an increase of the money supply. Taken to extremes the governent could just go on the leaf standard and print all the money it wanted to.
All backing does is give people confidence to use and accept the currency. So long as "In God We Trust" is enough for people to accept dollar bills then there is no need for backing.
Sure you can. But most cops I know would investigate the guy before calling for back-up. Conversely, the guy behind the video screen can do nothing but call for back-up.
Which most likely isn't an escalation to the FBI, but rather, contacting a cruiser in the area to check out the situation.
The cop would watch what he does and at some point during his walk home, would pull over and ask him a few questions and say something to the effect of "Stop doing that." Maybe even give him a ticket for trespassing or something.
Or call the FBI & SWAT team because he thinks its a potential suicide bomber, innocent guy is surrounded, a couple helicoptors circle round plastering his face all over the news. Maybe in his nervousness the guy reaches for his wallet to show his ID and is shot. You can come up with all sorts of results from any scenario.
Just because something is not going to be a money maker doesn't necessarily make it bad. I think a lot of americans (especially in the west) seem to think that if something is not profitable it is by definition bad. We went through this here in Denver as the city started building out light rail and commuter rail. Opponents argued that is wasn't going to make any money. Which completely misses the point, if mass transit made money private companies would do it. But mass transit makes cities better and improves the quality of life of the citizens. It can also be argued that intermodal transportation improves the economic viability of a city, but that is not proven.
Usually companies look at Return on Investment, rather than profit. For example losing money on consoles creates a short term loss while there is a long-term positive ROI from games & licensing fees. In the example you gave, while an individual company would lose money on a light rail venture, as a public works project it creates a positive ROI by stimulating economic growth and saving costs from road expansions.
Ok, so we all agree then that GM killed the product because it wasn't going to be particularly profitable compared to other products (trucks/suvs). In fact, if they knew it wouldn't make any (or enough) money they would do whatever it took to make sure the product failed. The problem was that they had already hyped their involvement.
Sometimes companies put out products on a limited basis to get a market reaction. Others have mentioned the California mandate for electric vehicles, but also other states like Arizona offered tax credits for purchases of electric vehicles. There was a potential market, and GM wanted to see what the reaction was to it's technology would be. They didn't like the results, be it market reaction or the economics just didn't work, so put it on the shelf for later.
Did McDonald's cave into the pressure of "Big Beef" because it realeased the McRib only for a limited time?
The problem is that in this country we are so worried about big companies making money that we aren't worrying about the consequences. The government needs to actively invest in energy and transportation alternatives because business is just not going to do it on their own. Maybe if GM invested 15 billion dollars they could come up with a nice green care that made them money, but the up-front R&D is so costly they can't afford it. This is what governments are for. They allow all of us, as a county, to invest in something that may not generate profits next quarter, or next year. But twenty years down the line we will all be glad we made the investment.
I totally agree with you. Part of that is done through such things as the space program, DARPA, and other research grants, unfortunately such areas are woefully underfunded.
Or in the most tyranical of methods, government can just give business an edict and you'll see them scurry to make it happen. That's part of the reason the EV1 was released (though California's mandate that never materialized), and the reason electronics are becoming more and more lead-free (EU RoHS directive)
Great post! This makes more sense than all the consipiracy theories.
Working in the electronics industry RoHS has had a similar effect for lead-free R&D.
You see similar dropping of Pb-free technology development not because of pressure by "big lead," but rather, whenever there is an exemption added to the list.
Programming is mostly a solitary career without people contact.
That's part of the problem, the perception of what programming is. There are many roles for CS majors, most of which do not involve sitting in a dark basement coding all day.