This Canadian doesn't follow the logic here at all.
The logic is that the ISPs are Doing Something(TM). It looks good in their press releases, and probably ups their stock value a bit. Aside from that, there's nothing to see here.
When will people realize that the whole moonwalk thing was a hoax?
Certainly it was.
And the Mars missions are all hoaxes too. Robots driving through the desert? Come on, they didn't even show any canals!
And the Voyager missions? I could see the strings suspending Saturn!
Middle East conflict? Hoax! Shot in the Mojave desert.
As a matter of fact, everything is a hoax fed directly into our minds through a big tube as we lie in a pool of bioactive plasma, powering the Machines...
Oh shit; I took the wrong colored pill this morning.
it appears that New Line still have time to make the Hobbit...it's entirely possible that Jackson could make another version within a year or two...
Given this development, it's more likely that New Line will scrap their version unless they are really shortsighted (which is entirely possible). It's kind of like trying to sell a mediocre 1.2 release of a product when everyone is buzzing about the far superior 2.0 release just ahead.
And with the size of the official LOTR fan club, the fact that New Line has much more marketing muscle won't matter as much; word of mouth will be huge in advertising "Peter and the Ring V2.0".
A very large portion of the Middle East was Christian up until they were conquered and forcefully converted to Islam. The original goal of the crusades were to recapture these lands and prevent the further spread of Islam by force.
And how did these regions become Christian in the first place? It wasn't because people went door to door handing out pamphlets. Once the Roman Empire transformed into the Holy Roman Empire, the church turned into a political weapon.
From the last part of the article (for those who don't RTFA):
The suggestion is interesting and plausible, says Sean Moran, an environmental engineer who runs Expertise Limited in the UK. "But I can see there being a lot of difficulties taking it from lab stage to full scale," he adds.
He points out that there are already filtering columns which maintain their size gradient even after backwashing by exploiting the density differences. These use large, low density particles of anthracite, on top of sand, with small, high density particles of garnet at the bottom.
Another problem in cleaning filtering systems is that sewage sludge sticks to the filter particles. Moran thinks the sludge is more likely to stick to rubber than to smooth hard grains of sand and coal.
He is also concerned that the rubber from old tyres might leach out toxic chemicals including heavy metals. Xie's team is now taking feedback from experts, and running tests to make sure the rubber does not leach out heavy metals.
I, for one, do not welcome our contaminant-leaching, sewage adsorbing overlords.
Who said they were worse? I'm just saying they're no better.
And Iraq isn't a plot by Bush at all. When you're looking for the architect of a plan, don't look at the figurehead; look at the group immediately below him. Based on the level of intelligence Bush displays just about every time his lips are moving, do you really think he could plan something as complex as, oh, taking a leak without hurting himself?
And before you point to my sig line, it scans a lot easier than "Bad Cheney, Rumsfeld, and a bunch of other people whose names the public doesn't even know, whatcha gonna do..."
Meanwhile we can rag on christians, they wont blow you up for criticizing them.
Tell that to Iraq. Seems like Christianity isn't out if its "crusades"-stage yet either.
It doesn't matter how a religion starts. Before long, it turns into a "Hey, let's kill everyone who disagrees with us" club. Belief? Hardly important for the leaders. As long as the followers believe strongly enough to do everything the leaders tell them to do, the leaders can achieve their political objectives.
"We're not fundies... really! Trust us! If we ever go to war against a "Mahometan" nation, it will be because they have WMD's, not because we fear and hate their religion... Well, they'll be developing WMD's... well, they'll have a guy there who wants WMD's."
...the UI hasn't changed this drastically since the move to windows in MS Word 6(?).
I remember using Word and Excel 4 in Windows, and no, the UI was not that different at all. This seems like a case of "We've got this flashy new OS, but we have no functional changes for Office... how can we justify releasing a new version?"
Kind of like when they released a tremendous overhaul of Windows NT (Windows 2000) for business, but had nothing new for home users. The result: Windows Me. If that's a valid parallel, stay as far away from Office 2007 as possible.
LOTR will remain popular as a rental with future generations, will remain at the head of Peter Jackson's CV, and will be the movie that inspires many big-screen TV purchses for years to come.
The Hobbit and The Sillymarilly--Silamarilia--The Three Rocks will go straight to DVD, will not make a name for the director, possibly the same one responsible for such cinematic triumphs as "Rob Schneider Doo-pa Doo-pa Doo", and will be responsible for many Blockbuster membership cancellations because "they just don't make anything worth watching anymore."
New Line will write off the loss, and make the excuse that the movies were doomed from the start because those "lesser stories" didn't compare to LOTR anyway.
Even considering only software, a company isn't necessarily that green if it only concentrates on a narrow aspect of its production, distribution, and product lifecycle management.
Here are some other green considerations:
Microsoft uses a lot of electrical power. Does it supplement its use of the Redmond power grid with alternative energy wherever possible? Unfortunately, this is hard to do in the Pacific Northwest. Little year-round sun and few days of constant wind make the two most popular alternative energy sources ineffective.
Does the company regulate screensaver and power management use on its computers by group policy? Or does it allow its employees to run power-hungry 3D screensavers all night? With the number of employees they have, that simple step could conserve a lot of energy.
Microsoft releases its physical products on materials that come from non-renewable (plastic) and semi-renewable resources (paper--semi-renewable because forests are being consumed faster than they are regenerating worldwide). Does it select suppliers for these resources that have sustainability plans? For example, paper vendors that have strict reforestation plans, and plastic vendors that use recycled material wherever possible? And do those vendors have green power plans?
Does Microsoft encourage its employees to make green choices, like cycling to work, carpooling, recycling, etc.?
Do Microsoft product manuals contain instructions for recycling the product, or even a note that encourages the consumer to recycle it? Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to fully close the loop with consumer products; the most a company can do is encourage the consumer to dispose of its product in a green manner.
There is a lot more to being a green company than meets the eye.
What if MegaCorp(TM), drove up to your house one day and towed away your car on some flimsy legal pretense? Barons and Lords did this kind of thing all the time.
I'd much rather watch corporate ads disguised as news than government propaganda disguised as news...
Really? Who do you think has the greatest influence on the government? Some people are so fearful of the ghost of socialism that they can't see that their government has become little more than an an oligarchy controlled by the rich elite.
The fact that you get so much of your news from News Corporation should be a strong hint of just how impartial that news is.
Unless Linux can become as easy to install and use PLUS come up with some superior features most users will never switch.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but ease of install is a major non-issue.
Actually, it's still a major issue. For most people, installing Windows consists of starting up their new PC for the first time and clicking on a couple of security options and license agreements. Of course, that's not actually installing it, but that's what most users see.
It's still rare to get Linux pre-installed on a desktop machine. If you want it, you pretty much have to install it yourself. Kind of like Firefox vs. IE; IE can still claim overwhelming market share because you have to install Firefox yourself (for the most part).
The first thing I thought when I saw "solar concentrators" was the Clive Cussler novel "Sahara", published in 1992 (later made into a move that, while not bad on its own, missed 80% of the plot... but whatcha gonna do in 110 minutes?).
In the novel, the big bad guy uses a huge solar concentrator system in the desert in Mali (quite different from the concentrator system in the movie) to power an incinerator to destroy toxic waste.
So the idea has been around for a while. It will be good to see it expand as sustainability becomes not just fashionable, but profitable.
Take hydrogen. The day someone figures out how to easily produce hydrogen the days of energy monopolies are over...
Hydrogen is not an energy source.
Let's all say it again: Hydrogen is not an energy source.
There are already cheap ways of producing hydrogen, and they're not going to get any cheaper in terms of energy input requirements. It doesn't matter what kind of neat gizmo you come up with, the energy required to break a hydrogen-oxygen bond (for water), a hydrogen-carbon bond (for methane or other hydrocarbon), or a hydrogen-[$element] bond, is never going to decrease.
And where does the energy required to produce hydrogen come from? Whatever your primary power source is! So with the amount of coal-derived energy in the US, using hydrogen as an energy 'source' contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.
Court stenographer: I'm sorry, your honor, but we started uploading "the record" to courtproceedings.google.com (beta) because of data portability. As a result, remarks can no longer be stricken.
Judge: What?!
Mr. Google Man: Well, he can delete the comment, but it may still be searchable on strickenfromtherecord.google.com (beta) for an indeterminate period.
Slashdot Mirror
The logic is that the ISPs are Doing Something(TM). It looks good in their press releases, and probably ups their stock value a bit. Aside from that, there's nothing to see here.
Certainly it was.
And the Mars missions are all hoaxes too. Robots driving through the desert? Come on, they didn't even show any canals!
And the Voyager missions? I could see the strings suspending Saturn!
Middle East conflict? Hoax! Shot in the Mojave desert.
As a matter of fact, everything is a hoax fed directly into our minds through a big tube as we lie in a pool of bioactive plasma, powering the Machines...
Oh shit; I took the wrong colored pill this morning.
Given this development, it's more likely that New Line will scrap their version unless they are really shortsighted (which is entirely possible). It's kind of like trying to sell a mediocre 1.2 release of a product when everyone is buzzing about the far superior 2.0 release just ahead.
And with the size of the official LOTR fan club, the fact that New Line has much more marketing muscle won't matter as much; word of mouth will be huge in advertising "Peter and the Ring V2.0".
(Turns around) Nope, don't see it.
Behind us? What does this skeptic think we're doing? Hiding it in the freezer so we can lob snowballs across the 49th parallel next summer?
...or maybe our Northwest Passage defense force has hidden it in his pickup truck?
No, no, I know what it is. With all of our urban expansion, we've used up so much snow to build our igloos, mother nature just can't keep up!
This just got me wondering... what do you get when you oxidize (burn) methane? Oh, great, more CO2!
If only we could generate energy efficiently by partially oxidizing sugar. At least we'd have a useful byproduct.
And how did these regions become Christian in the first place? It wasn't because people went door to door handing out pamphlets. Once the Roman Empire transformed into the Holy Roman Empire, the church turned into a political weapon.
On this point I heartily agree.
From the last part of the article (for those who don't RTFA):
I, for one, do not welcome our contaminant-leaching, sewage adsorbing overlords.
Who said they were worse? I'm just saying they're no better.
And Iraq isn't a plot by Bush at all. When you're looking for the architect of a plan, don't look at the figurehead; look at the group immediately below him. Based on the level of intelligence Bush displays just about every time his lips are moving, do you really think he could plan something as complex as, oh, taking a leak without hurting himself?
And before you point to my sig line, it scans a lot easier than "Bad Cheney, Rumsfeld, and a bunch of other people whose names the public doesn't even know, whatcha gonna do..."
Tell that to Iraq. Seems like Christianity isn't out if its "crusades"-stage yet either.
It doesn't matter how a religion starts. Before long, it turns into a "Hey, let's kill everyone who disagrees with us" club. Belief? Hardly important for the leaders. As long as the followers believe strongly enough to do everything the leaders tell them to do, the leaders can achieve their political objectives.
"We're not fundies... really! Trust us! If we ever go to war against a "Mahometan" nation, it will be because they have WMD's, not because we fear and hate their religion... Well, they'll be developing WMD's... well, they'll have a guy there who wants WMD's."
I remember using Word and Excel 4 in Windows, and no, the UI was not that different at all. This seems like a case of "We've got this flashy new OS, but we have no functional changes for Office... how can we justify releasing a new version?"
Kind of like when they released a tremendous overhaul of Windows NT (Windows 2000) for business, but had nothing new for home users. The result: Windows Me. If that's a valid parallel, stay as far away from Office 2007 as possible.
LOTR will remain popular as a rental with future generations, will remain at the head of Peter Jackson's CV, and will be the movie that inspires many big-screen TV purchses for years to come.
The Hobbit and The Sillymarilly--Silamarilia--The Three Rocks will go straight to DVD, will not make a name for the director, possibly the same one responsible for such cinematic triumphs as "Rob Schneider Doo-pa Doo-pa Doo", and will be responsible for many Blockbuster membership cancellations because "they just don't make anything worth watching anymore."
New Line will write off the loss, and make the excuse that the movies were doomed from the start because those "lesser stories" didn't compare to LOTR anyway.
...laugh at the 747 that just wooshed over your head?
...or was that "wootzed over your head"?
Even considering only software, a company isn't necessarily that green if it only concentrates on a narrow aspect of its production, distribution, and product lifecycle management.
Here are some other green considerations:
There is a lot more to being a green company than meets the eye.
I wouldn't exactly call them unwitting. In particular, News Corporation is about as witting as it gets.
Except back then it was "Dude, where's my horse?"
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Really? Who do you think has the greatest influence on the government? Some people are so fearful of the ghost of socialism that they can't see that their government has become little more than an an oligarchy controlled by the rich elite.
The fact that you get so much of your news from News Corporation should be a strong hint of just how impartial that news is.
From the license agreement page that everyone reads (I'm sure) before downloading it:
Onoes! You mean if I install this program I can no longer use my... um... paper ledger? (Really, what else would I have upgraded from?)
sic? I don't think the British are actually sic. A little under the weather, maybe...
Actually, it's still a major issue. For most people, installing Windows consists of starting up their new PC for the first time and clicking on a couple of security options and license agreements. Of course, that's not actually installing it, but that's what most users see.
It's still rare to get Linux pre-installed on a desktop machine. If you want it, you pretty much have to install it yourself. Kind of like Firefox vs. IE; IE can still claim overwhelming market share because you have to install Firefox yourself (for the most part).
A bit off topic, but...
The first thing I thought when I saw "solar concentrators" was the Clive Cussler novel "Sahara", published in 1992 (later made into a move that, while not bad on its own, missed 80% of the plot... but whatcha gonna do in 110 minutes?).
In the novel, the big bad guy uses a huge solar concentrator system in the desert in Mali (quite different from the concentrator system in the movie) to power an incinerator to destroy toxic waste.
So the idea has been around for a while. It will be good to see it expand as sustainability becomes not just fashionable, but profitable.
Hydrogen is not an energy source.
Let's all say it again: Hydrogen is not an energy source.
There are already cheap ways of producing hydrogen, and they're not going to get any cheaper in terms of energy input requirements. It doesn't matter what kind of neat gizmo you come up with, the energy required to break a hydrogen-oxygen bond (for water), a hydrogen-carbon bond (for methane or other hydrocarbon), or a hydrogen-[$element] bond, is never going to decrease.
And where does the energy required to produce hydrogen come from? Whatever your primary power source is! So with the amount of coal-derived energy in the US, using hydrogen as an energy 'source' contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.
Actually, I was wondering if he was saying "We're going down! Grab your data and run while you can! It's GOOGLEGEDDON!!
You forgot...
Judge: Strike that from the record!
Court stenographer: I'm sorry, your honor, but we started uploading "the record" to courtproceedings.google.com (beta) because of data portability. As a result, remarks can no longer be stricken.
Judge: What?!
Mr. Google Man: Well, he can delete the comment, but it may still be searchable on strickenfromtherecord.google.com (beta) for an indeterminate period.
...unless you say "YARR!" while you're doing it.