Mystikkman claims that I've been posting messages perceived as unjustly hateful toward Microsoft. I would prefer to express my feelings without hate, but sometimes I have the wrong idea of what is hate and what isn't. Please point out which of my comments are hateful and why so that I can understand how not to post next time.

"Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one."--Colossians 4:6, NKJV.

In this post, h4rr4r wrote in a reply to a post by roman_mir:

It appears roman_mir is not a native English speaker. Through the "Homepage" link in his profile, I found what appears to be his user page on Mozdev. Roman Mironenko's native language appears not to even be written with Latin letters.

On Slashdot and other web forums, a lot of people reply to comments just to correct the grammar, usage, or mechanics. It's more polite to phrase your correction as a throwaway bit at the beginning of your comment and then, with that out of the way, proceed to make a thoughtful reply to the comment's topic. This way, your comment is more likely to be seen as a sincere attempt to build another user up, rather than the sort of abrasive and inconsiderate personal attack on one's intelligence that has caused people to associate corrections with National Socialism.

In this post, Immerman wrote:

I'm aware of the hyperbole in my illustration. They're probably not equally probable, but absent other evidence, one has to assume so. My point is that just because the probability isn't 100 percent doesn't mean it can always be treated as 0 percent. So if you want to plead false cause more effectively, explain why they're not equally probable. Be willing to discuss what further observations would be needed to show which of the four possibilities is most likely. But don't say "correlation does not imply causation" as if it were "correlation implies lack of causation" without providing evidence, as that's close to the fallacy fallacy and the black or white fallacy.

This discussion has been automatically archived. Discussion continues in Daniel Dvorkin's journal.

People tell me my Slashdot comments are repetitive. I'd appreciate some hints as to how to be less repetitive.

Sometimes it looks like I'm reminding other users of an unsolved problem, but the problem has in fact been solved. Perhaps the real problem is that the solution hasn't been well publicized. For example, one solution to a lot of problems with home entertainment is to put a PC in the living room, but almost nobody knows about this.

If it looks like I'm reminding other users of an edge case too often, consider that a solution that covers more edge cases will appear better thought out and more robust than a solution that covers only the common cases and leaves the edge cases unnoticed.

And sometimes I get confused as to which is the common case and which is the edge case. For example, h4rr4r has pointed out that whenever someone brings up Netflix as an alternative to cable television, I often bring up the fact that Netflix lacks sports. I try to phrase it like "Netflix is fine for people who aren't into sports", recognizing that both non-sports-fan and sports-fan markets exist but apparently putting undue emphasis on the sports-fan market. This goes back to discussions that I've had with heads of household in my survey sample. They tell me they don't see how Netflix would be worth an extra $7.99 per month on top of what they already pay for TV. So I try to make room for Netflix in their budget by suggesting how much they could save by switching from cable Internet+cable TV or fiber Internet+satellite TV to their current Internet+Netflix, and then they mention sports. I guess the survey sample of households in my extended family with broadband access must be a biased sample with more sports fans than the general population, and thus I have a biased view of the relative size of the sports-fan and non-sports-fan markets.

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USA already has other public options: public schools and USPS Priority Mail over private schools and UPS 3 Day Select.

My signature points out that the United States has a history of public and private sectors competing in a given sector. For example, an engineering student in Indiana can go to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (private), or she can go to Purdue University (public). An online hobby store can ship packages to customers with United Parcel Service (private), or it can ship them with United States Postal Service (semipublic, funded by an exclusive contract with the US Government for mailing letters).

As of the third quarter of 2009, health insurance for United States residents under age 65 is mostly provided by employers, who make insurance available to their employees. But not all employers are large enough to qualify for group insurance plans, and some employers even restrict employees to part-time hours so that they don't have to offer coverage. Some insurers offer individual plans, but these are known for refusing to cover people with any of several sorts of preexisting conditions. Estimates of the number of documented U.S. residents without health insurance range from 8 million to 47 million.

The legislature of the United States, called the Congress, has recognized that the lack of universal coverage is holding America back compared to other highly-developed countries. Its members have been debating whether to form a public health insurer to compete with private insurers; this hypothetical insurer has been nicknamed "Public Option" or "Obamacare" in the news media. Some more fiscally conservative members of the Congress argue that any public option would distort the market, and people would leave their current plans and end up on Obamacare. Yes, some people will switch from their current insurer to Obamacare, but that's to be expected: people switched from UPS 3-Day Select when USPS introduced flat-rate shipping boxes.

And the so-called "death panel" is actually called iMac.

The elements of copying are access and similarity. The plaintiff shows some similarity between the works. Then the plaintiff shows that the defendant should reasonably have had access to the work because the work was on the pop charts. This creates a rebuttable presumption of copying. My question: how would one rebut this presumption?

CheapBytes distributes copies of free operating systems for a fee.

What's the difference between an FTP mirror and an HTTP mirror in this case?

Google failed me on SUP, but it found Background Intelligent Transfer Service. That uses only 20 percent of bandwidth anyway, and the article is about throttling to 33 percent (or, alternatively, letting HTTP burst to 300 percent).

Any encoder for MPEG-4 Part 2 violates U.S. patents if not licensed by MPEG-LA, and as I understand it, MPEG-LA's standard license terms are incompatible with the four freedoms that define free software.

Yes, the ISP is trying to do so.

I have played at least three Nintendo DS games over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Animal Crossing: Wild World copies the map from the server to any client that joins, but that's only 88 KB of data.

In this discussion, godrik and I were discussing the relative merits of web applications that use AJAX techniques compared to local applications. I brought up the advantage that web apps can run even on machines where the user isn't allowed to install new software, such as someone else's PC, a set-top web terminal, or a video game console.

Godrik countered that he'd never buy a machine that didn't let its owner install software, and that when he wanted a console to play games on, he bought a Wii and jailbroke it using Bannerbomb. He mentioned plenty of established PC titles that have been ported to libogc, the library used by Wii homebrew: source ports of Id Software's Doom and Quake, emulators such as FCE Ultra, ScummVM, and VisualBoyAdvance, and various Linux-original games that had been ported to about everything, such as SuperTux. These games had presumably recouped their costs of production entirely on the PC.

In general, there are four routes to being able to run code on a closed platform:

1. Make a web application that runs in the console's web browser. These browsers are usually severely limited in performance and in how much of the system's capability the browser exposes through the DOM. Some can't even read more than one gamepad at once, and they're impractical for playing handheld games away from Wi-Fi coverage.
2. Make a pay-per-download game and sell it through the console maker's online store. This is cost prohibitive due to various artificial overheads imposed by console makers such as Nintendo, such as the requirements of a separate office and a prior commercial title on another platform.
3. Make a native game that ships on a retail game disc. This is even more cost prohibitive than download.
4. Make a "homebrew" game that relies on a jailbreak. This is the solution that godrik appears to prefer, but it has problems.

First, jailbreaks break the console's warranty or worse. There are anecdotal reports that Nintendo charges more for out-of-warranty service, such as disc drive replacement after the first 12 months, if a jailbreak is detected than if not.

Second, Nintendo can break Bannerbomb at any time by fixing the defect in a new version of the Wii Menu and IOS. Nintendo would install the fix on newly manufactured consoles and require an update before people can connect to Wii Shop Channel (workaround: WiiSCU) or start newly manufactured Game Discs normally (workaround: Gecko 1.8+). It could take weeks for a new sploit to be developed and released on sites such as WiiBrew, just as it took weeks from Wii Menu 4.0 to Bannerbomb.

But finally, the homebrew community frowns on charging for anything, especially the jailbreaks (Twilight Hack, Bannerbomb) and the launchers (BootMii, Homebrew Channel). That doesn't look good for somebody who wants to feed his family but isn't rich enough to afford the overhead of a license to develop on a closed platform, or even someone who just wants a little economic incentive not to abandon his projects.

One could develop for an open platform such as the PC, but as I mentioned in my last journal entry, not all genres fit well on such a personal computer. For example, a developer might want to make a social game designed to be played with gamepads, a big screen, a sofa, and three friends, such as Nintendo's Mario Party series or Super Smash Bros. series. But four adults can't easily fit around a PC's comparatively small monitor, and a lot of PC gamers seem to be keyboard-and-mouse fanboys who would make other players take turns if they're not old enough to work and buy their own PCs and their own copies of the game. One could go the "home theater PC" route, running gamepads through a USB hub and a VGA or DVI-to-HDMI cable to an HDTV, but two-thirds of U.S. households still have an SDTV in the living room, most PCs don't come with an S-Video output, and the PC to TV adapter isn't sold in stores. Likewise, music games with key sounds, such as Beatmania and Guitar Hero, can feel unresponsive on PC sound cards with their much higher audio latency.

But then, godrik wasn't referring to free as in free beer but instead to Free as in free speech. One way an author can rely on Free is to make the game a massively multiplayer online game based on subscriptions or micropayments. This has its drawbacks: more complexity, requirement for lag-tolerant game play design, cost of administering the game server, need for a separate PC per player, generally no opportunity for children to play due to COPPA and foreign counterparts, failure to reach people who regularly game away from a reliable Internet connection (such as laptop users or people living in the country), and the fact that a lot of people prefer to buy rather than effectively rent their games.

Another way is to make the game engine Free but to charge for the data files, much like Doom and Quake after their GPL release. But are there any success stories of shipping a retail or pay-per-download game whose engine is free software from day one?

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There are two kinds of real-time multiplayer video game. Some games require one machine and screen for each player; these are historically associated with personal computers controlled by a keyboard and mouse, connected in either a local-area network or through the Internet. Other games allow multiple players to share a screen. Incidentally, this can be done without splitting the screen, as seen in Midway's Gauntlet, Konami's Bomberman series and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (arcade), and Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series. These traditionally run on arcade cabinets or on video game consoles with multiple gamepads. The historical reasons for this platform divide include the difficulty in connecting multiple gamepads and the difficulty in fitting four players' bodies around one 14- to 17-inch monitor.

But in the late 1990s, the line began to blur. At first, only consoles had hubs called "multitaps" to connect four gamepads to one machine, but starting with the popularization of USB in 1998, the PC has also had hubs that take multiple gamepads. In the early 2000s, more and more PCs have included composite and S-video outputs for a standard-definition television, and high-definintion televisions have included VGA-style video inputs, solving the screen problem. The rise of home theater PCs has led to demand for multiplayer games designed to fit an HTPC.

Yet even in 2008, this demand has not been met, and the stigma of one PC per player remains. A minority of PC titles, such as Serious Sam, Lego Star Wars, and Midway Arcade Treasures, allow two players on one screen, but not much more. Even cross-platform games whose console version works with more than one gamepad tend to need one PC per player. The landscape of HTPC gaming is so barren that some people have recommended loading up an HTPC with emulators to run unauthorized copies of console game ROMs.

Much innovation in software comes from microISVs, or small businesses that develop software and distribute it on the Internet. These are often home-based businesses and in some cases are run more as a hobby or moonlighting enterprise than as a profit-seeking day job. Some microISVs make their money by developing proprietary software, distributing a trial version at no charge, and selling copies of a version with more features. Others, especially developers of free software, just take donations and advertisements. But the console makers have consistently excluded microISVs from the market. For example, from Nintendo's developer qualifications for Wii and WiiWare: "In addition, an Authorized Developer will have a stable business organization with secure office facilities separate from a personal residence ( Home offices do not meet this requirement )".

Imagine that the head of a microISV has written a design document for a video game intended for two to six people in one room looking at one screen. His team has developed a playable prototype that runs on Windows. For which platform should he and the rest of his team develop and market the final version?

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Football

I haven't watched hockey in ages, whereas I used to be a huge fan. Given that I don't see many games on television and horse racing season has a few months before it really kicks off, I decided to get back into football (that is not to say that I ever understood the game)...just in time for the last couple of games of the season. It was surreal watching one of my old favourites--Green Bay--play because Brett Favre is still in the game, which was a pleasant surprise. Needless to say, I was disappointed when they lost the game to New York, especially during such a cold game where they usually dominate. I guess then that I will be rooting for New York in the Super Bowl, although I am not at all confident that they can win. In fact, I will be surprised if they do. Anyone have any good, possibly unusual dip recipes that they would like to share? I don't think that I am going to host a Bowl party, but I would like something that would go well with my margaritas. :)

Gardening

Do we have any gardeners in the Circle? If not, then I will spare you my tales and hopefully triumphs this spring with trying to liberate myself from my local grocer's produce (and $4 a pound tyranny.) Otherwise, if anyone has a favorite place online to get their plants and seeds and would like to trade tips (I will probably be more on the receiving end of those), I would love to spark some conversation in that direction. In particular, I am thinking of trying tomatoes and peppers in containers this year (which may not produce much), and then lots of random veggies and herbs (to see what works) in a square foot garden. I am also interested in picking up a Meyer Lemon tree, and need to find a good place to purchase one. My real triumph would be if I could harvest the seeds from one year, and be able to produce comparable plants the next--such a hard thing these days. Also, has anyone here successfully canned their fruits and veggies, and would you share some tips? I have an embarrassing, growing collection of Mason jars (I can't explain some of my weird collecting habits) that would be up to the task.

Kicking the Pepsi Habit

I still drink sodas (now happens to be a particularly bad several-day run), although I would consider my "kicking the habit" endeavor successful since I do not drink Pepsi every day and I do not need caffeine as I did before. No more horrible headaches from caffeine deprivation. Although I am particularly bad about requesting Pepsi when I dine out or attend a party, it is a vast improvement from where I was; whereas previously I would drink nearly half a case a day, I can now go several days (and sometimes a week) without any at all. Likewise, I haven't indulged in my daily donut in a while, either; I have instead substituted oranges. I have started drinking a lot of cow's milk and orange juice (healthy in moderation, but my indulgence in both have been very much not moderate), so just tonight I tried Plain soy milk to try balancing out the equation. I was sure I would hate it, but its actually pretty good for a drink made from beans. I am still looking for good drinks without an unreasonable amount of (refined? processed? unnatural, I mean) sugar or high-fructose corn syrup--unfortunately I get bored with water easily, lemons aren't always accessible to dress it up, and I don't think that hot tea would stay very hot if I carried it in a thermos. I am open to recommendations. I think that I am slowly getting onto a healthier kick, which is a very good thing. Now, I just need to push myself to go for a walk every night again, and resume my rowing, and maybe I will get somewhere!

State of the Circle

How is everyone? I am particularly sad to hear that GeckoFood is feeling a bit disillusioned with the frequency of journal posting on Slashdot these days, and may be taking a break. He isn't wrong; those of us who have stayed seem to have become suddenly busy (or perhaps we were always occasional-posters, and our slow posting habits were mitigated by the frequent posting by others who have sense migrated to Multiply.) Regardless, I enjoy his entries (much as I enjoy the entries of most of the people on my Friends list), and am sad to see people fading away. I still believe that patience may eventually win the day. People are slowly trickling back to here from Multiply, so I hope that eventually we strike a nice balance.

Apparently even the IRS couldn't resist the lure of a free gmail account. My question is: who gave the IRS an Invite? And who granted the IRS copyright protection? One of the more clever phishing scams, so I thought I would share. I think that this phisher would do better waiting until after April to throw this out there. :)

from Internal Revenue Service (tax-refund@gmail.com)
to
date Jan 29, 2008 6:40 PM
subject Notification of Tax Refund

                                            Notification of Tax Refund on your VISA or MasterCard Now

  Dear Citizen:

  After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity
  we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $203.59.
  Please submit the tax refund request and allowus 6-9 days in order to process it.
  A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons.
  For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

  To access the form for your tax refund, please click here :

  ((LINK REMOVED FOR OBVIOUS REASONS))

  > For security reasons, we will record your ip-address, the date and time.
  > Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated

  Regards,
  Internal Revenue Service

                                                    *************************************************
                                          © Copyright 2008, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A.
                                                    *************************************************

At least the "Internal Revenue Service" (U.S.A, in case you were confused) signed their regards. Polite!

Edit: Added the gmail address back in, as it was eaten in HTML.

Even though I don't drink coffee (I grow it, I don't drink it), I read with great interest the article "Don't Fear Starbucks: Why the franchise actually helps mom and pop coffeehouses."

Do you remember coffee consumption being so prevalent a decade ago? Fifteen years ago, the average person probably never entered a dedicated "coffee house" unless they really needed a cup of coffee (or were painfully artsy college students.) Most coffee was probably carried from home in a thermos, purchased from a breakfast diner or donut shop, or foully brewed in the break room. Sure, people have been addicted to morning coffee for a long time, but the coffee revolution is a recent one in my memory. Starbucks has made it trendy to carry around a branded cup of coffee--I guess that it took a big, commercial entity to market an $8 cup of machine-dispensed caffeine.

Starbucks is omnipresent on the street corners of most major cities in the United States. Conventional wisdom says that smaller coffee shops suffer when massive corporate entities open stores nearby. The article, however, contends that Starbucks has actually been a boon to many mom-and-pop coffee shops. "Strange as it sounds, the best way to boost sales at your independently owned coffeehouse may just be to have Starbucks move in next-door."

Some snippets from the article:

"Each new Starbucks store created a local buzz, drawing new converts to the latte-drinking fold. When the lines at Starbucks grew beyond the point of reason, these converts started venturing out--and, Look! There was another coffeehouse right next-door!"

"... when Starbucks blitzed Omaha with six new stores in 2002...business at all coffeehouses in town immediately went up as much as 25 percent."

"...if Starbucks can make a profit by putting its stores right across the street from each other, as it so often does, why couldn't a unique, well-run mom and pop do even better next-door?"

The article (found at the link above, and is about 2 pages long) doesn't completely glorify Starbucks, though. It recounts the techniques Starbucks has used to antagonize competitors, including pursuing competitors' leases!, and describes cases where people were forced out of the market. However, the article contends that this (the coffee shop failure, not the intimidation) is an exception to the rule (the numbers they cite regarding the success of running a coffee shop is impressive, if believable.) It also differentiates Starbucks from chain stores like Home Depot and Wal-Mart, which can have devastating impacts on local markets.

An interesting read nonetheless.

Oh my. My, my, my.

I made the decision earlier last week to kick the Pepsi habit. I will probably still allow myself the occasional reward of a tall, cold glass of carbonated crack whenever I join my friends at a fast food restaurant--because, let's face it, nothing goes better with a big helping of deepfried, greasy potato-like rectangles and a soggy burger than a refreshing papercup of high fructose corn syrup. But, if you believe everything people tell you, I will eventually find it too sweet to drink anymore and won't miss it at all. I would like to believe that, but it has been pretty rough passing by the fountain drink machines (my poison!), sporting my fake bottled water and a migraine. Six cans a day (or, at least two to three) owned me, and now I am paying for it ounce-by-ounce, migraine by migraine. Luckily, those seem to be subsiding. Would you believe that you can actually have migraines in the eyes?

Wow. I couldn't even imagine being a real crack addict.

After suffering through what I believe was a brief stomach virus (mmm...let me tell you that the post-Thanksgiving smell of rendered duck fat is the first thing you want to smell after praying to the porcelain gods and finally getting back on your feet), I found that caffeine withdrawal had kicked in. Afterall, I couldn't keep anything down for a day or so, let alone Pepsi. So, deciding that there's no better time to make one's self miserable than when one is already miserable, I made the move (again.) Sure, I have "kicked the habit" a handful of times now, but some sadistic need to remain awake for days-on-end (watching Cartoon Network? Just kidding.) has pushed me back to indulging in my own demons, and brought me right back to Pepsi (or worse). And right back to gaining weight. It is by no coincidence that I slimmed down each time that I gave up soda and then ballooned after picking it back up again.

Since my decision to kick the habit, I have had one glass of hot tea (it is practically genetic that I should have to drink some tea) and a few sips of someone else's Pepsi. The tea I don't mind so much (no sugar added to my brew!), but it is nonetheless caffeinated and will be kept to a minimum.

We'll see how well this goes.

Tip 1: Be sure to quote the parts of the comment you're replying to. Quote multiple levels to recap the discussion from the original article to Slashdot's summary through parent comments if you feel it necessary.

Tip 2: If a comment is far enough off topic, and you can't tie it back to the article somehow, put it in your journal. Then, under the original comment, reply "See my journal" without bonus so that it at least shows up in the other user's messages.pl.

Another Dexterpexter Friendly Reminder (TM) before trying to journal again like a normal human being...

There is a crisis developing--a problem that most people probably haven't heard much about. See if you can determine what these things have in common:

The United States is a leading producer of apples, second only to China, and nearly 60% of all apples sold commercially in the United States comes from Washington state. At least 55 million tones of apples were grown worldwide in 2005, collectively valued at about $10 billion.

The U.S. is the third largest producer of cotton, and is the number one exporter. Cotton is a $4.9 billion dollar money-maker. In fact, cotton could be considered a literal money-maker, as it is employed in the production of banknotes due to its survivability over pulp-based paper.

The world peach production is about 10 million tons, second only after the apple. The Georgia peach industry was valued in 2001 at $35 million. South Carolina's peach industry is estimated at between $30-40 million, and has a $100 million annual economic impact according to Southeast Farm Press.

The cranberry represents a major commercial crop for Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Maine, Washington, and Wisconsin, and many provinces of Canada.

According to the National Honey Board, over 174 million pounds of honey, valued at over $157 million, were produced in the United States in 2005. North Dakota led honey production with $27 million of product. California followed with $25 million, South Dakota with $13 million, Florida with $12 million, and Minnesota with $7 million.

So, what do these things have in common? It is Honeybees--that's right, honeybees. Confused? Bear with me for a moment.

Commercial pollination services utilize Apis mellifera, or the Western Honey Bee, to pollinate crops such as apples, peaches, cotton, and cranberries. The USDA has estimated that 80% of insect crop pollination is attributable to honeybees, which pollinate millions of acres of U.S. crops every year. According to a 1999 Cornell University study, honey bee pollination contributes $14.6 billion annually to U.S. agriculture alone.
According to the National Honey Board, just to pollinate California's approximately 420,000 bearing acres of almonds--just almonds--it takes an estimated 900,000 to one million colonies of honey bees. That's a lot of bees!

Bees obviously play a very important part in agriculture, and have a significant impact on worldwide economies. So why is this important enough for me to journal about? Bee populations, both commercial and feral, aren't doing so well. Their populations are plummeting, and that stands to affect the worldwide economy. This isn't meant to be alarmist as the effects won't be seen overnight, but this is an issue of which more people should be aware

Reduction in the worldwide honey bee population is a bit of a mystery, but some theories as to why they're disappearing in such numbers include: pesticides, mite infestations, viruses, and displacement.

You see, honey bees are extremely susceptible to the chemicals used in pesticides (which are used to protect the crops against non-beneficial insect populations), and will distribute contaminated pollen throughout the colony. Also, poisoned worker bees will sometimes die before returning to the hives, thus leaving the colony to starve.
Mite infestations have also presented a unique problem. A type of mite which lays its eggs in the airways of the honey bee was blamed for the near-depletion of the honeybee in British Isles. In the 1990s, honeybee populations were further devastated by an infestation of the Varroa Mite, which has been implicated with causing the Deformed Wing Virus, a deadly RNA virus.
In 2006 and 2007, Colony Collapse Disorder (which may be caused by the mites and virus but is still mostly unexplained) ravaged honeybees worldwide as the worker bees in many honeybee colonies disappeared without explanation.
Isolated bee populations, to a lesser extent, have died as a result of native flora which is being displaced (for example: there is a type of orchid in Brazil which produces a scent that is used by male bees to attract female bees. Without the orchid, the bees will fail to effectively mate. With handicapped populations, pollination of the fruit of Brazil nut trees will be limited, causing a notable shortage of Brazil nuts. These are used to produce artist paints and lubricant for clocks.)
Non-native insect populations create food competitions, and could also create displacement of the western honey bee.

Honey bees do much more than simply pollinate our landscaping flora and pollinate our fruits. Among other things, they can pollinate:

Cofea Arabica, better known to you as your morning cup of coffee and a major money-generator in South America.
Flax, which is used to make linens.
Sunflowers, which also produce latex, which can subsequently used to make latex gloves.
Clover, which is used to resurrect depleted farm land, feed livestock, and generate honey.
Buckwheat, which is a promising treatment for Type-II diabetes, and has become increasingly popular for celiac-stricken people who enjoy bread and beer but can't process the gluten.
Canola, commercially produced in North Dakota not only for cooking oil, but also as a promising component of biodiesel fuel.
Hazelnuts, which are imported by Australia to the tune of 2000 tonnes annually and is a very important ingredient for both the Australian Cadbury company and the Italian company Nutella.
Grapes, used in the production of wines.
Shea Butter, which is the moisturizer often found in your lotions and conditioners.
Sanfoin and alfalfa, which is used as a forage crop to fee cattle and other livestock.
Not to mention cilantro/coriander, pepper, onions, shea butter, cherry, all spice, avocado (a major cash crop for California), cucumbers, soybeas/soya beans, sesame...the list goes on.

Besides just being helpful in pollinating the above and any other flower-producing plant, honey bees are considered absolutely essential for the production of vanilla and for the production of cocoa. They are also considered essential for pollination of squashes, pumpkins, gourds, and zucchinis. One to two colonies of bees are usually required per acre of produce.

So, here is my plea:
If you aren't allergic to bee venom, please consider bee-friendly landscaping (be careful not to plant invasive flora, though) when you plant next year, and don't pull out the death-spray when a Western/European honeybee wanders near. If you live on a farm or have lots of land, you might also consider encouraging bees by placing objects for the bees to nest inside of.

Honeybees generally are not aggressive, with exception of the Africanized Honeybee which tends to be more defensive of its colony. As Africanized Bees supposedly make pollination management more difficult (they tend to uproot and leave without much notice) and because they are indeed more collectively-defensive of their colony, they should not be encouraged. If your children run barefooted in the clover in your yard, they may step on and get stung by an unsuspecting honey bee; usually, though, when a person is stung by an "aggressive" bee, they misidentify the honeybee as the culprit when they've actually disturbed a yellow-jacket (which isn't a bee at all--it's a type of wasp), a hornet, or a "sweat bee."

The Western honeybee is a very beneficial insect, and is pretty important to our economy, despite working behind the scenes.

Source: Pretty much every wikipedia article that has anything to do with honeybees or agricultural products.