Seems a bit of a waste for each country to get their own gps system. There are about 200 countries. How many systems do we really need? One.

How hard can it be? Just make one international system, that simply sends out the highest precision signal, all the time - no signal degradation options whatsoever.

I fail to see how this is any more than throwing tempting bait, pleading for clicks.

The statement "the terrorist was right" is a glaring and obvious attempt to create controversy where there is none, just to get attention.

Technology creates dependence? Duuh. Yes -- the invention of fire, the wheel, writing, agriculture and medicine are all rather useful, obviously few people want to go back in time and live without them again. You can do it if you want to. You won't have much company. For the obvious reason that people don't like to suffer.

Have fun living life as a monkey. No, you can't use a knife, club, spear, or fire, either. Those are technology, inventions. Zero technology means monkey life. Go for it.

Can't, we lose all that code. IMHO, that's the main argument for open source.

Dropping millions of trees a day could easily get us lots of forests.

http://science.howstuffworks.c...

There are simple technical solutions for most problems - the challenge is getting all the parts to agree on anything.

Eat more spam

if i were in notch's position, i think i would campaign for a society with a bigger middle class. perhaps some tax law that automatically adjusts the highest and lowest tax brackets every year, according to the distance between wealthiest and poorest.

"The internet is a cesspool of dubious information", or so I heard around 1993 on a Mindvox forum. I think Reive wrote that.

Nowadays, election campaigns are being driven by AI bots programmed to spread false rumors. It's a little more serious than people paying to "date" virtual software robots, believing they are going to score anonymous affairs.

if a financial link is made to pollution, i cant think of too many ways to implement it.
guess it has to be either a payment for polluting, or a credit for not polluting.

one is called 'carbon credit', the other is called 'carbon tax'. i think the carbon tax would have been much simpler and easier to enforce, even if it were very small. but seems like it was a political hot potato, that few dared touch.

Microsoft depends on piracy. They always favor piracy of Microsoft products, even said so a few times.

http://slashdot.org/story/07/0...
"ArsTechnica is running a story regarding comments by Microsoft Business Group President Jeff Raikes, who had a pithy comment on the subject of software piracy. His view is that, should software piracy occur, Microsoft's desire is that the pirated software should be theirs. Potentially, in the future, they could then convert the illegal users from the 'dark side' into legit users who obtain licenses. 'We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products. What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software.' Obviously Microsoft prefers the market to use their software even if it's pirated, rather than the alternative: the use of free software."

I believe the 'reasoning' for many is quite simplistic.

"Dirty energy is good. Pollution is good. Whatever causes climate change, it's good."
"Because the pundit I hear says so. Because the politicians I voted for told them to. Because the oil lobby paid them to."

Nah. Just "because dirty is good."

50% of the population suffer from some level of paranoia and delusion, we have a public health issue.
With the amount of marketing, PR and publicity (aka lies and false stories) everyone is bombarded with, it's hard for the average person not to go nuts. added to that, quite a few true stories are just so twisted it becomes hard to believe in.
Yes, we have a public health issue with too many people losing their mind. plus, many of them have lots of guns.
A large section of the population has mental issues and guns. Yep, that could be bad.

A wind turbine can be build from cheap materials and made big enough, today. People have built their own wind turbines that generate several KW/h.

http://www.builditsolar.com/Pr...

Would it make sense to be energy-independent, produce your own power? Of course - it's an expense, a supply headache, and a risk factor.

How can you generate your own power? Oil-dependent generators are not cost efficient. Coal is large investment. Extract your own oil and refine it? Insanely complex and costly. Nuclear is impossible, politically tough.

The reason we are dependent on oil and coal is because corporations profit from it, they can monopolize it.

If you're a nation or corporation, you can think of safe nuclear, like thorium-based nuclear power.

Otherwise, to generate power yourself, you're likely to end up looking at the wind, hydro, sun, waves, or something else you can get yourself for zero cost, simply because you can do it.

There is so much research, investment and interest in getting rid of oil and coal, its inevitable that oil and coal will not last that much longer. There are more alternatives every day.

But oil companies have some money to lobby with. It would make sense that they would spend on some PR agents to propagate their ideals and objectives into the public conscience.

Follow the money. Who stands to gain by climate-denialists crazy arguments? Oil and coal. Auto companies perhaps, but not so much. They already power cars from many other sources, even if it costs more. But oil and coal companies stand to simply die if too many people switch to other power sources.

Who is funding the climate-deniers? Oil and coal. Where are the climate deniers concentrated? Oil and coal states. Who are the politicians that go along with climate-denier positions? Politicians from oil and coal states.

And this crazy argument that there is some "lobby" who "finances" and "creates false science" to "profit from global warming"? Who, the scientists lobby? We wish scientists had political power. Everything they say basically falls on deaf ears. What, the battery makers lobby? The electric car lobby?

There is no large green corporation, or group of companies, there is no central profit center. Power can be generated in an infinity of ways, and many, many of them are more efficient, cost less, and are (gasp!) cleaner than oil and coal, in many ways. They haven't quite gotten enough traction yet to completely replace oil, coal, and gas, largely due to lobby, PR scams, and protectionism of the oil lobby. Still, it seems inevitable.

If anyone really likes oil power so much, tell them to buy a generator, and power the house with oil. See the absurd noise, maintenance and costs. Quickly come to the - quite common sense - conclusion that oil power is not so great.

Which is likely to be the interest of the population in non-oil-and-coal-power - common sense. Not some imaginary "green lobby", a fictitious invention of the oil corporate lobby.

Oil and coal is not only affecting weather. It's making air unbreathable in many cities. Its not infinite. Many nations don't have enough and are vulnerable by depending on imports too much, like China and US. Europe is also dependent on Russian gas imports.

Militaries around the world don't like being vulnerable on supply lines for energy and gas, any group generating their own power is far more autonomous. The same argument goes for industry, commerce, transportation, cities, remote locations, and pretty much anyone.

Car and truck transportation are being questioned for many reasons - global warming, air pollution, noise pollution, traffic, safety, costs, raw inefficiency, and urban planning. Each of these arguments have their own, huge, groups of supporters.

If there is an environmental lobby, it appears to be most of the population, pretty much.

The surprising part is how much the world politicians have bent over for oil, gas and coal monopolies.

Paid "news", funded by the oil+coal guys.

Coal+oil companies are on a disinformation campaign about traffic, pollution, accidents, global warming, economic costs, and a host of crazy, irrational arguments. Their common conclusion "pollution and waste is the better alternative"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil#Funding_of_global_warming_disinformation_and_denial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers#Fossil_fuel_and_chemical_industry_lobbying