Environmentalism Part 2
The first article in this series was about how some of the people in the environmental movement are it's worst enemy. People that are insulting, smug, abusive or know-it-alls simply turn people off of the whole green movement. The first article tried to argue that people who are primarily concerned with the environment should make it the primary focus of their energy and leave out arguments about socialism, gay rights, atheism, and animal rights. This piece attempts to clarify some of those points.
Best/Worst of web news/articles December
A summary of the best and worst news items we've found on the web so far this month.
The Problem With Tasers
Editorial
Taser use has been in the news several times in the last few weeks. In one incident, a man in Canada died after being tasered. In another incident a pregnant women was tasered after refusing to sign a traffic ticket. An 82 year old women in Chicago was tasered. The common thread in each of these stories is that prior to having a taser police would have physically subdued these individuals. The only one of these individuals that was armed was the 82 year old women who was confused and swinging a hammer.
Are Cartoons Creating Animal Rights Activists
Cartoons often show animals with human attributes. Animals in cartoons talk and have social structures based on those of humans. They are nearly always shown as intelligent and gentle. By doing this does society create a false sense of empathy in children toward animals? Cartoons along with other changes in our culture are giving each generation a more skewed view of animals, nature and peoples place in nature.
Copyright Violation Is Not Theft
How the publishers have warped the government for profit
Copyright violation is not theft. This is another example of using a words connotations to imply an act is worse than it really is. In another recent article I attacked the use of the phrase, “climate change denier”, as being dishonest in that the implication was that someone who was honestly sceptical about climate change was being implicitly grouped with holocaust deniers. The left learns fast as this is what they pointed out Bush did with Iraq and terrorism related to 9/11. Theft is another term that has been hijacked by corporations to describe copyright violations in such a way as to imply the moral equivalence of theft.
Environmentalism
Problems with the environmental movement.
The purpose of this piece is to attempt to help the environmental movement make positive changes that will enable it to be more inclusive. Hopefully this piece provokes thought and provides substance for debate.
Prosper Lending
My experience with prosper.com
Prosper.com is a peer to peer lending site where anyone can be a lender or a borrower. Prosper has had mixed reviews online with some being very satisfied and others feeling that prosper is little more than a scam. I was a little hesitant to try it at first but after my fourth month as a lender I'm tentatively hopeful that I've come up with a lending strategy that will allow me to get good returns with minimal risk.
Your next car may be electric.
You next car may be electric. It might not happen in the next couple of years but it could happen in the next five to ten years. Electric vehicles are popping up everywhere. All electric cars ...
Ebook hardware
Why I haven't bought an electronic book reader.
Recently several new dedicated book readers have been released. The Kindle, Illiad, Cybook, and Sony's Reader are some of the better know devices. These new products all share the new E Ink display. In many ways these devices do a great job as book readers. They all have high contrast, long battery life, and can each hold many books at once.
These devices also share several problems.
These devices also share several problems.
- Price -- They are too expensive for their intended function.
- Display Speed -- The E Ink display takes to long to refresh.
- Limited Content -- Each has different content restrictions, while the Cybook is the most open it is not able to view commercial books with DRM.
- Proprietary Formats -- Each company with the exception of Cybook wants to lock the user into a single format.
- Screen Size -- This is debatable but with a one size fits all approach they are either too big for casual readers or too small for technical users.
- Limited or no Web Surfing
- No color