Will America's Tolerance for Gas Guzzlers Remain Forever?

Reposted from today's CommuterPageBlog:

The answer is, eventually no, according to Stein Leikanger writing in an editorial today (Congestion Charging at The Energy Lean Buffet, April 26, 2007) on The Truth About Cars blog. Specifically he says "Whether it takes a cataclysmic economic shock, or a gradual increase in gasoline prices, or environmental concern/lobbying, the U.S. will eventually move more in line with the European model and begin adopting European 'energy lean' solutions." According to Leikanger that means more fuel efficient transport. He cites the fact that Warren Buffett is moving his money to trains, green energy alternatives and electronic cars as a harbinger of things to come.

The author discusses London considering an "emissions influenced charging" to it's current Congestion Zone pricing, meaning that gas guzzlers would pay more to get into the City than other vehicles and other European cities that are considering emissions-based road pricing. Leikanger's point is that if you want to see our future, look across the Atlantic to Europe, where he says they are a decade ahead of the U.S.

All very interesting stuff and worth the read.

Enjoy!

Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a biking/Metro commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria.

Is Windows Vista in Trouble?

Surely not!

The Inquirer.net is running a story about what they consider two powerful indications that Vista is failing in the marketplace. One, Dell has reintroduced PCs running Windows XP on its website due to customer demand. Two, Microsoft is conducting a worldwide firesale on a bundle of Microsoft Office 2007/WindowsXP Starter Edition. According to Inquirer.net, at least, these are signs of serious problems selling Vista. Are we seeing the stumbling of the Microsoft Juggernaught with the slow adoption of Windows Vista?

Feisty Fawn is Here!

Yep, newest release for Ubuntu, Feisty Fawn, is here. No, I don't know where they come up with these names. But I've noticed the upgrade button on the Update Manager so I moved from 6.10 to 7.04 this week. Here are some Slashdot articles on this topic:

Seven Essential Tips For Using Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, Friday April 20

Matthew Newton, a columnist at PC World, has a great article up on seven things you'll want to change as soon as you start using Feisty Fawn. Some are as simple as making sure the Alt key works right, another gives you step-by-step instructions for turning on the impressive Beryl interface. 'I could spend a whole 'nother column telling you about all the great packages that are not installed by default, but for now I'll just leave you with this bonus tip: If you're running Ubuntu on a laptop and your Wi-Fi card is not detected or supported, try installing the Ndisgtk package (listed as such in Synaptic, but as 'Wireless Windows Drivers' in Add/Remove Applications). Then select the new System, Administration, Windows Wireless Drivers entry in Ubuntu's menu bar.'

Really excellent article that's linked there, I tried out the Desktop Effects and liked it enough that I enabled Beryl - and it's a blast! Note that this is my work machine so it's a little beefier than my home linux workstations... so I may just have to enjoy the benefits here only. And speaking of Beryl...

Beryl User Interface for Linux Reviewed, Monday April 23

OSWeekly.com has published a review of Beryl, a very cool looking UI for Linux. Matt Hartley writes, "This release, in my opinion, was the most over-hyped and bug-filled to date. You will have to really hit Technorati to see more of what I'm talking about, but Feisty is as buggy as the beta I tested a short time ago. After completely tossing into the wilds of the ubber-buggy "network-manager," anything running with Edgy supported RT2500 driver shows up, but it will not connect without a special script. Those of you who are on Feisty and need help with your RT2500 cards are welcome to e-mail me for the bash script."

I don't think I'd agree with the buggy part - but that may be because I've bee upgrading from a working 6.10 install rather than from scratch. I've not experienced any problems though.

Pic of the Week 20070420

Great Big Sea concert tonight, wheee!! But not too busy to post up a pic of the week, so cheers!

Ubuntu Linux News

Couple of articles on my new favorite Linux distro. On Thursday April 19 Slashdot noted, "Ubuntu Feisty Fawn Released":

Lots of readers told us about the official release of Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn (screenshots here for Ubuntu and Kubuntu). Some readers report that the distribution servers are being hammered. Here is a review of Feisty Fawn. Reader LinuxScribe sends us to LinuxPlanet for the story on a pleasant Java surprise in the release.

I upgraded my work machine today, was completely painless. And, as I already had Ubuntu's Multiverse repository enabled in my sources file, I got the Sun J2EE stuff too. I'll have to poke around some more and see what else has changed.

And, if you're wondering just how much Dell is really into Linux, "Michael Dell Using Ubuntu Linux At Home":

whoever57 sends us a link from the Dell site noting that Michael Dell is using Ubuntu Linux at home (7.04, Feisty Fawn) on a Precision M90 laptop loaded with Openoffice.org and Evolution. If one were betting on which distro Dell will eventually ship pre-installed, this factoid might be food for thought. Oh, and Micheal Dell's gaming system uses XP Media Center edition.

As noteworthy as that is, I'm still left drooling over the pair of 30" Widescreen UltraSharp Flat Panel Monitors he uses at work... Mmmmm...

U.S. Soldiers Hate New High-Tech Gear

Another story from Slashdot, this one from Wednesday.

Land Warrior, the Army's wireless equipment package featuring helmet cams, GPS, laser range-finders and a host of other state-of-the-art electronics, is finally ready for deployment on a global battlefield network in Iraq after 15 years of R&D at the Pentagon. But in a report for Popular Mechanics, Noah Shachtman not only tries on the new digital armor — he talks to troops who don't like it at all. As if that wasn't disheartening enough for the future of tech at war, the real Land Warrior system doesn't even match up to its copycat gear in Ghost Recon 2.

I'm still waiting for the Starship Troopers -type armor... (From the Heinlein novel, not the movie.)

Sony DVDs in Trouble Again

Couple of stories from Slashdot point to more woes from Sony. They just can't seem to get basic customer relations right, as in "Thou shalt not blatantly screw the customer over..."

New Sony DVDs Not Working In Some Players Sunday April 15

It seems that the most recent DVDs released by Sony — specifically Stranger Than Fiction, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness — have some kind of 'feature' that makes them unplayable on many DVD players. This doesn't appear to be covered by the major media yet, but this link to a discussion over at Amazon gives a flavor of the problems people are experiencing. A blogger called Sony and was told the problem is with the new copy protection scheme, and they do not intend to fix it. Sony says it's up to the manufacturers to update their hardware.

They seemed to have cleared it up now though - not that they will have learned their lesson or anything (as evidenced by past behavior...)

Sony Fixes Problems With New DVDs Wednesday April 18

Following up on reports that DVDs for some Sony titles were causing problems, Video Business is reporting that Sony has fixed the copy-protection problem on recent DVD releases, and will provide replacement discs to customers. The problem was with the ARccOS DRM system. The company issued the following statement: 'Recently, an update that was installed on approximately 20 titles was found to cause an incompatibility issue with a very small number of DVD players (Sony has received complaints on less than one thousandth of one percent of affected discs shipped)... Since then, the ARccOS system has once again been updated, and there are no longer any playability problems.' Customers can call 800-860-2878 to inquire about replacement discs.

Sure, hardly any complaints at all, notice how quickly they point that out...

Was Videogaming Better Back in the Day?

An anonymous reader from Slashdot wrote on Monday:

Sean Sands at Gamers With Jobs looks back at the dawn of videogaming, when we were all kids just typing in our games, one line of BASIC at a time. And he finds the present lacking: 'The dreamers became assets instead of leaders, and the rockstar designers became, well, Rockstar ... or Blizzard, or Valve. Publishers with cash-rich money to spend bought the creative process, and the minds of marketing professionals replaced four guys hopped up on sugar doughnuts and generic cola. So, how dare I be surprised that the price of today's gaming blitz is a little piece of last generation's soul?'

What do you think? Simplicity or complexity? Play games for mindless entertainment or for the intricate storylines?