| Thursday, June 9, 2005 |  |
| Open Letter from Danny Glover to Wal-Mart | 1 comment |
| 9 Jun 2005 @ 18:00 Open Letter from Danny Glover to Wal-Mart: Why Shop Elsewhere for Back to School Supplies From: Dear Friend, Look into the faces of America's children. There you will find America's future. That's why all of us, teachers, mentors and parents, work our hardest to teach, to inspire, to motivate, to instill values that we believe will make their lives better and our nation a better place. It's not easy. But it is the most valuable contribution we can make. I know. As a kid, I was a hard case to crack, to reach. But my teachers, and my parents, persevered. They taught me a sense of social justice that won't quit. That's why I'm writing you. We may be living in a time when the generation now in school will, for the first time in our country's history, be worse off than the previous generation. There are many reasons for this. One that I've found -- that we can do something about -- is the corrosive, drive-to-the-bottom approach some rogue corporations take toward the people they employ. The most obvious symbol: Wal-Mart. The world's -- and this country's -- largest employer. Its tactics are shocking, when you find out about them. It puts kids around the world at risk. Wal-Mart requires its suppliers to import goods from China and other impoverished nations where young people work horrendous hours for little pay. In this country, it was found guilty in April of violating child labor laws. Wal-Mart exposed 85 of its own employees under 18 to dangerous machinery such as chain saws, cardboard balers and forklifts. It got a light fine, essentially a slap on the wrist. Now it faces the largest class action discrimination suit in history-for how it treats its female employees. My parents were both union members. Because of their unions, we had a decent standard of living. Wal-Mart is one of the most viciously anti-union companies in America. It takes two Wal-Mart jobs just to earn above poverty wages. 600,000 of its employees can't afford their health care plan. Consequently, the taxpayers in every state wind up paying for those employees' health care, either through Medicaid, or through higher premiums for their own health care plans. That's just wrong and I think we can change it. Here's how: go to www.changeamerica.com. The first project of this internet organizing web site is to change WalMart's anti-social behavior. How? By recruiting teachers and parents to send Wal-Mart a simple, loud, clear message: "Because of your behavior, I'm going to do my shopping for back-to-school supplies some place else this fall." I urge you to go to www.changeamerica.com and learn how you can be an essential player in this new movement to Change America. It's a chance for all of us to use the new technology-the internet and email-- that can bring about social change, to make America's corporations accountable to America's communities and America's kids. For their sakes and futures -- and ours -- let's work to change America. Today. Sincerely, Danny Glover More > |
| The Coming Oil Crisis Will Severely Disrupt the U.S. & Global Food System | 2 comments |
| 9 Jun 2005 @ 17:59 The Coming Oil Crisis Will Severely Disrupt the U.S. & Global Food System SPEAKING FREELY Oil and food: A new security challenge By Danielle Murray Danielle Murray is a staff researcher with Earth Policy Institute Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. From farm to plate, the modern food system relies heavily on cheap oil. Threats to our oil supply are also threats to our food supply. As food undergoes more processing and travels farther, the food system consumes ever more energy each year. The US food system uses over 10 quadrillion Btu (10,551 quadrillion Joules) of energy each year, as much as France's total annual energy consumption. Growing food accounts for only one-fifth of this. The other four-fifths is used to move, process, package, sell, and store food after it leaves the farm. Some 28% of energy used in agriculture goes to fertilizer manufacturing, 7% goes to irrigation, and 34% is consumed as diesel and gasoline by farm vehicles used to plant, till, and harvest crops. The rest goes to pesticide production, grain drying, and facility operations. The past half-century has witnessed a tripling in world grain production - from 631 million tons in 1950 to 2,029 million tons in 2004. While 80% of the increase is due to population growth raising demand, the remainder can be attributed to more people eating higher up the food chain, increasing per capita grain consumption by 24%. New grain demand has been met primarily by raising land productivity through higher yielding crop varieties in conjunction with more oil-intensive mechanization, irrigation, and fertilizer use, rather than by expanding cropland. Crop production now relies on fertilizers to replace soil nutrients, and therefore on the oil needed to mine, manufacture, and transport these fertilizers around the world. Rock deposits in the United States, Morocco, China, and Russia meet two-thirds of world phosphate demand, while Canada, Russia, and Belarus account for half of potash mine production. Nitrogen fertilizer production, which relies heavily on natural gas to fuel the conversion of atmospheric nitrogen into reduced forms of nitrogen such as ammonia, is much more widely dispersed. World fertilizer use has increased dramatically since the 1950s. China is now the top consumer with use rising beyond 40 million tons in 2004. Fertilizer use has leveled off in the United States, staying near 19 million tons per year since 1984. India's use also has stabilized at around 16 million tons per year since 1998. More energy-efficient fertilizer production technology and precision monitoring of soil nutrient needs have cut the amount of energy needed to fertilize crops, but there is still more room for improvement. As oil prices increase and the price of fertilizer rises, there will be a premium on closing the nutrient cycle and replacing synthetic fertilizer with organic waste. The use of mechanical pumps to irrigate crops has allowed farms to prosper in the middle of the desert. It also has increased farm energy use, allowed larger water withdrawals, and contributed to aquifer depletion worldwide. As water tables drop, ever more powerful pumps must be used, perpetuating and increasing the oil requirements for irrigation. More efficient irrigation systems, such as low-pressure and drip irrigation, and precision soil moisture testing could reduce agricultural water and energy needs. But in many countries, government subsidies keep water artificially cheap and readily available. Countering the historical trend toward more energy-intensive farm mechanization has been the adoption of conservation tillage methods - leaving crop residues on the ground to minimize wind and water erosion and soil moisture loss. Soil quality is improved through this technique, while farm fuel use and irrigation needs are lowered. Zero-till farming is practiced on 90 million hectares worldwide, over half of which are in the United States and Brazil. Reduced tillage is now used on 41% of US cropland. Although agriculture is finding ways to use less energy, the amount consumed between the farm gate and the kitchen table continues to rise. While 21% of overall food system energy is used in agricultural production, another 14% goes to food transport, 16% to processing, 7% to packaging, 4% to food retailing, 7% to restaurants and caterers, and 32% to home refrigeration and preparation. Food today travels farther than ever, with fruits and vegetables in Western industrial countries often logging 2,500-4,000 kilometers from farm to store. Increasingly, open world markets combined with low fuel prices allow the import of fresh produce year round, regardless of season or location. But as food travels farther, energy use soars. Trucking accounts for the majority of food transport, though it is nearly 10 times more energy-intensive than moving goods by rail or barge. Refrigerated jumbo jets - 60 times more energy-intensive than sea transport - constitute a small but growing sector of food transport, helping supply northern hemisphere markets with fresh produce from places like Chile, South Africa, and New Zealand. Processed foods now make up three-fourths of total world food sales. One pound (0.45 kilograms) of frozen fruits or vegetables requires 825 kilocalories of energy for processing and 559 kilocalories for packaging, plus energy for refrigeration during transport, at the store, and in homes. Processing a one-pound can of fruits or vegetables takes an average 261 kilocalories, and packaging adds 1,006 kilocalories, thanks to the high energy-intensity of mining and manufacturing steel. Processing breakfast cereals requires 7,125 kilocalories per pound - easily five times as much energy as is contained in the cereal itself. Most fresh produce and minimally processed grains, legumes, and sugars require very little packaging, particularly if bought in bulk. Processed foods, on the other hand, are often individually wrapped, bagged and boxed, or similarly overpackaged. This flashy packaging requires large amounts of energy and raw materials to produce, yet almost all of it ends up in our landfills. Food retail operations, such as supermarkets and restaurants, require massive amounts of energy for refrigeration and food preparation. The replacement of neighborhood shops by "super" stores means consumers must drive farther to buy their food and rely more heavily on refrigeration to store food between shopping trips. Due to their preference for large contracts and homogenous supply, most grocery chains are reluctant to buy from local or small farms. Instead, food is shipped from distant large-scale farms and distributors - adding again to transport, packaging, and refrigeration energy needs. Rather than propping up fossil-fuel-intensive, long-distance food systems through oil, irrigation, and transport subsidies, governments could promote sustainable agriculture, locally grown foods, and energy-efficient transportation. Incentives to use environmentally friendly farming methods such as conservation tillage, organic fertilizer application, and integrated pest management could reduce farm energy use significantly. Rebate programs for energy-efficient appliances and machinery for homes, retail establishments, processors, and farms would cut energy use throughout the food system. Legislation to minimize unnecessary packaging and promote recycling would decrease energy use and waste going to landfills. Direct farmer-to-consumer marketing, such as farmers' markets, bypasses centralized distribution systems, cutting out unnecessary food travel and reducing packaging needs while improving local food security. Farmers' markets are expanding across the US, growing from 1,755 markets in 1993 to 3,100 in 2002, but still represent only 0.3% of food sales. The biggest political action individuals take each day is deciding what to buy and eat. Preferentially buying local foods that are in season can cut transport and farm energy use and can improve food safety and security. Buying fewer processed, heavily packaged, and frozen foods can cut energy use and marketing costs, and using smaller refrigerators can slash household electricity bills. Eating lower on the food chain can reduce pressure on land, water, and energy supplies. Fossil fuel reliance may prove to be the Achilles' heel of the modern food system. Oil supply fluctuations and disruptions could send food prices soaring overnight. Competition and conflict could quickly escalate. Decoupling the food system from the oil industry is key to improving food security. More > |
| Factory Farmed Organic Dairy | 1 comment |
| 9 Jun 2005 @ 17:57 Mmmm...I may need to switch brands. I have been using Horizon products for years. Factory Farmed "Organic" Dairy Organic milk label getting watered down Loopholes in the new federal organic law readily apparent on an Idaho dairy farm by REBECCA CLARREN | posted 06.08.05 _______ The happy cow on the label of Horizon organic milk is like a stop sign for consumers: Your quest for healthy milk ends here. The back of the carton assures us that Horizon milk is from certified organic farms, where clean-living cows "make milk the natural way, with access to plenty of fresh air, clean water and exercise." At a Horizon dairy farm in central Idaho, the cows don't look that happy. Four thousand cows live in a stark landscape of sagebrush fields, long silver barns and open-air sheds. Jammed in crowded pens atop the hardpan of the Idaho desert, the cows are fed a diet of alfalfa, hay, grains and soy, all certified organic. Only occasionally do they eat fresh grass. This isn't the pastoral image of cows grazing on a hillside that most consumers link with an organic label, but it's not against the law. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's vague organic standards state only that dairy cows called organic must have "access to pasture." These cows in Idaho eat grass for a few hours a day during the summer, and that makes them, legally organic cows. To the innovative farmers who first pushed organic farming over 20 years ago, the label was supposed to mean more than just pesticide and hormone-free milk. "Organic" was meant to promise the healthiest possible milk for the consumer and the environment. "People are paying more for organic products because they think the farmers are doing it right, that they're treating animals humanely and that the quality of the product is different," says Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association, a network of 600,000 buyers of organic food. "Intensive confinement of animals is a no-no," she adds. "This is Grade B organics." There is nothing in Horizon milk that would hurt anyone. Even so, recent studies suggest that grass-fed cows produce milk that is higher in Vitamin A and vitamin E, and has five times more cancer-fighting properties. Furthermore, these large "confinement" dairies (another is Aurora Organic Dairy just outside Denver) are a far cry from sustainable agriculture. On smaller farms, the grass filters cow manure. On large-scale operations, the thousands of pounds of manure are placed in concrete lagoons, where the methane gas emitted diminishes air quality. And what happens when cows get fed grain? Critics say when the majority of a cow's diet comes from grain and other readily fermentable carbohydrates, the rumen, (first of a cow's four stomachs,) becomes acidic, and the animals can become sick and die prematurely. There is no evidence of this happening at dairies like Horizon. Even so, though many dairy cows can live to be 13, Horizon sells its cows to the butcher after six years, according to company spokespeople. Yet responsibility for defining what makes a cow organic rests with the USDA, an agency not eager to exert control. The USDA doesn't go out to every farm and give it a stamp of approval. Rather, such grunt work is done by a hodgepodge of 97 state agricultural agencies, nonprofit groups and for-profit companies. While there are hefty federal penalties for illegally stamping a dairy organic, the system is fraught with potential conflict of interest. The pell-mell certification process lacks rigorous and transparent oversight, and it's too easy for certifiers to bend the rules, allowing dairies to stay in business and keep the certifiers in the black as well. The National Organic Standards Board, a federally created advisory board, has been working to strengthen both the regulations and oversight of the certification process. But since a final organic rule was released in December 2000, the USDA hasn't implemented any of the organic standards board's more than 50 policy recommendations. It's required by law, yet the agency has yet to create a peer-review panel to oversee the accreditation process. USDA has also failed to create a program manual for certifiers that specifies its rules and regulations. If the USDA isn't going to guard the gate, then consumers who care about the meaning of the organic label need to start paying attention; they need to learn the story behind the fancy packaging. Here's some tips: Buy local when you can, talk to your farmer, or join Cummins and other groups like the Cornucopia Institute that are fighting to keep the meaning of organic intact. There's nothing really wrong with big business getting into the business of organic food, but it's important for us to know that when a food like milk is stamped "organic," the word means what it says. Rebecca Clarren is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She writes about agricultural issues in Portland, Oregon. More > |
| Bush Administration Lets Big Tobacco off the Hook | 0 comments |
| 9 Jun 2005 @ 17:49 Bush Administration Lets Big Tobacco off the Hook Despite Killing Millions of Americans washingtonpost.com Tobacco Escapes Huge Penalty U.S. Seeks $10 Billion Instead of $130 Billion By Carol D. Leonnig Washington Post Staff Writer June 8, 2005 After eight months of courtroom argument, Justice Department lawyers abruptly upset a landmark civil racketeering case against the tobacco industry yesterday by asking for less than 8 percent of the expected penalty. As he concluded closing arguments in the six-year-old lawsuit, Justice Department lawyer Stephen D. Brody shocked tobacco company representatives and anti-tobacco activists by announcing that the government will not seek the $130 billion that a government expert had testified was necessary to fund smoking-cessation programs. Instead, Brody said, the Justice Department will ask tobacco companies to pay $10 billion over five years to help millions of Americans quit smoking. Before it was cut, the cessation program was the most significant financial penalty still available to the government as part of its litigation, which had been the largest civil racketeering and conspiracy case in U.S. history. The government contended that six tobacco companies engaged in a 50-year conspiracy to defraud and addict smokers and then conceal the dangers of cigarettes. "We were very surprised," said Dan Webb, lawyer for Altria Group's Philip Morris USA and the coordinating attorney in the case. "They've gone down from $130 billion to $10 billion with absolutely no explanation. It's clear the government hasn't thought through what it's doing." The Justice Department offered little explanation for the figure. Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum Jr. and members of the trial team declined to answer questions as the court session ended. In 2001, then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft tried to settle or shelve the government's racketeering case against the industry before a public outcry forced its revival. "It feels like a political decision to take into consideration the tobacco companies' financial interest rather than health interests of 45 million addicted smokers," said William V. Corr, director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "The government proved its case, but the levels of funding are a shadow of the cessation treatment program that the government's own expert witness recommended." Sources and government officials close to the case said the trial lawyers wanted to request $130 billion for smoking-cessation programs but were pressured by leaders in the attorney general's office, particularly McCallum, to make the cut. Arguments within the Justice Department continued behind the scenes through yesterday morning, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the controversy over the matter. When the case began in 2004, the government sought to force the tobacco industry to pay $280 billion in allegedly ill-gotten profits. But in February, a federal appeals court ruled that the administration could not seek that penalty. Michael Fiore, the government expert who recommended $130 billion for cessation programs, is a medical professor and director of a tobacco research center who chaired the subcommittee on tobacco cessation in the Department of Health and Human Services' Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health. His testimony was widely considered to represent the sum the government was seeking for a cessation program, though Justice Department lawyers had made no formal demand until yesterday. The strength of the government's case hinged on a large collection of internal tobacco company documents, many of which were never before made public. The government began its case in September by showing on an oversized projection screen the written memos of tobacco executives and scientists as they described their plans to keep customers in the dark about whether their habit was addictive or dangerous and to encourage young people to smoke. Facing those same internal documents in another suit,the tobacco industry in 1998 agreed to pay $246 billion to settle a lawsuit filed by states to recover their costs for the medical treatment of smokers. Justice Department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said the department could ask the court to force the industry to pay more in future years for cessation programs, which include a staffed help line for smokers, treatment programs and possibly free medications. She suggested the penalty was designed to comply with the recent appeals court ruling that such penalties could not be used to punish past fraud. Sources close to the case said the cessation program is either a valid penalty or it's not; the dollar figure should not change that. "This proposal has been designed to be a forward-looking remedy to prevent and restrain future wrongful conduct consistent with the recent Circuit Court opinion in this case," she said. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler, who is presiding over the case, is expected to decide in the next few months whether the government proved its case of an industry-wide conspiracy and whether to order any penalties against the companies. Among the other remedies the government is still seeking are an industry-funded anti-smoking educational campaign and a court injunction to stop the companies from targeting youth in their marketing. The government also wants the judge to appoint a court monitor to watch over industry practices and ensure that tobacco companies do not commit fraud in the future. Kessler has repeatedly expressed concern about how such proposals would work. Defendants in the case include Philip Morris USA; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Brown & Williamson, which have merged to form Reynolds American Inc.; British American Tobacco; the Lorillard Tobacco unit of Loew's Corp.; and Vector Group Ltd.'s Liggett Group Inc. They began their closing arguments today. Anti-smoking advocates assailed the decision as a self-inflicted blow that would help the tobacco companies' bottom line and miss a well-earned chance to help American smokers. William B. Schultz, a former Justice Department official who oversaw the lawsuit under the Clinton administration, said that "it's disappointing, to say the least, that at the final stages of this litigation they have pulled their punches in such a significant way. This is the loss of a significant opportunity to advance public health. Smoking is the number one preventable disease. It kills 400,000 people a year." Lead government attorney Sharon Eubanks had summed up the trial early yesterday, saying the government had proved the industry engaged in a "decades-long pattern of . . . misrepresentations, half-truths, deceptions and lies that continue to this day." © 2005 The Washington Post Company |
| Mandatory Labeling of GMOs Blocked by Brazil & New Zealand | 0 comments |
| 9 Jun 2005 @ 17:47 Global Agreement on Mandatory Labeling of GMOs Blocked by Brazil & New Zealand June 8, 2005 Sadly, the second meeting of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP/MOP2) held in Montreal, Canada last week, did not achieve what many had hoped for. On the key issue of labelling, on which agreement was needed, consensus was repeatedly blocked by two countries: Brazil and New Zealand. The majority of countries (over 100) wanted strong controls which involved the documentation and identification of GM crops being exported, and only to countries that have specifically approved those varieties for import. However, Brazil and New Zealand repeatedly refused to agree to these proposals. Participants offered to make many compromises, and sat late into the night redrafting proposals so that at least something might be drawn from this meeting. But to no avail, as Brazil and New Zealand rejected everything that was offered, and wanted only an unspecific ³may contain GMOs² labelling practice. As Dr Tewolde of Ethiopia (who finally arrived late at the negotiations, after world-wide outrage at Canada's denial of his visa) pointed out that this would allow "global genetic pollution to escape unnoticed and unscathed². Dr Tewolde urged developing countries to develop strict requirements for documentation in their national legislations. Brazil was once a GM-Free country, with its interests in common with other developing countries. Now however, extensive contamination and industry pressure has led to the approval of GM soya, which means that compulsory and specific labelling of GM could affect its export market. But few people could understand New Zealand's position, since they do not grow or export GM crops. Of course, the inevitable whispers were that New Zealand was acting as unofficial representative for industry and US interests. Best wishes, Teresa P.s. On the issue of Canada¹s denial of visas to several participants from developing countries, the Canadians appear to have given their promise that this will not happen again. |
| MacIntel | 1 comment |
| 9 Jun 2005 @ 06:04 I jst bought a Powerbook G4 1.67. Hope I didn't jump the gun. Noooo...I love my little box. This is from Cult of Mike I didn’t believe the rumors when I read them. Apple moving away from the PPC to Intel? No way. I just didn’t believe it, it was that simple. What reason did Apple have to move away from the beloved IBM PowerPC to Intel? PPC was faster, and for sure would only be getting faster. IBM is developing Cell, what is sure to be the next generation of computing. We are seeing Apple competitors moving to PPC, Microsoft, has chosen this chipset for its next generation gaming console, and Sony’ PlayStation3 will be powered by the IBM Cell. Yesterday afternoon, when I saw that the headlines were true, that Apple would move to Intel after all, I was shocked, appalled, why? My initial thoughts were that there was no way this would help Apple, this was the end of the line for Apple Computer. I decided to read and listen, find out what others though, then after I did the opinional research, listen to Jobs speak about the topic, and write this essay. I didn’t understand a lot about it right away, because I didn’t listen to the keynote first. I agreed with much of what the gentlemen at TWiT had to say. All the software would have to be re-written, x86 and Intel didn’t look to have that strong of a future, and we would be looking at an almost halt in sales for at least the next 6 months. After watching the keynote, I have some slightly different ideas on this. For starters, I realized that the speculation that TWiT had about everyone having to re-write their applications was 100% false. It’s not a matter of having to completely re-vamp an application; it’s a matter of recompiling and tweaking as Steve put it for us. A dual binary version of software will insure that those of us who still run PPC’s (I run two PPC PowerBooks) will be able to have upcoming versions of software. This also comfortsome in knowing that I don’t have to be worried next year when I walk into my local Apple store and want to get the new iLife, I know I wont have to have a new Macintel to run it. Rosetta is something that will help developers as well, this insures that even if a developer decides to not recompile for Intel, we’ll still be able to run PPC applications on the Macintel. The demo that Jobs showed at WWDC showed that on his 3.06ghz P4 with 2GB RAM, Rosetta ran without notice. I’m hoping there will be a reverse that allows people still running the PPC will be able to run the applications only compiled for the Macintel. The other for me was, how would Apple survive if sales do halt in the next 6 months? Sure iPod and iTunes will flourish, but Apple needs to continue to move units. The majority of the new consumers will most likely be blind to the fact that the Macintel is coming, and will continue to switch away as nothing happened. But most of the current users, the geeks of the Mac world, are defiantly going to hold off on a purchase until we start to see the Macintels coming into play. I know that personally, I have just advised all family members, a few of which were about to click the “buy” button, to wait for the new Macintels to come out. It’s more and more people doing this that will kill Apple in this time of test. I am starting to believe that this switch to the Macintel from PPC will be a rather good thing. My original thoughts were that this should in no way, shape, or form, happen. The more I read about it though, the better it became. This will push the prices of Macs down to a more reasonable level, a level that more people will be willing to dish out a few hundred more to get the beauty of a Mac and of an Apple. The other things that this will bring about is more dramatic updates to the notebook line from Apple, as well as bigger and better updates to the other computer lines as well. There are a few things that scare me in this regard as well. Apple will be able to put a “G5” into the PowerBook, possibly a Pentium-M? A great and solid chip which should do worlds of good for the notebook line by Apple. And faster chip speeds in the other lines for computers for Apple as well. But this is the thing; the IBM PPC was always benchmarked with a “slower” speed than the Intel or the AMD. Hell, AMD decided to throw out clock speeds altogether and just give you a 2600+ chip name, which gave you an idea of what the speed was still. Steve Jobs used a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 at his WWDC keynote, a slower chip than the 2.7 GHz G5 that we see on the market right now. So why is this important? Well Jobs had promised us a year ago that we would see a 3Ghz G5 by now, and it doesn’t look like IBM will be releasing that number for some time now. Steve has to come through on his promise here, so, a chip change was needed. Most of us also wanted to see a G5 PowerBook by now, unfortunately, IBM wouldn’t be able to do this for somewhere around two years. This is an insanely long time, something that again, Apple couldn’t wait for. This, was one of the key factors in this change. The Apple desktop line has pretty much been steady over the years, yet the notebook lines have skyrocketed in sales, it’s their baby right now and they have to take care of it by making bigger advances in the notebook line, something that the Pentium-M can produce. That’s one of my reasons for the switch from PPC to Intel for Apple. Appearance, if it looks faster, if it looks more “up to date” with what the rest of the PC industry is seeing, then it should sell better. Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to that. But what does this mean? As we have seen with the PC industry, if you buy a computer on a Monday, the latest and greatest, on Friday that computer will be so outdated that you cant run the software that you bought a week later. Will this happen to Apple too? Will be seeing weekly upgrades? If, this were to happen, I would like to say now, that Apple, is a goner. Allow me to explain why. Apple users dish out a lot of money on their systems, and they don’t mind doing it. Why? Because they know that it will be worth it in the end. They will be able to get a good 5 or 6 years out of their system. This is proven with people running Panther on their 300mhz G3 systems. People don’t mind spending extra money if they know they will be able to keep it around for a long time, with it being outdated sure, but not to the extent that they cant use it on a regular basis. A 3.06GHz “G5” coming out in Q1 is awesome, but in Q2 if there is a 4.0GHz “G5” the users will not be happy. It doesn’t feel nice to be outdated that fast. So Apple will surely have to plan these releases in a way that they can make them spaced out, and not too dramatic to scare off the user into waiting. They also have to keep up with the other PC’s powering Intel. A headache eh? That’s what was nice with the PPC, they were really the only computer with the exception of a few Linux flavors to be running PPC, so they set the launches, they set the industry standard. What comes next? I wasn’t into computers in 1994, when we switched from m68k to PPC, mainly because I was 5, so I really don’t know. I’m a bit worried, but more than ever, optimistic. The more I look at this move, the more I realize this is going to be a good thing. This isn’t the end of the world as many people originally thought it would be. The new Intel chipset is going to be a good thing; it will have the ability to take Apple to new and better places in the long run. The IBM roadmap for the PPC ended up being one that was slower than Apple could handle. Apple right now needs to be able to develop newer and better computers to stay on top of the media industry. The PPC just couldn’t keep up on where Apple needed to go. IBM was also starting to look more into the Cell processor, another sidetrack for the PPC enhancement. As I said, Apple has to stay on top of the media industry, again a concern about this (just when you thought I was about to finish up this post huh?). As we all know, the Apple Velocity Engine that is built into the PPC architecture makes the Apple PPC ideal for crunching FPN (Floating Point Numbers). It blows the doors, pants, socks, shoes, anything off of a comparable x86 chip. This worries me because we are moving to x86. FPN crunching is a necessity in gaming, and other media types, and we are moving to a chipset that is slower at this. Could we see a problem in the Apple Pro Series software line? My guess, my hope, is no, but at this point, it’s in the air from what I can see. We will be fine, that’s what I’m telling myself at least. We will be fine during this move, as long as we as developers do our part to make this transition a smooth and effortless one, Apple will do their part, and we shouldn’t see anything too bad happening. This is a big test, Apple is doing one after another 5 years ago it was OS9 to OSX, and now its PPC to Intel, the difference, this one scares the fuck out of me. Feel free to pass me related articles, I would love to read more about this, trade links to posts, or just chat with what your thoughts about all this are. I’m pretty much sure I have a solid opinion, that this will be a good thing, but at the same time, I’m scared for what could happen. -Mike 1770 words | I know I made some words up, but hey, they worked. Excuse the horrible grammar in some spots too. More > |