Letters to the Editor
401kBoy
Published Letters: 84 Editor's Choice: 12
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Rock and Roll CANNOT save the world
[Read the article: Three questions for Kevin Wall]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]and it ain't supposed to. Concerts like this allow rich, self absorbed rock stars and the sheep that follow them to pretend to be socially conscious. They don't fix problems, and any "awareness" they raise is quickly forgotten with the next arrest of one of the participants.
There is nothing "green" about Giants Stadium in NJ. Thousands of people will be driving their cars and SUVs up the NJ Turnpike to get to the concert - mass transit can't get you withing 10 miles.
If you care about your impact on the environment, DON'T go to the concert. Stay home, mow your lawn with a Reel Mower, drink tap water and sleep with the windows open.
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As satire this article falls flat
[Read the article: Shopping for carbon credits]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I kept waiting for the punchline, but it never came. then I realized, she's not trying to be funny. the latte frother is real, she doesn't know what an umbrella is (thus the four block drive in the rain), and this line:
"well-intentioned individuals like me are increasingly shouldering the burden to act."
was written with a straight face.
We can't buy our way out of personal responsibility - as mentioned in another letter, carbon offsets are this century's version of papal indulgences. If you want to reduce your impact on the environment then do so: use less electricity, walk in the rain, drink real coffee (black, no sugar).
The subculture represented by the author is misguided and dangerous. You can't absolve your own sins by paying someone to plant a tree. You could use a human powered push reel lawn mower, but that would be inconvenient, wouldn't it.....
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Chris Rock Said It Best
[Read the article: Al's big day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"I pray that this event ends global warming the same way that Live Aid ended world hunger."
I tried to watch some of the coverage, but between the inane Today Show style hosts and the almost sterile performances of second and third tier rock stars I was bored stiff.
Ms. Wilson thinks there is a right wing conspiracy that is minimizing the reporting of the event. I believe that the event itself is more than enough reason for the lack of attention. Forget the politics, as a concert this was a downer. Hey, I loved Spinal Tap, IN 1984!
I find it hard to believe that the organizers of this event were so oblivious to the conflict between a rock concert and conservation of resources. Wouldn't it have made more sense to have the performers all stay home and perform via TV or Internet? Have you seen the pictures of the aftermath of the concerts? Football stadiums covered with garbage, parking lots covered with garbage, traffic jams on the NJ Turnpike. What if the 200,000 tons of carbon produced by this event are the tipping point that push global warming over the unrecoverable cliff?
Liberal politicians, artists and fans always try to recapture the "spirit of Woodstock". But they fail to realize that the spirit grew from the bottom up - no one planned it out, no one marketed it, no one sold the naming rights to Chevrolet for God's sake.
The one thing I'm most saddened by is that for many people, watching or attending this concert is the most they will ever do to address the issues of over-consumption, pollution and climate change.
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NOT a $99 PC
[Read the article: Meet Zonbu, the amazing $99 green PC]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Where to start debunking this? First, you pay $249 for the device. Then you PRE-PAY for two years of access to otherwise free software. At $14.95 a month, we can round it to $360. Then add a monitor, let's be cheap and say $150. Our total is now $759. Subtract the $150 "rebate" for buying a two year service plan, and you have just paid $609 for a computer that will only work for two years.
This isn't the first article I've read extolling this thing as the Next Big Thing. I have to wonder, though, where the people writing the articles have been for the last decade. Surely any real technology professional has seen a few of these - it's called a Thin Client, and large enterprises have been using them for years. And while they simplify desktop PC support and installation, they require a fair amount of expertise at the back end; more expertise than renting web services from Amazon.
None of the columns I've read about this mention the fact that if your Internet connection is down a Zonbu is the functional equivalent of a brick. None of the columnists seem to have asked what will happen if Zonbu goes belly up. Where is your prepaid access then? Hell, where is your DATA? Even if they don't go under, who is looking at your stuff? Remember, your data lives on a server farm, whose admins will have unfettered access to your documents, pictures, email, web history, etc.
Technology columnists have increasingly become shills for product rollouts. This is no exception.