The Wall Street Journal is urging Washington to discard the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. This tariff is effectively a subsidy for corn-based ethanol produced in the USA. Yet, producing ethanol from corn is highly inefficient and consumes 1 unit of energy for each 1.3 units of energy that burning ethanol provides. By contrast, ethanol derived from sugarcane (which is the sole source of ethanol in Brazil) yields 8.3 units of energy…. Some studies even show that corn yields only 0.8 unit of energy, resulting in a net loss of energy.
Browsing Posts in Rants
Where’s the ethanol?
S.A. home to state’s lone seller of specialized ethanol-based fuel
RFID ‘Til the Cows Come Home:Critics lambast plan to tag most U.S. farm animals by 2008 as a giant boondoggle for the tech industry.
A Torrent or a Trickle?:The MPAA’s deal with BitTorrent will do little to change the landscape for file swapping — but it could create the best chance yet for a meaningful and legal P2P media-distribution system. News analysis by Xeni Jardin.
Does Sony’s Copy Protection Infringe Copyrights?:The Sony copy protection debacle has so many angles that the mainstream press is having trouble keeping track of them all…. It’s not surprising, then, that at least one important angle has gone nearly undiscussed in the mainstream press: the likelihood that the Sony/First4Internet XCP copy protection software itself infringes several copyrights.
…They claim that the code file ECDPlayerControl.ocx, which ships as part of XCP, contains code from several copyrighted programs, including LAME, id3lib, mpglib, mpg123, FAAC, and most amusingly, DVD-Jon’s DRMS.
…Being accused of infringement must be horribly embarrassing for Sony, given the number of ordinary people it has sued for infringing on a much smaller scale that Sony is accused of doing, and given that the whole purpose of this software was supposedly to reduce infringement. This is just another part of the lesson that Sony must have learned by now — and that other entertainment companies would be wise to learn — that it’s a bad idea to ship software if you haven’t thought very, very carefully about how it was designed and what your customers will think of it.
Here is the final list of XPC-infected CD’s, released by Sony-BMG themselves.A Static Lullaby – Faso Latido Acceptance – Phantoms Amerie – Touch Art Blakey – Drum Suit The Bad Plus – Suspicious Activity? Bette Midler – Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook Billy Holiday – The Great American Songbook Bob Brookmeyer – Bob Brookmeyer & Friends Buddy Jewell – Times Like These Burt Bacharach – At This Time Celine Dion – On Ne Change Pas Chayanne – Cautivo Chris Botti – To Love Again The Coral – The Invisible Invasion Cyndi Lauper – The Body Acoustic The Dead 60’s – The Dead 60’s Deniece Williams – This Is Niecy Dextor Gordon – Manhattan Symphonie Dion – The Essential Dion Earl Scruggs – I Saw The Light With Some Help From My Friends Elkland – Golden Emma Roberts – Unfabulous And More: Emma Roberts Flatt & Scruggs – Foggy Mountain Jamboree Frank Sinatra – The Great American Songbook G3 – Live In Tokyo George Jones – My Very Special Guests Gerry Mulligan – Jeru Horace Silver – Silver’s Blue Jane Monheit – The Season Jon Randall – Walking Among The Living Life Of Agony – Broken Valley Louis Armstrong – The Great American Songbook Mary Mary – Mary Mary Montgomery Gentry – Something To Be Proud Of: The Best of 1999-2005 Natasha Bedingfield – Unwritten Neil Diamond – 12 Songs Nivea – Complicated Our Lady Peace – Healthy In Paranoid Times Patty Loveless – Dreamin’ My Dreams Pete Seeger – The Essential Pete Seeger Ray Charles – Friendship Rosanne Cash – Interiors Rosanne Cash – King’s Record Shop Rosanne Cash – Seven Year Ache Shel Silverstein – The Best Of Shel Silverstein Shelly Fairchild – Ride Susie Suh – Susie Suh Switchfoot – Nothing Is Sound Teena Marie – Robbery Trey Anastacio – Shine Van Zant – Get Right With The Man Vivian Green – VivianLet’s have a worldwide boycott of all Sony Products?
