In this afternoons NY Times-
Wall Street has called the end of an era and the beginning of the next one: The most important technology product no longer sits on your desk but rather fits in your hand.
The moment was marked Wednesday when Apple, the maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads, shot past Microsoft, the computer software giant, to become the world’s most valuable technology company.
This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history for Apple...
Yes, that's true, but...
I was intrigued by this graph-
As of Wednesday, Wall Street valued Apple at $222.12 billion and Microsoft at $219.18 billion. The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $278.64 billion.
You're next assholes! Who's going to need a car when Apple keeps making all the cool shit that gives you every excuse to never leave your chair again? The only thing I've left my house for in the last year is to go to the Apple store to buy more Apple shit. The only other time is to go to the Apple store and sit at the Genius Bar to capitalize on my extended warranties. I'd like to say that by 2021 that will change, but we're talking Apple here. The only hope is that we'll be able to levitate ourselves to the Genius Bar some day.
Good design, simplicity and planned obsolescence has won out over the ugly brute force of MS and in ten more years they'll surpass the dying fossil fuel boys. This is a cultural milestone and beyond the snark- True. God Bless America!
Watching Rachel right now talking about the Ixtoc spill of 1979, I sure hope someone drives the oil companies out of business. They haven't learned a thing in 31 years
In the next nine months, experts and divers including Red Adair were brought in to contain and cap the oil well.[6] Approximately an average of ten thousand to thirty thousand barrels per day were discharged into the Gulf until it was finally capped on 23 March 1980, nearly 10 months later.(ed. note- Through relief wells) Prevailing currents carried the oil towards the Texas coastline. The US government had two months to prepare booms to protect major inlets. Eventually, in the US, 162 miles (261 km) of beaches and 1421 birds were affected by 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m3) of oil.[7] Pemex spent $100 million to clean up the spill and avoided paying compensation by asserting sovereign immunity
These idiots aren't idiots. They know full well that relief wells are the only way to stop an offshore blowout. My bet is that the Carter/Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama administrations had an inkling too... So we can cross our fingers that Operation Throw a Bunch of Shit on Top of the Gusher will work, but history says its more likely to be a matter of math as to how fast a relief well can be drilled.
Having lazily written this diary so that now the KO repeat has replaced Rachel. Conservation consultant/marine biologist Rick Steinert (who looks suspiciously like me if I were ever to leave the house and get a tan) just said that the best hope we have is the two relief wells. The first relief well is more than halfway to the reservoir and might be operable within two weeks. Not great, but a little better than the 10 months it took back in '79.
I think we will hear a lot about concurrent relief wells being required in any future offshore drilling. As horrible as this disaster has been, some positive things will come out of it. Better regulations, the end of the Drill Baby Drill mantra for at least 20 years, better fuel standards, and the ever popular administration backtracking on new plans for offshore drilling. (Popular with some factions anyway...)
Although I don't have a car, I for one plan on reducing my carbon footprint by putting the brightness on my lap top to IIII instead of IIIIII while blogging in support of clean energy to get the electricity to power my blogging habit.
Take that Exxon Mobil, you're done and you don't even know it and a nerd from California with good design sense will go down in the history books as one of the ones who made you obsolete...
Full disclosure- I typed this on a pc. I can only afford two Macs and the kids got those...