the darkerside to rants

иконографияI admit it, I do believe people should not be told what to do with their own bodies or minds if they do not endanger others in the process.

Having said this: I have an ethical problem / dilemma when it comes to immunization.

Here’s the deal. Immunization works because everybody gets the shot. This creates a protection for the group (society) as a whole and even protects the few that are falling through the cracks (herd immunity).

The problem is that lately in the US (where else?) there has been a war on immunization. The arguments against it range from the paranoid fringe who perceives the immunizations as an attempt by the Government to control us to the fears that it causes autism. Unfortunately it seems more and more people all over the Western world seem to come to the same conclusion and as a side effect herd immunity is quickly disappearing and the rise of former vanquished or at least mostly controlled sicknesses like measles are making a come back. This is obviously not good at all.

So here is my ethical dilemma. I do not think we should force people to do something they do not want to do, but in this case? The cost in human life and economic impact is enormous. So should we go and force people to get their children immunized? Should we just tell them that it is their choice and live with the consequences?

I think the whole thing would be easier for me to answer (no, they shouldn’t) if the arguments of the vaccination opponents had any merit in a scientific kind of way. But they do not. So here I am now, wondering if there should be a limit to self-determination.

I guess I could make the argument that not having most of the children immunized poses a risk to others and as such my initial stipulation (as long as they do not cause anybody else harm) has already been violated, but is this really enough to force people to inject their kids with something they oppose?

Opinions welcome.

икониFollowing the online “discussions” with regard to the events happening at Fukushima it seems that society is split into two groups, roughly in the middle.

On the one side you have the people who perceive nuclear energy as inherently evil and in essence “we’re all going to die”. On the other hand you have “experts” (I put this in quotation because it is at times hard to assertion the credential of someone online) who perceive the risks as overblown, if I want to step down to their rhetoric I would call them the “reactor hugger group”. The general consensus on this side has changed from: “They are much better engineered than Chernobyl and the Japanese have it all under control.” to “Well, look at how well they were engineered, they survived the earthquake and the tsunami!” or if they wanted to be really fastidious: “If a dam breaks thousands will die too!”

I think both sides have it wrong, but out of different reasons.

Let’s first deal with the con argument here.

Most of the anti-nuclear crowds argument stem from two things:

1. Chernobyl
2. Mushroom Clouds

The Chernobyl comparison is somewhat apt, although only to a certain degree. Yes, a reactor did blow up and spew it’s fuel over a large area and contaminated vast stretches around the world with radiation, but it is also true that the design of the reactor was different. This doesn’t mean that a Chernobyl like event couldn’t happen in any other power plant, but the odds are lower. How much lower? That’s the big question here.

The mushroom cloud on the other hand is completely silly. Granted, it is the symbol for the nuclear age and it is a vivid image at that. But the reality is that there never will be a mushroom cloud over a nuclear reactor unless someone detonates a nuclear bomb at a reactor. The “worst case scenario” is the Chernobyl type disaster where the fissile material gets ejected from the core and spread over a wide area. This would be known as a dirty bomb. You know, the one the US is so afraid of someone could set off in the US.

So what about the proponents?

I think here we have to split them into two groups:

1. Politicians, Internet Commentators, Industry spokes people.
2. Engineers and Scientists.

The first group tends to be either misinformed as much as most of the opponents or has a vested financial interest in keeping the Status quo and downplaying any risk.

The second group though, the engineers, had me scratching my head for a bit as I couldn’t quite figure out why they were so adamant about downplaying the potential risks. It only occurred to me on Sunday that the reasons is rather simple: If you design a technology at one point or the other you have to be convinced that you have done a good job, as close to perfect as possible. Engineering always has worked on these principals, we design something with as many safety ideas in place as we can think off, and then when something goes wrong we go back to the drawing board, identify the point of failure and find a solution from this happening again.

In essence: Engineers need to believe they are Gods of their own creation and they can and will only admit they aren’t when proven otherwise.

This is an inherit human condition: We all live our lives that way, if we wouldn’t we couldn’t get out of bed in the morning out of fear that something bad could happen to us. We get into our cars or walk down the street ignoring the dangers we are in because we realize the odds are stacked in our favour, until they aren’t.

Out of this behaviour comes the rationalization right now in the pro nuclear camp why everything is not bad, but actually rather good: The reactors survived the initial earthquake and tsunami and only later failed.

This is an interesting way to look at the current problem. The reason why we now seem to have at least two melting cores is that the power that is needed to keep the cooling going until we can fully arrest the nuclear reaction has failed. This is a condition that could happen in other places as well, with or without and earthquake and a tsunami.

The engineers and scientists who write their fingers bloody right now with this line of argument on why all the other reactors are safe (no earthquake / no tsunami) fail to understand this though, or rather, they believe in the multiple backups that they have installed at all the other plants. Unfortunately Fukushima did have 300% redundancy as well. In the eternal words of Murphy: What can go wrong, will go wrong.

Yes, nuclear reactors have triple backup for these kinds of events, but cascading failures have happened before, there will always be a risk, we can lower it, but it will always exist and to deny this is doing us all a disservice.

Risk vs. Benefit

Which brings me to the real question that we have to answer when it comes to nuclear power: Are we, as a society and as a species, willing to take the risks with nuclear power? Are the benefits we gain from using it outweighing the risks?

Nuclear technology is still “brand new” in human technology terms. We have steam power for around 200 years, we have the petrol engine for a bit over a hundred and nuclear power is only slightly older than 50 years.

In these 50 years we had Windscale in Britain, Three Mile Island in the US and Chernobyl in the Soviet Union and now, it seems, Fukujima in Japan.

Add to this dozens if not hundreds of smaller accidents and incidents all over the world and you understand that the technology is far from fool proof. We’ve decided to run a marathon before we could really walk.

What’s worse on that count is that whereas with the rupture of a dam we can see the damage right away, in a nuclear disaster we may not know for generations the true cost of the accident.

On the benefit side: Japan could not have become what it is today without the use of nuclear power. China’s growth would be much lower as well. Other places like the US, Europe and Russia also benefited economically greatly from the use of nuclear energy. There is only so much fossil fuel, rivers and landmass that we can use to create electricity after all.

To Nuke or not to Nuke?

What is needed now, globally, is a debate over the use of nuclear for energy generation. This requires homework, by both sides.

The No side needs to educate itself over the real risks that are posed by nuclear power plants. The impression of the mushroom cloud over a power plant is neither realistic nor helpful.

At the same time the group also needs to come up with a list of things they, as a whole, are willing to give up if we remove the nuclear power input, at least until we can (if ever) replace it with an alternative energy source. Just turning them off and continuing as before is not an option.

On the pro nuclear side there needs to be an end to pretending that we have the technology fully under control. Eventually there will be a disaster. No human technology is infallible and honesty from the side of the pro-atom lobby would be more than refreshing.

We also, as a species, need to address what we want to do with all the spent fuel and old reactors. This is something we will have to deal with regardless if we continue using nuclear for energy generation or not. So where are we going to put all that highly radioactive garbage?

This is not a black & white scenario regardless of how either side wants to paint it. Both sides have valid points and both sides also have valid arguments in their support. The question really is: Are we willing to possibly risk future generations for our current prosperity?

This story has made me wonder yet again what is life and what isn’t.

This isn’t an easy question to answer, there are a few things that play into this:

1. When is a human being a human being (abortion)
2. When is the right time to turn off machines (sickness)
3. Should we decide when we die? (Suicide).

Let’s try and go through this in order.

Life, for me, begins when the fetus can survive, on it’s own, outside the womb. This is the baseline. Modern medicine has shifted this though, we are able to keep babies alive much earlier than we used to. The question if we should do this (or not), is for a different time though.

Turning off the machines… This is something I think everybody has to find for themselves. Personally, my attitude is this: If there is a better than 90% chance that I will recover and be able to live a productive life (for me that is), then yes, please keep me on the machines. If the odds are against me then turn them off. I have no interest in being confined to a bed or chair for the rest of my life at the mercy of others who would need to feed, wash and change me.

I will go into this a bit more in a moment, but first let me get to the last point:

Yes. We should allow people to decide when they want to pass on. Even if that means that we assist them in their act. Digitas in Switzerland is a good example of an organization that I think we need more of. I know the argument against it. “People could feel pressured.” etc. But I think this underestimates people’s desire to live.

Anybody who thinks there isn’t already assisted suicide on a daily basis in this and other countries is seriously deluded. But much like abortions, we don’t see the failed attempts and the consequences. Who knows if this was really “just” binge drinking?

So why are we so hard off about suicide and many people think of it as a “sin”? I think this all harks back to a pre-industrial age, where many people were happy if they managed to live past the ripe old age of 30, many dying within the first year of life.

As such, the idea that someone could kill themselves and leave behind a family without means was a bad thing. So scaring people to live was a good way to keep the population numbers stable.

Of course the argument that suicide is selfish is somewhat apt, but so is the desire to be alive, we feed of other living things in order to sustain ourselves, yet, nobody would question that (no Vegans, you still kill animals in the production of your food, it does not matter that you don’t eat their flesh directly), but isn’t it any less selfish to try and keep people around?

It is always curious to me to hear people talk about the selfishness of the person killing themselves and how they feel “betrayed” and “left behind” without anybody ever questioning their own selfishness.

It is also somewhat funny to me to realize that our idea of love is: “If you love someone, set them free.” yet, when it comes for them to truly be free of this mortal coil we try to bind them to us with all our might.

So yes. I think we should have the choice to kill ourselves. I also think we should be provided with access to a pain free and safe way to end our lives, when we chose so.

Yes, I hear you, but what about the mentally ill? To this I have a counter question: What about the physically ill? I have heard over and over again the argument that people are in favour of suicide for the “terminally ill”, like cancer patients etc.

First of all: We are all terminally ill. Our life WILL end in death. There is no other outcome.

Secondly, have you ever been in serious pain? Were you of “clear mind” when that was the case? I wasn’t. You want that pain to end.

So why do we accept that argument for the physically ill but argue that people who are in mental pain do not have the same right? To say that they are not of “sound mind” and that they need “help” is a hollow phrase and utterly dishonest. Unless they are mentally challenged they will fully understand what the consequences of their actions are. Mental illness is a stigma, and even advocates for it will feel offended by my idea. But I stand by it: I am for giving everybody on this planet the right to have a safe and pain free death as long as they are of the age of majority.

Which brings me back to my second point: A productive life.

This will be different for everybody. But for me a productive life means that I can go about and experience the world and do the things I like. Sitting, half brain dead or paralized, in a chair all day long and staring out a window is not life to me. It is more akin to a prison.

Now, I cannot speak for everybody and I am sure there will be people out there who consider this kind of existence still worthy of experience, but I am not one of them. Turn off the machines for me and pass me the poison cocktail, this is were I would get off.

So what’s your take? What’s life? Should we have the right to end it when we feel like it? If not, why?

I just came across an article discussing the problems with the new Hornby bike lane. The first thing on the list was the little climb up from False Creek towards downtown. I call it a “small climb” but most people apparently think I am using the wrong metric.

So where did I get my wrong metric from?

When I grew up in Stuttgart I learned one thing very quickly: You’re either riding UP a hill or you’re coming DOWN one. Initially coming down the hill was much more fun, as in easier and fast.

But pretty soon I learned one important lesson: You never push your bike up a hill, that’s just wrong, not to mention you’d be a girl

Trust me, there were enough hills in Stuttgart to test this statement repeatedly. The earliest I remember learning this lesson was also on one of the hardest climbs in the city: Die Hasenbergsteige.

I must have been in first or second grade, had a small little three speed bike and was riding up there with a friend of mine. We wanted to get into the woods and out to the lakes (something that was entirely my idea. I am still that way, distances mean very little to me. I still hold that anything within 200km is easily bikeable), which required us to do the climb up the “Hasenbergsteige“.

I must have been eight or nine, but I still vividly remember that my buddy was in front and eventually he gave up. Which wouldn’t have been that bad, but he did it in a way that I had to stop too and there was no way for me to start cycling again on that incline. I dug deep for some very colourful insults at that point.

To give you some idea. The entire road is roughly 1.6km long (or a mile for those of you who have not caught up with the rest of the world) and on average has a 9.6% incline and at it’s steepest point it is 15%. Compare this to that little climb here in Vancouver and you see why I find it amusing.

Anyway, it is sort of funny how certain things seem to leave a mark. What most people consider a “serious climb” I don’t even notice…. Which shows you: Your Point Of View is really all that matters

I am sure I am not the only one who, when looking at all the bank accounts and assets finds himself not being where they really want to be.

So, the only plan I have made to 2011 is to get where I want to be (and a few smaller things on the side as well, but this is the biggie).

In order to get there a plan was needed and here I am giving you an insight on how I plan on accomplishing this, maybe it will be useful to you as well.

1. Understand the Problem

Everything starts with an analysis. In this case you want to know where it is you actually spend the money.

For this I kept a log for a month, writing out any expenses that I have, so that included Rent (or Mortgage), Internet etc. all the fix costs are added up, then looked at. I found little I could cut, mainly because I already stripped my budget a few months ago.

I then looked at all the other expenses I had, that included food etc. But I was more interested in variable spending, that is, stuff I spent money on that wasn’t really all that useful. Seeing how much, for example, I had spent every month on eating out was a bit of an eye opener (though this is something I had already done earlier in the year as well and pared back accordingly).

Lastly, I set up a spreadsheet. In this spreadsheet I listed every single debt that I had. I brought out the whole amount, how much I paid off that month, and most importantly, how much I paid that month on interest.

So, any CC, Mortgage, LOC etc. that you have goes into this spreadsheet.

It tallies up the totals, how much outstanding debt (too much), how much I pay in interest every month (way too much) and then I added up how much I had paid off this month (not enough).

The reason for this is to show just how expensive debt is. I realized that over the last few months that only half of my payments went to serve the outstanding debt, the rest was interest payments. This number will go down as time progresses (and this part of the idea of keeping the spreadsheet) but for now it is a reminder just how stupid one can be by taking out a loan.

Also: Add up the amount of interest you pay and just imagine what you could be doing with all that money. Once the debt is gone, you will be able to use that money (interest alone!) to do nice things.

Motivated yet?

2. Make a Budget

Now that we have all of this sorted out and know how bad (or not so bad) we are off it’s time to make a budget and a plan.

The budget is rather easy, you take your fixed expenses, those you will not be able to par down much I would presume, though if you can, cut it down. Do you really still need Cable TV? I didn’t so it went out the window.

Make a budget for food, and also important, give yourself an entertainment budget. If you par it all down the odds are you will still be spending and then just be mad at yourself, plus, if you give yourself a budget and come in under you’re better of.

So my budget for entertainment beginning January is going to be $100 a mont. This does not include food, but it does include eating out.

Pay Cash

This is a biggie, and I am not the only one who had this idea: Stop paying with your Bank card or Credit Card. Why? Because it makes money less real. It’s just a number. Although you may see on your spreadsheet what you have just spent money, the reality is that it won’t sink in until later.

As such: give yourself a weekly money budget to spend, then carry this around as cash. Leave your CC and Bank Card at home and only take it with you when you know you need it (e.g. if you have to pay for a large item). Other than that, keep them in a drawer, the less temptation, the better.

Make a shopping list

If you sit down at home first, then write a list out of the things that you need you’re less likely to stray from it, this is also a cost control measure as you’re less likely to give in to impulse buys.

Make a payback plan

This is another biggie. I get paid once a month. The temptation is there to just make your debt payments right then and there. But, psychology, if you pay back more than once a month (say, every two weeks), you get a “benefit” out of it. you will see how your outstanding balance goes down twice and this is a very rewarding feeling.

I did put the spreadsheets etc. in place as of December, so I already had a “test run” and I can tell you to make the payment and then updating the spreadsheet is deeply satisfying. Pay back early, pay back often, see how you’re doing better.

Be Tax Smart

Oh, I am guilty of this. I never really bothered with writing stuff off. I spent the last month looking at all the things I could have written off but never did. Obviously you don’t want to do that yourself, you want to find yourself an accountant that can do the tax return for you. But in order to make this fast and less painful make sure you sort your invoices etc. I admit, I was very very bad at this too. I spent the last two months going through my “filing box” and shredded and filed a lot of paper. It was annoying and boring, there is a reason why I am not a bookkeeper or accountant, but if you want to take control of your finances you need to know where you are.

See the money you’re getting back from your tax return as a good way to pay back your debt even faster.

A good example of this is the MSP here in BC. I pay this myself and it is $57/month, which means I pay $684/year on the MSP. Rule of thumb is you get around 30% back on your tax return, so $205 just on that. Nice.

Likewise other things can be written off, get an accountant, talk with her or him and see what else you can write off.

This also means to try and max out any (income) tax shelter you may have, that is for example the RRSP here in Canada that you could and should max out if you can.

Savings

I admit it, I have a very very serious plan to be debt free, as such I have delayed / ignored any logic that would dictate to put money away. As I am single the risk is pretty slim but if you have family it may be a good idea to not be as aggressive on the payback as I am. For example, take your tax return and put it in a savings account, a Tax Free Savings account is a good idea (I will write about this a bit more in the next few days, but for now see it as this: As you already paid income tax on it, any profit you make in that account is yours to keep. While taking money out of the RRSP will incur income taxes (it is only deferred) anything you take out of the TFSA does not. So for a “rainy day” fund this is the better option.

Be aware though that there is a contribution limit of currently $5000/year, so you cannot save more than that in it, if you have more than a normal savings account will do as well.

Be Honest

This is the most important thing. Be honest to yourself about your financial situation. How much you own, how much you pay in interest and how long it would take you to pay it off at your current rate.

If you want to finance something new, calculate how much it is REALLY going to cost you, that is: How much will you pay on this item REALLY when you factor in all the interest you’re going to pay on it. This also leads into my final point:

Wants and Needs

This is probably the biggest. Advertising and peer pressure has turned many wants into needs. Learn the difference.

Crude example:

I NEED to eat and cloth and have Shelter.
I WANT that new iPhone / Computer / Game.

So, everything you currently spend money on is something you should examine based on this. Do you really need it? Or do you just want it? I mentioned above to make more than one debt repayment a month, the rational feeds straight into this. Reducing your debt has become a need, buying new stuff has become a want.

There is enough research that shows that if we go out and buy something we do get a “reward” in the brain, so a lot of the spending we are doing is based around this. Making these repayments is a way of getting the reward without causing any additional cost.

If you want, make debt payment every week, even if it is smaller amounts you pay back every time you will get the gratification of “buying” something and thus are less tempted to pay for other things that only get you deeper into debt.

Plan for the Future

Okay, it may take you a year or two to dig yourself out of that financial hole you’re in, but that should not prevent you from making plans for the future. This includes investments.

Do you have a pension at your job? If so, will it pay enough for you to live on? Where are your assets? (Note: If you have a Mortgage, you don’t own the house, so don’t count it as an asset it’s a liability until paid off, and even once it’s paid of you still have taxes and repairs to consider).

On how much could you survive? The rule of thumb is you should be paying no more than 1/3 of your income for shelter, how much will your house cost you once you’ve paid it off (taxes, repairs, utilities etc.). You get the idea.

Find yourself a good financial advisor once you’re done. Keep in mind: Diversification is the name of the game, don’t keep everything in one asset otherwise you’re badly exposed (this is also were the TFSA can come in).

Lastly a disclaimer: I am not a Financial Advisor, nor a Financial Professional. I have done a lot of reading about this over the last few years though and so far this plan works for me. I am also a single guy, I have no dependents and the only one I need to take into consideration when I make any financial decisions and the effects they have is me

Lastly, my longterm goal (two years out) is a simple one: I only want to need to have to work for six months out of the year, this does and has made an impact on how I live my life, but I am much more relaxed about this.

Life of course is unpredictable, so who knows what happens in the next twelve months, but the goal is that by the end of 2011 I will be in the situation that I am at the point where I only need to work nine months in 2012 if I so chose.

Your Turn.

I am sure the internet, as always, will be full with “this was 2010” or some such, not to mention the “traditional media”.

So why not?

On the global scale, things that I am aware of but that don’t necessarily directly affect me I would have to say the biggest news was Wikileaks. Not so much because of what they released (or are releasing) as in the way the media and politicians have reacted.

To put it mildly: It was and is a pretty shameful spectacle.

Like or don’t like Julian Assange, but at least the man seems to have principles and stick to them. He also gave Wikileaks a face and that seems to have galled some of the earlier Wikileaks supporters.

The good thing that may come out of it next year is another leak site, if they will be as principled as Wikileaks seems to be under Assange remains to be seen.

But I still wonder how much of an impact this will really on our day to day lives. It seems the internet is split between people who support Wikileaks and it’s mission and those who (mainly) see it as an attack on the United States. Again, I am sure, 2011 will give us more answers to that as media and internet loudmouths will jockey for a new position trying to either take Wikileaks down or support it.
Read more »

Past Peak Oil Travelling Towards Transition Animation from Anita Sancha on Vimeo.

Or rather the tired and old “Film vs. Digital” cost thing.

Last week I was asked to put in a proposal for film photoshoot. This was supposed to be a whole day affair with up to 15 models doing “lifestyle” shoots for a product. Groovy.

My initial proposal came in at $2510 plus HST.

The breakdown was as follows:

Basic Shoot cost (up to 8 hours): $700
Film (20 rolls total including processing): $400
Scanning ($0.50/frame): $360
Post Production (estimate 90mins per roll at $35/h): $1050

Today then I was told that the shoot was delayed and that my pricing was “too expensive” and that the budget is $500 (something I didn’t know initially, if I had I wouldn’t even have bothered) and as much as they like my film shooting style, they will have to go with someone who does digital (as it was implied, this HAD to be cheaper, no film, you know) and also can bring a whole pile of lightening equipment.

Wow. I am not sure if I should shake my head or feel insulted.

Let’s look at this from a business perspective. My total time commitment on this shoot would have been at least 38 hours, that is the 8 hours for shooting and the 30 hours for post processing, not counting me going to the location, the cost of equipment etc. You get the idea.

The cost for equipment isn’t any lower shooting digital, if anything because digital equipment is expected to be replaced every two to three years the cost for equipment has to be recovered much quicker, say, within a year. On a $3500 digital camera (with an okay lens) that means for those $500 shoots you need to do an awful lot, and there aren’t any time savings, I already calculated less than 3 minutes per frame in post and considering the shooting environment and the ideas that were presented to me this could be underestimated.

Add to this that the expectation is that whoever will do this gig for $500 will bring along a whole whack of light equipment which is not cheap and will also take a long time to set up. Meaning: most likely much more than eight hours on location(s) (yes, that’s a plural S, the idea was to shoot at several different locations, which also means all the equipment needs to be broken down and transported to a new location, then set up again).

So, whoever will be doing this for $500 will, at the end of the day, have earned nothing beyond a warm and fuzzy feeling. S/He may have paid of a bit of the equipment, but there will be zero profit, zero eating too.

The funny thing is, the guy who asked for the quote produces an actual, physical product. He would not just hand it out to people on the street for free, he wants to make some money. So he calculates his cost, then adds a percentage on top and then sells it for that price. Meanwhile, he expects the photographer to work for some charity money.

This is why I think photography as a line of business is dead, as digital downloads have destroyed (or at least badly injured) the music distribution industry, so has the idea that “digital is cheaper” and “everybody has a camera”. I have heard this a few times before where people put in proposals for wedding shoots only to be told that it was too expensive and that Uncle Herb has a Digital Camera and he’s not that bad, so he’ll do it instead.

If you look at my above list I do have $750 in direct film related cost (film + scanning), but the reality is that if I would shoot digital I would have worked this in via “equipment rental”, because those HDDs, Memory Cards and new digital bodies every few years aren’t free either. It IS a business and if I do it, I do it to make money, not to get a warm and fuzzy feeling about being allowed to work for someone for nothing.

Am I miffed at being not hired? Not really, it isn’t my line of business per-se. I make money somewhere else at a much higher hourly rate, but I am somewhat surprised (okay, not really) that a business person who should know about cost and profit margins, thinks that for $500 someone could do this shoot for him and make money off of it.

Obviously there are always people out there who will try to get something for nothing, but I have the feeling that this is more the rule than the exception these days when it comes to photography, unfortunately.

Yesterday was “Pride Parade Day” and I got out and shot a few photos.

In general I have to say I found myself rather disappointed this year. It wasn’t a very campy event (not that the previous years were really raunchy) and it seems most of the floats were corporate ones, used to advertise themselves, still a bit mind boggling to watch this whole thing.

The funniest thing must have been the Conservative Party’s “float” though. It was one convertible with the party logo on the side, a guy at the wheel and someone else walking on the side, that’s it. The NDP showed up in force and even the Liberals managed to get a group together, but man, that Conservative attempt to appeal to this group of voters was dead before it started. I found it so sad I didn’t even bother taking a photo.

My general feeling with the event yesterday was that they are hurting badly for money, they had signs everywhere asking for donations for the parade as well as telling people it costs half a million dollars to put it on. Side effect of the economy?

A little story made the rounds on the Internet recently which seems to imply that come Mac OS 10.7 only applications that have been approved by Apple and distributed through their app store (for OS X) would be allowed to run on the computer, so no more downloading shady software from parts of the Internet just because you want. Apple won’t let you.

As it goes with stories like these the moment it “broke” the slagging started with people on the one side saying “Evil Apple” while others were more relaxed and essentially said: “Apple would never do that”, and a few even thought of this as a good idea.

So what are the odds that Apple would do something like this? From Apple’s perspective this actually makes sense, they are already controlling the iPhone and iPod environment via the app store. Sure, you can jailbreak your iPhone and then use any kind of app on it that you want, even install a completely new OS on it, but for the majority of people what Apple approves is what they will eat.

But iPhones and iPods (and iPads now) are one thing, a Computer is something else, aren’t we all just deeply excited to write our own programs, fiddle with code and have full control over every minute part of the computer? If you say yes you fall probably in the 1% of the population that actually does this. The rest will still be shaking their heads right now.

Still though, people aren’t quite used to the idea that they have to go through their Computer vendor to get software, but if Apple would want to do this, how would they go about it?

Firstly, they have already trained a lot of people to accept the app store as the arbiter of software to find. In turn for many smaller developer it has turned into a successful distribution method, so why not expand it?

Secondly, Apple could open an Appstore for OS X, once it is open they could make it “difficult” for apps that haven’t come from the App store by simply making it annoying. Right now if you download an application from the net and start it up for the first time OS X warns you that this application was downloaded from the Internet on a given date and that OS X isn’t sure you should really run this. Now imagine they would do this everytime you start an app, added with a note that trusted applications can be found in the app store?

Three, once people are used of using the appstore to find their apps instead of the internet, force them to go there. The majority won’t care as they are already used to it anyway and the few geeks that will be pissed off can be ignored.

So what about the public backlash if Apple would be doing this? I predict slim to none. The people who care about open systems are a minority. The average computer user “eats” what he is given, they don’t scour the internet for applications or try to custom build their own. If Apple shows them a big enough carrot in the form of the appstore combined with some nice fear mongering with regard to the dangers of the internet they can get people to buy into it.

Will they do it? Who knows, Steve Jobs maybe. But if you look at the way Apple has been developing it’s products it just seems to make some kind of sense. There was a huge outcry when the iPod came with unexchangable batteries, there was a huge outcry when Apple insisted on only letting applications on the iPhone that came via the appstore and again when they did the battery thing with the new Laptops (me being one of the by the way). Has it hurt Apple? Not in the least, they are selling more devices than they ever have before and they will continue to do so.

The one thing all the Gees and Free Software advocates forget is something very simple: Most people already treat their computers like appliances, if Apple can give them that feeling on the computer while still letting them do what they want they will like it.