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The violence is certainly being committed by both sides. In Portland in October, for example, both sides engaged in violent attacks.

But my point is that that the mayor of Portland, who is a Democrat, appears to enforce the laws less strictly against the social justice rioters.

http://www.wweek.com/portland/...

Oh yeah, in Oregon, if it's the same thing I'm thinking: http://www.wweek.com/portland/...

MySidia,

Good point about the softer side of the network from the Portland 911 system event. On a larger scale, all it took was one a misplaced if/break statement to prove a "trivial" Unix patch can bring down even the most robust network. ( As a C programmer I have to take issue with the article blaming the compiler and not the programmer and their test tools/environment, but then than's just my world view).

Violence is always the left's card to play.

Riiiiight. Because the Right-wing's methods of suppressing protest are completely gentle and humane.
It's still violence, even if it's State-approved and/or going on behind closed doors in the future at a "Ministry of Re-Education".

I agree. It's terrifying (well, more disappointing) that completely unsubstantiated claims from someone who was chatting anonymously on IRC are being taken seriously by anyone,

Well if it's fake, it's a long con. Especially after you start seeing all this stuff right?

Even more interesting is the attorney who's pursuing this. Carl Crowell (based out of Salem, IIRC) is pretty damned prolific about this - enough that he has a rather slick operation (see article) that chews through a lot of these each month. I find it interesting that they're willing to settle for $750/ea (though IMHO that's still a bit too high), while most settlements average $5k-$7.5k or so.

Like most copyright suits, he almost always gets the money via settlement. It all still hinges on IP addresses, the ISP, and how well they keep records, though. I'm guessing that Popcorn Time likely blares your IP addy out nice and loud for the world to see by other torrenters, though one would wonder about sharing a movie in order to sue other sharers over the same movie...

That's the one. Apparently the Secret Service has been giving them grief for dying the bills red.

Some newspapers actually did that once, except it involved searching trash instead of GPS tracking:

RUBBISH!
Portland's top brass said it was OK to swipe your garbage--so we grabbed theirs.

Back in March, the police swiped the trash of fellow officer Gina Hoesly. They didn't ask permission. They didn't ask for a search warrant. They just grabbed it. Their sordid haul, which included a bloody tampon, became the basis for drug charges against her (see "Gross Violation," below).

The news left a lot of Portlanders--including us--scratching our heads. Aren't there rules about this sort of thing? Aren't citizens protected from unreasonable search and seizure by the Fourth Amendment?

The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office doesn't think so. Prosecutor Mark McDonnell says that once you set your garbage out on the curb, it becomes public property.

...

After much debate, we resolved to turn the tables on three of our esteemed public officials. We embarked on an unauthorized sightseeing tour of their garbage, to make a point about how invasive a "garbage pull" really is--and to highlight the government's ongoing erosion of people's privacy.

We chose District Attorney Mike Schrunk because his office is the most vocal defender of the proposition that your garbage is up for grabs. We chose Police Chief Mark Kroeker because he runs the bureau. And we chose Mayor Vera Katz because, as police commissioner, she gives the chief his marching orders.

Each, in his or her own way, has endorsed the notion that you abandon your privacy when you set your trash out on the curb. So we figured they wouldn't mind too much if we took a peek at theirs.

Boy, were we wrong.

After seeing this movie, anyone who thinks it's a turkey is either a moron or saw a different movie than I did

I guess lots of people saw a different movie than you.

This movie deserves the videogame it got.

It's fun to imagine how officials would respond when their own privacy is invaded. (US-centric, but targeted police chief, district attorney, and mayor). Notable quote from said police chief: "This is very cheap," he blurted out, frowning as we pointed out a receipt with his credit-card number, a summary of his wife's investments, an email prepping the mayor about his job application to be police chief of Los Angeles, a well-chewed cigar stub, and a handwritten note scribbled in pencil on a napkin, so personal it made us cringe."

Damn, I was really hoping they got that infernal Nancy Miller from DRS. I get several robocalls from her every week. Even if you pick up, it's just a message saying to call her. Googling it suggests it's some sort of scam (I'm shocked).

--

Well, I finally broke down and called them back to tell them to stop calling me. They claim to be a debt collector. The person who they are looking for has my same name, but a different social and was married to someone else. My name isn't THAT uncommon, so I have to wonder how many other people they are harassing about this same debt. They now claim my number will be taken off within 72 hours. Great! Well, except for this.

Here's the article about that incident: Rubbish!

List for illustration purposes only. Profits not guaranteed. Collecting panties risks lawsuits and may pose an environmental hazard.

Sung Koo Kim is that you?

For those of us already in our 30s, we'd be over the hill in 10-12 years.

It's much more likely that we'd be end up more like Captain Jackson, Zetaman, Captain Prospect or some other "real life superhero"

Well, the real life superheroes are actually pretty neat. They do good deeds, have fun doing it, and try to inspire others to relax and do the same. Volunteering in a costume sounds like fun!

For those of us already in our 30s, we'd be over the hill in 10-12 years.

It's much more likely that we'd be end up more like Captain Jackson, Zetaman, Captain Prospect or some other "real life superhero"

Indeed, that may be true and is a good point. A weekly Portland newspaper did a story about how the increasing number of Starbucks stores in the city actually helped increase the number of independant chains, by effectively lifting the popularity of coffee across consumer groups: http://wweek.com/story.php?story=5137.

I myself don't hate Starbcusk at all. They treat their employees well, and their coffee is "ok" in my opinion. The only thing I don't like is that many Starbucks' don't feel very welcoming to stay in for a long period of time, which seems strange to me considering Howard Shultz's theory of Starbucks as the "third space". I find many mom and pop coffee stores just feel more inviting (plus have free WiFi).

> Except that it was easily proven that the benefits of shoulder belts, air bags, and third brake lights outweighed any drawbacks.

Y'know, I never did see any of those studies about the proven effects of the third brake light. Could you point one or two out to me? And... at the time they were mandated, they were a novelty. Are they still as effective as they were initially?

I'll not argue the benefits of seat belts or air bags; my '91 cavalier was built before the air bags were mandated, and my '64 Polara before seat belts. I did see the point of the seat belts (but really really disliked the auto-enforcing ones), but I'm not yet convinced on the air bags (assuming seat belts are properly used).

> What if a controlled remote kill of a vehicle under police supervision that has been reported stolen or is the subject of a court order has the same results? Returning stolen properly safely, preventing high speed police chases and death?

I think you can safely remove the "stolen property" argument from the lineup. Police stumble across stolen cars when they find them at all; it's seldom that that said stolen cars are involved in high speed chases. Make On-star mandatory, and it becomes one more item in the chop-shop checklist before making off with the car.

Which means that the most likely person to be driving a vehicle the police 'control' this way will be the owner. Which pretty much leads to your point about mandated installation...

> Same thing with Tasers.
One may recall a scandal about using the sleeper hold in Portland, OR, some time back. Training is important in new technology as well as with new techniques, and there'll be some problems with that, always. (The headline from the article comes from some T-shirts some members of the police made in response to the scandal, basically making your "is better than the alternatives" argument. It wasn't received well...)

when the police themselves turn that argument around on you.

I'm sorry, but you have it backwards, it was the police and government that came up with it first, time and time again.

And time and time again, when it's turned against them, they whine and cry. Whether it's mayors having an apoplectic fit when people go through their "public" trash or cops throwing the book at people for filming them in public where they have "no reasonable expectation of privacy", the government takes the first step in taking your privacy from you, and when people turn that loss against the government, the reaction exposes the clearly hypocritical acts of those in charge.

I don't have a land line. Why? The cell phone is _cheaper_. If you're going to be pragmatic, ditch the land line. It's not about new and hip. It's about being fed up with how the old-fashioned phone company rips you off and charges you out the a$$ for features that simply come included with cell plans.

http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=5722

Oh, I think the "super hackers(crackers)" are out there. The kid in the above story certainly acquired all the power he needed to cause some serious problems. Fortunately, his activity seems to have been motivated simply by the technical challenge of cracking into systems. Even the genuine criminals tend to be somewhat "focused" in their endeavors. I just don't think we've seen a "super hacker" or any sort of coordinated attack driven by a desire to cause as much general damage and destruction as possible.

Tom Peterson says "Free is a very good price!".

And I agree.

At this point, I have no interest in paying for Windows. I do, however, require at least one Windows box (currently XP64) for gaming and testing deployment of some of our enterprise applications at home. I also don't really care to go through the trouble of finding a viable crack on bit torrent or anything. I will probably buy it once there are games which I must have that demand DirectX10 for the coolest gaming experience -- and I will do so when I am in the process of building a new machine so that I can get the OEM version.

Even at that, I will not spend $200. I might spend $140. And that's for the full version (4gb+, multi-core, 64bit, etc). Otherwise they can just eat it. The only reason I ever need to jump off my solaris, debian or OSX boxes is to play games. Period.

Link: http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=3485&page=1

Nope

Not necessarily.

There's a pretty funny story in Portland, Oregon where local law enforcement was caught going through various peoples' trash, and they claimed that once the trash had been put out on the curb (never mind that in some cases the trash was still on the peoples' properties), that it was available to the public.

Whereupon one of the local papers took it upon themselves to look through the Mayor's & the Chief of Police's trash, and reported what they found. Fortunately for the two officials, they didn't have anything condemning in their trash, but apparently the Mayor was absolutely furious (and of course was making suing noises), whereas the Police Chief seemed to be a bit more stoic.

I think I hunted down the link here. It was quite awhile ago, so they might've passed a law by now that protects officials (but not ordinary citizens of course) from such shenanigans.

without fear of the FBI showing up on his doorstep.

Except even that is no longer true anymore. While (as far as anyone knows, since if they had "disappeared" someone they certainly wouldn't be around to tell us) they haven't actually arrested anyone over things they've said (unless you joke about burning bushes, which is an offense to good humor) there is the occasional visit from the secret service or the FBI (typically recanted a few days after they've posted their story on the internet). The thing is, these people are very busy and have very important things to do like investigating $6000 payments to Mastercard, so just saying "LOL Bush sucks" on a public forum isn't enough to get their attention. You've gotta at least suggest that the president should get a smallpox vaccination

That was actually Mark Kroeker, formerly the police chief in Portland, OR. After he made this assertion reporters from Willamate Week rooted through his garbage, as well as that of the Multnomah county district attorney and the mayor. The most risque thing that I remember turning up in anyone's trash was an empty whisky bottle (only one). Their point was made though.

http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=3485&page=1

Between May 2001 and May 2002, Abramoff wrote three $1,000 checks to Smith, followed by a $2,000 check in June 2002 from one of his main clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaws. In late October 2002, right before Smith's reelection, while he enjoyed a large lead in the polls over Democrat Bill Bradbury, the senator accepted three more checks totaling $4,000, two from the Mississippi tribe and one from another Abramoff client, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in California. Since the election, Smith has received two additional checks from Abramoff's Indian clients, totaling $6,000.

The faster we get this mess over with, the better. We should just start offering MBA's to the prisioners in all the "super-max" facilities.... That way, they could start being useful immed. upon their return to society. I can just see it now...."IPO to be offered upon parole"

To prove my point... http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=5176
see the story about this guy, he's continuing to get paid WHILE he's serving 18 mos. for criminal offenses. The board kept him on because he's a "visionary" and "knows the business" the best!

Last week, Wiederhorn pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to two felonies--bribing local money manager Jeff Grayson and lying to the IRS. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and ordered to pay $2 million in restitution and a $25,000 fine.

Then the other shoe dropped. Turns out that Wiederhorn managed to engineer a deal in which his current company, Fog Cutter Capital Group, granted him a leave of absence, kept him on the company payroll at $350,000 a year--and handed him a bonus of $2 million.

See what I mean?

The CNet crew were discussing privacy risks that were the direct product of the company run by the guy in question. MOG's 'report' on PJ was, by contrast, of absolutely no relevance to the discussion - the only applicable question is "is this individual working for IBM", the answer to which appears to be "no".

I consider it fair game when spammers get sent tonnes of unsolicited snailmail. I consider it fair game when officials in favour of the police being able to rifle through garbage without a warrant get their garbage rifled through. Equally, I consider it fair game when someone whose company is distributing large amounts of personal information (before anyone makes the obvious objection, I'm thinking of Google Cache) has personal information from that very source distributed. If they don't want that information spread, they'll have to do what the rest of us are stuck with doing and ask Google to remove the relevant pages from its index. In his case, of course, it's far easier than it would be for the average joe.

I don't see it as unacceptable for CNet to redistribute Google's CEO's personal information when it was handed to them on a silver plate by the company he runs. Especially not when they were trying to drive home the very issue that is currently ticking him off.

If California is .com, Portland is .org in every way.

From the INCREDIBLY cool FreeGeek ("helping the needy get nerdy") - to the active Portland Linux/Unix Group to the Portland Ruby Brigade that put together the FOSCON mentioned in the OP - Portland has some great geeky stuff going on.

A few months back, I ran the exact same Craigslist help-wanted ad, looking for a great programmer for a well-paying job, in both Portland and Los Angeles Craigslist at the same time. (The job could be done from either Portland or Los Angeles.) The Portland ad was answered by about 30 brilliant programmers, all working on interesting things and seemed to be doing it for love more than money. The Los Angeles ad was answered by a couple clueless numnuts. I love Los Angeles for other reasons, but this was a telling experience.

No sales tax. Great public transportation. More hybrid cars per-capita than anywhere. Kennedy School. Free wireless broadband covers the entire city. A damn good place to live and work. And not a single tourist attraction.

All the Google hits seem to bring up far left fringe sites. In fact one of them, godlike productions, has a link to Austin American Statesman, but that site returns a "Not Found" for the link. A CNN "link" returns a "Not Found". A search on CNN (burning bush joke and burning bush comment) find nothing related to this. It purports to be a copy of an AP article. Some of them have no attribution and are just blog entries.

So... I wandered over to AP and searched their archive with burning bush comment (right from the "headline"). The only thing it turned up was from about a month ago and it was a story about Fidel Castro.

Update! I did find one article (getting tired of reading loony reactionary sites so I'm done...) in Wilmette Week Online. It's a local paper and it's a story about a local man. I think the only reason they ran it is because he's a cabbie from Portland. I still have yet to find it in any national news orgs. It paints a far different picture of Humphreys. He believes himself as a prophet of God. He refused to return a cab to the cab company he worked for. He threatened the general manager: "You would do wise to leave me alone and listen well to me if you value your skin and your soul". He was arrested 14 times in the 10 months leading up to this incident.

Here's another choice quote from the article:"In presenting his case, Humphreys read long biblical passages and described the past nine years of his life in detail. After his narrative exceeded 45 minutes, Ridgeway and Judge Lawrence Piersol coaxed him into resting his case."

So I hardly think he was convicted just because he told a joke.

Nice try, though.

But you do know that Starbucks pays farmers more for their coffee than Nestle does, right?

You're likely to piss someone off. Like the mayor.

5. Who would Leiutenant Worf vote for?

I guess you haven't read Klingons for Kerry.

75% of Klingons support Kerry
25% of Klingons support Satan
0% of Klingons support Bush

Note that the person quoted as saying "A good war is based on honor, not deception, The first warrior, President Bush, deceived us all with this war." was one of the people^wklingons who plans on voting for Satan.

Roasting is just a part of the process of making coffee, and I prefer the rich/bitter taste of "over-roasted" coffee (French/Viennese roast). Unfortunately, I still do not like Starbucks regular coffee... And I don't really like Gevalia either. For anyone like me, I'd suggest ordering an Americano (espresso with hot water). The espresso tastes much better than the regular coffee, and adding water makes it last longer.

I used to hate Starbucks not just for the coffee, but also because I thought they were putting independant coffee houses out of business, but that's just an urban legend. Their real effect is quite the opposite. Here is an interesting article on the subject.

The Personal Telco Project in Portland, Oregon, is setting up free internet access points all over town (mostly in coffee shops), and invites home users to open their networks up, as well. There was a writeup about it in the most recent Willamette Week (weekly alternative newspaper based in Portland).

Portland's Personal Telco Project has well over 100 free hotspots throughout the city. Austin Free Net has 36 (based on their listing of hotspots which have libraries listed from 1-22 and other places as A-O). The city of Portland is also working, in cooperation with the local university, the city government, and various megacorps (such as Intel) to blanket the entire city with free WiFi (see Free For All).

But, it doesn't matter much who wins. What's great is that independent groups are popping up all across the country (and presumably, the planet). I know that Portland, Boston, and Austin all have growing free WiFi organizations, and I'm sure there are others.

Do you know how nice it is to take your iBook, Vaio, whatever, down to the local park and have free high-speed WiFi access? Thanks to these people (and others!), some day you will.

Let me tell you, it's nice. It's the sort of thing you'd expect from the 21st century.

It's nothing new -- Limp Bizkit did this in 1998 . (Try Googling for '"limp bizkit" payola commercial' for more.)

This worked nicely in the United States when protesting "trash rights".

Pardon me for plagarizing myself:

Some time ago, I posted to a message board topic where some idiot was arguing that people shouldn't worry about their privacy if they have nothing to hide. It was an angry post because I can't stand it when someone says that. It is an ignorant and simpleminded argument to bring into a debate about privacy.

Most people have nothing to hide and they would still require a search warrant before allowing the police to search their home. Wanting privacy to be respected has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you have something to hide.

I decided to start a topic on this at SpywareInfo's forums to see how other people deal with that argument. The topic has been going strong for several months.

The latest response was a really interesting one and I've decided to show it here:

"When someone gives you the old "I have nothing to hide" argument, what do you usually say in return?"

When I hear this my blood boils, I feel my hackles rise and I want to reach through my monitor and inflict serious bodily harm upon their sheepish, emasculated, brainwashed arses!

Then, after I have calmed down, I patiently explain to them how such a statement is based upon empty rhetoric and not logic. I explain to them that in order for people to be truly free and enjoy the so called democratic rights our protective politicians claim we have, people must feel free. They must feel free of suspicion and they must feel a sense of trust, that people must be respected and not to be watched over their shoulder all the time. That society advances by the unfettered actions of truly free people, not those huddled in a corner, fearfully grasping their meager material possessions to their chests and calling the police to hunt down any person that displays the least bit of individuality. Creativity and progress come from those that are free of fear and distrust. But then I just sigh and walk away, knowing that the true spirit of humanity is actually lost to the vast majority of people on this dismal planet.

It turns out that some of those who say they don't worry about their privacy because they have nothing to hide sometimes are lying. When these people's privacy is invaded unfairly, they squawk just as loudly as anyone else. Read this story at the Willamette Week Online and you'll see what I mean.

The DA thought it was funny, the mayor and chief of police didn't.

The localities could easily decide, when the franchises come up for renewal, to make it a condition of the renewal that at least n ISP's be allowed to use the cable system to connect to the customers.

Thats sort of what the city of Portland tried to do. Well, it wasn't renewal as much it was getting permission from the local regulatory agency to provide new services. It started when TCI was the cable company, and then AT&T bought them out. Well, since AT&T didn't like the regulatory agency's decision, they sued either the agency, or the city of Portland (I forget which) and won.

At the time I tried to explain the situation to non-geek acquaintances. They just couldn't understand.

But AT&T owns the infastructure so they can do whatever they want with it. No, the city owns the infrastructure and leases the rights to use and maintain it to the cable company.

But AT&T has the lease so they have the right to do whatever they want with it. No, the lease did not include the right to be an internet provider. For new rights they have to negotiate with the regulatory body, whose job it is to look after consumers.

But AT&T shouldn't be regulated. Regulation is bad and the agency has no right to dictate these terms. It should be the same rules for Internet as for Cable. It isn't fair to make new rules for them..... Providing cable access is distinctly different from being an ISP. Cable is a content provider issue, but with internet you become a common carrier which is a whole different set of rules.

AT&T (and other providers) want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to maintain a government mandated monopoly, but to be free of regulation as if they were not. And they'll sue if they don't get their way.

Comcast has since bought out AT&T in Portland.
I also found this followup article from a year or so ago when the ACLU got involved.

At one point I think the city was considering having competition of cable providers, up to 5 providers for each household. I'm not sure what became of this. Maybe it died when the recession hit.

In Oregon, after a case where the cops went through a person's trash to get evidence (against one of their own officers, in fact), one of the local weeklies decided to do a little protest.

They went through the trash of the police chief, they mayor (who supported the right for cops to go through trash), and the district attorney. They then held meetings with each of these people, asking how they felt about this privacy violation. The police chief actually threw them out of his office. Then they reported on these meetings and printed a list of every item they found in the trash bins.

Needless to say, the "victims" were pissed. The mayor held a press conference, claiming she was going to sue Wilamette Week for, uhhm, well, she never said what exactly. She never did sue.

It was pretty hilarious.

In Oregon, after a case where the cops went through a person's trash to get evidence (against one of their own officers, in fact), one of the local weeklies decided to do a little protest.

They went through the trash of the police chief, they mayor (who supported the right for cops to go through trash), and the district attorney. They then held meetings with each of these people, asking how they felt about this privacy violation. The police chief actually threw them out of his office. Then they reported on these meetings and printed a list of every item they found in the trash bins.

Needless to say, the "victims" were pissed. The mayor held a press conference, claiming she was going to sue Wilamette Week for, uhhm, well, she never said what exactly. She never did sue.

It was pretty hilarious.

In Oregon, after a case where the cops went through a person's trash to get evidence (against one of their own officers, in fact), one of the local weeklies decided to do a little protest.

They went through the trash of the police chief, they mayor (who supported the right for cops to go through trash), and the district attorney. They then held meetings with each of these people, asking how they felt about this privacy violation. The police chief actually threw them out of his office. Then they reported on these meetings and printed a list of every item they found in the trash bins.

Needless to say, the "victims" were pissed. The mayor held a press conference, claiming she was going to sue Wilamette Week for, uhhm, well, she never said what exactly. She never did sue.

It was pretty hilarious.

In Oregon, after a case where the cops went through a person's trash to get evidence (against one of their own officers, in fact), one of the local weeklies decided to do a little protest.

They went through the trash of the police chief, they mayor (who supported the right for cops to go through trash), and the district attorney. They then held meetings with each of these people, asking how they felt about this privacy violation. The police chief actually threw them out of his office. Then they reported on these meetings and printed a list of every item they found in the trash bins.

Needless to say, the "victims" were pissed. The mayor held a press conference, claiming she was going to sue Wilamette Week for, uhhm, well, she never said what exactly. She never did sue.

It was pretty hilarious.

If contrails get your conspiracy bones jittery, check out this piece our local weekly did on chemtrails and the people who love them.