I understand your objection. How about duct taping a discarded but working cellphone or a obsolete digital cam to a standard fragmentation grenade? The extra add-ons will only add a few bucks to the cost, plus the Marines can post the last minute panic before it blows on YouTube. heh.
Well if the phones "emit" dangerous levels of radiation (something that should be easily measurable) then ban the phones outright. Dressing them up in school board approved radiation suits just seems silly. That's like dressing them up in fireproof suits so the students can play with flamethrowers safely. But honestly it sounds like a tempest in tea pot minor league scam kinda thing going on here.
If you don't want the students to make/receive calls or text msgs why let 'em have phones with them at all? Wouldn't it be cheaper just order them left in their lockers? Paying for uniforms to block them seems overly complicated and expensive for the very little good it does. This seems more like a scam on the part of a company that wants to feed at the trough of the education bureaucracy. Or so it seems to me.
Good luck with that. You want an event open to everyone and who are also free to do (nearly) anything but you still have an expectation of anonymity and privacy? How are you gonna manage that? This just isn't possible IMHO. Just face it BM has morphed into a commercial event these days just like Lollapalooza and Coachella or the Newport Jazz festival have. (For you students of anarchist political theory please note that this how a state entity evolves into being.)
If privacy is so important why parade around nude or in outlandish costumes then? Every social phenomenon seems to morph from spontaneous fun to organized event to incorporated enterprise. Didn't BM start out as just one guy burning a large scale wooden stick figure that he built himself along the beach in California? Now look at it. Note to social engineers: You can't organize and control anarchy or direct spontaneity.
In the end it's all about the money. And it always has been too. Killing off a potential competitor by buying it out is a time-proven practice in Silicon Valley. The data mining aspect Flying Bishop alluded to is just a plus.
They don't call those guys "human resources" for nothing! People (i.e., "the talent") are a resource to be acquired, used up and disposed of as cheaply and as profitably as possible. This story fits right in as a bookend to yesterday's story about how the Rupert Murdoch media empire is gonna start charging for all their websites because "content isn't free". Hmmm....
is to behead the entire management team and principal stock owners and then drive a stake through their hearts, and bury them at a crossroads under a full moon. Seriously it couldn't hurt.
I can see the economic rationale for going this route but the "hip & cool" aspect of Apple stuff is going to be diminished by it. I want innovation and technical progress that lowers the price, increases the functionality, is ergonomic and looks cool as hell. It is for that reason I buy Apple products. This crap on the other hand doesn't help me that much if at all. It might lower the price a few pennies but it'll make it that much harder to make a warranty claim too and so there goes a big chunk of good will down the tubes. I hope the few pennies they save with this equals what stand to lose. Sheesh.
People don't behave responsibly with guns, knives, sex, alcohol, tobacco, children, money, prescription drugs and many, many other things as well. And it makes me sad. But sadness aside I resent even more living in a nascent and ever tightening network of police surveillance and invasive intrusions by governments, police, employers, and insurance companies (to name but a few) in order to subsidize the PPI with my tax dollars in order to build a perfectly safe and drug free environment where everyone "acts responsibly" (or else be shot, jailed or fined). Utopias are an illusion and just encourage the PPI and its government sponsors toward ever greater intrusive capabilities. Bottom line: The prize here isn't worth the game.
... letting the "war on drugs" police-prison-industrial complex beat us into the ground (i.e., take away all vestiges of privacy, personal choice, and/or any sense of pleasure) with its ever advancing technology? We should just end the WOD already? It ain't nobody's business what drugs/substances I use, drink, smoke or eat if if it doesn't harm anyone else. We need to declare an end to this Nixon era nightmare so we can empty out the prisons, give cops something more productive to do and increase our revenues by taxing the dopers to recoup what we can from their vices. Drug abuse is a medical problem not a PPI one. So let's treat it that way before the PPI's tax subsidized techno mavens create a total (but drug free!) police state for us to live. (End of rant)
Hmm...Not really. Earmarks for "other people" are what is unpopular. If the earmark is for "you" then it's cool no matter how outlandish a waste of money it is and screw what the NYT or CNN or Limbaugh think about it too, eh? That's the way it works where I live anyhow. I am represented by a freshman Dem who is representing a district that is 58% Rep and he thinks he can buy himself some goodwill, newspaper endorsements and popularity points by "bringing home the bacon". No amount of watch dogging for pork is gonna matter to him if the people in his district are happy about the new money flowing in.
Or find defendants that are so stupid, ego centric and bald faced liars that the public starts to see them as the face of the "illegal downloaders" the RIAA is combating.
Tenenbauam and his ass clown legal team fit that bill perfectly.
...background and psych testing on their new contractors. "Independent minded hackers" are just the sort that would blackmail, leak, sabotage or otherwise betray the military's efforts in a second if they ever felt dissed, slighted or P.O.'d for whatever reason.
That's the nature of the beast. You'd only need one guy who felt slighted or got yelled at by some uptight Air Force colonel and the next thing you know the US missile defense satellites all go dark until the brass apologizes.
They pick and chose pretty carefully who they are gonna sue in order to gain the most publicity and spread FUD amongst the peons. And it seems to be working out just fine for them too.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't sweat it. The Marines will make their own stuff and it'll work better and be cheaper than the Army's too. Just watch.
I understand your objection. How about duct taping a discarded but working cellphone or a obsolete digital cam to a standard fragmentation grenade? The extra add-ons will only add a few bucks to the cost, plus the Marines can post the last minute panic before it blows on YouTube. heh.
Naw. Skynet repealed those laws.
Yeah, weebles wooble but they don't fall down. LOL. But the USMC model should explode on command.
Where are the PETA and ALF terrorists when you need 'em?
Make explode too, eh?
Well if the phones "emit" dangerous levels of radiation (something that should be easily measurable) then ban the phones outright. Dressing them up in school board approved radiation suits just seems silly. That's like dressing them up in fireproof suits so the students can play with flamethrowers safely. But honestly it sounds like a tempest in tea pot minor league scam kinda thing going on here.
If you don't want the students to make/receive calls or text msgs why let 'em have phones with them at all? Wouldn't it be cheaper just order them left in their lockers? Paying for uniforms to block them seems overly complicated and expensive for the very little good it does. This seems more like a scam on the part of a company that wants to feed at the trough of the education bureaucracy. Or so it seems to me.
Oh but the brilliant MBA's assured us that this was the only way for Boeing to survive in the globalized market for aircraft! /sarcasm.
Good luck with that. You want an event open to everyone and who are also free to do (nearly) anything but you still have an expectation of anonymity and privacy? How are you gonna manage that? This just isn't possible IMHO. Just face it BM has morphed into a commercial event these days just like Lollapalooza and Coachella or the Newport Jazz festival have. (For you students of anarchist political theory please note that this how a state entity evolves into being.)
If privacy is so important why parade around nude or in outlandish costumes then? Every social phenomenon seems to morph from spontaneous fun to organized event to incorporated enterprise. Didn't BM start out as just one guy burning a large scale wooden stick figure that he built himself along the beach in California? Now look at it. Note to social engineers: You can't organize and control anarchy or direct spontaneity.
In the end it's all about the money. And it always has been too. Killing off a potential competitor by buying it out is a time-proven practice in Silicon Valley. The data mining aspect Flying Bishop alluded to is just a plus.
Here's another observation for you: Feeding trolls is a waste of time.
Okay if you need it spelled out for you:
1. Who benefits (from this)?
2. (You can determine quite a lot about "who benefits" if you) follow the money.
I. Cui bono? 2. Follow the money.
As in $$$$$. Sheesh. The usual pattern: From cause to movement to racket. And then the bureaucracy takes it all over. Repeat as needed.
They don't call those guys "human resources" for nothing! People (i.e., "the talent") are a resource to be acquired, used up and disposed of as cheaply and as profitably as possible. This story fits right in as a bookend to yesterday's story about how the Rupert Murdoch media empire is gonna start charging for all their websites because "content isn't free". Hmmm....
is to behead the entire management team and principal stock owners and then drive a stake through their hearts, and bury them at a crossroads under a full moon. Seriously it couldn't hurt.
I can see the economic rationale for going this route but the "hip & cool" aspect of Apple stuff is going to be diminished by it. I want innovation and technical progress that lowers the price, increases the functionality, is ergonomic and looks cool as hell. It is for that reason I buy Apple products. This crap on the other hand doesn't help me that much if at all. It might lower the price a few pennies but it'll make it that much harder to make a warranty claim too and so there goes a big chunk of good will down the tubes. I hope the few pennies they save with this equals what stand to lose. Sheesh.
People don't behave responsibly with guns, knives, sex, alcohol, tobacco, children, money, prescription drugs and many, many other things as well. And it makes me sad. But sadness aside I resent even more living in a nascent and ever tightening network of police surveillance and invasive intrusions by governments, police, employers, and insurance companies (to name but a few) in order to subsidize the PPI with my tax dollars in order to build a perfectly safe and drug free environment where everyone "acts responsibly" (or else be shot, jailed or fined). Utopias are an illusion and just encourage the PPI and its government sponsors toward ever greater intrusive capabilities. Bottom line: The prize here isn't worth the game.
... letting the "war on drugs" police-prison-industrial complex beat us into the ground (i.e., take away all vestiges of privacy, personal choice, and/or any sense of pleasure) with its ever advancing technology? We should just end the WOD already? It ain't nobody's business what drugs/substances I use, drink, smoke or eat if if it doesn't harm anyone else. We need to declare an end to this Nixon era nightmare so we can empty out the prisons, give cops something more productive to do and increase our revenues by taxing the dopers to recoup what we can from their vices. Drug abuse is a medical problem not a PPI one. So let's treat it that way before the PPI's tax subsidized techno mavens create a total (but drug free!) police state for us to live. (End of rant)
Hmm...Not really. Earmarks for "other people" are what is unpopular. If the earmark is for "you" then it's cool no matter how outlandish a waste of money it is and screw what the NYT or CNN or Limbaugh think about it too, eh? That's the way it works where I live anyhow. I am represented by a freshman Dem who is representing a district that is 58% Rep and he thinks he can buy himself some goodwill, newspaper endorsements and popularity points by "bringing home the bacon". No amount of watch dogging for pork is gonna matter to him if the people in his district are happy about the new money flowing in.
Or find defendants that are so stupid, ego centric and bald faced liars that the public starts to see them as the face of the "illegal downloaders" the RIAA is combating. Tenenbauam and his ass clown legal team fit that bill perfectly.
...background and psych testing on their new contractors. "Independent minded hackers" are just the sort that would blackmail, leak, sabotage or otherwise betray the military's efforts in a second if they ever felt dissed, slighted or P.O.'d for whatever reason. That's the nature of the beast. You'd only need one guy who felt slighted or got yelled at by some uptight Air Force colonel and the next thing you know the US missile defense satellites all go dark until the brass apologizes.
They pick and chose pretty carefully who they are gonna sue in order to gain the most publicity and spread FUD amongst the peons. And it seems to be working out just fine for them too.