Yep, it was Andromeda, and the ship was the Bellerophon. One of the few sci-fi episodes (or series, for that matter) that actually addressed relativity without some sort of magic "warp drive" to get around it.
I seem to remember a Sci-FI series where a ship whose "warp" option was just really freakin' insane fast engines (0.999~C) meets up with a ship from the "future" (present in the storyline). The ship had left Earth so long ago that they had no idea it had been essentially destroyed. I think it may have been Andromeda, but I'm not 100% sure on what the series was.
I've had loads of friends ask why I don't use Chrome. Shit like this is why.
The worst thing I've had to deal with is tear-off tabs/tear-away tabs, which seems to be a highly unwanted feature by many people (and yet no configuration option exists in vanilla Firefox.) Bug 489729 is a wonderful addon which pretty much does what Mozilla was (in this one instance) too lazy to do - disable a new option they added that a whole lot of people didn't want.
In the Mozilla case, if they fuck stuff up there's other people out there who will unfuck it via addons, mods, scripts, etc. If Google fucks stuff up... well, you're just fucked.
Next year, we'll have a worm called 4n4k1n which melts hard drives as if they were dropped into molten lava. Damn, evil geniuses used to give their doomsday weapons classy names like "Ice-9" or "Moonraker" or "Britney Spears".
The only place I would disagree with cell phones being dangerous while driving is exactly that sort of place. When you have a hundred miles of practically straight country road ahead of you and nothing but grass plains on either side, it's pretty hard to swerve off the road, run into someone, or hit something bigger than a prairie dog.
Exactly, and it applies to Science Fiction T.V. shows as well.
For instance, Star Trek answers an important philosophical question: "What if we gave a starship command to a man with a bigger sex drive than an entire class of high school seniors?"
Also, how does the post-it [note] defeat red-light cameras?
Answering your last bit first, certain people in Arizona (angered over a speed camera company) have resorted to using Post-It Notes to disable cameras. They're not doing any permanent damage and I don't believe anyone has been up on vandalism charges since they're not actually damaging the cameras - just disabling it in a fashion. (Europe has had way more cameras in places like the U.K., and solutions have ranged from putting a bag over the camera or silly string to slightly less friendly versions such as setting the cameras on fire or shooting them out with an air rifle.)
I used to think that was the case too, until I found out the way they caught Eliot Spitzer is by noticing he was making unusually large cash withdrawals. Basically, the only reason you have privacy is because no one cares about you. If someone wants to follow you around and figure out what you are doing, they can
Yes, that's if you store all of your money in the bank. I usually would have my entire paycheck direct-deposited and then withdraw what's needed for the week minus what I would leave in for savings, slush fund, or online purchases I intended to make. I always have a little bit of the proverbial "cash under the mattress" and generally try to avoid using debit/credit when and where I can.
The point is that you have to be aware of how a paper trail could be used to track you, and use that to your advantage. If you don't want to be tracked in any fashion, it's surprisingly easy to make it very difficult for companies (or the government) to get any real, meaningful data about you and your purchasing or movement habits. It just takes a little thinking and situational awareness.
Oh wow, I inadvertently bought American? Well, that would explain why they were $25 for 7 pairs... d:
I'm a big dude (6'5", and my feet are size 14) and Wigwam has been the only socks that fit comfortably and didn't fall apart in a few weeks. Kudos goes to the King Size Catalog from which I bought them.
Sure, I end up paying $1.75 a pair, but for a pair of socks that will last months or years in rotation before wearing out enough to develop a hole they're worth it.
Is a government not the politicians and government employees?
Citizens don't have much in the way of direct control over anything other than their congressional senators and representatives. If they don't do what we want them to do, if they can't solve the problems we need them to solve, then it's entirely possible to recall most or all of them. The Heart of the American government is still ultimately Congress (which makes the laws). Replace enough of Congress and you can get something done.
Honestly, if we even recalled 5% of senators and/or representatives, it would bring politicians in-line a lot. Hell, we've only recalled two or three State Governors, and that was because they really fucked up. I don't foresee it happening, although I wish it would.
Nearly every "civilized" society has resorted to violent revolution at one point or another in their past, usually because the government was either oppressing them, not providing for them, or was outright ineffective. We're getting closer to the point where the American government fucks up and/or abuses us so badly that we start getting violent every day.
No need to reply to me and use up some more of your 25 MB data cap.
Most of the problems listed by the author can be solved by using cash instead of credit or debit, disabling GPS in your phone, not getting OnStar in your car (or physically removing the module if you already have it), and not using services like Facebook or Twitter. Red-light and security cameras can be defeated with a post-it note and hoodie, respectively.
You know, I see this and it makes me wonder... can you even buy some of the modern conveniences (much less necessities) that are made in America and not from exploitative work? (I'm disregarding food here - there's still local farms in every state as well as farmer's markets where you can buy local. This is one of the easiest things to "buy American" and even avoid buying from huge corporations, although it will obviously cost you more.)
Sure, it's possible to get clothes I'm sure. In the worst case scenario you can go to a skilled tailor and have them just outright make your clothes (although that would be an expensive option). I'm sure there's still t-shirts and other basic stuff still made in the USA, but what about socks? Underwear?
What about things that aren't exactly a "necessity" but very much a part of modern life? Can I get a computer that had absolutely 0 parts slapped together by some poor bastard in China? What about a cell phone, or television?
I think calling someone a hypocrite (or just implying that they're one) for something where they don't have the option to buy American or buy from a local store is going just a wee bit overboard in my book.
I don't, really. The tools we have today are good enough most professionals. If the latest version of your OS of choice doesn't work with your tools... why the hell would you upgrade?
Photo editing, drawing, video editing... has anything really revolutionary come up in software for these things in the last few years? Can you envision any improvement that would cause people to switch over to a locked-down system?
Basically, there's almost nothing we'd need to do now that we can't already do on stuff like Windows XP. Hell, take a look at corporations - there's still loads of places out there running Windows XP and IE6, or older Windows versions still like 2000. Upgrades will only happen if they're really worth it and truly necessary.
It is possible to fire a government, usually. You'd have recall elections, petitions, etc. if anyone would get off their asses.
Alternatively, you could fire at your government, but considering it's Australia that would consist of slingshots and crossbows (if they haven't been banned yet).
Part of the wealth distribution problem is the "rich people don't pay their fair share of taxes" part. We seem incapable as a nation - nay, a species - to solve any major social issues all in one fell swoop. It's something we end up doing gradually.
Dodging Fairtax is essentially impossible. It also refunds money to people below certain thresholds of money - above that threshold, everyone pays the same flat tax on all purchases. Businesses are exempt from paying taxes on purchases, and setting up a business to purchases things solely for an individual would be specifically against the law in the plan (and rather difficult to conceal, I imagine). That's about as fair as you can get, and it would be a start.
This is true. I begrudgingly use $PROGRAM. Challenging interface. Not a big fan of the random bugs. With the last two versions I used, $USING_FEATURE_X guarantees a crash. It's very unfortunate. I try to live with hope.
Look everyone, it's standard boilerplate to talk about any piece of FOSS you want!
This will be par for the course until we get something like FairTax. There's no reason to have this insanely complicated system when we can just have a nationwide sales tax that does basically the same thing while simultaneously eliminating most of the IRS. We can save money on closing down a huge arm of government bureaucracy, save money on making it impossible to dodge taxes, and avoid any complaints about tax disparity for the wealthy.
Unfortunately if you're in a group smaller than 10 decent players with good skill training, incursions are not really an option. They're sort of a "winner takes all" situation.
Industrial espionage and other types of more mundane spying are the norm during times of general peace. China is well known for their industrial espionage and they're either bad at hiding it or just don't care. It'd be like hiring a man with multiple arrests for burglary as a security guard at a storage center - you're just asking for something bad to happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, it was Andromeda, and the ship was the Bellerophon. One of the few sci-fi episodes (or series, for that matter) that actually addressed relativity without some sort of magic "warp drive" to get around it.
I seem to remember a Sci-FI series where a ship whose "warp" option was just really freakin' insane fast engines (0.999~C) meets up with a ship from the "future" (present in the storyline). The ship had left Earth so long ago that they had no idea it had been essentially destroyed. I think it may have been Andromeda, but I'm not 100% sure on what the series was.
That's why we have to fight back. Someone needs to file "Method of filing a patent" and then sue everyone into oblivion.
A search for Paris Hilton automatically opens your e-mail program and fills in your father's e-mail address so you can ask daddy for money.
I've had loads of friends ask why I don't use Chrome. Shit like this is why.
The worst thing I've had to deal with is tear-off tabs/tear-away tabs, which seems to be a highly unwanted feature by many people (and yet no configuration option exists in vanilla Firefox.) Bug 489729 is a wonderful addon which pretty much does what Mozilla was (in this one instance) too lazy to do - disable a new option they added that a whole lot of people didn't want.
In the Mozilla case, if they fuck stuff up there's other people out there who will unfuck it via addons, mods, scripts, etc. If Google fucks stuff up... well, you're just fucked.
Duqu? Like the count?
Programmers are Star Wars nerds, Film at 11.
Next year, we'll have a worm called 4n4k1n which melts hard drives as if they were dropped into molten lava. Damn, evil geniuses used to give their doomsday weapons classy names like "Ice-9" or "Moonraker" or "Britney Spears".
The only place I would disagree with cell phones being dangerous while driving is exactly that sort of place. When you have a hundred miles of practically straight country road ahead of you and nothing but grass plains on either side, it's pretty hard to swerve off the road, run into someone, or hit something bigger than a prairie dog.
Exactly, and it applies to Science Fiction T.V. shows as well.
For instance, Star Trek answers an important philosophical question: "What if we gave a starship command to a man with a bigger sex drive than an entire class of high school seniors?"
Oscar Wilde - Vampire Hunter
Stephen Fry already played Oscar Wilde once... can you imagine something that awesome?
Also, how does the post-it [note] defeat red-light cameras?
Answering your last bit first, certain people in Arizona (angered over a speed camera company) have resorted to using Post-It Notes to disable cameras. They're not doing any permanent damage and I don't believe anyone has been up on vandalism charges since they're not actually damaging the cameras - just disabling it in a fashion. (Europe has had way more cameras in places like the U.K., and solutions have ranged from putting a bag over the camera or silly string to slightly less friendly versions such as setting the cameras on fire or shooting them out with an air rifle.)
I used to think that was the case too, until I found out the way they caught Eliot Spitzer is by noticing he was making unusually large cash withdrawals. Basically, the only reason you have privacy is because no one cares about you. If someone wants to follow you around and figure out what you are doing, they can
Yes, that's if you store all of your money in the bank. I usually would have my entire paycheck direct-deposited and then withdraw what's needed for the week minus what I would leave in for savings, slush fund, or online purchases I intended to make. I always have a little bit of the proverbial "cash under the mattress" and generally try to avoid using debit/credit when and where I can.
The point is that you have to be aware of how a paper trail could be used to track you, and use that to your advantage. If you don't want to be tracked in any fashion, it's surprisingly easy to make it very difficult for companies (or the government) to get any real, meaningful data about you and your purchasing or movement habits. It just takes a little thinking and situational awareness.
I'll take European over Chinese any day if I can... could you throw some examples my way?
Oh wow, I inadvertently bought American? Well, that would explain why they were $25 for 7 pairs... d:
I'm a big dude (6'5", and my feet are size 14) and Wigwam has been the only socks that fit comfortably and didn't fall apart in a few weeks. Kudos goes to the King Size Catalog from which I bought them.
Sure, I end up paying $1.75 a pair, but for a pair of socks that will last months or years in rotation before wearing out enough to develop a hole they're worth it.
Is a government not the politicians and government employees?
Citizens don't have much in the way of direct control over anything other than their congressional senators and representatives. If they don't do what we want them to do, if they can't solve the problems we need them to solve, then it's entirely possible to recall most or all of them. The Heart of the American government is still ultimately Congress (which makes the laws). Replace enough of Congress and you can get something done.
Honestly, if we even recalled 5% of senators and/or representatives, it would bring politicians in-line a lot. Hell, we've only recalled two or three State Governors, and that was because they really fucked up. I don't foresee it happening, although I wish it would.
Nearly every "civilized" society has resorted to violent revolution at one point or another in their past, usually because the government was either oppressing them, not providing for them, or was outright ineffective. We're getting closer to the point where the American government fucks up and/or abuses us so badly that we start getting violent every day.
No need to reply to me and use up some more of your 25 MB data cap.
Most of the problems listed by the author can be solved by using cash instead of credit or debit, disabling GPS in your phone, not getting OnStar in your car (or physically removing the module if you already have it), and not using services like Facebook or Twitter. Red-light and security cameras can be defeated with a post-it note and hoodie, respectively.
You know, I see this and it makes me wonder... can you even buy some of the modern conveniences (much less necessities) that are made in America and not from exploitative work? (I'm disregarding food here - there's still local farms in every state as well as farmer's markets where you can buy local. This is one of the easiest things to "buy American" and even avoid buying from huge corporations, although it will obviously cost you more.)
Sure, it's possible to get clothes I'm sure. In the worst case scenario you can go to a skilled tailor and have them just outright make your clothes (although that would be an expensive option). I'm sure there's still t-shirts and other basic stuff still made in the USA, but what about socks? Underwear?
What about things that aren't exactly a "necessity" but very much a part of modern life? Can I get a computer that had absolutely 0 parts slapped together by some poor bastard in China? What about a cell phone, or television?
I think calling someone a hypocrite (or just implying that they're one) for something where they don't have the option to buy American or buy from a local store is going just a wee bit overboard in my book.
I don't, really. The tools we have today are good enough most professionals. If the latest version of your OS of choice doesn't work with your tools... why the hell would you upgrade?
Photo editing, drawing, video editing... has anything really revolutionary come up in software for these things in the last few years? Can you envision any improvement that would cause people to switch over to a locked-down system?
Basically, there's almost nothing we'd need to do now that we can't already do on stuff like Windows XP. Hell, take a look at corporations - there's still loads of places out there running Windows XP and IE6, or older Windows versions still like 2000. Upgrades will only happen if they're really worth it and truly necessary.
It is possible to fire a government, usually. You'd have recall elections, petitions, etc. if anyone would get off their asses.
Alternatively, you could fire at your government, but considering it's Australia that would consist of slingshots and crossbows (if they haven't been banned yet).
Part of the wealth distribution problem is the "rich people don't pay their fair share of taxes" part. We seem incapable as a nation - nay, a species - to solve any major social issues all in one fell swoop. It's something we end up doing gradually.
Dodging Fairtax is essentially impossible. It also refunds money to people below certain thresholds of money - above that threshold, everyone pays the same flat tax on all purchases. Businesses are exempt from paying taxes on purchases, and setting up a business to purchases things solely for an individual would be specifically against the law in the plan (and rather difficult to conceal, I imagine). That's about as fair as you can get, and it would be a start.
This is true. I begrudgingly use $PROGRAM. Challenging interface. Not a big fan of the random bugs. With the last two versions I used, $USING_FEATURE_X guarantees a crash. It's very unfortunate. I try to live with hope.
Look everyone, it's standard boilerplate to talk about any piece of FOSS you want!
How many employers do you know claim to hold the souls of the entire world in their hands?
How many use that power to hold something else entirely in their hands?
Exactly.
This will be par for the course until we get something like FairTax. There's no reason to have this insanely complicated system when we can just have a nationwide sales tax that does basically the same thing while simultaneously eliminating most of the IRS. We can save money on closing down a huge arm of government bureaucracy, save money on making it impossible to dodge taxes, and avoid any complaints about tax disparity for the wealthy.
Unfortunately if you're in a group smaller than 10 decent players with good skill training, incursions are not really an option. They're sort of a "winner takes all" situation.
Industrial espionage and other types of more mundane spying are the norm during times of general peace. China is well known for their industrial espionage and they're either bad at hiding it or just don't care. It'd be like hiring a man with multiple arrests for burglary as a security guard at a storage center - you're just asking for something bad to happen.
Quick, somebody call Colin Farrell!