You are far more knowledgeable than me, and I appreciate your insights. Again though, something doesn't add up for me. WHY were we acting such a puss? In a related note, I wasn't paying very close attention in the run up to Bush's war in Iraq, but the way we were such pussies re the UN inspectors at that time was the thing I did notice and that didn't make any sense (at the time...) (Well, really it did make sense, if one took the view that the whole purpose was to go to war. You put the inspectors out there, without much in the way of teeth or multi-national buy in, and then the minute that Saddam frustrates them even a little, you go, "See, he's hiding something, and he won't cooperate." "War time!")
So, the only way I can make sense of the pussy posture is by taking the the cynical, verging on paranoid, view that this whole disaster has been orchestrated from the beginning to line some greedy assholes' pockets most snugly. Not that I think that said greedy assholes are really all that smart - they aren't, but neither do they have to be all that smart. They just have to be smart enough to pull at least some of the right levers at sort of close to the right time. And to keep pulling enough of the other right levers to make sure that the world's news media is lame enough and distracted enough to never quite put 2 and 2 together.
I mean look at what you say about the captured Al Qeada officers' attitudes. If the idea all along was to lure them to take actions that would generate a plausible rational for retaliating strongly then they sure got played adroitly, didn't they? Hmmm?
Problem is, once one goes down this rabbit hole, the history of US foreign policy over the last hundred years or so all starts to stink to high heavens, starting roughly with WWI, and getting worse and worse from there. Even worse, I am not an expert historian, so my analysis is inevitably flawed by ignorance. Paradoxically though it often seems to me that the experts can't see the forest for all the trees that they know so well. I don't know the tress hardly at all, but the forest sure seems to be husbanded with a most nefarious purpose. I am ever alert for solid contradiction to the shape I see - the world would be so much less sinister. But it is not forthcoming. Instead, despite my healthy skepticism of my own credulity, all I find, again and again, are more threads of the evil weave.
Check out the work of the man, C. H. Douglas, behind my sig. I find his insights into the functioning of modern society (post WWI) most profound. Warning: for me it's been kind of like the red pill.
This is certainly cogent analysis, however I think you are missing two things in re Iraq. It's all well to say that Saddam "was making it appear that he had WMDs", but the fact that our intelligence community completely failed to pierce this deception stinks to high heavens. Intelligence is difficult but it's not impossible. What really get my hackles twitching is my perception not that we failed so much as that we gave it a very weak effort. Sort of a damned by faint praise situation. In other words, if we *really* wanted to know the truth, we could have. So why didn't we???
The other thing is that its all very smooth sounding and knowledgeable to claim to know all the dirty things Saddam was going to do, or had said he would do, etc., etc. And, sure, if you're going to throw dirt, it's always a good bet to throw it at a hated asshole like Saddam. But I say that looking at the history of Iraq, if I was Saddam, I might well feel pretty damn betrayed by the US, so why shouldn't I talk trash. We did betray him after all! Of course it's not "us" the people of the United States who betrayed him, but the United States Federal Government, a rogue entity that has as about as much to do with us as Kim Jong Il!
The foreign policy of the United States Federal Government has been a source of profound despair my whole entire life. I'm no Mr. Analysis like you, so I can't demonstrate chapter and verse of history to expose the corruption, but, please!, mere ineptitude does not explain this monumental of failure. There is dirt piled high; it's shadows are everywhere. Why do you think there is such malaise in the public breast? We all know that something is wrong, but we are kept sufficiently in the dark to render us unable to point exactly to the evil. Thing just don't add up right, just like your analysis doesn't!!
No, it is not fiat money that is the problem. The real masters of the universe love to see their subjects arguing about fiat money vs. commodity backed money. Why do you think we dropped commodity backed money? Not because it was so great - the history of the US prior to 1913 is littered liberally with monetary system breakdown. If you would not be one of the duped, read my sig. Get to know the work of C. H. Douglas, one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. Social credit would do a much better job than capitalism of rewarding innovation in goods and services that ordinary people use, and minimizing the rewards of market gamesmanship. At the same time it would end the barbaric practice of poverty in an industrial society. And no taxes to boot. Sounds to good to be true, doesn't it? That is precisely what "they" want you to believe.
So Mr. Freak, can you please explain to my poor addled brain how only putting money in circulation via the mechanism of a loan can ever possibly not end very badly when done again and again over a period of years? How can it work when a bank issues the loan, but not the money to pay the interest on the loan? Oh, that's right, when the loan comes due, the bank loans out more, and more, and more. Except when "somebody" decides to "lift the needle" and then we have another crash. Assets are captured, then the cycle starts all over again. Except sooner or later, there will be not enough assets left to capture, we've got to be getting pretty close, and then what? What percent of the real estate in the US is now owned by banks? What percent of corporate assets are counterweighted by operations loans. Our manufacturing base is evaporating pretty quickly. Please, give me some economic jack that shows how my analysis is flawed!
I'm talking about for my workstation. I don't understand why exactly, since I don't do anything, but I need blistering performance. See, here's the problem: what I want is the "instant computer". It sits there doing nothing, making no noise, and hardly using any juice. I click on something. Instantly, what is supposed to happen happens. Instantly! I keep trying, but I'm not there yet. SSDs have had the biggest positive impact by far. I bought a core i7 last time, but effed up and got the conservative board that doesn't overclock. Of course that means that the i7 series processors are the most stable overclockers ever made. Of course. Next is an overclockable board and some wicked fast memory. Add one more ssd to the raid 0 array and that ought to do it.
Anyway, that is what caught my eye about your post, as the high end Intel cpus are sick pricey. So a 12 core for $750? But 2ghz? No way.
You and GP must be kidding. 12 cores at 2ghz is about my worst nightmare - high hopes dashed against the rock of reality.
Have mercy and drown me in molasses - the torture would be less prolonged.
I think that in the past, even the fairly recent past, candidates were somewhat sincere, at least at first. I think they really had a no-shit day. I think that now though, candidates are much less so, as their failure to keep even a semblance of their promises certainly doesn't seem to mean much one way or the other. Still, though, I think that they have a no-shit day. There is stuff that they all know, but then there is the stuff that they don't get to know until they get elected.
What do you think they tell the new President on "No-shit day?" ("No-shit day" is what Merle Haggard calls it - when "they" tell the new President how things really work.)
I figure that it goes something like this: "Sir, here are the official CIA projections on the result of a shut down of Saudi oil shipments."
The new President scans the report, muttering to himself, "No shit?" "Oh crap!".
When he looks up, and hands back the report, hand slightly shaking, "Sir, we understand that you have a lot of very admirable goals for your administration." "We want to help you reach those goals." "But we have to operate in the real world, and as you have just read, the real world can be a very brutal place." "I think the best thing is that you help us to prevent the scenario in the report, and we'll help you to accomplish your goals." "OK?"
The new President, knowing that the next thing he says will damn him to hell, "OK."
Fines? Fuck that, we need the god-damned Guillotines. I say the top ten execs at BP get lopped, along with their entire board. Motherfuckers will pay attention to what the fuck they're doing then, no?
>> passengers ought to fight will all means possible to save their lives.
This sets a very bad precedent in that, if the government encourages this type of thinking, they can no longer justify confiscating all our weapons. So, no, instead we get DHS. Thanks.
We should have gone "that far" a long time ago. The only hope to restore any sanity to the United States is for a hard reset. First all the states secede. Then, later, we rejoin under sensible conditions.
>> He locked down the network to a point that ensured he would be required for its management, even to the point that some attempts to gain access by other people would have brought the network down.
And who instructed him to do or not do that? Nobody, right?
BengalsUF, you have done a masterful job of defending your ability to disable your conscience. You should have been a lawyer at Nuremburg.
Terry Childs is a guy who got in trouble while young, got out, learned a productive trade, became obsessed with being as good at his trade as he could possibly be so as to never have to return to the badness in his youth, was given full reign to express that obsession however he wanted, and then when suddenly his whole life *as he saw it* was crashing down around him, pulled into his shell and became uncommunicative in abject fear. Once he was in a situation where he was sure no one could fault him, the presence of the mayor, he came back out of his shell and communicated. Did he harm the network? No. Was there some vaguely constructive "denial of service?" Perhaps, but you, BengalsUF, know in your heart what you did was wrong, why not just admit it? Confession is good for the soul. Yes, you just did your job as you were instructed to. You were *told* what was right and what was wrong, but you knew that what you were being told was right, was, in truth, wrong: it would cause a wrong to be committed. Yet you went ahead and "just did your job". Sorry about all the Godwinisms, but if the shoe fits...
Most criminal attorneys are in league with the the cops, the prosecutors, and the judges. If you're not someone they have a hardon for, you pay a fat fee, (gets shared around one way or the other), and get a wrist slap. If you are someone they *want*, you're fucked. There are a few, a very few, highly skilled and virtuous criminal lawyers who will do righteous battle on your behalf, but they are rare as four leaf clovers. Droopus knows. I know. The rest of you are lames.
The decision on law came down to the question of who was "authorized". "Authority" is the root of the word "authorized". From my reading there was no authority, i.e. no written protocol. In that vacuum, Child's decision to withhold the data until in the sole presence of the mayor, however poorly presented, however appearing of selfish motivation, has as much, if not more, validity as any other reasonable course. Pal, you don't send a man to prison for being a graceless churl. You. Just. Don't. I hope that someday you get in a situation where someone is holding a loaded gun to your head and you don't have any idea what to say to make sure that he doesn't pull the trigger. You deserve it.
>> you can't decide that a legal definition as provided by the judge is something you don't agree with and therefore won't follow
*Brace for Godwin!*
You can't decide that a legal definition of this person as a non-person provided by the Comandant is something you don't agree with; you just do your job and turn on the shower!!
Because, believe it or not, of the exact same dynamic that destroyed our medical industry: the hypnosis of power. Doctors and lawyers have both been seduced, manipulated, and extorted. First "they" create a system that requires ridiculous sacrifices upon the part of its initiates. Then they say to the survivors, "If you don't want your sacrifice to go to waste, you must support this regulation." Next thing you know, a man can not buy the milk of a cow, or vote for justice. Slave Planet Wins!!
The answer to all this has been in existence for nearly 100 years. Please read my sig. Please, I beg of you, read my sig, go to the link, read some more, and think about what you read. Then read Heinlein's For Us The Living, A Comedy Of Custom. Bad novel, but a brilliant exposition of a fully practical utopia simply implemented via the concepts of Douglas.
Ewwww. Mr. Superior. Mr. Rational. You can try to dumb the question down to your paper dragon version, but, Mr. Rational, the question always is this: how to survive. So you follow the cattle chute to your grave. Me, I'm going a different route. Will I end up kissing the same dirt as Mr. Superior? Probably, but not without giving it everything I got to beat the odds.
BTW, you are the one who seems pretty emotional about the whole thing. I didn't put words in your mouth - but you tried to put them in mine. Hmmm. Come to think of it, no wonder you are hating so bad. You putter along, barely able to keep up with traffic, knowing that to go outside that envelope is certain death. Then you see some brigand such as me zooming along. You curse. You mutter. Dude! Lighten up! You probably get a lot more pussy than I do. Give yourself a break OK?:D
>> more pixels overall than ten years ago
Maybe more than ten years ago, but not more than 5 years ago. The 16:9 "craze" is a bullshit scam. They call them "widescreen". What they really are is "narrowscreen". Multiply it out: the total number of pixels is way down on average. That why the corporate hounds introduced the "craze". Fuckers!
Both of you have been fed the antipodes of the most sophisticated propaganda/scam ever devised. The problem is not commodity based currency vs. fiat currency as you see debated endlessly including here. The problem is the credit basis of money via the mechanism of fractional reserve banking. Fractional reserve banking has been allowed in, and has poisoned the economy of the US since the beginning. It is what causes so called business cycles, which cause more harm to individuals than all other depredations combined. Business cycles are NOT unexplainable as every "approved" economist claims. Please, I beg of you, read my sig, click the link, and study social credit. Knowledge is key!
Slashdot Mirror
The workstations are sub optimal. Ludicrously overpriced as well.
You are far more knowledgeable than me, and I appreciate your insights. Again though, something doesn't add up for me. WHY were we acting such a puss? In a related note, I wasn't paying very close attention in the run up to Bush's war in Iraq, but the way we were such pussies re the UN inspectors at that time was the thing I did notice and that didn't make any sense (at the time...) (Well, really it did make sense, if one took the view that the whole purpose was to go to war. You put the inspectors out there, without much in the way of teeth or multi-national buy in, and then the minute that Saddam frustrates them even a little, you go, "See, he's hiding something, and he won't cooperate." "War time!")
So, the only way I can make sense of the pussy posture is by taking the the cynical, verging on paranoid, view that this whole disaster has been orchestrated from the beginning to line some greedy assholes' pockets most snugly. Not that I think that said greedy assholes are really all that smart - they aren't, but neither do they have to be all that smart. They just have to be smart enough to pull at least some of the right levers at sort of close to the right time. And to keep pulling enough of the other right levers to make sure that the world's news media is lame enough and distracted enough to never quite put 2 and 2 together.
I mean look at what you say about the captured Al Qeada officers' attitudes. If the idea all along was to lure them to take actions that would generate a plausible rational for retaliating strongly then they sure got played adroitly, didn't they? Hmmm?
Problem is, once one goes down this rabbit hole, the history of US foreign policy over the last hundred years or so all starts to stink to high heavens, starting roughly with WWI, and getting worse and worse from there. Even worse, I am not an expert historian, so my analysis is inevitably flawed by ignorance. Paradoxically though it often seems to me that the experts can't see the forest for all the trees that they know so well. I don't know the tress hardly at all, but the forest sure seems to be husbanded with a most nefarious purpose. I am ever alert for solid contradiction to the shape I see - the world would be so much less sinister. But it is not forthcoming. Instead, despite my healthy skepticism of my own credulity, all I find, again and again, are more threads of the evil weave.
Check out the work of the man, C. H. Douglas, behind my sig. I find his insights into the functioning of modern society (post WWI) most profound. Warning: for me it's been kind of like the red pill.
This is certainly cogent analysis, however I think you are missing two things in re Iraq. It's all well to say that Saddam "was making it appear that he had WMDs", but the fact that our intelligence community completely failed to pierce this deception stinks to high heavens. Intelligence is difficult but it's not impossible. What really get my hackles twitching is my perception not that we failed so much as that we gave it a very weak effort. Sort of a damned by faint praise situation. In other words, if we *really* wanted to know the truth, we could have. So why didn't we???
The other thing is that its all very smooth sounding and knowledgeable to claim to know all the dirty things Saddam was going to do, or had said he would do, etc., etc. And, sure, if you're going to throw dirt, it's always a good bet to throw it at a hated asshole like Saddam. But I say that looking at the history of Iraq, if I was Saddam, I might well feel pretty damn betrayed by the US, so why shouldn't I talk trash. We did betray him after all! Of course it's not "us" the people of the United States who betrayed him, but the United States Federal Government, a rogue entity that has as about as much to do with us as Kim Jong Il!
The foreign policy of the United States Federal Government has been a source of profound despair my whole entire life. I'm no Mr. Analysis like you, so I can't demonstrate chapter and verse of history to expose the corruption, but, please!, mere ineptitude does not explain this monumental of failure. There is dirt piled high; it's shadows are everywhere. Why do you think there is such malaise in the public breast? We all know that something is wrong, but we are kept sufficiently in the dark to render us unable to point exactly to the evil. Thing just don't add up right, just like your analysis doesn't!!
No, it is not fiat money that is the problem. The real masters of the universe love to see their subjects arguing about fiat money vs. commodity backed money. Why do you think we dropped commodity backed money? Not because it was so great - the history of the US prior to 1913 is littered liberally with monetary system breakdown. If you would not be one of the duped, read my sig. Get to know the work of C. H. Douglas, one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. Social credit would do a much better job than capitalism of rewarding innovation in goods and services that ordinary people use, and minimizing the rewards of market gamesmanship. At the same time it would end the barbaric practice of poverty in an industrial society. And no taxes to boot. Sounds to good to be true, doesn't it? That is precisely what "they" want you to believe.
So Mr. Freak, can you please explain to my poor addled brain how only putting money in circulation via the mechanism of a loan can ever possibly not end very badly when done again and again over a period of years? How can it work when a bank issues the loan, but not the money to pay the interest on the loan? Oh, that's right, when the loan comes due, the bank loans out more, and more, and more. Except when "somebody" decides to "lift the needle" and then we have another crash. Assets are captured, then the cycle starts all over again. Except sooner or later, there will be not enough assets left to capture, we've got to be getting pretty close, and then what? What percent of the real estate in the US is now owned by banks? What percent of corporate assets are counterweighted by operations loans. Our manufacturing base is evaporating pretty quickly. Please, give me some economic jack that shows how my analysis is flawed!
I get chuckles sometimes from /. ramblings, but this, this is truly funny. Excellent!
I'm talking about for my workstation. I don't understand why exactly, since I don't do anything, but I need blistering performance. See, here's the problem: what I want is the "instant computer". It sits there doing nothing, making no noise, and hardly using any juice. I click on something. Instantly, what is supposed to happen happens. Instantly! I keep trying, but I'm not there yet. SSDs have had the biggest positive impact by far. I bought a core i7 last time, but effed up and got the conservative board that doesn't overclock. Of course that means that the i7 series processors are the most stable overclockers ever made. Of course. Next is an overclockable board and some wicked fast memory. Add one more ssd to the raid 0 array and that ought to do it.
Anyway, that is what caught my eye about your post, as the high end Intel cpus are sick pricey. So a 12 core for $750? But 2ghz? No way.
That's "Well you didn't change it punk."
These fine points are everything.
You and GP must be kidding. 12 cores at 2ghz is about my worst nightmare - high hopes dashed against the rock of reality.
Have mercy and drown me in molasses - the torture would be less prolonged.
I think that in the past, even the fairly recent past, candidates were somewhat sincere, at least at first. I think they really had a no-shit day. I think that now though, candidates are much less so, as their failure to keep even a semblance of their promises certainly doesn't seem to mean much one way or the other. Still, though, I think that they have a no-shit day. There is stuff that they all know, but then there is the stuff that they don't get to know until they get elected.
What do you think they tell the new President on "No-shit day?" ("No-shit day" is what Merle Haggard calls it - when "they" tell the new President how things really work.)
I figure that it goes something like this: "Sir, here are the official CIA projections on the result of a shut down of Saudi oil shipments."
The new President scans the report, muttering to himself, "No shit?" "Oh crap!".
When he looks up, and hands back the report, hand slightly shaking, "Sir, we understand that you have a lot of very admirable goals for your administration." "We want to help you reach those goals." "But we have to operate in the real world, and as you have just read, the real world can be a very brutal place." "I think the best thing is that you help us to prevent the scenario in the report, and we'll help you to accomplish your goals." "OK?"
The new President, knowing that the next thing he says will damn him to hell, "OK."
Fines? Fuck that, we need the god-damned Guillotines. I say the top ten execs at BP get lopped, along with their entire board. Motherfuckers will pay attention to what the fuck they're doing then, no?
>> passengers ought to fight will all means possible to save their lives.
This sets a very bad precedent in that, if the government encourages this type of thinking, they can no longer justify confiscating all our weapons. So, no, instead we get DHS. Thanks.
We should have gone "that far" a long time ago. The only hope to restore any sanity to the United States is for a hard reset. First all the states secede. Then, later, we rejoin under sensible conditions.
>> He locked down the network to a point that ensured he would be required for its management, even to the point that some attempts to gain access by other people would have brought the network down.
And who instructed him to do or not do that? Nobody, right?
BengalsUF, you have done a masterful job of defending your ability to disable your conscience. You should have been a lawyer at Nuremburg.
Terry Childs is a guy who got in trouble while young, got out, learned a productive trade, became obsessed with being as good at his trade as he could possibly be so as to never have to return to the badness in his youth, was given full reign to express that obsession however he wanted, and then when suddenly his whole life *as he saw it* was crashing down around him, pulled into his shell and became uncommunicative in abject fear. Once he was in a situation where he was sure no one could fault him, the presence of the mayor, he came back out of his shell and communicated. Did he harm the network? No. Was there some vaguely constructive "denial of service?" Perhaps, but you, BengalsUF, know in your heart what you did was wrong, why not just admit it? Confession is good for the soul. Yes, you just did your job as you were instructed to. You were *told* what was right and what was wrong, but you knew that what you were being told was right, was, in truth, wrong: it would cause a wrong to be committed. Yet you went ahead and "just did your job". Sorry about all the Godwinisms, but if the shoe fits...
Most criminal attorneys are in league with the the cops, the prosecutors, and the judges. If you're not someone they have a hardon for, you pay a fat fee, (gets shared around one way or the other), and get a wrist slap. If you are someone they *want*, you're fucked. There are a few, a very few, highly skilled and virtuous criminal lawyers who will do righteous battle on your behalf, but they are rare as four leaf clovers. Droopus knows. I know. The rest of you are lames.
The decision on law came down to the question of who was "authorized". "Authority" is the root of the word "authorized". From my reading there was no authority, i.e. no written protocol. In that vacuum, Child's decision to withhold the data until in the sole presence of the mayor, however poorly presented, however appearing of selfish motivation, has as much, if not more, validity as any other reasonable course. Pal, you don't send a man to prison for being a graceless churl. You. Just. Don't. I hope that someday you get in a situation where someone is holding a loaded gun to your head and you don't have any idea what to say to make sure that he doesn't pull the trigger. You deserve it.
>> you can't decide that a legal definition as provided by the judge is something you don't agree with and therefore won't follow
*Brace for Godwin!*
You can't decide that a legal definition of this person as a non-person provided by the Comandant is something you don't agree with; you just do your job and turn on the shower!!
Excuse me but don't you mean, "Someone who *tells you that he has formed* a final opinion...
Because, believe it or not, of the exact same dynamic that destroyed our medical industry: the hypnosis of power. Doctors and lawyers have both been seduced, manipulated, and extorted. First "they" create a system that requires ridiculous sacrifices upon the part of its initiates. Then they say to the survivors, "If you don't want your sacrifice to go to waste, you must support this regulation." Next thing you know, a man can not buy the milk of a cow, or vote for justice. Slave Planet Wins!!
The answer to all this has been in existence for nearly 100 years. Please read my sig. Please, I beg of you, read my sig, go to the link, read some more, and think about what you read. Then read Heinlein's For Us The Living, A Comedy Of Custom. Bad novel, but a brilliant exposition of a fully practical utopia simply implemented via the concepts of Douglas.
Six words: Glad I didn't buy a Pre.
Ewwww. Mr. Superior. Mr. Rational. You can try to dumb the question down to your paper dragon version, but, Mr. Rational, the question always is this: how to survive. So you follow the cattle chute to your grave. Me, I'm going a different route. Will I end up kissing the same dirt as Mr. Superior? Probably, but not without giving it everything I got to beat the odds. :D
BTW, you are the one who seems pretty emotional about the whole thing. I didn't put words in your mouth - but you tried to put them in mine. Hmmm. Come to think of it, no wonder you are hating so bad. You putter along, barely able to keep up with traffic, knowing that to go outside that envelope is certain death. Then you see some brigand such as me zooming along. You curse. You mutter. Dude! Lighten up! You probably get a lot more pussy than I do. Give yourself a break OK?
>> more pixels overall than ten years ago
Maybe more than ten years ago, but not more than 5 years ago. The 16:9 "craze" is a bullshit scam. They call them "widescreen". What they really are is "narrowscreen". Multiply it out: the total number of pixels is way down on average. That why the corporate hounds introduced the "craze". Fuckers!
Both of you have been fed the antipodes of the most sophisticated propaganda/scam ever devised. The problem is not commodity based currency vs. fiat currency as you see debated endlessly including here. The problem is the credit basis of money via the mechanism of fractional reserve banking. Fractional reserve banking has been allowed in, and has poisoned the economy of the US since the beginning. It is what causes so called business cycles, which cause more harm to individuals than all other depredations combined. Business cycles are NOT unexplainable as every "approved" economist claims. Please, I beg of you, read my sig, click the link, and study social credit. Knowledge is key!