Well - what may seem unacceptable to you, may be acceptable to others. If I should land on a page, and the video fails to load, I just figure the guy who designed the page has screwed up, close the window, and go elsewhere.
Yeah, I know, I miss out on things with such an attitude. But, I really don't believe that I've missed anything of importance.
In this post-9/11 world, if Lady Liberty isn't willing to beat some terrorists over the head with that damned torch, then the terrorists can have their way with her. I say that she's just playing dead, to lure them closer.
Hmm. All this time, I thought Rupert Murdoch's Propaganda Station was "poison for the soul". Tomato, tomahtoh, fox, faux. A turd is a turd, is a turd, and by any other name, it would smell just as foul.
You could just buy a router, flash it with Tomato (I use Toastman's USB version) then enable a script on the router to block advertising domains. My script updates itself every four days, so it's always current.
Not only do I block all those annoying ads on my own computer, but the wife and kids computers too. The improvement in bandwidth is dramatic. You lucky people with real broadband may not appreciate how much bandwidth is lost to advertising. Those of us with 1 MB or less bandwidth notice!
What's really funny is, the US has long since lost it's various cultures. When I was a kid, traveling meant meeting people who spoke differently, thought differently, people with different histories and cultures.
Today? There is little variance between a fast food restaurant in New York or LA, and there is little difference in culture along any route between the two cities.
I wouldn't be smug about any nation becoming like America, because we've lost much more than we gained in the last 50 years.
Links to Hitler's actual religious practices, please? Somehow, I've missed them. He showed up at which churches on Sundays? Wow - this is all new to me! Which church was it that approved of him living with his niece? Which church authorized his "union" with that mistress?
Somehow, I just don't see any Christian practices in Hitler's life. But, I'm willing to read and learn! Just gimme a link or six, and I'll be reading them for the rest of the day!
If/when people lose all faith in a currency, inflation skyrockets. Your "base" may or may not mean anything important. When inflation really takes off, and people are spending their entire paycheck the day they are payed, so that they don't lose value overnight, you have serious problems.
No, that has never happened in the US of A, but it has happened before. Several of Europe's currencies were valueless during the second world war - and the first for that matter. A wheelbarrow full of money couldn't buy a loaf of bread. Then, the barter system came into use, if you had anything to barter. If not - then you just made do with what you could produce yourself, or steal.
As long as people believe that a dollar bill has value, then you can trade that dollar bill for something or real value. When people no longer believe it to be of value, then it will have no value, despite what the government might say to the contrary.
Fiat money has no intrinsic value in this world.
The tax man can bang on the doors of every citizen in this country, but if they don't have dollar bills with which to pay their taxes, then he'll either accept some other form of payment, or do without.
BTW - within my own lifetime, counties and states accepted livestock and other forms of payment for taxes. As a boyscout leader in Winter Harbor, Maine, I managed to peruse some old tax documents in the city hall. A goat and half a dozen chickens was common payment for taxes due in the late '50's, although less common than in previous decades. It COULD happen again.
And, please note - possibility != probability. I say it could happen, not that it's likely to happen.
Uhhhmmmm - whoa now. Maybe someone has attempted to claim that Christianity has/had no mass murderers. I have not.
"Kill them all, let God sort them out."
I don't think there is any quote that is more famous, uttered by any religious fanatic. Christianity has a long, long list of atrocities to it's "credit". Hitler, however, has not been demonstrated to have been "Christian". The man manipulated the Church, the churches, the clergy, and the faithful, that much is provable fact. When he couldn't manipulate them, he intimidated them. That is more provable fact. But, as for Hitler's own personal beliefs about God? You ain't got them. He didn't write anything down that suggests that he believed in any Creator, or that he thought that he might one day be held accountable by that Creator.
All of his actions, regarding the Jews, suggests that he believed Neitsche's myths about mankind coming into this world from another dimension or something, in waves. And, the Jews were actually subhumans who came onto this planet long after the Aryans had settled the world. His ACTIONS speak much louder than the few words he uttered in lip service to the church.
What you can find, if you search for it, is the fact that Hitler and his cronies were perfectly willing to use the religious beliefs of the common man for their own ends.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_religious_views According to the controversial collection of transcripts edited by Martin Bormann, titled Hitler's Table Talk, as well as the testimony of some intimates, Hitler had privately negative views of Christianity.
For me to claim that Hitler had nothing to do with Christianity, or that he didn't use Christian beliefs to help justify his actions would be utterly foolish - so I make no such claim. But, without his autobiography, in which he explains his true beliefs, it is just as foolish to claim that he was a believer. As I said already, his actions speak louder than the little bit of lip service he gave to Christianity.
Adolph Hitler made many speeches that referenced Jesus, true. But, no one that I've ever read is willing to commit to the idea that Hitler actually believed anything. Said speeches were meant to sway the ignorant masses. Even today, political speeches are no indication of what a candidate really believes.
If, in reality, Hitler believed the myths published by Neitsche, there was little room in his world view for a Jesus Christ. The Jews were unrelated to the rest of mankind, remember? The term "subhuman" played in the Nazi lexicon quite often. Jesus was a Jew, hence, Jesus was a subhuman, and no good Nazi would have worshipped a subhuman.
They most definitely DID NOT make decisions that were best for them. Some of the largest banks in America were on the verge of bankruptcy. Were you not paying attention to current events just before the last election? The banks were FAILING. The only thing that saved many of them, was a special handout from the government.
You would like to think that? Well, go right ahead and think it. That won't make it true, but it might make you feel better.
CLUE: The corporates don't send their specialists to explain the real facts of life to congress critters. Instead, they send PR/HR/marketdroids with deep pockets. The specialists are kept at their desks, or in the shop, or out in the field, where facts are actually useful.
I invite you to read Allen Greenspan's recent remarks about banking legislation. Words to the effect, "We thought the banks could make decisions that were best for them - how wrong we were!"
Corporations never do anything "for the greater good". Today, they don't even do things for their own good. The zombies only have eyes for quarterly profit statements, totally unaware that those statements are full of lies.
Don't be so sure about your position, there. "The debt may be created out of thin air, but the money is not." The United States has fiat money. The value of our currency is tied to nothing at all. The value of our money is purely whimsical. So long as people have faith in the currency, it is valuable. When faith begins to fade, it will have no value.
Lest you have missed it, faith in the US currency is already eroding. Remember the oil embargo? Certain OPEC nations refused to accept US dollars for oil, instead demanding real assets, ie, gold. China is not the first nation to suggest that the "world currency" be changed from the US dollar. Look at exchange rates today. When I was in the service, ten dollars US money could buy a decent night out on the town in most of the world. Today, forget it. That ten dollars might get you two or three beers, in a real dive. It won't get you in the door of a decent restaurant or bar.
In the case of a loose cluster of rubble, a bomb is a good idea - just not nuclear. Put the bomb near the center of the mess, back off, detonate it by radio signal, and watch the billiard ball effect. Instead of a full choke shotgun blast hitting the earth, we get a no-choke spread, with much of the blast missing the earth entirely. All the little bitty bits will just burn up in the atmosphere, larger bits make awesome fireworks, slightly larger bits might actually strike the earth, while the largest bits may need to be dealt with individually to prevent them hitting a population center.
Yep. And, early detection is most important. Waiting til the damned huge ass rock is a month away ensures that our best efforts will be worth shit. If we can get a team on the rock a year before impact, even a tiny deflection in it's course will work to avert disaster.
Of course, a nuke isn't necessary, if you get on the rock early enough. A few tons of thrust from a chemical rocket would be good enough. Or, a chemical bomb dropped down the well that you've drilled. Nukes are sexy, but not essential.
I kind of doubt that you've moved more times in your life than I have. Even if I'm wrong, you seem to make assumptions that you are special, and no one has it as hard as you, or some damned thing.
Moving? The worst part of moving is, I've always lost something of moderate value in every move. You'd think a guy would learn how to avoid that, but I never have.
Moving is a little death? Geeez. That speaks about your personality and psychology, not about the hardship or the adventure of moving.
Oh yeah. It takes all your pay to pay the rent, buy food, and take advantages of services. Welcome to the club. It's called "life". In the wealthiest of countries, only a small percentage of the population actually owns their own home, automobile, a summer home, a yacht, blah blah blah. Most of us work because we HAVE TO! Here in America, for the past 50 years or more, the banks actually own most homes, most cars, even the kitchen appliances.
In short, I feel so sorry for you - let me play a nice weepy song on the world's smallest violin for you!
Poor fool - I can work with metric measurements, and I can work with imperial units. Poor you, you're not smart enough to do both? How the hell do you call yourself a "techie"?
Had to come down the page this far to find a reference to slave labor? Wow.
In China, workers are permitted to sleep a couple hours a day. It's no big deal to wake up 8000 workers in the middle of the night, make them skip breakfast, and to sit them down at work stations, for a 12 hour shift of last-minute fixits.
Can't wait for the day that we become like China. Good bye personal property, personal relations, time off, and "home, sweet home".
There is still a huge difference. A system that is connected directly to the internet provides a target to every pimple faced kid in the world, provided he has a computer and the will to futz around, searching for a vulnerability.
That air gapped system requires much more skill, patience, and dedication, along with some kind of feedback, than zit-face can possibly muster.
"Yeah, a lot of the blame should fall on the people making these - they should have wisened up to security requirements ten years ago."
Ask yourself, what percentage of PLC's in use today are newer than ten years? Crap - I'm using PLC's that are 30 years old! If I actually researched our stuff, I might find that some are even older. (When WAS the PLC invented, anyway?) To make things even worse, manufacturers of new machines are using technology that is 3 to 10 years old. In the same machine, we have stuff that was patented as long ago as 20 years, software that was copyrighted a mere 6 years ago, chips that interchange with 20 year old machines. That hundred thousand dollar machine is a mismatched conglomeration of new and old technology. And, if we had demanded state of the art security to be built in, it would probably have cost double what we paid!
You've nailed the problem, right there. SCADA was never meant to be online. It hardly matters that some chips were designed before there was an internet - even the newest aren't meant to be online. Having an infrastructure network accessible from the internet is moronic. It is merely stupid to have an outdated operating system with inadequate security connected to the internet, but positively moronic to connect your SCADA.
Someone needs to send a news letter to all of the corporate and government idiots who believe otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
Well - what may seem unacceptable to you, may be acceptable to others. If I should land on a page, and the video fails to load, I just figure the guy who designed the page has screwed up, close the window, and go elsewhere.
Yeah, I know, I miss out on things with such an attitude. But, I really don't believe that I've missed anything of importance.
To true. Our local cemeteries have a few people in them who failed to understand that.
The decision was the same, the reasoning by which some members arrived at the decision was different. As I see it, that makes it unanimous.
In this post-9/11 world, if Lady Liberty isn't willing to beat some terrorists over the head with that damned torch, then the terrorists can have their way with her. I say that she's just playing dead, to lure them closer.
My thought exactly, except with a big "DAMN" in front of it.
" "junk food" for their minds"
Hmm. All this time, I thought Rupert Murdoch's Propaganda Station was "poison for the soul". Tomato, tomahtoh, fox, faux. A turd is a turd, is a turd, and by any other name, it would smell just as foul.
You could just buy a router, flash it with Tomato (I use Toastman's USB version) then enable a script on the router to block advertising domains. My script updates itself every four days, so it's always current.
Not only do I block all those annoying ads on my own computer, but the wife and kids computers too. The improvement in bandwidth is dramatic. You lucky people with real broadband may not appreciate how much bandwidth is lost to advertising. Those of us with 1 MB or less bandwidth notice!
What's really funny is, the US has long since lost it's various cultures. When I was a kid, traveling meant meeting people who spoke differently, thought differently, people with different histories and cultures.
Today? There is little variance between a fast food restaurant in New York or LA, and there is little difference in culture along any route between the two cities.
I wouldn't be smug about any nation becoming like America, because we've lost much more than we gained in the last 50 years.
Links to Hitler's actual religious practices, please? Somehow, I've missed them. He showed up at which churches on Sundays? Wow - this is all new to me! Which church was it that approved of him living with his niece? Which church authorized his "union" with that mistress?
Somehow, I just don't see any Christian practices in Hitler's life. But, I'm willing to read and learn! Just gimme a link or six, and I'll be reading them for the rest of the day!
If/when people lose all faith in a currency, inflation skyrockets. Your "base" may or may not mean anything important. When inflation really takes off, and people are spending their entire paycheck the day they are payed, so that they don't lose value overnight, you have serious problems.
No, that has never happened in the US of A, but it has happened before. Several of Europe's currencies were valueless during the second world war - and the first for that matter. A wheelbarrow full of money couldn't buy a loaf of bread. Then, the barter system came into use, if you had anything to barter. If not - then you just made do with what you could produce yourself, or steal.
As long as people believe that a dollar bill has value, then you can trade that dollar bill for something or real value. When people no longer believe it to be of value, then it will have no value, despite what the government might say to the contrary.
Fiat money has no intrinsic value in this world.
The tax man can bang on the doors of every citizen in this country, but if they don't have dollar bills with which to pay their taxes, then he'll either accept some other form of payment, or do without.
BTW - within my own lifetime, counties and states accepted livestock and other forms of payment for taxes. As a boyscout leader in Winter Harbor, Maine, I managed to peruse some old tax documents in the city hall. A goat and half a dozen chickens was common payment for taxes due in the late '50's, although less common than in previous decades. It COULD happen again.
And, please note - possibility != probability. I say it could happen, not that it's likely to happen.
Uhhhmmmm - whoa now. Maybe someone has attempted to claim that Christianity has/had no mass murderers. I have not.
"Kill them all, let God sort them out."
I don't think there is any quote that is more famous, uttered by any religious fanatic. Christianity has a long, long list of atrocities to it's "credit". Hitler, however, has not been demonstrated to have been "Christian". The man manipulated the Church, the churches, the clergy, and the faithful, that much is provable fact. When he couldn't manipulate them, he intimidated them. That is more provable fact. But, as for Hitler's own personal beliefs about God? You ain't got them. He didn't write anything down that suggests that he believed in any Creator, or that he thought that he might one day be held accountable by that Creator.
All of his actions, regarding the Jews, suggests that he believed Neitsche's myths about mankind coming into this world from another dimension or something, in waves. And, the Jews were actually subhumans who came onto this planet long after the Aryans had settled the world. His ACTIONS speak much louder than the few words he uttered in lip service to the church.
What you can find, if you search for it, is the fact that Hitler and his cronies were perfectly willing to use the religious beliefs of the common man for their own ends.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1699/was-hitler-a-christian
"National Socialism [Nazism] and Christianity are irreconcilable"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_religious_views
According to the controversial collection of transcripts edited by Martin Bormann, titled Hitler's Table Talk, as well as the testimony of some intimates, Hitler had privately negative views of Christianity.
http://nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm
For me to claim that Hitler had nothing to do with Christianity, or that he didn't use Christian beliefs to help justify his actions would be utterly foolish - so I make no such claim. But, without his autobiography, in which he explains his true beliefs, it is just as foolish to claim that he was a believer. As I said already, his actions speak louder than the little bit of lip service he gave to Christianity.
Adolph Hitler made many speeches that referenced Jesus, true. But, no one that I've ever read is willing to commit to the idea that Hitler actually believed anything. Said speeches were meant to sway the ignorant masses. Even today, political speeches are no indication of what a candidate really believes.
If, in reality, Hitler believed the myths published by Neitsche, there was little room in his world view for a Jesus Christ. The Jews were unrelated to the rest of mankind, remember? The term "subhuman" played in the Nazi lexicon quite often. Jesus was a Jew, hence, Jesus was a subhuman, and no good Nazi would have worshipped a subhuman.
They most definitely DID NOT make decisions that were best for them. Some of the largest banks in America were on the verge of bankruptcy. Were you not paying attention to current events just before the last election? The banks were FAILING. The only thing that saved many of them, was a special handout from the government.
You would like to think that? Well, go right ahead and think it. That won't make it true, but it might make you feel better.
CLUE: The corporates don't send their specialists to explain the real facts of life to congress critters. Instead, they send PR/HR/marketdroids with deep pockets. The specialists are kept at their desks, or in the shop, or out in the field, where facts are actually useful.
I invite you to read Allen Greenspan's recent remarks about banking legislation. Words to the effect, "We thought the banks could make decisions that were best for them - how wrong we were!"
Corporations never do anything "for the greater good". Today, they don't even do things for their own good. The zombies only have eyes for quarterly profit statements, totally unaware that those statements are full of lies.
Don't be so sure about your position, there. "The debt may be created out of thin air, but the money is not." The United States has fiat money. The value of our currency is tied to nothing at all. The value of our money is purely whimsical. So long as people have faith in the currency, it is valuable. When faith begins to fade, it will have no value.
Lest you have missed it, faith in the US currency is already eroding. Remember the oil embargo? Certain OPEC nations refused to accept US dollars for oil, instead demanding real assets, ie, gold. China is not the first nation to suggest that the "world currency" be changed from the US dollar. Look at exchange rates today. When I was in the service, ten dollars US money could buy a decent night out on the town in most of the world. Today, forget it. That ten dollars might get you two or three beers, in a real dive. It won't get you in the door of a decent restaurant or bar.
In the case of a loose cluster of rubble, a bomb is a good idea - just not nuclear. Put the bomb near the center of the mess, back off, detonate it by radio signal, and watch the billiard ball effect. Instead of a full choke shotgun blast hitting the earth, we get a no-choke spread, with much of the blast missing the earth entirely. All the little bitty bits will just burn up in the atmosphere, larger bits make awesome fireworks, slightly larger bits might actually strike the earth, while the largest bits may need to be dealt with individually to prevent them hitting a population center.
I dun't trun spalchek on. I perfer parsonalized pots.
Yep. And, early detection is most important. Waiting til the damned huge ass rock is a month away ensures that our best efforts will be worth shit. If we can get a team on the rock a year before impact, even a tiny deflection in it's course will work to avert disaster.
Of course, a nuke isn't necessary, if you get on the rock early enough. A few tons of thrust from a chemical rocket would be good enough. Or, a chemical bomb dropped down the well that you've drilled. Nukes are sexy, but not essential.
I kind of doubt that you've moved more times in your life than I have. Even if I'm wrong, you seem to make assumptions that you are special, and no one has it as hard as you, or some damned thing.
Moving? The worst part of moving is, I've always lost something of moderate value in every move. You'd think a guy would learn how to avoid that, but I never have.
Moving is a little death? Geeez. That speaks about your personality and psychology, not about the hardship or the adventure of moving.
Oh yeah. It takes all your pay to pay the rent, buy food, and take advantages of services. Welcome to the club. It's called "life". In the wealthiest of countries, only a small percentage of the population actually owns their own home, automobile, a summer home, a yacht, blah blah blah. Most of us work because we HAVE TO! Here in America, for the past 50 years or more, the banks actually own most homes, most cars, even the kitchen appliances.
In short, I feel so sorry for you - let me play a nice weepy song on the world's smallest violin for you!
Poor fool - I can work with metric measurements, and I can work with imperial units. Poor you, you're not smart enough to do both? How the hell do you call yourself a "techie"?
Had to come down the page this far to find a reference to slave labor? Wow.
In China, workers are permitted to sleep a couple hours a day. It's no big deal to wake up 8000 workers in the middle of the night, make them skip breakfast, and to sit them down at work stations, for a 12 hour shift of last-minute fixits.
Can't wait for the day that we become like China. Good bye personal property, personal relations, time off, and "home, sweet home".
There is still a huge difference. A system that is connected directly to the internet provides a target to every pimple faced kid in the world, provided he has a computer and the will to futz around, searching for a vulnerability.
That air gapped system requires much more skill, patience, and dedication, along with some kind of feedback, than zit-face can possibly muster.
"Yeah, a lot of the blame should fall on the people making these - they should have wisened up to security requirements ten years ago."
Ask yourself, what percentage of PLC's in use today are newer than ten years? Crap - I'm using PLC's that are 30 years old! If I actually researched our stuff, I might find that some are even older. (When WAS the PLC invented, anyway?) To make things even worse, manufacturers of new machines are using technology that is 3 to 10 years old. In the same machine, we have stuff that was patented as long ago as 20 years, software that was copyrighted a mere 6 years ago, chips that interchange with 20 year old machines. That hundred thousand dollar machine is a mismatched conglomeration of new and old technology. And, if we had demanded state of the art security to be built in, it would probably have cost double what we paid!
You've nailed the problem, right there. SCADA was never meant to be online. It hardly matters that some chips were designed before there was an internet - even the newest aren't meant to be online. Having an infrastructure network accessible from the internet is moronic. It is merely stupid to have an outdated operating system with inadequate security connected to the internet, but positively moronic to connect your SCADA.
Someone needs to send a news letter to all of the corporate and government idiots who believe otherwise.
https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQsEwgESVy5A1_ezNhAwLOKqiKrpxKfAi-5v52EtQiTBjFEC-Pr