I don't ascribe "heroic" status (a hero is somebody above the ordinary. Somebody with larger than life characteristics, that others can ascribe noble ambition or cause) to the pirate bay founders. I see them as being ordinary in every respect; the result ordinary people have when confronted with the absurd. (Which is to respond with similarly absurd defiance.)
I hold absolutely no love for big media. The world really would be a much better place without them. However, like nietche said, "those who fight monsters must be careful to avoid becoming monsters themselves."
The monied plutocrats behind this farcical miscarriage of justice want us to be terrified of them so we will fall into line.
Rather than suggest anal auto-eroticism to them, I suggest we ignore their threats, and allow ourselves to be imprisoned. Non-violently. Without contest. Be shameless in admission of guilt.
The idea is to make their campaign of terror backfire on them, much like the taliban's attempted assasination of Malala has caused serious backlashes.
Instead of allowing them to paint ordinary people as greedy bastards who want nothing more than to put production people and artists out on the street (nevermind about the hollywood accouting. 'These aren't the crooks you're looking for!'), we need to deny them that ammunition, and let their own insatiable viciousness be their own condemnation.
Remember when they were sueing little old ladies and 12 year olds? We need that. Lots and lots of that.
It isn't that hard to see the reason is pure vindictiveness on the part of (monied) rights holders, exercising their purchased cronies in world government.
If you followed the press releases surrounding the pirate bay, and bothered to read their "legal threats" page before they were busted, you would know that the founders of the pirate bay frequently and bluntly told the large media companies to go fuck themselves with collapsable metal batons. (And even gave suggestions about which ones were of superior quality.)
[No seriously. They really did.]
This tidbit was alluded to discreetly by various media groups covering the trial, since their peers had made open complaints to the court about the group's lack of tact and seeming lack of seriousness, demanding harsher punishments. (Essentially, they didn't like being told to go fuck themselves, and wanted the court system to use 'harsher' punishments, because they were butt-hurt over it, illistrating their own lack of professionalism in the matter.)
The outright illegal raid on PB servers, followed by the dubious cambodian extradition to sweden, and the endless trail of clearly damning evidence of government corruption in the case pretty clearly sums it up.
Do I think the guy is a hero? Certainly not. Is he getting unfairly punished in proportion to his crimes? Oh yes, certainly. Is it due to government corruption? The evidence is pretty damning...
What is he really guilty of that they want to punish him so severely?
He threatened their hegemony, and was shamelessly unafrad of him. They can't stand that, and want to use him as a poster child to instill fear in people that would be like him, and flaunt their authority.
More than anything, I'd say he is a political prisoner, on par with what the russians do routinely.
There's all sorts of blobs being used routinely in linux deployments.
Things like the broadcom firmware blob that lives in the network card itself, for instance.
Unless you can vet 100% of the software in your system, there is a clear vector to compromise.
Even then, very clever use of comitts to the linux source itself could open vulnerabilities up.
Its easier to fix once known about, but linux isn't a magic bullet. then again, if world govts started ding this en masse, I would expect crazy-secure desktop linux distros to sprout up like weeds.
This is what happens when 1) make mundane activities (like saying something cheeky online) illegal, and 2) insist that law enforcement do something about it.
Law enforcement says " I need to do X to accomplish Y." Government and public supporters say "ok, just crack down on Y for us, ok?"
Later, government says "cracking down on Y isn't enough! We have to make W P and Q illegal, and work to stop that too, to keep our citizens safe!" (Where "safe" is a ephemeral and impossible goal, like achieving lightspeed. Each increment toward the goal comes at exponentially higher costs, and you can never actually get there anyway.)
Law enforcement says "we need all kinds of expanded powers for that!"
Rinse, repeat, until people need licenses to speak, wear only government sanctioned clothing, are put on government regulated diets, and live with a swarm of automated security drones following them everywhere.
"To infinity and beyond!" Takes on a sharply malign connotation here.
The initial problems are less severe than the consequences of policing it. Rather than capitulate to further erosion of rights and libertis, we should just say no.
That is a click, and 4 key presses, followed by another click.
When I could do it in 3 clicks in either gnome or xfce.
Linux pretty much lives in the console. To do anything of any gravity, you will invariably have it open at some point. Being such an essential tool, obfuscating it makes no sense.
Some distros use a hotkey combo to start a console session anywhere.
Unity comits the same sin as apple and microsoft, by trying to coddle ignorance, and make the computer try to protect itself from the user through obfuscation and draconian controls.
I am not 12 years old. I don't need things hidden from me not my hands to be duct taped inside pairs of mittens.
APPLE doesn't NEED to differentiate my user session from any other user session, for any sensible reason, other than arbitrary ones centered around artificial constraints to increase cash flow.
My telco needs to keep a unique user string, so they can bill me. Apple does not.
(I have no idea why the android input method system, with a hardware keyboard, continually makes a w, where a t should be, when used with words like NOT.)
(That should have read "Not what I am looking for" above. Not, 'now')
Makes silly presumptions about the features of graphics hardware, gobbles resources like an amphetamine junkie, adds unnecessary steps to get to a fucking console prompt, and is generally now what I am looking for in a UI.
More like, "I want my browser to not only set the flag, but also actively sabotage tracking efforts across site domains, and nuke tracking cookies at 10 minute intervals at least. My ideal setup requires no cookies at all, but I understand their utility in things like online shopping."
Basically, I want companies like google and apple to grow the fuck up, and quit acting like babies whenever they get their hands slapped over being greedy little brats with entitlement complexes. They are *NOT* entitled to information about my spending habbits, lifestyle choices, product preferences, and absolutely not to my geographical location information. I don't care HOW much money they can make with it.
I recently to a spin on the PPC linux road, after aquiring a free, used PPC platform from a friend.
Dropped on Ubuntu PPC. Completely unusuable with the Unity UI, because it gobbled down resources like an amphetmine junky. I am talking, unusably slow here. Like click the mouse and wait 10 seconds slow.
Boot to a root console, nuke unity, and install gnome 2. Oh, what a releif it was!
I'm sorry, but I am of the opinion that software should be be written to take as little horsepower way from user applications as is inherently possible, while retaining reliability and quality.
Unity seems to operate under the premise of "resources are abundant ad cheap, and I can squander them like mad all I want and get away with it. It's revolutionary!"
Apple: "we need to uniquely identify our users to maximize our advertising revinue stream, and to positively lock individual devices to individual users for the sake of our media partners. Not doing this means we will make less money, and since becomeing a houshold name, our share holders are more fickle than ever!"
Users: "look, do I follow YOU everywhere you go? When you go in the bathroom, do I give YOU targeted adverts for toilet paper, sanitary wipes, tampons and condoms? No? Does that sound at all like something you would like? No? Then DON'T TRACK ME."
Apple: "your concerns have been noted, and your opinion is important to us." [Delivered in robot answering machine voice.]
User: "I will contact an advocacy group if you can't take this seriously."
Apple: "we are dedicated to workmanship and quality, and the opinions of our customers are important to us."
(User contacts advocacy group. Advocacy group raises a stink)
AG: "you are aware I am sure, that pervasive user tracking violates the user's privacy in unacceptible ways, and clues about facts a user would like to keep private, such a club affiliations, sexual preferences, past relationships, and even prior citations for minor legal offenses can be publicly exposed through such tracking and directed advertisements, right? Let alone the serious safety implications, like pedophiles tracking underage children, rapists stalking women, and muggers stalking people with expensive iDevices using tracking apps right? You honestly think that these serious implications are warranted to further your financial bottom line?"
Apple: "oh, we hadn't thought about that second part!"
AG: "so you will stop mandatory tracking?"
Apple: "yes of course! We don't want to (increase our legal liabilities because we) track our customers in such a way that they could be physically or emotionally harmed!"
AG: "Good on you apple. We are glad you understand the value of privacy."
(6 months pass)
Apple: "we have devised a compromise that still let's us make money by selling compromising infrmation to snoopy advertizers, without the legal liabilities! We will offer a NEW tracking feature, that is obfuscated, and obscured such that the user doesn't know its there, and that could theoretically be turned off if they knew how, absolving us of culpability when/if it gets misused!"
User: "do you comprehend the meaning of "I DO NOT WANT TO BE TRACKED."? Does the concept even make sense to you?
Apple: "the opinions of our customers are important to us!"
Cause: low productivity, inflated wages, due to unions.
When they folded, we had gluts of previously union workers apply (we do aerospace work too, but are non-union), saying they couldn't work for less than 40/hr. We laughed at them. (One was applying for what is essentially my job. I get paid less than 20/hr, live comfortably, own my own home, pay all my bills, and have disposable income. The only way this guy couldn't work for less is if he has outstanding debts, such as a payment on a fancy car or a huge house. There is a word for this situation. Austerity.)
Currently? Their business assets are scheduled to be sold to a chinese company. Somehow, I doubt the new chinese leadership will kiss the machinist union's ass.
Consumers will buy whatever is the cheapest on the price-quality curve, almost without exception.
Cheap foriegn labor radically reduces prices. What one company does to get an edge, *all* companies will due, do to consumer trending and market domination by the initial adopter.
This is a race to the bottom. The only way to undercut now is literaly slavery.
Rather than see it through your view (people won't pay those prices now!), see it from mine. (We shouldn't have ever offered those prices via cheap labor to begin with, and used economies of scale to drive down price instead.)
I am NOT a fan of globalism. (But that doesn't mean I am a protectionist. I simply feel that it is unsustainable to expect a high wage economy to purchase high wage products indefinately, when employment rates in that high wage economy drop like rocks, as all the jobs move overseas, due to people chasing low low prices. The result muddies the market terribly, and I really don't see how it can be sustained. In the short term it makes you filthy ass rich. In the long term it causes protracted recessions.)
A noteworthy example is in aerospace. My employer hires at around 10/hr for unskilled assembly work.
The problem is that china can do your assembly work for 2/hr or cheaper. It isn't that nobody wants to do the work. Corporations see dollarsigns, and are addicted to essentially slave labor wages.
They could probably do it for around 20/hr in oklahoma. Many assembly work jobs go for that rate. The issue is unions. Since apple would be establishing a new manufacturing plant, and would come union free to start, they just have to keep it that way. Pay people on time, don't subject them to cancer causing chemicals, and give them proper work hours, and you are basically golden.
40$/hr doing assembly work?
I do fucking CAD/CAM and get paid way less than that!
Using the cold, or the flu causes too much collateral damage. Both viruses can infect any warm blooded animal, (with varying levels of efficiency). This means you would not only kill humans, but also damage the biosphere permanently.,
HIV only infects humans and other primates. The specificity of the virus is what makes it attractive, and the behavioral modification it would induce in women (Avoid sex at all costs!) is directly in line with the population reduction objective.
Also, men are known to resort to homosexuality in female deprived environments. (EG, things like prison rape and pals) HIV spreads through any sexual contact, and so, targeting women does not remove the transmission vector between men. (Especially when you throw in edge cases like transsexuals, and non-sexual vectors like needle sticks, and transfusions.)
The low virulence of HIV is exactly why it is desirable. You want an endemic and lingering menace. Not a sudden explosion of carnage.
It is possible that some other human specific virus, like HPV, could make a good backup plan. Maybe put ricin genes from the castor bean plant in that one, and get deadly genital warts.
the effect for population control is that it greatly reduces the desirability of casual sex, and simultaneously reduces the number of women. It puts strong natural selection on monogamy in males, and reduces the number of breeding females. The combined psychological and physical effects create an environment where having sex is seen as terrifying, and where asking a woman to have a good time that you dont know is considered potentially life threatening, and therefore inconsionible,
That it would be right up a religious nutter's alley is why I think it more probable than some other mechanisms.
Oh, I understand it would be absurdly touchy, pretty much garanteed to not exist, and almost certainly not stable long term.
We could juice it up a little, and say that there is a very massive object that orbits both stars at a very large radius out, around the combined center of rotation. Say, a class M star, or a brown dwarf. This object will perturb the orbit of the hypothetical figure-8 planet. (We will assume that the planet is very far frrom the parent stars, say jupiter orbit equiv, and that the companion stars are very far apart as well. (The distance between the locked stars at closest approach is slightly greater than the greatest distance of the planet's orbit.) The timing of the 3rd, distant star is such that it provides the nudge to push the planet out of orbit of the first star, and into the orbit of the second. (Let's view it this way: the planet is moving in toward the barycenter clockwise from the northwest quadrant. For visualization purposes, we are locking camera rotation so that both stars are fixed on the X axis and periodically approach and recede each other. The 3rd massive body orbits clockwise, and is say, 5 degrees off the X axis at the point of transit, in the north east quadrant. As the planet transits, it would gain a shitton of momentum, and woult tend to get thrown out like a stone from a sling. However, the location of the 3rd massive object curves the tradjectory, preventing ejection. The planet then orbits the second star eliptically, and rotates much faster on its own axis. As the system returns to the point of closest proximity again, the 3rd object has exchanged places such that it is at the complimentary angle, the planet passes the transit point, is again caught by the gravitational influence of the 3rd star, and forced into orbit with the original partner again. The change in orbital rotation (clockwise-anticlockwise) caused by the figure 8 orbit, causes the rotation of the planet to radically drop, possibly tide locking with the first star. The system then repeats. Orbital momentum of the 3rd star is conserved by the wobble of the system barycenter as the planet enters conjection with each star relative to its location.)
The 3rd star would shepherd the crazy figure8 planet, keeping it from being ejected.
I might pull an orbital simulator and see if this can actually work.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe you have misinterpreted my tone.
I don't ascribe "heroic" status (a hero is somebody above the ordinary. Somebody with larger than life characteristics, that others can ascribe noble ambition or cause) to the pirate bay founders. I see them as being ordinary in every respect; the result ordinary people have when confronted with the absurd. (Which is to respond with similarly absurd defiance.)
I hold absolutely no love for big media. The world really would be a much better place without them. However, like nietche said, "those who fight monsters must be careful to avoid becoming monsters themselves."
The monied plutocrats behind this farcical miscarriage of justice want us to be terrified of them so we will fall into line.
Rather than suggest anal auto-eroticism to them, I suggest we ignore their threats, and allow ourselves to be imprisoned. Non-violently. Without contest. Be shameless in admission of guilt.
The idea is to make their campaign of terror backfire on them, much like the taliban's attempted assasination of Malala has caused serious backlashes.
Instead of allowing them to paint ordinary people as greedy bastards who want nothing more than to put production people and artists out on the street (nevermind about the hollywood accouting. 'These aren't the crooks you're looking for!'), we need to deny them that ammunition, and let their own insatiable viciousness be their own condemnation.
Remember when they were sueing little old ladies and 12 year olds? We need that. Lots and lots of that.
We don't need to give them ammunition.
It isn't that hard to see the reason is pure vindictiveness on the part of (monied) rights holders, exercising their purchased cronies in world government.
If you followed the press releases surrounding the pirate bay, and bothered to read their "legal threats" page before they were busted, you would know that the founders of the pirate bay frequently and bluntly told the large media companies to go fuck themselves with collapsable metal batons. (And even gave suggestions about which ones were of superior quality.)
[No seriously. They really did.]
This tidbit was alluded to discreetly by various media groups covering the trial, since their peers had made open complaints to the court about the group's lack of tact and seeming lack of seriousness, demanding harsher punishments. (Essentially, they didn't like being told to go fuck themselves, and wanted the court system to use 'harsher' punishments, because they were butt-hurt over it, illistrating their own lack of professionalism in the matter.)
The outright illegal raid on PB servers, followed by the dubious cambodian extradition to sweden, and the endless trail of clearly damning evidence of government corruption in the case pretty clearly sums it up.
Do I think the guy is a hero? Certainly not. Is he getting unfairly punished in proportion to his crimes? Oh yes, certainly. Is it due to government corruption? The evidence is pretty damning...
What is he really guilty of that they want to punish him so severely?
He threatened their hegemony, and was shamelessly unafrad of him. They can't stand that, and want to use him as a poster child to instill fear in people that would be like him, and flaunt their authority.
More than anything, I'd say he is a political prisoner, on par with what the russians do routinely.
From context, it appears to be a media sharing website for images and now, 3d objects.
I might cruise it later. Finding free object files is a really painful process sometimes. (So much so that I often have to roll my own.)
Law of unintended consequences:
How do you differentiate a honey pot from a virtual machine for a thin client? Technologically, they are exactly the same thing.
There's all sorts of blobs being used routinely in linux deployments.
Things like the broadcom firmware blob that lives in the network card itself, for instance.
Unless you can vet 100% of the software in your system, there is a clear vector to compromise.
Even then, very clever use of comitts to the linux source itself could open vulnerabilities up.
Its easier to fix once known about, but linux isn't a magic bullet. then again, if world govts started ding this en masse, I would expect crazy-secure desktop linux distros to sprout up like weeds.
While getting backdoors into linux would be considerably difficult, it wouldn't be impossible.
Say for instance, government agencies tell nVidia to include an exploit in their binary blob kernel space driver.
How will you spot it, without the source?
This is what happens when 1) make mundane activities (like saying something cheeky online) illegal, and 2) insist that law enforcement do something about it.
Law enforcement says " I need to do X to accomplish Y." Government and public supporters say "ok, just crack down on Y for us, ok?"
Later, government says "cracking down on Y isn't enough! We have to make W P and Q illegal, and work to stop that too, to keep our citizens safe!" (Where "safe" is a ephemeral and impossible goal, like achieving lightspeed. Each increment toward the goal comes at exponentially higher costs, and you can never actually get there anyway.)
Law enforcement says "we need all kinds of expanded powers for that!"
Rinse, repeat, until people need licenses to speak, wear only government sanctioned clothing, are put on government regulated diets, and live with a swarm of automated security drones following them everywhere.
"To infinity and beyond!" Takes on a sharply malign connotation here.
The initial problems are less severe than the consequences of policing it. Rather than capitulate to further erosion of rights and libertis, we should just say no.
That is a click, and 4 key presses, followed by another click.
When I could do it in 3 clicks in either gnome or xfce.
Linux pretty much lives in the console. To do anything of any gravity, you will invariably have it open at some point. Being such an essential tool, obfuscating it makes no sense.
Some distros use a hotkey combo to start a console session anywhere.
Unity comits the same sin as apple and microsoft, by trying to coddle ignorance, and make the computer try to protect itself from the user through obfuscation and draconian controls.
I am not 12 years old. I don't need things hidden from me not my hands to be duct taped inside pairs of mittens.
APPLE doesn't NEED to differentiate my user session from any other user session, for any sensible reason, other than arbitrary ones centered around artificial constraints to increase cash flow.
My telco needs to keep a unique user string, so they can bill me. Apple does not.
My telco does that with their SIM card.
It was more an idle curiosity thing. And yes, ancient crapple hardware.
But you know, linux is presumably more friendly with antiques than other OSes... so, why does OSX 10.4 run waaaaaaaay better than ubuntu?
(I have no idea why the android input method system, with a hardware keyboard, continually makes a w, where a t should be, when used with words like NOT.)
(That should have read "Not what I am looking for" above. Not, 'now')
Makes silly presumptions about the features of graphics hardware, gobbles resources like an amphetamine junkie, adds unnecessary steps to get to a fucking console prompt, and is generally now what I am looking for in a UI.
More like, "I want my browser to not only set the flag, but also actively sabotage tracking efforts across site domains, and nuke tracking cookies at 10 minute intervals at least. My ideal setup requires no cookies at all, but I understand their utility in things like online shopping."
Basically, I want companies like google and apple to grow the fuck up, and quit acting like babies whenever they get their hands slapped over being greedy little brats with entitlement complexes. They are *NOT* entitled to information about my spending habbits, lifestyle choices, product preferences, and absolutely not to my geographical location information. I don't care HOW much money they can make with it.
I recently to a spin on the PPC linux road, after aquiring a free, used PPC platform from a friend.
Dropped on Ubuntu PPC. Completely unusuable with the Unity UI, because it gobbled down resources like an amphetmine junky. I am talking, unusably slow here. Like click the mouse and wait 10 seconds slow.
Boot to a root console, nuke unity, and install gnome 2. Oh, what a releif it was!
I'm sorry, but I am of the opinion that software should be be written to take as little horsepower way from user applications as is inherently possible, while retaining reliability and quality.
Unity seems to operate under the premise of "resources are abundant ad cheap, and I can squander them like mad all I want and get away with it. It's revolutionary!"
No, it makes PERFECT sense!
The official switch to Unity is perfectly quantal!
(Note, I hate Unity with the burning intensity of a class 2 hypernova.)
If the keep using that shittastic unity UI as the default window manager, can I officially nominate "sluggish Sloth" as the next iteration name?
Apple: "we need to uniquely identify our users to maximize our advertising revinue stream, and to positively lock individual devices to individual users for the sake of our media partners. Not doing this means we will make less money, and since becomeing a houshold name, our share holders are more fickle than ever!"
Users: "look, do I follow YOU everywhere you go? When you go in the bathroom, do I give YOU targeted adverts for toilet paper, sanitary wipes, tampons and condoms? No? Does that sound at all like something you would like? No? Then DON'T TRACK ME."
Apple: "your concerns have been noted, and your opinion is important to us." [Delivered in robot answering machine voice.]
User: "I will contact an advocacy group if you can't take this seriously."
Apple: "we are dedicated to workmanship and quality, and the opinions of our customers are important to us."
(User contacts advocacy group. Advocacy group raises a stink)
AG: "you are aware I am sure, that pervasive user tracking violates the user's privacy in unacceptible ways, and clues about facts a user would like to keep private, such a club affiliations, sexual preferences, past relationships, and even prior citations for minor legal offenses can be publicly exposed through such tracking and directed advertisements, right? Let alone the serious safety implications, like pedophiles tracking underage children, rapists stalking women, and muggers stalking people with expensive iDevices using tracking apps right? You honestly think that these serious implications are warranted to further your financial bottom line?"
Apple: "oh, we hadn't thought about that second part!"
AG: "so you will stop mandatory tracking?"
Apple: "yes of course! We don't want to (increase our legal liabilities because we) track our customers in such a way that they could be physically or emotionally harmed!"
AG: "Good on you apple. We are glad you understand the value of privacy."
(6 months pass)
Apple: "we have devised a compromise that still let's us make money by selling compromising infrmation to snoopy advertizers, without the legal liabilities! We will offer a NEW tracking feature, that is obfuscated, and obscured such that the user doesn't know its there, and that could theoretically be turned off if they knew how, absolving us of culpability when/if it gets misused!"
User: "do you comprehend the meaning of "I DO NOT WANT TO BE TRACKED."? Does the concept even make sense to you?
Apple: "the opinions of our customers are important to us!"
Poignant example company. Hawker Beechcraft.
Current status: Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
Cause: low productivity, inflated wages, due to unions.
When they folded, we had gluts of previously union workers apply (we do aerospace work too, but are non-union), saying they couldn't work for less than 40/hr. We laughed at them.
(One was applying for what is essentially my job. I get paid less than 20/hr, live comfortably, own my own home, pay all my bills, and have disposable income. The only way this guy couldn't work for less is if he has outstanding debts, such as a payment on a fancy car or a huge house. There is a word for this situation. Austerity.)
Currently? Their business assets are scheduled to be sold to a chinese company. Somehow, I doubt the new chinese leadership will kiss the machinist union's ass.
My employer offers other intangibles.
Namely, I work unsupervised, and have kick ass digs.
We aren't union, and don't get union grade pay. I actually disfavor unions.
I could easily get 40/hr, but am content not to. Work conditions are very relaxed and enjoyable.
Consumers will buy whatever is the cheapest on the price-quality curve, almost without exception.
Cheap foriegn labor radically reduces prices. What one company does to get an edge, *all* companies will due, do to consumer trending and market domination by the initial adopter.
This is a race to the bottom. The only way to undercut now is literaly slavery.
Rather than see it through your view (people won't pay those prices now!), see it from mine. (We shouldn't have ever offered those prices via cheap labor to begin with, and used economies of scale to drive down price instead.)
I am NOT a fan of globalism. (But that doesn't mean I am a protectionist. I simply feel that it is unsustainable to expect a high wage economy to purchase high wage products indefinately, when employment rates in that high wage economy drop like rocks, as all the jobs move overseas, due to people chasing low low prices. The result muddies the market terribly, and I really don't see how it can be sustained. In the short term it makes you filthy ass rich. In the long term it causes protracted recessions.)
Not all assebly work is done overseas.
A noteworthy example is in aerospace. My employer hires at around 10/hr for unskilled assembly work.
The problem is that china can do your assembly work for 2/hr or cheaper. It isn't that nobody wants to do the work. Corporations see dollarsigns, and are addicted to essentially slave labor wages.
There is no substitute for human ingenuity on the assembly floor.
Robots can be quite robust, but they can't do the complex operations that humans can, or deal with faults in production flow like humans can.
Until we have strong ai powered robot slaves, cheap human labor for assembly operations will always be king.
Bullshit.
They could probably do it for around 20/hr in oklahoma. Many assembly work jobs go for that rate. The issue is unions. Since apple would be establishing a new manufacturing plant, and would come union free to start, they just have to keep it that way. Pay people on time, don't subject them to cancer causing chemicals, and give them proper work hours, and you are basically golden.
40$/hr doing assembly work?
I do fucking CAD/CAM and get paid way less than that!
Using the cold, or the flu causes too much collateral damage. Both viruses can infect any warm blooded animal, (with varying levels of efficiency). This means you would not only kill humans, but also damage the biosphere permanently.,
HIV only infects humans and other primates. The specificity of the virus is what makes it attractive, and the behavioral modification it would induce in women (Avoid sex at all costs!) is directly in line with the population reduction objective.
Also, men are known to resort to homosexuality in female deprived environments. (EG, things like prison rape and pals) HIV spreads through any sexual contact, and so, targeting women does not remove the transmission vector between men. (Especially when you throw in edge cases like transsexuals, and non-sexual vectors like needle sticks, and transfusions.)
The low virulence of HIV is exactly why it is desirable. You want an endemic and lingering menace. Not a sudden explosion of carnage.
It is possible that some other human specific virus, like HPV, could make a good backup plan. Maybe put ricin genes from the castor bean plant in that one, and get deadly genital warts.
the effect for population control is that it greatly reduces the desirability of casual sex, and simultaneously reduces the number of women. It puts strong natural selection on monogamy in males, and reduces the number of breeding females. The combined psychological and physical effects create an environment where having sex is seen as terrifying, and where asking a woman to have a good time that you dont know is considered potentially life threatening, and therefore inconsionible,
That it would be right up a religious nutter's alley is why I think it more probable than some other mechanisms.
Oh, I understand it would be absurdly touchy, pretty much garanteed to not exist, and almost certainly not stable long term.
We could juice it up a little, and say that there is a very massive object that orbits both stars at a very large radius out, around the combined center of rotation. Say, a class M star, or a brown dwarf. This object will perturb the orbit of the hypothetical figure-8 planet. (We will assume that the planet is very far frrom the parent stars, say jupiter orbit equiv, and that the companion stars are very far apart as well. (The distance between the locked stars at closest approach is slightly greater than the greatest distance of the planet's orbit.) The timing of the 3rd, distant star is such that it provides the nudge to push the planet out of orbit of the first star, and into the orbit of the second. (Let's view it this way: the planet is moving in toward the barycenter clockwise from the northwest quadrant. For visualization purposes, we are locking camera rotation so that both stars are fixed on the X axis and periodically approach and recede each other. The 3rd massive body orbits clockwise, and is say, 5 degrees off the X axis at the point of transit, in the north east quadrant. As the planet transits, it would gain a shitton of momentum, and woult tend to get thrown out like a stone from a sling. However, the location of the 3rd massive object curves the tradjectory, preventing ejection. The planet then orbits the second star eliptically, and rotates much faster on its own axis. As the system returns to the point of closest proximity again, the 3rd object has exchanged places such that it is at the complimentary angle, the planet passes the transit point, is again caught by the gravitational influence of the 3rd star, and forced into orbit with the original partner again. The change in orbital rotation (clockwise-anticlockwise) caused by the figure 8 orbit, causes the rotation of the planet to radically drop, possibly tide locking with the first star. The system then repeats. Orbital momentum of the 3rd star is conserved by the wobble of the system barycenter as the planet enters conjection with each star relative to its location.)
The 3rd star would shepherd the crazy figure8 planet, keeping it from being ejected.
I might pull an orbital simulator and see if this can actually work.