obama was probably an OK guy, once. he seems like an OK bloke. but power of that level, and the office, it changes you and you are not the same person you once were. it was not an all-of-a-sudden thing, either; as you move up, you lose your soul bit by bit. it can't be helped and its been that way since man has walked the earth. its how we are, as a species.
we are seeing what humans are really like, when they get so much power and want to hoard it and control everyone around them. they convince themselves they are good guys and that they are fighting the good fight, but that much power is just NOT controllable by humans. we can't do it. we always fail. always. eventually, we always show that we can't handle that much power over our fellow people.
this is really an argument for smaller city-states. smaller companies. smaller groups of things. once things get big, they get too powerful and we fuck it up. by staying small, the power does not concentrate and so its more fair and we self-balance.
I wish we'd learn this and change our society style.... but I'm not expecting this to happen;(
follow orders, don't break rules (well, sort of) and Do The Boring(tm) stuff that intellectuals would get sick of, quickly.
that's what the police depts want. just enough IQ to avoid spilling coffee on themselves, but that's really about it. they are generally dullards who are anti-intellectual and are self-satisifed being as such.
pretty telling about what makes an ideal cop, in today's america. no 'thinkers' need apply. they would only question the bullshit laws. the depts don't want any of that rebel shit.
I love what used to be my country, the old USA. I want the freedoms and privacy we once had, back.
I'm not a christian, I'm a total non-believer in any religion.
I'm not a gun nut, don't own guns, don't want to.
but I still see the need for a reboot of our government. it would be nice if it could be non-violent. however, my xtal ball says that won't happen since the bad guys in power are not going to give back power willingly.
everything to do with entrenched TLA's who refuse to be called on their illegal and immoral behavior.
would happen with any modern US president.
obama is not helping but I don't blame him. he's just a high level pawn, afterall. he is not the one we have to worry about. he goes in a few years. the TLA's stay and continue their raid on america.
mark my words: if we end up with a republican in office next time, NOTHING WILL IMPROVE. and if we get a D in office, again, NOTHING WILL IMPROVE.
please stop blaming the wrong levels. its not the symbolic figurehead we have to worry about. its the ones we don't see that really screw us over.
sorry to say this guys, but nothing will improve until the revolution comes. this generation or next one or the one after that, but we can't fix ourselves with the system we have in place now.
we rented uhaul trucks and had them sit in the parking lot, in the middle of winter (bay area 'winter', but still) and we ran long power extension cords from the main building to the trucks. I kid you not! wish I was kidding. was pathetic to see. the company bought wool ski hats for the poor engineers who had to sit in the truck doing phone/apps testing. I joked that we had a bunch of mike nesmith's working for us...
and the strange part was that being inside the uhaul STILL gave better reception than being inside the building with our repeaters.
but yes, the hotel rooms were real. we even bought UPSs to ensure that we would not lose power during our full day (sometimes many day) long tests.
until a few months ago, I was working at a cell phone tech company (android software and server back-end stuff) and we had to be able to test our stuff with all the local carriers.
we moved our site and wouldn't you know, we could not get any t-mobile reception (and I have a t-mo phone). stepping out of the building didn't help much. putting a real antenna/repeater on the roof and repeating to the bottom floors didn't help!
we had to rent hotel rooms nearby, for days and weeks at a time to do our testing. our corporate headquarters just did not have good cellphone reception (pretty much across the board but tmo was the most useless). if I got an EDGE connection, I felt lucky (sigh). if you can imagine a cell phone company not doing a check of the RF reachability before picking a new HQ, maybe its good for a laugh or two right now. was not very funny at the time, though.
I do like the unlimited plan and no-contract of tmo but letting giants merge to become bigger giants NEVER helps the consumer.
if this is allowed - and we all know it will be - its further proof of the utter detachment of those who make the laws and rules from those who are forced to live under them.
that's pretty much it, in a nutshell. if you are in a position of power, you're good. if you are a citizen, oh boy, watch out because you have no rights and no one looks out for your needs or interests anymore.
yes, we're fucked.
I can't see any light at the end of the tunnel, either. things continue to get worse for us, the people.
so sad that we lost our country. this is not even close to the america that my parents were born in. they would not recognize this country in its current state.
if you are ok 'following the rules' then apple is fine for you.
I have a problem with 'rules' (when it comes to my own computer and what I can do with it) and so I won't be caught dead with a mac or iphone or ipad.
computers are more than a simple appliance to me. so apple is entirely wrong for folks like me.
wish there was a hacker's version (blessed by the company) for those who want something a bit more hybrid, with more freedom. I don't mind apple hardware but their software and systems approach is a huge turn-off and I won't buy their hardware only to have to fight them and work-around them.
they lead us, head and shoulders, in privacy. only a fool would criticize privacy.
the internet does not trump the thousands of years of social morals and standards.
"just because you can, does not mean you SHOULD"
too much info is already there online. I'm all in favor of reeling a lot of it back, when it comes to ruining an innocent person's life. yes, we SHOULD think about mutual respect and not just say 'once its out there, its out there'. that's a cop-out and many people in the world are tired of that childish attitude.
I applaud europe for thinking about how society should work, not just letting the googles of the world dictate the 'new normal' to us.
its interesting that amazon is very consumer friendly and if they happen to be busines-hostile, that's a DOUBLE BONUS in my book.
I'm ready to be as hostile to business as possible. business is the holy cow of the modern age in america. no one wants to 'harm' business; but realize that there are more consumers in the world than business people or owners! who should we care more about? I know who I care more about.
amazon has treated me extremely well as a consumer. I like that! business has too many advantages these days; we need to level the playing field so that consumers don't get run over by the 'business steamroller'.
if amazon plays hardball with companies, I'm OK WITH THAT!
I know MS resisted an NSL recently, but that doesn't meant we can trust BitLocker.
you know this?
no you don't. only 2 people know this (the one talking and the one being talked to). everyone else is a pawn (so says Mongo).
when it comes to america and NSLs, all bets are off. nothing can be known. (and this is the most anti-american thing I've heard of; these 'cant talk about it or we'll whup yer ass but good!' bullshit letters).
if america ever needed a reason to rebel against its own government, the NSL concept is the #1 reason I would give. the US used to be an example of what freedom was about. NOT ANY MORE!
its not the step that's the problem; its the journey.
you google fans; you really can't see where the end journey is headed? no one knows where it will end, but you can, at least, see the *direction* its going, yeah? how can that not bother you?
its funny that intelligent people would even THINK to try a google product that is a binary, running on their pc.
really - how dumb do you have to be to trust the 'do nothing but evil' company? I could understand the AOL crowd not knowing any better, but techies? wow. just wow. techies trusting a google binary that runs on their own hardware. amazing.
firefox has jumped the shark, but its still not the level of control the google wants over you.
if you willingly take google into your home, you get what you deserve. maybe after enough bruises and trouble, enough people will shun google.
OT but a little funny: this reminds me of a time when I was a vax/vms guy and working with a hardcore unix (ultrix) guy. I was in good old EDT editor (remember that?) and asked the guy for some help on something. he came over to my terminal, hit ctl-z (thinking it would just put my current job in the bg) but, in fact, in EDT editor ctl-z SAVES THE FILE AND EXITS!
oops. he felt embarassed, as well he should have. I was not an emacs guy at that point, yet...
never walk up to someone's terminal and just hit ctl-z. never go full retard, either.
Mentally ill people generally don't take good care of themselves. They tend to eat worse and more irregularly, sleep odd hours, and not get to the doctor as much (for whatever reason), especially if they live by themselves and no one's looking after them.
damn! you mean, I'm both a sysadmin AND mentally ill?
I knew it. (didn't I?) oh shut up, you. no, you shut up.
bought a lenovo business grade laptop (t420) and found out the hard way that they lock the pci-e slot and you cannot install YOUR wifi card there unless its lenovo PN'd.
of course, I found a hacked bios and that disabled the blacklist;) I now can run the 802.11ac card of my choice and not have the bios refuse to boot (like before).
HP and lenovo are known for this in their business class lappies. I didn't know that going in, sigh.
at the door: "knock, knock" homer: "who's there?" door: "goons." homer: "what?" homer: "hired goons"
what happened nearly 100 yrs ago will happen again. if any employee tries to start a union, the union 'busters' will come by and cause you to reconsider.
I can see the revolution (the union one) happening all over again. problem is, most of the youth does not believe in it and they have totally forgotton (or not studied) history. what our grandfathers fought for, we seem to have given up. boy, they would be pissed if they could see their hard-fought workers rights eroded to the condition they are in today. no, we don't have 100 yr old style sweatshops but we have other equally as bad problems with employers holding too much power over us.
software people tend to have an overly high view of themselves and don't think they 'need' a union. as they get older, though, they WILL change their tune, mark my words. seen it happen, but when it happens to you, its already too late.
Slashdot Mirror
power corrupts.
extreme power corrupts extremely.
obama was probably an OK guy, once. he seems like an OK bloke. but power of that level, and the office, it changes you and you are not the same person you once were. it was not an all-of-a-sudden thing, either; as you move up, you lose your soul bit by bit. it can't be helped and its been that way since man has walked the earth. its how we are, as a species.
we are seeing what humans are really like, when they get so much power and want to hoard it and control everyone around them. they convince themselves they are good guys and that they are fighting the good fight, but that much power is just NOT controllable by humans. we can't do it. we always fail. always. eventually, we always show that we can't handle that much power over our fellow people.
this is really an argument for smaller city-states. smaller companies. smaller groups of things. once things get big, they get too powerful and we fuck it up. by staying small, the power does not concentrate and so its more fair and we self-balance.
I wish we'd learn this and change our society style.... but I'm not expecting this to happen ;(
follow orders, don't break rules (well, sort of) and Do The Boring(tm) stuff that intellectuals would get sick of, quickly.
that's what the police depts want. just enough IQ to avoid spilling coffee on themselves, but that's really about it. they are generally dullards who are anti-intellectual and are self-satisifed being as such.
pretty telling about what makes an ideal cop, in today's america. no 'thinkers' need apply. they would only question the bullshit laws. the depts don't want any of that rebel shit.
the 'bad guys' have moles in key places in key companies.
the 'good guys' also have insiders in key places in key companies.
do you really think that the insider info is only available to the so-called good guys?
get real.
I want a revolution.
I love what used to be my country, the old USA. I want the freedoms and privacy we once had, back.
I'm not a christian, I'm a total non-believer in any religion.
I'm not a gun nut, don't own guns, don't want to.
but I still see the need for a reboot of our government. it would be nice if it could be non-violent. however, my xtal ball says that won't happen since the bad guys in power are not going to give back power willingly.
nothing to do with obama.
everything to do with entrenched TLA's who refuse to be called on their illegal and immoral behavior.
would happen with any modern US president.
obama is not helping but I don't blame him. he's just a high level pawn, afterall. he is not the one we have to worry about. he goes in a few years. the TLA's stay and continue their raid on america.
mark my words: if we end up with a republican in office next time, NOTHING WILL IMPROVE. and if we get a D in office, again, NOTHING WILL IMPROVE.
please stop blaming the wrong levels. its not the symbolic figurehead we have to worry about. its the ones we don't see that really screw us over.
sorry to say this guys, but nothing will improve until the revolution comes. this generation or next one or the one after that, but we can't fix ourselves with the system we have in place now.
we rented uhaul trucks and had them sit in the parking lot, in the middle of winter (bay area 'winter', but still) and we ran long power extension cords from the main building to the trucks. I kid you not! wish I was kidding. was pathetic to see. the company bought wool ski hats for the poor engineers who had to sit in the truck doing phone/apps testing. I joked that we had a bunch of mike nesmith's working for us...
and the strange part was that being inside the uhaul STILL gave better reception than being inside the building with our repeaters.
but yes, the hotel rooms were real. we even bought UPSs to ensure that we would not lose power during our full day (sometimes many day) long tests.
gmail will NEVER have encrypted mail, end to end.\
why?
think about it. their whole business model is about looking at your stuff. if you encrypt it, they can't see it.
also, the other main reason is that you can't do searches if your on-disk data is encrypted.
so, a web company will NEVER give true end to end (including on-disk) enryption. its againt their whole business model for many reasons.
until a few months ago, I was working at a cell phone tech company (android software and server back-end stuff) and we had to be able to test our stuff with all the local carriers.
we moved our site and wouldn't you know, we could not get any t-mobile reception (and I have a t-mo phone). stepping out of the building didn't help much. putting a real antenna/repeater on the roof and repeating to the bottom floors didn't help!
we had to rent hotel rooms nearby, for days and weeks at a time to do our testing. our corporate headquarters just did not have good cellphone reception (pretty much across the board but tmo was the most useless). if I got an EDGE connection, I felt lucky (sigh). if you can imagine a cell phone company not doing a check of the RF reachability before picking a new HQ, maybe its good for a laugh or two right now. was not very funny at the time, though.
I do like the unlimited plan and no-contract of tmo but letting giants merge to become bigger giants NEVER helps the consumer.
if this is allowed - and we all know it will be - its further proof of the utter detachment of those who make the laws and rules from those who are forced to live under them.
here's how modern america works:
goverment works with big business.
TO CONTROL, MONITOR AND DENY US SERVICES.
that's pretty much it, in a nutshell. if you are in a position of power, you're good. if you are a citizen, oh boy, watch out because you have no rights and no one looks out for your needs or interests anymore.
yes, we're fucked.
I can't see any light at the end of the tunnel, either. things continue to get worse for us, the people.
so sad that we lost our country. this is not even close to the america that my parents were born in. they would not recognize this country in its current state.
I'm told that the nsa/fbi/etc has an app for that!
if you are ok 'following the rules' then apple is fine for you.
I have a problem with 'rules' (when it comes to my own computer and what I can do with it) and so I won't be caught dead with a mac or iphone or ipad.
computers are more than a simple appliance to me. so apple is entirely wrong for folks like me.
wish there was a hacker's version (blessed by the company) for those who want something a bit more hybrid, with more freedom. I don't mind apple hardware but their software and systems approach is a huge turn-off and I won't buy their hardware only to have to fight them and work-around them.
europe is not 'stupid'. its US that are stupid.
they lead us, head and shoulders, in privacy. only a fool would criticize privacy.
the internet does not trump the thousands of years of social morals and standards.
"just because you can, does not mean you SHOULD"
too much info is already there online. I'm all in favor of reeling a lot of it back, when it comes to ruining an innocent person's life. yes, we SHOULD think about mutual respect and not just say 'once its out there, its out there'. that's a cop-out and many people in the world are tired of that childish attitude.
I applaud europe for thinking about how society should work, not just letting the googles of the world dictate the 'new normal' to us.
Companies are not evil just because they exist.
under the new american rules, yes, they are! to exist as a business is to be evil, without any ethics or morals or care about society or individuals.
this is one huge thing that's wrong with the US right now. we 'pray' to business almost like its a god.
and so, as a business grows, it DOES become evil. in the US, its a requirement, pretty much.
its interesting that amazon is very consumer friendly and if they happen to be busines-hostile, that's a DOUBLE BONUS in my book.
I'm ready to be as hostile to business as possible. business is the holy cow of the modern age in america. no one wants to 'harm' business; but realize that there are more consumers in the world than business people or owners! who should we care more about? I know who I care more about.
amazon has treated me extremely well as a consumer. I like that! business has too many advantages these days; we need to level the playing field so that consumers don't get run over by the 'business steamroller'.
if amazon plays hardball with companies, I'm OK WITH THAT!
I know MS resisted an NSL recently, but that doesn't meant we can trust BitLocker.
you know this?
no you don't. only 2 people know this (the one talking and the one being talked to). everyone else is a pawn (so says Mongo).
when it comes to america and NSLs, all bets are off. nothing can be known. (and this is the most anti-american thing I've heard of; these 'cant talk about it or we'll whup yer ass but good!' bullshit letters).
if america ever needed a reason to rebel against its own government, the NSL concept is the #1 reason I would give. the US used to be an example of what freedom was about. NOT ANY MORE!
this time.
its not the step that's the problem; its the journey.
you google fans; you really can't see where the end journey is headed? no one knows where it will end, but you can, at least, see the *direction* its going, yeah? how can that not bother you?
its funny that intelligent people would even THINK to try a google product that is a binary, running on their pc.
really - how dumb do you have to be to trust the 'do nothing but evil' company? I could understand the AOL crowd not knowing any better, but techies? wow. just wow. techies trusting a google binary that runs on their own hardware. amazing.
firefox has jumped the shark, but its still not the level of control the google wants over you.
if you willingly take google into your home, you get what you deserve. maybe after enough bruises and trouble, enough people will shun google.
one appeal is that it makes money for ipv6 vendors.
did you know that you can overclock the x10 devices and run a windowing system on them. or, so I'm told..
If the DOS machines are meeting the specifications required for Flanders elections, there's not much of a reason to upgrade them.
do I have to say it?
alright then:
"stupid flanders!"
OT but a little funny: this reminds me of a time when I was a vax/vms guy and working with a hardcore unix (ultrix) guy. I was in good old EDT editor (remember that?) and asked the guy for some help on something. he came over to my terminal, hit ctl-z (thinking it would just put my current job in the bg) but, in fact, in EDT editor ctl-z SAVES THE FILE AND EXITS!
oops. he felt embarassed, as well he should have. I was not an emacs guy at that point, yet...
never walk up to someone's terminal and just hit ctl-z. never go full retard, either.
Mentally ill people generally don't take good care of themselves. They tend to eat worse and more irregularly, sleep odd hours, and not get to the doctor as much (for whatever reason), especially if they live by themselves and no one's looking after them.
damn! you mean, I'm both a sysadmin AND mentally ill?
I knew it. (didn't I?) oh shut up, you. no, you shut up.
bought a lenovo business grade laptop (t420) and found out the hard way that they lock the pci-e slot and you cannot install YOUR wifi card there unless its lenovo PN'd.
of course, I found a hacked bios and that disabled the blacklist ;) I now can run the 802.11ac card of my choice and not have the bios refuse to boot (like before).
HP and lenovo are known for this in their business class lappies. I didn't know that going in, sigh.
Capitalism is 90% salesmanship.
and the other 12% is math.
unionize?
at the door: "knock, knock"
homer: "who's there?"
door: "goons."
homer: "what?"
homer: "hired goons"
what happened nearly 100 yrs ago will happen again. if any employee tries to start a union, the union 'busters' will come by and cause you to reconsider.
I can see the revolution (the union one) happening all over again. problem is, most of the youth does not believe in it and they have totally forgotton (or not studied) history. what our grandfathers fought for, we seem to have given up. boy, they would be pissed if they could see their hard-fought workers rights eroded to the condition they are in today. no, we don't have 100 yr old style sweatshops but we have other equally as bad problems with employers holding too much power over us.
software people tend to have an overly high view of themselves and don't think they 'need' a union. as they get older, though, they WILL change their tune, mark my words. seen it happen, but when it happens to you, its already too late.