So how will you be feeling about having sold off this 'privacy' thing that you seem to value so little, when your health insurance premiums go through the roof because they know you like to drink Pepsi, which as everyone knows will lead to obesity and diabetes, and since you're one of those people who eat and drink unhealthy foods, you probably lead an overall unhealthy lifestyle, therefore heart disease is in your future too, and probably cancer -- therefore you're going to cost them a lot of money down the road -- therefore they charge you up the ass now, since you're such a big risk. Or maybe it's your life insurance company that raises your premium, or flat-out cancel your policy, since you're too big of a risk.
Sound outrageous? Think again. With every year that passes that people throw away more and more of their right to privacy, more and more profiling of people's lives, right, wrong, accurate, or inaccurate, is happening. That's been the trend, and if nobody says anything about it, it'll continue until scenarios like the above start happening. Or worse things.
Some of you people seem to lack reading comprehension: I do not have money for that, and even if I did, there are other things that are (shocking!!!) more important than building a new computer that I really don't need right now because the existing one does everything I need it to do. Why is that so hard for you to understand?
You could tell me that you have a pill I can swallow that will let me keep living a thousand years, but if it means I'm still going to get decrepit and still going to experience a steadily declining overall quality of life? Then I tell you 'no thanks'. If I can't be at least as strong and active as I am right now, then what's the point? If I'm going to steadily go blind, or become frail and weak, or worst of all: My mind is going to go, I forget who I am, everything, and everyone I know, and have to have attendants to keep me from wandering off? No fucking way, I'd rather eat a bullet. Now, if it's going to be like being on boosterspice (http://larryniven.wikia.com/wiki/Boosterspice) and I'm going to become younger, biologically similar to being 25 years old, and stay in that state of vigor so long as I can keep taking the stuff? Then I'm all in on it.
I'm still on XP, mainly because the box it's running on is almost 10 years old and running a single-core processor. I have other priorities for my money than building a new box just so I can run a newer OS. Not that I wouldn't like a faster, multi-core processor, mind you, but I just can't justify the expense when I have other things I'd rather spend the money on before that. Have to build it myself, too, no pre-built computers, and nothing non-upgradable like a NUC, either. I suppose Win 7 would run on this box OK, but I also don't want to have to go through all the hassle of upgrading and then having to re-install everything I've got installed right now. It works fine the way it is, it does everything I need it to do, and frankly I spend more time outside the house doing active things than I used to spend inside staring at a monitor and have benefitted thereby.
So you're willing to sell off your privacy for a few bucks? That's what you're doing if you didn't realize it. Same goes for any 'rewards club' type cards at retailers: You're giving them permission to gather personally identifiable data on you, for a few measly bucks. How does it feel knowing that there are complete strangers out there that think they know you because of the data they collect on you about purchasing habits? How will you feel about it when someone gets it wrong?
Why? Why, with everything that everyone knows about Facebook, all the privacy violations, all the obvious signs that they really don't give a rat's ass about the users, just the money that users' data can earn them, would anyone still be using Facebook? Is it willful ignorance? Or is it deep denial? Now, we find out: Facebook can and is being used to profile people. Come on, is this what you all really want?
Who gets to decide what is and is not 'hate speech', hmm? You may as well have some committee deciding for an entire planet what 'is' and 'is not' art. Oh, and of course no politician will ever use something like this to advance any agenda they might have, oh no! Keep up the good work, EU! You'll be living under Sharia Law before too long if you keep this up!
Gee, that's nice. But what makes you think they're not performing a 'man in the middle' attack on your personal preferences and tastes by injecting something they're being paid to try to get you to like? There is no invasion of privacy or crime being committed if they do that, and it can easily be dismissed as their algorithm hiccupping and feeding you something you didn't really want -- or you can go "Gee, I kinda like that too, thanks Pandora!" and their mission is accomplished. Kind of like broadcast radio. Yes, I have no proof of this -- but it's plausible. So how is something that requires you to PAY for access (data plan on wireless, or internet access at home) better than something that comes OTA for free? Yes, radio has commercials -- but you can always switch stations if it bugs you that much. You're dismissing broadcast radio out-of-hand for no good reason. Oh and don't call me a Luddite (although most people don't use the term correctly), I tried Pandora, and found it annoying. The deal-breaker was when it wouldn't let me skip more than so-many selections per hour, essentially forcing me to listen to what it wanted me to hear. At that point I may as well just listen to whatever MP3s/AACs I had around -- or turn on the radio again.
as all the radio stations simply play the same song over and over
You mean like you do with your PMP, or that internet streaming radio stations do? You simply do not know what you're talking about because you simply do not listen to broadcast radio so how would you know? The closest reality comes to your uninformed view of it would be a Top-10 station, and by the way my gym uses satellite radio and the Top-10 channels on that are the most annoying and vapid thing I've ever heard and I know of no Top-10 broadcast radio stations in my market, which is not by any definition of the word a 'small' market for radio. There is new music all the time on broadcast FM radio around here, you should try listening to it yourself, maybe you'd hear something you like.
I never stopped listening to the radio (primarily while driving, because it's free and convenient and I can get a wide variety of content) just like I never stopped buying printed paper books, which by the way are better for you if you read in bed at night than if you're using an e-book reader with a backlight, which by the way can be dropped and break, or that you can forget to recharge, or that some author or publisher can (by mistake or by design) decide to yank back content you paid for, or decide to 'edit' (read as: censor) your content, and there is little to nothing you can do about it. Radio still has it's place in the world and it would be a sad thing indeed if broadcast radio went the way of the dinosaurs. You don't need to pay for a data plan or broadband internet access to listen to it, you don't need to be in range of a wifi hotspot or need a wireless signal, you don't need to create a playlist or be limited to whatever you loaded onto your PMP, and unless you're living in a small market, you have multiple stations you can switch to at the push of a button. Yes, there are commercials, but if they bother you that much that's a great use for the station presets on your car stereo, you can surf stations until you find something else to listen to.
I would think it just as likely that this sort of activity is being committed by 'useful idiots' as it would be from actual IS forces or their actual affiliates.
Best of luck to Anonymous in this.. but frankly I think they're probably better suited to 'declare war' on the guys who did the Sony break-in than they are against a militant terrorist organization like I.S., who has (apparently, and at least for the moment) deep pockets to obtain whatever it is they need to track down Anonymous members and cut their heads off.
As a sidebar to this discussion: What the actual fuck do you do about 'organizations' like the Zeta drug cartel that are, for all intents and purposes, the de-facto power in Mexico? Or have I given them more credit than they deserve, here?, because from what you read and hear in the news, it's like they're the de-facto power in Mexico, and even the combined forces of the Mexican military and their police force couldn't manage to wipe them out before they were wiped out.
It has to start with discontinuing dumping shit into the atmosphere that's screwing everything up, and we can't get everyone to do it. Then it comes out that a large pecentage of the problem is jet airliners and cattle of all things. No, we're not anywhere close to being able to 'engineer' this, we can't even stop fouling our own nest.
Great. I suppose this will also be part of the 'internet of things', too? Goodie, not the government will be able to 'calm down' the populace with the push of a button. Handy for quelling inconvenient things like public political protests, freedom of speech, etc. Politicians will LOVE it.
It's simple: You hack the OnStar crap right out of the car. At the very least, you locate the antenna it's using for it's (presumably cellular network) wireless connection, and you cut or otherwise disconnect the cable, preferably grounding it as well, effectively disabling the entire system. If possible, the OnStar hardware itself will be a separate module; then even easier, you just disconnect the entire module. In fact if it were I, and I was spending that much money on a new car, I'd insist as part of the agreement to purchase the vehicle, that the dealer disconnect it, and prove to me that it's been done, or I don't buy the car. I'll bet you money that they'd do it with little or no argument, because they're more interested in making a sale. Just spent a few minutes with Google and apparently there are model-specific instructions for disabling/removing OnStar. Also, there's this: Don't buy a car if it has OnStar in the first place. Enough people do that, they'll stop offering it. Make it clear you're not buying a particular model because it's got OnStar installed by default.
Actually familiar with the movie. Julie Christie getting railed by the hexagonal metal penis of the ultimate f**king machine, Proteus. So she can gestate a fleshy shell for himself to escape destruction into. Classic. Bizzarre, but classic.
Friend, there is nothing wrong with being a little paranoid, it's a survival trait.
I am heartened to see I'm not the only one who sees the massive problems technology like this can cause. We do not need every damn thing in our homes connected to the Internet.
If energy can neither be created or destroyed, only change forms, then what happens to the photons emitted by starts when those photons reach the edge of the Universe? I'm just looking for theories, here.
Want to know what's going on here? I'll tell you: Regardless of who did what, we (the U.S.) are using this as an excuse to slap sanctions on North Korea. Why am I not getting upset over this? Because Kim Jong Un and the entire North Korean government are a bunch of fucking assholes, and anything that can be done to make life more difficult for them is fine by me. Anybody really want to stick up for North Korea? Go ahead and try, I don't think you've got a leg to stand on.
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So how will you be feeling about having sold off this 'privacy' thing that you seem to value so little, when your health insurance premiums go through the roof because they know you like to drink Pepsi, which as everyone knows will lead to obesity and diabetes, and since you're one of those people who eat and drink unhealthy foods, you probably lead an overall unhealthy lifestyle, therefore heart disease is in your future too, and probably cancer -- therefore you're going to cost them a lot of money down the road -- therefore they charge you up the ass now, since you're such a big risk. Or maybe it's your life insurance company that raises your premium, or flat-out cancel your policy, since you're too big of a risk.
Sound outrageous? Think again. With every year that passes that people throw away more and more of their right to privacy, more and more profiling of people's lives, right, wrong, accurate, or inaccurate, is happening. That's been the trend, and if nobody says anything about it, it'll continue until scenarios like the above start happening. Or worse things.
Some of you people seem to lack reading comprehension: I do not have money for that, and even if I did, there are other things that are (shocking!!!) more important than building a new computer that I really don't need right now because the existing one does everything I need it to do. Why is that so hard for you to understand?
Why would I want something that I can't change any components of, and that if it breaks down I can't repair it? Desktop!
You could tell me that you have a pill I can swallow that will let me keep living a thousand years, but if it means I'm still going to get decrepit and still going to experience a steadily declining overall quality of life? Then I tell you 'no thanks'. If I can't be at least as strong and active as I am right now, then what's the point? If I'm going to steadily go blind, or become frail and weak, or worst of all: My mind is going to go, I forget who I am, everything, and everyone I know, and have to have attendants to keep me from wandering off? No fucking way, I'd rather eat a bullet. Now, if it's going to be like being on boosterspice (http://larryniven.wikia.com/wiki/Boosterspice) and I'm going to become younger, biologically similar to being 25 years old, and stay in that state of vigor so long as I can keep taking the stuff? Then I'm all in on it.
I'm still on XP, mainly because the box it's running on is almost 10 years old and running a single-core processor. I have other priorities for my money than building a new box just so I can run a newer OS. Not that I wouldn't like a faster, multi-core processor, mind you, but I just can't justify the expense when I have other things I'd rather spend the money on before that. Have to build it myself, too, no pre-built computers, and nothing non-upgradable like a NUC, either. I suppose Win 7 would run on this box OK, but I also don't want to have to go through all the hassle of upgrading and then having to re-install everything I've got installed right now. It works fine the way it is, it does everything I need it to do, and frankly I spend more time outside the house doing active things than I used to spend inside staring at a monitor and have benefitted thereby.
So you're willing to sell off your privacy for a few bucks? That's what you're doing if you didn't realize it. Same goes for any 'rewards club' type cards at retailers: You're giving them permission to gather personally identifiable data on you, for a few measly bucks. How does it feel knowing that there are complete strangers out there that think they know you because of the data they collect on you about purchasing habits? How will you feel about it when someone gets it wrong?
Why? Why, with everything that everyone knows about Facebook, all the privacy violations, all the obvious signs that they really don't give a rat's ass about the users, just the money that users' data can earn them, would anyone still be using Facebook? Is it willful ignorance? Or is it deep denial? Now, we find out: Facebook can and is being used to profile people. Come on, is this what you all really want?
Disregard Facebook. Take your life back.
I really have no idea what that even means, I don't watch sports.
Who gets to decide what is and is not 'hate speech', hmm? You may as well have some committee deciding for an entire planet what 'is' and 'is not' art. Oh, and of course no politician will ever use something like this to advance any agenda they might have, oh no! Keep up the good work, EU! You'll be living under Sharia Law before too long if you keep this up!
Terrorists: 1
European Union: 0
IDIOTS!
Gee, that's nice. But what makes you think they're not performing a 'man in the middle' attack on your personal preferences and tastes by injecting something they're being paid to try to get you to like? There is no invasion of privacy or crime being committed if they do that, and it can easily be dismissed as their algorithm hiccupping and feeding you something you didn't really want -- or you can go "Gee, I kinda like that too, thanks Pandora!" and their mission is accomplished. Kind of like broadcast radio. Yes, I have no proof of this -- but it's plausible. So how is something that requires you to PAY for access (data plan on wireless, or internet access at home) better than something that comes OTA for free? Yes, radio has commercials -- but you can always switch stations if it bugs you that much. You're dismissing broadcast radio out-of-hand for no good reason. Oh and don't call me a Luddite (although most people don't use the term correctly), I tried Pandora, and found it annoying. The deal-breaker was when it wouldn't let me skip more than so-many selections per hour, essentially forcing me to listen to what it wanted me to hear. At that point I may as well just listen to whatever MP3s/AACs I had around -- or turn on the radio again.
as all the radio stations simply play the same song over and over
You mean like you do with your PMP, or that internet streaming radio stations do? You simply do not know what you're talking about because you simply do not listen to broadcast radio so how would you know? The closest reality comes to your uninformed view of it would be a Top-10 station, and by the way my gym uses satellite radio and the Top-10 channels on that are the most annoying and vapid thing I've ever heard and I know of no Top-10 broadcast radio stations in my market, which is not by any definition of the word a 'small' market for radio. There is new music all the time on broadcast FM radio around here, you should try listening to it yourself, maybe you'd hear something you like.
I never stopped listening to the radio (primarily while driving, because it's free and convenient and I can get a wide variety of content) just like I never stopped buying printed paper books, which by the way are better for you if you read in bed at night than if you're using an e-book reader with a backlight, which by the way can be dropped and break, or that you can forget to recharge, or that some author or publisher can (by mistake or by design) decide to yank back content you paid for, or decide to 'edit' (read as: censor) your content, and there is little to nothing you can do about it. Radio still has it's place in the world and it would be a sad thing indeed if broadcast radio went the way of the dinosaurs. You don't need to pay for a data plan or broadband internet access to listen to it, you don't need to be in range of a wifi hotspot or need a wireless signal, you don't need to create a playlist or be limited to whatever you loaded onto your PMP, and unless you're living in a small market, you have multiple stations you can switch to at the push of a button. Yes, there are commercials, but if they bother you that much that's a great use for the station presets on your car stereo, you can surf stations until you find something else to listen to.
I would think it just as likely that this sort of activity is being committed by 'useful idiots' as it would be from actual IS forces or their actual affiliates.
Best of luck to Anonymous in this.. but frankly I think they're probably better suited to 'declare war' on the guys who did the Sony break-in than they are against a militant terrorist organization like I.S., who has (apparently, and at least for the moment) deep pockets to obtain whatever it is they need to track down Anonymous members and cut their heads off.
As a sidebar to this discussion: What the actual fuck do you do about 'organizations' like the Zeta drug cartel that are, for all intents and purposes, the de-facto power in Mexico? Or have I given them more credit than they deserve, here?, because from what you read and hear in the news, it's like they're the de-facto power in Mexico, and even the combined forces of the Mexican military and their police force couldn't manage to wipe them out before they were wiped out.
It has to start with discontinuing dumping shit into the atmosphere that's screwing everything up, and we can't get everyone to do it. Then it comes out that a large pecentage of the problem is jet airliners and cattle of all things. No, we're not anywhere close to being able to 'engineer' this, we can't even stop fouling our own nest.
Yes, it is. If you aren't, then you're not paying attention.
Great. I suppose this will also be part of the 'internet of things', too? Goodie, not the government will be able to 'calm down' the populace with the push of a button. Handy for quelling inconvenient things like public political protests, freedom of speech, etc. Politicians will LOVE it.
It's simple: You hack the OnStar crap right out of the car. At the very least, you locate the antenna it's using for it's (presumably cellular network) wireless connection, and you cut or otherwise disconnect the cable, preferably grounding it as well, effectively disabling the entire system. If possible, the OnStar hardware itself will be a separate module; then even easier, you just disconnect the entire module. In fact if it were I, and I was spending that much money on a new car, I'd insist as part of the agreement to purchase the vehicle, that the dealer disconnect it, and prove to me that it's been done, or I don't buy the car. I'll bet you money that they'd do it with little or no argument, because they're more interested in making a sale. Just spent a few minutes with Google and apparently there are model-specific instructions for disabling/removing OnStar. Also, there's this: Don't buy a car if it has OnStar in the first place. Enough people do that, they'll stop offering it. Make it clear you're not buying a particular model because it's got OnStar installed by default.
Actually familiar with the movie. Julie Christie getting railed by the hexagonal metal penis of the ultimate f**king machine, Proteus. So she can gestate a fleshy shell for himself to escape destruction into. Classic. Bizzarre, but classic.
You're preaching to the choir here; I am agreeing with you.
Friend, there is nothing wrong with being a little paranoid, it's a survival trait.
I am heartened to see I'm not the only one who sees the massive problems technology like this can cause. We do not need every damn thing in our homes connected to the Internet.
Get murdered in your own house by -- you guessed it! -- the house itself!
..or, at the very least: Your house becomes one big surveillance platform to watch your every move. "Don't be evil", indeed!
If energy can neither be created or destroyed, only change forms, then what happens to the photons emitted by starts when those photons reach the edge of the Universe? I'm just looking for theories, here.
Want to know what's going on here? I'll tell you: Regardless of who did what, we (the U.S.) are using this as an excuse to slap sanctions on North Korea. Why am I not getting upset over this? Because Kim Jong Un and the entire North Korean government are a bunch of fucking assholes, and anything that can be done to make life more difficult for them is fine by me. Anybody really want to stick up for North Korea? Go ahead and try, I don't think you've got a leg to stand on.
Maybe not, but if this is true then shoudn't we be focusing our efforts towards a replacement for jet engines that burn fossil fuel?