Before you grab your shotguns and crossbows, remember that there are nearly a half-a-million radio-control plane enthusiasts out here in the countryside and we're NOT trying to spy on you. But we will send you a lawsuit and a big bill if you shoot down our planes....;-)
OK, so don't fly your toys over other people's property, without permission.
Proven ineffective. "Sit-in" today means "Wait to be assaulted and arrested by Stasi forces."
Seriously, how many times do we have to be beaten down and have our soapboxes destroyed by government agents, before we collectively admit that it's a failed method of enacting change?
You don't need to jeopardize equipment in the air -- or people on the ground when you inevitably miss -- to make a political statement. That's the definition of terrorism.
terrorism - the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
Hmm, nothing there about damaging equipment or causing accidental injuries... in fact, your statements seem more terroristic than those you're replying to, since you're apparently trying to frighten (read: terrorize) people into not opposing the government (who, by definition, is also a terrorist organization).
It probably wouldn't be beyond the realm of conceivability that some smart ass "Engineer In A Garage" doesn't build a guided model rocket with visual or other acquisition tech with off-the-shelf technology - and at least manages to splash the thing with paint. No high-explosive - just a way to say "You've been pwned!"
I know some guys who are working on a DIY drone-based EMP platform; essentially, the drone will identify other drones, fly within range, then set off an EM burst and take itself and the target down. I suggested using a HERF gun instead of making the drones disposable, but apparently the equipment would be too heavy for the airframe.
Is this just a fun gimmick, or a serious commentary on an increasingly surveillance based society?
Dunno but If they really do pass a law like that I'll be up there in a flash with my WWII vintage Mustang shooting down Predator/Reaper drones left right and center.
Put a couple GoPro's on that beast, and you'll be the toast of YouTube overnight! I know I'd subscribe.
She did not purposefully release that this was her pseudonym, so kind of a bad example. There have been numerous news posts today about how she's "mad" at the PR firm that "leaked" the info...
The saga has a strange parallel with one of the plot lines in The Cuckoo's Calling — a supermodel, Lula Landry, hounded by press and fans, is driven into a paranoid panic wondering which of her friends was leaking her secrets to the press.
What a coincidence, at least to people who believe in such things.
I feel the definitions of basic words have been bent to to the point of breaking and are now meaningless.
See: Treason Aiding Enemy Terrorism Militant combatant Mass destruction, and weapons thereof War
Remember that crazy fucker who shot up the senator in Arizona? There was an open floor at some point prior where he asked the senator: "What is government if words have no meaning?" It's a ludicrous thing to ask a senator in that sort of format, more of a philosophical starter over diner with friends, and he's balls-to-the-walls crazy, but that fucker had a point. The government is run on laws. The rule of law is written down. With words. But if you can twist those words to mean whatever you want them to mean... that's the same thing as not having any laws.
You won't hear any disagreement from me on that point, I've been making it myself for years.
We can fix the NSA. We don't have to disband it entirely. We don't have to charge all of it's employees with treason. We can make sure it's operations are only legal ones. Really, all it would take is Obama saying: "NSA, what you're doing is too close to violating the 4th admendment. Stop it".
Problem is, why have the NSA in the first place? Foreign espionage is supposed to be covered by the CIA, and the FBI is supposed to handle interior issues, so why is there an NSA to begin with if not for the explicit purpose of end-running the rule of law, creating a feifdom for some well-connected people, and/or, essentially, stealing money from taxpayers?
To suggest that we lynch them all is such an overreaction as to be suspicious. Seriously, are you some sort of NSA agent provocateur just trying to make us look like bloodthirsty barbarians?
Hey, you know what's sad? That you posted such a good rant on the problems with government and arbitrary definitions of words, then you say this in response to my belief that they should be tried for treason.
Do you really believe the legal process in this country is so fucked that trial == lynching? Or perhaps you're overreacting to something I said that you happen to dislike?
No idea why Android users think the ability to revoke a permission is not important.
Really? You pretty much call it right there - they're users, not devs, so their knowledge of the technology is limited. Nobody's told them why it's important, so they don't know or care.
Which is completely understandable, and not a reason to be jerks to them or treat them like idiots (not saying that's what you've done, but you have to admit it's a common behavior among the technologically experienced). After all, no one expects you to be an expert on hydraulics and internal combustion just because you use a car, do they?
If my guess is right about their reason, I couldn't agree more with your objection. But this is the reason you sometimes find police "safety" inspections in poor neighborhoods. If you let them in to check and make sure everything is okay in your house then they can argue you've consented to a search. Of course, their standards for consent are sometimes comparable to those of an unscrupulous drunken frat boy, but this is why the wise deny consent to the police in so many words from the beginning.
Verily; I've always felt the six most important words to remember when dealing with government agents are, "I do not consent to searches."
Sure I do, although we might not be in agreement on the qualifications.
Treason - aiding enemies of America, right? OK, so per the Constitution, our government is Of, For, and By the People. Thus, any enemy of the People is, effectively, an enemy of America.
As the NSA and other government agents have taken to treating the American People like enemies, they have in fact unwittingly declared themselves enemies of America, and thus, their actions are treason.
See, there's the breakdown: you think I don't know what treason is, and I feel you don't know how our government is supposed to work.
OK, so set up the open side with a captive portal that requires agreement to a terms of service that declares the operator of the network free from responsibility for what users of the network do.
Like every other person/company that offers free wifi. At least, the ones smart enough to cover their own asses.
We found out it happened to her because she valet parked her car. Those are the only cars that get inspected. So if security feels it is necessary to search some cars in the name of safety, why not search all of them?
They'd probably like to be able to search any car that comes to the airport. Even so, I imagine they restrict searches to valet parked cars for two reasons: 1) they've the keys in hand and so it's easy; 2) more importantly, some lawyer probably told them that they could make the case in court that valet parked cars have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
What bullshit - just because I give one person permission to park my car does not imply that I'm also giving them and the whole goddamn world permission to go through my shit.
Just one more reason you'll never find me in an airport. I'll fuckin' walk to another continent before I let some high-school dropout rifle through my personal effects.
Living in Rochester, I actually caught this on a local news station and there was a lot more information. The concern... [is] that the searching is being done by the valets instead of TSA or law enforcement. These individuals (at the moment) are not trained and have no oversight.
Wait, I thought you said the TSA wasn't doing the searches...
What cause do we have to believe them? They've been lying to us about surveillance for at least 8 years, probably much, much longer.
Oh, right, we're just supposed to take their word for it, because they've been so goddamn trustworthy up to this point, haven't they?
Fuck these pieces of shit. Disband their organization, and charge every single employee and contractor with high treason. It's the only way to make things right.
Ah, well, there's the problem - they keep trying to put the APs on homeless people, when they quite obviously should be implanting APs IN the homeless!
so everyone should have an open guest network open to the world (or NSA at least)?
Why, that's a swell idea...
Why not?
BTW, in case you haven't been paying attention, the NSA is intercepting communications at the ISP level, so whether or not you're using secure wifi doesn't really matter to them.
The article says 4.2 sec 0-60 for a Model S, whereas a TDI is 8.7 according to zeroto60times.com.
How does that kind of acceleration affect total range? Valid concern with electrics, not so important with decently-powered IC engines.
A vehicle that runs 150,000 miles at 40mpg will burn 3750 gals. Assuming a $4/gal average that is $15,000.
Over the course of how many years? We'll use me as an example - my VW is driven about 30,000 mi/yr, so I'll spend that over about 5 years. The car cost $28,000 as equipped, so TCO over 5 years including fuel and excluding maintenance comes to $43,000, still much, much cheaper than the low end S (Plus, I can go almost 500 miles on a single "charge"), and mine is a top-of-the-line model, save the satnav system. It's less than half the cost of the comparable S model.
The batteries in the Telsa have to be swapped what, every decade? Per the Tesla Motors forum:
Tesla has said that the replacement cost is about $30,000. That being said, you can buy the pre-paid replacement option for $12,000. The reason for the discrepency is due to the fact that the expected life of the battery is about 10 years at which the future value of the $12,000 upfront is closer to $15,000.
Granted, that's for the Roadster, but we can assume a similar cost in the S for discussion's sake.
OK, so we take the base cost of ~$87,000 for the top-end S (since my Jetta is top-end as well, it would be intellectually dishonest to compare it to the base model S), plus another $15,000 for batteries, TCO over 10 years including fuel and excluding maintenance comes out to just over $100,000. The Jetta TDI over the same period costs about $58,000, or almost half as much.
Hell, I could buy a decked-out Tiguan with the savings alone!
The Model S includes free lifetime use of their supercharger network, otherwise admittedly you will be paying for electricity.
Which is nice, if those superchargers are ubiquitous where you live. I live in MO, on the Ozark Plateau... never even seen a supercharger, and even if I do, they'll be in the major cities (STL, KC, Springfield, maybe Rolla); fine for urban dwellers, not so convenient for we rural folks.
For the record, I looked it up on the Tesla website, and the charging time on standard 120v for someone that drives a mere 60 miles a day comes out to over 10 hours of charging time. Jump to 240v and the charging time drops to less than 2 hours (really? double the power and take 75% off the time? How does that work?), but that also means paying for someone to install a new outlet, any legal requirements like permits, etc, that I can't or just don't want to figure right now.
I think a Jetta is a good car.
I think the Tesla is an OK car, and I have nothing against electrics in general. I just don't buy into the OMFGLECTRICS hype, and especially considering Mr. Musk's well-publicized inability to handle criticism, I question the veracity of their claims. Oh, and spending almost a hundred grand on a vehicle that is easily surpassed by one that costs almost a quarter as much.
Of course, I never bought an iPhone either.
I am simply pointing out that sticker price is not the whole story, particularly for electric cars.
Now there is an understatement if I ever saw one.
Side note: I got a real kick out of their "How Do I Take A Road Trip?" point on the Top 5 Questions page (keep in mind, my natural state of being essentially boils down to 'cynical asshole who thinks he's funny'):
After an exhilarating few hours on the road, you’ll be READY FOR A PIT STOP
?
You don't know me, bitch. I once drove from STL to PHX non-stop, save for fueling up (which took all of 5 minutes each time, BTW
The VW premium sedan is called Phaeton. Passat is a mid-range sedan, Jetta is just a sedan version of the compact car called Golf.
Considering the vast differences between a Golf and a Jetta, along with the sub-standard materials used in the Passat, I don't buy that description. Any official literature you can verify your claims with? I'm genuinely curious now.
There's no point in making a price comparison that completely ignores fueling costs, which is what you just did.
OK, my TDI costs about $25/wk to drive ~500 miles. Oh, and I can fuel it up pretty much anywhere. OH, and it only takes around 120 second to go from empty to full.
How do those specs compare with Tesla's comparable model, the S?
Moreover the Tesla gets from 0-60 in half the time of a Jetta TDI.
Which Tesla? Roadster? Surely you're not comparing a 2 door sports car to a 4 door family sedan? Not to mention, how does that kind of acceleration affect total range?
You wanna talk mileage? Eff that - let's talk range.
VW sells the Passat as a premium luxury sedan; I sat in one, and it felt as cheap as it looked.
The Jetta is considered a 'mid-range' sedan, and the minute I got in I could tell a marked difference in material quality over the Passat.
I've ridden in Beemers and Mercs, and they didn't seem any nicer on the inside than my V-Dub. Sure, lots more fancy electronics and safety features (does your BMW have that iDrive system? If so, what do you think of it?), but material quality (plastics, leather) seemed about the same. That matters a lot more to me than how many electric ge-gaws a car comes equipped with.
YMMV... speaking of which, what kind of mileage does the BMW get? My TDI goes 40-60 MPG, easy (another major selling factor, since we tend to drive about 30,000 mi/yr)
Slashdot Mirror
Before you grab your shotguns and crossbows, remember that there are nearly a half-a-million radio-control plane enthusiasts out here in the countryside and we're NOT trying to spy on you. But we will send you a lawsuit and a big bill if you shoot down our planes.... ;-)
OK, so don't fly your toys over other people's property, without permission.
Problem solved.
You want to do civil disobedience, stage a sit-in
Proven ineffective. "Sit-in" today means "Wait to be assaulted and arrested by Stasi forces."
Seriously, how many times do we have to be beaten down and have our soapboxes destroyed by government agents, before we collectively admit that it's a failed method of enacting change?
You don't need to jeopardize equipment in the air -- or people on the ground when you inevitably miss -- to make a political statement. That's the definition of terrorism.
Is it? From Websters:
Hmm, nothing there about damaging equipment or causing accidental injuries... in fact, your statements seem more terroristic than those you're replying to, since you're apparently trying to frighten (read: terrorize) people into not opposing the government (who, by definition, is also a terrorist organization).
Food for thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_40_mm_gun
Range:
Model L/60: 7,160 m (23,490 ft)
Model L/70: 12,500 m (41,000 ft)
Legal for civilian ownership.
It probably wouldn't be beyond the realm of conceivability that some smart ass "Engineer In A Garage" doesn't build a guided model rocket with visual or other acquisition tech with off-the-shelf technology - and at least manages to splash the thing with paint. No high-explosive - just a way to say "You've been pwned!"
I know some guys who are working on a DIY drone-based EMP platform; essentially, the drone will identify other drones, fly within range, then set off an EM burst and take itself and the target down. I suggested using a HERF gun instead of making the drones disposable, but apparently the equipment would be too heavy for the airframe.
Is this just a fun gimmick, or a serious commentary on an increasingly surveillance based society?
Dunno but If they really do pass a law like that I'll be up there in a flash with my WWII vintage Mustang shooting down Predator/Reaper drones left right and center.
Put a couple GoPro's on that beast, and you'll be the toast of YouTube overnight! I know I'd subscribe.
P51 == pure awesome in a can
Encouraging destruction of government property...
With a population of 550, Deer Trail, CO could suddenly find itself a bunch of empty buildings if Washington wished it.
At which point the government will have made those crazy ass militia types some of the most sane people in the country.
They're already doing just that - murdering an entire town for opposing their rule would merely fast-track the process.
Why are you mentioning this here? As you say, you've already posted this idea many times to /., and gotten a good amount of feedback.
I'm developing the impression that Bennett Haselton is one of those people who talks, at length, but seldom says anything worth listening to.
After his anti-Fifth Amendment diatribe, taking this pontificating narcissist seriously has become impossible.
She did not purposefully release that this was her pseudonym, so kind of a bad example. There have been numerous news posts today about how she's "mad" at the PR firm that "leaked" the info...
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/07/19/203548818/book-news-j-k-rowling-very-angry-that-law-firm-leaked-her-name
FTFY, you forgot the scare quotes.
Funny side note, from the article you linked:
What a coincidence, at least to people who believe in such things.
I feel the definitions of basic words have been bent to to the point of breaking and are now meaningless.
See:
Treason
Aiding
Enemy
Terrorism
Militant combatant
Mass destruction, and weapons thereof
War
Remember that crazy fucker who shot up the senator in Arizona? There was an open floor at some point prior where he asked the senator:
"What is government if words have no meaning?"
It's a ludicrous thing to ask a senator in that sort of format, more of a philosophical starter over diner with friends, and he's balls-to-the-walls crazy, but that fucker had a point. The government is run on laws. The rule of law is written down. With words. But if you can twist those words to mean whatever you want them to mean... that's the same thing as not having any laws.
You won't hear any disagreement from me on that point, I've been making it myself for years.
We can fix the NSA. We don't have to disband it entirely. We don't have to charge all of it's employees with treason. We can make sure it's operations are only legal ones. Really, all it would take is Obama saying: "NSA, what you're doing is too close to violating the 4th admendment. Stop it".
Problem is, why have the NSA in the first place? Foreign espionage is supposed to be covered by the CIA, and the FBI is supposed to handle interior issues, so why is there an NSA to begin with if not for the explicit purpose of end-running the rule of law, creating a feifdom for some well-connected people, and/or, essentially, stealing money from taxpayers?
To suggest that we lynch them all is such an overreaction as to be suspicious. Seriously, are you some sort of NSA agent provocateur just trying to make us look like bloodthirsty barbarians?
Hey, you know what's sad? That you posted such a good rant on the problems with government and arbitrary definitions of words, then you say this in response to my belief that they should be tried for treason.
Do you really believe the legal process in this country is so fucked that trial == lynching? Or perhaps you're overreacting to something I said that you happen to dislike?
Do you see what I did there?
No idea why Android users think the ability to revoke a permission is not important.
Really? You pretty much call it right there - they're users, not devs, so their knowledge of the technology is limited. Nobody's told them why it's important, so they don't know or care.
Which is completely understandable, and not a reason to be jerks to them or treat them like idiots (not saying that's what you've done, but you have to admit it's a common behavior among the technologically experienced). After all, no one expects you to be an expert on hydraulics and internal combustion just because you use a car, do they?
Or turn on airplane mode.
If my guess is right about their reason, I couldn't agree more with your objection. But this is the reason you sometimes find police "safety" inspections in poor neighborhoods. If you let them in to check and make sure everything is okay in your house then they can argue you've consented to a search. Of course, their standards for consent are sometimes comparable to those of an unscrupulous drunken frat boy, but this is why the wise deny consent to the police in so many words from the beginning.
Verily; I've always felt the six most important words to remember when dealing with government agents are, "I do not consent to searches."
Sure I do, although we might not be in agreement on the qualifications.
Treason - aiding enemies of America, right? OK, so per the Constitution, our government is Of, For, and By the People. Thus, any enemy of the People is, effectively, an enemy of America.
As the NSA and other government agents have taken to treating the American People like enemies, they have in fact unwittingly declared themselves enemies of America, and thus, their actions are treason.
See, there's the breakdown: you think I don't know what treason is, and I feel you don't know how our government is supposed to work.
OK, so set up the open side with a captive portal that requires agreement to a terms of service that declares the operator of the network free from responsibility for what users of the network do.
Like every other person/company that offers free wifi. At least, the ones smart enough to cover their own asses.
Yea, no shit. Thanks, Captain Obvious, almost didn't recognize you without the mask and cape.
Sorry for having a sense of humor (oh, wait, no - I'm not sorry at all)
FTA:
They'd probably like to be able to search any car that comes to the airport. Even so, I imagine they restrict searches to valet parked cars for two reasons: 1) they've the keys in hand and so it's easy; 2) more importantly, some lawyer probably told them that they could make the case in court that valet parked cars have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
What bullshit - just because I give one person permission to park my car does not imply that I'm also giving them and the whole goddamn world permission to go through my shit.
Just one more reason you'll never find me in an airport. I'll fuckin' walk to another continent before I let some high-school dropout rifle through my personal effects.
Living in Rochester, I actually caught this on a local news station and there was a lot more information. The concern... [is] that the searching is being done by the valets instead of TSA or law enforcement. These individuals (at the moment) are not trained and have no oversight.
Wait, I thought you said the TSA wasn't doing the searches...
In a house hearing Wednesday the NSA admitted
What cause do we have to believe them? They've been lying to us about surveillance for at least 8 years, probably much, much longer.
Oh, right, we're just supposed to take their word for it, because they've been so goddamn trustworthy up to this point, haven't they?
Fuck these pieces of shit. Disband their organization, and charge every single employee and contractor with high treason. It's the only way to make things right.
Alcohol has quite a bit of chemical energy.
Ah, well, there's the problem - they keep trying to put the APs on homeless people, when they quite obviously should be implanting APs IN the homeless!
... small box... blinking led on top... sits on top of Big Ben...
So... the TARDIS?
COOL
Postscript: I've tried getting into that I.T. Crowd show, but it doesn't seem to be able to hold my attention.
so everyone should have an open guest network open to the world (or NSA at least)?
Why, that's a swell idea...
Why not?
BTW, in case you haven't been paying attention, the NSA is intercepting communications at the ISP level, so whether or not you're using secure wifi doesn't really matter to them.
The article says 4.2 sec 0-60 for a Model S, whereas a TDI is 8.7 according to zeroto60times.com.
How does that kind of acceleration affect total range? Valid concern with electrics, not so important with decently-powered IC engines.
A vehicle that runs 150,000 miles at 40mpg will burn 3750 gals. Assuming a $4/gal average that is $15,000.
Over the course of how many years? We'll use me as an example - my VW is driven about 30,000 mi/yr, so I'll spend that over about 5 years. The car cost $28,000 as equipped, so TCO over 5 years including fuel and excluding maintenance comes to $43,000, still much, much cheaper than the low end S (Plus, I can go almost 500 miles on a single "charge"), and mine is a top-of-the-line model, save the satnav system. It's less than half the cost of the comparable S model.
The batteries in the Telsa have to be swapped what, every decade? Per the Tesla Motors forum:
Granted, that's for the Roadster, but we can assume a similar cost in the S for discussion's sake.
OK, so we take the base cost of ~$87,000 for the top-end S (since my Jetta is top-end as well, it would be intellectually dishonest to compare it to the base model S), plus another $15,000 for batteries, TCO over 10 years including fuel and excluding maintenance comes out to just over $100,000. The Jetta TDI over the same period costs about $58,000, or almost half as much.
Hell, I could buy a decked-out Tiguan with the savings alone!
The Model S includes free lifetime use of their supercharger network, otherwise admittedly you will be paying for electricity.
Which is nice, if those superchargers are ubiquitous where you live. I live in MO, on the Ozark Plateau... never even seen a supercharger, and even if I do, they'll be in the major cities (STL, KC, Springfield, maybe Rolla); fine for urban dwellers, not so convenient for we rural folks.
For the record, I looked it up on the Tesla website, and the charging time on standard 120v for someone that drives a mere 60 miles a day comes out to over 10 hours of charging time. Jump to 240v and the charging time drops to less than 2 hours (really? double the power and take 75% off the time? How does that work?), but that also means paying for someone to install a new outlet, any legal requirements like permits, etc, that I can't or just don't want to figure right now.
I think a Jetta is a good car.
I think the Tesla is an OK car, and I have nothing against electrics in general. I just don't buy into the OMFGLECTRICS hype, and especially considering Mr. Musk's well-publicized inability to handle criticism, I question the veracity of their claims. Oh, and spending almost a hundred grand on a vehicle that is easily surpassed by one that costs almost a quarter as much.
Of course, I never bought an iPhone either.
I am simply pointing out that sticker price is not the whole story, particularly for electric cars.
Now there is an understatement if I ever saw one.
Side note: I got a real kick out of their "How Do I Take A Road Trip?" point on the Top 5 Questions page (keep in mind, my natural state of being essentially boils down to 'cynical asshole who thinks he's funny'):
?
You don't know me, bitch. I once drove from STL to PHX non-stop, save for fueling up (which took all of 5 minutes each time, BTW
Are you sure about that?
No, no I am not.
The VW premium sedan is called Phaeton. Passat is a mid-range sedan, Jetta is just a sedan version of the compact car called Golf.
Considering the vast differences between a Golf and a Jetta, along with the sub-standard materials used in the Passat, I don't buy that description. Any official literature you can verify your claims with? I'm genuinely curious now.
There's no point in making a price comparison that completely ignores fueling costs, which is what you just did.
OK, my TDI costs about $25/wk to drive ~500 miles. Oh, and I can fuel it up pretty much anywhere. OH, and it only takes around 120 second to go from empty to full.
How do those specs compare with Tesla's comparable model, the S?
Moreover the Tesla gets from 0-60 in half the time of a Jetta TDI.
Which Tesla? Roadster? Surely you're not comparing a 2 door sports car to a 4 door family sedan? Not to mention, how does that kind of acceleration affect total range?
You wanna talk mileage? Eff that - let's talk range.
Meh.
VW sells the Passat as a premium luxury sedan; I sat in one, and it felt as cheap as it looked.
The Jetta is considered a 'mid-range' sedan, and the minute I got in I could tell a marked difference in material quality over the Passat.
I've ridden in Beemers and Mercs, and they didn't seem any nicer on the inside than my V-Dub. Sure, lots more fancy electronics and safety features (does your BMW have that iDrive system? If so, what do you think of it?), but material quality (plastics, leather) seemed about the same. That matters a lot more to me than how many electric ge-gaws a car comes equipped with.
YMMV... speaking of which, what kind of mileage does the BMW get? My TDI goes 40-60 MPG, easy (another major selling factor, since we tend to drive about 30,000 mi/yr)