They kept MKULTRA a secret for a long time didn't they. And most of the subprojects are still undefined. If you underestimate the military industrial complex's ability to keep a secret if it's really important to them then you need to go re-read your history books about this part of our goverment.
Yes, lots of things have been kept secret for quite some time. I don't need a condescending pointer to the history books to understand that ULTRA, VENONA, etc. had very successful security. But you need to understand that the scope of those projects pales in comparison to keeping the massive amounts of UFO "evidence" that people seem to think exist secret. The people involved with the best kept secrets in history were professionals with a job to do. Not to mention that there was little worry about widespread panic and hysteria if those secrets leaked out. Now imagine the massive amounts of people that would have to keep their mouths shut to keep UFOs secret. Almost every single one just having had their comprehension of the universe rocked ina major way, with family to worry about. Keep in mind that the probability of a secret being blown is directly proportional toe the SQUARE of the number of people that know about it. I simply cannot accept that our government could keep a secret of that magnitude, for that period of time, over decades and generations (not to mention different Administrations).
I would take it a step further and look at it this way:
You think the government has been tracking UFOs for decades? You think we have evidence of UFOs? Hell, you think we actually HAVE UFOs? And you think the government's kept this completely secret for decades? Come on! They can't keep it a secret when the President's getting a hummer in his own office! To borrow a line from Dennis Miller: "The states can't even pave fucking ROADS!"
No one knows what really happened, but I can guess: They turned on some kind of super radio transmitter, immediately microwaving a lot of their crew. The people who weren't in cooking range suffered weird side effects and hallucinations, the people who were in range got cooked. People on shore who were in range probably got dizzy, or maybe suffered a blackout, or god knows what-all. When their power system got fried, the whatever-it-was shut off, and whoever was left alive was like, "Oh, FUCK, that hurt. What the FUCK was THAT?" And, there ya go!;)
It's one of my favorite "It's not a conspiracy, it's stupidity" stories...
Ok, can't tell you where I heard this (can't remember, Straight Dope?) But my understanding is that it was even stupider than that. They WERE trying to make the ship invisible (at least to radar) and ran a pretty good jolt through the entire ship itself, intentionally. Knocked out most of the electronics, as well as the crew. So the ship is now adrift. The crew wakes up, not knowing how long they were out, and "HEY!! We're somewhere else!" Someone on shore shows them a watch, they figure it out, but it's hard to kill a good story.
Why did you expect help or any action at all from law enforcement? You're a consumer^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcitizen, the laws are not in place to help YOU. The law is there to protect corporations and special interests. Now quit wasting our govt agencies valuable time and sit back down in front of the TV. No skipping the commercials, either. (wanna bet when THOSE laws are passed that they're enforced?)
Some folks have a serious misunderstanding of artistry. Creating art is giving life to your imagination. Art is creating something that wasn't there before, even if it is a new vision of something one's seen a million times.
Ok, your art is filmmaking. You've made the film, that is your art. Art is NOT forcing others to share your vision. Yout want to create art, fine! You've done it, how _I_ interpret or enjoy your art (or not) is up to ME. You have a right to create your art, you have NO right to force your art upon me. And if you sell your art to me, it becomes mine. If I choose to experience it in a different way than you intended, that is MY art. Don't want it changed, don't sell it. That's the difference between art and business.
Wow, a crude and offensive rant and I can't argue against any of it.;-)
What is it with me (and a lot of others apparently) that our government and businesses are making me angrier and more frustrated every day? Am I getting less patient and understanding? Or less naive and gullible? Now I know why so many people are sheep who blindly go where they're led and take what's being fed them, it's much easier on the blood pressure. But dammit, I just can't put the blinders on, and I can't forget what I've already seen.
Yes, but your dad's ship was almost entirely cargo hold. We're talking about a ship designed and built to carry over a thousand people. Berthing, food storage, waste systems, etc. on a vastly larger scale than even a supertanker. Even if you don't use most of it, these items are all part of larger systems and have to be maintained. So, while you could eliminate all of the weapons and combat-related crews, along with a large percentage of the positions dedicated to serving a large crew, you've still got a LOT more people than a cargo ship or tanker designed to carry only a few dozen.
# licensing drivers of cars and pilots of airplanes # food handing regulations, along with restaurant inspections # environmental legislation # regulations governing the handling of explosives, hazardous chemicals, biological agents and radioactive materials
[sigh]
Nothing you've listed involves restricting basic human rights. There is nothing in the Constitution about hazardous materials or operating a restaurant, but PLENTY about freedom from unfair or arbitrary detention or punishment.
Liberty == inalienable rights.
Liberty != everything under the sun you feel like doing.
Universal Health Care? Ask a few Canadians about that. Then compare the number of Americans going to Canada for medical treatment with the number of Canadians headed south.
Government-sponsored health care may work in principle, but the Canadian model is NOT the way to go about it.
I can honestly say that I haven't seen any (direct, observable) effect on my day-to-day life. I suspect that the vast majority of Americans would probably say the same, and this is what worries me the most. We are rushing to sacrifice the rights and freedoms of OTHERS for OUR "safety". This is why poll after poll shows Americans willing to sacrifice their rights and freedoms, because they beleive it won't affect them, only someone else. Why don't people realize how quickly they can become the "someone else"?
Changing cards to cPCI or similar would not be nearly as dramatic/traumatic as doing the same for drives. A change like that to card form factors would result in a motherboard layout that is similar to what we have today, in layout as well as size. The major difference is the access to the cards themselves. But drives do not connect directly to the motherboard, they use a cable of some sort. In most cases multiple internal drives share a single connector on the motherboard. Doing the same for drives as some (including me) would like to see for cards would require a dramatic expansion of the motherboard, or the addition of a large riser or daughterboard. This would be a step backwards in the quest for compactness as well as simplicity and ease of manufacture/economy. Besides, you lose a lot in flexibility. When I ran out of connectors on my SCSI cable, I bought a longer cable. When you run out of drive ports on your riser board, you are SOL, time to spend more on externals and dangle a few cables on the outside, not to mention power bricks, etc.
> The Ring's power is not to turn people invisible (though it can do that). It's to amplify the bearer and give him what (he thinks) he wants.
No, the Ring was made to hold much of Sauron's power and to control the wearers of the other Rings of Power. Read the book, you'll see that that is the reason that the bearers of the Elf Rings removed theirs immediately when Sauron put his on.
> Frodo also puts the Ring on during times he wants to be invisible (in the Prancing Pony, or when trying to escape Ringwraiths, etc.) So it makes him invisible.
Back to the book again. Frodo does not put the Ring on in The Prancing Pony, it slips onto his finger to reveal itself to those who are looking for it. It is trying to return to Sauron, remember? It turns him invisible at a bad time, not what he would want.
Yes, you can watch the movie without reading the book, but you have to take it for what it is, and at face value. If you're going to ask deeper questions, such as:
> Why didn't Sauron turn invisible when he wore the ring?
You have to read the book. Although it makes no mention of Sauron turning invisible when he wore the Ring, the answer is clearly implied in the Tom Bombadil sequence. Frodo asked Gandalf why Tom didn't turn invisible when HE wore the Ring. Gandalf replied that it was not because Tom had any power over the Ring, but because the Ring had no power over HIM. I would imagine that the Ring would have no power over Sauron either, Sauron being its maker and the source of its power.
(Wow, it's amazing what sticks in the mind, even after twenty some-odd years! Of course, read anything that many times and you'll be hard-pressed to forget it no matter how hard you try.)
The problem with this, and all other hard drive-based backup solutions, is that the hard drive is still on-line on the system. A power surge or failure in the wrong place and your initial backup is toast. And since you're only doing incremental backups from that point, you aren't backing up most system files and applications, which are usually pretty static. To be even reasonably secure and reliable, backups need an off-line component.
Periodically ghosting to another hard drive, then backing that drive up to tape gives the best of both worlds. You have the data online availible for immediate restoration, and you have offline, older backups in case of system problems, virus issues, or simply deleting a file. If that's too expensive, the off-line-only solution is preferable.
CD-R/CD-RW are too slow and too small, plan on spending a day or so swapping disks. You can always mirror to another hard drive, get a basic RAID card or just use a Ghost-like program to do manual backups. But tape is still cheaper per megabyte and more reliable. Sure, you can damage a tape, but it's harder to do than with a hard drive. SCSI tape drives are more expensive than another drive, but fast enough, and allow you to keep multiple versions or copies of your backup. Try that with hard drives and you need arrays. Tape starts looking REAL cheap then.
It seems to me that one of the main reasons ridculous tech-related laws are getting passed is that lawmakers know that the voters are just as ignorant on the issues as they are. They can pass/not pass legislation based on their own self-interests (money), confident that the voters will bend over in blissful ignorance.
That said, should not the education of the general populace be a high priority in getting reasonable legislation passed? After all, if peeople really understood how they were being affected, would they then not put more pressure on their congresscritters?
I'd volunteer in a heartbeat to be a test case myself, but that would mean I'd actually have to use FrontPage! Sorry, THAT'S a sacrifice I'm not willing to make!
If you are poor, you can go to a library. If you are poor, you are MUCH less likely to have access to ANY form of local gov't, including information on the process for absentee ballots, most of which are never counted to begin with.
And BTW, check out the census information on the percentage of low-income homes with computers.
That's right, I couldn't agree more. If you're handicapped and homebound, sick, or just can't afford time away from your hourly minimum wage job that supplements your foodstamps, you'll just have to trust those of us with the time/money/ability to take care of things for you.
Serves you right for being poor/handicapped in the first place.
(Damn, I could have sworn I left a/sarcasm tag around here somewhere!)
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Yes, lots of things have been kept secret for quite some time. I don't need a condescending pointer to the history books to understand that ULTRA, VENONA, etc. had very successful security. But you need to understand that the scope of those projects pales in comparison to keeping the massive amounts of UFO "evidence" that people seem to think exist secret. The people involved with the best kept secrets in history were professionals with a job to do. Not to mention that there was little worry about widespread panic and hysteria if those secrets leaked out. Now imagine the massive amounts of people that would have to keep their mouths shut to keep UFOs secret. Almost every single one just having had their comprehension of the universe rocked ina major way, with family to worry about. Keep in mind that the probability of a secret being blown is directly proportional toe the SQUARE of the number of people that know about it. I simply cannot accept that our government could keep a secret of that magnitude, for that period of time, over decades and generations (not to mention different Administrations).
I would take it a step further and look at it this way:
You think the government has been tracking UFOs for decades? You think we have evidence of UFOs? Hell, you think we actually HAVE UFOs? And you think the government's kept this completely secret for decades? Come on! They can't keep it a secret when the President's getting a hummer in his own office! To borrow a line from Dennis Miller: "The states can't even pave fucking ROADS!"
> Are we going to have to check the bit bucket for hanging bits?
Just wear a long coat and no one will notice.
Why did you expect help or any action at all from law enforcement? You're a consumer^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcitizen, the laws are not in place to help YOU. The law is there to protect corporations and special interests. Now quit wasting our govt agencies valuable time and sit back down in front of the TV. No skipping the commercials, either. (wanna bet when THOSE laws are passed that they're enforced?)
Some folks have a serious misunderstanding of artistry. Creating art is giving life to your imagination. Art is creating something that wasn't there before, even if it is a new vision of something one's seen a million times.
Ok, your art is filmmaking. You've made the film, that is your art. Art is NOT forcing others to share your vision. Yout want to create art, fine! You've done it, how _I_ interpret or enjoy your art (or not) is up to ME. You have a right to create your art, you have NO right to force your art upon me. And if you sell your art to me, it becomes mine. If I choose to experience it in a different way than you intended, that is MY art. Don't want it changed, don't sell it. That's the difference between art and business.
Wow, a crude and offensive rant and I can't argue against any of it. ;-)
What is it with me (and a lot of others apparently) that our government and businesses are making me angrier and more frustrated every day? Am I getting less patient and understanding? Or less naive and gullible? Now I know why so many people are sheep who blindly go where they're led and take what's being fed them, it's much easier on the blood pressure. But dammit, I just can't put the blinders on, and I can't forget what I've already seen.
Yes, but your dad's ship was almost entirely cargo hold. We're talking about a ship designed and built to carry over a thousand people. Berthing, food storage, waste systems, etc. on a vastly larger scale than even a supertanker. Even if you don't use most of it, these items are all part of larger systems and have to be maintained. So, while you could eliminate all of the weapons and combat-related crews, along with a large percentage of the positions dedicated to serving a large crew, you've still got a LOT more people than a cargo ship or tanker designed to carry only a few dozen.
# licensing drivers of cars and pilots of airplanes
# food handing regulations, along with restaurant inspections
# environmental legislation
# regulations governing the handling of explosives, hazardous chemicals, biological agents and radioactive materials
[sigh]
Nothing you've listed involves restricting basic human rights. There is nothing in the Constitution about hazardous materials or operating a restaurant, but PLENTY about freedom from unfair or arbitrary detention or punishment.
Liberty == inalienable rights.
Liberty != everything under the sun you feel like doing.
Universal Health Care? Ask a few Canadians about that. Then compare the number of Americans going to Canada for medical treatment with the number of Canadians headed south.
Government-sponsored health care may work in principle, but the Canadian model is NOT the way to go about it.
I can honestly say that I haven't seen any (direct, observable) effect on my day-to-day life. I suspect that the vast majority of Americans would probably say the same, and this is what worries me the most. We are rushing to sacrifice the rights and freedoms of OTHERS for OUR "safety". This is why poll after poll shows Americans willing to sacrifice their rights and freedoms, because they beleive it won't affect them, only someone else. Why don't people realize how quickly they can become the "someone else"?
After watching the video, I'd say you could STROLL for the hills! :-)
Um, wouldn't they have their REAL eye scanned? Unless you're talking about someone with TWO glass eyes...
Changing cards to cPCI or similar would not be nearly as dramatic/traumatic as doing the same for drives. A change like that to card form factors would result in a motherboard layout that is similar to what we have today, in layout as well as size. The major difference is the access to the cards themselves. But drives do not connect directly to the motherboard, they use a cable of some sort. In most cases multiple internal drives share a single connector on the motherboard. Doing the same for drives as some (including me) would like to see for cards would require a dramatic expansion of the motherboard, or the addition of a large riser or daughterboard. This would be a step backwards in the quest for compactness as well as simplicity and ease of manufacture/economy. Besides, you lose a lot in flexibility. When I ran out of connectors on my SCSI cable, I bought a longer cable. When you run out of drive ports on your riser board, you are SOL, time to spend more on externals and dangle a few cables on the outside, not to mention power bricks, etc.
> The Ring's power is not to turn people invisible (though it can do that). It's to amplify the bearer and give him what (he thinks) he wants.
No, the Ring was made to hold much of Sauron's power and to control the wearers of the other Rings of Power. Read the book, you'll see that that is the reason that the bearers of the Elf Rings removed theirs immediately when Sauron put his on.
> Frodo also puts the Ring on during times he wants to be invisible (in the Prancing Pony, or when trying to escape Ringwraiths, etc.) So it makes him invisible.
Back to the book again. Frodo does not put the Ring on in The Prancing Pony, it slips onto his finger to reveal itself to those who are looking for it. It is trying to return to Sauron, remember? It turns him invisible at a bad time, not what he would want.
Yes, you can watch the movie without reading the book, but you have to take it for what it is, and at face value. If you're going to ask deeper questions, such as:
> Why didn't Sauron turn invisible when he wore the ring?
You have to read the book. Although it makes no mention of Sauron turning invisible when he wore the Ring, the answer is clearly implied in the Tom Bombadil sequence. Frodo asked Gandalf why Tom didn't turn invisible when HE wore the Ring. Gandalf replied that it was not because Tom had any power over the Ring, but because the Ring had no power over HIM. I would imagine that the Ring would have no power over Sauron either, Sauron being its maker and the source of its power.
(Wow, it's amazing what sticks in the mind, even after twenty some-odd years! Of course, read anything that many times and you'll be hard-pressed to forget it no matter how hard you try.)
The problem with this, and all other hard drive-based backup solutions, is that the hard drive is still on-line on the system. A power surge or failure in the wrong place and your initial backup is toast. And since you're only doing incremental backups from that point, you aren't backing up most system files and applications, which are usually pretty static. To be even reasonably secure and reliable, backups need an off-line component.
Periodically ghosting to another hard drive, then backing that drive up to tape gives the best of both worlds. You have the data online availible for immediate restoration, and you have offline, older backups in case of system problems, virus issues, or simply deleting a file. If that's too expensive, the off-line-only solution is preferable.
CD-R/CD-RW are too slow and too small, plan on spending a day or so swapping disks. You can always mirror to another hard drive, get a basic RAID card or just use a Ghost-like program to do manual backups. But tape is still cheaper per megabyte and more reliable. Sure, you can damage a tape, but it's harder to do than with a hard drive. SCSI tape drives are more expensive than another drive, but fast enough, and allow you to keep multiple versions or copies of your backup. Try that with hard drives and you need arrays. Tape starts looking REAL cheap then.
Yeah, well at least all my friends will be there. :-)
First we had Java Beans, now Cocoa Puffs?
One cannot comprehend the mind-boggling amounts of spare time required to devote part of one's life to this.
What's next, a repository of images of free-form dust patterns from monitor screens?
It seems to me that one of the main reasons ridculous tech-related laws are getting passed is that lawmakers know that the voters are just as ignorant on the issues as they are. They can pass/not pass legislation based on their own self-interests (money), confident that the voters will bend over in blissful ignorance.
That said, should not the education of the general populace be a high priority in getting reasonable legislation passed? After all, if peeople really understood how they were being affected, would they then not put more pressure on their congresscritters?
I'd volunteer in a heartbeat to be a test case myself, but that would mean I'd actually have to use FrontPage! Sorry, THAT'S a sacrifice I'm not willing to make!
Whoohoo! Count me in!
Although...you suppose they didn't mean Scotch?
If you are poor, you can go to a library. If you are poor, you are MUCH less likely to have access to ANY form of local gov't, including information on the process for absentee ballots, most of which are never counted to begin with.
And BTW, check out the census information on the percentage of low-income homes with computers.
That's right, I couldn't agree more. If you're handicapped and homebound, sick, or just can't afford time away from your hourly minimum wage job that supplements your foodstamps, you'll just have to trust those of us with the time/money/ability to take care of things for you.
/sarcasm tag around here somewhere!)
Serves you right for being poor/handicapped in the first place.
(Damn, I could have sworn I left a