As others have noted, this (anonymous) submission may be pointless. (I haven't verified that, though.)
With that said, Canadians, please look to the future and learn about your options.
There is a great article/tutorial on Surveillance Self Defense at the EFF. Although it is aimed primarily at US citizens, much of it also applies to you - and the technical tools described are equally effective in any country.
I really want Canada to be a place of enlightened freedom, so I have someplace to go when the Corporate Snakes of America becomes too onerous to stomach any longer. Get to work on that, will ya?
Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."
As is almost inevitable, when you allow two or more populations to interact, they begin to adopt various characteristics from each other, without regard to whether those changes were what was intended.
China is, in fact, becoming more open, capitalistic, and may eventually even become more democratic.
The west is, in fact, moving the other direction.
With that said, corruption is a universal sin, China had no monopoly on it.
The application of the term "Fascism" to the UK, China, or the USA is incorrect. While all three share some characteristics with Fascist ideas, none comes anywhere close to the actual meaning of the term.
Let's call things what they are, as opposed to applying incorrect and emotionally loaded terminology.
What we are talking about in the UK might be better described as movement toward or just a suggestion of authoritarianism, a characteristic which does arguably apply to China to a greater degree than most western democracies at the present.
Authoritarianism is one characteristic of Fascism, but also of centralized communism, historical monarchy, and many other systems of government and social organization (including many corporations).
As for the USA, plutocracy or plutarchy are more accurate descriptions than Fascism. Political power and access to what most of the western world would consider basic rights of citizens (courtroom justice, access to health care, etc.) is based on wealth to an increasing extent.
So, let's call evil things by the right names, lest we get them confused. There are plenty of evils in the world without lumping them all in the same bucket.
And just so we're absolutely clear, I'd rather live in a world where one or two people die having a water fight than live in a world where someone can arrest an adult for planning a water fight.
As a corollary I'd like to go on record preferring a country (or world) where there is a small risk of being blown up by a terrorist nutjob to one where I am made "safe" from insignificant risks by the loss of significant freedoms, while things that pose much larger actual risks are allowed to go on, largely because someone is making a pile of money off of those larger risks.
In general I prefer freedom to safety, though I will accept a certain amount of restriction where it makes reasonable sense. But for Crom's sake, do it for real reasons, not for political expediency.
There's been a lot of good advice and interesting thoughts in this discussion.
Quick summary:
No, you sure as hell aren't too old to learn a new programming language. If you really want to get back in the coding game, pick something you'll both enjoy and be able to get work doing, and do it. But be aware of career choices you make and the consequences. You pays your money and takes your chances.
But one more thing...
I'm gonna pimp slap you for suggesting that late 30s is decrepit and aged. Logan's Run is fiction, youngster.
Yeah, it's too bad that the glider was carrying all known copies of the information about how to build it, and all of the people who developed that information, and all of the people who taught them the principles involved, and all of the congresscritters that funded it. Dang, how much payload did that thing have, again?
The accuracy on this is pretty bad, as you can see from the comparison to the Vicon system, so this has very limited use in production
This is a step along the way toward something useful in production, not a final product.
[...]the practical application for something like that is limited. Attaching cameras and trying to create tracks off of the movement of the background just seems a really backwards way of doing this kind of stuff.
The application is in capturing motion in circumstances where the current way of doing things does not work well. Larger ranges and areas, confined spaces where cameras would be obstructed, that sort of thing. It doesn't replace current techniques, most likely. Instead, it adds new options - once it's accurate enough. Time will tell.
That's all well and good, but we're not discussing "most of the U.S." but instead a place where water is scarce, and failing to make some changes will lead to some unpleasant consequences in a not very distant future.
The obvious solution is STOP MOVING TO TEXAS. There are entirely enough people in Texas already, perhaps too many, and the available resources won't support more with current usage patterns.
However, getting people to do such obvious things is difficult.
Waste water recycling seems like a good idea, if it can be done in a way that doesn't use up too many other resources. I have no idea what the numbers on that look like.
You seem to be implying that S&P is secretly acting on behalf of the Democratic Party in support of President Obama's re-election campaign, which I find to be an interesting point of view.
Try this - find the person whom you think has the best ideas, and the most credibility, and vote for them. Of course, it will have to be a write-in, because the system is rigged against anyone not belonging to and conforming to the dogma of one or another group seeking only its own power.
Alas, the oligarchy has the voting masses controlled via television lies, and by this even more than by direct corruption (poorly disguised as campaign funding) controls the elected government. And they like their tame monkeys in Washington, and will not replace them.
Please read the comment appearing at the top of the web page, and then un-wad your knickers, folks.
We appreciate your interest in our design experiments! The UI mock-ups shown on these pages were part of a meeting, and were for discussion purposes, and to explore different design directions. Some of them are already out of date. Mozilla works in the open, and the way to get the latest in UI improvements to Firefox is to download the UX channel build for your OS, which will auto-update every night with various design experiments we're looking at.
It sounds convenient, but I'll only sign on if there's no way to find me or track me using my IID, if I can change it at will, and can have different ones for different purposes.
You (and Facebook, and Google, sadly) drastically underestimate the sorts of ways these tools can be legitimately used (not abused).
You say:
Facebook, which is all about connecting with people you actually know
But what if the group of people with whom I wish to connect know me by my pseudonym? And I know them by theirs? And none of us has a clue what each others' so-called "real names" are, and like it that way?
I have no interest in spamming, trolling, or scamming anyone. I just want to use the tool(s) in the way that works best for me, and harms nobody.
Even without such useless baggage, the way government grants for science work is easy to understand. The amount of grant money is finite. Therefore, it is allocated to those research projects which are viewed as reasonably likely to obtain useful results.
This is true as long as you understand that in a government context "useful results" are results that either directly or indirectly funnel money to a shell corporation owned by some senator or that result in a bureaucrat landing a lucrative consulting position with some entity affected by the research upon retirement from "public service".
While such does indeed occur, I'm doubtful that it sways the interpretation of results (or experimental design) as much as the "studies designed to prove our position" promulgated by parties with immediate financial interests. I could be wrong, though. It just seems like there's an additional layer of difficulty in getting the results you want. You have to be really forceful about ignoring any contradictory evidence to get as much spin as, say, the tobacco companies' nicotine studies, or the "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq.
While I don't follow all of your post, I do want to comment that I don't think opinion polls of scientists sway me very much. I'm partial to accurate data.
Opinion polls of [insert political group here] are just noise. Alas, it's noise that gets people elected to try to vote away the laws of nature.
As best I can tell, the data show an increase in the rate of climate change which correlates with the rapid increase of population and the use of technologies that change the composition of the atmosphere, as well as ongoing change in ecosystems and hydrologic systems largely caused by the agricultural and industrial use of land and sea by the aforementioned increasing population of humans.
The arguments are over whether, or to what degree, that correlation is due to causation. (With a few morons claiming that the climate isn't changing, or the earth is flat, or similar.)
Frankly, I find arguing about other people's opinions to be a waste of energy.
Slashdot Mirror
You old farts and your low UIDs. Bah! ;)
...under mountain of thank you posts. News at 11.
Here's another.
Thank you, old friend-I've-never-met. The years of slashdot have brought me much good. (Along with heaps of other stuff.)
It has made a difference.
It's been a long strange trip. Thanks for all the hard work, and the whole "getting it started" thing. Now, Onward!
As others have noted, this (anonymous) submission may be pointless. (I haven't verified that, though.)
With that said, Canadians, please look to the future and learn about your options.
There is a great article/tutorial on Surveillance Self Defense at the EFF. Although it is aimed primarily at US citizens, much of it also applies to you - and the technical tools described are equally effective in any country.
I really want Canada to be a place of enlightened freedom, so I have someplace to go when the Corporate Snakes of America becomes too onerous to stomach any longer. Get to work on that, will ya?
Well, quoting from the article:
So, basically Somalia on stilts?
Gee, where do I sign up?
As is almost inevitable, when you allow two or more populations to interact, they begin to adopt various characteristics from each other, without regard to whether those changes were what was intended.
China is, in fact, becoming more open, capitalistic, and may eventually even become more democratic.
The west is, in fact, moving the other direction.
With that said, corruption is a universal sin, China had no monopoly on it.
The application of the term "Fascism" to the UK, China, or the USA is incorrect. While all three share some characteristics with Fascist ideas, none comes anywhere close to the actual meaning of the term.
Let's call things what they are, as opposed to applying incorrect and emotionally loaded terminology.
What we are talking about in the UK might be better described as movement toward or just a suggestion of authoritarianism, a characteristic which does arguably apply to China to a greater degree than most western democracies at the present.
Authoritarianism is one characteristic of Fascism, but also of centralized communism, historical monarchy, and many other systems of government and social organization (including many corporations).
As for the USA, plutocracy or plutarchy are more accurate descriptions than Fascism. Political power and access to what most of the western world would consider basic rights of citizens (courtroom justice, access to health care, etc.) is based on wealth to an increasing extent.
So, let's call evil things by the right names, lest we get them confused. There are plenty of evils in the world without lumping them all in the same bucket.
And just so we're absolutely clear, I'd rather live in a world where one or two people die having a water fight than live in a world where someone can arrest an adult for planning a water fight.
As a corollary I'd like to go on record preferring a country (or world) where there is a small risk of being blown up by a terrorist nutjob to one where I am made "safe" from insignificant risks by the loss of significant freedoms, while things that pose much larger actual risks are allowed to go on, largely because someone is making a pile of money off of those larger risks.
In general I prefer freedom to safety, though I will accept a certain amount of restriction where it makes reasonable sense. But for Crom's sake, do it for real reasons, not for political expediency.
There's been a lot of good advice and interesting thoughts in this discussion.
Quick summary:
No, you sure as hell aren't too old to learn a new programming language. If you really want to get back in the coding game, pick something you'll both enjoy and be able to get work doing, and do it. But be aware of career choices you make and the consequences. You pays your money and takes your chances.
But one more thing...
I'm gonna pimp slap you for suggesting that late 30s is decrepit and aged. Logan's Run is fiction, youngster.
Yeah, it's too bad that the glider was carrying all known copies of the information about how to build it, and all of the people who developed that information, and all of the people who taught them the principles involved, and all of the congresscritters that funded it. Dang, how much payload did that thing have, again?
The accuracy on this is pretty bad, as you can see from the comparison to the Vicon system, so this has very limited use in production
This is a step along the way toward something useful in production, not a final product.
[...]the practical application for something like that is limited. Attaching cameras and trying to create tracks off of the movement of the background just seems a really backwards way of doing this kind of stuff.
The application is in capturing motion in circumstances where the current way of doing things does not work well. Larger ranges and areas, confined spaces where cameras would be obstructed, that sort of thing. It doesn't replace current techniques, most likely. Instead, it adds new options - once it's accurate enough. Time will tell.
Emacs/W3
That's all well and good, but we're not discussing "most of the U.S." but instead a place where water is scarce, and failing to make some changes will lead to some unpleasant consequences in a not very distant future.
The obvious solution is STOP MOVING TO TEXAS. There are entirely enough people in Texas already, perhaps too many, and the available resources won't support more with current usage patterns.
However, getting people to do such obvious things is difficult.
Waste water recycling seems like a good idea, if it can be done in a way that doesn't use up too many other resources. I have no idea what the numbers on that look like.
You seem to be implying that S&P is secretly acting on behalf of the Democratic Party in support of President Obama's re-election campaign, which I find to be an interesting point of view.
The rest is even more confusing.
The rest of the world has too!
Citation, please. I am skeptical of this statement.
I doubt 10% of the US population knows what a patent is, never mind comprehending the flaws in the system.
Except that most of them actually *are* crazy.
Try this - find the person whom you think has the best ideas, and the most credibility, and vote for them. Of course, it will have to be a write-in, because the system is rigged against anyone not belonging to and conforming to the dogma of one or another group seeking only its own power.
I applaud your windmill tilting skills.
Alas, the oligarchy has the voting masses controlled via television lies, and by this even more than by direct corruption (poorly disguised as campaign funding) controls the elected government. And they like their tame monkeys in Washington, and will not replace them.
The system has been hijacked.
Also, a period of economic growth is usually followed by a recession, which is followed by another period of economic growth.
Please read the comment appearing at the top of the web page, and then un-wad your knickers, folks.
We appreciate your interest in our design experiments!
The UI mock-ups shown on these pages were part of a meeting, and were for discussion purposes, and to explore different design directions. Some of them are already out of date.
Mozilla works in the open, and the way to get the latest in UI improvements to Firefox is to download the UX channel build for your OS, which will auto-update every night with various design experiments we're looking at.
It sounds convenient, but I'll only sign on if there's no way to find me or track me using my IID, if I can change it at will, and can have different ones for different purposes.
Good luck with that.
You (and Facebook, and Google, sadly) drastically underestimate the sorts of ways these tools can be legitimately used (not abused).
You say:
Facebook, which is all about connecting with people you actually know
But what if the group of people with whom I wish to connect know me by my pseudonym? And I know them by theirs? And none of us has a clue what each others' so-called "real names" are, and like it that way?
I have no interest in spamming, trolling, or scamming anyone. I just want to use the tool(s) in the way that works best for me, and harms nobody.
Dang, and I thought the purpose of social networking was to, you know, socialize...
This is true as long as you understand that in a government context "useful results" are results that either directly or indirectly funnel money to a shell corporation owned by some senator or that result in a bureaucrat landing a lucrative consulting position with some entity affected by the research upon retirement from "public service".
While such does indeed occur, I'm doubtful that it sways the interpretation of results (or experimental design) as much as the "studies designed to prove our position" promulgated by parties with immediate financial interests. I could be wrong, though. It just seems like there's an additional layer of difficulty in getting the results you want. You have to be really forceful about ignoring any contradictory evidence to get as much spin as, say, the tobacco companies' nicotine studies, or the "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq.
While I don't follow all of your post, I do want to comment that I don't think opinion polls of scientists sway me very much. I'm partial to accurate data.
Opinion polls of [insert political group here] are just noise. Alas, it's noise that gets people elected to try to vote away the laws of nature.
As best I can tell, the data show an increase in the rate of climate change which correlates with the rapid increase of population and the use of technologies that change the composition of the atmosphere, as well as ongoing change in ecosystems and hydrologic systems largely caused by the agricultural and industrial use of land and sea by the aforementioned increasing population of humans.
The arguments are over whether, or to what degree, that correlation is due to causation. (With a few morons claiming that the climate isn't changing, or the earth is flat, or similar.)
Frankly, I find arguing about other people's opinions to be a waste of energy.