And this is exactly the thing that pisses off a large majority of @home subscribers. Many people that take the time and pay the money to upgrade to Broadband Internet access do so because they have a need for bandwidth and many because they need a semi-static IP address. A lot of the people that subscribe to @home are not clueless lusers who have no idea what they're doing. A lot of them are tech savvy people who use it for hosting basic servers like the family website or a family mail domain. When @Home blanket filters all these server ports it just pisses off the people who are giving them the most business. Think about it, who makes recommendations of Internet providers to customers, friends, and family the most. It's not Joe Blow User who can't figure out what port the patch cable plugs into. It's people who work with computers technically. If your company isn't getting recommendations from the tech sector it's not going to be nearly as successful in selling its services to Joe User as if it were.
I work for a system integrator which is an HP authorized service provider and we just got a system in that had the click-of-death failure. I was able to predict that it was an IBM Deskstar 75 made in Hungary before I even opened the case up. Surprised the other techs in the shop when I very accurately predicted it too. Anyways, you can bet I'll never buy one of these.
People who know me, know that I am a techie, who is very skeptical about what he reads. People also know me as a Christian, albeit one who is not very devout. However, after reading this article I think that's going to change. It's going to change completely. This is one step closer to having, verbatim, what Revelations predicted would happen. I never, ever thought I'd bring religion into a discussion like this. I've always kept my religious views to myself, but I cannot do so any longer. This is just too creepy. I never thought, that anytime soon this would occur. I wasn't even sure if it was symbolic or if it was literal, but now that it is being seriously considered I can no longer afford to assume that it is purely symbolic. I promise you this though. I will NEVER accept such a thing. Even if I die. My soul is worth far more to me than even my life, and as it is written in Revelations, those that accept the mark are numbered as one of the beast's and will be cast away. I'm sorry if this makes me appear ignorant, but I think the time has come for me to cease my total pursuit of worldly things and start looking at what is most certainly going to come, and soon.
There's no reason for this. There's no reason to believe that giving the government these powers is going to help stop terrorism at all. Do I like the fact that 5000+ people died? Hell no! Am I going to give up my freedom, the freedom that so many more have died trying to protect? Hell no!
Sure, these people did not ask to die protecting our freedom, but if these people are looking down on us right now and seeing what their deaths are causing to happen to our freedoms do you think they'd be happy? I believe it would be the opposite. I believe that they'd be sickened to know that our government is using their deaths as an excuse to push forth an agenda they've been trying to push forth for as long as I can remember. I think they'd be sickened to know that their families' privacy was going to be thrown away. If it were me that had been killed in that blast I would be looking down and be greatly saddened to see that my death was a catalyst for a large step in the annihilation of our freedoms.
I have said it before and I will say it again. I'd much rather die defending our freedom than killing it. I hate to tell these people this, but criminals don't care what the laws are. You create backdoors in encryption and the bad guys will simply create one that doesn't have backdoors. You tap phone lines and Internet communications and they'll simply use postal mail or just meet somewhere. They didn't respect the no-fly zone over Washington when they crushed part of the Pentagon! Why should they be scared by laws they can easily get around even if it is illegal to do so?
All this is going to do is make it easier to control the general populace by discovering all the skeletons in their closets and using it to shut them up, and to keep them from making insulting remarks about the government. I love this country, and I love its people, but I love what America stands for even more. If the government takes away the freedoms that so many have died to protect, then it is my country no longer, and I will leave it for England, Australia, Scandanavia, Switzerland, or some other country which does not have such needless and pointless laws.
I hear so many of those on here saying that without security you don't have freedom. I say to you that is absolutely false. They can take some of our lives away from us, but there are too many of us to take all of them. They however, CANNOT take away what it is that we stand for. We have to give that up, and I, for one, refuse to do so! Sure, there are some things that need to be improved upon. Airport security must remain tightened as it always should have been. Having an non-uniformed armed guard on all flights should be a no-brainer. Sure, it may make people feel a little anxious, but it doesn't violate their freedoms at all.
It's also been said that only those that have something to hide should be worried about this. Well, I have some news for you. I'm sure if you dig back way way into your past that you probably have something you'd rather not have revealed. Everyone has skeletons in their closets, no matter how small, and if you've ever looked at some of the former Soviet Union's and Hitler's propaganda from the past, you know that governments have an uncanny ability to make a mountain out of a molehill. Let's assume that you are the one exception and that you do have no skeletons in your closet. Well, all it takes is a slip of the tongue, or a misuse of words in your sentences sometime and it can make you sound really bad. If Big Brother wants to make you look like a bad guy, he can. Make no mistake of that.
If these revisions are made then I will probably be monitored by the feds because of some of the things I've said in this post because they don't sound very patriotic. Hell, I may be being monitored now for all I know, cuz, what the heck, abuses happen all the time. It worries me, but I'm not going to let it stop me from saying what I feel needs to be said.
Do you ever speed? Do you download copyrighted music over Napster whether you own it or not? Do you look at porn over the Internet? The first is illegal, the second is still in the courts, and the third is legal in most jurisdictions. Now, let's make them all come together to create an interesting idea. Say that a fed was tracking your Internet traffic at random and was in a bad mood that day. Now say he's a petty bastard... gee no one knows any of those do they? Well, he happens to overhear you bitching about how much you hate those assholes at the FBI for always being so nosy. Well he figures, "I can't bust him on that, but I think I'll watch him for a little while and see what I can dig up on him." So he sets up his computer to track your email, IMs, file transfers, etc. for a few days. In that time he calls his friend down at the local PD and tells him to harass you everytime he catches you speeding. Also, he adds you to a list of people to prosecute if mp3 trading becomes illegal, and while he's at it, manages to leak the fact that you look at porn to your significant other, your boss, friends, etc. which causes horrible embarassment, loss of your relationship, and if you're into some weird porn, maybe loss of both your job and friends.
You may think, "That would never happen, no one would ever be THAT petty or would ever even think of doing that!" For God's sake people, I've seen cops pull people over and harass them because they were riding motorcycles in a completely legal manner just because they don't like bikers. A sheriff tried to give my stepmother a speeding ticket up North because he thought she would never come back up there to fight it even though she did nothing wrong. Look what McCarthy managed to do with a fake list of communists! These are called abuses of the system, but they happen all the time. When you give the government more power you also give them more ways to abuse it, and I guarantee you that abuses will occur, and will cause innocent people plenty of pain and grief. It is an absolute certainty.
That is what I fight to prevent. I fight to prevent these abuses from happening, by not giving them the ability to abuse them. Do I want to see innocent people lose their lives? Hell no, but I'd much rather have had that building fall on top of me and be dead today than lose the rights that we, as an American nation should have, but I would be EXTREMELY pissed if my death caused those freedoms to be lost because that means my death was the catalyst for the freedom of the people to be revoked. I'd rather die defending freedom than killing it!
At this point, it doesn't warrant dying for it. However, the gradual erosion of our rights has been happening for quite sometime and doesn't show any signs of stopping. There will likely come a time. Maybe not in my lifetime, but in my children's or grandchildren's where it gets to the point where our rights are taken away to the point where it becomes intolerable. If that time comes in my life then I will fight that battle even unto the death.
Re:Some notes on anime and recommendations...
on
Essential Anime
·
· Score: 1
Actually, I believe an interview was had by one of the execs at one of the American anime companies who wished to remain annonymous and the reason he stated was that, "People will pay more money to see the original, unedited track."
I love BGC. I'm a huge Priss fan (the original Priss). Oomori Kinuko has to be the best anime singer I've ever heard! Although the 2040 Priss makes me sick with her singing. Although my anime dream girl is Asuka I have to say Priss comes in a close second. The plot of BGC was pretty good too although I would have liked to see them finish Crisis with the full 13 eps so ppl wouldn't keep bitching that Priss got all the screen time.
Slashdot Mirror
And this is exactly the thing that pisses off a large majority of @home subscribers. Many people that take the time and pay the money to upgrade to Broadband Internet access do so because they have a need for bandwidth and many because they need a semi-static IP address. A lot of the people that subscribe to @home are not clueless lusers who have no idea what they're doing. A lot of them are tech savvy people who use it for hosting basic servers like the family website or a family mail domain. When @Home blanket filters all these server ports it just pisses off the people who are giving them the most business. Think about it, who makes recommendations of Internet providers to customers, friends, and family the most. It's not Joe Blow User who can't figure out what port the patch cable plugs into. It's people who work with computers technically. If your company isn't getting recommendations from the tech sector it's not going to be nearly as successful in selling its services to Joe User as if it were.
I work for a system integrator which is an HP authorized service provider and we just got a system in that had the click-of-death failure. I was able to predict that it was an IBM Deskstar 75 made in Hungary before I even opened the case up. Surprised the other techs in the shop when I very accurately predicted it too. Anyways, you can bet I'll never buy one of these.
People who know me, know that I am a techie, who is very skeptical about what he reads. People also know me as a Christian, albeit one who is not very devout. However, after reading this article I think that's going to change. It's going to change completely. This is one step closer to having, verbatim, what Revelations predicted would happen. I never, ever thought I'd bring religion into a discussion like this. I've always kept my religious views to myself, but I cannot do so any longer. This is just too creepy. I never thought, that anytime soon this would occur. I wasn't even sure if it was symbolic or if it was literal, but now that it is being seriously considered I can no longer afford to assume that it is purely symbolic. I promise you this though. I will NEVER accept such a thing. Even if I die. My soul is worth far more to me than even my life, and as it is written in Revelations, those that accept the mark are numbered as one of the beast's and will be cast away. I'm sorry if this makes me appear ignorant, but I think the time has come for me to cease my total pursuit of worldly things and start looking at what is most certainly going to come, and soon.
There's no reason for this. There's no reason to believe that giving the government these powers is going to help stop terrorism at all. Do I like the fact that 5000+ people died? Hell no! Am I going to give up my freedom, the freedom that so many more have died trying to protect? Hell no!
Sure, these people did not ask to die protecting our freedom, but if these people are looking down on us right now and seeing what their deaths are causing to happen to our freedoms do you think they'd be happy? I believe it would be the opposite. I believe that they'd be sickened to know that our government is using their deaths as an excuse to push forth an agenda they've been trying to push forth for as long as I can remember. I think they'd be sickened to know that their families' privacy was going to be thrown away. If it were me that had been killed in that blast I would be looking down and be greatly saddened to see that my death was a catalyst for a large step in the annihilation of our freedoms.
I have said it before and I will say it again. I'd much rather die defending our freedom than killing it. I hate to tell these people this, but criminals don't care what the laws are. You create backdoors in encryption and the bad guys will simply create one that doesn't have backdoors. You tap phone lines and Internet communications and they'll simply use postal mail or just meet somewhere. They didn't respect the no-fly zone over Washington when they crushed part of the Pentagon! Why should they be scared by laws they can easily get around even if it is illegal to do so?
All this is going to do is make it easier to control the general populace by discovering all the skeletons in their closets and using it to shut them up, and to keep them from making insulting remarks about the government. I love this country, and I love its people, but I love what America stands for even more. If the government takes away the freedoms that so many have died to protect, then it is my country no longer, and I will leave it for England, Australia, Scandanavia, Switzerland, or some other country which does not have such needless and pointless laws.
I hear so many of those on here saying that without security you don't have freedom. I say to you that is absolutely false. They can take some of our lives away from us, but there are too many of us to take all of them. They however, CANNOT take away what it is that we stand for. We have to give that up, and I, for one, refuse to do so! Sure, there are some things that need to be improved upon. Airport security must remain tightened as it always should have been. Having an non-uniformed armed guard on all flights should be a no-brainer. Sure, it may make people feel a little anxious, but it doesn't violate their freedoms at all.
It's also been said that only those that have something to hide should be worried about this. Well, I have some news for you. I'm sure if you dig back way way into your past that you probably have something you'd rather not have revealed. Everyone has skeletons in their closets, no matter how small, and if you've ever looked at some of the former Soviet Union's and Hitler's propaganda from the past, you know that governments have an uncanny ability to make a mountain out of a molehill. Let's assume that you are the one exception and that you do have no skeletons in your closet. Well, all it takes is a slip of the tongue, or a misuse of words in your sentences sometime and it can make you sound really bad. If Big Brother wants to make you look like a bad guy, he can. Make no mistake of that.
If these revisions are made then I will probably be monitored by the feds because of some of the things I've said in this post because they don't sound very patriotic. Hell, I may be being monitored now for all I know, cuz, what the heck, abuses happen all the time. It worries me, but I'm not going to let it stop me from saying what I feel needs to be said.
Do you ever speed? Do you download copyrighted music over Napster whether you own it or not? Do you look at porn over the Internet? The first is illegal, the second is still in the courts, and the third is legal in most jurisdictions. Now, let's make them all come together to create an interesting idea. Say that a fed was tracking your Internet traffic at random and was in a bad mood that day. Now say he's a petty bastard... gee no one knows any of those do they? Well, he happens to overhear you bitching about how much you hate those assholes at the FBI for always being so nosy. Well he figures, "I can't bust him on that, but I think I'll watch him for a little while and see what I can dig up on him." So he sets up his computer to track your email, IMs, file transfers, etc. for a few days. In that time he calls his friend down at the local PD and tells him to harass you everytime he catches you speeding. Also, he adds you to a list of people to prosecute if mp3 trading becomes illegal, and while he's at it, manages to leak the fact that you look at porn to your significant other, your boss, friends, etc. which causes horrible embarassment, loss of your relationship, and if you're into some weird porn, maybe loss of both your job and friends.
You may think, "That would never happen, no one would ever be THAT petty or would ever even think of doing that!" For God's sake people, I've seen cops pull people over and harass them because they were riding motorcycles in a completely legal manner just because they don't like bikers. A sheriff tried to give my stepmother a speeding ticket up North because he thought she would never come back up there to fight it even though she did nothing wrong. Look what McCarthy managed to do with a fake list of communists! These are called abuses of the system, but they happen all the time. When you give the government more power you also give them more ways to abuse it, and I guarantee you that abuses will occur, and will cause innocent people plenty of pain and grief. It is an absolute certainty.
That is what I fight to prevent. I fight to prevent these abuses from happening, by not giving them the ability to abuse them. Do I want to see innocent people lose their lives? Hell no, but I'd much rather have had that building fall on top of me and be dead today than lose the rights that we, as an American nation should have, but I would be EXTREMELY pissed if my death caused those freedoms to be lost because that means my death was the catalyst for the freedom of the people to be revoked. I'd rather die defending freedom than killing it!
At this point, it doesn't warrant dying for it. However, the gradual erosion of our rights has been happening for quite sometime and doesn't show any signs of stopping. There will likely come a time. Maybe not in my lifetime, but in my children's or grandchildren's where it gets to the point where our rights are taken away to the point where it becomes intolerable. If that time comes in my life then I will fight that battle even unto the death.
Actually, I believe an interview was had by one of the execs at one of the American anime companies who wished to remain annonymous and the reason he stated was that, "People will pay more money to see the original, unedited track."
I love BGC. I'm a huge Priss fan (the original Priss). Oomori Kinuko has to be the best anime singer I've ever heard! Although the 2040 Priss makes me sick with her singing. Although my anime dream girl is Asuka I have to say Priss comes in a close second. The plot of BGC was pretty good too although I would have liked to see them finish Crisis with the full 13 eps so ppl wouldn't keep bitching that Priss got all the screen time.