I don't think there's much argument over whether the guy should be punished. The argument is over how severely he should be punished, given that he 1) didn't cause any damage, 2) wasn't acting out of malice, and 3) was at least accomplish what he did in large part due to the incompetence of those who are, in theory, supposed to be competent in protecting themselves from such attacks.
Speak for yourself.
I find it funny that everybody seems to have forgotten that he was searching for UFO related material, and that he found some.
The government, as should be obvious to everybody with a brain, is corrupt from top to bottom. To say that he should serve time is like saying that the mob should be paid protection money. Bullshit. The governments on both sides of the ocean are monsters. I have no doubt that Gary will be punished, but it's a dark and dirty thing and I really feel for the guy.
What's most scary is that the retarded pod people who make up the public actually support his incarceration, quoting the same feeble arguments they were taught as they grew up; who believe in the good hearts of their elected officials and the noble intentions of the military. People who think psychopaths are all violent killers who make up a tiny percentage of the population when really they proliferate in the halls of banking, government and military power.
I would have thought it would work the other way around; I get eye-strain from trying to constantly sort out signal from reflection on a glossy screen, but I can see where you're coming from.
The problem isn't that the product isn't made for you. The problem is you are making yourself difficult. Adapt.
All Hail the Lowest Common Denominator.
Perhaps it's time for me to just get that lobotomy and start shopping at Walmart like everybody else. I wouldn't want to make myself difficult by having a brain and legitimate opinions.
Anybody who subjects themselves willingly to advertising has completed the program; they are now "Consumers" and not people.
Unsolicited advertising is evil. Period. It destroys cultures. It destroys societies.
Did you know that women who shave their armpit hair do so because one razor blade company realized that they could double their sales if they could get women the use their product along with men? So they began an ad campaign which explained that body hair was "dirty", people believed it, and now women in the West shave their armpits. We now, as a culture, because a razor blade company wanted money, have an entirely altered body image. The base programming of our minds is different because of advertising. This is just one of many, many cases. Advertising is a giant mind-fuck; it studies human herd behavior and taps into the worst automatic elements inside us all and punches those buttons mercilessly with one goal; to subvert human culture for profit.
Unsolicited advertising is anti-human, anti-life and it is NOT an acceptable or necessary evil.
If I want to know about your product, then I will seek out a forum where your items are listed. I have no problem with that. There are plenty of healthy ways to get the message out, of sharing NEWS of your efforts in the business world without having to attack the mind.
And the argument regarding revenue for web content is nonsense anyway; People who are willing to look at ads due to a sense of moral duty, (and that side of their behavior is wonderful, and I applaud it), are perfectly capable and generally quite willing to hit a "Donate" button every now and again, or of buying a product from their favorite content providers to help support their efforts. That's perfectly acceptable behavior. They give something back.
But unsolicited adverts are NOT cool. They are designed to take without asking, and they do messed up shit to the human brain as a result.
BTW I think you owe me an apology for accusing me of being one of the bad guys. That was inappropriate.
No it wasn't. It was completely appropriate. You were displaying a callous lack of empathy so I simply drew the connection for you between your behavior and the label associated with that behavior. And it got an excellent response which I rarely hope for; You re-thought your position. Consider yourself fortunate. There are those who are not capable of doing this.
-FL
Richard Dolan offers the following video. . .
on
Top Secret America
·
· Score: 1
His idea being that prolonged secrecy in technology inevitably leads to what he calls a "breakaway civilization".
I don't think that he's right in saying disclosure is inevitable. The information readily available to anybody with a vague level of interest has in fact proven very easy for people to willfully ignore despite its being in our faces. But he makes other good points.
None of those events could be called terrorism. That anthrax came from within the government and was made out to look like an Islamic threat.
The IRS plane thing was frankly a fully understandable bit of anger at a corrupt government bleeding people. I didn't feel terrorized by that. Did you?
I don't know what sniper attacks you are talking about, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that calling it terrorism is similarly full of shit, (well in this economy, I'd come out ahead if I lost, but you get my meaning).
Next you'll tell us that mind-controlled underwear bombers are a valid reason to lock down the universe.
The writing made a deliberate effort to dis-empower the Doctor. It seemed that every second character was giving the Doctor back-talk, and rightly so! He was making mistakes. He even lost a child in one episode! It was weird to see him in a state of weakness throughout. -Not un-interesting, but certainly not what is expected from the Doctor.
But that's not my problem with the last season. I thought the timing was lousy, (everything was so rushed and there was no time for character development), and the character chemistry was awful! Compare Donna and Ten's interaction at any point on their relationship to Amy and Eleven. Amy is like Martha for me; it seems forced and forgettable. The 10 year-old Amy and the Doctor are far more entertaining to watch. I almost wish the Doctor could have been traveling with the kid instead, and have abandoned the whole love tension nonsense which Moffat is apparently incapable of writing in a believable way.
I miss Rose and her family. That was silly, but far more believable and engaging.
These guys sit in an office doing a simple job and are complaining in an economy where millions of people would take their job. Is this the best article Slashdot could find? Whining office employees who don't like their jobs screening internet content? Perhaps they'd rather join the unemployed instead?
And maybe you're one of the sick fucks who posts the very garbage they have to sift through.
Guess what, genius; traumatic images cause psychological trauma. It's a clinical reality; the body subconsciously responds to images of disease and injury. It's hard-wired in place, and if you don't get that, then either you are hopelessly naive, or you were one of those creepy little shits who tortured small animals when you were a kid.
I don't blame Smith. I think he's wonderful. I thought the first half of, "The Eleventh Hour" was astonishing.
It's the writing and the timing of nearly everything else which are so hopelessly stupid. It's like he was trying to jam two seasons of material into one season of footage. Everything was rushed and there was almost no time for character development. Also the casting choices don't work well together. Amy and the Doctor simply don't fit at all.
What I don't get is how Moffat can go from "The Girl in the Fireplace", "Silence of the Library" and "The Weeping Angels", all of which had marvelous timing, down to drek is astonishing. It's like his ability to understand emotions and love were suddenly turned off.
There's a shockingly small number of actual different stories, (I can't remember the exact number, but it's somewhere around 4 or maybe 8).
Basically, everything has been done. The only new ideas are based on format and style, and most of those are just ones which haven't been used in a long enough while that they seem new when they get rediscovered.
I don't disagree with you, though. I find I've seen so much pattern that when I come across something I'm not able to map out from the first twenty pages, (or the first five minutes), I'm super-elated!
The only exception I'd drop in there is Doctor Who. I didn't think very highly of this last season, (Moffat did some neat things, but mostly fumbled the ball a whole lot), but the story of one man's journey as a Time Lord is really neat to see unfold through half a century and 11 psychological profiles and dozens of friends. There's something truly epic and kind of meta-story about it. It's quite an original experiment in that sense.
One of those will open your router's log-in page. When it does, just change the password from the default. Voila. Your router can no longer be "Hacked" by this method.
If you've got the time and the inclination to wade through pages and pages of moronic dribble, and entertain all the halfwit dung-flingers, just so you can pat yourself on the back for being so open-minded and egalitarian, go right ahead. But don't give the rest of us shit for not wanting to do the same, and don't delude yourself into thinking that doing so makes you somehow more enlightened or evolved than the rest of us. All you'll get for your trouble is a sore index finger from all that extra scrolling.
Aw, it's not really that bad. Slashdot has plenty of ignorance and rudeness, but it's actually fairly free of true insanity, not because of the mod system, but because people here will take the time to debate, and name-flinging idiots simply don't last long; they find it easier to function in forums more suited to their head space. "Water finds its own level".
I read with no filters, and while I certainly do have to scroll past some crazy shit, it's not that often and I also find some awesome posts which get unfairly buried. Have you ever posted something in earnest which a mystery moderator resuscitated from the basement? That might have been me. I'm one of the mods who likes the "Interesting" tag; it doesn't mean I agree with it, but if it's lucid and adds to the debate, I'll mod it up.
I suppose that a groomed and committed community like Slashdot, (despite its being informal as hell), is something of a rarity on the web as compared to the little comment sections run by hundreds of newspapers all over the world. But I still think that it's a mistake to manhandle a debate. Ideally, a paper will foster a community of their own with the added feature of there being many local residents participating in the discussions. Combined with Slashcode, that sort of thing could lead to something really healthy.
Slashdot's moderation system works because it has a huge army of visitors that can be tapped for mod duties. Most newspaper websites have nowhere near enough visitors to do this
This is a fair observation, but only to a point.
When I read Slashdot, I do so with the mod filters off as I want access to everything. But I also know how to use my mouse wheel. I really don't understand why people are so bothered by graffiti. Well, no, let me rephrase that: I DO understand. I just don't respect it.
In any case, I think Slashcode or something similar would vastly improve the community interaction on any newspaper site. That's the solution; not trying to hide from people you find offensive. The moderation system here is only interesting to me in terms of gauging popular opinion; I don't use it to hide from the big, bad world of crazy people and offensive ideas. I'm not a coward.
And that should make people feel good! -Even if your comment is blasted down to -1, I'll still give it a look because I know that this sometimes means you had an excellent point which people found upsetting because they carry too much psychological baggage. I want to hear that point! If you're trying to waste my time, then all you'll get is a few microseconds before I'm gone.
Newspapers trying to protect readers from reality are acting in a very hypercritical manner. They're supposed to inform people, not shelter them and only feed them prescribed ideas.
And guess what? Trolls are part of the world. Best to give people the ability to leapfrog them and get on with life rather than pretend they aren't there.
The new-agey claptrap was a lot more fun than the anti-new-worlder paranoia.
Am I supposed to understand what you are talking about here?
Remember; you're the only one who can hear your thoughts, so you really do need to make a special effort when communicating with others. It'll take you far in life.
Slashdot doesn't filter them out very effectively, it's forever plagued by them. What it does have is ways for knowledgeable users (it's entire userbase) to reduce the noise and bring out the signal, all the while knowing full well what trolls are and how to ignore them. A local newspaper has a much smaller and much less savvy audience and needs to actually filter it out somehow, which can be exceedingly difficult if even possible at all.
Grow up. The whole point of having a forum for differing opinions is that you end up with DIFFERING OPINIONS. Some people are crazy and angry, and their posts reflect that. So what? Others are full of wisdom and insight. That's life. Trying to create barriers against those whose opinions you don't like is cowardly.
If it's a stupid comment, just scroll on by. Don't try to segregate people to different ends of the bus because you think your version of reality is superior. Instead give readers the power to quickly assess the value of a commenter and move on if it doesn't suit their interests and sensibilities.
The biggest flaw in these news systems is that they aren't using the mighty power of Slashcode, but rather slow, linear and highly limited comment systems which don't allow for meaningful debate, community building and effective personal filtering of information.
What with the recent spate of popular reading devices, (iPad and the followers soon to come), not having keyboards in the first place, one almost gets the impression that these papers want people to shut up and listen. And then shut up some more.
So there's three levels at work here. On the top level we have the primary motivation for this. . .
"Hey, if we publicize contentious issues which are designed to engage people on an emotional level, then we can expect to see a fuck-ton of cash come our way as people debate endless infernal issues! Hey! What stories do we have in the slush pile on the abortion issue? What a great way to monetize our web presence and save this sinking ship!"
On the next level down, we have a nice bias against exploited humans: Opinions don't count without good credit. And good credit doesn't happen if one is not plugged tightly into the human industrial exploitation market. And anyway, who wants a bunch of slaves complaining about their lives while you're trying to read the morning news? That's just gaudy!
But on the final level, where I bet most of the people working at the paper are not aware of what is actually happening. . . This becomes a great way to astroturf the corporate/government spin on relevant news stories into place while keeping barriers high against informed dissenters. If you really want to prevent people from speaking out, you just suspend their credit and 'poof' they have no voice. And the fact that they cannot be anonymous is a great incentive for them to keep their mouths shut. Take a look at the way the various papers in Toronto responded to the G20 protest issues and the way the comments were handled there.
Weird. Modded down to -1? Wow. What did I say to inspire that kind of response? Curious. Usually I can predict when people are going to get upset by the things I write, so I have to say, this kind of surprises me. Are people truly THAT offended by the idea of somebody laughing at a poorly executed bit of made-up spy drama? I don't get it.
Ah well. Here's a repost...
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a circus event.
You can tell because the idea of the "Russian Spy" and the "Cold War 2.0" has been seeded into our population for the last year through film and television. It's a total con job.
And anyway, reporting spy craft with such bells and whistles is idiotic. It's only done to sculpt public awareness. And if you look at these so-called, "Spies", (the list of their crimes is idiotic at best), you'll note that, actually, the only spy craft going on is that of American COINTELPRO style bullshit misdirection aimed squarely at the public.
I mean, these "spies" were not actually charged with espionage but rather with, "failing to register as agents of a foreign government." That is, they were accused of "trying to seek out and develop ties and friendships in policy circles of the United States and send back reports." (Um, you mean, like what diplomats and businessmen do every day in capital cities all over the world?)
One set of charges was brought against Vicky Pelaez, an American columnist for the Spanish-language El Diario newspaper for more than 20 years. Was she even aware that her husband of 30 years was a Russian spy? It's interesting that her 'political' activities mark her out as an 'enemy of the state' in the US these days:
In her column, Vicky Pelaez discusses social issues and has taken a stand as a supporter of socialist governments in Latin America, including Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, and against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her articles also advocate for the rights of Indigenous peoples and undocumented immigrants in the U.S. while criticizing the foreign policies of the U.S. in Latin America.
Because of her political ideas and activism, most of Pelaez friends and supporters believe that she is the subject of political persecution, that she is completely innocent.
Another one of the arrested individuals, Anna Chapman, was said to have "met with an individual purporting to be a Russian Government official in Manhattan, New York, at which she received a fraudulent passport," according to the official criminal report.
Chapman, however, immediately went to the local police and gave them the passport.
CNN reported that Chapman never "fulfilled the mission" of delivering the fraudulent passport that the undercover FBI agent gave to her.
Set 'em up and knock 'em down. And passports and microfilm? This was designed for public consumption, and not just any public, but a really dumbed down public only capable of understanding spy dramas as per the Disney version.
So the question is this. . .
What is REALLY going on? What is this supposed to achieve? How would increased tensions between the old cold war super-powers benefit the elite?
I guess we'll just have to wait and see, (because people are obviously too far gone as a society to not fall for this kind of silly tactic.)
They bring this up because it gives them an excuse to bitch about consumer culture, and another sensationalist argument for people in the west to adopt their joyless granola-eating, back-to-the-earth ways.
Joyless? You need to get out more.
But to those who don't get it, I hear if one keeps repeating, "Cheeseburgers love me! They do!" then it is possible to dull the mind and keep up the farce of 'living' for another day.
Problems will not be solved via engineering because those in a position to task out such projects are all psychopathic loons who will never see the light. (Note how BP's solution seems to revolve around turning the Gulf region into a corporate police state rather than fixing or cleaning anything. That's what happens when you put psychopaths in charge of engineers.) Psychopathic types are fabulously delusional and self-destructive and nobody has begun to ponder how to remove them from power. By the time we get to that point, it'll be far too late.
That's how these cyclical de-population trends work.
You can tell because the idea of the "Russian Spy" and the "Cold War 2.0" has been seeded into our population for the last year through film and television. It's a total con job.
And anyway, reporting spy craft with such bells and whistles is idiotic. It's only done to sculpt public awareness. And if you look at these so-called, "Spies", (the list of their crimes is idiotic at best), you'll note that, actually, the only spy craft going on is that of American COINTELPRO style bullshit misdirection aimed squarely at the public.
I mean, these "spies" were not actually charged with espionage but rather with, "failing to register as agents of a foreign government." That is, they were accused of "trying to seek out and develop ties and friendships in policy circles of the United States and send back reports." (Um, you mean, like what diplomats and businessmen do every day in capital cities all over the world?)
One set of charges was brought against Vicky Pelaez, an American columnist for the Spanish-language El Diario newspaper for more than 20 years. Was she even aware that her husband of 30 years was a Russian spy? It's interesting that her 'political' activities mark her out as an 'enemy of the state' in the US these days:
In her column, Vicky Pelaez discusses social issues and has taken a stand as a supporter of socialist governments in Latin America, including Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, and against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her articles also advocate for the rights of Indigenous peoples and undocumented immigrants in the U.S. while criticizing the foreign policies of the U.S. in Latin America.
Because of her political ideas and activism, most of Pelaez friends and supporters believe that she is the subject of political persecution, that she is completely innocent.
Another one of the arrested individuals, Anna Chapman, was said to have "met with an individual purporting to be a Russian Government official in Manhattan, New York, at which she received a fraudulent passport," according to the official criminal report.
Chapman, however, immediately went to the local police and gave them the passport.
CNN reported that Chapman never "fulfilled the mission" of delivering the fraudulent passport that the undercover FBI agent gave to her.
Set 'em up and knock 'em down. And passports and microfilm? This was designed for public consumption, and not just any public, but a really dumbed down public only capable of understanding spy dramas as per the Disney version.
So the question is this. . .
What is REALLY going on? What is this supposed to achieve? How would increased tensions between the old cold war super-powers benefit the elite?
I guess we'll just have to wait and see, (because people are obviously too far gone as a society to not fall for this kind of silly tactic.)
It's not an out-and-out conspiracy like the tinfoilers of HAARP, Bilderberg, aliens, UFOs, etc would have you believe
Everything else you said is more or less correct, except that mind control and "aliens" are indeed also part of the mix. Anybody who bothers to research the issue will figure that one out quickly enough -if their minds are strong enough to conduct that much current without their breaker circuits popping.
Crop Circles made with planks and ropes wouldn't display any of the true oddities observed in the fields. You know; things like like magnetic seeds. It's astonishing that when such evidence is dumped right in front of the world, most people are capable of tuning it out.
Why should this games even exist? What is the target group? I doubt there are that many people that really want to play browser games but do not have Flash.
I think was a proof of concept and general, "Hey, I wonder if I could. . ?"
That is, it wasn't made for a target audience. It was made for the creator because he wanted to create, and anybody who wanted to experience that with him is welcome.
I am curious about Javascript; it's sort of like the new BASIC. It's everywhere and anybody with a browser and an editor can use it. New browsers just takes it all a few steps further so that it is able to do pretty much anything at a good rate of speed.
That's because Nemesis' orbit would certainly have been influenced by the many close encounters we know the Sun has had with other starsin the last 500 million years.
Sorry, what? The Sun has had close encounters with other stars recently? Really? I am not an astrophysicist and I might be completely mistaken, but this seems kind of totally made up.
Also, as another paleontologist has pointed out the periodicity is rather more than just a little controversial. Actually, there are several things which sound wrong in this article. I'm inclined to think that it is some of that mud used to make waters unclear. Typical obfuscation techniques used in counter-intelligence; flood the channel with noise and cranks and half-right theories. All you do is beam some "manic crazy" into the head of a targeted researcher, whisper directly to his ear canal via EM transmission, (all technology known to have existed more than thirty years ago and thus impossible to not have been refined down to the idiot-proof hand-held version level), and voila! Counter-intelligence without fingerprints, crowbars or a paper trail.
Now, I happen to think that there certainly is a cyclical destruction in effect and that it is based on a dark companion star, the Oort cloud and comet clusters. But, I think it happens a lot more regularly than 27 million years, (more like a couple hundred thousand), and that when the comet cluster knocked into lower solar orbit has finished pelting the Earth, it doesn't just vanish. It keeps on orbiting on a 2500 or so year period, losing material each time around, but pelting the Earth repeatedly nonetheless. So the cyclical disaster thing is a fair bit more frequent. We just happen to have a Dark Star showing up in. . , well right now actually, to recharge the system, as it were.
But I could be wrong. I'm on shaky ground wrt astrophysics; I've not done the work to really figure out the maths and dates, so it's pretty armchair hearsay I'm afraid.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think there's much argument over whether the guy should be punished. The argument is over how severely he should be punished, given that he 1) didn't cause any damage, 2) wasn't acting out of malice, and 3) was at least accomplish what he did in large part due to the incompetence of those who are, in theory, supposed to be competent in protecting themselves from such attacks.
Speak for yourself.
I find it funny that everybody seems to have forgotten that he was searching for UFO related material, and that he found some.
The government, as should be obvious to everybody with a brain, is corrupt from top to bottom. To say that he should serve time is like saying that the mob should be paid protection money. Bullshit. The governments on both sides of the ocean are monsters. I have no doubt that Gary will be punished, but it's a dark and dirty thing and I really feel for the guy.
What's most scary is that the retarded pod people who make up the public actually support his incarceration, quoting the same feeble arguments they were taught as they grew up; who believe in the good hearts of their elected officials and the noble intentions of the military. People who think psychopaths are all violent killers who make up a tiny percentage of the population when really they proliferate in the halls of banking, government and military power.
-FL
Wow.
I would have thought it would work the other way around; I get eye-strain from trying to constantly sort out signal from reflection on a glossy screen, but I can see where you're coming from.
What an interesting nuance.
-FL
The problem isn't that the product isn't made for you.
The problem is you are making yourself difficult.
Adapt.
All Hail the Lowest Common Denominator.
Perhaps it's time for me to just get that lobotomy and start shopping at Walmart like everybody else. I wouldn't want to make myself difficult by having a brain and legitimate opinions.
-FL
Anybody who subjects themselves willingly to advertising has completed the program; they are now "Consumers" and not people.
Unsolicited advertising is evil. Period. It destroys cultures. It destroys societies.
Did you know that women who shave their armpit hair do so because one razor blade company realized that they could double their sales if they could get women the use their product along with men? So they began an ad campaign which explained that body hair was "dirty", people believed it, and now women in the West shave their armpits. We now, as a culture, because a razor blade company wanted money, have an entirely altered body image. The base programming of our minds is different because of advertising. This is just one of many, many cases. Advertising is a giant mind-fuck; it studies human herd behavior and taps into the worst automatic elements inside us all and punches those buttons mercilessly with one goal; to subvert human culture for profit.
Unsolicited advertising is anti-human, anti-life and it is NOT an acceptable or necessary evil.
If I want to know about your product, then I will seek out a forum where your items are listed. I have no problem with that. There are plenty of healthy ways to get the message out, of sharing NEWS of your efforts in the business world without having to attack the mind.
And the argument regarding revenue for web content is nonsense anyway; People who are willing to look at ads due to a sense of moral duty, (and that side of their behavior is wonderful, and I applaud it), are perfectly capable and generally quite willing to hit a "Donate" button every now and again, or of buying a product from their favorite content providers to help support their efforts. That's perfectly acceptable behavior. They give something back.
But unsolicited adverts are NOT cool. They are designed to take without asking, and they do messed up shit to the human brain as a result.
-FL
BTW I think you owe me an apology for accusing me of being one of the bad guys. That was inappropriate.
No it wasn't. It was completely appropriate. You were displaying a callous lack of empathy so I simply drew the connection for you between your behavior and the label associated with that behavior. And it got an excellent response which I rarely hope for; You re-thought your position. Consider yourself fortunate. There are those who are not capable of doing this.
-FL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaB82ML3aGA&feature=related
His idea being that prolonged secrecy in technology inevitably leads to what he calls a "breakaway civilization".
I don't think that he's right in saying disclosure is inevitable. The information readily available to anybody with a vague level of interest has in fact proven very easy for people to willfully ignore despite its being in our faces. But he makes other good points.
-FL
You're trolling, right?
None of those events could be called terrorism. That anthrax came from within the government and was made out to look like an Islamic threat.
The IRS plane thing was frankly a fully understandable bit of anger at a corrupt government bleeding people. I didn't feel terrorized by that. Did you?
I don't know what sniper attacks you are talking about, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that calling it terrorism is similarly full of shit, (well in this economy, I'd come out ahead if I lost, but you get my meaning).
Next you'll tell us that mind-controlled underwear bombers are a valid reason to lock down the universe.
-FL
This is a totally fair comment.
The writing made a deliberate effort to dis-empower the Doctor. It seemed that every second character was giving the Doctor back-talk, and rightly so! He was making mistakes. He even lost a child in one episode! It was weird to see him in a state of weakness throughout. -Not un-interesting, but certainly not what is expected from the Doctor.
But that's not my problem with the last season. I thought the timing was lousy, (everything was so rushed and there was no time for character development), and the character chemistry was awful! Compare Donna and Ten's interaction at any point on their relationship to Amy and Eleven. Amy is like Martha for me; it seems forced and forgettable. The 10 year-old Amy and the Doctor are far more entertaining to watch. I almost wish the Doctor could have been traveling with the kid instead, and have abandoned the whole love tension nonsense which Moffat is apparently incapable of writing in a believable way.
I miss Rose and her family. That was silly, but far more believable and engaging.
-FL
These guys sit in an office doing a simple job and are complaining in an economy where millions of people would take their job. Is this the best article Slashdot could find? Whining office employees who don't like their jobs screening internet content? Perhaps they'd rather join the unemployed instead?
And maybe you're one of the sick fucks who posts the very garbage they have to sift through.
Guess what, genius; traumatic images cause psychological trauma. It's a clinical reality; the body subconsciously responds to images of disease and injury. It's hard-wired in place, and if you don't get that, then either you are hopelessly naive, or you were one of those creepy little shits who tortured small animals when you were a kid.
-FL
I don't blame Smith. I think he's wonderful. I thought the first half of, "The Eleventh Hour" was astonishing.
It's the writing and the timing of nearly everything else which are so hopelessly stupid. It's like he was trying to jam two seasons of material into one season of footage. Everything was rushed and there was almost no time for character development. Also the casting choices don't work well together. Amy and the Doctor simply don't fit at all.
What I don't get is how Moffat can go from "The Girl in the Fireplace", "Silence of the Library" and "The Weeping Angels", all of which had marvelous timing, down to drek is astonishing. It's like his ability to understand emotions and love were suddenly turned off.
But Smith himself is a natural.
-FL
Welcome to the land of "Old." (As in, you.)
There's a shockingly small number of actual different stories, (I can't remember the exact number, but it's somewhere around 4 or maybe 8).
Basically, everything has been done. The only new ideas are based on format and style, and most of those are just ones which haven't been used in a long enough while that they seem new when they get rediscovered.
I don't disagree with you, though. I find I've seen so much pattern that when I come across something I'm not able to map out from the first twenty pages, (or the first five minutes), I'm super-elated!
The only exception I'd drop in there is Doctor Who. I didn't think very highly of this last season, (Moffat did some neat things, but mostly fumbled the ball a whole lot), but the story of one man's journey as a Time Lord is really neat to see unfold through half a century and 11 psychological profiles and dozens of friends. There's something truly epic and kind of meta-story about it. It's quite an original experiment in that sense.
-FL
Just log into your existing router and change the password.
That is. . .
Type the following IP numbers into your address bar and hit "enter".
192.168.0.1
192.168.1.1
192.168.100.1
192.168.1.100
One of those will open your router's log-in page. When it does, just change the password from the default. Voila. Your router can no longer be "Hacked" by this method.
-FL
If you've got the time and the inclination to wade through pages and pages of moronic dribble, and entertain all the halfwit dung-flingers, just so you can pat yourself on the back for being so open-minded and egalitarian, go right ahead. But don't give the rest of us shit for not wanting to do the same, and don't delude yourself into thinking that doing so makes you somehow more enlightened or evolved than the rest of us. All you'll get for your trouble is a sore index finger from all that extra scrolling.
Aw, it's not really that bad. Slashdot has plenty of ignorance and rudeness, but it's actually fairly free of true insanity, not because of the mod system, but because people here will take the time to debate, and name-flinging idiots simply don't last long; they find it easier to function in forums more suited to their head space. "Water finds its own level".
I read with no filters, and while I certainly do have to scroll past some crazy shit, it's not that often and I also find some awesome posts which get unfairly buried. Have you ever posted something in earnest which a mystery moderator resuscitated from the basement? That might have been me. I'm one of the mods who likes the "Interesting" tag; it doesn't mean I agree with it, but if it's lucid and adds to the debate, I'll mod it up.
I suppose that a groomed and committed community like Slashdot, (despite its being informal as hell), is something of a rarity on the web as compared to the little comment sections run by hundreds of newspapers all over the world. But I still think that it's a mistake to manhandle a debate. Ideally, a paper will foster a community of their own with the added feature of there being many local residents participating in the discussions. Combined with Slashcode, that sort of thing could lead to something really healthy.
-FL
Slashdot's moderation system works because it has a huge army of visitors that can be tapped for mod duties. Most newspaper websites have nowhere near enough visitors to do this
This is a fair observation, but only to a point.
When I read Slashdot, I do so with the mod filters off as I want access to everything. But I also know how to use my mouse wheel. I really don't understand why people are so bothered by graffiti. Well, no, let me rephrase that: I DO understand. I just don't respect it.
In any case, I think Slashcode or something similar would vastly improve the community interaction on any newspaper site. That's the solution; not trying to hide from people you find offensive. The moderation system here is only interesting to me in terms of gauging popular opinion; I don't use it to hide from the big, bad world of crazy people and offensive ideas. I'm not a coward.
And that should make people feel good! -Even if your comment is blasted down to -1, I'll still give it a look because I know that this sometimes means you had an excellent point which people found upsetting because they carry too much psychological baggage. I want to hear that point! If you're trying to waste my time, then all you'll get is a few microseconds before I'm gone.
Newspapers trying to protect readers from reality are acting in a very hypercritical manner. They're supposed to inform people, not shelter them and only feed them prescribed ideas.
And guess what? Trolls are part of the world. Best to give people the ability to leapfrog them and get on with life rather than pretend they aren't there.
-FL
The new-agey claptrap was a lot more fun than the anti-new-worlder paranoia.
Am I supposed to understand what you are talking about here?
Remember; you're the only one who can hear your thoughts, so you really do need to make a special effort when communicating with others. It'll take you far in life.
-FL
Slashdot doesn't filter them out very effectively, it's forever plagued by them. What it does have is ways for knowledgeable users (it's entire userbase) to reduce the noise and bring out the signal, all the while knowing full well what trolls are and how to ignore them. A local newspaper has a much smaller and much less savvy audience and needs to actually filter it out somehow, which can be exceedingly difficult if even possible at all.
Grow up. The whole point of having a forum for differing opinions is that you end up with DIFFERING OPINIONS. Some people are crazy and angry, and their posts reflect that. So what? Others are full of wisdom and insight. That's life. Trying to create barriers against those whose opinions you don't like is cowardly.
If it's a stupid comment, just scroll on by. Don't try to segregate people to different ends of the bus because you think your version of reality is superior. Instead give readers the power to quickly assess the value of a commenter and move on if it doesn't suit their interests and sensibilities.
The biggest flaw in these news systems is that they aren't using the mighty power of Slashcode, but rather slow, linear and highly limited comment systems which don't allow for meaningful debate, community building and effective personal filtering of information.
-FL
What with the recent spate of popular reading devices, (iPad and the followers soon to come), not having keyboards in the first place, one almost gets the impression that these papers want people to shut up and listen. And then shut up some more.
So there's three levels at work here. On the top level we have the primary motivation for this. . .
"Hey, if we publicize contentious issues which are designed to engage people on an emotional level, then we can expect to see a fuck-ton of cash come our way as people debate endless infernal issues! Hey! What stories do we have in the slush pile on the abortion issue? What a great way to monetize our web presence and save this sinking ship!"
On the next level down, we have a nice bias against exploited humans: Opinions don't count without good credit. And good credit doesn't happen if one is not plugged tightly into the human industrial exploitation market. And anyway, who wants a bunch of slaves complaining about their lives while you're trying to read the morning news? That's just gaudy!
But on the final level, where I bet most of the people working at the paper are not aware of what is actually happening. . . This becomes a great way to astroturf the corporate/government spin on relevant news stories into place while keeping barriers high against informed dissenters. If you really want to prevent people from speaking out, you just suspend their credit and 'poof' they have no voice. And the fact that they cannot be anonymous is a great incentive for them to keep their mouths shut. Take a look at the way the various papers in Toronto responded to the G20 protest issues and the way the comments were handled there.
Charming. Kiss another paper goodbye.
-FL
Weird. Modded down to -1? Wow. What did I say to inspire that kind of response? Curious. Usually I can predict when people are going to get upset by the things I write, so I have to say, this kind of surprises me. Are people truly THAT offended by the idea of somebody laughing at a poorly executed bit of made-up spy drama? I don't get it.
Ah well. Here's a repost...
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a circus event.
You can tell because the idea of the "Russian Spy" and the "Cold War 2.0" has been seeded into our population for the last year through film and television. It's a total con job.
And anyway, reporting spy craft with such bells and whistles is idiotic. It's only done to sculpt public awareness. And if you look at these so-called, "Spies", (the list of their crimes is idiotic at best), you'll note that, actually, the only spy craft going on is that of American COINTELPRO style bullshit misdirection aimed squarely at the public.
I mean, these "spies" were not actually charged with espionage but rather with, "failing to register as agents of a foreign government." That is, they were accused of "trying to seek out and develop ties and friendships in policy circles of the United States and send back reports." (Um, you mean, like what diplomats and businessmen do every day in capital cities all over the world?)
One set of charges was brought against Vicky Pelaez, an American columnist for the Spanish-language El Diario newspaper for more than 20 years. Was she even aware that her husband of 30 years was a Russian spy? It's interesting that her 'political' activities mark her out as an 'enemy of the state' in the US these days:
In her column, Vicky Pelaez discusses social issues and has taken a stand as a supporter of socialist governments in Latin America, including Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, and against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her articles also advocate for the rights of Indigenous peoples and undocumented immigrants in the U.S. while criticizing the foreign policies of the U.S. in Latin America.
Because of her political ideas and activism, most of Pelaez friends and supporters believe that she is the subject of political persecution, that she is completely innocent.
Another one of the arrested individuals, Anna Chapman, was said to have "met with an individual purporting to be a Russian Government official in Manhattan, New York, at which she received a fraudulent passport," according to the official criminal report.
Chapman, however, immediately went to the local police and gave them the passport.
CNN reported that Chapman never "fulfilled the mission" of delivering the fraudulent passport that the undercover FBI agent gave to her.
Set 'em up and knock 'em down. And passports and microfilm? This was designed for public consumption, and not just any public, but a really dumbed down public only capable of understanding spy dramas as per the Disney version.
So the question is this. . .
What is REALLY going on? What is this supposed to achieve? How would increased tensions between the old cold war super-powers benefit the elite?
I guess we'll just have to wait and see, (because people are obviously too far gone as a society to not fall for this kind of silly tactic.)
-FL
More and more frequently, the news reads like segments from a Neil Stephenson novel. One of his earlier ones.
-FL
They bring this up because it gives them an excuse to bitch about consumer culture, and another sensationalist argument for people in the west to adopt their joyless granola-eating, back-to-the-earth ways.
Joyless? You need to get out more.
But to those who don't get it, I hear if one keeps repeating, "Cheeseburgers love me! They do!" then it is possible to dull the mind and keep up the farce of 'living' for another day.
Problems will not be solved via engineering because those in a position to task out such projects are all psychopathic loons who will never see the light. (Note how BP's solution seems to revolve around turning the Gulf region into a corporate police state rather than fixing or cleaning anything. That's what happens when you put psychopaths in charge of engineers.) Psychopathic types are fabulously delusional and self-destructive and nobody has begun to ponder how to remove them from power. By the time we get to that point, it'll be far too late.
That's how these cyclical de-population trends work.
-FL
This is a circus event.
You can tell because the idea of the "Russian Spy" and the "Cold War 2.0" has been seeded into our population for the last year through film and television. It's a total con job.
And anyway, reporting spy craft with such bells and whistles is idiotic. It's only done to sculpt public awareness. And if you look at these so-called, "Spies", (the list of their crimes is idiotic at best), you'll note that, actually, the only spy craft going on is that of American COINTELPRO style bullshit misdirection aimed squarely at the public.
I mean, these "spies" were not actually charged with espionage but rather with, "failing to register as agents of a foreign government." That is, they were accused of "trying to seek out and develop ties and friendships in policy circles of the United States and send back reports." (Um, you mean, like what diplomats and businessmen do every day in capital cities all over the world?)
One set of charges was brought against Vicky Pelaez, an American columnist for the Spanish-language El Diario newspaper for more than 20 years. Was she even aware that her husband of 30 years was a Russian spy? It's interesting that her 'political' activities mark her out as an 'enemy of the state' in the US these days:
In her column, Vicky Pelaez discusses social issues and has taken a stand as a supporter of socialist governments in Latin America, including Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, and against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her articles also advocate for the rights of Indigenous peoples and undocumented immigrants in the U.S. while criticizing the foreign policies of the U.S. in Latin America.
Because of her political ideas and activism, most of Pelaez friends and supporters believe that she is the subject of political persecution, that she is completely innocent.
Another one of the arrested individuals, Anna Chapman, was said to have "met with an individual purporting to be a Russian Government official in Manhattan, New York, at which she received a fraudulent passport," according to the official criminal report.
Chapman, however, immediately went to the local police and gave them the passport.
CNN reported that Chapman never "fulfilled the mission" of delivering the fraudulent passport that the undercover FBI agent gave to her.
Set 'em up and knock 'em down. And passports and microfilm? This was designed for public consumption, and not just any public, but a really dumbed down public only capable of understanding spy dramas as per the Disney version.
So the question is this. . .
What is REALLY going on? What is this supposed to achieve? How would increased tensions between the old cold war super-powers benefit the elite?
I guess we'll just have to wait and see, (because people are obviously too far gone as a society to not fall for this kind of silly tactic.)
-FL
It's not an out-and-out conspiracy like the tinfoilers of HAARP, Bilderberg, aliens, UFOs, etc would have you believe
Everything else you said is more or less correct, except that mind control and "aliens" are indeed also part of the mix. Anybody who bothers to research the issue will figure that one out quickly enough -if their minds are strong enough to conduct that much current without their breaker circuits popping.
Crop Circles made with planks and ropes wouldn't display any of the true oddities observed in the fields. You know; things like like magnetic seeds. It's astonishing that when such evidence is dumped right in front of the world, most people are capable of tuning it out.
The population isn't mind controlled? Oh, really?
-FL
Why should this games even exist? What is the target group? I doubt there are that many people that really want to play browser games but do not have Flash.
I think was a proof of concept and general, "Hey, I wonder if I could. . ?"
That is, it wasn't made for a target audience. It was made for the creator because he wanted to create, and anybody who wanted to experience that with him is welcome.
I am curious about Javascript; it's sort of like the new BASIC. It's everywhere and anybody with a browser and an editor can use it. New browsers just takes it all a few steps further so that it is able to do pretty much anything at a good rate of speed.
-FL
That's because Nemesis' orbit would certainly have been influenced by the many close encounters we know the Sun has had with other starsin the last 500 million years.
Sorry, what? The Sun has had close encounters with other stars recently? Really? I am not an astrophysicist and I might be completely mistaken, but this seems kind of totally made up.
Also, as another paleontologist has pointed out the periodicity is rather more than just a little controversial. Actually, there are several things which sound wrong in this article. I'm inclined to think that it is some of that mud used to make waters unclear. Typical obfuscation techniques used in counter-intelligence; flood the channel with noise and cranks and half-right theories. All you do is beam some "manic crazy" into the head of a targeted researcher, whisper directly to his ear canal via EM transmission, (all technology known to have existed more than thirty years ago and thus impossible to not have been refined down to the idiot-proof hand-held version level), and voila! Counter-intelligence without fingerprints, crowbars or a paper trail.
Now, I happen to think that there certainly is a cyclical destruction in effect and that it is based on a dark companion star, the Oort cloud and comet clusters. But, I think it happens a lot more regularly than 27 million years, (more like a couple hundred thousand), and that when the comet cluster knocked into lower solar orbit has finished pelting the Earth, it doesn't just vanish. It keeps on orbiting on a 2500 or so year period, losing material each time around, but pelting the Earth repeatedly nonetheless. So the cyclical disaster thing is a fair bit more frequent. We just happen to have a Dark Star showing up in. . , well right now actually, to recharge the system, as it were.
But I could be wrong. I'm on shaky ground wrt astrophysics; I've not done the work to really figure out the maths and dates, so it's pretty armchair hearsay I'm afraid.
-FL
Congratulations.
It took me a full ten minutes of misdirecting myself on Google to figure out what the hell your tag line meant.
Also, you seem to have fire on the brain.
-Fl