videophones; moon colonies; food in pills; cars that drive themselves; jet packs; and moving sidewalks. [...] global catastrophies of the Armageddon kind (be they population overload, total environmental disasters, plagues, asteroids, or nuclear wars[...]
With the exception of moon colonies and perhaps nuclear armageddon, (though small nukes and worse have certainly been used in limited engagements since Japan), I believe all of those things currently exist, have happened or are in the process of happening as we speak.
The reason you don't have them, (in the case of 'desirable' items), or that you have not experienced them, (in the case of mass starvation and mass destruction of human, animal and plant life), is that everybody who might possibly be able to DO something about it has been put into strictly controlled states of limited awareness. --Boxes which are shored up and taped shut with assenine news articles which promote skeptical, reassuring, 'everything is perfectly normal, citizen' horsepucky.
TIME Magazine: News for chumps.
I notice that this article appears directly after the most recent Astroid warning. Everybody go back to sleep. You're safe. No. Really. Ignore the tubes in your nose.
A little short on details, mind you, but your reaction certainly comes across loud and clear. --Which point in particular did you have a problem with? --What was it and why did you think it is (I presume) wrong?
Why are sales in the game industry beginning to out-pace sales in the movie industry?
There are more games out there than you can run away screaming from, (cuz you'll just run into another hoard of them around the corner.)
The article is a masturbation piece, and Carmack, despite his coding skills, is a pasty doof who has been turning a nation of kids into tomorrow's pre-programmed soldiers, war supporters and violent-solutionists.
The Mario franchise was cool, because it proved that non-violent games could be successful. Its creator was a true genius, infinitely more productive and brilliant than Quake-boy.
Show me a Quake fan, and 9 times out of 10, I'll show you a guy who truly believed invading Iraq was not just a good idea, but more importantly, a workable idea.
Interesting, that.
People argue that media has no effect on their actions, and then go out and buy Nike shoes, drink Coke, and quote 'educational' programming, thinking they actually know how the world works. Amazing.
I also find it interesting that for nearly 7 years leading up to the war in Iraq, some of the most popular games on PC were 'resource-management' war games. Oil and Opium. I also find it interesting that the Command and Conquer games were so starkly reflective of current trends. --Resources which are poisoning the world. War against global terrorists. Alien manipulation.
My educated guess is that virtually ALL popular media is designed to send messages into the subconscious of the public, whether or not the front-line writers, coders and film-makers realize that they are channeling from the dark or light side.
There are forces working both for and against the fate of humanity. They are about equal in power, but their methods differ. Carmack is part of the goon squad.
Let me [heavily] paraphrase Star Wars. ..
"The path to the dark side is always easier and faster and more seductive, but it also destroys the practitioner."
The social structure that we all exist in today has been engineered so that virtually EVERYBODY who uses a computer is a software pirate on some level. --I only ever knew one person who made it her personal crusade to never, ever use software she hadn't directly paid for, and for her it was only because she was stubborn and had decided to be that way despite all the inconvenience it caused. It drove her boyfriend nuts, because he was a weakling and allowed her to direct his life as well, so much of his computer's functionality had to go. --His solution was to switch to Linux, and go the open-source route, which in the long run gave him the best of both worlds.
(Interestingly, she was an idealistic Mac user who didn't like to have think about how it worked, and he was a PC user who liked to pull apart machines and tinker.)
Anyway. . . The point of the matter is that the current system of society is such that it is set up to make EVERYBODY a criminal. That way, there's automatic leverage already in place against anybody who the Masters of the Universe want to intimidate and bully as they deem necessary.
With Gates working side by side with the Homeland Security spooks, with unique-identifier chips for computers on the horizon, this is only going to get more cemented into place. My guess is that there may even be systems in the future to automatically debit your account for the amounts 'owing' whether you like it or not. --And if your credit rating isn't good enough to support a sudden whop of extra debt, then there's always the state salt mines.
Here's another interesting thing; that same girl? There's a perfect place for people like her. She'll be the one who will put you in jail without a blink or note of compassion. She thinks she's better than you and that the system is inherently right; that individual thought, action and non-orthodox (creative) problem solving are the primary sources of all trouble and woe in the world. Everything would be Oh, so much nicer if everybody just did as they were told! Anybody who comes up with new ideas which have not been sanctioned by the wonderfully reassuring TV-Sciencey-People are so very threatening. (It's especially aggrievating to her when those new ideas prove to be more efficient and effective, propelling the outside-the-box thinker to success, leaving her in the dust. It's not fair! People shouldn't be allowed to do that! No fair!)
--She's the sort who was effectively programmed at a very young age to instinctively seek an authority structure and to then seek its approval. (Gold stars and check marks in school when you are a child? That's hard-core programming, baby!) As such, through desperately seeking the moral high ground in all matters without considering the terms of that 'high' ground, or the agendas of those who imposed the rules, she becomes a candidate for perfect Nazihood. She'll march in the fucking Neocon parades and turn you in for sedition. (Grumbling at your work station.) People like you have been making her feel miserable and lonely and awkward for her entire life, and boy, you better believe she's bitter. Soon it's going to be pay back.
By re-enforcing these patterns, by directing through subconscious suggestion the people you find yourself involved with, is how the real Matrix imposes control over us. It takes a great deal of awareness to break free of this system.
Ever wonder why most of the people you know are sad, stressed and exhausted most of the time? No? Might be a good idea to start wondering, because, newsflash; it's not the natural state.
Knowledge protects.
-FL
"Something, something the more numerous the laws, something, something." --Tacitus.
If you're really lucky you'll meet up with Julia Roberts, have a wild adventure, and the two of you will fall in love and live happily ever after.
Make it Michele Yeo, and I might give myself a one in five chance of coming out the other end in one piece. I have no illusions. I actually know how hard these guys can play. Luckily, I'm small, small fry. I don't expect to be collected and shipped off until the shit really hits.
The trick is to make it more expensive to deal with you than your percieved threat value is worth. At the moment, a loudmouth gnat like me is too expensive to hit with anything more than general, buy it by the bushel, harassment. But as the fascist steem roller powers up and hits cruising speed, the cost of eliminating people goes right down to rock bottom prices. Just send out a van with a list of pick-ups, and don't sweat the PR because everybody is too terrified to lift a finger for fear of being next. We're not there yet, but we're circling the drain. --Oddly enough, writing like this is a mild form of protection. If I vanished tomorrow, that would send a message all by itself. --Not so much to the newsgroup crowd, who for the most part couldn't give two beans, but rather to the people I know personally who are sitting on the fence about all this stuff. There's a great deal of power in that, and the ripple effect would be quite wide. We've a ways to go yet before I see my fingers getting crushed in a vice. But hey; what's a bit of torture? We all have to go sometime. You want to do it standing up or cowering in a corner?
"Those with the courage of a lion will not have a fate of a mouse."
And so, reporting small, small-fry but live, (for the time being). ..
The muscles in the human body are triggered by electrical signals, right?
So then it should theoretically be possible to wire a human body so that it can be remote controllable. --I mean, even in the dorky public access sciences, they have rats which can be directed around laboratory floors with radio control units.
Heck, does the body even have to be 'alive'? --We already have coma victims kept going by machine. Why not, through brain manipulation, fire all the right signals to make the body walk and breathe. And talk. Why not? --All that speech stuff is programmed in there already. --Look at Bush; he's just a reaction machine; no soul inside. Not even an Intel chip. (Though he's not a robot; he's just another boring psycho.)
But hey, many Slashdotters would argue that there are no such things as 'souls' in the first place, which would mean that all humans are just big robots running rogue. Why not simply direct some of those brains and bodies by remote control? Again, public arena science has experimental jet pilots directing their planes with mind-reading helmets. --And the nice thing about electrical impulses is that, as any engineer can tell you, they're a two-way street. (Though somewhat more complicated in biological form, but nonetheless entirely manipulable.)
According to my ever-so-bountiful sources, there are about 1 million of these human robots being used right now on our humble little planet. --It's even possible to simulate an aura, making them difficult to detect even by those who are sensitive to such things. (Not that aruas exist, of course. To suggest such a thing would be foolish.)
Now sure, this may all sound like rather much higher tech than even a well equipped Shadow Government could pull together. And last I heard, human agencies weren't at the level of being able to put a human robot into action, but then things have been moving pretty quick of late. --For instance, I'd be interested to know which particular group is responsible for the lastest bunch of crop circles up in Canada. --The ones which have burnt/blown cavities in the cereal nodes which look as though they were put too long in a microwave.
Human agencies? Maybe. It's tough to say. Things are playing so fast and loose these days, it's nearly a full time job just keeping up!
for those who would have trouble digesting the reality. (ie, most of us.)
Think 'chi energy' rather than electrical or heat energy, and think 'alien' instead of 'machine', and you're getting closer. (Alien, like the ones Neo and Trinity are made up to look like on the box cover of the first film with their fancy and specially designed sunglasses.)
Also, rather than the 'matrix' being a computer generated affair into which we are all plugged, think in broader terms. The directors of The Matrix were either being very deliberate in their actions, or they were channeling some serious shit from one of the many groups which send such messages.
While the first film had its corruptions, (the grey-alien-as-savior references being a big one), the second film seemed to me a completely screwed up jumble. --Which, incidentally is how the real matrix works; it likes to mess around with incoming data which has been identified as having the potential to enlighten.
--I'm just glad that all three of the Lord of the Rings films were shot at the same time, far, far away from the clutches of Hollywood!
Did somebody declare an "Worldwide Technology Hype For Nationalim Week" and not tell me?
Sheesh.
And trust the Japanese to drive their national ambitions toward the creation of robots with the intellect of 5 year olds. --Anybody willing to bet how old the physical forms of those robots will appear? Or what gender they'll be? Sheesh, I say!
Sorry. I keyed out a long and thoughtful response to yours, (which, by the way, raised some good and valid points). But then the virus took down my computer and I just didn't have the energy to re-do it, and dig around for all the links again. But I have come back a couple of days later to do what I can to answer your thoughts.
Suffice it to say, there are still some large gaps in your knowledge and perception of the issues which I think need filling, but I also do appreciate your filling in some of my own gaps.
For instance, I didn't realize that certain of the infrastucture of Iraq had not been directly taken out by the US. Although, at the same time, I see things like all the power lines leading to Baghdad destroyed; every cable tower along the miles and miles of highway used by an arm of the approaching US forces into the city was blown with professional army engineering skill at the same point on every one of the hundreds of line poles. Whether or not this was a US action (which would make basic tactical sense; take out the power of the city you are invading), or a geurilla resistance action which took place after the invasion is not entirely clear, (though I am apt to lean toward it being a US move, if simply because it would be virtually impossible to get away with such a massive project and not be caught post-invasion).
As for guns being handed out by Saddam, I suspect that this was only when it became obvious that there was going to be pitched battle in the streets of Iraq when the US forces came. --And I certainly don't think that this is any indication of basic, day to day policy.
However, I defy you to find any video of people in the US doing the kind of AK-47 firing into the air thing that you routinely see in the middle east. Such scenes characterize the ugly side of their culture, just as Jerry Springer and Black urban riots characterize our ugly side.
Okay. That's fair. You DO see the AK-47 air shooting. --I don't think it's anywhere nearly as universal a behavior as we in the West are led to believe, but it's certainly there. But you've hit the nail on the head when you point out our own modes of expressing the same dark things exist as well; These are modes of expression which I don't think are entirely different except in the form of expression itself. --I've been through Detroit. I've seen the, to this day, unrepaired post-apocalypse of the 60's race riots. --I personally know Americans who have been terrorized by their own country men at shotgun point in the streets of LA.
It's barbaric and horrifying, but in and of themselves, these are not good reasons to disrespect an entire group of people based on the actions of only a few who happen to be very visible. --For instance, the US black population is only around 10%, and only a much smaller portion of that are the gun toting, desperate kids. But those are the ones we see in the news.
The same goes for people in the Middle East, except the skew is even more pronounced. There are millions of hard working, good people in those countries. I have met some of them in my own travels, and the poor represention of them in the Western media is put right there in your face. --And it's enough to make you cry when you realize that it is largely based on those skewed images that innocent people and their kids, no different than you or me, are being savaged by American forces blinded by bad television.
You and everybody like you reinforcing their support for Bush.
Because you're right. There IS no rational reason for the Iraqis to blow up a UN compound. Neither tactical nor diplomatic. It's incredibly stupid. --The UN, the one world body which might have the ability to lean on the US and make things better for Iraq, and the Iraqis attack it. Hmmm.
Same thing happens all the time with the Palestinians. --Just when things are looking good for them; talks about land being returned, or the Jewish military pulling back in its supremacist policies, a 'Palestinian' suicide bomber will take out another busload of civilians. --I mean, EXACTLY when things are looking up. You can pretty much predict the day of an attack based on how good things are looking in the 'Roadmap to Peace' or whatever horseshit the media is shoveling on any given month.
It's the same old pattern, and it's happened, literally, countless times. Just when things are looking as though Peace might break out, the party with the most to gain shoots itself in the foot, thereby 'justifying' the aggressive force of the massively superior power of the Jews, or in this case, the US.
In warzones, it is very, very easy to get away with operations of this sort. You don't even need to Greenbaum, (Look that up!) a victim. You just need a charismatic CIA asset operating behind the enemy lines, (like Bin Laden for instance; that guy was created by the CIA a decade and a half ago. Any half-assed Googling will tell you that.), and get the guy to start distributing horseshit to his followers. The young men are cut off enough from world awareness so they don't really know what's going on, and they're angry enough at the violations played upon them and their land and their loved ones; that's a lot of bottled up rage and misery. It'd be very, very easy to whip them up into blowing up pretty much any target you convince them is 'Bad'. Hell, we've seen that very scenario played out in reverse; Americans seeing their 'Homeland' being hurt getting whipped up into a big enough frenzy to also blow up ridiculous targets which had nothing to do with the original injustice. Targets such as Afghanistan and Iraq, for instance. And who gains in the end?
Somebody is getting rich as hell, and it's not you or me! -Haliburton, Dyncorp, Carlyle Group and fucking Worldcom of all companies; they're the ones profiting! Oh, and a Jewish telco got another of the billion dollar reconstruction deals. --Companies which are either responsible for losing BILLIONS of dollars due to the recent economy-destroying frauds in 2001, (for which the perpetrators are STILL not being penalized thanks to friends in high places), or in which Bush and his cronies are actually direct shareholders!
So, I'm sorry. I just don't buy it. It makes zero sense for Iraq to bomb a UN holding, and (as you demonstrate), such ploys are simply far too effective a propaganda policy for them not to be regarded with a high level of suspicion. There's just too much money at stake, and the people in direct line to collect that cash have demonstrated time and again that they have no internal moral compases whatsoever. When I see 2+2, I can only say, "4".
To that blaster silliness was to ditch my copy of 2000 and go back to 98. Yes, yes, I know Linux is a proper solution, but the learning curve on that looks monumental, and I have a business to run. All those drivers. . , and half my equipment is ancient legacy stuff. Another time when I have a whole month to screw around, perhaps.
But for now. ..
Man. Going back to Win98 has relieved SOOO much stress! (Which, honestly, I believe is one of the core reasons that computers exist; to cause society-wide stress and anxiety; but then I believe the cities are primarily just big negative energy batteries for the evil aliens to feed on. But then people also call me weird.)
Win98 does everything I need, and while it does not necessarily do so flawlessly, it does so reliably because at this point, I know that OS backwards and forwards. Whatever problems crop up I can fix in a few minutes because I've spent the last six years or so messing with that system. --Win2K had lots of bells and whistles, but it confused me with all of the new quirks and bits of bullshit which also came along with it.
Plus it was several major steps forward toward the whole massive information control society we all fear. (Well, those of us with brains.) Like this latest horseshit with auto-updates. Makes me wonder if Bill Gates isn't taking a page out of Bush's diary; invent a threat in order to advance your own agenda.)
But anyway. ..
--I don't mind email attachment trojans. Like safe sex, those dangers are a choice. But shit! That last virus was able to get into Win2000 if you were simply connected to the web! I mean, what the hell? And there were other strange problems cropping up which I didn't understand, and since all the latest viruses are focused on the platform du jour, going back a step is a virtual gurantee of safe computing! --I bet the guys who still run the old C64's never have to worry about such nonsense; they're off the grid!
The problem which downed the computer industry is the very thing which is going to make my life easier from now on; there are no more killer apps on the horizon. Once computers reached the point where all tasks could be done without hair-pulling delays, or with quality drops in the digital versus analogue contest, there was suddenly no longer any reason to keep up with the Joneses.
--Thank goodness I've grown past the point where I give two beans about the latest game advancements!
Scanners don't suck for color and they don't use neon bulbs.
Oh really? Your opinion differs from both mine and the dozens of professionals I've worked with and employed in the print graphics industry over the years. Correct shades of Blue are particularly hard to capture properly, because they occupy an unaccomodating end of the shitty scanner light spectrum. --The problem, quite simply, is that contract illustrators often work under incandescent lighting, which is known for its warm and slightly yellow hues, but have their work scanned with light which doesn't bring out these same qualities in their work. So, 'Shitty' is indeed a subjective term, but the fact of the matter is that scanners do not allow for any play in this area. Digital photography, however, allows for whatever lighting best suits the subject.
And perhaps 'neon' was a bit presumptuous. Perhaps I should have said, 'flourescent'. But seeing as the two are virtually the same, I didn't think it would matter. My sincere, appologies.
Foveon's claim is not "higher resolution for your buck."
Yes, thank you for intentionally mis-reading my paraphrasing. I believe the claim was that because Fovon uses one pixel instead of 3 to capture color, they can do the same job with one third the pixels another camera would require. Again, I'm terribly sorry for not being more clear.
Quality lenses don't get curvy when you get close to the edges.
Yes. I KNOW that. That's why I was commenting on the price of lenses as being a big consideration during the buying process.
6MP can deliver 300dpi at a reasonable size as long as the size is "reasonable". Their performance in some ways exceeds 35mm film.
Uh huh. And in my line of work, finished products which press at 8.5" x 11" are considered reasonable. And guess what? Unless one is dealing with live shoots, even 35mm film is not good enough for that. Illustration reproduction requires 3" x 5" film cameras or high-res scanning. But thanks for your insight.
Half-assed research produces half-assed answers.
Ah. At last we agree. --Though given this, I don't quite understand your commenting in the first place.
Fantasticorp (tm) formally announced plans today to construct a Water Slide Theme Park on Neptune.
"Everybody here at Fantasticorp is very excited by the move," explains Public Relations Bunny, Natasha Russki. "From Fearless Leader all the way down to our enforced government investors, we are all very excited! --The only employees who seem to have any problem with the plan are in the engineering corps. But they're a rather dour lot."
Fantasticorp's 2001 announcement to build an Ice Cream Factory on Io was not forgotten by the public as expected, forcing the corporate giant to consider recycling much of its R&D and engineering staff by the fall of this year.
"It's unfortunate that the public had such a long memory, so now we actually have to invest time and money in that dull, old project," pouts Natasha. "So we're planning instead to expose employee corruption as the source of failure for the Io plan and hire an all new staff, invigorating our team with new life and energy! We're all very excited!"
Fantasticorp later admitted that certain employees had been let go and may face charges due to collusion with Chinese industrial spies in the Io Ice Cream Confectionary scandal. "Anyway, we're much better than the Chinese." assured Natasha. "Their Asteroid Belt Animal Kingdom Project is doomed to failure."
The Sigma installed Fovon technology was my target as I stomped down to the camera district.
--Cuz, you see, scanners suck for color. (That blue-white neon bulb plays HELL with all color. Images which may have been, say, painted beneath nice warm yellow incadescent bulbs turn into entirely different images when subjected to Borg lighting.)
With this in mind, I dragged a painting down with me and waited around for half an hour for one of the sales people to get free. Business is booming in the digital camera trade. I watched two stalwart pro-camera guys barter on the edge of $10,000 each, all in order to get themselves out of film and finally into the new digital technology. The change-over is hot on, and there aren't enough sales guys to go around! So I waited my turn.
When I was finally able to get some face time with one of the guys, I slapped the illustration down on the counter and told him what I was all about. So ten minutes later, there were three cameras set up for me to try out. I'd brought my own flash card with me so I could take the results home to test. That was my brilliant plan.
Here's where it all went awry. ..
First off, the Sigma camera, the Fovon chip notwithstanding, is a poorly designed piece of junk. It wouldn't work. The guy complained that it burned through its batteries like wildfire, (it took at least two different sets of batteries; one for the camera body and one for something else. And still another set for the flash. If one set wasn't up to snuff, the whole thing would do nothing. He said it was a piece of shit. So I never actually got try out the thing.
Furthermore, when you go to buy one of these high-end jobs, the $2000 bucks quoted in the add does not include a lens. Just the camera body. Yikes! --For my needs, I was looking at blowing, at least another $1-2000; probably more. If you are shooting artwork, you can't be screwing around with curving lines and such at the top and bottom of an illustration. Plus, if you want something which is can achieve a 300dpi print quality at a reasonable size. . , well 6 megapixels in the hardware just won't do. --Especially since you can't use all of the image area sighted by the camera. Straight lines go curvey the closer to the edge of the lense you get.
Now I did test a Canon, and an Olympus. Both worked and were designed much more effectively. Plus, both Canon and Olympus offered slightly more affordable lens solutions. The color problem, of course, was gone. The camera would take in whatever color light you bounced off the subject. That wasn't even an issue; color correctors would be looking for new jobs when these kinds of cameras became workable. But this particular camera store didn't have anything which shot in the kind of size range a print illustrator would need.
Now, this problem might go away with the Fovon technology. Supposedly, you get higher resolution for your buck, simply because of how it understands color. But I've yet to test a camera which has the chip.
One way or another, I went home again, convinced that color correction was a task I could handle with a smile simply because of all the money I wouldn't have to spend on a half-assed answer.
CIA didn't try and plant any WMDs...that's just BS, and you know it.
Well, I don't know about BS, but in all fairness, the story is murky. --It stems from several sources and it comes from angry agents who accuse the CIA of botching the affair, making intel assurances it was wrong about, and getting American agents killed in the early days and hours before the war began. This is related to deals cut with Saddam's people, among other things. I need to study the material further before I can speak with authority on the matter, but it's not nearly so open and shut as you suggest.
A scientist digs up a gas centrifuge he was ordered to bury in his back yard, and people blow it off as nothing to do with WMDs.
Those pieces were from a nuclear program which was over a decade old. --Yes, I know the 'evidence' was spruced up by CNN and FoxNews, but seriously; that all stemmed from times during and before the first Gulf War, when yes, Iraq was probably trying to re-build the nuclear program which had been destroyed once already by the Isrealies in the mid -Eighties. But people didn't blow off the discovery. After looking at the details, they simply realized it was nothing. Seriously; if CNN and FoxNews thought that it was a worthy bit of evidence, they would certainly have spun it into something more than they were able. But the fact remains, you need not just a nuclear power plant to make weapons grade material, but a whole Uranium refining industry in order just to use the part in question. You can't really hide a whole nuclear power plant.
The evidence is being gathered even as we banter back and forth about this:
I read your link. For goodness sake, man! It's quoting one of the core liars of the Bush gang, and he's beating the dead pony of those flakey 'papers' discovered in a government office by the secret service. Sheesh! --All in the (apparently correct) belief that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will actually believe it. --DESPITE the fact that the 'evidence', (just like the rose garden parts), was already determined to be worthless! --Next thing you'll be telling me is that the plagerized paper written by a university student which Blair held up as evidence and told us was prepared by the British Secret Services is now suddenly valid again!
Did you happen to read the part in your article where it said that NO WMD's HAVE BEEN FOUND? Papers planted by the US secret service and actual warheads are two VERY different things. I'm sure the report you are waiting for will be a glowing endorsement of the Bush gang, (seeing as it is being WRITTEN by the Bush gang! DUH!)
Look, you are being lied to. The more you try to defend the people abusing you, the more a victim you become. I know it's hard, and I know it's easier to pretend that you are not a victim, but you will only disservice yourself in the long run by clinging to illusions.
The two links in my last post might be a good place to start. (You know; actually read before you respond. . ?)
Saddam wasn't a good guy by any means. But neither were people (theirs and yours) dying from DU poisoning, and chaotic acts of military violence and a complete breakdown of society, oil being stolen by the US to pay for it, and all the ripe new big-money industrial contracts being handed out Western and Israeli instrests. (Which is why the existing infrastructure was destroyed. This, my friend, is rape.) --Napoleon also justified his conquests and pilages by calling himself a 'Liberator' when he marched into countries. Same lie, different year.
In any case, I don't recall anybody in Iraq ever asking the US to go charging in to their 'rescue'. --Heck, I thought the war was supposed to be because the world trade towers were destroyed by terrorists. Though, unless you haven't been listening, there is and never was any link between Iraq and 9-11. Wolfawitz himself stated this very directly.
So then the war was supposed to be about the big bad 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'. Which were never there to be found, (despite a botched CIA job to plant some).
So now, Bush and his followers are retroactively trying to justify their actions by saying, "Oh, well we were liberating Iraq from Saddam. Yeah, that's the ticket!"
B*U*L*L S*H*I*T.
But such items hardly matter to people who don't bother reading before answering. Such people just believe what is comfortable.
I think we can fix this problem if we all run out into the street and fire AK-47s into the air randomly. I mean, that's what the Iraqis do and they live in the 3rd world where power outages are much more common. So, they must know how to solve these kinds of problems. Oh yeah, and don't forget to chant "Death To America" and blame "the occupiers".
Wow. The depth of your delusion is staggering.
Bagdhad was a major city with employment, civil services and the whole infrastructure one would expect from a modern city. --And YES, it was a modern city despite the lies propagated by the US media. I knew a kid from Syria who had travelled through much of the middle east. He fixed my own movie-based delusions, and I have since then sworn to do some actual reading before I open my big mouth to repeat propaganda.
The average Iraqi citizen doesn't have an AK-47. Saddam's enforcers, yes, but not the regular people with families and jobs and lives to lead. Owning a machine gun under Saddam's rule would have been fairly stupid. It would have gotten you thrown in prison. --Saddam knew, (as does Bush), that it's hard to repress a citizenry when they are armed.
Anyway, all of that modern infrastructure, (Power, telecommunications, water, sewage), was blasted out of existence by the invading American forces and it was replaced by. . . You guessed it; Nothing. Now there is only chaos, and over-stressed American GI's with jittery trigger fingers. People are now starving and fearful in their own city with no basic services. --Well, until the Isreali telco was awarded the contract to set up a cell phone network. (After, that is, Betelco, an Arab company, was told to dismantal the 5 million dollar start up service it had implemented two weeks ago without the approval of the US, (read: Zionist cronyism).
Life sucks for the residents of a country suffering under foriegn tyranny, as enforced by soldiers who have been taught to believe that Arab people are savages who run around shooting AK-47's into the air. It's easier to treat them like dogs when that kind of (very, very typical) propaganda is being used.
Here's a link from one an 'imbedded' reporter who has been emailing his reports home. An eye on the inside.
Seriously. You need to watch fewer movies and biased CNN reporting before you make such ignorant comments about a people who have been devastated simply because most Americans were too gullable to see Bush's lies for what they were.
I think you could be well served in reviewing some of your information regarding Aspartame.
The "There's more Methanol in a glass of fruit juice" line is an old one, which can be traced back to Monsanto public relations. It is true in the strictest sense, but at the same time a very misleading assurance.
A paper by Dr. Woodrow Monte titled Aspartame: Methanol and the Public Health-- (1984). "Aspartame: Methanol and the public health." Journal of Applied Nutrition, Vol 36, No 1.) addresses this particular lie;
"Ethanol, the classic antidote for methanol toxicity, is found in natural food sources of methanol at concentrations 5 to 500,000 times that of the toxin. Ethanol inhibits metabolism of methanol and allows the body time for clearance of the toxin through the lungs and kidneys."
--Except there's no Ethanol in Pepsi.
But there are other things going on. --Phenylalanine and aspartic acid, 90% of aspartame, are amino acids normally used in synthesis of protoplasm when supplied by the foods we eat. But when they are not accompanied by other amino acids we use, they are neurotoxic. That is why a warning for Phenylketonurics is found on EQUAL and other aspartame products. Phenylketenurics are 2% of the population with extreme sensitivity to this chemical unless it's present in food.
And don't get me started on the whackjob nutballs and Flouride. Britain's dental situation is so bad, even they are thinking of adding flouride to try and improve their teeth.
No kidding? --Though I guess that's no surprise given Britain's political profile at the moment. --Fluoride affects awareness and willpower. (Fluoride is a component in many anti-depressant style drugs.)
If people have been watching, they'll have noticed a heck of a lot more than that!
There have been an unprecedented number of events this year! --Including heat waves leaving a few hundred dead in the UK and Continental Europe, screwed up weather patterns, huge storms and flooding. --All complete with hail stones as big as cantaloups in Nebraska. --Not to mention crazy levels of seismic/volcanic activity abounding! There have been recent quakes in Japan, Taiwan, and Iran. --Just in the last week. There have been dozens of earthquakes all over the damned place this year.
Those who say Global Warming isn't real might want to consider that this tourist glacier observatory built in Alaska in 1986, now overlooks nothing but water.
Mount Etna is spewing lava in Italy. And it looks like Yellowstone park is preparing for trouble, (though I seem to have lost my link to that. But think, 'Swelling ground mass and Old Faithful being unreliable.')
These scientists talk about changes in 100 years? Try in the next 8 or so.
Oh, and comet activity is going through the roof. (Sorry, that should be, coming through the roof.) Not One, but Two stories in the last week alone of meteorites smashing craters into tarmack. --The first one almost hitting a kid!
This is it, folks. These next few years are really shaping up to be amazing ones! Get your heads out of the sand now. This kind of show only happens once in a great many life-times! Comets and ice ages and the end of the world as you know it, man!
In the words of the great muppet president, "Bring it on!"
According to the work of Robert O. Becker, the assumption that regular cells cannot dedifferentiate is in fact not just a false belief, but one which has been shored up at great expense by orthodox medicine. The phenomenon of normal cell dediferentiation, (a skin or bone cell into a 'stem' cell) can be observed at the site of tissue wounds in not just salmimanders, (which can regrow whole limbs), but in humans as well. (Who, even though they cannot, do not for extremely interesting reasons.)
Apparently, vanishingly small micro current DC electricity is used by complex organisms to tell cells what to do during various stages of growth and tissue repair. --I came upon Becker's work while reading up on Electromagnetism and its effects on human neurology.
I was blown away by what he had discovered over his long and lettered career. Becker is one of the 'real' ones. Look him up.
You seem to know an awful lot about us. And two, what exactly is it that you are proposing? That we forget what genetics is?
Heh. Sorry, but just because you happen to work in the pharmaceutical industry, (and you're probably like many people; relatively earnest in your day to day efforts), does NOT mean that no wrong is ever committed through medical science.
I think, as the poster points out, given the human track record, it behooves us to consider very carefully how this science is used. --It's not the science, it's the organizations which plan to employ it we have to be wary of!
Just think; if corporate medicine is capable of putting Aspartame in our food, Fluoride in our water, and promotions for the use of anti-depressants in schools to control those 'difficult ADD kids' (who it has been demonstrated, are more than likely often simply reacting to the caffine and various other chemicals in their food and drink). --Not to mention anti-depressants being promoted in women's magainzes to minimize the 'unpleasant psychological effects' of menstruation. ..
If corporate medicine is capable of acting in these ways, then just imagine what other sorts of horrors could be dreamed up when souless money is given access to the human gene code! --Ooops. We don't have to imagine. We just have to sit back and watch.
And what should we do about it?
Not much can be done now. --Short of hauling the heads of corporations and government out and putting them in jail forever. But this wonderful capitalist society wouldn't stand for it, I'm afraid. So that leaves you, as always, with nothing but your own conscience and free choice to work with.
not with the science or exploration itself, but with the people who intend to use it.
What I find odd is that the military study of genetics, etc., and their application has surely never stopped for a second since the discovery that genetic engineering could be put to tactical use. Why the recent push to popularize it in the public domain? I mean, most of the work has been done, most of the big discovieries are already in application today in the darker military hallways.
So why all the 'Spiderman' and 'X-Men' films, glorifying genetic research and DNA alterations? What is it that the Powers That Be want people to accept?
I strongly suspect that while, as always, it has to do with Money, it has also has a great deal to do with control.
Okay. I have a difficult question for you. Be careful. The spotlight is on.
Television broadcasters and advertisers are schooled to direct their messages to an average 12 year-old mentality because that, unfortunately, has been proven by far the most effective way to get people to, 'Vote with their Wallets.'
Likewise, success in politics, as has been demonstrated since the dawn of politics, and which is certainly true today, is almost never achieved by appealing to the minds of a "Self-motivated, rational and informed public." Success in politics is nearly always achieve by manipulating and then addressing base emotions through overly-simplified representations of issues. "People would rather believe a Simple Lie than a Complex Truth."
--The simple fact that 'Arnie', whose primary claim to fame is physical size and a movie career where he played big guys with big guns and 'blowed stuff up real good', is actually in a real position to win, is an excellent example.
So, (and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here by assuming you are *not* yet another deluded and/or self-serving jerk), how do you personally approach the whole problem that success in politics is largely based on manipulating like cattle the very voting public which it is the politician's job to respect and serve?
Bush is still a liar. The laws on the books still allow FEMA to incarcerate people without any hope of their being redressed in a civilian court under constitutional law.
And yes, I already agreed that these agencies exist on (semi)-logical grounds and that there is a reason for it being so. But you seem not to have read that either.
You are clearly only listening to the things you want to hear. --As for your glib comment about the US prison system. . , has it never occurred to you as strange that the prison population of the U.S. is higher per capita than it has EVER been before in the history of the U.S.? --And not just by a couple of small percentage points either. Tacitus once warned us, "The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws."
And as for Dirty Bombs and such going off in my neighborhood. . , well, I suspect that such things would be the result of the same people who engineered 9-11. Which, if you examine the mountain of evidence available, you would soon realize was none other than parts of your own government.
But maybe you'll only laugh at that rather than do any reading. --Heck, as evidenced here, you seem reluctant to read a basic post on Slashdot properly.
You also seem to think that it is impossible for the fine, regular men and women in FEMA, (and other agencies), to do dastardly things. Let me ask you this: Would you put me in a pen if your CO told you I was a terrorist but furnished no proof? (They don't give evidence to soldiers, do they?)
There's your answer.
And by the way, if you want to make single carriage returns between your paragraphs rather than leave those big oaf-spaces, you should put a 'BR' between the greater/less-than signs rather than a 'P'. --Not that I'd expect you to know such a detail. Research would have been required for that!
Just another way for digital money to ease into our comfort zones.
After all, will kids be using paper money to make these transactions? Duh.
And once all the paper is gone, you will be under total control. The state will be able to turn on or off your money 'privileges'.
Better figure out an alternative way to stay viable, or get used to the idea of being a good little drone. (Hm. Which doesn't seem like such a bad idea, does it? You have video games, after all, right. . ? Why worry. Big Brother will take care of you.)
The great sleep is falling. Shake yourself or be lost.
Slashdot Mirror
With the exception of moon colonies and perhaps nuclear armageddon, (though small nukes and worse have certainly been used in limited engagements since Japan), I believe all of those things currently exist, have happened or are in the process of happening as we speak.
The reason you don't have them, (in the case of 'desirable' items), or that you have not experienced them, (in the case of mass starvation and mass destruction of human, animal and plant life), is that everybody who might possibly be able to DO something about it has been put into strictly controlled states of limited awareness. --Boxes which are shored up and taped shut with assenine news articles which promote skeptical, reassuring, 'everything is perfectly normal, citizen' horsepucky.
TIME Magazine: News for chumps.
I notice that this article appears directly after the most recent Astroid warning. Everybody go back to sleep. You're safe. No. Really. Ignore the tubes in your nose.
-FL
Good answer!
A little short on details, mind you, but your reaction certainly comes across loud and clear. --Which point in particular did you have a problem with? --What was it and why did you think it is (I presume) wrong?
-FL
There are more games out there than you can run away screaming from, (cuz you'll just run into another hoard of them around the corner.)
The article is a masturbation piece, and Carmack, despite his coding skills, is a pasty doof who has been turning a nation of kids into tomorrow's pre-programmed soldiers, war supporters and violent-solutionists.
The Mario franchise was cool, because it proved that non-violent games could be successful. Its creator was a true genius, infinitely more productive and brilliant than Quake-boy.
Show me a Quake fan, and 9 times out of 10, I'll show you a guy who truly believed invading Iraq was not just a good idea, but more importantly, a workable idea.
Interesting, that.
People argue that media has no effect on their actions, and then go out and buy Nike shoes, drink Coke, and quote 'educational' programming, thinking they actually know how the world works. Amazing.
I also find it interesting that for nearly 7 years leading up to the war in Iraq, some of the most popular games on PC were 'resource-management' war games. Oil and Opium. I also find it interesting that the Command and Conquer games were so starkly reflective of current trends. --Resources which are poisoning the world. War against global terrorists. Alien manipulation.
My educated guess is that virtually ALL popular media is designed to send messages into the subconscious of the public, whether or not the front-line writers, coders and film-makers realize that they are channeling from the dark or light side.
There are forces working both for and against the fate of humanity. They are about equal in power, but their methods differ. Carmack is part of the goon squad.
Let me [heavily] paraphrase Star Wars. .
"The path to the dark side is always easier and faster and more seductive, but it also destroys the practitioner."
-FL
The social structure that we all exist in today has been engineered so that virtually EVERYBODY who uses a computer is a software pirate on some level. --I only ever knew one person who made it her personal crusade to never, ever use software she hadn't directly paid for, and for her it was only because she was stubborn and had decided to be that way despite all the inconvenience it caused. It drove her boyfriend nuts, because he was a weakling and allowed her to direct his life as well, so much of his computer's functionality had to go. --His solution was to switch to Linux, and go the open-source route, which in the long run gave him the best of both worlds.
(Interestingly, she was an idealistic Mac user who didn't like to have think about how it worked, and he was a PC user who liked to pull apart machines and tinker.)
Anyway. . . The point of the matter is that the current system of society is such that it is set up to make EVERYBODY a criminal. That way, there's automatic leverage already in place against anybody who the Masters of the Universe want to intimidate and bully as they deem necessary.
With Gates working side by side with the Homeland Security spooks, with unique-identifier chips for computers on the horizon, this is only going to get more cemented into place. My guess is that there may even be systems in the future to automatically debit your account for the amounts 'owing' whether you like it or not. --And if your credit rating isn't good enough to support a sudden whop of extra debt, then there's always the state salt mines.
Here's another interesting thing; that same girl? There's a perfect place for people like her. She'll be the one who will put you in jail without a blink or note of compassion. She thinks she's better than you and that the system is inherently right; that individual thought, action and non-orthodox (creative) problem solving are the primary sources of all trouble and woe in the world. Everything would be Oh, so much nicer if everybody just did as they were told! Anybody who comes up with new ideas which have not been sanctioned by the wonderfully reassuring TV-Sciencey-People are so very threatening. (It's especially aggrievating to her when those new ideas prove to be more efficient and effective, propelling the outside-the-box thinker to success, leaving her in the dust. It's not fair! People shouldn't be allowed to do that! No fair!)
--She's the sort who was effectively programmed at a very young age to instinctively seek an authority structure and to then seek its approval. (Gold stars and check marks in school when you are a child? That's hard-core programming, baby!) As such, through desperately seeking the moral high ground in all matters without considering the terms of that 'high' ground, or the agendas of those who imposed the rules, she becomes a candidate for perfect Nazihood. She'll march in the fucking Neocon parades and turn you in for sedition. (Grumbling at your work station.) People like you have been making her feel miserable and lonely and awkward for her entire life, and boy, you better believe she's bitter. Soon it's going to be pay back.
By re-enforcing these patterns, by directing through subconscious suggestion the people you find yourself involved with, is how the real Matrix imposes control over us. It takes a great deal of awareness to break free of this system.
Ever wonder why most of the people you know are sad, stressed and exhausted most of the time? No? Might be a good idea to start wondering, because, newsflash; it's not the natural state.
Knowledge protects.
-FL
"Something, something the more numerous the laws, something, something." --Tacitus.
If you're really lucky you'll meet up with Julia Roberts, have a wild adventure, and the two of you will fall in love and live happily ever after.
Make it Michele Yeo, and I might give myself a one in five chance of coming out the other end in one piece. I have no illusions. I actually know how hard these guys can play. Luckily, I'm small, small fry. I don't expect to be collected and shipped off until the shit really hits.
The trick is to make it more expensive to deal with you than your percieved threat value is worth. At the moment, a loudmouth gnat like me is too expensive to hit with anything more than general, buy it by the bushel, harassment. But as the fascist steem roller powers up and hits cruising speed, the cost of eliminating people goes right down to rock bottom prices. Just send out a van with a list of pick-ups, and don't sweat the PR because everybody is too terrified to lift a finger for fear of being next. We're not there yet, but we're circling the drain. --Oddly enough, writing like this is a mild form of protection. If I vanished tomorrow, that would send a message all by itself. --Not so much to the newsgroup crowd, who for the most part couldn't give two beans, but rather to the people I know personally who are sitting on the fence about all this stuff. There's a great deal of power in that, and the ripple effect would be quite wide. We've a ways to go yet before I see my fingers getting crushed in a vice. But hey; what's a bit of torture? We all have to go sometime. You want to do it standing up or cowering in a corner?
"Those with the courage of a lion will not have a fate of a mouse."
And so, reporting small, small-fry but live, (for the time being). .
-FL
So then it should theoretically be possible to wire a human body so that it can be remote controllable. --I mean, even in the dorky public access sciences, they have rats which can be directed around laboratory floors with radio control units.
Heck, does the body even have to be 'alive'? --We already have coma victims kept going by machine. Why not, through brain manipulation, fire all the right signals to make the body walk and breathe. And talk. Why not? --All that speech stuff is programmed in there already. --Look at Bush; he's just a reaction machine; no soul inside. Not even an Intel chip. (Though he's not a robot; he's just another boring psycho.)
But hey, many Slashdotters would argue that there are no such things as 'souls' in the first place, which would mean that all humans are just big robots running rogue. Why not simply direct some of those brains and bodies by remote control? Again, public arena science has experimental jet pilots directing their planes with mind-reading helmets. --And the nice thing about electrical impulses is that, as any engineer can tell you, they're a two-way street. (Though somewhat more complicated in biological form, but nonetheless entirely manipulable.)
According to my ever-so-bountiful sources, there are about 1 million of these human robots being used right now on our humble little planet. --It's even possible to simulate an aura, making them difficult to detect even by those who are sensitive to such things. (Not that aruas exist, of course. To suggest such a thing would be foolish.)
Now sure, this may all sound like rather much higher tech than even a well equipped Shadow Government could pull together. And last I heard, human agencies weren't at the level of being able to put a human robot into action, but then things have been moving pretty quick of late. --For instance, I'd be interested to know which particular group is responsible for the lastest bunch of crop circles up in Canada. --The ones which have burnt/blown cavities in the cereal nodes which look as though they were put too long in a microwave.
Human agencies? Maybe. It's tough to say. Things are playing so fast and loose these days, it's nearly a full time job just keeping up!
-FL
Think 'chi energy' rather than electrical or heat energy, and think 'alien' instead of 'machine', and you're getting closer. (Alien, like the ones Neo and Trinity are made up to look like on the box cover of the first film with their fancy and specially designed sunglasses.)
Also, rather than the 'matrix' being a computer generated affair into which we are all plugged, think in broader terms. The directors of The Matrix were either being very deliberate in their actions, or they were channeling some serious shit from one of the many groups which send such messages.
While the first film had its corruptions, (the grey-alien-as-savior references being a big one), the second film seemed to me a completely screwed up jumble. --Which, incidentally is how the real matrix works; it likes to mess around with incoming data which has been identified as having the potential to enlighten.
--I'm just glad that all three of the Lord of the Rings films were shot at the same time, far, far away from the clutches of Hollywood!
-FL
Sheesh.
And trust the Japanese to drive their national ambitions toward the creation of robots with the intellect of 5 year olds. --Anybody willing to bet how old the physical forms of those robots will appear? Or what gender they'll be? Sheesh, I say!
Japanese junk culture is so freekin' weird!
-FL
Suffice it to say, there are still some large gaps in your knowledge and perception of the issues which I think need filling, but I also do appreciate your filling in some of my own gaps.
For instance, I didn't realize that certain of the infrastucture of Iraq had not been directly taken out by the US. Although, at the same time, I see things like all the power lines leading to Baghdad destroyed; every cable tower along the miles and miles of highway used by an arm of the approaching US forces into the city was blown with professional army engineering skill at the same point on every one of the hundreds of line poles. Whether or not this was a US action (which would make basic tactical sense; take out the power of the city you are invading), or a geurilla resistance action which took place after the invasion is not entirely clear, (though I am apt to lean toward it being a US move, if simply because it would be virtually impossible to get away with such a massive project and not be caught post-invasion).
As for guns being handed out by Saddam, I suspect that this was only when it became obvious that there was going to be pitched battle in the streets of Iraq when the US forces came. --And I certainly don't think that this is any indication of basic, day to day policy.
However, I defy you to find any video of people in the US doing the kind of AK-47 firing into the air thing that you routinely see in the middle east. Such scenes characterize the ugly side of their culture, just as Jerry Springer and Black urban riots characterize our ugly side.
Okay. That's fair. You DO see the AK-47 air shooting. --I don't think it's anywhere nearly as universal a behavior as we in the West are led to believe, but it's certainly there. But you've hit the nail on the head when you point out our own modes of expressing the same dark things exist as well; These are modes of expression which I don't think are entirely different except in the form of expression itself. --I've been through Detroit. I've seen the, to this day, unrepaired post-apocalypse of the 60's race riots. --I personally know Americans who have been terrorized by their own country men at shotgun point in the streets of LA.
It's barbaric and horrifying, but in and of themselves, these are not good reasons to disrespect an entire group of people based on the actions of only a few who happen to be very visible. --For instance, the US black population is only around 10%, and only a much smaller portion of that are the gun toting, desperate kids. But those are the ones we see in the news.
The same goes for people in the Middle East, except the skew is even more pronounced. There are millions of hard working, good people in those countries. I have met some of them in my own travels, and the poor represention of them in the Western media is put right there in your face. --And it's enough to make you cry when you realize that it is largely based on those skewed images that innocent people and their kids, no different than you or me, are being savaged by American forces blinded by bad television.
-FL
You and everybody like you reinforcing their support for Bush.
Because you're right. There IS no rational reason for the Iraqis to blow up a UN compound. Neither tactical nor diplomatic. It's incredibly stupid. --The UN, the one world body which might have the ability to lean on the US and make things better for Iraq, and the Iraqis attack it. Hmmm.
Same thing happens all the time with the Palestinians. --Just when things are looking good for them; talks about land being returned, or the Jewish military pulling back in its supremacist policies, a 'Palestinian' suicide bomber will take out another busload of civilians. --I mean, EXACTLY when things are looking up. You can pretty much predict the day of an attack based on how good things are looking in the 'Roadmap to Peace' or whatever horseshit the media is shoveling on any given month.
It's the same old pattern, and it's happened, literally, countless times. Just when things are looking as though Peace might break out, the party with the most to gain shoots itself in the foot, thereby 'justifying' the aggressive force of the massively superior power of the Jews, or in this case, the US.
In warzones, it is very, very easy to get away with operations of this sort. You don't even need to Greenbaum, (Look that up!) a victim. You just need a charismatic CIA asset operating behind the enemy lines, (like Bin Laden for instance; that guy was created by the CIA a decade and a half ago. Any half-assed Googling will tell you that.), and get the guy to start distributing horseshit to his followers. The young men are cut off enough from world awareness so they don't really know what's going on, and they're angry enough at the violations played upon them and their land and their loved ones; that's a lot of bottled up rage and misery. It'd be very, very easy to whip them up into blowing up pretty much any target you convince them is 'Bad'. Hell, we've seen that very scenario played out in reverse; Americans seeing their 'Homeland' being hurt getting whipped up into a big enough frenzy to also blow up ridiculous targets which had nothing to do with the original injustice. Targets such as Afghanistan and Iraq, for instance. And who gains in the end?
Somebody is getting rich as hell, and it's not you or me! -Haliburton, Dyncorp, Carlyle Group and fucking Worldcom of all companies; they're the ones profiting! Oh, and a Jewish telco got another of the billion dollar reconstruction deals. --Companies which are either responsible for losing BILLIONS of dollars due to the recent economy-destroying frauds in 2001, (for which the perpetrators are STILL not being penalized thanks to friends in high places), or in which Bush and his cronies are actually direct shareholders!
So, I'm sorry. I just don't buy it. It makes zero sense for Iraq to bomb a UN holding, and (as you demonstrate), such ploys are simply far too effective a propaganda policy for them not to be regarded with a high level of suspicion. There's just too much money at stake, and the people in direct line to collect that cash have demonstrated time and again that they have no internal moral compases whatsoever. When I see 2+2, I can only say, "4".
-FL
But for now. .
Man. Going back to Win98 has relieved SOOO much stress! (Which, honestly, I believe is one of the core reasons that computers exist; to cause society-wide stress and anxiety; but then I believe the cities are primarily just big negative energy batteries for the evil aliens to feed on. But then people also call me weird.)
Win98 does everything I need, and while it does not necessarily do so flawlessly, it does so reliably because at this point, I know that OS backwards and forwards. Whatever problems crop up I can fix in a few minutes because I've spent the last six years or so messing with that system. --Win2K had lots of bells and whistles, but it confused me with all of the new quirks and bits of bullshit which also came along with it.
Plus it was several major steps forward toward the whole massive information control society we all fear. (Well, those of us with brains.) Like this latest horseshit with auto-updates. Makes me wonder if Bill Gates isn't taking a page out of Bush's diary; invent a threat in order to advance your own agenda.)
But anyway. .
--I don't mind email attachment trojans. Like safe sex, those dangers are a choice. But shit! That last virus was able to get into Win2000 if you were simply connected to the web! I mean, what the hell? And there were other strange problems cropping up which I didn't understand, and since all the latest viruses are focused on the platform du jour, going back a step is a virtual gurantee of safe computing! --I bet the guys who still run the old C64's never have to worry about such nonsense; they're off the grid!
The problem which downed the computer industry is the very thing which is going to make my life easier from now on; there are no more killer apps on the horizon. Once computers reached the point where all tasks could be done without hair-pulling delays, or with quality drops in the digital versus analogue contest, there was suddenly no longer any reason to keep up with the Joneses.
--Thank goodness I've grown past the point where I give two beans about the latest game advancements!
Yep. Off the grid, where the air is clear!
-FL
Oh really? Your opinion differs from both mine and the dozens of professionals I've worked with and employed in the print graphics industry over the years. Correct shades of Blue are particularly hard to capture properly, because they occupy an unaccomodating end of the shitty scanner light spectrum. --The problem, quite simply, is that contract illustrators often work under incandescent lighting, which is known for its warm and slightly yellow hues, but have their work scanned with light which doesn't bring out these same qualities in their work. So, 'Shitty' is indeed a subjective term, but the fact of the matter is that scanners do not allow for any play in this area. Digital photography, however, allows for whatever lighting best suits the subject.
And perhaps 'neon' was a bit presumptuous. Perhaps I should have said, 'flourescent'. But seeing as the two are virtually the same, I didn't think it would matter. My sincere, appologies.
Foveon's claim is not "higher resolution for your buck."
Yes, thank you for intentionally mis-reading my paraphrasing. I believe the claim was that because Fovon uses one pixel instead of 3 to capture color, they can do the same job with one third the pixels another camera would require. Again, I'm terribly sorry for not being more clear.
Quality lenses don't get curvy when you get close to the edges.
Yes. I KNOW that. That's why I was commenting on the price of lenses as being a big consideration during the buying process.
6MP can deliver 300dpi at a reasonable size as long as the size is "reasonable". Their performance in some ways exceeds 35mm film.
Uh huh. And in my line of work, finished products which press at 8.5" x 11" are considered reasonable. And guess what? Unless one is dealing with live shoots, even 35mm film is not good enough for that. Illustration reproduction requires 3" x 5" film cameras or high-res scanning. But thanks for your insight.
Half-assed research produces half-assed answers.
Ah. At last we agree. --Though given this, I don't quite understand your commenting in the first place.
-FL
"Everybody here at Fantasticorp is very excited by the move," explains Public Relations Bunny, Natasha Russki. "From Fearless Leader all the way down to our enforced government investors, we are all very excited! --The only employees who seem to have any problem with the plan are in the engineering corps. But they're a rather dour lot."
Fantasticorp's 2001 announcement to build an Ice Cream Factory on Io was not forgotten by the public as expected, forcing the corporate giant to consider recycling much of its R&D and engineering staff by the fall of this year.
"It's unfortunate that the public had such a long memory, so now we actually have to invest time and money in that dull, old project," pouts Natasha. "So we're planning instead to expose employee corruption as the source of failure for the Io plan and hire an all new staff, invigorating our team with new life and energy! We're all very excited!"
Fantasticorp later admitted that certain employees had been let go and may face charges due to collusion with Chinese industrial spies in the Io Ice Cream Confectionary scandal. "Anyway, we're much better than the Chinese." assured Natasha. "Their Asteroid Belt Animal Kingdom Project is doomed to failure."
-FL
--Cuz, you see, scanners suck for color. (That blue-white neon bulb plays HELL with all color. Images which may have been, say, painted beneath nice warm yellow incadescent bulbs turn into entirely different images when subjected to Borg lighting.)
With this in mind, I dragged a painting down with me and waited around for half an hour for one of the sales people to get free. Business is booming in the digital camera trade. I watched two stalwart pro-camera guys barter on the edge of $10,000 each, all in order to get themselves out of film and finally into the new digital technology. The change-over is hot on, and there aren't enough sales guys to go around! So I waited my turn.
When I was finally able to get some face time with one of the guys, I slapped the illustration down on the counter and told him what I was all about. So ten minutes later, there were three cameras set up for me to try out. I'd brought my own flash card with me so I could take the results home to test. That was my brilliant plan.
Here's where it all went awry. .
First off, the Sigma camera, the Fovon chip notwithstanding, is a poorly designed piece of junk. It wouldn't work. The guy complained that it burned through its batteries like wildfire, (it took at least two different sets of batteries; one for the camera body and one for something else. And still another set for the flash. If one set wasn't up to snuff, the whole thing would do nothing. He said it was a piece of shit. So I never actually got try out the thing.
Furthermore, when you go to buy one of these high-end jobs, the $2000 bucks quoted in the add does not include a lens. Just the camera body. Yikes! --For my needs, I was looking at blowing, at least another $1-2000; probably more. If you are shooting artwork, you can't be screwing around with curving lines and such at the top and bottom of an illustration. Plus, if you want something which is can achieve a 300dpi print quality at a reasonable size. . , well 6 megapixels in the hardware just won't do. --Especially since you can't use all of the image area sighted by the camera. Straight lines go curvey the closer to the edge of the lense you get.
Now I did test a Canon, and an Olympus. Both worked and were designed much more effectively. Plus, both Canon and Olympus offered slightly more affordable lens solutions. The color problem, of course, was gone. The camera would take in whatever color light you bounced off the subject. That wasn't even an issue; color correctors would be looking for new jobs when these kinds of cameras became workable. But this particular camera store didn't have anything which shot in the kind of size range a print illustrator would need.
Now, this problem might go away with the Fovon technology. Supposedly, you get higher resolution for your buck, simply because of how it understands color. But I've yet to test a camera which has the chip.
One way or another, I went home again, convinced that color correction was a task I could handle with a smile simply because of all the money I wouldn't have to spend on a half-assed answer.
-FL
Well, I don't know about BS, but in all fairness, the story is murky. --It stems from several sources and it comes from angry agents who accuse the CIA of botching the affair, making intel assurances it was wrong about, and getting American agents killed in the early days and hours before the war began. This is related to deals cut with Saddam's people, among other things. I need to study the material further before I can speak with authority on the matter, but it's not nearly so open and shut as you suggest.
A scientist digs up a gas centrifuge he was ordered to bury in his back yard, and people blow it off as nothing to do with WMDs.
Those pieces were from a nuclear program which was over a decade old. --Yes, I know the 'evidence' was spruced up by CNN and FoxNews, but seriously; that all stemmed from times during and before the first Gulf War, when yes, Iraq was probably trying to re-build the nuclear program which had been destroyed once already by the Isrealies in the mid -Eighties. But people didn't blow off the discovery. After looking at the details, they simply realized it was nothing. Seriously; if CNN and FoxNews thought that it was a worthy bit of evidence, they would certainly have spun it into something more than they were able. But the fact remains, you need not just a nuclear power plant to make weapons grade material, but a whole Uranium refining industry in order just to use the part in question. You can't really hide a whole nuclear power plant.
The evidence is being gathered even as we banter back and forth about this:
I read your link. For goodness sake, man! It's quoting one of the core liars of the Bush gang, and he's beating the dead pony of those flakey 'papers' discovered in a government office by the secret service. Sheesh! --All in the (apparently correct) belief that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will actually believe it. --DESPITE the fact that the 'evidence', (just like the rose garden parts), was already determined to be worthless! --Next thing you'll be telling me is that the plagerized paper written by a university student which Blair held up as evidence and told us was prepared by the British Secret Services is now suddenly valid again!
Did you happen to read the part in your article where it said that NO WMD's HAVE BEEN FOUND? Papers planted by the US secret service and actual warheads are two VERY different things. I'm sure the report you are waiting for will be a glowing endorsement of the Bush gang, (seeing as it is being WRITTEN by the Bush gang! DUH!)
Look, you are being lied to. The more you try to defend the people abusing you, the more a victim you become. I know it's hard, and I know it's easier to pretend that you are not a victim, but you will only disservice yourself in the long run by clinging to illusions.
Good luck to you.
-FL
Saddam wasn't a good guy by any means. But neither were people (theirs and yours) dying from DU poisoning, and chaotic acts of military violence and a complete breakdown of society, oil being stolen by the US to pay for it, and all the ripe new big-money industrial contracts being handed out Western and Israeli instrests. (Which is why the existing infrastructure was destroyed. This, my friend, is rape.) --Napoleon also justified his conquests and pilages by calling himself a 'Liberator' when he marched into countries. Same lie, different year.
In any case, I don't recall anybody in Iraq ever asking the US to go charging in to their 'rescue'. --Heck, I thought the war was supposed to be because the world trade towers were destroyed by terrorists. Though, unless you haven't been listening, there is and never was any link between Iraq and 9-11. Wolfawitz himself stated this very directly.
So then the war was supposed to be about the big bad 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'. Which were never there to be found, (despite a botched CIA job to plant some).
So now, Bush and his followers are retroactively trying to justify their actions by saying, "Oh, well we were liberating Iraq from Saddam. Yeah, that's the ticket!"
B*U*L*L S*H*I*T.
But such items hardly matter to people who don't bother reading before answering. Such people just believe what is comfortable.
-FL
Wow. The depth of your delusion is staggering.
Bagdhad was a major city with employment, civil services and the whole infrastructure one would expect from a modern city. --And YES, it was a modern city despite the lies propagated by the US media. I knew a kid from Syria who had travelled through much of the middle east. He fixed my own movie-based delusions, and I have since then sworn to do some actual reading before I open my big mouth to repeat propaganda.
The average Iraqi citizen doesn't have an AK-47. Saddam's enforcers, yes, but not the regular people with families and jobs and lives to lead. Owning a machine gun under Saddam's rule would have been fairly stupid. It would have gotten you thrown in prison. --Saddam knew, (as does Bush), that it's hard to repress a citizenry when they are armed.
Anyway, all of that modern infrastructure, (Power, telecommunications, water, sewage), was blasted out of existence by the invading American forces and it was replaced by. . . You guessed it; Nothing. Now there is only chaos, and over-stressed American GI's with jittery trigger fingers. People are now starving and fearful in their own city with no basic services. --Well, until the Isreali telco was awarded the contract to set up a cell phone network. (After, that is, Betelco, an Arab company, was told to dismantal the 5 million dollar start up service it had implemented two weeks ago without the approval of the US, (read: Zionist cronyism).
Life sucks for the residents of a country suffering under foriegn tyranny, as enforced by soldiers who have been taught to believe that Arab people are savages who run around shooting AK-47's into the air. It's easier to treat them like dogs when that kind of (very, very typical) propaganda is being used.
Here's a link from one an 'imbedded' reporter who has been emailing his reports home. An eye on the inside.
Seriously. You need to watch fewer movies and biased CNN reporting before you make such ignorant comments about a people who have been devastated simply because most Americans were too gullable to see Bush's lies for what they were.
Take care, and peace to you.
-FL
The "There's more Methanol in a glass of fruit juice" line is an old one, which can be traced back to Monsanto public relations. It is true in the strictest sense, but at the same time a very misleading assurance.
A paper by Dr. Woodrow Monte titled Aspartame: Methanol and the Public Health-- (1984). "Aspartame: Methanol and the public health." Journal of Applied Nutrition, Vol 36, No 1.) addresses this particular lie;
--Except there's no Ethanol in Pepsi.
But there are other things going on. --Phenylalanine and aspartic acid, 90% of aspartame, are amino acids normally used in synthesis of protoplasm when supplied by the foods we eat. But when they are not accompanied by other amino acids we use, they are neurotoxic. That is why a warning for Phenylketonurics is found on EQUAL and other aspartame products. Phenylketenurics are 2% of the population with extreme sensitivity to this chemical unless it's present in food.
And don't get me started on the whackjob nutballs and Flouride. Britain's dental situation is so bad, even they are thinking of adding flouride to try and improve their teeth.
No kidding? --Though I guess that's no surprise given Britain's political profile at the moment. --Fluoride affects awareness and willpower. (Fluoride is a component in many anti-depressant style drugs.)
Take care!
-FL
If people have been watching, they'll have noticed a heck of a lot more than that!
There have been an unprecedented number of events this year! --Including heat waves leaving a few hundred dead in the UK and Continental Europe, screwed up weather patterns, huge storms and flooding. --All complete with hail stones as big as cantaloups in Nebraska. --Not to mention crazy levels of seismic/volcanic activity abounding! There have been recent quakes in Japan, Taiwan, and
Iran. --Just in the last week. There have been dozens of earthquakes all over the damned place this year.
Those who say Global Warming isn't real might want to consider that this tourist glacier observatory built in Alaska in 1986, now overlooks nothing but water.
Mount Etna is spewing lava in Italy. And it looks like Yellowstone park is preparing for trouble, (though I seem to have lost my link to that. But think, 'Swelling ground mass and Old Faithful being unreliable.')
These scientists talk about changes in 100 years? Try in the next 8 or so.
Oh, and comet activity is going through the roof. (Sorry, that should be, coming through the roof.) Not One, but Two stories in the last week alone of meteorites smashing craters into tarmack. --The first one almost hitting a kid!
This is it, folks. These next few years are really shaping up to be amazing ones! Get your heads out of the sand now. This kind of show only happens once in a great many life-times! Comets and ice ages and the end of the world as you know it, man!
In the words of the great muppet president, "Bring it on!"
-FL
According to the work of Robert O. Becker, the assumption that regular cells cannot dedifferentiate is in fact not just a false belief, but one which has been shored up at great expense by orthodox medicine. The phenomenon of normal cell dediferentiation, (a skin or bone cell into a 'stem' cell) can be observed at the site of tissue wounds in not just salmimanders, (which can regrow whole limbs), but in humans as well. (Who, even though they cannot, do not for extremely interesting reasons.)
Apparently, vanishingly small micro current DC electricity is used by complex organisms to tell cells what to do during various stages of growth and tissue repair. --I came upon Becker's work while reading up on Electromagnetism and its effects on human neurology.
I was blown away by what he had discovered over his long and lettered career. Becker is one of the 'real' ones. Look him up.
-FL
Heh. Sorry, but just because you happen to work in the pharmaceutical industry, (and you're probably like many people; relatively earnest in your day to day efforts), does NOT mean that no wrong is ever committed through medical science.
I think, as the poster points out, given the human track record, it behooves us to consider very carefully how this science is used. --It's not the science, it's the organizations which plan to employ it we have to be wary of!
Just think; if corporate medicine is capable of putting Aspartame in our food, Fluoride in our water, and promotions for the use of anti-depressants in schools to control those 'difficult ADD kids' (who it has been demonstrated, are more than likely often simply reacting to the caffine and various other chemicals in their food and drink). --Not to mention anti-depressants being promoted in women's magainzes to minimize the 'unpleasant psychological effects' of menstruation. .
If corporate medicine is capable of acting in these ways, then just imagine what other sorts of horrors could be dreamed up when souless money is given access to the human gene code! --Ooops. We don't have to imagine. We just have to sit back and watch.
And what should we do about it?
Not much can be done now. --Short of hauling the heads of corporations and government out and putting them in jail forever. But this wonderful capitalist society wouldn't stand for it, I'm afraid. So that leaves you, as always, with nothing but your own conscience and free choice to work with.
Good luck!
-FL
What I find odd is that the military study of genetics, etc., and their application has surely never stopped for a second since the discovery that genetic engineering could be put to tactical use. Why the recent push to popularize it in the public domain? I mean, most of the work has been done, most of the big discovieries are already in application today in the darker military hallways.
So why all the 'Spiderman' and 'X-Men' films, glorifying genetic research and DNA alterations? What is it that the Powers That Be want people to accept?
I strongly suspect that while, as always, it has to do with Money, it has also has a great deal to do with control.
-FL
Television broadcasters and advertisers are schooled to direct their messages to an average 12 year-old mentality because that, unfortunately, has been proven by far the most effective way to get people to, 'Vote with their Wallets.'
Likewise, success in politics, as has been demonstrated since the dawn of politics, and which is certainly true today, is almost never achieved by appealing to the minds of a "Self-motivated, rational and informed public." Success in politics is nearly always achieve by manipulating and then addressing base emotions through overly-simplified representations of issues. "People would rather believe a Simple Lie than a Complex Truth."
--The simple fact that 'Arnie', whose primary claim to fame is physical size and a movie career where he played big guys with big guns and 'blowed stuff up real good', is actually in a real position to win, is an excellent example.
So, (and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here by assuming you are *not* yet another deluded and/or self-serving jerk), how do you personally approach the whole problem that success in politics is largely based on manipulating like cattle the very voting public which it is the politician's job to respect and serve?
-FL
Bush is still a liar. The laws on the books still allow FEMA to incarcerate people without any hope of their being redressed in a civilian court under constitutional law.
And yes, I already agreed that these agencies exist on (semi)-logical grounds and that there is a reason for it being so. But you seem not to have read that either.
You are clearly only listening to the things you want to hear. --As for your glib comment about the US prison system. . , has it never occurred to you as strange that the prison population of the U.S. is higher per capita than it has EVER been before in the history of the U.S.? --And not just by a couple of small percentage points either. Tacitus once warned us, "The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws."
And as for Dirty Bombs and such going off in my neighborhood. . , well, I suspect that such things would be the result of the same people who engineered 9-11. Which, if you examine the mountain of evidence available, you would soon realize was none other than parts of your own government.
But maybe you'll only laugh at that rather than do any reading. --Heck, as evidenced here, you seem reluctant to read a basic post on Slashdot properly.
You also seem to think that it is impossible for the fine, regular men and women in FEMA, (and other agencies), to do dastardly things. Let me ask you this: Would you put me in a pen if your CO told you I was a terrorist but furnished no proof? (They don't give evidence to soldiers, do they?)
There's your answer.
And by the way, if you want to make single carriage returns between your paragraphs rather than leave those big oaf-spaces, you should put a 'BR' between the greater/less-than signs rather than a 'P'. --Not that I'd expect you to know such a detail. Research would have been required for that!
Are you catching my drift here. . ?
-FL
After all, will kids be using paper money to make these transactions? Duh.
And once all the paper is gone, you will be under total control. The state will be able to turn on or off your money 'privileges'.
Better figure out an alternative way to stay viable, or get used to the idea of being a good little drone. (Hm. Which doesn't seem like such a bad idea, does it? You have video games, after all, right. . ? Why worry. Big Brother will take care of you.)
The great sleep is falling. Shake yourself or be lost.
-FL