While rather amusing (I don't think he was fully serious, I hope), the truth is, you can see whatever as a metaphor/representation/whatever of anything you want, but at the end of the day, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Rather amusing? You're assuming that just because the crowd believes what it is instructed to believe, that it must be true. --Which always works out for the best. (Sarcasm)
Actually, your leftist student was very close to the truth. Many of DC's Superheros are fixated on catching bank-robbers and otherwise protecting the established power structures and property wealth. --Unless you've noticed, the banks today are the villains in all the news stories, (unless, of course you happen to be a millionaire republican TV commentator, in which case it's the poor and ill-educated who are to blame). Given that the banks create the entire money supply out of thin air through fractional reserve lending and then have the gall to charge interest on top of that, (interest which is not actually possible to pay back as a society since the only supply of money is the bank system itself), the actual intent was always slavery and social control. It was by no means accidental. --And there's no argument I've heard yet (and I've heard a lot of them) which can logically defend the history of this system unless the argument out and out declares that people deserve to be treated like livestock and that the already-wealthy should be at the top of this sick food chain.
If Bruce Wayne was such a genius, he would have taken out the elites instead of beating up on the poor and neglected, which setting aside the Joker, is exactly what he does. I put it down not to his being evil, but to his writers being naive child-men.
Left or right, that's the truth of it. So yeah, a cigar may be just a cigar, except in this case, few seem to understand what a cigar actually is.
Superman is an even bigger dummy. At least in Frank Miller's work, Batman was partially aware that the government was self-serving and untrustworthy.
Along with nuclear waste and mysterious space-borne radiation, pandemic plagues have also spawned zombies. This zombie type has become the dominant movie form over the last few decades, no doubt a reaction to AIDS, Ebola, cloning, genetically modified foods and the remainder of the brave new world of biotechnology.
I have to take a moment to totally disagree with this assessment. --As many have already pointed out, bio-tech gone wrong (or whatever) is just the McGuffin used to get the story rolling. You can't have zombies without some sort of half-baked explanation at the outset. Nobody cares what it is really, so long as it isn't entirely implausible. In this case, the monster is definitely the Thing, (Ha Ha. Pun intended.), and the reason we are, as a culture, so fascinated with Zombies is based on, as per usual, the rumbling proto-awareness bubbling up from our subconscious. --Because we can't quite get a fix on the source of threat with our conscious awareness, the Deep parts of ourselves step in, conjuring up images for us to contemplate until we figure out the enormous stress vector we've thus far failed to recognize in the world around us, but which is trying its damnedest to consume us.
And if you'll notice, there is another trend in film and television which is closely related to Zombies. . .
I'd also add a few others such as. . , Dexter (Dangerous fake people who don't think like us.) V (People which look like us but are really noxious alien lizards.)
See the trend? I sure do. Everything looks peaceful, but our cultural subconscious is screaming.
All in all, plain old Zombies are far less disturbing because they're mindless. The idea of somebody else controlling zombies raises the skill level beyond simple shotgun solutions. I'd wager that the reason our world is such a mess is precisely because we've utterly failed to deal properly with the problem of fake evil people, and worse, the fact that regular folks are so very easy to turn into fake evil people. This is upsetting, and it's the reason, I think, behind the whole Zombie thing.
Did the moderator even read past the first sentence? I doubt it. Whenever it's my turn to moderate, I want to offer the assurance that I read every word in a given post and think carefully before assigning a moderation. I distribute points very fairly; I regularly mod posts 'interesting' even when I happen to totally disagree with a point of view but think the comment nonetheless adds new ideas to a discussion. Interesting and Incorrect are not mutually exclusive. A little care then, please.
After some initial buzz, this theory will be found highly debatable, the DNA damaged in some tests will be discovered to have been the result of poor testing, the damage will be considered within the normal range of every day life beneath a solar object like our Sun, and generally the whole issue will be relegated to the FUD desk and there forgotten except by the reactionary fringe which seems incapable of doing its homework.
All while the real issue remains tidily ignored. And why? Because wave forms are the key to everything, so the black hats are going to do their utmost to retain control over the control, as it were.
(Side note; I recently worked out how those giant megalithic blocks of stone might have been moved using, as is claimed, simply sound. It's so blindingly obvious that I actually smacked my forehead when I realized the basic principal behind it. --You know how when your cell phone is set to 'vibrate' rather than ring, and it sort of slides across the table? Same thing. Just broadcast a sound on the same resonant frequency as the big object you want to move, set it vibrating and then just push. Big blocks of stone remain heavy, but I imagine once you remove friction from the equation, building one of the thousands of megaliths dotting the planet becomes a somewhat more reasonable task.)
Anyway, the real issue, in case anybody cares, has little to do with the high frequency carrier signal itself in a cell phone handset, (other than that it makes the whole game possible), but rather the modulated frequencies in the 10Hz to around 500Hz range where cells start doing peculiar things when exposed. --Odd things like opening and closing cell-wall permeability to particles in the blood, (this is of particular moment with regard to the Blood Brain Barrier). Keeping in mind that this occurs well below the power levels at which ionization is observed.
But so what? Cell phones move data in the kilobytes per second range, well above the 10 - 500 Hz where cells start doing the funky chicken when excited. Thing is, and here's the rub, with every model of cell phone right from their introduction onto the market, the technology has found some fundamental excuse for broadcasting modulated pulses within that exact range. For example, GSM phones use a system called, Time Division Multiple Access or TDMA for short.
It is described thusly. ..
To increase the number of users that can communicate with a base station at the same time, a technique called Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) is employed that allows each channel to be used by eight phones. This is achieved by compressing each 4.6 ms chunk of information to be transmitted into a burst or pulse 0.58 ms long (1 ms or millisecond is a thousandth of a second). So the phones and base stations transmit for 0.58 ms, every 4.6 ms, which results in a 217 Hz pulse modulation* or variation in their output (217 Hz = 1/4.6 ms). For technical reasons, there is, in fact, additional data compression which leads to the phones and base stations transmitting 25 pulses but omitting every 26th , and so on. This produces further pulse modulation of the power output at the lower frequency of 8.34 Hz (= 217 Hz/26).
This puts the common GSM cell phone directly in the 10 - 500 Hz range with several regular signals which nerve cells, and brain cells specifically respond to. Each of the other cell phone systems finds a similar excuse to pulse in this range.
And, I suspect, the same will be true of the newer systems, but as per usual, this will not be explored in favor of alarmist and for the most part, (as far as I have been able to determine after reading this stuff for years), misleading stories about cancer. --While it is probably not a good idea for one's blood brain barrier to open up when toxins are coursing through the blood, I
In India, many (most?) people in the cities don't have sanitation, either. And they don't have a war to blame--just a pathetic government.
Well, I don't know much about their government, (except that on a recent trip a friend's mother had to pay off cops just to visit public areas), but I suspect the state of infrastructure has more to do with plain old momentum. It's harder to change the cultural directives of a nation once it's already established. North America had the advantage of offering a fresh start, and Europe had the impetus of being cold and miserable, which makes industrializing an easier choice. Who needs a giant coal industry and steam-driven fabric mills if clothing is more an issue of modesty rather than environmental necessity?
But it certainly seems that industry is picking up a lot of momentum in India. Lots of enthusiasm, energy and positive thinking over there right now. Everybody is talking about China, but India has what it takes to become a big player as well.
They'll probably make a big mess of it, but so far, who hasn't?
I did a few minutes of searching and it seems that the poster is spouting FUD.
There's no mention of banning coffee in cars. For goodness sake! In fact, while I am by no means a fan of many aspects of government, the text in this bill reminds me of that character of sound reason and sanity which seems to embody Canadian thinking. --Not saying Canada doesn't have its ignorant twits and government corruption aplenty, (it does!), but when it comes to low-level management of basic systems like the highways, this law and the responsible manner in which it will probably be applied, (this based on past experience), just makes sense.
Having been nearly flattened by cell phone drones, and having been in a car which came a hair's breath from causing a major accident on a highway because the driver was trying to look up a number on her cell phone, I think this is one of those laws which is a smart idea. Canadians seem to be less fussy about following social directives we've agreed upon through law. "Using a cellphone while driving is dumb. Stop it." The only difficult aspect is that people will have trouble resisting the urge to answer the phone when it rings. That's the only bit of friction I foresee.
Also. . , to address some of the comments made below. . . Changing gears in a manual car is not a parallel in terms of the level of distraction a driver experiences with a cell phone. After you learn how to operate a standard vehicle, changing gears becomes an act of muscle memory only marginally more demanding than operating the break pedal or the steering wheel. Anybody who has also driven a standard for more than a few weeks will agree.
An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act to prohibit the use of devices with display screens and hand-held communication and entertainment devices and to amend the Public Vehicles Act with respect to car pool vehicles
Note: This Act amends or repeals more than one Act. For the legislative history of these Acts, see the Table of Consolidated Public Statutes - Detailed Legislative History on www.e-Laws.gov.on.ca.
Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, enacts as follows:
Highway Traffic Act
1. Section 78 of the Highway Traffic Act is repealed and the following substituted:
Display screen visible to driver prohibited
78. (1) No person shall drive a motor vehicle on a highway if the display screen of a television, computer or other device in the motor vehicle is visible to the driver.
Exceptions
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply in respect of the display screen of,
(a) a global positioning system navigation device while being used to provide navigation information;
(b) a hand-held wireless communication device or a device that is prescribed for the purpose of subsection 78.1 (1);
(c) a logistical transportation tracking system device used for commercial purposes to track vehicle location, driver status or the delivery of packages or other goods;
(d) a collision avoidance system device that has no other function than to deliver a collision avoidance system; or
(e) an instrument, gauge or system that is used to provide information to the driver regarding the status of various systems of the motor vehicle.
Same
(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to the driver of an ambulance, fire department vehicle or police department vehicle.
Exemption by regulation
(4) The Minister may make regulations exempting any class of persons or vehicles or any device from this section and prescribing conditions and circumstances for any such exemption.
2. Part VI of the Act is amended by adding the following section:
At least you guys know how to smack down governments and corporations through effective strikes. I wish over here we had those kinds of gonads and the smarts to know how and where to use them. Instead we have hoards of conservative zombies watching FOX who are so educationally and spiritually starved that they really believe that "love is hate" and "war is peace" and all that, --and who would actually support a creep like Sarkozy. Even a good number of our liberals are too dense to know when they're being screwed. Obama has turned out to be exactly what I was hoping upon hope he wouldn't be; Another damned company man. Hope is self-deluding nonsense. Only knowledge and DOING get the job done.
But, yes, it looks like you have your work cut out for you over there. I send you my best.
yeah, you're a barrel of laughs. i'm sure you're one of those bitches who goes on and on about religion being a drain on society when faggots are a drain on society too. anyone who thinks religion needs weeded out shoul agree that faggots need the heave-ho too.
Oh dear! And he's a conflicted Christian as well! Now that explains a great deal. Goodness, you are an unholy mess of contradictions, aren't you?
But just remember what you were advised you to ask yourself in times of moral conflict; WWJD?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I'm absolutely certain that the geeks or slashdot would be very interested to learn of your John Grisham-esque tale of corruption, intrigue, and political scandal... if there were proof.
Sorry dude, if you sit on your arse and wait around for proof to come to you, especially if you're waiting for the television to provide it, then you'll live and die in controlled ignorance.
All the information you need is out there. It's not hidden. What you are asking is for others to dig it up and present it on a silver platter in tasteful sound-bites for your ease of consumption, as though you were the prince of the world and that I or anybody else gives a hoot whether or not you live or die. Now, while I don't wish you any undue misery, it's a free choice universe and today I'm choosing not to plunder my extensive notes and previous research into this subject and then to spend an hour or more writing an essay just so you can turn your nose up at it and dicker around and play silly games. Yesterday I might have had the patience, but today, I'm feeling grumpy, and so you get this response instead:
You've been trained from birth to expect that you deserve information. The whole 'Jury Box' syndrome as hammered into us all ad nauseam through court room drama television and film teaches us that the public must sit on their hands and judge reality based only on what two sides of a fabricated argument present before us. We're by no means encouraged to leave the box, (or the easy chair) and go look for ourselves. Screw that. And frankly, screw you. Go answer your own questions. If you want to know what others have worked out through the application of hard work, you might want to learn how to ask properly.
Now hurry up and get your shot while supplies last.
The U.S. has ordered around 251 million doses. North of the border, Canada is buying 50 million doses and expects to pay around $400 million dollars before the cost of administering. Assuming $8 per dose, that's 2.4 billion dollars spent from the North American public purse on a manufactured bit of fear-mongering. That's quite the tidy sale. --And the rest of the world is vaccinating against this 'swine flu' as well. Make no mistake; this is a cash-cow bonanza for a small number of companies.
That article you linked to is pure, high-charge emotionalism; as bad as anything you'd see on Fox News. By the time you get to the parts which contain actual data, the reader, (in this case you), are so worked up that you cannot reason your way out of a paper bag.
That's hardly a win for science. --Though it is certainly common enough among people who supposedly promote science.
While I am not a lover of network news in any form, this item is perhaps worth noting. . .
In any case, I really don't think it's that people have a problem with vaccines per se, it's that they don't trust the companies making and delivering them. And given the long and much-spotted track record of both the government and the pharmaceutical industry, this is a very reasonable position to take.
It sounds to me as though you're confusing the dream of a perfect world in which medical technologies are used appropriately and responsibly with the real world, which is filled with out-of-control capitalism and reckless disregard for human health and welfare. Geeks seem to have a lot of trouble differentiating between the two, I find.
There is no decision made about vaccines any more unless a politician has stock or the company making the vaccine gets hundreds of millions under the table.
Just imagine what they can do now, make a virus, release it, have it kill a few people, then make the vaccine for it.
Which is what I believe is exactly what is happening with H1N1.
Corruption is so widespread in government and business right now I wouldn't be surprised if the people in question where not on the boards of the companies making the vaccine in some manner of capacity.
But suprised, not at all. Logical outcome of events in my opinion.
What? Using your ability to remember past government and corporate behavior trends to then extrapolate the emerging patterns we are most likely to expect? Now cut that out! What are you? --Some kind of thinker? Some kind of observant realist? Are you theorizing about the shape that known corruption will take? Are you some kind of conspiracy theorist? For goodness sake man! Hasn't the term "Conspiracy Theory" been more than sufficiently coded with shame at this point? Only the most stalwart individual is able to withstand its use without flinching like a Pavlovian mongrel. And you're in a damned kennel, so get off your high horse and stop acting like a human being!
This is Slashdot!
--We here are dedicated to the fantasy of projecting a Star Trek reality upon the world regardless what actually happens to exist on the landscape. In the view of the wishful geek, science is NEVER used for nefarious purposes, and everybody, if they could only dispense with religion and magical thinking, would want human-kind to excel and walk on the moon.
Science is GOOD. It is NEVER used to extend the agendas of greedy psychopathic power-mongers. Heavens no! The hundreds of instances of dangerous and deliberate disregard through greed and corruption led by the very agencies and corporate bodies charged with our well-being MUST BE IGNORED! --If we do not ignore those acts, then the warm and fuzzy Star Trek dream might fade away and our delicate nerd sensibilities might be exposed to uncertainty and anxiety! NO NO NO!!! Only Happy Thoughts! The only complaining you are allowed to do is within the narrow parameters of correcting errant math and pop-culture references, laughing at religion and the technically ignorant. --Oh, and being angry with Microsoft, Sony, SCO, Diebold, every botnet blackhat in Russia, the cellphone and cable companies and whoever else happens to be on the radar in any given month. . , besides that, Science is NEVER used for ill purposes. Corruption doesn't exist, and thus by extension, conspiracies to trick people for power and profit don't exist either. Got it? We are cognitively dissonant around here, okay, and we LIKE it that way!
In short, you MUST NOT question the base assumptions upon which the world is built. Nerds can't handle that. We are a weak-willed, fragile lot as it is. We had to put up with so much fear and degradation during school that the fragile structure of our Star Trek dreaming is all we have left to tie our sense of safety and self-worth to. If you start to pull that down. . , why we might have to grow up and start building something real, and that's just too scary. Have a heart!
Sigh. Ironically, Darwin will have the last word. People tend to get annihilated rather quickly when they pick the wrong side in the battle between reality and wishful thinking.
Look folks, there's nothing wrong with vaccination as a concept; it's great. But a needle administered by a psychopathic corporate/government agency is not the same as a vaccination created by a sensible person with no driving agenda.
For goodness sake. I still remember when we were all going to die from West Nile disease if we allowed the plant-based, non-toxic and highly effective alternative forms of mosquito repellents onto the market. Deet is made by who again?
As per usual, people are connecting their sense of self worth to their preferences in arbitrary things. Movies are another big ego-hook.
"What? Something I have chosen to like isn't universally popular? DENY! ATTACK! REJECT!"
The Ego is such a silly burden.
That being said, where I actively have to resist the addictive call of (some) PC games, which I do very well, thank-you, console games seem astonishingly dull; they all appear to be variations on an identical theme; "Move a point of perspective around in a 3D environment with an awkward little control unit and manipulate objects." Every game is essentially the same basic set of challenges dressed up with different wall papers. If you've played one, you've played them all. They were exciting when the concept was new, but honestly, the last time I enjoyed one of those 3D games was when the wall paper was Star Wars and I got to use a light saber. Then the novelty wore off. Story is the only thing which interests me now with such productions. --Half Life, for instance, had a really neat story, but I only know that because I got fed up part way through the game and read a synopsis so that I could quit navigating a bobbing camera around for fifty hours while getting shot at. That's what movies are for; the actors do all that annoying puzzle-solving crap for you. I just wanted to know who that dude with the briefcase was!
The PC games I find attractive are those which have unique and far more dynamic problem solving tactical elements, preferably with lots of short cut keys. Dodging bullets is fun only until you realize that the solution is obvious; shoot at the other guy until he stops shooting back. Problem solved. Works every time. Now just apply that exact same solution thousands and thousands of times. Isn't that fun?
But don't take any of that personally. I enjoyed those games too when they were new.
Ok, I didn't realize I was talking to a tinfoil hat-type. If I'm mistaken in my assessment of you, then I apologize, but you should be aware that you can't just make stuff up to win arguments.
Sadly, I didn't make anything up. I wish I were. My information is derived from several sources, starting with the federal reserve's website FAQ., and moving through the Federal Reserve Act itself. (That's a copy of the original document signed into law in 1913. It has undergone some changes since then, but the essential aspects of it remain intact). The Federal Reserve annual reports also provide the figures necessary to do the math.
Basic analysis of these and similar materials provides everything necessary for a logical interpretation of the system at work. There are a number of detailed explorations of the subject matter available performed by various parties, which while sometimes over-zealous in presentation are nonetheless based on useful assessments. Here's one such example.
Now, I concede that I was being abrupt and very general in my assertions. It is a rather complicated system, but I will try to explain some of the details as I understand them. ..
The Fed itself is owned by member banks which hold stock in the Federal Reserve corporation. 6% interest by law is paid on the par value of those stocks. It doesn't add up to very much; in 1999, the amount held in stock value was around 6.4 billion dollars, six percent of which was around 380 million dollars paid in interest to member banks. The rest of the year's profits made by the Fed through interest bearing lending was around 25 billion, the bulk of which was paid by law to the US Treasury. --All of which is mostly well and good and only a little weird around the edges.
But that's just the surface. The part where things get crazy is tied up with fractional banking, which while you probably know something about, I will recap in order to explain my previous statements which you found to be tin-foil-hatty. ..
A bank, upon borrowing money from the Federal Reserve, is allowed to then lend against that money. Through this system, a basic bank is allowed to lend out 10 dollars for every 1 actual dollar held in its coffer. --I'm not sure what the actual figure is today, but 10% has historically been the base fractional amount a bank is allowed to lend against. Thus, for example, upon borrowing 1 billion dollars from the Fed, a bank can then turn that into 10 billion dollars instantly simply by lending it out, effectively creating 9 billion dollars out of thin air. --The public, of course, must pay that back with interest, creating even more than 10 billion. But that's just the start; the money once repaid by the public can then be re-lent against 10% of itself, creating a geometric growth. The initial 1 billion dollars balloons into a huge amount. This is how fractional banking works.
So when you say that the banks are not allowed to print money, you are technically correct; They can't print physical dollar bills. However, they are allowed to create money out of nothing. --A rather stupendous amount of it. And where does that money (and the interest due at payback time) come from? Well, it doesn't come from anywhere. It exists entirely in the form of public debt, which people and businesses must somehow scrounge around in the existing economy to pay back. And how do they do this? --Well, by engaging in business and work, being paid with more of the from-thin-air dollars which were also loaned out by the banks to other businesses and employers. Because there is by default always more debt owed due to interest than there is money, the cycle must begin again with more loans.
The only differences are semantic. The Apprentice system may have changed, but originally the apprentice had to work for crap pay while learning, and in many trades had to pay a percentage of their earnings back to their instructor for a certain amount of time after becoming a tradesman them-self.
You're not getting it. Let me try again. New information must be absorbed before the appropriate learning patterns can emerge. You haven't absorbed yet the following details. . .
1. All money in the world, (with the exception of a small and globally insignificant handful of micro-economies), is borrowed by a country's given government from the banking cartel. This is done at interest.
2. The only way to pay back the principle loan PLUS interest is to borrow more money, also at interest. --Keeping in mind that there is no other money in existence but that which has been loaned out by the cartels. The banking cartels and the small number of super-wealthy families which own them do not accept clam shells in payment. (Gold is sometimes an accepted currency, and it can be created through mining, but with it's value linked to currency values, not the other way around, along with it's finite nature makes gold production insignificant in the larger scheme of global debt creation).
3. The very deliberate end result is global debt, and thus global control. It is, of course, much more complex in its details, but the end result is a grand control mechanism through which everybody is enslaved.
You seem not to have absorbed this super-important piece of data into your thinking. Once you have done this, you will be able to adjust the rest of your logical construct so that it makes sense. At the moment your arguments are based on an illusory premise which is limiting you.
This is the fundamental reason why an education through apprenticeship and a bank loan to pay for an education are different. One creates debt which cannot be paid back, (a person only has the illusion of paying back debt. With every bank loan taken out, the total global debt can only increase; it is merely shifted to other people working in the economy. This is actually how it works. As debt pressure increases, the number of people capable of shifting debt from themselves to others grows smaller and smaller until it is no longer possible for an honest working man to not be in debt), --while the other system, (apprenticeship), creates instead a social debt which carries no usury fee and which is paid back through the act of learning itself. Paying back that kind of debt increases the amount of available energy in the world while bypassing the parasitic banking system. The difference is certainly not merely semantic, but one must understand the nature of money to grasp why.
No, they are willing to accept indenture in exchange for education. How is that any different from the use of the indenture system for transit to the new world by settlers, or the Apprenticeship systems for learning trades.
It's different because the banks are not providing an education or an apprenticeship or even transit. Rather, the banks are parasites which have engineered an oppressive, culture-wide system through which they are able to profiteer from the arrangements made between teachers and students. The apprenticeship system on its own is awesome; the teacher gets free labor during the period while the student is learning. --Granted, it carries the possibility of abuse and certainly it was abused. But abuse is a choice rather than a default design feature. Having been an apprentice myself, I can tell you that if both the parties involved are decent people, the system flourishes from its inherent ability to be entirely positive and self-sustaining with no insane bleeding off of energy to a third party which seeks to control both teacher and student while doing no work itself.
In fact, when I mentioned that the education system can be by-passed, I was thinking of apprenticeship-like systems as one example.
What if it wasn't Microsoft's add-on, but something you knowingly installed? Would you feel different then?
Of course I would. But that's not what happened. I have a lot of respect for the Mozilla folks who created my favorite browser and didn't charge me a red cent for the service. I don't believe for a second that they intended malice or even committed a thoughtless disregard.
They acted fast to lock out a security risk which was stealth-installed by Microsoft. In a few instances, some people want that piece of Microsoft code back in place, and as I understand it, the Mozilla team is at this moment working to accommodate them.
It's all about intent, and I am impressed with the choices and actions taken by the Mozilla programming staff.
Mortgages are secured. If you don't pay, the bank takes the property and sells it off to get their money back. How do you foreclose a college education?
This assumes that education should be in the exclusive domain of investment banking. That people have accepted that banks and profits are involved at all in education is a brilliant ploy. Look at you! Willing to accept slavery based on a series of manipulations.
but you did sign on the dotted lines and now you gotta keep up your end of the raw deal.
Horseshit. That's a myth; social programming to ensure a steady supply of slaves. You want to be "Good to your word" even after you learn that somebody is actively screwing you? Sucker. Once I find out that somebody is using their intent to work against me, I'll stop working with that person or organization no matter what an ink scribble on a piece of paper happens to say. Honor is accepting that the reverse is also true. Only get into relationships with good people who you want to succeed and who want you to succeed. Anybody who is in the game for profit alone is inherently untrustworthy and will use contract law to try to force you into behavior sets which advantage them at your expense. Why would I want to work with such people?
Banks, or more accurately, the elite money lenders, have the game rigged. They create the illusion of choice while holding the world in the grasp of debt. (Very simply, ALL money in existence was borrowed by governments at interest, meaning that to pay back the interest, more money must be borrowed, also at interest. It is impossible to pay back the principal, and so a very small number of people end up rather quickly, ruling the planet). Playing by their rules, by honoring the signature you were tricked by the system into providing, you do nothing but remain a cog in their machine.
Big picture. Pull back. The system is always trying to screw you. It is the enemy. Never give comfort to the enemy if you can avoid it.
Luckily, the education system can be bypassed. If you want to learn something, you can do it very well without having to sign any silly documents.
So, yes, it's OK when Microsoft installs functionality into Firefox that Firefox should, by all rights, already include compared to Sony installing software designed explicitly to disable existing features on your computer.
No.
Microsoft, if I allow them, can update the code they wrote on my system. But what you are talking about is no different from somebody over in Redmond deciding that your private documents were written poorly and needed to be re-done according to their preferences and took the liberty of doing so without telling you. Heck, I might even agree with their assessment of your writing, but I certainly wouldn't say it was okay for them to mess with it. --At least not without asking you first in a very up front manner.
my sympathy for users that this has inconvenienced notwithstanding -- I still think it was the best of our available options.
You did the right thing. Please ignore silly comments from the peanut gallery.
All diplomacy aside, I appreciate any efforts to lock down the walls against invasive bullshit I was tricked into installing and had to crawl through my registry with a flashlight and hip waders in order to kill. Further, anybody who doesn't have a problem with Microsoft tampering with third party software they have no business touching is probably not the sort of person whose complaints are worth clogging up your conscience with.
Lessee. . . By default a secure browser for a few hundred thousand users who didn't want an invasive add-on in the first place or. . , your ability to play video games.
You know, there are some other fun websites out there which will also try to trick you into installing malware. You might enjoy visiting those as well. --Hey, they even have boobies!
Tom Brown Jr. told a story about how his grandfather sent him off to hunt and kill a deer, but told him he wasn't allowed to take a bow & arrow, which he explained was too impersonal. He had to use a knife. So off into the woods he ventured, carrying no food. Only a knife.
He found a group of deer, stalked them and learned their patterns. The deer were very aware of him because they are deer, and after a week or so, they had accepted them into their environment. He picked out his target; a baby deer with a gimpy leg which would not survive well on its own. When the time came, (he was beginning to starve at this point), he walked up to it and it didn't run away because it had accepted him as part of the herd, --which wasn't far from the truth both physically and emotionally. He looked into its eyes and killed it with his knife. He reported that it felt like killing his brother.
Because Tom Brown Jr. is not a psychopath or a coward, he was wracked with tears and confusion and shame while he carried the animal back home. His grandfather met him and said,
"Very good. Now, when you can connect that way with the smallest blade of grass, you will have learned."
We have to kill in order to live here in this reality. There's simply no getting around that. It's the awareness and intent we kill with that matters in the end. Many try to hide their souls away from this question because it can hurt. But until these basic lessons are learned, we remain in kindergarten, lying to ourselves. There are a lot of souls which will be returning to this world for more fire and pain until they figure this stuff out.
Slashdot Mirror
And how does one go about this exactly? Most of us average folks don't have a dentist chair with bright brain-lights on it in our houses.
Ignorance of the various methods is the key to successful conversion.
Are you SURE you don't have a chair with bright brain lights directed at it in your house? I bet you do.
Did you miss the last election? The last couple of wars? What are your views on Religion? Democracy? Torture? How were those views shaped?
Did you stand in your school for the national anthem, or did you stop and ask, "Why are we all doing this?"
-FL
While rather amusing (I don't think he was fully serious, I hope), the truth is, you can see whatever as a metaphor/representation/whatever of anything you want, but at the end of the day, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Rather amusing? You're assuming that just because the crowd believes what it is instructed to believe, that it must be true. --Which always works out for the best. (Sarcasm)
Actually, your leftist student was very close to the truth. Many of DC's Superheros are fixated on catching bank-robbers and otherwise protecting the established power structures and property wealth. --Unless you've noticed, the banks today are the villains in all the news stories, (unless, of course you happen to be a millionaire republican TV commentator, in which case it's the poor and ill-educated who are to blame). Given that the banks create the entire money supply out of thin air through fractional reserve lending and then have the gall to charge interest on top of that, (interest which is not actually possible to pay back as a society since the only supply of money is the bank system itself), the actual intent was always slavery and social control. It was by no means accidental. --And there's no argument I've heard yet (and I've heard a lot of them) which can logically defend the history of this system unless the argument out and out declares that people deserve to be treated like livestock and that the already-wealthy should be at the top of this sick food chain.
If Bruce Wayne was such a genius, he would have taken out the elites instead of beating up on the poor and neglected, which setting aside the Joker, is exactly what he does. I put it down not to his being evil, but to his writers being naive child-men.
Left or right, that's the truth of it. So yeah, a cigar may be just a cigar, except in this case, few seem to understand what a cigar actually is.
Superman is an even bigger dummy. At least in Frank Miller's work, Batman was partially aware that the government was self-serving and untrustworthy.
-FL
Along with nuclear waste and mysterious space-borne radiation, pandemic plagues have also spawned zombies. This zombie type has become the dominant movie form over the last few decades, no doubt a reaction to AIDS, Ebola, cloning, genetically modified foods and the remainder of the brave new world of biotechnology.
I have to take a moment to totally disagree with this assessment. --As many have already pointed out, bio-tech gone wrong (or whatever) is just the McGuffin used to get the story rolling. You can't have zombies without some sort of half-baked explanation at the outset. Nobody cares what it is really, so long as it isn't entirely implausible. In this case, the monster is definitely the Thing, (Ha Ha. Pun intended.), and the reason we are, as a culture, so fascinated with Zombies is based on, as per usual, the rumbling proto-awareness bubbling up from our subconscious. --Because we can't quite get a fix on the source of threat with our conscious awareness, the Deep parts of ourselves step in, conjuring up images for us to contemplate until we figure out the enormous stress vector we've thus far failed to recognize in the world around us, but which is trying its damnedest to consume us.
And if you'll notice, there is another trend in film and television which is closely related to Zombies. . .
Dollhouse (Programmable people.)
Terminator Salvation (Programmable robot people which think they're real.)
Moon (Programmable clone people.)
Surrogates (Remote controlled robot people.)
Gamer (Remote controlled real people.)
Avatar (Remote controlled alien people.)
I'd also add a few others such as. . ,
Dexter (Dangerous fake people who don't think like us.)
V (People which look like us but are really noxious alien lizards.)
See the trend? I sure do. Everything looks peaceful, but our cultural subconscious is screaming.
All in all, plain old Zombies are far less disturbing because they're mindless. The idea of somebody else controlling zombies raises the skill level beyond simple shotgun solutions. I'd wager that the reason our world is such a mess is precisely because we've utterly failed to deal properly with the problem of fake evil people, and worse, the fact that regular folks are so very easy to turn into fake evil people. This is upsetting, and it's the reason, I think, behind the whole Zombie thing.
-FL
Troll? Really?
Did the moderator even read past the first sentence? I doubt it. Whenever it's my turn to moderate, I want to offer the assurance that I read every word in a given post and think carefully before assigning a moderation. I distribute points very fairly; I regularly mod posts 'interesting' even when I happen to totally disagree with a point of view but think the comment nonetheless adds new ideas to a discussion. Interesting and Incorrect are not mutually exclusive. A little care then, please.
-FL
After some initial buzz, this theory will be found highly debatable, the DNA damaged in some tests will be discovered to have been the result of poor testing, the damage will be considered within the normal range of every day life beneath a solar object like our Sun, and generally the whole issue will be relegated to the FUD desk and there forgotten except by the reactionary fringe which seems incapable of doing its homework.
All while the real issue remains tidily ignored. And why? Because wave forms are the key to everything, so the black hats are going to do their utmost to retain control over the control, as it were.
(Side note; I recently worked out how those giant megalithic blocks of stone might have been moved using, as is claimed, simply sound. It's so blindingly obvious that I actually smacked my forehead when I realized the basic principal behind it. --You know how when your cell phone is set to 'vibrate' rather than ring, and it sort of slides across the table? Same thing. Just broadcast a sound on the same resonant frequency as the big object you want to move, set it vibrating and then just push. Big blocks of stone remain heavy, but I imagine once you remove friction from the equation, building one of the thousands of megaliths dotting the planet becomes a somewhat more reasonable task.)
Anyway, the real issue, in case anybody cares, has little to do with the high frequency carrier signal itself in a cell phone handset, (other than that it makes the whole game possible), but rather the modulated frequencies in the 10Hz to around 500Hz range where cells start doing peculiar things when exposed. --Odd things like opening and closing cell-wall permeability to particles in the blood, (this is of particular moment with regard to the Blood Brain Barrier). Keeping in mind that this occurs well below the power levels at which ionization is observed.
But so what? Cell phones move data in the kilobytes per second range, well above the 10 - 500 Hz where cells start doing the funky chicken when excited. Thing is, and here's the rub, with every model of cell phone right from their introduction onto the market, the technology has found some fundamental excuse for broadcasting modulated pulses within that exact range. For example, GSM phones use a system called, Time Division Multiple Access or TDMA for short.
It is described thusly. . .
This puts the common GSM cell phone directly in the 10 - 500 Hz range with several regular signals which nerve cells, and brain cells specifically respond to. Each of the other cell phone systems finds a similar excuse to pulse in this range.
And, I suspect, the same will be true of the newer systems, but as per usual, this will not be explored in favor of alarmist and for the most part, (as far as I have been able to determine after reading this stuff for years), misleading stories about cancer. --While it is probably not a good idea for one's blood brain barrier to open up when toxins are coursing through the blood, I
In India, many (most?) people in the cities don't have sanitation, either. And they don't have a war to blame--just a pathetic government.
Well, I don't know much about their government, (except that on a recent trip a friend's mother had to pay off cops just to visit public areas), but I suspect the state of infrastructure has more to do with plain old momentum. It's harder to change the cultural directives of a nation once it's already established. North America had the advantage of offering a fresh start, and Europe had the impetus of being cold and miserable, which makes industrializing an easier choice. Who needs a giant coal industry and steam-driven fabric mills if clothing is more an issue of modesty rather than environmental necessity?
But it certainly seems that industry is picking up a lot of momentum in India. Lots of enthusiasm, energy and positive thinking over there right now. Everybody is talking about China, but India has what it takes to become a big player as well.
They'll probably make a big mess of it, but so far, who hasn't?
-FL
I did a few minutes of searching and it seems that the poster is spouting FUD.
There's no mention of banning coffee in cars. For goodness sake! In fact, while I am by no means a fan of many aspects of government, the text in this bill reminds me of that character of sound reason and sanity which seems to embody Canadian thinking. --Not saying Canada doesn't have its ignorant twits and government corruption aplenty, (it does!), but when it comes to low-level management of basic systems like the highways, this law and the responsible manner in which it will probably be applied, (this based on past experience), just makes sense.
Having been nearly flattened by cell phone drones, and having been in a car which came a hair's breath from causing a major accident on a highway because the driver was trying to look up a number on her cell phone, I think this is one of those laws which is a smart idea. Canadians seem to be less fussy about following social directives we've agreed upon through law. "Using a cellphone while driving is dumb. Stop it." The only difficult aspect is that people will have trouble resisting the urge to answer the phone when it rings. That's the only bit of friction I foresee.
Also. . , to address some of the comments made below. . . Changing gears in a manual car is not a parallel in terms of the level of distraction a driver experiences with a cell phone. After you learn how to operate a standard vehicle, changing gears becomes an act of muscle memory only marginally more demanding than operating the break pedal or the steering wheel. Anybody who has also driven a standard for more than a few weeks will agree.
Anyway, for those interested, below is the bill in its entirety.
-FL
So I right-clicked the properties for the little icon of the golden statue from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Here's what came back. . .
"//slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=idle"
Thought the mis-spelling was cute.
And yes, it takes a certain kind of curiosity to check these things.
(Sorry.)
-FL
At least you guys know how to smack down governments and corporations through effective strikes. I wish over here we had those kinds of gonads and the smarts to know how and where to use them. Instead we have hoards of conservative zombies watching FOX who are so educationally and spiritually starved that they really believe that "love is hate" and "war is peace" and all that, --and who would actually support a creep like Sarkozy. Even a good number of our liberals are too dense to know when they're being screwed. Obama has turned out to be exactly what I was hoping upon hope he wouldn't be; Another damned company man. Hope is self-deluding nonsense. Only knowledge and DOING get the job done.
But, yes, it looks like you have your work cut out for you over there. I send you my best.
-FL
yeah, you're a barrel of laughs. i'm sure you're one of those bitches who goes on and on about religion being a drain on society when faggots are a drain on society too. anyone who thinks religion needs weeded out shoul agree that faggots need the heave-ho too.
Oh dear! And he's a conflicted Christian as well! Now that explains a great deal. Goodness, you are an unholy mess of contradictions, aren't you?
But just remember what you were advised you to ask yourself in times of moral conflict; WWJD?
-FL
Sounds like somebody is struggling with some repressed sexual urges in the locker room!
Just come out. You'll feel SO much better.
-FL
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I'm absolutely certain that the geeks or slashdot would be very interested to learn of your John Grisham-esque tale of corruption, intrigue, and political scandal... if there were proof.
Sorry dude, if you sit on your arse and wait around for proof to come to you, especially if you're waiting for the television to provide it, then you'll live and die in controlled ignorance.
All the information you need is out there. It's not hidden. What you are asking is for others to dig it up and present it on a silver platter in tasteful sound-bites for your ease of consumption, as though you were the prince of the world and that I or anybody else gives a hoot whether or not you live or die. Now, while I don't wish you any undue misery, it's a free choice universe and today I'm choosing not to plunder my extensive notes and previous research into this subject and then to spend an hour or more writing an essay just so you can turn your nose up at it and dicker around and play silly games. Yesterday I might have had the patience, but today, I'm feeling grumpy, and so you get this response instead:
You've been trained from birth to expect that you deserve information. The whole 'Jury Box' syndrome as hammered into us all ad nauseam through court room drama television and film teaches us that the public must sit on their hands and judge reality based only on what two sides of a fabricated argument present before us. We're by no means encouraged to leave the box, (or the easy chair) and go look for ourselves. Screw that. And frankly, screw you. Go answer your own questions. If you want to know what others have worked out through the application of hard work, you might want to learn how to ask properly.
Now hurry up and get your shot while supplies last.
-FL
That quote is not germane to the H1N1 discussion.
The U.S. has ordered around 251 million doses. North of the border, Canada is buying 50 million doses and expects to pay around $400 million dollars before the cost of administering. Assuming $8 per dose, that's 2.4 billion dollars spent from the North American public purse on a manufactured bit of fear-mongering. That's quite the tidy sale. --And the rest of the world is vaccinating against this 'swine flu' as well. Make no mistake; this is a cash-cow bonanza for a small number of companies.
That article you linked to is pure, high-charge emotionalism; as bad as anything you'd see on Fox News. By the time you get to the parts which contain actual data, the reader, (in this case you), are so worked up that you cannot reason your way out of a paper bag.
That's hardly a win for science. --Though it is certainly common enough among people who supposedly promote science.
While I am not a lover of network news in any form, this item is perhaps worth noting. . .
H1N1 Cases Exaggerated? - CBS
In any case, I really don't think it's that people have a problem with vaccines per se, it's that they don't trust the companies making and delivering them. And given the long and much-spotted track record of both the government and the pharmaceutical industry, this is a very reasonable position to take.
It sounds to me as though you're confusing the dream of a perfect world in which medical technologies are used appropriately and responsibly with the real world, which is filled with out-of-control capitalism and reckless disregard for human health and welfare. Geeks seem to have a lot of trouble differentiating between the two, I find.
-FL
Hard drives never beat magnetic tape in dollars per megabyte. I guess that's why we still all use tape drives.
You win!
You said what everybody else said but faster, more directly and with ample smirk value. My short attention span thanks you.
-FL
What? Using your ability to remember past government and corporate behavior trends to then extrapolate the emerging patterns we are most likely to expect? Now cut that out! What are you? --Some kind of thinker? Some kind of observant realist? Are you theorizing about the shape that known corruption will take? Are you some kind of conspiracy theorist? For goodness sake man! Hasn't the term "Conspiracy Theory" been more than sufficiently coded with shame at this point? Only the most stalwart individual is able to withstand its use without flinching like a Pavlovian mongrel. And you're in a damned kennel, so get off your high horse and stop acting like a human being!
This is Slashdot!
--We here are dedicated to the fantasy of projecting a Star Trek reality upon the world regardless what actually happens to exist on the landscape. In the view of the wishful geek, science is NEVER used for nefarious purposes, and everybody, if they could only dispense with religion and magical thinking, would want human-kind to excel and walk on the moon.
Science is GOOD. It is NEVER used to extend the agendas of greedy psychopathic power-mongers. Heavens no! The hundreds of instances of dangerous and deliberate disregard through greed and corruption led by the very agencies and corporate bodies charged with our well-being MUST BE IGNORED! --If we do not ignore those acts, then the warm and fuzzy Star Trek dream might fade away and our delicate nerd sensibilities might be exposed to uncertainty and anxiety! NO NO NO!!! Only Happy Thoughts! The only complaining you are allowed to do is within the narrow parameters of correcting errant math and pop-culture references, laughing at religion and the technically ignorant. --Oh, and being angry with Microsoft, Sony, SCO, Diebold, every botnet blackhat in Russia, the cellphone and cable companies and whoever else happens to be on the radar in any given month. . , besides that, Science is NEVER used for ill purposes. Corruption doesn't exist, and thus by extension, conspiracies to trick people for power and profit don't exist either. Got it? We are cognitively dissonant around here, okay, and we LIKE it that way!
In short, you MUST NOT question the base assumptions upon which the world is built. Nerds can't handle that. We are a weak-willed, fragile lot as it is. We had to put up with so much fear and degradation during school that the fragile structure of our Star Trek dreaming is all we have left to tie our sense of safety and self-worth to. If you start to pull that down. . , why we might have to grow up and start building something real, and that's just too scary. Have a heart!
Sigh. Ironically, Darwin will have the last word. People tend to get annihilated rather quickly when they pick the wrong side in the battle between reality and wishful thinking.
Look folks, there's nothing wrong with vaccination as a concept; it's great. But a needle administered by a psychopathic corporate/government agency is not the same as a vaccination created by a sensible person with no driving agenda.
For goodness sake. I still remember when we were all going to die from West Nile disease if we allowed the plant-based, non-toxic and highly effective alternative forms of mosquito repellents onto the market. Deet is made by who again?
Hook, line and sin
Wow. Look at all the responses to your post!
As per usual, people are connecting their sense of self worth to their preferences in arbitrary things. Movies are another big ego-hook.
"What? Something I have chosen to like isn't universally popular? DENY! ATTACK! REJECT!"
The Ego is such a silly burden.
That being said, where I actively have to resist the addictive call of (some) PC games, which I do very well, thank-you, console games seem astonishingly dull; they all appear to be variations on an identical theme; "Move a point of perspective around in a 3D environment with an awkward little control unit and manipulate objects." Every game is essentially the same basic set of challenges dressed up with different wall papers. If you've played one, you've played them all. They were exciting when the concept was new, but honestly, the last time I enjoyed one of those 3D games was when the wall paper was Star Wars and I got to use a light saber. Then the novelty wore off. Story is the only thing which interests me now with such productions. --Half Life, for instance, had a really neat story, but I only know that because I got fed up part way through the game and read a synopsis so that I could quit navigating a bobbing camera around for fifty hours while getting shot at. That's what movies are for; the actors do all that annoying puzzle-solving crap for you. I just wanted to know who that dude with the briefcase was!
The PC games I find attractive are those which have unique and far more dynamic problem solving tactical elements, preferably with lots of short cut keys. Dodging bullets is fun only until you realize that the solution is obvious; shoot at the other guy until he stops shooting back. Problem solved. Works every time. Now just apply that exact same solution thousands and thousands of times. Isn't that fun?
But don't take any of that personally. I enjoyed those games too when they were new.
-FL
Ok, I didn't realize I was talking to a tinfoil hat-type. If I'm mistaken in my assessment of you, then I apologize, but you should be aware that you can't just make stuff up to win arguments.
Sadly, I didn't make anything up. I wish I were. My information is derived from several sources, starting with the federal reserve's website FAQ., and moving through the Federal Reserve Act itself. (That's a copy of the original document signed into law in 1913. It has undergone some changes since then, but the essential aspects of it remain intact). The Federal Reserve annual reports also provide the figures necessary to do the math.
Basic analysis of these and similar materials provides everything necessary for a logical interpretation of the system at work. There are a number of detailed explorations of the subject matter available performed by various parties, which while sometimes over-zealous in presentation are nonetheless based on useful assessments. Here's one such example.
Now, I concede that I was being abrupt and very general in my assertions. It is a rather complicated system, but I will try to explain some of the details as I understand them. . .
The Fed itself is owned by member banks which hold stock in the Federal Reserve corporation. 6% interest by law is paid on the par value of those stocks. It doesn't add up to very much; in 1999, the amount held in stock value was around 6.4 billion dollars, six percent of which was around 380 million dollars paid in interest to member banks. The rest of the year's profits made by the Fed through interest bearing lending was around 25 billion, the bulk of which was paid by law to the US Treasury. --All of which is mostly well and good and only a little weird around the edges.
But that's just the surface. The part where things get crazy is tied up with fractional banking, which while you probably know something about, I will recap in order to explain my previous statements which you found to be tin-foil-hatty. . .
A bank, upon borrowing money from the Federal Reserve, is allowed to then lend against that money. Through this system, a basic bank is allowed to lend out 10 dollars for every 1 actual dollar held in its coffer. --I'm not sure what the actual figure is today, but 10% has historically been the base fractional amount a bank is allowed to lend against. Thus, for example, upon borrowing 1 billion dollars from the Fed, a bank can then turn that into 10 billion dollars instantly simply by lending it out, effectively creating 9 billion dollars out of thin air. --The public, of course, must pay that back with interest, creating even more than 10 billion. But that's just the start; the money once repaid by the public can then be re-lent against 10% of itself, creating a geometric growth. The initial 1 billion dollars balloons into a huge amount. This is how fractional banking works.
So when you say that the banks are not allowed to print money, you are technically correct; They can't print physical dollar bills. However, they are allowed to create money out of nothing. --A rather stupendous amount of it. And where does that money (and the interest due at payback time) come from? Well, it doesn't come from anywhere. It exists entirely in the form of public debt, which people and businesses must somehow scrounge around in the existing economy to pay back. And how do they do this? --Well, by engaging in business and work, being paid with more of the from-thin-air dollars which were also loaned out by the banks to other businesses and employers. Because there is by default always more debt owed due to interest than there is money, the cycle must begin again with more loans.
The US Treasury does at the end of the ye
The only differences are semantic. The Apprentice system may have changed, but originally the apprentice had to work for crap pay while learning, and in many trades had to pay a percentage of their earnings back to their instructor for a certain amount of time after becoming a tradesman them-self.
You're not getting it. Let me try again. New information must be absorbed before the appropriate learning patterns can emerge. You haven't absorbed yet the following details. . .
1. All money in the world, (with the exception of a small and globally insignificant handful of micro-economies), is borrowed by a country's given government from the banking cartel. This is done at interest.
2. The only way to pay back the principle loan PLUS interest is to borrow more money, also at interest. --Keeping in mind that there is no other money in existence but that which has been loaned out by the cartels. The banking cartels and the small number of super-wealthy families which own them do not accept clam shells in payment. (Gold is sometimes an accepted currency, and it can be created through mining, but with it's value linked to currency values, not the other way around, along with it's finite nature makes gold production insignificant in the larger scheme of global debt creation).
3. The very deliberate end result is global debt, and thus global control. It is, of course, much more complex in its details, but the end result is a grand control mechanism through which everybody is enslaved.
You seem not to have absorbed this super-important piece of data into your thinking. Once you have done this, you will be able to adjust the rest of your logical construct so that it makes sense. At the moment your arguments are based on an illusory premise which is limiting you.
This is the fundamental reason why an education through apprenticeship and a bank loan to pay for an education are different. One creates debt which cannot be paid back, (a person only has the illusion of paying back debt. With every bank loan taken out, the total global debt can only increase; it is merely shifted to other people working in the economy. This is actually how it works. As debt pressure increases, the number of people capable of shifting debt from themselves to others grows smaller and smaller until it is no longer possible for an honest working man to not be in debt), --while the other system, (apprenticeship), creates instead a social debt which carries no usury fee and which is paid back through the act of learning itself. Paying back that kind of debt increases the amount of available energy in the world while bypassing the parasitic banking system. The difference is certainly not merely semantic, but one must understand the nature of money to grasp why.
-FL
No, they are willing to accept indenture in exchange for education. How is that any different from the use of the indenture system for transit to the new world by settlers, or the Apprenticeship systems for learning trades.
It's different because the banks are not providing an education or an apprenticeship or even transit. Rather, the banks are parasites which have engineered an oppressive, culture-wide system through which they are able to profiteer from the arrangements made between teachers and students. The apprenticeship system on its own is awesome; the teacher gets free labor during the period while the student is learning. --Granted, it carries the possibility of abuse and certainly it was abused. But abuse is a choice rather than a default design feature. Having been an apprentice myself, I can tell you that if both the parties involved are decent people, the system flourishes from its inherent ability to be entirely positive and self-sustaining with no insane bleeding off of energy to a third party which seeks to control both teacher and student while doing no work itself.
In fact, when I mentioned that the education system can be by-passed, I was thinking of apprenticeship-like systems as one example.
-FL
What if it wasn't Microsoft's add-on, but something you knowingly installed? Would you feel different then?
Of course I would. But that's not what happened. I have a lot of respect for the Mozilla folks who created my favorite browser and didn't charge me a red cent for the service. I don't believe for a second that they intended malice or even committed a thoughtless disregard.
They acted fast to lock out a security risk which was stealth-installed by Microsoft. In a few instances, some people want that piece of Microsoft code back in place, and as I understand it, the Mozilla team is at this moment working to accommodate them.
It's all about intent, and I am impressed with the choices and actions taken by the Mozilla programming staff.
-FL
Mortgages are secured. If you don't pay, the bank takes the property and sells it off to get their money back. How do you foreclose a college education?
This assumes that education should be in the exclusive domain of investment banking. That people have accepted that banks and profits are involved at all in education is a brilliant ploy. Look at you! Willing to accept slavery based on a series of manipulations.
but you did sign on the dotted lines and now you gotta keep up your end of the raw deal.
Horseshit. That's a myth; social programming to ensure a steady supply of slaves. You want to be "Good to your word" even after you learn that somebody is actively screwing you? Sucker. Once I find out that somebody is using their intent to work against me, I'll stop working with that person or organization no matter what an ink scribble on a piece of paper happens to say. Honor is accepting that the reverse is also true. Only get into relationships with good people who you want to succeed and who want you to succeed. Anybody who is in the game for profit alone is inherently untrustworthy and will use contract law to try to force you into behavior sets which advantage them at your expense. Why would I want to work with such people?
Banks, or more accurately, the elite money lenders, have the game rigged. They create the illusion of choice while holding the world in the grasp of debt. (Very simply, ALL money in existence was borrowed by governments at interest, meaning that to pay back the interest, more money must be borrowed, also at interest. It is impossible to pay back the principal, and so a very small number of people end up rather quickly, ruling the planet). Playing by their rules, by honoring the signature you were tricked by the system into providing, you do nothing but remain a cog in their machine.
Big picture. Pull back. The system is always trying to screw you. It is the enemy. Never give comfort to the enemy if you can avoid it.
Luckily, the education system can be bypassed. If you want to learn something, you can do it very well without having to sign any silly documents.
-FL
So, yes, it's OK when Microsoft installs functionality into Firefox that Firefox should, by all rights, already include compared to Sony installing software designed explicitly to disable existing features on your computer.
No.
Microsoft, if I allow them, can update the code they wrote on my system. But what you are talking about is no different from somebody over in Redmond deciding that your private documents were written poorly and needed to be re-done according to their preferences and took the liberty of doing so without telling you. Heck, I might even agree with their assessment of your writing, but I certainly wouldn't say it was okay for them to mess with it. --At least not without asking you first in a very up front manner.
-FL
my sympathy for users that this has inconvenienced notwithstanding -- I still think it was the best of our available options.
You did the right thing. Please ignore silly comments from the peanut gallery.
All diplomacy aside, I appreciate any efforts to lock down the walls against invasive bullshit I was tricked into installing and had to crawl through my registry with a flashlight and hip waders in order to kill. Further, anybody who doesn't have a problem with Microsoft tampering with third party software they have no business touching is probably not the sort of person whose complaints are worth clogging up your conscience with.
Cheers!
-FL
Lessee. . . By default a secure browser for a few hundred thousand users who didn't want an invasive add-on in the first place or. . , your ability to play video games.
You know, there are some other fun websites out there which will also try to trick you into installing malware. You might enjoy visiting those as well. --Hey, they even have boobies!
-FL
Nicely put.
Tom Brown Jr. told a story about how his grandfather sent him off to hunt and kill a deer, but told him he wasn't allowed to take a bow & arrow, which he explained was too impersonal. He had to use a knife. So off into the woods he ventured, carrying no food. Only a knife.
He found a group of deer, stalked them and learned their patterns. The deer were very aware of him because they are deer, and after a week or so, they had accepted them into their environment. He picked out his target; a baby deer with a gimpy leg which would not survive well on its own. When the time came, (he was beginning to starve at this point), he walked up to it and it didn't run away because it had accepted him as part of the herd, --which wasn't far from the truth both physically and emotionally. He looked into its eyes and killed it with his knife. He reported that it felt like killing his brother.
Because Tom Brown Jr. is not a psychopath or a coward, he was wracked with tears and confusion and shame while he carried the animal back home. His grandfather met him and said,
"Very good. Now, when you can connect that way with the smallest blade of grass, you will have learned."
We have to kill in order to live here in this reality. There's simply no getting around that. It's the awareness and intent we kill with that matters in the end. Many try to hide their souls away from this question because it can hurt. But until these basic lessons are learned, we remain in kindergarten, lying to ourselves. There are a lot of souls which will be returning to this world for more fire and pain until they figure this stuff out.
Just my opinion.
-FL