The USA PATRIOT Act was a good thing which would not be mis-used. --And that anybody who complained was a left-wing hysterical?
Funny. I don't feel left wing or hysterical. In fact I feel like I was just plain right to complain.
Anyway, giant communications companies have been in bed with the government since forever. During WWII, The postal system, Western Union, the various couriers and all the news outlets, (while they don't proudly say so loudly now), will all admit to having had government spooks directing their efforts, reading whatever they wanted and publishing whatever they felt would benefit the government.
So this current debacle is nothing new. And while it would be satisfying, I suspect that it doesn't matter whether the telcos are successfully sued or not. It's hard not to do as you are told by the Government when you are A) Profit-motivated, and B) Cowardly. --A secret service gun to the head is a great incentive to rat out on your fellow country-men, especially when you are probably built from shoddy moral materials to begin with.
Unless you have something to hide then you shouldn't be against this, seriously. And then if you DO have something to hide, well then you should be worried either way, the system isn't designed to help you, it's designed to protect the citizens from people who might infringe on their rights.
Allow me to copy & paste a portion of another Slashdotter's comment. . .
Have you ever copied a music record/cd/tape?
Have you ever listened to an illegally copied record/cd/tape?
Have you ever seen anyone with an illegally copied record/cd/tape?
Have you ever used a product in a manner that was inconsistent with its labeling?
Have you ever torn the tag off your couch cushion and then later gave away/sold the couch?
Have you ever took your kid and the neighbors to an out-of-state camping trip/vacation/drive/etc without explicit written permission from the parents?
Have you ever flattened a coin on a railroad track?
Have you pissed on the side of a federally maintained road?
Well guess what buddy? You have violated federal laws!!! You should be convicted and sent to prison.
Think it can't happen to you? Hm.
Currently, the United States has a LOT more of its citizens locked up in prisons than everbefore.
and it this increase has happened very suddenly.
Let's put that another way. . .
The U.S., which has 5% of the world population, had a quarter of its prisoners in the year 2000. (about 2 million of the world's total of 8 million).
That doesn't make you uneasy?
Tacitus said, "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state."
Unless you have something to hide then you shouldn't be against this, seriously. And then if you DO have something to hide, well then you should be worried either way, the system isn't designed to help you, it's designed to protect the citizens from people who might infringe on their rights.
Allow me to copy & paste a portion of another Slashdotter's comment. . .
Have you ever copied a music record/cd/tape?
Have you ever listened to an illegally copied record/cd/tape?
Have you ever seen anyone with an illegally copied record/cd/tape?
Have you ever used a product in a manner that was inconsistent with its labeling?
Have you ever torn the tag off your couch cushion and then later gave away/sold the couch?
Have you ever took your kid and the neighbors to an out-of-state camping trip/vacation/drive/etc without explicit written permission from the parents?
Have you ever flattened a coin on a railroad track?
Have you pissed on the side of a federally maintained road?
Well guess what buddy? You have violated federal laws!!! You should be convicted and sent to prison.
Think it can't happen to you? Hm.
Currently, the United States has a LOT more of its citizens locked up in prisons than everbefore.
and it this increase has happened very suddenly.
Let's put that another way. . .
The U.S., which has 5% of the world population, had a quarter of its prisoners in the year 2000. (about 2 million of the world's total of 8 million)7
That doesn't make you uneasy?
Tacitus said, "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state."
Paranoia from the Left? I don't know. "Left and Right" political divisions are seeming increasingly out-moded these days. I find it's somewhat more complicated than "Left and Right" when more and more Republicans are openly rejecting Neo-Con philosophy.
Currently, the United States has a LOT more of its citizens locked up in prisons than everbefore.
That makes me more than just uneasy.
Tacitus said, "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state."
Perhaps rather than "Left and Right" we need a new division. "Prisoners and Guards" is seeming increasingly applicable.
Come on, people, the guy is a convicted criminal. I have no problem with federal government requiring his blood sample.
Right. Because our legal system is so very just. --Sorry, but being a "convicted criminal" doesn't hold much water with me. --When 0.7% of the U.S. population is currently in jail, a higher percentage than ever before in the nation's history and all very suddenly, then something is wrong.
When they put you in jail for not good reason, I'm sure you'll want people on the outside to be a little more aware of reality and a lot more forgiving than you appear to be. There are criminals in America, but unfortunately, they're the ones making up the rules.
I guess the US is pretty socialist then, with all the small businesses it has. Gee, that's also completely compatible with capitalism.
Um, yeah, all first world nations have small businesses. --But many of those countries also maintain high levels of literacy and effective social welfare programs. The U.S. hits the bottom of the list pretty quickly by almost any measurement of socialist thinking, so what is your point exactly? That small businesses are the reason Americans are too stupid not to vote for Bush? Your logic evades me.
Regarding your utopia, the Israeli Kibutz has largely been a failure, and on a grander scale so was the USSR.
Um, the USSR was hardly an example of the workers owning anything, let alone the means of production. It was an example of fascists dictating everything. That's not how my co-op apartment building was run. We held these things called 'elections'. As for Israel. . . I haven't studied the Kibutz, but if they couldn't manage to get them working, they should perhaps have come to some of our meetings to take notes. Co-operating with people in a democratic manner is hardly rocket science. (In any case, I strongly suspect that the Kibutz was something designed to achieve ulterior goals which had little to do with productive, happy community. --A sure way to screw something up.)
Anyway, what I'm mainly pointing out is that the U.S. is by no means an example of socialist thinking, (which you seem to think it is), and I am saying that its woes are therefore not related to socialist philosophy. I am saying you are wrong because your primary argument is not reflected in reality.
I keep hearing the following kinds of short-sighted arguments. . .
"Well, we've had radio towers broadcasting for ages now, and there's no problem with them. So obviously EM doesn't cause cancer."
And. . .
"The Sun hits you with more EM radiation than a cell phone, so obviously people complaining about Cell Phone Em are over-reacting."
I've heard both of these arguments thoughtlessly repeated so often that they have become the same as any other meme or garden variety urban myth. I'd like to address them. First, radios. . .
FM radio signals function in the 88 to 108 MHz range, and AM in the 535-1605 kHz range.
Cell Phone signals operate in the microwave bandwidth, 1800 - 1900MHz and 800 - 900 MHz. While this is different than radio, the BIG difference is that Cell Phone microwaves are modulated all the way down to only 10 hz. Why is this significant? Because 10 hz also happens to be the general frequency where the brain's electrical activity operates.
And therein lies the problem.
Brain cells respond both physically and chemically to frequencies in that range and they do so in a variety of strange ways. For instance, the blood-brain barrier becomes permeable when exposed to modulated EM in the 10 htz range. --Which means that foreign (and toxic?) particles can cross into the brain cells themselves from the blood vessels. --If you spend a lot of time in a specific radiation zone where your blood-brain barrier is constantly not doing its job, it is reasonable to assume that the brain might be at greater risk from toxins in the blood.
This is just one example. There are several others.
Similarly, there are other problems with low-frequency EM. --For instance the 60hz electrical signals traveling down power lines have their own issues.
In conjunction with the 10 gauss magnetic field of the Earth, 60hz causes cyclotronic resonance in Lithium atoms. So what? Well, Lithium, excited in this manner, moves on a vector and is able to cross the blood-brain barrier with much greater frequency than otherwise. Lithium, as some of you may know, has a medicinal affect on the brain, and is for this reason the main ingredient used in anti-depressant drugs.
That's not contested science. People are simply not told about it. --The fact of the matter is that the people in charge of our society have a great vested interest in keeping people dumbed down and numbed in the head, both of which are achieved by deliberately designed EM pollution.
As for the Sun. . .
Who says that the Sun doesn't affect brain function? Astrology works, (despite the fierce head-shaking of those who don't like the idea but who have never actually studied a real horoscope). --But rather than cry, "There is no magic!" perhaps it would be better to ask, "Okay. So, how does it work?"
I think there's a possible answer wrapped up in low-level EM emissions from space. . .
For instance, when solar wind from the sun hits other planetary bodies, you get these reflected fields of energy vibrating in the 1-3 hz range which bathe the Earth for periods of time. As the brain tends to fall in alignment with whatever dominating frequency exists in it's environment, perhaps such periods affect the way brains work and develop.
It is, of course, far more complicated than that, as different planets fall into different areas of the sky, and as the Earth and moon move around, you'll get all kinds of different fields in the 1-35 hz range where the brain functions. Indeed, the Sun itself is magnetically divided into 12 slices, rather like an orange. Perhaps as the Earth orbits, its inhabitants are affected?
I don't know if this is the answer, but considering such ideas seems to me a great deal more sensible than a lot of fierce head-shaking.
If there was any harmful effects of EM radiation, I think it would have been well established by now from the 100 year history of broadcast radio, where the people working at the station are exposed to more than 10,000 times the energy that people are in a building with a cell tower.
Yeah, or perhaps there's a fundamental difference between a broadcast radio signal and a Cell Phone signal, which of course, there is.
Very simply, radio signals function in the 88 to 108 MHz range, (FM) and 535-1605 kHz for AM. Cell Phone signals are in the microwave bandwidth, which is a different animal altogether. Though, the BIG difference is that Cell Phone microwaves are modulated all the way down to only 10 hz. Why is this significant? Because that also happens to be the same frequency where the brain's electrical activity operates.
And therein lies the problem.
Brain cells respond both physically and chemically to frequencies in that area in a variety of strange ways. For instance, the blood-brain barrier becomes permeable when exposed to modulated EM in the 10 htz range. Which means that foreign (and toxic?) particles can cross into the brain cells themselves from the blood vessels. --If you spend a lot of time in a specific radiation zone where your blood-brain barrier is constantly not doing its job, then yeah, I can see how your brain might be at greater risk from toxins in the blood.
Broad-stroke generalizations like, "Well, Radios don't cause brain damage, so there's obviously no problem," are short-sighted. Especially given that the evidence and research is readily available to anybody with a spare hour to do some reading.
For the scientifically illiterate, you get more daily radiation from 15 minutes in the sun, or your watch, than those people would have received.
For the stubbornly ignorant, while the Sun IS a big source of radiation, it does NOT broadcast a microwave signal modulated into the 10 htz range where brain cells start acting funny. --Like dilating the pores in the blood-brain barrier so that any old foreign (and toxic?) particle can enter. If you spend a lot of time in a specific radiation zone where your blood-brain barrier is constantly not doing its job, then yeah, I can see how your brain might be at greater risk from toxins in the blood.
--Oh, and wrist watch manufacturers stopped using radioactive paint many decades ago.
I've heard the "Sun emits more ration in 15 minutes" argument so many times that it started sounding like another urban myth. --I always wonder why so few people stop to double-check such ideas. I did, and found it seriously wanting. I think perhaps people just want easy answers so that they can stop worrying that their favorite toys are making them sick and stupid.
Because, you know, pretending that a negative situation isn't there is so much more practical and effective than getting up and actually doing something about it.
Why on earth do people even bother reading the papers? They're ALL owned by the Neo-Con interests. Everything they print is designed to channel thought along Neo-Con approved vectors.
THINK:
If the Washington Post, (or Times, or whatever the heck paper it is), was a REAL paper truly concerned with actual news journalism they would have written extensively about. . .
1. The Diebold voting scandal. 2. The Downing Street Memos. 3. The fact that Saddam and the guy in an American prison are not the same person. 4. The fact that the Bin Laden tapes are fakes. 5. Stephen Colbert's brilliant lamb-basting of Bush and, um, the PRESS.
--Among other items. (Like the mountains and mountains of bullshit surrounding 9-11.)
The fact that NONE of this was dealt with means that the paper is a sham. Period.
You actually managed to contort your thinking around so that blame for American stupidity is placed on socialism. Amazing. Insane, but amazing.
For one thing, the U.S. is one of the least socialist of the industrialized nations on the planet. The fact that it's also one of the most f***ed up provides some food for thought.
You also seem to not understand what a Socialist system is. --Very simply, it's a system where the means of production are owned by the workers. (Rather than a rich asshole.) What on earth could possibly be wrong with that concept?
I've been part of several co-op ventures; in housing and food production. Guess what? They work amazingly well. --A whole bunch of people collectively owning a mortgage so that instead of paying rent to some wealthy mobster, we buy the building together. With a paid-off mortgage, all the individual building payments dropped by two thirds, (the remainder being for building maintenance and upkeep). Amazing! --Rather than servitude in perpetuity, we become owners and we get to keep our money so that it can be spent on other things rather than funneling it into the pockets of an already rich asshole.
My neighbors were hard-working, smart and well-educated people, we are happy and prosperous. I fail to see the problem with socialism. --Unless. . , (horrors), the so-called 'problem' is a just piece of made-up propaganda sold to dumb voters so that the rich assholes can continue to rape their slaves. Did you ever consider that you've been a victim of media lies sold to you by the very people who want to keep you in bondage?
We're far more socialist up here in Canada, (where, ahem, we have higher literacy rates than in the U.S.), and many more of us seem to recognize that Bush is a dangerous ass. Perhaps those two things are related somehow. . . That literacy might = cognitive ability?
Couldn't be!
Because somehow you managed to see that Socialism is responsible for Americans approving of Bush, the least socialist man on the planet.
All that axe-grinding has clearly ruined your eyes with iron dust.
Uh. . , you used a few too many intentional spelling errors there.
Why not try writing what you really think?
Honesty is the way we are going to rebuild a broken system. Even when the intent is positive, using the methods of the enemy, (lies and manipulative provocations), is not the answer.
Unless of course you really are an idiot, in which case, carry on.
Fusion research is well underway...the ITER project (mulit-national, but built in France) will be the first prototype fusion reactor, and after that (20-30 years), usable fusion reactors will come on-line.
Oh they will, will they? Not even a 'maybe' or a 'perhaps'? You speak as though you have a crystal ball, which you don't. Reality tends to ignore such cut & dried declarations of How Things Will Be.
And in this case, we have an unpredicted discovery which is seeing billions of degrees worth of man-made heating. --Which is something of a first in a controlled environment. Yes, the 'Z' machine was designed for weapons development, but that doesn't mean the discovery and techniques cannot be employed elsewhere. A little imagination, please!
But I can see why that might upset those who have already written events into their 20-30 year day planners with ink rather than pencil.
Not that I expect to see much progress as a result of such discoveries. There are a lot of twits out there with day-planners.
Just earlier this year, the Z-Machine, through tweaking and luck, jumped its ability to create pinpoint heating from a few million degrees, to a few billion.
The scientists involved are apparently well aware of the implications for very easy fusion. Listen to an interview with a French physicist discussing this. ("Unlimited Energy and Doomsday Scenarios").
I wonder how the media are going to pull a 'Cold Fusion' on this. --Though, it seems to me that they're not going to need to. Nobody seems to know or care much about this kind of advancement.
So the man is a Taurus, Fire Dragon. Let's go looking through some taboo material, (I hope you'll indulge my non-orthodox tendencies for the sake of a good fortune cookie chuckle. ..)
"The Fire Dragon -- 1916, 1976"
"The most righteous, outgoing and competitive of all the dragons, the Fire Dragon will expect a lot from everyone. But while he may be demanding and aggressive, he is also blessed with enormous energy and has a lot to offer in return. The trouble is that he may go around with an air of superiority plus authority and make people fear or shy away from him. His leadership qualities are often marred by his desire to be treated like a Messiah. Fire matched with his forceful lunar sign will give him overzealous and dictatorial inclinations. He pushes hard even when there is little resistance.
"In reality, he is an open and humane person given to impartiality and uncovering the truth at all costs. His criticisms are objective and he has the power to arouse masses with his vibrant personality. A natural empire builder, he will strive toward the supreme order of things, with himself at the help, of course.
"Because the Fire Dragon is often enveloped by his insatiable personal ambition, he is short-tempered, inconsiderate and unable to tolerate anything less than perfection. He also overgeneralizes or jumps to conclusions, frequently lumping people into categories without allowing for or even perceiving their individual differences.
"Nonetheless, here is a performer of the highest degree who could easily be a source of inspiration to his fellow man and a personality who will catch the public eye -- when he learns to master his negative traits and communicate more humbly with others."
--Theadora Lau, The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes
I found myself reviewing my combat advantages; I'm stronger, faster, smarter, have better balance and my parts take longer to wear. . .
For now anyway.
Talk about basic instincts. It's just a collection of parts with a plastic skin pulled over top; A dumb toy, and yet my fight or flight responses were engaged.
I have an idea; let's NOT build soul-less robo-creatures. We have enough organic ones walking around as it is. They bore me, creep me out, and I wouldn't want to have sex with one of them either.
Also...did anyone else get a wierd feeling looking at the close-up photo of her face? I finally figured it out- she is (or looks) slightly cross-eyed.
I think it's something different. --Everybody is slightly cross-eyed when they look at things close up.
I feel slightly creeped out by ALL mannequins, but since I've seen a few zillion in my life, I don't register it anymore. --But that's largely based on the non-luminescence of plastic skin, (real skin is slightly see-through), the fact that eyes don't track, and the overall totally obvious sense of fake, etc.
Here it's a bit different; no single detail of the face looks un-real.
I think if somebody were to pose for this shot and I was told it was an android, I'd feel just as disturbed. I think the creep factor lies in the knowing it's not real and imagining having to deal with the damned thing moving around in real life. I've seen enough scary movies about robots to feel a real sense of threat when the fourth wall is replaced with air.
But maybe it's something different. In any case, you're quite right. It's creepy. I can certainly see how the war would have started.
Working from assumption that a small group of people are in charge of the actions of the entire human race, then. . .
Setting up China as a totalitarian government while setting up the West as a 'free' society, (cough), and then flooding the news with lots of stories which get the blood pumping about the unfair differences between 'them' and 'us'. . .
Well, can anybody name the next big enemy we're being set up to fear and loath?
The Toronto Star makes its money by selling media to suburban families.
Their stories are tailored to a certain head-space. They don't present news so much as they filter ideas and pre-digest them for a bunch of working parents raising kids. The Star is basically just a really fat daily edition of, "For Better or For Worse." (--Or, "How to accept slavery and severely limited possibilities in life while pretending you are happy and that there is nothing more.")
Poor Lynn Johnston. She's a shill and doesn't know it. That's the best way to subvert a populace; get genuine and honest creators to believe in the lie and then repeat it with charisma and talent. There's a reason why, "For Better or For Worse" is the MOST popular comic strip in North America. It's morphine for the wounded.
The problem is that The Star, (and papers like it), are direct arms of the corporate paradigm, which are linked to all kinds of nastiness. Whenever a paper uses emotionally charged terminology when sharing facts, you automatically know that biases are involved. The fact that it's so bald-faced is an indicator of just how far the people have been subverted.
For example. . .
"But the computer smarts of Ron Deibert, Nart Villeneuve, and Michael Hull, combined with their passion for politics and free expression, have led them to develop a highly anticipated software program that allows Internet users inside China and other countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Burma, to get around repressive censorship and not get caught."
The average person if they were to read the same phrase usage in a Chinese newspaper, would gag and cry, "Propaganda!" but when it's displayed right in their hometown paper, it's suddenly invisible while retaining all of its subversive power.
So is there an Agenda? Hell, yes! I wonder how exactly the Toronto Star is going to spin Bush's military strikes against Iran?
That's right! Iraq all over again. Baseless lies about war ambitions spun into a such a fear frenzy that the cozy suburban family provider will shudder at the very thought and willingly go along with corporate fascism. Same old story.
Our 'Liberal Media' is designed to make us stupid.
-FL
Heck, I learned life skills from Unix "Konquest"
on
Sims the New Dolls?
·
· Score: 1
--That is, launching your campaign to change the universe until you have invested sufficient time, energy and planning to make the effort worthwhile results in failure.
I'm willing to bet that this would hold true for almost any game.
When you strip away all the other bells and whistles, a computer is just another element of the Universe and will behave accordingly. You can learn kung-fu from watching water move, or how to build bridges from watching leaves fall, so why not learn from computers as well?
However. . .
Other than that, I'd say that trying to learn directly how to be human from watching the behavior of a bunch of little pretend computer humans might not be such a great idea. All you're really learning is the behaviors some programming staff think are appropriate and real. There's the medium and there's the message, right? The medium itself is what it is, and as such the things you learn from watching its behavior are going to result in 'real' knowledge. The deliberate messages sent over the medium, however, can lie. This is what, (IMHO), Marshall Mcluhan was getting at when he said, "The Medium IS the Message". (Or maybe not. He didn't write very clearly.)
Anyway, the thing which consistently annoys me when I play computer games is that computers limit possible actions by players to rule sets created by people with biases. The number of times I've cried out, "#@*! Pick up that object right in front of you and pry the lock with THAT, you stupid piece of junk computer! I don't need no steenkin key!"
After a few years of playing computer games, I basically accepted that I would have to conform myself to arbitrary rule sets, and thus my brain was trained. Those synaptic pathways become grooved with repeated use, and so society trains people to be good little slaves, and people go through life not breaking with dumb conventions.
How charming.
Even D&D will stream-lines a kid's imagination, whereas playing 'Pretend' with dolls or what have you, offers no such limitations beyond those already present in the kid's head.
Have you considered the purpose of the entire Armageddon story might have been to make people fear every tyrant as though he really were "The Beast"?
Not really. It doesn't seem to have worked in the U.S., what with Bush calling himself a born again.
Indeed, the Armageddon story, when you look at it's resulting affects on the U.S. populace, seems to be having a very curious fall-out.
Specifically, people working hard to bring about Armageddon. --What with the herding of the Jews into Israel and the various prophecies about the ownership of certain bits of land being pushed into being.
Seems to me that there was some very specific intent behind the bible.
Assuming god-like powers, (which the average Christian must accept due to his/her religion tenets), then why not assume beings, (UFO's, Crop Circles), which have the power to transcend time as well as space in order to affect manipulations on the population so as to better enable social molding?
That's how I'd do it.
Just because a burning bush is talking to you doesn't mean it's telling you the truth. A little more critical thinking on the part of the Christians would have prevented a lot of disturbing events in history.
The Church doesn't encourage thinking and questioning, however. Big surprise.
Putting aside your personal beliefs for a moment, it's important to understand that Christians regard the Bible as the inspired word of God. Written by 40 or so authors over many hundreds of years, but divinely directed by a single entity. I'm not saying you have to believe that, but I am saying that such understanding is required if you want to grasp the motivations of Christians. So yes, you can get over the fact, it just takes a little study, empathy, and common sense.
"Not being able to get over" the fact that people hold the beliefs mentioned is my way of saying that I consider those beliefs to be false. I have studied and I have plenty of empathy; it is exactly these things which have enabled me to understand the human condition well enough to reach my conclusions; That people are easily mis-led by authority figures and media. The Bible being part of the media, and its purveyors part of the authority structure.
I consider EVERYTHING to be inspired by God, because everything is part of God, so yeah, of course the bible was inspired by God, but big deal. --This is certainly at odds with the Christian belief system, but I think the Christian belief system is based on a lot of falsehoods artfully blended with some good ideas with the purpose of turning people into killing machines, (witness the scenario unfolding in the Middle East), and into easily fed upon fools (witness the populace allowing psychopaths into the offices of Enron and the presidency and similar). --People have been trained to "Turn the other cheek", "Forgive and forget", and generally follow Christ's lead in allowing himself to be crucified by villains, (which I think is another lie, BTW, designed to create pliable slaves.)
Yeah, but there's a lot of Biblical doctrine that doesn't seem to fit the mold, never mind the fact that its authors spanned many years and cultures. But sticking to the context, Revelations is one strange book that would be hard to put to such a purpose...
You're thinking three-dimensionally. Assuming supernatural powers, (which a Christian must do by force of his/her belief structure), manipulations from seemingly God-like forces must be accepted as possible. --Take the burning bush, for instance. Just because a bush talks to you and makes you feel certain feelings, why on earth would a person take for granted that it was the voice of God speaking and not a manipulator with an agenda? --We have the technology now to make people feel certain ways using electromagnetic fields which manipulate our nervous systems. If we can do it, then a god-like being or alien or whatever certainly has the possibility of doing it.
--Say a prophet in a cave gets a vision which he just has to write down. Why do people assume it came from on high? There are a LOT of other forces out there, dark and clever ones, which can make you feel blessed and lit up by God and all of that, and which have perspectives which transcend time as well as space. I know this from direct experience with that realm; It's filled with monsters which feed on pain and misery and fear. Think about that! What are beings which feed on fear going to do if they need a meal?
There are, of course, selfless and giving entities out there as well, (which are sustained by love), but the population of positive v.s. negative beings seems to be about 50-50. So when Christians never question their sources, (And I mean, NEVER; I've seen the most dubious episodes transpire which people automatically assume come from heavenly sources simply because they happen to occur inside a church, but which have selfish and negative impacts), how much of the Christian material do you think is going to be valid?
--Especially, when other-serving entities tend to keep quiet unless directly asked for aid. Typically, other-serving beings tend to allow lessons to unfold in the long-game, (over many lives), and this means allowing people to act and learn from those actions, even if they are painful. It's the
Yep, Lucas will sell this edition on DVD to wring some more money from us before HD-DVD/Blu Ray take hold. Then "only ever" release the updated versions on HD/BR - until that income stream starts to dry up of course, then the unedited HD version... You all know the rest.
Yeah, but once I have a DVD copy in my hands, I probably won't need another copy ever again. DIY computers are handy that way.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny. I don't feel left wing or hysterical. In fact I feel like I was just plain right to complain.
Anyway, giant communications companies have been in bed with the government since forever. During WWII, The postal system, Western Union, the various couriers and all the news outlets, (while they don't proudly say so loudly now), will all admit to having had government spooks directing their efforts, reading whatever they wanted and publishing whatever they felt would benefit the government.
So this current debacle is nothing new. And while it would be satisfying, I suspect that it doesn't matter whether the telcos are successfully sued or not. It's hard not to do as you are told by the Government when you are A) Profit-motivated, and B) Cowardly. --A secret service gun to the head is a great incentive to rat out on your fellow country-men, especially when you are probably built from shoddy moral materials to begin with.
-FL
Unless you have something to hide then you shouldn't be against this, seriously. And then if you DO have something to hide, well then you should be worried either way, the system isn't designed to help you, it's designed to protect the citizens from people who might infringe on their rights.
Allow me to copy & paste a portion of another Slashdotter's comment. . .
Think it can't happen to you? Hm.
Currently, the United States has a LOT more of its citizens locked up in prisons than ever before.
and it this increase has happened very suddenly.
Let's put that another way. . .
The U.S., which has 5% of the world population, had a quarter of its prisoners in the year 2000. (about 2 million of the world's total of 8 million).
That doesn't make you uneasy?
Tacitus said, "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state."
-FL
Allow me to copy & paste a portion of another Slashdotter's comment. . .
Think it can't happen to you? Hm.
Currently, the United States has a LOT more of its citizens locked up in prisons than ever before.
and it this increase has happened very suddenly.
Let's put that another way. . .
The U.S., which has 5% of the world population, had a quarter of its prisoners in the year 2000. (about 2 million of the world's total of 8 million)7
That doesn't make you uneasy?
Tacitus said, "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state."
-FL
Currently, the United States has a LOT more of its citizens locked up in prisons than ever before.
That makes me more than just uneasy.
Tacitus said, "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state."
Perhaps rather than "Left and Right" we need a new division. "Prisoners and Guards" is seeming increasingly applicable.
-FL
Right. Because our legal system is so very just. --Sorry, but being a "convicted criminal" doesn't hold much water with me. --When 0.7% of the U.S. population is currently in jail, a higher percentage than ever before in the nation's history and all very suddenly, then something is wrong.
When they put you in jail for not good reason, I'm sure you'll want people on the outside to be a little more aware of reality and a lot more forgiving than you appear to be. There are criminals in America, but unfortunately, they're the ones making up the rules.
-FL
Um, yeah, all first world nations have small businesses. --But many of those countries also maintain high levels of literacy and effective social welfare programs. The U.S. hits the bottom of the list pretty quickly by almost any measurement of socialist thinking, so what is your point exactly? That small businesses are the reason Americans are too stupid not to vote for Bush? Your logic evades me.
Regarding your utopia, the Israeli Kibutz has largely been a failure, and on a grander scale so was the USSR.
Um, the USSR was hardly an example of the workers owning anything, let alone the means of production. It was an example of fascists dictating everything. That's not how my co-op apartment building was run. We held these things called 'elections'. As for Israel. . . I haven't studied the Kibutz, but if they couldn't manage to get them working, they should perhaps have come to some of our meetings to take notes. Co-operating with people in a democratic manner is hardly rocket science. (In any case, I strongly suspect that the Kibutz was something designed to achieve ulterior goals which had little to do with productive, happy community. --A sure way to screw something up.)
Anyway, what I'm mainly pointing out is that the U.S. is by no means an example of socialist thinking, (which you seem to think it is), and I am saying that its woes are therefore not related to socialist philosophy. I am saying you are wrong because your primary argument is not reflected in reality.
-FL
That is, "Just because all Cows are Animals, all Animals are NOT therefore Cows."
Or even more simply put. . .
Just because some Germans are idiots, doesn't automatically mean that Cell Phone EM has no affect.
Or even MORE simply put,
Stop acting like damn children. You're smarter than that, so act it.
-FL
"Well, we've had radio towers broadcasting for ages now, and there's no problem with them. So obviously EM doesn't cause cancer."
And. . .
"The Sun hits you with more EM radiation than a cell phone, so obviously people complaining about Cell Phone Em are over-reacting."
I've heard both of these arguments thoughtlessly repeated so often that they have become the same as any other meme or garden variety urban myth. I'd like to address them. First, radios. . .
FM radio signals function in the 88 to 108 MHz range, and AM in the 535-1605 kHz range.
Cell Phone signals operate in the microwave bandwidth, 1800 - 1900MHz and 800 - 900 MHz. While this is different than radio, the BIG difference is that Cell Phone microwaves are modulated all the way down to only 10 hz. Why is this significant? Because 10 hz also happens to be the general frequency where the brain's electrical activity operates.
And therein lies the problem.
Brain cells respond both physically and chemically to frequencies in that range and they do so in a variety of strange ways. For instance, the blood-brain barrier becomes permeable when exposed to modulated EM in the 10 htz range. --Which means that foreign (and toxic?) particles can cross into the brain cells themselves from the blood vessels. --If you spend a lot of time in a specific radiation zone where your blood-brain barrier is constantly not doing its job, it is reasonable to assume that the brain might be at greater risk from toxins in the blood.
This is just one example. There are several others.
Similarly, there are other problems with low-frequency EM. --For instance the 60hz electrical signals traveling down power lines have their own issues.
In conjunction with the 10 gauss magnetic field of the Earth, 60hz causes cyclotronic resonance in Lithium atoms. So what? Well, Lithium, excited in this manner, moves on a vector and is able to cross the blood-brain barrier with much greater frequency than otherwise. Lithium, as some of you may know, has a medicinal affect on the brain, and is for this reason the main ingredient used in anti-depressant drugs.
That's not contested science. People are simply not told about it. --The fact of the matter is that the people in charge of our society have a great vested interest in keeping people dumbed down and numbed in the head, both of which are achieved by deliberately designed EM pollution.
As for the Sun. . .
Who says that the Sun doesn't affect brain function? Astrology works, (despite the fierce head-shaking of those who don't like the idea but who have never actually studied a real horoscope). --But rather than cry, "There is no magic!" perhaps it would be better to ask, "Okay. So, how does it work?"
I think there's a possible answer wrapped up in low-level EM emissions from space. . .
For instance, when solar wind from the sun hits other planetary bodies, you get these reflected fields of energy vibrating in the 1-3 hz range which bathe the Earth for periods of time. As the brain tends to fall in alignment with whatever dominating frequency exists in it's environment, perhaps such periods affect the way brains work and develop.
It is, of course, far more complicated than that, as different planets fall into different areas of the sky, and as the Earth and moon move around, you'll get all kinds of different fields in the 1-35 hz range where the brain functions. Indeed, the Sun itself is magnetically divided into 12 slices, rather like an orange. Perhaps as the Earth orbits, its inhabitants are affected?
I don't know if this is the answer, but considering such ideas seems to me a great deal more sensible than a lot of fierce head-shaking.
-FL
Yeah, or perhaps there's a fundamental difference between a broadcast radio signal and a Cell Phone signal, which of course, there is.
Very simply, radio signals function in the 88 to 108 MHz range, (FM) and 535-1605 kHz for AM. Cell Phone signals are in the microwave bandwidth, which is a different animal altogether. Though, the BIG difference is that Cell Phone microwaves are modulated all the way down to only 10 hz. Why is this significant? Because that also happens to be the same frequency where the brain's electrical activity operates.
And therein lies the problem.
Brain cells respond both physically and chemically to frequencies in that area in a variety of strange ways. For instance, the blood-brain barrier becomes permeable when exposed to modulated EM in the 10 htz range. Which means that foreign (and toxic?) particles can cross into the brain cells themselves from the blood vessels. --If you spend a lot of time in a specific radiation zone where your blood-brain barrier is constantly not doing its job, then yeah, I can see how your brain might be at greater risk from toxins in the blood.
Broad-stroke generalizations like, "Well, Radios don't cause brain damage, so there's obviously no problem," are short-sighted. Especially given that the evidence and research is readily available to anybody with a spare hour to do some reading.
-FL
For the stubbornly ignorant, while the Sun IS a big source of radiation, it does NOT broadcast a microwave signal modulated into the 10 htz range where brain cells start acting funny. --Like dilating the pores in the blood-brain barrier so that any old foreign (and toxic?) particle can enter. If you spend a lot of time in a specific radiation zone where your blood-brain barrier is constantly not doing its job, then yeah, I can see how your brain might be at greater risk from toxins in the blood.
--Oh, and wrist watch manufacturers stopped using radioactive paint many decades ago.
I've heard the "Sun emits more ration in 15 minutes" argument so many times that it started sounding like another urban myth. --I always wonder why so few people stop to double-check such ideas. I did, and found it seriously wanting. I think perhaps people just want easy answers so that they can stop worrying that their favorite toys are making them sick and stupid.
Because, you know, pretending that a negative situation isn't there is so much more practical and effective than getting up and actually doing something about it.
-FL
THINK:
If the Washington Post, (or Times, or whatever the heck paper it is), was a REAL paper truly concerned with actual news journalism they would have written extensively about. . .
1. The Diebold voting scandal.
2. The Downing Street Memos.
3. The fact that Saddam and the guy in an American prison are not the same person.
4. The fact that the Bin Laden tapes are fakes.
5. Stephen Colbert's brilliant lamb-basting of Bush and, um, the PRESS.
--Among other items. (Like the mountains and mountains of bullshit surrounding 9-11.)
The fact that NONE of this was dealt with means that the paper is a sham. Period.
So don't get worked up about their made-up polls.
-FL
For one thing, the U.S. is one of the least socialist of the industrialized nations on the planet. The fact that it's also one of the most f***ed up provides some food for thought.
You also seem to not understand what a Socialist system is. --Very simply, it's a system where the means of production are owned by the workers. (Rather than a rich asshole.) What on earth could possibly be wrong with that concept?
I've been part of several co-op ventures; in housing and food production. Guess what? They work amazingly well. --A whole bunch of people collectively owning a mortgage so that instead of paying rent to some wealthy mobster, we buy the building together. With a paid-off mortgage, all the individual building payments dropped by two thirds, (the remainder being for building maintenance and upkeep). Amazing! --Rather than servitude in perpetuity, we become owners and we get to keep our money so that it can be spent on other things rather than funneling it into the pockets of an already rich asshole.
My neighbors were hard-working, smart and well-educated people, we are happy and prosperous. I fail to see the problem with socialism. --Unless. . , (horrors), the so-called 'problem' is a just piece of made-up propaganda sold to dumb voters so that the rich assholes can continue to rape their slaves. Did you ever consider that you've been a victim of media lies sold to you by the very people who want to keep you in bondage?
We're far more socialist up here in Canada, (where, ahem, we have higher literacy rates than in the U.S.), and many more of us seem to recognize that Bush is a dangerous ass. Perhaps those two things are related somehow. . . That literacy might = cognitive ability?
Couldn't be!
Because somehow you managed to see that Socialism is responsible for Americans approving of Bush, the least socialist man on the planet.
All that axe-grinding has clearly ruined your eyes with iron dust.
-FL
Why not try writing what you really think?
Honesty is the way we are going to rebuild a broken system. Even when the intent is positive, using the methods of the enemy, (lies and manipulative provocations), is not the answer.
Unless of course you really are an idiot, in which case, carry on.
-FL
Oh they will, will they? Not even a 'maybe' or a 'perhaps'? You speak as though you have a crystal ball, which you don't. Reality tends to ignore such cut & dried declarations of How Things Will Be.
And in this case, we have an unpredicted discovery which is seeing billions of degrees worth of man-made heating. --Which is something of a first in a controlled environment. Yes, the 'Z' machine was designed for weapons development, but that doesn't mean the discovery and techniques cannot be employed elsewhere. A little imagination, please!
But I can see why that might upset those who have already written events into their 20-30 year day planners with ink rather than pencil.
Not that I expect to see much progress as a result of such discoveries. There are a lot of twits out there with day-planners.
-FL
A fuller version of the story here.
The scientists involved are apparently well aware of the implications for very easy fusion. Listen to an interview with a French physicist discussing this. ("Unlimited Energy and Doomsday Scenarios").
I wonder how the media are going to pull a 'Cold Fusion' on this. --Though, it seems to me that they're not going to need to. Nobody seems to know or care much about this kind of advancement.
-FL
--Theadora Lau, The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes
-FL
I found myself reviewing my combat advantages; I'm stronger, faster, smarter, have better balance and my parts take longer to wear. . .
For now anyway.
Talk about basic instincts. It's just a collection of parts with a plastic skin pulled over top; A dumb toy, and yet my fight or flight responses were engaged.
I have an idea; let's NOT build soul-less robo-creatures. We have enough organic ones walking around as it is. They bore me, creep me out, and I wouldn't want to have sex with one of them either.
-FL
I think it's something different. --Everybody is slightly cross-eyed when they look at things close up.
I feel slightly creeped out by ALL mannequins, but since I've seen a few zillion in my life, I don't register it anymore. --But that's largely based on the non-luminescence of plastic skin, (real skin is slightly see-through), the fact that eyes don't track, and the overall totally obvious sense of fake, etc.
Here it's a bit different; no single detail of the face looks un-real.
I think if somebody were to pose for this shot and I was told it was an android, I'd feel just as disturbed. I think the creep factor lies in the knowing it's not real and imagining having to deal with the damned thing moving around in real life. I've seen enough scary movies about robots to feel a real sense of threat when the fourth wall is replaced with air.
But maybe it's something different. In any case, you're quite right. It's creepy. I can certainly see how the war would have started.
-FL
Setting up China as a totalitarian government while setting up the West as a 'free' society, (cough), and then flooding the news with lots of stories which get the blood pumping about the unfair differences between 'them' and 'us'. . .
Well, can anybody name the next big enemy we're being set up to fear and loath?
Sheesh.
Big Authority is a bunch of A-holes.
-FL
Their stories are tailored to a certain head-space. They don't present news so much as they filter ideas and pre-digest them for a bunch of working parents raising kids. The Star is basically just a really fat daily edition of, "For Better or For Worse." (--Or, "How to accept slavery and severely limited possibilities in life while pretending you are happy and that there is nothing more.")
Poor Lynn Johnston. She's a shill and doesn't know it. That's the best way to subvert a populace; get genuine and honest creators to believe in the lie and then repeat it with charisma and talent. There's a reason why, "For Better or For Worse" is the MOST popular comic strip in North America. It's morphine for the wounded.
The problem is that The Star, (and papers like it), are direct arms of the corporate paradigm, which are linked to all kinds of nastiness. Whenever a paper uses emotionally charged terminology when sharing facts, you automatically know that biases are involved. The fact that it's so bald-faced is an indicator of just how far the people have been subverted.
For example. . .
"But the computer smarts of Ron Deibert, Nart Villeneuve, and Michael Hull, combined with their passion for politics and free expression, have led them to develop a highly anticipated software program that allows Internet users inside China and other countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Burma, to get around repressive censorship and not get caught."
The average person if they were to read the same phrase usage in a Chinese newspaper, would gag and cry, "Propaganda!" but when it's displayed right in their hometown paper, it's suddenly invisible while retaining all of its subversive power.
So is there an Agenda? Hell, yes! I wonder how exactly the Toronto Star is going to spin Bush's military strikes against Iran?
That's right! Iraq all over again. Baseless lies about war ambitions spun into a such a fear frenzy that the cozy suburban family provider will shudder at the very thought and willingly go along with corporate fascism. Same old story.
Our 'Liberal Media' is designed to make us stupid.
-FL
I'm willing to bet that this would hold true for almost any game.
When you strip away all the other bells and whistles, a computer is just another element of the Universe and will behave accordingly. You can learn kung-fu from watching water move, or how to build bridges from watching leaves fall, so why not learn from computers as well?
However. . .
Other than that, I'd say that trying to learn directly how to be human from watching the behavior of a bunch of little pretend computer humans might not be such a great idea. All you're really learning is the behaviors some programming staff think are appropriate and real. There's the medium and there's the message, right? The medium itself is what it is, and as such the things you learn from watching its behavior are going to result in 'real' knowledge. The deliberate messages sent over the medium, however, can lie. This is what, (IMHO), Marshall Mcluhan was getting at when he said, "The Medium IS the Message". (Or maybe not. He didn't write very clearly.)
Anyway, the thing which consistently annoys me when I play computer games is that computers limit possible actions by players to rule sets created by people with biases. The number of times I've cried out, "#@*! Pick up that object right in front of you and pry the lock with THAT, you stupid piece of junk computer! I don't need no steenkin key!"
After a few years of playing computer games, I basically accepted that I would have to conform myself to arbitrary rule sets, and thus my brain was trained. Those synaptic pathways become grooved with repeated use, and so society trains people to be good little slaves, and people go through life not breaking with dumb conventions.
How charming.
Even D&D will stream-lines a kid's imagination, whereas playing 'Pretend' with dolls or what have you, offers no such limitations beyond those already present in the kid's head.
Turn that thing off and go play outside!
-FL
Not really. It doesn't seem to have worked in the U.S., what with Bush calling himself a born again.
Indeed, the Armageddon story, when you look at it's resulting affects on the U.S. populace, seems to be having a very curious fall-out.
Specifically, people working hard to bring about Armageddon. --What with the herding of the Jews into Israel and the various prophecies about the ownership of certain bits of land being pushed into being.
Seems to me that there was some very specific intent behind the bible.
Assuming god-like powers, (which the average Christian must accept due to his/her religion tenets), then why not assume beings, (UFO's, Crop Circles), which have the power to transcend time as well as space in order to affect manipulations on the population so as to better enable social molding?
That's how I'd do it.
Just because a burning bush is talking to you doesn't mean it's telling you the truth. A little more critical thinking on the part of the Christians would have prevented a lot of disturbing events in history.
The Church doesn't encourage thinking and questioning, however. Big surprise.
-FL
Putting aside your personal beliefs for a moment, it's important to understand that Christians regard the Bible as the inspired word of God. Written by 40 or so authors over many hundreds of years, but divinely directed by a single entity. I'm not saying you have to believe that, but I am saying that such understanding is required if you want to grasp the motivations of Christians. So yes, you can get over the fact, it just takes a little study, empathy, and common sense.
"Not being able to get over" the fact that people hold the beliefs mentioned is my way of saying that I consider those beliefs to be false. I have studied and I have plenty of empathy; it is exactly these things which have enabled me to understand the human condition well enough to reach my conclusions; That people are easily mis-led by authority figures and media. The Bible being part of the media, and its purveyors part of the authority structure.
I consider EVERYTHING to be inspired by God, because everything is part of God, so yeah, of course the bible was inspired by God, but big deal. --This is certainly at odds with the Christian belief system, but I think the Christian belief system is based on a lot of falsehoods artfully blended with some good ideas with the purpose of turning people into killing machines, (witness the scenario unfolding in the Middle East), and into easily fed upon fools (witness the populace allowing psychopaths into the offices of Enron and the presidency and similar). --People have been trained to "Turn the other cheek", "Forgive and forget", and generally follow Christ's lead in allowing himself to be crucified by villains, (which I think is another lie, BTW, designed to create pliable slaves.)
Yeah, but there's a lot of Biblical doctrine that doesn't seem to fit the mold, never mind the fact that its authors spanned many years and cultures. But sticking to the context, Revelations is one strange book that would be hard to put to such a purpose...
You're thinking three-dimensionally. Assuming supernatural powers, (which a Christian must do by force of his/her belief structure), manipulations from seemingly God-like forces must be accepted as possible. --Take the burning bush, for instance. Just because a bush talks to you and makes you feel certain feelings, why on earth would a person take for granted that it was the voice of God speaking and not a manipulator with an agenda? --We have the technology now to make people feel certain ways using electromagnetic fields which manipulate our nervous systems. If we can do it, then a god-like being or alien or whatever certainly has the possibility of doing it.
--Say a prophet in a cave gets a vision which he just has to write down. Why do people assume it came from on high? There are a LOT of other forces out there, dark and clever ones, which can make you feel blessed and lit up by God and all of that, and which have perspectives which transcend time as well as space. I know this from direct experience with that realm; It's filled with monsters which feed on pain and misery and fear. Think about that! What are beings which feed on fear going to do if they need a meal?
There are, of course, selfless and giving entities out there as well, (which are sustained by love), but the population of positive v.s. negative beings seems to be about 50-50. So when Christians never question their sources, (And I mean, NEVER; I've seen the most dubious episodes transpire which people automatically assume come from heavenly sources simply because they happen to occur inside a church, but which have selfish and negative impacts), how much of the Christian material do you think is going to be valid?
--Especially, when other-serving entities tend to keep quiet unless directly asked for aid. Typically, other-serving beings tend to allow lessons to unfold in the long-game, (over many lives), and this means allowing people to act and learn from those actions, even if they are painful. It's the
Yes, thank-you. Leave it to a geek to split hairs when it offers no help other than to bolster his own ego.
I'll be sure to properly mention the MPAA when I next construct a relevant sentence.
-FL
Yeah, but once I have a DVD copy in my hands, I probably won't need another copy ever again. DIY computers are handy that way.
-FL