As someone who's administered TSA testing in the past, thus having seen the "tests" first hand, I assure you, they're not looking for people that think for themselves. They want idiot drones that do what they're told, no matter what.
In a given day I'd have maybe 2 applicants out of 10 that didn't look like straight up gang members (and half of them looked like crystal meth tweakers, I shit you not), and based on what I'm hearing from family members in the service, the military is starting to have it's share of gang-bangers, too. Which makes sense, if you think about it: who's more likely to argue with an order or take a stand based on their principles, someone with an education and respect for human rights, or someone that was raised on the streets in a dog-eat-dog world?
Plus, now that the TSA is expanding to domestic rail service, highways, and sporting events, it won't be long before these state sponsored criminals are shaking us down at checkpoints all over the place, just like in Mexico or any other third world country.
So, sing with me, boys and girls: AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!!
The sad thing is, 99.9% of us here in the U.S. think this shit is disgusting, too, but they don't give a fuck what any of us think and haven't for a very long time.
Our government is wholly owned by a very select minority and their lackies. The "elections" are a sham meant to give the illusion of choice without the possibility of anything ever really changing.
I wonder how hard it would be for a U.S. citizen to get refugee status in another country? How bad do things here have to get?
The TSA is just taking the DEA's lead. They've been funding themselves by taking property from "drug dealers" for decades. For instance, in many states, if you get busted in your car with drugs, the state can take your car, even if it's personal use amounts. Unless, of course, you still owe money on it, than they'll let you keep it so that you are obligated to make those payments, of course.
This is nothing more than thievery masquerading as a public service, but then again, one could say the same about a lot of facets of our government as of late...
Of course, because the people fighting the erosion of our freedoms here in the U.S. in the wake of 9/11 just want to institute a theocracy! It's all a big scam!!
It amazes me how many people support the restriction of our rights (or resist anyone upsetting the status quo) because a bunch of fucking assholes crashed hijacked planes into buildings 10 years ago. We can be safe without infringement of our constitutional freedoms.
I would be very surprised if that, in itself, did not qualify as one of those "terrorist acts" that allows the government to ship you off to Gitmo and hold you indefinitely without trial now thanks to the new NDAA.
Yeah, because just now all of a sudden people are demanding to bring the troops home. Everything was all hunky-dory up until recently.
Come on. There were a lot of people in this country that were against the war in Iraq before we had troops on the ground there. They're listening to the American people no more now than they were then.
With all the economic problems going on, and no end in sight, and the approval rating of the entire government in the shitter, it's pretty obvious. This government knows that the populist uprisings are going to eventually come to our shores, this is why they're bringing the troops home, this is why there have been so many laws restricting the rights of American citizens as of late...
There's going to be an American Spring, maybe not this year, but soon. Things cannot continue as they are...
That's the fundamental flaw with this bullshit I just can't believe they don't understand. Because there is no real recourse for someone that gets hit with copyright infringement bullshit and their site nuked, all a person has to do is:
1. Identify blog/site you do not agree with
2. Post link to infringing content then report
3. Site gets nuked from orbit
4. ????
5. Profit!
We already know that these Intellectual Property holders themselves host their shit specifically to catch pirates. They've been caught before. What is stopping them from just having someone spam infringing content on a site to get it shut it down? For instance, uploading infringing shit all over Youtube themselves so they can file a claim and get Youtube itself knocked off the net?
Yeah, that seems a little extreme, seeing as how Google would go to war over something like that. But is a personal website owner going to have the resources to protect themselves against underhanded shit like that? Of course not.
This bill is using "Stop the pirates!" fear mongering bullshit to give themselves a dominant position on the internet and lock out any competition, regardless.
They're not above the law, they are the law. These bills are literally written by the corporations themselves (and lobbyist groups acting on their behalf) and handed off to whichever representative they own, they don't even try to obfuscate it anymore.
it noted that the legal offerings available at The Pirate Bay are not limited to the site and are also available from other sites and means. As such, preventing a large number of copyright infringements is justified.
So I can go ahead and ban access as long as it is available somewhere else through other means? And that doesn't stifle free speech how?
That sounds a lot like the "Free Speech Zones" that are springing up all over the place here in the U.S.. "Sure, you have freedom of speech, just only in a time, place, and manner in which we dictate due to a decision with which you have no input whatsoever" That sure doesn't seem like "freedom" to me.
"But there are sufficient loopholes here that would allow innocent sites to be shut down, thereby a loss of jobs. Have we answered the question dealing with national security? And as well are we recognizing the value of the First Amendment?"
Yeah, the First Amendment is just so fucking boring...
Obviously there would have to be criteria met to qualify for candidacy. For instance, a certain percentage of verifiable sponsor signatures collected from the electorate you wish to represent. It works well enough for purposes of recalling a rep (speaking as a Wisconsin resident here; we've got recall fever), why not make it an eligibility requirement for running for office in the first place?
It doesn't even have to be very high, say 5% of the total number of votes in the previous election for that seat. If you can't even manage to convince 5% of the constituency to support your candidacy, what the hell are you even running for? That alone would be sufficient barrier of entry to prevent idiots from turning it into a circus unless they were really determined (and enough of their fellow citizens wanted to turn it into one), and if that actually comes to pass, I think it's fair to let the circus continue. After all, if a sizable enough percentage of the population wants to turn the election into a farce, than obviously there are serious problems with the election in the first place that bear further investigation, i.e., making a mockery of the situation to illustrate how broken the situation really is.
I have a hard time getting behind the idea of fighting corruption with more corruption.
Don't you find it a little ridiculous that the only real option people have to get a person to represent their interests is to buy one off? Too many people have resigned themselves to "Well, that's the way it is, those are the rules of the game." Fuck that. When the game is rigged you don't play along; you flip the fucking board and walk away from the cheating little shit that's rigging the game.
We need serious campaign reform to include barring direct financial contribution to any candidate and mandating that all elections be publicly funded equally to all qualifying candidates regardless of party affiliation. Everything short of that is just spinning our wheels and playing the rigged game with the cheaters.
I think this is the real motivation. We've got the 2012 elections coming up, after all, and this is likely to be the most costly election cycle of modern politics. They need as much money as they can get, and what better way to squeeze out a few extra zeroes from the MAFIAA than to say "Welllllll, you know, um, the people are starting to really oppose this bill....I may have to look into it a little more deeply...."?
That's about the point when the lobbyists lick their lips and say "Yes, I understand your concerns; let me go ahead and write this check and I think you'll see that this is really what's best for America...", at which point our reps invariably say "Well, I'm convinced!!" with a shit-eating grin on their stupid fucking face.
I find it ridiculous that so many people think the answer to corruption is just more corruption.
The only way to stop this bullshit is to mandate that all campaigns be publicly funded and disallow direct financial contribution to any candidate by anyone, period. We need to get money out of politics, not start throwing more in on the other side. All that's going to accomplish is a fucking cold war type situation where both sides try to outspend the other, and the fact is, the people are going to lose that fight every time. People struggling to pay their bills don't have the means to donate to political candidates, so their voice is ignored. This must end.
But I think it's clear that very few people on Capital Hill give much of a shit about the side effects of this crap. The voices howling in opposition mean nothing compared to the 6 figures they're being paid by proponents of this bill.
Not only do they not understand, but they don't want to. There is no defense against willful ignorance.
Yes, but the desktop computer itself is not a particular technology. Telegraph is defunct but people still communicate long distance electronically. Analog TV is defunct but TV's are everywhere, Celluloid movies are on their way out but people still go to the movies just the same as they did 80 years ago.
With "The Cloud" we may see more people move to tablets and smart phones that serve as little more than a terminal, but desktops aren't going anywhere. Honestly, it's funny, but the majority of people I know with laptops use them in exactly the same manner as a desktop: sitting at their desk, plugged in, often with a standard wired mouse plugged in for good measure since most people don't care for trackpads. For all the portability, they unplug their laptop like once a month, if that, so it's a wasted feature. And tablets, I honestly don't know how people can do anything with them that requires more than basic text input or coarse pointer control. I've heard the anecdotal "I wrote an entire novel on my iPad and it was as easy as a keyboard!!1!!1!1!" but I honestly don't see how people can stand software keyboards, it's just way too inefficient for my expectations, I guess.
Anyways, my point is, as long as people are sitting at a desk using a computer, there will be desktop computers. Not everyone needs portability or a particular form factor.
My question is, at what point does a particular design go from being something proprietary to something obvious for it's function? For instance, when does "rounded rectangles" go from being a style feature to a "of course the corners are rounded, what else are they going to do with them, make them pointed?" When does a particular size go from a "design style" to "duh, of course it's going to be about the same size, it is intended for the same function"?
Personally, I have no problem with design being proprietary, but when it requires competitors to actually produce inferior products and impede on their functionality to avoid just looking too much like another product that it is directly competing with, it doesn't seem right to me. Of course tablets are all going to be about the same size, people have about the same size hands, more or less. Every chiclet style keyboard looks basically the same, every trackpad is going to look basically the same, every tablet is going to look basically the same, every smartphone is going to look basically the same. A manufacturer shouldn't be forced to put physical buttons on a touchscreen device just because Apple's touchscreen devices don't have any, or point the corners of their tablet just because Apple's are rounded, or not bevel the edges (that would just be uncomfortable to hold for anyone, I mean, come on), or any of the other silly things that I've heard come out of these patent lawsuits...
Desktop's will never die, not as long as they have the capability of being 10 times more powerful than their portable brethren.
When did everyone get this huge blind spot when it comes to what people do with computers? There are still people out there that do more with their computer than surf the web and consume digital media. People that need as much raw power as they can get for what they're doing have no choice but to remain on the desktop. Although laptops are now beginning to fill that niche (and even then, cheapo ones struggle), tablets and smart phones aren't going to fill that niche for a long, long time.
When tablets, smart phones, and laptops come out that are able to directly compete with their desktop counterparts in terms of raw power, productivity and potential, then I'll say the desktop's days are numbered. Until then, desktops aren't going anywhere...
Man, I grew up in Philly, and even 30 years ago I remember kids getting shot and killed at the playground near my house over their fucking shoes, crack pipes in the gutters on the way to school...
I can't even imagine what things are like now. Glad I got out of there...
One does not need to be a pirate to oppose SOPA, but we all know you already knew that and are being deliberately obtuse because you're either a fucking shill or apologist.
What do you suggest, then? I mean, short of armed rebellion?
I don't want to go to some megacorporations for help, either, but unfortunately, there is no other legal option. Our representatives have already told the few experts they even allowed to testify that they don't care what they say. What the fuck makes you think they give a shit about anything we say or do?
We don't have a voice in this fight. There are multiple petitions about this on Whitehouse.gov, the congressional switchboards have been blowing up, millions of emails have been sent to pretty much every representative, and has anything changed at all? NOPE.
So what option do we have? Do we just sit here and definitely get fucked tomorrow, or do we support Google and potentially get fucked later on? Either way we're getting fucked, no? Seems to me, then, that the best course of action is to focus on stopping the imminent fucking; we can worry about the potential fucking once SOPA and PIPA is out of the way...
Slashdot Mirror
As someone who's administered TSA testing in the past, thus having seen the "tests" first hand, I assure you, they're not looking for people that think for themselves. They want idiot drones that do what they're told, no matter what.
In a given day I'd have maybe 2 applicants out of 10 that didn't look like straight up gang members (and half of them looked like crystal meth tweakers, I shit you not), and based on what I'm hearing from family members in the service, the military is starting to have it's share of gang-bangers, too. Which makes sense, if you think about it: who's more likely to argue with an order or take a stand based on their principles, someone with an education and respect for human rights, or someone that was raised on the streets in a dog-eat-dog world?
Plus, now that the TSA is expanding to domestic rail service, highways, and sporting events, it won't be long before these state sponsored criminals are shaking us down at checkpoints all over the place, just like in Mexico or any other third world country.
So, sing with me, boys and girls: AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!!
The sad thing is, 99.9% of us here in the U.S. think this shit is disgusting, too, but they don't give a fuck what any of us think and haven't for a very long time.
Our government is wholly owned by a very select minority and their lackies. The "elections" are a sham meant to give the illusion of choice without the possibility of anything ever really changing.
I wonder how hard it would be for a U.S. citizen to get refugee status in another country? How bad do things here have to get?
All the stuff they take from you is auctioned off, as well.
The TSA is just taking the DEA's lead. They've been funding themselves by taking property from "drug dealers" for decades. For instance, in many states, if you get busted in your car with drugs, the state can take your car, even if it's personal use amounts. Unless, of course, you still owe money on it, than they'll let you keep it so that you are obligated to make those payments, of course.
This is nothing more than thievery masquerading as a public service, but then again, one could say the same about a lot of facets of our government as of late...
Of course, because the people fighting the erosion of our freedoms here in the U.S. in the wake of 9/11 just want to institute a theocracy! It's all a big scam!!
It amazes me how many people support the restriction of our rights (or resist anyone upsetting the status quo) because a bunch of fucking assholes crashed hijacked planes into buildings 10 years ago. We can be safe without infringement of our constitutional freedoms.
What would happen if someone shot one down?
I would be very surprised if that, in itself, did not qualify as one of those "terrorist acts" that allows the government to ship you off to Gitmo and hold you indefinitely without trial now thanks to the new NDAA.
Yeah, because just now all of a sudden people are demanding to bring the troops home. Everything was all hunky-dory up until recently.
Come on. There were a lot of people in this country that were against the war in Iraq before we had troops on the ground there. They're listening to the American people no more now than they were then.
With all the economic problems going on, and no end in sight, and the approval rating of the entire government in the shitter, it's pretty obvious. This government knows that the populist uprisings are going to eventually come to our shores, this is why they're bringing the troops home, this is why there have been so many laws restricting the rights of American citizens as of late...
There's going to be an American Spring, maybe not this year, but soon. Things cannot continue as they are...
That's the fundamental flaw with this bullshit I just can't believe they don't understand. Because there is no real recourse for someone that gets hit with copyright infringement bullshit and their site nuked, all a person has to do is:
1. Identify blog/site you do not agree with
2. Post link to infringing content then report
3. Site gets nuked from orbit
4. ????
5. Profit!
We already know that these Intellectual Property holders themselves host their shit specifically to catch pirates. They've been caught before. What is stopping them from just having someone spam infringing content on a site to get it shut it down? For instance, uploading infringing shit all over Youtube themselves so they can file a claim and get Youtube itself knocked off the net?
Yeah, that seems a little extreme, seeing as how Google would go to war over something like that. But is a personal website owner going to have the resources to protect themselves against underhanded shit like that? Of course not.
This bill is using "Stop the pirates!" fear mongering bullshit to give themselves a dominant position on the internet and lock out any competition, regardless.
They're not above the law, they are the law. These bills are literally written by the corporations themselves (and lobbyist groups acting on their behalf) and handed off to whichever representative they own, they don't even try to obfuscate it anymore.
it noted that the legal offerings available at The Pirate Bay are not limited to the site and are also available from other sites and means. As such, preventing a large number of copyright infringements is justified.
So I can go ahead and ban access as long as it is available somewhere else through other means? And that doesn't stifle free speech how?
That sounds a lot like the "Free Speech Zones" that are springing up all over the place here in the U.S.. "Sure, you have freedom of speech, just only in a time, place, and manner in which we dictate due to a decision with which you have no input whatsoever" That sure doesn't seem like "freedom" to me.
Great. Now we'll have to move it to sub-basement 3 next to the solid gold server farm...
Meanwhile I imagine the bought and paid congressional goons are just singing the Meow Mix jingle in their heads during these hearings.
Or surfing the web, even tweeting how "boring" listening to someone argue against the bill during a fucking meeting explicitly for that purpose was...
Here's some of what he found "boring":
"But there are sufficient loopholes here that would allow innocent sites to be shut down, thereby a loss of jobs. Have we answered the question dealing with national security? And as well are we recognizing the value of the First Amendment?"
Yeah, the First Amendment is just so fucking boring...
Obviously there would have to be criteria met to qualify for candidacy. For instance, a certain percentage of verifiable sponsor signatures collected from the electorate you wish to represent. It works well enough for purposes of recalling a rep (speaking as a Wisconsin resident here; we've got recall fever), why not make it an eligibility requirement for running for office in the first place?
It doesn't even have to be very high, say 5% of the total number of votes in the previous election for that seat. If you can't even manage to convince 5% of the constituency to support your candidacy, what the hell are you even running for? That alone would be sufficient barrier of entry to prevent idiots from turning it into a circus unless they were really determined (and enough of their fellow citizens wanted to turn it into one), and if that actually comes to pass, I think it's fair to let the circus continue. After all, if a sizable enough percentage of the population wants to turn the election into a farce, than obviously there are serious problems with the election in the first place that bear further investigation, i.e., making a mockery of the situation to illustrate how broken the situation really is.
I have a hard time getting behind the idea of fighting corruption with more corruption.
Don't you find it a little ridiculous that the only real option people have to get a person to represent their interests is to buy one off? Too many people have resigned themselves to "Well, that's the way it is, those are the rules of the game." Fuck that. When the game is rigged you don't play along; you flip the fucking board and walk away from the cheating little shit that's rigging the game.
We need serious campaign reform to include barring direct financial contribution to any candidate and mandating that all elections be publicly funded equally to all qualifying candidates regardless of party affiliation. Everything short of that is just spinning our wheels and playing the rigged game with the cheaters.
I think this is the real motivation. We've got the 2012 elections coming up, after all, and this is likely to be the most costly election cycle of modern politics. They need as much money as they can get, and what better way to squeeze out a few extra zeroes from the MAFIAA than to say "Welllllll, you know, um, the people are starting to really oppose this bill....I may have to look into it a little more deeply...."?
That's about the point when the lobbyists lick their lips and say "Yes, I understand your concerns; let me go ahead and write this check and I think you'll see that this is really what's best for America...", at which point our reps invariably say "Well, I'm convinced!!" with a shit-eating grin on their stupid fucking face.
America! Fuck Yeah!!
I find it ridiculous that so many people think the answer to corruption is just more corruption.
The only way to stop this bullshit is to mandate that all campaigns be publicly funded and disallow direct financial contribution to any candidate by anyone, period. We need to get money out of politics, not start throwing more in on the other side. All that's going to accomplish is a fucking cold war type situation where both sides try to outspend the other, and the fact is, the people are going to lose that fight every time. People struggling to pay their bills don't have the means to donate to political candidates, so their voice is ignored. This must end.
But I think it's clear that very few people on Capital Hill give much of a shit about the side effects of this crap. The voices howling in opposition mean nothing compared to the 6 figures they're being paid by proponents of this bill.
Not only do they not understand, but they don't want to. There is no defense against willful ignorance.
Yes, but the desktop computer itself is not a particular technology. Telegraph is defunct but people still communicate long distance electronically. Analog TV is defunct but TV's are everywhere, Celluloid movies are on their way out but people still go to the movies just the same as they did 80 years ago.
With "The Cloud" we may see more people move to tablets and smart phones that serve as little more than a terminal, but desktops aren't going anywhere. Honestly, it's funny, but the majority of people I know with laptops use them in exactly the same manner as a desktop: sitting at their desk, plugged in, often with a standard wired mouse plugged in for good measure since most people don't care for trackpads. For all the portability, they unplug their laptop like once a month, if that, so it's a wasted feature. And tablets, I honestly don't know how people can do anything with them that requires more than basic text input or coarse pointer control. I've heard the anecdotal "I wrote an entire novel on my iPad and it was as easy as a keyboard!!1!!1!1!" but I honestly don't see how people can stand software keyboards, it's just way too inefficient for my expectations, I guess.
Anyways, my point is, as long as people are sitting at a desk using a computer, there will be desktop computers. Not everyone needs portability or a particular form factor.
My question is, at what point does a particular design go from being something proprietary to something obvious for it's function? For instance, when does "rounded rectangles" go from being a style feature to a "of course the corners are rounded, what else are they going to do with them, make them pointed?" When does a particular size go from a "design style" to "duh, of course it's going to be about the same size, it is intended for the same function"?
Personally, I have no problem with design being proprietary, but when it requires competitors to actually produce inferior products and impede on their functionality to avoid just looking too much like another product that it is directly competing with, it doesn't seem right to me. Of course tablets are all going to be about the same size, people have about the same size hands, more or less. Every chiclet style keyboard looks basically the same, every trackpad is going to look basically the same, every tablet is going to look basically the same, every smartphone is going to look basically the same. A manufacturer shouldn't be forced to put physical buttons on a touchscreen device just because Apple's touchscreen devices don't have any, or point the corners of their tablet just because Apple's are rounded, or not bevel the edges (that would just be uncomfortable to hold for anyone, I mean, come on), or any of the other silly things that I've heard come out of these patent lawsuits...
Desktop's will never die, not as long as they have the capability of being 10 times more powerful than their portable brethren.
When did everyone get this huge blind spot when it comes to what people do with computers? There are still people out there that do more with their computer than surf the web and consume digital media. People that need as much raw power as they can get for what they're doing have no choice but to remain on the desktop. Although laptops are now beginning to fill that niche (and even then, cheapo ones struggle), tablets and smart phones aren't going to fill that niche for a long, long time.
When tablets, smart phones, and laptops come out that are able to directly compete with their desktop counterparts in terms of raw power, productivity and potential, then I'll say the desktop's days are numbered. Until then, desktops aren't going anywhere...
Man, I grew up in Philly, and even 30 years ago I remember kids getting shot and killed at the playground near my house over their fucking shoes, crack pipes in the gutters on the way to school...
I can't even imagine what things are like now. Glad I got out of there...
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure"
- Thomas Jefferson
One does not need to be a pirate to oppose SOPA, but we all know you already knew that and are being deliberately obtuse because you're either a fucking shill or apologist.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
- John F. Kennedy
What do you suggest, then? I mean, short of armed rebellion?
I don't want to go to some megacorporations for help, either, but unfortunately, there is no other legal option. Our representatives have already told the few experts they even allowed to testify that they don't care what they say. What the fuck makes you think they give a shit about anything we say or do?
We don't have a voice in this fight. There are multiple petitions about this on Whitehouse.gov, the congressional switchboards have been blowing up, millions of emails have been sent to pretty much every representative, and has anything changed at all? NOPE.
So what option do we have? Do we just sit here and definitely get fucked tomorrow, or do we support Google and potentially get fucked later on? Either way we're getting fucked, no? Seems to me, then, that the best course of action is to focus on stopping the imminent fucking; we can worry about the potential fucking once SOPA and PIPA is out of the way...