Let's also not forget one of the first things the CIA did in Post-WWI America.. Project MKULTRA How does giving people LSD in mind-control experiments help anyone's freedom? Seems like something that would be described in Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism
Yes, it matters a lot and renders the use of OpenSSL in Tails being a security issue moot -- any client would have this issue. Additionally, Tails' security practices also enforce use of things like Perfect Forward Secrecy when available. Also, most Tor nodes utilize PFS between nodes. Again, Tails' security architecture helps defend users against zero-day exploits.
This is an official military source that misses the point that the "government" of Cambodia was not de facto sovereign at the time, nor legal..the request came from Lon Nol, a pro-US general who was just installed in a coup d'etat.
The US was out of South Vietnam in 1975. That is nearly 40 years ago. I doubt there are many CIA agents that were working in Vietnam still working at the CIA.
They'd be 60-70 years old but it's still quite possible. The CIA doesn't really publish lists of employees so this can be checked.
Iran Contra is also well into the past. And once again, a former Director of CIA is not a current Director or employee.
The internet certainly did exist in the 1980s.
Yes, but mostly as U.S-only network, it would be more accurate to say the "Internet did not exist in the way we know it today". CERN and Europe didn't largely uplink into the TCP/IP-based internet until 1989..post-Berlin Wall.
The real contributor to freedom was the CIA, not the small Tails project only a few years old.
If you think that the CIA contributed to "freedom" then you speak propaganda only. The CIA contributed to realpolitik, and only came to create "freedom" in places that mattered to the U.S.'s strategic interests. In the same way the KGB helped enforce a "prison of states" around Eastern Europe, the CIA helped foster a similar situation in South America. See Guatemalan Coup . Let's not forget also about Chile and Grenada. Also, the CIA helped stifle dissent in America and reduce American political freedoms during thist ime. Reference: Operation CHAOS
Actually, many present CIA employees were around for Vietnam and Iran-Contra..notably, a recent director, Porter Goss -- who was a career CIA employee. Those who were low-level agents at the agency are now in higher positions, and they were around for that time -- albeit it is unkown whether they were involved with those operations. You didn't fact check your statement at all before making it. The reason my statement is true is because of time disparity -- 70 years since the Nazis fell means that any CIA agent would have to be 90+ years old to have been around for that.
Now maybe you can tell me, how much did the Tails project help dissidents against the Communist governments of Poland, USSR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and many others? What did the Tails project do to defeat Communist takeover attempts in free European countries like Greece? Nothing.
It didn't exist then and neither did the internet. Today, it would help bring down the "Iron Curtain" and be a valuable instrument in these areas. The CIA also didn't do this out of the goodness of their heart or do defend "freedom" -- they were doing it to expand U.S. power and influence in Europe and check the influence of Russia.
Are you claiming that Cambodia was outside its rights to ask for assistance against the North Vietnamese occupation of its territory?
Cambodia never did this. Can you find a source that says that? And I don't mean their powerless government-in-exile asking for military assisntace, if that was legal, then the Dali Lama could authorize the U.S. to invade Tibet.
The CIA was involved and Nixon's men were former CIA agents.
What I wrote has the irritating quality of being true.
No, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, not their own facts. You've invented your own facts for the purposes of rebuttal, which is quite irritating.
It did, but a version that was NOT vulnerable to heartbleed since tails tracks debian-oldstable. Also, there is no use case for running a web server that people can exploit heartbleed on via tails.
No, no, and no. If you were using tails, you wouldn't have been vulnerable to this attack because it enables NoScript by default. Tails' use of security best practices helps protect against zero-day exploits like the FBI's javascript malicious payload.
NSA agent is the name given to most employees of the NSA, same as other federal bodies like FBI, CIA, DEA, etc. You start as a "Special Agent" typically and then move up to Assistant-Special-Agent-in-Charge...Special-Agent-in-Charge etc..it's the default term. No one said anything about night vision and silenced weapons etc, AFAIK it was a plain ol stakeout. Sounds like you're the one playing too many video games.
some dolt
A rather accomplished and well-known individual who's been at the core of many privacy-related projects and founded a major hackerspace in San Francisco..and happens to be connected with Assange, Poitras, Snowden etc and in the NSA's radar..
Do you really believe that load? The CIA was formed to be an instrument of executive power with minimal accountability, and is one of many intelligence organizations in the United States. While it was fighting communist dictatorships it was also trying to steal the presidential election on behald of Nixon (Watergate), and potentially facilitating the sales of drugs in the USA to finance Iran-Contra. Their SAD divison helped illegally expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia, and use chemical weapons whose effects are still being felt today.
Also, none of the employees at the present CIA were around to have anything to do with fighting the Nazis.
Considering the fact that the NSA is super-secretive and the ongoing joke is it's an acronym for "No Such Organization," short of another Edward Snowden I don't think you can be given the kind of evidence you want. Remember, before Snowden those "paranoid" people like Tor Developers were relegated by folks like you into the land of nutjobs, conspiracy theorists and tinfoil-hat haberdashers. Now look..
Go on YouTube and listen Jacob Appelbaum's (a Tor developer) videos. Something about NSA agents peering into his girlfriend's window at night and various other intimidation tactics..and that's just him..
Tails bakes in a routing table that makes all traffic go over Tor. It also has built-in I2P support. So, while ISPs can look at your traffic, it becomes quite a tough nut to crack to figure out what you're actually doing. Attacks are possible, but require exponentially more sophistication and resources than just tracking an IP.
That's because most of the rich people in Bergen County, New Jersey, actually work in New York City. Thus, their jobs are not subject to these restrictions. It's just their suburban home that doesn't have business open Sundays.
I think a reasonable person could have interpreted that to mean they should read elsewhere for safety tips.
The underlying assumption here is that burning man first time attendees will all be reasonable people. As I've said, I've seen first-years disregard the guide and get injured, dehydrated etc. The drinking water thing really needs to be drilled in because most people have little experience in desert climates -- loosing water without perceiving that you're sweating, etc. Then again, one man's modus pollens is another man's modus tollens.
There are seriously crazy people who show up to Burning Man. Some dude in 2003 stabbed a dude to death in a van on the way there and then tried to join DPW looking for work.
But let's say it's not inconceivable that by giving people an easy way, I encouraged some people to come who were less prepared. On the other hand, if you steer people towards the hard way of doing things (driving there from Louisiana, bringing a bike on the back of your car), that has safety consequences too. Driving that distance, you might have an accident, your car might break down in the heat, etc. Your own bike might be in less good shape than you think, and might cause an accident at BM or fall apart leaving you to make a long and strenuous walk back to camp.
You're right about this, but statistics are not available on road injuries and accidents etc. Anecdotally, I've never heard a story about any of these type of problems happening to anyone. However, the general incidence of these problems is far lower than the proportion of people who get medical treatment at Burning Man. At Burning Man 2012, there were 5,758 people who needed medical attention out of approximately 60k attendees, that's about 10%.
A lot of those incidents could be avoided by people using the shortcuts I recommended. Those incidents, including safety hazards, are a cost of doing things the hard way, and I think it's a fallacy not to count them because either (a) they happen outside the gates of BRC or (b) people see a bike break or cause an accident and it never even occurs to them to think that it could have been avoided by steering that person towards a rental bike.
There are no statistics for (a), so who knows -- but anecdotally I've never heard about such incidents -- and (b) is rather imaginary. I have heard of zero accidents on the playa due to a bike breaking. You usually just come to a stop if the thing breaks. It's far more likely the operator of a bike involved in an accident was highly intoxicated and crashed into someone else highly intoxicated, that will occur regardless of rental or not bike usage.
As for (2) the culture, I don't know of any camps that let you just "pay and show up". They're usually running a theme and require you to contribute a certain number of hours towards participating in the theme, immersing you in the aspect of culture that they are contributing to Burning Man.
Again, your inexperience is really showing here with this wildly inaccurate declaration. This is a major issue that's been raised even on the official Burning Man blog and was the main story in the BRC Weekly newspaper in 2011 . There are many camps like this that cater to "plug and play" campers. When I first started burning, this was largely restricted to the super-wealthy (we're talking $5M+ net worth), but catering has gone downmarket. There are people who will get you an RV, load it with costumes, supplies, and have professional staff members getting paid to help you in camp.
Perhaps Burning Man could pre-emptively disallow "motel" camps that allow spots to the general public where you just "pay and show up". Presumably that would allevia
I did try to contact the Burning Man organization about this, and never got a response
Do they only listen to ideas from someone who Knows The Right People? Again, that limits the pool of ideas.
Of course you didn't. What you're doing is the equivalent of trying to write a letter to your congressman and expecting actual action as a result instead of a pre-canned "Thank you for your letter" response. Losers expand the scope of conflict, as you're doing here by blowing it up on slashdot, to bring in more actors and hopefully increase their power. Instead, the reaction has been from myself and many others "this idea sucks, it doesn't do very much to help due to the bottleneck two lane highway, and you don't know very much about Burning Man."
Case in point: you tried to contact BMORG telling them to change the way they do things and thought you'd get a response. That's like writing a letter to Mark Zuckerberg to complain about possible Facebook privacy enhancements - think he's going to listen? What happens when you do this? Well, if you ever try to place a camp, they're going to be sure to put you in the back....etc.
Burning Man is very cliquey, and the BMORG is the #1 clique and definitely caters to elitism. Read about "First Camp." It is not this free-love, open hippie festival..it's in many ways a battle of egos and one-upsmanship that makes it what it is. BMORG is used to herding cats and dealing with big egos (usually by nodding, saying "that's cool," and then disregarding), and you're not going to get in edgewise by posting stuff like this. If anything, that will make them resent you and do more squash your goals. Not saying this is a good thing, but it's how it is, it's their festival, you're just a participant. And it's never been very open to participant ideas on changing institutions, it is not a democracy, it is an oligarchy.
Most people have not been saying that anything in the original article was actually wrong; mostly I've been getting complaints that the advice makes it too easy for "tourists" to get there. Is there anything in it that you think is incorrect?
I agree it is mostly accurate, however it is widely and dangerously incomplete. It's beyond getting tourists to the playa -- it's preventing cloggnig up emergency services with helicopter medi-vacs for these people, which happens more than you think. There's also the general ignorance of culture through omission of any IRL Burning Man events/information. Carrying around a water bottle to spray people occasionally should not be considered how you "participate" in Burning Man. If that's all most people did, BM would not exist and not have the things that people come to enjoy there -- simply put, it would not be sustainable.
(Re-reading it now, I probably should have emphasized to try and camp with friends before creating a "Burner Resume" and trying to get matched with a camp, but I figured that would be obvious to most people -- first try and find friends who are going, if you can. But even then, what's wrong with the "Burner Resume" approach?
You said "That's not how you do it."
Strawman. I said:
.that's not how most camps form, that's how you get a job in IT
Some camps may accept resumes from people online, but most of the time, they get information from a friend of a friend or forwarded via some email/social network etc..there's usually connections there. People don't go around "applying" for camp membership with resumes usually, it's very rare. But if you search the internet and get your information only from the internet, the bias is there.
By contrast, the Survival Guide is wrong insofar as it tells you that it's highly recommended to bring your own bike, instead of mentioning the bike rental option, which is much more convenient for people who are flying and taking the Burner Express.
For heaven's sake, I just realized that last year's Survival Guide, in the section "Getting To And From Black Rock City", doesn't even mention Burner Express. I know you're not thrilled about the Sparkle Pony Express, but it's run by the official Burning Man corp. No, I would not call the Survival Guide a completely up-to-date source of the most useful information.
That's because its such a new option with limited carrying capacity. Burner Express was started in response to numerous private companies doing bus rides of their own and profiteering off of Burning Man. Additionally, Playa Bike rental's 300 or so bikes is not enough of a capacity for the demand, and were they to advertise this in the official guides, they would be overwhelmed with orders. This would create a whole bike market at burning man..people get upset about the fact BMORG sells coffee, this would lead to them having to take over bike rental and sell bikes/rentals themselves. Also, the bike rental price is about the cost of the bike, if not more, so it's not a very good deal. It used to be you'd buy a bike, and if you didn't want it, drop it off in Gerlach to be donated. Now someone else just takes the money and re-rents. So really, this is an experiment that in a way runs contrary to decommodification and BMORG is taking baby steps on this, and I think rightfully so, to protect the ten principles and culture that makes BM what it is.
that here I am having only been one time, and I'm still giving people more useful information than they would get from talking to a lot of the old-timers.
No, you're being arrogant and self-important. You're giving people useful information mostly if they come to BM as a tourist and don't contribute, which is destructive to BM culture and the event. You are also omitting important
I think that might be because you talked to a wealthier crew of veterans..not sure what your social circles are like, but definitely looks like an older and more moneyed crowd if they say that. The tent w/ rebar is the most common method of housing at BM -- I do recommend, if people can afford it, to get canvas tents, or at least tents without mesh etc..but I've never heard of anyone saying you have to build a hexayurt etc. Typically, hexayurt building is for when you want to put in an air conditioner etc.
Also, last year was the BEST weather on the playa I've ever seen -- most years, tents get far more playa'd out and subject to much heavier winds etc. So, don't base your tent recommendations on last year....four years ago, there were walls of dust blowing across the playa with incredible force, that's what you have to plan for.
I think the official BM survival guide is just fine if read through. It doesn't provide this false information that you cite -- and covers tents very well. Here's the quote:
A good camp tent or other shelter and warm sleeping bags and bedding. The winds can exceed 75 mph , and the midday temperature can exceed 100F. Evening temperatures can be in the 40s
Please don't take it upon yourself to write a BM survival guide or produce any material to this end yet. Last year's experience was extremely atypical with night temperatures the highest I've ever seen. I know you want to contribute somehow to BM the way you're used to working -- from your armchair by writing on the internet -- but seriously dude, you need more experience before you're an expert of some kind and people will listen to you. All of your comments, including this original article, are very reminiscient of "virgins talking about sex.."..your'e writing a lot about the subject, but you have yet to have beyond a cursory understanding of Burning Man. I think you should endeavour to contribute to Burning Man in different ways than writing this stuff.
By the way, I saw your original article (about your summer at BM) and definitely did a double-faceplam at the time. The way you talk about camp dues and recruitment..making a "Burner Resume"...that's not how most camps form, that's how you get a job in IT. Obviously, your own armchair-Burner biases are shining thorugh here. Typically people are connected through local Burning Man communities that exist IRL. Recruitment happens at regional burns, fundraiser parties, etc, which happen all over the world. Very few camps do a significant amount of recruiting online. Also, camp dues can go as high as $1000 for art-car camps etc, but those are typically very exclusive.
Again, my overarching point is that you write all this stuff, but you just don't know what you're talking about it yet. Until you have more experience, your writing product will be obviously sophomoric, or the writings of a wise fool. I know your whole thing seems to be trying to seem smart and get people to respect you, but you're not going to get that writing stuff like this. It's going to be the opposite.
The bike rental on playa option is VERY new. You used to have to bring your own bike, and rentals took place off-playa in Reno etc. They don't consistently update the web site as well -- it's not really well designed and if they update one area they often fail not to check for cross references. All the more reason these first-years need camps of veteran burners to take them under their wing rather than reading on the internet, booking plane tickets and bus rides and thinking they got it figured out. This isn't programming -- you can't just google stuff and think you'll be good. Burning Man censors eplaya as well significantly -- notice no talk about drugs?:)
You probably have never had to deal with the BMORG, but virtually all veteran burners (fourth+ years) are frustrated with them in some way or the other. Usually first to second years think they're doing a good job, until they get into the politics/camp organization etc and realize these people are really difficult to work with and of questionable moral scruples.
The green bikes suck and are often broken, also people steal them and decorate them and put their own locks on them etc. I personally think the program should be abolished, but Google donated them and has a lot of clout in BM politics.
I did not mean "official cleanup" either....few camps are done cleaning up by Monday, at least registered theme camps. I can't recall a single registered theme camp I've seen without a skeleton crew of cleaner-uppers around Tuesday/Wednesday.
There are people who insist that they can hear the difference between 320kbps mp3s (using the highest-quality available compressor) and their uncompressed counterparts.
[Citation Needed]
Obviously, you've never played music on a real system like a Funktion One. At large-scale, the difference between WAV and 320kb mp3 is very noticeable. On a pair of cheap iPod headphones, it is not.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's also not forget one of the first things the CIA did in Post-WWI America.. Project MKULTRA How does giving people LSD in mind-control experiments help anyone's freedom? Seems like something that would be described in Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism
Yes, it matters a lot and renders the use of OpenSSL in Tails being a security issue moot -- any client would have this issue. Additionally, Tails' security practices also enforce use of things like Perfect Forward Secrecy when available. Also, most Tor nodes utilize PFS between nodes. Again, Tails' security architecture helps defend users against zero-day exploits.
Former CIA agents are not current CIA agents.
As the Cambodian situation became worse, the Cambodian government sought military assistance from the United States and South Vietnam.
-- Across the Border: Sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos
This is an official military source that misses the point that the "government" of Cambodia was not de facto sovereign at the time, nor legal..the request came from Lon Nol, a pro-US general who was just installed in a coup d'etat.
The US was out of South Vietnam in 1975. That is nearly 40 years ago. I doubt there are many CIA agents that were working in Vietnam still working at the CIA.
They'd be 60-70 years old but it's still quite possible. The CIA doesn't really publish lists of employees so this can be checked.
Iran Contra is also well into the past. And once again, a former Director of CIA is not a current Director or employee.
The internet certainly did exist in the 1980s.
Yes, but mostly as U.S-only network, it would be more accurate to say the "Internet did not exist in the way we know it today". CERN and Europe didn't largely uplink into the TCP/IP-based internet until 1989..post-Berlin Wall.
The real contributor to freedom was the CIA, not the small Tails project only a few years old.
If you think that the CIA contributed to "freedom" then you speak propaganda only. The CIA contributed to realpolitik, and only came to create "freedom" in places that mattered to the U.S.'s strategic interests. In the same way the KGB helped enforce a "prison of states" around Eastern Europe, the CIA helped foster a similar situation in South America. See Guatemalan Coup . Let's not forget also about Chile and Grenada. Also, the CIA helped stifle dissent in America and reduce American political freedoms during thist ime. Reference: Operation CHAOS
Can you explain how heartbleed would be exploited in such a circumstance?
Now maybe you can tell me, how much did the Tails project help dissidents against the Communist governments of Poland, USSR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and many others? What did the Tails project do to defeat Communist takeover attempts in free European countries like Greece? Nothing.
It didn't exist then and neither did the internet. Today, it would help bring down the "Iron Curtain" and be a valuable instrument in these areas. The CIA also didn't do this out of the goodness of their heart or do defend "freedom" -- they were doing it to expand U.S. power and influence in Europe and check the influence of Russia.
Are you claiming that Cambodia was outside its rights to ask for assistance against the North Vietnamese occupation of its territory?
Cambodia never did this. Can you find a source that says that? And I don't mean their powerless government-in-exile asking for military assisntace, if that was legal, then the Dali Lama could authorize the U.S. to invade Tibet.
The CIA was involved and Nixon's men were former CIA agents.
Heres' a reference
What I wrote has the irritating quality of being true.
No, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, not their own facts. You've invented your own facts for the purposes of rebuttal, which is quite irritating.
There's plenty of ways to defeat stylometric analysis, notably, running things through a translation engine several times through a few languages.
It did, but a version that was NOT vulnerable to heartbleed since tails tracks debian-oldstable. Also, there is no use case for running a web server that people can exploit heartbleed on via tails.
No, no, and no. If you were using tails, you wouldn't have been vulnerable to this attack because it enables NoScript by default. Tails' use of security best practices helps protect against zero-day exploits like the FBI's javascript malicious payload.
NSA Agents
NSA agent is the name given to most employees of the NSA, same as other federal bodies like FBI, CIA, DEA, etc. You start as a "Special Agent" typically and then move up to Assistant-Special-Agent-in-Charge...Special-Agent-in-Charge etc..it's the default term. No one said anything about night vision and silenced weapons etc, AFAIK it was a plain ol stakeout. Sounds like you're the one playing too many video games.
some dolt
A rather accomplished and well-known individual who's been at the core of many privacy-related projects and founded a major hackerspace in San Francisco..and happens to be connected with Assange, Poitras, Snowden etc and in the NSA's radar..
Also, none of the employees at the present CIA were around to have anything to do with fighting the Nazis.
Considering the fact that the NSA is super-secretive and the ongoing joke is it's an acronym for "No Such Organization," short of another Edward Snowden I don't think you can be given the kind of evidence you want. Remember, before Snowden those "paranoid" people like Tor Developers were relegated by folks like you into the land of nutjobs, conspiracy theorists and tinfoil-hat haberdashers. Now look..
Go on YouTube and listen Jacob Appelbaum's (a Tor developer) videos. Something about NSA agents peering into his girlfriend's window at night and various other intimidation tactics..and that's just him..
Tails bakes in a routing table that makes all traffic go over Tor. It also has built-in I2P support. So, while ISPs can look at your traffic, it becomes quite a tough nut to crack to figure out what you're actually doing. Attacks are possible, but require exponentially more sophistication and resources than just tracking an IP.
The CIA etc notes that its employees 'serve in silence,' surely this team has advanced the cause of freedom and liberty more than them, in silence.
Because spamming tech professionals as an AC has historically always created such goodwill for companies and urge for readers to donate to your cause.
That's because most of the rich people in Bergen County, New Jersey, actually work in New York City. Thus, their jobs are not subject to these restrictions. It's just their suburban home that doesn't have business open Sundays.
Ok, I read the wrong link from up above. This article does say as you claimed, and my above post is nonsense. :)
I've read your link and can't find any statement that indicates malicious persons had knowledge of this exploit before the announcement.
I think a reasonable person could have interpreted that to mean they should read elsewhere for safety tips.
The underlying assumption here is that burning man first time attendees will all be reasonable people. As I've said, I've seen first-years disregard the guide and get injured, dehydrated etc. The drinking water thing really needs to be drilled in because most people have little experience in desert climates -- loosing water without perceiving that you're sweating, etc. Then again, one man's modus pollens is another man's modus tollens.
There are seriously crazy people who show up to Burning Man. Some dude in 2003 stabbed a dude to death in a van on the way there and then tried to join DPW looking for work.
But let's say it's not inconceivable that by giving people an easy way, I encouraged some people to come who were less prepared. On the other hand, if you steer people towards the hard way of doing things (driving there from Louisiana, bringing a bike on the back of your car), that has safety consequences too. Driving that distance, you might have an accident, your car might break down in the heat, etc. Your own bike might be in less good shape than you think, and might cause an accident at BM or fall apart leaving you to make a long and strenuous walk back to camp.
You're right about this, but statistics are not available on road injuries and accidents etc. Anecdotally, I've never heard a story about any of these type of problems happening to anyone. However, the general incidence of these problems is far lower than the proportion of people who get medical treatment at Burning Man. At Burning Man 2012, there were 5,758 people who needed medical attention out of approximately 60k attendees, that's about 10%.
A lot of those incidents could be avoided by people using the shortcuts I recommended. Those incidents, including safety hazards, are a cost of doing things the hard way, and I think it's a fallacy not to count them because either (a) they happen outside the gates of BRC or (b) people see a bike break or cause an accident and it never even occurs to them to think that it could have been avoided by steering that person towards a rental bike.
There are no statistics for (a), so who knows -- but anecdotally I've never heard about such incidents -- and (b) is rather imaginary. I have heard of zero accidents on the playa due to a bike breaking. You usually just come to a stop if the thing breaks. It's far more likely the operator of a bike involved in an accident was highly intoxicated and crashed into someone else highly intoxicated, that will occur regardless of rental or not bike usage.
As for (2) the culture, I don't know of any camps that let you just "pay and show up". They're usually running a theme and require you to contribute a certain number of hours towards participating in the theme, immersing you in the aspect of culture that they are contributing to Burning Man.
Again, your inexperience is really showing here with this wildly inaccurate declaration. This is a major issue that's been raised even on the official Burning Man blog and was the main story in the BRC Weekly newspaper in 2011 . There are many camps like this that cater to "plug and play" campers. When I first started burning, this was largely restricted to the super-wealthy (we're talking $5M+ net worth), but catering has gone downmarket. There are people who will get you an RV, load it with costumes, supplies, and have professional staff members getting paid to help you in camp.
Perhaps Burning Man could pre-emptively disallow "motel" camps that allow spots to the general public where you just "pay and show up". Presumably that would allevia
I did try to contact the Burning Man organization about this, and never got a response Do they only listen to ideas from someone who Knows The Right People? Again, that limits the pool of ideas.
Of course you didn't. What you're doing is the equivalent of trying to write a letter to your congressman and expecting actual action as a result instead of a pre-canned "Thank you for your letter" response. Losers expand the scope of conflict, as you're doing here by blowing it up on slashdot, to bring in more actors and hopefully increase their power. Instead, the reaction has been from myself and many others "this idea sucks, it doesn't do very much to help due to the bottleneck two lane highway, and you don't know very much about Burning Man."
Case in point: you tried to contact BMORG telling them to change the way they do things and thought you'd get a response. That's like writing a letter to Mark Zuckerberg to complain about possible Facebook privacy enhancements - think he's going to listen? What happens when you do this? Well, if you ever try to place a camp, they're going to be sure to put you in the back....etc.
Burning Man is very cliquey, and the BMORG is the #1 clique and definitely caters to elitism. Read about "First Camp." It is not this free-love, open hippie festival..it's in many ways a battle of egos and one-upsmanship that makes it what it is. BMORG is used to herding cats and dealing with big egos (usually by nodding, saying "that's cool," and then disregarding), and you're not going to get in edgewise by posting stuff like this. If anything, that will make them resent you and do more squash your goals. Not saying this is a good thing, but it's how it is, it's their festival, you're just a participant. And it's never been very open to participant ideas on changing institutions, it is not a democracy, it is an oligarchy.
Most people have not been saying that anything in the original article was actually wrong; mostly I've been getting complaints that the advice makes it too easy for "tourists" to get there. Is there anything in it that you think is incorrect?
I agree it is mostly accurate, however it is widely and dangerously incomplete. It's beyond getting tourists to the playa -- it's preventing cloggnig up emergency services with helicopter medi-vacs for these people, which happens more than you think. There's also the general ignorance of culture through omission of any IRL Burning Man events/information. Carrying around a water bottle to spray people occasionally should not be considered how you "participate" in Burning Man. If that's all most people did, BM would not exist and not have the things that people come to enjoy there -- simply put, it would not be sustainable.
(Re-reading it now, I probably should have emphasized to try and camp with friends before creating a "Burner Resume" and trying to get matched with a camp, but I figured that would be obvious to most people -- first try and find friends who are going, if you can. But even then, what's wrong with the "Burner Resume" approach?
You said "That's not how you do it."
Strawman. I said:
Some camps may accept resumes from people online, but most of the time, they get information from a friend of a friend or forwarded via some email/social network etc..there's usually connections there. People don't go around "applying" for camp membership with resumes usually, it's very rare. But if you search the internet and get your information only from the internet, the bias is there.
By contrast, the Survival Guide is wrong insofar as it tells you that it's highly recommended to bring your own bike, instead of mentioning the bike rental option, which is much more convenient for people who are flying and taking the Burner Express.
For heaven's sake, I just realized that last year's Survival Guide, in the section "Getting To And From Black Rock City", doesn't even mention Burner Express. I know you're not thrilled about the Sparkle Pony Express, but it's run by the official Burning Man corp. No, I would not call the Survival Guide a completely up-to-date source of the most useful information.
That's because its such a new option with limited carrying capacity. Burner Express was started in response to numerous private companies doing bus rides of their own and profiteering off of Burning Man. Additionally, Playa Bike rental's 300 or so bikes is not enough of a capacity for the demand, and were they to advertise this in the official guides, they would be overwhelmed with orders. This would create a whole bike market at burning man..people get upset about the fact BMORG sells coffee, this would lead to them having to take over bike rental and sell bikes/rentals themselves. Also, the bike rental price is about the cost of the bike, if not more, so it's not a very good deal. It used to be you'd buy a bike, and if you didn't want it, drop it off in Gerlach to be donated. Now someone else just takes the money and re-rents. So really, this is an experiment that in a way runs contrary to decommodification and BMORG is taking baby steps on this, and I think rightfully so, to protect the ten principles and culture that makes BM what it is.
that here I am having only been one time, and I'm still giving people more useful information than they would get from talking to a lot of the old-timers.
No, you're being arrogant and self-important. You're giving people useful information mostly if they come to BM as a tourist and don't contribute, which is destructive to BM culture and the event. You are also omitting important
I think that might be because you talked to a wealthier crew of veterans..not sure what your social circles are like, but definitely looks like an older and more moneyed crowd if they say that. The tent w/ rebar is the most common method of housing at BM -- I do recommend, if people can afford it, to get canvas tents, or at least tents without mesh etc..but I've never heard of anyone saying you have to build a hexayurt etc. Typically, hexayurt building is for when you want to put in an air conditioner etc.
Also, last year was the BEST weather on the playa I've ever seen -- most years, tents get far more playa'd out and subject to much heavier winds etc. So, don't base your tent recommendations on last year....four years ago, there were walls of dust blowing across the playa with incredible force, that's what you have to plan for.
I think the official BM survival guide is just fine if read through. It doesn't provide this false information that you cite -- and covers tents very well. Here's the quote:
A good camp tent or other shelter and warm sleeping bags and bedding. The winds can exceed 75 mph , and the midday temperature can exceed 100F. Evening temperatures can be in the 40s
Please don't take it upon yourself to write a BM survival guide or produce any material to this end yet. Last year's experience was extremely atypical with night temperatures the highest I've ever seen. I know you want to contribute somehow to BM the way you're used to working -- from your armchair by writing on the internet -- but seriously dude, you need more experience before you're an expert of some kind and people will listen to you. All of your comments, including this original article, are very reminiscient of "virgins talking about sex.." ..your'e writing a lot about the subject, but you have yet to have beyond a cursory understanding of Burning Man. I think you should endeavour to contribute to Burning Man in different ways than writing this stuff.
By the way, I saw your original article (about your summer at BM) and definitely did a double-faceplam at the time. The way you talk about camp dues and recruitment..making a "Burner Resume"...that's not how most camps form, that's how you get a job in IT. Obviously, your own armchair-Burner biases are shining thorugh here. Typically people are connected through local Burning Man communities that exist IRL. Recruitment happens at regional burns, fundraiser parties, etc, which happen all over the world. Very few camps do a significant amount of recruiting online. Also, camp dues can go as high as $1000 for art-car camps etc, but those are typically very exclusive.
Again, my overarching point is that you write all this stuff, but you just don't know what you're talking about it yet. Until you have more experience, your writing product will be obviously sophomoric, or the writings of a wise fool. I know your whole thing seems to be trying to seem smart and get people to respect you, but you're not going to get that writing stuff like this. It's going to be the opposite.
You probably have never had to deal with the BMORG, but virtually all veteran burners (fourth+ years) are frustrated with them in some way or the other. Usually first to second years think they're doing a good job, until they get into the politics/camp organization etc and realize these people are really difficult to work with and of questionable moral scruples.
The green bikes suck and are often broken, also people steal them and decorate them and put their own locks on them etc. I personally think the program should be abolished, but Google donated them and has a lot of clout in BM politics.
I did not mean "official cleanup" either....few camps are done cleaning up by Monday, at least registered theme camps. I can't recall a single registered theme camp I've seen without a skeleton crew of cleaner-uppers around Tuesday/Wednesday.
There are people who insist that they can hear the difference between 320kbps mp3s (using the highest-quality available compressor) and their uncompressed counterparts.
[Citation Needed]
Obviously, you've never played music on a real system like a Funktion One. At large-scale, the difference between WAV and 320kb mp3 is very noticeable. On a pair of cheap iPod headphones, it is not.