I've often wondered about this, myself. If you can create a vessel, the density of which is less than upper-atmospheric air, couldn't you get 90% of the way to space with a "balloon" ? How about 100%?
What I'm saying is that the only reason we have seatbelt laws is because people cannot be trusted to think of anyone but themselves. The police wouldn't be pulling people over if people could show some consideracy for those around them and just be trusted to wear their seatbelt. But since they can't be trusted, we require a law. We require laws for everything we can't trust people to simply do, and in today's overly-litigious and over-regulated society I can't help but wonder if anybody can be trusted at all.
This proposed law about access points is about minimizing harm to multiple people due to the inconsideracy of a single person, but not in a life-or-death manner (which is what makes it not like a seatbelt law). A businessman using an unsecured WAP to transmit credit card numbers and personally identifying information has the potential to harm more people than just himself. Through his own inconsideracy and negligence, others may come into harm's way. Generally financial harm or perhaps "identity harm" if you can think of identity theft as harming one's identity.
We only make laws like this because people, at their root, cannot be trusted to think of more than just themselves. Some people can, granted, but not the majority and not the average person. If people thought more about the impact of their actions upon others, no matter how indirectly, we wouldn't need seatbelt laws and we wouldn't need WAP laws.
You mentioned a couple posts ago that some people will still "be stupid" and not wear their seatbelt even though there's a law. That stupidity is the inconsideracy I speak of: a jackass thinks only of himself. It's the inconsiderate jackasses of the nation that make it harder on the rest of us, the considerate ones who are willing to think outside the box (or more literally, think outside their corpus).
Don't you think that a businessman who transmits personally identifying information and bank account numbers of his clients over an unsecured WAP is a jackass? I certainly do; the same way I think somebody who doesn't wear a seatbelt because they think that such an action only affects them, is a jackass.
Laws exist to govern the jackasses of our nation, while the rest of us are dragged along in silent acquiescence.
Consider how much police power is wasted because people are inconsiderate of one another and won't just wear their seatbelt for the safety of everyone, requiring us to create a law to combat that inconsideracy and consume police man-hours to enforce it.
You know, I get the feeling that you're an inconsiderate moron.
Suppose you've got a person who was just in a car wreck and you've got a child who was just pulled from a burning building who is in serious need of medical attention. The county only has one free ambulance at this point in time, who do they go get? Well if the guy in the car wreck had worn his seatbelt and not been thrown through the windshield, they could just go get the kid. But since the guy in the car was thinking only of himself and didn't even bother to consider that his actions could affect others, he wasn't wearing his seatbelt and now a 911 dispatcher needs to choose between who lives and dies. Most people who don't wear seatbelts don't consider this at all, that by their being a negligent jackass they're depriving others of services they deserve because they aren't selfish, ignorant, negligent jackasses.
So you see, seatbelt laws aren't there to protect just the driver, they're there to protect the rest of society from those drivers' innate ignorance, selfishness, and negligence.
This proposed law is nothing like a seatbelt law, at all.
Write your own algorithm and use some section of Pi as your key. This way you can more or less safely forget the key and when law enforcement demands your key you can honestly say "it's four thousand characters long and I didn't memorize it." But then you know that starting at decimal digit 05201974 (which is your brother's birthday, or whatever, transcoded into a string of digits representative of the offset in Pi that the key can be found at) and for the next four thousand digits is the key. You know something which can get you the key, but you don't know the key itself. It's kind of like not having a housekey but knowing there's one under the doormat.
As for the algorithm, I don't know much about encryption but I came up with something a while ago that seemed interesting to me because it almost guaranteed randomization of data. Basically, the file would be sectioned into "chunks" of some size (determined by the key) and then each chunk would have its bits cycled (shifted either left or right, wrapping around) a certain number of times (which is not an identical amount for sequential chunks). In this way, sequential occurences of the same word or phrase in a text document would not likely look anything like one another, especially if each chunk is an obscure size like, say, 13 bits, or 67 bits, or 974 bits. Using a value that is not a common data storage value also lends to the scrambling. That is, don't scramble bytes or words or doublewords, but 3/4ths of a doubleword or 7/8ths of a byte. Maybe conventional encryption already works in this fashion, I don't know. Like I said, I don't know much about encryption.
By using your own encryption algorithms and by using a key which is so unimaginably large that you just couldn't possibly memorize it (maybe it's the first two paragraphs of Moby Dick, maybe it's the entirety of Genesis from your King James Bible, maybe it's the Declaration of Independence) you ensure that they aren't going to get at your data anytime soon.
Watch the shockumentary "Loose Change" and tell me again if you think terrorists attacked us, or if something more nefarious has occured.
Let us not forget that our president was APPOINTED and not ELECTED. (Al Gore was elected...)
I'll put it this way: If we can bomb Iraqi civillians numbering in the tens of thousands, what is to say that our government wouldn't crash some remote controlled airliners into the WTC and kill three to four thousand American civillians? Who stood to gain from that? Well, it's a hot real estate spot. Also, somebody probably cashed in on some insurance policies. Hey, what about the SEC investigation paperwork in WTC #7 which mysteriously collapsed? Who would stand to profit if all of that investigative material (ie "evidence") just suddenly disappeared?
George Bush's brother was a principal at the security firm which did security for the WTC up to the day of 9/11.
You do know that they've found 9 of the 19 "hijackers" alive elsewhere in the world, right?
The situation that our country is in has been created even more artfully than Hitler conducted his genocide.
The Bush administration (and sadly, a lot of republicans in general) are Christian conservatives. They recently started cracking down on pornography involving consenting adults, taking resources off of child pornography investigations so that two consenting adults having a good time can be persecuted for what they put on tape. That's right, divert resources from the investigation of the exploitation of children so that we can tell people what is and isn't decent, sexually. I'm not kidding, look it up.
Why do they want to get all up in our personal lives and tap our wires? It isn't because of terrorists. They want us to conform to their christian morality. Of course they need to know if we're deviating from their morality first, so first they need a way to freely spy on us. Patriot act. Wiretap laws. Carnivore. They all have nothing to do with terrorists. They have to do with spying on the citizens of the United States of America whether they like it or not.
They (the Bush administration) are puritans. What's that quote...something like: "A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone somewhere is having fun."
Call me crazy if you want, but this whole thing has looked "a little off" to me since Bush was appointed. He was appointed to the disapproval of half the voting public and he needed something from the get-go to get the people behind him. Immediately after 9/11 his approval rating was at its highest ever...
First I just let it go on its own but it didn't detect my video card. (nVidia)
Next I booted with 'slax dbg' and selected nVidia but it didn't work:
insmod: error instering '/lib/modules/2.6.12.2/kernel/drivers/video/nv/nvi dia.ko': -1 No such device
So then I booted with 'slax dbg' and selected Bash and I cd to/lib/modules/2.6.12.2/kernel/drivers/video and there's no 'nv' subdirectory, let alone 'nvidia.ko'
What gives? My first guess is that my ISO is corrupted or something, because I couldn't really see them releasing this liveCD without nVidia drivers...
I often wonder why the intelligentsia do not form their own nation. I'm sure that getting together enough people who're all on the same page could lead to a stable economy in an "openly governed" nation which you mention our present lack of.
I have an old copy of Mechanix Illustrated (circa mid 1950s) that on the front mentions an all-concrete sailboat constructable for $600. I have no idea what it would cost in modern dollars to construct such a thing, but why stop at a sailboat? Here in my home state of Washington we have a couple of floatingbridges which are so buoyant that they must be anchored to the bottom of Lake Washington. So if a bridge can be constructed, why not an artificial island?
It's already been done. The Principality of Sealand was founded in 1967 in international waters off the coast of Britain on what was used as a gunnery platform during WWII to shoot down german aircraft. After the war all but this one platform (known as Roughs Tower) was decomissioned and dismantled. So in 1967, a fellow went out there and claimed the platform and declared its sovereignity. In 1968 the British court upheld that Sealand is indeed its own nation as it lies outside what was then British territorial waters.
Heck, Sealand's sovereignity was recognized by Germany when Sealand went to war (from the website's "history" page): In August of 1978, a number of Dutch men came to Sealand in the employ of a German businessman. They were there to discuss business dealings with Sealand. While Roy was away in Britain, these men kidnapped Prince Roy's son Michael, and took Sealand by force. Soon after, Roy recaptured the island with a group of his own men and held the attackers as prisoners of war.
During the time that he held the prisoners, the Governments of the Netherlands and Germany petitioned for their release. First they asked England to intervene in the matter, but the British government cited their earlier court decision as evidence that they made no claim to the territory of Sealand. Then, in an act of de facto recognition of Sealand's sovereignty, Germany sent a diplomat directly to Sealand to negotiate for the release of their citizen.
Roy first released the Dutch citizens, as the war was over, and the Geneva Convention requires the release of all prisoners. The German was held longer, as he had accepted a Sealand Passport, and therefore was guilty of treason. Prince Roy, who was grateful that the incident had not resulted in a loss of life, and did not want to bloody the reputation of Sealand, eventually released him as well.
Why aren't there any civillian-created floating platforms out there? Anybody up to form an artificial island nation with me? I'll need a few structural engineers, a few chemists, a few electrical engineers, a few agriculturists, some doctors, some teachers, maybe a few nuclear engineers (with all that uranium in seawater...I mean, come on, why not? If the intelligentsia are forming their own nation I doubt they'll be swayed by nuclear FUD) and then we'll need some residents. Any takers? Is there anybody out there trying to do this sort of thing?
Does anybody have a ballpark figure on what it would cost to construct such a permanent platform occupying a few acres or collection of platforms each roughly the size of a football field?
The inaccuracy of your post was more what you stated about voltage drops, something I didn't directly address. Most individual-chip 5mm red LEDs drop 1.8 to 1.9 volts, not 1.5. The old, not-very-bright red LEDs which are difficult to find these days were of the 1.5 volt variety, but good luck finding those now. (Who would want to anyhow, with the ultrabrights available?) And today's blue LEDs require 3.4 to 3.6 volts to operate.
But you're right, your post was simpler and more helpful and that's why you got a thankyou and I didn't. Point taken.:)
I, personally, believe that we are more secure if we don't give up our most sophistocated technologies to our enemies. I agree with the notion that we as the citizens who are paying for it should know how it works but I can't fathom how we would prevent that knowledge from coming into anyone else's possession. I mean, aside from kicking out all the immigrants who came to America in the past 15 years and closing our borders. That still wouldn't eliminate the "domestic threat" though, of people who don't like the country as big as it is or don't like republicans or don't like white people or whatever. Even if we totally isolated ourselves from every other country on the planet and we openly publicized all defense information to our citizens, the "joe schmoe" who "has just had enough" can still decide to use some fancy radar jamming code he found on www.howdefenseworks.mil on the missile he's designing to be flown directly into Air Force One.
The notion that you should keep secrets from your enemies and sometimes your enemies are those closest to you (family, friends, neighbors, the citizens of a government's country) isn't really "FUD" because it is, well, true.
Just because a worm is the most well-known example of a vulnerablity doesn't mean that it is the only thing making use of that particular vulnerability. Just because "slammer" equates to "uses vulnerability XYZ" in some peoples' minds, we (the remainder, those who are not under this impression) must keep in mind that it isn't unreasonable to believe that the same vulnerability could be exploited by other kinds of programs or other organizations.
Something interesting and useful to know is that the other reply you received to your post is totally incorrect.
First, LEDs are current driven, not voltage driven. The voltage difference between + and - determines the amount of current the device will consume, but if you can regulate the current you can run the device at 100V no sweat. You will of course need to dissipate any additional heat (usually in the device you're using to do the current limiting, sometimes a resistor, sometimes a more exotic circuit) created, but the very important thing to understand about LEDs is that their current absolutely determines their light output after you surpass a certain threshold voltage.
The relationship between the +/- voltage difference and the amount of current consumed is not the same for every kind of LED. LEDs require different chemistry in order to produce different colors, and this makes them have differing performance characteristics.
And another thing to consider is how the LEDs are packaged. Some 8mm packages have 4 chips inside and their rated light output is measured at a regulated input current of 80mA and not 20mA as for most single-chip devices. Also, some blue devices consume 30mA while reds only consume 20mA. Again, this depends on the chemistry. Now, also, taking packaging into consideration, a Luxeon device from Lumileds and a BL-3000 from Lamina Ceramics have totally different performance characteristics because of their chemistry, construction, packaging, and so forth.
You have two choices: Limit the voltage so that the device does not consume as much current, or limit your current and ensure that the voltage simply exceeds the maximum. Ultimately you need to regulate the current because the amount of current consumed (taking into consideration the device's ultimate efficiency) is directly proportional to the amount of heat generated in the chip itself.
You see, LEDs don't generate heat in their light path (radiant infrared travelling in parallel with the visible light, like the "heat" of the sun or a candle), but the chip itself does get rather hot, and if that heat isn't dissipated the LED chip will become physically damaged. Someof the materials used have melting points below 120 degrees, a temperature easily achieved by an LED not properly heatsinked.
So here's some tips: When you make LED boards (whether addressable matrices or simple blinky lights) you want to use a metal-core PCB or leave a portion of the LED's leads exposed in order to help dissipate the heat generated at the chip core and ensure longer chip life. LEDs don't just "burn out" one day, they will get dimmer slowly over time, and you can maximize that length of time by running them at less than their rated current, by cooling them actively or passively, and by using PWM to modulate their output.
Much more than a hay bale's worth, actually, is required...
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Drug Enforcement Administration In The Matter Of MARIJUANA RESCHEDULING PETITION Docket No. 86-22 OPINION AND RECOMMENDED RULING, FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND DECISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE FRANCIS L. YOUNG, Administrative Law Judge DATED: SEPTEMBER 6, 1988
Page 56/57: Findings of Fact
1. Richard J. Gralla, M.D., an oncologist and Professor of Medicine who was an Agency witness, accepts that in treating cancer patients oncologists can use the cannabinoids with safety despite their side effects.
2. Andrew T. Weil, M.D., who now practices medicine in Tucson, Arizona and is on the faculty of the College of Medicine, University of Arizona, was a member of the first team of researchers to perform a Federal Government authorized study into the effects of marijuana on human subjects. This team made its study in 1968. These researchers determined that marijuana could be safely used under medical supervision. In the 20 years since then Dr. Weil has seen no information that would cause him to reconsider that conclusion. There is no question in his mind but that marijuana is safe for use under appropriate medical supervision.
3. The most obvious concern when dealing with drug safety is the possibility of lethal effects. Can the drug cause death?
4. Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality.
- 56 -
5. This is a remarkable statement. First, the record on marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana is now used daily by enormous numbers of people throughout the world. Estimates suggest that from twenty million to fifty million Americans routinely, albeit illegally, smoke marijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision. Yet, despite this long history of use and the extraordinarily high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death.
6. By contrast aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year.
7. Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced toxicity. A number of researchers have attempted to determine marijuana's LD-50 rating in test animals, without success. Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to induce death.
8. At present it is estimated that marijuana's LD-50 is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately.9 grams. A smoker would
I read this feed on forbes three days ago. It contains more information, including: "Autopsies revealed that by the end of the 10-day HU210 treatment regimen, new neurons had been generated and integrated into the circuitry of the hippocampus region of the rat's brains. This process, known as neurogenesis, was still in evidence a full month after treatment had been initiated."
So you see, they're actually basing it on autopsies, which tend to involve cutting open dead creatures and poking around their insides looking at what's going on. I think they actually MEASURED the number of brain cells and found more in the treated rats. Pretty fancy huh, scientists measuring things?! heh.
Most people have have a Radio. The Radio plays the music that you can buy in stores. The radio is in many ways a giant advertisement for what you can BUY in the stores. Until there's a free network that people can tune into on their radio, FREE music won't get any more face-time (ear-time?) with the public, and the RIAA will still maintain their brain-leash on the idea of "the music you get to listen to."
The common person is, let's face it, not that bright. The average IQ is 100. This means that provided with a set of facts, some people just can't put 973,272 and 202,126 together in their heads (to exaggerate upon the "two plus two" meme). Just on virtue of us sitting here, on this forum of slashdot, having this conversation, likely in possession of knowledge that would astound the common man, we're in an advantageous position to realise the ultimate problems of this scheme the RIAA is running and see the good alternative(s). That's all fine and good, but it goes way over the head of Joe Average who listens to the radio, period.
So you need to be able to engage him in a manner suitable to convince him of the viable alternatives. He isn't going to buy a computer to get music if he doesn't have a computer already. He isn't going to pay for broadband internet if he doesn't already have it. Average, common people are very hesitant to change. You need to get their attention on the radio or in a manner which is easily accessible to them.
In the near future, people could run Free Music Kiosks out of their in-car computers. It would re-define the tailgate party. Once everybodies' radio has a USB (which should become "Ubiquitous Serial Bus") input, many people will be (should be?) carrying a USB keychain and will therefore be able to engage in "music sharing."
True social swarm P2P file sharing. Somebody has to start it though. Somebody has to make it free. Things don't ever really start out free, they need to be "set free." Somebody needs to lead the way and make the music free. Show the people, all the people, that what they think of as the music, can be free. Sell USB drives out of the back of your car, show people how to share, get everyone in on your favorite free music.
I think also that there's a market for a simple "file manager" sort of device that enables people to easily swap files between USB storage devices.
Social Swarm P2P (SSP2P?) has the potential to redefine music advertisement. Most artists get radio airplay to advertise not only their CDs but their shows as well. Now this would be another aspect where literal physical hey-I-get-to-see-your-facial-expressions interaction would be key: to advertise live shows. To talk about past shows, upcoming shows, artist information, etc. Reading a Biographical "bit" online is only worth so much compared to somebody telling you about it.
Somebody needs to start the movement that legally puts the RIAA in their graves. Hit 'em where it hurts by undermining their entire philosophy.
No, the Republicans want to parent their own children and they want the state to stay the hell out of their personal business. The Democrats lack a sense of personal responsibility and are all about social programs.
I googled democratic "family values" and got: The Democratic Party continues to stand for family values, the rights of the minority, and opportunity for all.
Isn't that what the democratic party stands for? "family values" ?
Republicans decide what their own family's values are and they don't need anybody else telling them otherwise.
Democrats, on the other hand, want to legislate family values.
Put enough economic pressure on the studios and artists and maybe things will change.
Yeah, maybe things will change, but not in the way you intended.
When album sales decline, what does the RIAA say? You know the drill: "Illegal filesharing has severely impacted our Nth quarter sales. We must take action against these pirates!"
If you stop buying albums, the RIAA will use that as another reason to sue some more file sharers. "Voting with our dollars" as it were, will only make the problem worse.
I'm sorry, but the only way to stand up to the RIAA now is the same way they're trying to walk all over us: the courts.
The mess we're in is unfortunately that some Democrats want the government to parent our children because they're too busy having a career to think about the future of our species. The future that they consciously created through a consensual sexual mating, mind you.
They want to put the consequences of their bad choices* on the rest of us, and that's quite a mess, don't you think?
* I'm not saying making life is a bad choice, rather that if one wants to pursue a career, having children is not a good choice because of the conflicting demands put on one's time.
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I've often wondered about this, myself. If you can create a vessel, the density of which is less than upper-atmospheric air, couldn't you get 90% of the way to space with a "balloon" ? How about 100%?
Yes, corporations aren't human and yet they're granted all of the same rights granted to a person. Isn't that funny?
(I suggest the documentary "The Corporation" for the uninitiated)
What I'm saying is that the only reason we have seatbelt laws is because people cannot be trusted to think of anyone but themselves. The police wouldn't be pulling people over if people could show some consideracy for those around them and just be trusted to wear their seatbelt. But since they can't be trusted, we require a law. We require laws for everything we can't trust people to simply do, and in today's overly-litigious and over-regulated society I can't help but wonder if anybody can be trusted at all.
This proposed law about access points is about minimizing harm to multiple people due to the inconsideracy of a single person, but not in a life-or-death manner (which is what makes it not like a seatbelt law). A businessman using an unsecured WAP to transmit credit card numbers and personally identifying information has the potential to harm more people than just himself. Through his own inconsideracy and negligence, others may come into harm's way. Generally financial harm or perhaps "identity harm" if you can think of identity theft as harming one's identity.
We only make laws like this because people, at their root, cannot be trusted to think of more than just themselves. Some people can, granted, but not the majority and not the average person. If people thought more about the impact of their actions upon others, no matter how indirectly, we wouldn't need seatbelt laws and we wouldn't need WAP laws.
You mentioned a couple posts ago that some people will still "be stupid" and not wear their seatbelt even though there's a law. That stupidity is the inconsideracy I speak of: a jackass thinks only of himself. It's the inconsiderate jackasses of the nation that make it harder on the rest of us, the considerate ones who are willing to think outside the box (or more literally, think outside their corpus).
Don't you think that a businessman who transmits personally identifying information and bank account numbers of his clients over an unsecured WAP is a jackass? I certainly do; the same way I think somebody who doesn't wear a seatbelt because they think that such an action only affects them, is a jackass.
Laws exist to govern the jackasses of our nation, while the rest of us are dragged along in silent acquiescence.
Consider how much police power is wasted because people are inconsiderate of one another and won't just wear their seatbelt for the safety of everyone, requiring us to create a law to combat that inconsideracy and consume police man-hours to enforce it.
You know, I get the feeling that you're an inconsiderate moron.
Suppose you've got a person who was just in a car wreck and you've got a child who was just pulled from a burning building who is in serious need of medical attention. The county only has one free ambulance at this point in time, who do they go get? Well if the guy in the car wreck had worn his seatbelt and not been thrown through the windshield, they could just go get the kid. But since the guy in the car was thinking only of himself and didn't even bother to consider that his actions could affect others, he wasn't wearing his seatbelt and now a 911 dispatcher needs to choose between who lives and dies. Most people who don't wear seatbelts don't consider this at all, that by their being a negligent jackass they're depriving others of services they deserve because they aren't selfish, ignorant, negligent jackasses.
So you see, seatbelt laws aren't there to protect just the driver, they're there to protect the rest of society from those drivers' innate ignorance, selfishness, and negligence.
This proposed law is nothing like a seatbelt law, at all.
What company gives regular IT people their own offices?
Microsoft.
Write your own algorithm and use some section of Pi as your key. This way you can more or less safely forget the key and when law enforcement demands your key you can honestly say "it's four thousand characters long and I didn't memorize it." But then you know that starting at decimal digit 05201974 (which is your brother's birthday, or whatever, transcoded into a string of digits representative of the offset in Pi that the key can be found at) and for the next four thousand digits is the key. You know something which can get you the key, but you don't know the key itself. It's kind of like not having a housekey but knowing there's one under the doormat.
As for the algorithm, I don't know much about encryption but I came up with something a while ago that seemed interesting to me because it almost guaranteed randomization of data. Basically, the file would be sectioned into "chunks" of some size (determined by the key) and then each chunk would have its bits cycled (shifted either left or right, wrapping around) a certain number of times (which is not an identical amount for sequential chunks). In this way, sequential occurences of the same word or phrase in a text document would not likely look anything like one another, especially if each chunk is an obscure size like, say, 13 bits, or 67 bits, or 974 bits. Using a value that is not a common data storage value also lends to the scrambling. That is, don't scramble bytes or words or doublewords, but 3/4ths of a doubleword or 7/8ths of a byte. Maybe conventional encryption already works in this fashion, I don't know. Like I said, I don't know much about encryption.
By using your own encryption algorithms and by using a key which is so unimaginably large that you just couldn't possibly memorize it (maybe it's the first two paragraphs of Moby Dick, maybe it's the entirety of Genesis from your King James Bible, maybe it's the Declaration of Independence) you ensure that they aren't going to get at your data anytime soon.
Seen the shockumentary "Loose Change" ?
People who have visions, yes. People who have a vision, no.
We don't like scatterbrains, evidently.
A revolution only requires one Ted Kaczynski who decided to go into Nuclear Engineering instead of Mathematics.
Watch the shockumentary "Loose Change" and tell me again if you think terrorists attacked us, or if something more nefarious has occured.
Let us not forget that our president was APPOINTED and not ELECTED. (Al Gore was elected...)
I'll put it this way: If we can bomb Iraqi civillians numbering in the tens of thousands, what is to say that our government wouldn't crash some remote controlled airliners into the WTC and kill three to four thousand American civillians? Who stood to gain from that? Well, it's a hot real estate spot. Also, somebody probably cashed in on some insurance policies. Hey, what about the SEC investigation paperwork in WTC #7 which mysteriously collapsed? Who would stand to profit if all of that investigative material (ie "evidence") just suddenly disappeared?
George Bush's brother was a principal at the security firm which did security for the WTC up to the day of 9/11.
You do know that they've found 9 of the 19 "hijackers" alive elsewhere in the world, right?
The situation that our country is in has been created even more artfully than Hitler conducted his genocide.
The Bush administration (and sadly, a lot of republicans in general) are Christian conservatives. They recently started cracking down on pornography involving consenting adults, taking resources off of child pornography investigations so that two consenting adults having a good time can be persecuted for what they put on tape. That's right, divert resources from the investigation of the exploitation of children so that we can tell people what is and isn't decent, sexually. I'm not kidding, look it up.
Why do they want to get all up in our personal lives and tap our wires? It isn't because of terrorists. They want us to conform to their christian morality. Of course they need to know if we're deviating from their morality first, so first they need a way to freely spy on us. Patriot act. Wiretap laws. Carnivore. They all have nothing to do with terrorists. They have to do with spying on the citizens of the United States of America whether they like it or not.
They (the Bush administration) are puritans. What's that quote...something like: "A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone somewhere is having fun."
Call me crazy if you want, but this whole thing has looked "a little off" to me since Bush was appointed. He was appointed to the disapproval of half the voting public and he needed something from the get-go to get the people behind him. Immediately after 9/11 his approval rating was at its highest ever...
Next I booted with 'slax dbg' and selected nVidia but it didn't work:
So then I booted with 'slax dbg' and selected Bash and I cd to
What gives? My first guess is that my ISO is corrupted or something, because I couldn't really see them releasing this liveCD without nVidia drivers...
I often wonder why the intelligentsia do not form their own nation. I'm sure that getting together enough people who're all on the same page could lead to a stable economy in an "openly governed" nation which you mention our present lack of.
I have an old copy of Mechanix Illustrated (circa mid 1950s) that on the front mentions an all-concrete sailboat constructable for $600. I have no idea what it would cost in modern dollars to construct such a thing, but why stop at a sailboat? Here in my home state of Washington we have a couple of floating bridges which are so buoyant that they must be anchored to the bottom of Lake Washington. So if a bridge can be constructed, why not an artificial island?
It's already been done. The Principality of Sealand was founded in 1967 in international waters off the coast of Britain on what was used as a gunnery platform during WWII to shoot down german aircraft. After the war all but this one platform (known as Roughs Tower) was decomissioned and dismantled. So in 1967, a fellow went out there and claimed the platform and declared its sovereignity. In 1968 the British court upheld that Sealand is indeed its own nation as it lies outside what was then British territorial waters.
Heck, Sealand's sovereignity was recognized by Germany when Sealand went to war (from the website's "history" page):
In August of 1978, a number of Dutch men came to Sealand in the employ of a German businessman. They were there to discuss business dealings with Sealand. While Roy was away in Britain, these men kidnapped Prince Roy's son Michael, and took Sealand by force. Soon after, Roy recaptured the island with a group of his own men and held the attackers as prisoners of war.
During the time that he held the prisoners, the Governments of the Netherlands and Germany petitioned for their release. First they asked England to intervene in the matter, but the British government cited their earlier court decision as evidence that they made no claim to the territory of Sealand. Then, in an act of de facto recognition of Sealand's sovereignty, Germany sent a diplomat directly to Sealand to negotiate for the release of their citizen.
Roy first released the Dutch citizens, as the war was over, and the Geneva Convention requires the release of all prisoners. The German was held longer, as he had accepted a Sealand Passport, and therefore was guilty of treason. Prince Roy, who was grateful that the incident had not resulted in a loss of life, and did not want to bloody the reputation of Sealand, eventually released him as well.
Why aren't there any civillian-created floating platforms out there? Anybody up to form an artificial island nation with me? I'll need a few structural engineers, a few chemists, a few electrical engineers, a few agriculturists, some doctors, some teachers, maybe a few nuclear engineers (with all that uranium in seawater...I mean, come on, why not? If the intelligentsia are forming their own nation I doubt they'll be swayed by nuclear FUD) and then we'll need some residents. Any takers? Is there anybody out there trying to do this sort of thing?
Does anybody have a ballpark figure on what it would cost to construct such a permanent platform occupying a few acres or collection of platforms each roughly the size of a football field?
The inaccuracy of your post was more what you stated about voltage drops, something I didn't directly address. Most individual-chip 5mm red LEDs drop 1.8 to 1.9 volts, not 1.5. The old, not-very-bright red LEDs which are difficult to find these days were of the 1.5 volt variety, but good luck finding those now. (Who would want to anyhow, with the ultrabrights available?) And today's blue LEDs require 3.4 to 3.6 volts to operate.
:)
But you're right, your post was simpler and more helpful and that's why you got a thankyou and I didn't. Point taken.
Plenty of electronics tutorials are available here:
http://www.iguanalabs.com/maintut.htm
I ordered my first electronics kit from Iguana Labs after reading their tutorials four or five years ago.
I, personally, believe that we are more secure if we don't give up our most sophistocated technologies to our enemies. I agree with the notion that we as the citizens who are paying for it should know how it works but I can't fathom how we would prevent that knowledge from coming into anyone else's possession. I mean, aside from kicking out all the immigrants who came to America in the past 15 years and closing our borders. That still wouldn't eliminate the "domestic threat" though, of people who don't like the country as big as it is or don't like republicans or don't like white people or whatever. Even if we totally isolated ourselves from every other country on the planet and we openly publicized all defense information to our citizens, the "joe schmoe" who "has just had enough" can still decide to use some fancy radar jamming code he found on www.howdefenseworks.mil on the missile he's designing to be flown directly into Air Force One.
The notion that you should keep secrets from your enemies and sometimes your enemies are those closest to you (family, friends, neighbors, the citizens of a government's country) isn't really "FUD" because it is, well, true.
Just because a worm is the most well-known example of a vulnerablity doesn't mean that it is the only thing making use of that particular vulnerability. Just because "slammer" equates to "uses vulnerability XYZ" in some peoples' minds, we (the remainder, those who are not under this impression) must keep in mind that it isn't unreasonable to believe that the same vulnerability could be exploited by other kinds of programs or other organizations.
Something interesting and useful to know is that the other reply you received to your post is totally incorrect.
First, LEDs are current driven, not voltage driven. The voltage difference between + and - determines the amount of current the device will consume, but if you can regulate the current you can run the device at 100V no sweat. You will of course need to dissipate any additional heat (usually in the device you're using to do the current limiting, sometimes a resistor, sometimes a more exotic circuit) created, but the very important thing to understand about LEDs is that their current absolutely determines their light output after you surpass a certain threshold voltage.
The relationship between the +/- voltage difference and the amount of current consumed is not the same for every kind of LED. LEDs require different chemistry in order to produce different colors, and this makes them have differing performance characteristics.
And another thing to consider is how the LEDs are packaged. Some 8mm packages have 4 chips inside and their rated light output is measured at a regulated input current of 80mA and not 20mA as for most single-chip devices. Also, some blue devices consume 30mA while reds only consume 20mA. Again, this depends on the chemistry. Now, also, taking packaging into consideration, a Luxeon device from Lumileds and a BL-3000 from Lamina Ceramics have totally different performance characteristics because of their chemistry, construction, packaging, and so forth.
You have two choices: Limit the voltage so that the device does not consume as much current, or limit your current and ensure that the voltage simply exceeds the maximum. Ultimately you need to regulate the current because the amount of current consumed (taking into consideration the device's ultimate efficiency) is directly proportional to the amount of heat generated in the chip itself.
You see, LEDs don't generate heat in their light path (radiant infrared travelling in parallel with the visible light, like the "heat" of the sun or a candle), but the chip itself does get rather hot, and if that heat isn't dissipated the LED chip will become physically damaged. Some of the materials used have melting points below 120 degrees, a temperature easily achieved by an LED not properly heatsinked.
So here's some tips: When you make LED boards (whether addressable matrices or simple blinky lights) you want to use a metal-core PCB or leave a portion of the LED's leads exposed in order to help dissipate the heat generated at the chip core and ensure longer chip life. LEDs don't just "burn out" one day, they will get dimmer slowly over time, and you can maximize that length of time by running them at less than their rated current, by cooling them actively or passively, and by using PWM to modulate their output.
Don Klipstein maintains a good set of information about LEDs: http://members.misty.com/don/ledx.html
100 times more potent you say? Potent like hash/honey oil is?
Much more than a hay bale's worth, actually, is required...
.9 grams. A smoker would
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Drug Enforcement Administration
In The Matter Of
MARIJUANA RESCHEDULING PETITION
Docket No. 86-22
OPINION AND RECOMMENDED RULING, FINDINGS OF
FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND DECISION OF
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE
FRANCIS L. YOUNG, Administrative Law Judge
DATED: SEPTEMBER 6, 1988
Page 56/57:
Findings of Fact
1. Richard J. Gralla, M.D., an oncologist and Professor of
Medicine who was an Agency witness, accepts that in treating cancer
patients oncologists can use the cannabinoids with safety despite their
side effects.
2. Andrew T. Weil, M.D., who now practices medicine in Tucson,
Arizona and is on the faculty of the College of Medicine, University of
Arizona, was a member of the first team of researchers to perform a
Federal Government authorized study into the effects of marijuana on
human subjects. This team made its study in 1968. These researchers
determined that marijuana could be safely used under medical supervision.
In the 20 years since then Dr. Weil has seen no information that would
cause him to reconsider that conclusion. There is no question in his
mind but that marijuana is safe for use under appropriate medical
supervision.
3. The most obvious concern when dealing with drug safety is
the possibility of lethal effects. Can the drug cause death?
4. Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal
effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in
the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented
cannabis-induced fatality.
- 56 -
5. This is a remarkable statement. First, the record on
marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana
is now used daily by enormous numbers of people throughout the world.
Estimates suggest that from twenty million to fifty million Americans
routinely, albeit illegally, smoke marijuana without the benefit of
direct medical supervision. Yet, despite this long history of use and
the extraordinarily high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no
credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a
single death.
6. By contrast aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter
medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year.
7. Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called
an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of
test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced
toxicity. A number of researchers have attempted to determine
marijuana's LD-50 rating in test animals, without success. Simply
stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to
induce death.
8. At present it is estimated that marijuana's LD-50 is around
1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce
death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as
much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied
marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately
I read this feed on forbes three days ago. It contains more information, including: "Autopsies revealed that by the end of the 10-day HU210 treatment regimen, new neurons had been generated and integrated into the circuitry of the hippocampus region of the rat's brains. This process, known as neurogenesis, was still in evidence a full month after treatment had been initiated."
So you see, they're actually basing it on autopsies, which tend to involve cutting open dead creatures and poking around their insides looking at what's going on. I think they actually MEASURED the number of brain cells and found more in the treated rats. Pretty fancy huh, scientists measuring things?! heh.
Most people have have a Radio. The Radio plays the music that you can buy in stores. The radio is in many ways a giant advertisement for what you can BUY in the stores. Until there's a free network that people can tune into on their radio, FREE music won't get any more face-time (ear-time?) with the public, and the RIAA will still maintain their brain-leash on the idea of "the music you get to listen to."
The common person is, let's face it, not that bright. The average IQ is 100. This means that provided with a set of facts, some people just can't put 973,272 and 202,126 together in their heads (to exaggerate upon the "two plus two" meme). Just on virtue of us sitting here, on this forum of slashdot, having this conversation, likely in possession of knowledge that would astound the common man, we're in an advantageous position to realise the ultimate problems of this scheme the RIAA is running and see the good alternative(s). That's all fine and good, but it goes way over the head of Joe Average who listens to the radio, period.
So you need to be able to engage him in a manner suitable to convince him of the viable alternatives. He isn't going to buy a computer to get music if he doesn't have a computer already. He isn't going to pay for broadband internet if he doesn't already have it. Average, common people are very hesitant to change. You need to get their attention on the radio or in a manner which is easily accessible to them.
In the near future, people could run Free Music Kiosks out of their in-car computers. It would re-define the tailgate party. Once everybodies' radio has a USB (which should become "Ubiquitous Serial Bus") input, many people will be (should be?) carrying a USB keychain and will therefore be able to engage in "music sharing."
True social swarm P2P file sharing. Somebody has to start it though. Somebody has to make it free. Things don't ever really start out free, they need to be "set free." Somebody needs to lead the way and make the music free. Show the people, all the people, that what they think of as the music, can be free. Sell USB drives out of the back of your car, show people how to share, get everyone in on your favorite free music.
I think also that there's a market for a simple "file manager" sort of device that enables people to easily swap files between USB storage devices.
Social Swarm P2P (SSP2P?) has the potential to redefine music advertisement. Most artists get radio airplay to advertise not only their CDs but their shows as well. Now this would be another aspect where literal physical hey-I-get-to-see-your-facial-expressions interaction would be key: to advertise live shows. To talk about past shows, upcoming shows, artist information, etc. Reading a Biographical "bit" online is only worth so much compared to somebody telling you about it.
Somebody needs to start the movement that legally puts the RIAA in their graves. Hit 'em where it hurts by undermining their entire philosophy.
No, the Republicans want to parent their own children and they want the state to stay the hell out of their personal business. The Democrats lack a sense of personal responsibility and are all about social programs.
I googled democratic "family values" and got: The Democratic Party continues to stand for family values, the rights of the minority, and opportunity for all.
Isn't that what the democratic party stands for? "family values" ?
Republicans decide what their own family's values are and they don't need anybody else telling them otherwise.
Democrats, on the other hand, want to legislate family values.
Dems are so not anti-family.
Yeah, maybe things will change, but not in the way you intended.
When album sales decline, what does the RIAA say? You know the drill: "Illegal filesharing has severely impacted our Nth quarter sales. We must take action against these pirates!"
If you stop buying albums, the RIAA will use that as another reason to sue some more file sharers. "Voting with our dollars" as it were, will only make the problem worse.
I'm sorry, but the only way to stand up to the RIAA now is the same way they're trying to walk all over us: the courts.
The mess we're in is unfortunately that some Democrats want the government to parent our children because they're too busy having a career to think about the future of our species. The future that they consciously created through a consensual sexual mating, mind you.
They want to put the consequences of their bad choices* on the rest of us, and that's quite a mess, don't you think?
* I'm not saying making life is a bad choice, rather that if one wants to pursue a career, having children is not a good choice because of the conflicting demands put on one's time.