I know some people will argue with you about the degrees, but I'm one who won't. I've gone very far, and had quite a bit of success, without a degree. I don't hire on the merit of a piece of paper. I hire on the merit of the individuals skills.... and I'll quote an email from Dick Rutan.
"To dream is great and never give up. The dreamers that are successful are the ones that can go back into your shop build it and bring dreams to reality. Fly it then talk about it."
I strongly suspect if anyone wants to really get in the door there, doing rocket and balloon launches, such as we've seen mentioned on here, and pushing the envelope are the ways to do it. Anything we do, should only to be to impress ourselves. If it happens to get us in the door with someone else, all the better.
I have some of my own ideas that I'm working on. They're way outside of my experience. If it ever goes from electronic development (autocad and simulators), and the first scale prototype is built, I intend to impress no one but myself. If it gets past that phase, will it get me in the door with an existing company? Who knows. Maybe my ideas will be purchased, or maybe investors will help me build my own. But right now, I'm not holding my breath, and I'm not letting it interfere with the day job that pays the bills. What will happen in 5 years or 10 years? Most likely I'll still be doing IT work. Who knows though. Several years ago, I had worked at the same shop for almost a decade. I was sure I'd be there til I retired. A few years ago, I was looking for work. I've changed industries a few times since them. Who knows where I'll be in the future. I know just as well as any of us. I just know, I won't ever stay somewhere that I will stagnate in a cube, with the promise of advancement "someday". I don't want to die of old age, thinking of what I could have done.
Don't forget the social networking and dumb luck factors.
Being great in your field is great.
Being great in your field, and you know someone who will make the right introductions, will get you the job.
I may have skills that are extremely valuable to anyone. I won't make it past the applicant queue in most places, because they don't know anything about me yet. No amount of wording on a cover letters can fix that.
Well, there are some huge holes in the fast and furious argument, such as the claims that government owned weapons were being sold, and that the investigation had been ongoing for years, with more than enough evidence gathered long ago to put away all involved away for a long time. That's more like a CIA operation, where doing a lesser evil facilitated stopping a greater one. Of course, none of us have enough information to form a properly informed opinion on either one.
How do we know that the FBI didn't intend to? How do we know they hadn't seeded the ranks with people investigating their actions.
Anonymous did a disservice to everyone.
First, they've drawn attention to that particular site. They've provided names, where people could, for example, use Google to see what other sites they frequent. So they have just opened up this underworld to more people who may be casually interested. And I suggest that it's not in your best interest to even put those names into Google to see what may come back.
Second, they have tainted absolutely everything on that site. It is no longer viable evidence. The logs, the membership roster, the uploaders. Not a single piece of information there can be considered valid, and would be thrown out of court.
Third, any investigation that was already ongoing will have suffered a significant setback. Any investigation can no longer gather evidence from it.
Consider this. If there is a drug dealer in your town, the police could go arrest him, and put him out of business. Great, that's one drug dealer off the streets. Instead, they can watch him. They can see who he interacts with, where his money goes, and follow those lines of evidence up to bigger busts. Are they interested in the guy selling crack on the corner, or the guy responsible for importing it into the country? Busting the importer means that hundreds or thousands of dealers will be unable to sell. Investigating him carefully, they can follow the distribution chains back down to every dealer.
So Anonymous cut off one site, and cut a bunch of people off from *one* outlet. That means all those people are going to go elsewhere, and any means to build a case on them is gone.
If it wasn't an anonymous group, they could have volunteered the evidence to the authorities. They could have testified about what was done in acquiring that information. That could have been useful to the authorities. Now that they published it all, anyone can say they did it. You or I could go to the FBI right now and say "I broke into that site, here's the list". It's worthless though, as any number of other people could claim exactly the same thing.
Should it shame the FBI? Not really. It's more encouragement for the FBI to stop them. That takes resources away from other investigations, which could be stopping pedophiles, murderers, etc, off the streets.
You look like a guy I can trust. How about I give you 75%. I'll need a little more assurance that I will get my percentage though. Please wire $100,000 to:
JWSmythe C/O Western Union 13 Scammith Lane Backwoodsianon, Nigeria
Due to the size and sensitivity of the package, the prince will send a courier on a chartered plane. They must have those funds in American dollars before they will take off. Please send $175,000 to the courier at:
Air America C/O Western Union 13 Scammith Lane Backwoodsianon, Nigeria
He spoke on the observations that the person traveling at near light speed would see.
Observing or seeing single particles aren't the same as having a larger object doing the same thing. By your logic, do you know all the requirements of supersonic aircraft, because you fired a bullet at a target?
And ya, I doubt he works (or worked) with any of the colliders. Do you think it's reasonable to believe any claim by any random person on the Internet? If so, I know this prince who is trying to liberate 10 billion dollars from his war torn nation, and will give you 50% for your services.
Wow, so you were at a launch station, and were in communication with someone in a spacecraft traveling at near the speed of light? Man, I must have been living in a hole for the last few millennia.
Well, I'm not all that social. I don't do a lot of handshaking. We knew we were a little off already, probably from some other random encounter, like the grocery store. It just had time to really kick our asses by the time the good stuff was going.
Most illnesses take a few days to incubate, so it's doubtful anything would have started there.
How long can you stand to travel as opposed to being "home", lets say a year. Build a station, send it out one years distance, however far away that is. Build the next station, send it out two years distance. Keep pushing stuff on the train and you'll eventually hit the next star.
People like stability. Home is the place we want to be. What they find is, we make "home" where we are. I know a lot of people never move away from their "home" city. Some of us have moved more times than we can count. Home today is different than home next year. It may not be in the same city, or even the same country.
Your argument is we "need" for some unspecified reason, to have all this high tech junk so there's only about 4 of these stations between us and the next star. My argument is who cares if there's 4 or 400 or 4 million stations between here and the next star, it'll all work just as well as a colonization / space travel policy. Much as I like the idea of air service to Fiji, I frankly don't care if I need to make 15 connections stops and transfers were I to try it. Even if my body could never reach Fiji, we still technically as a species have flight service to Fiji.
What you're describing is our want for "instant gratification". Who wants to take months to travel from New York to California? We don't take wagon trains across the country. Most people won't even drive, since it takes 3 to 10 days (or more if you stop to smell the flowers). We chose to fly. Even still, people rather take the 4 hour direct flight, than the 6 hour flight with a layover. 6 hours, versus months..
I'd take a trip to the next planet, that took 5, 15, or 500 stops.
Why would you accelerate at 2G? If you accelerated at a constant 1G, you'd reach the speed of light in 355.2 days. Well, more or less, depending on how accurate your instruments are, and how reliable your thrust source is. That, and at 355.1 you might wonder why it's requiring almost infinite thrust to continue accelerating, but you may not notice what day it is due to time dilation.:)
Actually, taking the first steps *is* necessary to develop the future ones.
Unless the changes are trivial, I seriously doubt the next generation ships would just be bringing along parts to upgrade the old one. Imagine upgrading a Mercury capsule with late Space Shuttle Orbiter technology. You'd get an awful lot of engineers saying "don't bother".
More likely, the bigger, faster, and more efficient craft would plan for extra room. They'd rendezvous with the earlier ship, take their passengers, crew, and supplies, and continue on.
The first ship may need to take a couple hundred years to get to Gliese 581 c.
The second one may launch a few years later, using improvements based on data from the first ship. This one may only take 100 years to get there, so it can gather the first crew in just a few years.
The third ship, 10 or 15 years into the project, using even better innovations, may be able to make the trip in 25 years.
Waiting for the 3rd generations technology to be invented without "real world" applications and practice, will mean that we we'll wait forever. Saying "It's too far", and "It will take too long" it isn't a valid reason not to try.
But...
Your question about repowering in flight isn't really a concern. Once gravitational pull has been eliminated, thrust isn't necessary to maintain speed. You have to stop thinking like terrestrial vehicles, and think like space ships.:)
I was there too. Unfortunately, something made us sick, so we were uncomfortably camped out in the hotel room for most of the convention.
We did get to a few sessions though.
Before we went, I told my friends that I was going to a convention where I'd be the dumbest person there. That was proven to be wrong, but I was still amazed by quite a few people there.
I sat in on a few of the technical sessions. One in particular had a lot of "we think...", and "with funding...". That was more of a "I want funding, here's some ideas I can burn it up on.". At least that seemed to be the exception.
They tried to squeeze so much into one weekend, it means everyone missed a lot, unless they had a whole team of people to attend all the simultaneous sessions. It would have (IMHO) been better as a week long convention.
I think what some people who didn't attend don't understand is, this was to expose the general public to a whole bunch of different technologies and ideas that may not have really seen the light of day yet. It wasn't a meeting to draw out the plans for a starship. That'll be the next one.:)
Oh, I won't disagree, it's much nicer to not be in handcuffs or in the system, than to be... well... pretty much anywhere else.:)
I only said the "bad guys" to draw the distinction between the guys with keys, that get to go home at the end of their shift, versus those who can only leave when it's approved by a judge. Everyone in jail will tell you they are innocent. Unfortunately, there are a percentage who really are. By the time they're at the jail, it's not up to the COs or LEOs to make that call.
If I do recall though, there are phone books available. They may not be in with the inmates, but the COs have them, and can look up numbers for them. Our modern age of technology has really crippled people though. I used to have the numbers for all my friends memorized. That was back before cell phones, and even when phones with autodialers came out, I wouldn't program them, since I'd call people from wherever I happened to be. Now, we all keep our numbers in our cell phones. I can't even begin to remember all the various phone numbers I've had over the years. I've had no less than a dozen land lines, another dozen cell numbers, Google Voice, a dozen Vonage numbers in three countries, etc, etc..
Not really. It may have been later in the day that *you* read it.
I saw the news stories. I even heard it on the evening TV news. I started checking places to buy that night, and didn't find anything available yet. I kept checking overnight. It was something like 6am Eastern that BestBuy made their inventory available at the new price, so I purchased mine. It was at about 9:30am that I could no longer purchase from them. Other outlets still showed stock in their stores later in the day, but those were pretty much depleted by the end of the day.
I ordered 3, to 3 separate addresses (3 people wanted them) from BestBuy's site. One for me. Two for others who knew I'd be up all night anyways. They were filled from 3 different shipping centers, even though the orders were put in just minutes apart. They arrived over the following week, even though all the destinations were only a few miles apart.
Most of the news stories I saw after that were regarding what you could do with your new found discount tablet.
Ammunition is a consumable commodity to operate a tool. The currency is, and always will be, items that someone has, that someone else wants. If money currency is no longer respected (why do I want cash, when I can have a dozen cows?), anything useful becomes currency. Then you are back to the barter system.
Ammunition as a currency is a dangerous thing. If I trade you a box of ammunition for a crate of food, I have no reason to believe that you won't use that ammunition to not only take the food I bought, but everything else I may possess.
I really like doing scenario planning and basically "war games". What happens if....
Assuming a catastrophic disaster (not including zombies, ebola outbreak, etc), there are a few major stages, which cause population thinning.
The first is chaos and panic. They didn't follow the instructions When people panic, they do dumb things. Some will try to reinforce their own supplies from others (i.e., looting, robbing, etc). Some will commit crimes of opportunity for various reasons (mugging, rape, murder). Some will do what we'd normally consider insane (shooting strangers for walking down the road, or knocking on the front door).
The second is dehydration and starvation. That starts at about a week without fresh water, or two weeks without food. Those who horded supplies will survive longer, unless they are found to be hording by those with superior force (bigger and stronger, better hand to hand combat skills, or superior firepower).
At this point, survivors will have likely formed into groups, where they share supplies within the group.
The third is inter-group skirmishes. If your group has food and water (like, camp out in a grocery store), and sufficient force to defend those supplies, a stronger or more desperate force will try to take those supplies.
The fourth is exhaustion of non-renewable resources. Camped out in your grocery store, you will eventually run out of food, water, cooking fuel, ammunition, or medical supplies. Even a dozen people camped out in a Super-WalMart will eventually run out of something. They will then need to go out and try to find more.
After the fourth stage, those who have sustainable resources (farms, fresh water supply, facilities to produce all other necessary supplies) will survive, but they will be at risk from others who want or need their supplies. Now we're back to more modern (and timeless) conflicts. Most are familiar with the ongoing wars over control and use of oil supplies. There are always groups who want what others have, and they will do anything they can to take it away.
Well, despite whatever propaganda you've been reading might tell you, your estimates are wrong.
According to a 2009 Gallup poll, 42% of American households own firearms. That is, 30% of those surveyed personally owned firearms. 12% didn't own them, but someone else in the household did.
Of people I personally know, about half own firearms and possess them in their homes. Of the others, some have personal reasons (members of the household who aren't necessarily stable, or concern that their children may access the weapons). Some do not believe themselves to be proficient, and do not believe they can safely own one.. A very small minority don't believe in owning guns. Those who do not have firearms at home have expressed that if "shit hits the fan", they'll be coming to me for protection.
I am a proud firearms owner. I'm not a redneck, hick, nor militant-anything. I'm just an IT guy who recognizes that not everything goes right all the time. I prefer to be prepared for as much as I can. I doubt that I'd ever need one to protect myself and my friends in the event of a civil unrest. I do know that I can kill paper men with extreme proficiency, and if I ever need one, I have have one in my hands in a few seconds. I also recognize that in a sudden emergency (like a home invasion), it's more likely that I'll be using hand to hand combat, as I may not have those few seconds to arm myself with anything but... well, my hands. In a large scale "problem", I have enough to arm friends and family who are proficient, but may not currently possess a firearm.
Knowing that you may want a weapon in a worst case situation, wouldn't it be an awful lot smarter to purchase one in advance, and train with it, so if the day comes, you will be prepared? A weapon is worthless. Well, worse, it is a liability where it may be used against you, if you are not already proficient with it?
Protests such as this don't serve to resolve any problems. They only serve to draw attention to the problem. Would one, ten, or ten million people standing around complaining about a problem make a difference? Not really.
It would be more effective if those protesters, their friends, and their families, all cashed in their stock, paid off their loans (so as not to pay further interest), closed their bank accounts, and effectively said "hell no, we won't let you have any more of our money!"
I've been doing my part towards this. I am open about problems I've had with banks. A recent even was with Wells Fargo. They started charging me fees which were contrary to federal law. I went to the bank first to discuss it. They refused to accept the fact that they were breaking the law. I filed a federal complaint over it. When faced with this they begrudgingly agreed to waive the fees, but still refused to admit that they were at fault. Basically, they claimed it was my fault that they were illegally applying fees. In the end, I closed my account without needing to pay the fees. Several friends did the same. I'm just one person, and it was only a handful of accounts that were closed because of this. If every person who was wronged did the same thing, it would have a severe impact on banks and other companies that are viewed as "doing wrong". These companies can only thrive for as long as they have these huge customer bases, that pay fees and interest.
In other words, don't complain about the problem. Do something about the problem. Stop paying them to be the problem.
You haven't spent a lot of time in jail, have you?:) My experience is based on being the good guy, not the bad guy.
There are usually numbers for bail bondsmen posted by the phones. That's who you need to talk to, not your mom, significant other, etc. They want their 10%, so they'll call everyone you ask them to.
You have the right to legal representation. If you cannot afford legal representation, an attorney will be appointed for you. That may have a familiar ring to it. The only thing you should say is "I want a lawyer." It may take a few hours to a day, but one will show up.
You can make calls once you're booked in. The calls are collect, so hopefully the other side will take the calls. It's a good idea that people know where you were going, so they'll already know to accept the charges.
Since the charge is only going to be a minor charge, they'll probably book you, and release you ROR. That is, unless you took a swing at a cop or something. You'll be given a court date, and kicked to the curb.
Regardless if you're being arrested for being annoying, or murder, you're not just dropped into some dark hole that no one will ever hear from you again. You just may not be allowed to leave.
Jails don't generally have the capacity to take in hundreds of people at once, and keep them. They have logistics issues. They may have cells and bunks available. They may not have enough food coming in. So the trivial BS arrests (like these could be), will be processed and released.
Slashdot Mirror
I know some people will argue with you about the degrees, but I'm one who won't. I've gone very far, and had quite a bit of success, without a degree. I don't hire on the merit of a piece of paper. I hire on the merit of the individuals skills. ... and I'll quote an email from Dick Rutan.
"To dream is great and never give up. The dreamers that are successful are the ones that can go back into your shop build it and bring dreams to reality. Fly it then talk about it."
I strongly suspect if anyone wants to really get in the door there, doing rocket and balloon launches, such as we've seen mentioned on here, and pushing the envelope are the ways to do it. Anything we do, should only to be to impress ourselves. If it happens to get us in the door with someone else, all the better.
I have some of my own ideas that I'm working on. They're way outside of my experience. If it ever goes from electronic development (autocad and simulators), and the first scale prototype is built, I intend to impress no one but myself. If it gets past that phase, will it get me in the door with an existing company? Who knows. Maybe my ideas will be purchased, or maybe investors will help me build my own. But right now, I'm not holding my breath, and I'm not letting it interfere with the day job that pays the bills. What will happen in 5 years or 10 years? Most likely I'll still be doing IT work. Who knows though. Several years ago, I had worked at the same shop for almost a decade. I was sure I'd be there til I retired. A few years ago, I was looking for work. I've changed industries a few times since them. Who knows where I'll be in the future. I know just as well as any of us. I just know, I won't ever stay somewhere that I will stagnate in a cube, with the promise of advancement "someday". I don't want to die of old age, thinking of what I could have done.
Don't forget the social networking and dumb luck factors.
Being great in your field is great.
Being great in your field, and you know someone who will make the right introductions, will get you the job.
I may have skills that are extremely valuable to anyone. I won't make it past the applicant queue in most places, because they don't know anything about me yet. No amount of wording on a cover letters can fix that.
Well, there are some huge holes in the fast and furious argument, such as the claims that government owned weapons were being sold, and that the investigation had been ongoing for years, with more than enough evidence gathered long ago to put away all involved away for a long time. That's more like a CIA operation, where doing a lesser evil facilitated stopping a greater one. Of course, none of us have enough information to form a properly informed opinion on either one.
How do we know that the FBI didn't intend to? How do we know they hadn't seeded the ranks with people investigating their actions.
Anonymous did a disservice to everyone.
First, they've drawn attention to that particular site. They've provided names, where people could, for example, use Google to see what other sites they frequent. So they have just opened up this underworld to more people who may be casually interested. And I suggest that it's not in your best interest to even put those names into Google to see what may come back.
Second, they have tainted absolutely everything on that site. It is no longer viable evidence. The logs, the membership roster, the uploaders. Not a single piece of information there can be considered valid, and would be thrown out of court.
Third, any investigation that was already ongoing will have suffered a significant setback. Any investigation can no longer gather evidence from it.
Consider this. If there is a drug dealer in your town, the police could go arrest him, and put him out of business. Great, that's one drug dealer off the streets. Instead, they can watch him. They can see who he interacts with, where his money goes, and follow those lines of evidence up to bigger busts. Are they interested in the guy selling crack on the corner, or the guy responsible for importing it into the country? Busting the importer means that hundreds or thousands of dealers will be unable to sell. Investigating him carefully, they can follow the distribution chains back down to every dealer.
So Anonymous cut off one site, and cut a bunch of people off from *one* outlet. That means all those people are going to go elsewhere, and any means to build a case on them is gone.
If it wasn't an anonymous group, they could have volunteered the evidence to the authorities. They could have testified about what was done in acquiring that information. That could have been useful to the authorities. Now that they published it all, anyone can say they did it. You or I could go to the FBI right now and say "I broke into that site, here's the list". It's worthless though, as any number of other people could claim exactly the same thing.
Should it shame the FBI? Not really. It's more encouragement for the FBI to stop them. That takes resources away from other investigations, which could be stopping pedophiles, murderers, etc, off the streets.
Sure, where should I send that to? :)
You look like a guy I can trust. How about I give you 75%. I'll need a little more assurance that I will get my percentage though. Please wire $100,000 to:
JWSmythe
C/O Western Union
13 Scammith Lane
Backwoodsianon, Nigeria
Due to the size and sensitivity of the package, the prince will send a courier on a chartered plane. They must have those funds in American dollars before they will take off. Please send $175,000 to the courier at:
Air America
C/O Western Union
13 Scammith Lane
Backwoodsianon, Nigeria
His quote:
So he has observations from people inside such craft. It's not sarcasm. It's presumption.
And nothing on his profile indicates that he is a theoretical physicist. It all says he's a low to moderately skilled code monkey.
Read the thread again.
He spoke on the observations that the person traveling at near light speed would see.
Observing or seeing single particles aren't the same as having a larger object doing the same thing. By your logic, do you know all the requirements of supersonic aircraft, because you fired a bullet at a target?
And ya, I doubt he works (or worked) with any of the colliders. Do you think it's reasonable to believe any claim by any random person on the Internet? If so, I know this prince who is trying to liberate 10 billion dollars from his war torn nation, and will give you 50% for your services.
Wow, so you were at a launch station, and were in communication with someone in a spacecraft traveling at near the speed of light? Man, I must have been living in a hole for the last few millennia.
Are you really sure about that? Have you observed that?
Honestly, I take near light speed travel theory as exactly that. Theory.
When we have a chance to observe the actual limitations, then I may or may not agree with you entirely (depending on if you are right or wrong).
Well, I'm not all that social. I don't do a lot of handshaking. We knew we were a little off already, probably from some other random encounter, like the grocery store. It just had time to really kick our asses by the time the good stuff was going.
Most illnesses take a few days to incubate, so it's doubtful anything would have started there.
I think it's all in the square footage. Like the difference between a shack and a mansion. :)
People like stability. Home is the place we want to be. What they find is, we make "home" where we are. I know a lot of people never move away from their "home" city. Some of us have moved more times than we can count. Home today is different than home next year. It may not be in the same city, or even the same country.
What you're describing is our want for "instant gratification". Who wants to take months to travel from New York to California? We don't take wagon trains across the country. Most people won't even drive, since it takes 3 to 10 days (or more if you stop to smell the flowers). We chose to fly. Even still, people rather take the 4 hour direct flight, than the 6 hour flight with a layover. 6 hours, versus months..
I'd take a trip to the next planet, that took 5, 15, or 500 stops.
Why would you accelerate at 2G? If you accelerated at a constant 1G, you'd reach the speed of light in 355.2 days. Well, more or less, depending on how accurate your instruments are, and how reliable your thrust source is. That, and at 355.1 you might wonder why it's requiring almost infinite thrust to continue accelerating, but you may not notice what day it is due to time dilation. :)
Actually, taking the first steps *is* necessary to develop the future ones.
Unless the changes are trivial, I seriously doubt the next generation ships would just be bringing along parts to upgrade the old one. Imagine upgrading a Mercury capsule with late Space Shuttle Orbiter technology. You'd get an awful lot of engineers saying "don't bother".
More likely, the bigger, faster, and more efficient craft would plan for extra room. They'd rendezvous with the earlier ship, take their passengers, crew, and supplies, and continue on.
The first ship may need to take a couple hundred years to get to Gliese 581 c.
The second one may launch a few years later, using improvements based on data from the first ship. This one may only take 100 years to get there, so it can gather the first crew in just a few years.
The third ship, 10 or 15 years into the project, using even better innovations, may be able to make the trip in 25 years.
Waiting for the 3rd generations technology to be invented without "real world" applications and practice, will mean that we we'll wait forever. Saying "It's too far", and "It will take too long" it isn't a valid reason not to try.
But...
Your question about repowering in flight isn't really a concern. Once gravitational pull has been eliminated, thrust isn't necessary to maintain speed. You have to stop thinking like terrestrial vehicles, and think like space ships. :)
Nope, that was the schedule for this most recent one (note the date).
The 100yss project is over. It was a 1 year project. I expect they'll restart it, or do another one.
I was there too. Unfortunately, something made us sick, so we were uncomfortably camped out in the hotel room for most of the convention.
We did get to a few sessions though.
Before we went, I told my friends that I was going to a convention where I'd be the dumbest person there. That was proven to be wrong, but I was still amazed by quite a few people there.
I sat in on a few of the technical sessions. One in particular had a lot of "we think...", and "with funding...". That was more of a "I want funding, here's some ideas I can burn it up on.". At least that seemed to be the exception.
They tried to squeeze so much into one weekend, it means everyone missed a lot, unless they had a whole team of people to attend all the simultaneous sessions. It would have (IMHO) been better as a week long convention.
I think what some people who didn't attend don't understand is, this was to expose the general public to a whole bunch of different technologies and ideas that may not have really seen the light of day yet. It wasn't a meeting to draw out the plans for a starship. That'll be the next one. :)
Oh, I won't disagree, it's much nicer to not be in handcuffs or in the system, than to be ... well ... pretty much anywhere else. :)
I only said the "bad guys" to draw the distinction between the guys with keys, that get to go home at the end of their shift, versus those who can only leave when it's approved by a judge. Everyone in jail will tell you they are innocent. Unfortunately, there are a percentage who really are. By the time they're at the jail, it's not up to the COs or LEOs to make that call.
If I do recall though, there are phone books available. They may not be in with the inmates, but the COs have them, and can look up numbers for them. Our modern age of technology has really crippled people though. I used to have the numbers for all my friends memorized. That was back before cell phones, and even when phones with autodialers came out, I wouldn't program them, since I'd call people from wherever I happened to be. Now, we all keep our numbers in our cell phones. I can't even begin to remember all the various phone numbers I've had over the years. I've had no less than a dozen land lines, another dozen cell numbers, Google Voice, a dozen Vonage numbers in three countries, etc, etc..
Every grain is great ...
Not really. It may have been later in the day that *you* read it.
I saw the news stories. I even heard it on the evening TV news. I started checking places to buy that night, and didn't find anything available yet. I kept checking overnight. It was something like 6am Eastern that BestBuy made their inventory available at the new price, so I purchased mine. It was at about 9:30am that I could no longer purchase from them. Other outlets still showed stock in their stores later in the day, but those were pretty much depleted by the end of the day.
I ordered 3, to 3 separate addresses (3 people wanted them) from BestBuy's site. One for me. Two for others who knew I'd be up all night anyways. They were filled from 3 different shipping centers, even though the orders were put in just minutes apart. They arrived over the following week, even though all the destinations were only a few miles apart.
Most of the news stories I saw after that were regarding what you could do with your new found discount tablet.
Ammunition is a consumable commodity to operate a tool. The currency is, and always will be, items that someone has, that someone else wants. If money currency is no longer respected (why do I want cash, when I can have a dozen cows?), anything useful becomes currency. Then you are back to the barter system.
Ammunition as a currency is a dangerous thing. If I trade you a box of ammunition for a crate of food, I have no reason to believe that you won't use that ammunition to not only take the food I bought, but everything else I may possess.
I really like doing scenario planning and basically "war games". What happens if....
Assuming a catastrophic disaster (not including zombies, ebola outbreak, etc), there are a few major stages, which cause population thinning.
The first is chaos and panic. They didn't follow the instructions When people panic, they do dumb things. Some will try to reinforce their own supplies from others (i.e., looting, robbing, etc). Some will commit crimes of opportunity for various reasons (mugging, rape, murder). Some will do what we'd normally consider insane (shooting strangers for walking down the road, or knocking on the front door).
The second is dehydration and starvation. That starts at about a week without fresh water, or two weeks without food. Those who horded supplies will survive longer, unless they are found to be hording by those with superior force (bigger and stronger, better hand to hand combat skills, or superior firepower).
At this point, survivors will have likely formed into groups, where they share supplies within the group.
The third is inter-group skirmishes. If your group has food and water (like, camp out in a grocery store), and sufficient force to defend those supplies, a stronger or more desperate force will try to take those supplies.
The fourth is exhaustion of non-renewable resources. Camped out in your grocery store, you will eventually run out of food, water, cooking fuel, ammunition, or medical supplies. Even a dozen people camped out in a Super-WalMart will eventually run out of something. They will then need to go out and try to find more.
After the fourth stage, those who have sustainable resources (farms, fresh water supply, facilities to produce all other necessary supplies) will survive, but they will be at risk from others who want or need their supplies. Now we're back to more modern (and timeless) conflicts. Most are familiar with the ongoing wars over control and use of oil supplies. There are always groups who want what others have, and they will do anything they can to take it away.
Well, despite whatever propaganda you've been reading might tell you, your estimates are wrong.
According to a 2009 Gallup poll, 42% of American households own firearms. That is, 30% of those surveyed personally owned firearms. 12% didn't own them, but someone else in the household did.
Of people I personally know, about half own firearms and possess them in their homes. Of the others, some have personal reasons (members of the household who aren't necessarily stable, or concern that their children may access the weapons). Some do not believe themselves to be proficient, and do not believe they can safely own one.. A very small minority don't believe in owning guns. Those who do not have firearms at home have expressed that if "shit hits the fan", they'll be coming to me for protection.
I am a proud firearms owner. I'm not a redneck, hick, nor militant-anything. I'm just an IT guy who recognizes that not everything goes right all the time. I prefer to be prepared for as much as I can. I doubt that I'd ever need one to protect myself and my friends in the event of a civil unrest. I do know that I can kill paper men with extreme proficiency, and if I ever need one, I have have one in my hands in a few seconds. I also recognize that in a sudden emergency (like a home invasion), it's more likely that I'll be using hand to hand combat, as I may not have those few seconds to arm myself with anything but ... well, my hands. In a large scale "problem", I have enough to arm friends and family who are proficient, but may not currently possess a firearm.
Knowing that you may want a weapon in a worst case situation, wouldn't it be an awful lot smarter to purchase one in advance, and train with it, so if the day comes, you will be prepared? A weapon is worthless. Well, worse, it is a liability where it may be used against you, if you are not already proficient with it?
Protests such as this don't serve to resolve any problems. They only serve to draw attention to the problem. Would one, ten, or ten million people standing around complaining about a problem make a difference? Not really.
It would be more effective if those protesters, their friends, and their families, all cashed in their stock, paid off their loans (so as not to pay further interest), closed their bank accounts, and effectively said "hell no, we won't let you have any more of our money!"
I've been doing my part towards this. I am open about problems I've had with banks. A recent even was with Wells Fargo. They started charging me fees which were contrary to federal law. I went to the bank first to discuss it. They refused to accept the fact that they were breaking the law. I filed a federal complaint over it. When faced with this they begrudgingly agreed to waive the fees, but still refused to admit that they were at fault. Basically, they claimed it was my fault that they were illegally applying fees. In the end, I closed my account without needing to pay the fees. Several friends did the same. I'm just one person, and it was only a handful of accounts that were closed because of this. If every person who was wronged did the same thing, it would have a severe impact on banks and other companies that are viewed as "doing wrong". These companies can only thrive for as long as they have these huge customer bases, that pay fees and interest.
In other words, don't complain about the problem. Do something about the problem. Stop paying them to be the problem.
You haven't spent a lot of time in jail, have you? :) My experience is based on being the good guy, not the bad guy.
There are usually numbers for bail bondsmen posted by the phones. That's who you need to talk to, not your mom, significant other, etc. They want their 10%, so they'll call everyone you ask them to.
You have the right to legal representation. If you cannot afford legal representation, an attorney will be appointed for you. That may have a familiar ring to it. The only thing you should say is "I want a lawyer." It may take a few hours to a day, but one will show up.
You can make calls once you're booked in. The calls are collect, so hopefully the other side will take the calls. It's a good idea that people know where you were going, so they'll already know to accept the charges.
Since the charge is only going to be a minor charge, they'll probably book you, and release you ROR. That is, unless you took a swing at a cop or something. You'll be given a court date, and kicked to the curb.
Regardless if you're being arrested for being annoying, or murder, you're not just dropped into some dark hole that no one will ever hear from you again. You just may not be allowed to leave.
Jails don't generally have the capacity to take in hundreds of people at once, and keep them. They have logistics issues. They may have cells and bunks available. They may not have enough food coming in. So the trivial BS arrests (like these could be), will be processed and released.