That's exactly what I predicted would happen if the US continued to enforce their laws outside their borders. International companies will just stop doing business in the US because then US law cannot in any way be relevant or enforced. The result: Isolation of USA and an increasing network divide.
Dunno about Dropbox, but neither MegaUpload nor Rapidshare charge(d) for downloads. You can pay for increased bandwidth, parallel downloads and similar premium services, but you can download everything without paying them a dime. They make money on providing convenience benefits to people already downloading, not for access to the content. That's a huge difference legally.
Besides, 2010 and 2011 had some of the coldest winters on record here in Europe. I cal bullshit on that hottest claim for 2011 because the summer was mediocre as well (few nice warm days).
Even if SOPA gets passed it will not affect much outside the US, provided it is not abused of course. Here's why:
1) It only applies to the US 2) It only applies to the US 3) It only applies to the US
None of the arguments given applies to the world outside the US. Something like 80-90% of the Internet and its users are not covered by US law. Sure they can take down.com/.net/.org sites but just get another domain then. Be inventive. Using.com was so last century.
If the servers are located outside the US, they can't touch it. It's just like the DMCA - it doesn't apply outside the US either. Strangely this fact seems to be a surprise to most high priced corporate lawyers working for the media industry as they're sending boatloads of DMCA complaints to torrent sites all over the world, including The Pirate Bay who promptly displays it for all to see while ridiculing the people involved. Lawyers that don't know that US law only applies in the US don't deserve to work in the legal field, and deserve to get fired if they already do.
If the US forced the issue, they'll only succeed in cutting the US from the rest of the Internet. The 'offending' sites will live on outside possibly unreachable from people in the US, but perfectly accessible for everyone else.
The argument that SOPA might inspire other countries to create similar laws is nothing but scare tactics. If they do (and it'll be only a few) they'll accomplish the same as the US - isolation from the rest of the net. Sure it'll suck for the people in those countries but then they just need to elect different politicians and get the law overturned. If they do get isolated, it'll be a given.
Now, as for the Global Blackout - it's a stupid idea in every way. It's akin to going on strike (several sites have indeed been using page names like 'strike') and that's so last century too. The politicians don't care. They probably don't use the sites going black anyway so they won't even notice. The 'call your congressman' plea is even more stupid - as I wrote above, over 90% of the Internet has no congressman because they're not living in the US or are not US citizens etc. They'll just be heavily inconvenienced and annoyed, and can do nothing about it. It's just like strikes that rarely cause much impact on the business owners but heavily inconveniences the users/consumers who again can do nothing to affect the situation. They're just powerless collateral damage victims.
Way back in time it might have been so that a strike could be felt by the employers and that most strikes only affected things locally, i.e. you could travel to buy goods or switch brands etc. but today a strike will not be felt much by the employers (pinpricks plus insurance) but the consumers will be hit hard.
Think of something else. Strikes can easily be replaced with something that isn't felt by the customers/consumers but is felt hard by the employers. Some inventive garbage workers did just that last year. They started out doing the strike thing by not collecting garbage (soon causing a severe health risk, rat infestations etc.) but some fortunately had a better idea - they collected the garbage normally but instead of dumping it where it was supposed to go, they dumped it in front of the head office doors and on the lawn of the CEO. So the health risk and rat infestations were transferred from the innocent third party to the right target - the opposing side in the conflict. Just brilliant.
Do the same here! - Don't turn off services but offer the option to send an automated mail or initiate an automated call, either to encourage opposition or to yell at the supporting politicians. If you wanna get dirty, generate a flood of mails, DDoS or deface the websites of the supporting organizations or similar. That's much more likely to generate publicity and get noticed. Turning off services for mostly powerless millions will not, at least not in a positive way for the cause.
You are wrong. Culpability for the problem of climate change admits of degrees. Outright denial of the problem without any proof or reason except some unsupportable personal conviction is particularly vile and selfish.
Yes and no.
Yes, because any unsubstantiated argument is empty and pointless, especially if it's motivated by other irrelevant factors.
No, because most so-called 'deniers' are quoted out of context or simply intentionally misunderstood. Here in Denmark we have Bjorn Lomborg who actually never denied climate change (he's a statistician, not a climate scientist) but were repeated attributed to be denying climate change. He never did that. His arguments were always about what it meant and what to do about it. He argued that the impact - because the process is relatively slow - we so relatively insignificant that money would be better spent at adapting, not trying to avert the change, the latter being insanely expensive and possibly fruitless after all. Adapting is much more a 'known beast' where the cost can be controlled. He also argued that the climate change might not be so bad, as we know similar (and worse) variations has occurred in the past and that actually has been a good thing for evolution and the multitude of life.
I actually don't know of any 'deniers' that argue without any scientific arguments. A lot use the 'Sun argument' which is still more than valid as we have no way of knowing how much heat from the Sun actually reached our planet in the distant past. We know with a fair certainty the temperature life was exposed to back then but we don't know how much was due to retained heat and how much was due to direct heat. We also know that our Sun is a variable star, both short term (the sunspot cycle) and several long term cycles as well, plus random events with no regularity, but we don't know how it behaved ten or hundreds of millions of years ago. We assume it's the same as now but we don't know.
Arguing that the Sun does not have any influence on the average temperature on our planet (as the IPCC did) is beyond stupid. If the Sun wasn't there the Earth would be a block of ice, greenhouse or not, so changes in solar output must have an effect. It might also be an inverse effect for some changes or temperature ranges, i.e. more heat might degrade the greenhouse and cause a lowering of temperature. The mechanisms working in the atmosphere are incredibly complex and we know next to nothing about them. We have theories that mostly fit current conditions but we don't have the whole picture. It's semi-qualified guesswork at best.
A lot of the believers in climate change are on the other hand almost religious in their faith in this. The need no arguments and most cannot give a single one - it just is so. As the science takes a back seat to 'facts' we're moving into religion. God doesn't require proof - he just is. That's religion, not science. I among many others often call ourselves "proud heretic in the cult of global warming", referring to the stupidity of the religious non-proofs they thrive on, especially as it happens in the domain of science.
Everybody knows that the US is just waiting for a reason to strike at Iran, and an Iranian naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is just such a reason.
Oh, and if this happens I hope the US uses bases in Israel to launch attacks from - then the Iranians are likely to attack Israel which then can proceed to obliterate Tehran and the nuclear testing sites, the latter using ultra-dirty bombs. This way the areas can be polluted with radioactivity to such a degree that it will be inaccessible for centuries, thus wiping the slate and forcing the Iranians to start over with their nuclear (bomb) program.
Iran cannot possible win - or even survive - such a conflict so one has to wonder why they are so eager to provoke one. Maybe they are completely insane and believe that "God will protect them" and similar nonsense?
Why use horribly expensive technology when cheap alternatives are available - alternatives that most likely are both safer and more effective?
These scanners cannot find anything a few trained dogs couldn't find just as well, and the dogs will be faster, cheaper and a lot less dangerous, even if they bite random people all the time...
We've had money dogs, drug dogs and explosives dogs for decades now, and any dog would most likely spot a hidden person or hidden exotic animals.
People obviously become copper thieves because they're too stupid for anything else...
Whenever you see rail electricians working on the overhead line, they ground it to the rails. But copper thieves are not that smart so they pull it down and it hits the ground sparking, then stops. The thieves - thinking it's shorted out - proceed to cut it... ZAP!! - The system is designed to cut the power in case of shorts (happens all the time with trees hitting the wires in the wind etc.) and then turn the power on a few seconds later if the short is no longer detected. That's why the workers always ground it. The power is turned off but even if turned on by accident it will short out and stay off.
Some stupid thieves got fried here recently. Not only didn't they know about grounding, they also decided to steal a stretch with a feed in the middle... So not only was a cut in either end not enough to render the piece harmless but the thief at either end got fried despite most likely seeing the powerful flash down the line from his partner going first... 16.000 volts with a lot of amps makes for an impressive flash and zero chance at finding much to bury...
If we didn't have XS4ALL our internet would have been regulated much much more. I should get a subscription with them.
Historically xs4all have fought several worthwhile battles - like the one against the Cult of Scientology (CoS). Someone hosted the 'secret' teachings of CoS (read: badly written scifi) and CoS demanded removal and took it to court. As this happened in the US and they forgot that court documents are public, the xs4all user (Karin Spaink) simply published those documents (The Fishman Affidavit) instead. CoS demanded a takedown but xs4all fought them and won.
...so the storage can be swapped out into a flight-safe version with no knife or scissors...
The security theater related to flying never ceases to amaze me... You can get steak knives onboard (first class) but cannot bring a small folding knife... But of course, those people travelling on first class are decent people so they're safe... Oh wait, the 9/11 hijackers travelled on first class to be near the cockpit. Bummer...
Not really. That water is wet isn't exactly news either.
The more the greedy media corporations lobby the clueless politicians into making more and more absurd draconian laws, the more piracy will be accepted, simply as a form of rebellion against the lockdown.
If it was all about about making money for the creators of IP, they would adhere to the age-old laws of supply and demand. There's a demand and if you want to make money from it, you need to supply what's needed to fill the demand. But when the demand for electronic media arose they didn't create a supply to fill it; they created restrictions through lobbying and DRM in a seriously futile attempt to preserve the status quo. The demand is still there and now - as always - someone else steps in to fill it. Like the gangsters and mobsters filled the need for alcohol during prohibition, the file sharing pirates filled the need for electronic media.
Methods of delivery and protections against being caught surfaced. Napster. Bittorrent. The Pirate Bay. VPN... Technologies that didn't exist until the pirates needed them. Okay, VPN existed but got a huge boost when it became popular to use it to hide illegal downloads and to circumvent geo-discrimination. Now these technologies makes distribution of anything simple and hiding easy. Terrorists and pedophiles rejoice.
Congratulations! - You alienated your customers, made piracy common and accepted, gained nothing - and helped drive innovation that now enables terrorists and pedophiles to better hide and distribute their wares with ease and largely untraceable. I hope you're proud of your accomplishments!
Didn't the Tea Party bring guns to some place or other? I remember hearing about that somewhere on here. Or was that a./ myth?
Sure. In America, it is still legal to own guns and carry them in most public places (usually requiring a permit if the weapon is concealed). It may be important to note that of all the Tea Party rallies, no weapons were ever fired, or at least nobody was killed. Going out on a limb here, but I think terrorists usually use their guns to kill as many people as they can, so maybe the term "terrorist" is misapplied to Tea Party people. There were actually a few cases of rape and even murder among the Occupiers, but it's just as ridiculous to call them terrorists.
The whole difference lies in the INTENT of the people in question. Terrorists are intent on killing people for the sake of instilling terror, thus the name used for them. Tea Party attendees are not in any general way intent of doing any harm what so ever. Weapons or not, there's a huge difference.
As for the Occupiers, most are peaceful but their mixed nature and their close connection to the extreme left makes for some extremist individuals hellbent on forcing issues at any cost, which easily can be said to be bordering on terrorism. Trouble is - these loons tend to stand out and make headlines, thus both ending up hurting the issue at hand (the official agenda is drowned by violence, battles with cops, vandalism etc.) and give a bad name to everybody participating in the protests.
But just letting things get out of hand and blame the extremists is both stupid and hurts the cause simply because it gives opposition a very easy way to fight the protests. Until the serious people behind these types of protests takes it seriously and get rid of that anarchistic element, they won't be taken seriously, and their cause will drown in all the wrong headlines. Make it clear that these usually black-dressed and masked hooligans are not welcome and make sure they are kept at a distance from the main protest so it's easy to distinguish the two and hard to legitimately call everybody rioters, hooligans - or terrorists.
Expect to be cracked. Unless your system is too boring and valueless to attract attackers, it will be targeted. If it IS boring and valueless expect to get targeted by automated attackers anyway.
Exactly. The worst mistake is to think that you are 'safe' because you're inconspicuous or uninteresting. Automated tools don't care and besides, at lot of base hacking is all about acquiring 'real estate' in the form of 'owned' servers. Such servers are always left almost untouched except for a back door, in case the server is patched later. These servers are used to hide the true source of intrusions and to stage attacks from, and for these purposes inconspicuous servers are exactly what the hackers are looking for.
No freedom to practice your religion without interference from the state. Muslim women can't wear the burqa in public. Jewish schoolboys can't wear the yarmulke in public schools while Christians are prohibited from wearing "large" crosses. In the name of secularism French society has crossed the line into intolerance and forced compliance with the tyranny of the majority.
You are very wrong here! - The state does not interfere with your right to practice your religion. You can believe what you want and go to church/temple/mosque as you please. You can dress how you like with a few limitations which shouldn't bother anyone. The so-called 'banned symbols' are not essential to the practice in any way - you can wear what you like at home or at your place of worship.
The reason for imposing restrictions especially when it comes to burqa and nijab is to liberate those women who are expected to dress like that, and to make it possible to see the face of the people you interact with. This form of dress has absolutely no foundation in religion or scriptures, and there's even a lot of discussion on whether head scarves are religious or not. They are not mandated in Islamic scriptures and appears only in passing reference in the life of Mohammad the prophet, most likely because it was the way women dressed at that period of history.
Most experts agree that the true purpose of religious symbols is to advocate the faith they symbolize. In a secular society this is highly undesired as it already is a problem that parents indoctrinate their children into their faith, abusing the power parents have over their children from a time long before the child is able to form its own opinion and question the teachings. Additional advocacy from your teacher or just people on the streets is something that can be avoided if you remove the symbols. Last but not least most countries have seen what you can call 'informal religious police' in certain areas where especially men assault verbally or violently those women not 'properly dressed' and similar, and the only way to stop that (apart from a massive police presence) is to remove all symbols so those fanatical men cannot tell the difference from mere appearance.
No matter what method you're going to use to detect violators, make sure the punishment is severe. Here's an idea:
First, separate the parking into privileged spots (which includes the handicapped spaces), normal spaces and way out in the most remote parts the penalty spaces. Checking the permits should use some form of electronic check that is always up to date, and could include license plate or license id displayed.
Now, if someone if found to be parked where he doesn't belong, this is what happens. The car is towed right away as a rush job (double the cost which the offender has to pay), a 24 hour lockout period at the impound lot (the car has to sit there minimum 24 hours before it can be released), a storage fee calculated on the number of 24 hours days, which means that violators have to pay for at least two days. Add to this a hefty fine, and last but not least a penalty mark, which means that for a period (6-12 months perhaps?) this car is only allowed to park in the penalty spaces or the regular spaces nearest the penalty spaces if they're all full.
Additional violations will double the fines each time, as well as the lockout period before the car can be released. The fines will go to a handicap organization chosen by the parking lot owner. Oh, and cars not claimed and paid for within 72 hours after the expiry of the lockout period are confiscated and sold at an auction. If this happen, the car is cleared from the penalty register unless the buyer is the previous owner or close family. If the car was a company car, the company that owns it are encouraged to sue the user for reimbursement for the cost of a new car. If they buy it back from the auction it will still be under penalty.
Making fake licenses or similar is counterfeiting and fraud and will be dealt with by the police, which usually means hard time.
Changing passwords does not increase security as long as you use a unique password for each site! - It actually decreases security as you're more likely to write them down in order to remember them. It takes a while for your new passwords to settle in your memory and that's why you need help - at first at least.
Brute-forcing a password is often faster than the usual rotation so if anyone wants access they have plenty of time brute-forcing it anyway.
IMHO the best strategy is to create a really good base password. It should be long and filled with all the usual variations. Then 'mutate' it for each site. Add something in front or at the end, or in the middle if your base password affords it. Do not use something simple here like the initials of the site name, the IP or similar. Try to incorporate in into the base password if possible. Many will use the first letter of all the words in a sentence, 'lamerized' for additional symbols, and that's a good way to create something complex that's easy to remember. It's actually in part based on a old library cipher so it's decent in itself.
Here's an example based on the classic (and too short) sentence found in many password texts:
"In my opinion Carthage should be destroyed"
First letters: ImoCsbd"
Lamerized: !m0C$bd
Now, in order to adapt this to - say slashdot - add some words to the sentence and then do the same:
"In my opinion/. rules and Carthage should be destroyed"
End result: !m0/.r&C$bd
Even if you know the base password you wont be able to guess the unique password for each site. You should of course use a less known sentence for the base password and never reveal it. That way predicting the unique password will become as impossible as simply brute force guessing.
... like the whiskey and champagne they supposedly drink in the movies, it's just a prop
No rule without an exception... When J.R. Ewing drank whiskey in "Dallas" it was the real stuff. Larry Hagman who played J.R. had it in his contract. No cheap stuff either by the way. Surprisingly he's still around these days, although he's on his third liver and on the wagon...;)
I went to see all three LoTR when they premiered at the cinemas, then went on to buy them on DVD and again when they came to Blu-ray. So did a lot of my friends. If that isn't enough to make a movie turn a profit, something is SERIOUSLY wrong!
SOPA reminds me of the trice-failed CDA
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GoDaddy Backs SOPA
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· Score: 1
Full of vague definitions and basically a huge mallet to hit those you don't like over the head with. Will be abused to do just about everything not stated in its purpose. Thankfully the CDA's were struck down in the Supreme Court because the vagueness opened a huge loophole in the protection of free speech.
Based on my understanding this bill can do the same - any domain that has something you don't like will also have something illegal somewhere and then SOPA can be used to kill it all - and I hope the Supreme Court repeats its protection rulings.
There shouldn't be any openly gay people in the military. Gays need to accept that the way they are is NOT the status quo, and they need to adapt to "normal" types of behavior and get out of this fantasy world they seem to think they live in.
They ARE behaving normally. They're gay and that's how gay people behave.
Being homosexual in not 'optional'. You can't 'cure' homosexuality. Most importantly for the homophobes: Homosexuality is NOT CONTAGIOUS!
Sure it isn't the 'biological norm' but so isn't so many other things as well. Just accept that some people functions differently than others, and as long as they express it between consenting adults it shouldn't be a problem for anyone.
Actually, linking to just about anything is illegal if it the number of clicks between it and pirate services doesn't matter. Almost anything links to a search engine and they all link to all the pirate services. So there.
It makes sense to say: "You can't directly to illegal stuff" It also makes sense to say: "You can't link to pages that link directly to illegal stuff" It makes NO sense to say: "You can't link to pages that link to something which through further links eventually links to illegal stuff"
- Because everything to the Internet eventually leads to illegal stuff - illegal somewhere in any case. There has to be an exact limit on the click distance for it to make sense. The other thing can't be verified and will get you into trouble if someone is out to get you, because you can't avoid doing the wrong thing.
Oh, and all search engines fail on every count. You can search directly for torrents - or recent movies available on rapidshare, hotfile etc. - why is this not the primary target? - Because of Microsoft and Google both having whole buildings full of attack-trained lawyers?;)
PS: I find just about everything I need in the scull and crossbones section using Google and download it directly from rapidshare, fileserve, hotfile, megaupload etc. - no need for Pirate Bay I'm afraid.
The plugins that used to display info on the status bar now show it on the addon bar instead.
So now you have the addon bar instead of the status bar if you want a place for your other addons to display their info/status... and the status information previously displayed in the status bar now pops up in addition to the addon bar... Stupid!
Installing the status-4-evar addon fixes it and moves the status messages back onto the addon bar effectively turning it into the good old status bar. I couldn't live without it now.
It does have an annoying bug though... If it gets disabled (like when FF changes major version but the addon author is a bit behind) the addon bar reverts to being just an addon bar without a place to put status messages (they don't revert to popping up, they just go missing) and the flexible space that kept the icons right aligned is gone as well, leaving them left aligned which looks strange and annoying.
In order to fix it you need either to bump the max version of the status-4-evar addon (like I did) or to revert FF to the previous version in which status-4-evar worked, go into status-4-evar's settings and switch the status messages back to popup and then re-upgrade FF. You also need to re-add the flexible space because a working status-4-evar will not re-add it automatically, leaving both the icons and the status messages left aligned so the icons jump right whenever there's a status message to display, and back left when it goes away, which is completely awful.
Slashdot Mirror
That's exactly what I predicted would happen if the US continued to enforce their laws outside their borders. International companies will just stop doing business in the US because then US law cannot in any way be relevant or enforced. The result: Isolation of USA and an increasing network divide.
Dunno about Dropbox, but neither MegaUpload nor Rapidshare charge(d) for downloads. You can pay for increased bandwidth, parallel downloads and similar premium services, but you can download everything without paying them a dime. They make money on providing convenience benefits to people already downloading, not for access to the content. That's a huge difference legally.
...who's to blame. I say it's the Sun.
Besides, 2010 and 2011 had some of the coldest winters on record here in Europe. I cal bullshit on that hottest claim for 2011 because the summer was mediocre as well (few nice warm days).
I - respectfully - do NOT agree.
Even if SOPA gets passed it will not affect much outside the US, provided it is not abused of course. Here's why:
1) It only applies to the US
2) It only applies to the US
3) It only applies to the US
None of the arguments given applies to the world outside the US. Something like 80-90% of the Internet and its users are not covered by US law. Sure they can take down .com/.net/.org sites but just get another domain then. Be inventive. Using .com was so last century.
If the servers are located outside the US, they can't touch it. It's just like the DMCA - it doesn't apply outside the US either. Strangely this fact seems to be a surprise to most high priced corporate lawyers working for the media industry as they're sending boatloads of DMCA complaints to torrent sites all over the world, including The Pirate Bay who promptly displays it for all to see while ridiculing the people involved. Lawyers that don't know that US law only applies in the US don't deserve to work in the legal field, and deserve to get fired if they already do.
If the US forced the issue, they'll only succeed in cutting the US from the rest of the Internet. The 'offending' sites will live on outside possibly unreachable from people in the US, but perfectly accessible for everyone else.
The argument that SOPA might inspire other countries to create similar laws is nothing but scare tactics. If they do (and it'll be only a few) they'll accomplish the same as the US - isolation from the rest of the net. Sure it'll suck for the people in those countries but then they just need to elect different politicians and get the law overturned. If they do get isolated, it'll be a given.
Now, as for the Global Blackout - it's a stupid idea in every way. It's akin to going on strike (several sites have indeed been using page names like 'strike') and that's so last century too. The politicians don't care. They probably don't use the sites going black anyway so they won't even notice. The 'call your congressman' plea is even more stupid - as I wrote above, over 90% of the Internet has no congressman because they're not living in the US or are not US citizens etc. They'll just be heavily inconvenienced and annoyed, and can do nothing about it. It's just like strikes that rarely cause much impact on the business owners but heavily inconveniences the users/consumers who again can do nothing to affect the situation. They're just powerless collateral damage victims.
Way back in time it might have been so that a strike could be felt by the employers and that most strikes only affected things locally, i.e. you could travel to buy goods or switch brands etc. but today a strike will not be felt much by the employers (pinpricks plus insurance) but the consumers will be hit hard.
Think of something else. Strikes can easily be replaced with something that isn't felt by the customers/consumers but is felt hard by the employers. Some inventive garbage workers did just that last year. They started out doing the strike thing by not collecting garbage (soon causing a severe health risk, rat infestations etc.) but some fortunately had a better idea - they collected the garbage normally but instead of dumping it where it was supposed to go, they dumped it in front of the head office doors and on the lawn of the CEO. So the health risk and rat infestations were transferred from the innocent third party to the right target - the opposing side in the conflict. Just brilliant.
Do the same here! - Don't turn off services but offer the option to send an automated mail or initiate an automated call, either to encourage opposition or to yell at the supporting politicians. If you wanna get dirty, generate a flood of mails, DDoS or deface the websites of the supporting organizations or similar. That's much more likely to generate publicity and get noticed. Turning off services for mostly powerless millions will not, at least not in a positive way for the cause.
You are wrong. Culpability for the problem of climate change admits of degrees. Outright denial of the problem without any proof or reason except some unsupportable personal conviction is particularly vile and selfish.
Yes and no.
Yes, because any unsubstantiated argument is empty and pointless, especially if it's motivated by other irrelevant factors.
No, because most so-called 'deniers' are quoted out of context or simply intentionally misunderstood. Here in Denmark we have Bjorn Lomborg who actually never denied climate change (he's a statistician, not a climate scientist) but were repeated attributed to be denying climate change. He never did that. His arguments were always about what it meant and what to do about it. He argued that the impact - because the process is relatively slow - we so relatively insignificant that money would be better spent at adapting, not trying to avert the change, the latter being insanely expensive and possibly fruitless after all. Adapting is much more a 'known beast' where the cost can be controlled. He also argued that the climate change might not be so bad, as we know similar (and worse) variations has occurred in the past and that actually has been a good thing for evolution and the multitude of life.
I actually don't know of any 'deniers' that argue without any scientific arguments. A lot use the 'Sun argument' which is still more than valid as we have no way of knowing how much heat from the Sun actually reached our planet in the distant past. We know with a fair certainty the temperature life was exposed to back then but we don't know how much was due to retained heat and how much was due to direct heat. We also know that our Sun is a variable star, both short term (the sunspot cycle) and several long term cycles as well, plus random events with no regularity, but we don't know how it behaved ten or hundreds of millions of years ago. We assume it's the same as now but we don't know.
Arguing that the Sun does not have any influence on the average temperature on our planet (as the IPCC did) is beyond stupid. If the Sun wasn't there the Earth would be a block of ice, greenhouse or not, so changes in solar output must have an effect. It might also be an inverse effect for some changes or temperature ranges, i.e. more heat might degrade the greenhouse and cause a lowering of temperature. The mechanisms working in the atmosphere are incredibly complex and we know next to nothing about them. We have theories that mostly fit current conditions but we don't have the whole picture. It's semi-qualified guesswork at best.
A lot of the believers in climate change are on the other hand almost religious in their faith in this. The need no arguments and most cannot give a single one - it just is so. As the science takes a back seat to 'facts' we're moving into religion. God doesn't require proof - he just is. That's religion, not science. I among many others often call ourselves "proud heretic in the cult of global warming", referring to the stupidity of the religious non-proofs they thrive on, especially as it happens in the domain of science.
Everybody knows that the US is just waiting for a reason to strike at Iran, and an Iranian naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is just such a reason.
Oh, and if this happens I hope the US uses bases in Israel to launch attacks from - then the Iranians are likely to attack Israel which then can proceed to obliterate Tehran and the nuclear testing sites, the latter using ultra-dirty bombs. This way the areas can be polluted with radioactivity to such a degree that it will be inaccessible for centuries, thus wiping the slate and forcing the Iranians to start over with their nuclear (bomb) program.
Iran cannot possible win - or even survive - such a conflict so one has to wonder why they are so eager to provoke one. Maybe they are completely insane and believe that "God will protect them" and similar nonsense?
Why use horribly expensive technology when cheap alternatives are available - alternatives that most likely are both safer and more effective?
These scanners cannot find anything a few trained dogs couldn't find just as well, and the dogs will be faster, cheaper and a lot less dangerous, even if they bite random people all the time...
We've had money dogs, drug dogs and explosives dogs for decades now, and any dog would most likely spot a hidden person or hidden exotic animals.
People obviously become copper thieves because they're too stupid for anything else...
Whenever you see rail electricians working on the overhead line, they ground it to the rails. But copper thieves are not that smart so they pull it down and it hits the ground sparking, then stops. The thieves - thinking it's shorted out - proceed to cut it... ZAP!! - The system is designed to cut the power in case of shorts (happens all the time with trees hitting the wires in the wind etc.) and then turn the power on a few seconds later if the short is no longer detected. That's why the workers always ground it. The power is turned off but even if turned on by accident it will short out and stay off.
Some stupid thieves got fried here recently. Not only didn't they know about grounding, they also decided to steal a stretch with a feed in the middle... So not only was a cut in either end not enough to render the piece harmless but the thief at either end got fried despite most likely seeing the powerful flash down the line from his partner going first... 16.000 volts with a lot of amps makes for an impressive flash and zero chance at finding much to bury...
Just use a multiple step ignition... Should do the trick. Nothing like the smell of burning thermite and copper thieves in the morning!
If we didn't have XS4ALL our internet would have been regulated much much more. I should get a subscription with them.
Historically xs4all have fought several worthwhile battles - like the one against the Cult of Scientology (CoS). Someone hosted the 'secret' teachings of CoS (read: badly written scifi) and CoS demanded removal and took it to court. As this happened in the US and they forgot that court documents are public, the xs4all user (Karin Spaink) simply published those documents (The Fishman Affidavit) instead. CoS demanded a takedown but xs4all fought them and won.
...so the storage can be swapped out into a flight-safe version with no knife or scissors...
The security theater related to flying never ceases to amaze me... You can get steak knives onboard (first class) but cannot bring a small folding knife...
But of course, those people travelling on first class are decent people so they're safe... Oh wait, the 9/11 hijackers travelled on first class to be near the cockpit. Bummer...
Not really. That water is wet isn't exactly news either.
The more the greedy media corporations lobby the clueless politicians into making more and more absurd draconian laws, the more piracy will be accepted, simply as a form of rebellion against the lockdown.
If it was all about about making money for the creators of IP, they would adhere to the age-old laws of supply and demand. There's a demand and if you want to make money from it, you need to supply what's needed to fill the demand. But when the demand for electronic media arose they didn't create a supply to fill it; they created restrictions through lobbying and DRM in a seriously futile attempt to preserve the status quo. The demand is still there and now - as always - someone else steps in to fill it. Like the gangsters and mobsters filled the need for alcohol during prohibition, the file sharing pirates filled the need for electronic media.
Methods of delivery and protections against being caught surfaced. Napster. Bittorrent. The Pirate Bay. VPN... Technologies that didn't exist until the pirates needed them. Okay, VPN existed but got a huge boost when it became popular to use it to hide illegal downloads and to circumvent geo-discrimination. Now these technologies makes distribution of anything simple and hiding easy. Terrorists and pedophiles rejoice.
Congratulations! - You alienated your customers, made piracy common and accepted, gained nothing - and helped drive innovation that now enables terrorists and pedophiles to better hide and distribute their wares with ease and largely untraceable. I hope you're proud of your accomplishments!
Didn't the Tea Party bring guns to some place or other? I remember hearing about that somewhere on here. Or was that a ./ myth?
Sure. In America, it is still legal to own guns and carry them in most public places (usually requiring a permit if the weapon is concealed). It may be important to note that of all the Tea Party rallies, no weapons were ever fired, or at least nobody was killed. Going out on a limb here, but I think terrorists usually use their guns to kill as many people as they can, so maybe the term "terrorist" is misapplied to Tea Party people. There were actually a few cases of rape and even murder among the Occupiers, but it's just as ridiculous to call them terrorists.
The whole difference lies in the INTENT of the people in question. Terrorists are intent on killing people for the sake of instilling terror, thus the name used for them. Tea Party attendees are not in any general way intent of doing any harm what so ever. Weapons or not, there's a huge difference.
As for the Occupiers, most are peaceful but their mixed nature and their close connection to the extreme left makes for some extremist individuals hellbent on forcing issues at any cost, which easily can be said to be bordering on terrorism. Trouble is - these loons tend to stand out and make headlines, thus both ending up hurting the issue at hand (the official agenda is drowned by violence, battles with cops, vandalism etc.) and give a bad name to everybody participating in the protests.
But just letting things get out of hand and blame the extremists is both stupid and hurts the cause simply because it gives opposition a very easy way to fight the protests. Until the serious people behind these types of protests takes it seriously and get rid of that anarchistic element, they won't be taken seriously, and their cause will drown in all the wrong headlines. Make it clear that these usually black-dressed and masked hooligans are not welcome and make sure they are kept at a distance from the main protest so it's easy to distinguish the two and hard to legitimately call everybody rioters, hooligans - or terrorists.
Expect to be cracked. Unless your system is too boring and valueless to attract attackers, it will be targeted. If it IS boring and valueless expect to get targeted by automated attackers anyway.
Exactly. The worst mistake is to think that you are 'safe' because you're inconspicuous or uninteresting. Automated tools don't care and besides, at lot of base hacking is all about acquiring 'real estate' in the form of 'owned' servers. Such servers are always left almost untouched except for a back door, in case the server is patched later. These servers are used to hide the true source of intrusions and to stage attacks from, and for these purposes inconspicuous servers are exactly what the hackers are looking for.
No freedom to practice your religion without interference from the state. Muslim women can't wear the burqa in public. Jewish schoolboys can't wear the yarmulke in public schools while Christians are prohibited from wearing "large" crosses. In the name of secularism French society has crossed the line into intolerance and forced compliance with the tyranny of the majority.
You are very wrong here! - The state does not interfere with your right to practice your religion. You can believe what you want and go to church/temple/mosque as you please. You can dress how you like with a few limitations which shouldn't bother anyone. The so-called 'banned symbols' are not essential to the practice in any way - you can wear what you like at home or at your place of worship.
The reason for imposing restrictions especially when it comes to burqa and nijab is to liberate those women who are expected to dress like that, and to make it possible to see the face of the people you interact with. This form of dress has absolutely no foundation in religion or scriptures, and there's even a lot of discussion on whether head scarves are religious or not. They are not mandated in Islamic scriptures and appears only in passing reference in the life of Mohammad the prophet, most likely because it was the way women dressed at that period of history.
Most experts agree that the true purpose of religious symbols is to advocate the faith they symbolize. In a secular society this is highly undesired as it already is a problem that parents indoctrinate their children into their faith, abusing the power parents have over their children from a time long before the child is able to form its own opinion and question the teachings. Additional advocacy from your teacher or just people on the streets is something that can be avoided if you remove the symbols. Last but not least most countries have seen what you can call 'informal religious police' in certain areas where especially men assault verbally or violently those women not 'properly dressed' and similar, and the only way to stop that (apart from a massive police presence) is to remove all symbols so those fanatical men cannot tell the difference from mere appearance.
No matter what method you're going to use to detect violators, make sure the punishment is severe. Here's an idea:
First, separate the parking into privileged spots (which includes the handicapped spaces), normal spaces and way out in the most remote parts the penalty spaces. Checking the permits should use some form of electronic check that is always up to date, and could include license plate or license id displayed.
Now, if someone if found to be parked where he doesn't belong, this is what happens. The car is towed right away as a rush job (double the cost which the offender has to pay), a 24 hour lockout period at the impound lot (the car has to sit there minimum 24 hours before it can be released), a storage fee calculated on the number of 24 hours days, which means that violators have to pay for at least two days. Add to this a hefty fine, and last but not least a penalty mark, which means that for a period (6-12 months perhaps?) this car is only allowed to park in the penalty spaces or the regular spaces nearest the penalty spaces if they're all full.
Additional violations will double the fines each time, as well as the lockout period before the car can be released. The fines will go to a handicap organization chosen by the parking lot owner. Oh, and cars not claimed and paid for within 72 hours after the expiry of the lockout period are confiscated and sold at an auction. If this happen, the car is cleared from the penalty register unless the buyer is the previous owner or close family. If the car was a company car, the company that owns it are encouraged to sue the user for reimbursement for the cost of a new car. If they buy it back from the auction it will still be under penalty.
Making fake licenses or similar is counterfeiting and fraud and will be dealt with by the police, which usually means hard time.
Changing passwords does not increase security as long as you use a unique password for each site! - It actually decreases security as you're more likely to write them down in order to remember them. It takes a while for your new passwords to settle in your memory and that's why you need help - at first at least.
Brute-forcing a password is often faster than the usual rotation so if anyone wants access they have plenty of time brute-forcing it anyway.
IMHO the best strategy is to create a really good base password. It should be long and filled with all the usual variations. Then 'mutate' it for each site. Add something in front or at the end, or in the middle if your base password affords it. Do not use something simple here like the initials of the site name, the IP or similar. Try to incorporate in into the base password if possible. Many will use the first letter of all the words in a sentence, 'lamerized' for additional symbols, and that's a good way to create something complex that's easy to remember. It's actually in part based on a old library cipher so it's decent in itself.
Here's an example based on the classic (and too short) sentence found in many password texts:
"In my opinion Carthage should be destroyed"
First letters:
ImoCsbd"
Lamerized:
!m0C$bd
Now, in order to adapt this to - say slashdot - add some words to the sentence and then do the same:
"In my opinion /. rules and Carthage should be destroyed"
End result:
!m0/.r&C$bd
Even if you know the base password you wont be able to guess the unique password for each site. You should of course use a less known sentence for the base password and never reveal it. That way predicting the unique password will become as impossible as simply brute force guessing.
I have a regular non-wifi router and then behind that a separate wifi access point (WPA2 protected)... Am I safe from this attack then?
... like the whiskey and champagne they supposedly drink in the movies, it's just a prop
No rule without an exception... When J.R. Ewing drank whiskey in "Dallas" it was the real stuff. Larry Hagman who played J.R. had it in his contract. No cheap stuff either by the way. Surprisingly he's still around these days, although he's on his third liver and on the wagon... ;)
I went to see all three LoTR when they premiered at the cinemas, then went on to buy them on DVD and again when they came to Blu-ray. So did a lot of my friends. If that isn't enough to make a movie turn a profit, something is SERIOUSLY wrong!
Full of vague definitions and basically a huge mallet to hit those you don't like over the head with. Will be abused to do just about everything not stated in its purpose. Thankfully the CDA's were struck down in the Supreme Court because the vagueness opened a huge loophole in the protection of free speech.
Based on my understanding this bill can do the same - any domain that has something you don't like will also have something illegal somewhere and then SOPA can be used to kill it all - and I hope the Supreme Court repeats its protection rulings.
Why are there still countries in the so-called civilized world that actually bans stuff through censorship?
Not only is it morally wrong on every level; it also promotes piracy and circumvention. Are they stupid or just mind-numbingly dumb?
There shouldn't be any openly gay people in the military. Gays need to accept that the way they are is NOT the status quo, and they need to adapt to "normal" types of behavior and get out of this fantasy world they seem to think they live in.
They ARE behaving normally. They're gay and that's how gay people behave.
Being homosexual in not 'optional'. You can't 'cure' homosexuality. Most importantly for the homophobes: Homosexuality is NOT CONTAGIOUS!
Sure it isn't the 'biological norm' but so isn't so many other things as well. Just accept that some people functions differently than others, and as long as they express it between consenting adults it shouldn't be a problem for anyone.
Actually, linking to just about anything is illegal if it the number of clicks between it and pirate services doesn't matter. Almost anything links to a search engine and they all link to all the pirate services. So there.
It makes sense to say: "You can't directly to illegal stuff"
It also makes sense to say: "You can't link to pages that link directly to illegal stuff"
It makes NO sense to say: "You can't link to pages that link to something which through further links eventually links to illegal stuff"
- Because everything to the Internet eventually leads to illegal stuff - illegal somewhere in any case. There has to be an exact limit on the click distance for it to make sense. The other thing can't be verified and will get you into trouble if someone is out to get you, because you can't avoid doing the wrong thing.
Oh, and all search engines fail on every count. You can search directly for torrents - or recent movies available on rapidshare, hotfile etc. - why is this not the primary target? - Because of Microsoft and Google both having whole buildings full of attack-trained lawyers? ;)
PS: I find just about everything I need in the scull and crossbones section using Google and download it directly from rapidshare, fileserve, hotfile, megaupload etc. - no need for Pirate Bay I'm afraid.
The plugins that used to display info on the status bar now show it on the addon bar instead.
So now you have the addon bar instead of the status bar if you want a place for your other addons to display their info/status... and the status information previously displayed in the status bar now pops up in addition to the addon bar... Stupid!
Installing the status-4-evar addon fixes it and moves the status messages back onto the addon bar effectively turning it into the good old status bar. I couldn't live without it now.
It does have an annoying bug though... If it gets disabled (like when FF changes major version but the addon author is a bit behind) the addon bar reverts to being just an addon bar without a place to put status messages (they don't revert to popping up, they just go missing) and the flexible space that kept the icons right aligned is gone as well, leaving them left aligned which looks strange and annoying.
In order to fix it you need either to bump the max version of the status-4-evar addon (like I did) or to revert FF to the previous version in which status-4-evar worked, go into status-4-evar's settings and switch the status messages back to popup and then re-upgrade FF. You also need to re-add the flexible space because a working status-4-evar will not re-add it automatically, leaving both the icons and the status messages left aligned so the icons jump right whenever there's a status message to display, and back left when it goes away, which is completely awful.