An 'EU army' is what NATO is really supposed to be, even if NATO has been around longer than the EU. Of course if they're all smart about it they'd better tool up now before Putin really starts accumulating some momentum.
Wartime economies run at a deficit even more so than in peacetime; why should Putin be any different? Besides which the more ground he gains the more resources he potentially has at his disposal -- by taking what he wants/needs. As someone else said: 'The Long Game'.
I'm guessing you know what you're talking about on this subject?;-)
Good or Evil, smart players on the World stage do indeed play the 'long game', and Putin is no exception. I think he's been thinking about this since back in his days with the KGB. His 'One Bad Day' that galvanized him and committed him to this path probably was the day the Wall fell.
I'd been thinking, like so many others, that Trump was in Vladamir Putins' pocket, either directly or indirectly, but now I'm starting to think that maybe that was misdirection; Trump might in fact be in Chinas' pocket. "How?", you say? Because I'd already been reading that some countries have started looking to China for leadership on environmental concerns, since it was becoming obvious that the current U.S. Administration wasn't going to be doing that anymore, and in fact would be turning back the clock on much climate-related legislation and action. Trumps' plan to 'Make America great again' appears to be amounting to 'Turning back Americas' calendar to the 1940s' and sticking it's head in the sand on many issues.
Moving forward Trumps' so-called 'America first' protectionism policy will continue to alienate even long-standing and steadfast allies of the U.S., and he will, apparently, finish the job started by the Bush family of traitors so far as alienating every nation on Earth and ceasing to be a World Leader in any sense of the word. The only hope we have is that current FBI and Senate investigations will find enough traitors in the White House to invalidate the entire Administration -- including that Dominionist, Pence. The U.S. would be better off at this point with the Speaker of the House in the Oval Office. Sadly all of this might take a year or more to happen and who knows how much more damage this pussy-grabbing Cheetoh-haired clown can do in the meantime. At least in 2020, when we have an opportunity to get someone (hopefully) more competent and trustworthy to do the job, we can then start the process of mending fences and apologizing profusely for all the utter stupidity. Sadly I may not see the world reputation of the United States repaired before I'm dead, there's quite a lot of it.
Meanwhile I sure hope all of you who voted for Trump enjoy unhealthy air, unhealthy tap water, more and more strange extreme weather, floods, droughts, unhealthy food, etc, because that's the administration you all voted for. Guess it'll Make America Great Again for Oncologists at least.
Got to start somewhere, don't you? I'm sure Genghis Khan started out with only a handful of men and a few horses. Rome wasn't built in a day. The U.S. started out as little British colony. Putin has risen through the ranks, by hook or by crook, any way he could, to rise to the top seat in the Russian government. Then he goes and successfully invades, occupies Crimea. From his perspective I'm sure he wishes things would move along a little quicker (he's not getting any younger) but I'm sure he thinks they're moving along well enough. How much more does someone like you need to see before you have to admit that he's looking to build a legacy for himself that'll get him in the history books?
Nonsense. What Putin wants is to make Russia into an empire again, but without all the baggage the Soviet Union had. A weak U.S. is a step towards weakening NATO, which is a major roadblock standing in the way of the conquest of Eastern Europe. Wouldn't at all be surprised if Russia was influencing the UK with regards to Brexit, since the UK leaving the EU will weaken the EU as well, which is to Russias' advantage, too. In general: Foment chaos in Europe, making it easier to build an empire. That's what Putin is after.
Oh, come on. Nobody is fooled by this, are you? Of course when Putin gave his cyberwarfare people their marching orders, they all knew that if caught they'd be disavowed by the State. Standard operating procedure. Every nation on the planet that has covert intelligence organizations does the same exact thing. Nothing to see here..
If you have the strength of your convictions behind that statement, then you should prove it to the world with this simple experiment: Go to your garage and get in your car. Leave the garage door closed, but roll down all the windows in the car. Start the car. Sit in it for an hour, and breathe deeply. Report back to us tomorrow on the results of this experiment. xD
Friend, there are three kinds of people in a discussion like this one: 1. People who like to stir things up whether they believe what they're saying or not (i.e. trolls)
2. People too dumb/naive/uninformed to understand what's going on, and/or are susceptible to media hype (we'll just call them 'fools')
3. People like you and I, who know that The Sky Is Not Falling, most of what we hear is HYPE, and that there's no reason to get all upset over it.
Before you all keep blathering on and on about 'self driving car' this and 'robot AI automation' that, how about you go on Netflix, or to Redbox, or the Internet, and go find a copy of Idiocracy to watch, and a copy of Wall-E to watch; that's the world we're headed towards. People needing to learn fewer and fewer things becuase they don't need to. A general attitiude of laziness. Why even exercise? You can just take a pill. Then when everything starts breaking down, no one will know how to fix anything. Cautionary tales on this theme have been written over and over again for decades and apparently none of you paid them any heed. If you can't see it happening then you're not looking hard enough.
That's the only reason why 'computer composed music' will ever be a Thing. Meanwhile people with actual taste will wonder "Who wrote this garbage? Oh, it's computer generated, no wonder it sounds totally uninspired and generic".
GREY. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO END UP BEING GREY. That's what your so-called 'AI'/Robot world has in store for you all: Nobody will have any incentive to learn anything or learn how to DO anything themselves. Everything will be done half-assed by some shitty algorithm or by some half-assed robot, nothing will be high quality, there will be no creativity, just bland, bland, bland, and tasteless, and when things break down everyone will panic and nothing will get done because nobody will know how to DO anything for themselves anymore. Your shitty 'self driving car' breaks down and you'll panic because you don't know how to get yourself anywhere. Your robot kitchen stiops working and you starve to death because you can't even boil water let alone cook food. You won't know how to fix anything because there was some other goddamned machine that fixes the other machines and you have no idea how any of it works anymore. You can't even dial a phone because your shitty voice-activated so-called 'AI' assistant isn't working.
Idiocracy becomes a real thing!
I feel sorry for you people. You're ALL going to become slaves to your machines, thinking they're 'freeing' you. Yeah sure. You'll be about as 'free' as animals in a zoo.
Meanwhile, over here on my side of the fence, are going to be the remaining few who actually know how to operate a motor vehicle, have actual knowledge and skills, and can take care of ourselves WITHOUT machines to do everything. Don't worry, we'll be benevolent masters when your fully mechanized fantasy falls apart.
Wow, I didn't know that was still a Thing, I thought laserprinters were cheap enough that anyone could buy one. I haven't owned one in years because they were such a ripoff.
unless you pay taxes or do something that will bring extra taxes in the future (education, maternity leave), you don't get to vote.
I think you may have hit on the thing that apparently I didn't see: Perhaps this is all a plot by (ironically) conservatives, to disenfranchise the masses; only the rich would be allowed to vote? Seriously, every time this UBI nonsense comes up I keep looking for the reason why ostensibly intelligent, sane people would think it's possible, and that just might be it. The logical extension of the idea would be that they'd actually put barriers up against people getting jobs (need a Masters degree, for instance) to keep people from being allowed to vote.
I think Silicon Valley officials need to check the water supply for lead contamination, because obviously this Congresscritter is suffering froma severe lead-poisoning-induced cognitive deficit; either that or he's in the back pocket of some foreign national that would like to destroy the U.S. economy. So-called 'Universal Basic Income' will not work on anything other than a tiny scale! Anyone with a 4-banger pocket calculator from a dollar store can figure out in about 10 seconds why it won't! Why can't people get this simple concept through their thick heads? THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH, DAMNIT!
remarkably stupid.
If they're going to insist on some retarded-ass 'pilot program', then SIGN ME UP, I'd love to live for FREE and just spend my days training on my bike and in the gym for road racing, not having to go to an actual JOB five days a week. After all I guess I'm a Special Snowflake and deserve to not be required to earn a living, right? Besides which being Gen-Y I won't live long enough to see the inevitable economic collapse UBI will cause so why should I give a damn? It's the Millennials' problem not mine, right?</sarcasm>
I'm no SJW but it seems to me that the difference between what men and women are paid to do identical work is a Real Thing, and it makes me shake my head in sadness that we're still living in a world where aside from sexism, there's also racism, bigotry, ignorance, superstition, and religious militantism. The human race is, at it's best, capable of so much more, able to reach so much higher than it currently does, yet we keep getting dragged down to a level just a hair above non-sentient animals, revealing our so-called 'civilization' to be just a paper-thin layer over the savages that, apparently, we still are, and that you stress us just a little bit and it gets torn away as easily as a sheet of paper. Google allegedly not paying women the same as men is just the tip of the iceberg.
These patent submissions make it seem like they're trying to count the number of viewers in the room, so they can charge "admission" for them.
Yep. And if they had their way and had the technology to do so, after some time had passed they'd wipe your memory of having seen a movie at all, so you'd have to pay to see it again and again and again. And they wonder why piracy is such a Thing like it is. They want to bleed everyone dry for goddamned entertainment, preferably screwing the actual content creators in the process. Yeah, this guy who wants to do this? He can go eff himself. All his 'patents' are going to end up about as useful and valuable as the DivX 'rental' system (look that one up).
1. Hollywood/MPAA will never go for it.
2. Theatre industry will fight it tooth and nail.
Assuming he manages to get past #1 and #2:
3. His 'anti-piracy' ideas are HIGHLY invasive of people's privacy.
3a. Who the bloody hell told him it's his business how many friends and family I have over to watch a goddamned movie!? Bugger off!
4. All you'd need to pirate a movie in your house is an HD movie camera. His 'watermarking' can be defeated like all other anti-piracy can be deafeated.
5. After you've pirated a copy with your HD movie camera, you use Tor to upload it or bittorrent it to others, which makes it pretty much untraceable to you.
6. #4 is just for the technological neophytes. The more talented pirates will break all his anti-piracy tech and make direct digital copies anyway, then #5 happens.
7. If he manages to get past all the above unscathed: the cost per movie view will likely be higher than a theatre because of #1 and #2; who the hell wants to pay that for a movie shot to be seen on a theatre-sized screen? Sounds like a ripoff.
File all the patents you want, buddy, it'll get you nowhere.
I'm not a Millennial, I'm Gen-Y, but when you're living in an ever-increasingly dystopian world, what's the point in 'planning for the future'? That's how I think they're seeing things.
Slashdot Mirror
An 'EU army' is what NATO is really supposed to be, even if NATO has been around longer than the EU. Of course if they're all smart about it they'd better tool up now before Putin really starts accumulating some momentum.
Wartime economies run at a deficit even more so than in peacetime; why should Putin be any different? Besides which the more ground he gains the more resources he potentially has at his disposal -- by taking what he wants/needs. As someone else said: 'The Long Game'.
'helsinki92', indeed, sir!
I'm guessing you know what you're talking about on this subject? ;-)
Good or Evil, smart players on the World stage do indeed play the 'long game', and Putin is no exception. I think he's been thinking about this since back in his days with the KGB. His 'One Bad Day' that galvanized him and committed him to this path probably was the day the Wall fell.
I'd been thinking, like so many others, that Trump was in Vladamir Putins' pocket, either directly or indirectly, but now I'm starting to think that maybe that was misdirection; Trump might in fact be in Chinas' pocket. "How?", you say? Because I'd already been reading that some countries have started looking to China for leadership on environmental concerns, since it was becoming obvious that the current U.S. Administration wasn't going to be doing that anymore, and in fact would be turning back the clock on much climate-related legislation and action. Trumps' plan to 'Make America great again' appears to be amounting to 'Turning back Americas' calendar to the 1940s' and sticking it's head in the sand on many issues.
Moving forward Trumps' so-called 'America first' protectionism policy will continue to alienate even long-standing and steadfast allies of the U.S., and he will, apparently, finish the job started by the Bush family of traitors so far as alienating every nation on Earth and ceasing to be a World Leader in any sense of the word. The only hope we have is that current FBI and Senate investigations will find enough traitors in the White House to invalidate the entire Administration -- including that Dominionist, Pence. The U.S. would be better off at this point with the Speaker of the House in the Oval Office. Sadly all of this might take a year or more to happen and who knows how much more damage this pussy-grabbing Cheetoh-haired clown can do in the meantime. At least in 2020, when we have an opportunity to get someone (hopefully) more competent and trustworthy to do the job, we can then start the process of mending fences and apologizing profusely for all the utter stupidity. Sadly I may not see the world reputation of the United States repaired before I'm dead, there's quite a lot of it.
Meanwhile I sure hope all of you who voted for Trump enjoy unhealthy air, unhealthy tap water, more and more strange extreme weather, floods, droughts, unhealthy food, etc, because that's the administration you all voted for. Guess it'll Make America Great Again for Oncologists at least.
"There" is no empire in their future
Got to start somewhere, don't you? I'm sure Genghis Khan started out with only a handful of men and a few horses. Rome wasn't built in a day. The U.S. started out as little British colony. Putin has risen through the ranks, by hook or by crook, any way he could, to rise to the top seat in the Russian government. Then he goes and successfully invades, occupies Crimea. From his perspective I'm sure he wishes things would move along a little quicker (he's not getting any younger) but I'm sure he thinks they're moving along well enough. How much more does someone like you need to see before you have to admit that he's looking to build a legacy for himself that'll get him in the history books?
Yep. Just like that.
Nonsense. What Putin wants is to make Russia into an empire again, but without all the baggage the Soviet Union had. A weak U.S. is a step towards weakening NATO, which is a major roadblock standing in the way of the conquest of Eastern Europe. Wouldn't at all be surprised if Russia was influencing the UK with regards to Brexit, since the UK leaving the EU will weaken the EU as well, which is to Russias' advantage, too. In general: Foment chaos in Europe, making it easier to build an empire. That's what Putin is after.
Oh, come on. Nobody is fooled by this, are you? Of course when Putin gave his cyberwarfare people their marching orders, they all knew that if caught they'd be disavowed by the State. Standard operating procedure. Every nation on the planet that has covert intelligence organizations does the same exact thing. Nothing to see here..
If you have the strength of your convictions behind that statement, then you should prove it to the world with this simple experiment: Go to your garage and get in your car. Leave the garage door closed, but roll down all the windows in the car. Start the car. Sit in it for an hour, and breathe deeply. Report back to us tomorrow on the results of this experiment. xD
Friend, there are three kinds of people in a discussion like this one:
1. People who like to stir things up whether they believe what they're saying or not (i.e. trolls)
2. People too dumb/naive/uninformed to understand what's going on, and/or are susceptible to media hype (we'll just call them 'fools')
3. People like you and I, who know that The Sky Is Not Falling, most of what we hear is HYPE, and that there's no reason to get all upset over it.
I already covered all this in the previous story on this subject.
Before you all keep blathering on and on about 'self driving car' this and 'robot AI automation' that, how about you go on Netflix, or to Redbox, or the Internet, and go find a copy of Idiocracy to watch, and a copy of Wall-E to watch; that's the world we're headed towards. People needing to learn fewer and fewer things becuase they don't need to. A general attitiude of laziness. Why even exercise? You can just take a pill. Then when everything starts breaking down, no one will know how to fix anything. Cautionary tales on this theme have been written over and over again for decades and apparently none of you paid them any heed. If you can't see it happening then you're not looking hard enough.
That's all bullshit too.
In this day and age I don't believe them for a single moment.
That's the only reason why 'computer composed music' will ever be a Thing. Meanwhile people with actual taste will wonder "Who wrote this garbage? Oh, it's computer generated, no wonder it sounds totally uninspired and generic".
GREY. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO END UP BEING GREY. That's what your so-called 'AI'/Robot world has in store for you all: Nobody will have any incentive to learn anything or learn how to DO anything themselves. Everything will be done half-assed by some shitty algorithm or by some half-assed robot, nothing will be high quality, there will be no creativity, just bland, bland, bland, and tasteless, and when things break down everyone will panic and nothing will get done because nobody will know how to DO anything for themselves anymore. Your shitty 'self driving car' breaks down and you'll panic because you don't know how to get yourself anywhere. Your robot kitchen stiops working and you starve to death because you can't even boil water let alone cook food. You won't know how to fix anything because there was some other goddamned machine that fixes the other machines and you have no idea how any of it works anymore. You can't even dial a phone because your shitty voice-activated so-called 'AI' assistant isn't working.
Idiocracy becomes a real thing!
I feel sorry for you people. You're ALL going to become slaves to your machines, thinking they're 'freeing' you. Yeah sure. You'll be about as 'free' as animals in a zoo.
Meanwhile, over here on my side of the fence, are going to be the remaining few who actually know how to operate a motor vehicle, have actual knowledge and skills, and can take care of ourselves WITHOUT machines to do everything. Don't worry, we'll be benevolent masters when your fully mechanized fantasy falls apart.
Wow, I didn't know that was still a Thing, I thought laserprinters were cheap enough that anyone could buy one. I haven't owned one in years because they were such a ripoff.
Trololololol
unless you pay taxes or do something that will bring extra taxes in the future (education, maternity leave), you don't get to vote.
I think you may have hit on the thing that apparently I didn't see: Perhaps this is all a plot by (ironically) conservatives, to disenfranchise the masses; only the rich would be allowed to vote? Seriously, every time this UBI nonsense comes up I keep looking for the reason why ostensibly intelligent, sane people would think it's possible, and that just might be it. The logical extension of the idea would be that they'd actually put barriers up against people getting jobs (need a Masters degree, for instance) to keep people from being allowed to vote.
I think Silicon Valley officials need to check the water supply for lead contamination, because obviously this Congresscritter is suffering froma severe lead-poisoning-induced cognitive deficit; either that or he's in the back pocket of some foreign national that would like to destroy the U.S. economy. So-called 'Universal Basic Income' will not work on anything other than a tiny scale! Anyone with a 4-banger pocket calculator from a dollar store can figure out in about 10 seconds why it won't! Why can't people get this simple concept through their thick heads? THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH, DAMNIT!
remarkably stupid.
If they're going to insist on some retarded-ass 'pilot program', then SIGN ME UP, I'd love to live for FREE and just spend my days training on my bike and in the gym for road racing, not having to go to an actual JOB five days a week. After all I guess I'm a Special Snowflake and deserve to not be required to earn a living, right? Besides which being Gen-Y I won't live long enough to see the inevitable economic collapse UBI will cause so why should I give a damn? It's the Millennials' problem not mine, right?</sarcasm>
Perhaps I should have said 'wilfull ignorance' for those of you too hung up on literal dictionary definitions to get the meaning from the context.
I'm no SJW but it seems to me that the difference between what men and women are paid to do identical work is a Real Thing, and it makes me shake my head in sadness that we're still living in a world where aside from sexism, there's also racism, bigotry, ignorance, superstition, and religious militantism. The human race is, at it's best, capable of so much more, able to reach so much higher than it currently does, yet we keep getting dragged down to a level just a hair above non-sentient animals, revealing our so-called 'civilization' to be just a paper-thin layer over the savages that, apparently, we still are, and that you stress us just a little bit and it gets torn away as easily as a sheet of paper. Google allegedly not paying women the same as men is just the tip of the iceberg.
These patent submissions make it seem like they're trying to count the number of viewers in the room, so they can charge "admission" for them.
Yep. And if they had their way and had the technology to do so, after some time had passed they'd wipe your memory of having seen a movie at all, so you'd have to pay to see it again and again and again. And they wonder why piracy is such a Thing like it is. They want to bleed everyone dry for goddamned entertainment, preferably screwing the actual content creators in the process. Yeah, this guy who wants to do this? He can go eff himself. All his 'patents' are going to end up about as useful and valuable as the DivX 'rental' system (look that one up).
1. Hollywood/MPAA will never go for it.
2. Theatre industry will fight it tooth and nail.
Assuming he manages to get past #1 and #2:
3. His 'anti-piracy' ideas are HIGHLY invasive of people's privacy.
3a. Who the bloody hell told him it's his business how many friends and family I have over to watch a goddamned movie!? Bugger off!
4. All you'd need to pirate a movie in your house is an HD movie camera. His 'watermarking' can be defeated like all other anti-piracy can be deafeated.
5. After you've pirated a copy with your HD movie camera, you use Tor to upload it or bittorrent it to others, which makes it pretty much untraceable to you.
6. #4 is just for the technological neophytes. The more talented pirates will break all his anti-piracy tech and make direct digital copies anyway, then #5 happens.
7. If he manages to get past all the above unscathed: the cost per movie view will likely be higher than a theatre because of #1 and #2; who the hell wants to pay that for a movie shot to be seen on a theatre-sized screen? Sounds like a ripoff.
File all the patents you want, buddy, it'll get you nowhere.
I dunno about anything else you said, but you really need to learn how to embed hyperlinks properly in comments. Here, let me help you:
:-)
<a href="{your hyperlink here}">{word or phrase describing hyperlink here}</a>
You're welcome.
I'm not a Millennial, I'm Gen-Y, but when you're living in an ever-increasingly dystopian world, what's the point in 'planning for the future'? That's how I think they're seeing things.