Actually in an ironic twist, the Black Helicopters comment was more a statement of fact than any attempt at hyperbole or the like. The Neighborhood of Traverse Mountain, which is in the city of Lehi, Utah, sits on the Traverse Mountains which seperate Salt Lake County and Utah county, these mountains are split by the Jordan River, and I-15. On the opposide of the river from Traverse Mountain, sits Camp Williams, a National Guard Training camp which actually has black helicopters flying around it (Blackhawks and Apache's) on a daily basis.
Well as the Traverse Mountain neighborhood is just across the highway from an active National Guard training camp there are actually black helicopters flying around quite often. Almost daily in fact.
I do the same thing. If I hadn't consolidated my account with my wifes, I would be sitting on year number five without a contract. When a phone is wearing out, I just ebay a replacement (for much less than what the stores would want), slip the sim from the old one to the new one and keep on going.
I don't waste time with the AT&T stores or people, I just move the card over, and continue. Neither of us are real heavy users, so we haven't needed to upgrade our plan other than when we consolidated the two plans into one.
The first time I ebayed a phone it was because I lost my phone. That was the last time I had anything to do with a store, they canceled the old sim, coded me a new one, which I put into an old phone I borrowed from my brother. I then ebayed me a new phone and got back to having cool features. Once that phone started wearing out, I hit ebay again.
The survey site and article are targeted at folks in the UK, where the legality of using an open wi-fi spot isn't as open as here in the US. Here, the FCC has said that if there is no attempt to lock it down, it's free game. There the rules are different. Thus the article is able to claim the act is illegal.
Absolutely it's odd, since Hezbollah wasn't really able to listen in on the Israeli radio's, they just used Direction Finding to locate where the Israelies were broadcasting from, and used that to plot where the Israelies were and where they were going.
There was no great security hack, just monitoring and DF'ing the encrypted radio traffic. I don't need to know what is actually said. If I can track the enemies location by simple DF'ing of their communications, I can quickly locate them and then track their movements. And when that indicates that a large number of radio's are moving up the valley towards my position, I know to be ready to attack, defend or run.
I too find it hard to believe anything malicious. And why the hell is congress wasting their time and our money on this. Take a look at NASA's World Wind images. They also show Pre-Katrina NO.
T-Mobile and AOL are owned by the same parent company
Since when? AOL is part of Time Warner, T-Mobile is the US branch of Deutsch Telekom. Now while DT did or does manage the AOL Germany service, AOL is not part of T-Mobile.
And then there is the issue of whether or not the real 800 pound gorilla of format wars and technology will back these new formats. This article on the Reg has an insightful article as to why the Porn industry is taking its sweet time to embrace Hi-Def regardless of the version.
If that industry is hesitant to back the technology, it's as good as dead.
Forget Diplomacy, lets assume everyone hates the USA.Okay, but where is this mythical war being fought? Mexico and Canada would have to go it alone for it to be on our soil.
Our fleet of Subs and Carriers can sweep the seas clean. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY has force projection capacity anywhere near what the US does, The brits were very lucky in their efforts on the Falklands, they barely had the capcity then and no longer have the carrier they had at that time.
Once we swept the seas, we could selectively pound the Capitols of the world into submission. Oh but we don't even have to do that. In western Europe, for example, just send one sorty of B2's across their sky's and level a few major manufacturing areas or a major port.
And that of course is why this debate is so rediculous, because with just a couple exceptions[China, North Korea and maybe Russia) no country with any amount of capacity for war (i.e. modern equipment) would be interested in war with the US and vise versa. Our standards of living are too nice.
Europe in particular still remembers what it was like at the end of WWII, as does Japan and South Korea post the Korean war. They contrast that near-total destruction, devestation and associated starvation with their current technological societies and lifestyles and lose all desire to have a war fought on their own soil. Add to that the lack of force projection ability by anyone else in the world, meaning that such a war could not be brought to US soil.
This debate has been amusing but is very, very unrealistic.
Actually we just can't cram soldiers through the Defense Language Institute's Arabic programs fast enough. It takes at minimum a year to achieve a basic conversational proficiency.
Actually it's even better than that. The local police requested that the US and other NATO bases report when ever a CD dealer would set up shop in his car outside the gate of a base. Why? Because the guy selling out of his car at the base entrance wasn't paying taxes on his profits.
Whereas we could go into any of the CD shops in town and get the same disks for just a few cents more. Or we could even go onto the NATO Base where there was a CD shop and again pay that same cheap rate. With the exchange rate in 2001 it cost $2.50 per disk and thats how everything was sold, on a per disk basis. A CD with hundreds of MP3's or a direct bootleg of a just released Album, or a copy of the latest version of MS Office or any other software you wanted was just $2.50.
And as to bringing said bootleg CD's home, all Customs cared was that you were not bringing multiple copies of the same product back to try to sell.
I was stationed with the US Army in your beautiful little country in 2001 when the NLA tried to spread the Kosovo Fighting into Macedonia. Unlike most troops there I had a job that allowed and even required me to travel around your country extensively rather than remaining stuck on Camp Able Sentry or limited to the supply route to Kosovo
The US did not then and has not since supported any Albanian terrorists or even seperatists who were operating, or who even wanted to operate in Macedonia. We really haven't even supported those so inclined who live and operate in Kosovo, since we entered into Kosvo, if anything most of our effort is spent protecting Serbs from harassment and discrimination. We supported the Lawfully elected Macedonian Government (though we did encourage a few reformations to reduce the discrimination the Albanian minority thought it was suffereing, sometimes truthfully sometimes not.)
The funniest thing about that entire Insurgency/Civil War/Call it what you will, is that the entire time the NLA was certain that any day we were going to start helping them either actively with troops, or with weapons or supplies. But we never did. The US always supported the government, mostly with monetary aid.
Your accusation at the end of your post is unfounded and uncalled for. Although not really unexpected. Most the time we were there we were constantly being asked if the US still hated the Serbs. Which of course we the US never did, we just hated what some of them had been doing to Kosovars, and what they had done to non-Serbian Bosnians and Croats.
As to supporting Macedonians, we've had troops in Macedonia since it declared independance and asked for UN Peacekeepers to keep Serbia from trying anything like it did when other states broke off from Yugoslavia. We joined that mission and supported it until the Kosovo War. We transitioned our base to be the rear support base for our main force in Kosovo. We remained there until a couple years ago when we moved those support personnel up to Pristina in Kosovo.
Since the day The Republic of Macedonia (I heartily disagree with the politcally correct FYROM) declared independence, the US has supported the it and it's lawfully elected Government, and thus the majority of the people. We have supported your troops and police. We poured tons of money into your economy, and we definatly did not help the NLA or any follow-on groups.
Oh and as to the original article, yea Piracy is big there, I myself brought home a few disks with software and music on them. Hey, they were cheap and it poured some money into the economy. Oh, and on a non-piracy note, my wife really likes the custom tailored tux I got there that I wore on our wedding day. $100 (US) for a hand tailored Tux, awsome for a really skinny guy like me who has trouble finding clothes that fit.
While I've got to agree with swillden here(no the similarities of our names is not coincidental), I would like to note that this year at least, On the 4th you frozen water skiers can do so at snowbird ski resort, while we liquid water skiers are out playing on our favorite reservoirs.
Oh one correction though, what do you mean "A" rifle?
The condition of Congressionally declared war and a state of war or hostilities are actually different matters. You are correct in that a Congressionally declared war did not exist, but as a matter of treaty support for South Korea we did initiate hostilities whith North Korea, and said hostilities are only in a status of Cease-fire, not peace, thus we are still at war with North Korea, not because we declared war in congress but because we went to war in honor of a treaty we had made.
WhoTF said that it is ok for the USA to have nukes but not ok for Iraq, NK or else? And WhoTF asked the USA to enforce this?
It's called the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty. Several years ago all the nuke capable countries got together and said, "Hey these things really are not a good idea, and since none of us will agree to disarm, lets at least prohibit the spread of these weapons to any more nations." At the time, the nuke powers were all aiming their wepas at each other (a little thing called the cold war), but those nations did participate in continual diplomatic relations to ensure that said weapons would not be used.
As the US and the UK currently seem to be the only Nuclear powers with the capability and the will to enforce non-proliferation, we will continue to work to get Iran to stop their development. NK is a different animal, we will continue diplomatic methods, which will most likely consist of strongly encourageing China to get involved. While China and NK tend to get along better than NK and anyone else, they are not die hard allies, and China does have influnce and a definate interest in exerting it.
One more thing on Iran, if we can't convince them to stop their developement, we won't have to attack. Israel will not allow any proliferation in that region. They bombed Iraqi reactors in 84 and they will do it again, without hesitation, it is a matter of national survival for them.
Excuse me ? just what country has "declared war" on N. Korea ?!? who cares enough to attack it ? this isn't the 50's where you have the commies using Korea as a battleground to fight the free world.
A state of war has existed since the cease fire that ended the Korean war. No peace treaty has ever been signed, just a ceasefire. So officially, South Korea, the US, and even to a degree the UN are still at war with North Korea.
A couple points, the length of sms format text messages being 160 is actually part of the standard. The longer messages you are able to send are sent as emails.
My second point is, I work for Sprint(through a contractor) as a customer service rep and it is amazing how often I try to advise people, who have large bills from text messaging or internet usage, about the unlimited usage planss, and they don't want to get the option added because it will cost them more money. This inspite of the fact that their bills have been outrageous for months becasue of the messaging or internet overages.
Of course I see the same thing with basic minute plans, but changing basic minute plans usually requires a new contract whereas the attachable options do not. And the thought of having to extend the period of indentured servitude is often enough to make people balk at such changes.
Why not? Factory zeros exist for a reason. Their existance is not secret nor sensitive, and the first thing anyone in charge of a security container should do is change the combo. Then follow it up with regular combo changes.
It's the same as with the default admin accounts on networking gear. You install the gear, configure it, then set or change the password.
And anyone who goes to the expense of purchasing a security container (particularly the GSA ones Fenyman would have run into at Los Alamos) who does not ensure that proper combination security procedures are followed is a fool who deserves to loose whatever was kept in the container. As well as suffer the legal penalties if the contained items are sensitive in nature.
I wonder about that story since most GSA approved security containers tend to use one of two major lock mechanisms (one is very easy to change the other moderately easy) and they both have factory zeros of 50-25-50. That was the case with the analog mechanisms. And now that I think about it, all the new digital ones have the same zero as well.
Now I could see lazy users setting the combos to something easy to remember like 60-30-60 or such, but they don't come from the factory with either of the two settings you mentioned.
I wander what all the 'hunters' that like to be in 'contact with their environment', 'hone' the skills necessary to keep their families fed (?) and keep animal populations 'viable' , will say about the honter who decided to FPS with real people and bullets just the other day.
That the person who did that is no Hunter, rather he is a murder who should be at least locked away for a long time. Just because someone picks up a rifle and dresses in orange, does not make him/her a hunter.
Well/.ers will just love the name flying around my state today, Orrin (servant of the RIAA) Hatch. The only good thing about that appointment is that it would get him out of the Senate.
And neither of those graphs seem to give any allowance for the dot-com crash, or the events of 9/11.
Remember, the crash had started before Bush was elected, add to that the economic impacts of the Argentinian Economic crisis of 2001(heavier economic impact for Citigroup than 9/11 for example), and the devastating impact on the us and global economies of 9/11. Billions of dollars lost, equaled millions of jobs lost.
I don't dispute that Bush could have put more focus on the economy and posibly turned it around. However to simply blame Bush for the loss of the jobs is foolish ignorance of the real causes.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually in an ironic twist, the Black Helicopters comment was more a statement of fact than any attempt at hyperbole or the like. The Neighborhood of Traverse Mountain, which is in the city of Lehi, Utah, sits on the Traverse Mountains which seperate Salt Lake County and Utah county, these mountains are split by the Jordan River, and I-15. On the opposide of the river from Traverse Mountain, sits Camp Williams, a National Guard Training camp which actually has black helicopters flying around it (Blackhawks and Apache's) on a daily basis.
Well as the Traverse Mountain neighborhood is just across the highway from an active National Guard training camp there are actually black helicopters flying around quite often. Almost daily in fact.
I do the same thing. If I hadn't consolidated my account with my wifes, I would be sitting on year number five without a contract. When a phone is wearing out, I just ebay a replacement (for much less than what the stores would want), slip the sim from the old one to the new one and keep on going.
I don't waste time with the AT&T stores or people, I just move the card over, and continue. Neither of us are real heavy users, so we haven't needed to upgrade our plan other than when we consolidated the two plans into one.
The first time I ebayed a phone it was because I lost my phone. That was the last time I had anything to do with a store, they canceled the old sim, coded me a new one, which I put into an old phone I borrowed from my brother. I then ebayed me a new phone and got back to having cool features. Once that phone started wearing out, I hit ebay again.
I've been looking for it. But the bookmark to the orignal article I had on this has gone bad. So no I cannot verify that. My apologies.
The survey site and article are targeted at folks in the UK, where the legality of using an open wi-fi spot isn't as open as here in the US. Here, the FCC has said that if there is no attempt to lock it down, it's free game. There the rules are different. Thus the article is able to claim the act is illegal.
Absolutely it's odd, since Hezbollah wasn't really able to listen in on the Israeli radio's, they just used Direction Finding to locate where the Israelies were broadcasting from, and used that to plot where the Israelies were and where they were going.
There was no great security hack, just monitoring and DF'ing the encrypted radio traffic. I don't need to know what is actually said. If I can track the enemies location by simple DF'ing of their communications, I can quickly locate them and then track their movements. And when that indicates that a large number of radio's are moving up the valley towards my position, I know to be ready to attack, defend or run.
The name Woot is already taken by http://www.woot.com/
I too find it hard to believe anything malicious. And why the hell is congress wasting their time and our money on this. Take a look at NASA's World Wind images. They also show Pre-Katrina NO.
Since when? AOL is part of Time Warner, T-Mobile is the US branch of Deutsch Telekom. Now while DT did or does manage the AOL Germany service, AOL is not part of T-Mobile.
If that industry is hesitant to back the technology, it's as good as dead.
Our fleet of Subs and Carriers can sweep the seas clean. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY has force projection capacity anywhere near what the US does, The brits were very lucky in their efforts on the Falklands, they barely had the capcity then and no longer have the carrier they had at that time.
Once we swept the seas, we could selectively pound the Capitols of the world into submission. Oh but we don't even have to do that. In western Europe, for example, just send one sorty of B2's across their sky's and level a few major manufacturing areas or a major port.
And that of course is why this debate is so rediculous, because with just a couple exceptions[China, North Korea and maybe Russia) no country with any amount of capacity for war (i.e. modern equipment) would be interested in war with the US and vise versa. Our standards of living are too nice.
Europe in particular still remembers what it was like at the end of WWII, as does Japan and South Korea post the Korean war. They contrast that near-total destruction, devestation and associated starvation with their current technological societies and lifestyles and lose all desire to have a war fought on their own soil. Add to that the lack of force projection ability by anyone else in the world, meaning that such a war could not be brought to US soil.
This debate has been amusing but is very, very unrealistic.
Actually we just can't cram soldiers through the Defense Language Institute's Arabic programs fast enough. It takes at minimum a year to achieve a basic conversational proficiency.
Whereas we could go into any of the CD shops in town and get the same disks for just a few cents more. Or we could even go onto the NATO Base where there was a CD shop and again pay that same cheap rate. With the exchange rate in 2001 it cost $2.50 per disk and thats how everything was sold, on a per disk basis. A CD with hundreds of MP3's or a direct bootleg of a just released Album, or a copy of the latest version of MS Office or any other software you wanted was just $2.50.
And as to bringing said bootleg CD's home, all Customs cared was that you were not bringing multiple copies of the same product back to try to sell.
The US did not then and has not since supported any Albanian terrorists or even seperatists who were operating, or who even wanted to operate in Macedonia. We really haven't even supported those so inclined who live and operate in Kosovo, since we entered into Kosvo, if anything most of our effort is spent protecting Serbs from harassment and discrimination. We supported the Lawfully elected Macedonian Government (though we did encourage a few reformations to reduce the discrimination the Albanian minority thought it was suffereing, sometimes truthfully sometimes not.)
The funniest thing about that entire Insurgency/Civil War/Call it what you will, is that the entire time the NLA was certain that any day we were going to start helping them either actively with troops, or with weapons or supplies. But we never did. The US always supported the government, mostly with monetary aid.
Your accusation at the end of your post is unfounded and uncalled for. Although not really unexpected. Most the time we were there we were constantly being asked if the US still hated the Serbs. Which of course we the US never did, we just hated what some of them had been doing to Kosovars, and what they had done to non-Serbian Bosnians and Croats.
As to supporting Macedonians, we've had troops in Macedonia since it declared independance and asked for UN Peacekeepers to keep Serbia from trying anything like it did when other states broke off from Yugoslavia. We joined that mission and supported it until the Kosovo War. We transitioned our base to be the rear support base for our main force in Kosovo. We remained there until a couple years ago when we moved those support personnel up to Pristina in Kosovo.
Since the day The Republic of Macedonia (I heartily disagree with the politcally correct FYROM) declared independence, the US has supported the it and it's lawfully elected Government, and thus the majority of the people. We have supported your troops and police. We poured tons of money into your economy, and we definatly did not help the NLA or any follow-on groups.
Oh and as to the original article, yea Piracy is big there, I myself brought home a few disks with software and music on them. Hey, they were cheap and it poured some money into the economy. Oh, and on a non-piracy note, my wife really likes the custom tailored tux I got there that I wore on our wedding day. $100 (US) for a hand tailored Tux, awsome for a really skinny guy like me who has trouble finding clothes that fit.
Oh one correction though, what do you mean "A" rifle?
The condition of Congressionally declared war and a state of war or hostilities are actually different matters. You are correct in that a Congressionally declared war did not exist, but as a matter of treaty support for South Korea we did initiate hostilities whith North Korea, and said hostilities are only in a status of Cease-fire, not peace, thus we are still at war with North Korea, not because we declared war in congress but because we went to war in honor of a treaty we had made.
As the US and the UK currently seem to be the only Nuclear powers with the capability and the will to enforce non-proliferation, we will continue to work to get Iran to stop their development. NK is a different animal, we will continue diplomatic methods, which will most likely consist of strongly encourageing China to get involved. While China and NK tend to get along better than NK and anyone else, they are not die hard allies, and China does have influnce and a definate interest in exerting it.
One more thing on Iran, if we can't convince them to stop their developement, we won't have to attack. Israel will not allow any proliferation in that region. They bombed Iraqi reactors in 84 and they will do it again, without hesitation, it is a matter of national survival for them.
The analog networks are still there, and even expanding in some areas of the west where digital just doesn't have the range to be feasible.
My second point is, I work for Sprint(through a contractor) as a customer service rep and it is amazing how often I try to advise people, who have large bills from text messaging or internet usage, about the unlimited usage planss, and they don't want to get the option added because it will cost them more money. This inspite of the fact that their bills have been outrageous for months becasue of the messaging or internet overages.
Of course I see the same thing with basic minute plans, but changing basic minute plans usually requires a new contract whereas the attachable options do not. And the thought of having to extend the period of indentured servitude is often enough to make people balk at such changes.
It's the same as with the default admin accounts on networking gear. You install the gear, configure it, then set or change the password.
And anyone who goes to the expense of purchasing a security container (particularly the GSA ones Fenyman would have run into at Los Alamos) who does not ensure that proper combination security procedures are followed is a fool who deserves to loose whatever was kept in the container. As well as suffer the legal penalties if the contained items are sensitive in nature.
Now I could see lazy users setting the combos to something easy to remember like 60-30-60 or such, but they don't come from the factory with either of the two settings you mentioned.
Well /.ers will just love the name flying around my state today, Orrin (servant of the RIAA) Hatch. The only good thing about that appointment is that it would get him out of the Senate.
Remember, the crash had started before Bush was elected, add to that the economic impacts of the Argentinian Economic crisis of 2001(heavier economic impact for Citigroup than 9/11 for example), and the devastating impact on the us and global economies of 9/11. Billions of dollars lost, equaled millions of jobs lost.
I don't dispute that Bush could have put more focus on the economy and posibly turned it around. However to simply blame Bush for the loss of the jobs is foolish ignorance of the real causes.