I imagine it is a lot of various forums for different hobbies people have. If you can think of a hobby, I'm sure someone will have a forum and maybe a wiki as part of it. That's a lot of websites and most of them are likely pretty old but the information is still useful and valid.
I think you are confusing dumb with power seeking. Our politicians may not be nerds (that's putting it lightly) but I would not say they are stupid. People that help other people run for president are either terribly ideological or think they are going to somehow advance if their person wins. If you backed Trump and he wins, there is a solid chance you will be rewarded.
The FBI people thought the same thing backing Hillary and then she lost. Just imagine, we may never have been made away of this whole Russian thing if Hillary would of won because there would of been no need.
It would of been business as usually. That's really why Trump won. Enough people were tired of business as usually, didn't feel they were getting any of the positive sides of "change" and were willing to watch things burn. Hence we have Trump.
It's had plenty of effect on US politics, what are you talking about? If this doesn't pan out for the Democrats, it will be their Benghazi moment. You know, the topic that will go on for years and ultimately produce nothing. They really need SOMETHING to stick, so Mueller better come up with something that will stick.
Honda doesn't require you only buy Honda approved parts to fix your car. You aren't forced to go to a Honda dealer to get a computer read out of your car.
I googled how you would side-load applications and found it's pretty straight-forward on Android that a normal user could handle it. On iphone the instructions have me downloading a development application of some sort and requiring source code of whatever applications I wanted to install. I stopped reading at this point as I don't even own an iphone but that's not very user-friendly, to say the least.
Apple and Google should both be required to allow 3rd-party app stores. If their app stores were not taking a cut then I could understand but even then, they get to control what software you get to run. That hardly seems fair and it wouldn't be okay on a laptop or desktop, so why is it okay on a cellphone?
But the grocery store does tend to put expensive liquor in a lock box and we most certainly keep the controlled drugs behind the counter in the pharmacy. We even lock up most of our baby formula. Sure, we have a few containers of each on the shelf but if someone needs more then 3 they have to come ask at the front desk.
Retail puts razor blade packages in these turn-style things that make lots of noise when you get one. It's tedious to get one out and everyone is aware you are doing it. The idea would be if someone was getting lots of them out an employee would hopefully notice and say something.
So security is not entirely an afterthought. We have money pickup at grocery stores too. An armored truck shows up with an armed guard that brings petty cash and coin and takes away our deposits.
Police body cams really don't need much security. Some, sure. Ideally they should not have network interfaces. A usb cable or docking station for the camera after each shift would be fine. The police themselves already provide physical security which is most of what is needed on a device that can't network.
Shame that isn't what the vendors sold the police.
I'm not so sure about adobe. I've had a couple of photographers tell me they wish they just had the subscription as opposed to their now outdated version of adobe. My wife got the subscription and some of the features she uses to touch things up are made much easier in the LIVE software vs prior years models. I'm sure you could use the prior years and get the same effects, but apparently they have changed it to make it easier.
Not really that into photography but that's what my wife and friends have told me about their experience with adobe.
I still generally agree with your post overall, but their are definitely edge cases.
Ideally that's how everything would work. Things would be network enabled, but not Internet enabled. That doesn't let companies try to control and harvest information from the general population though.
If I could control all the devices personally then I may consider adding some "smart" features to my home. I could see having critical devices such as AC, water heater and power meter reporting information to me and only me. If someone is wrong, it would be nice to know as someone else mentioned above. They could all connect to their own subnet and you could setup a VPN for your phone to connect to to receive the reports or setup an outgoing only mail to send the reports.
Since all the control seems to be withheld from the consumer, I can't see a compelling reason be a consumer of that market.
My local power company in San Diego, SDGE, offered all city people FREE upgraded Internet enabled thermostats they could control with a phone app. I don't live in the city so wasn't offered one.
My coworker took advantage of it and loves that he can of course mess with it. I immediately asked him if he was at all concerned someone other then himself could likely control his thermostat. Some teenager could jack his AC down to 64 or the heat up to 85. He shrugged it off.
A few weeks back, he noticed that SDGE remotely locked his thermostat to 78 on a "reduce your use day". I laughed my butt off to say the least.
I even recently upgraded my own thermostat and decided to go with the non Internet enabled option. Naturally I could only find a basic non-Internet device because if you want features you some how need the Internet. Sigh, whatever. I'm still happy the only devices that connect to the Internet in my home are cellphones, desktops and a single TV.
When you say, "feed the planet" who are you talking about that isn't getting enough food? I would venture to say most people that are experiencing food shortages on a regular basis likely have a failure of basic government as well.
If people are starving in Africa, how much is mother nature versus another band of outlaws coming along at taking everything by force? If their governments were more effective, this wouldn't be happening.
I'm pretty sure we have plenty of usable land and enough water. Those things may change in the future, but generally speaking, we have the food but getting it to everyone is an entirely different problem.
If living in poverty is not motivation enough to try to better yourself, I do not know what is. If you are making minimum wage in the fast food industry, why would you not want to attempt to get some education and get out of that job?
Heck, after working fast food for a year, you ought to have enough customer service skills that you could apply at insurance companies. A neighbor of mine just mentioned the starting pay was about $18 an hour. That's a lot better then $11-12 that minimum wage is in San Diego.
So really, I would say working in a shitty job should be the ultimate motivator.
You aren't the average person. How many people do not even reach average? I'm sure there are some talented people on this site that most certainly could create a bot that would pass for human in many fixed roles. Taking orders for food, insurance quotes, loan quotes, low level tech support and many more if I gave it some thought.
Most "bots" shouldn't be mentioned that because it's not important. If someone can think of a specific scenario where they feel the bot should inform them then maybe that should be looked at an potentially codified into law.
If the "bot" is following all the laws and is not actually a scam, I don't really see the problem. Depending on the person I have to talk to, I might be better off talking with the bot anyway. Though I rarely ever call a company and hear a foreign ascent anymore. Probably just a coincidence or I'm calling more local businesses.
Glad I never lived in mega city where I couldn't safely just ride my bike or gasp, buy a used car for a couple grand and be on my way. You don't have to work that much to maintain a paid off car with liability insurance, even as a young adult. You buy in at 2-3k for the car, insurance is 100-$150 a month and fuel is whatever you use.
That's incredibly doable if you are a teenager living at home working part time. If you have half way useful parents, they would probably help you out at least partially with the car purchase. If you can't afford $150 plus fuel then you aren't trying.
There is no dairy in "almond milk". Look at the label. The first ingredient is filtered water. So therefore, it is not almond flavored milk. It's actually almond flavored water.
Furthermore, if you really want to get good nutritional values from almonds, you would need a whole lot more then what you get out of that container. It uses a very small amount of actual almonds. Better off just eating a handful out of a jar.
Chocolate and strawberry milk are actually milk with powder mixes added for flavor. Along with lots of sugar. It's actually milk. Almond juice is not milk. Words have meaning for a reason.
No, she probably just went against established security policies for people with security clearance, which technically is not the law, but she did it on purpose and knowingly. Hillary is not stupid. She's pretty fucking intelligent actually. She's also really good at politics. She had a private email server so she could hide what she was doing from everyone. Why does an appointed official need to hide their communications from the government that she works for?
Whether or not her private email was safer is not the point and quite debatable. Government should be transparent. Her having a private email server is anything but transparent.
Without being signed in at google.com all you have to do is search bare breast and viola', you have lovely bare breast of all sizes and colors. How exactly are you going to prevent them from seeing this content again?
I suggest lots of education and embarrassing conversations with your child. Explaining to them that porn is fantasy and that it is not how relationships work. Explain what exactly sex is and don't dance around the subject. The penis goes inside the vagina. Pulling out isn't good enough because precum can get you preggers. If you can't have that conversation with your child, that's your failure as an adult.
If you think not telling them this will some how get them to not think or wonder about it, you are a delusional parent. Explain to them that having a kid means your life is now OVER!!!! Seriously, over. No going out with friends, no closing down the bars. No picking up guys/girls. No weekends away with all your friends at Las Vegas. You get to watch your kid. This is triple true with a baby.
Of course, if your teen gets preggers, that's almost entirely your failure as a parent as well. Ironically, or maybe not, many teens that have kids end up pawning the kid off onto the parent(s) anyway because they aren't mature enough to have the kid in the first place. It's pretty sad. Parent does such a bad job raising one kid, they end up getting to raise another and the cycle repeats.
I would expect at some point we will plunge ourselves into the dark ages through violent upheaval but then again, look at China and even more so, look at North Korea. Has the world done anything to help the typical North Korean? I think not. People can easily enough be suppressed, enslaved and killed unless a stronger group of people can stop them.
So ditch your phone and grab a bicycle. Use cash and never use discount cards. Don't order stuff online and get a PO box at the post office. Get a solar array setup that allows you to take your home off the grind. A water well is good too, but if you use city water/sewage as opposed to a septic system, they may require a meter on how much water you pump out (San Diego County does this).
Also, no Internet use for anything of importance and never YOUR Internet connection. Tor of public wifi helps here I suppose. Use encrypted email text only. Get all your friends to adopt a VoIP solution so you can securely communicate. It helps if you know how to setup all of this stuff yourself.
Not sure falling off the grid would even save you. It could very well act as a lightning rod for government to pay attention because why would someone go to all that effort for privacy unless they were up to something illegal.
I agree this shouldn't be necessary and it should be illegal to collect and track all this data, but good luck getting enough people to make that their number 1 voting issue and even better luck getting the politicians that runs on that platform to actually follow through with effective legislation. Not to mention funding for it at all necessary levels.
Swillden, that's a great choice. Really, all companies hiring non citizens are the only reason non citizens get jobs. If those companies would follow the law, finding under the table work would be much more difficult.
That's why there is really no difference between our parties. They just like to pretend. Both love illegals. They are used for cheap labor and as a political issue to get their bases going. Works for both "wings".
It depends on the individual races. Some of the democrats that are winning their primaries are farther to the left then they previously have been. This is scary for Republicans and they are pushing farther to the right. Republicans supporting Republicans will continue to happen just as Democrats will continue to support Democrats.
The ever increasing independent voter pool is the real thing to reach for, but only if your district has a large portion of them. All politics is local politics because if you keep your fan base set, it doesn't matter how your opposition feels.
I'm fairly middle of the road and I tend to jump between the parties so I can vote in the primaries that I care most about. When Ron Paul ran, I was a Republican and when Bernie ran I was a Democrat. Still a Democrat because the next presidential will have an important Democrat primary where I will be more interested in getting someone tolerable.
Unless of course Trump gets removed from office, then all bets are off. Ironic since I usually vote the Libertarian candidate in the general, but California isn't a swing state, so it doesn't matter anyway.
Excuse me, paying prime is paying for shipping. The only reason we(wife and I) keep using the service is because we order that much crap that the S&H would be terrible. So if the person doesn't deliver in a reasonable time and this becomes normal for my "free" two day shipping to turn into "free" whenever it gets here shipping, I'll be better off dropping my prime membership and just paying for shipping.
Amazon doesn't want me dropping prime, especially since I will likely put more effort into my shopping and other retailers sometimes offer truly free two day shipping. As it is, Amazon isn't always the cheapest and sometimes they only get the sale because I've already invested into their ecosystem with prime.
We haven't really become a space faring species just yet and there is still plenty of time for the world to go nuclear. The more our technology advances, the fewer people required to destroy the place.
While there is almost certainly intelligent life in the universe, we very well may never find it given how large even the observable universe, let alone the rest of it we can't see.
Maybe when we develop better telescopes we'll be able to see something we can't see today.
Or it could be that most advanced civilizations blow themselves up before truly becoming space faring.
They could install the switch and a cute little LED to show it is REALLY off, but then just let their system applications do whatever they were doing before. How would you truly verify it was working as you want it to work, aka with privacy in mind?
Unless you root the phone yourself or get some phone that's completely open source I don't see how you can KNOW it's safe.
The issue is not whether it is doable or not, because clearly it is doable. It's how much said service will cost the small business. It is just one more thing to add to the overhead of running said small business. With ever increasing regulatory burdens thrown onto a startup, it is no wonder there are fewer of them.
Perhaps if every state had a 100k threshold of sales in their state only, it might be nothing to worry about for a small business. If it means any business that does more then 100k period, then you are screwed.
If you only sell in one state, but online, you still have to keep track of things down to the county level. Brick and mortar store obviously has one single sales tax because all purchases are made on location.
So even being a small business in a large state with many counties and cities that all charge different sales tax is a burden.
Slashdot Mirror
I imagine it is a lot of various forums for different hobbies people have. If you can think of a hobby, I'm sure someone will have a forum and maybe a wiki as part of it. That's a lot of websites and most of them are likely pretty old but the information is still useful and valid.
I think you are confusing dumb with power seeking. Our politicians may not be nerds (that's putting it lightly) but I would not say they are stupid. People that help other people run for president are either terribly ideological or think they are going to somehow advance if their person wins. If you backed Trump and he wins, there is a solid chance you will be rewarded.
The FBI people thought the same thing backing Hillary and then she lost. Just imagine, we may never have been made away of this whole Russian thing if Hillary would of won because there would of been no need.
It would of been business as usually. That's really why Trump won. Enough people were tired of business as usually, didn't feel they were getting any of the positive sides of "change" and were willing to watch things burn. Hence we have Trump.
It's had plenty of effect on US politics, what are you talking about? If this doesn't pan out for the Democrats, it will be their Benghazi moment. You know, the topic that will go on for years and ultimately produce nothing. They really need SOMETHING to stick, so Mueller better come up with something that will stick.
Honda doesn't require you only buy Honda approved parts to fix your car. You aren't forced to go to a Honda dealer to get a computer read out of your car.
I googled how you would side-load applications and found it's pretty straight-forward on Android that a normal user could handle it. On iphone the instructions have me downloading a development application of some sort and requiring source code of whatever applications I wanted to install. I stopped reading at this point as I don't even own an iphone but that's not very user-friendly, to say the least.
Apple and Google should both be required to allow 3rd-party app stores. If their app stores were not taking a cut then I could understand but even then, they get to control what software you get to run. That hardly seems fair and it wouldn't be okay on a laptop or desktop, so why is it okay on a cellphone?
But the grocery store does tend to put expensive liquor in a lock box and we most certainly keep the controlled drugs behind the counter in the pharmacy. We even lock up most of our baby formula. Sure, we have a few containers of each on the shelf but if someone needs more then 3 they have to come ask at the front desk.
Retail puts razor blade packages in these turn-style things that make lots of noise when you get one. It's tedious to get one out and everyone is aware you are doing it. The idea would be if someone was getting lots of them out an employee would hopefully notice and say something.
So security is not entirely an afterthought. We have money pickup at grocery stores too. An armored truck shows up with an armed guard that brings petty cash and coin and takes away our deposits.
Police body cams really don't need much security. Some, sure. Ideally they should not have network interfaces. A usb cable or docking station for the camera after each shift would be fine. The police themselves already provide physical security which is most of what is needed on a device that can't network.
Shame that isn't what the vendors sold the police.
I'm not so sure about adobe. I've had a couple of photographers tell me they wish they just had the subscription as opposed to their now outdated version of adobe. My wife got the subscription and some of the features she uses to touch things up are made much easier in the LIVE software vs prior years models. I'm sure you could use the prior years and get the same effects, but apparently they have changed it to make it easier.
Not really that into photography but that's what my wife and friends have told me about their experience with adobe.
I still generally agree with your post overall, but their are definitely edge cases.
Ideally that's how everything would work. Things would be network enabled, but not Internet enabled. That doesn't let companies try to control and harvest information from the general population though.
If I could control all the devices personally then I may consider adding some "smart" features to my home. I could see having critical devices such as AC, water heater and power meter reporting information to me and only me. If someone is wrong, it would be nice to know as someone else mentioned above. They could all connect to their own subnet and you could setup a VPN for your phone to connect to to receive the reports or setup an outgoing only mail to send the reports.
Since all the control seems to be withheld from the consumer, I can't see a compelling reason be a consumer of that market.
My local power company in San Diego, SDGE, offered all city people FREE upgraded Internet enabled thermostats they could control with a phone app. I don't live in the city so wasn't offered one.
My coworker took advantage of it and loves that he can of course mess with it. I immediately asked him if he was at all concerned someone other then himself could likely control his thermostat. Some teenager could jack his AC down to 64 or the heat up to 85. He shrugged it off.
A few weeks back, he noticed that SDGE remotely locked his thermostat to 78 on a "reduce your use day". I laughed my butt off to say the least.
I even recently upgraded my own thermostat and decided to go with the non Internet enabled option. Naturally I could only find a basic non-Internet device because if you want features you some how need the Internet. Sigh, whatever. I'm still happy the only devices that connect to the Internet in my home are cellphones, desktops and a single TV.
Screw all the LoT.
When you say, "feed the planet" who are you talking about that isn't getting enough food? I would venture to say most people that are experiencing food shortages on a regular basis likely have a failure of basic government as well.
If people are starving in Africa, how much is mother nature versus another band of outlaws coming along at taking everything by force? If their governments were more effective, this wouldn't be happening.
I'm pretty sure we have plenty of usable land and enough water. Those things may change in the future, but generally speaking, we have the food but getting it to everyone is an entirely different problem.
If living in poverty is not motivation enough to try to better yourself, I do not know what is. If you are making minimum wage in the fast food industry, why would you not want to attempt to get some education and get out of that job?
Heck, after working fast food for a year, you ought to have enough customer service skills that you could apply at insurance companies. A neighbor of mine just mentioned the starting pay was about $18 an hour. That's a lot better then $11-12 that minimum wage is in San Diego.
So really, I would say working in a shitty job should be the ultimate motivator.
You aren't the average person. How many people do not even reach average? I'm sure there are some talented people on this site that most certainly could create a bot that would pass for human in many fixed roles. Taking orders for food, insurance quotes, loan quotes, low level tech support and many more if I gave it some thought.
Most "bots" shouldn't be mentioned that because it's not important. If someone can think of a specific scenario where they feel the bot should inform them then maybe that should be looked at an potentially codified into law.
If the "bot" is following all the laws and is not actually a scam, I don't really see the problem. Depending on the person I have to talk to, I might be better off talking with the bot anyway. Though I rarely ever call a company and hear a foreign ascent anymore. Probably just a coincidence or I'm calling more local businesses.
Glad I never lived in mega city where I couldn't safely just ride my bike or gasp, buy a used car for a couple grand and be on my way. You don't have to work that much to maintain a paid off car with liability insurance, even as a young adult. You buy in at 2-3k for the car, insurance is 100-$150 a month and fuel is whatever you use.
That's incredibly doable if you are a teenager living at home working part time. If you have half way useful parents, they would probably help you out at least partially with the car purchase. If you can't afford $150 plus fuel then you aren't trying.
There is no dairy in "almond milk". Look at the label. The first ingredient is filtered water. So therefore, it is not almond flavored milk. It's actually almond flavored water.
Furthermore, if you really want to get good nutritional values from almonds, you would need a whole lot more then what you get out of that container. It uses a very small amount of actual almonds. Better off just eating a handful out of a jar.
Chocolate and strawberry milk are actually milk with powder mixes added for flavor. Along with lots of sugar. It's actually milk. Almond juice is not milk. Words have meaning for a reason.
Well it certainly is a good thing the POTUS doesn't have the Constitutional power to declare war. That's a power reserved to Congress.
No, she probably just went against established security policies for people with security clearance, which technically is not the law, but she did it on purpose and knowingly. Hillary is not stupid. She's pretty fucking intelligent actually. She's also really good at politics. She had a private email server so she could hide what she was doing from everyone. Why does an appointed official need to hide their communications from the government that she works for?
Whether or not her private email was safer is not the point and quite debatable. Government should be transparent. Her having a private email server is anything but transparent.
Without being signed in at google.com all you have to do is search bare breast and viola', you have lovely bare breast of all sizes and colors. How exactly are you going to prevent them from seeing this content again?
I suggest lots of education and embarrassing conversations with your child. Explaining to them that porn is fantasy and that it is not how relationships work. Explain what exactly sex is and don't dance around the subject. The penis goes inside the vagina. Pulling out isn't good enough because precum can get you preggers. If you can't have that conversation with your child, that's your failure as an adult.
If you think not telling them this will some how get them to not think or wonder about it, you are a delusional parent. Explain to them that having a kid means your life is now OVER!!!! Seriously, over. No going out with friends, no closing down the bars. No picking up guys/girls. No weekends away with all your friends at Las Vegas. You get to watch your kid. This is triple true with a baby.
Of course, if your teen gets preggers, that's almost entirely your failure as a parent as well. Ironically, or maybe not, many teens that have kids end up pawning the kid off onto the parent(s) anyway because they aren't mature enough to have the kid in the first place. It's pretty sad. Parent does such a bad job raising one kid, they end up getting to raise another and the cycle repeats.
I would expect at some point we will plunge ourselves into the dark ages through violent upheaval but then again, look at China and even more so, look at North Korea. Has the world done anything to help the typical North Korean? I think not. People can easily enough be suppressed, enslaved and killed unless a stronger group of people can stop them.
But hey, let's give up out guns. That'll help.
So ditch your phone and grab a bicycle. Use cash and never use discount cards. Don't order stuff online and get a PO box at the post office. Get a solar array setup that allows you to take your home off the grind. A water well is good too, but if you use city water/sewage as opposed to a septic system, they may require a meter on how much water you pump out (San Diego County does this).
Also, no Internet use for anything of importance and never YOUR Internet connection. Tor of public wifi helps here I suppose. Use encrypted email text only. Get all your friends to adopt a VoIP solution so you can securely communicate. It helps if you know how to setup all of this stuff yourself.
Not sure falling off the grid would even save you. It could very well act as a lightning rod for government to pay attention because why would someone go to all that effort for privacy unless they were up to something illegal.
I agree this shouldn't be necessary and it should be illegal to collect and track all this data, but good luck getting enough people to make that their number 1 voting issue and even better luck getting the politicians that runs on that platform to actually follow through with effective legislation. Not to mention funding for it at all necessary levels.
Swillden, that's a great choice. Really, all companies hiring non citizens are the only reason non citizens get jobs. If those companies would follow the law, finding under the table work would be much more difficult.
That's why there is really no difference between our parties. They just like to pretend. Both love illegals. They are used for cheap labor and as a political issue to get their bases going. Works for both "wings".
It depends on the individual races. Some of the democrats that are winning their primaries are farther to the left then they previously have been. This is scary for Republicans and they are pushing farther to the right. Republicans supporting Republicans will continue to happen just as Democrats will continue to support Democrats.
The ever increasing independent voter pool is the real thing to reach for, but only if your district has a large portion of them. All politics is local politics because if you keep your fan base set, it doesn't matter how your opposition feels.
I'm fairly middle of the road and I tend to jump between the parties so I can vote in the primaries that I care most about. When Ron Paul ran, I was a Republican and when Bernie ran I was a Democrat. Still a Democrat because the next presidential will have an important Democrat primary where I will be more interested in getting someone tolerable.
Unless of course Trump gets removed from office, then all bets are off. Ironic since I usually vote the Libertarian candidate in the general, but California isn't a swing state, so it doesn't matter anyway.
Excuse me, paying prime is paying for shipping. The only reason we(wife and I) keep using the service is because we order that much crap that the S&H would be terrible. So if the person doesn't deliver in a reasonable time and this becomes normal for my "free" two day shipping to turn into "free" whenever it gets here shipping, I'll be better off dropping my prime membership and just paying for shipping.
Amazon doesn't want me dropping prime, especially since I will likely put more effort into my shopping and other retailers sometimes offer truly free two day shipping. As it is, Amazon isn't always the cheapest and sometimes they only get the sale because I've already invested into their ecosystem with prime.
We haven't really become a space faring species just yet and there is still plenty of time for the world to go nuclear. The more our technology advances, the fewer people required to destroy the place.
While there is almost certainly intelligent life in the universe, we very well may never find it given how large even the observable universe, let alone the rest of it we can't see.
Maybe when we develop better telescopes we'll be able to see something we can't see today.
Or it could be that most advanced civilizations blow themselves up before truly becoming space faring.
They could install the switch and a cute little LED to show it is REALLY off, but then just let their system applications do whatever they were doing before. How would you truly verify it was working as you want it to work, aka with privacy in mind?
Unless you root the phone yourself or get some phone that's completely open source I don't see how you can KNOW it's safe.
The issue is not whether it is doable or not, because clearly it is doable. It's how much said service will cost the small business. It is just one more thing to add to the overhead of running said small business. With ever increasing regulatory burdens thrown onto a startup, it is no wonder there are fewer of them.
Perhaps if every state had a 100k threshold of sales in their state only, it might be nothing to worry about for a small business. If it means any business that does more then 100k period, then you are screwed.
If you only sell in one state, but online, you still have to keep track of things down to the county level. Brick and mortar store obviously has one single sales tax because all purchases are made on location.
So even being a small business in a large state with many counties and cities that all charge different sales tax is a burden.