Sadly or perhaps frighteningly, there is a growing movement among police departments and the law establishment in general to criminalize filming police under any circumstance including the police committing criminal acts of violence. One of the great dangers we're now encountering is our government indulging in dark and immoral ventures and it can only participate in these ventures if its not being watched. The last administration used our fear and rage to twist our government into something truly unholy. The current administration hasn't seen fit to dismantle what was created and put things right. It is time for the American people to demand from all its leaders that our nation be returned to us the people, and that unfair influence through wealth and power and greedy self interest be mitigated,
In a vital move towards that future, Government must become COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT... I no longer trust my government to act in my best interest (not that I ever did, but now I'm certain they are working against us), and unless I can see both hands all the time, I am deeply concerned that it labors busily, stealing my future and perhaps all our futures.
Even from "State Authority" we demand that violence be tempered and that force be fair and proportional to the threat. When a Bull Conner unleashes attack dogs on people quietly walking or a National Guardman shoots an unarmed girl with a high powered rifle standing in protest on a campus lawn or Police assault people up to and including deadly force for no apparent cause, we are rightly dumbstruck and appalled. Because they have the charge of using force, they must be all the more responsible for using it as the last possible way of managing a circumstance, and at that in strict measure according to the threat.
Mayor Bloomberg had terrible force unleashed on the Occupy protestors. He knew this is his last term and he would have to return to Wallstreet after his term was over, so we can all clearly see whose interest he protected and protected savagely. This is exactly the kind of misuse of power, that makes good Americans want to take their government back from from death grip of the 1%. Sadly some are willing to use violence, and sad as that may be, it too is something that is sometimes justifiable.
I'm tired of the distraction, the ridiculous ploys on all sides to muddle and obfuscate.
To the people doing research, I say stop "believing in" what you do or attaching any "moral justifications or superiority" to your work. The instant you shift your perspective from objective investigator to champion of justice, you lose any ability to have a clear and objective conversation about what's actually happening. Now, more than ever, detached, clear, investigation is essential. No matter how bad the truth is, you'll only make it worse by trying to scare people or force outcomes. Be transparent, publish everything (including the stuff that doesn't fit you expectation) because we live in a powerful and chaotic environment and our theories are incomplete and anything you hide to protect your intellectual fiefdom, will prevent us from resolving the real situation and give the silly gits ammunition to justifiably counter you.
Now, to the silly gits... I am sick to nauseous of those who blindly follow indefensible belief systems including most organized religions, political systems and social orthodoxies. Wealthy and powerful people have spent billions to ply the nation with pure propaganda as news. These folks are so addicted to their wealth and power, that they will gladly see the world burn down, or the middle class vanish from the earth in a mindless attempt to wrest that last final milligram of worth from the naked earth. Sadly there are vast seas of silly people dancing to the music played by these despots because it agrees with their belief system, no matter that the very air and sky around them screams they are fools. I say to you "WAKE UP" that smell of roasting pork is your ass on fire. Get a clue, hell get two, they're small. Put your beliefs aside. Bother to look for the unadulterated, unvarnished truth. You don't even have to go very far. Look outside and notice that your garden will begin blooming nearly a month earlier than 50 years ago, weeks earlier than even 20 years ago. You think your garden is in on the scientific conspiracy??? Damned garden!
Last year humanity put more greenhouse gas into the environment that ever before in history. Period. You can't argue with that, Its like trying to argue the sun hasn't risen, you just look stupid trying. I get it, really, you're just sticking to your ideological guns. Its just this whole "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up" thing doesn't impress the rest of the folks who actually have their eyes open while they're driving, in fact you're scaring us just a little. Loosen up that grip on the shotgun Willy, take a deep cleansing breath, then sit down with a cup of hot tea and talk with one of those whipper snappers with the weather vanes and the Doppler Radar about why he thinks the world is warming up. He'll probably mention all kinds of science stuff like physics, meteorology, biology, ecology, chemistry and archeology. Just be quite for a moment. Let it sink in. Now if you still think the world is flat, go out play, at least you gave reality a fair shot.
By the way. we used to think that humanity couldn't possible impact anything as large as the oceans either. There are now places in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans (and I mean big place, like country big) that you can almost walk on the plastic junk and pollution. This is complicated stuff people, but if you just do the simple math, and have a talk with someone who vaguely understands how the planet works (or at least our best approximation at the moment) you'll understand why the folks who do the research are saying what they're saying. We are in trouble. We also have ways to solve the problem. It means we'll need to take responsibility for what we do. You know, take appropriate actions immediately, come up with inventive new technologies and economies, all around cool stuff. It also demands that we tell the people who are fighting so hard to keep their wealth and power that they should invest in the future instead. That way they'll get to keep their wealth and power and we all won't have to ride the earth into hell like Slim Pickens on the A-Bomb in Dr. Strangelove.
I would be very careful what I said were I standing in your paradigm, for the boat you miss may be your own.
The law must provide full freedom of access to the internet to prevent those who would turn it into just another pay per view television channel. The internet today is tantamount to a critical form of public free speech, and one of the strongest forces for democracy existing today. A number of very wealthy, powerful and politically influential people have made it perfectly clear that they are not the least bit interested in or happy with democracy. If you hadn't noticed the profound shift of American Politics towards oligarchy over the last 30 years, this is a clear and present danger.
As for paying for the access, we are all at risk of becoming unemployed as growing technology makes our jobs accessible to machines that work faster, longer, more reliably, for less cost, and higher quality. Ultimately there will be no job a machine can't do better, and that day is at most a couple decade off. If we don't begin now to find ways to tax machines to support human beings, we will soon find humanity itself in a completely untenable place. We are facing the business end of several asymptotic curves, and a word to the wise... having a little compassion for your fellow human being now, will result in karmic repercussions the likes of which you can't even begin to appreciate now. In other words, be very careful who you decide to toss overboard my friend, we're all bound inescapably at the ankles and as we go over you'll certainly discover the shock of cold water yourself.
Don't get me wrong, antivirus built into Windows 8 is a step in the right direction, however, anyone that thinks this is going to seriously protect them from the vast sea of malware is living in wishful thinking. At best most antivirus programs are between 50-70% effective against the legion of bugs crawling around out there and the target is a quick moving one with new beasties custom built to subvert their hosts innermost workings being rolled out almost daily. A built-in antivirus is a great thing, but don't fool yourself into thinking it is either the alpha or the omega of designing a secure operating environment.
Just like good nutrition or adequate sleep are important to avoiding seasonal flu outbreaks. Its just as important to remember that there are dozens of things you can do to remain healthy while those around you fall to illness. And finally, that even taking every precaution, you will almost certain catch a bug sooner or later and that what you do after getting infected it just as or even more important that preventing the disease in the first place.
Good start Microsoft... now make the OS really bug resistant from the bottom up.
Its only depressing because we've allowed the banks and their countless minions to suck us dry and then convince us that we're beaten. Here are some simple facts:
The banks own nothing but paper. Paper they stole. They are thieves, plain and simple. Close the British monetary system that has enslaved the world. Inform the corporate leaders of the world their days of unbridled greed and dominion have passed. The people are taking back what is rightfully theirs, starting with their dignity, humanity and their civil right to be as and who they choose. No more Letting the heartless and the mindless call the day.
Money is an agreement. Its time to renegotiate the terms. Default on all the loans, remove the banks, negotiate the new terms of trade and debt to clean up the messes between us and our economic partners and issue our own currency as per our freakin Constitution. Gather the hyperabundance of lawyer and bankers together, put them on an isolated island with just enough food and water for about 1/4 of their number and let Darwinian selection sort out the rest. For a brief wonderful time early in our history, we had no British bank bleeding us, and our nation has never been wealthier, happier or more successful. Let us return the world to a state of sanity and let the bankers suck blood from on another.
In fact increased heat in the system has several counter intuitive effects. This is because increased heat vaporizes more water increasing the length and severity of storm events. More Cat 5 hurricanes, more snow, more floods. Conversely it means frequent and unpredictable changes in weather patterns. This has to do with greater swings in climate, increased frequency of swings. This is what thermodynamicists refer to as a system in purturbation.
Even the researchers that had objected to global warming now acknowledges its happening. The evidence in incontrovertible. They still argue to the cause, but considering that the year 2011 saw unprecedented production of greenhouse gases (far exceeding even the worst case scenarios), it should now be clear to anyone who doesn't have a personal axe to grind that the climate is in the process of extraordinary change, and that the conditions we rely on to feed 7 billion people are about to get very dicey. It is now time to begin global projects designed to move humanity off of fossil fuel. High altitude wind power, space based solar power, small thorium base reactors, high performance hydrogen fuel cells and advanced power storage technologies could easily cover our need until we perfect fusion. The fundamental impediment has been fighting a fossil fuel corporate monolith which has hijacked our government. Its time for us to take back our future.
Excuse me... who modded this parent? Dick Cheney? We had no sane justification being in Iraq (save making Dick and his baby HELL-iburton a couple Peta-Bucks.) There wasn't a single insurgent or Al-Quaida member in Iraq before 2001, the Sunnis were in charge and keeping the Iranian Shiites at bay and we had a whole host of tools at our disposal to enforce global justice while we pursued only the criminals and stomped all over Global Terrorism.
Instead we became the world's largest terrorist state (even going so far as to spy on our own people and gut the Bill of Rights.) We made Iraq a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran. We killed thousands of innocent bystanders going all gansta on a country that had nothing to do with 9-11. We got our own kids all blown to hell, so Dick and his good buddies could get even wealthier than they already were. If we aren't responsible for the disaster that Iraq is, who the hell is???
For the love-o-Jebus will someone please mod the parent up!
There are multiple cognitive structures used in reading. There are all kinds of experiments where people can read perfectly well with letters removed from words and/or words with their letter order jumbled. This proves that word shape though probably necessary in speed reading is only one layer on many layers of cognitive infrastructure used in the process of reading as a whole.
Guys, let's stop with all the foreplay... I'm getting sore! Let's just declare anyone below the age of 40 illegal. Put them all in labor camps, and state from birth until your fortieth birthday, the combined recording industries own you to use as they see fit. I mean that is what you're slowing working towards, right? So just cut to the chase. We're tired of the lawyers and the law suits and the silly blather from you and your Washington sock puppets. You have the representatives. You have the lobbyists. Just pass a law saying you own Americans and be done with it. There... was that so hard!???
If you follow the relationship between Washington and the British Banking System from before our independence, and the creation and evolution of Corporations in this country and abroad, you'll find that Fascism, has its roots as a movement to control the wealth and power of the world for over 200 years. This is not precisely a Plutocracy or even an Oligarchy. Its something deeper, darker and places wealth and power above the well being of humanity or environmental sustainability. In short, it's something of a religion the promotes the very worst in primate behavior, let loose on the planet.
Oh I'm certain that George was by far the worst... While Obama may be struggling to find the brakes Georgy had the gas pedal to the floor on the "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" that Washington has become. That and I'm certain Obama has balls, I believed they live in a glass case on the desk of the CEO at Sony. Sadly however, I am forced to agree with you that his first time is a pitiful whimper in the face of an incredible onslaught by those in power to keep on doing what they've been doing all along. If the folks vying for Republican office weren't such a bunch of idiots and scumbags, I'd be tempted to dump the big "O". Perhaps as a lame duck, he'll get his balls back? Its not like he has anything to lose (I mean the Reps haven't exactly made his first term all warm and fuzzy.)
I can't see him losing any friends on the right (can't lose what you don't have) by going all "Gansta" on them in his second term... and for the love of all that's holy will someone please shoot the V.P. before he sells us all to the MPAA for a string of wampum!!!
Its extremely difficult to felate the XXXXX-AA (pick your media organization here), and write a meaningful law that makes any sense at the same time. I think it has something to do with reduced oxygen transport to the brain and possible concussion.
The Obama administration was doomed at the onset. EVERYBODY... look at who our Vice President is. Mr. Biden has been a hit man for Hollywood and the Recording industry for... let's just say a long time. This has made him a profound antagonist for Silicon Valley, Open Source, Net Neutrality and a free (as in liberty) national infrastructure for the transmission of ideas and human artistic expressions which are free (as in beer) goes dead against everything he's been paid to think.
These are polarizing times and laws like the ones mentioned in the article above effectively criminalize the internet for the very people for whom it is most urgently needed (i.e. the next generation.) As long as we see fit to eat our own young in name of corporate greed, and hold onto every bit of IP with a white knuckled death grip, we will continue to see the borderline sociopathic and megalomaniacal demand greater control on every word, thought, feeling or human hope. To these despots, the First Amendment is a blasphemy, and until every man, woman and child pays them for the privilege of having a thought(tm) there is more dirty work to be done in Washington.
So is an iPad too small? If a plastic frame with a magnifying lens were constructed such that the light and camera from the iPad illuminated and recorded the book, and you could vary the magnification to display from a whole sentence to a word or two and just scan the iPad around over the book page (the plastic frame would flatten the page and keep the iPad at the appropriate distance for focus) would that be a clear, clean, workable solution for what, perhaps $40?
Better yet, there is already a design for a quick home-brew 2-page book copier using inexpensive cameras (which are now pushing 15 megapixel.) At 400+ DPI for a full sized hard cover or 800+ DPI for a smaller paperback, you should be able to do the rest in software (including contrast control, line scanning and magnification settings.) From what I recall, they said it took about 10 minutes to scan a book, seems like a small effort to give Dad back something he loves:-)
This is his personal site. He wasn't paid to produce it, he wasn't subsidized by his employer, he wasn't told to do this as part of his job or that the company expected it to be turned over to them when he left. This is just more Corporate grabbing and lawyers marking territory by pissing on past and present employees.
He changed the feed handle to his name, The company has every right to start a new "@PhoneDog" if they like. If they continue to press, do the following.
Better yet;
1. Create a completely new Twitter feed call @ThisIsMyFeedAhole,
2. Explain to his following it has nothing to do with PhoneDog and everything to do with him and him alone,
3. Explain what a noxious excuse for human excrement his ex-employer is,
4. Request that all followers move from the current blog to the new one,
4. Explain as much to his ex-employer,
5. Change the original feed back to @PhoneDog and let the the corpos have it (sans subscribers), since they'll all have moved to the new feed,
6. Later if he wants, he can change @ThisIsMyFeedAhole into his name,
7. Thank his loyal followers for keeping the faith and raise a middle finger to the corporate pigs.
Don't get angry, don't get upset, have fun, get creative. Create a new feed @FonDawgShyt or @PhoneNeuter or even @FonHomET. Twitter is the perfect place to shine a billion watt Klieg Lamp on a flaming rectal pore. If you can't shame them, perhaps you'll embarrass them into sulking away and shutting up. Use parody, don't say anything bad about them yourself, let your followers know that you'd love to describe them as swirly mounds in earthy tones, but your hands are legally tied, but if other want to give voice to their opinions you can't stop them. In short, make them sorry for being asses, and make the cost of sin really high.
Whether the tyrant is a corporate thug or a bloated bureaucrat, that jack boot goose-steps just the same. It is time for us to forever alter the conversations surrounding wealth, competition, social and global benefit, altruism and enlightened self interest. More important, just as we gave up slavery as an acceptable social practice, its time for us to give up political and economic blind self interest. Accommodating corporations of any type, at the expense of human justice is a crime against humanity.
Warner Brothers failed to even attempt due diligence in properly distinguishing real violators from innocent bystanders. Using a blanket keyword search for collecting a site list is tantamount to ripping all the pages out of a phone book between "N" and "U", then pursuing them all with the hopes and intent of nailing a single "John smith".
There is no presumption of guilt, by going after everyone east of "Over There"... They have no legal grounds for their action and as a thank you for a draconian misuse of the available laws, should get slapped with a 100 ton class action suit from all the effected parties and be made to pay damages and legal fees. You do that once or twice, and these corporate thugs will think twice before letting the hounds loose on the peasants.
The CEO should be brought up on charges and all the responsible parties should be held criminally liable. Its time we all said, "Hell No." to these abuses against the public and our personal rights and freedoms.
Lastly we should make it clear to the idiots in office, that if they continue to sell our rights to highest bidder, that we'll begin pressing the part of their oath of office regarding the protection of the constitution and begin jailing them for treasonous acts against the American People.
You make a good point. We are by nature (literally) designed to deal with a very specific realm of dimension, time and environment. The minute the universe moves outside the range of our "evolutionarily engineered senses", the universe almost instantly ceases to be intuitive and/or predictable. Any of the universal phenomena that are mind numbingly large, extreme or ridiculously small, confuse and amaze the hell out of us. Even though our brains utilize quantum phenomena, understanding quantum mechanics is not at all intuitive. So trajectories for flying balls and golden means, no problem, we are hardwired for parabolas and the number Phi. the statistical nature of quantum mechanics, not so much. The chaotic mechanics in the frame dragging around a black hole, hell no. Dark Energy??? WTF! Brane Theory and CalabiYau Spaces... just leave it at, it hurts my head. Without the distinctions that rigorous mathematical abstraction make possible, these realms would almost certainly be completely inaccessible to human understanding.
It is one of the most "human being" things in the world to do. Creating false dichotomies. If you live inside of the conversation "I want to pursue my heart, but I need to support my family", you find yourself frustrated, at odds with yourself and the people you love, and the victim of circumstance. Following your heart and supporting your family are two completely unrelated conversations. You chose the easy route long before your family arrived. Working on computers was the simply the easier path to follow. What you've discovered is that there is no "YOU" in the path you chose, only expedience.
So now, if you change the conversation to "I want to pursue my heart, AND I need to support my family", what is newly possible? Is there a path with heart that allows you to address your responsibilities and accountabilities with integrity? Here's the thing, you do your family no service being quietly resentful and dead inside (trust me, a human brick can sense when someone isn't happy.) As the head of your house you actually owe it to your family to show some leadership, some spine (set an example for your kids... your dog... whatever), and invent a life that leaves you fulfilled and empowered. That way you leave the people in your life fulfilled and empowered simply by knowing you.
I did some course work a while back, called the Landmark Forum. It was very helpful in getting me back in action in my life. By the way, anyone with an axe to grind can just put it away, this isn't proselytizing, Landmark is not alone in providing seminars designed to wake people up, they simply provide a good product, at a reasonable price, and the seminar only lasts a weekend plus a Tuesday evening. I got value, you may too. The point is take actions that move you in the direction you want your life to go. The one thing is certain, do the same stuff... get the same results.
There are countless problems in the world desperate for computational remedies. There are endless scientific endeavors looking for new and exciting ways to crunch the numbers. There are countless projects from archiving endangered genomes to the analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidean parameterization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifolds (thank you Tom Lehrer!) Any and all of these would demand you bring some passion, brilliance, inspiration and computer expertise to the table. In return, you learn some very cool things, you get your name on a few research papers as a fellow and you Curriculum Vitae has that glossy coat that normally get's reserved for doctors of philosophy.
There's this funny thing about being human. Most of us live like passion and love and excitement are out there and we need to find it. Ever watch children. They pull drama and excitement from thin air... invent it on the spot... MAKE IT UP as they go. When you stop being a "Television Viewer" regarding life, waiting for drama to be delivered to you, you actually get to be the author of your own life and write your own. From personal experience, this is way more satisfying.
So stop being a consumer of life, and try being a producer instead. What do you love more than breathing? What are you naturally inquisitive about? Passionate about? What area of the huge, amazing mystery of being human would you like to plant your flag on? Then by all means make a plan, and escape! Here's a hint, if your language lacks verbs of action, you're watching life, not participating in it!
A fresh start-up in the Silicon Valley, sporting a CEO who also happens to be the creator of Xen, and whose new virtualization products are designed to profoundly enhance security from the metal up... and nobody mentions it? Wow. I'm a little shocked!
Oh, and if I were Vmware, I'd be a little scared too...
Actually, this entire conversation is over simplistic. We didn't get here simply. So what are the ingredients? The mess in the middle east is the result of primitive superstitious people, who've received a religion that was tainted by the Turks (who for one example destroyed the part of Islam preaching equality between the sexes), pissed on by half a dozen or more cultures including the violent off-shoots that were the result of the Christian Holy wars. Add huge oil reserves, global oil corporations, petro-economics, American manipulation of middle eastern governments (The Shah, Saddam, etc.), their subsequent falls (without or without us) and then cap the whole thing with a heaping helping of Israel and serve piping hot! That my friends is a recipe ongoing disaster.
The really sad part, is the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving, decent people who are simply interested in the same things as everyone else. Its only when people get squeezed between oil and national conflict that terrorists and martyrs are born. We've been complicit for years in creating an environment where these things not only existed but flourished because of our choices and blind self interest. We've had dozens of opportunities to avoid these problems. We could have pressure the Saudis to stop using their wealth to build schools for radical Islam all over the world. We could have demanded the Palestinians were treated fairly and with dignity before implementing Israel. We could have spent a paltry 20 million dollars on Afghanistan after its war with Russia, to ensure that real social reform, education and the seed of a working economy took root (after having spent a billion dollar to help Afghanistan screw Russia.) Most of all, we could have worked more closely with India and Pakistan, to ensure these nations grew peacefully, and that rabid Muslim sects got nipped in the bud. Instead we did the American thing... short term profit followed by long term disaster. You know, don't fix the levies, drown a few thousand poor folk, and call it urban renewal. the GNP never looked better.
Hello People... what part of "Oil Economy" are you not getting. Now that we've had our cup of "Instant decapitated Kadafi", its time to get down to business, and after spinning the big wheel, the business iiisssssss.... OIL PRODUCTION!!! go figure.
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly or perhaps frighteningly, there is a growing movement among police departments and the law establishment in general to criminalize filming police under any circumstance including the police committing criminal acts of violence. One of the great dangers we're now encountering is our government indulging in dark and immoral ventures and it can only participate in these ventures if its not being watched. The last administration used our fear and rage to twist our government into something truly unholy. The current administration hasn't seen fit to dismantle what was created and put things right. It is time for the American people to demand from all its leaders that our nation be returned to us the people, and that unfair influence through wealth and power and greedy self interest be mitigated,
In a vital move towards that future, Government must become COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT... I no longer trust my government to act in my best interest (not that I ever did, but now I'm certain they are working against us), and unless I can see both hands all the time, I am deeply concerned that it labors busily, stealing my future and perhaps all our futures.
Even from "State Authority" we demand that violence be tempered and that force be fair and proportional to the threat. When a Bull Conner unleashes attack dogs on people quietly walking or a National Guardman shoots an unarmed girl with a high powered rifle standing in protest on a campus lawn or Police assault people up to and including deadly force for no apparent cause, we are rightly dumbstruck and appalled. Because they have the charge of using force, they must be all the more responsible for using it as the last possible way of managing a circumstance, and at that in strict measure according to the threat.
Mayor Bloomberg had terrible force unleashed on the Occupy protestors. He knew this is his last term and he would have to return to Wallstreet after his term was over, so we can all clearly see whose interest he protected and protected savagely. This is exactly the kind of misuse of power, that makes good Americans want to take their government back from from death grip of the 1%. Sadly some are willing to use violence, and sad as that may be, it too is something that is sometimes justifiable.
I'm tired of the distraction, the ridiculous ploys on all sides to muddle and obfuscate.
To the people doing research, I say stop "believing in" what you do or attaching any "moral justifications or superiority" to your work. The instant you shift your perspective from objective investigator to champion of justice, you lose any ability to have a clear and objective conversation about what's actually happening. Now, more than ever, detached, clear, investigation is essential. No matter how bad the truth is, you'll only make it worse by trying to scare people or force outcomes. Be transparent, publish everything (including the stuff that doesn't fit you expectation) because we live in a powerful and chaotic environment and our theories are incomplete and anything you hide to protect your intellectual fiefdom, will prevent us from resolving the real situation and give the silly gits ammunition to justifiably counter you.
Now, to the silly gits... I am sick to nauseous of those who blindly follow indefensible belief systems including most organized religions, political systems and social orthodoxies. Wealthy and powerful people have spent billions to ply the nation with pure propaganda as news. These folks are so addicted to their wealth and power, that they will gladly see the world burn down, or the middle class vanish from the earth in a mindless attempt to wrest that last final milligram of worth from the naked earth. Sadly there are vast seas of silly people dancing to the music played by these despots because it agrees with their belief system, no matter that the very air and sky around them screams they are fools. I say to you "WAKE UP" that smell of roasting pork is your ass on fire. Get a clue, hell get two, they're small. Put your beliefs aside. Bother to look for the unadulterated, unvarnished truth. You don't even have to go very far. Look outside and notice that your garden will begin blooming nearly a month earlier than 50 years ago, weeks earlier than even 20 years ago. You think your garden is in on the scientific conspiracy??? Damned garden!
Last year humanity put more greenhouse gas into the environment that ever before in history. Period. You can't argue with that, Its like trying to argue the sun hasn't risen, you just look stupid trying. I get it, really, you're just sticking to your ideological guns. Its just this whole "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up" thing doesn't impress the rest of the folks who actually have their eyes open while they're driving, in fact you're scaring us just a little. Loosen up that grip on the shotgun Willy, take a deep cleansing breath, then sit down with a cup of hot tea and talk with one of those whipper snappers with the weather vanes and the Doppler Radar about why he thinks the world is warming up. He'll probably mention all kinds of science stuff like physics, meteorology, biology, ecology, chemistry and archeology. Just be quite for a moment. Let it sink in. Now if you still think the world is flat, go out play, at least you gave reality a fair shot.
By the way. we used to think that humanity couldn't possible impact anything as large as the oceans either. There are now places in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans (and I mean big place, like country big) that you can almost walk on the plastic junk and pollution. This is complicated stuff people, but if you just do the simple math, and have a talk with someone who vaguely understands how the planet works (or at least our best approximation at the moment) you'll understand why the folks who do the research are saying what they're saying. We are in trouble. We also have ways to solve the problem. It means we'll need to take responsibility for what we do. You know, take appropriate actions immediately, come up with inventive new technologies and economies, all around cool stuff. It also demands that we tell the people who are fighting so hard to keep their wealth and power that they should invest in the future instead. That way they'll get to keep their wealth and power and we all won't have to ride the earth into hell like Slim Pickens on the A-Bomb in Dr. Strangelove.
I would be very careful what I said were I standing in your paradigm, for the boat you miss may be your own.
The law must provide full freedom of access to the internet to prevent those who would turn it into just another pay per view television channel. The internet today is tantamount to a critical form of public free speech, and one of the strongest forces for democracy existing today. A number of very wealthy, powerful and politically influential people have made it perfectly clear that they are not the least bit interested in or happy with democracy. If you hadn't noticed the profound shift of American Politics towards oligarchy over the last 30 years, this is a clear and present danger.
As for paying for the access, we are all at risk of becoming unemployed as growing technology makes our jobs accessible to machines that work faster, longer, more reliably, for less cost, and higher quality. Ultimately there will be no job a machine can't do better, and that day is at most a couple decade off. If we don't begin now to find ways to tax machines to support human beings, we will soon find humanity itself in a completely untenable place. We are facing the business end of several asymptotic curves, and a word to the wise... having a little compassion for your fellow human being now, will result in karmic repercussions the likes of which you can't even begin to appreciate now. In other words, be very careful who you decide to toss overboard my friend, we're all bound inescapably at the ankles and as we go over you'll certainly discover the shock of cold water yourself.
Don't get me wrong, antivirus built into Windows 8 is a step in the right direction, however, anyone that thinks this is going to seriously protect them from the vast sea of malware is living in wishful thinking. At best most antivirus programs are between 50-70% effective against the legion of bugs crawling around out there and the target is a quick moving one with new beasties custom built to subvert their hosts innermost workings being rolled out almost daily. A built-in antivirus is a great thing, but don't fool yourself into thinking it is either the alpha or the omega of designing a secure operating environment.
Just like good nutrition or adequate sleep are important to avoiding seasonal flu outbreaks. Its just as important to remember that there are dozens of things you can do to remain healthy while those around you fall to illness. And finally, that even taking every precaution, you will almost certain catch a bug sooner or later and that what you do after getting infected it just as or even more important that preventing the disease in the first place.
Good start Microsoft... now make the OS really bug resistant from the bottom up.
Its only depressing because we've allowed the banks and their countless minions to suck us dry and then convince us that we're beaten. Here are some simple facts:
The banks own nothing but paper. Paper they stole. They are thieves, plain and simple. Close the British monetary system that has enslaved the world. Inform the corporate leaders of the world their days of unbridled greed and dominion have passed. The people are taking back what is rightfully theirs, starting with their dignity, humanity and their civil right to be as and who they choose. No more Letting the heartless and the mindless call the day.
Money is an agreement. Its time to renegotiate the terms. Default on all the loans, remove the banks, negotiate the new terms of trade and debt to clean up the messes between us and our economic partners and issue our own currency as per our freakin Constitution. Gather the hyperabundance of lawyer and bankers together, put them on an isolated island with just enough food and water for about 1/4 of their number and let Darwinian selection sort out the rest. For a brief wonderful time early in our history, we had no British bank bleeding us, and our nation has never been wealthier, happier or more successful. Let us return the world to a state of sanity and let the bankers suck blood from on another.
In fact increased heat in the system has several counter intuitive effects. This is because increased heat vaporizes more water increasing the length and severity of storm events. More Cat 5 hurricanes, more snow, more floods. Conversely it means frequent and unpredictable changes in weather patterns. This has to do with greater swings in climate, increased frequency of swings. This is what thermodynamicists refer to as a system in purturbation.
Even the researchers that had objected to global warming now acknowledges its happening. The evidence in incontrovertible. They still argue to the cause, but considering that the year 2011 saw unprecedented production of greenhouse gases (far exceeding even the worst case scenarios), it should now be clear to anyone who doesn't have a personal axe to grind that the climate is in the process of extraordinary change, and that the conditions we rely on to feed 7 billion people are about to get very dicey. It is now time to begin global projects designed to move humanity off of fossil fuel. High altitude wind power, space based solar power, small thorium base reactors, high performance hydrogen fuel cells and advanced power storage technologies could easily cover our need until we perfect fusion. The fundamental impediment has been fighting a fossil fuel corporate monolith which has hijacked our government. Its time for us to take back our future.
Excuse me... who modded this parent? Dick Cheney? We had no sane justification being in Iraq (save making Dick and his baby HELL-iburton a couple Peta-Bucks.) There wasn't a single insurgent or Al-Quaida member in Iraq before 2001, the Sunnis were in charge and keeping the Iranian Shiites at bay and we had a whole host of tools at our disposal to enforce global justice while we pursued only the criminals and stomped all over Global Terrorism.
Instead we became the world's largest terrorist state (even going so far as to spy on our own people and gut the Bill of Rights.) We made Iraq a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran. We killed thousands of innocent bystanders going all gansta on a country that had nothing to do with 9-11. We got our own kids all blown to hell, so Dick and his good buddies could get even wealthier than they already were. If we aren't responsible for the disaster that Iraq is, who the hell is???
For the love-o-Jebus will someone please mod the parent up!
There are multiple cognitive structures used in reading. There are all kinds of experiments where people can read perfectly well with letters removed from words and/or words with their letter order jumbled. This proves that word shape though probably necessary in speed reading is only one layer on many layers of cognitive infrastructure used in the process of reading as a whole.
Guys, let's stop with all the foreplay... I'm getting sore! Let's just declare anyone below the age of 40 illegal. Put them all in labor camps, and state from birth until your fortieth birthday, the combined recording industries own you to use as they see fit. I mean that is what you're slowing working towards, right? So just cut to the chase. We're tired of the lawyers and the law suits and the silly blather from you and your Washington sock puppets. You have the representatives. You have the lobbyists. Just pass a law saying you own Americans and be done with it. There... was that so hard!???
Yeah Baby!!! I writing my ToS in Aramaic! As long as Mel Gibson avoids my site... I'm GOLDEN!!!
Actually, I'm kind of partial to "Fascist State" as defined by Mussolini... and if you look up the "14 defining characteristics of a Fascist State." You'll see we're pretty much already there.
If you follow the relationship between Washington and the British Banking System from before our independence, and the creation and evolution of Corporations in this country and abroad, you'll find that Fascism, has its roots as a movement to control the wealth and power of the world for over 200 years. This is not precisely a Plutocracy or even an Oligarchy. Its something deeper, darker and places wealth and power above the well being of humanity or environmental sustainability. In short, it's something of a religion the promotes the very worst in primate behavior, let loose on the planet.
Oh I'm certain that George was by far the worst... While Obama may be struggling to find the brakes Georgy had the gas pedal to the floor on the "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" that Washington has become. That and I'm certain Obama has balls, I believed they live in a glass case on the desk of the CEO at Sony. Sadly however, I am forced to agree with you that his first time is a pitiful whimper in the face of an incredible onslaught by those in power to keep on doing what they've been doing all along. If the folks vying for Republican office weren't such a bunch of idiots and scumbags, I'd be tempted to dump the big "O". Perhaps as a lame duck, he'll get his balls back? Its not like he has anything to lose (I mean the Reps haven't exactly made his first term all warm and fuzzy.)
I can't see him losing any friends on the right (can't lose what you don't have) by going all "Gansta" on them in his second term... and for the love of all that's holy will someone please shoot the V.P. before he sells us all to the MPAA for a string of wampum!!!
Its extremely difficult to felate the XXXXX-AA (pick your media organization here), and write a meaningful law that makes any sense at the same time. I think it has something to do with reduced oxygen transport to the brain and possible concussion.
The Obama administration was doomed at the onset. EVERYBODY... look at who our Vice President is. Mr. Biden has been a hit man for Hollywood and the Recording industry for... let's just say a long time. This has made him a profound antagonist for Silicon Valley, Open Source, Net Neutrality and a free (as in liberty) national infrastructure for the transmission of ideas and human artistic expressions which are free (as in beer) goes dead against everything he's been paid to think.
These are polarizing times and laws like the ones mentioned in the article above effectively criminalize the internet for the very people for whom it is most urgently needed (i.e. the next generation.) As long as we see fit to eat our own young in name of corporate greed, and hold onto every bit of IP with a white knuckled death grip, we will continue to see the borderline sociopathic and megalomaniacal demand greater control on every word, thought, feeling or human hope. To these despots, the First Amendment is a blasphemy, and until every man, woman and child pays them for the privilege of having a thought(tm) there is more dirty work to be done in Washington.
So is an iPad too small? If a plastic frame with a magnifying lens were constructed such that the light and camera from the iPad illuminated and recorded the book, and you could vary the magnification to display from a whole sentence to a word or two and just scan the iPad around over the book page (the plastic frame would flatten the page and keep the iPad at the appropriate distance for focus) would that be a clear, clean, workable solution for what, perhaps $40?
Better yet, there is already a design for a quick home-brew 2-page book copier using inexpensive cameras (which are now pushing 15 megapixel.) At 400+ DPI for a full sized hard cover or 800+ DPI for a smaller paperback, you should be able to do the rest in software (including contrast control, line scanning and magnification settings.) From what I recall, they said it took about 10 minutes to scan a book, seems like a small effort to give Dad back something he loves :-)
This is his personal site. He wasn't paid to produce it, he wasn't subsidized by his employer, he wasn't told to do this as part of his job or that the company expected it to be turned over to them when he left. This is just more Corporate grabbing and lawyers marking territory by pissing on past and present employees.
He changed the feed handle to his name, The company has every right to start a new "@PhoneDog" if they like. If they continue to press, do the following.
Better yet;
1. Create a completely new Twitter feed call @ThisIsMyFeedAhole,
2. Explain to his following it has nothing to do with PhoneDog and everything to do with him and him alone,
3. Explain what a noxious excuse for human excrement his ex-employer is,
4. Request that all followers move from the current blog to the new one,
4. Explain as much to his ex-employer,
5. Change the original feed back to @PhoneDog and let the the corpos have it (sans subscribers), since they'll all have moved to the new feed,
6. Later if he wants, he can change @ThisIsMyFeedAhole into his name,
7. Thank his loyal followers for keeping the faith and raise a middle finger to the corporate pigs.
Don't get angry, don't get upset, have fun, get creative. Create a new feed @FonDawgShyt or @PhoneNeuter or even @FonHomET. Twitter is the perfect place to shine a billion watt Klieg Lamp on a flaming rectal pore. If you can't shame them, perhaps you'll embarrass them into sulking away and shutting up. Use parody, don't say anything bad about them yourself, let your followers know that you'd love to describe them as swirly mounds in earthy tones, but your hands are legally tied, but if other want to give voice to their opinions you can't stop them. In short, make them sorry for being asses, and make the cost of sin really high.
Whether the tyrant is a corporate thug or a bloated bureaucrat, that jack boot goose-steps just the same. It is time for us to forever alter the conversations surrounding wealth, competition, social and global benefit, altruism and enlightened self interest. More important, just as we gave up slavery as an acceptable social practice, its time for us to give up political and economic blind self interest. Accommodating corporations of any type, at the expense of human justice is a crime against humanity.
Warner Brothers failed to even attempt due diligence in properly distinguishing real violators from innocent bystanders. Using a blanket keyword search for collecting a site list is tantamount to ripping all the pages out of a phone book between "N" and "U", then pursuing them all with the hopes and intent of nailing a single "John smith".
There is no presumption of guilt, by going after everyone east of "Over There"... They have no legal grounds for their action and as a thank you for a draconian misuse of the available laws, should get slapped with a 100 ton class action suit from all the effected parties and be made to pay damages and legal fees. You do that once or twice, and these corporate thugs will think twice before letting the hounds loose on the peasants.
The CEO should be brought up on charges and all the responsible parties should be held criminally liable. Its time we all said, "Hell No." to these abuses against the public and our personal rights and freedoms.
Lastly we should make it clear to the idiots in office, that if they continue to sell our rights to highest bidder, that we'll begin pressing the part of their oath of office regarding the protection of the constitution and begin jailing them for treasonous acts against the American People.
You make a good point. We are by nature (literally) designed to deal with a very specific realm of dimension, time and environment. The minute the universe moves outside the range of our "evolutionarily engineered senses", the universe almost instantly ceases to be intuitive and/or predictable. Any of the universal phenomena that are mind numbingly large, extreme or ridiculously small, confuse and amaze the hell out of us. Even though our brains utilize quantum phenomena, understanding quantum mechanics is not at all intuitive. So trajectories for flying balls and golden means, no problem, we are hardwired for parabolas and the number Phi. the statistical nature of quantum mechanics, not so much. The chaotic mechanics in the frame dragging around a black hole, hell no. Dark Energy??? WTF! Brane Theory and CalabiYau Spaces... just leave it at, it hurts my head. Without the distinctions that rigorous mathematical abstraction make possible, these realms would almost certainly be completely inaccessible to human understanding.
It is one of the most "human being" things in the world to do. Creating false dichotomies. If you live inside of the conversation "I want to pursue my heart, but I need to support my family", you find yourself frustrated, at odds with yourself and the people you love, and the victim of circumstance. Following your heart and supporting your family are two completely unrelated conversations. You chose the easy route long before your family arrived. Working on computers was the simply the easier path to follow. What you've discovered is that there is no "YOU" in the path you chose, only expedience.
So now, if you change the conversation to "I want to pursue my heart, AND I need to support my family", what is newly possible? Is there a path with heart that allows you to address your responsibilities and accountabilities with integrity? Here's the thing, you do your family no service being quietly resentful and dead inside (trust me, a human brick can sense when someone isn't happy.) As the head of your house you actually owe it to your family to show some leadership, some spine (set an example for your kids... your dog... whatever), and invent a life that leaves you fulfilled and empowered. That way you leave the people in your life fulfilled and empowered simply by knowing you.
I did some course work a while back, called the Landmark Forum. It was very helpful in getting me back in action in my life. By the way, anyone with an axe to grind can just put it away, this isn't proselytizing, Landmark is not alone in providing seminars designed to wake people up, they simply provide a good product, at a reasonable price, and the seminar only lasts a weekend plus a Tuesday evening. I got value, you may too. The point is take actions that move you in the direction you want your life to go. The one thing is certain, do the same stuff... get the same results.
There are countless problems in the world desperate for computational remedies. There are endless scientific endeavors looking for new and exciting ways to crunch the numbers. There are countless projects from archiving endangered genomes to the analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidean parameterization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifolds (thank you Tom Lehrer!) Any and all of these would demand you bring some passion, brilliance, inspiration and computer expertise to the table. In return, you learn some very cool things, you get your name on a few research papers as a fellow and you Curriculum Vitae has that glossy coat that normally get's reserved for doctors of philosophy.
There's this funny thing about being human. Most of us live like passion and love and excitement are out there and we need to find it. Ever watch children. They pull drama and excitement from thin air... invent it on the spot... MAKE IT UP as they go. When you stop being a "Television Viewer" regarding life, waiting for drama to be delivered to you, you actually get to be the author of your own life and write your own. From personal experience, this is way more satisfying.
So stop being a consumer of life, and try being a producer instead. What do you love more than breathing? What are you naturally inquisitive about? Passionate about? What area of the huge, amazing mystery of being human would you like to plant your flag on? Then by all means make a plan, and escape! Here's a hint, if your language lacks verbs of action, you're watching life, not participating in it!
A fresh start-up in the Silicon Valley, sporting a CEO who also happens to be the creator of Xen, and whose new virtualization products are designed to profoundly enhance security from the metal up... and nobody mentions it? Wow. I'm a little shocked!
Oh, and if I were Vmware, I'd be a little scared too...
Actually, this entire conversation is over simplistic. We didn't get here simply. So what are the ingredients? The mess in the middle east is the result of primitive superstitious people, who've received a religion that was tainted by the Turks (who for one example destroyed the part of Islam preaching equality between the sexes), pissed on by half a dozen or more cultures including the violent off-shoots that were the result of the Christian Holy wars. Add huge oil reserves, global oil corporations, petro-economics, American manipulation of middle eastern governments (The Shah, Saddam, etc.), their subsequent falls (without or without us) and then cap the whole thing with a heaping helping of Israel and serve piping hot! That my friends is a recipe ongoing disaster.
The really sad part, is the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving, decent people who are simply interested in the same things as everyone else. Its only when people get squeezed between oil and national conflict that terrorists and martyrs are born. We've been complicit for years in creating an environment where these things not only existed but flourished because of our choices and blind self interest. We've had dozens of opportunities to avoid these problems. We could have pressure the Saudis to stop using their wealth to build schools for radical Islam all over the world. We could have demanded the Palestinians were treated fairly and with dignity before implementing Israel. We could have spent a paltry 20 million dollars on Afghanistan after its war with Russia, to ensure that real social reform, education and the seed of a working economy took root (after having spent a billion dollar to help Afghanistan screw Russia.) Most of all, we could have worked more closely with India and Pakistan, to ensure these nations grew peacefully, and that rabid Muslim sects got nipped in the bud. Instead we did the American thing... short term profit followed by long term disaster. You know, don't fix the levies, drown a few thousand poor folk, and call it urban renewal. the GNP never looked better.
Hello People... what part of "Oil Economy" are you not getting. Now that we've had our cup of "Instant decapitated Kadafi", its time to get down to business, and after spinning the big wheel, the business iiisssssss.... OIL PRODUCTION!!! go figure.