We really need to "cut off their air supply" by going after companies that use spammers to push their products. Make it unprofitable for them to use spammers, and the spammers will soon be fighting among themselves for what little business remains.
Sure, the protocols still work, but with more and more spam filtering going on, how long will it be before real emails are tossed out?? And trapping spam absorbs resources as well. And what if so much comes in that your inbound queue is flooded because spam is arriving faster than the filters can deal with it?? That's how it affects the usefulness of email.
All it's going to take is one terrorist attack on America where authorities find Google maps on the screens of the terrorists, and then we'll see the US enforce legislation to severely limit or do away with the like of Google maps.
Hmmm. Don't see the gov't closing down flight training schools.
Oh yes, no argument there. I just wanted to make a note of the web site. There's a similar movement in England, trying to get laws and other public information expressed in Plain English:
'Plain English' is language that the intended audience can understand and act upon from a single reading.
That would get even closer to your proposal, because it would be a lot easier to recite short, properly phrased sentences.
Google Earth, and any other map, may show you the layout and area around an important building, but for good intel you really have to observe the target for a while. Public tours are useful, and if you can capture someone that works there and "extract" information from them, who needs maps??
With digital cameras and video cameras getting real cheap, it would be easy to fit a bunch into a van and drive all around a potential target and get some high resolution footage and snapshots. That would tell you things that Google Maps and Google Earth wouldn't, such as traffic flow, police presence, etc. And then there's the guided tours in buildings that are open to the public. Can you still *get* a tour of the White House? Take the tour, match the areas you *don't* visit with a rough plan drawn from the photos, and you get an idea of which bits might be worth bombing or shooting anti-tank missiles at.
As for that place in Nevada - that's *very* visible in Google Earth, and fairly easy to find. A couple of runways crossing each other at about 30 to 40 degrees angle, a bunch of buildings, a small airplane parked by a hanger... As you say, really not worth it as a terrorist target. Anyway, what would they claim??
"The valiant fighters of the Sons of the Jihad have struck a serious blow against the Great Satan, America. We bombed and completely destroyed Area 51."
"Yo, dude! Area 51 doesn't exist! That's why we've been denying it for years. What you bombed was an old, disused mine shaft with no strategic value at all. Oh, BTW, thanks anyway. The explosion uncovered the richest vein of gold our geologists have ever seen, so really you've just helped us to support our troops in Iraq and Afganistan."
Well, obviously it would be different for police officers. *Their* guns would read the surgically implanted RFID tag in their hands, so that only a police officer could fire them. The Mk2 version would administer a heavy electric shock to an unauthorised user, certainly deadening that hand for a period of time, if not actually stunning the perp senseless.
Same goes for all those ignorant fools who use their cell phones while driving. Like the bastard that pulled over in front of me on the highway two nights ago. I had just pulled over into an exit lane and was still doing 60, heading for a loop around onto another highway and as I came up level with him, he suddenly decided he needed to be in my lane as well. His back end can't have been more than about 4 feet in front of me. His indicator flicked once and he moved over. There's *no* way he couldn't have seen me - it was about 10:30pm, he's driving a regular sized saloon car, and I'm in a full-size Chevy truck with my headlights lighting up the entire interior of his car. His (or maybe her) left hand was up by his/her ear in the classic talking-on-the-cellphone pose.
Never mind working out if the phone is being used by it's owner, I want a hotline where I can call in time, place and license plate of people like that.
While not actually English, a Scot named John Logie Baird is said to be the first person to demonstrate a working television.
"Although the development of television was the result of work by many inventors (including Baird, Paul Gottlieb Nipkow and Boris Rosing; see Television: History), Baird is one of its foremost pioneers. He is generally credited with being the first person to produce a discernible image on a television screen, and would go on to produce many other advances in the field."
The BBC used the Baird system for some years before switching to a wholly electronic system.
Yuo should be able to get a cheap paintball marker and 1000 rounds of ammunition at Walmart for $50 to $75. My son gave me a somewhat-better-than-cheap marker that can reliably put a stream of paintballs onto a man-sized target at 100 feet. If you hadn't sold you could have gotten some target practice...
In case you don't know, paintballs *hurt* - my son has come home several times with bruises about 2 inches in diameter.
We're only launching that number of satellites per year because that's how many we need to provide adequate redundancy, not because it's the best we can do. We could send up more, but it would be a waste of money.
Just as long as we can build and launch new satellites if the rate of loss increases. How long does it take to build the satellites and launchers?? I imagine there's something like an assembly line for these things - can they turn out 16 on short notice??
I came across a web site some months ago that was advocating making laws simpler and easier to understand. Unfortunately, my disk imploded and I lost the bookmark and I can't remember what it was called.
Anyway, what they're proposing is that each bill actually be read out loud in front of legislators, and that said legislators sign a statement that they understood what was read. I think any amendments to the bill would require another full reading, and amendments would need to actually be relevant to the original bill. Tacking on irrelevant extras shouldn't be allowed anyway, such as adding the National ID stuff to the appropriations bill for troops in Iraq and tsunami. That's just wrong, but legislators get away with it because they're *all* doing it, and it allows plenty of "pork barrel" projects to funding they wouldn't normally get.
Re:The Feds Have Taken The First Step
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· Score: 2, Insightful
What distinguishes between open land and any other kind? I recently bought a field and haven't done much with it yet. It's fenced, mostly, but the fences need some repair. It's possible to walk, or drive, onto it without having to open a gate or climb a fence. Is that "closed" enough for me to prosecute if a bunch of yahoos on 4x4's go 4-wheelin' on it?
How about my front yard, which is not fenced at all, right back to the building line? It's clearly maintained, is that enough for me to be able to administer a good kicking to the idiot neighbor child who takes his 4x4 up the side of the yard into the field behind our houses? I'm pretty sure what he does is illegal anyway - he's maybe 12 or 13, rides the 4x4 on the road between his house and mine, and I've watched him come roaring up the side of my yard and launch himself onto the road, using the banked side of the drainage ditch as a ramp. I'm fairly sure he doesn't look for traffic, and the place he usually lands is just short of an 8-foot dropoff, so he may just take himself out of the gene pool anyway, but it would be fun to use him for paintball practice, especially if I could do it legally...
As for the field, I'm considering posting notices like, "By crossing this fence you consent to being a paintball target. Thanks for playing. Have a nice day!"
I think you're right about the willing and eager manpower. And among those eager volunteers there were probably some that could swim out to the attacking fleet under cover of darkness and start fires when the mirrors lit up at daybreak. Remember, history is generally written by the winners, and I'm sure someone as smart as Archimedes would think of such a means to ensure the success of the mirrors. As long as the swimmers were not discovered, the mirrors would be a very effective deterrent...
That's not to say he cheated, just that it's not totally beyond possibility that he tipped the odds in his favour by any means available.
I think Mythbusters lost it because they tried to make one honking big mirror. It's more likely that Archimedes would have made multiple smaller mirrors, given the materials available to him.
The problem with using tons of mirrors is that after about a foot, you have to have those things PERFECTLY aligned.
Ithink that was the problemwiththe Mythbusters attempt. They stuck a whole bunch of mirrors onto a very large wooden frame and I don't think it was rigid enough to do the job. Also, even though they tried aligning each mirror as it was placed, there was no method to realign them once the big frame was stood up. The MIT guys have shown that keeping the mirrors separate allows them to be directed onto the target more easily.
Suppose a corporation with deep pockets was to buy a lot of TV ad slots just before the election. Enough ad slots to make it next to impossible for less well known candidates to get air time. Would it count as a campaign contribution if they were advertizing their own products?? No, probably not, even though strategically flooding the ad-space would have the effect of cutting out the political competition...
One problem with unlimited contributions would be that lesser-funded parties/candidates could be effectively excluded from the ad world, making it next to impossible to participate. For example, suppose Bill Gates handed $1Bn to the Republican party for advertising. The party could buy up all the non-commercial-product advertising slots on TV for months prior to the next election. It would be difficult for the Democrat party to get their message out, and virtually impossible for the Greens and Liberals, unless they too could find a sponsor with deep pockets.
I'd rather see legislation that put *all* campaign contributions into one big pot, with the pot equally divided between the parties/candidates. I realize that's simplistic and would take quite a bit of work to prevent abuses of the system, but it would level the playing field. If nothing else, it should *reduce* the amount of crap that's spewed over the media in election year, because those candidates that normally rake in piles of cash wouldn't work so hard at it for fear of boosting an opponent. There'd be a very refreshing stampede towards zero contributions...
The thing is, other countries *have* built their own networks. Or did you think the US was running around the world installing fiber and cable for everyone??
There's no convincing them to drive on the right though.
I understand that may have been tried in Ireland. Only problem was, they were going to use a phased approach - on day 1 have all the cars switch sides, then the following week have the light trucks switch, followed finally by the 18-wheelers on the 3rd week.
That's not completely true. At the moment, there's always the off switch. That may change eventually, but for now you can "vote with your feet" and turn the damn thing off.
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We really need to "cut off their air supply" by going after companies that use spammers to push their products. Make it unprofitable for them to use spammers, and the spammers will soon be fighting among themselves for what little business remains.
Sure, the protocols still work, but with more and more spam filtering going on, how long will it be before real emails are tossed out?? And trapping spam absorbs resources as well. And what if so much comes in that your inbound queue is flooded because spam is arriving faster than the filters can deal with it?? That's how it affects the usefulness of email.
Hmmm. Don't see the gov't closing down flight training schools.
That would get even closer to your proposal, because it would be a lot easier to recite short, properly phrased sentences.
For the record, it was the Read the Bills Act
Google Earth, and any other map, may show you the layout and area around an important building, but for good intel you really have to observe the target for a while. Public tours are useful, and if you can capture someone that works there and "extract" information from them, who needs maps??
As for that place in Nevada - that's *very* visible in Google Earth, and fairly easy to find. A couple of runways crossing each other at about 30 to 40 degrees angle, a bunch of buildings, a small airplane parked by a hanger... As you say, really not worth it as a terrorist target. Anyway, what would they claim??
Hey, maybe I could patent that!!
Never mind working out if the phone is being used by it's owner, I want a hotline where I can call in time, place and license plate of people like that.
The BBC used the Baird system for some years before switching to a wholly electronic system.
In case you don't know, paintballs *hurt* - my son has come home several times with bruises about 2 inches in diameter.
Just as long as we can build and launch new satellites if the rate of loss increases. How long does it take to build the satellites and launchers?? I imagine there's something like an assembly line for these things - can they turn out 16 on short notice??
Anyway, what they're proposing is that each bill actually be read out loud in front of legislators, and that said legislators sign a statement that they understood what was read. I think any amendments to the bill would require another full reading, and amendments would need to actually be relevant to the original bill. Tacking on irrelevant extras shouldn't be allowed anyway, such as adding the National ID stuff to the appropriations bill for troops in Iraq and tsunami. That's just wrong, but legislators get away with it because they're *all* doing it, and it allows plenty of "pork barrel" projects to funding they wouldn't normally get.
How about my front yard, which is not fenced at all, right back to the building line? It's clearly maintained, is that enough for me to be able to administer a good kicking to the idiot neighbor child who takes his 4x4 up the side of the yard into the field behind our houses? I'm pretty sure what he does is illegal anyway - he's maybe 12 or 13, rides the 4x4 on the road between his house and mine, and I've watched him come roaring up the side of my yard and launch himself onto the road, using the banked side of the drainage ditch as a ramp. I'm fairly sure he doesn't look for traffic, and the place he usually lands is just short of an 8-foot dropoff, so he may just take himself out of the gene pool anyway, but it would be fun to use him for paintball practice, especially if I could do it legally...
As for the field, I'm considering posting notices like, "By crossing this fence you consent to being a paintball target. Thanks for playing. Have a nice day!"
That's not to say he cheated, just that it's not totally beyond possibility that he tipped the odds in his favour by any means available.
I think Mythbusters lost it because they tried to make one honking big mirror. It's more likely that Archimedes would have made multiple smaller mirrors, given the materials available to him.
Ithink that was the problemwiththe Mythbusters attempt. They stuck a whole bunch of mirrors onto a very large wooden frame and I don't think it was rigid enough to do the job. Also, even though they tried aligning each mirror as it was placed, there was no method to realign them once the big frame was stood up. The MIT guys have shown that keeping the mirrors separate allows them to be directed onto the target more easily.
Works for me, though it's a tad slow on a 60MHz Sparc 10...
Danm!! I'd vote for you. When and where are you running??
That's how a corporation can wield influence...
I'd rather see legislation that put *all* campaign contributions into one big pot, with the pot equally divided between the parties/candidates. I realize that's simplistic and would take quite a bit of work to prevent abuses of the system, but it would level the playing field. If nothing else, it should *reduce* the amount of crap that's spewed over the media in election year, because those candidates that normally rake in piles of cash wouldn't work so hard at it for fear of boosting an opponent. There'd be a very refreshing stampede towards zero contributions...
The thing is, other countries *have* built their own networks. Or did you think the US was running around the world installing fiber and cable for everyone??
I understand that may have been tried in Ireland. Only problem was, they were going to use a phased approach - on day 1 have all the cars switch sides, then the following week have the light trucks switch, followed finally by the 18-wheelers on the 3rd week.
That's not completely true. At the moment, there's always the off switch. That may change eventually, but for now you can "vote with your feet" and turn the damn thing off.