Something needs to be done about the cowboy culture in the US as it is killing you off like a third world nation
I'll agree the 9 countries above the US on that list are close to being third world in many places. At a listed rate of 10.2 Total firearm-related deaths per 100,000, and a population of 314,975,581, my estimate on our total annihilation, assuming no births or other deaths, is in the range of 10000 years.
Maybe it can be attacked as a cyber-stalking issue? If we were followed like this in meat space, it seems like a restraining order would be trivial to obtain.
Sounds a lot like a routine that Bill Hicks did in the early 90s.
"I have this feeling that whoever's elected president, no matter what promises you make on the campaign trail - blah, blah, blah - when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialist, capitalist scumfucks that got you in there, and this little screen comes down... and it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before, which looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll.... And then the screen comes up, the lights come on, and they say to the new president, 'Any questions?'
From the district website, "The Student ID will provide access to the library and cafeteria, serve as a photo ID, and allow for the purchase of tickets to schools' extracurricular activities. Other uses will be rolled out during the pilot program."
Andrea has already been excluded from being able to vote for Prom King/Queen, and School district Deputy Superintendent Ray Galindo has hinted at additional "consequences". In a letter to the parents, offering the badge with no chip or battery, he stated, "I urge you to accept this solution so that your child's instructional program will not be affected. As we discussed, there will be consequences for refusal to wear an ID card as we begin to move forward with full implementation."
We don't force religious parents to vaccinate their children.
The Northside Independent School District seems to think it's law. From the link labeled "Shots" at the districts Health Services page.
"Immunizations are required by law. Students who do not have completed immunizations will not be allowed to register."
They don't quote any specific statute, and I've never heard of a LAW making it mandatory. I've seen POLICIES saying they are recommended, but never any law. Assuming there really is no law, this would seem to be somewhere in the region of fraud and coercion.
Interestingly there seem to be a financial incentive for the district. They point it out in the first paragraph of their website.
Northside ISD is harnessing the power of radio frequency identification technology (RFID) to make schools safer, know where our students are while at school, increase revenues, and provide a general purpose "smart" ID card.
Q. What does this pilot cost and what is the projected additional revenue expected?
A. NISD will spend approximately $261,000 on this pilot for the two schools and expects to realize $2 million in additional revenues.
So, they expect an additional $1.739M in revenues out of this deal.
This would match up with my personal experience. I remember being told how important it was for students to be in school during a certain week in September or October, because this determined how much federal funding the school would get. Another example of the feds taking money, then using it to ransom state and local entities to get it back. "See also 55mph speed limits and moving the drinking age up from 18 to 21.
Reading the rest of the district page is fascinating. They go on to say, "The "smart" ID cards only work within the school." Interesting. I didn't know you could turn off an RFID chip, especially one with a battery powering it. Is there some supposed to be some way for it to be turned off automatically when they leave the premises?
After referring parents to the website of the contractor implementing the project, "Wade Garcia & Associates (WGA), we get some pseudo useful technical info.
Q.1 Could someone manufacture a copy of a WGA RFID reader and use it to intercept information transmitted by student RFID tags?
A.1 WGA has approached this as an issue of system architecture. By ensuring that the âoesmartâ ID contains no information of interest to anyone, WGA has simultaneously removed any motive for cloning its reader and removed any problem if someone does clone its reader. The premise is simple: There is no information stored on any WGA âoesmartâ ID except its serial number. Therefore, an intruder or âoehackerâ can only learn that the tag serial number is, for example, #69872331, but that does not provide any useful information. The tag serial number is not the studentâ(TM)s school I.D. number. The studentâ(TM)s school ID number is stored on the school or Northsideâ(TM)s internal server and one would have to have access to the school or school districtâ(TM)s server and data base to determine what tag number can be associated with a studentâ(TM)s school ID number.
They don't address the first thing the kids will think of, how to clone the cards and have their friend carry it around and make it look like they are in class. I wonder what happens when someone figures out how to clone the cards, and there are 5 copies of every kids cards wandering around the school. That would be an interesting way to hack the system.
The FAQ also goes on to give some shocking information about Texas law regarding what information is "public", quoting from Texas Public Information Act, Texas Government Code, Chapter 552.
Another exception permits a school to non-consensually disclose personally identifiable information from a student's education records when such information has been appropriately designated as directory information. "Directory information" is defined as information contained in the education records of a student that would not generally be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed. Directory information could include information such as the student's name, address, e-mail address, telephone listing, photograph, dat
> get dropped off on a random piece of the Alaska highway and live without government services.
Perhaps Somalia would be a better example, as there isn't really a government there at all. Then he could, as an individual, decide how to obtain food, water, and shelter, while at the same time fighting everyone else that is doing the same.
I used to believe this hardcore libertarian stuff, until I started to think about the details. How a system of roads would be implemented was one of the things that really hit home. In a pure libertarian system, you would be paying a toll at every stop sign to the warlord/tribe that managed to take control of it that week.
Medical care? Cell phones? The internet? A power grid? Edible food? Water cleaner than what's running down the ditch? Good luck with any of that when everyone is spending all their time trying to stay alive.
Ancecdotal, for sure, but I have multiple facebook accounts that were created specifically for supporting my main Mafiaa Wars account. They have associated gmail addresses that I monitor, and they still get FB updates, 2 years after I stopped logging into the FB account.
I could only laugh when they announced 1 billion users, knowing I was 5 of them. I'm sure there are people with more time to scheme on this than I had then, which only makes me laugh again.
I just don't see how Google's plans work out long term unless they want to get into the ISP and carrier business
Maybe they plan to expand on the fibre to the home services they describe here.
When you combine their move into the last mile physical connection business, with their ties to US government intelligence agencies, I can't begin to understand how they are defining the term "evil" in item 6 on their philosophy page, "You can make money without doing evil." On that page, they seem to want to define evil as not correctly labeling advertising. I think most people have a different definition.
Some examples.
Collaboration with the NSA. EPIC attempted to find out more about this via FOIA requests, but was eventually rejected.
Ties to the CIA funded venture capital firm In-Q-Tel via their acquisition of Keyhole, which eventually became google earth. Around the same time, Rob Painter, Director of Technology Assessment at In-Q-Tel, took the position of Chief Technologist and a Senior Manager for Google Federal at google.
Investing, along with In-Q-Tel, in web predictive analysis firm Recorded Future.
Working with the DEA to surveil their users. Google and Yahoo are reported to be charging for it, while Microsoft does it for free. I'm not sure which way is more evil.
Ideally, it would be illegal for people to own bank accounts or liquid cash and everyone would basically spend their paycheck within a few days of getting it.
Close, but not far enough. The economy would benefit even more if you didn't even get the dollars in the first place. Instead, you get credit that can be used to buy products from your employer and their official partners.
This way the company keeps all the dollars, and can use them to improve their products and services without having to show a labor cost on the balance sheet. Usage of the credits is easily tracked by the employer and partners, and the black market for drugs, hookers, gambling, or anything else that requires cash is exterminated. Everybody wins!
Another design option in this fantasy world would be something that could be cut down annually, and the resulting product could be processed to produce fuel, human and animal feed, clothing, medicine, paper, building material, and more.
having a internet connection without paying Telstra for the copper
My ISP offers this option as well. Not so surprisingly, there is a discount on the price of the DSL service if I also have them provide dial tone. I'll make some numbers up, b/c I don't have a bill handy.
naked DSL: 99$/month
DSL+dialtone: DSL, now discounted to $69 + basic dial tone $30 = $99/month
I don't know what the game is, but since the price is the same, I take the DSL+dialtone option.
Big Corporations is not where most of the wealth is. Nor is it where most of the Jobs come from. Nor is setting policies in such a way that target them going to fix whatever problem you think they have.
If wealth is defined by income or net worth, you are way off base. If that net worth and income is not due to affiliation with Big Corporations, please enlighten me. The wealthiest 1% of the population control 34+% of the net worth, the wealthiest 10% control of 73%. That leaves 27% of the value in the US for the other 90%. I don't have any ready links regarding jobs, I'd be glad to check them out.
Of the first 100 entries on the Forbes 400 wealthiest americans seems to be mostly populated by Corporate execs and investment bankers. I'll grant you the few with a source of income listed as "diversified", but there are not many. I also didn't bother digging through the 200-400 pages.
The problem for you is you make no distinction between HUGE MEGA CORP and Mom N Pop Corp. And so, the policies that liberals put in place to "stick it to the man" affects people who are definitely not "the man". And you will never admit it.
I did not make that distinction, and it is a valid one. I don't know why you think so, but I will be the first one to admit the difference. The fact that legislation that is supposed to limit Corporations (howabout I use the cap-C to notate large, multinational corps for the sake of simplicity) but ends up a burden on small business is no surprise at all. I don't know if you are referring to any specific legislation, but I would expect lobbyists from Corporations to spend heavily to push any such legislation, if not writing it directly.
so are the policies mandated by your friends
My friends? Do you have some mistaken belief that I am a fan of the govt in general, or any specific party?
and UNTIL you can admit that Government Interference had partial blame in the matter, then we can't fix things.
UNTIL I can admit it? I never said government wasn't to blame, government interference is certainly part of the problem. In fact, a big part of the problem is the merger of Corporations and government. Movement of executives between government agencies and the Corporations they are supposed to regulate is nothing more than the fox guarding the hen house. "Too big to fail" should cause anyone claiming to be a capitalist to burst a blood vessel.
I have scorn for a long list of facilitators of the current economic clusterfuck.
Clinton - signed the The Grammâ"Leachâ"Bliley Act (GLB), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. This removed the separation between investment banks, savings banks, and insurance companies that was institued by the Glass-Steagall Act.
How about George Bush? Signed the TARP act, bailing out the banks that should have been buried by their poor decisions.
And don't forget that Obama voted for it while he was still in the Senate. He seems to think you can tax and spend your way out of a hole. It may look nice for a while but eventually the piper needs to be paid, and he is going to be paid by your children and grand-children
no amount of evil can be avoided when people excuse evil in the name of good intentions.
There is something I think we can agree on.
What is going to fix this?
Bring back something similar to Glass-Steagall
limit corporate power (so called corporate personhood)
take the monetary power back from the Federal Reserve System and put it back in the hands of the Treasury, as described in the US Constitution.
Slashdot Mirror
Something needs to be done about the cowboy culture in the US as it is killing you off like a third world nation
I'll agree the 9 countries above the US on that list are close to being third world in many places. At a listed rate of 10.2 Total firearm-related deaths per 100,000, and a population of 314,975,581, my estimate on our total annihilation, assuming no births or other deaths, is in the range of 10000 years.
These stalking companies
Maybe it can be attacked as a cyber-stalking issue? If we were followed like this in meat space, it seems like a restraining order would be trivial to obtain.
wastes huge amounts of disk space to verify the blockchain
Electrum is a lightweight client that has the benefit (among others) that downloading the entire block chain isn't required.
"I have this feeling that whoever's elected president, no matter what promises you make on the campaign trail - blah, blah, blah - when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialist, capitalist scumfucks that got you in there, and this little screen comes down... and it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before, which looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll.... And then the screen comes up, the lights come on, and they say to the new president, 'Any questions?'
"Just what my agenda is."
Since the ID only applies during school hours
From the district website, "The Student ID will provide access to the library and cafeteria, serve as a photo ID, and allow for the purchase of tickets to schools' extracurricular activities. Other uses will be rolled out during the pilot program."
Andrea has already been excluded from being able to vote for Prom King/Queen, and School district Deputy Superintendent Ray Galindo has hinted at additional "consequences". In a letter to the parents, offering the badge with no chip or battery, he stated, "I urge you to accept this solution so that your child's instructional program will not be affected. As we discussed, there will be consequences for refusal to wear an ID card as we begin to move forward with full implementation."
We don't force religious parents to vaccinate their children.
The Northside Independent School District seems to think it's law. From the link labeled "Shots" at the districts Health Services page.
"Immunizations are required by law. Students who do not have completed immunizations will not be allowed to register."
They don't quote any specific statute, and I've never heard of a LAW making it mandatory. I've seen POLICIES saying they are recommended, but never any law. Assuming there really is no law, this would seem to be somewhere in the region of fraud and coercion.
Northside ISD is harnessing the power of radio frequency identification technology (RFID) to make schools safer, know where our students are while at school, increase revenues, and provide a general purpose "smart" ID card.
Empasis added.
The FAQ would seem to confirm this.
Q. What does this pilot cost and what is the projected additional revenue expected?
A. NISD will spend approximately $261,000 on this pilot for the two schools and expects to realize $2 million in additional revenues.
So, they expect an additional $1.739M in revenues out of this deal.
This would match up with my personal experience. I remember being told how important it was for students to be in school during a certain week in September or October, because this determined how much federal funding the school would get. Another example of the feds taking money, then using it to ransom state and local entities to get it back. "See also 55mph speed limits and moving the drinking age up from 18 to 21.
Reading the rest of the district page is fascinating. They go on to say, "The "smart" ID cards only work within the school." Interesting. I didn't know you could turn off an RFID chip, especially one with a battery powering it. Is there some supposed to be some way for it to be turned off automatically when they leave the premises?
After referring parents to the website of the contractor implementing the project, "Wade Garcia & Associates (WGA), we get some pseudo useful technical info.
Q.1 Could someone manufacture a copy of a WGA RFID reader and use it to intercept information transmitted by student RFID tags? A.1 WGA has approached this as an issue of system architecture. By ensuring that the âoesmartâ ID contains no information of interest to anyone, WGA has simultaneously removed any motive for cloning its reader and removed any problem if someone does clone its reader. The premise is simple: There is no information stored on any WGA âoesmartâ ID except its serial number. Therefore, an intruder or âoehackerâ can only learn that the tag serial number is, for example, #69872331, but that does not provide any useful information. The tag serial number is not the studentâ(TM)s school I.D. number. The studentâ(TM)s school ID number is stored on the school or Northsideâ(TM)s internal server and one would have to have access to the school or school districtâ(TM)s server and data base to determine what tag number can be associated with a studentâ(TM)s school ID number.
They don't address the first thing the kids will think of, how to clone the cards and have their friend carry it around and make it look like they are in class. I wonder what happens when someone figures out how to clone the cards, and there are 5 copies of every kids cards wandering around the school. That would be an interesting way to hack the system.
The FAQ also goes on to give some shocking information about Texas law regarding what information is "public", quoting from Texas Public Information Act, Texas Government Code, Chapter 552.
Another exception permits a school to non-consensually disclose personally identifiable information from a student's education records when such information has been appropriately designated as directory information. "Directory information" is defined as information contained in the education records of a student that would not generally be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed. Directory information could include information such as the student's name, address, e-mail address, telephone listing, photograph, dat
Perhaps Somalia would be a better example, as there isn't really a government there at all. Then he could, as an individual, decide how to obtain food, water, and shelter, while at the same time fighting everyone else that is doing the same.
I used to believe this hardcore libertarian stuff, until I started to think about the details. How a system of roads would be implemented was one of the things that really hit home. In a pure libertarian system, you would be paying a toll at every stop sign to the warlord/tribe that managed to take control of it that week.
Medical care? Cell phones? The internet? A power grid? Edible food? Water cleaner than what's running down the ditch? Good luck with any of that when everyone is spending all their time trying to stay alive.
I could only laugh when they announced 1 billion users, knowing I was 5 of them. I'm sure there are people with more time to scheme on this than I had then, which only makes me laugh again.
Oh? I wonder why I still have 4 active, and fake, accounts that were created when I was on a Mafiaa Wars kick.
I just don't see how Google's plans work out long term unless they want to get into the ISP and carrier business
Maybe they plan to expand on the fibre to the home services they describe here.
When you combine their move into the last mile physical connection business, with their ties to US government intelligence agencies, I can't begin to understand how they are defining the term "evil" in item 6 on their philosophy page, "You can make money without doing evil." On that page, they seem to want to define evil as not correctly labeling advertising. I think most people have a different definition.
Some examples.
I guess if they changed their name to Panopticon, it would be a little too obvious. And, they might have to fight facebook for it.
Close, but not far enough. The economy would benefit even more if you didn't even get the dollars in the first place. Instead, you get credit that can be used to buy products from your employer and their official partners.
This way the company keeps all the dollars, and can use them to improve their products and services without having to show a labor cost on the balance sheet. Usage of the credits is easily tracked by the employer and partners, and the black market for drugs, hookers, gambling, or anything else that requires cash is exterminated. Everybody wins!
I really should know better than to feed the trolls. :-(
I won't knowingly click a huffpo link at this point. If it looks like a truely interesting story, I'll search for the source and read that instead.
CSS
LSD
XML
XTC
The perfect way I get tripped
is 2decrypt
a javascript
Yea, but have you ever seen java script written by someone tripping on LSD? It might as well be encrypted, even if it does work.
Another design option in this fantasy world would be something that could be cut down annually, and the resulting product could be processed to produce fuel, human and animal feed, clothing, medicine, paper, building material, and more.
having a internet connection without paying Telstra for the copper
My ISP offers this option as well. Not so surprisingly, there is a discount on the price of the DSL service if I also have them provide dial tone. I'll make some numbers up, b/c I don't have a bill handy.
naked DSL: 99$/month
DSL+dialtone: DSL, now discounted to $69 + basic dial tone $30 = $99/month
I don't know what the game is, but since the price is the same, I take the DSL+dialtone option.
Maybe I should work up some schematic drawings and layouts
I find your ideas interesting, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Repeat after me: "I do not consent to a search"
Don't forget the 2 other questions to keep nearby.
Unless you have 8+ digits in your yearly income number, you are part of that 99% too.
Never been a BoA customer. My vote would go to Wells Fargo.
Ahhh, the circle of (artificial) life.
what dns do I have to use in order to resolve that tld?
Big Corporations is not where most of the wealth is. Nor is it where most of the Jobs come from. Nor is setting policies in such a way that target them going to fix whatever problem you think they have.
If wealth is defined by income or net worth, you are way off base. If that net worth and income is not due to affiliation with Big Corporations, please enlighten me. The wealthiest 1% of the population control 34+% of the net worth, the wealthiest 10% control of 73%. That leaves 27% of the value in the US for the other 90%. I don't have any ready links regarding jobs, I'd be glad to check them out.
Of the first 100 entries on the Forbes 400 wealthiest americans seems to be mostly populated by Corporate execs and investment bankers. I'll grant you the few with a source of income listed as "diversified", but there are not many. I also didn't bother digging through the 200-400 pages.
The problem for you is you make no distinction between HUGE MEGA CORP and Mom N Pop Corp. And so, the policies that liberals put in place to "stick it to the man" affects people who are definitely not "the man". And you will never admit it.
I did not make that distinction, and it is a valid one. I don't know why you think so, but I will be the first one to admit the difference. The fact that legislation that is supposed to limit Corporations (howabout I use the cap-C to notate large, multinational corps for the sake of simplicity) but ends up a burden on small business is no surprise at all. I don't know if you are referring to any specific legislation, but I would expect lobbyists from Corporations to spend heavily to push any such legislation, if not writing it directly.
so are the policies mandated by your friends
My friends? Do you have some mistaken belief that I am a fan of the govt in general, or any specific party?
and UNTIL you can admit that Government Interference had partial blame in the matter, then we can't fix things.
UNTIL I can admit it? I never said government wasn't to blame, government interference is certainly part of the problem. In fact, a big part of the problem is the merger of Corporations and government. Movement of executives between government agencies and the Corporations they are supposed to regulate is nothing more than the fox guarding the hen house. "Too big to fail" should cause anyone claiming to be a capitalist to burst a blood vessel.
I have scorn for a long list of facilitators of the current economic clusterfuck.
Clinton - signed the The Grammâ"Leachâ"Bliley Act (GLB), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. This removed the separation between investment banks, savings banks, and insurance companies that was institued by the Glass-Steagall Act.
How about George Bush? Signed the TARP act, bailing out the banks that should have been buried by their poor decisions.
And don't forget that Obama voted for it while he was still in the Senate. He seems to think you can tax and spend your way out of a hole. It may look nice for a while but eventually the piper needs to be paid, and he is going to be paid by your children and grand-children
no amount of evil can be avoided when people excuse evil in the name of good intentions.
There is something I think we can agree on.
What is going to fix this?
jeebus is still alive? Do you have a link to his facespace or mybook or whatever?