Wow, handy_vandal, a legend in old days of HL1 editing. Didn't know you posted at/.
Thanks, one always likes to be remembered for one's accomplishments. I am, by the way, currently working on a new site for HL2 editing... drop me a line for more info.
That warrants academic punishment, sure, but definitely not legal action. Second, 180 days in jail is ridiculous.
You're right. Jail time is excessive -- I didn't really mean to endorse jail time, that's not my style.
But punishment, of some kind? Definitely.
I suppose I'm prejudiced, as I teach part time. If some student logged my keystrokes, I'd sure as hell want the little shit expelled.
You do understand, of course, that even when upgraded to the planned full array, HAARP will put into the ionosphere over Alaska only a tiny fraction of the radio power that lightning injects more or less continuously all over the planet. Nobody is running around worrying that lightning will make the sky fall.
The problem isn't simply a function total energy injected -- it's a function of total energy injected into relatively small areas of space, in a short span of time, while playing tricks with ionospheric resonance.
Example: one of the proposals for HAARP, as I understand it, is to heat up several hundred cubic miles of ionosphere -- the intent being to make the ionosphere bulge up into space, in order to deflect incoming ICBM's. One doesn't have to be Chicken Little to worry that manipulating the ionosphere in this way could be a Bad Thing.
Lightning doesn't do this sort of thing, to my knowledge.
Of course, I may be misinformed about any of the foregoing.
I'm just saying that we're playing with some potent unknowns here, manipulating the global electromagnetic ecosystem.
Not enough money == not enough help == not enough time to go around to all the machines, each and every day, checking for keystroke loggers and the like.
Hell, there's not even enough money to provide decent books and pencils for a lot schools, let alone provide computer security.
Of course I don't like it. In principle, a system shouldn't be installed if it can't be secured. In principle, a school shouldn't even be built if it can't be properly maintained. But in practice... well, here we are.
Did you even look at who wrote the inanely titled "angels don't play this haarp"?
Not really -- I could see at a glance that the book is touched by paranoid thinking.
Nonetheless:
(1) That doesn't make it entirely wrong -- a reasonable man can still hope to derive some useful information from the ravings of a lunatic;
(2) Amazon publishes reader reviews; in the case of "Angels don't play this Haarp", the reviews are numerous and diverse; agian, a useful source of information.
The initial post states quite clearly that a major portion of this is for military purposes, so that was a bit redundant...
A reasonable objection. However, the nature of these military purposes is not spelled out. The first link in the original post does lead to technical information about the project. But the second link in the original post leads to a lightwight story about the pretty lights, not much more. And nowhere in any of these sources do we read about the radical weapons possibilities, e.g. using HAARP to heat the ionosphere so that it bulges up into space in order to deflect incoming ICBM's.
Furthermore, when I made my post, most of the other posts were jokes about the pretty lights -- I figured those posters needed a clue.
...(except for the "Angels Don't Play This HAARP" mention, which is instead a bit quackish).
Agreed, that book is a bit quackish. But not, I think, entirely quackish -- it raises serious issues, worth considering. In any case, there are numerous reviews from differing viewpoints on the Amazon page, which seems useful to me. I took care to provide the Amazon link, and not a link to some certifiably conspiratorial site such as rense.com, for precisely that reason.
There are quite legitimate reasons for producing an aurora. Amateur radio operators have used auroras to communicate over long distances for decades over decades.
Agreed. All good and fine -- I'm a man of science, I too want to figure out how things work by experimenting with the nature of things. But I wouldn't want to leave the impression that HAARP is pure science and nothing more, when it does appear to have profound military applications which, if misused, could seriously fuck up the world.
Where's the equal time for creationism? I don't believe in this "evolution" stuff. I think God created.NET (cough, cough) and then rested on the seventh day.
If God had worked on the seventh day, He could have debugged all of Creation. But no, He had to rest.
Q: Why does God permit evil to exist?
A: Because He is lazy. If he'd worked on the seventh day, we'd be living in Paradise right now.
In many studies, it is shown that women make more errors than men in driving. Men on the otherhand are more risk takers and their accidents are usually associated with excess speed which has a higher percentage of fatalities. That is why men pay more for insurance.
Because they can -- or think they can -- continue to drive forever, and they don't want to stop.
I remember one old guy who'd been in an accident, mainly because his driving skills had eroded badly. When challenged, he stated that he would give it up when he killed somebody... a joke, I think, but that's how much driving meant to him.
"Presumably this system would require a way to identify individuals (beyond name/address)...has there been any discussion of how that would be accomplished? (Social security number?) I can't think of a way that this could be accomplished where it wouldn't be controversial."
Agreed. Makes me wonder if this isn't the ideal wedge into our resistance. I picture Big Brother explaining it oh-so-reasonably...:
But of course we need a unique ID number for each citizen -- without reliable identification, how can we provide medical care?
When a two dozen Bob Smiths are delayed at the airport because "Robert Smith" is on some watchlist, what you get are angry delayed travellers.
When two dozen Bob Smiths get the wrong diagnosis, wrong medication, wrong surgery, wrong billing -- that's another matter.
-kgj
PS to parent: sorry to see you got modded Offtopic -- I scrolled quite a ways down the page, looking for anyone to address this issue.
"As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."
-- Lincoln to (Col.) William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864
[Source ]
Last I checked, we had captialism. When did we switch to corporate communism?
Around the time of the American Civil War, and the Gilded Age that followed:
"As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."
-- Lincoln to (Col.) William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864
[Source]
Yes, a historical science can't do experiments; you can still get useful information from it.
Agreed. One can get useful information from economics, in the same way that one can get useful information from history, archaeology, religion, etc. These areas of inquiry shed light onto man's origins and nature, questions of morality, and so on.
Science is a method for gathering useful knowledge. But science alone tells us nothing about right and wrong; tells us nothing about good and evil. These moral questions cannot be answered by science -- they must be addressed by each man, for himself, using his own wisdom.
This is why history matters: it teaches us about ourselves -- not in a way that is a predictive, like science; but in a way that helps us conduct our lives as better people. (Alternately, we learn to conduct our lives as worse people -- the ideology of fascism, terror, and so on. If history teaches us right from wrong, it also teaches us wrong from right.)
I am sensitive on this point, since I've read too many idiots writing things like:
"Well, since economics can't really prove anything... my unfounded theory, without any presented support, is worth as much as the consensus opinion among economists".
Yes, I've encountered this viewpoint -- sometimes in extreme forms, such as: "Traditional science cannot teach us right from wrong, therefore I must create my own science of morality based on [astrology, divination, etc.]."
One can write state secrets on a paper napkin with a #2 pencil too. Should the Government take over production and distribution of napkins and pencils now?
The question of pencils and state security depends upon the grade of the pencil....
Prisoner: Who are you?
Number Two: The new Number Two.
Prisoner: Who is Number One?
Number Two: You are Number Six.
Prisoner: I am not a number. I am a free man.
[Source]
As the foregoing demonstrates, the grade of the pencil determines a man's station in the security state: Number Two has power over Number Six, but not vice-versa.
Sigh, all theories about reality are approximations. No theory is correct. The difference is in how close the approximations are.
What your wrote sounds like one of the conspiracy theories from European left wingers that is very similar to the creationist writings on paleontology. Please keep religion out of discussions.
Yes yes, a theory is a theory, all theories are subject to invalidation -- nothing is for certain, we have only degrees of confidence -- I'm all for Popperian logic.
I didn't think it necessary to split that hair on SlashDot -- surely most of us understand the point -- we have widespread agreement about many of the physical principles of our world. If new observations make the old theories less useful, we'll work out new theories that better suit the facts. That's science, baby; and it's been my religion for many years.
But we don't have widespread agreement about economic/social phenomena. Quite the contrary -- we've got bazillions of theories, and damned near no common agreement about which are right versus which are wrong.
I'll go further -- it's not possible to prove most social/economic theories, in the scientific sense, because there's no way to do proper science (hypothesis, test, controls, etc.) with society at large.
As to your comment about "conspiracy theories from European left wingers that is very similar to the creationist writings on paleontology"... that's your boogeyman, buddy. I said nothing of the kind, and you won't read that kind of creationist garbage in my posts, thank you very much.
Leave Marx out of this. He is just the author of a brilliant analysis of capitalism, and of an absurd solution to it: communism.
I agree.
Marx was to non-fiction what Charles Dickens was to popular fiction -- a man appalled by the conditions of his time who poured his heart into the written word.
If I had the type of money these guys have, there's no way I'd waste it on something as risky and untested as private space travel.
I know what you mean -- if I had that kind of loot, I'd spend it on hookers and Chivas Regal. And a plasma TV set, wall-to-wall. And my own private submarine.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, handy_vandal, a legend in old days of HL1 editing. Didn't know you posted at /.
... drop me a line for more info.
Thanks, one always likes to be remembered for one's accomplishments. I am, by the way, currently working on a new site for HL2 editing
That warrants academic punishment, sure, but definitely not legal action. Second, 180 days in jail is ridiculous.
You're right. Jail time is excessive -- I didn't really mean to endorse jail time, that's not my style.
But punishment, of some kind? Definitely.
I suppose I'm prejudiced, as I teach part time. If some student logged my keystrokes, I'd sure as hell want the little shit expelled.
-kgj
You do understand, of course, that even when upgraded to the planned full array, HAARP will put into the ionosphere over Alaska only a tiny fraction of the radio power that lightning injects more or less continuously all over the planet. Nobody is running around worrying that lightning will make the sky fall.
The problem isn't simply a function total energy injected -- it's a function of total energy injected into relatively small areas of space, in a short span of time, while playing tricks with ionospheric resonance.
Example: one of the proposals for HAARP, as I understand it, is to heat up several hundred cubic miles of ionosphere -- the intent being to make the ionosphere bulge up into space, in order to deflect incoming ICBM's. One doesn't have to be Chicken Little to worry that manipulating the ionosphere in this way could be a Bad Thing.
Lightning doesn't do this sort of thing, to my knowledge.
Of course, I may be misinformed about any of the foregoing.
I'm just saying that we're playing with some potent unknowns here, manipulating the global electromagnetic ecosystem.
-kgj
There's no excuse for that lax security.
... well, here we are.
Sure there's an excuse: not enough money.
Not enough money == not enough help == not enough time to go around to all the machines, each and every day, checking for keystroke loggers and the like.
Hell, there's not even enough money to provide decent books and pencils for a lot schools, let alone provide computer security.
Of course I don't like it. In principle, a system shouldn't be installed if it can't be secured. In principle, a school shouldn't even be built if it can't be properly maintained. But in practice
-kgj
Before we all start to scream bloody murder this, fascist law that, I would like to say that this kid got what he deserved.
As the guy who submitted the original post, I want to say: I agree with you 100%.
I didn't voice an opinion in my submittal, because I think it's best to write up submittals using a neutral, journalistic approach.
But my personal feeling is, the kid fucked up and richly deserves punishment for his crime.
-kgj
Did you even look at who wrote the inanely titled "angels don't play this haarp"?
Not really -- I could see at a glance that the book is touched by paranoid thinking.
Nonetheless:
(1) That doesn't make it entirely wrong -- a reasonable man can still hope to derive some useful information from the ravings of a lunatic;
(2) Amazon publishes reader reviews; in the case of "Angels don't play this Haarp", the reviews are numerous and diverse; agian, a useful source of information.
-kgj
The initial post states quite clearly that a major portion of this is for military purposes, so that was a bit redundant ...
...(except for the "Angels Don't Play This HAARP" mention, which is instead a bit quackish).
A reasonable objection. However, the nature of these military purposes is not spelled out. The first link in the original post does lead to technical information about the project. But the second link in the original post leads to a lightwight story about the pretty lights, not much more. And nowhere in any of these sources do we read about the radical weapons possibilities, e.g. using HAARP to heat the ionosphere so that it bulges up into space in order to deflect incoming ICBM's.
Furthermore, when I made my post, most of the other posts were jokes about the pretty lights -- I figured those posters needed a clue.
Agreed, that book is a bit quackish. But not, I think, entirely quackish -- it raises serious issues, worth considering. In any case, there are numerous reviews from differing viewpoints on the Amazon page, which seems useful to me. I took care to provide the Amazon link, and not a link to some certifiably conspiratorial site such as rense.com, for precisely that reason.
There are quite legitimate reasons for producing an aurora. Amateur radio operators have used auroras to communicate over long distances for decades over decades.
Agreed. All good and fine -- I'm a man of science, I too want to figure out how things work by experimenting with the nature of things. But I wouldn't want to leave the impression that HAARP is pure science and nothing more, when it does appear to have profound military applications which, if misused, could seriously fuck up the world.
-kgj
HAARP isn't really about pretty light shows.
It's about military-industrial applications:
* Detection and Imagine of Underground Structures Using ELF/VLF Radio Waves
* Angels Don't Play This Haarp
-kgj
Where's the equal time for creationism? I don't believe in this "evolution" stuff. I think God created .NET (cough, cough) and then rested on the seventh day.
If God had worked on the seventh day, He could have debugged all of Creation. But no, He had to rest.
Q: Why does God permit evil to exist?
A: Because He is lazy. If he'd worked on the seventh day, we'd be living in Paradise right now.
-kgj
In many studies, it is shown that women make more errors than men in driving. Men on the otherhand are more risk takers and their accidents are usually associated with excess speed which has a higher percentage of fatalities. That is why men pay more for insurance.
Good post -- interesting and informative.
-kgj
If it is a proven scientific fact that old people drive like they are drunk, why are they allowd to drive?
... a joke, I think, but that's how much driving meant to him.
Because they control the government: police, courts, armed forces, etc.
Because they run the economy -- banks, corporate boards, regulations. (Alan Greenspan is no spring chicken.)
Because they can -- or think they can -- continue to drive forever, and they don't want to stop.
I remember one old guy who'd been in an accident, mainly because his driving skills had eroded badly. When challenged, he stated that he would give it up when he killed somebody
-kgj
Simply beacuse there is no moon.
Spoon, dude. There is no spoon .
-kgj
So you have aspirations to be in management or an end user? I'm not clear here.
Worst case scenario: aspirations to be management and end user.
-kgj
When two dozen Bob Smiths get the wrong diagnosis, wrong medication, wrong surgery, wrong billing -- that's another matter.
-kgj
PS to parent: sorry to see you got modded Offtopic -- I scrolled quite a ways down the page, looking for anyone to address this issue.
John Brunner says something similar in Stand on Zanzibar, when Chad Mulligan declares that supercomputer Shalmaneser is "bloody-minded"
-kgj
In a truly free market you get to hand your wallet to JP Morgan or any of the other robber barons that used to dominate America.
...? Why the past tense?
... and so on.
What do you mean, used to
* Prescott Bush and Union Bank
* Savings and Loan Scandal
* Ken Lay and Enron
-kgj
"As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."
-- Lincoln to (Col.) William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864
[Source ]
Around the time of the American Civil War, and the Gilded Age that followed:
The world's best research sees its first incarnation on bar napkins across the globe.
Bar napkins in strip joints, if we're lucky.
-kgj
Yes, a historical science can't do experiments; you can still get useful information from it.
Agreed. One can get useful information from economics, in the same way that one can get useful information from history, archaeology, religion, etc. These areas of inquiry shed light onto man's origins and nature, questions of morality, and so on.
Science is a method for gathering useful knowledge. But science alone tells us nothing about right and wrong; tells us nothing about good and evil. These moral questions cannot be answered by science -- they must be addressed by each man, for himself, using his own wisdom.
This is why history matters: it teaches us about ourselves -- not in a way that is a predictive, like science; but in a way that helps us conduct our lives as better people. (Alternately, we learn to conduct our lives as worse people -- the ideology of fascism, terror, and so on. If history teaches us right from wrong, it also teaches us wrong from right.)
I am sensitive on this point, since I've read too many idiots writing things like:
"Well, since economics can't really prove anything... my unfounded theory, without any presented support, is worth as much as the consensus opinion among economists".
Yes, I've encountered this viewpoint -- sometimes in extreme forms, such as: "Traditional science cannot teach us right from wrong, therefore I must create my own science of morality based on [astrology, divination, etc.]."
-kgj
Prisoner: Who are you?
Number Two: The new Number Two.
Prisoner: Who is Number One?
Number Two: You are Number Six.
Prisoner: I am not a number. I am a free man.
[Source]
As the foregoing demonstrates, the grade of the pencil determines a man's station in the security state: Number Two has power over Number Six, but not vice-versa.
-kgj
I didn't think it necessary to split that hair on SlashDot -- surely most of us understand the point -- we have widespread agreement about many of the physical principles of our world. If new observations make the old theories less useful, we'll work out new theories that better suit the facts. That's science, baby; and it's been my religion for many years.
But we don't have widespread agreement about economic/social phenomena. Quite the contrary -- we've got bazillions of theories, and damned near no common agreement about which are right versus which are wrong.
I'll go further -- it's not possible to prove most social/economic theories, in the scientific sense, because there's no way to do proper science (hypothesis, test, controls, etc.) with society at large.
As to your comment about "conspiracy theories from European left wingers that is very similar to the creationist writings on paleontology"
-kgj
Not unless basic economic theory is fundamentally wrong.
Unfortunately, all economic theories are wrong -- just ask any economist (other than the economist who proposed a given theory).
-kgj
Funny, yes, Insightful, no.
You're right. I posted too quickly.
What I really want to know: what about DNS hijacking? What's the threat, what's the answer?
-kgj
I scrolled down the posts, looking and looking for someone to address the problem of DNS compromise.
You nailed it, thus the +Insightful -- and throw in some +Funny, for good measure.
-kgj
Leave Marx out of this. He is just the author of a brilliant analysis of capitalism, and of an absurd solution to it: communism.
I agree.
Marx was to non-fiction what Charles Dickens was to popular fiction -- a man appalled by the conditions of his time who poured his heart into the written word.
-kgj
If I had the type of money these guys have, there's no way I'd waste it on something as risky and untested as private space travel.
I know what you mean -- if I had that kind of loot, I'd spend it on hookers and Chivas Regal. And a plasma TV set, wall-to-wall. And my own private submarine.
-kgj