carry a flyswatter in the front seat.. so you don't have to reach so far to swat the screaming kids.. trust me you only have to do this once.. (i'm not a kid but i used to be one)
well i AM looking for this rasheen kareem karzi movie (the one with her and the two others dressed as a bride and groom) lost it in a hard drive crash, and p2p doesn't seem to have it..
If you feed this man, he'll just keep coming back. He'll keep coming back, raping our childhoods and messing with our memories of a great Star Wars. After that it's all been crap to include Greedo shooting first. He doesn't deserve another penny from any of us to continue sucking dry all the pulp serials. Don't go away mad George Lucas, just freaking go away.
if i remember the laser physics i learned from reading "cardinal of the kremlin" the problem is not just power, but also "atmospheric blooming." iirc this was atmosphere fluctuations caused by the laser heating up the dust and other microparticles in its path. i have NO idea how accurate this idea is, so feel free to corect me.
i read the article, but since i am not sure what the patents are for i am not sure if these are actually usable patents
to put it simply.
lets say ibm has a patent for "4 wheeled personal flying transport unit with vtol capability" (in small words: a flying car). now if they opened this out, fine that means that anyone can make a flying car. but does it mean that any flying cars will get made??
or what if these are just basic ideas which are in common use, but are patented by ibm.. say for internet based retailing.
this could be just a load of hot air.
suchetha
"see that man.. he the devil.. never take your eye off the man"
the problem (as i see it) is that if you even TRY to go for a political solution you WILL get slapped down. the current leader of iran is considered by the theocracy to be TOO LIBERAL. the problem is that in iran the mullahs have got used to having power and they are not going to let that power go without a fight.
now its easy to say revolt.. but peasants against the army.. its not really a fight is it?
add to that its the young who want these freedoms.. not going to happen. all we can do is give them a hole in the wall that surrounds them so they can get messages in or out. maybe encourage them to revolt.. but any change has to come from inside.
in sri lanka the government telco (Sri Lanka Telecom) is giving 2mbps/512kbps at USD80 per month. it is not widespread (i have it in my office but not at home) and is only given with new phone connections..
the fact of the matter is that the connection gives that speed only to the distribution point. iirc SLT only has an 80mbps uplink to the SEAMEWE cable, which means that EVERY user is competing for extremely limited bandwidth
i would love to run an ISP, use a decent 802.11g wireless net and a phat pipe to provide service (iirc there was a wireless protocol that gave 5 mile range.. it was on slashdot a while back) for a fair rate, but the problem lies in the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission. you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy
originally created to make sure that the people were getting a decent deal on telecom, the telcos have been paying them off to ensure that a. rates are kept artificially high, and b. keep anyone who offers lower rates off the market
case in point: in 2000 there was a company trying to offer widespread VOIP based international calling for what was about 5% of what the SLT was charging. slt forced the trc to FORCE this guy to raise his prices until he was on par with them.. jsut so they could maintain dominance. there are other stories but you get the idea
and the government is talking of doing an e-srilanka project.
you'd think after the flaming i got for my last post, i would have quit by now.
just for the record, i stand by much of what i said (in fact i have put a whole post about that below my last post) but i will say this. i AM saddened by all the innocents who died. the ones who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
i would like to thank all of you who have given so much. not just to sri lanka but to the many who have suffered. but unfortunately in sri lanka at least, things are getting bad.
please note these are based on anecdotal evidence.
1. the ltte has grabbed some of the relief supplies going to the north. presumably to distribute themselves. or maybe to distribute among themselves.
2. an aunt of mine went to a refugee camp down south. what she had to say was disturbing. apparently the entire camp is now run by thugs. she took 500 lunch packets with her, but was not allowed to distribute them by the thugs who demanded that she hand the food supplies to them, and they would take care of the distribution. please note, these were not people in charge of the administration of the camp but thugs from the area who had taken over.
3. she also took some plastic toothpaste packets (the 10 rupee good for one week plastic sachet.) even the shopkeeper had given them to her at cost because they were going to the refugees. the first thing she had been asked by the people was "aren't you giving the big ones?"
4. the thugs in the area have got themselves registered as "refugees" even if they live far inland and have lost nothing. their families are inside, waiting for the food and the supplies and most of all the money. they have already registered themselves for disaster compensation.
5. in a church run camp it is the same. the local people have taken over, making sure they get all the supplies while the real refugees get the leftovers.
6. another friend of the family was taking lunch packets to the camps when they were stopped by the cops who had demanded 5 packets for themselves.
many of the stories are corroborated by people who have been living in the camps.
there are also reports of corpse looting and cases of rape in the refugee camps.
it is sad that even in this time, (or especially in this time) man's baser instincts come to the fore.
i am a cold hearted realist, but i i personally think that the old punishment for looting should be brought back. summary execution of a few looters would have a prophylactic effect.
sorry for not replying sooner. but my work ISP has started running an open proxy and i can only post from home (16.8kbps... strewth)
i wrote a post, but when i found i couldn't post it i put it in my journal. i just placed it as a reply to the parent.
so do i still feel that all those people deserved to die? no i don't. i never felt like that. i DID feel (and still DO feel) that people who put themselves in harms way deserve little sympathy. sri lanka's death toll is so high because the entire coastline is one long shantytown.
but its too big to feel anything. i am glad that two of my friends survived unscathed (mostly) and sad that another (who was on a surfing holiday) caught the wave and didn't make it back. all i can hope is that it was quick.
on the other side, i'm a fatalist. if you gotta go you gotta go. and there is no $deity who can save you. not all of them were squatters, not all of them were victims of anything other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time. but what can you do.
atb
Suchetha
1. i would say that i am cold hearted. but i believe that people who deliberately put themselves in harms way shouldn't be spared the pity.
2. the government has been trying to get rid of the squatters who live along the coastline for almost three decades. these attempts have been unsuccessful for many reasons. primarily the squats are a haven for the goons and thugs the parliamentarians use. the squatters have resisted every attempt to move them. the government has provided them with land in the central areas, many of them sold teh land and came back. the government then provided them with an apartment complex in the city. they sold THOSE and came back. there was a time when the squatters have taken over a road reservation. the government gave them land AND money. for every squatter that left, two took their place. hey.. free money.. encroachers have also taken over private and government lands by force (a'la mugabe's kenya). they have also taken over forest preserves, destroying what little forest cover we have. they are egged on by various "human rights" NGO's who claim that they have a right to live where they please.
3. these squats have become a haven for crime. muggers, thieves, thugs for hire etc etc. there was a time when you couldn't walk along the beach without a significant probablity of getting mugged and/or raped
4. the coastline has been attacked by storms, and all kinds of other natural disasters. yet these people come back, take wahtever aid they get and move in. if you travel down the coast, except where someone has built a house or a hotel (and sometimes even there) its almost one continuous shanty town. houses made of plywood and tree branches.
5. people in the area have been building houses with low quality materials. if you look at the houses you'll see quite a few standing while the next one to them is powder. this is not a tornado that hits on a point level. this was a frikken WAVE. some houses stand because they were built well. not with flimsy materials that coould be knocked down with a good kick
6. a lot of deaths happened with rubberneckers. people were jamming the streets after the first wave to see what this tsunami was about. if you look at teh TV coverage, you'll see that. and they got caught to teh second, much larger, wave. darwinism is a bitch
do i feel sorry for the people who died through no fault of their own? yes and no. i didn't know them, and a natural disaster is.. natural.. you can't predict when it will hit or how. if you gotta die, you gotta die.
i gave my share of aid, its the human thing to do. but i really don't feel anything
clarke is probably safe (unless he had a heart attack or something.) one of is houses is near mine, and the other is in the heart of the city. long story short.. he's gonna be ok.
the most affected are the squatters living in improvised huts near the beach. call me cold hearted, but they went there, they grabbed the land, refused all attempts to base them elsewhere.
actually i DO know of this. but the point remains the same. no one can turn back a natural force by simply saying "be not" (or by any other form. nature ALWAYS finds a way)
ok. it wasn't just the brits and not just in india. most of my post is based on my home country, sri lanka, but i believe that india was influenced in much the same way.
of course i grant that the brit influence was greater in.lk than in.in. but lets face it. wherever the missionaries landed, they took an open and sexually free society and left it a repressed wasteland. and then when/if the missionaries were kicked out, the locals continued the repression as "modesty and chastity are part of our culture."
india (and most of asia) is a dichotomy when it comes to sex. if you look at some of the south indian temples you;ll find LOTS of sex on the walls. si much so that the british flat out REFUSED to talk about the wonders you see there (i'm talking about the temples, not the sexual positions on their walls). that is why the northern states have more torist exposure than the southern (well the southern heat may have soemthing to do with it too)
there are tales of temples where women who couldn't have children would spend the night and the god would come down to them and miraculously impregnate them (umm yeah.. god.. right..)
i'm not even going to mention the kama sutra or the japanese and chinese pillow books.
most asian cultures were sexually very liberal. we are talking bastardy, social recognition given to courtesans, the whole works.
it is the western missionaries that brought sexual repression to the east. when the victorian missionaries showed up with their straitlaced attitudes, that was the end of the good times as far as most people were concerned.
since then the cultures have been holding on to this prudery while AT THE SAME TIME screwing around.
the east never had a sexual revolution like america did. its more of a gradual slide. and there are people who, like king canute, try to stem the tide by ordering it not to be.
Slashdot Mirror
carry a flyswatter in the front seat.. so you don't have to reach so far to swat the screaming kids.. trust me you only have to do this once.. (i'm not a kid but i used to be one)
Suchetha
Major Asshole
well i AM looking for this rasheen kareem karzi movie (the one with her and the two others dressed as a bride and groom) lost it in a hard drive crash, and p2p doesn't seem to have it..
ideas??
Suchetha
off. site. backup.
women come, women go, but pr0n is forever
Suchetha
text-mode bukkake..
Suchetha
well if you got foreskin applied to your eyelids, you could see the world all cockeyed..
suchetha
If you feed this man, he'll just keep coming back. He'll keep coming back, raping our childhoods and messing with our memories of a great Star Wars. After that it's all been crap to include Greedo shooting first. He doesn't deserve another penny from any of us to continue sucking dry all the pulp serials. Don't go away mad George Lucas, just freaking go away.
if i remember the laser physics i learned from reading "cardinal of the kremlin" the problem is not just power, but also "atmospheric blooming." iirc this was atmosphere fluctuations caused by the laser heating up the dust and other microparticles in its path. i have NO idea how accurate this idea is, so feel free to corect me.
Suchetha
"metal whiskers" would be a great name for a rock band?
come back, dave barry. we miss you already
Suchetha
maybe someone doesn't want communications to happen. i think a powerful enough radio beam could fry the satellite. ideas?
could this be a test bed for the newest extortion?? "give us the money or your satellite gets it"
Suchetha
i read the article, but since i am not sure what the patents are for i am not sure if these are actually usable patents
to put it simply.
lets say ibm has a patent for "4 wheeled personal flying transport unit with vtol capability" (in small words: a flying car). now if they opened this out, fine that means that anyone can make a flying car. but does it mean that any flying cars will get made??
or what if these are just basic ideas which are in common use, but are patented by ibm.. say for internet based retailing.
this could be just a load of hot air.
suchetha
"see that man.. he the devil.. never take your eye off the man"
that is a GREAT system.. in theory.
.. not going to happen. all we can do is give them a hole in the wall that surrounds them so they can get messages in or out. maybe encourage them to revolt.. but any change has to come from inside.
the problem (as i see it) is that if you even TRY to go for a political solution you WILL get slapped down. the current leader of iran is considered by the theocracy to be TOO LIBERAL. the problem is that in iran the mullahs have got used to having power and they are not going to let that power go without a fight.
now its easy to say revolt.. but peasants against the army.. its not really a fight is it?
add to that its the young who want these freedoms
suchetha
b0rk3d
patrick.. enough slacking.. back to work..
suchetha
no you can't, all you get is the diluted version.
in sri lanka the government telco (Sri Lanka Telecom) is giving 2mbps/512kbps at USD80 per month. it is not widespread (i have it in my office but not at home) and is only given with new phone connections ..
the fact of the matter is that the connection gives that speed only to the distribution point. iirc SLT only has an 80mbps uplink to the SEAMEWE cable, which means that EVERY user is competing for extremely limited bandwidth
i would love to run an ISP, use a decent 802.11g wireless net and a phat pipe to provide service (iirc there was a wireless protocol that gave 5 mile range.. it was on slashdot a while back) for a fair rate, but the problem lies in the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission. you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy
originally created to make sure that the people were getting a decent deal on telecom, the telcos have been paying them off to ensure that a. rates are kept artificially high, and b. keep anyone who offers lower rates off the market
case in point: in 2000 there was a company trying to offer widespread VOIP based international calling for what was about 5% of what the SLT was charging. slt forced the trc to FORCE this guy to raise his prices until he was on par with them.. jsut so they could maintain dominance. there are other stories but you get the idea
and the government is talking of doing an e-srilanka project.
bah and humbug
Suchetha
its GREEDO.. repeat after me.. GREEE-DO
now go to your room.
suchetha
and Han Shot First
actually, if you start talking about "cutting" drugs.. it can be exponential.
you get 1kg of pure coke.. and then start cutting that with aspirin, talcum and other impurities.. all of a sudden you got 50kg of street grade.
that's why they say a drug has a "street value" of x dollah.
atb
Suchetha
hello, its me again.
you'd think after the flaming i got for my last post, i would have quit by now.
just for the record, i stand by much of what i said (in fact i have put a whole post about that below my last post) but i will say this. i AM saddened by all the innocents who died. the ones who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
i would like to thank all of you who have given so much. not just to sri lanka but to the many who have suffered. but unfortunately in sri lanka at least, things are getting bad.
please note these are based on anecdotal evidence.
1. the ltte has grabbed some of the relief supplies going to the north. presumably to distribute themselves. or maybe to distribute among themselves.
2. an aunt of mine went to a refugee camp down south. what she had to say was disturbing. apparently the entire camp is now run by thugs. she took 500 lunch packets with her, but was not allowed to distribute them by the thugs who demanded that she hand the food supplies to them, and they would take care of the distribution. please note, these were not people in charge of the administration of the camp but thugs from the area who had taken over.
3. she also took some plastic toothpaste packets (the 10 rupee good for one week plastic sachet.) even the shopkeeper had given them to her at cost because they were going to the refugees. the first thing she had been asked by the people was "aren't you giving the big ones?"
4. the thugs in the area have got themselves registered as "refugees" even if they live far inland and have lost nothing. their families are inside, waiting for the food and the supplies and most of all the money. they have already registered themselves for disaster compensation.
5. in a church run camp it is the same. the local people have taken over, making sure they get all the supplies while the real refugees get the leftovers.
6. another friend of the family was taking lunch packets to the camps when they were stopped by the cops who had demanded 5 packets for themselves.
many of the stories are corroborated by people who have been living in the camps.
there are also reports of corpse looting and cases of rape in the refugee camps.
it is sad that even in this time, (or especially in this time) man's baser instincts come to the fore.
i am a cold hearted realist, but i i personally think that the old punishment for looting should be brought back. summary execution of a few looters would have a prophylactic effect.
atb
Suchetha
Galle is on the south west coast. it's also heavily populated.
suchetha
sorry for not replying sooner. but my work ISP has started running an open proxy and i can only post from home (16.8kbps ... strewth)
i wrote a post, but when i found i couldn't post it i put it in my journal. i just placed it as a reply to the parent.
so do i still feel that all those people deserved to die? no i don't. i never felt like that. i DID feel (and still DO feel) that people who put themselves in harms way deserve little sympathy. sri lanka's death toll is so high because the entire coastline is one long shantytown.
but its too big to feel anything. i am glad that two of my friends survived unscathed (mostly) and sad that another (who was on a surfing holiday) caught the wave and didn't make it back. all i can hope is that it was quick.
on the other side, i'm a fatalist. if you gotta go you gotta go. and there is no $deity who can save you. not all of them were squatters, not all of them were victims of anything other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time. but what can you do.
atb
Suchetha
and the flames grew higher and higher.
.. free money.. encroachers have also taken over private and government lands by force (a'la mugabe's kenya). they have also taken over forest preserves, destroying what little forest cover we have. they are egged on by various "human rights" NGO's who claim that they have a right to live where they please.
so lets address them one by one shall we?
1. i would say that i am cold hearted. but i believe that people who deliberately put themselves in harms way shouldn't be spared the pity.
2. the government has been trying to get rid of the squatters who live along the coastline for almost three decades. these attempts have been unsuccessful for many reasons. primarily the squats are a haven for the goons and thugs the parliamentarians use. the squatters have resisted every attempt to move them. the government has provided them with land in the central areas, many of them sold teh land and came back. the government then provided them with an apartment complex in the city. they sold THOSE and came back. there was a time when the squatters have taken over a road reservation. the government gave them land AND money. for every squatter that left, two took their place. hey
3. these squats have become a haven for crime. muggers, thieves, thugs for hire etc etc. there was a time when you couldn't walk along the beach without a significant probablity of getting mugged and/or raped
4. the coastline has been attacked by storms, and all kinds of other natural disasters. yet these people come back, take wahtever aid they get and move in. if you travel down the coast, except where someone has built a house or a hotel (and sometimes even there) its almost one continuous shanty town. houses made of plywood and tree branches.
5. people in the area have been building houses with low quality materials. if you look at the houses you'll see quite a few standing while the next one to them is powder. this is not a tornado that hits on a point level. this was a frikken WAVE. some houses stand because they were built well. not with flimsy materials that coould be knocked down with a good kick
6. a lot of deaths happened with rubberneckers. people were jamming the streets after the first wave to see what this tsunami was about. if you look at teh TV coverage, you'll see that. and they got caught to teh second, much larger, wave. darwinism is a bitch
do i feel sorry for the people who died through no fault of their own? yes and no. i didn't know them, and a natural disaster is.. natural.. you can't predict when it will hit or how. if you gotta die, you gotta die.
i gave my share of aid, its the human thing to do. but i really don't feel anything
atb
Suchetha
clarke is probably safe (unless he had a heart attack or something.) one of is houses is near mine, and the other is in the heart of the city. long story short .. he's gonna be ok.
the most affected are the squatters living in improvised huts near the beach. call me cold hearted, but they went there, they grabbed the land, refused all attempts to base them elsewhere.
atb
Suchetha
actually i DO know of this. but the point remains the same. no one can turn back a natural force by simply saying "be not" (or by any other form. nature ALWAYS finds a way)
ok. it wasn't just the brits and not just in india. most of my post is based on my home country, sri lanka, but i believe that india was influenced in much the same way.
.lk than in .in. but lets face it. wherever the missionaries landed, they took an open and sexually free society and left it a repressed wasteland. and then when/if the missionaries were kicked out, the locals continued the repression as "modesty and chastity are part of our culture."
of course i grant that the brit influence was greater in
atb
Suchetha
india (and most of asia) is a dichotomy when it comes to sex. if you look at some of the south indian temples you;ll find LOTS of sex on the walls. si much so that the british flat out REFUSED to talk about the wonders you see there (i'm talking about the temples, not the sexual positions on their walls). that is why the northern states have more torist exposure than the southern (well the southern heat may have soemthing to do with it too)
there are tales of temples where women who couldn't have children would spend the night and the god would come down to them and miraculously impregnate them (umm yeah.. god.. right..)
i'm not even going to mention the kama sutra or the japanese and chinese pillow books.
most asian cultures were sexually very liberal. we are talking bastardy, social recognition given to courtesans, the whole works.
it is the western missionaries that brought sexual repression to the east. when the victorian missionaries showed up with their straitlaced attitudes, that was the end of the good times as far as most people were concerned.
since then the cultures have been holding on to this prudery while AT THE SAME TIME screwing around.
the east never had a sexual revolution like america did. its more of a gradual slide. and there are people who, like king canute, try to stem the tide by ordering it not to be.
atb
suchetha