You're a complete fool if you don't think Canadian business and political interests don't have every single voting district demographically charted for trends. I don't need to know exactly how *you* voted. I look at what kind of people live in an area, what kind of economy, what kind of real estate, and I can be pretty sure which districts are going to vote which way....
Depends on if you're the one in power or not. If you are, you laugh and say it's okay because the other side would have done the same. The only time it's not okay is when you're on the losing end.
As someone else on here said, there's no such thing as an "oil company" any more. People around here need to update their propaganda. The various energy companies I've worked for couldn't care less whether it's oil, gas, hydrogen, or twinkies, as long as the profit margin is high.
But then again, I'm an evil oil-man, and will be by his evening to collect all of your children and pets to torture. It's what we eeeeeevil people do. Stretches my credibility, what?
Sorry, this only allows for an *individual* to audit his or her own vote. It does not allow for the public to independently audit the physical records of the votes to see how they stack up to the tabulations.
It's not a paper receipt in the hands of a voter that counts -- as a matter of fact, that *is* worthless.
It's a piece of evidence that has to be stored by a process and made retrievable to the public. If any step of the process is violated (say, by someone trying to tamper with or destroy the evidence of the votes themselves), it points to the responsible party. That's what a good process does.
Electronic voting without a paper trail is never going to be secure to my liking.
That physical record of a vote is a crucial piece of evidence -- if there are no physical records, that's one less thing for any "bad guys" to have to worry about. It's one less audit point for any corrupt party.
With the input and compilation of data all within the same system of computers now, corruption can happen at any step -- input, processing, reporting, or combination -- with no "independent" physical record to be audited that might expose the corrupt results. Imagine a zealot programmer hacks a kiosk and tells it to re-write the votes after confirming it with the voter. The number of voters on the register would match the number of votes cast, so this would be difficult to discover -- there would be no physical records, which can be re-tabulated independently of computers.
Elections are high security risks, historically. Paper is not inherently evil. Just because paperless systems are possible, doesn't mean they're preferable. The more physical evidence, the better, I say...
Won't happen. Alaska is too pristene. The feds would be in here right after all the Outsiders started whining about the mass destruction of our beautiful and untouched wilderness.
If they won't let us cut trees or drill for oil, I really doubt if we'll be allowed to keep anything like a reactor.
It's not the "conspiracy" theories or loss of my *individual* information that p*sses me off about this practice. That information is valuable, because it helps corporations exploit consumers. Instead of asking us what we want, they take a skinnerian approach, jolt us here and there, reward us with pellets, see how we react. Eventually they'll figure out a way to convince us to spend more for the same goods and services. These companies simply don't deserve the extra money, and should disclose tracking practices -- especially on a government contract....
Exactly: The Word Interface is clunky. Non-intuitive menus. I'm a very seasoned user, writer (I use FrameMaker, btw), and much of the automata of Word is hard to seek and destroy.
e.g., spell-check options and auto-correct spell-check options are in different menu trees. The former has a control that says, "Correct spelling as I type," but that *isn't* the auto-correct (but it seems like it might be...). One is in general preferences dialog, the other in "tools." Not, NOT intuitive.
Well, first, there's that whole issue of spontaneous generation of matter and energy... lack of scientific method applied to any conclusions... failure to re-address issues when new evidence is presented (e.g., the cause of rainbows or menstruation), transmorphing of matter, flying people and animals, talking plants, the assertion (without evidence) of literally dozens of the laws of physics (stopping the sun in the sky without inertial displacement of the oceans?), etc., etc.
Demographics aren't an invasion of privacy. They're an invasion of *decency*, at least in the way they're used....
Through demographics, I can figure out how to link sex and alcohol in the mind of a 14-year-old forever. He'll pay my beer company a tax every time he gets laid (or even tries) for the rest of his life. I've convinced children that, if their parents don't buy them sugar-coated cereals, they should rebel. McDonalds and Disney are now mandates/entitlements. To deprive a child of McDisney consumerism is to deprive a human being of its soul (according to the marketing developed and successfully implemented over the years)
Through demographics, the deBeers family now taxes Americans every time they get married -- "Why, I simply *must* have a diamond.... and it *must* be worth at least six or eight months' salary, because I'm expected to pay four months' salary" -- for an item that has no practical purpose and wasn't a part of our "culture" until the deBeers family made it so.
"Wash. Rinse. Repeat." -- This is the kind of corporate ethics you want running the country?
We keep handing all of this valuable data away to information warehouses, where its sifted into reports. Those reports tell companies (or political campaigns, etc.) how to *act* in order to increase profits. Instead of listening to what customers want and competitively responding, companies have learned that they can instead manipulate the wants of people.
Data like this has only one real valuable purpose: to teach corporations and governments, churches, or any other power-seekers how to lie more successfully.
And remember, if they can make a profit from it, that money is coming from somewhere -- the billions and billions of dollars spent in monitoring us is added to the prices of our goods.... Kind of like "Brazil" -- we have to pay for our own information retrieval.
My cynicism tells me that TIA is the result of Madison Ave. campaign contributions....
You think the corporations aren't going to get ahold of that data? You know they're just drooling at the concept of it -- full-time, high-resolution demographic data recording, as good as having us radio collared like bears.
That pesky concept of "individualism" can go away all together after that...
Re:Pipelines are NOT safer
on
Gas Goes Solid
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Okay. That's one big incident -- kind of like looking at a jet crash with 300 victims and stating, "It is safer to travel by car than by air, as only a handful can die in a car accident."
Look for how many hazardous chemical spills we had in the US by trucking or train in the last couple of years...
When you use overland transportation, the variables increase -- thousands of potential collisions, more human error capable (as there are now thousands of drivers instead of a few pipeline controllers), weather variables, road conditions, etc.,etc.
Re:Methane hydrates
on
Gas Goes Solid
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Not sure the C1 to C5+ is the exact method, but yes, GTL at room temp = White Crude. (GTL is still term used for condensation as well, we're told to say white crude to differentiate...)
What the engineers are trying to do is reach that cost balance. There is also a net energy loss when you condense the gas into liquid for shipping, but that cost is recovered when the amount to ship a CF of gas is lowered.
It's the same problem with White Crude (room-temp LNG by process) -- it works, but is currently too expensive to be viable.
Re:Methane hydrates
on
Gas Goes Solid
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
First, safety: The safest method of shipping gas (liquified or not) is by pipeline. If turned to a solid, and overland transportation (train/truck) is necessary, risk goes up tremedously -- compare pipeline accidents to car accidents in the US to get an idea of what you're looking forward to... just because they "melt slowly" doesn't mean it's not an environmental catastrophe if they spill in a neighborhood or highway. With pipelines, you have control.
But there's also the issue of "White Crude," not mentioned here. In Alaska, we have enough gas to fuel the world for years, but can't get it to market because it's so much cheaper to do so elsewhere. We and others are working on a chemical process that creates "White Crude," a room-temperature liquid, from NG. White Crude can be shipped within existing oil pipelines, separated easily at the terminus, and loaded into existing oil tankers. Once at port, white crude can be turned back into NG and distributed through pipelines to consumers.
...if they are then forced to change the name of Windows....
They wouldn't be forced to change their name. Precedent: DOS vs. MS-DOS. DOS was a general term. DOS was also MS's product name.
If it came to pass that we had a dozen OS's named "Windows," it would be just like back in the DOS days -- "MS Windows... Bob's Windows... Compaq Windows..." And unless otherwise stated, "Windows" alone would mean "MS Windows" by default.
I may as well have thrown the printer away and bought a new one every time at those prices.
Some time ago, friends of mine here (in AK) began doing just that. They did the math, discovered it was cheaper to buy a new printer from [major membership-type warehouse outlet] each time a cartridge ran out. Perfectly good printers became targets for a wide variety of projectile weapons.
I can vouch for this viewpoint, and I'm not even in IT, per se.
I work in industrial information management, which is often accomplished using various types of information technology. Just from exposure, I've picked up and used some scripting tools to solve problems.
The fact that I use scripting tools some of the time was held against me in a review. Remember -- I'm not even *in* IT, not required to know programming *or* scripting -- but the value of "script kiddies" has been so diminished that the management here heard I could use scripting, assumed I was another devalued dot-com remnant, and assumed my value would be much lower. I was able to explain the difference to them eventually, but at the time, I thought their zeal to devalue scripters was noteworthy....
If only for tracked vehicles, compression alone might be better. Article said it would be used for hauling equipment in, which is a pretty big job for tracked vehicles.
We use an either/or strategy -- For large-wheeled vehicles (trucks, equipment), use ice-roads. For tracked vehicles, stay on the tundra... you don't need no stinking roads (then again, we're completely *flat* in the development fields)
As my side, I work for a company that, in part, builds ice roads.
Adverse impact on the ecosystem? In Antarctica?! You do realize that "eco" means "life," right? That "ecosystem" and "environment" do not mean the same thing, right?
But to the point of protection, Antarctica is protected by international treaty against development for any other purpose other than scientific research. It is not open to commercial development, and one freakin' ice road is not going to do anything but make hauling supplies for research a little easier.
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You're a complete fool if you don't think Canadian business and political interests don't have every single voting district demographically charted for trends. I don't need to know exactly how *you* voted. I look at what kind of people live in an area, what kind of economy, what kind of real estate, and I can be pretty sure which districts are going to vote which way....
That's what the voters say, anyway....
But then again, I'm an evil oil-man, and will be by his evening to collect all of your children and pets to torture. It's what we eeeeeevil people do. Stretches my credibility, what?
Jeez. Didn't even notice. Selective reading. Good thing it wasn't a certain website with a cz domain...
Sorry, this only allows for an *individual* to audit his or her own vote. It does not allow for the public to independently audit the physical records of the votes to see how they stack up to the tabulations.
It's a piece of evidence that has to be stored by a process and made retrievable to the public. If any step of the process is violated (say, by someone trying to tamper with or destroy the evidence of the votes themselves), it points to the responsible party. That's what a good process does.
That physical record of a vote is a crucial piece of evidence -- if there are no physical records, that's one less thing for any "bad guys" to have to worry about. It's one less audit point for any corrupt party.
With the input and compilation of data all within the same system of computers now, corruption can happen at any step -- input, processing, reporting, or combination -- with no "independent" physical record to be audited that might expose the corrupt results. Imagine a zealot programmer hacks a kiosk and tells it to re-write the votes after confirming it with the voter. The number of voters on the register would match the number of votes cast, so this would be difficult to discover -- there would be no physical records, which can be re-tabulated independently of computers.
Elections are high security risks, historically. Paper is not inherently evil. Just because paperless systems are possible, doesn't mean they're preferable. The more physical evidence, the better, I say...
If they won't let us cut trees or drill for oil, I really doubt if we'll be allowed to keep anything like a reactor.
It's not the "conspiracy" theories or loss of my *individual* information that p*sses me off about this practice. That information is valuable, because it helps corporations exploit consumers. Instead of asking us what we want, they take a skinnerian approach, jolt us here and there, reward us with pellets, see how we react. Eventually they'll figure out a way to convince us to spend more for the same goods and services. These companies simply don't deserve the extra money, and should disclose tracking practices -- especially on a government contract....
e.g., spell-check options and auto-correct spell-check options are in different menu trees. The former has a control that says, "Correct spelling as I type," but that *isn't* the auto-correct (but it seems like it might be...). One is in general preferences dialog, the other in "tools." Not, NOT intuitive.
I'd say there's plenty wrong there....
Through demographics, I can figure out how to link sex and alcohol in the mind of a 14-year-old forever. He'll pay my beer company a tax every time he gets laid (or even tries) for the rest of his life. I've convinced children that, if their parents don't buy them sugar-coated cereals, they should rebel. McDonalds and Disney are now mandates/entitlements. To deprive a child of McDisney consumerism is to deprive a human being of its soul (according to the marketing developed and successfully implemented over the years)
Through demographics, the deBeers family now taxes Americans every time they get married -- "Why, I simply *must* have a diamond.... and it *must* be worth at least six or eight months' salary, because I'm expected to pay four months' salary" -- for an item that has no practical purpose and wasn't a part of our "culture" until the deBeers family made it so.
"Wash. Rinse. Repeat." -- This is the kind of corporate ethics you want running the country?
We keep handing all of this valuable data away to information warehouses, where its sifted into reports. Those reports tell companies (or political campaigns, etc.) how to *act* in order to increase profits. Instead of listening to what customers want and competitively responding, companies have learned that they can instead manipulate the wants of people.
Data like this has only one real valuable purpose: to teach corporations and governments, churches, or any other power-seekers how to lie more successfully.
And remember, if they can make a profit from it, that money is coming from somewhere -- the billions and billions of dollars spent in monitoring us is added to the prices of our goods.... Kind of like "Brazil" -- we have to pay for our own information retrieval.
You think the corporations aren't going to get ahold of that data? You know they're just drooling at the concept of it -- full-time, high-resolution demographic data recording, as good as having us radio collared like bears.
That pesky concept of "individualism" can go away all together after that...
Look for how many hazardous chemical spills we had in the US by trucking or train in the last couple of years...
When you use overland transportation, the variables increase -- thousands of potential collisions, more human error capable (as there are now thousands of drivers instead of a few pipeline controllers), weather variables, road conditions, etc.,etc.
Not sure the C1 to C5+ is the exact method, but yes, GTL at room temp = White Crude. (GTL is still term used for condensation as well, we're told to say white crude to differentiate...)
It's the same problem with White Crude (room-temp LNG by process) -- it works, but is currently too expensive to be viable.
But there's also the issue of "White Crude," not mentioned here. In Alaska, we have enough gas to fuel the world for years, but can't get it to market because it's so much cheaper to do so elsewhere. We and others are working on a chemical process that creates "White Crude," a room-temperature liquid, from NG. White Crude can be shipped within existing oil pipelines, separated easily at the terminus, and loaded into existing oil tankers. Once at port, white crude can be turned back into NG and distributed through pipelines to consumers.
Speaking of VCRs and such... What, if anything, in any of these copy-protection schemes prevents copying by digitizing the analog output?
They wouldn't be forced to change their name. Precedent: DOS vs. MS-DOS. DOS was a general term. DOS was also MS's product name.
If it came to pass that we had a dozen OS's named "Windows," it would be just like back in the DOS days -- "MS Windows... Bob's Windows... Compaq Windows..." And unless otherwise stated, "Windows" alone would mean "MS Windows" by default.
"Hoo!"
Some time ago, friends of mine here (in AK) began doing just that. They did the math, discovered it was cheaper to buy a new printer from [major membership-type warehouse outlet] each time a cartridge ran out. Perfectly good printers became targets for a wide variety of projectile weapons.
I work in industrial information management, which is often accomplished using various types of information technology. Just from exposure, I've picked up and used some scripting tools to solve problems.
The fact that I use scripting tools some of the time was held against me in a review. Remember -- I'm not even *in* IT, not required to know programming *or* scripting -- but the value of "script kiddies" has been so diminished that the management here heard I could use scripting, assumed I was another devalued dot-com remnant, and assumed my value would be much lower. I was able to explain the difference to them eventually, but at the time, I thought their zeal to devalue scripters was noteworthy....
We use an either/or strategy -- For large-wheeled vehicles (trucks, equipment), use ice-roads. For tracked vehicles, stay on the tundra... you don't need no stinking roads (then again, we're completely *flat* in the development fields)
As my side, I work for a company that, in part, builds ice roads.
But to the point of protection, Antarctica is protected by international treaty against development for any other purpose other than scientific research. It is not open to commercial development, and one freakin' ice road is not going to do anything but make hauling supplies for research a little easier.