...is that stupid looking. Government sure does come up with some harebrained excuses to drop tons of cash on fatcats all the time...
Hey, here's a thought....don't invade other nations where the locals don't like you and resort to any weapon they can come up with to stop you. Of course I know this doesn't make the fatcats any *more* money, but really....
Look at those pics....geez....the "insurgents" will enjoy their skeet shooting. And the oil companies will enjoy their profits, after first having to transit five other fatcat DOD "contractors" pockets first. What is it in ashcanistan now, 400 bucks a gallon for fuel delivered, something like that? Can you imagine the fuel an even slightly armored flying dork mobile like that will need to burn to get off the ground and stay aloft?
..and here I thought they just liked the taste of my corn, squash and tomatoes..learn new stuff ever' day..../me heads to the farm n feed for USB spray.....
If you don't want to go TV, you can make spiffy outdoor table canopies from them, or use them for home solar thermal alt energy projects, once you have a tracker. I've seen them used for the tops/roofs on backyard small buildings as well.
Water pumped steroid corn that has patents on it, and is harder for animals and humans to digest? Actually causes problems in animal studies but they sort of ignore that point because they have millions to bribe with, in political circles and at the ag colleges? Those "wonder" seeds? That academic and industry developed shit that is one of the main causes of obesity and diabetes, that stuff? Plus, you can't save seeds practically or legally with their crap, meaning you are in economic thrall to some other place forever and two days, have to pay what they demand, plus use their brand chemicals to even make the seeds work, again, whatever they demand in price??
No thanks, I'll stick to my country hayseed bumpkin non academic open pollinated seeds, save the very best ones from my yield every year, then plant those the next year. Well, as much as I can, until their patented crap has spread so much you can't do that any longer.
I don't care how much you alter them, you aren't developing *exact* good seeds for extreme specialized and local cases, the individual farm. I know my weather is different from just ten miles north of here. You have academic developed seeds to deal with that? I'll answer that, no, you don't.
If you want to do some actual research and learn something, go look how much franken academic/corporate whored off seeds have destroyed all the wonderful little specialized corn crops in Mexico, replacing nutritious corn with generic puffed water "almost could be called food" corn, and is causing economic chaos and a drop in the health of the people there because of it.
Just because you get more bushels an acre doesn't mean it is better quality, more nutritious, or even economically advantageous. It's economically advantageous to the seed and chemical companies and the asshole loan shark banks and wall street speculators and hustlers, that's it. You wind up *needing* more bushels an acre just to break even with increased costs of production.
The "green revolution" was due to cheap oil and cheap natgas and cheap phosphates and cheap weed and bug killers (especially when they didn't give a crap about long term environmental effects from those), none of which is true any more.
I farm and garden, and you can "plant" your monsanto and similar franken seeds where the sun won't shine on them.
Now, I think your point has some merit, some but not entirely, because your analogy didn't work based on real life stuff once you see through the PR propaganda that the corporate/ag-ademic heads push out. Ya, they can do it, but is it really a good deal? Just because you *can* do something like that, make cross species franken seeds, isn't the only reason that you should.
I also think you'll find the bulk of the youngerish pro farmers today have at least some college/university education and are usually *better* at general tech than most specialized IT people or pure career academics. Because they have to use such a variety of modern tech to make a living, they get more flexible at problem solving, because real life always has unexpected problems, wildcards.
There's a case to be made for single specialization, and just that, and obviously we need *some* people to do that, the very small in numbers extreme far out deep thinkers who can't tie their shoelaces or anything else much, but there's a better case to be made for higher level generalized knowledge in the "practical" world where stuff gets done. You won't get that in academia very much, it takes out in the "field" work to do that, the ag field or the shop or the data center or the factory floor or the design office, etc. Because that's where the wildcards show up that have to be dealt with *today*, thee is no luxury of another year or ten research, it has to be fixed *now*.
And that's what the article is about, in general terms, if you over specialize in just one thing, you can get shafted fast when reality changes, whereas if you do a high level gener
Just a list of all the carriers out there in case anyone wanted to see it. I wasn't trying to score any points or dispute anything with it, just thought it interesting.
With that said, if you want to get into dick swinging for some reason, in the next major war, not a joke war with the US versus some third world nation, like we use carrier aircraft now against, hitting goat herders in pickup trucks, but against a real opponent, you'll find out that carriers are obsolete now, just huge expensive targets. I wouldn't give ya a nickel for one then.
Happened in the US with our civil war. Took a long time for it to get back to "normality" and I guess I would say it never has really. Now I didn't realize that so much until I was an adult and moved to the south. Growing up in the north we had a certain cultural mindset, but after moving here it hit me how much differences remain, and how much the south is still discriminated against in general terms.
And the weirdest thing to me is, because this was mainly about race issues..the north is more racist, just they don't admit it or acknowledge it. The most racist place I have lived is in Boston, followed by Detroit, way more racist than around here where I live now, rural bubba land Georgia.
Ubuntu took off from heavy advertising. Advertising and marketing works, and the initial "get as many free disks as you want " shipit deal helped there as well.
Now, what they failed to do is capitalize on this advertising. They should immediately (as soon as they saw they had a hit on their hands) have gone to selling their own machines. Relying on dell. some *mart, some online mom and pop store, etc is not the same.
They don't need every hardware config under the sun, just maybe six machines total, don't go crazy there. This needs to be like an Apple effort, just using open source, integrated hardware and software in nice packages.
They need a netbook (go for ARM, make the breakthrough), a full laptop with optical drive, an entry level cheapish desktop, a higher end workstation/gaming type desktop, expensive but all top shelf components, don't be scared, just do it, a SOHO tower server perhaps that comes with NAS, then a rackmount enterprise server.
They use the LTS releases as the target OS for those machines. The main hired on devs use those machines all the time, so they really grok how to make them fly and get rock solid.
Now, the support is two tier, you own a bonafide branded Ubuntu machine, you get first tier support. Everyone else gets second tier (which is what Ubuntu has now, pure anarchy with hardware, good luck if it works or not, go wade through the forums pages deep with "help me plz").
first tier, separate forum, and the devs, or other offical hired on dudes, DO read the forums there and respond. And quickly. You take the people's money, you answer their questions and fix problems as fast as possible.
First tier branded machines get the REAL "just works" treatment. The rest is like now, good luck with your hardware, might work, might not, go haunt the second tier forums, see what needs to be done there. If you want the every six month bleeding edge releases, oh well, good luck. sure you can run it..but don't expect the same support as they give people who have paid for the hardware and software. Hardware they sell should stay supported for two LTS cycles. That's more than enough now a days for people to milk their hardware out. Chances are, if the hardware and software was really a good match, it would work longer than that, but officially, make it two cycles.
And they should be able to keep cost competitive in this, as they have the resources for economies of scale and some good Q&A before making hardware selection for the branded machines. If local mom and pops can assemble and sell generic machines, so can a big company like Canonical.
Every new LTS release, new hardware comes out, and it "just works", everything, wireless, all of it.
*Most* people don't give a rat's ass about upgrading their OS and machines every six months, look how many people and businesses are still running XP and some older hardware. They want "just works" and "finally, I got this freekin SOB computer figured out and can use it now" over bleeding edge every other week something new is added/updated, and something old that worked, stops working. That gets way annoying to the other 99% of the humans out there who aren't serious devs/hobbiests. Real annoying.
You want linux mainstream on the desktop, or you want to keep it for hardcore nerds only, choose one.
Just wondering if there are any "data only" cellular services, that is, you don't get a phone number nor do they provide phone service. I mean that's ALL they have, not a "data plan" from a normal telco, a company that *only* does cellular/mobile data service. I use a WISP, but it isn't cellular, nor mobile capable, the antenna has to be precisely aimed. The radio uses a sim card though...which made me wonder about this.
Such a cellular ISP, that charged by bandwith consumed plus a modest monthly connectivity fee, might work. It might even exist, I don't know, that's why I am asking.
As to those other bozos, the regular telcos and ISPs, etc, we need dumb pipes, then content providers. They shouldn't be *both*, that sets up the conflict of interest and it goes downhill from there.
oblig car analogy, a really bad one, for what these telcos want...
You have a real cream puff Belchfire Motors Land Dreadnought. Unfortunately, it only gets 1.5 miles to the gallon..so you have to stop a lot and fill up...now it could run on any gas, the engine is capable of it just fine, but as soon as you pull up to a non-Belchfire pump the tank cover locks up, and even if you manage to get some in, it runs like crap..until you pull up to the Belchfire Motors fueling stations and fill up there. Then it runs perfect. But Belchfire gas costs twice as much. See, you have a consumer choice! According to Belchfire...
So you want more people to use mass transit, but to hell with those people who aren't using any of your particular stops? Trains are cool with you as long as it is your personal train, only starts and stops where you want it? Your particular definition of what is big enough and important enough? The rails already go to these places, they are cities, why can't the residents there have as much of a right to board or disembark as you? It is NOT the same as driving to a large airport, of which there are far fewer You are special because you live or embark from one of the larger and more "elite" areas?
Then you can be riding your elite "only the big end point" trains for you "special" people and start posting with your laptop, a nice rant about all those unimportant subhuman energy hogs who live "out there" in the useless wastelands and "drive personal cars everywhere, probably SUVs, why don't they take the train"!!
Why not just sit it out and take the two weeks pay? Isn't that a lot of loot? If they restrict you from doing regular work for that time, big deal! Goof off, post on slashdot, play some games, read a book, do some of your own coding stuff..whatever.
Money is money. And also, you have stuck to YOUR word in that case, you offered two weeks, and stayed there, it is their fault and loss if they don't want you to do legit work during that time. Now actual *abuse* is a different story, but even then, document the abuse (short of physical I mean, and if that occurs you can go right to the cops) for the full two weeks, then let a lawyer take a glance at what you have. It might turn out to be quite lucrative.
Keep the moral and ethical high ground, and get paid to do it.
I guess these business guys just don't grok that in Mexico, people who don't want their irises scanned or to be tracked, stuff like that, are known to cut off the heads of people who are trying to dick with them. And that's *after* they have some "sport" with them.
They might as well issue these iris scanner techs *red shirts*.
Someone with ties to Washington (legislative process), or a mass letter/comment writing effort to the FCC and see if a regulation would be in order to address this issue. They sure as heck always take the full price for the service. Now they want caps plus speed limits, etc, fine, there should be a mathematical formula they are required to use when the charges go out every month. Taking into account speed plus transfer. (seeking math nerd input there for this formula)
And if they ALL had to follow that formula, every ISP, maybe they would be more interested in honest advertising and actually improving infrastructure. This would also address the issue the ISPs have with bandwith "hogs", their term. The more you get, and the faster you get it, you pay more. Less, pay less. About the same as any other utility (sort of).
There are potentially trillions (skimmed out of the real economy) present in this discussion from the other side, carbon credits. A completely unnatural (there is no natural demand for a "carbon credit") and artificial conjob "market" that is promoting AGW as hard as it can, so it can get its hands on these new tradeable commodities. More sticky fingers in a huge new cash cow pie, pushed as force of law, that no one will be able to avoid, a new massive stealth tax. How wonderful...
As some people say, the anti AGW folks might be funded by big oil and coal so their views could be tainted, suspect, but check out who wants AGW to be adopted as the official "approved and settled science", such world class benefactors and all around good guys as Goldman Sachs. These sort of "gents" are the main big money behind this. And we are supposed to be completely trusting now, that there is no corruption involved??
In fact, the idea of carbon credits comes from our good and honest friends back at Enron.
The old saying of stones and glass houses comes to mind with this accusation of who is being influenced by what behind the scenes big money.
Myself, personally, I am all for alternative and more decentralized energy. I think its spiffy. based on itself, as stand alone things, as just a general good idea, but not based on casino banker gangster backed lobbying groups or their tame scientists utterances. I find that as potentially suspect and corrupt as anything else with these sorts of sums involved.
Cleaner environment, less coal, more solar, more geothermal, more wind, more hydro, biofuel made from non food crops eventually, more individuals getting freedom from the current big energy cartelists? Hell ya! All good ideas, bring it on!
Carbon credits? Why do I want to support the white shoe mafia boys, who have already been proven to be the biggest scammers and liars and cheats and thieves on the planet?? They are crooks, and the groups/individuals/institutions taking their crooked blood money are now highly suspect in my book.
The science is *tainted*. It needs to be thrown out, new studies done from scratch, completely open and transparent every step of the way. What has gone on so far is not lily white pure neutral, "let the chips fall where they may" science, not with those crooks involved it isn't, it *can't* be, those boys expect results for their "support". That's how they operate..
Ha! You sure do give me a lot of homework with those links! hahaha!
Basic social security check for all:
that's part of my alternative currency system I developed, a bottom up gift approach, not a top down credit/lending approach like we have today.
The idea is simple, freeze the currency we have at the current level, to establish a baseline.
Now, accrue the data (currency units again) for the top 100 traded tangible commodities inside your domestic economy.
Now divide the latter into the former, this gives you your baseline 'worth" for a single currency unit. (I was informed my idea is a variation on Keynes "bancor" theoretical currency, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor, but I developed it independently of that bit of data) (I leave out all non wealth production "jobs" in the economy on purpose, the commodities index gives you closer to the true worth, the rest are service and governmental jobs that don't add to the pie, just make more slices)
Now every quarter, accrue the data again, notice any productivity gains. You can garner a percentage up or down. If up, like it should be, the money supply is inflated accordingly. (If down, oh well, better luck next quarter) The first stakeholder for new money is government, now run on a pay as you go effort, no borrowing. A lot of the new money gets into circulation that way. What is left over, is divvied out to all adults in the nation as an equal proportional check, to do with as they please. That's how the rest of the new money gets into circulation.
Dollars now go up in value all the time, not drop in value. You can save money with a clear conscious, or invest it elsewhere, knowing that it will always be worth more down the line when you need it.
At the border, "quid pro quo" tariffs are imposed, with the opposite nation setting the rates..they decide, we match it. If they want 0% tariffs, fine, we match it. They charge us 50% tariffs, we match it. About as fair as it gets, they set the rates. This also helps to fund government, and also encourage REAL free trade, free and fair, not scam trade like we have now. And no picking and choosing, this means any goods that cross the border.
No more fractional reserve lending, that's out, because it is a *congame*. Lending can still exist, from private banks, or by individuals, but it would have to be full asset backed.
The official currency is now "backed" by 100 commodities, that can change as the economy changes. Buggywhips can fall off the list, RAM chips can be added..along those lines, and we include gold and silver for historical and practical reasons, plus it fulfills constitutional requirements, as we issue ONE official gold coin per quarter, and declare its "worth" based on our previously collected data, and it gets put up on the wall at a national museum. The rest is like we run it now, printing press money, but now backed with the process being fully opened.
The mint can still issue coins like they do now, silver and gold and platinum eagles, for collectors or as global hedges, whatever. (ha, just turned in a my change can full of clad coins today, got another silver eagle..my modest "investment" strategy)
Personal and corporate income taxes at the federal level are *no longer needed at all* at this point. Mass pandemonium and celebration breaks out across the land, and champagne gets sold out! This gives the most possible "stimulus" to the economy that can be constructed, and foreign investment would flock here from those rates. You just can't beat zero taxes... Everyone working just gets a huge increase in pay from not having to fork out the federal tax. An easy sell to the population.
We go from top down, the "trickle down" method of running a fiat currency, to bottom up, the "rising tide lifts all boats model".
A few central bankers lose their cushy jobs, and not a single tear is shed....
States and local governments remain the same as they are today per fu
It's called listening to your customers and not dictating to them what they want. Now I don't use it, but XP is still widely used, because it got "good enough" for companies and individuals to use and rely on. Same with upgrading hardware. If what you have is good enough, not broken, and does the job, there is no overwhelming need to upgrade, even if the hardware guys want you to.
Comes a time that corporations and stockholders, etc should put the fork down, push back from the table, and realize they have eaten enough, and go into maintenance mode. Still make some money but not the boatloads they got used to. Like GM..just realize you got bloated, and cut back a lot to stay relevant. Reach a level of market share and be content with that, because all corporations can't endlessly grow forever and two days, it just isn't possible, and it is ludicrous to expect that.
The planet has given hundreds of billion$ to microsoft..perhaps it is time they wound down and enjoy what they made so far and not expect this huge gravy train to go on forever.
All of those concepts exist widely in the survival preparedness communities.
(gift economy, basic income, resource-based planning, and local subsistence communities)
gift economy: a lot of sharing goes on and mutual help and support. both in cyberspace and meatspace
basic income: survival and preparedness folks almost universally have more than one source of income, because they know how vital this is to survive, they don't like the "all your eggs in one basket" approach. they also understand the difference between money and wealth, and why it is a good idea to accumulate wealth, and not so much fancy IOUs masquerading as wealth.
resource-based planning: this is top of the heap for survival/preparedness. Resources=tangibles for the most part, and we understand tangibles. We look at almost all possible situations, see any negatives that might arise, and develop contingency plans and mitigation efforts in advance. This concept is called "having backups for backups". And on the other hand, we see and act on opportunities that exist, even if they are small, because we realize a lot of smalls add up to "big" or "big enough".
local subsistence communities: all community starts at the personal and family level and goes up from there. I think you'll find that survivalists are the most heavy into gardening, livestock, home crafts, canning and food preservation, doing repairs, recycling, etc, plus being active in the local community and with their neighbors. They also are the most prepared when it comes to routing around fiat currency shortfalls, by having and using precious metals/barter/back to sharing, being earlier adopters and evangelists for alternative energy devices, owning HAM gear, having a ton of tools, etc.
The old community barn raising is another old example there, along with modern day use of open source software and open source knowledge sharing (like my board and many other free survival boards, free sharing of survival skills and resources)
I tell ya what is weird though..it is way more older folks like the greatest generation (ww2 era folks), boomers and the earliest (the oldest) gen Xers who are into it today. Unfortunately, we aren't getting it across to the later Xers and the gen Y and younger folks why this is a good idea. They have known only prosperity mostly, comfort, easy climate controlled living, a lot of leisure time, stores always full, instant always there communication, all of that, and just don't grok how fast things can change, like overnight or even faster, and why you need to concentrate on basic life necessities first, and get independent and have backups, before you go to wasting time and resources on frivolities and entertainments, etc.
They also *really* don't understand that they are half way to a full bore big brother society, because this is all they have known, it is "normal" to them. No idea how being tied so heavily to the system makes you a slave. They have never lived when random roadblocks were unheard of, or when security cameras weren't all over, etc, and "no knock" raids were exceedingly rare and reserved only for the most heinous crimes/criminal suspects.
I mean, to be fair and not come across as too much of a curmudgeon, I grew of age in the sixties, so I know *full well* what "party down" means;) Ain't a generation out there that can hold a candle to the boomers when it comes to "party"...
It's not like I am unfamiliar with this concept o_0..but, I always had a garden, I learned every hand tool and power tool I could get my hands on, learned all the wood craft and fieldcraft I could, learned various means and forms of self defense, learned to cross country navigate *large distances* using a compass and a few cheap maps, educated myself on politics and economics and the blend there known as geopolitics..and so on. It wasn't *all* party time.
And I am not seeing that so much with the two youngest generations now, scares hec
Most people equate all those three things. Same as they think any "job" helps the overall economy.
I gave up long ago trying to change the world, it just slap doesn't work. What does work is anyone changing themselves, then their friends and neighbors and relatives might get interested in this or that aspect, and adopt it, or consider it, or make a change to it and adopt that, etc.
Macro changes are usually accompanied by wars or other nasty stuff. Micro changes done by individuals are immediately rewarding and the best way to influence over all human trends.
I'd like to see more alt energy, so I bought me some and use it. Better mileage vehicles so I got one, and it was well used to boot, and needed (and still does some) repairs, recycled rather than scrapped and replaced with new.
and yada yada. That adage thing globally act locally REALLY applies once people realize that act locally means "you".
In the sixties we had a saying, still fits today, you are part of the problem, or part of the solution.
Oh, predictions..it doesn't matter in the long run. Example, I "predicted" a long time ago a decent demand/market in fat tired comfortable to sit on multi speed bicycles. I wanted one, they didn't exist, no one had one for sale. So I built one, used it as a bragger in front of my bicycle store. Now they are known as mountain bikes. Never made a penny directly off that "prediction", other than anyone can buy one now cheap, so all is good there as far as I am concerned. To me the wealth I made off of that-my working and very fun to ride prototype, and now all the zillions of models out there, became a global force multiplier in wealth, and I can share in it today, we all collectively got wealthier.
There is only really one existing "free market" and that is the "black" market..in anything. Very successful, despite a lot of effort to try and eliminate it. Pick a goods or service demand which has to be met in the "black" market because it is "illegal" otherwise..and it is over all successful, and there is usually a lot of competition, and even if some of the "marketeers" try to eliminate their competition, that usually fails in general terms.
All other markets are regulated in some form or another and can't be classified as free markets.
Just an observation, not making a judgment call on anyone's business.
Save some of her clothes, her favs, both dress-up and casual, including shoes. Put em away well. The little girls will grow up and get to see and maybe wear some of mom's clothes later on. And especially the wedding dress. Who knows, one of them or a grand daughter might want to wear it when they get married. Oh, and her jewelry, you'll need to divvy that up later on when they are near-adults as well. Next, some of her fav books, stuff like that. Any hobbies she had, the creative stuff, keep a representative sample.
But don't make a mausoleum inside the house, don't go that far, and don't keep everything, donate it away. Eventually you will meet a new person, they will be uncomfortable if the whole house is a mausoleum dedicated to the person they aren't and never can be, if you get my drift..
I predicted the US would collapse economically back in the sixties when I studied the great depression and social security, etc. Obvious as all get out it is a ponzi scheme that is unsustainable now that the boomers are retiring. They only have two options, print money, or bump off the boomers with plausible deniability, using slow plagues that are man made or other options available to them. This is called the "great cull" theory. I think they will choose both options.
Another one I made Was the bankruptcy of GM. Again, easy to see when I worked for them. Obvious. management always at war with employees/labor/unions at war with investors, and all of them convinced they are worth five times what their products were really worth. This was right before the huge japanese car floods to come in. I got laughed at, derided, "no one will ever buy any of those teeny little jap cars".
I think I was the only person in Detroit to see it coming. I looked at what japanese cars were out there, the build quality, mileage, price, etc.then looked at the insane detroit horsepower wars with ancient car designs, just throw more pushrod engine at the situation.. I went "these people are all loony tunes crazy" and quit.
Slashdot Mirror
...is that stupid looking. Government sure does come up with some harebrained excuses to drop tons of cash on fatcats all the time...
Hey, here's a thought....don't invade other nations where the locals don't like you and resort to any weapon they can come up with to stop you. Of course I know this doesn't make the fatcats any *more* money, but really....
Look at those pics....geez....the "insurgents" will enjoy their skeet shooting. And the oil companies will enjoy their profits, after first having to transit five other fatcat DOD "contractors" pockets first. What is it in ashcanistan now, 400 bucks a gallon for fuel delivered, something like that? Can you imagine the fuel an even slightly armored flying dork mobile like that will need to burn to get off the ground and stay aloft?
Can't have PETA showing up (unless it is those nekkid gurl protesters all decked out in animal body paint...)
Helium balloon for the GPS bug tracker spoofing win!
..and here I thought they just liked the taste of my corn, squash and tomatoes..learn new stuff ever' day.... /me heads to the farm n feed for USB spray.....
Scrounger's guide to Sat TV
http://www.nmia.com/~roberts/scrounge
Free to air Sat receivers
http://www.tech-faq.com/free-to-air-receivers.html
If you don't want to go TV, you can make spiffy outdoor table canopies from them, or use them for home solar thermal alt energy projects, once you have a tracker. I've seen them used for the tops/roofs on backyard small buildings as well.
I was thinking stray cats or pigeons would be more fun.
Water pumped steroid corn that has patents on it, and is harder for animals and humans to digest? Actually causes problems in animal studies but they sort of ignore that point because they have millions to bribe with, in political circles and at the ag colleges? Those "wonder" seeds? That academic and industry developed shit that is one of the main causes of obesity and diabetes, that stuff? Plus, you can't save seeds practically or legally with their crap, meaning you are in economic thrall to some other place forever and two days, have to pay what they demand, plus use their brand chemicals to even make the seeds work, again, whatever they demand in price??
No thanks, I'll stick to my country hayseed bumpkin non academic open pollinated seeds, save the very best ones from my yield every year, then plant those the next year. Well, as much as I can, until their patented crap has spread so much you can't do that any longer.
I don't care how much you alter them, you aren't developing *exact* good seeds for extreme specialized and local cases, the individual farm. I know my weather is different from just ten miles north of here. You have academic developed seeds to deal with that? I'll answer that, no, you don't.
If you want to do some actual research and learn something, go look how much franken academic/corporate whored off seeds have destroyed all the wonderful little specialized corn crops in Mexico, replacing nutritious corn with generic puffed water "almost could be called food" corn, and is causing economic chaos and a drop in the health of the people there because of it.
Just because you get more bushels an acre doesn't mean it is better quality, more nutritious, or even economically advantageous. It's economically advantageous to the seed and chemical companies and the asshole loan shark banks and wall street speculators and hustlers, that's it. You wind up *needing* more bushels an acre just to break even with increased costs of production.
The "green revolution" was due to cheap oil and cheap natgas and cheap phosphates and cheap weed and bug killers (especially when they didn't give a crap about long term environmental effects from those), none of which is true any more.
I farm and garden, and you can "plant" your monsanto and similar franken seeds where the sun won't shine on them.
Now, I think your point has some merit, some but not entirely, because your analogy didn't work based on real life stuff once you see through the PR propaganda that the corporate/ag-ademic heads push out. Ya, they can do it, but is it really a good deal? Just because you *can* do something like that, make cross species franken seeds, isn't the only reason that you should.
I also think you'll find the bulk of the youngerish pro farmers today have at least some college/university education and are usually *better* at general tech than most specialized IT people or pure career academics. Because they have to use such a variety of modern tech to make a living, they get more flexible at problem solving, because real life always has unexpected problems, wildcards.
There's a case to be made for single specialization, and just that, and obviously we need *some* people to do that, the very small in numbers extreme far out deep thinkers who can't tie their shoelaces or anything else much, but there's a better case to be made for higher level generalized knowledge in the "practical" world where stuff gets done. You won't get that in academia very much, it takes out in the "field" work to do that, the ag field or the shop or the data center or the factory floor or the design office, etc. Because that's where the wildcards show up that have to be dealt with *today*, thee is no luxury of another year or ten research, it has to be fixed *now*.
And that's what the article is about, in general terms, if you over specialize in just one thing, you can get shafted fast when reality changes, whereas if you do a high level gener
Just a list of all the carriers out there in case anyone wanted to see it. I wasn't trying to score any points or dispute anything with it, just thought it interesting.
With that said, if you want to get into dick swinging for some reason, in the next major war, not a joke war with the US versus some third world nation, like we use carrier aircraft now against, hitting goat herders in pickup trucks, but against a real opponent, you'll find out that carriers are obsolete now, just huge expensive targets. I wouldn't give ya a nickel for one then.
Happened in the US with our civil war. Took a long time for it to get back to "normality" and I guess I would say it never has really. Now I didn't realize that so much until I was an adult and moved to the south. Growing up in the north we had a certain cultural mindset, but after moving here it hit me how much differences remain, and how much the south is still discriminated against in general terms.
And the weirdest thing to me is, because this was mainly about race issues..the north is more racist, just they don't admit it or acknowledge it. The most racist place I have lived is in Boston, followed by Detroit, way more racist than around here where I live now, rural bubba land Georgia.
List of carriers and nations, all classes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_carrier#Aircraft_carriers_in_service
Ubuntu took off from heavy advertising. Advertising and marketing works, and the initial "get as many free disks as you want " shipit deal helped there as well.
Now, what they failed to do is capitalize on this advertising. They should immediately (as soon as they saw they had a hit on their hands) have gone to selling their own machines. Relying on dell. some *mart, some online mom and pop store, etc is not the same.
They don't need every hardware config under the sun, just maybe six machines total, don't go crazy there. This needs to be like an Apple effort, just using open source, integrated hardware and software in nice packages.
They need a netbook (go for ARM, make the breakthrough), a full laptop with optical drive, an entry level cheapish desktop, a higher end workstation/gaming type desktop, expensive but all top shelf components, don't be scared, just do it, a SOHO tower server perhaps that comes with NAS, then a rackmount enterprise server.
They use the LTS releases as the target OS for those machines. The main hired on devs use those machines all the time, so they really grok how to make them fly and get rock solid.
Now, the support is two tier, you own a bonafide branded Ubuntu machine, you get first tier support. Everyone else gets second tier (which is what Ubuntu has now, pure anarchy with hardware, good luck if it works or not, go wade through the forums pages deep with "help me plz").
first tier, separate forum, and the devs, or other offical hired on dudes, DO read the forums there and respond. And quickly. You take the people's money, you answer their questions and fix problems as fast as possible.
First tier branded machines get the REAL "just works" treatment. The rest is like now, good luck with your hardware, might work, might not, go haunt the second tier forums, see what needs to be done there. If you want the every six month bleeding edge releases, oh well, good luck. sure you can run it..but don't expect the same support as they give people who have paid for the hardware and software. Hardware they sell should stay supported for two LTS cycles. That's more than enough now a days for people to milk their hardware out. Chances are, if the hardware and software was really a good match, it would work longer than that, but officially, make it two cycles.
And they should be able to keep cost competitive in this, as they have the resources for economies of scale and some good Q&A before making hardware selection for the branded machines. If local mom and pops can assemble and sell generic machines, so can a big company like Canonical.
Every new LTS release, new hardware comes out, and it "just works", everything, wireless, all of it.
*Most* people don't give a rat's ass about upgrading their OS and machines every six months, look how many people and businesses are still running XP and some older hardware. They want "just works" and "finally, I got this freekin SOB computer figured out and can use it now" over bleeding edge every other week something new is added/updated, and something old that worked, stops working. That gets way annoying to the other 99% of the humans out there who aren't serious devs/hobbiests. Real annoying.
You want linux mainstream on the desktop, or you want to keep it for hardcore nerds only, choose one.
Just wondering if there are any "data only" cellular services, that is, you don't get a phone number nor do they provide phone service. I mean that's ALL they have, not a "data plan" from a normal telco, a company that *only* does cellular/mobile data service. I use a WISP, but it isn't cellular, nor mobile capable, the antenna has to be precisely aimed. The radio uses a sim card though...which made me wonder about this.
Such a cellular ISP, that charged by bandwith consumed plus a modest monthly connectivity fee, might work. It might even exist, I don't know, that's why I am asking.
As to those other bozos, the regular telcos and ISPs, etc, we need dumb pipes, then content providers. They shouldn't be *both*, that sets up the conflict of interest and it goes downhill from there.
oblig car analogy, a really bad one, for what these telcos want...
You have a real cream puff Belchfire Motors Land Dreadnought. Unfortunately, it only gets 1.5 miles to the gallon..so you have to stop a lot and fill up...now it could run on any gas, the engine is capable of it just fine, but as soon as you pull up to a non-Belchfire pump the tank cover locks up, and even if you manage to get some in, it runs like crap ..until you pull up to the Belchfire Motors fueling stations and fill up there. Then it runs perfect. But Belchfire gas costs twice as much. See, you have a consumer choice! According to Belchfire...
So, this explains the US Cxx class and all their wonderful and logical decisions.
So you want more people to use mass transit, but to hell with those people who aren't using any of your particular stops? Trains are cool with you as long as it is your personal train, only starts and stops where you want it? Your particular definition of what is big enough and important enough? The rails already go to these places, they are cities, why can't the residents there have as much of a right to board or disembark as you? It is NOT the same as driving to a large airport, of which there are far fewer You are special because you live or embark from one of the larger and more "elite" areas?
Then you can be riding your elite "only the big end point" trains for you "special" people and start posting with your laptop, a nice rant about all those unimportant subhuman energy hogs who live "out there" in the useless wastelands and "drive personal cars everywhere, probably SUVs, why don't they take the train"!!
Why not just sit it out and take the two weeks pay? Isn't that a lot of loot? If they restrict you from doing regular work for that time, big deal! Goof off, post on slashdot, play some games, read a book, do some of your own coding stuff..whatever.
Money is money. And also, you have stuck to YOUR word in that case, you offered two weeks, and stayed there, it is their fault and loss if they don't want you to do legit work during that time. Now actual *abuse* is a different story, but even then, document the abuse (short of physical I mean, and if that occurs you can go right to the cops) for the full two weeks, then let a lawyer take a glance at what you have. It might turn out to be quite lucrative.
Keep the moral and ethical high ground, and get paid to do it.
I guess these business guys just don't grok that in Mexico, people who don't want their irises scanned or to be tracked, stuff like that, are known to cut off the heads of people who are trying to dick with them. And that's *after* they have some "sport" with them.
They might as well issue these iris scanner techs *red shirts*.
Someone with ties to Washington (legislative process), or a mass letter/comment writing effort to the FCC and see if a regulation would be in order to address this issue. They sure as heck always take the full price for the service. Now they want caps plus speed limits, etc, fine, there should be a mathematical formula they are required to use when the charges go out every month. Taking into account speed plus transfer. (seeking math nerd input there for this formula)
And if they ALL had to follow that formula, every ISP, maybe they would be more interested in honest advertising and actually improving infrastructure. This would also address the issue the ISPs have with bandwith "hogs", their term. The more you get, and the faster you get it, you pay more. Less, pay less. About the same as any other utility (sort of).
...tell them you will pay them "up to" the agreed on price for their service, but you will determine what the real sums involved will be.
There are potentially trillions (skimmed out of the real economy) present in this discussion from the other side, carbon credits. A completely unnatural (there is no natural demand for a "carbon credit") and artificial conjob "market" that is promoting AGW as hard as it can, so it can get its hands on these new tradeable commodities. More sticky fingers in a huge new cash cow pie, pushed as force of law, that no one will be able to avoid, a new massive stealth tax. How wonderful...
As some people say, the anti AGW folks might be funded by big oil and coal so their views could be tainted, suspect, but check out who wants AGW to be adopted as the official "approved and settled science", such world class benefactors and all around good guys as Goldman Sachs. These sort of "gents" are the main big money behind this. And we are supposed to be completely trusting now, that there is no corruption involved??
In fact, the idea of carbon credits comes from our good and honest friends back at Enron.
http://www.investigatemagazine.com/archives/2006/03/investigate_oct_5.html
The old saying of stones and glass houses comes to mind with this accusation of who is being influenced by what behind the scenes big money.
Myself, personally, I am all for alternative and more decentralized energy. I think its spiffy. based on itself, as stand alone things, as just a general good idea, but not based on casino banker gangster backed lobbying groups or their tame scientists utterances. I find that as potentially suspect and corrupt as anything else with these sorts of sums involved.
Cleaner environment, less coal, more solar, more geothermal, more wind, more hydro, biofuel made from non food crops eventually, more individuals getting freedom from the current big energy cartelists? Hell ya! All good ideas, bring it on!
Carbon credits? Why do I want to support the white shoe mafia boys, who have already been proven to be the biggest scammers and liars and cheats and thieves on the planet?? They are crooks, and the groups/individuals/institutions taking their crooked blood money are now highly suspect in my book.
The science is *tainted*. It needs to be thrown out, new studies done from scratch, completely open and transparent every step of the way. What has gone on so far is not lily white pure neutral, "let the chips fall where they may" science, not with those crooks involved it isn't, it *can't* be, those boys expect results for their "support". That's how they operate..
Ha! You sure do give me a lot of homework with those links! hahaha!
Basic social security check for all:
that's part of my alternative currency system I developed, a bottom up gift approach, not a top down credit/lending approach like we have today.
The idea is simple, freeze the currency we have at the current level, to establish a baseline.
Now, accrue the data (currency units again) for the top 100 traded tangible commodities inside your domestic economy.
Now divide the latter into the former, this gives you your baseline 'worth" for a single currency unit. (I was informed my idea is a variation on Keynes "bancor" theoretical currency, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor, but I developed it independently of that bit of data) (I leave out all non wealth production "jobs" in the economy on purpose, the commodities index gives you closer to the true worth, the rest are service and governmental jobs that don't add to the pie, just make more slices)
Now every quarter, accrue the data again, notice any productivity gains. You can garner a percentage up or down. If up, like it should be, the money supply is inflated accordingly. (If down, oh well, better luck next quarter) The first stakeholder for new money is government, now run on a pay as you go effort, no borrowing. A lot of the new money gets into circulation that way. What is left over, is divvied out to all adults in the nation as an equal proportional check, to do with as they please. That's how the rest of the new money gets into circulation.
Dollars now go up in value all the time, not drop in value. You can save money with a clear conscious, or invest it elsewhere, knowing that it will always be worth more down the line when you need it.
At the border, "quid pro quo" tariffs are imposed, with the opposite nation setting the rates..they decide, we match it. If they want 0% tariffs, fine, we match it. They charge us 50% tariffs, we match it. About as fair as it gets, they set the rates. This also helps to fund government, and also encourage REAL free trade, free and fair, not scam trade like we have now. And no picking and choosing, this means any goods that cross the border.
No more fractional reserve lending, that's out, because it is a *congame*. Lending can still exist, from private banks, or by individuals, but it would have to be full asset backed.
The official currency is now "backed" by 100 commodities, that can change as the economy changes. Buggywhips can fall off the list, RAM chips can be added..along those lines, and we include gold and silver for historical and practical reasons, plus it fulfills constitutional requirements, as we issue ONE official gold coin per quarter, and declare its "worth" based on our previously collected data, and it gets put up on the wall at a national museum. The rest is like we run it now, printing press money, but now backed with the process being fully opened.
The mint can still issue coins like they do now, silver and gold and platinum eagles, for collectors or as global hedges, whatever. (ha, just turned in a my change can full of clad coins today, got another silver eagle..my modest "investment" strategy)
Personal and corporate income taxes at the federal level are *no longer needed at all* at this point. Mass pandemonium and celebration breaks out across the land, and champagne gets sold out! This gives the most possible "stimulus" to the economy that can be constructed, and foreign investment would flock here from those rates. You just can't beat zero taxes... Everyone working just gets a huge increase in pay from not having to fork out the federal tax. An easy sell to the population.
We go from top down, the "trickle down" method of running a fiat currency, to bottom up, the "rising tide lifts all boats model".
A few central bankers lose their cushy jobs, and not a single tear is shed....
States and local governments remain the same as they are today per fu
It's called listening to your customers and not dictating to them what they want. Now I don't use it, but XP is still widely used, because it got "good enough" for companies and individuals to use and rely on. Same with upgrading hardware. If what you have is good enough, not broken, and does the job, there is no overwhelming need to upgrade, even if the hardware guys want you to.
Comes a time that corporations and stockholders, etc should put the fork down, push back from the table, and realize they have eaten enough, and go into maintenance mode. Still make some money but not the boatloads they got used to. Like GM..just realize you got bloated, and cut back a lot to stay relevant. Reach a level of market share and be content with that, because all corporations can't endlessly grow forever and two days, it just isn't possible, and it is ludicrous to expect that.
The planet has given hundreds of billion$ to microsoft..perhaps it is time they wound down and enjoy what they made so far and not expect this huge gravy train to go on forever.
All of those concepts exist widely in the survival preparedness communities.
(gift economy, basic income, resource-based planning, and local subsistence communities)
gift economy: a lot of sharing goes on and mutual help and support. both in cyberspace and meatspace
basic income: survival and preparedness folks almost universally have more than one source of income, because they know how vital this is to survive, they don't like the "all your eggs in one basket" approach. they also understand the difference between money and wealth, and why it is a good idea to accumulate wealth, and not so much fancy IOUs masquerading as wealth.
resource-based planning: this is top of the heap for survival/preparedness. Resources=tangibles for the most part, and we understand tangibles. We look at almost all possible situations, see any negatives that might arise, and develop contingency plans and mitigation efforts in advance. This concept is called "having backups for backups". And on the other hand, we see and act on opportunities that exist, even if they are small, because we realize a lot of smalls add up to "big" or "big enough".
local subsistence communities: all community starts at the personal and family level and goes up from there. I think you'll find that survivalists are the most heavy into gardening, livestock, home crafts, canning and food preservation, doing repairs, recycling, etc, plus being active in the local community and with their neighbors. They also are the most prepared when it comes to routing around fiat currency shortfalls, by having and using precious metals/barter/back to sharing, being earlier adopters and evangelists for alternative energy devices, owning HAM gear, having a ton of tools, etc.
The old community barn raising is another old example there, along with modern day use of open source software and open source knowledge sharing (like my board and many other free survival boards, free sharing of survival skills and resources)
I tell ya what is weird though..it is way more older folks like the greatest generation (ww2 era folks), boomers and the earliest (the oldest) gen Xers who are into it today. Unfortunately, we aren't getting it across to the later Xers and the gen Y and younger folks why this is a good idea. They have known only prosperity mostly, comfort, easy climate controlled living, a lot of leisure time, stores always full, instant always there communication, all of that, and just don't grok how fast things can change, like overnight or even faster, and why you need to concentrate on basic life necessities first, and get independent and have backups, before you go to wasting time and resources on frivolities and entertainments, etc.
They also *really* don't understand that they are half way to a full bore big brother society, because this is all they have known, it is "normal" to them. No idea how being tied so heavily to the system makes you a slave. They have never lived when random roadblocks were unheard of, or when security cameras weren't all over, etc, and "no knock" raids were exceedingly rare and reserved only for the most heinous crimes/criminal suspects.
I mean, to be fair and not come across as too much of a curmudgeon, I grew of age in the sixties, so I know *full well* what "party down" means ;) Ain't a generation out there that can hold a candle to the boomers when it comes to "party"...
It's not like I am unfamiliar with this concept o_0..but, I always had a garden, I learned every hand tool and power tool I could get my hands on, learned all the wood craft and fieldcraft I could, learned various means and forms of self defense, learned to cross country navigate *large distances* using a compass and a few cheap maps, educated myself on politics and economics and the blend there known as geopolitics..and so on. It wasn't *all* party time.
And I am not seeing that so much with the two youngest generations now, scares hec
Most people equate all those three things. Same as they think any "job" helps the overall economy.
I gave up long ago trying to change the world, it just slap doesn't work. What does work is anyone changing themselves, then their friends and neighbors and relatives might get interested in this or that aspect, and adopt it, or consider it, or make a change to it and adopt that, etc.
Macro changes are usually accompanied by wars or other nasty stuff. Micro changes done by individuals are immediately rewarding and the best way to influence over all human trends.
I'd like to see more alt energy, so I bought me some and use it. Better mileage vehicles so I got one, and it was well used to boot, and needed (and still does some) repairs, recycled rather than scrapped and replaced with new.
and yada yada. That adage thing globally act locally REALLY applies once people realize that act locally means "you".
In the sixties we had a saying, still fits today, you are part of the problem, or part of the solution.
Oh, predictions..it doesn't matter in the long run. Example, I "predicted" a long time ago a decent demand/market in fat tired comfortable to sit on multi speed bicycles. I wanted one, they didn't exist, no one had one for sale. So I built one, used it as a bragger in front of my bicycle store. Now they are known as mountain bikes. Never made a penny directly off that "prediction", other than anyone can buy one now cheap, so all is good there as far as I am concerned. To me the wealth I made off of that-my working and very fun to ride prototype, and now all the zillions of models out there, became a global force multiplier in wealth, and I can share in it today, we all collectively got wealthier.
There is only really one existing "free market" and that is the "black" market..in anything. Very successful, despite a lot of effort to try and eliminate it. Pick a goods or service demand which has to be met in the "black" market because it is "illegal" otherwise..and it is over all successful, and there is usually a lot of competition, and even if some of the "marketeers" try to eliminate their competition, that usually fails in general terms.
All other markets are regulated in some form or another and can't be classified as free markets.
Just an observation, not making a judgment call on anyone's business.
Save some of her clothes, her favs, both dress-up and casual, including shoes. Put em away well. The little girls will grow up and get to see and maybe wear some of mom's clothes later on. And especially the wedding dress. Who knows, one of them or a grand daughter might want to wear it when they get married. Oh, and her jewelry, you'll need to divvy that up later on when they are near-adults as well. Next, some of her fav books, stuff like that. Any hobbies she had, the creative stuff, keep a representative sample.
But don't make a mausoleum inside the house, don't go that far, and don't keep everything, donate it away. Eventually you will meet a new person, they will be uncomfortable if the whole house is a mausoleum dedicated to the person they aren't and never can be, if you get my drift..
I predicted the US would collapse economically back in the sixties when I studied the great depression and social security, etc. Obvious as all get out it is a ponzi scheme that is unsustainable now that the boomers are retiring. They only have two options, print money, or bump off the boomers with plausible deniability, using slow plagues that are man made or other options available to them. This is called the "great cull" theory. I think they will choose both options.
Another one I made Was the bankruptcy of GM. Again, easy to see when I worked for them. Obvious. management always at war with employees/labor/unions at war with investors, and all of them convinced they are worth five times what their products were really worth. This was right before the huge japanese car floods to come in. I got laughed at, derided, "no one will ever buy any of those teeny little jap cars".
I think I was the only person in Detroit to see it coming. I looked at what japanese cars were out there, the build quality, mileage, price, etc.then looked at the insane detroit horsepower wars with ancient car designs, just throw more pushrod engine at the situation.. I went "these people are all loony tunes crazy" and quit.