....confiscation and public destruction of zombie computers. Then just *perhaps* enough people would bingo to what they are running and how they are running stuff on their computers to treat them with a little more intelligence, and they in turn might go seek out those who supplied them with inadequate products that are sold with no warranties, the vendors and software makers who ship these easily zombified boxes.
It's way past time products that come brand new pre-borked got recalled and the vendors ordered to "not do that".
We as consumers and the government wouldn't put up with "acme doors" that failed to swing open and closed, failed to lock adequately, and anyone could open with a gentle shove when it was allegedly latched, but with computers connected to the internet they can ship totally insecure crap and profit from it to the tune of hundreds of billions with little recourse for the consumer when they get owned or the dang thing fails to function as advertised.
And really, the thought of a legion of whizzed off grandmothers who had their zombie computers confiscated descending on a computer and software marketing weasel convention and laying waste with brooms is rather a nice image.
YOUNG MAN *WHACK* DON'T YOU EVER *WHACK* SELL THAT SHODDY MERCHANDISE AGAIN!! *WHACK WHACK WHACK*
Just wondering why your company made the switch. Were the old systems not able to do the tasks you need, a new program you needed, or what? And tangentially, what has been the ramification from switching and now having less reliable machines? any heads roll over the decision?
Some futurists have already termed the 21st century as the century of mankinds "resource wars". Wars not only over oil, but over water, arable land that gets adequate rainfall and doesn't need expensive irrigation, strategic minerals, etc. 6 billion and counting hoo-manz, and not enough "stuff" to go around.
So what do we do? Simple! Devote the dwindling resources on the planet to develop masses of advanced weaponry so we can all fight each other over those resources so we can have weapons to go get more resources!
of course, this could be the start of a "back in the day" real men thread.
might as well start it...
Badgers! You young punks know about badgers right? Why, back in the day, we had to let badgers chew our wrists, and drip blood onto old pizza box cardboard to see where the punch card holes went!
the dang box makers need to ship new computers with the ram maxed out. Bogus that you have to pay 'extra" to have the dang slots filled. A motherboard, sure, I can see it selling like they do now, empty, or levels up to full, but a complete PC? Nope, they should max it out right from the git-go. I've got several nice old boxes here would run linux great if the ram was maxed, but after market pricing it, it's NUTZ. And whomever of the big guys could use that as an advertisement, MAXIMUM RAM INSTALLED for your computing pleasure. Slap it on stickers all over. they want something for the marketing weasels, there ya go. I know I would look more than once at xyz company when I was new box shopping if the price included max ram, ie, it didn't come without max ram, it just "was". Consumers are hip enough now to know "more RAM= gooder". CPU speeds are fast enough now, just need dat ole memory. And ther big vendors can certainly get it cheaper than joe sixpack searching on the web to buy asnother stick or two. I know what the naysaysers are thinking "but their competition will sell more boxes cuz they can be CHEAPER. Bingo! CHEAPER is not better sometimes.
rant grumble foam rant.... grumble....
heh %^)
that felt good!
too bad there's not some adapter gizmo you could put a cable end into a ram slot and then remotely have another board that would take all your old random ram sticks and still work. Or a daughter board or something. I bet every dude here has a box of old useless ram that is still functional, all dressed up, no where to go.....
...Ivan I mean, we stand a good chance of losing power, so my backup solar and battery banks and fuel genny gonna come in real handy. I hope my ISP stays up and the landline phone so I can post any interesting haps. Hopefully slashdot in general will have a dedicated thread/article for Ivan. I'm not anywheres near the coast, I'm in north georgia, but last time we had an inland hurricane this stron hit, way back with hurricane opal, it caused a LOT of damage. Hurricanes this strong spawn torandoes and knock down a zillion trees, usually wiping out grid juice real quick.
Think I'll go get some dry ice tomorrow and drop it in the freezer.... I got plenty of water stored up and food and fuel. Probably mix up another batch of two stroke for the chainsaws. Drat, have to finish haying today too, hopefully be done before the rain starts. Can't bale until the afternnon when the dew is well off the cut hay.
oh well... ya, alternate energy. Glad I got me some! I can run the old laptop for quite a spell from my battery bank.
still should be done you would think. I'd do it but I have never personally suffered from running windows, because I've only run it temporarily at times on used machines, I'm an old machead and now linux. I saw what my friends were going through starting way back in DOS days and I said "no thanks" to that noise.
I've done my own law work before on two cases, well three actually, it's not as hard as folks think. (one the other party dropped, call that a win, two I won, both out of court because they realised I had them cold and was prepped enough to go to court and just bury them) Courtroom procedure you can get help from clerk of courts, and case law is researchable.
Small claims is limited to judge action, no juries, and it's designed so that normal folks can just get up and speak normally. I think it's doable to challenge them for lost productivity, actual costs involved, etc. See, huge cases are real expensive, that's what corporations expect and gear up for, but in local small claims, nope, I think it's more doable. I think the judge wouldn't take kindly to a company having a lawyer show up in his court to argue a small claims case with his corporation, that's usually forbidden as far as I know, but that needs to be researched. Should be easy enough to find out with one post on groklaw.
..that so much of the already developed tech is forgotten? I honestly don't know, near as I can see, various alternative energy has been here and working for quite awhile now. The GM EV1 electric car was a success, yet GM pulled the leases and smashes them, even though the bulk of the owners wanted to keep them. Even concepts as simple as solar water heating aren't near as common as they could be. Even adequate insulation in homes isn't as common as it could be. How about those compressed air cars? Those look like they work very well and the concept sure is simple-yet not much action. Say back to the electric cars, fast enough, people said that the range wasn't enough for the occasional trip. There's always been an easy solution to that, to make pure electrics good for trips, it's called a generator/cargo trailer you hook up before a trip. Turns a pure electric into a hybrid with big range.
I dunno, I think occams razor applies sometimes, people are just waiting for other people to break the ice on new technology. Remember when computers weren't common? 20 years ago I bet way less than one house in a thousand had a home computer in it, now it's well over 50% or higher probably.
Anyway, I think it's every geeks duty to get some alternate energy and become at least a small time producer as well as just a consumer. It's up to us to be the neighborhood new technology ice breakers. whether it's a hybrid car or solar panels or whatever, just *something* and do a little evangelizing about it.
Fairly doable for most homeowners. Alternate energy has been a hobby of mine for awhile now and I'm just guessing but I would bet that well over half of all systems are in combo with grid supplied. Remote locations usually are 100% "alternate" but most homes that are retrofitted keep grid supplied even if it's just a backup to the solar/wind/whatever. It's getting more common now as mortgage lenders are willing to incude a system right in with the house note. And even at a small scale it's practical, just a small system of say a few panels and a modest battery bank, etc is just not that expensive any more when you are talking about appliances/utilities. A starter system would be comparable in price to what a new decent "family sized" refrigerator costs, ie, around a grand should get you started at least.
Here's another way to look at it. 10 grand starts to be a real decent system. Say someone wants to go get a house of around 100 grand, nowadays that's not expensive. Get a 90 grand home and a 10 grand energy system instead. Over a 20 year note it's not that bad, and systems last a long time now, warranties for the panels at least are that long from what I have seen.
There's so many ways to approach it that there's really no "one size fits all" way to do it, and because of geographical areas having different attributes to them you really need to do a "site survey" to figure out which technique or combination of techniques is the best for you.
So ya, I agree. We have grid as a primary, PV panels, small battery bank, small generator, and a backup wind genny I keep packed up in case of catastrophic failure of the others, from a storm or something. Also use propane and wood for heat. I like wood, I call it "stored solar" because that's what it is!
...dropping all that money on dot bombs missed a pretty good steady monthly income when they FAILED to run the last mile of fiber to all the places in the US that *don't* have it. Look around outside of urbania-see all them satellite dishes? the ones ontop of almost every home of any size, from the smallest single wide to the largerst multi story mansions? Thats 50$ a month, multiplied by millions of homes, that went to the satellite companies just for television. Now imagine if they had run the fiber instead, they would be able to offer more channels, telephony service, and internet/data and video on demand.
How much is that potentially worth? Getting a steady check from millions of places a month for say 100$ for Tv/phone/net service is chump change?
Naw, the carriers are dumb for going for the quick cheap buck for a few years, and ignoring the tried and true long term buck that comes from long term business thinking that hasn't been adled by massive cocaine and booze usage, which is part of the dot bomb phenomenon that no one wants to remember I guess. Too many business decisions built on chemical hysteria and delusions of grandeur and get rich quick schemisms combined with stock market casino tulip mania, instead of just regular old-fashioned sober boring work.
...small claims court? Cost you maybe 25 clams or something filing fee, and no one can have a lawyer in court. Challenge the dang EULA if you want. I think one way a challenge could come from is you can't sign a contract that gives up any of your rights,so the contract becomes null. Challenge even if you are just renting the software to use it, it says on the box "operating system", contains a browser and an internet/network connection as part to it. Do these things qualify as suitable for a purpose? In the EULA they claim they aren't, but on the box they sure say they are, else they wouldn't be called that. which is it then, which is the one the customer really sees, what do they advertise oin the box?
Do these products function? At best only intermittently. Is it suitable to use on the internet? Absolutely not, not as shipped they don't.
I honestly don't know if anyone has ever done it, who knows, maybe it would work. Do you have documentation for lost time, lost business, additional cost and expenses, etc? You'll need that paperwork as well.
Imagine a few hundred thousand small claims cases were microsoft (someone to be determined obviously) had to show up and defend themselves, and without a lawyer with them. Would be a hoot!
Anyway, I think it's time, if software can be profitted from,if software can be granted a patent as a product, it should be treated like any other product, it needs warranties like any other product has. Less releases, sure, probably happen. Better quality, most assuredly. I fail to see the problem in that. It would force PHB and marketing weasels into doing what I see developers claim they want all the time anyway, not ship something until it's done.
Are any other meat space products "perfect"? Nope. But good enough that every other business seems to be able to deal with it. It's time the software "industry" got forced into legally growing up, IMO.
....with evolution, YOU are a part of it, you are a part of "nature" so you are a part of natural selection. Your intervention to save the birds was just as viable a bit of chaos theory natural selection as if the cat had never discovered the birds in the first place. It's also part of being a "good steward of the land". You choose to enjoy your pets and give them a home, but also you stepped in to help out the wilder creatures around you so all could live in peace. Your cat is still fed, the birds are saved, all is well.
...cars of the future and how they would be powered, etc. they showed a pilot project for onsite hydrogen production right at a regular gas station. they used grid supplied electric to work what is in essence a reverse fuel cell arrangement to get the hydrogen from water. Had a regular pump out front so that fuel cell cars that used hydrogen could stop and fill er up. So, to answer your question, yep, wind power at rural location A could send it's juice to urban gas station B to run fuel cell car C. You obviously get transmission losses and such like, but you also eliminate the need for tanker truck refueling at the stations, and you redice pollution both at the macro level of "the sky in general" and the micro level of the urban areas that are normally sort of pollution traps.
Wind is nice because it's so scalable, and at small joe homeowner size, battery banks aren't much of a space or maintenance issue, and it's a really nice way to have a real decent whole house UPS system.
In a lot of places a hybrid system of wind and solar is pretty good. Usually in the winter, you get more wind and a lot less sun, and vicey versa in the summer, so for year round you might want both. Commercially though, wind has it over all the other schemes I have seen, so far any way.
oh ya, I agree, I know what you are saying. I had similar with some doofus redneck neighbor before y2k rollover. He told me his plan was similar, "he had a gun and would take what he needed". This was a guy in and out of jail and trouble, always running some scam, never held a job, etc, your normal low rent loser. He only lived two houses away sop I was more or less forced to deal with him occassionally.
So technically I was in the same boat.... hmm, what to do... I made an executive decison for better or worse right on the spot when he laid his little gem of a plan on me.
I looked him in the eye told him if everything collapsed into total chaos and I saw him leave his house with a gun I'd pop him before he got out of his driveway.
Funny, he never talked to me much more after that..... I also made a point to tell all the other neighbors what he told me, so they would watch out for him as well. One good thing about normal working stiff blue collar neigborhood, no one got much use for cops and everyone understands taking care of business.
No idea what happened to him, we moved away before then so lost track. My guess is he's probably back in jail again.
The chinese were pretty shrewd. They dangled the bait of what used to be called "two billion arm pits" out to the west, a billion consumers waiting to buy WESTERN goods. Ok, that was the plan. then china goes, "but first, we need to develop our economy so that we can buy from you, how about giving us A TRILLION DOLLAHS OF FREE EVERYTHING first"
OK, the banksters fell for that scam, they have invested, tgiven tax breaks for corps to move over there, yada yada.
Now this is what happens. china becomes the worlds largest maker of STUFF. They no longer NEED anything else from the west, not even consumers! Once they have enough infrastructure in place, all they need is energy, oil, electric, whatever, and they are set and they can tell the west to kiss off, because their internal market will be big enough and integrated enough that' there will be little left that the west makes that they can't do for a few pennies on the dollar.
It's a sucker congame, and to make it worse, they are taking surplus cash FROM trading with US and turning it right back around buying our future labor in the form of government paper and mortgages.
They got to be laughing every day over this scam. Hollywood couldn't come up with a better plot, and we fell for it in exchange for a few cheap trinkets for a few years.
Sometimes it's actually embarrasing to see people still thinking this was a good idea.
China been running double digits a year in obvious force projection expansionist military.
Now let's see, who in their right mind would want to invade china? Answer = "no one".
So... why china need such a big military, why are they throwing so much effort at it?
Peak oil, peak water (very important, publically underreported and under rated), and other minerals and resources. They got engineers/emergency soldiers by the hundreds of thousands all over the planet now, in every place they can get them into, especially places with oil, strategic minerals, good geophysical locations like...panama canals and extremely large seaports and such like. Hmmm...
US= short term thinking in business and politics, this quarter profits, biennial political changes, never any consistency except lowest common denominator that just barely manages to work
China= long range views and planning in business and politics. They lose some on running fascistic controls, but gain on...the same thing..control!
They can lose a certain percentage intellectual brain drain to western countries, and the reason is easy to see--those people rarely go with their entire families. Leave enough of the family group at home, in a pinch you can still control the expatriate. Need classified R and D info from xyz western country? Not much problem, either the fools will give it to them gratis or their people in xyz country can slip the info out. In an international crisis/emergency, need some high tech local monkey wrenching inside xyz western nation? Again, not much of a problem.
I think in the future that the free/subsidised development of china will prove to be THE single most boneheaded move that western nations ever made.
...this baby boomer hippie was the second in my circle of friends and aquantainces to own a computer, the first with a lot of transceivers, and the first with alternate energy, I got solar PV panels and a wind genny.
I know it's fun to generalise, but "alternative culture" also lends itself to innovation, dreaming, rejection of the staid status quo, etc. It's not just drugs and losers. Way back, when we shifted from being called "beatniks" to "hippies" WE were the ones to point out ridiculous illegal wars and draft slavery. We were the first ones to say "wait a minnit, why are all these global international corporations running our nation?" WE marched and took the gas on behalf of non priveleged minorites and in support of equal gender rights. We'd say stuff like "Hey, what do you mean we don't have full property rights, we want to build a yurt instead of a boring square stick frame box you insensitive clod!" And so on and so forth. Poison free food? Certainly wasn't the suits pushing that. Medical care that WORKS and don't cost an arm and a leg and don't all go to enrich global medical monopolies? Check who was a big part of that movement. And now to get to normal slashdotisms, who's pushing open source the most?
So, how about a little credit along with the deserved dissin, every generation and culture got good and bad to it.
wow, not only are they predators they are *cheap*. If they were smart enough to think of the boat, the need a fully stocked and gassed 4wd truck at their destination point where they would evac to with the boat. Then they need a destination after that, a very remote cabin with solar panels and radios and a well, etc.
Or, evac in advance to the neat place, telecommute to work.....
--anyway, even discussing they plan on hijacking someones car is a *felony*. And you knowing about it and not reporting it unfortunately makes you an accessory-technically/vaguely, although I doubt anything would come of it, and I personally wouldn't worry about it. Just beware having business dealings with those sorts of people......
Totally illegal to set any sort of mechanical traps like that, BUT, there's a nifty loophole, it's called "rottweiler". Totally legal and effective in most cases.
Boy, will they be surprised that that won't work. Anyone who has analysed refugee movements in times of crisis could tell them that road traffic via cars out of a place like NYC with just a few choke points is doomed to failure, stolen car or not. Best bet is a bicycle as you can pick it up and walk over and around obstacles, or a boat. Vehicle traffic would get insnae within 5 minutes and it would come to a halt, as well as the authorities sealing off the bridges and tunnels.
There exists no infrastructure in the US capable of being an instant "backup" NYC,(or most any other large urban area) so it won't be done or even attempted, IMO. Things like hurricanes can be dealt with because of the time lag, a spontaneous emergency-nope, not happening.
Ya, boneheads like that who's only survival preparations are a gun and the willingness to use it are the dregs of society. I am armed and believe in being armed, but I'm also not a predator and go out of my way to insure that in a crisis that I have adequate preps (water/food/medical gear, communications, defensive tools, etc) to carry myself and girlfriend and a few more for a *long time*. It's just not that hard or expensive to do. If I can do it at my ridiculous level of income, just about anyone can.
And no, I'm not really surprised at them being lawyers and accountants, most of the worlds serious huge crimes wouldn't be possible without them if you think on it some.
I'd put international bankers at the top of the list though.... heh, the dudes who fund all wars got to be the biggest criminals.
In fact, this is tongue in cheek but sorta true, I view black or charcoal gray suits as criminal gang symbols/clothing.
that's an easy one to answer, it's called using your head. Brains. IQ points. don't ignore the most obvious.
The most effective method of self defense in a high crime area is....DON'T live there! Move! If the area is turning, it will most likely get worse, not better. For every model neighborhood out there there are a dozen that look like...well, pick an example, beirut in the civil war years, detroit after OPEC hit and the auto companies took a hit as people switched to japanese cars. Neighborhoods with six figure and up decent nice homes that turn into crack ghettoes or gang turf within a few years. Seen it happen.
Brains = don't hang around high crime areas, especially don't live there. Anything after that, sure, gadgets a plenty. Reinforced doors and jams. thick lexan windows instead of glass. Reinforced safe room inside the house, even a hardened closet with separate communication so you can lock yourself in and maybe call for help. Self defense tools, ie, firearms, as have been pointed out, and the skill and mindset to go with them.
That's the biggest, the miondset, too many people are professional victims in advance.
Tell ya a story. I worked part time as a smith in a gunstore for a spell. We didn't get a lot of women by themselves come in, but over a coupla years maybe between 100 and 200. Wanna know what for? Because they "didn't believe in guns" BEFORE the fact of getting robbed, raped, beat up by spouse or boyfriend, or their daughters or whatever had it happen to them. EVERY one that was coming in for a defensive firwearm was coming in AFTER the fact of needing one. See, they "didn't believe in". Heard story after story after story.
It's a cult like belief that some tool is going to bite you, it's what the elitists who have private security forces or personal government security forces want you to believe. Literally, a cult, the cult of the professional victim.
The geek way is the brains way, the brains way says reduce vulnerability, add layers of protection. It's just like hardening your server, it's a great analogy. Server goes in a secure building, room inside the building is extra secure. Server itself is designed to be secure, then has additional steps taken to make it more so. And the admin has the mindset that they are NOT gonna be a professional victim or be influenced by weenies who espouse being a potential victim in some cult like belief they are immune or something.
Get the mindset, the tech will follow, but first, haul the butt connected to the mind to a safer area.
...travels with multiple very large professional bodyguards. My guess is they are also armed most of the time. He's similar to those anti gun politicians who have carry permits and bodyguards, in short, a bit of a hypocrite.
He also only covered at best 2-3% of the 9-11 situation, BTW, in his movie.
Anyway, speaking as someone who has had need of armed response in the past, two points, 1-don't care-the world don't care I mean- how leet you are or think you are or where you live,inside or outside the USA, you *ain't psychic enough to know when bad stuff is gonna be in your face* and 2- better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it. Goes along with number 1.
Slashdot Mirror
....confiscation and public destruction of zombie computers. Then just *perhaps* enough people would bingo to what they are running and how they are running stuff on their computers to treat them with a little more intelligence, and they in turn might go seek out those who supplied them with inadequate products that are sold with no warranties, the vendors and software makers who ship these easily zombified boxes.
It's way past time products that come brand new pre-borked got recalled and the vendors ordered to "not do that".
We as consumers and the government wouldn't put up with "acme doors" that failed to swing open and closed, failed to lock adequately, and anyone could open with a gentle shove when it was allegedly latched, but with computers connected to the internet they can ship totally insecure crap and profit from it to the tune of hundreds of billions with little recourse for the consumer when they get owned or the dang thing fails to function as advertised.
And really, the thought of a legion of whizzed off grandmothers who had their zombie computers confiscated descending on a computer and software marketing weasel convention and laying waste with brooms is rather a nice image.
YOUNG MAN *WHACK* DON'T YOU EVER *WHACK* SELL THAT SHODDY MERCHANDISE AGAIN!! *WHACK WHACK WHACK*
Just wondering why your company made the switch. Were the old systems not able to do the tasks you need, a new program you needed, or what? And tangentially, what has been the ramification from switching and now having less reliable machines? any heads roll over the decision?
Some futurists have already termed the 21st century as the century of mankinds "resource wars". Wars not only over oil, but over water, arable land that gets adequate rainfall and doesn't need expensive irrigation, strategic minerals, etc. 6 billion and counting hoo-manz, and not enough "stuff" to go around.
So what do we do? Simple! Devote the dwindling resources on the planet to develop masses of advanced weaponry so we can all fight each other over those resources so we can have weapons to go get more resources!
yossarian would have loved it....
...OS choices did they give you in 91?
congrats by the way!
of course, this could be the start of a "back in the day" real men thread.
might as well start it...
Badgers! You young punks know about badgers right? Why, back in the day, we had to let badgers chew our wrists, and drip blood onto old pizza box cardboard to see where the punch card holes went!
and we LIKED IT!
WALMART
the dang box makers need to ship new computers with the ram maxed out. Bogus that you have to pay 'extra" to have the dang slots filled. A motherboard, sure, I can see it selling like they do now, empty, or levels up to full, but a complete PC? Nope, they should max it out right from the git-go. I've got several nice old boxes here would run linux great if the ram was maxed, but after market pricing it, it's NUTZ. And whomever of the big guys could use that as an advertisement, MAXIMUM RAM INSTALLED for your computing pleasure. Slap it on stickers all over. they want something for the marketing weasels, there ya go. I know I would look more than once at xyz company when I was new box shopping if the price included max ram, ie, it didn't come without max ram, it just "was". Consumers are hip enough now to know "more RAM= gooder". CPU speeds are fast enough now, just need dat ole memory. And ther big vendors can certainly get it cheaper than joe sixpack searching on the web to buy asnother stick or two. I know what the naysaysers are thinking "but their competition will sell more boxes cuz they can be CHEAPER. Bingo! CHEAPER is not better sometimes.
rant grumble foam rant.... grumble....
heh %^)
that felt good!
too bad there's not some adapter gizmo you could put a cable end into a ram slot and then remotely have another board that would take all your old random ram sticks and still work. Or a daughter board or something. I bet every dude here has a box of old useless ram that is still functional, all dressed up, no where to go.....
knoppix is debian and it's one cd. There ya go! I think they will be around for a spell, too.....
...Ivan I mean, we stand a good chance of losing power, so my backup solar and battery banks and fuel genny gonna come in real handy. I hope my ISP stays up and the landline phone so I can post any interesting haps. Hopefully slashdot in general will have a dedicated thread/article for Ivan. I'm not anywheres near the coast, I'm in north georgia, but last time we had an inland hurricane this stron hit, way back with hurricane opal, it caused a LOT of damage. Hurricanes this strong spawn torandoes and knock down a zillion trees, usually wiping out grid juice real quick.
Think I'll go get some dry ice tomorrow and drop it in the freezer.... I got plenty of water stored up and food and fuel. Probably mix up another batch of two stroke for the chainsaws. Drat, have to finish haying today too, hopefully be done before the rain starts. Can't bale until the afternnon when the dew is well off the cut hay.
oh well... ya, alternate energy. Glad I got me some! I can run the old laptop for quite a spell from my battery bank.
still should be done you would think. I'd do it but I have never personally suffered from running windows, because I've only run it temporarily at times on used machines, I'm an old machead and now linux. I saw what my friends were going through starting way back in DOS days and I said "no thanks" to that noise.
I've done my own law work before on two cases, well three actually, it's not as hard as folks think. (one the other party dropped, call that a win, two I won, both out of court because they realised I had them cold and was prepped enough to go to court and just bury them) Courtroom procedure you can get help from clerk of courts, and case law is researchable.
Small claims is limited to judge action, no juries, and it's designed so that normal folks can just get up and speak normally. I think it's doable to challenge them for lost productivity, actual costs involved, etc. See, huge cases are real expensive, that's what corporations expect and gear up for, but in local small claims, nope, I think it's more doable. I think the judge wouldn't take kindly to a company having a lawyer show up in his court to argue a small claims case with his corporation, that's usually forbidden as far as I know, but that needs to be researched. Should be easy enough to find out with one post on groklaw.
HAHAHAHAHA! Maybe!
..that so much of the already developed tech is forgotten? I honestly don't know, near as I can see, various alternative energy has been here and working for quite awhile now. The GM EV1 electric car was a success, yet GM pulled the leases and smashes them, even though the bulk of the owners wanted to keep them. Even concepts as simple as solar water heating aren't near as common as they could be. Even adequate insulation in homes isn't as common as it could be. How about those compressed air cars? Those look like they work very well and the concept sure is simple-yet not much action. Say back to the electric cars, fast enough, people said that the range wasn't enough for the occasional trip. There's always been an easy solution to that, to make pure electrics good for trips, it's called a generator/cargo trailer you hook up before a trip. Turns a pure electric into a hybrid with big range.
I dunno, I think occams razor applies sometimes, people are just waiting for other people to break the ice on new technology. Remember when computers weren't common? 20 years ago I bet way less than one house in a thousand had a home computer in it, now it's well over 50% or higher probably.
Anyway, I think it's every geeks duty to get some alternate energy and become at least a small time producer as well as just a consumer. It's up to us to be the neighborhood new technology ice breakers. whether it's a hybrid car or solar panels or whatever, just *something* and do a little evangelizing about it.
Fairly doable for most homeowners. Alternate energy has been a hobby of mine for awhile now and I'm just guessing but I would bet that well over half of all systems are in combo with grid supplied. Remote locations usually are 100% "alternate" but most homes that are retrofitted keep grid supplied even if it's just a backup to the solar/wind/whatever. It's getting more common now as mortgage lenders are willing to incude a system right in with the house note. And even at a small scale it's practical, just a small system of say a few panels and a modest battery bank, etc is just not that expensive any more when you are talking about appliances/utilities. A starter system would be comparable in price to what a new decent "family sized" refrigerator costs, ie, around a grand should get you started at least.
Here's another way to look at it. 10 grand starts to be a real decent system. Say someone wants to go get a house of around 100 grand, nowadays that's not expensive. Get a 90 grand home and a 10 grand energy system instead. Over a 20 year note it's not that bad, and systems last a long time now, warranties for the panels at least are that long from what I have seen.
There's so many ways to approach it that there's really no "one size fits all" way to do it, and because of geographical areas having different attributes to them you really need to do a "site survey" to figure out which technique or combination of techniques is the best for you.
So ya, I agree. We have grid as a primary, PV panels, small battery bank, small generator, and a backup wind genny I keep packed up in case of catastrophic failure of the others, from a storm or something. Also use propane and wood for heat. I like wood, I call it "stored solar" because that's what it is!
...dropping all that money on dot bombs missed a pretty good steady monthly income when they FAILED to run the last mile of fiber to all the places in the US that *don't* have it. Look around outside of urbania-see all them satellite dishes? the ones ontop of almost every home of any size, from the smallest single wide to the largerst multi story mansions? Thats 50$ a month, multiplied by millions of homes, that went to the satellite companies just for television. Now imagine if they had run the fiber instead, they would be able to offer more channels, telephony service, and internet/data and video on demand.
How much is that potentially worth? Getting a steady check from millions of places a month for say 100$ for Tv/phone/net service is chump change?
Naw, the carriers are dumb for going for the quick cheap buck for a few years, and ignoring the tried and true long term buck that comes from long term business thinking that hasn't been adled by massive cocaine and booze usage, which is part of the dot bomb phenomenon that no one wants to remember I guess. Too many business decisions built on chemical hysteria and delusions of grandeur and get rich quick schemisms combined with stock market casino tulip mania, instead of just regular old-fashioned sober boring work.
...small claims court? Cost you maybe 25 clams or something filing fee, and no one can have a lawyer in court. Challenge the dang EULA if you want. I think one way a challenge could come from is you can't sign a contract that gives up any of your rights,so the contract becomes null. Challenge even if you are just renting the software to use it, it says on the box "operating system", contains a browser and an internet/network connection as part to it. Do these things qualify as suitable for a purpose? In the EULA they claim they aren't, but on the box they sure say they are, else they wouldn't be called that. which is it then, which is the one the customer really sees, what do they advertise oin the box?
Do these products function? At best only intermittently. Is it suitable to use on the internet? Absolutely not, not as shipped they don't.
I honestly don't know if anyone has ever done it, who knows, maybe it would work. Do you have documentation for lost time, lost business, additional cost and expenses, etc? You'll need that paperwork as well.
Imagine a few hundred thousand small claims cases were microsoft (someone to be determined obviously) had to show up and defend themselves, and without a lawyer with them. Would be a hoot!
Anyway, I think it's time, if software can be profitted from,if software can be granted a patent as a product, it should be treated like any other product, it needs warranties like any other product has. Less releases, sure, probably happen. Better quality, most assuredly. I fail to see the problem in that. It would force PHB and marketing weasels into doing what I see developers claim they want all the time anyway, not ship something until it's done.
Are any other meat space products "perfect"? Nope. But good enough that every other business seems to be able to deal with it. It's time the software "industry" got forced into legally growing up, IMO.
....with evolution, YOU are a part of it, you are a part of "nature" so you are a part of natural selection. Your intervention to save the birds was just as viable a bit of chaos theory natural selection as if the cat had never discovered the birds in the first place. It's also part of being a "good steward of the land". You choose to enjoy your pets and give them a home, but also you stepped in to help out the wilder creatures around you so all could live in peace. Your cat is still fed, the birds are saved, all is well.
...cars of the future and how they would be powered, etc. they showed a pilot project for onsite hydrogen production right at a regular gas station. they used grid supplied electric to work what is in essence a reverse fuel cell arrangement to get the hydrogen from water. Had a regular pump out front so that fuel cell cars that used hydrogen could stop and fill er up. So, to answer your question, yep, wind power at rural location A could send it's juice to urban gas station B to run fuel cell car C. You obviously get transmission losses and such like, but you also eliminate the need for tanker truck refueling at the stations, and you redice pollution both at the macro level of "the sky in general" and the micro level of the urban areas that are normally sort of pollution traps.
Wind is nice because it's so scalable, and at small joe homeowner size, battery banks aren't much of a space or maintenance issue, and it's a really nice way to have a real decent whole house UPS system.
In a lot of places a hybrid system of wind and solar is pretty good. Usually in the winter, you get more wind and a lot less sun, and vicey versa in the summer, so for year round you might want both. Commercially though, wind has it over all the other schemes I have seen, so far any way.
oh ya, I agree, I know what you are saying. I had similar with some doofus redneck neighbor before y2k rollover. He told me his plan was similar, "he had a gun and would take what he needed". This was a guy in and out of jail and trouble, always running some scam, never held a job, etc, your normal low rent loser. He only lived two houses away sop I was more or less forced to deal with him occassionally.
So technically I was in the same boat.... hmm, what to do... I made an executive decison for better or worse right on the spot when he laid his little gem of a plan on me.
I looked him in the eye told him if everything collapsed into total chaos and I saw him leave his house with a gun I'd pop him before he got out of his driveway.
Funny, he never talked to me much more after that..... I also made a point to tell all the other neighbors what he told me, so they would watch out for him as well. One good thing about normal working stiff blue collar neigborhood, no one got much use for cops and everyone understands taking care of business.
No idea what happened to him, we moved away before then so lost track. My guess is he's probably back in jail again.
The chinese were pretty shrewd. They dangled the bait of what used to be called "two billion arm pits" out to the west, a billion consumers waiting to buy WESTERN goods. Ok, that was the plan. then china goes, "but first, we need to develop our economy so that we can buy from you, how about giving us A TRILLION DOLLAHS OF FREE EVERYTHING first"
OK, the banksters fell for that scam, they have invested, tgiven tax breaks for corps to move over there, yada yada.
Now this is what happens. china becomes the worlds largest maker of STUFF. They no longer NEED anything else from the west, not even consumers! Once they have enough infrastructure in place, all they need is energy, oil, electric, whatever, and they are set and they can tell the west to kiss off, because their internal market will be big enough and integrated enough that' there will be little left that the west makes that they can't do for a few pennies on the dollar.
It's a sucker congame, and to make it worse, they are taking surplus cash FROM trading with US and turning it right back around buying our future labor in the form of government paper and mortgages.
They got to be laughing every day over this scam. Hollywood couldn't come up with a better plot, and we fell for it in exchange for a few cheap trinkets for a few years.
Sometimes it's actually embarrasing to see people still thinking this was a good idea.
China been running double digits a year in obvious force projection expansionist military.
Now let's see, who in their right mind would want to invade china? Answer = "no one".
So... why china need such a big military, why are they throwing so much effort at it?
Peak oil, peak water (very important, publically underreported and under rated), and other minerals and resources. They got engineers/emergency soldiers by the hundreds of thousands all over the planet now, in every place they can get them into, especially places with oil, strategic minerals, good geophysical locations like...panama canals and extremely large seaports and such like. Hmmm...
US= short term thinking in business and politics, this quarter profits, biennial political changes, never any consistency except lowest common denominator that just barely manages to work
China= long range views and planning in business and politics. They lose some on running fascistic controls, but gain on...the same thing..control!
They can lose a certain percentage intellectual brain drain to western countries, and the reason is easy to see--those people rarely go with their entire families. Leave enough of the family group at home, in a pinch you can still control the expatriate. Need classified R and D info from xyz western country? Not much problem, either the fools will give it to them gratis or their people in xyz country can slip the info out. In an international crisis/emergency, need some high tech local monkey wrenching inside xyz western nation? Again, not much of a problem.
I think in the future that the free/subsidised development of china will prove to be THE single most boneheaded move that western nations ever made.
...this baby boomer hippie was the second in my circle of friends and aquantainces to own a computer, the first with a lot of transceivers, and the first with alternate energy, I got solar PV panels and a wind genny.
I know it's fun to generalise, but "alternative culture" also lends itself to innovation, dreaming, rejection of the staid status quo, etc. It's not just drugs and losers. Way back, when we shifted from being called "beatniks" to "hippies" WE were the ones to point out ridiculous illegal wars and draft slavery. We were the first ones to say "wait a minnit, why are all these global international corporations running our nation?" WE marched and took the gas on behalf of non priveleged minorites and in support of equal gender rights. We'd say stuff like "Hey, what do you mean we don't have full property rights, we want to build a yurt instead of a boring square stick frame box you insensitive clod!" And so on and so forth. Poison free food? Certainly wasn't the suits pushing that. Medical care that WORKS and don't cost an arm and a leg and don't all go to enrich global medical monopolies? Check who was a big part of that movement. And now to get to normal slashdotisms, who's pushing open source the most?
So, how about a little credit along with the deserved dissin, every generation and culture got good and bad to it.
wow, not only are they predators they are *cheap*. If they were smart enough to think of the boat, the need a fully stocked and gassed 4wd truck at their destination point where they would evac to with the boat. Then they need a destination after that, a very remote cabin with solar panels and radios and a well, etc.
Or, evac in advance to the neat place, telecommute to work.....
--anyway, even discussing they plan on hijacking someones car is a *felony*. And you knowing about it and not reporting it unfortunately makes you an accessory-technically/vaguely, although I doubt anything would come of it, and I personally wouldn't worry about it. Just beware having business dealings with those sorts of people......
Totally illegal to set any sort of mechanical traps like that, BUT, there's a nifty loophole, it's called "rottweiler". Totally legal and effective in most cases.
Haven't seen it, but it sounds interesting enough, especially for a tin foil hatter like me. I'll keep my cheap used video eyes out for it.
Boy, will they be surprised that that won't work. Anyone who has analysed refugee movements in times of crisis could tell them that road traffic via cars out of a place like NYC with just a few choke points is doomed to failure, stolen car or not. Best bet is a bicycle as you can pick it up and walk over and around obstacles, or a boat. Vehicle traffic would get insnae within 5 minutes and it would come to a halt, as well as the authorities sealing off the bridges and tunnels.
There exists no infrastructure in the US capable of being an instant "backup" NYC,(or most any other large urban area) so it won't be done or even attempted, IMO. Things like hurricanes can be dealt with because of the time lag, a spontaneous emergency-nope, not happening.
Ya, boneheads like that who's only survival preparations are a gun and the willingness to use it are the dregs of society. I am armed and believe in being armed, but I'm also not a predator and go out of my way to insure that in a crisis that I have adequate preps (water/food/medical gear, communications, defensive tools, etc) to carry myself and girlfriend and a few more for a *long time*. It's just not that hard or expensive to do. If I can do it at my ridiculous level of income, just about anyone can.
And no, I'm not really surprised at them being lawyers and accountants, most of the worlds serious huge crimes wouldn't be possible without them if you think on it some.
I'd put international bankers at the top of the list though.... heh, the dudes who fund all wars got to be the biggest criminals.
In fact, this is tongue in cheek but sorta true, I view black or charcoal gray suits as criminal gang symbols/clothing.
that's an easy one to answer, it's called using your head. Brains. IQ points. don't ignore the most obvious.
...well, pick an example, beirut in the civil war years, detroit after OPEC hit and the auto companies took a hit as people switched to japanese cars. Neighborhoods with six figure and up decent nice homes that turn into crack ghettoes or gang turf within a few years. Seen it happen.
The most effective method of self defense in a high crime area is....DON'T live there! Move! If the area is turning, it will most likely get worse, not better. For every model neighborhood out there there are a dozen that look like
Brains = don't hang around high crime areas, especially don't live there. Anything after that, sure, gadgets a plenty. Reinforced doors and jams. thick lexan windows instead of glass. Reinforced safe room inside the house, even a hardened closet with separate communication so you can lock yourself in and maybe call for help. Self defense tools, ie, firearms, as have been pointed out, and the skill and mindset to go with them.
That's the biggest, the miondset, too many people are professional victims in advance.
Tell ya a story. I worked part time as a smith in a gunstore for a spell. We didn't get a lot of women by themselves come in, but over a coupla years maybe between 100 and 200. Wanna know what for? Because they "didn't believe in guns" BEFORE the fact of getting robbed, raped, beat up by spouse or boyfriend, or their daughters or whatever had it happen to them. EVERY one that was coming in for a defensive firwearm was coming in AFTER the fact of needing one. See, they "didn't believe in". Heard story after story after story.
It's a cult like belief that some tool is going to bite you, it's what the elitists who have private security forces or personal government security forces want you to believe. Literally, a cult, the cult of the professional victim.
The geek way is the brains way, the brains way says reduce vulnerability, add layers of protection. It's just like hardening your server, it's a great analogy. Server goes in a secure building, room inside the building is extra secure. Server itself is designed to be secure, then has additional steps taken to make it more so. And the admin has the mindset that they are NOT gonna be a professional victim or be influenced by weenies who espouse being a potential victim in some cult like belief they are immune or something.
Get the mindset, the tech will follow, but first, haul the butt connected to the mind to a safer area.
...travels with multiple very large professional bodyguards. My guess is they are also armed most of the time. He's similar to those anti gun politicians who have carry permits and bodyguards, in short, a bit of a hypocrite.
He also only covered at best 2-3% of the 9-11 situation, BTW, in his movie.
Anyway, speaking as someone who has had need of armed response in the past, two points, 1-don't care-the world don't care I mean- how leet you are or think you are or where you live,inside or outside the USA, you *ain't psychic enough to know when bad stuff is gonna be in your face* and 2- better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it. Goes along with number 1.