...customs and cost of living for the "equal" part in trading. The US had a successful internal market because we had a more similar cost of living and more similar set of laws and rules and regulations within the 50 states that traded across borders. This is NOT the case internationally. A worker (or business) living in say Kansas "competiting" with a worker in say Wisconsin had a much closer set of base lines to deal with than what is promoted now internationally. When it's a highly skewed as it is in cost of living and median currently established labor costs you will get what we are seeing now-massive trade imbalances, rising unemployment, dropping wages and lost benefits. It would only be beneficial trade if it was fair trade, and fair only exists if the laws are more equitable and the cost of living starts out as more equitable when the trade commences in earnest on a very large scale.
....Liberty Dollars are in much more widespread use than any of the time based currencies I saw in the list and are backed by precious metals, a globally recognized form of money and exchange that is *quite spiffy* in it's longevity and robustness. I remember one community based currency from the 70s called the "constant", but even that used minted silver coin as a local currency and it's the genesis of where I got my Top 100 commodities based currency idea from.
I agree with you, I simply don't see this need to specifically code using Java to come up with some currency. Money as an historical successful currency has traditionally been based on already produced tangible wealth,so making it (these time based currencies) based on future promises of work (IOU's where no work has been performed yet, and might not be) is a lot closer to the flawed and highly exploitative fiat artifical currency system we use now, which is bogus if you ask me.
--yours is the best idea yet. I was going to post it (something very similar) until I read your reply. There should be something like a three strikes and you are out. Try to patent three bogus patents, or get three over turned, you are barred from ever trying again.
The other is obvious, just BAN IP patents. Eliminate thew whole shooting match, and invalidate all past IP patents. Patents should be reserved for TANGIBLES. Copyright-OK, patent, nyetski! We had intangibles before, when the patent office was setup and people starting patenting, but it was for STUFF, tangibles. We had intangibles, we had written intangibles, we had music, art, literature, etc, but it wasn't patentable because people realised that was loony tunes. They were never granted a patent as far as I know. (If anyone knows of an old exception, I can be corrected). It's only relatively recently in US historical terms that intangible IP has been treated like a tangible. And what's worse, they can get a patent,get treated as a tangible in pursuit of profits, BUT, never be forced to offer the tiniest warranty for these dubious "patented products" that all tangible products must have. What a sweet scam!
I'm cynical as heck about it, I think there's been billions in bribes paid off to legislators and bureaucrats to get IP to be "patentable" and that it's ongoing inside the patent office. No proof, other than these ridiculous tons of prior art "patents" being issued. It's criminal behavior, so look who has the means and opportunity, and who can profit from the scam of patenting obvious stuff.
Old saying, walks like a duck, acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's most likely a duck.
walmart slave labor in china, 13-16 hour days at 13 cents an hour, 7 days a week, 20 hour shifts during rush season like for christmas shopping. That's all -american walmart for ya. And they claim US workers need to be more productive and to compete globally with that. How? Magic fairy dust?
And they can't even keep their cards secure. What a joke.
Walmart single handedly has shutdown thousands of small town down town areas all over the nation. That's the new culture, a big square ugly box of a building, they all look the same, all got the same cheapest crap imaginable for sale. Largest corp in the world, bigger even then the energy companies. They come into a town, and do what is in essence "dumping" for a few years, incredibly cheap prices, until all the local competition is hosed, then they run the prices back up. Shop elsewhere-sure, go over to the next county, the same walmart.
I'm surprised walmart and microsoft haven't merged yet, exact same business philosphy.
....just forcing them to actually have a hooman bean look at the dern file before they go cash shopping with thinly veiled legal threats. This is just another example of ambulance chasing. I know if I got some legal threat of action like that that was clearly false and that the file in question obviously wasn't looked at by a human I'd see the suckers in court. They've gone start raving bonkerts near as I can see. Not only are they chronic serial liars and abusers, witness multiple convictions of industry collusion to keep profits artifically high and to stifle true competition, and bribery/payola to manipulate the markets, but now they are automating what is *clearly* supposed to be a human eyeball task, and as such are tippy toeing pretty close to barratry. When law offices send official pieces of paper, or electronic notifications, they got to cross Ts and dot Is pretty carefully, and this shows WILLFUL negligence. It's not a mistake, it's the actual results of cutting illegal corners in order to maximise legal profits. And that's why folks hire lawyers, so that the law gets followed, and these bozos didn't do that, yet want to maintain their status as righteous lawyers representing their client. Both the recipient of the notice has a claim, and their original clients have a claim against them. They are double wrong on this little gem as far as I know. I'll let the branes at groklaw sort it out, but this is certainly what it looks like to me..
---uhhh, the prices have gone up. This summer I finally used up the last of my long term gas storage I bought bulk in 99. I paid IIRC around 80 cents a gallon for it. That's more than a doubling in at the pump prices in 5 years. I'd call that a significant price increase. And current crude is still in the mid 40s/barrel. What was it last year again?
If you want to know, I use PRI-G for gas stabiliser, and -D for diesel. Good stuff. I keep a smaller stash now, just a barrel of it at a time, before where I lived there was a commercial bulk tank we had the tanker come and fill up. When I moved I filled my around 80 gallons in the dual tanks in my RV, then I siphoned it back out to use here with my small engines in my work. It still burned fine, albeit it was a scosh stale compared to brand new fresh.
As to "doom and gloom", I mean really, I provided links to some very credible places. There have been very large and well attended international conferences with leading economists and geologists and energy bigwigs. They are all concerned about it. If you follow links around you can find any number of sites that have detailed analysis of reported and proven reserves, and some good projections on demand. I don't know what you would call severely diminishing supplies coupled with near exponential growth demand, but I'd say it's a cause for concern, considering just how much the worlds total economy depends on oil. And google is your friend, merely searching on peak oil will keep you going for quite awhile.
--I don't buy stocks or bonds or futures or any sort of paper financial products. Personal decision of mine from a long time ago. I think the world has enough middle man traders and wealth skimmers frankly, and I consider wallstreet to be corrupt and the commodities markets to be close behind.
If you think the projections of peakoil and decline are erroneous, I'd be be more than glad to look at any contrarian views you might have URLs for.
I live about an hour outside atlanta. See what I mean? You'd THINK it would be better now, but it ain't. You got to be right close to the major urban areas to get broadband. They never even rolled out cable TV here, and now they won't, too many folks went to satellite TV when they got tired of waiting for cable, it kept being promised "next year, cable!" never happened.
The big commo utilities will NOT deliver wired broadband unless they are ordered to by some law. I know there's some examples where they have, but by and large, areas that can get it now will see more competition, other areas that don't have it won't see anything except perhaps wireless.
I have SOME internet so I am happy enough. If I couldn't get any, I'd go for satellite by hook or crook somehow. I wouldn't move closer in urban just for internet access though, the bad tradeoffs aren't worth it to me. I choose to live where the food and water are, not where they get shipped to. I've seen too many times now what happens when the supply goes screwy, and I know in the future it's just going to get worse. So rural I stay, I just like whining about broadband whenever these stories come up. heh.
...and there's two completyely different ways to measure cheap/expensive. One way, the way most folks think of it, is in terms of money. It costs such and such to explore, find,drill the wells, build the infrastructure, pump it via pipeline to a terminal, then to a refinery, then on to the end consumers. The other way-and the most important way-to consider what a barrel of oil costs is to measure it against itself using pure energy terms. Say back in the 30s and 40's, it took a barrel of energy to get back 20 barrels. Now it might be one for three or 4. It's not only more expensive with dollars, but with the energy needed.
A graph would show how this works, the energy in to get energy out is a rapid drop off once you have reached peak production. Once it hits stasis, an eqwual balance, you could have a trillion barrels sitting underground and it wouldn't do you any good at all, you wouldn't get any energy beyond what it would take to get it, a catch 22, and one that the planet is rapidly approaching.
along with fresh water crises that are getting closer - here's a link to just one story, the oil situation is the one that will determine current humans survival this century. From everything I have read and the best analysis out there I can find, there's only one conclusion--these are "the good old days" of decent employment, cheap consumer goods, being able to drive hither and yon, affordable air transport, and so on..
The future is going to be a series of wars over the remaining exploitable natural resources.
In other words, barring some revolutionary technology that will be easily adaptable all over the planet, something that can actually replace oil for both transportation and for also manufacturing, we gonna be *screwed*. Manufacturing in particular is highly dependent on oil now. Stuff is still cheap because we still can get oil, later on....governments are gonna make a decision, keep themselves in war materiel, or let their populations have cheap trinkets. I'll let the odds makers make the call on that one, but it seems a no brainer.
I'm a proponent of alternative energy. I think folks should be jumping for joy and snapping up what they can still purchase now at these cheap prices. I'm also a realist, currently we have no alternatives for oil, and it's running out. And fast. There's a slashdot story up now about china going big time into the pebble bed reactors. It's because they know the oil is running out and can do the math. Even then it won't be enough, IMO. It took a buhzillion years to get all the oil, and in roughly one century we have used up most of it. That's the real bottom line.
Answer = a properly applied small rock in the right place at the right time. Unless they can come up with some way to take out 100 sunburns at the same time, we most likely would lose carriers pretty quickly in any asian shooting war, or north atlantic for that matter. And don't forget assymetrical warfare, we have foreign freighters and airliners entering our space all the time,using the Q ship principle, a simultaneous series of atomic detonations in every major seaport and airport would put a serious dent in our ability to resupply anyplace. And if it was a first strike in coordination with other strikes, well, who knows.
--I stay informed, thankew. Prices can be manipulated temporarily for business and political purposes, but there's nothing they can do about rapidly diminishing supply in conjunction with rapidly developing demand. They haven't even found a single mega field for a coupla years now (longer I think really), and several large oil concerns have had to re-assess severely downward what they previously claimed as recoverable reserves. Maybe you missed that little news fact, it's somewhat of what they call a "scandal" lately. It's in the news, not even hard to find. North sea-past peak. Mexico-past peak. Venezuela-past peak. Indonesia-past peak. Lower 48 USA-way past peak. North slope-past peak. Last good stash that is rapidly approaching peak is in the little area of iraq/iran/arabian peninsula. Some dribs and drabs here and there left to develop, west africa, some offshorte areas, etc, but that's it for the good and still easy to get at stuff. I was just reading last night some wells in sauid are pumping at 55% water now from the water they force in to extract it. They used to *gush* pure crude out of the ground, now they have to force it out.
Naw, maybe the dittoheads still believe that smoke and mirrors razzle dazzle that there's unlimited near free black gold energy, but pure geology proves it otherwise. People who actually do the research and don't fall for snakeoil salesmens spiels know what's up.
...here's the problem. By your own reference,they spent bundles to upgrade folks who ALREADY HAD DECENT BROADBAND. They didn't "roll out" cable further into the suburban and rural areas too much. They didn't use their money they already made to expand their market, they just consolidated what they had. That's the problem, they have decided where ANY broadband is going to go and that's it. I mean, you are complaining about 1.5 meg connection, which to me would be an amazing thing, when millions and millions of people can't even get a reliable dialup connection with any decent speed to it. I'm lucky to get a 28.8 on a good day with no bad weather, yet the town over next to me about 15 miles away has a variety of dsl and also cable,and I know this isn't isolated, it's pervasive across the nation. And this isn't even all that rural, there's folks up and down the street, a subdivision at one end. It's not like it's bushplane accessibleonly or something, it's just plain old rural (meaning non major urban) USA. I bet at least 3/4ths of the land mass of the US is in the same boat, just not urban "enough" for them to bother with.
I think that's the point of the article, it's not that we can't get it, it's that they are never going to even try to offer it beyond a certain population density point, and usually wherever it already exists. And what gets me is I know from talking to the local phone guys when they were installing my meager copper they have fiber all the way to the nearest box, so I asked them when they will bring it to the curb, they said NEVER unless they are ordered to by the government. That's just a scosh over two miles from me. Probably a couple dozen houses between here and there, then a big subdivision past me on down the street, with more construction going on. How hard would it be to string the remaining fiber? AFAIK, they have never even asked the local folks if any of us would be interested in decent broadband. It's like they reluctantly provide THE cheapest copper line phone service they can get away with, that's their mindset. I doubt they would even do that if they weren't ordered to way back when as part of their monopoly.
I'm GLAD I have some inet connection, and that's it. I don't expect big business to ever give a crap about the rural areas as long as their food and water and other stuff gets shipped into the cities where the rich fatcats live and rule over the nation. Allegedly there might be wifi or some other wireless action at some point, but I've been hearing about it but not seeing it for years now. You can get satellite inet, but at close to a grand up front costs for hardware and installation and 70$ - 100$ a month recurring, it just isn't happening any time soon for most people.
...you are correct. And a major part of the reason is the more or less fairly imminent global oil production decline. China along with a number of other countries are stockpiling oil in anticipation of higher prices and lack of availability. They had something like a 300% increase in just registered cars last year, their demand is going outta site, along with indias and some other developing nations. The PTB are really pulling out all the stops in trying to keep prices at the pump down in this critical election period, but watch it skyrocket after the elections. I mean, we are seeing the same prices at the pump we saw before it galloped to 45-50$ a barrel. It *should* have hit at the pumps by now, but it hasn't, hence I think it's being manipulated for political purposes.
If they-back to china- were actually releasing the oil to their population they wouldn't have as much unemployment, but stuck between a rock and a hard place they are stockpiling. Oil makes the world go round, that's about it. Transportation, manufacturing,agriculture, other energy production-all of the above and more goes back to the slick black stuff.
I like the all in one as well. I want a browser and email client and editor. If it comes in one package, I figure, so what? Rather have it that way really, less fuss and muss. I always liked netscape anyway. For the same uses, you'll be downloading three separate apps anyway, the size is probably roughly similar (guessing now). As to themes, yep, joe curmedgeon here, I like classic. Modern is too...goofy looking I guess. I like "warm" not gaudy and flashy.
...blasting off the entire human blueprint is such a hot idea. You got a 50/50 split on potential entities, and that would be the universe-all good/bad. Giving potential bad guys the plans to the human species seems a little risky.
Perhaps a few hours of late night TV commercials might be more appropriate. Give them something to ponder on. If they are dumb enough to investigate it, we'll have the upper hand. If they are smart enough to recognize that we are bad news and probably loony tunes, they might leave us alone, and we really don't want *smarter* ETs swinging by, do we?
..no one knows but the goon himself and the goons around him who they will kill next. If they pull off phony terror attack round two and use nukes or biologicals, it could be quite a few more folks get it. These guys are *killers* for blood profit, I can't make it any simpler or clearer than that. Close to a thousand US servicemen, with who knows how many more of them going to bite it from DU (a blatant WMD in widespread use) exposure. 10 thousand iraqis, a lot of them "collateral damage" civvies, little kids, women, old geezers. think about that one, if it was your kids or relatives or friends.. 7000 US wounded, and that doesn't include private mercenary contractors, of which there are a lot.
Here, read this, it just got posted, sums up some of my feelings as well, and it's big. It also leaves out quite a few other points but there's enough to ponder on for a while.
and the other point is, and this is critical, yes, there are worse dictatoruships out there now. The intelligent person notices when his reality is sliding that way and works to nip it in the bud before it gets even worse. You DON'T wait until it's bad as north korea in other words. We got the secret police now, death squads, illegal wars, coverups for domestic terror attacks, surveillence and command and control technology being deployed as fast as it can be manufactured. All sorts of people getting on "lists" and getting vistis from fed cop goons. There's a guy right now who came in second in the new hampshire primary who got kidnapped by guys calling themselves secret service agents, turns out they weren't, they were white house secret police. A supporter of his with zero record, and older guy a doctor, gets a vist from the secret police, they called him a terrorism suspect.
This stuff is going on all over. How about those phony anthrax atacks using US dot mil army issued anthrax? High level dem politicians and a media guy who was investigating the bush twins for illegal drinking and drugging got sent the anthrax. The journalist croaked. Wasn't raggyheads did that.
So, I repeat, go ahead and join up with them guys, I'll pass. I'll gladly take the label as an extremist against criminality. No problems there. Never been a crook, don't plan on starting now. I don't support or join up with crooks, and because the top levels of that party are in on it, well, it's a criminal cartel as far as I am concerned. No amount of their flag waving is gonna change the data.
As to whom I might vote for, not sure this year, past several elections I have voted constituion party or reform party, but with diebold machines now and what I saw go down with them in the 2002 elections, I think that voting jazz is over anyway, for any practical honest purposes. The vote is hijacked now, we've seen enough evidence to show that diebold is corrupt. And we know who owns and controls diebold, so there ya go.
hey, suit yourself! And you are RIGHT, I despise dictators who condone mass killings. Sure as heck it gets my dander up, and why shouldn't it? Why shouldn't sonmeone get angry over what they see happening that is harmful and malevolent to such a degree? I say the same thing about the red chineses thugs, a two class system with mass murderers at the helm, their goal is ultra surveillence and command and control over their serfs, as it always has been, and embrace as much technology as they can to achieve those goals. Sound familiar? It should, red china is their model poster boy nation, that's why they have pushed normalization and trade with them so much for over 2 decades now. Birds of a feather.
This is serious business, and it's not theoretical, we are talking real events, real wars, more wars coming and enough corruption to fill 16 chicagos with room to spare, unless you think haliburton is a buncha choirboys who accidently misplaced a few digits with their accounting.. I don't excuse it, condone it, and most importantly, I dont ignore it. I base my decisions on data, pure and simple. For example, take an open honest critical look at all the evidence of 9-11, see for yourself. I have, the evidence is overhwleming it has serious elements of an inside job allowed to happen, by white guys in suits, not just dudes in robes in a cave over yonder someplace. But, if you are more comfortable in that camp with the perps, the ones who have ramrodded through the largest assault on the bill of rights ever, help yourself, you have plenty of company over with the new brownshirts. Me, I wash my hands of that party, just seen enough of the duplicity and attacks on all that I thought it was supposed to stand for.
Me, I started out political life as a goldwater republican. A regular old plain vanilla conservative, you know, smaller government, more efficient, we kept our noses out of others business as much as possible, we protected american lives and jobs and culture, play fair and honest. yada yada yada. Rough row to hoe when you never had a congressional majority for years, but I had hope that someplace sometime it would get better. Nope, this globalist NWO faction we used to call the rockefeller repubs took over, lead by the loansharks of the IMF and loyal only to profits and raw power over other humans-sorry, not my cuppa tea. I want no part of this imperial looter national philsophy they push. This crew they got in there now is in no way manner shape or form even remotely like old traditional conservative republican values or ideals. Pure globalists, corporo-fascists loyal to international business, even if it's business derived from blood. Phooie on that noise. They claim what they claim, but what they actually do is another story. My bottom line is I don't trust liars, thieves and murderers, and I could give a care if they got an R or D in front of their name, just call 'em as I see 'em. I just will not support what is in essence now just a large and onerous criminal cartel.
The "stupid" party I didn't invent, and it's so old I honestly don't remember who started it, but it's been a common slang term for the Repubs for decades now, or it seems like it. The other is the "evil" party.
When King Klintgoon and his Kommie Kutups Kuties were in rule, I lambasted them just as much. I am an equal opportunity disser. When you consider the last two attorney generals were the poster boy and...boy for Buchenwald camp counselors, you gotta wonder about these folks who keep supporting these "parties" in general......when folks kept insisting king klintgoons only crime was a few errant BJs and conveniently forgot the other crimes...welll.. ya, I'm no fan of the dims either.
Karma points...ehh.... main deal is to get the info out. Shake up enough people, make them question what they believe. It's not like we don't have an internet to do research on now. To my way of thinking, there is little excuse left for remaining in political ignorance or for falling for what are in essence political nigerian confidence scams. 9-11 is just so blatantly...transparent. the old clich is "the governments story got more holes than a warehouse fulla swiss cheese... more holes than a truck load of whiffle bats". And when you are talking about issues like a sneak attack on thousands, hijacking government, pushing wars for fun and profit..what's a little negative modding? It balances out, there's a lot of smart folks here, despite all that we razz each other.
Enough folks are finding out now that the official party line is 100% Grade A pure garden fertiliser. When we reach a large enough critical mass, stuff is gonna change. When you see how much a fluff piece like F911 movie got to people, wait until a lot more people get the other 98% of the available story. It's happening too, more and more are seeing through the fog of spin and media manipulation propoganda brainwashing. It's hard for folks to see how much they have been lied to and manipulated, and it's inversely proportional, usually very intelligent people highly resist thinking they have been scammed or are "wrong" somehow. But when they finally DO discover and leave the state of denial about it, they usually become effective in teaching others. I know it took me several vigorous whacks with not the clue stick but the whole clue tree, up close and personal in my face before I finally realised just how abysmally deep and how pervasive the rot really is.
...the crybabies in the stupid party love to have all sorts of lists THEMSELVES, but when THEY wind up on a list, they cry foul. This is THE most repressive, restrictive, scary administration I can remember going back to eisenhower, JFK clearer for me. Makes noxon and his crew of scumbags look like amateur stick up artists. Makes the last crew of crooked texans around LBJ look like choir boys, and those were some crooked mofos. You got people right now in that party and their media spokesweasels like michael savage and on their online activist forums openly calling for concentration camps and federal charges for "protesters" and calling for outright genocide against all islamic people. You got ashcroft actually pushing for the camps, and I can tell you, at least a few of them already exist, and we got more coming. Ye GADS the patriot act 1 and 2 are signed into law reality and we actually have a thing called DAS HOMELAND security. what more of a clue do you need? And if they don't get their way, they are gonna pull another bigtime phony terror attack like the one they pulled on 9-11, but this time it will be hardcore, not fooling around. These are dangerous, insane, megalomaniacal feudalists, this is the big push, all the way, hardball, going for the gold for them. They and their policies are the height of hypocrisy. At lower levels then federal, it's a different ballgame, they still got a lot of decent people, but even there, way more party loyalty than NATION loyalty, and believe me, if you ain't with them, you are a terrorist, they even said it out loud. At the top leadership levels and in the federal party level, nope, mostly fascists, and they are actively pursuing an ever increasing fascistics government. This is NO JOKE. These people are right this second getting away with mega scam 9-11, they are killing people all over the planet, co opting our own guys, disappearing people, running freeking death squads, and they got a bunch more wars planned, just waiting for an opportune time to start them. The one in iran will start once they provoke the iraninans enough to attack them "first". They are waiting until after the election to restart up the draft, and they ARE going to do it. They are blatantly, clearly, and with zero scientific evidence to the contrary using WMD in the form of DU rounds and spreading it all over the middle east, and got factories on triple time building more. They are deploying the planets most sophisticated "anti riot" alleged "less than lethal" weapons, designed for controlling masses of civilians. They have been running house to house training in gun confiscation. They have more or less taken over vast numbers of local police stations with dual badged cops. You got the head goofball who's family has clear and distinct business ties to bin laden and tangentially with saddam with monkey brains cabinet goofs, and the controlled media refuses to address this. We had a fresh zogby poll released yesterday that shows the majority of new yorkers think 9-11 was a scam,and that the whitewash commission was a joke and it needs to be reinvestigated by someone other than the fed perps who pulled it off, and you ain't seeing that poll on any of the mass media outlets, it's only on some websites and on the shortwave shows.
This is a big dangerous reichstagg fire type scam, those folks thinking this is some normal "open and honest" election coming with diebold machines or that these are normal times are just not paying attention, this is freeking germany circa mid 30's, heading for the home stretch.
...wasn't a violent coup? Or do you think that a lone nut killed him, then another totally unrelated lone nut killed that guy as well?
I think violence plays a lot bigger part in our domestic politics (with bigwig insiders) than most folks want to be comfortable with. RFK and just sorta lately wellstone come to mind as well. Not to mention a heap of big dotmil guys who all apprently had "accidents" during the previous bent ones reign.
One of the main reasons to vote third party is that eventually, third parties will be permanently on the ballot. They will only get that when they poll significant numbers. The Rs and Ds don't have to jump through hoops every single election to get their candidates listed (or in any televised debates). Third parties (states vary, speaking in general terms now) have to every time go through petition drives and use up their meagre contributions just to get on the ballot, and it's heavily skewed against them.
As to wasting your vote, the only vote wasted is one not cast-or one cast then hacked and altered inside a blackbox voting scam.
Didn't they just re-up their warranties to three years? Or are you stuck with a shorter warranty.
With that said, I find the older the hard drive, the more reliable it is, some exceptions I have read, but I've never seen it, ALL my sub gigabyte hard drives are just fine, still work. I even have one that had an industrial "health" magnet placed next to it, a toshiba satellite 115 laptop, it was seriously b0rken when I got it from a friend as scrap, made terrible noise, wouldn't boot. I mean it sounded like the read head was scraping along the platter, SCRRRRATCH over and over. I thought what the heck, let's see what will happen, I just left it turned on to see what would happen, after several days it finally got to a semi bootable state where I could run scandisk, after almost two weeks of running scandisk it's fine now, works normally. I was able to recover almost all her data and send it to her, now I got a nifty "old" laptop. It would be a nice scrappage if more ram and another battery wasn't so expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
...customs and cost of living for the "equal" part in trading. The US had a successful internal market because we had a more similar cost of living and more similar set of laws and rules and regulations within the 50 states that traded across borders. This is NOT the case internationally. A worker (or business) living in say Kansas "competiting" with a worker in say Wisconsin had a much closer set of base lines to deal with than what is promoted now internationally. When it's a highly skewed as it is in cost of living and median currently established labor costs you will get what we are seeing now-massive trade imbalances, rising unemployment, dropping wages and lost benefits. It would only be beneficial trade if it was fair trade, and fair only exists if the laws are more equitable and the cost of living starts out as more equitable when the trade commences in earnest on a very large scale.
....Liberty Dollars are in much more widespread use than any of the time based currencies I saw in the list and are backed by precious metals, a globally recognized form of money and exchange that is *quite spiffy* in it's longevity and robustness. I remember one community based currency from the 70s called the "constant", but even that used minted silver coin as a local currency and it's the genesis of where I got my Top 100 commodities based currency idea from.
I agree with you, I simply don't see this need to specifically code using Java to come up with some currency. Money as an historical successful currency has traditionally been based on already produced tangible wealth,so making it (these time based currencies) based on future promises of work (IOU's where no work has been performed yet, and might not be) is a lot closer to the flawed and highly exploitative fiat artifical currency system we use now, which is bogus if you ask me.
try feather linux, 64 megs.
I'll give ya a +1 for a good point.
--yours is the best idea yet. I was going to post it (something very similar) until I read your reply. There should be something like a three strikes and you are out. Try to patent three bogus patents, or get three over turned, you are barred from ever trying again.
The other is obvious, just BAN IP patents. Eliminate thew whole shooting match, and invalidate all past IP patents. Patents should be reserved for TANGIBLES. Copyright-OK, patent, nyetski! We had intangibles before, when the patent office was setup and people starting patenting, but it was for STUFF, tangibles. We had intangibles, we had written intangibles, we had music, art, literature, etc, but it wasn't patentable because people realised that was loony tunes. They were never granted a patent as far as I know. (If anyone knows of an old exception, I can be corrected). It's only relatively recently in US historical terms that intangible IP has been treated like a tangible. And what's worse, they can get a patent,get treated as a tangible in pursuit of profits, BUT, never be forced to offer the tiniest warranty for these dubious "patented products" that all tangible products must have. What a sweet scam!
I'm cynical as heck about it, I think there's been billions in bribes paid off to legislators and bureaucrats to get IP to be "patentable" and that it's ongoing inside the patent office. No proof, other than these ridiculous tons of prior art "patents" being issued. It's criminal behavior, so look who has the means and opportunity, and who can profit from the scam of patenting obvious stuff.
Old saying, walks like a duck, acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's most likely a duck.
walmart slave labor in china, 13-16 hour days at 13 cents an hour, 7 days a week, 20 hour shifts during rush season like for christmas shopping. That's all -american walmart for ya. And they claim US workers need to be more productive and to compete globally with that. How? Magic fairy dust?
And they can't even keep their cards secure. What a joke.
Walmart single handedly has shutdown thousands of small town down town areas all over the nation. That's the new culture, a big square ugly box of a building, they all look the same, all got the same cheapest crap imaginable for sale. Largest corp in the world, bigger even then the energy companies. They come into a town, and do what is in essence "dumping" for a few years, incredibly cheap prices, until all the local competition is hosed, then they run the prices back up. Shop elsewhere-sure, go over to the next county, the same walmart.
I'm surprised walmart and microsoft haven't merged yet, exact same business philosphy.
....just forcing them to actually have a hooman bean look at the dern file before they go cash shopping with thinly veiled legal threats. This is just another example of ambulance chasing. I know if I got some legal threat of action like that that was clearly false and that the file in question obviously wasn't looked at by a human I'd see the suckers in court. They've gone start raving bonkerts near as I can see. Not only are they chronic serial liars and abusers, witness multiple convictions of industry collusion to keep profits artifically high and to stifle true competition, and bribery/payola to manipulate the markets, but now they are automating what is *clearly* supposed to be a human eyeball task, and as such are tippy toeing pretty close to barratry. When law offices send official pieces of paper, or electronic notifications, they got to cross Ts and dot Is pretty carefully, and this shows WILLFUL negligence. It's not a mistake, it's the actual results of cutting illegal corners in order to maximise legal profits. And that's why folks hire lawyers, so that the law gets followed, and these bozos didn't do that, yet want to maintain their status as righteous lawyers representing their client. Both the recipient of the notice has a claim, and their original clients have a claim against them. They are double wrong on this little gem as far as I know. I'll let the branes at groklaw sort it out, but this is certainly what it looks like to me..
---uhhh, the prices have gone up. This summer I finally used up the last of my long term gas storage I bought bulk in 99. I paid IIRC around 80 cents a gallon for it. That's more than a doubling in at the pump prices in 5 years. I'd call that a significant price increase. And current crude is still in the mid 40s/barrel. What was it last year again?
If you want to know, I use PRI-G for gas stabiliser, and -D for diesel. Good stuff. I keep a smaller stash now, just a barrel of it at a time, before where I lived there was a commercial bulk tank we had the tanker come and fill up. When I moved I filled my around 80 gallons in the dual tanks in my RV, then I siphoned it back out to use here with my small engines in my work. It still burned fine, albeit it was a scosh stale compared to brand new fresh.
As to "doom and gloom", I mean really, I provided links to some very credible places. There have been very large and well attended international conferences with leading economists and geologists and energy bigwigs. They are all concerned about it. If you follow links around you can find any number of sites that have detailed analysis of reported and proven reserves, and some good projections on demand. I don't know what you would call severely diminishing supplies coupled with near exponential growth demand, but I'd say it's a cause for concern, considering just how much the worlds total economy depends on oil. And google is your friend, merely searching on peak oil will keep you going for quite awhile.
--I don't buy stocks or bonds or futures or any sort of paper financial products. Personal decision of mine from a long time ago. I think the world has enough middle man traders and wealth skimmers frankly, and I consider wallstreet to be corrupt and the commodities markets to be close behind.
If you think the projections of peakoil and decline are erroneous, I'd be be more than glad to look at any contrarian views you might have URLs for.
I live about an hour outside atlanta. See what I mean? You'd THINK it would be better now, but it ain't. You got to be right close to the major urban areas to get broadband. They never even rolled out cable TV here, and now they won't, too many folks went to satellite TV when they got tired of waiting for cable, it kept being promised "next year, cable!" never happened.
The big commo utilities will NOT deliver wired broadband unless they are ordered to by some law. I know there's some examples where they have, but by and large, areas that can get it now will see more competition, other areas that don't have it won't see anything except perhaps wireless.
I have SOME internet so I am happy enough. If I couldn't get any, I'd go for satellite by hook or crook somehow. I wouldn't move closer in urban just for internet access though, the bad tradeoffs aren't worth it to me. I choose to live where the food and water are, not where they get shipped to. I've seen too many times now what happens when the supply goes screwy, and I know in the future it's just going to get worse. So rural I stay, I just like whining about broadband whenever these stories come up. heh.
...and there's two completyely different ways to measure cheap/expensive. One way, the way most folks think of it, is in terms of money. It costs such and such to explore, find,drill the wells, build the infrastructure, pump it via pipeline to a terminal, then to a refinery, then on to the end consumers. The other way-and the most important way-to consider what a barrel of oil costs is to measure it against itself using pure energy terms. Say back in the 30s and 40's, it took a barrel of energy to get back 20 barrels. Now it might be one for three or 4. It's not only more expensive with dollars, but with the energy needed.
A graph would show how this works, the energy in to get energy out is a rapid drop off once you have reached peak production. Once it hits stasis, an eqwual balance, you could have a trillion barrels sitting underground and it wouldn't do you any good at all, you wouldn't get any energy beyond what it would take to get it, a catch 22, and one that the planet is rapidly approaching.
along with fresh water crises that are getting closer - here's a link to just one story, the oil situation is the one that will determine current humans survival this century. From everything I have read and the best analysis out there I can find, there's only one conclusion--these are "the good old days" of decent employment, cheap consumer goods, being able to drive hither and yon, affordable air transport, and so on..
The future is going to be a series of wars over the remaining exploitable natural resources.
In other words, barring some revolutionary technology that will be easily adaptable all over the planet, something that can actually replace oil for both transportation and for also manufacturing, we gonna be *screwed*. Manufacturing in particular is highly dependent on oil now. Stuff is still cheap because we still can get oil, later on....governments are gonna make a decision, keep themselves in war materiel, or let their populations have cheap trinkets. I'll let the odds makers make the call on that one, but it seems a no brainer.
I'm a proponent of alternative energy. I think folks should be jumping for joy and snapping up what they can still purchase now at these cheap prices. I'm also a realist, currently we have no alternatives for oil, and it's running out. And fast. There's a slashdot story up now about china going big time into the pebble bed reactors. It's because they know the oil is running out and can do the math. Even then it won't be enough, IMO. It took a buhzillion years to get all the oil, and in roughly one century we have used up most of it. That's the real bottom line.
Answer = a properly applied small rock in the right place at the right time. Unless they can come up with some way to take out 100 sunburns at the same time, we most likely would lose carriers pretty quickly in any asian shooting war, or north atlantic for that matter. And don't forget assymetrical warfare, we have foreign freighters and airliners entering our space all the time,using the Q ship principle, a simultaneous series of atomic detonations in every major seaport and airport would put a serious dent in our ability to resupply anyplace. And if it was a first strike in coordination with other strikes, well, who knows.
here ya go
0 9- 1240069,00.html
china stockpiling
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,82
http://www.aseansec.org/16144.htm
peak oil
http://www.peakoil.net/
--I stay informed, thankew. Prices can be manipulated temporarily for business and political purposes, but there's nothing they can do about rapidly diminishing supply in conjunction with rapidly developing demand. They haven't even found a single mega field for a coupla years now (longer I think really), and several large oil concerns have had to re-assess severely downward what they previously claimed as recoverable reserves. Maybe you missed that little news fact, it's somewhat of what they call a "scandal" lately. It's in the news, not even hard to find. North sea-past peak. Mexico-past peak. Venezuela-past peak. Indonesia-past peak. Lower 48 USA-way past peak. North slope-past peak. Last good stash that is rapidly approaching peak is in the little area of iraq/iran/arabian peninsula. Some dribs and drabs here and there left to develop, west africa, some offshorte areas, etc, but that's it for the good and still easy to get at stuff. I was just reading last night some wells in sauid are pumping at 55% water now from the water they force in to extract it. They used to *gush* pure crude out of the ground, now they have to force it out.
Naw, maybe the dittoheads still believe that smoke and mirrors razzle dazzle that there's unlimited near free black gold energy, but pure geology proves it otherwise. People who actually do the research and don't fall for snakeoil salesmens spiels know what's up.
...here's the problem. By your own reference,they spent bundles to upgrade folks who ALREADY HAD DECENT BROADBAND. They didn't "roll out" cable further into the suburban and rural areas too much. They didn't use their money they already made to expand their market, they just consolidated what they had. That's the problem, they have decided where ANY broadband is going to go and that's it. I mean, you are complaining about 1.5 meg connection, which to me would be an amazing thing, when millions and millions of people can't even get a reliable dialup connection with any decent speed to it. I'm lucky to get a 28.8 on a good day with no bad weather, yet the town over next to me about 15 miles away has a variety of dsl and also cable,and I know this isn't isolated, it's pervasive across the nation. And this isn't even all that rural, there's folks up and down the street, a subdivision at one end. It's not like it's bushplane accessibleonly or something, it's just plain old rural (meaning non major urban) USA. I bet at least 3/4ths of the land mass of the US is in the same boat, just not urban "enough" for them to bother with.
I think that's the point of the article, it's not that we can't get it, it's that they are never going to even try to offer it beyond a certain population density point, and usually wherever it already exists. And what gets me is I know from talking to the local phone guys when they were installing my meager copper they have fiber all the way to the nearest box, so I asked them when they will bring it to the curb, they said NEVER unless they are ordered to by the government. That's just a scosh over two miles from me. Probably a couple dozen houses between here and there, then a big subdivision past me on down the street, with more construction going on. How hard would it be to string the remaining fiber? AFAIK, they have never even asked the local folks if any of us would be interested in decent broadband. It's like they reluctantly provide THE cheapest copper line phone service they can get away with, that's their mindset. I doubt they would even do that if they weren't ordered to way back when as part of their monopoly.
I'm GLAD I have some inet connection, and that's it. I don't expect big business to ever give a crap about the rural areas as long as their food and water and other stuff gets shipped into the cities where the rich fatcats live and rule over the nation. Allegedly there might be wifi or some other wireless action at some point, but I've been hearing about it but not seeing it for years now. You can get satellite inet, but at close to a grand up front costs for hardware and installation and 70$ - 100$ a month recurring, it just isn't happening any time soon for most people.
...you are correct. And a major part of the reason is the more or less fairly imminent global oil production decline. China along with a number of other countries are stockpiling oil in anticipation of higher prices and lack of availability. They had something like a 300% increase in just registered cars last year, their demand is going outta site, along with indias and some other developing nations. The PTB are really pulling out all the stops in trying to keep prices at the pump down in this critical election period, but watch it skyrocket after the elections. I mean, we are seeing the same prices at the pump we saw before it galloped to 45-50$ a barrel. It *should* have hit at the pumps by now, but it hasn't, hence I think it's being manipulated for political purposes.
If they-back to china- were actually releasing the oil to their population they wouldn't have as much unemployment, but stuck between a rock and a hard place they are stockpiling. Oil makes the world go round, that's about it. Transportation, manufacturing,agriculture, other energy production-all of the above and more goes back to the slick black stuff.
I like the all in one as well. I want a browser and email client and editor. If it comes in one package, I figure, so what? Rather have it that way really, less fuss and muss. I always liked netscape anyway. For the same uses, you'll be downloading three separate apps anyway, the size is probably roughly similar (guessing now). As to themes, yep, joe curmedgeon here, I like classic. Modern is too...goofy looking I guess. I like "warm" not gaudy and flashy.
...blasting off the entire human blueprint is such a hot idea. You got a 50/50 split on potential entities, and that would be the universe-all good/bad. Giving potential bad guys the plans to the human species seems a little risky.
Perhaps a few hours of late night TV commercials might be more appropriate. Give them something to ponder on. If they are dumb enough to investigate it, we'll have the upper hand. If they are smart enough to recognize that we are bad news and probably loony tunes, they might leave us alone, and we really don't want *smarter* ETs swinging by, do we?
..no one knows but the goon himself and the goons around him who they will kill next. If they pull off phony terror attack round two and use nukes or biologicals, it could be quite a few more folks get it. These guys are *killers* for blood profit, I can't make it any simpler or clearer than that. Close to a thousand US servicemen, with who knows how many more of them going to bite it from DU (a blatant WMD in widespread use) exposure. 10 thousand iraqis, a lot of them "collateral damage" civvies, little kids, women, old geezers. think about that one, if it was your kids or relatives or friends.. 7000 US wounded, and that doesn't include private mercenary contractors, of which there are a lot.
3 83 893
Here, read this, it just got posted, sums up some of my feelings as well, and it's big. It also leaves out quite a few other points but there's enough to ponder on for a while.
http://slashdot.org/messages.pl?op=display&id=5
and the other point is, and this is critical, yes, there are worse dictatoruships out there now. The intelligent person notices when his reality is sliding that way and works to nip it in the bud before it gets even worse. You DON'T wait until it's bad as north korea in other words. We got the secret police now, death squads, illegal wars, coverups for domestic terror attacks, surveillence and command and control technology being deployed as fast as it can be manufactured. All sorts of people getting on "lists" and getting vistis from fed cop goons. There's a guy right now who came in second in the new hampshire primary who got kidnapped by guys calling themselves secret service agents, turns out they weren't, they were white house secret police. A supporter of his with zero record, and older guy a doctor, gets a vist from the secret police, they called him a terrorism suspect.
This stuff is going on all over. How about those phony anthrax atacks using US dot mil army issued anthrax? High level dem politicians and a media guy who was investigating the bush twins for illegal drinking and drugging got sent the anthrax. The journalist croaked. Wasn't raggyheads did that.
So, I repeat, go ahead and join up with them guys, I'll pass. I'll gladly take the label as an extremist against criminality. No problems there. Never been a crook, don't plan on starting now. I don't support or join up with crooks, and because the top levels of that party are in on it, well, it's a criminal cartel as far as I am concerned. No amount of their flag waving is gonna change the data.
As to whom I might vote for, not sure this year, past several elections I have voted constituion party or reform party, but with diebold machines now and what I saw go down with them in the 2002 elections, I think that voting jazz is over anyway, for any practical honest purposes. The vote is hijacked now, we've seen enough evidence to show that diebold is corrupt. And we know who owns and controls diebold, so there ya go.
hey, suit yourself! And you are RIGHT, I despise dictators who condone mass killings. Sure as heck it gets my dander up, and why shouldn't it? Why shouldn't sonmeone get angry over what they see happening that is harmful and malevolent to such a degree? I say the same thing about the red chineses thugs, a two class system with mass murderers at the helm, their goal is ultra surveillence and command and control over their serfs, as it always has been, and embrace as much technology as they can to achieve those goals. Sound familiar? It should, red china is their model poster boy nation, that's why they have pushed normalization and trade with them so much for over 2 decades now. Birds of a feather.
This is serious business, and it's not theoretical, we are talking real events, real wars, more wars coming and enough corruption to fill 16 chicagos with room to spare, unless you think haliburton is a buncha choirboys who accidently misplaced a few digits with their accounting.. I don't excuse it, condone it, and most importantly, I dont ignore it. I base my decisions on data, pure and simple. For example, take an open honest critical look at all the evidence of 9-11, see for yourself. I have, the evidence is overhwleming it has serious elements of an inside job allowed to happen, by white guys in suits, not just dudes in robes in a cave over yonder someplace. But, if you are more comfortable in that camp with the perps, the ones who have ramrodded through the largest assault on the bill of rights ever, help yourself, you have plenty of company over with the new brownshirts. Me, I wash my hands of that party, just seen enough of the duplicity and attacks on all that I thought it was supposed to stand for.
Me, I started out political life as a goldwater republican. A regular old plain vanilla conservative, you know, smaller government, more efficient, we kept our noses out of others business as much as possible, we protected american lives and jobs and culture, play fair and honest. yada yada yada. Rough row to hoe when you never had a congressional majority for years, but I had hope that someplace sometime it would get better. Nope, this globalist NWO faction we used to call the rockefeller repubs took over, lead by the loansharks of the IMF and loyal only to profits and raw power over other humans-sorry, not my cuppa tea. I want no part of this imperial looter national philsophy they push. This crew they got in there now is in no way manner shape or form even remotely like old traditional conservative republican values or ideals. Pure globalists, corporo-fascists loyal to international business, even if it's business derived from blood. Phooie on that noise. They claim what they claim, but what they actually do is another story. My bottom line is I don't trust liars, thieves and murderers, and I could give a care if they got an R or D in front of their name, just call 'em as I see 'em. I just will not support what is in essence now just a large and onerous criminal cartel.
The "stupid" party I didn't invent, and it's so old I honestly don't remember who started it, but it's been a common slang term for the Repubs for decades now, or it seems like it. The other is the "evil" party.
...ehh.... main deal is to get the info out. Shake up enough people, make them question what they believe. It's not like we don't have an internet to do research on now. To my way of thinking, there is little excuse left for remaining in political ignorance or for falling for what are in essence political nigerian confidence scams. 9-11 is just so blatantly...transparent. the old clich is "the governments story got more holes than a warehouse fulla swiss cheese... more holes than a truck load of whiffle bats". And when you are talking about issues like a sneak attack on thousands, hijacking government, pushing wars for fun and profit..what's a little negative modding? It balances out, there's a lot of smart folks here, despite all that we razz each other.
When King Klintgoon and his Kommie Kutups Kuties were in rule, I lambasted them just as much. I am an equal opportunity disser. When you consider the last two attorney generals were the poster boy and...boy for Buchenwald camp counselors, you gotta wonder about these folks who keep supporting these "parties" in general......when folks kept insisting king klintgoons only crime was a few errant BJs and conveniently forgot the other crimes...welll.. ya, I'm no fan of the dims either.
Karma points
Enough folks are finding out now that the official party line is 100% Grade A pure garden fertiliser. When we reach a large enough critical mass, stuff is gonna change. When you see how much a fluff piece like F911 movie got to people, wait until a lot more people get the other 98% of the available story. It's happening too, more and more are seeing through the fog of spin and media manipulation propoganda brainwashing. It's hard for folks to see how much they have been lied to and manipulated, and it's inversely proportional, usually very intelligent people highly resist thinking they have been scammed or are "wrong" somehow. But when they finally DO discover and leave the state of denial about it, they usually become effective in teaching others. I know it took me several vigorous whacks with not the clue stick but the whole clue tree, up close and personal in my face before I finally realised just how abysmally deep and how pervasive the rot really is.
...the crybabies in the stupid party love to have all sorts of lists THEMSELVES, but when THEY wind up on a list, they cry foul. This is THE most repressive, restrictive, scary administration I can remember going back to eisenhower, JFK clearer for me. Makes noxon and his crew of scumbags look like amateur stick up artists. Makes the last crew of crooked texans around LBJ look like choir boys, and those were some crooked mofos. You got people right now in that party and their media spokesweasels like michael savage and on their online activist forums openly calling for concentration camps and federal charges for "protesters" and calling for outright genocide against all islamic people. You got ashcroft actually pushing for the camps, and I can tell you, at least a few of them already exist, and we got more coming. Ye GADS the patriot act 1 and 2 are signed into law reality and we actually have a thing called DAS HOMELAND security. what more of a clue do you need? And if they don't get their way, they are gonna pull another bigtime phony terror attack like the one they pulled on 9-11, but this time it will be hardcore, not fooling around. These are dangerous, insane, megalomaniacal feudalists, this is the big push, all the way, hardball, going for the gold for them. They and their policies are the height of hypocrisy. At lower levels then federal, it's a different ballgame, they still got a lot of decent people, but even there, way more party loyalty than NATION loyalty, and believe me, if you ain't with them, you are a terrorist, they even said it out loud. At the top leadership levels and in the federal party level, nope, mostly fascists, and they are actively pursuing an ever increasing fascistics government. This is NO JOKE. These people are right this second getting away with mega scam 9-11, they are killing people all over the planet, co opting our own guys, disappearing people, running freeking death squads, and they got a bunch more wars planned, just waiting for an opportune time to start them. The one in iran will start once they provoke the iraninans enough to attack them "first". They are waiting until after the election to restart up the draft, and they ARE going to do it. They are blatantly, clearly, and with zero scientific evidence to the contrary using WMD in the form of DU rounds and spreading it all over the middle east, and got factories on triple time building more. They are deploying the planets most sophisticated "anti riot" alleged "less than lethal" weapons, designed for controlling masses of civilians. They have been running house to house training in gun confiscation. They have more or less taken over vast numbers of local police stations with dual badged cops. You got the head goofball who's family has clear and distinct business ties to bin laden and tangentially with saddam with monkey brains cabinet goofs, and the controlled media refuses to address this. We had a fresh zogby poll released yesterday that shows the majority of new yorkers think 9-11 was a scam,and that the whitewash commission was a joke and it needs to be reinvestigated by someone other than the fed perps who pulled it off, and you ain't seeing that poll on any of the mass media outlets, it's only on some websites and on the shortwave shows.
This is a big dangerous reichstagg fire type scam, those folks thinking this is some normal "open and honest" election coming with diebold machines or that these are normal times are just not paying attention, this is freeking germany circa mid 30's, heading for the home stretch.
...wasn't a violent coup? Or do you think that a lone nut killed him, then another totally unrelated lone nut killed that guy as well?
I think violence plays a lot bigger part in our domestic politics (with bigwig insiders) than most folks want to be comfortable with. RFK and just sorta lately wellstone come to mind as well. Not to mention a heap of big dotmil guys who all apprently had "accidents" during the previous bent ones reign.
One of the main reasons to vote third party is that eventually, third parties will be permanently on the ballot. They will only get that when they poll significant numbers. The Rs and Ds don't have to jump through hoops every single election to get their candidates listed (or in any televised debates). Third parties (states vary, speaking in general terms now) have to every time go through petition drives and use up their meagre contributions just to get on the ballot, and it's heavily skewed against them.
As to wasting your vote, the only vote wasted is one not cast-or one cast then hacked and altered inside a blackbox voting scam.
Didn't they just re-up their warranties to three years? Or are you stuck with a shorter warranty.
With that said, I find the older the hard drive, the more reliable it is, some exceptions I have read, but I've never seen it, ALL my sub gigabyte hard drives are just fine, still work. I even have one that had an industrial "health" magnet placed next to it, a toshiba satellite 115 laptop, it was seriously b0rken when I got it from a friend as scrap, made terrible noise, wouldn't boot. I mean it sounded like the read head was scraping along the platter, SCRRRRATCH over and over. I thought what the heck, let's see what will happen, I just left it turned on to see what would happen, after several days it finally got to a semi bootable state where I could run scandisk, after almost two weeks of running scandisk it's fine now, works normally. I was able to recover almost all her data and send it to her, now I got a nifty "old" laptop. It would be a nice scrappage if more ram and another battery wasn't so expensive.
I'd be happy for now with a real 56k, instead of the 28.8 I get :(