Japan, Inc. in general is sitting on WADS of cash, with little place to put it that seems even worthwhile right now. Buying a new fab is as good as anything else. It's certainly better than building unused office space or whatever else japan has been doing lately. They want to dump shaky petrodollars and own tangible *stuff* that you can actually do work with, not think about making a plan to form a committee to design a thought process that might lead to establishing a think tank to contemplate how to trade other think tanks ideas around, which is what US busy-ness is doing now. Japan has learned it's lesson, and hard, on busy-work and dot bombs, the US is now entering phase two of that economic reality, one big giant step behind japan.
Next bubble to pop, real estate in the US. It already popped in Japan. Stocks are heading to pop too,once again, from pension over-exposure and global trade re-arrangement which forgets about lost customer spending money when they yank jobs and move them around in wholesale lots based on this-quarter priority levels of awarness. Slow, very, very gradual "free trade" could work, wholesale do-it-all-right-now sure ain't..
As to the chips, no idea what they will do with them, but the world in general seems to want more chips of every description, especially newer designs. Pretty soon hammers will come with chips in them, and forks. Who knows, seems the trends though.
--don't know if it will help, but for what it's worth I like the 1.3b release a lot better than the 1.2 series. It's not a big download from their ftp site either even with an old slow modem. They got tarballs or rpms for it. With the rpms I used I had to trash the old mozilla apps first and do a clean install of the new ones, the browser, mail, chat, nss, psr I believe. Trying to upgrade them didn't take, gave me error messages. RH 7.2 box. I usually stay away from alphas myself, just not knowledgeable enough to contribute to their development in any meaningful way, nor fix them if they give bad/weird results.
--have read several NYT articles today, zero popups. moz 1.3b on linux, no images or scripting turned on, and I even have "allow popups" turned on! So where are you seeing popups? Maybe it's because I am only going in through google news?
ok, I read it, unfortunately what I expected. Shuck and jive and dodging the critical questions by the manufactureres rep. The election official gets a last minute Cd with the "upgrade" so it gets run. Who's verified the original program? "they did, trust them" Who's verified the Cd? "they did trust them" Who mailed it, was it switched, a man in the middle, what if the programmer is compromised through bribery and blackmail? "never happen, trust them"
phooie, it's a scam, a sophisticated scam
None of those get answered. I'm convinced it's corrupt, last election in the state of georgia, first all state wide computerised voting. Uh huh. Biggest political upsets since the civil war, and they also contradicted both the pre and post polling.
A "coincidence" I am s-o-o-o-o sure....
Yep, no fraud there, move along, nothing to see...
I harangued my poll "official", she was clueless. I asked how do you verify a recount if requested, She said they ran the tally program again. duh, if it was compromised OF COURSE it would still show the same erroneous numbers. You could run the recount program as long as you wanted to, it wouldn't matter. She had no idea, I honestly failed to be able to get her to understand this simple concept, most likely because of brainwashing of trusting the state and some unaccountable corporation, and being very unfamiliar with computers. So instead of fraud attempts having to be done at the local level, they can now be done more efficiently and widespread from a centralised location.
It's been going on before that, the gross results were being tallied at a central location, no audits there either.
The system is so broken it ain't funny, they just have become extremly slick in giving the illusion of elections.
Computers are good for some things, for elections they are *not*.
--the small engine parts display area in hardware stores has a variety of throw away paper air filters designed for lawnmowers, etc. These are folded accordion style so you get a large surface area in a smaller square inch area, should work perfect for this purpose. Check them out,probably a size that would fit. Pull the fan inside the case, get slightly longer mounting screws, insert the filter in front of the fan, screw it back on holding the filter in place. Maybe go one step up in fan size to compensate for a more restricted but cleaner airflow. If you have some normal sheet metal skills it shouldn't be to hard to just make a slip in mount for the filter so that the fan stays permanently screwed in, just replace with a new filter occassionally. Hmm, thinking about it, the metal carriers designed FOR those lawnmower/small engine filters are already fabbed, probably not too hard to screw them on on the inside of the case. Small amount of modding much cheaper and funner than an all new case, unless you just want an excuse to get a new case! hahahaha! then, well, you gots permission! You're a geek, you don' need no steenking permission for new gear!
You can also tear out the old nasty rugs and just paint the floor down there. Use a few small area rugs or those hard rubber office pads where you might need them like right at your work desk, etc.
this is true--->".. companies fail because of management that gets rewarded for failure and criminal activity while employees suffer the consequences, lose their jobs, houses, college funds, retirement funds,... "
There's also )IMO) the phenomenon now where corporations are run into the ground on purpose, so that later on another fictititous shell company can snag their assets for pennies on the dollar. So a lot of times what is perceived to be management indifference or peter principle failure to be realistic is actually just cold strategic thinking by corporate owners who are pirates, traitors in a sense. And the way business and law is set up now, and with the lessons of enron, etc in how to NOT get caught at it, I expect it to keep happening. In fact I am convinced the airline industry in general is being run into the ground on purpose so that "nationalization" will occur, but in actuality it will be the same cabals owning them and running them, just this time behind some more layers of obfuscation paperwork legalese drivel, with employees who can't strike, and who have no whistleblower protection under the Patriot Act, and where the records can be hidden due to "national security". I expect most industries to follow suit over the next generation into an international corporate state/global government.
keep taking the deliveries at home, just get a nice decorative box that doubles as a seat (maybe, that's not important) with a liftable lid. Install a hasp and leave an unlocked padlock inside the box. Screw the box to the back of the PO box down the driveway. Tell the delivery guy to drop the packages in there and lock the box.
If you don't want to build one, rubbermaid has an exterior folding lawn furniture container/box you can purchase, then it's just a matter of installing the lock. Then you don't have to worry about weather damage or having an obvious brown cardboard package sitting unattended in the front yard/down by the road whatever. I do that here but without the lock seeing as how it's so rural and there's a long private drive. If we aren't going to be home I just leave an empty rubbermaid square container like you can get at wallymart for 5$ in front of the front door, the private delivery guys all know to use that now, same with the rural post office carrier, I made a point to talk to all of them early on living here. I lost one really expensive hand signed hardback that was left hanging on the box in a bag, some fool snagged it,so I told the carrier NO WAY leave stuff down there anymore. Seems to work out OK. Shooting them a cold lemonade or a choke~a~cola on a hot day seems to work, too, heh. Honey/vinegar, binary choice there
As to the PDAs, I still think for most purposes a small notebook is better, well, if you got older eyes. I really can't even see the small screens on cell phones or pdas all that well any more. My laptops are bad enough. I guess PDAs are OK, everyone here mostly seems to love them and be enthusiastic about them, so far now though I seem to get by without one. I might get one once they got 256 ram, a nice hard drive and cost 100 clams and are e-z to keep upgraded and run all open source. That wireless jazz is a definete plus. I'll put up with the toy screens and keyboards then.
--there's two points of view that are both correct. Victims of governmental abuse feel the government is much worse than people think, from personal experience. the converse is true, people who only have a theoretical notion of abuse tend to think it's not all that bad. From my point of view, I can state it's worse than most people think. this is correct. From someone else's pov, someone who has never had a serious run in with abuse, they probably won't feel the same, which from their perspective is *more* accurate than mine. People who do a lot more research are easily able to uncover more examples of abuse, so their perspective changes to a view that the government is more "dark side".
That's just how it is, and to ME, I think a comparison with any other government is irrelevant, because I *live here* not over there someplace, and have a good fundamental grasp of what my born-with rights are supposed to be, as opposed to how government mandates them to be and especially to the false advertising they use in mass psyops programming of the population.
It's extremely difficult to become aware of the depth of brainwashing that anyone "you" might be laboring under, especially for people with higher IQs, just a fact of life that people don't like to admit they have been scammed, or that their belief structure is incorrect, even with data to show that it is. It took me quite a few years , even after getting hip to some fairly big lies, to realise how deep the indoctrination goes, and in how many directions. I feel it's a life long learning experience, and try to not get "stuck" in any particular belief, and especially into thinking one "party" is so much better than another, or that the US is always the "good guys", when they clearly are not. and none of that is in any way related to some other nation, again, I live HERE, not THERE, two completely different subjects.
My gestalt is if I hear some redneck tell me if I don't like it here that I should move over there some place, I can point at someone still under mass brainwashing. I think not being able to see your own nation's faults is like ignoring the oil pressure gauge on your car when it's reading abnormally low, ya, it'll keep moving for awhile, but better to stop, turn key off, see what the problem is before proceeding. I'd feel lame to just think "walll, I drive me a belchfire, they the besterst cars in the world, I can ignore that gauge". That's car jingoism. It'slame. but lately we are being almost ordered to ignore the political oil gauge. I think we've been ignoring the gauge far too long, and that political car is going to self destruct, then it WILL be excactly like one of those other nations we point to and laugh about and say they have a one party dictatorship. If it ain't fixed now while it's easy, it won't be fixcable, that's the two choices we have, and so far after 'voting" and watching politics for almost 4 decades, it's much worse now then it was back then. Not even close, orders of magnitudes worse, and we have the same tired "solutions" being offered by the same tired bozos.
The light side is a constitutional government, where the people run the government. The dark side international big business and a professional bribed politician class,both of whom are chronic serial liars and conmen, and them masquerading as two alleged "different" political parties. The dark side is voting in the crips and bloods every election, in whatever proportion happens,that apparently really never matters, and thinking that you'll get anything but a criminal gang running things. and then every two and four years the same guys just insisting that if just one more time you "vote" for them that things will automagically change for the better.
It's just nuts. I don't believe in the dark sides promises any more. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 6987 times, shame on me and maybe I should go back to working towards the good side and call the dark side for what they are, conmen. It's a junta we have now, and imminently into an
--sure, it's bad, and until you have become a victim of the government it will remain theoretical to you. I was made a victim, twice, took me many years to deal with it, a lot of time and angst. How far do you want to take it, death threats from government workers in an offical capacity? Been there. Know about high level crimes and try to get them remedied? Been there. Seen high level crimes including murder and arson for profit including manslaughter done by and covered up by governmental workers, and then them get away with it? Been there. It's not theory and cute academic exercise to me, and I'm interested in cleaning up my own nation, any other nations deal is not as important to me and has little relevance to what I meant, and I frankly have never had much desire to go live anyplace else, NOR do I want this nation to keep sliding further into the "dark side" like it obviously is now.
--I know I didn't. I was running a newsletter then and quite clearly wrote against it. I also wrote about the evidence that the KLA whom we supported in their invasion of yugoslavia were muslim extremists who had narco terrorist ties, which has since been proven. they were joint CIA/ al queda "assets".
Background. Albania was going through a civil war, in three years time so many refugees from albania had invaded a province of yugoslavia-kosovo-that they constituted a clear threat to yugoslavia. what happened then was a dirty war obviously, with both sides engaging in some serious *not* nice behavior. there was also some serious high level drug and arms and slave trading gang warfare going on in that region, the players included russian gangs, turkish gangs, serbian gangs, albanian gangs, with various spook agencies involved from various nations. The opium grown in afghanistan got mostly smuggled through the balkans on the way to europaen refinement factories. It is worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year. That doesn't include the arms and slaves. There is also an angle with the mines there, the largest in europe. It's more complex that just one side over another.
As to domestic politics, near as I can see there is little practical difference between the democratic mafia and the republican mafia, and most of the time they actually co-operate with each other to stay "in power" and to keep the mass scams and frauds running.
I stay independent, vote independent, and I still vote even though I know it's entirely corrupt. It's an hour or so to go down and vote, no big deal to me, at least I DO vote, unlike the 50% of the drunk flag waving fools out there right now.. Basically I'm a constitutionalist, and a strong second amendment "born-with" rights proponent. I won't be voting for anyone with a D or R next to their names, and haven't for years, got no use for liars, crooks, thieves or murderers to be "the regime". On small local levels you can make a difference, and there are still a lot of good concerned people in politics there, above that level, nope, the fix is in and it's too corrupt to fix without getting rid of those two parties completely, they've gone too long now into corruption, IMO. Clinton and his regime were corrupt, the Bush crime family is corrupt, and etc. It goes way back, took me many years to get the full ramifications of how deep it gets and is. A lot of it comes from private personal anecdotal revelations, so I really can't talk about it much other than there's NO way I could support either of those two parties.
YM obviously MV My observations and opinions come from working politics heavy since 1964, and paying attention to what actually happens in the short, medium and long runs as opposed to what is said by various politicians and their "party" supporters.
Stay AWAY from credit, don't use it, ever, despite what almost everyone says, you honestly don't need it. If you need one small card for purchases online, that is different, you never spend what you don't have, just use the CC as a service, not a loan.
Land. Land is the oldest form of accumulated and stored and useful wealth. Pay for your property, then build as you go on it. When the structure is "good enough" move into it. Make sure it is rural property with good water onsite. And yes, this is totally possible. Give you an example, my sis and BIL did this while renting, paid cash for a few acres. Every month took what extra they had towards a home that would normally be a "payment" or two, bought materials,loaded up the pickup, went over, camped out, used up those materials. rinse lather repeat. I helped them with labor quite a bit on that one. Within 6 months (after foundation and well and septic obviously) the house was still rough but "dried in" and wired and plumbed, etc, and good enough to move into. they stopped paying rent then, and freed up even more cash monthly to put into materials. Two years later it was finished (two stories) and is quite nice. They saved many, many thousands of dollars, and have no mortgage, never paid one penny interest to anyone. Total time was a little over three years total to a paid off home on three acres, what's not to like? Ya, they had to live semi-rough for awhile, so what? You are still young, it won't hurt you. You'll look back and be proud of yourself, both from the way you did it and from the perspective of how much cash you saved.
Hard currency. If you want to gamble in the market, go ahead, but put a large portion of any "extra" you have into hard metals. Don't listen to the nay sayers, it preserves wealth. It's a long term deal, just get some coins once in awhile and forget about them.
Have a garden, grow a lot of your own food, you'll save money at the grocery store and also with doctor visits in the long run.
"Get into" alternative energy. Obviously you'll probably start with "normal" grid supplied electricity, but make a concerted effort to start making *some* of your own power while learning to use less power overall by wise decisions in purchases and how you use power. Keep adding to both sides of that equation, eventually you'll be independent, and have one more major important "bill" paid off rather than "financed" all the time.
Pay cash for used car, and keep it maintained well. Skip the flash, cars are transportation. One of my vehicles has well over 300 thou now on it, I changed the oil a lot, that's it.
Keep in mind anytime you can eliminate the transfer of "dollars" to get what you want it means less taxes and more of those dollars you get to keep, and less you have to make just for your day to day living. NEVER assume your "job" will always be there. Swell if it is and you keep getting "more", but it's nice to make that first layer of living as inexpensive as possible and as paid off as quickly as possible. In the long run then all you'll really have to sweat is property taxes and normal maintenance. Some of the exposure and risk can be mitigated by using what is called a family trust for that property,look into it, and a lot of the maintenance costs can be mitigated by building an INTELLIGENT home in the first place.
And don't forget the other monthly "bills", another random example, burning wood for heat (primary or very decent auxiliary) in the winter that comes off your own woodlot, starts to add up after a few years in savings and will always be there for you.
And you can do all this and more and still stay completely geeky and high tech, in fact, most of the alternative ways to live now are intimately tied to efficient use of high tech, think "amish with technology", it's that mindset that's important. They have really good alternative housing designs now, strawbale, cordwood/masonry, various domes, even the old "log cabin" techni
"I am not sorry for having said my anti-war stuff, in fact if anything, this comes to something I said to Ty a few nights ago at the bar: "If they take the money away, then it was blood money, and I don't want it".
I actually feel redeemed:-)"
--good for you theo. It was blood money. The US government has been hijacked and is run by....well, that word you can't use in usenet. I've seen enough with what passes for the law and legalities with this junta, they are the rulers, everyone else is a subject. They've been hacking down websites, now they are starting with the ultra violence on anyone who dares to have an opinion against them. Losing cash is nothing in the long run. Screw em, make your OS, and keep your opinions.
And quite frankly, the government doesn't want "the people" to have a secure OS, they want "total informational awareness". Can't do that with secure software to the people, can you?
We're seeing it now, assaults on security researchers and developers, assaults on encryption, etc.
I've never run your OS but I can see what's happening, so you must be on the right track. Just lately they've taken down irwin schiff and his tax research, and also the publishers of cracking the code, the expose of the UCC in the US. so it's just not specifically IT. Politics as usual like you would see in any banana republic, just so happens this is turning into a LARGE banana republic, or should I say a "regime"..
I agree to a point, up to getting government as much out of our lives as possible. Way back when we had crimes, but because we had no "victim disarmament" and people were taught that it was acceptable and lawful to carry arms and to be a major part of their own "anti crime" defense, we had much less crime and the true perpetrators got punished on the spot. The current political system is designed to create crimes and more criminals, not to solve crime or stop crime. Government is a growth industry, it is not run to make itself more efficient or fair. You are correct, prohibition created liquid drug gangs and smugglers, and official corruption, and greatly helped the advancement of a police state. Government loves to create problems so they can step in and offer their solutions, following the hegelian dialectic. Dry drugs prohibition we have currently does the same as the past liquid drugs prohibition.
Making it so you need a permit-a "permission slip" from the government to exercise a born-with right to be armed, i.e., to have an effective and immediate means to personal self defense is counter productive, and illegal under any normal common sense english language version of the second amendment. Would people stand for applying for a "permit" in order to post controversial views on the internet? No, they would argue long and hard against it. But when it comes to the personal and common sense right to be a NON victim of a crime, all of a sudden it becomes "controversial" and needs massive "interpretation" and 14,000 government laws and "permissions".
IF we were to return to a full second amendment based on "vermont style", yes, the first few years would be hectic, I would grant that to anyone, after that things would settle down rapidly as the extreme very bad guys who actually commit the bulk of the violent crimes got eliminated and any remaining would think twice and thrice before attempting serious crimes. I know from personal experience that being armed has prevented me from becoming a crime victim, and know of several more from my circle of aquaintances. I also know some people who WERN'T armed, and became victims. It's not perfect, but it's the best way to deal with things. Insisting only the police and military and the bad guys be armed is beyond irrational into actually harmful. When a government(and private bad guys) is the only one armed, that means it is no longer a government of "we the people", it means there's an "us versus them" mentality, which de-evolves just like any other of numerous examples in history. Even in very modern times you can see complete verifiable proof, take examples like australia and england, as fast as the general population gets disarmed-is as fast as you see crime including violent crime increase. Government then demands more concessions from the general population, disarms them further, making self defense that works harder or even into being illegal. Crime goes up. The population is not all 20 year old males with massive martial arts skills, people need a general "equaliser". Society and government shouldn't demand that someon'es 70 year old mom be able to fend off an attacker with her bare hands and wait for this magical police presence to appear in a timely manner to prevent harm to her. That is irrational to believe that would happen, and it obviously doesn't. The way it is set up now is a failure, an experiment gone bad, time to scrap it, go back to what we originally had that worked better.
The best deal is limited government, no professional politician class, laws written in english and interpretated in english, not legalese, and a strict interpretation of the constitution as written and intended. I would advocate an immediate cessation of writing NEW laws, and a full multi year effort to go through the entire codes and laws to REMOVE harmful and misguided laws, especially "social engineering" type laws, until we get back to a stable society.
A people have to decide on one basic premise, are they subjects
respectfully, I don't think you get it. Not talking about private low -tech gun ownership, and I probably own a lot more than you do unless you are a major collector, and no, I'm not a predator either, that is a side issue that has NO relevance to this discussion and is called a "red herring" in debate 101 so don't bother trying that with me on this forum, save it for the kiddies. And I'm not a technological luddite. My point is, there's no way to USE weapons of mass destruction in a defensive manner, especially biologicals, so you can't claim "your side" can because in your opinion they are "the nice guys". I'll concede on one point, and barely, nukes can possibly be argued and classed as an extension of giant guns, wheras biologicals are NOT, weather manipulation for aggressive warfare and economic purposes are NOT, they shouldn't be developed, and going out of your way to build a biological weapon or directed energy related weather weapons, and other such like warfare related technologies does NOT mean you are working on a cure for something else,or being nicey nice to the peepuls, nope, that means for example you are building a new life form designed to kill stealthily and on a mass scale with no way for the other party to defend themselves and it goes completely through the civilian and offical populations of the targeted country exactly the same as if you carpet bombed all their cities. that's called mass genocide. It's not a selective weapon, nor can it be used in "surgical strikes" with "limited collateral damage". Those sorts of weapons are ONLY useful as genocidal weapons, there's no selectivity to them until the race based weapons are released, which they will be, in my opinion. They are 100% aggressive and genocidal in nature in design even if your favorite pet nation/group who's developing them claims to be "the good guys".
You just won't admit my basic over-all premise, which is society has seriously lagged behind technology when it comes to being peaceful and civilised. Ever been in the middle of a major riot in a "non predatory" nation like the US? I have, it's amazing, that veneer of civilisation is one micron deep. One minute, normality, the next minute, the people you might have been standing in line with at the store or working next to at the plant etc are burning cars and smashing windows and looting. Been there, seen that myself, the rodney king riots that happened in atlanta, was downtown twice during that little "proof of civilization and niceness". I could give a dozen more personal anecdotals of how people, whether provate citizens or official governmental citizens can be quite bad, not nice, complete criminals in nature, despite all sorts of indignant protest to the contrary. Of course those are anecdotals, no way to "prove" that to anyone, but I'll use them anyway for this discussion. How about waco or kent state? That was a "non predatory good guy" nation doing some seriously bad stuff. How about good guys US supporting dictators for generations down in central and south america? My point is there are NO good guys when you are talking about orgs developing these sorts of weapons, just varying and changing levels of bad or slightly less bad guys. Just because your particular society/nation/group claims to be civilised is not proof either, it is trivial to come up with example after example of a lack of civilization for any society you can name, easy enough with the US as well as any other nation. You simply can't claim, just for example, the US is non predatory, on other nations or their own people, nor any other nation, because there are verifiable examples that exist that can disprove that, so following the scientifc principle that theorem is *not proven*. One exception to a rule makes that rule invalid.
It's not all "these are the good guys and those are the bad guys". Just because you personally aren't a predator doesn't mean your government and it's tame scientists aren't, or could be at some time, that those "other guys the obvious bad guys"
--cool upgrade man! That scsi fubar is interesting to know, it was worth it to just to read that tip. Did you ever get the video card, max out the ram, and how did it work out if so, and do you still use the machine?
---have it mostly open in the big picture view, with CURVED 1/2 or 2/3rds walls around the various individual workstations. Right angled walls are too enclosing and boring. Encourage employees to get their own furniture and desks and customise as much as they want in their own space. That way it's both private and personal,but still makes use of space, and make sure it's quiet most of the time. Most likely you'll need a separate room to house the chronic swearers though, people who can't help but interject loud exclamations while they are working. "Siberia", heh. You'll probably have a crank or two who likes siberia, let em have it.
This design came from an old hippie commune I stayed at one time back in the olden daze, several families/couples and individuals sharing a rather large geodesic dome home. The curved walls worked to give the illusion and "feeling" of more space, but the arrangements of the private rooms around the exterior wall made it that way-private- for the people. There was a large central "commons" area, but then the individual rooms that spiraled around and up (close to what would pass as three stories in a conventional structure). Most of these rooms were very large platforms suspended by cables from the ceilings, pretty spiffy layout actually. Some MIT guys I knew back then were the original designers. Anyway, a concept like that, break the whole square "cube" motif, it's too stifling. I used to get paid to install them, but no way would I WORK in one.
--who's responsible, who do you REALLY trust? Someone pays these "respectable" scientists beer and rent. VERY few people turn down serious money and/or an "order" from their regime, it just slap don't happen too often, here, there, or over to boogorillaland someplace, it's the same. Name ONE government that is trustworthy. Name ONE military that is trustworthy. Name ONE police force that is trustworthy.
---the poop has hit the propeller already, the point is moot. All over the planet now freaking moron scientists are working on race specific biowarfare germs or viruses, working on more advanced robotic impersonal "sanitary" warfare, and more efficient means to generally destroy things and kill people. When it was still limited to one soldier facing another on the classical "field of battle", it was somewhat under control,but now? No way. Our "humaness" and societal evolution is centuries behind our technology, if not millenia. It's a matter of WHEN humans destroy themselves, not IF they will do it.
And chances are fantastic it will happen within a decade or two. Maybe sooner, maybe within a year or two now. The odds against it not happening at some point are negligible. Bioweapons in particular are particular bad, because a "war" could start, and you wouldn't know it was a war. Unlike even a chemical attack or nuclear, any (pick one it doesn't matter) regime could decide they wanted to win, and their BSOD-quality arrogant scientists and engineers would be assuring the "leaders" there that their new whizzbang superturbokill_all 2005 bioengineered cootie would take three months to show up, only kill certain racial characteristics, etc, etc,that don't worry, they got the vaccine and cure for "their" side, and usual lie, exagerration, etc, and it would be all over before the targeted nation/population/group was all so infected they would croak before they knew what was happening. Something like that, say a SARS on steroids with a BIG lag time. And if the target population picked up on it, so what-who do they blame? Who do they attack? And no way do I want to hear that scientists and engineers don't step on their dicks all the time and make seriousmistakes, they are just as fallible and have the same sort of arrogance in their intellectual superiority as anyone else, they aren't to be trusted on all matters.
This concept is called "stealth wars" and is part of the "slow plagues" warfare scenario, it's researchable.
Should the research into those weapons go on? No. It should cease yesterday, along with nuclear and chemical and directed energy and weather manipulation and so on and so forth. Enough's enough until the "civil" part of "civilization" catches up, then we can proceed again. And every nation on the planet should open itself up to inspections to verify it's NOT going on, IMO.
--suzuki re5 bike, quite nice, weird sounding. You are thinking of kowalski mach III's for the fast two stroke triple. Nice but not quite as reliable, but wicked fast. Harley guys hated it as it went by them. Suzuki had their three cylinder 750 water cooled 2-stroke then too,"the water buffalo", and they had a 4 cylinder 2-stroke coming out, but they switched to a four stroke one liter instead. They also had a one cylinder 250 two stroke which was amazing fast, called the hustler. And the Titan, two cylinder two stroke, one of the best most durable bikes ever made. The old "solid as a rock" deal with them.
--I try to snag anything that is still useful for normal joe user or small office computing. Some I fix and give away, the rest I am stashing up, eventually I'd like to have a local business and sell them,with pre installed linux. there's no one around here really doing this now and new prices at the local shops are in-sane. I can't work out of where I live right now-various reasons- or I'd be already doing it. Biggest problem is all the old boxes just need a lot more ram (huge variable there of course on species of ram) or larger hard drives to be practical. Well, that and most of them have winmodems also. Probably have more than a dozen near complete "spare" systems now, pcs and macs, beyond my own personal ones I want to keep.
--I get all my accessories used at the local church thriftstore. They are only open a few days a week, I get there on opening morning once a week and just grab whatever looks cool and cheap even if I don't need it right then. Currently sitting in front of a dell 15 inch I got for seven dollars, works perfectly great, and online with a 50 cent USR sporster external modem, typing on my 2$ ibm model m clicker. What's not to like? I got tons of backup everythings now, doubt I have more than around 150 clams into the entire pile of stuff, multiple everythings basically, including spare boxes.
Last brand new monitor I had was a 14 inch sony, paid 280$ new for it in 97, it eventually just turned dark, wasn't worth repairing. No more new ones for me, I'll let the rich guys buy them for me. Thanks rich guys! Hey, start dumping them 21 inch displays will ya?
... what happens with lightning and other sorts of accidents to the lines? Any EE's want to comment? It's already hard enough in summer thunderstorm season, I just assume I will lose a modem every summer, even with these phone line surge things. What happens even if you are miles away from where the lightning hits, perhaps no storm in your area?
I just wonder if this tech is really all that practical in most areas of the US that get storms all the time, but will admit I don't know, hence the asking.
--just a couple days ago I developed a serious fubar with some stuff,got annoyed with it, had the disks for 8 kicking around, so I did the upgrade from 7.2 option. Major mistake, it all works, but on my antique machine with the hand crank and double clutch, it is crippled slow. Pretty, but slow, r-e-a-l slow, old 200PP, 226 ram. Luckily I have a second smallish drive as a slave, I put 7.2 on that one, surfing from it now, back to acceptable zippy performance-well, it's zippy enough for me that is, I have no other frame of reference. heh. As long as the main drive is borked with that 8.0 I don't care, I will get a clone copy of 9 and do a full install and see how it runs, if it still is too slow, most likely I will just stick with the 7 series until it gets ridiculous and/or hit lottery and get a newer machine. Kinda like all those folks out there still on win 95 or 98, it gets to the point that you got what ya need. If I like it and it's fast enough, I'll shoot ochre chapeau the loot for a boxed set.
What would be nice is if redhat would offer a boxed set with all the errata updates they have for the 7 series at a reduced rate $, no support, and I could live with the end of cycle limit they have announced. I would get a 7.3 set right now if they had that. Rural dialup is no fun keeping updated.
--I don't deal in theory, I deal in data. Data. Facts. Not reactionary and racist jingoism. Insults gain you nothing, and I have no desire to rule you, but the contrary is true, don't even think about trying to rule me, even if they give you a nice new brownshirt uniform.
Basically, take your political ludditism and shove it, now go play with the other "good germans" in your "neighborhood watch group". And by all means keep waving those plastic flags made in china, that's just so patriotic.
You want civility, offer it, you offer a closed fist and demand I kowtow to some absurd 6th grade level drunken political analysis, wrapped in a flag that you claim as your own but deny to anyone not a lock stepper with your own points of view, well, you can have it. I don't support dictators, especially dictators in my own nation. You can support them all you want to, and stay ignorant of verifiable data. Rah rah rah go team, nuke those filthy ay-rabs, right?
Oh, that doesn't apply to you, but "my kind" are..whatever you think? Like how dare anyone expend an effort to go beyond a surface level understanding of events?
I dare, too bad.
Go ahead and get your "das fatherland security" last word. I'm done on this thread, keep on trolling, hey, maybe a job will come up you can become an interrogator, get to use those nifty "stress and duress" techniques, just like saddam's bully boys and the bully boys at gitmo use? Right up your alley, good luck in your new career!
Slashdot Mirror
Japan, Inc. in general is sitting on WADS of cash, with little place to put it that seems even worthwhile right now. Buying a new fab is as good as anything else. It's certainly better than building unused office space or whatever else japan has been doing lately. They want to dump shaky petrodollars and own tangible *stuff* that you can actually do work with, not think about making a plan to form a committee to design a thought process that might lead to establishing a think tank to contemplate how to trade other think tanks ideas around, which is what US busy-ness is doing now. Japan has learned it's lesson, and hard, on busy-work and dot bombs, the US is now entering phase two of that economic reality, one big giant step behind japan.
Next bubble to pop, real estate in the US. It already popped in Japan. Stocks are heading to pop too,once again, from pension over-exposure and global trade re-arrangement which forgets about lost customer spending money when they yank jobs and move them around in wholesale lots based on this-quarter priority levels of awarness. Slow, very, very gradual "free trade" could work, wholesale do-it-all-right-now sure ain't..
As to the chips, no idea what they will do with them, but the world in general seems to want more chips of every description, especially newer designs. Pretty soon hammers will come with chips in them, and forks. Who knows, seems the trends though.
--exactly what I ws thinking. Great stuff to get that tech more widely used, that and the text editions.
--oh well, I guess you have to be registered. I tried several more, only saw a cookie attempt, no popups though.
--don't know if it will help, but for what it's worth I like the 1.3b release a lot better than the 1.2 series. It's not a big download from their ftp site either even with an old slow modem. They got tarballs or rpms for it. With the rpms I used I had to trash the old mozilla apps first and do a clean install of the new ones, the browser, mail, chat, nss, psr I believe. Trying to upgrade them didn't take, gave me error messages. RH 7.2 box. I usually stay away from alphas myself, just not knowledgeable enough to contribute to their development in any meaningful way, nor fix them if they give bad/weird results.
--have read several NYT articles today, zero popups. moz 1.3b on linux, no images or scripting turned on, and I even have "allow popups" turned on! So where are you seeing popups? Maybe it's because I am only going in through google news?
ok, I read it, unfortunately what I expected. Shuck and jive and dodging the critical questions by the manufactureres rep. The election official gets a last minute Cd with the "upgrade" so it gets run. Who's verified the original program? "they did, trust them" Who's verified the Cd? "they did trust them" Who mailed it, was it switched, a man in the middle, what if the programmer is compromised through bribery and blackmail? "never happen, trust them"
phooie, it's a scam, a sophisticated scam
None of those get answered. I'm convinced it's corrupt, last election in the state of georgia, first all state wide computerised voting. Uh huh. Biggest political upsets since the civil war, and they also contradicted both the pre and post polling.
A "coincidence" I am s-o-o-o-o sure....
Yep, no fraud there, move along, nothing to see...
I harangued my poll "official", she was clueless. I asked how do you verify a recount if requested, She said they ran the tally program again. duh, if it was compromised OF COURSE it would still show the same erroneous numbers. You could run the recount program as long as you wanted to, it wouldn't matter. She had no idea, I honestly failed to be able to get her to understand this simple concept, most likely because of brainwashing of trusting the state and some unaccountable corporation, and being very unfamiliar with computers. So instead of fraud attempts having to be done at the local level, they can now be done more efficiently and widespread from a centralised location.
It's been going on before that, the gross results were being tallied at a central location, no audits there either.
The system is so broken it ain't funny, they just have become extremly slick in giving the illusion of elections.
Computers are good for some things, for elections they are *not*.
--the small engine parts display area in hardware stores has a variety of throw away paper air filters designed for lawnmowers, etc. These are folded accordion style so you get a large surface area in a smaller square inch area, should work perfect for this purpose. Check them out,probably a size that would fit. Pull the fan inside the case, get slightly longer mounting screws, insert the filter in front of the fan, screw it back on holding the filter in place. Maybe go one step up in fan size to compensate for a more restricted but cleaner airflow. If you have some normal sheet metal skills it shouldn't be to hard to just make a slip in mount for the filter so that the fan stays permanently screwed in, just replace with a new filter occassionally. Hmm, thinking about it, the metal carriers designed FOR those lawnmower/small engine filters are already fabbed, probably not too hard to screw them on on the inside of the case. Small amount of modding much cheaper and funner than an all new case, unless you just want an excuse to get a new case! hahahaha! then, well, you gots permission! You're a geek, you don' need no steenking permission for new gear!
You can also tear out the old nasty rugs and just paint the floor down there. Use a few small area rugs or those hard rubber office pads where you might need them like right at your work desk, etc.
this is true--->".. companies fail because of management that gets rewarded for failure and criminal activity while employees suffer the consequences, lose their jobs, houses, college funds, retirement funds, ... "
There's also )IMO) the phenomenon now where corporations are run into the ground on purpose, so that later on another fictititous shell company can snag their assets for pennies on the dollar. So a lot of times what is perceived to be management indifference or peter principle failure to be realistic is actually just cold strategic thinking by corporate owners who are pirates, traitors in a sense. And the way business and law is set up now, and with the lessons of enron, etc in how to NOT get caught at it, I expect it to keep happening. In fact I am convinced the airline industry in general is being run into the ground on purpose so that "nationalization" will occur, but in actuality it will be the same cabals owning them and running them, just this time behind some more layers of obfuscation paperwork legalese drivel, with employees who can't strike, and who have no whistleblower protection under the Patriot Act, and where the records can be hidden due to "national security". I expect most industries to follow suit over the next generation into an international corporate state/global government.
keep taking the deliveries at home, just get a nice decorative box that doubles as a seat (maybe, that's not important) with a liftable lid. Install a hasp and leave an unlocked padlock inside the box. Screw the box to the back of the PO box down the driveway. Tell the delivery guy to drop the packages in there and lock the box.
If you don't want to build one, rubbermaid has an exterior folding lawn furniture container/box you can purchase, then it's just a matter of installing the lock. Then you don't have to worry about weather damage or having an obvious brown cardboard package sitting unattended in the front yard/down by the road whatever. I do that here but without the lock seeing as how it's so rural and there's a long private drive. If we aren't going to be home I just leave an empty rubbermaid square container like you can get at wallymart for 5$ in front of the front door, the private delivery guys all know to use that now, same with the rural post office carrier, I made a point to talk to all of them early on living here. I lost one really expensive hand signed hardback that was left hanging on the box in a bag, some fool snagged it,so I told the carrier NO WAY leave stuff down there anymore. Seems to work out OK. Shooting them a cold lemonade or a choke~a~cola on a hot day seems to work, too, heh. Honey/vinegar, binary choice there
As to the PDAs, I still think for most purposes a small notebook is better, well, if you got older eyes. I really can't even see the small screens on cell phones or pdas all that well any more. My laptops are bad enough. I guess PDAs are OK, everyone here mostly seems to love them and be enthusiastic about them, so far now though I seem to get by without one. I might get one once they got 256 ram, a nice hard drive and cost 100 clams and are e-z to keep upgraded and run all open source. That wireless jazz is a definete plus. I'll put up with the toy screens and keyboards then.
--there's two points of view that are both correct. Victims of governmental abuse feel the government is much worse than people think, from personal experience. the converse is true, people who only have a theoretical notion of abuse tend to think it's not all that bad. From my point of view, I can state it's worse than most people think. this is correct. From someone else's pov, someone who has never had a serious run in with abuse, they probably won't feel the same, which from their perspective is *more* accurate than mine. People who do a lot more research are easily able to uncover more examples of abuse, so their perspective changes to a view that the government is more "dark side".
That's just how it is, and to ME, I think a comparison with any other government is irrelevant, because I *live here* not over there someplace, and have a good fundamental grasp of what my born-with rights are supposed to be, as opposed to how government mandates them to be and especially to the false advertising they use in mass psyops programming of the population.
It's extremely difficult to become aware of the depth of brainwashing that anyone "you" might be laboring under, especially for people with higher IQs, just a fact of life that people don't like to admit they have been scammed, or that their belief structure is incorrect, even with data to show that it is. It took me quite a few years , even after getting hip to some fairly big lies, to realise how deep the indoctrination goes, and in how many directions. I feel it's a life long learning experience, and try to not get "stuck" in any particular belief, and especially into thinking one "party" is so much better than another, or that the US is always the "good guys", when they clearly are not. and none of that is in any way related to some other nation, again, I live HERE, not THERE, two completely different subjects.
My gestalt is if I hear some redneck tell me if I don't like it here that I should move over there some place, I can point at someone still under mass brainwashing. I think not being able to see your own nation's faults is like ignoring the oil pressure gauge on your car when it's reading abnormally low, ya, it'll keep moving for awhile, but better to stop, turn key off, see what the problem is before proceeding. I'd feel lame to just think "walll, I drive me a belchfire, they the besterst cars in the world, I can ignore that gauge". That's car jingoism. It'slame. but lately we are being almost ordered to ignore the political oil gauge. I think we've been ignoring the gauge far too long, and that political car is going to self destruct, then it WILL be excactly like one of those other nations we point to and laugh about and say they have a one party dictatorship. If it ain't fixed now while it's easy, it won't be fixcable, that's the two choices we have, and so far after 'voting" and watching politics for almost 4 decades, it's much worse now then it was back then. Not even close, orders of magnitudes worse, and we have the same tired "solutions" being offered by the same tired bozos.
The light side is a constitutional government, where the people run the government. The dark side international big business and a professional bribed politician class,both of whom are chronic serial liars and conmen, and them masquerading as two alleged "different" political parties. The dark side is voting in the crips and bloods every election, in whatever proportion happens,that apparently really never matters, and thinking that you'll get anything but a criminal gang running things. and then every two and four years the same guys just insisting that if just one more time you "vote" for them that things will automagically change for the better.
It's just nuts. I don't believe in the dark sides promises any more. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 6987 times, shame on me and maybe I should go back to working towards the good side and call the dark side for what they are, conmen. It's a junta we have now, and imminently into an
--sure, it's bad, and until you have become a victim of the government it will remain theoretical to you. I was made a victim, twice, took me many years to deal with it, a lot of time and angst. How far do you want to take it, death threats from government workers in an offical capacity? Been there. Know about high level crimes and try to get them remedied? Been there. Seen high level crimes including murder and arson for profit including manslaughter done by and covered up by governmental workers, and then them get away with it? Been there. It's not theory and cute academic exercise to me, and I'm interested in cleaning up my own nation, any other nations deal is not as important to me and has little relevance to what I meant, and I frankly have never had much desire to go live anyplace else, NOR do I want this nation to keep sliding further into the "dark side" like it obviously is now.
Now tell me again why that position is so wrong?
--I know I didn't. I was running a newsletter then and quite clearly wrote against it. I also wrote about the evidence that the KLA whom we supported in their invasion of yugoslavia were muslim extremists who had narco terrorist ties, which has since been proven. they were joint CIA/ al queda "assets".
Background. Albania was going through a civil war, in three years time so many refugees from albania had invaded a province of yugoslavia-kosovo-that they constituted a clear threat to yugoslavia. what happened then was a dirty war obviously, with both sides engaging in some serious *not* nice behavior. there was also some serious high level drug and arms and slave trading gang warfare going on in that region, the players included russian gangs, turkish gangs, serbian gangs, albanian gangs, with various spook agencies involved from various nations. The opium grown in afghanistan got mostly smuggled through the balkans on the way to europaen refinement factories. It is worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year. That doesn't include the arms and slaves. There is also an angle with the mines there, the largest in europe. It's more complex that just one side over another.
As to domestic politics, near as I can see there is little practical difference between the democratic mafia and the republican mafia, and most of the time they actually co-operate with each other to stay "in power" and to keep the mass scams and frauds running.
I stay independent, vote independent, and I still vote even though I know it's entirely corrupt. It's an hour or so to go down and vote, no big deal to me, at least I DO vote, unlike the 50% of the drunk flag waving fools out there right now.. Basically I'm a constitutionalist, and a strong second amendment "born-with" rights proponent. I won't be voting for anyone with a D or R next to their names, and haven't for years, got no use for liars, crooks, thieves or murderers to be "the regime". On small local levels you can make a difference, and there are still a lot of good concerned people in politics there, above that level, nope, the fix is in and it's too corrupt to fix without getting rid of those two parties completely, they've gone too long now into corruption, IMO. Clinton and his regime were corrupt, the Bush crime family is corrupt, and etc. It goes way back, took me many years to get the full ramifications of how deep it gets and is. A lot of it comes from private personal anecdotal revelations, so I really can't talk about it much other than there's NO way I could support either of those two parties.
YM obviously MV My observations and opinions come from working politics heavy since 1964, and paying attention to what actually happens in the short, medium and long runs as opposed to what is said by various politicians and their "party" supporters.
I offer a contrary to most advice here:
Stay AWAY from credit, don't use it, ever, despite what almost everyone says, you honestly don't need it. If you need one small card for purchases online, that is different, you never spend what you don't have, just use the CC as a service, not a loan.
Land. Land is the oldest form of accumulated and stored and useful wealth. Pay for your property, then build as you go on it. When the structure is "good enough" move into it. Make sure it is rural property with good water onsite. And yes, this is totally possible. Give you an example, my sis and BIL did this while renting, paid cash for a few acres. Every month took what extra they had towards a home that would normally be a "payment" or two, bought materials,loaded up the pickup, went over, camped out, used up those materials. rinse lather repeat. I helped them with labor quite a bit on that one. Within 6 months (after foundation and well and septic obviously) the house was still rough but "dried in" and wired and plumbed, etc, and good enough to move into. they stopped paying rent then, and freed up even more cash monthly to put into materials. Two years later it was finished (two stories) and is quite nice. They saved many, many thousands of dollars, and have no mortgage, never paid one penny interest to anyone. Total time was a little over three years total to a paid off home on three acres, what's not to like? Ya, they had to live semi-rough for awhile, so what? You are still young, it won't hurt you. You'll look back and be proud of yourself, both from the way you did it and from the perspective of how much cash you saved.
Hard currency. If you want to gamble in the market, go ahead, but put a large portion of any "extra" you have into hard metals. Don't listen to the nay sayers, it preserves wealth. It's a long term deal, just get some coins once in awhile and forget about them.
Have a garden, grow a lot of your own food, you'll save money at the grocery store and also with doctor visits in the long run.
"Get into" alternative energy. Obviously you'll probably start with "normal" grid supplied electricity, but make a concerted effort to start making *some* of your own power while learning to use less power overall by wise decisions in purchases and how you use power. Keep adding to both sides of that equation, eventually you'll be independent, and have one more major important "bill" paid off rather than "financed" all the time.
Pay cash for used car, and keep it maintained well. Skip the flash, cars are transportation. One of my vehicles has well over 300 thou now on it, I changed the oil a lot, that's it.
Keep in mind anytime you can eliminate the transfer of "dollars" to get what you want it means less taxes and more of those dollars you get to keep, and less you have to make just for your day to day living. NEVER assume your "job" will always be there. Swell if it is and you keep getting "more", but it's nice to make that first layer of living as inexpensive as possible and as paid off as quickly as possible. In the long run then all you'll really have to sweat is property taxes and normal maintenance. Some of the exposure and risk can be mitigated by using what is called a family trust for that property,look into it, and a lot of the maintenance costs can be mitigated by building an INTELLIGENT home in the first place.
And don't forget the other monthly "bills", another random example, burning wood for heat (primary or very decent auxiliary) in the winter that comes off your own woodlot, starts to add up after a few years in savings and will always be there for you.
And you can do all this and more and still stay completely geeky and high tech, in fact, most of the alternative ways to live now are intimately tied to efficient use of high tech, think "amish with technology", it's that mindset that's important. They have really good alternative housing designs now, strawbale, cordwood/masonry, various domes, even the old "log cabin" techni
--relevant quote from down the list:
:-)"
....well, that word you can't use in usenet. I've seen enough with what passes for the law and legalities with this junta, they are the rulers, everyone else is a subject. They've been hacking down websites, now they are starting with the ultra violence on anyone who dares to have an opinion against them. Losing cash is nothing in the long run. Screw em, make your OS, and keep your opinions.
"I am not sorry for having said my anti-war stuff, in fact if anything,
this comes to something I said to Ty a few nights ago at the bar: "If
they take the money away, then it was blood money, and I don't want it".
I actually feel redeemed
--good for you theo. It was blood money. The US government has been hijacked and is run by
And quite frankly, the government doesn't want "the people" to have a secure OS, they want "total informational awareness". Can't do that with secure software to the people, can you?
We're seeing it now, assaults on security researchers and developers, assaults on encryption, etc.
I've never run your OS but I can see what's happening, so you must be on the right track. Just lately they've taken down irwin schiff and his tax research, and also the publishers of cracking the code, the expose of the UCC in the US. so it's just not specifically IT. Politics as usual like you would see in any banana republic, just so happens this is turning into a LARGE banana republic, or should I say a "regime"..
I agree to a point, up to getting government as much out of our lives as possible. Way back when we had crimes, but because we had no "victim disarmament" and people were taught that it was acceptable and lawful to carry arms and to be a major part of their own "anti crime" defense, we had much less crime and the true perpetrators got punished on the spot. The current political system is designed to create crimes and more criminals, not to solve crime or stop crime. Government is a growth industry, it is not run to make itself more efficient or fair. You are correct, prohibition created liquid drug gangs and smugglers, and official corruption, and greatly helped the advancement of a police state. Government loves to create problems so they can step in and offer their solutions, following the hegelian dialectic. Dry drugs prohibition we have currently does the same as the past liquid drugs prohibition.
Making it so you need a permit-a "permission slip" from the government to exercise a born-with right to be armed, i.e., to have an effective and immediate means to personal self defense is counter productive, and illegal under any normal common sense english language version of the second amendment. Would people stand for applying for a "permit" in order to post controversial views on the internet? No, they would argue long and hard against it. But when it comes to the personal and common sense right to be a NON victim of a crime, all of a sudden it becomes "controversial" and needs massive "interpretation" and 14,000 government laws and "permissions".
IF we were to return to a full second amendment based on "vermont style", yes, the first few years would be hectic, I would grant that to anyone, after that things would settle down rapidly as the extreme very bad guys who actually commit the bulk of the violent crimes got eliminated and any remaining would think twice and thrice before attempting serious crimes. I know from personal experience that being armed has prevented me from becoming a crime victim, and know of several more from my circle of aquaintances. I also know some people who WERN'T armed, and became victims. It's not perfect, but it's the best way to deal with things. Insisting only the police and military and the bad guys be armed is beyond irrational into actually harmful. When a government(and private bad guys) is the only one armed, that means it is no longer a government of "we the people", it means there's an "us versus them" mentality, which de-evolves just like any other of numerous examples in history. Even in very modern times you can see complete verifiable proof, take examples like australia and england, as fast as the general population gets disarmed-is as fast as you see crime including violent crime increase. Government then demands more concessions from the general population, disarms them further, making self defense that works harder or even into being illegal. Crime goes up. The population is not all 20 year old males with massive martial arts skills, people need a general "equaliser". Society and government shouldn't demand that someon'es 70 year old mom be able to fend off an attacker with her bare hands and wait for this magical police presence to appear in a timely manner to prevent harm to her. That is irrational to believe that would happen, and it obviously doesn't. The way it is set up now is a failure, an experiment gone bad, time to scrap it, go back to what we originally had that worked better.
The best deal is limited government, no professional politician class, laws written in english and interpretated in english, not legalese, and a strict interpretation of the constitution as written and intended. I would advocate an immediate cessation of writing NEW laws, and a full multi year effort to go through the entire codes and laws to REMOVE harmful and misguided laws, especially "social engineering" type laws, until we get back to a stable society.
A people have to decide on one basic premise, are they subjects
respectfully, I don't think you get it. Not talking about private low -tech gun ownership, and I probably own a lot more than you do unless you are a major collector, and no, I'm not a predator either, that is a side issue that has NO relevance to this discussion and is called a "red herring" in debate 101 so don't bother trying that with me on this forum, save it for the kiddies. And I'm not a technological luddite. My point is, there's no way to USE weapons of mass destruction in a defensive manner, especially biologicals, so you can't claim "your side" can because in your opinion they are "the nice guys". I'll concede on one point, and barely, nukes can possibly be argued and classed as an extension of giant guns, wheras biologicals are NOT, weather manipulation for aggressive warfare and economic purposes are NOT, they shouldn't be developed, and going out of your way to build a biological weapon or directed energy related weather weapons, and other such like warfare related technologies does NOT mean you are working on a cure for something else,or being nicey nice to the peepuls, nope, that means for example you are building a new life form designed to kill stealthily and on a mass scale with no way for the other party to defend themselves and it goes completely through the civilian and offical populations of the targeted country exactly the same as if you carpet bombed all their cities. that's called mass genocide. It's not a selective weapon, nor can it be used in "surgical strikes" with "limited collateral damage". Those sorts of weapons are ONLY useful as genocidal weapons, there's no selectivity to them until the race based weapons are released, which they will be, in my opinion. They are 100% aggressive and genocidal in nature in design even if your favorite pet nation/group who's developing them claims to be "the good guys".
You just won't admit my basic over-all premise, which is society has seriously lagged behind technology when it comes to being peaceful and civilised. Ever been in the middle of a major riot in a "non predatory" nation like the US? I have, it's amazing, that veneer of civilisation is one micron deep. One minute, normality, the next minute, the people you might have been standing in line with at the store or working next to at the plant etc are burning cars and smashing windows and looting. Been there, seen that myself, the rodney king riots that happened in atlanta, was downtown twice during that little "proof of civilization and niceness". I could give a dozen more personal anecdotals of how people, whether provate citizens or official governmental citizens can be quite bad, not nice, complete criminals in nature, despite all sorts of indignant protest to the contrary. Of course those are anecdotals, no way to "prove" that to anyone, but I'll use them anyway for this discussion. How about waco or kent state? That was a "non predatory good guy" nation doing some seriously bad stuff. How about good guys US supporting dictators for generations down in central and south america? My point is there are NO good guys when you are talking about orgs developing these sorts of weapons, just varying and changing levels of bad or slightly less bad guys. Just because your particular society/nation/group claims to be civilised is not proof either, it is trivial to come up with example after example of a lack of civilization for any society you can name, easy enough with the US as well as any other nation. You simply can't claim, just for example, the US is non predatory, on other nations or their own people, nor any other nation, because there are verifiable examples that exist that can disprove that, so following the scientifc principle that theorem is *not proven*. One exception to a rule makes that rule invalid.
It's not all "these are the good guys and those are the bad guys". Just because you personally aren't a predator doesn't mean your government and it's tame scientists aren't, or could be at some time, that those "other guys the obvious bad guys"
--cool upgrade man! That scsi fubar is interesting to know, it was worth it to just to read that tip. Did you ever get the video card, max out the ram, and how did it work out if so, and do you still use the machine?
---have it mostly open in the big picture view, with CURVED 1/2 or 2/3rds walls around the various individual workstations. Right angled walls are too enclosing and boring. Encourage employees to get their own furniture and desks and customise as much as they want in their own space. That way it's both private and personal,but still makes use of space, and make sure it's quiet most of the time. Most likely you'll need a separate room to house the chronic swearers though, people who can't help but interject loud exclamations while they are working. "Siberia", heh. You'll probably have a crank or two who likes siberia, let em have it.
This design came from an old hippie commune I stayed at one time back in the olden daze, several families/couples and individuals sharing a rather large geodesic dome home. The curved walls worked to give the illusion and "feeling" of more space, but the arrangements of the private rooms around the exterior wall made it that way-private- for the people. There was a large central "commons" area, but then the individual rooms that spiraled around and up (close to what would pass as three stories in a conventional structure). Most of these rooms were very large platforms suspended by cables from the ceilings, pretty spiffy layout actually. Some MIT guys I knew back then were the original designers. Anyway, a concept like that, break the whole square "cube" motif, it's too stifling. I used to get paid to install them, but no way would I WORK in one.
--who's responsible, who do you REALLY trust? Someone pays these "respectable" scientists beer and rent. VERY few people turn down serious money and/or an "order" from their regime, it just slap don't happen too often, here, there, or over to boogorillaland someplace, it's the same. Name ONE government that is trustworthy. Name ONE military that is trustworthy. Name ONE police force that is trustworthy.
---the poop has hit the propeller already, the point is moot. All over the planet now freaking moron scientists are working on race specific biowarfare germs or viruses, working on more advanced robotic impersonal "sanitary" warfare, and more efficient means to generally destroy things and kill people. When it was still limited to one soldier facing another on the classical "field of battle", it was somewhat under control,but now? No way. Our "humaness" and societal evolution is centuries behind our technology, if not millenia. It's a matter of WHEN humans destroy themselves, not IF they will do it.
And chances are fantastic it will happen within a decade or two. Maybe sooner, maybe within a year or two now. The odds against it not happening at some point are negligible. Bioweapons in particular are particular bad, because a "war" could start, and you wouldn't know it was a war. Unlike even a chemical attack or nuclear, any (pick one it doesn't matter) regime could decide they wanted to win, and their BSOD-quality arrogant scientists and engineers would be assuring the "leaders" there that their new whizzbang superturbokill_all 2005 bioengineered cootie would take three months to show up, only kill certain racial characteristics, etc, etc,that don't worry, they got the vaccine and cure for "their" side, and usual lie, exagerration, etc, and it would be all over before the targeted nation/population/group was all so infected they would croak before they knew what was happening. Something like that, say a SARS on steroids with a BIG lag time. And if the target population picked up on it, so what-who do they blame? Who do they attack? And no way do I want to hear that scientists and engineers don't step on their dicks all the time and make seriousmistakes, they are just as fallible and have the same sort of arrogance in their intellectual superiority as anyone else, they aren't to be trusted on all matters.
This concept is called "stealth wars" and is part of the "slow plagues" warfare scenario, it's researchable.
Should the research into those weapons go on? No. It should cease yesterday, along with nuclear and chemical and directed energy and weather manipulation and so on and so forth. Enough's enough until the "civil" part of "civilization" catches up, then we can proceed again. And every nation on the planet should open itself up to inspections to verify it's NOT going on, IMO.
--suzuki re5 bike, quite nice, weird sounding. You are thinking of kowalski mach III's for the fast two stroke triple. Nice but not quite as reliable, but wicked fast. Harley guys hated it as it went by them. Suzuki had their three cylinder 750 water cooled 2-stroke then too,"the water buffalo", and they had a 4 cylinder 2-stroke coming out, but they switched to a four stroke one liter instead. They also had a one cylinder 250 two stroke which was amazing fast, called the hustler. And the Titan, two cylinder two stroke, one of the best most durable bikes ever made. The old "solid as a rock" deal with them.
sigh, good olde dayezzzz......
--I try to snag anything that is still useful for normal joe user or small office computing. Some I fix and give away, the rest I am stashing up, eventually I'd like to have a local business and sell them,with pre installed linux. there's no one around here really doing this now and new prices at the local shops are in-sane. I can't work out of where I live right now-various reasons- or I'd be already doing it. Biggest problem is all the old boxes just need a lot more ram (huge variable there of course on species of ram) or larger hard drives to be practical. Well, that and most of them have winmodems also. Probably have more than a dozen near complete "spare" systems now, pcs and macs, beyond my own personal ones I want to keep.
--I get all my accessories used at the local church thriftstore. They are only open a few days a week, I get there on opening morning once a week and just grab whatever looks cool and cheap even if I don't need it right then. Currently sitting in front of a dell 15 inch I got for seven dollars, works perfectly great, and online with a 50 cent USR sporster external modem, typing on my 2$ ibm model m clicker. What's not to like? I got tons of backup everythings now, doubt I have more than around 150 clams into the entire pile of stuff, multiple everythings basically, including spare boxes.
Last brand new monitor I had was a 14 inch sony, paid 280$ new for it in 97, it eventually just turned dark, wasn't worth repairing. No more new ones for me, I'll let the rich guys buy them for me. Thanks rich guys! Hey, start dumping them 21 inch displays will ya?
... what happens with lightning and other sorts of accidents to the lines? Any EE's want to comment? It's already hard enough in summer thunderstorm season, I just assume I will lose a modem every summer, even with these phone line surge things. What happens even if you are miles away from where the lightning hits, perhaps no storm in your area?
I just wonder if this tech is really all that practical in most areas of the US that get storms all the time, but will admit I don't know, hence the asking.
Thanks in advance
--just a couple days ago I developed a serious fubar with some stuff,got annoyed with it, had the disks for 8 kicking around, so I did the upgrade from 7.2 option. Major mistake, it all works, but on my antique machine with the hand crank and double clutch, it is crippled slow. Pretty, but slow, r-e-a-l slow, old 200PP, 226 ram. Luckily I have a second smallish drive as a slave, I put 7.2 on that one, surfing from it now, back to acceptable zippy performance-well, it's zippy enough for me that is, I have no other frame of reference. heh. As long as the main drive is borked with that 8.0 I don't care, I will get a clone copy of 9 and do a full install and see how it runs, if it still is too slow, most likely I will just stick with the 7 series until it gets ridiculous and/or hit lottery and get a newer machine. Kinda like all those folks out there still on win 95 or 98, it gets to the point that you got what ya need. If I like it and it's fast enough, I'll shoot ochre chapeau the loot for a boxed set.
What would be nice is if redhat would offer a boxed set with all the errata updates they have for the 7 series at a reduced rate $, no support, and I could live with the end of cycle limit they have announced. I would get a 7.3 set right now if they had that. Rural dialup is no fun keeping updated.
--I don't deal in theory, I deal in data. Data. Facts. Not reactionary and racist jingoism. Insults gain you nothing, and I have no desire to rule you, but the contrary is true, don't even think about trying to rule me, even if they give you a nice new brownshirt uniform.
Basically, take your political ludditism and shove it, now go play with the other "good germans" in your "neighborhood watch group". And by all means keep waving those plastic flags made in china, that's just so patriotic.
You want civility, offer it, you offer a closed fist and demand I kowtow to some absurd 6th grade level drunken political analysis, wrapped in a flag that you claim as your own but deny to anyone not a lock stepper with your own points of view, well, you can have it. I don't support dictators, especially dictators in my own nation. You can support them all you want to, and stay ignorant of verifiable data. Rah rah rah go team, nuke those filthy ay-rabs, right?
Oh, that doesn't apply to you, but "my kind" are..whatever you think? Like how dare anyone expend an effort to go beyond a surface level understanding of events?
I dare, too bad.
Go ahead and get your "das fatherland security" last word. I'm done on this thread, keep on trolling, hey, maybe a job will come up you can become an interrogator, get to use those nifty "stress and duress" techniques, just like saddam's bully boys and the bully boys at gitmo use? Right up your alley, good luck in your new career!