--that ain't my point and you know it, just posting a smarmy reply. Hope ya got a chubby from it. Personal tax software is a scam, it's always been buggy, but people got sucked into using it, now they are "lost" without it.
Several years ago I did a test, ran all my stuff through several different flavors of the stuff, both at home and actually paid to have tax preparers do it with their software. None of it matched, yet all the input was the same, and I got the best deal the way I did it for decades, just keep records and sit down and do it. Sometimes looking for that elusive extra 5$ deduction you miss huge other things that negate that savings and will get ya a better deal. So, if you REALLY want to find out how to do taxes, RTFM, and you don't know how long I waited to be able to say that on this forum, NOOBIE. HAHAHAH! I've gotten that SO MUCH because I'm a linux noob, it's a PLEASURE to watch the tables turned! whine whine my TAX software is not playing nice with me! boo hoo hoo, some one SAVE ME! whine snivel, and etc. Get a grip lad! My post STANDS, you DON'T need it, it's LAMER, and now you can see yet ANOTHER reason why it's bogus. You want more clues, use google.
Suit yourself, I won't use the stuff, hence, no drm issues. Gee, saved money too, what a concept! I don't use anything like that anyway. I learned to "just say no" to stupid software, or software that costs too much for what it does, or for software that thinks it owns me. Sometimes a higher tech way is the correct and intelligent way to do something, and other times it's just stupid. Really, suit yourself! I could care naught, keep complaining about "the bad man's software wrote where it wasn't supposed to, WHAT WILL I DO!" it's funny! Step back, laugh at it man, because it's true! This is one of those fun to play with non issues, unless you go way out of your way to make it an issue, and if you are that serious about it, oh well! buh bye 74x n00b! hahahahahahaha!
"WTF as we as consumers supposed to do about this crap? "
umm, just a thought but you honestly don't really need "tax software" to do your taxes. Honest, really, not pulling your leg or trolling or nuthin. It's like having one of those remote controls that changes the channel on the tv, washes the car, walks the dog, adjusts the blinds and scrubs your back, ya, once in awhile they might work, but setting them up and tweaking them and putting up with all that hassle just isn't worth it. Better to just use the boring stock remote for the tv, use the string pull on the blinds, walk the dog yourself and pay the neighbor kid to wash the car, and swap back scrubbing with your lover. Sometimes the solutions to problems are staring ya in the face.
--sorta lamer security and laziness on their parts. Maybe if they came to work in the morning and their wall paper was mr goatse they might get a clue? Run it through some graphics program, add some text to the jpeg, "please remember to logoff when leaving,anyone can change or delte or otherwise screwup our network- thankyou"
Of course, at least half of them would now sue for good cause, but still... if there was a way to blame it on "e-vile outside haxors"? heh heh heh sneaky is as sneaky does!
..just a thought, but maybe you have misread or misconstrued a lot (not all but a lot) of the anti microsoft and what you see as anti corporate posts on slashdot. What I see more, and I agree with, is that people are anti unethical behavior and criminality, and anti what happens once any entity has a lot of power with little or no check to what they do with that power.
The obvious example, following the main thread focus, on microsft, where millions of people have noted that they did, in fact, abuse their position, that they got to a dominate position via some pretty questionable means, and that their security models combined with this position have put people in the "pretty much stuck" position of spending a lot of money to be abused on an ongoing basis. yes, I am aware of "don't use their stuff", well, this has been answerd over and over again by noting it's pretty hard to not be affected by "their stuff" whether you use it or not, especially if your clients and cuistomers are still using it. Catch 22 there, so we will get past that sticking point, it's been answered. We all use the net, and all of us are affected when a significant size hole appears and gets exploited, and once a pattern of many years time and of noting exactly where those holes appear and exactly who is responsible for them and how much money they continue to make by this inclusion into the internet world of this swiss cheese approach to expensive software, well.... I mean, really.... the sky IS really blue.
As to "corporations", recent revelations over the past couple of years have proven there is a lot of outright lying, obfuscation of finances, over hyping to small investors to shill up stocks worth to absurd and reckless levels-fraud in other words, and so on. It's not a true black and white issue, it's more a pick an example (examples again, say microsoft, enron, etc) and point out data and take it from there, normal empirical analysis. the gestalt is, there sure is a lot of criminality going on, and people are beginning to wonder exactly how widespread this is, after example after example comes to light. It's endemic, and probably epidemic, if you would allow a small amount of anthromorphism to be used to describe it..
Of course this can be called bashing, but to millions of people it's "bashing" based on the reality of an obvious need to bash. Blaming the victims for a crime committed against them is not considered to be an intellectually viable form of expression that is valid, at least not amongst rational civilized people.
Now for me, a regular old 'murican capitalist, and a proponent of self-reliance and independence, and ALSO a proponent of above board rational and ethical business behavior, there are some corps I think do a good job, and others I can see as being..well.. crooks is the word. Serious crooks, crooks who not only need some fines, but some jail time. Want an example? any of the corporations who sold weapons of mass destruction materials to saddam back in the 80's, when he was obviously using them in warfare. any of those corpos officers, chucked in the pokey. the corporations dissolved. Well now, that would sure be an interesting set of bignames now, wouldn't it? I have more examples, that is "enough" for ocnversational purposes. And yes, I could name names, but anyone with google access can find out as well.
And to add to the stewpot in the fines and jail list some of the more bribed politicians who behind the scenes and in collusion with other industry heads (and being conflict of industry heads themselves) and semi-faceless regulatory bureaucrats, who have allowed this sort of behavior to become a lot more of the "norm" then what people are comfortable with. Yep, fines and jail. Yep, their businesses dissolved, as being "not in the public interest". Cross the line, do the time. It's like that for joe little guy, should be the same for frederick fatcat.
I think it's perfectly acceptable to "bash on crooks". I think it's perfectly acceptable to go back to the original founders ideas on state chartered corporations, wherein they were tasked with not only following normal business laws and ethics in order to do their business and accumulate "profits", but they also had an additional duty to be of the public interest and benefit, and if it can be shown a continuuing pattern of unethical behavior, that said corporation should be dissolved, with no thought to whatever "profits" are involved,no more than any petty gangs busting would involve consideration of their "profits", and that officers of said corporation should be brought up on criminal charges, as well as civil charges. No one really much cares what the "financial considerations" are when the local crack house gets taken down, this exact same philosphy should be applied on any scale, because, well, a crime is a crime is a crime. I know as joe littleguy that the system cares not about my profits if I should be convicted of a crime, they are more than happen to seize or incarcerate. It's "funny" to note the regardings these very large enterprises the almost total lack of significant level fines and significant numbers of corporate officers who fail to make it to the pokey once busted and convicted. It isn't the bashers' fault that we notice this, in fact, it's an ethical and moral and common sense stance to take..
This doesn't happen enough to suit my tastes, and I maintain that if it did, we wouldn't be seeing near the bad business that occurs, nor the amount of boom and bust cycles, and practically speaking on a tech oriented forum, the IT and internet world would be more robust, more profitable and not less, and much more secure. That it doesn't happen enough is just obvious-thee is no provision for a "who watches the watchers" in our modern "system". We have a theoretical way to do that, but with the seizure of our governmental system by two for-profit organizations, who operate in a "scratch my back and I'll scratch you'rs" mode, a lot more than what they will admit to, you can see how this system is broken and how abuses will continue. Occassionaly, in order to show they are "doing something", they will "sacrafice one of their own" in order to throw a bone to the "bashers", but it really is more of a busywork facade than any true expression of "cleaning up business and it's partner government".
please excuse remaining typos, spent enough time on this post for now
--where I live there isn't any paper record. There's a digital record that you have to accept as authentic, based on "trust" with no "verify".
Wishes? Back to full normal paper ballots, low tech. Extremely easy, still works fine, you can see on the thread that canada has no problem with voting and counting and recounting this way. there's zero reason other than the fraud potential to go electronic voting. Also like to see a 24 hour voting day, not a business hours vote day that discriminates against people who have to go to work. I've seen way too much evidence that a lot of people don't vote because they can't get out of wark. I actually quit a decent job before when I wasn't "allowed" to leave so I could catch getting in line at night, a day they insisted I work overtime past poll closing. Cost me serious folding money just to go vote. Right now it's more welfare people and business owners/bosses who are more likely to vote, as they have more control over their time schedule. And a first choice, second choice, etc, on the ballot, so people would be more likely to not do this "lesser of two evils" vote, and also a "none of the above" choice.
--and did you contact any whistle blower styled news people in this state? Have you called this in, written a letter to the editor to the journal constitution, filed any ethics violations with the secretary of state? did you STOP YOUR VOTE at your precinct when you found this out? This is the first I have heard of this memory leak and reboot problem, and I have looked for info.
This election was flawed,and my guess it was thoroughly rigged, key races, key precincts, you can't tell if what the diebold guy told you is true or yet another scam, no idea what rebooting did. At best you know at your precinct how many bodies walked in the door, and what the machine told you there on the spot, that's it. No one knows what the real numbers are. No one even knows the real collated numbers, do they? It's all based 100% on this vague "trust us, we are the new corporate government, we would never lie to you". And do you really believe a republican governor got elected? In Georgia? And that cleland lost? Disregard personal left/right schisms, just the sheer common sense odds of it happening.
We are living in a high tech styled germany of 1936, that's my opinion. Orwell was wrong, it's WORSE than what he prophesized.
One last thing, why did you say "Fortunately, there was no big stink made about this after the election, even though two major statewide races had surprising (and close) results."
Fortunately? You think this is a GOOD THING? and you are a poll worker? I am GLAD that this is caught on the web here, I just MIGHT do something with this little post of yours.
--I'm in georgia and I disagree with you 100%. The vote went FAST, it didn't go WELL. You, me, NO ONE in this state except a small handful of private parties knows how the real vote went. And said private parties have some verifiable ties to some partisan orgs. Early on in the morning there started to be a flurry of voting screwups reported,where the tally you mentioned DIDN'T jibe, in fact where a vote cast for candidate A went to B, something that seems outside the odds of probability given the simple nature of the code involved to register a hit someplace, I mean c'mon! there should have been ZERO mistakes. this is not an indicator of tested code that works as advertised, it's not super computer massive variable crunching we are talking about. This was reported even on drudge,I left at 1 pm to go vote, got back a little after 2 or so, and it was POOFED within that time and was minimalised and barely talked about during the evening, then the story disappeared. It was dismissed. And we had the first mass reversal in the governorship since the civil war, and this is to be taken as a coincidence? And there was a lot of pre and post polling that didn't jibe as well with the 'results". I'm neither a D nor an R,so I don't got a dog in this fight, but I just slap don't believe it. And I'll repeat, you do NOT know the vote went well, whether it was accurate, or whether or not it was rigged anyplace. There's no way to look in an empty ballot box in the morning to see it isn't pre stuffed (traditionally the first person in line in a precinct, I have done this myself). There's no way to look at the full box and see what the count is beyond believing what they say the count is, or to be more accurate, what it spits out at you.
When I did my complaint, they shuffled me off on the phone to some private voice on the phone who wouldn't even identify where he was to me. He wasn't even a governmental employee by his own admission. They refused to let me even talk to anyone who was a state of georgia official, I got the classic help desk with no answers shuffle. I said flat out it was closed source, no way to verify it, there was a high probability of fraud and certainly the potential for abuse, and the guy got indignant, but he KNEW I was stating the truth.
We HAD paper ballots, they WORKED perfectly ok and were not hard to figure out, and no "hanging chads" possible, it was fill in the bubble next to the vote. Any call for a recount can be done by any citizen at the end of the voting day following normal procedures in front of witnesses, regular old eyeballs still work. The ballot boxes were paid for, like 100 years ago or something, there was NO NEED to spend millions of dollars on this OTHER than to use smoke and mirrors razzle dazzle to fake out the rubes with the "new and improved computerised voting" "Look how easy it is! The computer does all the work!" The talking laquer heads on the boob toob were having near orgasms over it, another red flag for me, whenever the controlled press is "for" something I smell a rat,because a rat has always shown up in the past when they acted like shills and not newspeople. Phooie. they sold these scam voting machines the same way they sold over hyped stocks during the bubble, they shilled them. I saw the "public information" ads, I still got my flyer they sent to voters touting how cool it would be. double phooie.
Color me suspicious as hell, as far as I am concerned the vote got hijacked in an extremely sophisticated manner and hardly no one gives a squat about it. Georgia was their test state to see if they could get away with it in an entire state, they did, now it will go nationwide.
Don't take this as a personal flame, but I just had to disagree strongly here. When I look around and see what else is going on, aww %^&*T! It's a duck, it looks like a duck it walks like a duck it's quacking like a duck it's a dang fascist junta takeover. This "vote" scam just fits in with all the other bush-wa that's going on.
This is my second reply in the thread, but I am gonna drop this link again anyway, I think the subject is important enough.:
Right on and I got an even better idea-recognize that computerised voting is the LAMEST idea that has happened lately. All it has done is automate the ballot box stuffing potential, and made it near impossible to verify any actual count. Voting is IMPORTANT, it shouldn't be EASY, it's not supposed to be like ordering a book from amazon, it's the most important thing a citizen does besides sit on a jury and you are supposed to think about it, take it serious, and go do it. Yes, you should go stand in line,and mark your paper ballot. I filed a protest at my precinct this last election over this, it was our first "computerised voting". It was dismal, the precinct officer was completely clueless, was not even able to understand the concept of it getting programmed (and stuffed) in advance,with no way to verify it. She kept telling me, "no, it's flawless, if there's a dispute, we just rerun the tabulations!"
homer sez DOH!
I got my "voted" sticker, it has a little iconized computer pointing at itself, with the caption "I voted!". THAT'S RIGHT, the $%^**ing COMPUTER voted, I got no way to tell if I voted.
Background to some important information for USians:
--following your corporation's line of reasoning, I am driving by your house, I notice some badguy breaking into it (call it obvious, smashing the lock or something pretty suspicious). I own a cell phone, I can A-call the cops, or B-ignore it as you didn't pay me in advance to waste my time and protect your house. Note: I have a job too (several, one of them actually is security related), my time is as valuable as yours, and you getting burgled doesn't cost me a penny directly.
Is it moral for me to just ignore a possible crime-in-progress of a common sense observatory level of "severe"?
It costs your company a pittance in money and time (as it would me to make a cell phone call in my hypothetical scenario) to post updated possible threat scenarios on your web site and CC them to appropriate other security related sites, in real time. I am sure it could be automated as well.
To me, it is petty, short sighted, and not even in your best interest financially in the long run to not do that, but that's your corporation's choice, and is fully in lock step agreement with similar corporate "secret stuff" that is going on that eventually is proven to be detrimental, and in fact, causes so much business loss as we are seeing now. "Greed", in other words, and contrary to popular corporate opinion, is not good.
The history of state granted corporate charters (in the US at least, not familiar with other nations that much) had a provision that said corporation did in fact and by law have a duty to be of a public interest and benefit, along with whatever widgets it made or serviced or traded in, it was NOT totally about your rights to profit as the only criteria for granting the corporate charter.
IMO, this needs to be readdressed and severe limits placed on corporations, time limits for granting these charters, and to make it easier to remove said charter given a proven pattern of not serving the public interest as a full part of the charter.
With that said, and following my own line of reasoning and law and history noting, I think microsoft should have lost their corporate charter a long, long time ago, and maybe this particular worm would never have happened. don't know, call that a maybe, but for sure their products and related apps wouldn't be in such a profuse use now.
I think "corporate america" needs to really step back and take a long hard look at how you are perceived by just the "common man" speaking in broad general terms now. There's a phrase - "people are starting to talk", that fits here.
"Corporations" are not all bad, nor all good, and neither is making money, everyone wants to make money, what is bad though is when any human or any corporation places the "making money" part over all other considerations. It certainly and must be a very important part,the making money part, else no need for the corporation, but to neglect the other parts is de-humanising and harmful.
There are extenuating circumstances and a human factor called ethics that comes into play. Some folks have little use for ethics, and no use to be "neighborly", if it interferes with "the bottom line". Me, personally, I have worked at some places like that, when it became evident to me that was the mindset that was pushed, I quit, moved on..
PLEASE (anyoe reading this, this is generic commentary)do some more research on homeland security, patriot act 1, patriot act 2, model states health emergency act, and recent FCC rulings. The saying the supreme court has ruled "they need a warrant" is terribly simplified and in fact now is as useless as screen doors on a submarine. Really. It's beyond a joke. This is very complex, laws they have now and are proposed in the house and senate and stand a good chance of passing completely gut most of the "bill of rights".
here's one of the latest FCC rulings, just for surveillance:
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAEAR1B5CD.html Federal Regulators Ease Restrictions on Technology That Can See Through Walls By David Ho Associated Press Writer Published: Feb 13, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) - Technology that can see through walls to help police track criminals and aid firefighters searching for victims received a boost from federal regulators Thursday.
Responding to industry requests, the Federal Communications Commission tweaked restrictions on ultra-wideband technology, which sends millions of narrow pulses each second over airwaves to get a precise reading of an object's location and distance. The signals also can carry huge amounts of data over a short distance.
The technology has many potential uses, from wireless home networks of computers and other appliances to collision-avoidance systems in cars. Ground penetrating radar systems using ultra-wideband can detect objects or people buried under earth or debris.
"While I hope we have no reason to ever use ultra-wideband to assist search-and-rescue teams in a disaster, I'll be glad that we have this tool available should the need arise," said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps.
The FCC established rules a year ago permitting the marketing and operation of ultra-wideband products. The latest rule changes will allow manufacturers to design devices that gather clearer images, said Edmond Thomas, chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology.
The agency is still studying the new technology to ensure it doesn't interfere with other broadcasts.
The FCC announced the rule changes at a demonstration of ultra-wideband devices at the agency's headquarters.
Several companies showed off ground-penetrating radar devices that resemble heavy-duty lawnmowers with flat computer screens mounted on their handles. The devices can locate utility pipes and lines underground or in concrete.
Time Domain Corp., based in Huntsville, Ala., demonstrated a "through-wall motion detector," a briefcase-sized, 10-pound device that can be held up to a wall. A person moving behind the wall shows up as a colorful blob on a small display. The detector is intended for use by law enforcement, firefighters and the military.
---
On the Net:
Federal Communications Commission: http://www.fcc.gov
--they have better quality tech than this, and are using it now, without warrants or with blanket regional warrants which are illegal for anyone in government to reveal the existence of, from helicopters, and are mapping various urban and rural areas, including mapping inside your home. Like I said this is complex, I am not a professional IT guy but I spend hours every day researching subjects such as this, and I can assure you, this "warrant" stuff is about almost completely obsolete when it comes to "practically speaking".
The DMCA conversations here pale in comparison to some of the much more important issues that are happening and should be discussed. I actually have little use for looking at such low level arguments when the whole she-bang is about to poof into total fascism. I recognize for a lot of geekdom that "entertainments" are very important, as well as software and hardware modding, but any "restrictions" are the tip of reality iceberg. Understand my response isn't entirely directed towards this response or even the parent, just seemed a good place to put it, saw no other good thread for it.
IMO, on a scale of 1 to 10, these constant threads on "entertainments" and hacking to get more free "entertainment" are at scale of a 10, with 1 being "important stuff". I hope anyone reading this will google for info on the above named acts, actually download them and read them, tedious as hell, and just as scary when you read the fine print and understand this is guys with guns and badges are being ordered to take this seriously.
Anyone can have any interest they want, I just find it sad that "entertainment" related threads and topics can garner so much enthusiasm and outrage for the slightest "infraction of my right to be entertained".
---E commerce? "selling widgets and/or widget servicing"=sales. OK, question, are you in sales or are you an "IT" guy? Here's a hint, people showing up at a site running osx are usually *not poor*, their demographics are leaning a lot towards "we spend top money and are known for brand loyalty if we are treated right".
Admit it-I got a point? Rhetorical question, I think I made it. Basic rule of thumb in sales 101, you have to get through the noes to get to the yesses. Part of any "yes" potential is , well, having da loot. The interest on the part of the surfer was there, you got the hit, they showed up at your URL, they are doing the customer's part. That's all they can do up to that point. The next step is up to you.
--they lied about not knowing about patriot act 2, and they are slipping in various provisions of it inside other unrelated bills. The email surveillance will go on same as you can imagine. This is typical government triple speak. It's getting pretty weird out in dotgov sieg heil land.
...not sure why "this solution" is being used, my guess is because of the nature of the power supply, and the costs involved, the sheer low quantity of the electric that's able to be produced, and the sophistication of the end users. Set up hard, running it after set up easy? And maybe travel back and forth to remote regions is harder than bopping on the tube or jumping in the belchfire for a spin to the store. That could be why he's doing it onsite now. Heck, I've lived places in the US it was quite the adventure to get to any "store" at all, let alone any tech store or place to get help on a tech question. This ws back pre internet days. I guess being even more remote than that causes some occassional problems, but I will agree the boxes should have been developed off site and QAed better. I think it's called making a mistake, bet everyone reading this has done that. The glass houses-stones postulate appplies as well as murphy's law..
Really just guessing on all this though.
I think a better deal would have been to get low powered, best battery life functional laptops donated from someplace and use them, perhaps modded for pure DC use, eliminate all that inverting, converting and perverting jazz that goes on to get juice to where it needs to be. Using the laptops built in battery as a cushion for the intermittent pedal electrical power seems the best idea. That and see if any of the big alternate energy suppliers would donate some stuff for more juice on site. I know from just one of my PV panels I can get enough juice during the day time to run one of my older laptops easily. Umm, I do it all the time. I also know in monsoon season in the tropics this isn't practical, so that's my guess on the pedal powered deal.
--I agree completely. This annoying EULA nonsense has gone on long enough. Professional software companies want a EULA and for it to be contract quality, they want the big bucks, no problem, that's cool,but then the customer needs to sign a legal contract with a witness, a notary, whatever is applicable. If that puts a dent in for-sale propietary software, I don't care. Less releases, better quality per release is a better idea, IMO.
--say the ISPs eliminate the 10% using the 90%. The VERY next day, they will still have the 10% who use the 90% of the "new and improved" capped bandwith service. that's the deal with averages, you will always have the highs and lows, so they can claim that right back down to 300 baud.
The basic premise is, computers and the net were on a course for faster computers, faster net, so obviously general "bandwith" consumption will go up. this is why we pay for 'better", so "better" is supposed to "produce" by economies of scale and increased technological sophistication. it either does or doesn't, the ISPs are claiming now it doesn't, and some folks smell a rat, like the 'energy crisis" with middleman "traders". This has been true for years. Your exact answer is "all of the above". People want more bandwith for EVERYTHING you can do on the net! I used to view a lot of ascii pages on the net, npow averag4 page size has exploded and is media and feature rich. It's that simple! It's NEAT! I remember my old acoustic modem experiences, sheesh, even this crappy dialup I have now is much faster, yet I would really like a smidgen more. For me it might be videophone with my relatives, cheaper than long distance and more fun. I'd like to get streaming video alternative news, something that didn't look like a never quite in focus series of stills like it does now. For others it's music, or software tryout junkies. It don't matter, because it truly is "all of the above".
What is happening now-near as I can see reading the thread-is that all these ISPs are deciding that that model isn't going to be true any longer.
Now the argument is a he said/she said set of hearsay. Some folks assert the tech and infrastructure is there to allow this expansion to continue and for the ISPs to still make a profit, others assert it isn't. My guess is it's both, I would imagine there's gouging going on and industry collusion (give this very high odds), but that consumer *true* costs for their intarweb experience have been offset over the years by venture capital and banner advertising, etc, leading to false expectations on the consumer level.(give this even higher odds)
note-I am speaking as a rural dialup modem user who barely gets a 28 to 31 connection on good days. I don't download mp3s and the thought of entire linux distro ISOs is laughable. Laughable. When I get a new distro it's snail mail on a cd. I would like to have the "internet" that is sold on television commercials, full streaming video and whatnot, but that isn't happening anytime soon. I currently have my choice of local single monopoly or not having internet (I don't consider that thousand buck satellite stuff quite "there" yet to call it across the board consumer level)
The only obvious solution is pay as you byte wired internet, with a very reasonable fee per megabyte of traffic-either way-, same as buying your electricity or gas for the car. Package deals and offering "always on" and "unlimited" really are consumer fraud, annoying as hell, and should be outlawed in most instances to be advertised as such. Reminds me of cans of soup that allege "serves four". Four WHAT I don't know, but they never serve 4 humans.
The other bane is monopolies, the cable companies got monoplies way back when install costs were cheaper, and I distinctly remember them promising commercial free televison to get those licenses. I SAT in a city council meeting when this was claimed. And the over the air large commercial television and radio networks are supposed to serve the public interest, and that baby got thrown out with the bathwater a long time ago,a LONG time ago, and THAT is where the bandwith could come from, and the "last mile", if (US speaking here) the FCC would stop being a set of paid off bribed goons and stop rubber stamping those lucrative airwave licenses for the major networks. Entrenched theft of the public airwaves, they've been hijacked by half a dozen major private for-profit corporations. Hijacked, it's now carved in reality stone their licenses will get "renewed" no matter what they do or what they "broadcast", so all that slick bandwith is gone.
They had their chance,and their news is biased fluff, their shows are now close to half commercials, and there's NO way they can cry "poverty" or that they haven't "made money" over the generations. I would think that generations of human time and umpteen billions of dollars is "enough". The public airwaves were never, ever, supposed to be primarily about private mega corporations "making money", you can go back and read the history of over the air radio. It's MORPHED into primarily making money, but it's SUPPOSED to be primarily serving the public interest.
That's one potential solution right there, going begging. And my guess is society might be a little different and a little better with the major hereditary networks cut off from their license to print money. When I see the FCC and the goon commercial networks allied with alleged "Public Interest" orgs like NPR shaft micro broadcasters, my thought is scrap that monopolistic system and try again, with a "more fair" model and with the wireless internet in mind, which is the next logical step over one--> way wireless transmissions. That was last century, let's move along now, and open up "communication" -which is all the internet is-to everyone even better.
--banks, starting with central banks on down, ARE one of the biggest scams running. Start with the premise they can "loan" you money-called fractional reserve, ie, they only have a fraction of what they can claim as a reserve- they don't have, then charge you "interest" on it. Sweet deal for their fat tushies.
Governments like to own the "money" because of the lawful thievery that goes along with this "central banking" and "tax" scam. Big bankers run the world, run the wars, finance all the sides. bah humbug, filthy creatures. Back a long time ago the founders flirted with paper money, it was a disaster (not worth a continental), they went back to precious metals based money, that worked until they switched again.
People who love fiat money also really believe that they can pick any day and the high numbers represented by the 'stock market' figures are all magically "worth" all this money and all this "stock" can all be changed into "money" that can purchase goods and services. I mean buck for buck,, like all the stock could be cashed in/sold at once and be "worth" what they are quoted at that day, ALL of it.. Past bubble I can't tell ya how many people I talked to who put x cash in, their magic beans dot bomb stock went to x3, then they "lost money", like every single one of them somehow could have gotten this high point "money". Just amazing, pure fairy tale, but so many so called adults still believe this.
It don't matter, people who can understand the difference between "wealth" and "money" will continue to do well, people who won't will one day wake up "bankrupt" and wonder why it happened when they were "rolling in dough" before, and "all set" with their "secure job".
People really have only two choices when it comes to learning from history, they "do" or they "don't".
--that's fine, I understand. We'll call it even, no hard feelings. I usually can't see beyond getting cussed at, I sort of draw the line there on the internet.
with that said, I had no idea my use of that slang term was so controversial. I always thought of it as more a generic term for new or inexpericend user, an alternate to n00b or something like that, a good natured razz term in other words. We all been there and know people there, heh.
On slashdot here, once you can learn to wade through the trolls, there's some serious brains, I am usually in medium awe of a lot of the tech expertise that's here. I like to interject when there's something that maybe might be of marginal use to someone, which isn't often enough given I'm not an IT professional either. I have other skills that only marginally relate to IT, so I tend to more read all the tech stuff and comment on politics or the economy, in this case in this thread I thought it would be interesting to give a non IT person's consumer point of view.
..it's hard to answer exactly. The best (I think)you can do is look at the closest and most current examples of what looks the most *like* what you see happening. The best parallel example. For those of us in the US, I'd say look to some place like argentina, note where the argentinian middle class is at now, compared to two years ago.
--the US is being mostly maintained by it's position as the world default trading currency. In particular pegged to oil being bought and sold in terms of barrels versus "dollars". Lately there's this new currency called the euro, which is slightly backed by gold. Iraq was the first muslim oil producer to demand payments in euros. Hmm, one of those coincidences no doubt.... Japan holds the most US debt paper and cash by a foreign nation, but they more want/need oil then US dollars and have been quietly withdrawing sums and re investing, ditto the oil producing nations. We've been running a trade deficit with many nations, notably mainland china. All these nations have more or less noticed that by continuuing to use the dollar as a unit of trade, that all the US has to do is..print more dollars, to the tune of..I forget, it's trillions and trillions, none of it really backed by anything other than inertia. In short they have been paying for a lot of our "prosperity". A lot of it. The dollar has been "falling" that means losing worth in the terms of international money people in relation to other currencies. The Fed has been allowing this to happen for two reasons, they just can't justify printing more money, and no one really is all that jazzed on our money now, it's like the lesser of a few other fiat evils. It makes our exports marginally cheaper, but as we produce less and less, that's less and less valuable. As we buy more but the dollar is worth less, that stuff will cost more, and the only way to offset that is to print more money worth nothing and the cycle continues, and everyone is tired of the cycle now.
Now it gets even more interesting. There's a new currency on the block, called the gold dinar. The muslim nations are going to be switching to this shortly, primarily for various balance of trade settlements with themselves, and the wags have it that eventually they will demand foreign payments in-their own money, which means both the dollar and the euro will be worth less, as first they must buy a dinar, and being backed by gold, this will require these other nations to have gold-or something else tangible to trade. something else has to be manufactured, dug up and mined, drilled for, or grown, as that about covers real wealth.. Malysia is the first nation to adopt this, but it will soon be common amongst the muslim nations, and will be a viable alternative for those nations even over the euro, because they have what everyone else wants-the oil. Never forget the oil, and don't forget "water". Now nations outside the US, then outside europe, will have *no* need to add a middleman to their trading, once these ouil nations can get what they want without involving the dollar or the euro. They won't have a need, so they won't do it. Now back to water. The tigris and euphrates in Iraq are the largest sources of fresh water in the middle east. This is important and not mentioned a lot in the media unless you look for it. We have around the world going on something like 6 billion people, and roughly enough oil and water for at best 1/4 of those (or less) people with any sort of remotely close to a western styled "middle class" lifestyle. The deal is, the cat is out of the bag and now people all over the wortld sorta want that house and car and tv and stereo and computer and running water and cheap gas and electricity and supermarkets and whatnot. A lot people in the west tend to forget most people around the planet only have slight amounts of all that "stuff" with some exceptions here and there..
And that's what's happening with the money, it's becoming increasingly irrelevant as opposed to the important tangibles. The "market" wants to keep the trade in money, especially western pure fantasy printed up money, going and shilled up as long as possible, because it's a damn cushy job and great congame as much as anything else. It creates fabulous amounts of profits for the middlemen and skimmers. The people who actually have the wealth and produce the wealth are getting annoyed, and the global "investment" markets know it. Everyone is getting a little scared. This scared part is called a flight to quality, among other terms. We are in what's called a bear market because the previous bubble bull market was selling at-dunno, pick a big number,10 to 50 times what it ever could be conceivably worth by anyone rational.
The "market" is what they call "correcting". This is like seeing a house in flames and saying "it appears the neighbors are having a barbecue". The economy in the US is built mainly on unsustainable credit that's already spent and gone, it's not coming back, and is beyond bankrupt, again, inertia is keeping it afloat as much as any other complicated theory.
The world is and will be warring over natural resources, primarily the wet and clear and the black and gooey. Take it from there. I know this is all sorta jumbled together, but your question on what's up with the economy deserved more than a single sentence, but a real analysis would take volumes, I tried to give you a very basic in a nutshell view, at least as good as I can see it. It should be possible to extrapolate some more reality with it, see what the TV spokesweasels say, see what really happens, and go on from there.
You are living in the "good old days" now, enjoy them and tell stories to your grandkids. Get ahold of decent rural property with water on it, so your grandkids have a place to live. Best advice I got for anyone now. This isn't all doom and gloom or chicken little action, this is just a general way to say for at least the next decade to two decades, IF we can avoid major global war, that it will not get much better than it is now, and odds are it will get..much worse I'm afraid.
..I'm listening to a live radio show right now, the hosts are reading off passages from this proposed act.
it's t-total fascism, no other word fits.
regional vague search warrants, mandatory sentencing for using encryption if they allege you are engaging in "terrorism", public financial records of high level political fatcats are now to be secret, legalization of allowing foreign military and police to operate domestically inside the US, federalization of local grand juries, federalization of autopsies, classification of literally any crime they choose as 'terrorism". It makes it illegal to disseminate any information that you might have about anyone "detained" who has been snatched and disappeared into the secret military tribunal system. Think about that one....
I'm going to download it and read it myself, but those are some of the larger high-lights I am hearing. If anyone is interested, it's alex jone's and john stadtmiller's dual-host weekend show.
--whenever third parties get any even modicum of press coverage they do quite well. And there's no telling if it was to continue how the political landscape might change. That's why the two headed hydra junta who control government now won't let a third party candidate or candidates on the podium in the "national debate" on TV.
Best thing would be to allow a choice by number, ie, first choice for pres is yada, next choice, yada, etc. People would be more inclined to vote their REAL first choice that way. This "waste your vote" stuff is designed to scare people into voting gang A or B, and that's it. The only wasted vote is one not cast, IMO.
--I was aware of the various space plane designs. I was more thinking of the *alleged* advanced craft that are flying. I am really speculating now, no actual data of course, but the web has various references* that can be found. It could be that for the public & civilian spaceplane concepts they are limited in using only technology that is up to a certain publically acknowledged threshold of advancement, which would require them to re-invent the wheel in an inefficient (but still functional, obviously) manner in order to protect the better quality designs in the secret prototype craft.
Slashdot Mirror
--that ain't my point and you know it, just posting a smarmy reply. Hope ya got a chubby from it. Personal tax software is a scam, it's always been buggy, but people got sucked into using it, now they are "lost" without it.
Several years ago I did a test, ran all my stuff through several different flavors of the stuff, both at home and actually paid to have tax preparers do it with their software. None of it matched, yet all the input was the same, and I got the best deal the way I did it for decades, just keep records and sit down and do it. Sometimes looking for that elusive extra 5$ deduction you miss huge other things that negate that savings and will get ya a better deal. So, if you REALLY want to find out how to do taxes, RTFM, and you don't know how long I waited to be able to say that on this forum, NOOBIE. HAHAHAH! I've gotten that SO MUCH because I'm a linux noob, it's a PLEASURE to watch the tables turned! whine whine my TAX software is not playing nice with me! boo hoo hoo, some one SAVE ME! whine snivel, and etc. Get a grip lad! My post STANDS, you DON'T need it, it's LAMER, and now you can see yet ANOTHER reason why it's bogus. You want more clues, use google.
Suit yourself, I won't use the stuff, hence, no drm issues. Gee, saved money too, what a concept! I don't use anything like that anyway. I learned to "just say no" to stupid software, or software that costs too much for what it does, or for software that thinks it owns me. Sometimes a higher tech way is the correct and intelligent way to do something, and other times it's just stupid. Really, suit yourself! I could care naught, keep complaining about "the bad man's software wrote where it wasn't supposed to, WHAT WILL I DO!" it's funny! Step back, laugh at it man, because it's true! This is one of those fun to play with non issues, unless you go way out of your way to make it an issue, and if you are that serious about it, oh well! buh bye 74x n00b! hahahahahahaha!
"WTF as we as consumers supposed to do about this crap? "
umm, just a thought but you honestly don't really need "tax software" to do your taxes. Honest, really, not pulling your leg or trolling or nuthin. It's like having one of those remote controls that changes the channel on the tv, washes the car, walks the dog, adjusts the blinds and scrubs your back, ya, once in awhile they might work, but setting them up and tweaking them and putting up with all that hassle just isn't worth it. Better to just use the boring stock remote for the tv, use the string pull on the blinds, walk the dog yourself and pay the neighbor kid to wash the car, and swap back scrubbing with your lover. Sometimes the solutions to problems are staring ya in the face.
--sorta lamer security and laziness on their parts. Maybe if they came to work in the morning and their wall paper was mr goatse they might get a clue? Run it through some graphics program, add some text to the jpeg, "please remember to logoff when leaving,anyone can change or delte or otherwise screwup our network- thankyou"
Of course, at least half of them would now sue for good cause, but still... if there was a way to blame it on "e-vile outside haxors"? heh heh heh sneaky is as sneaky does!
..just a thought, but maybe you have misread or misconstrued a lot (not all but a lot) of the anti microsoft and what you see as anti corporate posts on slashdot. What I see more, and I agree with, is that people are anti unethical behavior and criminality, and anti what happens once any entity has a lot of power with little or no check to what they do with that power.
The obvious example, following the main thread focus, on microsft, where millions of people have noted that they did, in fact, abuse their position, that they got to a dominate position via some pretty questionable means, and that their security models combined with this position have put people in the "pretty much stuck" position of spending a lot of money to be abused on an ongoing basis. yes, I am aware of "don't use their stuff", well, this has been answerd over and over again by noting it's pretty hard to not be affected by "their stuff" whether you use it or not, especially if your clients and cuistomers are still using it. Catch 22 there, so we will get past that sticking point, it's been answered. We all use the net, and all of us are affected when a significant size hole appears and gets exploited, and once a pattern of many years time and of noting exactly where those holes appear and exactly who is responsible for them and how much money they continue to make by this inclusion into the internet world of this swiss cheese approach to expensive software, well.... I mean, really.... the sky IS really blue.
As to "corporations", recent revelations over the past couple of years have proven there is a lot of outright lying, obfuscation of finances, over hyping to small investors to shill up stocks worth to absurd and reckless levels-fraud in other words, and so on. It's not a true black and white issue, it's more a pick an example (examples again, say microsoft, enron, etc) and point out data and take it from there, normal empirical analysis. the gestalt is, there sure is a lot of criminality going on, and people are beginning to wonder exactly how widespread this is, after example after example comes to light. It's endemic, and probably epidemic, if you would allow a small amount of anthromorphism to be used to describe it..
Of course this can be called bashing, but to millions of people it's "bashing" based on the reality of an obvious need to bash. Blaming the victims for a crime committed against them is not considered to be an intellectually viable form of expression that is valid, at least not amongst rational civilized people.
Now for me, a regular old 'murican capitalist, and a proponent of self-reliance and independence, and ALSO a proponent of above board rational and ethical business behavior, there are some corps I think do a good job, and others I can see as being..well.. crooks is the word. Serious crooks, crooks who not only need some fines, but some jail time. Want an example? any of the corporations who sold weapons of mass destruction materials to saddam back in the 80's, when he was obviously using them in warfare. any of those corpos officers, chucked in the pokey. the corporations dissolved. Well now, that would sure be an interesting set of bignames now, wouldn't it? I have more examples, that is "enough" for ocnversational purposes. And yes, I could name names, but anyone with google access can find out as well.
And to add to the stewpot in the fines and jail list some of the more bribed politicians who behind the scenes and in collusion with other industry heads (and being conflict of industry heads themselves) and semi-faceless regulatory bureaucrats, who have allowed this sort of behavior to become a lot more of the "norm" then what people are comfortable with. Yep, fines and jail. Yep, their businesses dissolved, as being "not in the public interest". Cross the line, do the time. It's like that for joe little guy, should be the same for frederick fatcat.
I think it's perfectly acceptable to "bash on crooks". I think it's perfectly acceptable to go back to the original founders ideas on state chartered corporations, wherein they were tasked with not only following normal business laws and ethics in order to do their business and accumulate "profits", but they also had an additional duty to be of the public interest and benefit, and if it can be shown a continuuing pattern of unethical behavior, that said corporation should be dissolved, with no thought to whatever "profits" are involved,no more than any petty gangs busting would involve consideration of their "profits", and that officers of said corporation should be brought up on criminal charges, as well as civil charges. No one really much cares what the "financial considerations" are when the local crack house gets taken down, this exact same philosphy should be applied on any scale, because, well, a crime is a crime is a crime. I know as joe littleguy that the system cares not about my profits if I should be convicted of a crime, they are more than happen to seize or incarcerate. It's "funny" to note the regardings these very large enterprises the almost total lack of significant level fines and significant numbers of corporate officers who fail to make it to the pokey once busted and convicted. It isn't the bashers' fault that we notice this, in fact, it's an ethical and moral and common sense stance to take..
This doesn't happen enough to suit my tastes, and I maintain that if it did, we wouldn't be seeing near the bad business that occurs, nor the amount of boom and bust cycles, and practically speaking on a tech oriented forum, the IT and internet world would be more robust, more profitable and not less, and much more secure. That it doesn't happen enough is just obvious-thee is no provision for a "who watches the watchers" in our modern "system". We have a theoretical way to do that, but with the seizure of our governmental system by two for-profit organizations, who operate in a "scratch my back and I'll scratch you'rs" mode, a lot more than what they will admit to, you can see how this system is broken and how abuses will continue. Occassionaly, in order to show they are "doing something", they will "sacrafice one of their own" in order to throw a bone to the "bashers", but it really is more of a busywork facade than any true expression of "cleaning up business and it's partner government".
please excuse remaining typos, spent enough time on this post for now
--where I live there isn't any paper record. There's a digital record that you have to accept as authentic, based on "trust" with no "verify".
Wishes? Back to full normal paper ballots, low tech. Extremely easy, still works fine, you can see on the thread that canada has no problem with voting and counting and recounting this way. there's zero reason other than the fraud potential to go electronic voting. Also like to see a 24 hour voting day, not a business hours vote day that discriminates against people who have to go to work. I've seen way too much evidence that a lot of people don't vote because they can't get out of wark. I actually quit a decent job before when I wasn't "allowed" to leave so I could catch getting in line at night, a day they insisted I work overtime past poll closing. Cost me serious folding money just to go vote. Right now it's more welfare people and business owners/bosses who are more likely to vote, as they have more control over their time schedule. And a first choice, second choice, etc, on the ballot, so people would be more likely to not do this "lesser of two evils" vote, and also a "none of the above" choice.
--and did you contact any whistle blower styled news people in this state? Have you called this in, written a letter to the editor to the journal constitution, filed any ethics violations with the secretary of state? did you STOP YOUR VOTE at your precinct when you found this out? This is the first I have heard of this memory leak and reboot problem, and I have looked for info.
This election was flawed,and my guess it was thoroughly rigged, key races, key precincts, you can't tell if what the diebold guy told you is true or yet another scam, no idea what rebooting did. At best you know at your precinct how many bodies walked in the door, and what the machine told you there on the spot, that's it. No one knows what the real numbers are. No one even knows the real collated numbers, do they? It's all based 100% on this vague "trust us, we are the new corporate government, we would never lie to you". And do you really believe a republican governor got elected? In Georgia? And that cleland lost? Disregard personal left/right schisms, just the sheer common sense odds of it happening.
We are living in a high tech styled germany of 1936, that's my opinion. Orwell was wrong, it's WORSE than what he prophesized.
One last thing, why did you say "Fortunately, there was no big stink made about this after the election, even though two major statewide races had surprising (and close) results."
Fortunately? You think this is a GOOD THING? and you are a poll worker? I am GLAD that this is caught on the web here, I just MIGHT do something with this little post of yours.
have a GOOD DAY.
--I'm in georgia and I disagree with you 100%. The vote went FAST, it didn't go WELL. You, me, NO ONE in this state except a small handful of private parties knows how the real vote went. And said private parties have some verifiable ties to some partisan orgs. Early on in the morning there started to be a flurry of voting screwups reported,where the tally you mentioned DIDN'T jibe, in fact where a vote cast for candidate A went to B, something that seems outside the odds of probability given the simple nature of the code involved to register a hit someplace, I mean c'mon! there should have been ZERO mistakes. this is not an indicator of tested code that works as advertised, it's not super computer massive variable crunching we are talking about. This was reported even on drudge,I left at 1 pm to go vote, got back a little after 2 or so, and it was POOFED within that time and was minimalised and barely talked about during the evening, then the story disappeared. It was dismissed. And we had the first mass reversal in the governorship since the civil war, and this is to be taken as a coincidence? And there was a lot of pre and post polling that didn't jibe as well with the 'results". I'm neither a D nor an R,so I don't got a dog in this fight, but I just slap don't believe it. And I'll repeat, you do NOT know the vote went well, whether it was accurate, or whether or not it was rigged anyplace. There's no way to look in an empty ballot box in the morning to see it isn't pre stuffed (traditionally the first person in line in a precinct, I have done this myself). There's no way to look at the full box and see what the count is beyond believing what they say the count is, or to be more accurate, what it spits out at you.
When I did my complaint, they shuffled me off on the phone to some private voice on the phone who wouldn't even identify where he was to me. He wasn't even a governmental employee by his own admission. They refused to let me even talk to anyone who was a state of georgia official, I got the classic help desk with no answers shuffle. I said flat out it was closed source, no way to verify it, there was a high probability of fraud and certainly the potential for abuse, and the guy got indignant, but he KNEW I was stating the truth.
We HAD paper ballots, they WORKED perfectly ok and were not hard to figure out, and no "hanging chads" possible, it was fill in the bubble next to the vote. Any call for a recount can be done by any citizen at the end of the voting day following normal procedures in front of witnesses, regular old eyeballs still work. The ballot boxes were paid for, like 100 years ago or something, there was NO NEED to spend millions of dollars on this OTHER than to use smoke and mirrors razzle dazzle to fake out the rubes with the "new and improved computerised voting" "Look how easy it is! The computer does all the work!" The talking laquer heads on the boob toob were having near orgasms over it, another red flag for me, whenever the controlled press is "for" something I smell a rat,because a rat has always shown up in the past when they acted like shills and not newspeople. Phooie. they sold these scam voting machines the same way they sold over hyped stocks during the bubble, they shilled them. I saw the "public information" ads, I still got my flyer they sent to voters touting how cool it would be. double phooie.
Color me suspicious as hell, as far as I am concerned the vote got hijacked in an extremely sophisticated manner and hardly no one gives a squat about it. Georgia was their test state to see if they could get away with it in an entire state, they did, now it will go nationwide.
Don't take this as a personal flame, but I just had to disagree strongly here. When I look around and see what else is going on, aww %^&*T! It's a duck, it looks like a duck it walks like a duck it's quacking like a duck it's a dang fascist junta takeover. This "vote" scam just fits in with all the other bush-wa that's going on.
This is my second reply in the thread, but I am gonna drop this link again anyway, I think the subject is important enough.:
Votescam
Right on and I got an even better idea-recognize that computerised voting is the LAMEST idea that has happened lately. All it has done is automate the ballot box stuffing potential, and made it near impossible to verify any actual count. Voting is IMPORTANT, it shouldn't be EASY, it's not supposed to be like ordering a book from amazon, it's the most important thing a citizen does besides sit on a jury and you are supposed to think about it, take it serious, and go do it. Yes, you should go stand in line,and mark your paper ballot. I filed a protest at my precinct this last election over this, it was our first "computerised voting". It was dismal, the precinct officer was completely clueless, was not even able to understand the concept of it getting programmed (and stuffed) in advance,with no way to verify it. She kept telling me, "no, it's flawless, if there's a dispute, we just rerun the tabulations!"
homer sez DOH!
I got my "voted" sticker, it has a little iconized computer pointing at itself, with the caption "I voted!". THAT'S RIGHT, the $%^**ing COMPUTER voted, I got no way to tell if I voted.
Background to some important information for USians:
votescam, the stealing of america
--following your corporation's line of reasoning, I am driving by your house, I notice some badguy breaking into it (call it obvious, smashing the lock or something pretty suspicious). I own a cell phone, I can A-call the cops, or B-ignore it as you didn't pay me in advance to waste my time and protect your house. Note: I have a job too (several, one of them actually is security related), my time is as valuable as yours, and you getting burgled doesn't cost me a penny directly.
Is it moral for me to just ignore a possible crime-in-progress of a common sense observatory level of "severe"?
It costs your company a pittance in money and time (as it would me to make a cell phone call in my hypothetical scenario) to post updated possible threat scenarios on your web site and CC them to appropriate other security related sites, in real time. I am sure it could be automated as well.
To me, it is petty, short sighted, and not even in your best interest financially in the long run to not do that, but that's your corporation's choice, and is fully in lock step agreement with similar corporate "secret stuff" that is going on that eventually is proven to be detrimental, and in fact, causes so much business loss as we are seeing now. "Greed", in other words, and contrary to popular corporate opinion, is not good.
The history of state granted corporate charters (in the US at least, not familiar with other nations that much) had a provision that said corporation did in fact and by law have a duty to be of a public interest and benefit, along with whatever widgets it made or serviced or traded in, it was NOT totally about your rights to profit as the only criteria for granting the corporate charter.
IMO, this needs to be readdressed and severe limits placed on corporations, time limits for granting these charters, and to make it easier to remove said charter given a proven pattern of not serving the public interest as a full part of the charter.
With that said, and following my own line of reasoning and law and history noting, I think microsoft should have lost their corporate charter a long, long time ago, and maybe this particular worm would never have happened. don't know, call that a maybe, but for sure their products and related apps wouldn't be in such a profuse use now.
I think "corporate america" needs to really step back and take a long hard look at how you are perceived by just the "common man" speaking in broad general terms now. There's a phrase - "people are starting to talk", that fits here.
"Corporations" are not all bad, nor all good, and neither is making money, everyone wants to make money, what is bad though is when any human or any corporation places the "making money" part over all other considerations. It certainly and must be a very important part,the making money part, else no need for the corporation, but to neglect the other parts is de-humanising and harmful.
There are extenuating circumstances and a human factor called ethics that comes into play. Some folks have little use for ethics, and no use to be "neighborly", if it interferes with "the bottom line". Me, personally, I have worked at some places like that, when it became evident to me that was the mindset that was pushed, I quit, moved on..
That is my opinion, anyone else's may vary.
PLEASE (anyoe reading this, this is generic commentary)do some more research on homeland security, patriot act 1, patriot act 2, model states health emergency act, and recent FCC rulings. The saying the supreme court has ruled "they need a warrant" is terribly simplified and in fact now is as useless as screen doors on a submarine. Really. It's beyond a joke. This is very complex, laws they have now and are proposed in the house and senate and stand a good chance of passing completely gut most of the "bill of rights".
here's one of the latest FCC rulings, just for surveillance:
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAEAR1B5CD.html
Federal Regulators Ease Restrictions on Technology That Can See Through Walls
By David Ho Associated Press Writer
Published: Feb 13, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) - Technology that can see through walls to help police track criminals and aid firefighters searching for victims received a boost from federal regulators Thursday.
Responding to industry requests, the Federal Communications Commission tweaked restrictions on ultra-wideband technology, which sends millions of narrow pulses each second over airwaves to get a precise reading of an object's location and distance. The signals also can carry huge amounts of data over a short distance.
The technology has many potential uses, from wireless home networks of computers and other appliances to collision-avoidance systems in cars. Ground penetrating radar systems using ultra-wideband can detect objects or people buried under earth or debris.
"While I hope we have no reason to ever use ultra-wideband to assist search-and-rescue teams in a disaster, I'll be glad that we have this tool available should the need arise," said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps.
The FCC established rules a year ago permitting the marketing and operation of ultra-wideband products. The latest rule changes will allow manufacturers to design devices that gather clearer images, said Edmond Thomas, chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology.
The agency is still studying the new technology to ensure it doesn't interfere with other broadcasts.
The FCC announced the rule changes at a demonstration of ultra-wideband devices at the agency's headquarters.
Several companies showed off ground-penetrating radar devices that resemble heavy-duty lawnmowers with flat computer screens mounted on their handles. The devices can locate utility pipes and lines underground or in concrete.
Time Domain Corp., based in Huntsville, Ala., demonstrated a "through-wall motion detector," a briefcase-sized, 10-pound device that can be held up to a wall. A person moving behind the wall shows up as a colorful blob on a small display. The detector is intended for use by law enforcement, firefighters and the military.
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On the Net:
Federal Communications Commission: http://www.fcc.gov
--they have better quality tech than this, and are using it now, without warrants or with blanket regional warrants which are illegal for anyone in government to reveal the existence of, from helicopters, and are mapping various urban and rural areas, including mapping inside your home. Like I said this is complex, I am not a professional IT guy but I spend hours every day researching subjects such as this, and I can assure you, this "warrant" stuff is about almost completely obsolete when it comes to "practically speaking".
The DMCA conversations here pale in comparison to some of the much more important issues that are happening and should be discussed. I actually have little use for looking at such low level arguments when the whole she-bang is about to poof into total fascism. I recognize for a lot of geekdom that "entertainments" are very important, as well as software and hardware modding, but any "restrictions" are the tip of reality iceberg. Understand my response isn't entirely directed towards this response or even the parent, just seemed a good place to put it, saw no other good thread for it.
IMO, on a scale of 1 to 10, these constant threads on "entertainments" and hacking to get more free "entertainment" are at scale of a 10, with 1 being "important stuff". I hope anyone reading this will google for info on the above named acts, actually download them and read them, tedious as hell, and just as scary when you read the fine print and understand this is guys with guns and badges are being ordered to take this seriously.
Anyone can have any interest they want, I just find it sad that "entertainment" related threads and topics can garner so much enthusiasm and outrage for the slightest "infraction of my right to be entertained".
---E commerce? "selling widgets and/or widget servicing"=sales. OK, question, are you in sales or are you an "IT" guy? Here's a hint, people showing up at a site running osx are usually *not poor*, their demographics are leaning a lot towards "we spend top money and are known for brand loyalty if we are treated right".
Admit it-I got a point? Rhetorical question, I think I made it. Basic rule of thumb in sales 101, you have to get through the noes to get to the yesses. Part of any "yes" potential is , well, having da loot. The interest on the part of the surfer was there, you got the hit, they showed up at your URL, they are doing the customer's part. That's all they can do up to that point. The next step is up to you.
good lucksi
--they lied about not knowing about patriot act 2, and they are slipping in various provisions of it inside other unrelated bills. The email surveillance will go on same as you can imagine. This is typical government triple speak. It's getting pretty weird out in dotgov sieg heil land.
...same/similar mirror flexing tech they are using for the AirBorneLaser weapon, if I recall correctly.
...not sure why "this solution" is being used, my guess is because of the nature of the power supply, and the costs involved, the sheer low quantity of the electric that's able to be produced, and the sophistication of the end users. Set up hard, running it after set up easy? And maybe travel back and forth to remote regions is harder than bopping on the tube or jumping in the belchfire for a spin to the store. That could be why he's doing it onsite now. Heck, I've lived places in the US it was quite the adventure to get to any "store" at all, let alone any tech store or place to get help on a tech question. This ws back pre internet days. I guess being even more remote than that causes some occassional problems, but I will agree the boxes should have been developed off site and QAed better. I think it's called making a mistake, bet everyone reading this has done that. The glass houses-stones postulate appplies as well as murphy's law..
Really just guessing on all this though.
I think a better deal would have been to get low powered, best battery life functional laptops donated from someplace and use them, perhaps modded for pure DC use, eliminate all that inverting, converting and perverting jazz that goes on to get juice to where it needs to be. Using the laptops built in battery as a cushion for the intermittent pedal electrical power seems the best idea. That and see if any of the big alternate energy suppliers would donate some stuff for more juice on site. I know from just one of my PV panels I can get enough juice during the day time to run one of my older laptops easily. Umm, I do it all the time. I also know in monsoon season in the tropics this isn't practical, so that's my guess on the pedal powered deal.
--I agree completely. This annoying EULA nonsense has gone on long enough. Professional software companies want a EULA and for it to be contract quality, they want the big bucks, no problem, that's cool,but then the customer needs to sign a legal contract with a witness, a notary, whatever is applicable. If that puts a dent in for-sale propietary software, I don't care. Less releases, better quality per release is a better idea, IMO.
....so in essence the good part is, this is an easy to set up secure WAN with restricted users and groups.
The bad part could be you have to be "microsoft dot netted".
hmmmmm
--say the ISPs eliminate the 10% using the 90%. The VERY next day, they will still have the 10% who use the 90% of the "new and improved" capped bandwith service. that's the deal with averages, you will always have the highs and lows, so they can claim that right back down to 300 baud.
The basic premise is, computers and the net were on a course for faster computers, faster net, so obviously general "bandwith" consumption will go up. this is why we pay for 'better", so "better" is supposed to "produce" by economies of scale and increased technological sophistication. it either does or doesn't, the ISPs are claiming now it doesn't, and some folks smell a rat, like the 'energy crisis" with middleman "traders". This has been true for years. Your exact answer is "all of the above". People want more bandwith for EVERYTHING you can do on the net! I used to view a lot of ascii pages on the net, npow averag4 page size has exploded and is media and feature rich. It's that simple! It's NEAT! I remember my old acoustic modem experiences, sheesh, even this crappy dialup I have now is much faster, yet I would really like a smidgen more. For me it might be videophone with my relatives, cheaper than long distance and more fun. I'd like to get streaming video alternative news, something that didn't look like a never quite in focus series of stills like it does now. For others it's music, or software tryout junkies. It don't matter, because it truly is "all of the above".
What is happening now-near as I can see reading the thread-is that all these ISPs are deciding that that model isn't going to be true any longer.
Now the argument is a he said/she said set of hearsay. Some folks assert the tech and infrastructure is there to allow this expansion to continue and for the ISPs to still make a profit, others assert it isn't. My guess is it's both, I would imagine there's gouging going on and industry collusion (give this very high odds), but that consumer *true* costs for their intarweb experience have been offset over the years by venture capital and banner advertising, etc, leading to false expectations on the consumer level.(give this even higher odds)
note-I am speaking as a rural dialup modem user who barely gets a 28 to 31 connection on good days. I don't download mp3s and the thought of entire linux distro ISOs is laughable. Laughable. When I get a new distro it's snail mail on a cd. I would like to have the "internet" that is sold on television commercials, full streaming video and whatnot, but that isn't happening anytime soon. I currently have my choice of local single monopoly or not having internet (I don't consider that thousand buck satellite stuff quite "there" yet to call it across the board consumer level)
The only obvious solution is pay as you byte wired internet, with a very reasonable fee per megabyte of traffic-either way-, same as buying your electricity or gas for the car. Package deals and offering "always on" and "unlimited" really are consumer fraud, annoying as hell, and should be outlawed in most instances to be advertised as such. Reminds me of cans of soup that allege "serves four". Four WHAT I don't know, but they never serve 4 humans.
The other bane is monopolies, the cable companies got monoplies way back when install costs were cheaper, and I distinctly remember them promising commercial free televison to get those licenses. I SAT in a city council meeting when this was claimed. And the over the air large commercial television and radio networks are supposed to serve the public interest, and that baby got thrown out with the bathwater a long time ago,a LONG time ago, and THAT is where the bandwith could come from, and the "last mile", if (US speaking here) the FCC would stop being a set of paid off bribed goons and stop rubber stamping those lucrative airwave licenses for the major networks. Entrenched theft of the public airwaves, they've been hijacked by half a dozen major private for-profit corporations. Hijacked, it's now carved in reality stone their licenses will get "renewed" no matter what they do or what they "broadcast", so all that slick bandwith is gone.
They had their chance,and their news is biased fluff, their shows are now close to half commercials, and there's NO way they can cry "poverty" or that they haven't "made money" over the generations. I would think that generations of human time and umpteen billions of dollars is "enough". The public airwaves were never, ever, supposed to be primarily about private mega corporations "making money", you can go back and read the history of over the air radio. It's MORPHED into primarily making money, but it's SUPPOSED to be primarily serving the public interest.
That's one potential solution right there, going begging. And my guess is society might be a little different and a little better with the major hereditary networks cut off from their license to print money. When I see the FCC and the goon commercial networks allied with alleged "Public Interest" orgs like NPR shaft micro broadcasters, my thought is scrap that monopolistic system and try again, with a "more fair" model and with the wireless internet in mind, which is the next logical step over one--> way wireless transmissions. That was last century, let's move along now, and open up "communication" -which is all the internet is-to everyone even better.
--banks, starting with central banks on down, ARE one of the biggest scams running. Start with the premise they can "loan" you money-called fractional reserve, ie, they only have a fraction of what they can claim as a reserve- they don't have, then charge you "interest" on it. Sweet deal for their fat tushies.
Governments like to own the "money" because of the lawful thievery that goes along with this "central banking" and "tax" scam. Big bankers run the world, run the wars, finance all the sides. bah humbug, filthy creatures. Back a long time ago the founders flirted with paper money, it was a disaster (not worth a continental), they went back to precious metals based money, that worked until they switched again.
People who love fiat money also really believe that they can pick any day and the high numbers represented by the 'stock market' figures are all magically "worth" all this money and all this "stock" can all be changed into "money" that can purchase goods and services. I mean buck for buck,, like all the stock could be cashed in/sold at once and be "worth" what they are quoted at that day, ALL of it.. Past bubble I can't tell ya how many people I talked to who put x cash in, their magic beans dot bomb stock went to x3, then they "lost money", like every single one of them somehow could have gotten this high point "money". Just amazing, pure fairy tale, but so many so called adults still believe this.
It don't matter, people who can understand the difference between "wealth" and "money" will continue to do well, people who won't will one day wake up "bankrupt" and wonder why it happened when they were "rolling in dough" before, and "all set" with their "secure job".
People really have only two choices when it comes to learning from history, they "do" or they "don't".
--that's fine, I understand. We'll call it even, no hard feelings. I usually can't see beyond getting cussed at, I sort of draw the line there on the internet.
with that said, I had no idea my use of that slang term was so controversial. I always thought of it as more a generic term for new or inexpericend user, an alternate to n00b or something like that, a good natured razz term in other words. We all been there and know people there, heh.
On slashdot here, once you can learn to wade through the trolls, there's some serious brains, I am usually in medium awe of a lot of the tech expertise that's here. I like to interject when there's something that maybe might be of marginal use to someone, which isn't often enough given I'm not an IT professional either. I have other skills that only marginally relate to IT, so I tend to more read all the tech stuff and comment on politics or the economy, in this case in this thread I thought it would be interesting to give a non IT person's consumer point of view.
thanks again for the reality check
..it's hard to answer exactly. The best (I think)you can do is look at the closest and most current examples of what looks the most *like* what you see happening. The best parallel example. For those of us in the US, I'd say look to some place like argentina, note where the argentinian middle class is at now, compared to two years ago.
--the US is being mostly maintained by it's position as the world default trading currency. In particular pegged to oil being bought and sold in terms of barrels versus "dollars". Lately there's this new currency called the euro, which is slightly backed by gold. Iraq was the first muslim oil producer to demand payments in euros. Hmm, one of those coincidences no doubt.... Japan holds the most US debt paper and cash by a foreign nation, but they more want/need oil then US dollars and have been quietly withdrawing sums and re investing, ditto the oil producing nations. We've been running a trade deficit with many nations, notably mainland china. All these nations have more or less noticed that by continuuing to use the dollar as a unit of trade, that all the US has to do is..print more dollars, to the tune of..I forget, it's trillions and trillions, none of it really backed by anything other than inertia. In short they have been paying for a lot of our "prosperity". A lot of it. The dollar has been "falling" that means losing worth in the terms of international money people in relation to other currencies. The Fed has been allowing this to happen for two reasons, they just can't justify printing more money, and no one really is all that jazzed on our money now, it's like the lesser of a few other fiat evils. It makes our exports marginally cheaper, but as we produce less and less, that's less and less valuable. As we buy more but the dollar is worth less, that stuff will cost more, and the only way to offset that is to print more money worth nothing and the cycle continues, and everyone is tired of the cycle now.
Now it gets even more interesting. There's a new currency on the block, called the gold dinar. The muslim nations are going to be switching to this shortly, primarily for various balance of trade settlements with themselves, and the wags have it that eventually they will demand foreign payments in-their own money, which means both the dollar and the euro will be worth less, as first they must buy a dinar, and being backed by gold, this will require these other nations to have gold-or something else tangible to trade. something else has to be manufactured, dug up and mined, drilled for, or grown, as that about covers real wealth.. Malysia is the first nation to adopt this, but it will soon be common amongst the muslim nations, and will be a viable alternative for those nations even over the euro, because they have what everyone else wants-the oil. Never forget the oil, and don't forget "water". Now nations outside the US, then outside europe, will have *no* need to add a middleman to their trading, once these ouil nations can get what they want without involving the dollar or the euro. They won't have a need, so they won't do it. Now back to water. The tigris and euphrates in Iraq are the largest sources of fresh water in the middle east. This is important and not mentioned a lot in the media unless you look for it. We have around the world going on something like 6 billion people, and roughly enough oil and water for at best 1/4 of those (or less) people with any sort of remotely close to a western styled "middle class" lifestyle. The deal is, the cat is out of the bag and now people all over the wortld sorta want that house and car and tv and stereo and computer and running water and cheap gas and electricity and supermarkets and whatnot. A lot people in the west tend to forget most people around the planet only have slight amounts of all that "stuff" with some exceptions here and there..
And that's what's happening with the money, it's becoming increasingly irrelevant as opposed to the important tangibles. The "market" wants to keep the trade in money, especially western pure fantasy printed up money, going and shilled up as long as possible, because it's a damn cushy job and great congame as much as anything else. It creates fabulous amounts of profits for the middlemen and skimmers. The people who actually have the wealth and produce the wealth are getting annoyed, and the global "investment" markets know it. Everyone is getting a little scared. This scared part is called a flight to quality, among other terms. We are in what's called a bear market because the previous bubble bull market was selling at-dunno, pick a big number,10 to 50 times what it ever could be conceivably worth by anyone rational.
The "market" is what they call "correcting". This is like seeing a house in flames and saying "it appears the neighbors are having a barbecue". The economy in the US is built mainly on unsustainable credit that's already spent and gone, it's not coming back, and is beyond bankrupt, again, inertia is keeping it afloat as much as any other complicated theory.
The world is and will be warring over natural resources, primarily the wet and clear and the black and gooey. Take it from there. I know this is all sorta jumbled together, but your question on what's up with the economy deserved more than a single sentence, but a real analysis would take volumes, I tried to give you a very basic in a nutshell view, at least as good as I can see it. It should be possible to extrapolate some more reality with it, see what the TV spokesweasels say, see what really happens, and go on from there.
You are living in the "good old days" now, enjoy them and tell stories to your grandkids. Get ahold of decent rural property with water on it, so your grandkids have a place to live. Best advice I got for anyone now. This isn't all doom and gloom or chicken little action, this is just a general way to say for at least the next decade to two decades, IF we can avoid major global war, that it will not get much better than it is now, and odds are it will get..much worse I'm afraid.
..I'm listening to a live radio show right now, the hosts are reading off passages from this proposed act.
it's t-total fascism, no other word fits.
regional vague search warrants, mandatory sentencing for using encryption if they allege you are engaging in "terrorism", public financial records of high level political fatcats are now to be secret, legalization of allowing foreign military and police to operate domestically inside the US, federalization of local grand juries, federalization of autopsies, classification of literally any crime they choose as 'terrorism". It makes it illegal to disseminate any information that you might have about anyone "detained" who has been snatched and disappeared into the secret military tribunal system. Think about that one....
I'm going to download it and read it myself, but those are some of the larger high-lights I am hearing. If anyone is interested, it's alex jone's and john stadtmiller's dual-host weekend show.
infowars.com
--whenever third parties get any even modicum of press coverage they do quite well. And there's no telling if it was to continue how the political landscape might change. That's why the two headed hydra junta who control government now won't let a third party candidate or candidates on the podium in the "national debate" on TV.
Best thing would be to allow a choice by number, ie, first choice for pres is yada, next choice, yada, etc. People would be more inclined to vote their REAL first choice that way. This "waste your vote" stuff is designed to scare people into voting gang A or B, and that's it. The only wasted vote is one not cast, IMO.
here is a better url for this topic
http://www.fas.org/irp/mystery/index.html
--I was aware of the various space plane designs. I was more thinking of the *alleged* advanced craft that are flying. I am really speculating now, no actual data of course, but the web has various references* that can be found. It could be that for the public & civilian spaceplane concepts they are limited in using only technology that is up to a certain publically acknowledged threshold of advancement, which would require them to re-invent the wheel in an inefficient (but still functional, obviously) manner in order to protect the better quality designs in the secret prototype craft.
r oo m_projects.html
*google search, random selection reference url
http://www.dreamlandresort.com/black_projects/g
remove slashdot-inserted space in "groom" part of url