--just use a vcr, it will record audio only just fine, have timers, and can do up to 8 hours worth on EP, then dump it at your leisure to your computer using whatever compression you want and audio in jack.
alternatively, there are several radios with built in cassette decks that will record on a timer basis. I just hit google on it, tons of hits, several brands and models.
ultra engineering geek, get a programmable thermostat and mod and hack away.
never owned a tivo, but won't it work on an audio input? or does it require secret hidden signals to work? No idea on that really.
--not sure now, I'd have to go back and break out the quad focals and read the fine print on their latest operating marching orders the DOJ gave them. I think they can't do that anymore but I just ain't sure. Maybe it's not true that they can "insist" on "no other OS on the drive"? Or two drives and two OSes, with one of each, which I think those major box makers ought to do anyway, the dang drives are so inexpensive now. That's what it's going to take though, mass marketing by one of the computer manufacturers who advertises on TV, one of the big guys. A "It's your CHOICE" campaign. "Choice" is a buzzword that is recognizable. " Choice! We here at belchdata boxen have listened, and now you get the best of both worlds! here ya go, two installed operating systems, all the apps you can shake a stick at, we listened, we heard you!" Something like that.
--good hardball playing man, you think a lot like I do when it comes to tactics. Reminded me of the great scene in the movie the untouchables, sean connery (local cop malone) saying to kevin costner (young elliot ness) of how to fight the mafia "If they pull a knife, you pull a gun; if they send one of your guys to hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue."
..I have to admit I don't live in any major urban area nor visit and shop much. I honestly don't know what's on the shelf any longer at any of these various electronics stores. I got a chinamart and a small office supply to look at locally. If lycoris is on the shelf there at Fry's for 20$ that's better than nuthing,it's a good thing, I hope they do well, or maybe decide to merge efforts with another company, which is a better idea, IMO.
Best I can do in an individual effort is to encourage my real world and cyber world friends to try something "new" out, which I already do. Every time they get nailed with the daily virus, they get a polite razz. When people tell me this or that is "too hard", best I can say is to just freeking try getting out of first gear with your computer. I tell them you would at least learn how to hit all the gears on your car, your brane ain't gonna explode to give it the same effort with a computer. You got more than first gear and "engine stop". I know it's a real tough nut to crack, I can see that readily, so all I can say to the various distro guys is hang in there, less releases but better quality,get togerther and see if ya'all can't AT LEAST pick A desktop and some way to update, pick a freeking set of normal apps and make sure they work well,and keep it very reasonable in cost, and do your best to get the pc makers to at least give their customers an option. And if that means to some of the programmers and orgs and companies etc, who contribute code for profit or free, to swallowing some pride and going to help out the closest existing to your point of view major effort instead of "yet another effort-wasting branch" of this or that OS or app, then do it. Just do it. From the outside looking in, there's way, way, way more than enough "distros" and "apps" out there that strive to do the same exact thing. That's about it.
I like the voting model going in the parent article. I'd like to see that concept go to some sort of even higher level, to consolidate some of the branches back into a stronger effort. Maybe that's impossible, I just don't know, but the extremes are that-extremes- one OS and one function app ain't enough, 50 lebenty dozen is "too much". Cooperation is not a cuss word, it actually "works".
Railroads got to be a good deal from standardizing on at least a track size and width.
tell ya whut my first impression when I heard the term "net" associated with "microsoft". OH NO YOU DON'T! They are RICH ENOUGH now, they made "enough" money as far as I am concerned, and they got a confirmed track record of the high level management there being lying weasels. I think of them the same way I think of professional sports "gods" and "artists" out of hollyweird, just way over-paid and over-valued and over-hyped for what ya get. And luckily I'm not in some "business" area where I am forced to use their stuff by the PHBs in order to "make money", thank goodness. I am not gonna get trapped in that "net"! Once is enough thankew very much!Just too many viruses associated with their products, too many security vulnerabilites, and for them to start throwing around buzzwords like "net" and "trusted" they can byte me. Paying 100 clams to get guaranteed viruses is not an option any longer, and any "businesses" still sucked into their crap are being run by idjits, they are wasting money time and effort by the truckload. It's no wonder the US economy is in such weird straights. How many clues do ya need?
If I was car shopping, and I looked up and down the street and all I saw was "belchfire motors" cars in peoples driveways, and every hood was up and the car was being worked on every weekend, I would just not buy a belchfire, even if "everyone buys them" was the reality at the time. Enough's enough for that company, time to move on. When belchfire was first made, sure, it was cool, worked well enough, helped everyone get a car on the road, but something happened, and quality and security became "job 7896" for them. Time to let em go. The guys in the trenches can work someplace else, the fatcats there can live on the profits they got, and if that ain't enough tough kitty, that's the belchfire solution. The "stock holders" I could care less about, I don't believe in either usury or getting something for nothing in the wall street rigged casino scams.
..really, that's cool, didn't know that-and neither do the other 50 million people who buy peecees at the store. I don't see it on the shelf at the two stores locally that sell software. Get it on the shelf there for ten bucks I'll try it, maybe the other 50 million might try it. One cd good, 5 or ten bucks easy to buy, better. Easy to uninstall and install the best. I'm on a modem, downloading mega gobbles of stuff ain't happening. It's already a hassle keeping up with releases and patches as it is now, let alone downloading the entire shebang every few months and then restarting the patch stuff. Too many releases, too many distros, and the stoopid desktop manager wars is beyond nutso. Not spending two weeks downloading just to "try something out" when for ten bucks as an impulse buy at the local store I might grab it. The KISS principle.
There's software programming and development,serious hobbyist involvement, then there's retail selling of same in mass quantities, two ENTIRELY different things.
I'm in between, neither a hard core software programming geek, nor "joe average just use whatever came on the box when it was bought" person. I got a real good perspective because I'm so close to the middle there I can see both sides points of view. Reluctant lazy computer users relying on brand loyalty and some big company to keep them happy are sorta clueless, and ubernerds thinking everyone is gonna drool at their latest patched and 'skinned' version.xx67ab.9x whatever thing are just as clueless. Now I don't mind tracking down a clone OS maker online,and ordering online,and trying this and that out, it's SEMI fun to me, but 49,999,999 other people DO mind doing that and ain't gonna do it. And I'm not gonna pay full release distro price for a set of cds-or even one cd- to try them out at 20, or 30 and up a pop price when there's dozens and dozens of release distros out there, that's hundreds of dollars just to "tryout" the top dozen to see what I may like or not. Not_happening_ever. 5 or ten bucks home tryout surfer version, sure,maybe at least, 20 to 60 dollars per distro? Nope! And then rinse lather repeat every 6 months? huh? It's not gonna happen, not in any big way. If non-geek joe and josephine average pooter users people spend their time downloading it's gonna be 99% music or pictures. I know it, you know it, they know it, everyone knows it, so we'll take that as a gimmee. This OS or that OS has to be in the store cheap on the shelf or preinstalled, one or the other or both, and it can't cost so close to the borg in price that people go " Huh? WTF is this $%^7, why should I do this I can barely run what I got, downloading patches is hard enough and a hassle, I don't even know what this crap is". But for ten bucks, MAYBE they might try it, a "try it out" version, especially if there's a way to have a total OS install "undo" button to mash. Knoppix is sorta like that now, and it's a GREAT IDEA, it lets someone try before buy (install) in a way. I can assure you, I know plenty of people who would try various other OS's if it wasn't such a hassle to repartition, have another hard drive, etc because they don't want to lose what they got already. It's a valid concern. If any distro had a "temporarily install it to see if ya like it and it's easy to remove and won't break anything " option button to mash when ya stuck the CD in it would be a *good thing*. People I know I've encouraged to "try" something besides the borg have a point there, they are afraid they are gonna lose whatever they got now, and they sure might. As a consequyence "new and improved das peoples' distro du jour" still hasn't caught on that well, despite being 'out there' for ten years plus. Major clueskis there. I will tell you it's real real hard to get people to even try a new OS unless you just go over and do it for them, then you are on the hook forever as the free support guy.. They MIGHT try it themselves if it was cheap enough and easy enough and on the shelf in plain sight and could be easily "undone", like clicking to remove any other app, because that's what people think it is, another app.. I can't tell any distro guys how to do that either,get it in the stores on the shelves cheap, not my business gig. And with dozens of distro "orgs" out there, all claiming to me "they are the best, the other guys are lamers and suck", well?????
My opinion is you simply can NOT assume everyone else in the known universe is a hard core software programming geek and will jump through any serious hassle hoops to try "anyone your's" OS version out. Very small numbers will, that's all you're gonna get with that mindset and business model.
That ain't a dis to freebsd or linux any other OS flavor or to any person, just noting "real whirrled" reality a little. Human beings develop inertia, and brand loyalty that they will stick with even though what they are using ain't the best or cheapest. If that wasn't true there wouldn't even exist the term "brand loyalty".
--I think if any of the big guys can get a one cd retail version that can be put on the shelf for ten dollars that linux will "take off" for joe average. Reality is reality, "money" has to come into the picture in a much bigger way or linux is gonna stay an also ran, no matter how good it gets. Geeks who are totally happy to spend all the time in the world tweaking and downloading etc are less than 1% users very broadly speaking. That's the choice, keep it geek only or not, it's binary.
That and as soon as some of the bigger box makers like dell start making their "home peecees" come with at LEAST an installed dual boot, or have an OS option choice sitting right on the showfloor that is reflected in a cheaper fairer price for the same exact hardware config over to the "best electronic buys in your office world city" store.
A ten buck (or so) "home surfer" with some other stuff that's pretty cool" distro release would be nice. If the clone companies can do it, so can the distro releasers, making it one cd will allow at least a single small paperback manual included, written in ENGLISH (or language of choice that is not acronym based geek technogarble to most people) to be included in that price. I mean really, man pages need actual translation for most people. They "work" for geeks, that's it, kinda sorta.
Releases needed, IMO --> "home surfer", "small business that is an office", "enterprise business that is an office and also needs to be a host/server on a whopper scale".
Scale it up like that, add extra cds for what might be wanted "Games! cd" whatever, "all kinza artsy fartsy stuff" cd, "mega media enjoyment" cd, "office crap up the wazoo" cd, and charge more then, there's another ten bucks. The competiton is roughly one hundred dollars, and it's not that hard to have enough apps included at even the ten buck range to make it pretty spiffy, but don't overload it as well, too much is as bad as not enough. People get into new stuff this way crawl>walk>run.
Adjust 'support' accordingly. Have a generic optional CD that has tons more generic apps, and sell it separately from the other releases. Keep ALL of them under the pricing of the borg. And make SURE that what's included *works*,ESPECIALLY getting online and NOT GETTING OWNED WITHIN 15 MINUTES, and release less stuff, but make it better quality, and upgrades as flawlessly as possible - release to release - without breaking the last generation install.
Prices have dropped for the coupla big dog releasers,the releases themselves are very very good, this is GOOD, now make it BETTER and get that stuff on the shelf and on the new PC boxes.
signed, joe consumer who wants to do more than just tweak forever and ever to make things work.
they will sell these things, got all the latest buzzwords. People will be standing in the aisle at bestbuy wherever, see it, read the little shiny cardboard signs, "plays and shows all your stuff from anyplace through your giant tv and stereo with remote control and walks the dog and washes your car and no wirez". they will sell a few of them.
--this is my bleeding edge 5 year old top of the line machine. It was medium doggy with 32 ram, but at 226 it seems perfectly normal on rh7.2. I am just constantly amazed at all the references to machines this old as being useless, throw em away, etc. I can ran a half a dozen apps at the same time and it works perfectly OK. I don't run videogames or do weather modeling, that is apparently the only (very generally speaking now) real need for latest multiple giga herz machines that I can see.
Can't wait to actually find the correct stepping chip and the correct volt regulator for like 5$ so I can add the second cpu to the mobo. heh, poor mans easy upgrade path.
And a hearty "thankyou" rich guys for buying new stuff at ridiculous prices so all us peons can get them for peanuts later on. Capitalism roolz.
Thanks! What you said. I was in a rush this morning and didn't have time to do such a good job as you did with the corporations and their history. A lot of folks seem to think corporations have always been as they are now, which you have shown is simply not the case.
Now, if people would take the personal time to research the actual history of the origins of the "federal reserve act" and how that has lead to the longest running largest concerted ripoff in US history we could sort some economic *things* out better. Too bad it's not taught in public schools, guess it would conflict with "diversity awareness" training or some such.
Here's another one most folks don't get. Ask some adult how much "tax" the US people pay. You'll get rough answers like 50% etc. I doubt one in 10,000 has thought it through to the logical conclusion that 100% of the money is taxed back into "government" hands in well under 10 commercial transactions, yet the government persists in the "debt" fiction for generations.
I hope your post gets modded up to a more appropriate level. It deserves getting maxed out +
... a better model and more universally ethical would be for the US government to scrap the laws that made corporations "persons". All that did was obfuscate human responsibility. "Corporations" are allowed to pay "humans" profits-they get the fruits of their labors, but when it comes time to dispute some manner in court it becomes a "corporate" problem and it's extremely hard to pin down which exact "humans" are at fault or liable. Extremely hard. Magnify this by daisy chaining,especially offshore/internationally- where corporations are created on the fly on paper using yet again another front corporation of "lawyers" ad absurdum, so they can lease stuff to themselves, use one corporation to "lose" money at to avoid taxes, use another corporation to pay for "expenses" that regular old single individuals can't deduct as expenses, etc etc it becomes -enron and worldcom.
What they are doing now is a pre-CYA effort with these ethics agreements. It's already theoretically illegal to break the law. This contract agreement is duplicating what already exists in yet another fashion. It might have a marginal effect. It's "feel good" legislation and effort, a facade move.
What would be interesting is if employee "guilds" (can't use the U word, that is considered swearing in IT land for some weird reason) would band together and force employers to sign personal accountability statements with serious fines held in third party escrow accounts for violations of breach of contract with their employees, for instance for issuing orders that are illegal, insuring open honesty in accounting, promotions, business models, etc, but that ain't happening any time soon, the PHBs and cartel lobbyists (the PHB unions) and polytickshuns would through a hissy fit.
--the only market I can see for the watches is to help increase some box vendors sales "buy the new belchdata2003 turbo PC, get this nifty watch *free* with purchase" like they do with printers now.
---you are welcome. Glad someone read it. If you can ever catch her being interviewed live it's worth it. Rense.com *might* have her in their audio archives, but last time I looked his archives were still in the messed up stage of being moved and hosted at a different place, but it might be worth a search on his site. Also if you explore the links off that original page I linked to you can find some more info, pity the book isn't completely available for download though.
Despotism starts slow. A war with another country they can "believe in". anything closer to home just 'can't happen". People just "can't believe they would do that"
History shows "they do"
Anything else is just a little too hard to comprehend for most people. "Bad stuff" is only on TV, it doesn't really exist. There's a term used, I didn't invent it but it's accurate for this phenomenon, it's called "cognitive dissonance".
When I was a younger man, I watched 5 cops stomp another young man to death. His "crime" was exercising his first amendment in public, definetly non violently, as I was right there, maybe 10 yards away, watched the whole deal go down. It never even made it to the newspaper, no one was ever charged. No pictures exist, cameras on the scene got confiscated.
They were laughing as they did it
I won't forget
one reply for an AC, thanks for the comments and you are welcome
...this is really cool except for the price! 2500 clams?!? say WHUT? huh?
I've had TV in my vehicles (all vans or RV's) since the early 80's, it's cool. Think I'll pass on phased array tv until it doesn't phase my wallet as much. I have a crank up and crank down swivel antenna now on our RV, works ok. If over the air don't work, pop in a tape. If that don't work, I got 4 other radios to choose from, 3 of them transceivers. If that don't work for "entertainments" I'll park and chase the ole lady around.
Information I have is that a huge amount of psych profiling is going on inside the government, both the alleged "civil" branches and the military. Those that would "play ball" with any edicts-ANY edicts-will remain inside CONUS. Ones that are still useful waging war overseas will BE overseas once it starts to "get hairy". Backup forces for internal use will come from some of the newer NATO member states,primarily the old warsaw pact nations, and perhaps some other places, notably mexico.
Humans are humans. In the 20th century the amount of people killed by their own governments is way more than people killed by foreign governments in warfare, ie, nation invading another nation. Every one of those goons taking part in the demonization and persecution of their own people was "someone's father, son, brother, uncle", etc, but they all just "followed orders" when it got down to it. It happened. It's just data.
Obviously not "everyone" would go along with it, but "enough" would. I know too many people now in both the military and in the police(ex now of course) who have quit and gotten out for these and some other reasons, their basic reasons are "they don't like what they are seeing". The older guys are more than a bit concerned over how things have changed. I can't really recreate from memory all the conversations I have had, but that's really it in simple fashion.
YMMV of course, but these are some of the reasons I write as I do, I have to, by what my research and personal anecdotals are leading me towards as analysis. If it was different I would state as such, and write differently. I don't enjoy stating such, but I think it is important enough to take the time to do so when the occassion presents itself.
couple of urls for anyone's perusal, first is to some articles from aid & abet, a publication by and for police, guard and active duty, all of whom recognize the dangers I am speaking of, and have themselves gone out on a limb to comment about what they know: http://www.uhuh.com/guns/aid-abet/aa-index. htm
another good resource from alex jone's infowars.com site http://infowars.com/videos.html#takeover
think of it more as a wakeup call than an indictment, as forewarned is forearmed, my purpose isn't to "dis" anyone
one reply for AC, thank you for comments and you are welcome
--a question then. How would a blind person know whatever the link text is actually IS a link? I've never used software for that purpose, is there an audio cue, or does the software just tell you in words like "the following is a link" to "link over", or something like that?
comment to any search engine guys
on
You Can't Link Here
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
--yo, if any search engine doods are reading, please, take these websites' wishes to heart, don't have them show up in any of your searches! No links is "no links", give them what they want.
%^)>
that ought to sort things out better for the PHBs at these various webpages
--I'll give ya an Ok on that, both valid. Analogies can be flawed, it was the easiest quickest I could think of. In cars, the big companies are proud to have their corporate stickers on the modders machines. This doesn't happen with computer hardware and software very much, they throw a hissy fit and want you to "not do that" in most cases. they go way out of their way to lobby to make it illegal as much as possible. Can we agree on that as being a valid and generic point as well?
The alternative in software is mandated by law closed source, you ain't messing with it, OR, create millions of criminals, people who want to change or alter or use in a different way software that isn't under any of the various freeware licenses. Well, we can see how effective that is.
As to eulas in general, the ones from your favorite cast of characters, my point is still valid, a very lucrative market that is still allowed to be sold without any sort of useability warranty, and a lot of hassle if you plain don't like it or it doesn't work as the implied advertising indicates and you wish to return it. It's "possible" but they certainly make it hard to do and isn't usually. It's a bogus lawyerese gobbledegook get out of jail free card. It's fairly unique in consumer products as well, I honestly can't think of any other mass produced consumer products out there that are allowed to be sold with such absurd features in them.
ok, here goes, YAA a yet another anology! bigfun!
an appliance eula following closed source software eulas
"hi, welcome to your new Acme toaster! this toaster carries no guarantee it will actually toast slices of bread. Although it looks like a toaster and has two slots in the top and we got a picture of a nice plate of hot buttered toast on the box, your bread may not fit and the toaster itself might not heat up,and it might even catch fire and torch your house down, but well, caveat emptor and stuff, but our cousin leroy seemed to hint that once in awhile he got some toast out of his. By reading this agreement and clicking here and plugging it in, you agree that you may or may not get toast out of this thing, and even if you don't, you are not allowed to open the thing up and see why not, and if you want to return it, you must jump through these various hoops and most likely you'll get told "no" most of the time. If you need assistance, you have to call this expensive phone number, hang on hold for a few hours, then get told to replug your toaster back in as you are probably not using it correctly, because no way would the toaster not work, it's your fault, that'll be 2.99$ a minute thankew p.s. also by clicking here and having this toaster in your kitchen, you agree that any of our representatives can come into your kitchen and look around whenever we feel like it, and maybe rearrange your cupboards or if we feel like it dump your milk on the floor. maybe in the future we might change your doorlocks as well, you'll find out when we tell you. buh bye, and hope you enjoy your new Acme toaster"
or some such noise.
thoroughly bogus, and please, don't tell me most eulas aren't written like that.
--umm, martial law is already here, it's codified in under various Emergency Powers Act provisions, several of which we are currently "running" under. Check the federal register and google.. Peruse the patriot act and even more some of the provisions under the model states health emergencies act. for starters those are some good places to look for clues.
All the airports are now federal enclaves with an uberdirector assigned to each airport, and a combo of federalised security and military present 24/7. Police forces across the nation are receiving federal funding, federal direction and pure military hardware and training. Uniformed military personnel are already manning "courtesy" checkpoints on highways across the US in conjunction with alleged "civilian" police-granted, not on a huge scale yet but it's been happening. There are several up and running "civilian" prisons on military bases. Many of the so called "closed" military bases are in fact openly maintained as "open for some sort of business" with no apparent purpose that is publically released. Just breaking on drudge right now, a federal court has issued a ruling that the military/executive branch can declare whomever they see fit as an "enemy combatant", thereby removing any so called bill of rights protections if said indidvidual happens to be from the US. Just another one of them pesky clues, one of thousands.
There's just so much actual information out there now, it would be extremely hard to point at any one single url or whatever for me to make these points. It's complex but the gestalt is-look around, do independent research from as many positions and directions as possible, both in "real world" personal contacts and cyberworld research, take all the thousands of smaller pieces and make a big picture out of them, add 2+2, you can see what's coming. Closest historical and relevant parallel I can make is we are roughly the same point germany was around 1935 or so. The difference is that now psyops is much more sophisticated and pervasive and extensive, and that actual sureveillance/command/control technology is generations beyond anything available back then.
My bottom line- to anyone, not being personal now- is, if you ain't concerned and a touch scared, you ain't paying enough attention, or, you really don't want to.
"Paranoia" is an irrational fear of what isn't there. Recognizing a verifiable potential threat based on observable and redundant data is "just that".
...in this instance I was being polite and non vulgar. the actual term used by the "officers" is "F*****g civvies" said as one word. It's a sort of different mindset, but it helps ya get a good handle on what's going on.
I'll tell ya just one of my sources for info, one that really affected me. I have a relative, young guy, entered the army as a career. Half way through to a pension,10 years, his last posting was as a trainer at west point. He quit, even after they offered him a pretty substantial re-upping bonus. His reason was he didn't want anything to do with going to war on the US civilian population. Literally going to war is how he phrased it. I mean he was that blatant and open about it, it was quite clear. He is and was pretty non-political, typical young guy interests of cars, girls, sports, etc. What he was seeing and hearing (and being ordered to teach others in his training) was enough for him to chuck out a career and pension, etc and go back to civilian life cold and just look for any other job.
..hate to be a spoilsport but a huge amount of the latest military training and equipment developed and deployed is intended for domestic use. This is an involved topic not readily addressed in a few posts, but doing some research it becomes *fairly* apparent.
Part of my own personal research is talking to active or retired or semi recently quit members of various US "forces". I have heard some rather disturbing *things* along these lines. Very disturbing. Here's one just at random, a lot of training now revolves around indoctrination that US civilians have no constitutional "right" to bear arms. Another is training for manning roadblocks and for doing house to house searches in regards firearms confiscation.
The model states health emergency act is an eye opener as well. You can see/guess what's coming and it ain't nice. Forced... everything. Reading on "less than lethal" weaponry you can find out more, microwave beam weapons, sonic weapons, various gasses, etc, all designed for mass riot control, and to deflect any immediate criticism that it's only for "foreigners" overseas someplace in some war, these weapons are being provided to US police forces as well. Another clue is the intense militarization of US police forces, emphasizing military styled training and hiring ex military personnel over traditional policing and maintaining that police are civilians. Nowadays police refer to non police as "civilians", noting therefore they are "not". It's a mindset and series of occurrences that should be setting off a lot of alarm bells in people's minds now.
It's also a big clue why the army has started on adopting a lot more wheeled armor over tracked, much easier to use in cities and on roads. Yes, easier to transport as well, but still...
I guess you can class it as propoganda, but I term what I write as merely open promotion of a viewpoint,and I usually provide at least *some* background that leads to the reasoning. Best I'm gonna do on short internet forum posts.
---I "save and invest" but not in the usual manner, not really. Zero stocks or bonds, etc, none.Not even close to being classed as wealthy in any sort of traditional dollar figure way.
I "invest" in things differently, I always strive to eliminate middleman steps and costs for my goods and services, like I bought solar power, so I have a guaranteed minimum electric supply paid off now for years and years. Long term food,open pollinated heirloom seeds,etc, etc what is considered "normal" in the survival and preparedness community but not what is considered normal in "mainstream" joe six pack everything "just in time" community. All of my wealth is (well more or less) in tangibles assets of some form or another. As to money for money's sake, nope, never been a real high interest of mine, and yes, I know that's considered weird but other's opinions of that are not really my concern. Different strokes and all.
Umm, economically your data might need to be rechecked. Just a few thoughts here. We went from the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation in roughly 25 years. If that isn't considered "going down the crapper" I don't know what is. It's not all the way flushed yet, and the swirling around is contributing to the razzle dazzle, but she's been flushed. Check-just for a few-the top ten US banks derivatives exposure, the fortune 500 pension funds exposure, and re-run the social security ponzi scam projected numbers. Check population demographics in the US again. Just look at those, now add in true governmental borrowing/debt as opposed to them calling a reduction in spending once in awhile as a "surplus". Now look at international balance of trade figures. Now look at successful new business starts as opposed to closings and bankruptces and off-shore moves. If you want even more go back and uncook wall street historical indices by re-including the companies they pull off the bottom of the lists when they tank. That little *gem* of a misdirection is used to keep the numbers artifically inflated, it's a great shill.
I don't consider "accumulated debt combined with offers of more credit" to equate "produced accumulated wealth", although, again, I realise most people think they are the same or similar.
Now I don't think it's hopeless, but I do think that there seems to be an agenda or two out there to make things "bad" for awhile and to do it on purpose. You may ponder what that purpose might be for. I have some theories on it. I will term it a "controlled socio/economic implosion with some good plausible deniability" leading to yet another term which is "technofeudalism". Hope I'm wrong, not seeing a lot of evidence to dissuade me, look as I might.
Economically I'm a neo-bear right now if I can coin a term, socially for the US with politics as it is and some other factors I am a hardcore pessimist. Hardcore and not trying to dodge it whatsoever. I don't want to be but I am. The term used is "dragged kicking and screaming" to that position. I make provisions accordingly, and any friendly advice I give people is based on that, same as anyone else comes to conclusions and might offer a view or some advice. I know during the bubble I kept telling friends who were heavily "into" the market to take the profits while they could and not try to ride it to ridiculous heights that were so far out into implausible-land as to be laughable. Some did, some didn't, oh well. What I DO do is change my viewpoint occassionally based on new input and better data and changing current events,and I consider nothing man does as "carved in stone".
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--just use a vcr, it will record audio only just fine, have timers, and can do up to 8 hours worth on EP, then dump it at your leisure to your computer using whatever compression you want and audio in jack.
alternatively, there are several radios with built in cassette decks that will record on a timer basis. I just hit google on it, tons of hits, several brands and models.
ultra engineering geek, get a programmable thermostat and mod and hack away.
never owned a tivo, but won't it work on an audio input? or does it require secret hidden signals to work? No idea on that really.
--not sure now, I'd have to go back and break out the quad focals and read the fine print on their latest operating marching orders the DOJ gave them. I think they can't do that anymore but I just ain't sure. Maybe it's not true that they can "insist" on "no other OS on the drive"? Or two drives and two OSes, with one of each, which I think those major box makers ought to do anyway, the dang drives are so inexpensive now. That's what it's going to take though, mass marketing by one of the computer manufacturers who advertises on TV, one of the big guys. A "It's your CHOICE" campaign. "Choice" is a buzzword that is recognizable. " Choice! We here at belchdata boxen have listened, and now you get the best of both worlds! here ya go, two installed operating systems, all the apps you can shake a stick at, we listened, we heard you!" Something like that.
--good hardball playing man, you think a lot like I do when it comes to tactics. Reminded me of the great scene in the movie the untouchables, sean connery (local cop malone) saying to kevin costner (young elliot ness) of how to fight the mafia "If they pull a knife, you pull a gun; if they send one of your guys to hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue."
works for me
..I have to admit I don't live in any major urban area nor visit and shop much. I honestly don't know what's on the shelf any longer at any of these various electronics stores. I got a chinamart and a small office supply to look at locally. If lycoris is on the shelf there at Fry's for 20$ that's better than nuthing,it's a good thing, I hope they do well, or maybe decide to merge efforts with another company, which is a better idea, IMO.
Best I can do in an individual effort is to encourage my real world and cyber world friends to try something "new" out, which I already do. Every time they get nailed with the daily virus, they get a polite razz. When people tell me this or that is "too hard", best I can say is to just freeking try getting out of first gear with your computer. I tell them you would at least learn how to hit all the gears on your car, your brane ain't gonna explode to give it the same effort with a computer. You got more than first gear and "engine stop". I know it's a real tough nut to crack, I can see that readily, so all I can say to the various distro guys is hang in there, less releases but better quality,get togerther and see if ya'all can't AT LEAST pick A desktop and some way to update, pick a freeking set of normal apps and make sure they work well,and keep it very reasonable in cost, and do your best to get the pc makers to at least give their customers an option. And if that means to some of the programmers and orgs and companies etc, who contribute code for profit or free, to swallowing some pride and going to help out the closest existing to your point of view major effort instead of "yet another effort-wasting branch" of this or that OS or app, then do it. Just do it. From the outside looking in, there's way, way, way more than enough "distros" and "apps" out there that strive to do the same exact thing. That's about it.
I like the voting model going in the parent article. I'd like to see that concept go to some sort of even higher level, to consolidate some of the branches back into a stronger effort. Maybe that's impossible, I just don't know, but the extremes are that-extremes- one OS and one function app ain't enough, 50 lebenty dozen is "too much". Cooperation is not a cuss word, it actually "works".
Railroads got to be a good deal from standardizing on at least a track size and width.
tell ya whut my first impression when I heard the term "net" associated with "microsoft". OH NO YOU DON'T! They are RICH ENOUGH now, they made "enough" money as far as I am concerned, and they got a confirmed track record of the high level management there being lying weasels. I think of them the same way I think of professional sports "gods" and "artists" out of hollyweird, just way over-paid and over-valued and over-hyped for what ya get. And luckily I'm not in some "business" area where I am forced to use their stuff by the PHBs in order to "make money", thank goodness. I am not gonna get trapped in that "net"! Once is enough thankew very much!Just too many viruses associated with their products, too many security vulnerabilites, and for them to start throwing around buzzwords like "net" and "trusted" they can byte me. Paying 100 clams to get guaranteed viruses is not an option any longer, and any "businesses" still sucked into their crap are being run by idjits, they are wasting money time and effort by the truckload. It's no wonder the US economy is in such weird straights. How many clues do ya need?
If I was car shopping, and I looked up and down the street and all I saw was "belchfire motors" cars in peoples driveways, and every hood was up and the car was being worked on every weekend, I would just not buy a belchfire, even if "everyone buys them" was the reality at the time. Enough's enough for that company, time to move on. When belchfire was first made, sure, it was cool, worked well enough, helped everyone get a car on the road, but something happened, and quality and security became "job 7896" for them. Time to let em go. The guys in the trenches can work someplace else, the fatcats there can live on the profits they got, and if that ain't enough tough kitty, that's the belchfire solution. The "stock holders" I could care less about, I don't believe in either usury or getting something for nothing in the wall street rigged casino scams.
..really, that's cool, didn't know that-and neither do the other 50 million people who buy peecees at the store. I don't see it on the shelf at the two stores locally that sell software. Get it on the shelf there for ten bucks I'll try it, maybe the other 50 million might try it. One cd good, 5 or ten bucks easy to buy, better. Easy to uninstall and install the best. I'm on a modem, downloading mega gobbles of stuff ain't happening. It's already a hassle keeping up with releases and patches as it is now, let alone downloading the entire shebang every few months and then restarting the patch stuff. Too many releases, too many distros, and the stoopid desktop manager wars is beyond nutso. Not spending two weeks downloading just to "try something out" when for ten bucks as an impulse buy at the local store I might grab it. The KISS principle.
.xx67ab.9x whatever thing are just as clueless. Now I don't mind tracking down a clone OS maker online,and ordering online,and trying this and that out, it's SEMI fun to me, but 49,999,999 other people DO mind doing that and ain't gonna do it. And I'm not gonna pay full release distro price for a set of cds-or even one cd- to try them out at 20, or 30 and up a pop price when there's dozens and dozens of release distros out there, that's hundreds of dollars just to "tryout" the top dozen to see what I may like or not. Not_happening_ever. 5 or ten bucks home tryout surfer version, sure,maybe at least, 20 to 60 dollars per distro? Nope! And then rinse lather repeat every 6 months? huh? It's not gonna happen, not in any big way. If non-geek joe and josephine average pooter users people spend their time downloading it's gonna be 99% music or pictures. I know it, you know it, they know it, everyone knows it, so we'll take that as a gimmee. This OS or that OS has to be in the store cheap on the shelf or preinstalled, one or the other or both, and it can't cost so close to the borg in price that people go " Huh? WTF is this $%^7, why should I do this I can barely run what I got, downloading patches is hard enough and a hassle, I don't even know what this crap is". But for ten bucks, MAYBE they might try it, a "try it out" version, especially if there's a way to have a total OS install "undo" button to mash. Knoppix is sorta like that now, and it's a GREAT IDEA, it lets someone try before buy (install) in a way. I can assure you, I know plenty of people who would try various other OS's if it wasn't such a hassle to repartition, have another hard drive, etc because they don't want to lose what they got already. It's a valid concern. If any distro had a "temporarily install it to see if ya like it and it's easy to remove and won't break anything " option button to mash when ya stuck the CD in it would be a *good thing*. People I know I've encouraged to "try" something besides the borg have a point there, they are afraid they are gonna lose whatever they got now, and they sure might. As a consequyence "new and improved das peoples' distro du jour" still hasn't caught on that well, despite being 'out there' for ten years plus. Major clueskis there. I will tell you it's real real hard to get people to even try a new OS unless you just go over and do it for them, then you are on the hook forever as the free support guy.. They MIGHT try it themselves if it was cheap enough and easy enough and on the shelf in plain sight and could be easily "undone", like clicking to remove any other app, because that's what people think it is, another app.. I can't tell any distro guys how to do that either,get it in the stores on the shelves cheap, not my business gig. And with dozens of distro "orgs" out there, all claiming to me "they are the best, the other guys are lamers and suck", well?????
There's software programming and development,serious hobbyist involvement, then there's retail selling of same in mass quantities, two ENTIRELY different things.
I'm in between, neither a hard core software programming geek, nor "joe average just use whatever came on the box when it was bought" person. I got a real good perspective because I'm so close to the middle there I can see both sides points of view. Reluctant lazy computer users relying on brand loyalty and some big company to keep them happy are sorta clueless, and ubernerds thinking everyone is gonna drool at their latest patched and 'skinned' version
My opinion is you simply can NOT assume everyone else in the known universe is a hard core software programming geek and will jump through any serious hassle hoops to try "anyone your's" OS version out. Very small numbers will, that's all you're gonna get with that mindset and business model.
That ain't a dis to freebsd or linux any other OS flavor or to any person, just noting "real whirrled" reality a little. Human beings develop inertia, and brand loyalty that they will stick with even though what they are using ain't the best or cheapest. If that wasn't true there wouldn't even exist the term "brand loyalty".
--I think if any of the big guys can get a one cd retail version that can be put on the shelf for ten dollars that linux will "take off" for joe average. Reality is reality, "money" has to come into the picture in a much bigger way or linux is gonna stay an also ran, no matter how good it gets. Geeks who are totally happy to spend all the time in the world tweaking and downloading etc are less than 1% users very broadly speaking. That's the choice, keep it geek only or not, it's binary.
That and as soon as some of the bigger box makers like dell start making their "home peecees" come with at LEAST an installed dual boot, or have an OS option choice sitting right on the showfloor that is reflected in a cheaper fairer price for the same exact hardware config over to the "best electronic buys in your office world city" store.
A ten buck (or so) "home surfer" with some other stuff that's pretty cool" distro release would be nice. If the clone companies can do it, so can the distro releasers, making it one cd will allow at least a single small paperback manual included, written in ENGLISH (or language of choice that is not acronym based geek technogarble to most people) to be included in that price. I mean really, man pages need actual translation for most people. They "work" for geeks, that's it, kinda sorta.
Releases needed, IMO --> "home surfer", "small business that is an office", "enterprise business that is an office and also needs to be a host/server on a whopper scale".
Scale it up like that, add extra cds for what might be wanted "Games! cd" whatever, "all kinza artsy fartsy stuff" cd, "mega media enjoyment" cd, "office crap up the wazoo" cd, and charge more then, there's another ten bucks. The competiton is roughly one hundred dollars, and it's not that hard to have enough apps included at even the ten buck range to make it pretty spiffy, but don't overload it as well, too much is as bad as not enough. People get into new stuff this way crawl>walk>run.
Adjust 'support' accordingly. Have a generic optional CD that has tons more generic apps, and sell it separately from the other releases. Keep ALL of them under the pricing of the borg. And make SURE that what's included *works*,ESPECIALLY getting online and NOT GETTING OWNED WITHIN 15 MINUTES, and release less stuff, but make it better quality, and upgrades as flawlessly as possible - release to release - without breaking the last generation install.
Prices have dropped for the coupla big dog releasers,the releases themselves are very very good, this is GOOD, now make it BETTER and get that stuff on the shelf and on the new PC boxes.
signed, joe consumer who wants to do more than just tweak forever and ever to make things work.
they will sell these things, got all the latest buzzwords. People will be standing in the aisle at bestbuy wherever, see it, read the little shiny cardboard signs, "plays and shows all your stuff from anyplace through your giant tv and stereo with remote control and walks the dog and washes your car and no wirez". they will sell a few of them.
--this is my bleeding edge 5 year old top of the line machine. It was medium doggy with 32 ram, but at 226 it seems perfectly normal on rh7.2. I am just constantly amazed at all the references to machines this old as being useless, throw em away, etc. I can ran a half a dozen apps at the same time and it works perfectly OK. I don't run videogames or do weather modeling, that is apparently the only (very generally speaking now) real need for latest multiple giga herz machines that I can see.
Can't wait to actually find the correct stepping chip and the correct volt regulator for like 5$ so I can add the second cpu to the mobo. heh, poor mans easy upgrade path.
And a hearty "thankyou" rich guys for buying new stuff at ridiculous prices so all us peons can get them for peanuts later on. Capitalism roolz.
Thanks! What you said. I was in a rush this morning and didn't have time to do such a good job as you did with the corporations and their history. A lot of folks seem to think corporations have always been as they are now, which you have shown is simply not the case.
Now, if people would take the personal time to research the actual history of the origins of the "federal reserve act" and how that has lead to the longest running largest concerted ripoff in US history we could sort some economic *things* out better. Too bad it's not taught in public schools, guess it would conflict with "diversity awareness" training or some such.
Here's another one most folks don't get. Ask some adult how much "tax" the US people pay. You'll get rough answers like 50% etc. I doubt one in 10,000 has thought it through to the logical conclusion that 100% of the money is taxed back into "government" hands in well under 10 commercial transactions, yet the government persists in the "debt" fiction for generations.
I hope your post gets modded up to a more appropriate level. It deserves getting maxed out +
... a better model and more universally ethical would be for the US government to scrap the laws that made corporations "persons". All that did was obfuscate human responsibility. "Corporations" are allowed to pay "humans" profits-they get the fruits of their labors, but when it comes time to dispute some manner in court it becomes a "corporate" problem and it's extremely hard to pin down which exact "humans" are at fault or liable. Extremely hard. Magnify this by daisy chaining,especially offshore/internationally- where corporations are created on the fly on paper using yet again another front corporation of "lawyers" ad absurdum, so they can lease stuff to themselves, use one corporation to "lose" money at to avoid taxes, use another corporation to pay for "expenses" that regular old single individuals can't deduct as expenses, etc etc it becomes -enron and worldcom.
What they are doing now is a pre-CYA effort with these ethics agreements. It's already theoretically illegal to break the law. This contract agreement is duplicating what already exists in yet another fashion. It might have a marginal effect. It's "feel good" legislation and effort, a facade move.
What would be interesting is if employee "guilds" (can't use the U word, that is considered swearing in IT land for some weird reason) would band together and force employers to sign personal accountability statements with serious fines held in third party escrow accounts for violations of breach of contract with their employees, for instance for issuing orders that are illegal, insuring open honesty in accounting, promotions, business models, etc, but that ain't happening any time soon, the PHBs and cartel lobbyists (the PHB unions) and polytickshuns would through a hissy fit.
--the only market I can see for the watches is to help increase some box vendors sales "buy the new belchdata2003 turbo PC, get this nifty watch *free* with purchase" like they do with printers now.
---you are welcome. Glad someone read it. If you can ever catch her being interviewed live it's worth it. Rense.com *might* have her in their audio archives, but last time I looked his archives were still in the messed up stage of being moved and hosted at a different place, but it might be worth a search on his site. Also if you explore the links off that original page I linked to you can find some more info, pity the book isn't completely available for download though.
Despotism starts slow. A war with another country they can "believe in". anything closer to home just 'can't happen". People just "can't believe they would do that"
History shows "they do"
Anything else is just a little too hard to comprehend for most people. "Bad stuff" is only on TV, it doesn't really exist. There's a term used, I didn't invent it but it's accurate for this phenomenon, it's called "cognitive dissonance".
When I was a younger man, I watched 5 cops stomp another young man to death. His "crime" was exercising his first amendment in public, definetly non violently, as I was right there, maybe 10 yards away, watched the whole deal go down. It never even made it to the newspaper, no one was ever charged. No pictures exist, cameras on the scene got confiscated.
They were laughing as they did it
I won't forget
one reply for an AC, thanks for the comments and you are welcome
--what you want(more or less) exists, check the freqs and specs out
c r3 main.html
http://www.icomamerica.com/receivers/handheld/i
if you are rich and buy two, please send me one....
right now all I got like this is an old b/w watchman I picked up for 8$ used. works OK, but this icom unit, well, you get what ya pay for
enjoy
one reply for an AC
thank you and you are welcome for the comments
BTW,I don't do drugs or drink. Data is data, deal with it if you choose to, or ignore it. Your call, not mine.
...this is really cool except for the price! 2500 clams?!? say WHUT? huh?
I've had TV in my vehicles (all vans or RV's) since the early 80's, it's cool. Think I'll pass on phased array tv until it doesn't phase my wallet as much. I have a crank up and crank down swivel antenna now on our RV, works ok. If over the air don't work, pop in a tape. If that don't work, I got 4 other radios to choose from, 3 of them transceivers. If that don't work for "entertainments" I'll park and chase the ole lady around.
heh
yep...and no
. htm
Information I have is that a huge amount of psych profiling is going on inside the government, both the alleged "civil" branches and the military. Those that would "play ball" with any edicts-ANY edicts-will remain inside CONUS. Ones that are still useful waging war overseas will BE overseas once it starts to "get hairy". Backup forces for internal use will come from some of the newer NATO member states,primarily the old warsaw pact nations, and perhaps some other places, notably mexico.
Humans are humans. In the 20th century the amount of people killed by their own governments is way more than people killed by foreign governments in warfare, ie, nation invading another nation. Every one of those goons taking part in the demonization and persecution of their own people was "someone's father, son, brother, uncle", etc, but they all just "followed orders" when it got down to it. It happened. It's just data.
Obviously not "everyone" would go along with it, but "enough" would. I know too many people now in both the military and in the police(ex now of course) who have quit and gotten out for these and some other reasons, their basic reasons are "they don't like what they are seeing". The older guys are more than a bit concerned over how things have changed. I can't really recreate from memory all the conversations I have had, but that's really it in simple fashion.
YMMV of course, but these are some of the reasons I write as I do, I have to, by what my research and personal anecdotals are leading me towards as analysis. If it was different I would state as such, and write differently. I don't enjoy stating such, but I think it is important enough to take the time to do so when the occassion presents itself.
couple of urls for anyone's perusal, first is to some articles from aid & abet, a publication by and for police, guard and active duty, all of whom recognize the dangers I am speaking of, and have themselves gone out on a limb to comment about what they know:
http://www.uhuh.com/guns/aid-abet/aa-index
another good resource from alex jone's infowars.com site
http://infowars.com/videos.html#takeover
think of it more as a wakeup call than an indictment, as forewarned is forearmed, my purpose isn't to "dis" anyone
one reply for AC, thank you for comments and you are welcome
--a question then. How would a blind person know whatever the link text is actually IS a link? I've never used software for that purpose, is there an audio cue, or does the software just tell you in words like "the following is a link" to "link over", or something like that?
--yo, if any search engine doods are reading, please, take these websites' wishes to heart, don't have them show up in any of your searches! No links is "no links", give them what they want.
%^)>
that ought to sort things out better for the PHBs at these various webpages
--I'll give ya an Ok on that, both valid. Analogies can be flawed, it was the easiest quickest I could think of. In cars, the big companies are proud to have their corporate stickers on the modders machines. This doesn't happen with computer hardware and software very much, they throw a hissy fit and want you to "not do that" in most cases. they go way out of their way to lobby to make it illegal as much as possible. Can we agree on that as being a valid and generic point as well?
The alternative in software is mandated by law closed source, you ain't messing with it, OR, create millions of criminals, people who want to change or alter or use in a different way software that isn't under any of the various freeware licenses. Well, we can see how effective that is.
As to eulas in general, the ones from your favorite cast of characters, my point is still valid, a very lucrative market that is still allowed to be sold without any sort of useability warranty, and a lot of hassle if you plain don't like it or it doesn't work as the implied advertising indicates and you wish to return it. It's "possible" but they certainly make it hard to do and isn't usually. It's a bogus lawyerese gobbledegook get out of jail free card. It's fairly unique in consumer products as well, I honestly can't think of any other mass produced consumer products out there that are allowed to be sold with such absurd features in them.
ok, here goes, YAA a yet another anology! bigfun!
an appliance eula following closed source software eulas
"hi, welcome to your new Acme toaster! this toaster carries no guarantee it will actually toast slices of bread. Although it looks like a toaster and has two slots in the top and we got a picture of a nice plate of hot buttered toast on the box, your bread may not fit and the toaster itself might not heat up,and it might even catch fire and torch your house down, but well, caveat emptor and stuff, but our cousin leroy seemed to hint that once in awhile he got some toast out of his. By reading this agreement and clicking here and plugging it in, you agree that you may or may not get toast out of this thing, and even if you don't, you are not allowed to open the thing up and see why not, and if you want to return it, you must jump through these various hoops and most likely you'll get told "no" most of the time. If you need assistance, you have to call this expensive phone number, hang on hold for a few hours, then get told to replug your toaster back in as you are probably not using it correctly, because no way would the toaster not work, it's your fault, that'll be 2.99$ a minute thankew
p.s. also by clicking here and having this toaster in your kitchen, you agree that any of our representatives can come into your kitchen and look around whenever we feel like it, and maybe rearrange your cupboards or if we feel like it dump your milk on the floor. maybe in the future we might change your doorlocks as well, you'll find out when we tell you. buh bye, and hope you enjoy your new Acme toaster"
or some such noise.
thoroughly bogus, and please, don't tell me most eulas aren't written like that.
--umm, martial law is already here, it's codified in under various Emergency Powers Act provisions, several of which we are currently "running" under. Check the federal register and google.. Peruse the patriot act and even more some of the provisions under the model states health emergencies act. for starters those are some good places to look for clues.
All the airports are now federal enclaves with an uberdirector assigned to each airport, and a combo of federalised security and military present 24/7. Police forces across the nation are receiving federal funding, federal direction and pure military hardware and training. Uniformed military personnel are already manning "courtesy" checkpoints on highways across the US in conjunction with alleged "civilian" police-granted, not on a huge scale yet but it's been happening. There are several up and running "civilian" prisons on military bases. Many of the so called "closed" military bases are in fact openly maintained as "open for some sort of business" with no apparent purpose that is publically released. Just breaking on drudge right now, a federal court has issued a ruling that the military/executive branch can declare whomever they see fit as an "enemy combatant", thereby removing any so called bill of rights protections if said indidvidual happens to be from the US. Just another one of them pesky clues, one of thousands.
There's just so much actual information out there now, it would be extremely hard to point at any one single url or whatever for me to make these points. It's complex but the gestalt is-look around, do independent research from as many positions and directions as possible, both in "real world" personal contacts and cyberworld research, take all the thousands of smaller pieces and make a big picture out of them, add 2+2, you can see what's coming. Closest historical and relevant parallel I can make is we are roughly the same point germany was around 1935 or so. The difference is that now psyops is much more sophisticated and pervasive and extensive, and that actual sureveillance/command/control technology is generations beyond anything available back then.
My bottom line- to anyone, not being personal now- is, if you ain't concerned and a touch scared, you ain't paying enough attention, or, you really don't want to.
"Paranoia" is an irrational fear of what isn't there. Recognizing a verifiable potential threat based on observable and redundant data is "just that".
...in this instance I was being polite and non vulgar. the actual term used by the "officers" is "F*****g civvies" said as one word. It's a sort of different mindset, but it helps ya get a good handle on what's going on.
I'll tell ya just one of my sources for info, one that really affected me. I have a relative, young guy, entered the army as a career. Half way through to a pension,10 years, his last posting was as a trainer at west point. He quit, even after they offered him a pretty substantial re-upping bonus. His reason was he didn't want anything to do with going to war on the US civilian population. Literally going to war is how he phrased it. I mean he was that blatant and open about it, it was quite clear. He is and was pretty non-political, typical young guy interests of cars, girls, sports, etc. What he was seeing and hearing (and being ordered to teach others in his training) was enough for him to chuck out a career and pension, etc and go back to civilian life cold and just look for any other job.
Just a FWIW
..hate to be a spoilsport but a huge amount of the latest military training and equipment developed and deployed is intended for domestic use. This is an involved topic not readily addressed in a few posts, but doing some research it becomes *fairly* apparent.
Part of my own personal research is talking to active or retired or semi recently quit members of various US "forces". I have heard some rather disturbing *things* along these lines. Very disturbing. Here's one just at random, a lot of training now revolves around indoctrination that US civilians have no constitutional "right" to bear arms. Another is training for manning roadblocks and for doing house to house searches in regards firearms confiscation.
The model states health emergency act is an eye opener as well. You can see/guess what's coming and it ain't nice. Forced... everything. Reading on "less than lethal" weaponry you can find out more, microwave beam weapons, sonic weapons, various gasses, etc, all designed for mass riot control, and to deflect any immediate criticism that it's only for "foreigners" overseas someplace in some war, these weapons are being provided to US police forces as well. Another clue is the intense militarization of US police forces, emphasizing military styled training and hiring ex military personnel over traditional policing and maintaining that police are civilians. Nowadays police refer to non police as "civilians", noting therefore they are "not". It's a mindset and series of occurrences that should be setting off a lot of alarm bells in people's minds now.
It's also a big clue why the army has started on adopting a lot more wheeled armor over tracked, much easier to use in cities and on roads. Yes, easier to transport as well, but still...
I guess you can class it as propoganda, but I term what I write as merely open promotion of a viewpoint,and I usually provide at least *some* background that leads to the reasoning. Best I'm gonna do on short internet forum posts.
---I "save and invest" but not in the usual manner, not really. Zero stocks or bonds, etc, none.Not even close to being classed as wealthy in any sort of traditional dollar figure way.
I "invest" in things differently, I always strive to eliminate middleman steps and costs for my goods and services, like I bought solar power, so I have a guaranteed minimum electric supply paid off now for years and years. Long term food,open pollinated heirloom seeds,etc, etc what is considered "normal" in the survival and preparedness community but not what is considered normal in "mainstream" joe six pack everything "just in time" community. All of my wealth is (well more or less) in tangibles assets of some form or another. As to money for money's sake, nope, never been a real high interest of mine, and yes, I know that's considered weird but other's opinions of that are not really my concern. Different strokes and all.
Umm, economically your data might need to be rechecked. Just a few thoughts here. We went from the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation in roughly 25 years. If that isn't considered "going down the crapper" I don't know what is. It's not all the way flushed yet, and the swirling around is contributing to the razzle dazzle, but she's been flushed. Check-just for a few-the top ten US banks derivatives exposure, the fortune 500 pension funds exposure, and re-run the social security ponzi scam projected numbers. Check population demographics in the US again. Just look at those, now add in true governmental borrowing/debt as opposed to them calling a reduction in spending once in awhile as a "surplus". Now look at international balance of trade figures. Now look at successful new business starts as opposed to closings and bankruptces and off-shore moves. If you want even more go back and uncook wall street historical indices by re-including the companies they pull off the bottom of the lists when they tank. That little *gem* of a misdirection is used to keep the numbers artifically inflated, it's a great shill.
I don't consider "accumulated debt combined with offers of more credit" to equate "produced accumulated wealth", although, again, I realise most people think they are the same or similar.
Now I don't think it's hopeless, but I do think that there seems to be an agenda or two out there to make things "bad" for awhile and to do it on purpose. You may ponder what that purpose might be for. I have some theories on it. I will term it a "controlled socio/economic implosion with some good plausible deniability" leading to yet another term which is "technofeudalism". Hope I'm wrong, not seeing a lot of evidence to dissuade me, look as I might.
Economically I'm a neo-bear right now if I can coin a term, socially for the US with politics as it is and some other factors I am a hardcore pessimist. Hardcore and not trying to dodge it whatsoever. I don't want to be but I am. The term used is "dragged kicking and screaming" to that position. I make provisions accordingly, and any friendly advice I give people is based on that, same as anyone else comes to conclusions and might offer a view or some advice. I know during the bubble I kept telling friends who were heavily "into" the market to take the profits while they could and not try to ride it to ridiculous heights that were so far out into implausible-land as to be laughable. Some did, some didn't, oh well. What I DO do is change my viewpoint occassionally based on new input and better data and changing current events,and I consider nothing man does as "carved in stone".