One summer I was forced to park right in the same neighborhood as crack houses, etc, because of where I had to work. As did my co workers. They all locked their doors and trunks, result, all of them got busted glass and popped trunks. I warned them too, I really did, I said "look at reality, these cars are targets now". Nope, none of them listened. I left my doors unlocked and the trunk slightly open, just eased down. The ride was so old and ratty I wasn't afraid of it getting stolen, albeit that was a chance. There was nothing left in the car to steal, a very cheap in dash radio not even worth a dollar at a pawn shop, but I made it easy for the crooks to ascertain that, because I knew they would look.
Ya, it sucked doing that,the principle rankled me, but my practical nature took over, because it was better than having to replace a door window.
Most modern stick frame construction houses are vulnerable to a razor knife. Just pick a section of wall and slice a hole. You got plastic siding, a thin tyvek sheet, some cheap ass pressboard stuff,(glorified cardboard really), some spun fiberglass insulation, then drywall. That's all you need, a couple minutes with a razor knife and any thief can get in easy, let alone if they use something like a cordless sawzall thing.
This is common for survivalist and preparedness minded folks. You and a trusted relative or friend exchange backup critical gear/necessities/copies of records, etc. In case of catastrophic loss of either abode, the other person has a decent "backup" for you to fall back on. Arrangements like this have been quite common for some decades now, usually they include mutually assured lodging, should full long term evacuation be required. IMO, it is quite a sound idea. Remember on the news, you see the same scene all the time, those scenes from..take your pick, fires, floods, hurricanes or whatever.. the newsies always zero in on those folks who are all freaked out and sad, and EVERY time they say "We lost EVERYTHING!"..well, there's no need for that if you take the time in advance to preposition enough of your gear so it doesn't fall into the "everything" category. The situation will still suck, but having a nice set of backup everything will sure help mitigate things and make the situation suck *less*. As to what to exchange/store, use your imagination, what would you like to have as a backup if for some reason your home just got wiped out? Spare sets of clothes for everyone, favorite toys for the kids, some electronic gear, tools, sporting goods, books, other media of importance to you, family photos, household records, personal mementos, etc. Salt to taste there. Even just a stuffed closet is good enough, that and the place to evacuate *to*.
That, and what we call BOBs, or "bug out bags" are good ideas. A "bob" is a backpack or other container (backbacks are good in case you get stuck on foot), that has enough critical essentials to keep you alive for a week or so, enough even on foot to get you out of the disaster area most likely. It's called a bug-out bag from the old army term, and it is designed so if you have zero notice-hear on the radio local railroad has a tanker car full of chlorine leaking, nasty forest fire heading your way, and it's close, etc, that you can grab it and go, out the door within less than one minute. Very high speed emergency evacuation. The deal is, you hope you never need it, but if you do, it literally could save your life.
Interesting subject, and although it is not directly related to the main parent IT topic, the concept is very similar.
I've never tried any of those actually, are they really that much fun? Regular videogames leave me "meh" mostly,no interest. And I'm on dialup and also a cheap bastige, are there any you can play on slow speed connections and don't cost much or are free? And let you run Linux as the OS? I admit near total ignorance of the subject. Not that I need any more hobbies or timewasters, but always willing to try something new if there is some point to it (I guess with these games it's half fun, half meeting people online, or what?)
Quality US made cars, years ahead of their competition in Detroit. The Gt Hawks and the Avantis were *nice*. Never could afford either of those when they were new, but I did own a stude champ pickup and a sedan delivery. Once, back when I was making a lot more loot than now, I tried to buy an avanti 2 from a lot, but they would only offer a lease so I turned it down, but I got to do a "performance" test drive..although the salesman riding along with me didn't know that was going to happen until it was too late to say "no""...heh heh heh, dang quick little machines, tell ya whut....plush, too, real nice interior, six speaker blaupunkt, twin powered roofs, yada yada. Like I said, *nice*.
Probably cuased my share of greenhouse gas emissions increase that day, va-voom! heheheh
ya, not computer related, but the general question was "what companies would you add?", so there ya go.
Well, my folks weren't farmers but I grew up living rural working on farms, a variety of them up until my 20s, orchards, berries, market produce, then a dairy for a long time and a ranch, then I switched to urban living and worked some trades, but now I am semi retired (you know what that means farming, full time), and back on the farm. And I use the extension office some, but I still find it much faster and easier to look a lot of things up..hmm, odd fer instance, say there's a plant I just do not know the name of but notice it is getting more common, or some bug or another. Geez lotsa stuff really, like I outlined already.
As to parts, some I get local, others because of brand I have to order, no generics at all or local source, but there might be several places that have the parts so I shop around. I really find the net handy for a variety of reasons, like that biofuel project I will be starting. I've been into alternative energy for a long time, primarily solar, but the liquid fuels are new to me except for a long time ago I made some ethanol and ran a little bit of it for fun, but gas was so ridiculously cheap back then I lost interest, but now-fuel is not cheap, you know that. It all adds up. The farm we are on now is pretty reasonable for an east coast non-grain producing farm, it's not mine, I am just a worker here, but different from the other guys, one of my jobs is to think, see what can be done better, try different stuff out. I would really like to put a dent in the over ten grand a month electricity bill for instance or the having to get diesel by the thousands of gallons at a time with not much in the way of any price assurance other than what it costs that week or say the propane bill, which is serious 6 figures a winter. Stuff like that. I am doing a lot of research in those areas now and doing little pilot programs to see what might work and what might not work, and I am also looking in advance in case of any serious bad news stuff hits like avian flu, looking for ways to take what we have and diversify. Sort of an ongoing paid position to both conventionally farm and look to the future and see how we can do different things and do them better.
The net "just works" for finding out stuff, I mean nothing else comes close really.. And I don't care how old ya get or how much experience one may have, there's always something new to find out about any subject really, if it is in your interest, and ag in general is such a *varied* topic to begin with. With the changing economics and markets, it just pays to stay on top of trends and techniques, and I find the net to be about the best way to do that. I don't *want* to do the same thing all the other dudes are doing, that sort of market is saturated, I'm looking for diversification, lucrative niche markets, dropping expenses, etc. I can take a relatively cheap internet connection and both access a lot of smart guys research, and also eliminate middleman expense, a double plus good win in my book.
Well, I farm and I use the net all the time for information I need. Everything from finding the best deals on repair parts to looking up plants and diseases and treatments, various livestock care information (we have quite a variety now beyond cattle and poultry, just this past few weeks we added ducks, quail and now rabbits), there's always new seeds and plants to order, I'm doing the research on making our own biofuel now-picked up an old datsun diesel pickup today in fact, because I wanted one, finally found one in decent running shape for cheap-45 mpg!- and that will be the guinea pig for my home made fuel, and, etc, besides having the handy weather applet. Tons of stuff. Granted, there are workarounds like always for lack of web access, but it sure speeds things up considerably for me. A very rough average, but I probably use the net for something to do with this profession 5 times a week or so. I'd frikken *hate* to have to drive to town to go to the library for this. Frankly, I don't even like going to town, our main goal is to get as independent as possible so we don't have to except maybe 4 times a year or something. We live rural because that is where we like it better, the net helps us stay here and stay in the black.
Ya, we have stacks of farm mags, it still isn't the same as having a global library and informational resource at your fingertips. And that's leaving out the economic and political news. I do shortwave, too, always have since floor model tube jobs that doubled as living room heaters, but the net is like instant what you want when you want it, your schedule, not some one else's schedule.
Bottom line is, it's a fantastic tool if used as a tool. And if it is affordable and available, it will help our poorer brothers over in who_know's_where_istan as well. They'll find uses for it.
I know some folks have gotten their MS licensing fee back from other places, I am just wondering if anyone here has successfully gotten an MS license fee back from Walmart, when you say you don't agree to the terms and don't want it, but will keep the hardware? If so, would you outline the steps and what sort of check you received?
Perhaps this fee, if it could be gotten easy, might offset filling up that one open RAM slot. The machine should be perfectly fine then. Spec wise it's better than the one I am using right now for that matter, and this machine is fine with just half a gig of RAM running linux (FC6 right now).
Did you guys ever have any of the flexible solar PV panels that are out there? I have a couple of the mid sized Unisolar flexible ones, they are good enough to charge some small batteries, given you can get some Sun on them for a long time. Ours get strapped to the outside of our go-packs, FWIW. Not fantastically powerful, but adequate for some smallish devices.
And the new nanosolar offerings look to be tremendously lighter, although I don't know if they are actually on the market yet or if they even have samples you can get.
if this thing works they are going to be "rich beyond the dreams of avarice". I know I'd like a few of them guys like yesterday. I was actually thinking before of something a little simpler and more hardwired, just a fence patrolling bot, lay a guidewire down or mount it on the fence itself, have it crawl maybe 6 inches away and spray or burn or mow, your choice. but *this* thing, man, ability to ID different weeds?? Laser zapping?? Just too cool....
It's amazing to me that so many of even the already rich guys on wall street etc can't see how bogus the whole system is. The really rich guys won't let them have anything either, other than to suck up the blame when it crashes. Oh well, this is the internet age, people can read, learn some from history, and adjust their reality or not. If it gets to heads on pikes I'll stand back and watch, but don't have a lot of desire myself, I think their karma and being 100% tied to the just in time artificial scam economy system will be punishment enough.
Possibility, but when you need to do tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand birds all at the same time the facilities required get quite extensive. Joeboss has looked into it, it's millions of bucks, so that's out. Much smaller scale in this state they make it pretty hard, else I'd be doing it already. Just not cost effective until you are quite large, then it costs the big bucks to get established. Other states differ, the regs are all screwy and mixed up really. Basically, for just me, I am trying to diversify as much as possible and reduce expenses at the same time. that's growing more of our own food and putting it up (put in a lot more fruit trees and bushes and vines this year for example, and made the garden 50% larger), getting another freezer so we can pack a whole beef in there for *us*, getting more solar, try to establish the biofuel, etc. Huh, got some baby quail today! Man are they *teeny tiny*. It all adds up, a plate of chow is a plate of chow eventually.
Ya, perhaps too far north for us, we are in north georgia, close to tennessee line. Perhaps they have a slightly more cold hardy one, I'm looking into to it. Closest I have seen is claims that it can tolerate "some" frost.. As to the labor intensive, if I can pick a gallon of diesel every 5-10 minutes that's a dang good pay rate for me. At 30% yield by weight that's picking only three gallons with marble sized fruit-I think I can do that. I already *do* drudge farm work stuff. heh. If we can even cut the diesel bill in half plus guarantee a supply of *some* fuel, it will be worth it just for the economic future proofing peace of mind aspect, similar to how we run some solar now, use firewood as the primary heat, and grow a lot of our own food and have generator backups for power. Energy is important stuff, producing onsite is a huge technological and economic benefit. Trucks and tractors are thirsty guys and that's how we get our work done. If diesel goes up 50% and the rate we get for cluckeraptors and beefers doesn't..well? That and propane costs and electricity costs, etc are out of our hands, as is the wholesale costs that the big packer cartels will give the farmers. I mean, we slide just a scosh away from losing money all the time because of the food cartels and the middleman profits that *never* make it to the farmer. Example, if joe end consumer could pay just 5 cents-a nickle, literally 5 more pennies, that's it,-more for an entire small fryer at the store it would double our net. Double it. Margins are that thin right now. But we can't insist on that, the packers and the middleman skimmers/traders set the prices, and the government has made it near impossible to buck the big packers in any meaningful way. It takes multi millions of dollars and a ton of baksheesh to setup a packing house and get distribution contracts, it's near impossible, and just like the telcos, the big places have been buying each other up, making it worse and worse and worse for the farmers, we have less wholesalers to even think about selling to.
there's an expression, something about short and curlys...we're sorta stuck.
As to homegrown fuel, we are one geopolitical wildcard away from 100-200 bucks a barrel of crude, or worse than that even, think of it that way.
A lot of other farmers must be thinking similar, I am seeing a ton of interest in the farm mag rags about this subject, farm produced fuel systems. We *know* the system is being setup to bankrupt the farmers to get the land eventually for the huge corporations to own outright, you can smell it coming bigtime, like they did in the great depression version one, rig the economic system, crash it on purpose, pickup the real wealth at pennies on the dollar at the auctions. Lather rinse repeat, legalized mass theft. That's how the bigdogs operate, and they have total greed, and zero pity. If we as the producers of real wealth aren't eternally vigilant, we'll be en-screwed. It's a war on the middle class, the real wealth producers, easy enough to see that right now.
Anyway, I would like something with the homegrown fuel at a bare minimum to at least be able to run one pickup truck and one small tractor, with that, I can personally stay working no matter what else happens, say even as low as ten gallons a week. Might not be much, but in even a collapsed economy that would be enough for me to at least do some market gardening and such like.
When I was growing up I just heard too many horror stories from direct great depression victims, my older relatives, parents, autns, uncles, grand moms and great aunts and uncles-all of them. They *universally* had nothing but contempt for the government and wall street, they all called it some sort of big con. Both sides of my family lost all their holdings, and neither were any big stock market investors. But...the stupid stock market and the banks and government rig the system so the rich guys get even richer, always been that way so who am I to ignore that bit of reality. And I think they could perfectly well do it again. I like to learn from history at little, if possible. So what I know is-modern life takes electricity and transportation energy. If we can get decent backups for the "normal" way of doing that, so much the better.
That dart had a jamup good heater and a fully functional cold air blowing airconditioner. It was easy to steer, the brakes worked just fine, had functional lap belts and I think it had a collapsible column but can't remember right now. No airbag though, I don't recall any airbags back then, but I don't think it would have been hard to integrate one. I have never had any problems with crank windows, once a freaking decade pull the door panel off and lube the dang things up! If you have to shoot some glue to the bottom of the window in the track.
We have a lincoln sitting in the yard now with both electric front windows permanently up and stuck there on purpose because the parts to fix them are pure unobtanium, I've looked, even expensive dealer OEM is not there, and junkyard parts all have the same brokenness to them that I have seen, just foul engineering, overly complicated and under engineered for not a whole lot of reasons. Sure, real handy while they were working, not working? sucks rubber donkey dong. Mostly unfixable without investing in my own machine shop and extrusion and vacuum molding machines. Bah, hum and bug.
Some new tech is cool,and I like it, some is engineering masturbation just to have something to do and pure marketing crap (the new model syndrome, which I hate, I think it is a sorry way to make cars the way most of them do it now, pure opinion there). A lot is government mandated energy cartel enforced monopoly action. No other reason for it besides perpetuation of the established petroleum market cartel.
As an aside, to prove I am not a pure fanboy, I can think of one really bogus pierce of tech on that dart engine I despised (I developed a workaround for it though, ziplock bag and duct tape), the distributor being low on the engine where road splash could get to it, but all in all the slant six was a robust and functional and simple engine that "just worked", they used it in everything from 4x4 powerwagons to economy cars like I had. Big crank and small pistons, the things didn't wear out that bad. Ha! story. Had this car when I first moved to atlanta in the mid 80s, it was already over ten years old. We had a cold snap, real bad for georgia, it got to well below zero F one morning. That dart cranked and started over a dozen newer cars that refused to start at the condos where I was living at the time. It *just worked*. I remember once going to give it a tuneup, no reason other than it had been a long,long time. No need! Pulled the plugs, clean as a whistle. Went to do the points, unburnt, gap correct. Even if I had had to do it, a few dollars for points and condenser, 50 cent a piece plugs, one hour tops. Big deal. Because it was built simple and robust in the first place and didn't need a ton of exotic crap bolted onto it to try and make it work. And you can get better mileage by having less cylinders and more gears. If all you need is a commuter car, three cylinders is more than enough, and they could make 6 speeds easy enough as well be a standard option. poof, much better mileage without a ton of exotic plumbing voodoo.
Most of the plumbing on cars today (speaking of just the engine now, not all the add ons or luxury or powered this or that options) is to try and clean up dirty fuel, and I think the logical retort to that is simpler plumbing and start out with *cleaner fuel* in the first place, which I think they are going to with the drive for biofuels instead of gasoline or straight diesel.
Anyway, I'll keep running my older vehicles until they are completely outlawed, then I'll switch to running an oatburner, because I can, and I grow my own fuel and can breed my own new vehicles, double heh. I'll get an electric ride once they have been on the dealer lots for a few years and the good ones and bad ones are sorted out, and keep it charged up with my solar panels. That's my idea of combined old and new tech. I walk my talk when I can, and have for a long time. Most of the new stuff I see now though o
No idea, long time ago. If I had to guess, the dart would have been slightly heavier. It would go 110 for at least an hour or so and not overheat, too!
errr..uhh..I mean, ummm... heard rumors on the internets to that effect...ya,. that's the ticket, *rumors*...;)
You may get better mileage with all the computer controlled jazz, but I am not so sure it is really cost effective when the vehicles cost thousands more just to buy them (I remember 12 month new car loans being the norm) and repairs are simply staggeringly high compared to old car parts and repair bills, even taking inflation into consideration. I think they could do a lot better by just sticking with developing cleaner fuels rather than trying to make inherently nasty gasoline burn clean. They've had decades and billions of dollars to try and do that, make gasoline burn clean, so now to see the results of all that effort, open any new car's hood and just l@@k! at that dang mess. Just look at all that crap! Beyond ridiculous, IMO.
They did two relatively cheap things that did the most to clean up driving, get the lead out, and put in PCV valves. That's about it, both make sense and are cheap. the rest..meh...waste of time, all that effort should have gone into replacing gasoline a long time ago, eespecially after the serious OPEC embargo wakeup call.
And I have been consistent! for 30 long loney and frustrating years I have been telling people to switch to the alternatives, for health, environmental, economic and political reasons! I feel *vindicated* looking at the headlines recently.
Speaking of which, cleaner and maybe cheaper fuels, I ran that jatropha tree biodiesel idea (from that article I put up at technocrat), by joe boss here and he is juiced on it, probably because he just found out one of his old good farmer buddies is doing a canola/rapeseed biodiesel farm project this season, his crop is in the ground already for it. When you got to buy diesel by the multi thousand gallon tanker lots, anything looks better than being stuck on a price structure you have no clue what the price will be next time you need some more.
Anyway, I have been tasked to find out if it is feasible in our climate or not, get some prices, etc. We'll see how it works out, we may be just a tad too far north for that particular tree though.
same with cars for us geezers-a lot of us anyway. I just detest new cars with electric controlled everything and computer controlled this and that. Mostly because I grew up working on cars (starting in the 50s for me) that were quite simple to work on. I don't want power windows, I want a crank window with a dang VENT window in front of it. I don't want a computer controlled EFI, I want a normal carb with a ten buck rebuild kit. And etc. Ya, I can deal with it now but I think it sucks more than helps. Example, I had a dart, no power anything, all normal old time tech, got around 25 mpg, six passenger. GFs car, a much newer olds, power everything, spaghetti pluming and wiring, gets around 25 MPG, 6 passenger. More than 20 years diff in the tech, not much progress except more complex and way more expensive repairs. Perhaps it is cleaner running, don't know, but something to be said for simple, learning it, get on with your life.
Bottom line is I think people have a luddite threshold for different tech. Up to some point, acceptable, after that point, not. Different for everyone I bet.
I think I made that point, albeit and obviously in retrospect obliquely and not strong enough. The *stupid* bullies-by far the largest amount by the numbers- get drone jobs or wind up in jail for the most part, whereas the brilliant bullies-classifying brilliance as one in a million or some big number like that intelligence and cunning-wise- learn to game and work the system and become our so called business and political leaders in a lot of cases.
Honestly, I don't think this is that hard to see, just look at the latest global crop of the highest political and business leaders.
BTW, although I have never been to either of my attended high school reunions, I did find out one bully I was aware of became a *cop*. No idea on the others and no interest in finding out really.
In school, I was an anti bully, got in fights protecting other nerds who couldn't or wouldn't fight for themselves and when the "system" wouldn't do anything about it and it became chronic abuse to innocent people. Perhaps why to this day I have a prejudice against aggressive predatory humans and their organizations and can note them when they appear, I am just in tune with that sort of mindset in others, learned to watchout for it. Probably stupid, but I sure enjoyed sending a few of the football team swaggering braggarts to the hospital with cracked ribs and broken noses and such like. I'm a little guy but have always been quite fast, helps a lot in social situations.
megalomaniacs-bigtime bullies in other words-tend to rise to positions of power because that is their overriding drive in life. Look at history! They then surround themselves with others of similar mindset. Orders then fall downhill. Meek and passive and non aggressive people *rarely* get to any positions of real power, and stay within a lifestyle of following orders and dictates. There have been some exceptions at the top levels, witness gandi (who was an extreme passive agressive actually),-but that is what they are, exceptions.
*Stupid* bullies wind up working drone jobs or go to jail, smart ones become the biggest of business and political leaders because they quickly learn how to game the official bully system. And being part of being a successful and smart bully is exactly what you mentioned, "selling" your point of view to others, using charisma or otherwise, so there we'll have to disagree, I call it and see it as a bully trait, you don't. I see psychological manipulation as being a bully trait, just as much as outright physical force, and for no matter what the reason is, and am rather adamant on equating the two.
small example, theoretical for a point: You can get mugged (or threatened and scared enough) for your wallet, or conned out of cash in some scheme, both are the results of being bullied, IMO. One is physical, one is mental, but the results are nearly identical, the bully now has the cash, and you don't. In both examples, a bullying tactic was used to subjugate the victim, it is a predatory trait.
Pick out some of the top political bullies of the last century, run the list in your head (including he who can't be mentioned in an internet discussion), then think how they came about. They had intellect, cunning, extreme ruthlessness, superior salesman qualities, with the ability to orate or be an actor (assume false personnas to achieve a goal, ie, social lying), and the ability to inspire huge numbers of people to coordinate their actions..but along his personal goals..
Schoolyard gradeschool bullies to geopolitical nightmares-a lot of the same character traits. Type A alpha...bullies.
Why would authority really want to eliminate bullying? Generally speaking, that is the class that most all future business and political leaders come from! Example with the same age group, look at the number one top team sport in the US, football. The bullies win, and the conniving and more clever bullies win easier. It's the biggest deal in the public high schools,certainly not the chess club for a counter example, and your team has to physically and with much aggression "beat" the other team, and the team stars are the heroes, pushed by the same authority system that says they are anti bully.
Don't believe what they say, look to what they and society *do* and who gets rewarded or not for successful early childhood indoctrination. Look at the top class of Cxxs and political leaders, what do you see mostly? Aggressive alpha male and female bullies for the most part. They have to "win" all the time, the biz leaders have to "effin kill" the competition, their team (political party) has to win no matter what. The stockholders *demand* it, nore, more, MORE profits no matter what it takes, the grassroots political activist shock troops *demand* it, they have to destroy the competition,swift boat them for example, and exalt their own pack leaders, even to the point of ignoring or excusing blatant illegal or unethical behavior. Bullies get rewarded in our society if they adjust their bullying to the approved methods of the older adult bullies, so I don't believe they are really anti bully, although they make make noises about it.
The nation has been de-balled. It is a fait accompli. Neutered. It's mostly over, and the goons won. You can't do anything about it besides *talk*, and pretty soon that will be going the way of speech in china, their poster boy model nation, full technology, full police state, one major party, in the US it is the globalist party with two wings and their platform is full technofeudalism...
If you do anything besides talk, it is considered a major crime, and you therefore are a criminal, maybe a "terrorist", so it becomes self fulfilling prophecy of their's.
I remember a lot of civil disobedience to try and stop thoroughly disgusting governmental action, and it was dangerous then, but now, it is beyond dangerous, and they just won't put up with it. They have all the power they need now and plenty of order followers and a cowed-enough population who have more interest in entertainments and just making a living, a desperate living for a lot of people. Bread and circuses tempered with governmental "legal terrorism" makes for a controlled population.
Voting doesn't work, that is obvious. Even among the intellectually aware and politically active, the meme of "don't waste your vote!!!" is still quite strong and repeated endlessly, like some cult chant, and results in the same type and form and demographic makeup of government, election after election after election, which is, the completely corrupt R and D power sharing cartel which has hijacked government and runs it as a power and jobs sharing racket.
I vote, but it is inertia, more to say I still vote than for any expectation it will actually mean anything.
The short phrase is *sigh*
What's left, blog about it? You can't even go protest, step outside of the completely illegal and unConstitutional "free speech zones" and their mercenaries will arrest and/or beat you. Be a big enoug hassle to them, you go on the lists, and eventually won't be able to travel or change jobs even. It's coming. The population has sucked up the no fly list so far, no protests, meekly stand in line for the perv search and the humbling glares.
I knew once that got accepted without mass protest it was all over.
And stuff like that. Too tired to list them all, but there's a big list.
I'm not a pessimist, but I will consider myself a realist. We have a defacto low threshold but growing fast one party police state. It is only going to get worse for a long time to come now. They have found out they can get away with the largest crimes, with no revolt from the people, and a mostly controlled and tame media who go along with it, so small crimes are just part of the system now.
I think the best people can do now is try and stay as free and independent as possible, especially inside their own hearts, and see what opportunities present themselves in the future. Who knows, pigs may fly someday and we might get humble and honest and decent government some election time.
Not everyone has a multihundred dollar smart pda wifi equipped cellphone thingamajig and hangs out within 50 feet of starbucks so they can get netstreams while they are out and about. A shirt pocket FM radio complete with ~quality~ 5 cent earbud costs one dollar at the buckstore. And it works, and only takes one double AA and lasts for weeks.
That's why FM radio is still a good option. And the transmitter for low power is pretty cheap, and no need to pay for expensive bandwith or whatnot, and as many people as there are locally who can tune it all get the same stream of talk or whatever, infinitely scalable, 100 to a million, as long as you are in range, you get the same thing everyone else can get.
We have alleged public airwaves. We also have 100 senators and 500-odd representatives, yet it is the same couple dozen or so on the news all the time. How about we get the FCC to require the broadcasters to give the same amount in minutes of face time to all those folks? They supposedly get a license to use the public frequency to be both of the public good and to make some money, but I don't see the public good being served seeing the same few faces night after night after night, then they automagically turn into the "front runner" candidates whenever elections roll around.
What to do with unelected but legitimate candidates and the news I am not sure, but something similar. Candidate x as an unelected person but made the requirements should get the same face time on the news shows as an already elected incumbent, so you would have to have an official election season, start and stop date. In between, news is news, but the rules on elected people remain, show one, you have to show them all, equally.
And we really need instant-runoff elections, so that third parties and independents can have a credible chance. This R and D and media picked front runner candidate action results in political lock-in, like vendor lock-in.
Long term, the more I think about it over the years, the more I am inclined to think eliminating political parties completely. yes I mean outlawing them, would be a good move. No political parties means that government would always be a much more random selection of the population and wouldn't split into what I think is a harmful and semi artificially created left-right schism. I also think we need "term limits" for all government employment, no careers, no pensions, call it ten years maximum government service in any capacity then back to the private sector. No more career politicians or bureaucrats. Get rid of the "us versus them" deal.
As to the cash, drop it down to ten bucks contribution from individual humans only, to any candidate you are allowed to vote for, $100 tops combined. Which means no cash to just a general party fund. I don't think a general fund or taxes are needed, just eliminate the huge amounts of cash necessary to run. Millions or billion dollar elections are ludicrous.
And absolutely nothing from corporations or NGOs, ever, for any reason. No free dinners, trips, gifts, nada, nothing, zero. Not so much as a stick of gum. No free travel on executive jets. No golf and booze and schmooze trips. Nothing. We just have to get rid of influence peddling, keep eliminating any loopholes the ratfinks find, and make violating it a pretty serious crime.
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One summer I was forced to park right in the same neighborhood as crack houses, etc, because of where I had to work. As did my co workers. They all locked their doors and trunks, result, all of them got busted glass and popped trunks. I warned them too, I really did, I said "look at reality, these cars are targets now". Nope, none of them listened. I left my doors unlocked and the trunk slightly open, just eased down. The ride was so old and ratty I wasn't afraid of it getting stolen, albeit that was a chance. There was nothing left in the car to steal, a very cheap in dash radio not even worth a dollar at a pawn shop, but I made it easy for the crooks to ascertain that, because I knew they would look.
Ya, it sucked doing that,the principle rankled me, but my practical nature took over, because it was better than having to replace a door window.
Most modern stick frame construction houses are vulnerable to a razor knife. Just pick a section of wall and slice a hole. You got plastic siding, a thin tyvek sheet, some cheap ass pressboard stuff,(glorified cardboard really), some spun fiberglass insulation, then drywall. That's all you need, a couple minutes with a razor knife and any thief can get in easy, let alone if they use something like a cordless sawzall thing.
This is common for survivalist and preparedness minded folks. You and a trusted relative or friend exchange backup critical gear/necessities/copies of records, etc. In case of catastrophic loss of either abode, the other person has a decent "backup" for you to fall back on. Arrangements like this have been quite common for some decades now, usually they include mutually assured lodging, should full long term evacuation be required. IMO, it is quite a sound idea. Remember on the news, you see the same scene all the time, those scenes from..take your pick, fires, floods, hurricanes or whatever.. the newsies always zero in on those folks who are all freaked out and sad, and EVERY time they say "We lost EVERYTHING!"..well, there's no need for that if you take the time in advance to preposition enough of your gear so it doesn't fall into the "everything" category. The situation will still suck, but having a nice set of backup everything will sure help mitigate things and make the situation suck *less*. As to what to exchange/store, use your imagination, what would you like to have as a backup if for some reason your home just got wiped out? Spare sets of clothes for everyone, favorite toys for the kids, some electronic gear, tools, sporting goods, books, other media of importance to you, family photos, household records, personal mementos, etc. Salt to taste there. Even just a stuffed closet is good enough, that and the place to evacuate *to*.
That, and what we call BOBs, or "bug out bags" are good ideas. A "bob" is a backpack or other container (backbacks are good in case you get stuck on foot), that has enough critical essentials to keep you alive for a week or so, enough even on foot to get you out of the disaster area most likely. It's called a bug-out bag from the old army term, and it is designed so if you have zero notice-hear on the radio local railroad has a tanker car full of chlorine leaking, nasty forest fire heading your way, and it's close, etc, that you can grab it and go, out the door within less than one minute. Very high speed emergency evacuation. The deal is, you hope you never need it, but if you do, it literally could save your life.
Interesting subject, and although it is not directly related to the main parent IT topic, the concept is very similar.
I've never tried any of those actually, are they really that much fun? Regular videogames leave me "meh" mostly,no interest. And I'm on dialup and also a cheap bastige, are there any you can play on slow speed connections and don't cost much or are free? And let you run Linux as the OS? I admit near total ignorance of the subject. Not that I need any more hobbies or timewasters, but always willing to try something new if there is some point to it (I guess with these games it's half fun, half meeting people online, or what?)
Quality US made cars, years ahead of their competition in Detroit. The Gt Hawks and the Avantis were *nice*. Never could afford either of those when they were new, but I did own a stude champ pickup and a sedan delivery. Once, back when I was making a lot more loot than now, I tried to buy an avanti 2 from a lot, but they would only offer a lease so I turned it down, but I got to do a "performance" test drive..although the salesman riding along with me didn't know that was going to happen until it was too late to say "no""...heh heh heh, dang quick little machines, tell ya whut....plush, too, real nice interior, six speaker blaupunkt, twin powered roofs, yada yada. Like I said, *nice*.
Probably cuased my share of greenhouse gas emissions increase that day, va-voom! heheheh
ya, not computer related, but the general question was "what companies would you add?", so there ya go.
Thanks for the link, the plot certainly thickens!
Well, my folks weren't farmers but I grew up living rural working on farms, a variety of them up until my 20s, orchards, berries, market produce, then a dairy for a long time and a ranch, then I switched to urban living and worked some trades, but now I am semi retired (you know what that means farming, full time), and back on the farm. And I use the extension office some, but I still find it much faster and easier to look a lot of things up..hmm, odd fer instance, say there's a plant I just do not know the name of but notice it is getting more common, or some bug or another. Geez lotsa stuff really, like I outlined already.
As to parts, some I get local, others because of brand I have to order, no generics at all or local source, but there might be several places that have the parts so I shop around. I really find the net handy for a variety of reasons, like that biofuel project I will be starting. I've been into alternative energy for a long time, primarily solar, but the liquid fuels are new to me except for a long time ago I made some ethanol and ran a little bit of it for fun, but gas was so ridiculously cheap back then I lost interest, but now-fuel is not cheap, you know that. It all adds up. The farm we are on now is pretty reasonable for an east coast non-grain producing farm, it's not mine, I am just a worker here, but different from the other guys, one of my jobs is to think, see what can be done better, try different stuff out. I would really like to put a dent in the over ten grand a month electricity bill for instance or the having to get diesel by the thousands of gallons at a time with not much in the way of any price assurance other than what it costs that week or say the propane bill, which is serious 6 figures a winter. Stuff like that. I am doing a lot of research in those areas now and doing little pilot programs to see what might work and what might not work, and I am also looking in advance in case of any serious bad news stuff hits like avian flu, looking for ways to take what we have and diversify. Sort of an ongoing paid position to both conventionally farm and look to the future and see how we can do different things and do them better.
The net "just works" for finding out stuff, I mean nothing else comes close really.. And I don't care how old ya get or how much experience one may have, there's always something new to find out about any subject really, if it is in your interest, and ag in general is such a *varied* topic to begin with. With the changing economics and markets, it just pays to stay on top of trends and techniques, and I find the net to be about the best way to do that. I don't *want* to do the same thing all the other dudes are doing, that sort of market is saturated, I'm looking for diversification, lucrative niche markets, dropping expenses, etc. I can take a relatively cheap internet connection and both access a lot of smart guys research, and also eliminate middleman expense, a double plus good win in my book.
Well, I farm and I use the net all the time for information I need. Everything from finding the best deals on repair parts to looking up plants and diseases and treatments, various livestock care information (we have quite a variety now beyond cattle and poultry, just this past few weeks we added ducks, quail and now rabbits), there's always new seeds and plants to order, I'm doing the research on making our own biofuel now-picked up an old datsun diesel pickup today in fact, because I wanted one, finally found one in decent running shape for cheap-45 mpg!- and that will be the guinea pig for my home made fuel, and, etc, besides having the handy weather applet. Tons of stuff. Granted, there are workarounds like always for lack of web access, but it sure speeds things up considerably for me. A very rough average, but I probably use the net for something to do with this profession 5 times a week or so. I'd frikken *hate* to have to drive to town to go to the library for this. Frankly, I don't even like going to town, our main goal is to get as independent as possible so we don't have to except maybe 4 times a year or something. We live rural because that is where we like it better, the net helps us stay here and stay in the black.
Ya, we have stacks of farm mags, it still isn't the same as having a global library and informational resource at your fingertips. And that's leaving out the economic and political news. I do shortwave, too, always have since floor model tube jobs that doubled as living room heaters, but the net is like instant what you want when you want it, your schedule, not some one else's schedule.
Bottom line is, it's a fantastic tool if used as a tool. And if it is affordable and available, it will help our poorer brothers over in who_know's_where_istan as well. They'll find uses for it.
I know some folks have gotten their MS licensing fee back from other places, I am just wondering if anyone here has successfully gotten an MS license fee back from Walmart, when you say you don't agree to the terms and don't want it, but will keep the hardware? If so, would you outline the steps and what sort of check you received?
Perhaps this fee, if it could be gotten easy, might offset filling up that one open RAM slot. The machine should be perfectly fine then. Spec wise it's better than the one I am using right now for that matter, and this machine is fine with just half a gig of RAM running linux (FC6 right now).
I heard that radio ad and also wondered how long he would last! Here's an Url for the news story about his little "loss".
Did you guys ever have any of the flexible solar PV panels that are out there? I have a couple of the mid sized Unisolar flexible ones, they are good enough to charge some small batteries, given you can get some Sun on them for a long time. Ours get strapped to the outside of our go-packs, FWIW. Not fantastically powerful, but adequate for some smallish devices.
And the new nanosolar offerings look to be tremendously lighter, although I don't know if they are actually on the market yet or if they even have samples you can get.
if this thing works they are going to be "rich beyond the dreams of avarice". I know I'd like a few of them guys like yesterday. I was actually thinking before of something a little simpler and more hardwired, just a fence patrolling bot, lay a guidewire down or mount it on the fence itself, have it crawl maybe 6 inches away and spray or burn or mow, your choice. but *this* thing, man, ability to ID different weeds?? Laser zapping?? Just too cool....
It's amazing to me that so many of even the already rich guys on wall street etc can't see how bogus the whole system is. The really rich guys won't let them have anything either, other than to suck up the blame when it crashes. Oh well, this is the internet age, people can read, learn some from history, and adjust their reality or not. If it gets to heads on pikes I'll stand back and watch, but don't have a lot of desire myself, I think their karma and being 100% tied to the just in time artificial scam economy system will be punishment enough.
Possibility, but when you need to do tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand birds all at the same time the facilities required get quite extensive. Joeboss has looked into it, it's millions of bucks, so that's out. Much smaller scale in this state they make it pretty hard, else I'd be doing it already. Just not cost effective until you are quite large, then it costs the big bucks to get established. Other states differ, the regs are all screwy and mixed up really.
Basically, for just me, I am trying to diversify as much as possible and reduce expenses at the same time. that's growing more of our own food and putting it up (put in a lot more fruit trees and bushes and vines this year for example, and made the garden 50% larger), getting another freezer so we can pack a whole beef in there for *us*, getting more solar, try to establish the biofuel, etc. Huh, got some baby quail today! Man are they *teeny tiny*. It all adds up, a plate of chow is a plate of chow eventually.
Ya, perhaps too far north for us, we are in north georgia, close to tennessee line. Perhaps they have a slightly more cold hardy one, I'm looking into to it. Closest I have seen is claims that it can tolerate "some" frost.. As to the labor intensive, if I can pick a gallon of diesel every 5-10 minutes that's a dang good pay rate for me. At 30% yield by weight that's picking only three gallons with marble sized fruit-I think I can do that. I already *do* drudge farm work stuff. heh. If we can even cut the diesel bill in half plus guarantee a supply of *some* fuel, it will be worth it just for the economic future proofing peace of mind aspect, similar to how we run some solar now, use firewood as the primary heat, and grow a lot of our own food and have generator backups for power. Energy is important stuff, producing onsite is a huge technological and economic benefit. Trucks and tractors are thirsty guys and that's how we get our work done. If diesel goes up 50% and the rate we get for cluckeraptors and beefers doesn't..well? That and propane costs and electricity costs, etc are out of our hands, as is the wholesale costs that the big packer cartels will give the farmers. I mean, we slide just a scosh away from losing money all the time because of the food cartels and the middleman profits that *never* make it to the farmer. Example, if joe end consumer could pay just 5 cents-a nickle, literally 5 more pennies, that's it,-more for an entire small fryer at the store it would double our net. Double it. Margins are that thin right now. But we can't insist on that, the packers and the middleman skimmers/traders set the prices, and the government has made it near impossible to buck the big packers in any meaningful way. It takes multi millions of dollars and a ton of baksheesh to setup a packing house and get distribution contracts, it's near impossible, and just like the telcos, the big places have been buying each other up, making it worse and worse and worse for the farmers, we have less wholesalers to even think about selling to.
there's an expression, something about short and curlys...we're sorta stuck.
As to homegrown fuel, we are one geopolitical wildcard away from 100-200 bucks a barrel of crude, or worse than that even, think of it that way.
A lot of other farmers must be thinking similar, I am seeing a ton of interest in the farm mag rags about this subject, farm produced fuel systems. We *know* the system is being setup to bankrupt the farmers to get the land eventually for the huge corporations to own outright, you can smell it coming bigtime, like they did in the great depression version one, rig the economic system, crash it on purpose, pickup the real wealth at pennies on the dollar at the auctions. Lather rinse repeat, legalized mass theft. That's how the bigdogs operate, and they have total greed, and zero pity. If we as the producers of real wealth aren't eternally vigilant, we'll be en-screwed. It's a war on the middle class, the real wealth producers, easy enough to see that right now.
Anyway, I would like something with the homegrown fuel at a bare minimum to at least be able to run one pickup truck and one small tractor, with that, I can personally stay working no matter what else happens, say even as low as ten gallons a week. Might not be much, but in even a collapsed economy that would be enough for me to at least do some market gardening and such like.
When I was growing up I just heard too many horror stories from direct great depression victims, my older relatives, parents, autns, uncles, grand moms and great aunts and uncles-all of them. They *universally* had nothing but contempt for the government and wall street, they all called it some sort of big con. Both sides of my family lost all their holdings, and neither were any big stock market investors. But...the stupid stock market and the banks and government rig the system so the rich guys get even richer, always been that way so who am I to ignore that bit of reality. And I think they could perfectly well do it again. I like to learn from history at little, if possible. So what I know is-modern life takes electricity and transportation energy. If we can get decent backups for the "normal" way of doing that, so much the better.
That dart had a jamup good heater and a fully functional cold air blowing airconditioner. It was easy to steer, the brakes worked just fine, had functional lap belts and I think it had a collapsible column but can't remember right now. No airbag though, I don't recall any airbags back then, but I don't think it would have been hard to integrate one. I have never had any problems with crank windows, once a freaking decade pull the door panel off and lube the dang things up! If you have to shoot some glue to the bottom of the window in the track.
We have a lincoln sitting in the yard now with both electric front windows permanently up and stuck there on purpose because the parts to fix them are pure unobtanium, I've looked, even expensive dealer OEM is not there, and junkyard parts all have the same brokenness to them that I have seen, just foul engineering, overly complicated and under engineered for not a whole lot of reasons. Sure, real handy while they were working, not working? sucks rubber donkey dong. Mostly unfixable without investing in my own machine shop and extrusion and vacuum molding machines. Bah, hum and bug.
Some new tech is cool,and I like it, some is engineering masturbation just to have something to do and pure marketing crap (the new model syndrome, which I hate, I think it is a sorry way to make cars the way most of them do it now, pure opinion there). A lot is government mandated energy cartel enforced monopoly action. No other reason for it besides perpetuation of the established petroleum market cartel.
As an aside, to prove I am not a pure fanboy, I can think of one really bogus pierce of tech on that dart engine I despised (I developed a workaround for it though, ziplock bag and duct tape), the distributor being low on the engine where road splash could get to it, but all in all the slant six was a robust and functional and simple engine that "just worked", they used it in everything from 4x4 powerwagons to economy cars like I had. Big crank and small pistons, the things didn't wear out that bad. Ha! story. Had this car when I first moved to atlanta in the mid 80s, it was already over ten years old. We had a cold snap, real bad for georgia, it got to well below zero F one morning. That dart cranked and started over a dozen newer cars that refused to start at the condos where I was living at the time. It *just worked*. I remember once going to give it a tuneup, no reason other than it had been a long,long time. No need! Pulled the plugs, clean as a whistle. Went to do the points, unburnt, gap correct. Even if I had had to do it, a few dollars for points and condenser, 50 cent a piece plugs, one hour tops. Big deal. Because it was built simple and robust in the first place and didn't need a ton of exotic crap bolted onto it to try and make it work. And you can get better mileage by having less cylinders and more gears. If all you need is a commuter car, three cylinders is more than enough, and they could make 6 speeds easy enough as well be a standard option. poof, much better mileage without a ton of exotic plumbing voodoo.
Most of the plumbing on cars today (speaking of just the engine now, not all the add ons or luxury or powered this or that options) is to try and clean up dirty fuel, and I think the logical retort to that is simpler plumbing and start out with *cleaner fuel* in the first place, which I think they are going to with the drive for biofuels instead of gasoline or straight diesel.
Anyway, I'll keep running my older vehicles until they are completely outlawed, then I'll switch to running an oatburner, because I can, and I grow my own fuel and can breed my own new vehicles, double heh. I'll get an electric ride once they have been on the dealer lots for a few years and the good ones and bad ones are sorted out, and keep it charged up with my solar panels. That's my idea of combined old and new tech. I walk my talk when I can, and have for a long time. Most of the new stuff I see now though o
No idea, long time ago. If I had to guess, the dart would have been slightly heavier. It would go 110 for at least an hour or so and not overheat, too!
;)
errr..uhh..I mean, ummm... heard rumors on the internets to that effect...ya,. that's the ticket, *rumors*...
You may get better mileage with all the computer controlled jazz, but I am not so sure it is really cost effective when the vehicles cost thousands more just to buy them (I remember 12 month new car loans being the norm) and repairs are simply staggeringly high compared to old car parts and repair bills, even taking inflation into consideration. I think they could do a lot better by just sticking with developing cleaner fuels rather than trying to make inherently nasty gasoline burn clean. They've had decades and billions of dollars to try and do that, make gasoline burn clean, so now to see the results of all that effort, open any new car's hood and just l@@k! at that dang mess. Just look at all that crap! Beyond ridiculous, IMO.
They did two relatively cheap things that did the most to clean up driving, get the lead out, and put in PCV valves. That's about it, both make sense and are cheap. the rest..meh...waste of time, all that effort should have gone into replacing gasoline a long time ago, eespecially after the serious OPEC embargo wakeup call.
And I have been consistent! for 30 long loney and frustrating years I have been telling people to switch to the alternatives, for health, environmental, economic and political reasons! I feel *vindicated* looking at the headlines recently.
Speaking of which, cleaner and maybe cheaper fuels, I ran that jatropha tree biodiesel idea (from that article I put up at technocrat), by joe boss here and he is juiced on it, probably because he just found out one of his old good farmer buddies is doing a canola/rapeseed biodiesel farm project this season, his crop is in the ground already for it. When you got to buy diesel by the multi thousand gallon tanker lots, anything looks better than being stuck on a price structure you have no clue what the price will be next time you need some more.
Anyway, I have been tasked to find out if it is feasible in our climate or not, get some prices, etc. We'll see how it works out, we may be just a tad too far north for that particular tree though.
velcro that cooler pad to the laptop. Can't forget it then.
same with cars for us geezers-a lot of us anyway. I just detest new cars with electric controlled everything and computer controlled this and that. Mostly because I grew up working on cars (starting in the 50s for me) that were quite simple to work on. I don't want power windows, I want a crank window with a dang VENT window in front of it. I don't want a computer controlled EFI, I want a normal carb with a ten buck rebuild kit. And etc. Ya, I can deal with it now but I think it sucks more than helps. Example, I had a dart, no power anything, all normal old time tech, got around 25 mpg, six passenger. GFs car, a much newer olds, power everything, spaghetti pluming and wiring, gets around 25 MPG, 6 passenger. More than 20 years diff in the tech, not much progress except more complex and way more expensive repairs. Perhaps it is cleaner running, don't know, but something to be said for simple, learning it, get on with your life.
Bottom line is I think people have a luddite threshold for different tech. Up to some point, acceptable, after that point, not. Different for everyone I bet.
I think I made that point, albeit and obviously in retrospect obliquely and not strong enough. The *stupid* bullies-by far the largest amount by the numbers- get drone jobs or wind up in jail for the most part, whereas the brilliant bullies-classifying brilliance as one in a million or some big number like that intelligence and cunning-wise- learn to game and work the system and become our so called business and political leaders in a lot of cases.
Honestly, I don't think this is that hard to see, just look at the latest global crop of the highest political and business leaders.
BTW, although I have never been to either of my attended high school reunions, I did find out one bully I was aware of became a *cop*. No idea on the others and no interest in finding out really.
In school, I was an anti bully, got in fights protecting other nerds who couldn't or wouldn't fight for themselves and when the "system" wouldn't do anything about it and it became chronic abuse to innocent people. Perhaps why to this day I have a prejudice against aggressive predatory humans and their organizations and can note them when they appear, I am just in tune with that sort of mindset in others, learned to watchout for it. Probably stupid, but I sure enjoyed sending a few of the football team swaggering braggarts to the hospital with cracked ribs and broken noses and such like. I'm a little guy but have always been quite fast, helps a lot in social situations.
megalomaniacs-bigtime bullies in other words-tend to rise to positions of power because that is their overriding drive in life. Look at history! They then surround themselves with others of similar mindset. Orders then fall downhill. Meek and passive and non aggressive people *rarely* get to any positions of real power, and stay within a lifestyle of following orders and dictates. There have been some exceptions at the top levels, witness gandi (who was an extreme passive agressive actually),-but that is what they are, exceptions.
...bullies.
*Stupid* bullies wind up working drone jobs or go to jail, smart ones become the biggest of business and political leaders because they quickly learn how to game the official bully system. And being part of being a successful and smart bully is exactly what you mentioned, "selling" your point of view to others, using charisma or otherwise, so there we'll have to disagree, I call it and see it as a bully trait, you don't. I see psychological manipulation as being a bully trait, just as much as outright physical force, and for no matter what the reason is, and am rather adamant on equating the two.
small example, theoretical for a point: You can get mugged (or threatened and scared enough) for your wallet, or conned out of cash in some scheme, both are the results of being bullied, IMO. One is physical, one is mental, but the results are nearly identical, the bully now has the cash, and you don't. In both examples, a bullying tactic was used to subjugate the victim, it is a predatory trait.
Pick out some of the top political bullies of the last century, run the list in your head (including he who can't be mentioned in an internet discussion), then think how they came about. They had intellect, cunning, extreme ruthlessness, superior salesman qualities, with the ability to orate or be an actor (assume false personnas to achieve a goal, ie, social lying), and the ability to inspire huge numbers of people to coordinate their actions..but along his personal goals..
Schoolyard gradeschool bullies to geopolitical nightmares-a lot of the same character traits. Type A alpha
Why would authority really want to eliminate bullying? Generally speaking, that is the class that most all future business and political leaders come from! Example with the same age group, look at the number one top team sport in the US, football. The bullies win, and the conniving and more clever bullies win easier. It's the biggest deal in the public high schools,certainly not the chess club for a counter example, and your team has to physically and with much aggression "beat" the other team, and the team stars are the heroes, pushed by the same authority system that says they are anti bully.
Don't believe what they say, look to what they and society *do* and who gets rewarded or not for successful early childhood indoctrination. Look at the top class of Cxxs and political leaders, what do you see mostly? Aggressive alpha male and female bullies for the most part. They have to "win" all the time, the biz leaders have to "effin kill" the competition, their team (political party) has to win no matter what. The stockholders *demand* it, nore, more, MORE profits no matter what it takes, the grassroots political activist shock troops *demand* it, they have to destroy the competition,swift boat them for example, and exalt their own pack leaders, even to the point of ignoring or excusing blatant illegal or unethical behavior. Bullies get rewarded in our society if they adjust their bullying to the approved methods of the older adult bullies, so I don't believe they are really anti bully, although they make make noises about it.
The nation has been de-balled. It is a fait accompli. Neutered. It's mostly over, and the goons won. You can't do anything about it besides *talk*, and pretty soon that will be going the way of speech in china, their poster boy model nation, full technology, full police state, one major party, in the US it is the globalist party with two wings and their platform is full technofeudalism...
If you do anything besides talk, it is considered a major crime, and you therefore are a criminal, maybe a "terrorist", so it becomes self fulfilling prophecy of their's.
I remember a lot of civil disobedience to try and stop thoroughly disgusting governmental action, and it was dangerous then, but now, it is beyond dangerous, and they just won't put up with it. They have all the power they need now and plenty of order followers and a cowed-enough population who have more interest in entertainments and just making a living, a desperate living for a lot of people. Bread and circuses tempered with governmental "legal terrorism" makes for a controlled population.
Voting doesn't work, that is obvious. Even among the intellectually aware and politically active, the meme of "don't waste your vote!!!" is still quite strong and repeated endlessly, like some cult chant, and results in the same type and form and demographic makeup of government, election after election after election, which is, the completely corrupt R and D power sharing cartel which has hijacked government and runs it as a power and jobs sharing racket.
I vote, but it is inertia, more to say I still vote than for any expectation it will actually mean anything.
The short phrase is *sigh*
What's left, blog about it? You can't even go protest, step outside of the completely illegal and unConstitutional "free speech zones" and their mercenaries will arrest and/or beat you. Be a big enoug hassle to them, you go on the lists, and eventually won't be able to travel or change jobs even. It's coming. The population has sucked up the no fly list so far, no protests, meekly stand in line for the perv search and the humbling glares.
I knew once that got accepted without mass protest it was all over.
And stuff like that. Too tired to list them all, but there's a big list.
I'm not a pessimist, but I will consider myself a realist. We have a defacto low threshold but growing fast one party police state. It is only going to get worse for a long time to come now. They have found out they can get away with the largest crimes, with no revolt from the people, and a mostly controlled and tame media who go along with it, so small crimes are just part of the system now.
I think the best people can do now is try and stay as free and independent as possible, especially inside their own hearts, and see what opportunities present themselves in the future. Who knows, pigs may fly someday and we might get humble and honest and decent government some election time.
It could happen. Low odds, but still possible.
Not everyone has a multihundred dollar smart pda wifi equipped cellphone thingamajig and hangs out within 50 feet of starbucks so they can get netstreams while they are out and about. A shirt pocket FM radio complete with ~quality~ 5 cent earbud costs one dollar at the buckstore. And it works, and only takes one double AA and lasts for weeks.
That's why FM radio is still a good option. And the transmitter for low power is pretty cheap, and no need to pay for expensive bandwith or whatnot, and as many people as there are locally who can tune it all get the same stream of talk or whatever, infinitely scalable, 100 to a million, as long as you are in range, you get the same thing everyone else can get.
Enough reasons?
We have alleged public airwaves. We also have 100 senators and 500-odd representatives, yet it is the same couple dozen or so on the news all the time. How about we get the FCC to require the broadcasters to give the same amount in minutes of face time to all those folks? They supposedly get a license to use the public frequency to be both of the public good and to make some money, but I don't see the public good being served seeing the same few faces night after night after night, then they automagically turn into the "front runner" candidates whenever elections roll around.
What to do with unelected but legitimate candidates and the news I am not sure, but something similar. Candidate x as an unelected person but made the requirements should get the same face time on the news shows as an already elected incumbent, so you would have to have an official election season, start and stop date. In between, news is news, but the rules on elected people remain, show one, you have to show them all, equally.
And we really need instant-runoff elections, so that third parties and independents can have a credible chance. This R and D and media picked front runner candidate action results in political lock-in, like vendor lock-in.
Long term, the more I think about it over the years, the more I am inclined to think eliminating political parties completely. yes I mean outlawing them, would be a good move. No political parties means that government would always be a much more random selection of the population and wouldn't split into what I think is a harmful and semi artificially created left-right schism. I also think we need "term limits" for all government employment, no careers, no pensions, call it ten years maximum government service in any capacity then back to the private sector. No more career politicians or bureaucrats. Get rid of the "us versus them" deal.
As to the cash, drop it down to ten bucks contribution from individual humans only, to any candidate you are allowed to vote for, $100 tops combined. Which means no cash to just a general party fund. I don't think a general fund or taxes are needed, just eliminate the huge amounts of cash necessary to run. Millions or billion dollar elections are ludicrous.
And absolutely nothing from corporations or NGOs, ever, for any reason. No free dinners, trips, gifts, nada, nothing, zero. Not so much as a stick of gum. No free travel on executive jets. No golf and booze and schmooze trips. Nothing. We just have to get rid of influence peddling, keep eliminating any loopholes the ratfinks find, and make violating it a pretty serious crime.
Very generally speaking, the height of the blades makes for more efficiency, the wind is stronger/steadier and less ground effects way up high.
As to the little windchargers, some new buildings in dubai will have them between floors.
http://www.24dash.com/environment/21067.htm