posit: download/shared upload, a movie from Mooveetorrent.com at 1.99$ per.torrent file, compared to a megabuxflix release straight download @ 3.99$ (some figures like that anyway, whatever fits). As joe consumer, would you maybe consider it? Not all would of course, but I bet a lot of consumers would sign on to a deal something like that for legit content they were interested in.
...of a plethora of examples of where the feds went out of their way to make things *worse*. You can call it whatever you want, but I don't think it's an _accident_ after seeing them do similar hundreds of times now over decades of watching. There's more examples if you care to google around, it's not like it hasn't been in the news pretty constantly now for weeks.
...I'm a traditional constitutionalist nationalist. Nowadays I might be called a paleocon. Complete opposite of these globalist interventionist neocons. those folks are just internationalists, have no lyalty to nation or neighbor or good tradition, and have a "profits at any cost" mentality, which I reject. to me, money is not the most important thing in the world, and never has been.
I worked my first presidential campaign for AuH20,because at a minimum he wasn't a liar, and he understood states rights and individual rights and was a nationalist. I also got my education in power politics then a i watched the establishment elite repubs sabotage their own candidate on purpose for later on political gain.
My first politics *in general* were for civil rights and environmental conservation, then anti illegal war and anti illegal draft-or forced servitude.
I always believed in the root word of conservative = "conserve", or nurture and protect. I still think that is a good idea, and that it also makes the best economic sense, best security sense, best environmental sense, best social sense, not only for US citizens but for anyone around the planet. to me, our "bill of rights" means all humans, it is what all humans are born with.
I am against dictators wherever they are, what language they speak, what color they are or what religion.
I am pro self defense and hold the second as highly as the first and all the others.
look-collate data-analyse-speak (and act) the truth with your heart and mind, it's about all you can do as a man.
....walking with people who just wanted to VOTE, and had their rights denied. I took the gas when we wanted open honest debate and actual facts and data over a war fought but never legally declared, a war for blood profits, partially fought with chemical weapons that were killing our own guys and still do to this day. And MOST of those guys were very poor young folks who got dragooned into it against their will, while the fatcats sons got student 2s deferrments or cushy national guard non-jobs, like a certain smirker in chief.
I watched as a group of cops picked someone who was non violent, just yelling, out of a crowd and STOMPED AND BEAT HIM TO DEATH at a rally AND IT NEVER MADE THE NEWS. they were laughing while they did it, LAUGHING. Kent state made the news, jackson state did, this incident didn't, and there have been a lot more over the years, just not reported or barely reported or excused off for some vague double speak reason. I, and several other people took that case as eyewitnesses as far as we could, to a lieutenant governor meeting, IT STILL RESULTED IN NOTHING HAPPENING. They hauled the poor guys body away and wouldn't even admit it happened.
THAT is partially from where I am coming from. Don't assume things about people you don't know. just because nation x is worse than nation y doesn't mean nation y doesn't have uber sucky aspects to it of the dictatorial goon squad nature. This is a government that has a past verifiable track record of foreign official assassinations, support for death squads, cozying up to dictators or helping install them, and utterly wasting most of the money they get from the tax payers with a shrug,a wink and a nod to "business as usual".
My goal is somehow work so that it never gets worse than what it is! And somehow this is wrong because some other place it's even worse?? Sorry, no one controls where they are born, but we all have a stake in where we live, to try and make it better and you can't do that unless you are able to actually LOOK and see where the faults are. I have done this, did it, and will continue to do so. My commentary was on the 'americans blindly accepting' part, some of us don't 'blindly accept' matters we know are just plain evil wrong, but we also are aware of the consequences of actions in todays political world. If we don't push back when it's so called 'not that bad", then GUARANTEED they will keep pushing until you and me and thee and thou are squashed flat eyes downcast shuffling slaves.
Phooie! Lets get real here. Who's "blindly accepting"? We are under painful threat of personal terrorism if we DON'T accept their dictates. Americans know we are getting screwed,you would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't think this, the deal is, the government will and does use force-at any level-to get their way, up to the point of the barrel of a gun. It is not 'we the people" anymore, it is "us versus them".
Want to go exercise political "free speech" at a rally? If they have decided that speech is ok here but not over there across the street, their armed agents WILL use any amount of force necessary to make you comply. How about "random courtesy roadblocks"? What BS is this, when I was a kid this was taught to us as only something some tyrannical regime pulled, the third reich or stalins soviet union or some place like that, we were shown how utterly bogus that was, because it's true, it IS bogus. Now? What are you supposed to do, NOT STOP? Guess what happens to you if you don't stop, they'll run you off the road or shoot you in the head. How about taxes going through the roof, what do you do about it, taxes and out of control government spending? Vote for the two cooperating political gangs who have hijacked government and make it near impossible for any other party to actually function and get a toe hold in? they have killed off any effective third party action, this is pretty obvious since the reform party actually made a showing. Even took them off the national debates, the League of Women Voters was so disgusted with that blatant power grab that they stopped sponsoring the national debates. A CLUE. How much of "black box" electronic vote hijacking, gerrymandering and skewing the nomination and ballot process has to occur before the government guys doing it arrest themselves, which is what it would take? that just ain't gonna happen, and everyone knows it, and you as joe citizen can't just go and "detain" some governmental crook. They would kill you dead.
We can all see corporate/governmental industry collusion, no bid contracts, blood profits pushed over everything else, yet what are you supposed to actually do about it? You can't stop it physically, you can't vote it away, and any crimes committed by the government are aided and abetted by their armed agents in various colored uniforms. I've been in this gig for decades, for every one little retreat back to the constitution we've seen, we get several large steps forward into despotism.
No the problem is, the government has way too many "just following orders" types who will follow any order given to them, even if they know it is pretty dodgy. And that means both overseas and domestically. Wars based on utter lies and fabrications-still being waged "just following orders"..Look at what they did with hurricane katrina, went WAY out of their way to keep private help and citizens out,walmart trucks with water told to go back, citizen convoys with rescue boats, ordered to go back, civilian communication lines CUT by agents of the feds, on and on, until it had dissolved into chaos, THEN they decide to show up to 'restore order". THIS IS A CLUE. That isn't an "intelligence failure" like that additional 9-11 bigfat lie, it was done on purpose.
Face reality, we have been under a violent armed coup for several years now, just no one really wants to say that out loud too much. check the "hate crimes" bill about to pass, this will affect online and printed and broadcast speech, yet the mass media is mostly ignoring it-wonder why? could it be they are in on it at the top, it's the same technofeudalists who run things, the same elite?
From my perspective, the coup started in earnest when they got clean away with whacking JFK and it has gone downhill from there. A nice slow semi stealth dictatorial take over, every day, establish more command and control and surveillance.
We aren't too many years away from being more like China
Large urban areas are anachronisms. They are huge energy sinks and social entropy sinks because it's all piped in expensive reality. They used to be important because of trade and communications, people physically had to get in physical proximity to each other in order to do business. We have the communications part down now so that more and more people don't have to travel for business/work purposes, and they can still be involved with high tech economy. It will actually be cheaper to spread out more in the future, we've hit the limit on city size as a practical matter. And as to sprawl, and driving, we are seeing the rebirth of the high mileage per gallon vehicle in the US. The transition is happening now, hybrids and compact turbo diesels are the fastest growing market segments,(still small but fastest growing) and with fuel going to be cracking 4-5$ a gallon soon (most likely) in the US, you'll see more sentiment for them-even hybrid SUVs and pickups, some of which are available now. The solar PV guys can't even keep up with the demand. the wind genny guys are cracking the cost of electricity from coal. this requires being outside the cities. more and more successful farmers are downsizing and getting into the niche markets, and staying close to their customer base, you can see it in the grocery stores on the produce shelves, people are demanding the alternative specialty and organic food products that the smaller guys are putting out. And on and on, lots of examples how our economy is morphing to adapt to higher energy costs.
It would take quite a lot for people in the US to just give up personal transportation, and quite a large percentage of the population just do not want to live in a heavy urbanized zone. Reluctantly go there and work for a shift, then split back home is more like it. If they did really like living like that, suburbs wouldn't have been invented and sold in the first place, we would have built many more and larger skyscraper apartment blocks. Some people like that sort of living,millions to be fair, but millions more do not,and that is just the way it is. People want to at least go home to a bit of green and a where it's a little quieter. It's the choices we collectively have made, it wasn't forced, it was what people wanted and what the economy evolved to. And with the extremely expensive urbanized coastal areas now under the scrutiny of mortgage sticker-shock experiencing home owners and extremely nervous insurance agents, I am expecting a gradual switch back to the heartland areas from the coasts, where prices are cheaper for housing, and where the work can be exported easier now than even just a short decade ago. And it's a numbers game, we just have more people now, they have to go someplace, and OUT is pretty easy and cheaper compared to UP.
There are other factors involved, for instance, the upcoming baby boomers starting to retire. I *doubt* this will result in millions more downtown apartments being built to accomodate them. They may downsize the home they have after their kids move out, but it will probably mean just a smaller house even further out and an RV, albeit the next generation hybrid RV, heh.
some of us carried nice heavy slide rules in leather sheaths. There *weren't* any calculators unless you mean one of the few (whatever, not a large number) mainframes that existed at the time.
Say a lady had a handbag with a hidden "deadman" switch on it someplace. As she is walking she holds the bag there, keeps the button depressed, something along those lines anyway, could even be a RFID proximity tag to a matching tag on her clothes, say a brooch pin or something non obvious. If a purse snatcher snags the bag, the button is released and phones home to some security outfit with a running account of GPS coordinates, or once the two RFID tags lose contact with each other because of distance it automatically phones out with the details. It could be the cellphone itself that does the activation, which would help if the snatcher just cobbed the contents and dumped the bag down the block someplace. Heck, something like that would be good for wallets.
if that is the primary function you want, don't hang a cheap camera off the phone, start with what you think is a good camera, then add features to that. You just emphasize what is important to you, prioritize. this lets the manufacturer have a lot of products to sell, and lets the consumer have exactly what they want, no more and no less. the no less is the interesting part about miniaturization today. Look at swiss army knives, you can get them from a few blades to egads lookathatthing, and most folks prefer the in between sizes. It's a popular enough device that has stood the test of consumer time. Eventually it spawned the multitool/leatherman concept, another well received idea.
The deal with convergence is, it is possible that most everyone's niche demands can be met, in the priority that they want. You primarily want a simple phone with big numbers and good audio? Fine, you can have that. The next guy wants that, but with some sort of camera that does at least passable photos or real time wireless cam streaming. And on and on.
I think the point is, there's no one size fits everyone, but with todays tech you should soon be able to get a lot closer to exactly what you want, and making the basic unit modular and powerful, it makes it easier to personalise and customise to suit the individual. Hmm, here is a for instance for me, I'd like a phone that did an outstanding job on the wireless part, as well as being a multiband radio receiver, I like talk radio, news, shortwave broadcasts, etc, and would also like it to function as a powerful walkie talkie. A simple webrowser and simple camera would suffice on top of that. I am frequently out in the field (literally, field as in "farm" field), but would like a fast way to see the latest weather radar images, and check on some websites during the day, and also be in close walkie talkie contact with the old homestead. I wouldn't be using it as a primary surfer, but back in the living room if I could plug that thing into a normal display and keyboard and some speakers, well, fat city. Heck, up to a few months ago I was still primarily surfing on an old PP200 system, worked fine for my particular needs, so I know that they are "good enough" now for my purposes horsepower-wise (joe current PDA/smart phones), just waiting for them to drop in price a scosh more before I get one. and where I live, wireless will most likely be the only way I'll ever be offered any sort of broadband, so might as well make the most of it with a better quality PDA/phone thing at the same time. A seemless plug in to make it function as a desktop would be great! If photography is primarily someones gig when they are out and about, what would be wrong with a killer nice camera that could instantly stream your snaps back to some server someplace? have all the nice features and lenses you want, add literally just a couple ounces to that to make it also function as a phone and data transfer unit. I have no idea what a good camera and decent lens weighs, call it a lb or two now. Add just two ounces of wireless to make it a lot more. The weight differential is negligibile then. Maybe you wouldn't like it, but I bet a lot of folks would like that little additional convenience touch.
I've echoed similar. A PDA like smart phone thing and a couple of docking stations appliances (work/home) is pretty spiffy, given the main PDA/phone has enough integrated oomph. Mix n match, suit to taste then. Want primarily games and tunes besides the wireless connectivity? Do it then. Primarily a dev environment? Mix to hit that goal. Primarily web surfing and IM? Do able. And yada, yada. With replacable solid state drives the same machine could be several machines in an instant depending on what you want to do, and still be portable and much smaller than a laptop. Not for everyone of course, but this is one very large potential niche market, and it is the direction that convergence is going anyway.
...with the big telecoms is any indication that they "get" sharing and open source yet. Example, we have the two polar opposites, community supported wifi, and then 'the other way" where joe big company does all of it. I wonder why we can't have a blend? Like, if the local telco wanted to get broadband out here, yet not go through the expense of running all brand new cables, they could offer people deals to setup APs at their homes. Using the existing poles as antenna mount points leading to a mesh network. something like that. Have community volunteers who would offer to maintain them in exchange for better service, etc. They could still sell bandwith, and sub out to volunteers a lot of the work.
...the wars in the 21st century will be almost exclusively natural resource wars. Preliminaries-clues to watch- will be the currency wars (close to that now). The numbers are hiding in plain sight. There is enough "stuff" planet-wide for one billion or so people to have something like the western notion of a middle class lifestyle. We are at that point now, and it is already starting to be strained. There is NOT enough stuff for six billion plus people. The wars will be fought over cheap and or available energy in all its forms (oil, natgas, hydro, uranium, coal, etc), fresh water supplies (terribly overlooked by most strategists), strategic minerals, arable farmland that doesn't require mass irrigation, and etc. Ya know,"stuff".
So, this should give enough to proceed with who the antagonists will be. Fairly obvious. We have the established large nations and cooperative blocs, then the up and coming nations who are making the advances in manufacturing and will be requiring all the energy the old established nations are using now. something will have to give, you can't get 5 gallons from a one gallon bucket, can't be done now matter how many laws passed, treaties signed or studies made. So, scratch off smaller nations with strategic resources but no military of note, they will be assimilated by one or the other of the major powers or blocs. They may retain some facade of independence, but we are speaking of realities over perceived realities, ie, look at Iraq now. Once that is sorted out (most likely by rougholy the end of this decade), then the major powers will form shifting alliances, leading to the grudge matches. None of them like, trust or actually wish to be aligned with the other, but necessity will force that to happen, temporarily as the medium nations get assimilated.
At that exact point it's a tossup to my way of thinking if the human species will survive, because of the timeline at that point and from one indisputable historical piece of data, all major weapons systems ever invented so far in our combined history have always been eventualy used extensively. We have current tech which hasn't been extensively used, but it *has* been used, there is precedent, and making it better/faster/cheaper is an ongoing processs in high tech weapons labs around the world.
This is not just for grins. Nowadays this will mean nukes, bioengineered weapons (even stealth plagues for silent clandestine wars, recombinant genomic research is by far the scariest potential weapons research), weather warfare, directed energy weapons, advanced psychological weapons that might use electronics and etc, along with the highest tech "conventional" or "normal" weapons, which are certainly advanced enough now and can be considered the most painful of actual bleeding edges tech that is having buckets of cash thrown at it by the second. There is NO shortage of money for weapons research.
Those with the most toys and the deepest bunkers will hold out the longest, but the end result will most likely really, really suck.
So to *directly* answer the question "which nations might get jammed" etc, the answer right this second is simple, ANY of them that have satellites or access to satellites capable of transmitting ANY sort of data which might be useful to ANYone else. Them nations there. Take yer pick, a few of them.
last place we lived had a setup like yours, that is why I am familiar with it. 2.6 kw of solar PV, two separate battery banks, one with 24 trojans, one with 12 rolls/surrettes, stacked inverters to provide both 110vac and 220 for the well, integrated 12 kw diesel genny, and yada yada big wires yada. We even made our own distilled water for the batts with a solar water distiller.
The article submitter just wants to do one circuit, and I don't think he cares about it being solar powered or whatever. The cost would be a lot less than doing any whole house action, but yes, more involved and more costly than just plugging in what he has now and running direct.
With the prices of homes now, and energy credits (add *one PV panel* and it can be a significant cost savings because of the new energy credits), and the ability to have the entire cost rolled into the monthly note, the price per month increase for such a rig wouldn't be that bad most likely, just for the one room. With some research and planning, he could do 90% of the work himself (saving a lot of 20$/hr and up electrician costs), and leave the last to a licensed contractor to check out and verify code worthiness and do the final connections for the inspector to check out. I don't think as serious home improvement projects go it's all that hard for one circuit.
had to read way down the thread to find the correct marketing answer!
No radio in ipods until such a time as apple has a digital radio deal with some satellite company or cellphone company and it actually works in a tiny size
This is the sort of project that alternate energy folks do all the time, ie, using battery backups then to the house circuits. It is common. Whether the original juice is from solar PV or wind gennys or microhydro, fuel generators-or the grid,or a combination of the above, which most enthusiasts have, the wiring is very similar. They have a nice searchable archive of all their past articles, and you can review inverters, grid ties, separating circuits, charge controllers, etc.
With that said, with just the one UPS, I think just plug it in and plug your computers to it like normal. HOWEVER, what you want to do, isolate one room and have that circuit backed up with banked battery power and have the current being a lot cleaner than the grid juice, IS a doable project, and really isn't that hard. Frankly, I am amazed more geeks aren't into doing it. You don't need the expensive solar part to have a day or two (whatever...) of decent backup power stored in a battery bank. Later on if you get the bug you can add the solar or wind power. Neat stuff in that way, highly customizable and modular. Lot of nice current tax breaks as well for homeowners.....
in Atlanta when the RK verdict came down and most of downtown went batsquat nuts, I had to go rescue my then girlfriend from the government building she was holed up in. Had to clear my vehicle in advance via the phone to get through. On the way there, got blocked in by a car (obviously to try and trap me), then the mob saw me and approached. Hmmmm.. This was one of those "uh oh, this could be very sucky" situations. My two friends messrs smith and wesson came out,the driver in the blocking car decided to move out of the way, and the mob decided to get back to serious looting and burning cars, and I was able to proceed quite effectively to retrieve said damsel in distress.
I have more stories from that riot along those lines, (had to go back AGAIN to rescue her mom) but it can be said that having an equalizer in a dangerous situation is a lot better than wishful thinking and harsh language.....
until how he sees push TV to cellphones works out. It's being tried now several places. Let the other guys do the initial market research and tweaking, see how the sales go is my guess on how jobs is thinking. The big question is screen size, that and content. There's a big big difference between what is needed for strict audio and combined audio/video. When you compare global sales of cellphones compared to PDAs you will see there's no comparison,cellphones are winning hands down, and a decent smartphone today is the closest you can see to what might be a video enhanced wireless connected ivideopod thingee. And those cost as much as a cheap laptop. Until they can get it down to a couple hundred bucks and still be decent quality I can't see apple going there. Look how long it took them to crack the 500$ desktop scene, and they still don't have a "normal" 500$ desktop.
Anyway, jobs just plain don't like anything like pdas. this has been obvious for a long time. Why exactly, not sure, but he doesn't like them-yet.
because it is not what is important as to how things are done or the real political process or the real governance (rule is a closer term) of peoples. We have a technofeudalistic society currently, basically two classes, the so-called middle class is just in serious denial that they are still relevant to any political process.
Here is the quote that matters:
rothschild - "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."
always liked it better. This effort is good because moz itself decided to sort of more or less freeze the suite, now we have folks who decided to continue it. Cool Beans and as it should be with open source, choices, freedom. I like the better preferences, the speed, the integration, the smooth feel of it.
...I *hope* they don't start charging 5.95$ for an ounce of really cheap alcohol in a 'special can". IF the tech works good, they don't need to gouge on the fuel reloads.
just kvetching in advance is all, looking at generic corporate track records, ie, cellphone 70$, replacement battery 59.95$, stuff like that. Methanol is like a few dollars a gallon now, something like that, cheap, so beware the tiny filler-up cans.
it's having the machine out of trusted hands. I don't care what insurance you have, out of sight is out of your control. Like when I have moved before, some gets shipped or stored for later move, other stuff travels directly with me in the car. I think also it was the speed factor in this case, they had the ability to go move it quickly and efficiently, and frankly, small airplanes are pretty efficient and fairly fast compared to any ground transport.
I can think of a lot more ways to save a lot more gas in the US than being picky over one airplane ride for the kernel server. How about fuel taxing any luxury rides at 500%, like jetskis? How about just making illegal any corporate business jets? why even allow lawns when we need more gardens, just eliminate mass lawnmowing. And for that matter, why not triple fuel tax ANY airplane travel to discourage it? Trains are more efficient cross land,and ships are more efficient cross ocean. Them ceos and rich clients can fly coach on public jets or ride the bus or train or some big sailboat across the pond. How about running public school busses to haul around high school "sports" teams? That's kinda silly in a way. Hundreds if not thousands more examples there for fuel "waste".
It gets down to anyone-you "your" travel for whatever reason you think is cool or necessary is "justified", but the other guys ain't and he's "wasting fuel". i.e. pot meet kettle
Don't know about you, but something as important as the actual linux kernel server I wouldn't trust to any random hired courier service to carry. When you think about all the other BS ways people waste gas on, something that critical is perfectly OK.
I am with you, still like dead trees-just don't like the distribution and expense of normal bookstores, or even an amazon. Instead of an e book, I want a cheap printer that I can download an "ebook" to and it spits out a cheap bound normal sized paperback for me to read. A buck a book (joe cheap in other words) to the publisher/author plus some ink and paper on my end seems fair.
As for the paper, well, that's why we need legal industrial hemp...
Slashdot Mirror
posit: download/shared upload, a movie from Mooveetorrent.com at 1.99$ per .torrent file, compared to a megabuxflix release straight download @ 3.99$ (some figures like that anyway, whatever fits). As joe consumer, would you maybe consider it? Not all would of course, but I bet a lot of consumers would sign on to a deal something like that for legit content they were interested in.
...trolling. I said nothing like what you are implying, nor is it any sort of valid sarcastic commentary, it's just *weird*.
...of a plethora of examples of where the feds went out of their way to make things *worse*. You can call it whatever you want, but I don't think it's an _accident_ after seeing them do similar hundreds of times now over decades of watching. There's more examples if you care to google around, it's not like it hasn't been in the news pretty constantly now for weeks.
c torordered001.shtml
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/091605/new_do
...I'm a traditional constitutionalist nationalist. Nowadays I might be called a paleocon. Complete opposite of these globalist interventionist neocons. those folks are just internationalists, have no lyalty to nation or neighbor or good tradition, and have a "profits at any cost" mentality, which I reject. to me, money is not the most important thing in the world, and never has been.
I worked my first presidential campaign for AuH20,because at a minimum he wasn't a liar, and he understood states rights and individual rights and was a nationalist. I also got my education in power politics then a i watched the establishment elite repubs sabotage their own candidate on purpose for later on political gain.
My first politics *in general* were for civil rights and environmental conservation, then anti illegal war and anti illegal draft-or forced servitude.
I always believed in the root word of conservative = "conserve", or nurture and protect. I still think that is a good idea, and that it also makes the best economic sense, best security sense, best environmental sense, best social sense, not only for US citizens but for anyone around the planet. to me, our "bill of rights" means all humans, it is what all humans are born with.
I am against dictators wherever they are, what language they speak, what color they are or what religion.
I am pro self defense and hold the second as highly as the first and all the others.
look-collate data-analyse-speak (and act) the truth with your heart and mind, it's about all you can do as a man.
....walking with people who just wanted to VOTE, and had their rights denied. I took the gas when we wanted open honest debate and actual facts and data over a war fought but never legally declared, a war for blood profits, partially fought with chemical weapons that were killing our own guys and still do to this day. And MOST of those guys were very poor young folks who got dragooned into it against their will, while the fatcats sons got student 2s deferrments or cushy national guard non-jobs, like a certain smirker in chief.
I watched as a group of cops picked someone who was non violent, just yelling, out of a crowd and STOMPED AND BEAT HIM TO DEATH at a rally AND IT NEVER MADE THE NEWS. they were laughing while they did it, LAUGHING. Kent state made the news, jackson state did, this incident didn't, and there have been a lot more over the years, just not reported or barely reported or excused off for some vague double speak reason. I, and several other people took that case as eyewitnesses as far as we could, to a lieutenant governor meeting, IT STILL RESULTED IN NOTHING HAPPENING. They hauled the poor guys body away and wouldn't even admit it happened.
THAT is partially from where I am coming from. Don't assume things about people you don't know. just because nation x is worse than nation y doesn't mean nation y doesn't have uber sucky aspects to it of the dictatorial goon squad nature. This is a government that has a past verifiable track record of foreign official assassinations, support for death squads, cozying up to dictators or helping install them, and utterly wasting most of the money they get from the tax payers with a shrug,a wink and a nod to "business as usual".
My goal is somehow work so that it never gets worse than what it is! And somehow this is wrong because some other place it's even worse?? Sorry, no one controls where they are born, but we all have a stake in where we live, to try and make it better and you can't do that unless you are able to actually LOOK and see where the faults are. I have done this, did it, and will continue to do so. My commentary was on the 'americans blindly accepting' part, some of us don't 'blindly accept' matters we know are just plain evil wrong, but we also are aware of the consequences of actions in todays political world. If we don't push back when it's so called 'not that bad", then GUARANTEED they will keep pushing until you and me and thee and thou are squashed flat eyes downcast shuffling slaves.
$%^&*( that, homey don't play that game
Phooie! Lets get real here. Who's "blindly accepting"? We are under painful threat of personal terrorism if we DON'T accept their dictates. Americans know we are getting screwed,you would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't think this, the deal is, the government will and does use force-at any level-to get their way, up to the point of the barrel of a gun. It is not 'we the people" anymore, it is "us versus them".
.Look at what they did with hurricane katrina, went WAY out of their way to keep private help and citizens out,walmart trucks with water told to go back, citizen convoys with rescue boats, ordered to go back, civilian communication lines CUT by agents of the feds, on and on, until it had dissolved into chaos, THEN they decide to show up to 'restore order". THIS IS A CLUE. That isn't an "intelligence failure" like that additional 9-11 bigfat lie, it was done on purpose.
Want to go exercise political "free speech" at a rally? If they have decided that speech is ok here but not over there across the street, their armed agents WILL use any amount of force necessary to make you comply. How about "random courtesy roadblocks"? What BS is this, when I was a kid this was taught to us as only something some tyrannical regime pulled, the third reich or stalins soviet union or some place like that, we were shown how utterly bogus that was, because it's true, it IS bogus. Now? What are you supposed to do, NOT STOP? Guess what happens to you if you don't stop, they'll run you off the road or shoot you in the head. How about taxes going through the roof, what do you do about it, taxes and out of control government spending? Vote for the two cooperating political gangs who have hijacked government and make it near impossible for any other party to actually function and get a toe hold in? they have killed off any effective third party action, this is pretty obvious since the reform party actually made a showing. Even took them off the national debates, the League of Women Voters was so disgusted with that blatant power grab that they stopped sponsoring the national debates. A CLUE. How much of "black box" electronic vote hijacking, gerrymandering and skewing the nomination and ballot process has to occur before the government guys doing it arrest themselves, which is what it would take? that just ain't gonna happen, and everyone knows it, and you as joe citizen can't just go and "detain" some governmental crook. They would kill you dead.
We can all see corporate/governmental industry collusion, no bid contracts, blood profits pushed over everything else, yet what are you supposed to actually do about it? You can't stop it physically, you can't vote it away, and any crimes committed by the government are aided and abetted by their armed agents in various colored uniforms. I've been in this gig for decades, for every one little retreat back to the constitution we've seen, we get several large steps forward into despotism.
No the problem is, the government has way too many "just following orders" types who will follow any order given to them, even if they know it is pretty dodgy. And that means both overseas and domestically. Wars based on utter lies and fabrications-still being waged "just following orders".
Face reality, we have been under a violent armed coup for several years now, just no one really wants to say that out loud too much. check the "hate crimes" bill about to pass, this will affect online and printed and broadcast speech, yet the mass media is mostly ignoring it-wonder why? could it be they are in on it at the top, it's the same technofeudalists who run things, the same elite?
From my perspective, the coup started in earnest when they got clean away with whacking JFK and it has gone downhill from there. A nice slow semi stealth dictatorial take over, every day, establish more command and control and surveillance.
We aren't too many years away from being more like China
Large urban areas are anachronisms. They are huge energy sinks and social entropy sinks because it's all piped in expensive reality. They used to be important because of trade and communications, people physically had to get in physical proximity to each other in order to do business. We have the communications part down now so that more and more people don't have to travel for business/work purposes, and they can still be involved with high tech economy. It will actually be cheaper to spread out more in the future, we've hit the limit on city size as a practical matter. And as to sprawl, and driving, we are seeing the rebirth of the high mileage per gallon vehicle in the US. The transition is happening now, hybrids and compact turbo diesels are the fastest growing market segments,(still small but fastest growing) and with fuel going to be cracking 4-5$ a gallon soon (most likely) in the US, you'll see more sentiment for them-even hybrid SUVs and pickups, some of which are available now. The solar PV guys can't even keep up with the demand. the wind genny guys are cracking the cost of electricity from coal. this requires being outside the cities. more and more successful farmers are downsizing and getting into the niche markets, and staying close to their customer base, you can see it in the grocery stores on the produce shelves, people are demanding the alternative specialty and organic food products that the smaller guys are putting out. And on and on, lots of examples how our economy is morphing to adapt to higher energy costs.
It would take quite a lot for people in the US to just give up personal transportation, and quite a large percentage of the population just do not want to live in a heavy urbanized zone. Reluctantly go there and work for a shift, then split back home is more like it. If they did really like living like that, suburbs wouldn't have been invented and sold in the first place, we would have built many more and larger skyscraper apartment blocks. Some people like that sort of living,millions to be fair, but millions more do not,and that is just the way it is. People want to at least go home to a bit of green and a where it's a little quieter. It's the choices we collectively have made, it wasn't forced, it was what people wanted and what the economy evolved to. And with the extremely expensive urbanized coastal areas now under the scrutiny of mortgage sticker-shock experiencing home owners and extremely nervous insurance agents, I am expecting a gradual switch back to the heartland areas from the coasts, where prices are cheaper for housing, and where the work can be exported easier now than even just a short decade ago. And it's a numbers game, we just have more people now, they have to go someplace, and OUT is pretty easy and cheaper compared to UP.
There are other factors involved, for instance, the upcoming baby boomers starting to retire. I *doubt* this will result in millions more downtown apartments being built to accomodate them. They may downsize the home they have after their kids move out, but it will probably mean just a smaller house even further out and an RV, albeit the next generation hybrid RV, heh.
some of us carried nice heavy slide rules in leather sheaths. There *weren't* any calculators unless you mean one of the few (whatever, not a large number) mainframes that existed at the time.
Say a lady had a handbag with a hidden "deadman" switch on it someplace. As she is walking she holds the bag there, keeps the button depressed, something along those lines anyway, could even be a RFID proximity tag to a matching tag on her clothes, say a brooch pin or something non obvious. If a purse snatcher snags the bag, the button is released and phones home to some security outfit with a running account of GPS coordinates, or once the two RFID tags lose contact with each other because of distance it automatically phones out with the details. It could be the cellphone itself that does the activation, which would help if the snatcher just cobbed the contents and dumped the bag down the block someplace. Heck, something like that would be good for wallets.
if that is the primary function you want, don't hang a cheap camera off the phone, start with what you think is a good camera, then add features to that. You just emphasize what is important to you, prioritize. this lets the manufacturer have a lot of products to sell, and lets the consumer have exactly what they want, no more and no less. the no less is the interesting part about miniaturization today. Look at swiss army knives, you can get them from a few blades to egads lookathatthing, and most folks prefer the in between sizes. It's a popular enough device that has stood the test of consumer time. Eventually it spawned the multitool/leatherman concept, another well received idea.
The deal with convergence is, it is possible that most everyone's niche demands can be met, in the priority that they want. You primarily want a simple phone with big numbers and good audio? Fine, you can have that. The next guy wants that, but with some sort of camera that does at least passable photos or real time wireless cam streaming. And on and on.
I think the point is, there's no one size fits everyone, but with todays tech you should soon be able to get a lot closer to exactly what you want, and making the basic unit modular and powerful, it makes it easier to personalise and customise to suit the individual. Hmm, here is a for instance for me, I'd like a phone that did an outstanding job on the wireless part, as well as being a multiband radio receiver, I like talk radio, news, shortwave broadcasts, etc, and would also like it to function as a powerful walkie talkie. A simple webrowser and simple camera would suffice on top of that. I am frequently out in the field (literally, field as in "farm" field), but would like a fast way to see the latest weather radar images, and check on some websites during the day, and also be in close walkie talkie contact with the old homestead. I wouldn't be using it as a primary surfer, but back in the living room if I could plug that thing into a normal display and keyboard and some speakers, well, fat city. Heck, up to a few months ago I was still primarily surfing on an old PP200 system, worked fine for my particular needs, so I know that they are "good enough" now for my purposes horsepower-wise (joe current PDA/smart phones), just waiting for them to drop in price a scosh more before I get one. and where I live, wireless will most likely be the only way I'll ever be offered any sort of broadband, so might as well make the most of it with a better quality PDA/phone thing at the same time. A seemless plug in to make it function as a desktop would be great! If photography is primarily someones gig when they are out and about, what would be wrong with a killer nice camera that could instantly stream your snaps back to some server someplace? have all the nice features and lenses you want, add literally just a couple ounces to that to make it also function as a phone and data transfer unit. I have no idea what a good camera and decent lens weighs, call it a lb or two now. Add just two ounces of wireless to make it a lot more. The weight differential is negligibile then. Maybe you wouldn't like it, but I bet a lot of folks would like that little additional convenience touch.
I've echoed similar. A PDA like smart phone thing and a couple of docking stations appliances (work/home) is pretty spiffy, given the main PDA/phone has enough integrated oomph. Mix n match, suit to taste then. Want primarily games and tunes besides the wireless connectivity? Do it then. Primarily a dev environment? Mix to hit that goal. Primarily web surfing and IM? Do able. And yada, yada. With replacable solid state drives the same machine could be several machines in an instant depending on what you want to do, and still be portable and much smaller than a laptop. Not for everyone of course, but this is one very large potential niche market, and it is the direction that convergence is going anyway.
this what you mean?
http://www.ltsp.org/
...with the big telecoms is any indication that they "get" sharing and open source yet. Example, we have the two polar opposites, community supported wifi, and then 'the other way" where joe big company does all of it. I wonder why we can't have a blend? Like, if the local telco wanted to get broadband out here, yet not go through the expense of running all brand new cables, they could offer people deals to setup APs at their homes. Using the existing poles as antenna mount points leading to a mesh network. something like that. Have community volunteers who would offer to maintain them in exchange for better service, etc. They could still sell bandwith, and sub out to volunteers a lot of the work.
...the wars in the 21st century will be almost exclusively natural resource wars. Preliminaries-clues to watch- will be the currency wars (close to that now). The numbers are hiding in plain sight. There is enough "stuff" planet-wide for one billion or so people to have something like the western notion of a middle class lifestyle. We are at that point now, and it is already starting to be strained. There is NOT enough stuff for six billion plus people. The wars will be fought over cheap and or available energy in all its forms (oil, natgas, hydro, uranium, coal, etc), fresh water supplies (terribly overlooked by most strategists), strategic minerals, arable farmland that doesn't require mass irrigation, and etc. Ya know,"stuff".
So, this should give enough to proceed with who the antagonists will be. Fairly obvious. We have the established large nations and cooperative blocs, then the up and coming nations who are making the advances in manufacturing and will be requiring all the energy the old established nations are using now. something will have to give, you can't get 5 gallons from a one gallon bucket, can't be done now matter how many laws passed, treaties signed or studies made. So, scratch off smaller nations with strategic resources but no military of note, they will be assimilated by one or the other of the major powers or blocs. They may retain some facade of independence, but we are speaking of realities over perceived realities, ie, look at Iraq now. Once that is sorted out (most likely by rougholy the end of this decade), then the major powers will form shifting alliances, leading to the grudge matches. None of them like, trust or actually wish to be aligned with the other, but necessity will force that to happen, temporarily as the medium nations get assimilated.
At that exact point it's a tossup to my way of thinking if the human species will survive, because of the timeline at that point and from one indisputable historical piece of data, all major weapons systems ever invented so far in our combined history have always been eventualy used extensively. We have current tech which hasn't been extensively used, but it *has* been used, there is precedent, and making it better/faster/cheaper is an ongoing processs in high tech weapons labs around the world.
This is not just for grins. Nowadays this will mean nukes, bioengineered weapons (even stealth plagues for silent clandestine wars, recombinant genomic research is by far the scariest potential weapons research), weather warfare, directed energy weapons, advanced psychological weapons that might use electronics and etc, along with the highest tech "conventional" or "normal" weapons, which are certainly advanced enough now and can be considered the most painful of actual bleeding edges tech that is having buckets of cash thrown at it by the second. There is NO shortage of money for weapons research.
Those with the most toys and the deepest bunkers will hold out the longest, but the end result will most likely really, really suck.
So to *directly* answer the question "which nations might get jammed" etc, the answer right this second is simple, ANY of them that have satellites or access to satellites capable of transmitting ANY sort of data which might be useful to ANYone else. Them nations there. Take yer pick, a few of them.
last place we lived had a setup like yours, that is why I am familiar with it. 2.6 kw of solar PV, two separate battery banks, one with 24 trojans, one with 12 rolls/surrettes, stacked inverters to provide both 110vac and 220 for the well, integrated 12 kw diesel genny, and yada yada big wires yada. We even made our own distilled water for the batts with a solar water distiller.
The article submitter just wants to do one circuit, and I don't think he cares about it being solar powered or whatever. The cost would be a lot less than doing any whole house action, but yes, more involved and more costly than just plugging in what he has now and running direct.
With the prices of homes now, and energy credits (add *one PV panel* and it can be a significant cost savings because of the new energy credits), and the ability to have the entire cost rolled into the monthly note, the price per month increase for such a rig wouldn't be that bad most likely, just for the one room. With some research and planning, he could do 90% of the work himself (saving a lot of 20$/hr and up electrician costs), and leave the last to a licensed contractor to check out and verify code worthiness and do the final connections for the inspector to check out. I don't think as serious home improvement projects go it's all that hard for one circuit.
had to read way down the thread to find the correct marketing answer!
No radio in ipods until such a time as apple has a digital radio deal with some satellite company or cellphone company and it actually works in a tiny size
here, homepower magazine
http://www.homepower.com/index.cfm
you will like this mag if you have never seen it
This is the sort of project that alternate energy folks do all the time, ie, using battery backups then to the house circuits. It is common. Whether the original juice is from solar PV or wind gennys or microhydro, fuel generators-or the grid,or a combination of the above, which most enthusiasts have, the wiring is very similar. They have a nice searchable archive of all their past articles, and you can review inverters, grid ties, separating circuits, charge controllers, etc.
With that said, with just the one UPS, I think just plug it in and plug your computers to it like normal. HOWEVER, what you want to do, isolate one room and have that circuit backed up with banked battery power and have the current being a lot cleaner than the grid juice, IS a doable project, and really isn't that hard. Frankly, I am amazed more geeks aren't into doing it. You don't need the expensive solar part to have a day or two (whatever...) of decent backup power stored in a battery bank. Later on if you get the bug you can add the solar or wind power. Neat stuff in that way, highly customizable and modular. Lot of nice current tax breaks as well for homeowners.....
in Atlanta when the RK verdict came down and most of downtown went batsquat nuts, I had to go rescue my then girlfriend from the government building she was holed up in. Had to clear my vehicle in advance via the phone to get through. On the way there, got blocked in by a car (obviously to try and trap me), then the mob saw me and approached. Hmmmm.. This was one of those "uh oh, this could be very sucky" situations. My two friends messrs smith and wesson came out,the driver in the blocking car decided to move out of the way, and the mob decided to get back to serious looting and burning cars, and I was able to proceed quite effectively to retrieve said damsel in distress.
I have more stories from that riot along those lines, (had to go back AGAIN to rescue her mom) but it can be said that having an equalizer in a dangerous situation is a lot better than wishful thinking and harsh language.....
until how he sees push TV to cellphones works out. It's being tried now several places. Let the other guys do the initial market research and tweaking, see how the sales go is my guess on how jobs is thinking. The big question is screen size, that and content. There's a big big difference between what is needed for strict audio and combined audio/video. When you compare global sales of cellphones compared to PDAs you will see there's no comparison,cellphones are winning hands down, and a decent smartphone today is the closest you can see to what might be a video enhanced wireless connected ivideopod thingee. And those cost as much as a cheap laptop. Until they can get it down to a couple hundred bucks and still be decent quality I can't see apple going there. Look how long it took them to crack the 500$ desktop scene, and they still don't have a "normal" 500$ desktop.
Anyway, jobs just plain don't like anything like pdas. this has been obvious for a long time. Why exactly, not sure, but he doesn't like them-yet.
Here is the quote that matters:
rothschild - "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."
always liked it better. This effort is good because moz itself decided to sort of more or less freeze the suite, now we have folks who decided to continue it. Cool Beans and as it should be with open source, choices, freedom. I like the better preferences, the speed, the integration, the smooth feel of it.
...I *hope* they don't start charging 5.95$ for an ounce of really cheap alcohol in a 'special can". IF the tech works good, they don't need to gouge on the fuel reloads.
just kvetching in advance is all, looking at generic corporate track records, ie, cellphone 70$, replacement battery 59.95$, stuff like that. Methanol is like a few dollars a gallon now, something like that, cheap, so beware the tiny filler-up cans.
it's having the machine out of trusted hands. I don't care what insurance you have, out of sight is out of your control. Like when I have moved before, some gets shipped or stored for later move, other stuff travels directly with me in the car. I think also it was the speed factor in this case, they had the ability to go move it quickly and efficiently, and frankly, small airplanes are pretty efficient and fairly fast compared to any ground transport.
I can think of a lot more ways to save a lot more gas in the US than being picky over one airplane ride for the kernel server. How about fuel taxing any luxury rides at 500%, like jetskis? How about just making illegal any corporate business jets? why even allow lawns when we need more gardens, just eliminate mass lawnmowing. And for that matter, why not triple fuel tax ANY airplane travel to discourage it? Trains are more efficient cross land,and ships are more efficient cross ocean. Them ceos and rich clients can fly coach on public jets or ride the bus or train or some big sailboat across the pond. How about running public school busses to haul around high school "sports" teams? That's kinda silly in a way. Hundreds if not thousands more examples there for fuel "waste".
It gets down to anyone-you "your" travel for whatever reason you think is cool or necessary is "justified", but the other guys ain't and he's "wasting fuel". i.e. pot meet kettle
Don't know about you, but something as important as the actual linux kernel server I wouldn't trust to any random hired courier service to carry. When you think about all the other BS ways people waste gas on, something that critical is perfectly OK.
I am with you, still like dead trees-just don't like the distribution and expense of normal bookstores, or even an amazon. Instead of an e book, I want a cheap printer that I can download an "ebook" to and it spits out a cheap bound normal sized paperback for me to read. A buck a book (joe cheap in other words) to the publisher/author plus some ink and paper on my end seems fair.
As for the paper, well, that's why we need legal industrial hemp...