There is a lot of outrage, the lickspittle media simply doesn't not cover it in order to protect their sacred cow of the Centralized Authoritarian State.
I noticed in the last US budget debacle how one party called the other "anarchists", "hostage takers", etc.; pretty soon they'll mean it and the purges will start. I think within 8 years whatever party is in power will fully turn the system against the citizens and political opponents, and outlaw any dissent, criticism of the government, or simple individualism, as well as the opposing party. It will happen simultaneously in the US and UK, and will probably coincide with whatever massive screw up the government is responsible for at the time, probably the same time the US and UK governments decide to "bail in" and confiscate 10-20% of the assets of everyone with positive net worth per the IMF report.
Rather have a pre-1975 4x4 with solid axles, carburetor and points ignition. Ideally diesel. Can be had for under 3K: 1970's broncos, GMC K5's, Jeep CJ/5's, old school land rovers, WW2 dodge power wagons and 6x6 trucks.
A Grizzly gunsmith lathe and mill combo costs around $4000, less than a 3d printer. The steel and aluminum rods and blocks are also cheap and available. Anyone can machine a REAL gun cheaper than they can make a plastic one. You make bullets out of lead/tin tire rim weights. If you use an older cartridge that was originally a block powder round like.45 colt or 45-70 govt. you can make your own powder. The only part that I'm not sure of is how one would make brass shell cases or primers.
Using this logic the FBI should be able to monitor every form of communication in real time because "criminal conversations" might be occurring. This is the definition of unreasonable search and seizure.
There is no excuse for these "drills" other than to terrorize and intimidate citizens. And combined with promotion exams requiring officers to commit to firing on US citizens, West Point "white papers" discussing how to perform counter insurgency against US citizens, and the fact the the Dept. of Homeland Security as stockpiled billions of rounds of ammunition, the only possible explanation is that US government is preparing to go to war with the US civilian population. There are so few actual "terrorists" in the world that nothing else justifies this level of para-military build up.
Its not far fetched. Its happened quite often in the last 113 years. They will either use resistance to gun confiscation or an engineered dollar collapse to start hostilities and implement an authoritarian/free market system like China or Singapore.
Gun control? Like they control illegal drugs? Like they control felons getting illegal guns? Please. All they will do is harass people who never do anything wrong. The criminals and wackos will get guns and still do their thing.
Its pretty simple. They either follow the rules and change the US Constitution to remove the 2nd Amendment or go home, because the US Supreme Court keeps over turning gun bans.
Human eyes either can't see that many pixels crammed onto such a tiny screen, or will eventually ruin their eyesight trying. A smart vendor avoids the inevitable lawsuits.
I used a 1920x1200 15" laptop for a while, and found it unusable long term, especially with Windows. X-windows was doable. Apple has a long history of deciding what the ergonomically correct resolution is for a display size and sticking with it. 13" was 640x480. 16" was 832x624, etc. All of Apple's CRT monitors were fixed resolution with the same display DPI. Even retina displays are only used to make the ergonomic resolution "look better".
Samson Agonsistes - John Milton Coriolanus - William Shakespeare 1984, Animal Farm - George Orwell Philosophy of History - Hegel 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte - Marx For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov My First Goose - Isaac Babel Lives - Plutarch Origins of Rome - Polybius The Alternative in Eastern Europe - Rudolf Bahro Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 - Hunter Thompson Requiem for a Dream - Hubert Selby The Book of Tea - Kakuzo Ukahura Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro The Economic Consequences of the Peace - JM Keyenes Eminent Victorians - Lytton Strachey On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Has the US actually WON either in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan? I would think the effectiveness of drones is kind of "iffy" if the US is not strategically winning.
If I recall correctly the use of drones caused Pakistan to cut the US supply lines to Afghanistan (and probably much much worse); that is a major strategic failure in return for the targeted killing of a few hundred alleged terrorists and the civilians in their immediate surroundings. Drones in Yemen basically cause the allied government control of the country. After 10 years, a frigging decade, the most sophisticated, well equipped and trained army in the world can't master 10,000 illiterate tribesmen with 40 year old (or older) small arms, and will probably let the country go back the Taliban.
This is America...the police can walk right up and talk to you, question your friends, hire informants, or simply park outside your house and watch for a lot less money than a single drone flight. Its not like these guys are trying to carry out surveillance in a war zone where hostile people can open fire with automatic weapons at any moment. There are no roadside bombs.
Start militarizing the police and turning the nation into Stalinist USSR and that might change very fast.
People used to develop their sexual identity in isolation. A person's sexual tastes, fetishes, kinks, and behavior was almost entirely unique. Every one was slightly different. Now they are all the same, as they all see the same thing during their developmental years.
Combine that with a society that infantilizes young adults, and you get a terrible, vapid, boring mix.
I think the entire market is a sham. The smart users block every ad, tracking cookie and other marketing tool they possibly can, and I think everyone else mentally blocks they ads that do get placed on pages. I can't recall a SINGLE WEB AD, although I periodically scan my spam box for funny phishing emails or Nigerian scams.
Facebook is worth about $12 a share based on FUTURE potential. That is about it. But that is combined with the inherent risk of a product that could literally implode over night like MySpace or AOL.
Unless they plan on designing the plane on closed, proprietary system and eschew any mass produced electronics...the Chinese will own the planes and the networks they operate on before they even take off. If it was developed on off the shelf computers, the Chinese probably already have the cad drawings.
Large numbers of herbivores, are consistent across the fossil record. As are billions of plant eating insects and zillions of methane producing bacteria. Therefore the methane product should be relatively consistent, and constant element in the climate. Since the climate swings between a relatively defined temperature band, the methane is obviously accounted for in the system making this a non-story.
What the article says is that they assumed dinosaurs produced methane. They assumed the amount of methane. They assumed the climate behaves exactly as it would today. They assumed that their models are correct.
Facebook has already reached maximum growth, and future efforts to monetize the service will only alienate users. This IPO is simply a huge cash payoff to the private investors, the owner and friends of the owner, because Facebook is no longer a "growth" company. The risk is also high. Look at how fast AOL, then MySpace collapsed...it will not take much for Facebook to do the same.
Unless I had access to privileged pre-IPO shares that could be flipped in a few days as the suckers pile in, I'd not touch this IPO.
Siri -> Evi. Please. Lets be a little more original than that. I'm so tired of the non-Apple market simply making cheap knock-offs. I wish someone would step out in front for once.
Yet another government failure....
on
Is E85 Dead Now?
·
· Score: 1
Ethanol is just the latest in a long line of failed "policies".
In my lifetime, the US, the most powerful & advanced military in the world, has never won a war! Over 20 years I've watched the US government destroy the space program, destroy the housing market, and destroy the public education system. Even the most solar friendly administration in history managed to destroy the US solar market in less than three years. Simply amazing. Granted, European leaders are working just as hard to screw up everything they touch as well, lol.
Maybe if they still allowed the Pledge of Allegiance, people would remember that the US is a republic. I don't think there are any actual "democracies" in the world. Almost most all are representative or parliamentary. No politician would willingly surrender power to a true democracy.
Most scientific hypotheses fail. So most scientists are usually WRONG. That is not a bad thing. Proving something does not work is knowledge too. But these days scientists appear more like game show hosts. They will say anything knowing hardly anyone will dispute it, and scientific refutation does not usually get reports. Political correctness takes precedent over the scientific method.
This leads to stories worthy of Monty Python. The most recent I have seen was a scientist who died of plague. He was working with a genetically modified version of plague that should have been non-infectious. So they implemented no bio-hazard controls. Since they really had no clue what they were doing, they actually created a version of plague optimized for the genetic condition common to descendants of plague survivors. The scientist died, and a bio-hazard incident on the campus. Talk about Darwin Awards.
In shot take all pronouncements Deus ex Scientifica with a large grain of sand, and wait a few years for the actual physical proof.
Why would anyone use an expensive smart phone to handle communications for illegal enterprises? Cheap, pre-paid, zero audit trail phones are the way to go. Why ditch a $600 phone every few days?
IMO, this is just as bad as those two. Given all of the core functions of government that are not working today; Given the lack of universal health care. Given the generally shoddy state of the social safety net; Given the generally shoddy state of the economy - maybe the government should spend 3% of GDP on more important things?
3% for scientists is just as bad as 3% for the military (although military defense is a constitutional duty of the federal government while funding research is not).
I argue that 3% of GDP is a ridiculous amount to give to 480,000 scientists. How many research projects that get grants actually benefit society? How are many esoteric studies of useless phenomena?
Does the taxpayer profit from fruits of the research the taxpayer funds? Nope. Any federally funded research should result in patents in the public domain that are open to all.
Given that we don't have the basics such as universal health care, pensions, or a social safety net that comes any where close to that in the EU, I think the money is better spent somewhere other than science at this time.
What a complete and utter crock. 3% of GDP dedicated to 480,000 scientists.
Does the public get any payback if research develops the Next Big Thing? Nope, the scientist goes off, gets a patent and gets wildly personally wealthy.
Foreclosures are still rising. Unemployment is still increasing. Wages are still falling. This money would be better spent on the people.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a lot of outrage, the lickspittle media simply doesn't not cover it in order to protect their sacred cow of the Centralized Authoritarian State.
I noticed in the last US budget debacle how one party called the other "anarchists", "hostage takers", etc.; pretty soon they'll mean it and the purges will start. I think within 8 years whatever party is in power will fully turn the system against the citizens and political opponents, and outlaw any dissent, criticism of the government, or simple individualism, as well as the opposing party. It will happen simultaneously in the US and UK, and will probably coincide with whatever massive screw up the government is responsible for at the time, probably the same time the US and UK governments decide to "bail in" and confiscate 10-20% of the assets of everyone with positive net worth per the IMF report.
Rather have a pre-1975 4x4 with solid axles, carburetor and points ignition. Ideally diesel. Can be had for under 3K: 1970's broncos, GMC K5's, Jeep CJ/5's, old school land rovers, WW2 dodge power wagons and 6x6 trucks.
A Grizzly gunsmith lathe and mill combo costs around $4000, less than a 3d printer. The steel and aluminum rods and blocks are also cheap and available. Anyone can machine a REAL gun cheaper than they can make a plastic one. You make bullets out of lead/tin tire rim weights. If you use an older cartridge that was originally a block powder round like .45 colt or 45-70 govt. you can make your own powder. The only part that I'm not sure of is how one would make brass shell cases or primers.
Using this logic the FBI should be able to monitor every form of communication in real time because "criminal conversations" might be occurring. This is the definition of unreasonable search and seizure.
There is no excuse for these "drills" other than to terrorize and intimidate citizens. And combined with promotion exams requiring officers to commit to firing on US citizens, West Point "white papers" discussing how to perform counter insurgency against US citizens, and the fact the the Dept. of Homeland Security as stockpiled billions of rounds of ammunition, the only possible explanation is that US government is preparing to go to war with the US civilian population. There are so few actual "terrorists" in the world that nothing else justifies this level of para-military build up.
Its not far fetched. Its happened quite often in the last 113 years. They will either use resistance to gun confiscation or an engineered dollar collapse to start hostilities and implement an authoritarian/free market system like China or Singapore.
Gun control? Like they control illegal drugs? Like they control felons getting illegal guns? Please. All they will do is harass people who never do anything wrong. The criminals and wackos will get guns and still do their thing.
Its pretty simple. They either follow the rules and change the US Constitution to remove the 2nd Amendment or go home, because the US Supreme Court keeps over turning gun bans.
Human eyes either can't see that many pixels crammed onto such a tiny screen, or will eventually ruin their eyesight trying. A smart vendor avoids the inevitable lawsuits.
I used a 1920x1200 15" laptop for a while, and found it unusable long term, especially with Windows. X-windows was doable. Apple has a long history of deciding what the ergonomically correct resolution is for a display size and sticking with it. 13" was 640x480. 16" was 832x624, etc. All of Apple's CRT monitors were fixed resolution with the same display DPI. Even retina displays are only used to make the ergonomic resolution "look better".
Samson Agonsistes - John Milton
Coriolanus - William Shakespeare
1984, Animal Farm - George Orwell
Philosophy of History - Hegel
18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte - Marx
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway
Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
My First Goose - Isaac Babel
Lives - Plutarch
Origins of Rome - Polybius
The Alternative in Eastern Europe - Rudolf Bahro
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 - Hunter Thompson
Requiem for a Dream - Hubert Selby
The Book of Tea - Kakuzo Ukahura
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Economic Consequences of the Peace - JM Keyenes
Eminent Victorians - Lytton Strachey
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Many too many to list
Has the US actually WON either in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan? I would think the effectiveness of drones is kind of "iffy" if the US is not strategically winning.
If I recall correctly the use of drones caused Pakistan to cut the US supply lines to Afghanistan (and probably much much worse); that is a major strategic failure in return for the targeted killing of a few hundred alleged terrorists and the civilians in their immediate surroundings. Drones in Yemen basically cause the allied government control of the country. After 10 years, a frigging decade, the most sophisticated, well equipped and trained army in the world can't master 10,000 illiterate tribesmen with 40 year old (or older) small arms, and will probably let the country go back the Taliban.
This is America...the police can walk right up and talk to you, question your friends, hire informants, or simply park outside your house and watch for a lot less money than a single drone flight. Its not like these guys are trying to carry out surveillance in a war zone where hostile people can open fire with automatic weapons at any moment. There are no roadside bombs.
Start militarizing the police and turning the nation into Stalinist USSR and that might change very fast.
People used to develop their sexual identity in isolation. A person's sexual tastes, fetishes, kinks, and behavior was almost entirely unique. Every one was slightly different. Now they are all the same, as they all see the same thing during their developmental years.
Combine that with a society that infantilizes young adults, and you get a terrible, vapid, boring mix.
I think the entire market is a sham. The smart users block every ad, tracking cookie and other marketing tool they possibly can, and I think everyone else mentally blocks they ads that do get placed on pages. I can't recall a SINGLE WEB AD, although I periodically scan my spam box for funny phishing emails or Nigerian scams.
Facebook is worth about $12 a share based on FUTURE potential. That is about it. But that is combined with the inherent risk of a product that could literally implode over night like MySpace or AOL.
Unless they plan on designing the plane on closed, proprietary system and eschew any mass produced electronics...the Chinese will own the planes and the networks they operate on before they even take off. If it was developed on off the shelf computers, the Chinese probably already have the cad drawings.
Large numbers of herbivores, are consistent across the fossil record. As are billions of plant eating insects and zillions of methane producing bacteria. Therefore the methane product should be relatively consistent, and constant element in the climate. Since the climate swings between a relatively defined temperature band, the methane is obviously accounted for in the system making this a non-story.
What the article says is that they assumed dinosaurs produced methane. They assumed the amount of methane. They assumed the climate behaves exactly as it would today. They assumed that their models are correct.
Facebook has already reached maximum growth, and future efforts to monetize the service will only alienate users. This IPO is simply a huge cash payoff to the private investors, the owner and friends of the owner, because Facebook is no longer a "growth" company. The risk is also high. Look at how fast AOL, then MySpace collapsed...it will not take much for Facebook to do the same.
Unless I had access to privileged pre-IPO shares that could be flipped in a few days as the suckers pile in, I'd not touch this IPO.
Siri -> Evi. Please. Lets be a little more original than that. I'm so tired of the non-Apple market simply making cheap knock-offs. I wish someone would step out in front for once.
Ethanol is just the latest in a long line of failed "policies".
In my lifetime, the US, the most powerful & advanced military in the world, has never won a war! Over 20 years I've watched the US government destroy the space program, destroy the housing market, and destroy the public education system. Even the most solar friendly administration in history managed to destroy the US solar market in less than three years. Simply amazing. Granted, European leaders are working just as hard to screw up everything they touch as well, lol.
Maybe if they still allowed the Pledge of Allegiance, people would remember that the US is a republic. I don't think there are any actual "democracies" in the world. Almost most all are representative or parliamentary. No politician would willingly surrender power to a true democracy.
Wow. Price is generally the reason for all theft. That includes scamming the movie and music industry into funding a three year study of the obvious.
Most scientific hypotheses fail. So most scientists are usually WRONG. That is not a bad thing. Proving something does not work is knowledge too. But these days scientists appear more like game show hosts. They will say anything knowing hardly anyone will dispute it, and scientific refutation does not usually get reports. Political correctness takes precedent over the scientific method.
This leads to stories worthy of Monty Python. The most recent I have seen was a scientist who died of plague. He was working with a genetically modified version of plague that should have been non-infectious. So they implemented no bio-hazard controls. Since they really had no clue what they were doing, they actually created a version of plague optimized for the genetic condition common to descendants of plague survivors. The scientist died, and a bio-hazard incident on the campus. Talk about Darwin Awards.
In shot take all pronouncements Deus ex Scientifica with a large grain of sand, and wait a few years for the actual physical proof.
The simplest answer is that life formed from indigenous materials on the planet. Personally I think that anywhere life is possible, life appears.
Why would anyone use an expensive smart phone to handle communications for illegal enterprises? Cheap, pre-paid, zero audit trail phones are the way to go. Why ditch a $600 phone every few days?
IMO, this is just as bad as those two. Given all of the core functions of government that are not working today; Given the lack of universal health care. Given the generally shoddy state of the social safety net; Given the generally shoddy state of the economy - maybe the government should spend 3% of GDP on more important things?
This is just welfare for PHD's.
3% for scientists is just as bad as 3% for the military (although military defense is a constitutional duty of the federal government while funding research is not).
I argue that 3% of GDP is a ridiculous amount to give to 480,000 scientists. How many research projects that get grants actually benefit society? How are many esoteric studies of useless phenomena?
Does the taxpayer profit from fruits of the research the taxpayer funds? Nope. Any federally funded research should result in patents in the public domain that are open to all.
Given that we don't have the basics such as universal health care, pensions, or a social safety net that comes any where close to that in the EU, I think the money is better spent somewhere other than science at this time.
What a complete and utter crock. 3% of GDP dedicated to 480,000 scientists.
Does the public get any payback if research develops the Next Big Thing? Nope, the scientist goes off, gets a patent and gets wildly personally wealthy.
Foreclosures are still rising. Unemployment is still increasing. Wages are still falling. This money would be better spent on the people.