Apparently you've never read about James Plamondon and his "Technical Evangelists". The Combs-3096.pdf is a collection of his training manuals and describes "The Slog", and a real jewel you'll love called "The Stacked Panel". Then, I suppose, you've forgotten about the stuffed ISO committees, or the scam which gave expensive laptops to journalists in exchange for favorable stories about VISTA?
When his "work" was revealed in the Combs vs Microsoft trial Plamondon did a Mea Culpa, and now decries the tactics he used to help Microsoft establish market dominance. Too little, too late.
Well, I am 70 and during September of my freshman year in college (1962), the afternoon temps were 105 and dropped down into the 80s at night. Without AC we had to take cooling showers 3 or 4 times a day. It was so hot in the 1930s that my wife's mother remembered people leaving their homes and sleeping out under the stars in a park near her home. She laid on a blanket and let her feet lay in a stream which flowed through the park in order to keep cool. In 1905 it was so hot and dry that the Platte River dried up between Kearney and the Missouri. There is a photo in the York News Times showing folks forking Carp in drying pools of what used to be a river which was a mile wide and a foot deep.
Very few records have been made in the last 10 years. Almost every high temperature reported today is prefaced with "It hasn't been this hot since...." and some date in the previous century is cited.
I only wonder why I never got a payout from Al Gore for my participation....
Maybe it's because a lot of his "Carbon Credit" profits went into his house?
You remember, of course, the email circulating around about the house that Gore, the "environmentalist" lives in and the house the Bush lived in? Guess which house is environmentally friendly, despite Snopes liberal slant on Gore's house, he was shamed into making 10% improvements on electrical use.
read the emails. Unlike Gore's contention to the CNN reporter that they were "10 years old and not relevant any more", the most recent was just days before the files were leaked. The emails exchanges between members of the CRC gang describe how they gained control of climate journals and stuffed the "peer review" committees with their own people, smeared highly acclaimed climatologists from MIT and other highly ranked institutions because they didn't genuflect to AGW, and attempted or did destroy careers of lesser known academics who dared publish or discuss ideas that disagreed with AGW. The tactics they described are exactly those used to attack this satellite study.
Also in the FOIA files were documents of contracts between the CRC and the UN IUPPC which set up milestones for delivery of "data" from "experiments" which would support AGW. As one who did anti-metabolite cancer research in grad school, I find it incredulous that a group of scientists could sign a contract and promise to deliver "proof" of AGW in exchange for cash (a.k.a. "grant money"). One could call it bribe money.
Despite all their claims to superior knowledge and skill I also read the HARRYREADME.TXT file. THAT was an eye opener. It explains how they could guarantee "deliverables" according to a preset time lines agreed to in their contracts with the IUPCC. A running dialog of how they manipulated, and then finally created imaginary data in order to product a "deliverable", as their contract with the UN IUPPC called them. They literally did try to "hide the decline" (the 0.7F decline in world temperature during the decade of 2000), and surpress the Maunder minimum in the middle ages. They fudged data from all over the globe and cherry picked a few data points while ignoring a vast mountain of contradictory data, always with a ready explanation as to why. They were also caught trying to changing the historical CO2 data collected at Hawaii.
Al Gore's motive for Carbon Credits had less to do with controlling the release of CO2 into the atmosphere and more to do with plain old simply greed.
All of this reminds me of the USSR trip into Bazzaro Land when Communist Party officially recognized the work of the Russian biologist Lysenko, whose theories dovetailed neatly with Marxist dogma. While Lysenko was spending government money to rig "experiments" and buy cronies willing to do the same, it set Soviet biology back more than 30 years. He was eventually discredited. Sooner or later the AGW theories will fall by the wayside as well, especially when their proponents realize that no one is going to be scared into giving up their personal freedoms and submit to Maxist/Socialist dogma, as the GreenPeace Activist and a CRC member discussed in one of their emails. The GreenPeace guy was the one whose article about Amazon deforestation was revealed to be totally bogus.
If Microsoft wants to erode their own market share, why are you complaining?
Microsoft is NOT replacing Windows servers with SLES servers, they are replacing RedHat and other Linux servers with SLES. So, they are NOT "eroding" their own market share, obviously. How does it benefit Microsoft to replace RH servers with SLES servers that they've donated? RH servers are set up as "Master Browser" servers. The SLES servers that replace RH servers are NOT configured to be Master Browsers and are more easily replaced by Windows servers.
With the USA rapidly transitioning from a 1st World to a 2nd World country you could volunteer to do a wide variety of Geeky activities in various locations there. And, you'd speak the language perfectly and understand the culture as well. Help rural people far from major population centers to connect to the Internet (which is no longer a luxury but a necessity), install or repair radios and TVs and their antennas, or repair mechanical or electrical devices. Ditto for bicycles, motorcycles and automobiles. Help poor families set up solar or wind generated electric power to run various low powered communication devices, lights and fans. Recycle old desktops and laptops by repairing them and installing a Linux distro on them, along with any business, education or entertainment applications they might need or want. For the $1K-1.5K cost of a round trip air flight to Africa you could buy a lot of laptop and desktop parts and 4GB USB sticks. Remember, charity begins at home.
A beta is a beta. You do know, don't you, that you can not sign up? You have to be invited to gain access to Google+.
And, because it is a beta, don't be surprised if features are added, changed or dropped, none of which means that Google is "evil".
Personally, I like Google+ better than FB. I especially like Google+s "Hangout" feature, which allows up to 10 people to communicate via their webcam and mic at the same time. I've only used it with four people but it works great.
leads me to conclude that some corporation wants the FDA to eliminate competition to some of its medical apps. After this plays out, and we see which corporation is still peddling medical apps, we'll know who paid the FDA to go after the others.
It's such a common problem these days. Every government agency is headed by a former corporate CEO or lawyer, and when their term expires they return to the corporate world, being replaced by the CEO they replace. This goes on unchecked because Congressmen and Senators accept bribes, a.k.a. "Campaign contributions", to look the other way, if they don't outright support special interest legislation.
Several BILLION dollars and access to high priced, highly effective lawyers, and over 500 Washington officials with their hands out for "campaign donations", a.k.a bribes.
"...Unless you have something to hide you really shouldn't care."
And who decides if that "something" is suspect or not, and who gives them the right to make that decision, or even do the search? The conundrum is exactly why the Founding Fathers wrote the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
When I put my private information into a safe, or hide it under the mattress, or paste it behind a picture, it is obvious that, for what ever reasons, I do not want others to view that information without my consent. To obtain that information without my consent authorities have to convince a judge that probable cause exists that a crime has been committed and the proof is in that hidden information. Their search warrant, which must be presented to me, is not a fishing expedition, it must list specific items. That I decide to pass or store that information in or through email systems or Internet servers does not change the condition between me, my information, and the 4th Amendment. That government authorities are using "security concerns" to violate both the 4th and 5th Amendments (it is the government doing the searching at airports) is only a prelude to further violations of our civil rights. We are passed the nose of the camel. It has stuck it's entire head into the tent. The body will soon follow. What else is a 250,000 person "civilian national defense force", armed as well or better than our military, good for? And, why do we need a "CNDF" when we have the National Guard?
"...Actually our Founding Fathers (since we're getting all technical here) had no opinion at all on what laws states could or could not enact. In 1800 it would have been totally cool and legal from a federal point of view for say, the State of New Jersey to enact a law saying "The right of freedom of speech pisses us off, and you don't have that shit here."...
Actually, they covered that point very well in the 10th Amendment, ratified on December 15, 1791, nine years before your hypothetical New Jersey law.
Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The only problem with that amendment is enforcing it. The Administrative, Legislative and Judaical branches are frequently usurping powers not delegated to them by the Constitution, and prohibiting powers granted to the States or the people by the Constitution. To fix those problems the citizen must vote out the President, or members of Congress, or the Supreme Court. To make matters worse, there is a "shadow" government of unelected bureaucrats who sometimes exceed their authority but, as in the case of Edgar J Hoover, manage to hang on by apparent blackmail or some other devious device.
The right to bear arms shall not be infringed. ??? Was that an oversight or did you deliberately mis-quote the 2nd Amendment, by excluding the phrase: "... the right of the people..."?
The Supreme Court defined what "the people" means when, in their decision on "District of Columbia v. Heller" (2008), they ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, unconnected to service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. The 2nd Amendment does not just protect duck hunting or target practice.
Of course, the Supreme Court can change its collective mind and rule later that the 2nd Amendment is unconstitutional, but, until the collection of idiots come along which makes that ruling, I can still "bear arms" in self defense or for sport. (I won't shoot an animal unless I am starving.)
The issue now is, of course, "concealed carry". I believe that concealed carry is "bearing arms", the act of which cannot be "infringed". What does "infringed" mean? It is from the Latin: nfringere, to destroy, or fringere, to break; to encroach or trespass; to infringe is to encroach on a right or privilege...
Several "gun control" laws do exactly what "shall not be infringed" says cannot be done. They encroach on the right to bear and use arms, thus breaking and hence destroying the 2nd Amendment. Arms is ANY device that can be used for defense or offense. The framers of the Constitution had access to the latest technology in rifles, pistols, grenades, bombs, and cannons of all sorts. Their term "arms" encompasses all of those devices. In other words, I have a constitutional right to arm myself with the same kinds of weapons that those who would harm or enslave me are using.
There once was a commons, owned by everyone, which some individuals claimed, by force, as their own. They battled each other for supremacy and the winner declared himself "King". The King is the government, which receives money in exchange for fiefs. The Nobles are the corporations. Fiefs are patents. The property on the fiefs are the claims. The King's most important promise was the military, the government's is the police. The Nobles send the sheriff to arrest serfs suspected of poaching their properties. Guilt is assumed, innocence must be proven. The corporations send agents with the police to direct their activities when the police raid serfs suspected of using their property without a license. The Nobles spend some time doing services for the King. The corporations send their CEO's to head government agencies for a time, then return to running their corporations. The serfs spend their time making money which they pay to the Nobles for the (licensing) rights to use the Nobles property. The serfs also pay taxes to the King.
The Internet was created by servants of the people and belonged to the people. Belonging to all of the people, it was the electronic commons.
Your plan would fail at this point: "1. Multiple levels of undetected low-profile unix breakins to start off a botnet."
Two years ago it took some bad guys 6 months to hack into only 700 Linux boxes because they had to do it manually. Just sending an email with an infected packet won't work on Linux the way it worked to create the most recently discovered Windows botfarm, which contained over 4,500,000 Windows zombies.
So, you presort all your mail and then get subsidized rates to mail it. It costs you three or four cents to mail an ad, when the same ad would cost the citizen 44 cents. So, ya, a letter does cost less to mail when you are doing it on the taxpayer's dime.
A sober thought when one considers that US Supreme Court ruled last year that a corporation could bribe our elected representatives with as much money as would get their special legislation enacted, and there didn't have to be any accounting to anyone as to how much or to whom. These bribes are euphemistically called "campaign donations", but if the politician retires s/he can convert those funds to private use.
That will work until Ubuntu upgrades the kernel, which messes up the Grub, which makes Ubuntu inaccessible.
It would be better to run Ubuntu as a LiveCD IF she has enough RAM (4GB or more) and her CPU is fast enough. (dual core 2.2GHz or better) than use Wubi. IF things detect and run well she can install it as a dual boot. Or, better yet, give Ubuntu the whole HD.
Personally, I prefer Kubuntu. So would she, because Win7 copied much of KDE 4.5's look & feel in VISTA and Win7.
"The question is, is unencrypted data a "private conversation"? I think the answer is a clear "no"...
I agree. The signal that radiates from my open wireless router is not "private" because anyone can receive the signal if they are within range. Not having chosen WEP or WPA2 encryption I am deliberately using an "open mic". Not only can anyone receive the radio signal, once the my laptop wifi chip transmits the get or post data to my wireless router, it sends that data over copper wire or glass fiber to my ISP, and my ISP sends it down the Internet trunk line to the entire world. Just about EVERYONE sees my packets and if they are not encrypted or sent through an ssh tunnel, read them.
The wireless routers that Joe and Sally Sixpack use have a maximum range of about 300 feet. The Google vans taking the photographs and scanning and logging the ESSIDs are usually traveling at 30 mph, or 44 feet per second. It would take a van only seven seconds to drive completely through any given wireless router. There is no known tool which can hack into a WEP or WPA2 protected wireless in 7 seconds. Seven seconds is barely enough time for a scanner to read and record the ESSID. That leaves only the OPEN wireless routers. The complainers want us to believe that the technology exists for Google, in SEVEN seconds, to detect the ESSID of an open Wireless router, initiate a connection with it, and then save a significant number of Internet Packets sufficient to determine what the WIFI owner was doing, sending or transmitting? Or, worse, hack into the website and download anything from the wifi owner's PC?
Total nonsense.
Most of the time the connection between a wifi and its ISP is not sending any significant traffic, only beacons and heartbeats. While I've I've been composing this email for the last 10 minutes I have not read from or posted to this or any other website. When I click "Preview", and later "Submit", Google would have to be EXTREMELY opportunistic to be right outside my house as the hundred or so packets that will make up this page transmitted back to the WIFI, in order to read this post, and the frame and webpage HTML code it is in. VERY UNLIKELY.
Finally, using an open WIFI is like walking around in public without any pants or shorts on and then accusing any who look or even glance your way of being voyeurs or perverts. Those who use open wireless routers should be arrested for indecent exposure... to continue the parallel.
The folks suing Google are just opportunists hoping to use the legal system, and ignorant or anti-capitalist lawyers and judges, to fleece Google. Next, they'll sue Google for photographing their house or place of business.
Apple & Barnes have brick-and-mortar stores. When you order online they use the tax rates of the store in your state nearest to your ordering location, as if you had driven to that store and made the purchase. A simple solution that Amazon cannot use because it doesn't have retail outlets. Amazon is playing around with online grocery shopping. I suspect that they will abandon that experiment after they look at all the tax collection requirements that would arise if they had local grocery warehouses that they shipped from. Or, that they limit their grocery sales to dry and canned goods only that do not require refrigeration.
You may "note" that but others, who read the graph correctly, will note that the graph extends to 2016, FIVE years into the future. IOW, the government agency that created that graph is PREDICTING that the ratio will drop to around 5% in the next five years. Given the current size of the debt such a prediction is pure, pro administration propaganda.
The current ratio is around 10% and someone else, looking at the same data up to 2010, could extrapolate to a much higher percentage by 2016. Which, by the way, considering the current financial crisis, seems more likely. The ONLY thing stabilizing the US Dollar right now is the fact that it is a "World Reserve Currency". That means that when Uncle Sam runs his printing press other countries absorb some of the US debt because they have to use the US Dollar, or the EURO, to do world business. The BRICS countries, sans the USA, are in the process of establishing another WCR, and will probably complete that process sometime this year. When that happens, the US Dollar will began inflating rapidly as the Dollar devalues. IF Uncle Sam continues running his printing press the big looser will be the US citizen. Like the Germans, between WWI and WWII, they'll need a wheel barrow to be able to take enough money to the the store to buy a loaf of bread, if any loaves are on the shelves. IF it happens before our troops are returned from the Mid-East we may not be able to afford to bring them home or borrow enough money to do so.
IF you want to blame someone for the current state of the US Dollar the folks to blame are.... YOU, and the other US citizens, who continue to vote into power people who continue to spend beyond revenues, while lining their own pockets, in the vain hope of creating a Socialist Utopia in America. History has shown that the only result of such attempts are Socialist dictatorships.
More nonsense. Are you letting your political ideology control your reasoning? (You have a hammer and everything you see is a nail.)
"Funny how Amazon "can't figure this out" with all their resources, but the local mom and pop nails it with few problems. " Before I retired I wrote software for the Dept of Revenue, State of Nebraska. Taxes and their collection isn't a funny matter for anyone, and it is not surprising at all that Amazon "can't figure this out". My state is one of the smallest, population-wise. We have less than 2 million people living in 93 counties. But, at the time I retired 3 years ago, there existed in the state over 4,700 different taxing entities. Resident zip codes do not determine which taxing district a citizen resides in, even if they limited their shopping just to one location. Citizens can get their mail in one zip code but live in another. Strange as it may seem to you, many residents do not know which taxing district they live in and would not be able to supply that information to Amazon. Or, strange as it may seem to you, they frequently put the wrong information in forms they fill out, even if they fill in online digital forms that do not have to be scanned and fed to an OCR engine, which is yet another can of worms. So, even for a small state like Nebraska, tracking sales by over 4,700 taxing entities that are NOT distinguished by a zip code or address can be, and often is, a nightmare. But, don't feel bad. You not alone. A LOT of elected representatives have unrealistic expectations of what a computer program "should be" able to do.
Nebraska's constitution requires a balanced budget and the legislature is forbidden to spend more than the tax revenues take in, so there isn't a any negative income or sales tax calculations using convoluted rules to benefit those who are more equal than others, like CA, Tx, NY, MA and other heavily indebted states have. To require Amazon to keep track of the taxing districts and policies of 50 states and the territories of the USA and do their tax collections would put a burden on Amazon that could, and probably would, drive it out of business. Add to that the legal costs that would most definitely arise because some political or selfish-interest groups would see Amazon as a Golden Goose that they could pluck in a political favorable court district, and you have the last nail in Amazon's coffin.
YOU are a responsible citizen, or should be. What's wrong with YOU keeping track of how much YOU buy at Amazon, and when tax time comes around YOU compute what sales tax YOU owe on YOUR purchases through Amazon, and submitting that tax to YOUR state when YOU pay your state income tax? That's how it is done in Nebraska, and that's how I did it six months ago, and I do my taxes on line.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently you've never read about James Plamondon and his "Technical Evangelists". The Combs-3096.pdf is a collection of his training manuals and describes "The Slog", and a real jewel you'll love called "The Stacked Panel". Then, I suppose, you've forgotten about the stuffed ISO committees, or the scam which gave expensive laptops to journalists in exchange for favorable stories about VISTA?
When his "work" was revealed in the Combs vs Microsoft trial Plamondon did a Mea Culpa, and now decries the tactics he used to help Microsoft establish market dominance. Too little, too late.
Well, I am 70 and during September of my freshman year in college (1962), the afternoon temps were 105 and dropped down into the 80s at night. Without AC we had to take cooling showers 3 or 4 times a day. It was so hot in the 1930s that my wife's mother remembered people leaving their homes and sleeping out under the stars in a park near her home. She laid on a blanket and let her feet lay in a stream which flowed through the park in order to keep cool. In 1905 it was so hot and dry that the Platte River dried up between Kearney and the Missouri. There is a photo in the York News Times showing folks forking Carp in drying pools of what used to be a river which was a mile wide and a foot deep.
Very few records have been made in the last 10 years. Almost every high temperature reported today is prefaced with "It hasn't been this hot since ...." and some date in the previous century is cited.
I only wonder why I never got a payout from Al Gore for my participation....
Maybe it's because a lot of his "Carbon Credit" profits went into his house?
You remember, of course, the email circulating around about the house that Gore, the "environmentalist" lives in and the house the Bush lived in?
Guess which house is environmentally friendly, despite Snopes liberal slant on Gore's house, he was shamed into making 10% improvements on electrical use.
read the emails. Unlike Gore's contention to the CNN reporter that they were "10 years old and not relevant any more", the most recent was just days before the files were leaked. The emails exchanges between members of the CRC gang describe how they gained control of climate journals and stuffed the "peer review" committees with their own people, smeared highly acclaimed climatologists from MIT and other highly ranked institutions because they didn't genuflect to AGW, and attempted or did destroy careers of lesser known academics who dared publish or discuss ideas that disagreed with AGW. The tactics they described are exactly those used to attack this satellite study.
Also in the FOIA files were documents of contracts between the CRC and the UN IUPPC which set up milestones for delivery of "data" from "experiments" which would support AGW. As one who did anti-metabolite cancer research in grad school, I find it incredulous that a group of scientists could sign a contract and promise to deliver "proof" of AGW in exchange for cash (a.k.a. "grant money"). One could call it bribe money.
Despite all their claims to superior knowledge and skill I also read the HARRYREADME.TXT file. THAT was an eye opener. It explains how they could guarantee "deliverables" according to a preset time lines agreed to in their contracts with the IUPCC. A running dialog of how they manipulated, and then finally created imaginary data in order to product a "deliverable", as their contract with the UN IUPPC called them. They literally did try to "hide the decline" (the 0.7F decline in world temperature during the decade of 2000), and surpress the Maunder minimum in the middle ages. They fudged data from all over the globe and cherry picked a few data points while ignoring a vast mountain of contradictory data, always with a ready explanation as to why. They were also caught trying to changing the historical CO2 data collected at Hawaii.
Al Gore's motive for Carbon Credits had less to do with controlling the release of CO2 into the atmosphere and more to do with plain old simply greed.
All of this reminds me of the USSR trip into Bazzaro Land when Communist Party officially recognized the work of the Russian biologist Lysenko, whose theories dovetailed neatly with Marxist dogma. While Lysenko was spending government money to rig "experiments" and buy cronies willing to do the same, it set Soviet biology back more than 30 years. He was eventually discredited. Sooner or later the AGW theories will fall by the wayside as well, especially when their proponents realize that no one is going to be scared into giving up their personal freedoms and submit to Maxist/Socialist dogma, as the GreenPeace Activist and a CRC member discussed in one of their emails. The GreenPeace guy was the one whose article about Amazon deforestation was revealed to be totally bogus.
If Microsoft wants to erode their own market share, why are you complaining?
Microsoft is NOT replacing Windows servers with SLES servers, they are replacing RedHat and other Linux servers with SLES. So, they are NOT "eroding" their own market share, obviously. How does it benefit Microsoft to replace RH servers with SLES servers that they've donated? RH servers are set up as "Master Browser" servers. The SLES servers that replace RH servers are NOT configured to be Master Browsers and are more easily replaced by Windows servers.
With the USA rapidly transitioning from a 1st World to a 2nd World country you could volunteer to do a wide variety of Geeky activities in various locations there. And, you'd speak the language perfectly and understand the culture as well. Help rural people far from major population centers to connect to the Internet (which is no longer a luxury but a necessity), install or repair radios and TVs and their antennas, or repair mechanical or electrical devices. Ditto for bicycles, motorcycles and automobiles. Help poor families set up solar or wind generated electric power to run various low powered communication devices, lights and fans. Recycle old desktops and laptops by repairing them and installing a Linux distro on them, along with any business, education or entertainment applications they might need or want. For the $1K-1.5K cost of a round trip air flight to Africa you could buy a lot of laptop and desktop parts and 4GB USB sticks. Remember, charity begins at home.
Google's use of the word beta is a marketing ploy
Bull.
A beta is a beta. You do know, don't you, that you can not sign up? You have to be invited to gain access to Google+.
And, because it is a beta, don't be surprised if features are added, changed or dropped, none of which means that Google is "evil".
Personally, I like Google+ better than FB. I especially like Google+s "Hangout" feature, which allows up to 10 people to communicate via their webcam and mic at the same time. I've only used it with four people but it works great.
leads me to conclude that some corporation wants the FDA to eliminate competition to some of its medical apps. After this plays out, and we see which corporation is still peddling medical apps, we'll know who paid the FDA to go after the others.
It's such a common problem these days. Every government agency is headed by a former corporate CEO or lawyer, and when their term expires they return to the corporate world, being replaced by the CEO they replace. This goes on unchecked because Congressmen and Senators accept bribes, a.k.a. "Campaign contributions", to look the other way, if they don't outright support special interest legislation.
Several BILLION dollars and access to high priced, highly effective lawyers, and over 500 Washington officials with their hands out for "campaign donations", a.k.a bribes.
"...Unless you have something to hide you really shouldn't care."
And who decides if that "something" is suspect or not, and who gives them the right to make that decision, or even do the search? The conundrum is exactly why the Founding Fathers wrote the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
When I put my private information into a safe, or hide it under the mattress, or paste it behind a picture, it is obvious that, for what ever reasons, I do not want others to view that information without my consent. To obtain that information without my consent authorities have to convince a judge that probable cause exists that a crime has been committed and the proof is in that hidden information. Their search warrant, which must be presented to me, is not a fishing expedition, it must list specific items. That I decide to pass or store that information in or through email systems or Internet servers does not change the condition between me, my information, and the 4th Amendment. That government authorities are using "security concerns" to violate both the 4th and 5th Amendments (it is the government doing the searching at airports) is only a prelude to further violations of our civil rights. We are passed the nose of the camel. It has stuck it's entire head into the tent. The body will soon follow. What else is a 250,000 person "civilian national defense force", armed as well or better than our military, good for? And, why do we need a "CNDF" when we have the National Guard?
StartPage uses Google.
It appears that DuckDuck.com is for sale.
A NSA official admits.
"...Actually our Founding Fathers (since we're getting all technical here) had no opinion at all on what laws states could or could not enact. In 1800 it would have been totally cool and legal from a federal point of view for say, the State of New Jersey to enact a law saying "The right of freedom of speech pisses us off, and you don't have that shit here." ...
Actually, they covered that point very well in the 10th Amendment, ratified on December 15, 1791, nine years before your hypothetical New Jersey law.
Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The only problem with that amendment is enforcing it. The Administrative, Legislative and Judaical branches are frequently usurping powers not delegated to them by the Constitution, and prohibiting powers granted to the States or the people by the Constitution. To fix those problems the citizen must vote out the President, or members of Congress, or the Supreme Court. To make matters worse, there is a "shadow" government of unelected bureaucrats who sometimes exceed their authority but, as in the case of Edgar J Hoover, manage to hang on by apparent blackmail or some other devious device.
The right to bear arms shall not be infringed. ..."?
???
Was that an oversight or did you deliberately mis-quote the 2nd Amendment, by excluding the phrase: "... the right of the people
The Supreme Court defined what "the people" means when, in their decision on "District of Columbia v. Heller" (2008), they ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, unconnected to service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. The 2nd Amendment does not just protect duck hunting or target practice.
Of course, the Supreme Court can change its collective mind and rule later that the 2nd Amendment is unconstitutional, but, until the collection of idiots come along which makes that ruling, I can still "bear arms" in self defense or for sport. (I won't shoot an animal unless I am starving.)
The issue now is, of course, "concealed carry". I believe that concealed carry is "bearing arms", the act of which cannot be "infringed". What does "infringed" mean? It is from the Latin: nfringere, to destroy, or fringere, to break; to encroach or trespass; to infringe is to encroach on a right or privilege...
Several "gun control" laws do exactly what "shall not be infringed" says cannot be done. They encroach on the right to bear and use arms, thus breaking and hence destroying the 2nd Amendment. Arms is ANY device that can be used for defense or offense. The framers of the Constitution had access to the latest technology in rifles, pistols, grenades, bombs, and cannons of all sorts. Their term "arms" encompasses all of those devices. In other words, I have a constitutional right to arm myself with the same kinds of weapons that those who would harm or enslave me are using.
Patents are a variation of the feudal system.
There once was a commons, owned by everyone, which some individuals claimed, by force, as their own.
They battled each other for supremacy and the winner declared himself "King".
The King is the government, which receives money in exchange for fiefs.
The Nobles are the corporations.
Fiefs are patents.
The property on the fiefs are the claims.
The King's most important promise was the military, the government's is the police.
The Nobles send the sheriff to arrest serfs suspected of poaching their properties. Guilt is assumed, innocence must be proven.
The corporations send agents with the police to direct their activities when the police raid serfs suspected of using their property without a license.
The Nobles spend some time doing services for the King. The corporations send their CEO's to head government agencies for a time, then return to running their corporations.
The serfs spend their time making money which they pay to the Nobles for the (licensing) rights to use the Nobles property.
The serfs also pay taxes to the King.
The Internet was created by servants of the people and belonged to the people. Belonging to all of the people, it was the electronic commons.
Your plan would fail at this point:
"1. Multiple levels of undetected low-profile unix breakins to start off a botnet."
Two years ago it took some bad guys 6 months to hack into only 700 Linux boxes because they had to do it manually. Just sending an email with an infected packet won't work on Linux the way it worked to create the most recently discovered Windows botfarm, which contained over 4,500,000 Windows zombies.
So, you presort all your mail and then get subsidized rates to mail it. It costs you three or four cents to mail an ad, when the same ad would cost the citizen 44 cents. So, ya, a letter does cost less to mail when you are doing it on the taxpayer's dime.
"upheld by the courts"
A sober thought when one considers that US Supreme Court ruled last year that a corporation could bribe our elected representatives with as much money as would get their special legislation enacted, and there didn't have to be any accounting to anyone as to how much or to whom. These bribes are euphemistically called "campaign donations", but if the politician retires s/he can convert those funds to private use.
That will work until Ubuntu upgrades the kernel, which messes up the Grub, which makes Ubuntu inaccessible.
It would be better to run Ubuntu as a LiveCD IF she has enough RAM (4GB or more) and her CPU is fast enough. (dual core 2.2GHz or better) than use Wubi. IF things detect and run well she can install it as a dual boot. Or, better yet, give Ubuntu the whole HD.
Personally, I prefer Kubuntu. So would she, because Win7 copied much of KDE 4.5's look & feel in VISTA and Win7.
Your analogy is not comparable.
My voice to your ear is comparable to my wireless to your wifi receiver.
"The question is, is unencrypted data a "private conversation"? I think the answer is a clear "no" ...
I agree. The signal that radiates from my open wireless router is not "private" because anyone can receive the signal if they are within range. Not having chosen WEP or WPA2 encryption I am deliberately using an "open mic". Not only can anyone receive the radio signal, once the my laptop wifi chip transmits the get or post data to my wireless router, it sends that data over copper wire or glass fiber to my ISP, and my ISP sends it down the Internet trunk line to the entire world. Just about EVERYONE sees my packets and if they are not encrypted or sent through an ssh tunnel, read them.
and want to pluck it by using bogus claims.
The wireless routers that Joe and Sally Sixpack use have a maximum range of about 300 feet. The Google vans taking the photographs and scanning and logging the ESSIDs are usually traveling at 30 mph, or 44 feet per second. It would take a van only seven seconds to drive completely through any given wireless router. There is no known tool which can hack into a WEP or WPA2 protected wireless in 7 seconds. Seven seconds is barely enough time for a scanner to read and record the ESSID. That leaves only the OPEN wireless routers. The complainers want us to believe that the technology exists for Google, in SEVEN seconds, to detect the ESSID of an open Wireless router, initiate a connection with it, and then save a significant number of Internet Packets sufficient to determine what the WIFI owner was doing, sending or transmitting? Or, worse, hack into the website and download anything from the wifi owner's PC?
Total nonsense.
Most of the time the connection between a wifi and its ISP is not sending any significant traffic, only beacons and heartbeats. While I've I've been composing this email for the last 10 minutes I have not read from or posted to this or any other website. When I click "Preview", and later "Submit", Google would have to be EXTREMELY opportunistic to be right outside my house as the hundred or so packets that will make up this page transmitted back to the WIFI, in order to read this post, and the frame and webpage HTML code it is in. VERY UNLIKELY.
Finally, using an open WIFI is like walking around in public without any pants or shorts on and then accusing any who look or even glance your way of being voyeurs or perverts. Those who use open wireless routers should be arrested for indecent exposure ... to continue the parallel.
The folks suing Google are just opportunists hoping to use the legal system, and ignorant or anti-capitalist lawyers and judges, to fleece Google. Next, they'll sue Google for photographing their house or place of business.
Apple & Barnes have brick-and-mortar stores. When you order online they use the tax rates of the store in your state nearest to your ordering location, as if you had driven to that store and made the purchase. A simple solution that Amazon cannot use because it doesn't have retail outlets. Amazon is playing around with online grocery shopping. I suspect that they will abandon that experiment after they look at all the tax collection requirements that would arise if they had local grocery warehouses that they shipped from. Or, that they limit their grocery sales to dry and canned goods only that do not require refrigeration.
"You'll notice we're currently right around 5%."
You may "note" that but others, who read the graph correctly, will note that the graph extends to 2016, FIVE years into the future. IOW, the government agency that created that graph is PREDICTING that the ratio will drop to around 5% in the next five years. Given the current size of the debt such a prediction is pure, pro administration propaganda.
The current ratio is around 10% and someone else, looking at the same data up to 2010, could extrapolate to a much higher percentage by 2016. Which, by the way, considering the current financial crisis, seems more likely. The ONLY thing stabilizing the US Dollar right now is the fact that it is a "World Reserve Currency". That means that when Uncle Sam runs his printing press other countries absorb some of the US debt because they have to use the US Dollar, or the EURO, to do world business. The BRICS countries, sans the USA, are in the process of establishing another WCR, and will probably complete that process sometime this year. When that happens, the US Dollar will began inflating rapidly as the Dollar devalues. IF Uncle Sam continues running his printing press the big looser will be the US citizen. Like the Germans, between WWI and WWII, they'll need a wheel barrow to be able to take enough money to the the store to buy a loaf of bread, if any loaves are on the shelves. IF it happens before our troops are returned from the Mid-East we may not be able to afford to bring them home or borrow enough money to do so.
IF you want to blame someone for the current state of the US Dollar the folks to blame are .... YOU, and the other US citizens, who continue to vote into power people who continue to spend beyond revenues, while lining their own pockets, in the vain hope of creating a Socialist Utopia in America. History has shown that the only result of such attempts are Socialist dictatorships.
More nonsense. Are you letting your political ideology control your reasoning? (You have a hammer and everything you see is a nail.)
"Funny how Amazon "can't figure this out" with all their resources, but the local mom and pop nails it with few problems. "
Before I retired I wrote software for the Dept of Revenue, State of Nebraska. Taxes and their collection isn't a funny matter for anyone, and it is not surprising at all that Amazon "can't figure this out". My state is one of the smallest, population-wise. We have less than 2 million people living in 93 counties. But, at the time I retired 3 years ago, there existed in the state over 4,700 different taxing entities. Resident zip codes do not determine which taxing district a citizen resides in, even if they limited their shopping just to one location. Citizens can get their mail in one zip code but live in another. Strange as it may seem to you, many residents do not know which taxing district they live in and would not be able to supply that information to Amazon. Or, strange as it may seem to you, they frequently put the wrong information in forms they fill out, even if they fill in online digital forms that do not have to be scanned and fed to an OCR engine, which is yet another can of worms. So, even for a small state like Nebraska, tracking sales by over 4,700 taxing entities that are NOT distinguished by a zip code or address can be, and often is, a nightmare. But, don't feel bad. You not alone. A LOT of elected representatives have unrealistic expectations of what a computer program "should be" able to do.
Nebraska's constitution requires a balanced budget and the legislature is forbidden to spend more than the tax revenues take in, so there isn't a any negative income or sales tax calculations using convoluted rules to benefit those who are more equal than others, like CA, Tx, NY, MA and other heavily indebted states have. To require Amazon to keep track of the taxing districts and policies of 50 states and the territories of the USA and do their tax collections would put a burden on Amazon that could, and probably would, drive it out of business. Add to that the legal costs that would most definitely arise because some political or selfish-interest groups would see Amazon as a Golden Goose that they could pluck in a political favorable court district, and you have the last nail in Amazon's coffin.
YOU are a responsible citizen, or should be. What's wrong with YOU keeping track of how much YOU buy at Amazon, and when tax time comes around YOU compute what sales tax YOU owe on YOUR purchases through Amazon, and submitting that tax to YOUR state when YOU pay your state income tax? That's how it is done in Nebraska, and that's how I did it six months ago, and I do my taxes on line.