So when the sun's output grows yet again...
on
Is SETI Worth It?
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· Score: 1
As it has in the past while, will you blame that on SUV's again?
How about when it goes red giant, will you blame the CO2 levels again?
Sheesh, and you people claim that Muslim and Christian Fundamentalists are bad, but Global Warming Fanatics are no better. All a bunch of easily panicked herd animals.
Cops use this one to dragnet for all sorts of crap they can nail you for. They aren't there to help you, even when they proclaim they are. They are there to beef up their "busts" quota.
If you consent, any "illegal search" premise is lost, and anything they plant or actually find will then be usable. It is a dirty trick and cops in the USA have been using it for a long time. They have to get you to consent to a search, even if they trick you into it. Otherwise the court system is still relatively usable to put that cop out on the street, if you're clever.
Surprised? You shouldn't be. They govern by consent, here, there, everywhere, so stop consenting if you don't wish to get trampled along with your rights. You don't have to overthrow them, you merely have to avoid giving in to their tricks. If you consent you have NO excuse for bitching about being abused. You will have given them permission. If you refuse and they assault you, there are plenty of options available to you as you were not the initiator of the aggression and can therefore have a clean conscience, and if you are willing and intelligent enough you can put the individuals in question in the poor house with a well placed lawsuit. And then you can retire:)
We should discuss them, but descending into the "ritual mudslining" you just mentioned ends up losing us the little credibility we "geeks" have with those who sign the purchasing orders or checks.
Everytime we recall what is bad, we should be suggesting more evidently what OS has a track record of NOT doing this. Instead of a 20 piece website about why M$ sucks, why not a 20 piece website why such suckage doesn't occur in (your flavor of OS here).
Even the idiotic flame wars between the distros. WTF?! As if the distros had enough turf to fight over, instead of biting at the big boy's heels...
So having had some background in geekdom and in pin striped salesmanship (don't ask), I find that its EASIER to sell YOUR idea or product by pushing it more than slandering your opposition. Bring up their failures, answer questions but PUSH YOUR PRODUCT.
Why do you think M$ has survived the "Linux Onslaught" so far? Because they give Linux VERY LITTLE of their limelight. "We are aware of it but not concerned." Is this true? Sure they are aware of Linux and BSD (they used the BSD net tools didn't they?) but they are outright lying about their level of concern. I mean hell they got a "Linux and OSS Strategy Group" (or whatever it is they call it nowadays). This kind of stuff should be learned from.
This is what I meant. RedHat on the other hand has been bungling their own attempts. Slow servers, etc. I like Gentoo and will continue to use it. I like LFS, but again its the "ricer" factor... its easy to tweak. Ubuntu, Debian and Kubuntu have been my "kiddie grade" linuxes, good for all things I don't do (for the more "mainstream computer user" types among us.)
I like the pro liberty concept amongst some of the Linuxes, their usage generally suggests, sure, its free, but it A, takes work and B, takes responsibility. Getting all that done can be expensive on those of us who aren't trained to handle either of those options.
I got an account for that crap, but it goes only by invitation. Generally I give people a link to my encryption keys if I want to talk to them, if they're one time acquaintances I give them my public address. Family and friends have already been told to never email me there, and if they make that mistake, there is a message that informs them they already possess other locations at which to reach me. As for spammers, the benefits are that they don't get my public keys:)
Was it inconvenient? Yes. Are my family among the more "enlightened" members of "society"? I would like to think so.
Not just that... you realize this is a piece... of a much bigger puzzle.
They have to get the regular sheeple to clamor for back doors to be put into all encryption software.
It has little to do with "stolen moozak" or whatever crap they're claiming. That's just to make a legit story.
"We want to know what you ate for breakfast" is not going to sit so well with the common sheep as "moozak is being stolen, save us, those illegal encryptors are stealing our muzak!!"
And it will be the MASSES that vote themselves out of this freedom, also... it will not be the few, the intelligent, the strong, the resilient or the self sufficient, to whom these tools are useful.
PS - I agree on the encryption. My servers accept nothing without it:) And I accept no actual private email without it either...
Instead of saying "Microsoft sucks." (we all already know this)
Try saying "[Your flavor of OS] is great, here's why!" (perhaps we might learn something.)
As to the other arguments I seem to have spawned, I found something out. Every time I ended up running Linux or BSD, I ended up LEARNING something. The only thing I learned about computing, or crypto or anything else is this... "if they get physical access to your machine, it ain't your machine or your data ANY MORE... however, if you're running any OS that starts with Win... it ain't your data or your machine ANYWAYS! Read the EULA and the bug reports that go superficially fixed."
When M$ loses someone to Linux or BSD or Minix or whatever, that's a customer they've lost for life, no biggie, it was probably unavoidable given their poor treatment of customers, and general abuse/lying/cheating/hypocrisy track records. That and notice that Vista looks and acts the way KDE has looked for about 5 years, and the way Gnome has looked for at least 3. I would wager there's more than "some" Linux usage at M$. Getting M$ pinheads actually admitting it, heh that is going to be another thing altogether, unless they're starved for news coverage in a particular month.
Losing customers to the fruit company isn't so bad either, they can still sell them office software from their subsidiary Main Soft (their fruit friendly branch). Thus they can still claim unit sales... which makes stocks go up:) (Even the units they "give away for free" aren't "free" they are claimed as "units shipped" and thus help stock values go up. Same thing for the Bill and Mel "foundation", so long as they stay away from associations with the Nazis, or somesuch bad rap, they can continue to give with conditions such as "1 million for your school, but you can only buy M$ computers with it". Units shipped, stocks up baby, its what its all about. Bill's fortune and power is linked to his stock value in M$. He's not about to let it fall. You can guarantee Ballmer will be out on his ass before Gates lets M$ drop in the toilet.)
Now, with that being said, if they begin to lose customers to a product they have end of life'd now that's gonna hurt big time. (I recall an announcement that XP was EOL'ed sometime this year... but as I don't use it and don't care for trolling the M$ website anymore, I can't say for sure.)
Any press is GOOD press. Remember that saying. M$ always gets in the news somehow, and only in the last 6 years have the geeks learned to substitute another name in its stead into OSS games, software, stories, etc. This is good, the less press they get, the better. It is about the only way to not advertise FOR them.
So in my opinion he got axed with a generous severance package because he was: A) expendable, nobody liked him, he didn't come to drinking parties at Bill or Ballmer's houses. B) he installed XP or suggested someone else do it, or suggested/authorized it without consulting the big B's. C) said something in a private memo about Vista (like "its a bucket of turd and smells strongly thereof") and was unrepentant. D) any of the above but mainly A PRESS GAINING STUNT. They say getting your company name in the press once a week or more often is good for business, especially if you are a publicly traded company. M$ obviously knows this.
Actually, how hard would it be for the ISP to store digital copies of said files?
Then how hard would it be for some unknown "hacker" to randomly hack the ISP, deface their website with the said documents, slander the ISP, etc as "cowards" and then forward a copy of this to every 2600, world net news and drudge style publishers out there... cat would be out of the bag, and ISP would simply have to "reinstall a server due to possible rootkit installation" or some such. And if everyone at the ISP has alibis, and the "hacker" doesn't talk... well then, the world is a better place for it.
Actually, that's the fun part. Most of them lost either "everything" or "close to".
Guess that's what happens when you go against Caesar... and the worst part was that they reinstated an easily exploited, very strong central government with "checks and balances" which were only seen as such by those promoting them.
Hell they had to EMBARGO and blockade Rhode Island to force them to ratify it, after RI shot it down in civil referendum, 11 to 1.
Makes one wonder if the American Revolution wasn't merely a power grab, and the Bill of Rights was a way to pacify the recently veteran revolutionaries who might've raised arms one more time before putting them away for the 230 year long winter that has set since then.
Such as it is:) I've held jobs, and I've run a business (several, actually, not all successful, mind you), I didn't drop out of school, and I regret it somewhat. About one of the only things in my life I actually regret. The jobs I hated, despite being the epitome of "a good job" as you said, less the panoramic view, but with expenses paid and weeks of vacations, blah blah. It was boring as hell, and I got tired of taking orders, of being where others told me to be at X hours during the day, for you it may well be the epitome of happiness, for me, it was not.
Difference is, the math you explain to me simply states that if the masses prefer to do things one way (be slaves to the grind and have boring, predictable lives) that somehow I'm completely in the wrong by choosing my own way and making my choice work out? Well, I'll be. Almost reminds me how the masses invest as they are told and then lose big chunks out of their retirement funds when a certain batch of stocks tanks... I seem to recall several retirement funds in the early part of this decade ended up wiping out a good deal of people's fortunes/savings, and I'm not just talking about Enron. Well, do as the masses do, and pay as they will... simple logic, don't need either your college coursework, nor mine, to be able to figure that out.
It is a PUBLIC USE COMPUTER... the entire faculty and staff has access to it via one format or another. This leaves lots of avenues of access so ALL DATA ON SUCH A SYSTEM IS SUSPECT!
Especially in an educational facility, I've been on both ends of this argument the hacker and the hacked, so trust me on this or don't, but data on government and facility wide access machines, is NOT secure and is ALWAYS suspect.
Of course, as far as I'm concerned, this is yet another reason NOT to worry about school, IMHO.
I did most of my learning as an "extra curricular" activity. It paid off dividends, while schoolwork and college work have yet to pay me a penny. In fact, most of my non "vocational" education has cost me dozens of thousands of dollars and haven't paid me back even a fraction of the cost involved. So IMHO, hacking grades is pointless, because neither straight A's nor straight F's will get you a job, or get you well paid, or anything. At best, you can slave away for straight A's so you can end up a boring, lifeless, possibly low paid, and certainly easy to fire cubicle monkey for the jock who learned how to run a business, or the geek who never showed up for class on time and barely passed gym or shop when he was in school.
Look around, history's brightest people, inventors, discoverers, all were either failures in school or not particularly shining examples of "classwork drones". Why? Simple, their attention was diverted to this thing called "life". And while you were trying to get ready to live your life one week of vacation per year of work at a time, they were living theirs... (and if they didn't get stupid with their investments, they probably continued to do so well past the time where you had a kid or three, a mortgage and car payment, none of which you couldn't afford... which in the end is the reason so many of us "geek" types end up broke... poor investments, of both time and money.)
Heh, we might actually disagree on some things, but that last post of yours, we most certainly can agree on:)
Sovereign individuals (as we all are by nature, but refuse to be due to "education") have the right, and some might say "duty" to act out upon their own sovereign will, and to accept the natural consequences of their actions. After all, the "progressives" love the idea of evolution and YET, they would deny all humans the ability to be profited or damaged by their actions... why? I wonder.
Nah, DC vs Heller is going to be a moonlighting pretense, we're getting HR 1022 one way or another, even if someone carries out more butchery in "gun free zones" to help sway the sheep.
Personally I agree with what you say, but I gave up on "swaying" the sheeple a long time ago.
I haven't been "my own Dirty Harry" and frankly, it was my manners, not the lack of perfectly legal opportunities. I've actually toned down fights between my friends because of this, and frankly I prefer to let the criminals and the sheeple sort it out, I don't "save people". The socialists and regular statists pay taxes and cops for that, so let them get what they pay for:) As far as I care, the safest neighborhoods I've lived in were always those where there were few cops, and lots of armed residents. Only place I've been robbed was in the "exact opposite".
As far as I care, let the sheep run into the wolf on their own, then they either act like rams, or they get eaten. Frankly, I call it "just deserts".
State is Virginia... did Comcast for awhile, and yes they ROYALLY suck... ye gods do they suck. Personally I swapped over to Verizon's DSL for awhile and THEY SUCKED too. So eventually I got Speakeasy DSL for double the cost, at least it was worth it, and it didn't cost me double the taxes... I pay enough already, and its all to provide convicts with comfy places to live, while I work my ass off... no thanks.
I'd prefer to stop the bureau of prisons, make sure EVERY citizen knows how to defend themselves (thorough reading of the USMC Hand to Hand Combat Handbook, a concealed or open carry handgun course, and of course, a few weeks of Israeli Krav Maga or Russian "Sambo" training, not the usual Karate/KungFu/Taekwondo training which mostly focuses on forms and belts, but actual self defense training). Once those things are done, remove restrictions on self defense and we would see a RASH of dead thugs/robbers/rapists.
Then voila, lower taxes, lower crime, and lower prison population:) The more responsible, alert and aware citizenry wouldn't hurt either. Then we can FIRE all the rude and authoritarian cops and have PEACE officers again instead of the damn STASI we have today. Cops, as I recall, were originally intended to provide help with conflict resolution, not thug on people for cash to put in the city/state/fed coffers. Yet you know what they say about "good intentions" and the proverbial "road to hell" eh?
Do I think it will ever happen? Bah, not likely, neither in America, nor anywhere else... except, perhaps, in Eastern Europe or the former USSR, America, IMHO, is too far gone to be repairable... Cattle and sheep want lords and ladies, the comfort zone is very important, having to actually be alert when walking to one's car, or to one's home, now that's just WRONG... isn't it? (Though as a Vermonter you've got the benefits of Alaska carry, not sure of the legal aspects of self defense, but I"m sure they're nowhere nearly as restricted as they are out here.) I'm not that crazy about guns, in all honesty, but I like the MINDSET that training in many forms of self defense develops in individuals. They become alert, aware, somewhat more independent and start to think about other issues. Sure, they don't become champions of liberty overnight, but there is a greater chance they'll at least be aware of the world around them. That change alone is worth seeing.
As I've heard... A republican is a democrat who's been robbed... and a libertarian is a republican who's been arrested (for malum prohibita "crimes", obviously). Now I'm curious to see what is next on that progression list:)
I figured you lived there or you wouldn't know much about it, nor really care that much.
As for it being a good idea... if it really is, then great, that'd be a FIRST.
I live in a similar area where the government had to raise the speeding ticket fees (which are liberally handed out as cops only work to raise funds, not catch REAL bad guys, whom they seem to avoid as if they had the plague.) Imagine, if you will, a "minimum" fee of 1000 bucks for 10 miles over the speed limit, 750 for an unbuckled seat belt (instead of a darwin award nomination) and quite a bit more, and all aimed at RESIDENTS.
All because our wonderful governor blew through our state racket, ahem "tax" money to supposedly prevent Bush from using it to fund the Iraq war.
As for the envelope, I was merely jesting that until I see financial documents, I don't take it to heart:) I've seen too much abuse in every place I've either lived in or traveled through, to ever believe that ANY government has its slave... ahem "constituents" best interests in mind (or ANY of their interests at all, for that matter).
If its truly an honest statement, yay for them, who granted them that 0% financing? Who controls it, if the feds want to snoop do they respect your rights beyond the FAQ? Are you a criminal without a chance to prove your innocence the moment accusations arise?
These are things that I buy about as much as anything else.
And as to FAQ's, I'll believe it when I see their financial paperwork delivered to my doorstep in a sealed pouch with their seal.
Exactly what I've said... entire neighborhoods communicating with further neighborhoods, occasional "DNS Server" and suddenly you've developed a rhizomatic network that will require an EMP to permanently disable... in which situation a regular big network wouldn't help either.
I'm seeing grass roots concepts being VERY good... and I'm seeing government and corporate types fighting HARD to kill it all before it matures... no surprise.
I guess I'll have to "wear the mark" if I wish to sail my little boat around the world ever again... pity... that was fun stuff.
Well, as for your comment on gun powder... Smokeless or fast burning powder takes a lot to make, but regular old black powder was actually EASY to make.
No chem set, nothing needed, just a bit of batshit... literally.
Bah, I've been an advocate of "sharing the love" for a long time.
Buy a Broadband connection, then put a WIFI router on your main router's DMZ and let the folks know that service might be intermittent, but they can hit that router for (or negotiate a group rate with friends and neighbors, you maintain the power bill and the hardware and keep the big public WIFI router on a DMZ, etc.)
If every neighbor in the area with broadband provides a WIFI network (I even put up a SQUID cache server in the old days) you can actually provide "municipal" wifi without needing the government to get involved.
If you get to KNOW your neighbors before letting them have the WIFI WPA access key, then you can truly "secure" your network by knowing, A, who's logged in, and B, whom it is that you're sharing your data with.
And technically, you can do whatever you damn please with the connection, especially if you run a cache server to keep things clear. Discussing other features (such as data retention policy or lack thereof, etc, will help keep things honest...) I have known of NO endeavors ever done by big corporations (child of government) or the government itself that has EVER been honest, whether here in North America, or anywhere else.
To believe that gov'co ever does ANYTHING without having ulterior motives, is to be starkly and childishly naive.
People, especially geeks, are once again going to be whipped into a fervor, and once again they'll get their asses handing to them after ineffectively bitching to government to "regulate", or "control" or somehow subdue their competition. This is what happens when you're a ONE TRICK PONY!
If you want to continue participating in "production" of wealth, you can, just not necessarily by price fighting in the IT quadrant, in fact, USE the wikis yourself and cut your labor to where you can produce other things FOR YOURSELF... (yes, to those socialytes (not necessarily socialists, mind you) who can't *get it*, I'm talking about self sufficiency or even MILD self sufficiency).
All the so called "progressives" and "liberals" talk about having a lighter foot print, but what do they do? Hit MacDonalds (or, enter favorite burger joint) at the end of the day, eat like a total pig, and then hit the sack, and a month later bitch that they were fed fatty foods, cooked in some oil they disapprove of, and charged too much!!
What do they do about it? Either nothing, or they ask big monolithical government to step in and crush the business in question, instead of learning how to cook a nice quiet meal or maybe even hold a "fast" and clear some of that cholesterol out of those hardened arteries at 20 years of age. (Which for those sexually challenged geeks, know that being able to set up the entire process of "dinner" is also a remarkable aphrodisiac for quite a few women, and it isn't just the candle light. A self assured man that is confident AND competent in many things (the DaVincian principle of "uomo universalis") is a lot more interesting than a neurotic freak who is a one trick pony.)
The only logical choice would've been to stop patronizing that business, THEN get upset and complain, and then proceed to develop one's own alternative. That is, however, your choice.
My comment brings me to this. You people will bitch about the wikis, and about the Indians, and now the Romanians and Ukrainians as being "job stealers". In the end, what have you done to stop it, or to mitigate the change?
This is a world ruled by the laws of nature, regardless of how you see your relationship to those rules, manipulator or slave or passer-by, you are still charged with MITIGATING the constant state of change that the world is in... asking others to do it FOR you, presents us with only one concept. Intellectual laziness.
And if our "society" wasn't what it is, then NATURE would've KILLED all of the weak and sickly, just as surely as predators kill the sick and weak first, and disease kills those unprepared to survive it.
We have shortchanged our own evolution if you are so inclined to believe, as we are not busy trying to regulate what others feel, think, do, eat, drink or otherwise make use of... including themselves.
As you may recall, life begins when the "soul" (breath) enters the "flesh" (body), thus until you take your first BREATH outside of the BODY, you are STILL one or both of two things.
A) A parasitic/symbiotic life form, an ANIMAL part of the mother. B) A removable ORGAN within the mother, or a growth, tumor, whatever you wish to call it.
The mother, and possibly father AND NOBODY ELSE should be involved in this particular process. It is up to them, and NOBODY ELSE, to decide whether or not to carry to fruition, or otherwise deal with said pregnancy and its outcomes.
The sperm donor(whether he is the future father or someone else), and the MOTHER (whether its her egg, or not) are the ONLY ones who may request continuation or termination of pregnancy, and it is up to THEM to decide as that future child is part of them... their flesh and blood, and nobody else's!
Since when is the "democracy" we have here supposedly "self governance" ??
This is mob rule kids, its, whatever whiny bitches or group of whiny bitches whine the most get to set policy for those whom do not approve, nor have need of said policy.
Self rule involves calling your own shots for yourself, and only CHANGING those policies if they initiate the harm another (preferably of your own species, since inter species aggression is called predation, and its the #1 method of energy acquisition for carbon/water/meat bag-like organisms).
I moved out towards the country, he's got a couple of acres to hunt on, now, and stuff to bark at, so he's a happy camper... and I think he's taken it as his duty to sleep all the time (good boy) but barks at all living things that come near.
The way I see it, as long as he's barking all is well, if he stops barking THEN I worry:)
This seems to me like you are the one misallocating resources. How about you write them a FAT check that WONT bounce to write you your precious printer driver. I'm sure if you weren't bitching about how they don't fix what YOU want them to fix, and gave them what they might want (MONEY, free hardware, a few kegs of beer a week, etc) then perhaps they'd get on it and give YOU what you want. I wager these guys have work outside of doing shit for free, and as usual, instead of contributing you're a bunch of whiny punks.
If anyone in the OSS groups does something it is because they damn feel like it.
Go pick up a copy of Eric S. Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" and figure it out. A lot of his writing still applies to most of these guys. Unless someone is allocating a check to them each month, I don't see why they're indebted to you. In fact it's more like the other way around.
--I would PERSONALLY suggest support for the NFORCE network chipsets so they actually run at full speed instead of 100Base. Also while talking on the NFORCE NICS I would suggest finding a way to support that supposed "hardware" firewall they supposedly have built into those NICS. (I hear in Windows you have to install the nvidia drivers which include Apache to be able to log into the NIC's server.) --I'm sure a bit more support on the radeon drivers wouldn't hurt. --the BCM line of laptop wireless chipsets found in the DV5000 series of HP laptops were still needing a LOT of work back when I still used 'em, and I doubt its been fixed yet. Support is okay for now, but I'm not entirely pleased. --While discussing the DV5000, I'm sure those particular laptops (and the 8000 as well) could use a bit of tweaking on those radeon drivers for the ATI mobile 200M. That videochip had about as many supported 3d rendering modes as the old Nvidia TNT. I've got a Matrox G450 that outperformed it at both completion of rendering AND speed. And the Matrox card had a mere 64 megs and was several years older than the whole laptop at the time.
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As it has in the past while, will you blame that on SUV's again?
How about when it goes red giant, will you blame the CO2 levels again?
Sheesh, and you people claim that Muslim and Christian Fundamentalists are bad, but Global Warming Fanatics are no better. All a bunch of easily panicked herd animals.
Cops use this one to dragnet for all sorts of crap they can nail you for. They aren't there to help you, even when they proclaim they are. They are there to beef up their "busts" quota.
:)
If you consent, any "illegal search" premise is lost, and anything they plant or actually find will then be usable. It is a dirty trick and cops in the USA have been using it for a long time. They have to get you to consent to a search, even if they trick you into it. Otherwise the court system is still relatively usable to put that cop out on the street, if you're clever.
Surprised? You shouldn't be. They govern by consent, here, there, everywhere, so stop consenting if you don't wish to get trampled along with your rights. You don't have to overthrow them, you merely have to avoid giving in to their tricks. If you consent you have NO excuse for bitching about being abused. You will have given them permission. If you refuse and they assault you, there are plenty of options available to you as you were not the initiator of the aggression and can therefore have a clean conscience, and if you are willing and intelligent enough you can put the individuals in question in the poor house with a well placed lawsuit. And then you can retire
We should discuss them, but descending into the "ritual mudslining" you just mentioned ends up losing us the little credibility we "geeks" have with those who sign the purchasing orders or checks.
Everytime we recall what is bad, we should be suggesting more evidently what OS has a track record of NOT doing this. Instead of a 20 piece website about why M$ sucks, why not a 20 piece website why such suckage doesn't occur in (your flavor of OS here).
Even the idiotic flame wars between the distros. WTF?! As if the distros had enough turf to fight over, instead of biting at the big boy's heels...
So having had some background in geekdom and in pin striped salesmanship (don't ask), I find that its EASIER to sell YOUR idea or product by pushing it more than slandering your opposition. Bring up their failures, answer questions but PUSH YOUR PRODUCT.
Why do you think M$ has survived the "Linux Onslaught" so far? Because they give Linux VERY LITTLE of their limelight. "We are aware of it but not concerned." Is this true? Sure they are aware of Linux and BSD (they used the BSD net tools didn't they?) but they are outright lying about their level of concern. I mean hell they got a "Linux and OSS Strategy Group" (or whatever it is they call it nowadays). This kind of stuff should be learned from.
This is what I meant. RedHat on the other hand has been bungling their own attempts. Slow servers, etc. I like Gentoo and will continue to use it. I like LFS, but again its the "ricer" factor... its easy to tweak. Ubuntu, Debian and Kubuntu have been my "kiddie grade" linuxes, good for all things I don't do (for the more "mainstream computer user" types among us.)
I like the pro liberty concept amongst some of the Linuxes, their usage generally suggests, sure, its free, but it A, takes work and B, takes responsibility. Getting all that done can be expensive on those of us who aren't trained to handle either of those options.
I got an account for that crap, but it goes only by invitation. Generally I give people a link to my encryption keys if I want to talk to them, if they're one time acquaintances I give them my public address. Family and friends have already been told to never email me there, and if they make that mistake, there is a message that informs them they already possess other locations at which to reach me. As for spammers, the benefits are that they don't get my public keys :)
Was it inconvenient? Yes. Are my family among the more "enlightened" members of "society"? I would like to think so.
Not just that... you realize this is a piece... of a much bigger puzzle.
:) And I accept no actual private email without it either...
They have to get the regular sheeple to clamor for back doors to be put into all encryption software.
It has little to do with "stolen moozak" or whatever crap they're claiming. That's just to make a legit story.
"We want to know what you ate for breakfast" is not going to sit so well with the common sheep as "moozak is being stolen, save us, those illegal encryptors are stealing our muzak!!"
And it will be the MASSES that vote themselves out of this freedom, also... it will not be the few, the intelligent, the strong, the resilient or the self sufficient, to whom these tools are useful.
PS - I agree on the encryption. My servers accept nothing without it
Instead of saying "Microsoft sucks." (we all already know this)
Try saying "[Your flavor of OS] is great, here's why!" (perhaps we might learn something.)
As to the other arguments I seem to have spawned, I found something out. Every time I ended up running Linux or BSD, I ended up LEARNING something. The only thing I learned about computing, or crypto or anything else is this... "if they get physical access to your machine, it ain't your machine or your data ANY MORE... however, if you're running any OS that starts with Win... it ain't your data or your machine ANYWAYS! Read the EULA and the bug reports that go superficially fixed."
That's my 10 cents.
When M$ loses someone to Linux or BSD or Minix or whatever, that's a customer they've lost for life, no biggie, it was probably unavoidable given their poor treatment of customers, and general abuse/lying/cheating/hypocrisy track records. That and notice that Vista looks and acts the way KDE has looked for about 5 years, and the way Gnome has looked for at least 3. I would wager there's more than "some" Linux usage at M$. Getting M$ pinheads actually admitting it, heh that is going to be another thing altogether, unless they're starved for news coverage in a particular month.
:) (Even the units they "give away for free" aren't "free" they are claimed as "units shipped" and thus help stock values go up. Same thing for the Bill and Mel "foundation", so long as they stay away from associations with the Nazis, or somesuch bad rap, they can continue to give with conditions such as "1 million for your school, but you can only buy M$ computers with it". Units shipped, stocks up baby, its what its all about. Bill's fortune and power is linked to his stock value in M$. He's not about to let it fall. You can guarantee Ballmer will be out on his ass before Gates lets M$ drop in the toilet.)
Losing customers to the fruit company isn't so bad either, they can still sell them office software from their subsidiary Main Soft (their fruit friendly branch). Thus they can still claim unit sales... which makes stocks go up
Now, with that being said, if they begin to lose customers to a product they have end of life'd now that's gonna hurt big time. (I recall an announcement that XP was EOL'ed sometime this year... but as I don't use it and don't care for trolling the M$ website anymore, I can't say for sure.)
Any press is GOOD press. Remember that saying. M$ always gets in the news somehow, and only in the last 6 years have the geeks learned to substitute another name in its stead into OSS games, software, stories, etc. This is good, the less press they get, the better. It is about the only way to not advertise FOR them.
So in my opinion he got axed with a generous severance package because he was:
A) expendable, nobody liked him, he didn't come to drinking parties at Bill or Ballmer's houses.
B) he installed XP or suggested someone else do it, or suggested/authorized it without consulting the big B's.
C) said something in a private memo about Vista (like "its a bucket of turd and smells strongly thereof") and was unrepentant.
D) any of the above but mainly A PRESS GAINING STUNT. They say getting your company name in the press once a week or more often is good for business, especially if you are a publicly traded company. M$ obviously knows this.
Actually, how hard would it be for the ISP to store digital copies of said files?
Then how hard would it be for some unknown "hacker" to randomly hack the ISP, deface their website with the said documents, slander the ISP, etc as "cowards" and then forward a copy of this to every 2600, world net news and drudge style publishers out there... cat would be out of the bag, and ISP would simply have to "reinstall a server due to possible rootkit installation" or some such. And if everyone at the ISP has alibis, and the "hacker" doesn't talk... well then, the world is a better place for it.
I am amazed that nobody has done this yet.
Actually, that's the fun part. Most of them lost either "everything" or "close to".
Guess that's what happens when you go against Caesar... and the worst part was that they reinstated an easily exploited, very strong central government with "checks and balances" which were only seen as such by those promoting them.
Hell they had to EMBARGO and blockade Rhode Island to force them to ratify it, after RI shot it down in civil referendum, 11 to 1.
Makes one wonder if the American Revolution wasn't merely a power grab, and the Bill of Rights was a way to pacify the recently veteran revolutionaries who might've raised arms one more time before putting them away for the 230 year long winter that has set since then.
Such as it is :) I've held jobs, and I've run a business (several, actually, not all successful, mind you), I didn't drop out of school, and I regret it somewhat. About one of the only things in my life I actually regret. The jobs I hated, despite being the epitome of "a good job" as you said, less the panoramic view, but with expenses paid and weeks of vacations, blah blah. It was boring as hell, and I got tired of taking orders, of being where others told me to be at X hours during the day, for you it may well be the epitome of happiness, for me, it was not.
Difference is, the math you explain to me simply states that if the masses prefer to do things one way (be slaves to the grind and have boring, predictable lives) that somehow I'm completely in the wrong by choosing my own way and making my choice work out? Well, I'll be. Almost reminds me how the masses invest as they are told and then lose big chunks out of their retirement funds when a certain batch of stocks tanks... I seem to recall several retirement funds in the early part of this decade ended up wiping out a good deal of people's fortunes/savings, and I'm not just talking about Enron. Well, do as the masses do, and pay as they will... simple logic, don't need either your college coursework, nor mine, to be able to figure that out.
It is a PUBLIC USE COMPUTER... the entire faculty and staff has access to it via one format or another. This leaves lots of avenues of access so ALL DATA ON SUCH A SYSTEM IS SUSPECT!
Especially in an educational facility, I've been on both ends of this argument the hacker and the hacked, so trust me on this or don't, but data on government and facility wide access machines, is NOT secure and is ALWAYS suspect.
Of course, as far as I'm concerned, this is yet another reason NOT to worry about school, IMHO.
I did most of my learning as an "extra curricular" activity. It paid off dividends, while schoolwork and college work have yet to pay me a penny. In fact, most of my non "vocational" education has cost me dozens of thousands of dollars and haven't paid me back even a fraction of the cost involved. So IMHO, hacking grades is pointless, because neither straight A's nor straight F's will get you a job, or get you well paid, or anything. At best, you can slave away for straight A's so you can end up a boring, lifeless, possibly low paid, and certainly easy to fire cubicle monkey for the jock who learned how to run a business, or the geek who never showed up for class on time and barely passed gym or shop when he was in school.
Look around, history's brightest people, inventors, discoverers, all were either failures in school or not particularly shining examples of "classwork drones". Why? Simple, their attention was diverted to this thing called "life". And while you were trying to get ready to live your life one week of vacation per year of work at a time, they were living theirs... (and if they didn't get stupid with their investments, they probably continued to do so well past the time where you had a kid or three, a mortgage and car payment, none of which you couldn't afford... which in the end is the reason so many of us "geek" types end up broke... poor investments, of both time and money.)
Heh, we might actually disagree on some things, but that last post of yours, we most certainly can agree on :)
Sovereign individuals (as we all are by nature, but refuse to be due to "education") have the right, and some might say "duty" to act out upon their own sovereign will, and to accept the natural consequences of their actions. After all, the "progressives" love the idea of evolution and YET, they would deny all humans the ability to be profited or damaged by their actions... why? I wonder.
Nah, DC vs Heller is going to be a moonlighting pretense, we're getting HR 1022 one way or another, even if someone carries out more butchery in "gun free zones" to help sway the sheep.
:) As far as I care, the safest neighborhoods I've lived in were always those where there were few cops, and lots of armed residents. Only place I've been robbed was in the "exact opposite".
Personally I agree with what you say, but I gave up on "swaying" the sheeple a long time ago.
I haven't been "my own Dirty Harry" and frankly, it was my manners, not the lack of perfectly legal opportunities. I've actually toned down fights between my friends because of this, and frankly I prefer to let the criminals and the sheeple sort it out, I don't "save people". The socialists and regular statists pay taxes and cops for that, so let them get what they pay for
As far as I care, let the sheep run into the wolf on their own, then they either act like rams, or they get eaten. Frankly, I call it "just deserts".
State is Virginia... did Comcast for awhile, and yes they ROYALLY suck... ye gods do they suck. Personally I swapped over to Verizon's DSL for awhile and THEY SUCKED too. So eventually I got Speakeasy DSL for double the cost, at least it was worth it, and it didn't cost me double the taxes... I pay enough already, and its all to provide convicts with comfy places to live, while I work my ass off... no thanks.
:) The more responsible, alert and aware citizenry wouldn't hurt either. Then we can FIRE all the rude and authoritarian cops and have PEACE officers again instead of the damn STASI we have today. Cops, as I recall, were originally intended to provide help with conflict resolution, not thug on people for cash to put in the city/state/fed coffers. Yet you know what they say about "good intentions" and the proverbial "road to hell" eh?
:)
I'd prefer to stop the bureau of prisons, make sure EVERY citizen knows how to defend themselves (thorough reading of the USMC Hand to Hand Combat Handbook, a concealed or open carry handgun course, and of course, a few weeks of Israeli Krav Maga or Russian "Sambo" training, not the usual Karate/KungFu/Taekwondo training which mostly focuses on forms and belts, but actual self defense training). Once those things are done, remove restrictions on self defense and we would see a RASH of dead thugs/robbers/rapists.
Then voila, lower taxes, lower crime, and lower prison population
Do I think it will ever happen? Bah, not likely, neither in America, nor anywhere else... except, perhaps, in Eastern Europe or the former USSR, America, IMHO, is too far gone to be repairable... Cattle and sheep want lords and ladies, the comfort zone is very important, having to actually be alert when walking to one's car, or to one's home, now that's just WRONG... isn't it? (Though as a Vermonter you've got the benefits of Alaska carry, not sure of the legal aspects of self defense, but I"m sure they're nowhere nearly as restricted as they are out here.) I'm not that crazy about guns, in all honesty, but I like the MINDSET that training in many forms of self defense develops in individuals. They become alert, aware, somewhat more independent and start to think about other issues. Sure, they don't become champions of liberty overnight, but there is a greater chance they'll at least be aware of the world around them. That change alone is worth seeing.
As I've heard... A republican is a democrat who's been robbed... and a libertarian is a republican who's been arrested (for malum prohibita "crimes", obviously). Now I'm curious to see what is next on that progression list
I figured you lived there or you wouldn't know much about it, nor really care that much.
:) I've seen too much abuse in every place I've either lived in or traveled through, to ever believe that ANY government has its slave... ahem "constituents" best interests in mind (or ANY of their interests at all, for that matter).
As for it being a good idea... if it really is, then great, that'd be a FIRST.
I live in a similar area where the government had to raise the speeding ticket fees (which are liberally handed out as cops only work to raise funds, not catch REAL bad guys, whom they seem to avoid as if they had the plague.) Imagine, if you will, a "minimum" fee of 1000 bucks for 10 miles over the speed limit, 750 for an unbuckled seat belt (instead of a darwin award nomination) and quite a bit more, and all aimed at RESIDENTS.
All because our wonderful governor blew through our state racket, ahem "tax" money to supposedly prevent Bush from using it to fund the Iraq war.
As for the envelope, I was merely jesting that until I see financial documents, I don't take it to heart
If its truly an honest statement, yay for them, who granted them that 0% financing? Who controls it, if the feds want to snoop do they respect your rights beyond the FAQ? Are you a criminal without a chance to prove your innocence the moment accusations arise?
These are things that I buy about as much as anything else.
And as to FAQ's, I'll believe it when I see their financial paperwork delivered to my doorstep in a sealed pouch with their seal.
Hehe, unless you own property, its likely its a great deal for you... if you pay any kind of local taxes, factor those in.
Exactly what I've said... entire neighborhoods communicating with further neighborhoods, occasional "DNS Server" and suddenly you've developed a rhizomatic network that will require an EMP to permanently disable... in which situation a regular big network wouldn't help either.
I'm seeing grass roots concepts being VERY good... and I'm seeing government and corporate types fighting HARD to kill it all before it matures... no surprise.
I guess I'll have to "wear the mark" if I wish to sail my little boat around the world ever again... pity... that was fun stuff.
Well, as for your comment on gun powder...
Smokeless or fast burning powder takes a lot to make, but regular old black powder was actually EASY to make.
No chem set, nothing needed, just a bit of batshit... literally.
Bah, I've been an advocate of "sharing the love" for a long time.
Buy a Broadband connection, then put a WIFI router on your main router's DMZ and let the folks know that service might be intermittent, but they can hit that router for (or negotiate a group rate with friends and neighbors, you maintain the power bill and the hardware and keep the big public WIFI router on a DMZ, etc.)
If every neighbor in the area with broadband provides a WIFI network (I even put up a SQUID cache server in the old days) you can actually provide "municipal" wifi without needing the government to get involved.
If you get to KNOW your neighbors before letting them have the WIFI WPA access key, then you can truly "secure" your network by knowing, A, who's logged in, and B, whom it is that you're sharing your data with.
And technically, you can do whatever you damn please with the connection, especially if you run a cache server to keep things clear. Discussing other features (such as data retention policy or lack thereof, etc, will help keep things honest...) I have known of NO endeavors ever done by big corporations (child of government) or the government itself that has EVER been honest, whether here in North America, or anywhere else.
To believe that gov'co ever does ANYTHING without having ulterior motives, is to be starkly and childishly naive.
People, especially geeks, are once again going to be whipped into a fervor, and once again they'll get their asses handing to them after ineffectively bitching to government to "regulate", or "control" or somehow subdue their competition. This is what happens when you're a ONE TRICK PONY!
If you want to continue participating in "production" of wealth, you can, just not necessarily by price fighting in the IT quadrant, in fact, USE the wikis yourself and cut your labor to where you can produce other things FOR YOURSELF... (yes, to those socialytes (not necessarily socialists, mind you) who can't *get it*, I'm talking about self sufficiency or even MILD self sufficiency).
All the so called "progressives" and "liberals" talk about having a lighter foot print, but what do they do? Hit MacDonalds (or, enter favorite burger joint) at the end of the day, eat like a total pig, and then hit the sack, and a month later bitch that they were fed fatty foods, cooked in some oil they disapprove of, and charged too much!!
What do they do about it? Either nothing, or they ask big monolithical government to step in and crush the business in question, instead of learning how to cook a nice quiet meal or maybe even hold a "fast" and clear some of that cholesterol out of those hardened arteries at 20 years of age. (Which for those sexually challenged geeks, know that being able to set up the entire process of "dinner" is also a remarkable aphrodisiac for quite a few women, and it isn't just the candle light. A self assured man that is confident AND competent in many things (the DaVincian principle of "uomo universalis") is a lot more interesting than a neurotic freak who is a one trick pony.)
The only logical choice would've been to stop patronizing that business, THEN get upset and complain, and then proceed to develop one's own alternative. That is, however, your choice.
My comment brings me to this. You people will bitch about the wikis, and about the Indians, and now the Romanians and Ukrainians as being "job stealers". In the end, what have you done to stop it, or to mitigate the change?
This is a world ruled by the laws of nature, regardless of how you see your relationship to those rules, manipulator or slave or passer-by, you are still charged with MITIGATING the constant state of change that the world is in... asking others to do it FOR you, presents us with only one concept. Intellectual laziness.
And if our "society" wasn't what it is, then NATURE would've KILLED all of the weak and sickly, just as surely as predators kill the sick and weak first, and disease kills those unprepared to survive it.
We have shortchanged our own evolution if you are so inclined to believe, as we are not busy trying to regulate what others feel, think, do, eat, drink or otherwise make use of... including themselves.
As you may recall, life begins when the "soul" (breath) enters the "flesh" (body), thus until you take your first BREATH outside of the BODY, you are STILL one or both of two things.
A) A parasitic/symbiotic life form, an ANIMAL part of the mother.
B) A removable ORGAN within the mother, or a growth, tumor, whatever you wish to call it.
The mother, and possibly father AND NOBODY ELSE should be involved in this particular process. It is up to them, and NOBODY ELSE, to decide whether or not to carry to fruition, or otherwise deal with said pregnancy and its outcomes.
The sperm donor(whether he is the future father or someone else), and the MOTHER (whether its her egg, or not) are the ONLY ones who may request continuation or termination of pregnancy, and it is up to THEM to decide as that future child is part of them... their flesh and blood, and nobody else's!
Since when is the "democracy" we have here supposedly "self governance" ??
This is mob rule kids, its, whatever whiny bitches or group of whiny bitches whine the most get to set policy for those whom do not approve, nor have need of said policy.
Self rule involves calling your own shots for yourself, and only CHANGING those policies if they initiate the harm another (preferably of your own species, since inter species aggression is called predation, and its the #1 method of energy acquisition for carbon/water/meat bag-like organisms).
I moved out towards the country, he's got a couple of acres to hunt on, now, and stuff to bark at, so he's a happy camper... and I think he's taken it as his duty to sleep all the time (good boy) but barks at all living things that come near.
:)
The way I see it, as long as he's barking all is well, if he stops barking THEN I worry
This seems to me like you are the one misallocating resources. How about you write them a FAT check that WONT bounce to write you your precious printer driver. I'm sure if you weren't bitching about how they don't fix what YOU want them to fix, and gave them what they might want (MONEY, free hardware, a few kegs of beer a week, etc) then perhaps they'd get on it and give YOU what you want. I wager these guys have work outside of doing shit for free, and as usual, instead of contributing you're a bunch of whiny punks.
If anyone in the OSS groups does something it is because they damn feel like it.
Go pick up a copy of Eric S. Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" and figure it out. A lot of his writing still applies to most of these guys. Unless someone is allocating a check to them each month, I don't see why they're indebted to you. In fact it's more like the other way around.
--I would PERSONALLY suggest support for the NFORCE network chipsets so they actually run at full speed instead of 100Base. Also while talking on the NFORCE NICS I would suggest finding a way to support that supposed "hardware" firewall they supposedly have built into those NICS. (I hear in Windows you have to install the nvidia drivers which include Apache to be able to log into the NIC's server.)
--I'm sure a bit more support on the radeon drivers wouldn't hurt.
--the BCM line of laptop wireless chipsets found in the DV5000 series of HP laptops were still needing a LOT of work back when I still used 'em, and I doubt its been fixed yet. Support is okay for now, but I'm not entirely pleased.
--While discussing the DV5000, I'm sure those particular laptops (and the 8000 as well) could use a bit of tweaking on those radeon drivers for the ATI mobile 200M. That videochip had about as many supported 3d rendering modes as the old Nvidia TNT. I've got a Matrox G450 that outperformed it at both completion of rendering AND speed. And the Matrox card had a mere 64 megs and was several years older than the whole laptop at the time.