However if you know what you're doing you can make it almost impossible for anyone to gain access to your home without you finding out. For instance you can moisten a hair or thread then stick it on a door placing it so that it sticks to both the door and the molding. If while you're away the door is opened the "seal" will fail and you can spot it.
That's a decent idea, but I'm just paranoid enough to think that it's probably wasted effort if the Feds are after you. One of the jobs of the FBI is counter-intelligence. They have to be able to follow and investigate agents of foreign countries without the surveillance being discovered. They have decades of institutional experience working against some of the brightest minds in the World. Such tricks as you have described are well known elements of fieldcraft and would be detected by a sufficiently competent FBI agent.
You can try encrypting all of your files but if they can gain physical access to the machine(s) in question without you knowing about it then it's a simple matter to install a keylogging device and obtain any passwords needed to decrypt your data.
My point is that naval vessels are correct to be wary of small craft.
Indeed. And after that radio transmission the Iranians should be thanking Allah that they are still alive, because that was probably grounds under international law to blow them out of the fucking water. Your asked to state your intentions by a warship in international waters and you respond with "You'll explode soon"?
The real fear here is that the Iranians are trying to provoke a war, one that we could not afford to wage, nor afford to turn away from. Does that not make you concerned?
It scares the hell out of me. And that's a great description. Couldn't afford to wage or afford to turn away from. A win/win for them and the people looking to radicalize the Muslim world.
The attack was a coordinated assault on iconic American structures and institutions.
Well, I dunno about the GP, but I never attempted to diminish the impact of 9/11.
I didn't even get to see the attacks unfold on the TV -- I had to listen to it all happen on the radio, which I think was actually more upsetting. We tried over and over to get useful information (and pictures) off the internet, but all of the news sites were swamped and unresponsive. It wasn't until 7pm that I got home and actually got to see everything that had happened. Later that evening I got to listen to a military airlift fly over my house at low altitude and listen to all of the reports of other structures (the Sears Tower) being evacuated because they weren't sure it was over yet. At that moment I actually remember thinking something along the lines of "When do the missiles start coming out of cornfields?"
That said, I made my original point to express frustration with our reaction to 9/11, not to diminish the impact of it. Everybody was afraid on 9/11. Hell, even for a few days after. But rationally looking back on it we have given up way too many of our rights. We have allowed political interests to use terrorism as a fear tactic to dominate the political debate and attack anybody that opposes them. And then, after all of what happened on 9/11, all of the death and destruction, we send 100,000+ troops into a country that had nothing to do with the attack. Why the hell couldn't we have sent those boys into Tora Tora to capture the bastard that killed our citizens instead of outsourcing that job to local tribal factions with questionable loyalty. How come nobody ever asks that question? Why is that motherfucker still walking this planet? Why can we spend 500 billion to occupy a country that never attacked us but not spend it to get him?
Stop thinking like a Geek for one minute and imagine the public reaction to the loss of the White House or the Capital Building.
It would be a punch to the stomach. But those buildings aren't the spirit of the United States. The spirit of the United States is our freedom. And we've surrendered it to fear. Osama can blow up all the buildings he wants. He can't destroy our way of life. But we can.
A realistic appreciation of the tragedy would lead us to (a) take reasonable safety precautions (like locking cockpit doors during flight), (b) focus our response on actions that really will make us safer -- largely, more intelligence effort -- and (c) go on with our lives in as unaffected a manner as possible, to avoid giving the terrorists their victory.
Completely agree. The simple action of locking the cockpit doors and training the pilot to immedidately land during an attempting hijacking prevents another 9/11. End of story. No TSA, no "remove your shoes", no "no-fly" lists.
Hell, unless they can bring guns onto the aircraft there's no way terrorists even take over a plane in the United States after 9/11. Look at Flight 93. No American is going to meekly submit to an attempted hijacking after 9/11.
I've always thought we've done more damage to our way of life then the terrorists did. I wonder if they were smart enough to count on that? I know I wasn't. I figured we'd have more rage and less self-pity and fear. Guess I was wrong:(
Because when you drink, you can seriously affect other people
When you drive you can seriously affect other people too, better raise the permit age to 21.
Honestly, the drinking age should probably be higher. I saw plenty of friends in college get just plain stupid and destructive after binge drinking.
Or maybe we should lower the drinking age and make it a part of our culture instead of a rite of passage. In most of Europe it's typical to have wine at the dinner table -- that everybody from the kids to the parents drink. They don't seem to have a binge drinking problem.
In any case, this "responsibility" argument doesn't hold water with me. The Government doesn't get to dole out rights to us like we are children. Once you have attained the age of majority you should have all the rights and responsibilities of being an adult.
Most people realise that there isn't really any sensitive information on a thumbprint
Unless it winds up at a crime scene later on (for whatever reason). That's a hassle I'd rather not deal with and I fail to see why I should turn my fingerprints over to the Government if I haven't done anything wrong.
but relatively useful for verifying ownership of a license.
Retina scans would probably work equally as well and would better protect our privacy.... you can't leave a trail of retinas behind you in your day-to-day activities that can be used to trace you.
California takes your right thumbprint when getting a driver's license
And that's tolerated? WTF?
The day that happens in New York is the day I move to New Hampshire. The day it happens in New Hampshire is the day I leave the United States for good. I will not cough up my fingerprints just to obtain a drivers license. End of story.
I consider carrying a license with my address on it far less intrusive
I consider the document displaying any information not pertinent to the stated purpose to be intrusive. Given that the traffic cops could retrieve your address with a few keystrokes and the ID number, I fail to see a compelling reason to mandate that my physical address be printed on my license.
ut it's not sufficient if a cop pulls you over. Telling him you left your license at home but here's your passport isn't going to work
Actually it does work. My understanding of my State Law (your state may vary) is that you only have be able to produce it within 24 hours of being asked for it. But regardless, you can just keep your license in your car and refuse to use it for anything else. That's what it's for anyway: driving. I fail to see any compelling reason to hand my license over to anybody outside of my car insurance company and traffic cops.
but we still had to give kudos to the door guy for knowing that much about various state licenses to spot that
A bigger question is why you need to be 21 to drink, but that's probably another discussion. You can vote, be drafted and smoke tobacco, but you can't legally buy booze. Yeah, that's fair.
Terrorism is solved by simply getting those groups who raise fuss and EX-TER-MI-NATE them. The rest is fluff for weakling loserboy nerds.
Even if you buy into that load of crap that you just spewed, how does imposing new restrictions on Americans and granting the Government sweeping new powers help towards that goal? I'd like to think that my drivers license bears no relationship to the military strength of the United States.
And I'll address your theory that we need to exterminate them with a quote from one of my favorite movies: "He seems to have a serious weed up his ass and a legitimate gripe, always a dangerous combination" -Captain Ramsey from Crimson Tide.
Point being, that the Muslim World has several legitimate gripes with the Western World. We can kill all the terrorists we want but until we address those gripes we'll just be creating more of them to fight us. Unless you plan on exterminating them all?
Based on reading the article, it looks like most of the changes being made are not changes to the license itself, but to the process of obtaining them.
And I know that I'll sleep much better at night knowing that the terrorist who flew the 747 into the Sears Tower boarded the airplane with a legally issued Governmental ID as opposed to a fake one.
I gotta say, I dunno where all this fear comes from
I'll give you a hint: "If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again -- that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States" -Dick Cheney
Seriously. Our own Government has done a lot more to make us afraid of terrorism then the terrorists themselves have done. How depressing that in 60 years we've gone from "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" to "Buy duct tape!".
I live in NY where our ID is already almost up to this new standard
As a fellow holder of a NYS license I don't generally have a problem with the way our license is designed -- we have 2D encrypted barcodes (similar the ones on our insurance cards, which I used to have the software to make when I worked in the business) that contain all of the information. No problem with that.
I do have a serious problem with the concept of centralizing all of this information, which is part of what REAL ID purports to do. This concept that all levels of Government need to share information and be totally integrated scares the hell out of me. It's supposed to be difficult for the various levels of Government (and even agencies within the same level of Government) to share information. Personally, I don't think the Feds should have a right to look at ANY of the information contained in my DMV file without due process of law (i.e: a warrant or an arrest for a crime committed).
I also have a problem with the mandate that all licenses display your home address. Mine currently has my PO Box on it. Why should it display my home address? DMV has my home address on file. Law enforcement can obtain it easily enough. I'm more comfortable using my license in day-to-day activities (businesses that want to see it) without my address being on it. The day they put my home address on my license is the day I stop carrying it. Hell, I'll use my fucking passport instead.
But some states are still issuing ID's that are literally little more than a laminated piece of paper
Hehe, does New Jersey still do that? We loved New Jersey IDs back in the day before any of us were 21......
Yeah, and just think what this is going to do to counterfeiting!
You got a +5 funny but it should have been +5 insightful. I don't care how many smartchips or anti-counterfeiting features they add to our licenses, it will still be possible for people to counterfeit them. In the extreme example, somebody motivated enough to obtain a false id would just pay off the right person at DMV to obtain a legitimate one. Hell, if you think that doesn't happen right now then you are deluding yourself.
I don't recall reading that any of the 9/11 hijackers used fake IDs to get onto the airplanes. They obtained them quite legally. Perhaps we should be looking into reforming who can obtain a drivers license, rather then reforming the drivers license itself.
Or better yet: Perhaps we should stop all of this Orwellian nonsense to begin with and just accept the fact that we live in a dangerous world and I'd personally rather have my civil liberties and live with that basic fact then trade them in for the illusion of security.
Do you have a better idea or are you just a professional nay-sayer? If you have a better idea I'm all ears because I recall saying that it would never happen and I'm not even sure it'd be a good idea anyway.
Most of the time, it is because the speed limit is based on sub-optimal conditions
(and it is an offense in most jursidictions for driving faster than conditions allow)
If it's an offense to go faster then conditions allow (and it is, in New York anyway) then why exactly do speed limits need to be artificially low, again?
However, other conditions are not as obvious to most drivers such as rain (which can reduce stopping distance depending on the tire)
So because it's not obvious to other drives I should have to cruise along at 55 on a bright sunny day when the flow of traffic is 70? In that scenario it's actually dangerous to obey the law. Laws shouldn't exist if the majority of the population is ignoring them.
hat is when the cops will care if you are doing more than 55.
Sorry, I completely disagree. If anything, the cops are less likely to pull you over in the rain, for the simple reason that they are human beings too and would rather sit in a warm dry car then the cold wet rain writing a ticket. I've never been pulled over in the rain and I can probably count on one hand how many times I've seen someone else pulled over the rain.
They aren't filling a need, only a want. Let the cable company charge as much as they can get. If the people don't like it, they can read the newspaper.
The internet is slightly more complicated, as it basically is a "need" in this day in age.
Wait, so you first say that the cable companies are filling a "want", not a "need", then you turn around and admit that the internet is a "need".
Where the hell do you think a lot of people obtain their internet access from? The series of tubes? For many cable internet is the only choice. Some have DSL as second option. A small handful are lucky enough to have a WISP or local DSL provider as a third option.
At the end of the year i use my tax return to either put some money aside
If you are getting a large enough refund (my rule of thumb is anything >$100) then you should really adjust your withholding. A friend of mine is so happy each year to get a $1,500 refund. She was less amused when I pointed out that translates into almost $30/week that she would have had throughout the year for expenses and savings.
I also save all my change. 3-4 times a year i take it to a coinstar machine. sure they take 10% but I still end up with an extra $150-$200 a year at christmas time to buy gifts with.
Some of those machines will waive that surcharge if you purchase gift certificates instead of cash redemption. If they carry gift certificates for any places where you'd shop for x-mas gifts (they used to offer Amazon and B&N ones, as I recall) then that's a good way to go to avoid the fee.
You can have a car with Leather interior and a moonroof
You can. For me it's not worth it. I get a bigger thrill out of seeing my networth rise then I would out of driving a fancier car. My previous two cars were ghetto beaters so I'm quite happy every time this one starts without me having to open the hood and/or pray;)
What amuses me more then that is the people willing to pay extreme amounts of money to be the first adopters of something. The iphone comes to mind.... an even more extreme example is all the people who paid $100-$200 (or more) above retail price to get a Wii when the retailers were out of stock around Christmas time.
Hell, right there is an amusing thought. Various pundits love to complain about the "War on Christmas". I've always thought of the "War on Christmas" being less about retailers saying "Happy Holidays" and more about commercialism. While I don't consider myself a Christian, if I were one I'd be more upset about my holiday being commercialized then I would be about somebody else saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas".
At the rate I'm going with saving for a house, I'll be at a 50% down payment of my target price. Take out a 30 year mortgage to get the low payment then pay it off early.
My ingenious plan boils down to my (hopeful) increase in income after I finish my degree. I should be worth 40 - 50k. Right now I'm making 30k and living a 20k lifestyle. Maintain that lifestyle with the higher income for a few years, saving a ton of cash, then buy a house with at least a 20% downpayment and pay it off within 15 years. None of this private mortgage insurance interest-only crap.
I love the people that say rent is "wasting" money. If rent is "wasting" money then what the hell do you call the interest on your mortgage? The only difference between the two is that one is usually tax-deductible and even that might change soon. My rent buys a roof over my head for a lower cost then a mortgage would and the added benefit that I'm not responsible for anything beyond it. Furnace breaks down in the middle of January when it's -10 outside? Not my problem!
to purchase a new car (yeah, I know. But it was my first car. I'm allowed)
Hey I won't give you crap for that. Unless you are lucky enough to live in Manhattan it's pretty hard to be an American without a car. But even at that I tell people that there is no reason to be stupid about it. I bought my car with 8,000 miles on it for $10,000. At my current rate of driving I'll have it paid off with around 60,000 - 65,000 miles on it. That should translate into a few years of no car payment and little maintenance expense (besides oil changes/tires and standard stuff). During those few years I'll be transferring the amount of my car payment into savings each month. When this car dies I'll probably be able to replace it with a similar one and come very close to buying it outright with cash.
It's amazing how much money people can accumulate if they exercise a bit of self-control
You'll brook no argument from me. Two and a half years ago I was forced into Chapter 7 due to events beyond my control (medical bills) combined with stupid decisions on my part. Going through bankruptcy taught me the value of budgeting and living within my means -- now I have three months of liquid savings, some fairly liquid investments (CDs) and thousands of dollars in my 403(b) plan.
I have the cell phone, but it's a no-frills model and I'm with the cheapest provider out there. I don't have a land-line. My PC was built with parts savaged from the office and a few "in-kind" purchases (i.e: I'll fix your computer if you buy this stuff from newegg for me.... no taxes for me and cheaper for them). The only electronic device I've allowed myself to purchase in the last three years is a TiVo. Still running on my old 40 hour Series2:) My TV itself is an old 19" model I had from when I was a kid. I drive a $10,000 Suzuki, because it was the cheapest car I could find with a good warranty. As far as I'm concerned, there is no reason to spend money on any of this stuff.
I guess what I was trying to say though was that the whole message of soceity seems to be "spend, spend, spend". People like you and me aren't "doing our part" to "help the economy". I've actually heard people say that. Deficit spending is persuasive in this country. From an individual level (credit cards are absolutely evil, IMHO) all the way to the Federal Government. Hell, to quote Dick Cheney, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter". As long as people (and the Government) think they can have stuff without paying for it then this going to continue to be a problem.
I do everything I can to encourage my friends and family to save and live within their means. Few of them heed the message. I know people that spend more time managing their debt (looking for new 0% APR balance transfer offers, refinancing loans, etc) then I spend managing my investments. Which would you rather be doing?
I don't give a shit what my credit "score" is ("score" makes it sound like a game, doesn't it?) and I don't even own a house. When I do buy a house it will be with a proper downpayment and a 15 year mortgage, not a 30. If I can't afford to get a house within those confines then I won't bother. I don't look at a rent as "wasting" money, I'm paying for a service (a roof over my head) and don't have to worry about anything besides writing that check on the 1st of the month.
POTS has long been considered to be something akin to a necessity of life... and it's doubtful that internet access will be given the same "essential" status as POTS
It's only doubtful if we don't fight for it to be given that status. I would make the argument that cellular phones should be treated the same as POTS. Ditto for the internet. Both are virtual necessities for large segments of the population, yet neither have the same protections in place as other essential services (like POTS, electric/gas or water).
the backbones and T3's and switchers and NICs that IP needs in order to a place to exist and travel across. And each of those blinky lights is owned by someone who has all the rights that that ownership implies, which include the right to try to extract as large a profit as you legally can from your property.
And the public has a right to demand (through our elected representatives) regulation of that property when said owners try to leverage it to maximize profits in a way that's detrimental to the freedom of the internet. Let us not forget that the telcos received numerous Governmental hand-outs to build their networks. Everything from tax breaks worth billions to laws mandating that they get the right-of-way to build their networks, to Governmental issued local monopolies. Given that the "people" (through the Government) elected to give said gifts to these companies, I don't think it's out of line for us to expect not to be screwed over by them.
Am I out of line in being outraged that Comcast is conducting man-in-the-middle attacks because they don't like a specific protocol? I'd be fine with them publishing a bandwidth limit and enforcing it however they like (cutting off access when exceeded, drastically reducing bandwidth when exceeded, billing overages, etc), but I'm not fine with them deciding that they don't like one specific protocol (p2p) and attempting to interfere with it. I used Comcast as the example but I think this applies to anybody that decides to discriminate against one protocol.
Where would technology be if AT&T had been allowed to say you can't hook fax machines or modems up to your phone line? They have a right to bitch if that fax machine abuses resources in some way, but they don't have the right to tell me I can't use a fax machine just because it's a fax machine.
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That's a decent idea, but I'm just paranoid enough to think that it's probably wasted effort if the Feds are after you. One of the jobs of the FBI is counter-intelligence. They have to be able to follow and investigate agents of foreign countries without the surveillance being discovered. They have decades of institutional experience working against some of the brightest minds in the World. Such tricks as you have described are well known elements of fieldcraft and would be detected by a sufficiently competent FBI agent.
No, it doesn't. See sneak and peek warrants.
You can try encrypting all of your files but if they can gain physical access to the machine(s) in question without you knowing about it then it's a simple matter to install a keylogging device and obtain any passwords needed to decrypt your data.
Wow, get all of your opinions about America from the movies do you?
Indeed. And after that radio transmission the Iranians should be thanking Allah that they are still alive, because that was probably grounds under international law to blow them out of the fucking water. Your asked to state your intentions by a warship in international waters and you respond with "You'll explode soon"?
The real fear here is that the Iranians are trying to provoke a war, one that we could not afford to wage, nor afford to turn away from. Does that not make you concerned?It scares the hell out of me. And that's a great description. Couldn't afford to wage or afford to turn away from. A win/win for them and the people looking to radicalize the Muslim world.
Well, I dunno about the GP, but I never attempted to diminish the impact of 9/11.
I didn't even get to see the attacks unfold on the TV -- I had to listen to it all happen on the radio, which I think was actually more upsetting. We tried over and over to get useful information (and pictures) off the internet, but all of the news sites were swamped and unresponsive. It wasn't until 7pm that I got home and actually got to see everything that had happened. Later that evening I got to listen to a military airlift fly over my house at low altitude and listen to all of the reports of other structures (the Sears Tower) being evacuated because they weren't sure it was over yet. At that moment I actually remember thinking something along the lines of "When do the missiles start coming out of cornfields?"
That said, I made my original point to express frustration with our reaction to 9/11, not to diminish the impact of it. Everybody was afraid on 9/11. Hell, even for a few days after. But rationally looking back on it we have given up way too many of our rights. We have allowed political interests to use terrorism as a fear tactic to dominate the political debate and attack anybody that opposes them. And then, after all of what happened on 9/11, all of the death and destruction, we send 100,000+ troops into a country that had nothing to do with the attack. Why the hell couldn't we have sent those boys into Tora Tora to capture the bastard that killed our citizens instead of outsourcing that job to local tribal factions with questionable loyalty. How come nobody ever asks that question? Why is that motherfucker still walking this planet? Why can we spend 500 billion to occupy a country that never attacked us but not spend it to get him?
Stop thinking like a Geek for one minute and imagine the public reaction to the loss of the White House or the Capital Building.It would be a punch to the stomach. But those buildings aren't the spirit of the United States. The spirit of the United States is our freedom. And we've surrendered it to fear. Osama can blow up all the buildings he wants. He can't destroy our way of life. But we can.
Completely agree. The simple action of locking the cockpit doors and training the pilot to immedidately land during an attempting hijacking prevents another 9/11. End of story. No TSA, no "remove your shoes", no "no-fly" lists.
Hell, unless they can bring guns onto the aircraft there's no way terrorists even take over a plane in the United States after 9/11. Look at Flight 93. No American is going to meekly submit to an attempted hijacking after 9/11.
I've always thought we've done more damage to our way of life then the terrorists did. I wonder if they were smart enough to count on that? I know I wasn't. I figured we'd have more rage and less self-pity and fear. Guess I was wrong :(
When you drive you can seriously affect other people too, better raise the permit age to 21.
Honestly, the drinking age should probably be higher. I saw plenty of friends in college get just plain stupid and destructive after binge drinking.Or maybe we should lower the drinking age and make it a part of our culture instead of a rite of passage. In most of Europe it's typical to have wine at the dinner table -- that everybody from the kids to the parents drink. They don't seem to have a binge drinking problem.
In any case, this "responsibility" argument doesn't hold water with me. The Government doesn't get to dole out rights to us like we are children. Once you have attained the age of majority you should have all the rights and responsibilities of being an adult.
Unless it winds up at a crime scene later on (for whatever reason). That's a hassle I'd rather not deal with and I fail to see why I should turn my fingerprints over to the Government if I haven't done anything wrong.
but relatively useful for verifying ownership of a license.Retina scans would probably work equally as well and would better protect our privacy.... you can't leave a trail of retinas behind you in your day-to-day activities that can be used to trace you.
And that's tolerated? WTF?
The day that happens in New York is the day I move to New Hampshire. The day it happens in New Hampshire is the day I leave the United States for good. I will not cough up my fingerprints just to obtain a drivers license. End of story.
Hey now.... turd sandwich is clearly the most qualified candidate to lead our country. You take that back right now!
I consider the document displaying any information not pertinent to the stated purpose to be intrusive. Given that the traffic cops could retrieve your address with a few keystrokes and the ID number, I fail to see a compelling reason to mandate that my physical address be printed on my license.
Actually it does work. My understanding of my State Law (your state may vary) is that you only have be able to produce it within 24 hours of being asked for it. But regardless, you can just keep your license in your car and refuse to use it for anything else. That's what it's for anyway: driving. I fail to see any compelling reason to hand my license over to anybody outside of my car insurance company and traffic cops.
but we still had to give kudos to the door guy for knowing that much about various state licenses to spot thatA bigger question is why you need to be 21 to drink, but that's probably another discussion. You can vote, be drafted and smoke tobacco, but you can't legally buy booze. Yeah, that's fair.
Stop being rational about this. Real ID will protect us from terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security says so, so it must be true.
Even if you buy into that load of crap that you just spewed, how does imposing new restrictions on Americans and granting the Government sweeping new powers help towards that goal? I'd like to think that my drivers license bears no relationship to the military strength of the United States.
And I'll address your theory that we need to exterminate them with a quote from one of my favorite movies: "He seems to have a serious weed up his ass and a legitimate gripe, always a dangerous combination" -Captain Ramsey from Crimson Tide.
Point being, that the Muslim World has several legitimate gripes with the Western World. We can kill all the terrorists we want but until we address those gripes we'll just be creating more of them to fight us. Unless you plan on exterminating them all?
And I know that I'll sleep much better at night knowing that the terrorist who flew the 747 into the Sears Tower boarded the airplane with a legally issued Governmental ID as opposed to a fake one.
I'll give you a hint: "If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again -- that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States" -Dick Cheney
Seriously. Our own Government has done a lot more to make us afraid of terrorism then the terrorists themselves have done. How depressing that in 60 years we've gone from "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" to "Buy duct tape!".
As a fellow holder of a NYS license I don't generally have a problem with the way our license is designed -- we have 2D encrypted barcodes (similar the ones on our insurance cards, which I used to have the software to make when I worked in the business) that contain all of the information. No problem with that.
I do have a serious problem with the concept of centralizing all of this information, which is part of what REAL ID purports to do. This concept that all levels of Government need to share information and be totally integrated scares the hell out of me. It's supposed to be difficult for the various levels of Government (and even agencies within the same level of Government) to share information. Personally, I don't think the Feds should have a right to look at ANY of the information contained in my DMV file without due process of law (i.e: a warrant or an arrest for a crime committed).
I also have a problem with the mandate that all licenses display your home address. Mine currently has my PO Box on it. Why should it display my home address? DMV has my home address on file. Law enforcement can obtain it easily enough. I'm more comfortable using my license in day-to-day activities (businesses that want to see it) without my address being on it. The day they put my home address on my license is the day I stop carrying it. Hell, I'll use my fucking passport instead.
But some states are still issuing ID's that are literally little more than a laminated piece of paperHehe, does New Jersey still do that? We loved New Jersey IDs back in the day before any of us were 21......
You got a +5 funny but it should have been +5 insightful. I don't care how many smartchips or anti-counterfeiting features they add to our licenses, it will still be possible for people to counterfeit them. In the extreme example, somebody motivated enough to obtain a false id would just pay off the right person at DMV to obtain a legitimate one. Hell, if you think that doesn't happen right now then you are deluding yourself.
I don't recall reading that any of the 9/11 hijackers used fake IDs to get onto the airplanes. They obtained them quite legally. Perhaps we should be looking into reforming who can obtain a drivers license, rather then reforming the drivers license itself.
Or better yet: Perhaps we should stop all of this Orwellian nonsense to begin with and just accept the fact that we live in a dangerous world and I'd personally rather have my civil liberties and live with that basic fact then trade them in for the illusion of security.
Do you have a better idea or are you just a professional nay-sayer? If you have a better idea I'm all ears because I recall saying that it would never happen and I'm not even sure it'd be a good idea anyway.
If it's an offense to go faster then conditions allow (and it is, in New York anyway) then why exactly do speed limits need to be artificially low, again?
However, other conditions are not as obvious to most drivers such as rain (which can reduce stopping distance depending on the tire)So because it's not obvious to other drives I should have to cruise along at 55 on a bright sunny day when the flow of traffic is 70? In that scenario it's actually dangerous to obey the law. Laws shouldn't exist if the majority of the population is ignoring them.
hat is when the cops will care if you are doing more than 55.Sorry, I completely disagree. If anything, the cops are less likely to pull you over in the rain, for the simple reason that they are human beings too and would rather sit in a warm dry car then the cold wet rain writing a ticket. I've never been pulled over in the rain and I can probably count on one hand how many times I've seen someone else pulled over the rain.
Wait, so you first say that the cable companies are filling a "want", not a "need", then you turn around and admit that the internet is a "need".
Where the hell do you think a lot of people obtain their internet access from? The series of tubes? For many cable internet is the only choice. Some have DSL as second option. A small handful are lucky enough to have a WISP or local DSL provider as a third option.
If you are getting a large enough refund (my rule of thumb is anything >$100) then you should really adjust your withholding. A friend of mine is so happy each year to get a $1,500 refund. She was less amused when I pointed out that translates into almost $30/week that she would have had throughout the year for expenses and savings.
I also save all my change. 3-4 times a year i take it to a coinstar machine. sure they take 10% but I still end up with an extra $150-$200 a year at christmas time to buy gifts with.Some of those machines will waive that surcharge if you purchase gift certificates instead of cash redemption. If they carry gift certificates for any places where you'd shop for x-mas gifts (they used to offer Amazon and B&N ones, as I recall) then that's a good way to go to avoid the fee.
You can have a car with Leather interior and a moonroofYou can. For me it's not worth it. I get a bigger thrill out of seeing my networth rise then I would out of driving a fancier car. My previous two cars were ghetto beaters so I'm quite happy every time this one starts without me having to open the hood and/or pray ;)
What amuses me more then that is the people willing to pay extreme amounts of money to be the first adopters of something. The iphone comes to mind.... an even more extreme example is all the people who paid $100-$200 (or more) above retail price to get a Wii when the retailers were out of stock around Christmas time.
Hell, right there is an amusing thought. Various pundits love to complain about the "War on Christmas". I've always thought of the "War on Christmas" being less about retailers saying "Happy Holidays" and more about commercialism. While I don't consider myself a Christian, if I were one I'd be more upset about my holiday being commercialized then I would be about somebody else saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas".
At the rate I'm going with saving for a house, I'll be at a 50% down payment of my target price. Take out a 30 year mortgage to get the low payment then pay it off early.My ingenious plan boils down to my (hopeful) increase in income after I finish my degree. I should be worth 40 - 50k. Right now I'm making 30k and living a 20k lifestyle. Maintain that lifestyle with the higher income for a few years, saving a ton of cash, then buy a house with at least a 20% downpayment and pay it off within 15 years. None of this private mortgage insurance interest-only crap.
I love the people that say rent is "wasting" money. If rent is "wasting" money then what the hell do you call the interest on your mortgage? The only difference between the two is that one is usually tax-deductible and even that might change soon. My rent buys a roof over my head for a lower cost then a mortgage would and the added benefit that I'm not responsible for anything beyond it. Furnace breaks down in the middle of January when it's -10 outside? Not my problem!
to purchase a new car (yeah, I know. But it was my first car. I'm allowed)Hey I won't give you crap for that. Unless you are lucky enough to live in Manhattan it's pretty hard to be an American without a car. But even at that I tell people that there is no reason to be stupid about it. I bought my car with 8,000 miles on it for $10,000. At my current rate of driving I'll have it paid off with around 60,000 - 65,000 miles on it. That should translate into a few years of no car payment and little maintenance expense (besides oil changes/tires and standard stuff). During those few years I'll be transferring the amount of my car payment into savings each month. When this car dies I'll probably be able to replace it with a similar one and come very close to buying it outright with cash.
You'll brook no argument from me. Two and a half years ago I was forced into Chapter 7 due to events beyond my control (medical bills) combined with stupid decisions on my part. Going through bankruptcy taught me the value of budgeting and living within my means -- now I have three months of liquid savings, some fairly liquid investments (CDs) and thousands of dollars in my 403(b) plan.
Cell phone? Don't have. Newest, latest, blingiest PC? Nope. 18 different electronic devices? Nada.I have the cell phone, but it's a no-frills model and I'm with the cheapest provider out there. I don't have a land-line. My PC was built with parts savaged from the office and a few "in-kind" purchases (i.e: I'll fix your computer if you buy this stuff from newegg for me.... no taxes for me and cheaper for them). The only electronic device I've allowed myself to purchase in the last three years is a TiVo. Still running on my old 40 hour Series2 :) My TV itself is an old 19" model I had from when I was a kid. I drive a $10,000 Suzuki, because it was the cheapest car I could find with a good warranty. As far as I'm concerned, there is no reason to spend money on any of this stuff.
I guess what I was trying to say though was that the whole message of soceity seems to be "spend, spend, spend". People like you and me aren't "doing our part" to "help the economy". I've actually heard people say that. Deficit spending is persuasive in this country. From an individual level (credit cards are absolutely evil, IMHO) all the way to the Federal Government. Hell, to quote Dick Cheney, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter". As long as people (and the Government) think they can have stuff without paying for it then this going to continue to be a problem.
I do everything I can to encourage my friends and family to save and live within their means. Few of them heed the message. I know people that spend more time managing their debt (looking for new 0% APR balance transfer offers, refinancing loans, etc) then I spend managing my investments. Which would you rather be doing?
I don't give a shit what my credit "score" is ("score" makes it sound like a game, doesn't it?) and I don't even own a house. When I do buy a house it will be with a proper downpayment and a 15 year mortgage, not a 30. If I can't afford to get a house within those confines then I won't bother. I don't look at a rent as "wasting" money, I'm paying for a service (a roof over my head) and don't have to worry about anything besides writing that check on the 1st of the month.
It's only doubtful if we don't fight for it to be given that status. I would make the argument that cellular phones should be treated the same as POTS. Ditto for the internet. Both are virtual necessities for large segments of the population, yet neither have the same protections in place as other essential services (like POTS, electric/gas or water).
the backbones and T3's and switchers and NICs that IP needs in order to a place to exist and travel across. And each of those blinky lights is owned by someone who has all the rights that that ownership implies, which include the right to try to extract as large a profit as you legally can from your property.And the public has a right to demand (through our elected representatives) regulation of that property when said owners try to leverage it to maximize profits in a way that's detrimental to the freedom of the internet. Let us not forget that the telcos received numerous Governmental hand-outs to build their networks. Everything from tax breaks worth billions to laws mandating that they get the right-of-way to build their networks, to Governmental issued local monopolies. Given that the "people" (through the Government) elected to give said gifts to these companies, I don't think it's out of line for us to expect not to be screwed over by them.
Am I out of line in being outraged that Comcast is conducting man-in-the-middle attacks because they don't like a specific protocol? I'd be fine with them publishing a bandwidth limit and enforcing it however they like (cutting off access when exceeded, drastically reducing bandwidth when exceeded, billing overages, etc), but I'm not fine with them deciding that they don't like one specific protocol (p2p) and attempting to interfere with it. I used Comcast as the example but I think this applies to anybody that decides to discriminate against one protocol.
Where would technology be if AT&T had been allowed to say you can't hook fax machines or modems up to your phone line? They have a right to bitch if that fax machine abuses resources in some way, but they don't have the right to tell me I can't use a fax machine just because it's a fax machine.