Because if I'm living in a state that's wasting my taxes on this broadband, healthcare, and other ridiculous shit, I can just move to Nevada.
Or even better... Utah.
I know you were being sarcastic, but while I was googling Orin Hatch, I came across this. It's Hatch applauding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for appealing U.S. v. Extreme Associates. Sorry to go off-topic, but why is the justice department wasting money on fighting pornography, and why are people voting these idiots back into office? Anyone that tries to make computer laws without understanding how a computer works has no right to do so. Likewise, any congressmen that doesn't understand the bill of rights has no right to make laws.
I never said I trusted either source. But when you can read Arabic propaganda and contrast it with your own media's propaganda, it helps you to understand what the underlying causes for war are. It is also key to recognizing the true aggressor, because in every war both governments play the "good guys" role to their citizens. Direct translation helps you to understand the culture of your enemy. Things as simple as webpage advertisements, editorials, personals, etc, are lost in translation by CNN and the other alphabet news networks.
I'd like to see an arabic-to-english translator. I was interested in reading news from the middle east, because I don't particularly trust our media to translate it properly. A good example of this is Bin Laden's transcript.
After a quick web search, all I was able to find was this site, which has a pretty sketchy TOS agreement.
The University of New Hampshire provides free access to a full-time attorney for any of its students if they need help with legal issues. She will even defend you if you get arrested. I loved this idea the second I heard it, and think we should have a "public defendant" at our high schools, but only for the reason that we have a police officer there. It's only fair to the student to have somebody advocating their rights when they're going up against powerful authority. Also, if we are trying to treat students as American adults, why shouldn't they have this right which they are entitiled to in a criminal court?
If the school admins weren't such asshats, the parents wouldn't need to be so adversarial.
I agree with you 100%. I had a handful of extremely talented and down-to-earth teachers during my 4 years of high school. Many of them took time aside to help me out with projects unrelated to their classes. One helped me start a business and another helped me with legal advice when I got arrested. One teacher even took the time to show a video tape of the Feb 15 Iraq War protests on Democracy Now to our class. This teacher had no reason to do so except that he felt it was right we see what was truly happening in our country. After seeing the video which featured American protesters and interviews with everyday people living in Iraq, it completely changed my perspective on the war.
I realize I'm going off-topic, but the fact is that many people rant about the poor quality of teachers. I'm not saying every teacher I had was great - with the handful of outstanding teachers, I also got a few really bad ones too - but thats life. But getting back to the point, the teachers I mentioned were frequently in trouble with the administration. Never in my life have I seen such a power-hungry group of people so detached from their constituents and reality. They're policy was "we're always right and the students must obey." When they fucked up, no reparations or even an apology were ever considered. When I look back at high school, I do not have one good thing to say about the way my school was run.
So, how long do you think it will be until students just give their badges to their friends?
Yeah but turn this around. Let's say the student loses his name tag and some other kids find it. Those kids enter some unauthorized area and cause damage. I guarantee you the school will come looking for the student. When he/she says he lost his ID card, they'll just suspend him for not having his ID card. They might do that on top of holding him accountable for breaking stuff.
Basically, you're shifting the burden of proof onto the accused - guilty until proven innocent. Very bad move! It's no wonder kids don't understand their constitutional rights when we treat them like cattle.
Oh, and in regards to your original statement, the school won't even check the records until something happens. It won't prevent anything except make it easier for the school to point and say "You broke the rules here, here, and here." Most of the rules broken are usually asinine in the first place, and no reasonable person would follow them. In doing this, the school also violates the right of every single other student following the rules.
A company really needs to step in and make open-source hardware. Think about how much money and waste we could save if every year instead of buying a new cell phone we could just download new software onto it. The same goes for a car CD player. Don't like the interface? Want MP3/Ogg/MP4? Want strong encryption for your cell phone? Just download an update.
The best feature of this is that you will extend the life of your product by a long time. PDAs, Cell Phones, MP3 Players, video game systems, Digital Cameras... they would all benefit. Sure, the initial hardware cost might be a little bit more, but in the end I think the cost would be worth it.
Ok let me get this straight. If I transfer 90,000 to my business partner in Soviet Russia, then the bank will call the police, brand me a terrorist and throw me in jail. Yup, sounds legal.
I'll tell you what... I'm the banker. I'll hold on to your money for you and offer two different choices for security.
1) I take all of your money for you and never monitor your account. The only person who will know anything related to your account is yourself. The only catch is that because I was not allowed to monitor your account, you can't possible hold me accountable for missing funds, and are therefore responsible for your own security. If you want this sort of security, go to a swiss bank. Until a few years ago, they didn't even require a name to open an account.
Or 2) I will have computer software monitor your account to make sure money does not disappear through suspicious activities ($300 at 11:57PM and $300 at 12:01 AM). With this survelliance, comes my guarantee that your money will be secure from unauthorized access, or I will replace the funds for you.
Obviously option 2 is a much better choice for any level headed consumer. If you are worried about the banks calling the police to brand you a terrorist (which is a valid concern), then it's the laws protecting your privacy which are the problem, not the bank.
I don't know if warrants will even protect your privacy anymore. It's turning into another stamp-approved bureaucratic process which only lets politicians play the blame game. The FBI is requesting these warrants like hotcakes and nearly all are being approved.
From the NYT article: Federal authorities made a total of 1,727 applications last year before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret panel that oversees the country's most delicate terrorism and espionage investigations, according to the new data.
The total represents an increase of about 500 warrant applications over 2002 and a doubling of the applications since 2001, the Justice Department said in its report, which was submitted to the federal courts and to Vice President Dick Cheney as required by law.
All but three of applications for electronic surveillance and physical searches of suspects were approved in whole or part by the court....
The F.B.I. told the commission that "there is now less hesitancy" in seeking the intelligence warrants, the report said. Nonetheless, it added, "requests for such approvals are overwhelming the ability of the system to process them and to conduct the surveillance."
I don't remember exactly what the number of warrants requested were before sept 11th, but I know it was very few. 1,727 is a lot of warrants - more than the number killed in Iraq. To put that in perspective, if you know of somebody killed in Iraq, you are more likely to know somebody whom the FBI is watching.
When on earth will people learn that no matter HOW GOOD your intensions are; the only thing that simply CAN NOT be stuffed down people's throat, is freedom and the concept of freedom.
Yup. One of the underlying conflicts in many of the wars (ancient Athens, WWI/WWII, Iraq, etc...) fought by civilizations was hubris. People become so patriotic that they think their country is superior to everyone else's. Some leaders have even used this arrogance to justify wars. They believe war is "good" because it tests the true strength of a civilization, and the best culture will overtake the weaker one (social darwinism). In their mind, you're doing the enemy a favor by giving them freedom, communism, or whatever. What these people fail to realize, however, is that the only reason you think you're way is better is because thats the way you were raised; to believe everything you were taught was correct and any other way is wrong or inferior. Americans like their freedom, Iraqis like their dictatorship, and Chinese like their Communism. I'm not saying they're thrilled to be told what to do, but they are complacent because they are ignorant of alternatives. If the people become oppressed enough, they will start their own revolution. If another country tries to impose their culture on them, they will become patriotic to their own government (free or not) because of propoganda their leaders tell them.
You can not force people to be free, they can only be free if they really want to be free.
While education and the decline of religious influence have helped dwarf rascism and taught tolerance, we're still in Iraq right now because of the same egotistical "we're the big bad fuckin USA" attitude ("Bring It On"). One day, I hope people will understand that it doesn't matter if your an American, Canadian, French, Iraqi, whatever - you're still a human being. What geographical area or political climate you were raised in will never change that.
Re:Another useless blog
on
Today in P2P
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· Score: 2, Informative
If you don't like the stories posted by Michael why don't you just uncheck his name from the authors list on your profile's homepage tab settings. Then his stories will never appear for you again.
These companies should be fined (big) if this data is stolen. If this were the case, I don't think universities and businesses would bother collecting SSNs in the first place, unless it was absolutely necessary. It would also force them to pay more attention to security.
I just scratched my SSN off my ID card with a razorblade. If anyone at my college really needs my SSN they can just ask. It still bothers me though that they use my SSN to track my records.
I'm curious as to how many visitors independent news sites get, including sites like slashdot, fark, democracynow, kuro5hin, etc. Is it anywhere close to the 4.5-4.8 million slate and Washington post get, or do most people just think "getting their news online" means going to cnn.com?
# Starvation - In nature populations are kept in check by starvation. Starvation is running rampant in third world countries. The world population is growing so rapidly that it's becoming more and more difficult to adequately feed everybody.
I think this is the least of our problems, because we are always inventing our way out of food shortage. Man has invented everything from agriculture, to machines, to genetic engineering which increase productivity. 100 years ago nobody could have told you that one day we will take the genes of a tomato plant and make them better. Who knows what we'll make next. Agriculture is what separates us from other species, and allows us to live on convince instead of necessity. Third world countries will catch up as their technologies advance.
# Disease - In nature populations are thinned out by disease. Mankind has managed to effectively fight disease for decades and thereby help increase the population. The flu used to kill hundreds of thousands of people but now it's more of an inconvenience. Smallpox is all but gone. Nature responds to this by introducing AIDS, SARS, Ebola, etc. If the avian flu manages to jump into the human species (not unlikely) then new flu outbreaks could kill millions.
I don't think diseases such as the Flu and AIDS are the problem, but more so genetic disabilities. In nature, animals have to live with natural selection. The weakest animals die off, and the strongest survive. Animals with good DNA reproduce and continue their genetic line. In humans however, we have circumvented natural selection. Lots of people have asthma, diabetes, and numerous genetic disabilities that are able to live now because of medical advances. Because these people are living with the diseases whereas 50 years ago they would die, they are reproducing and having children. Their children will also have their bad genetics. This makes us become dependent on technology and medicine to take care of ourselves, and should that technology no longer be there someday due to an unexpected event, we will not be in any shape to survive without it.
# Fertility - The fertility levels in many species drop when they become overpopulated. Mankind has done a good job of creating fertility drugs, etc. to allow continued growth of the population. Mankind seems to think it's a right to have offspring, despite what nature may be telling them.
I believe humans follow the same concept. If you look at the birth rate for cities, it is much lower than the suburbs. I know that there are many factors going into this such as income and whatnot, but there is also space, which you have a lot more of in the suburbs than in a city apartment. I don't think its a fertility thing, but more of a just "I don't want to have kids because theres too many people around." I could be wrong about this though - I just read it on a./ post and never fact-checked. I'd appreciate if someone could confirm/disconfirm it.
# Homosexuality - There are theories that nature uses homosexuality to help control population sizes. The basic theory is that when a population reaches a size that can no longer be naturally supported by the environment that homosexual tendencies become more prevelant. Of course it could just be that the percentage of gay people hasn't changed, it's just that there are more now since the overall population is growing.
I've always heard that homosexuality is a near constant percent (something like 10%). I fail to see how this is a threat, because there will always be 90% of the population that is not gay, and they will reproduce.
But all in all, I think the greatest threat to society is war. Because of religion, we have become very intolerant and organized by social class. If we can eradicate the "If you don't go to my church you're going to hell" attitude, I think people will be more respectful and not so fast to drop a bomb.
We've been through times like these before with the whole Communism scare, Senator McCarthy, witchtrials, and so on. All of that has turned out fine. What I find astounding is that given history, people are still unable to distinguish a real threat of terrorism from the "hey look its a communist" crap their government spews.
Just remember, 49% of the country voted for Not Bush after an attack on US Soil, so at least we're not all idiots. It is the media's fault everything happened the way it did, but at least now I think a lot more people are aware of just how bad they are. This encourages independent thinking and research, which we desperately need more of. The media's power will crumble with the rise of independent journalism and democracy on the web.
1:11:05: Vehicle is driving 0mph 1:11:07: Vehicle is driving 12mph 1:11:10: Vehicle is driving 34mph 1:11:16: Vehicle is driving 67mph 1:11:22: Vehicle is driving 84mph 1:11:25: Vehicle is driving 88mph 1:11:30: Vehicle not found.
And thats usually for liability only. If you want to add comprehensive insurance you can bet on another $500-1000/yr for even a 8-10 year old car. In NY, I believe liability only was closer to $3000/yr.
Regarding an insurance discount though, I don't think its fair to treat new customers as poor drivers, and make them earn a good reputation. They should assume everyone is a good driver, and the more points you have on your license, the more you pay.
Slashdot Mirror
Or even better... Utah.
I know you were being sarcastic, but while I was googling Orin Hatch, I came across this. It's Hatch applauding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for appealing U.S. v. Extreme Associates. Sorry to go off-topic, but why is the justice department wasting money on fighting pornography, and why are people voting these idiots back into office? Anyone that tries to make computer laws without understanding how a computer works has no right to do so. Likewise, any congressmen that doesn't understand the bill of rights has no right to make laws.
I never said I trusted either source. But when you can read Arabic propaganda and contrast it with your own media's propaganda, it helps you to understand what the underlying causes for war are. It is also key to recognizing the true aggressor, because in every war both governments play the "good guys" role to their citizens. Direct translation helps you to understand the culture of your enemy. Things as simple as webpage advertisements, editorials, personals, etc, are lost in translation by CNN and the other alphabet news networks.
After a quick web search, all I was able to find was this site, which has a pretty sketchy TOS agreement.
The actual study can be found here. There was also a slashdot discussion here.
The University of New Hampshire provides free access to a full-time attorney for any of its students if they need help with legal issues. She will even defend you if you get arrested. I loved this idea the second I heard it, and think we should have a "public defendant" at our high schools, but only for the reason that we have a police officer there. It's only fair to the student to have somebody advocating their rights when they're going up against powerful authority. Also, if we are trying to treat students as American adults, why shouldn't they have this right which they are entitiled to in a criminal court?
Very good link BTW.
I agree with you 100%. I had a handful of extremely talented and down-to-earth teachers during my 4 years of high school. Many of them took time aside to help me out with projects unrelated to their classes. One helped me start a business and another helped me with legal advice when I got arrested. One teacher even took the time to show a video tape of the Feb 15 Iraq War protests on Democracy Now to our class. This teacher had no reason to do so except that he felt it was right we see what was truly happening in our country. After seeing the video which featured American protesters and interviews with everyday people living in Iraq, it completely changed my perspective on the war.
I realize I'm going off-topic, but the fact is that many people rant about the poor quality of teachers. I'm not saying every teacher I had was great - with the handful of outstanding teachers, I also got a few really bad ones too - but thats life. But getting back to the point, the teachers I mentioned were frequently in trouble with the administration. Never in my life have I seen such a power-hungry group of people so detached from their constituents and reality. They're policy was "we're always right and the students must obey." When they fucked up, no reparations or even an apology were ever considered. When I look back at high school, I do not have one good thing to say about the way my school was run.
Yeah but turn this around. Let's say the student loses his name tag and some other kids find it. Those kids enter some unauthorized area and cause damage. I guarantee you the school will come looking for the student. When he/she says he lost his ID card, they'll just suspend him for not having his ID card. They might do that on top of holding him accountable for breaking stuff.
Basically, you're shifting the burden of proof onto the accused - guilty until proven innocent. Very bad move! It's no wonder kids don't understand their constitutional rights when we treat them like cattle.
Oh, and in regards to your original statement, the school won't even check the records until something happens. It won't prevent anything except make it easier for the school to point and say "You broke the rules here, here, and here." Most of the rules broken are usually asinine in the first place, and no reasonable person would follow them. In doing this, the school also violates the right of every single other student following the rules.
The best feature of this is that you will extend the life of your product by a long time. PDAs, Cell Phones, MP3 Players, video game systems, Digital Cameras... they would all benefit. Sure, the initial hardware cost might be a little bit more, but in the end I think the cost would be worth it.
I'll tell you what... I'm the banker. I'll hold on to your money for you and offer two different choices for security.
1) I take all of your money for you and never monitor your account. The only person who will know anything related to your account is yourself. The only catch is that because I was not allowed to monitor your account, you can't possible hold me accountable for missing funds, and are therefore responsible for your own security. If you want this sort of security, go to a swiss bank. Until a few years ago, they didn't even require a name to open an account.
Or 2) I will have computer software monitor your account to make sure money does not disappear through suspicious activities ($300 at 11:57PM and $300 at 12:01 AM). With this survelliance, comes my guarantee that your money will be secure from unauthorized access, or I will replace the funds for you.
Obviously option 2 is a much better choice for any level headed consumer. If you are worried about the banks calling the police to brand you a terrorist (which is a valid concern), then it's the laws protecting your privacy which are the problem, not the bank.
link, second source
From the NYT article:
Federal authorities made a total of 1,727 applications last year before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret panel that oversees the country's most delicate terrorism and espionage investigations, according to the new data.
The total represents an increase of about 500 warrant applications over 2002 and a doubling of the applications since 2001, the Justice Department said in its report, which was submitted to the federal courts and to Vice President Dick Cheney as required by law.
All but three of applications for electronic surveillance and physical searches of suspects were approved in whole or part by the court....
The F.B.I. told the commission that "there is now less hesitancy" in seeking the intelligence warrants, the report said. Nonetheless, it added, "requests for such approvals are overwhelming the ability of the system to process them and to conduct the surveillance."
I don't remember exactly what the number of warrants requested were before sept 11th, but I know it was very few. 1,727 is a lot of warrants - more than the number killed in Iraq. To put that in perspective, if you know of somebody killed in Iraq, you are more likely to know somebody whom the FBI is watching.
Do you also happen to be the author of this book? :P
Yup. One of the underlying conflicts in many of the wars (ancient Athens, WWI/WWII, Iraq, etc...) fought by civilizations was hubris. People become so patriotic that they think their country is superior to everyone else's. Some leaders have even used this arrogance to justify wars. They believe war is "good" because it tests the true strength of a civilization, and the best culture will overtake the weaker one (social darwinism). In their mind, you're doing the enemy a favor by giving them freedom, communism, or whatever. What these people fail to realize, however, is that the only reason you think you're way is better is because thats the way you were raised; to believe everything you were taught was correct and any other way is wrong or inferior. Americans like their freedom, Iraqis like their dictatorship, and Chinese like their Communism. I'm not saying they're thrilled to be told what to do, but they are complacent because they are ignorant of alternatives. If the people become oppressed enough, they will start their own revolution. If another country tries to impose their culture on them, they will become patriotic to their own government (free or not) because of propoganda their leaders tell them.
You can not force people to be free, they can only be free if they really want to be free.
While education and the decline of religious influence have helped dwarf rascism and taught tolerance, we're still in Iraq right now because of the same egotistical "we're the big bad fuckin USA" attitude ("Bring It On"). One day, I hope people will understand that it doesn't matter if your an American, Canadian, French, Iraqi, whatever - you're still a human being. What geographical area or political climate you were raised in will never change that.
If you don't like the stories posted by Michael why don't you just uncheck his name from the authors list on your profile's homepage tab settings. Then his stories will never appear for you again.
These companies should be fined (big) if this data is stolen. If this were the case, I don't think universities and businesses would bother collecting SSNs in the first place, unless it was absolutely necessary. It would also force them to pay more attention to security.
I just scratched my SSN off my ID card with a razorblade. If anyone at my college really needs my SSN they can just ask. It still bothers me though that they use my SSN to track my records.
Ohh, Hi John Titor. I didn't realize you were still around.
I'm curious as to how many visitors independent news sites get, including sites like slashdot, fark, democracynow, kuro5hin, etc. Is it anywhere close to the 4.5-4.8 million slate and Washington post get, or do most people just think "getting their news online" means going to cnn.com?
Whatever it is, its not important. I just meant to say that the rate remains constant throughout societal growth and decay.
I think this is the least of our problems, because we are always inventing our way out of food shortage. Man has invented everything from agriculture, to machines, to genetic engineering which increase productivity. 100 years ago nobody could have told you that one day we will take the genes of a tomato plant and make them better. Who knows what we'll make next. Agriculture is what separates us from other species, and allows us to live on convince instead of necessity. Third world countries will catch up as their technologies advance.
# Disease - In nature populations are thinned out by disease. Mankind has managed to effectively fight disease for decades and thereby help increase the population. The flu used to kill hundreds of thousands of people but now it's more of an inconvenience. Smallpox is all but gone. Nature responds to this by introducing AIDS, SARS, Ebola, etc. If the avian flu manages to jump into the human species (not unlikely) then new flu outbreaks could kill millions.
I don't think diseases such as the Flu and AIDS are the problem, but more so genetic disabilities. In nature, animals have to live with natural selection. The weakest animals die off, and the strongest survive. Animals with good DNA reproduce and continue their genetic line. In humans however, we have circumvented natural selection. Lots of people have asthma, diabetes, and numerous genetic disabilities that are able to live now because of medical advances. Because these people are living with the diseases whereas 50 years ago they would die, they are reproducing and having children. Their children will also have their bad genetics. This makes us become dependent on technology and medicine to take care of ourselves, and should that technology no longer be there someday due to an unexpected event, we will not be in any shape to survive without it.
# Fertility - The fertility levels in many species drop when they become overpopulated. Mankind has done a good job of creating fertility drugs, etc. to allow continued growth of the population. Mankind seems to think it's a right to have offspring, despite what nature may be telling them.
I believe humans follow the same concept. If you look at the birth rate for cities, it is much lower than the suburbs. I know that there are many factors going into this such as income and whatnot, but there is also space, which you have a lot more of in the suburbs than in a city apartment. I don't think its a fertility thing, but more of a just "I don't want to have kids because theres too many people around." I could be wrong about this though - I just read it on a ./ post and never fact-checked. I'd appreciate if someone could confirm/disconfirm it.
# Homosexuality - There are theories that nature uses homosexuality to help control population sizes. The basic theory is that when a population reaches a size that can no longer be naturally supported by the environment that homosexual tendencies become more prevelant. Of course it could just be that the percentage of gay people hasn't changed, it's just that there are more now since the overall population is growing.
I've always heard that homosexuality is a near constant percent (something like 10%). I fail to see how this is a threat, because there will always be 90% of the population that is not gay, and they will reproduce.
But all in all, I think the greatest threat to society is war. Because of religion, we have become very intolerant and organized by social class. If we can eradicate the "If you don't go to my church you're going to hell" attitude, I think people will be more respectful and not so fast to drop a bomb.
Now that you have the topic, design a project.
Just remember, 49% of the country voted for Not Bush after an attack on US Soil, so at least we're not all idiots. It is the media's fault everything happened the way it did, but at least now I think a lot more people are aware of just how bad they are. This encourages independent thinking and research, which we desperately need more of. The media's power will crumble with the rise of independent journalism and democracy on the web.
You might like this article.
How about this one:
1:11:05: Vehicle is driving 0mph
1:11:07: Vehicle is driving 12mph
1:11:10: Vehicle is driving 34mph
1:11:16: Vehicle is driving 67mph
1:11:22: Vehicle is driving 84mph
1:11:25: Vehicle is driving 88mph
1:11:30: Vehicle not found.
Of course, they'd have to be driving this awesome car.
Regarding an insurance discount though, I don't think its fair to treat new customers as poor drivers, and make them earn a good reputation. They should assume everyone is a good driver, and the more points you have on your license, the more you pay.