Anything can be called "dual use". I don't rightly give a damn what something CAN be used for. Sell them missles for all I care, they have a right to defend themselves, just like we do.
I think you're letting your gloriously righteous indignation overpower your common sense.
It is not OK to help hostile nations arm themselves against you. Would you really not care if the US sold nuclear weapons to Iran? Because the theory is that nuclear weapons are for defending yourself, although the "dual use" is pretty fucking obvious in that case.
Hoenstly, I feel the same way about it. But if its any consolation, I don't feel I pay taxes so much as they just take them. Hell, their "share" of my money gets allocated before I even get it....I have to ask for a portion of it back every year.
Yet all they ever want to ask me is which face I like, they never once asked me if stomping on liberty was ok, they never once asked me if I wanted to pay for their oil wars or their torture program. I would gladly pay taxes to put every fucking torturer in prison and keep them their till they die of natural causes, but, nobody wants to give me that opportunity.
In a democracy, your option is to change the government and the law, not to decide what you personally want to spend money on, or else a load of childless people would withhold money for education, pacifists for the military, libertarians for social welfare, etc.
Make it too blank and there's new grounds for suspicion and again, they'll duplicate the disk and attempt to find any deleted files.
Remember these are US law enforcement agents we are talking about. If the HD is too blank, they will helpfully upload their personal stashes of child porn onto your system before turning it over to their forensics guy to "find".
At that level of paranoia, why don't you just say that they can take you away and shoot you?
[[If they ask why it's such a fresh install,]]
If they ask why it's such a fresh install, you ask "are fresh installs against the law?".
And they think "that's exactly what a terrorist would say" and take you away for a few hours of interrogation so you miss your flight and, if you're a foreigner, investigate your background to find a reason to refuse you entry into the country.
All the internet tough guys and barrack room lawyers here don't seem to realise or remember that mouthing off to border/customs officials has never been a good idea, even before the paranoia about terrorism that we have now.
Self driving cars can't drive in the rain. Oh, really? Take a drive around Seattle in the rain, you'll discover human drivers suck in the rain, too.
"Can't drive in the rain" is not the same thing as "drive badly in the rain".
My understanding is that self driving cars at the moment literally don't function when it's raining, which) is somewhat of a disadvantage (unless you live somewhere like Southern California).
Put it this way, I don't see self driving cars arriving here in the UK any time soon.
I think non profit executives, especially charities, should be ready to accept a pay lower than market rates. I am not saying that they should not be paid, but I think for a big non profit, a pay of 4-5 times the average national wage is reasonable.
If the leaders of the non profit is not ready to contribute, I dun see why I should contribute to it.
I think that pay of 4-5 times the average national wage is reasonable for anyone, but I doubt the CEOs of big multinationals would agree, and it's that level of person you're talking about.
The head of a large charity is a full time, responsible job, so you can't just rely on well meaning part timers volunteering in their spare time.
Personally, I would be happy for there to be no need for charities at all, with their roles being covered by general taxation, but I know this is socialism, so you have to deal with current reality.
I didn't send a dime to Nepal because everyone who asked for it made more money than me
If you mean celebrity actors, or whatever, then so what?
If you mean the head of the Red Cross, then he certainly doesn't earn anywhere near what he could as CEO of a large commercial organisation. In the UK, I just checked and he earns GBP184,000 which is not in the same league as FTSE100 bosses, where the average (median) salary is GBP2,433,000
I don't care if they are successful, only that they give. And I can tell you I am not the only one who quit giving part of my pay because of their CEO's greed. People got so tired of giving to an organization whose president sucked up more than we earned that we all refused to donate anymore. Charity is about giving, not profiting.
Well then the simple solution is to give them an additional 50% bonus which they have to donate to the charity.
The report is pretty confused: "...that's actual hard sitting-around currency, currently put into various investment vehicles..."
Either it's a - liquid cash, or b - sitting in investments.
The terminology nowadays is "cash or cash equivalents" which includes actual liquid cash (bags of coins and bank current accounts), and short term investments. In the UK (which follows international accounting standards) this means investments that will mature in less than three months.
If it matures after more than three months it's an investment.
You're fantastically unlikely to be made bankrupt by a creditor if you have liquid funds that you can access within three months, so it's a reasonable definition.
You have to include the $20 million/year "Jimmy Wales junket fund" (as VallyWag called it for years while reporting on his exotic trips). Hookers and blow don't buy themselves, you know.
And how exactly do you know this is true?
Don't organisations of this size have to be audited in the US?
Have you ever read or seen an appeal for money from any charity or not-for profit?
They all do this, because if they didn't the donations would be drastically lower. People simply aren't interested in donating to a "long term sustainable investment endowment", they need prompted into action through a suggestion that it's a very immediate need, or indeed emergency.
Exactly. When you have something like the Nepal earthquake, donations people make aren't going to some new organisation set up that morning, and you don't expect them to give back any money left over when the emergency is over.
You have an unpleasant surprise in store for you as you age. Minimum close focus gets further back, to where you really cannot just bring the tiny screen closer...
This is a solved problem. Google "reading glasses" or "spectacles to correct long sightedness".
I never really bought that idea. Outside my girlfriend's place of work in Japan there is an unofficial bike parking area. There are maybe 100 spaces. None of the bikes are locked, and people move them all the time to make a bit more space. Anyone could easily take one and there would be almost no chance of getting caught.
People don't for some reason. It can't be fear of getting caught.
Unfortunately, this would not be the case in most parts of the worlds, including the UK where I live. Japan is obviously the exception that proves the rule.
It is no one's business who I saw on vacation. I may have met a KGB agent, or I may have met my mistress, or I may have talked to a "spiritual advisor", or I may have just basked in the solitude of the wilderness. And - it's no one's business.
If you're stupid enough to post on the internet that you met a KGB agent or your mistress. it serves you right if you get into trouble with the government or your wife. As for the others, who would even care?
If I didn't want facebook to know any of those things, then I just wouldn't post them on my fucking facebook page.
Slashdot Mirror
you seem to hold a Manichaeistic viewpoint that believes the government is inherently evil and individuals are inherently good
This is slashdot, of course he does.
Anything else is socialist fascist liberalism, and probably involves limiting the number of machine guns you can buy at once.
The moral of the story is that the US is hostile territory regardless. Avoid at all costs, stopover or otherwise.
You guys need to take your country back before I would set foot anywhere near your borders.
The moral of the story is not to get involved in smuggling arms from the US to Iran.
I no longer want to visit the US either, but it's not because they're trying to stop international arms smugglers.
Anything can be called "dual use". I don't rightly give a damn what something CAN be used for. Sell them missles for all I care, they have a right to defend themselves, just like we do.
I think you're letting your gloriously righteous indignation overpower your common sense.
It is not OK to help hostile nations arm themselves against you. Would you really not care if the US sold nuclear weapons to Iran? Because the theory is that nuclear weapons are for defending yourself, although the "dual use" is pretty fucking obvious in that case.
Hoenstly, I feel the same way about it. But if its any consolation, I don't feel I pay taxes so much as they just take them. Hell, their "share" of my money gets allocated before I even get it....I have to ask for a portion of it back every year.
Yet all they ever want to ask me is which face I like, they never once asked me if stomping on liberty was ok, they never once asked me if I wanted to pay for their oil wars or their torture program. I would gladly pay taxes to put every fucking torturer in prison and keep them their till they die of natural causes, but, nobody wants to give me that opportunity.
In a democracy, your option is to change the government and the law, not to decide what you personally want to spend money on, or else a load of childless people would withhold money for education, pacifists for the military, libertarians for social welfare, etc.
Unfortunately, I pay taxes in the US, thereby providing material support to a terrorist organization.
Easy to say "just don't do it", not so easy to spend a few years in Club Fed for resisting the IRS' annual shake-down.
I believe the correct response to extremist right wing guff like this is "fuck off to Somalia then you retard".
Instead, being slashdot, you get modded "insightful".
Make it too blank and there's new grounds for suspicion and again, they'll duplicate the disk and attempt to find any deleted files.
Remember these are US law enforcement agents we are talking about. If the HD is too blank, they will helpfully upload their personal stashes of child porn onto your system before turning it over to their forensics guy to "find".
At that level of paranoia, why don't you just say that they can take you away and shoot you?
[[If they ask why it's such a fresh install,]] If they ask why it's such a fresh install, you ask "are fresh installs against the law?".
And they think "that's exactly what a terrorist would say" and take you away for a few hours of interrogation so you miss your flight and, if you're a foreigner, investigate your background to find a reason to refuse you entry into the country.
All the internet tough guys and barrack room lawyers here don't seem to realise or remember that mouthing off to border/customs officials has never been a good idea, even before the paranoia about terrorism that we have now.
Self driving cars can't drive in the rain. Oh, really? Take a drive around Seattle in the rain, you'll discover human drivers suck in the rain, too.
"Can't drive in the rain" is not the same thing as "drive badly in the rain".
My understanding is that self driving cars at the moment literally don't function when it's raining, which) is somewhat of a disadvantage (unless you live somewhere like Southern California).
Put it this way, I don't see self driving cars arriving here in the UK any time soon.
They're spent on tracking every other dollar. Bureaucracy isn't cheap.
Neither is it avoidable when you get past being a one man band.
I think non profit executives, especially charities, should be ready to accept a pay lower than market rates. I am not saying that they should not be paid, but I think for a big non profit, a pay of 4-5 times the average national wage is reasonable.
If the leaders of the non profit is not ready to contribute, I dun see why I should contribute to it.
I think that pay of 4-5 times the average national wage is reasonable for anyone, but I doubt the CEOs of big multinationals would agree, and it's that level of person you're talking about.
The head of a large charity is a full time, responsible job, so you can't just rely on well meaning part timers volunteering in their spare time.
Personally, I would be happy for there to be no need for charities at all, with their roles being covered by general taxation, but I know this is socialism, so you have to deal with current reality.
I didn't send a dime to Nepal because everyone who asked for it made more money than me
If you mean celebrity actors, or whatever, then so what?
If you mean the head of the Red Cross, then he certainly doesn't earn anywhere near what he could as CEO of a large commercial organisation. In the UK, I just checked and he earns GBP184,000 which is not in the same league as FTSE100 bosses, where the average (median) salary is GBP2,433,000
I don't care if they are successful, only that they give. And I can tell you I am not the only one who quit giving part of my pay because of their CEO's greed. People got so tired of giving to an organization whose president sucked up more than we earned that we all refused to donate anymore. Charity is about giving, not profiting.
Well then the simple solution is to give them an additional 50% bonus which they have to donate to the charity.
Instant heroes.
many churches run the soup kitchens/foodbanks/etc in many parts of the world
You can be religious and do good things, but you can do the same things without being religious, so the religion is irrelevant.
It's like having red hair and being a concert pianist.
The report is pretty confused: "...that's actual hard sitting-around currency, currently put into various investment vehicles..."
Either it's a - liquid cash, or b - sitting in investments.
The terminology nowadays is "cash or cash equivalents" which includes actual liquid cash (bags of coins and bank current accounts), and short term investments. In the UK (which follows international accounting standards) this means investments that will mature in less than three months.
If it matures after more than three months it's an investment.
You're fantastically unlikely to be made bankrupt by a creditor if you have liquid funds that you can access within three months, so it's a reasonable definition.
You have to include the $20 million/year "Jimmy Wales junket fund" (as VallyWag called it for years while reporting on his exotic trips). Hookers and blow don't buy themselves, you know.
And how exactly do you know this is true?
Don't organisations of this size have to be audited in the US?
Have you ever read or seen an appeal for money from any charity or not-for profit?
They all do this, because if they didn't the donations would be drastically lower. People simply aren't interested in donating to a "long term sustainable investment endowment", they need prompted into action through a suggestion that it's a very immediate need, or indeed emergency.
Exactly. When you have something like the Nepal earthquake, donations people make aren't going to some new organisation set up that morning, and you don't expect them to give back any money left over when the emergency is over.
And what are you going to type on?
You could use your phone's keyboard.
You have an unpleasant surprise in store for you as you age. Minimum close focus gets further back, to where you really cannot just bring the tiny screen closer...
This is a solved problem. Google "reading glasses" or "spectacles to correct long sightedness".
I remember people asking about why anybody would use an internet browser on their phone when they could just use their laptop.
That was back when phones had a two inch screen, and it was an entirely legitimate point.
Internet browsers on a medium to large screened smartphone are usable enough, but they're still frustrating compared to a laptop (or tablet).
Someone needs to come up with a name like the all familiar "Glasshole" but for apple watch users.
"Twat" works for me.
I cant figure why anyone would even want a regular wristwatch.
Going out on a limb here, it might be to do with telling the time.
one might fly an amphibian plane from one's ranch to a lake a few hundred miles away and land in the lake
This is while one is not driving one's Ferrari to meet one's supermodel girlfriend at one's town residence, one assumes.
I never really bought that idea. Outside my girlfriend's place of work in Japan there is an unofficial bike parking area. There are maybe 100 spaces. None of the bikes are locked, and people move them all the time to make a bit more space. Anyone could easily take one and there would be almost no chance of getting caught.
People don't for some reason. It can't be fear of getting caught.
Unfortunately, this would not be the case in most parts of the worlds, including the UK where I live. Japan is obviously the exception that proves the rule.
It is not my duty to inform government on my activities
But if you published details of your spying activities on the internet, you'd seriously expect the government to somehow ignore it?
It is no one's business who I saw on vacation. I may have met a KGB agent, or I may have met my mistress, or I may have talked to a "spiritual advisor", or I may have just basked in the solitude of the wilderness. And - it's no one's business.
If you're stupid enough to post on the internet that you met a KGB agent or your mistress. it serves you right if you get into trouble with the government or your wife. As for the others, who would even care?
If I didn't want facebook to know any of those things, then I just wouldn't post them on my fucking facebook page.