Truly, you lack imagination. The app could easily limit itself to male or female, slim or fat, blonde or brunette, white or black, etc., ad infinitum. It could use facial recog to check for actual nudes of that person on the net, and if found, map them to or display them with or instead of the person you're looking at, or just take a "best guess." Apps wouldn't have to be Google approved; they could be sideloaded, etc. So Google's "policies" are irrelevant. And a device that takes pictures that can't be uploaded off the device... might as well not have a camera.
These possibilities are not good. Just one of the many, many downsides of this kind of device.
The thing is, the problems with Glass are not myths at all. They are serious social concerns dealing with privacy, anonymity, malware, prejudice, discrimination, and danger to one's person.
Can Glass implement facial ID? Yes. Can we expect people to act out on the basis of an ID and subsequent information gathering, as opposed to anonymity? Yes. Can Glass pass on things you do to a 3rd party, including things like typing your passwords? Yes.
Until or unless Google comprehensively addresses these concerns (and frankly, I don't think they can), Glass will remain under fire from those who actually understand the technology; and it will remain a threat to anyone who values their anonymity and/or privacy, regardless of if they understand the threat or not.
Mommying game content does not address the actual problem (abject stupidity), and creates another one: the watering down of content that resembles the world you thought up.
Also, game developers, take note: People mostly only have a very low count of legitimate mommies. Please do not think even for a moment that it is appropriate that you decide outsiders can, or should, fill that role in limiting your creative output. In architecting a game, please think of yourself as a god, responsible to no one, and without concern for who thinks what about whatever, except as you want them to. That's *much* better: we call this creative freedom, and good grief, do I ever want you to have it. You, and writers, and all other artists.
If you want to support (fill in group), by all means do so. Give them money, time, bags of cat food, speak to them, speak at their outreach events if they think you have something to contribute, but do not, under any circumstances, decide those groups have the chops to decide what's good for everyone else and limit what you actually want to do accordingly.
Aside from the obvious problems, this trend has very dark mirrors we can see all around us; for instance, fox news thinks its perfectly ok to distort the living heck out of any sane narrative of events, past, present or future, and then bottle-feed it to their audience.
If you want to make a game, just make the game. Don't second guess anyone, don't try to be the obedient dog of the morality police or the ethical police or the politically correct police or the religious police or the atheist police... just build your world the way you think you want it and see if people like it.
We have plenty of individuals and groups vying for the position of mommy already. Please don't add to this problem. And it is, most assuredly, a problem.
It's not the house transformers that are the problem. It's the big ones; and those can take years to get. Ask your power company. Our radio club did as part of disaster preparedness. We were told that if the big hardware failed, much of it was very unique and could not be replaced off the shelf more than once or twice. Normal manufacturing times were in the months, and inventory was very low (because these things are immensely expensive. Hundreds of thousands of dollars each.) Now, think: everything blows out, everywhere. How does all that stuff get replaced? Even if manufacturing was still going, which it would not be, it still wouldn't be quick. Remember, the grid isn't just down because breakers have opened -- it's ruined.
There's little cause for optimism here, and every reason for concern.
And this is just in the case of a power grid failure, nothing else. If it's worse -- and it could well be -- then recovery is that much further down the line. Likewise, if the source is worse -- a serious EMP event, for instance -- all this is madly optimistic.
Gas stations can rig up the same hack to keep pumping fuel.
No. There's no power. So there's no credit card network. People don't have much cash. The banks are down because there's no network connection because there's no power, so the link to the federal reserve is severed, as well as the link to the charging networks. The vast majority of pumps are wired underground back to a controller in the building, which in turn is wired to a computerized cash register, which in turn is wired out to the parent company, none of which works, and isn't flexible enough to be converted to barter or significant back invoicing anyway. Getting those pumps running isn't as simple as your imaginary hacking the AC to the pump -- and it won't be done quickly, if at all, and it *surely* won't be done by your imaginary "redneck." Refineries won't be making any more fuel, either, so what there is will have to come from the NFR, which won't last long even it could be perfectly distributed to a fully working network of fueling stations, which as I say, won't be there.
Does corn or wheat stop growing when the power goes out? Perhaps you meant food preparation.
No, I meant exactly what I said. Without fuel -- and they will be without fuel -- the machines that do the harvesting won't run; the machines that do the transport of the food won't run; without power, the machines that clean and package the food won't run. Hence, no food production. Harvesting of meat animals is done with electric power tools. Big ones. You think you can keep up production with a knife and an axe and a hand saw? Ask a pro butcher to try it and see what happens to output rates. Liquid foods and other goods can't be prepped, sterilized, or packaged without power. All industry stops for the same reason -- the machines don't run.
You have a strange list of consumables, and an even stranger idea of how fast things get consumed.
No, I just have an up-to-date understanding of modern inventory practices, something you clearly lack. We no longer keep warehouses full of large quantities of individual items. Modern inventory practice is to constantly measure the demand, and have items flowing from production through transport to retail like "shit through a goose" to stay *just* ahead of that demand, as one famous product manager put it. This is true of most things today, and particularly so of foodstuffs and medicine. Without fuel, that flow stops. People will buy (or barter, or steal -- banks are down, remember) for what there is, and then there won't be any. Things with particularly short shelf lives or specific environmental requirements -- such as insulin, byetta, victoza, milk, eggs, meat, most fruits, and most vegetables -- are kept at almost zero inventory, just a few days supply, if that. Even if there is some in a warehouse somewhere, you seem to have forgotten that distribution is computerized -- it'd be one hell of a challenge to try and set up manual distribution, even assuming you had transport, which you would not, because there would be little to no fuel, and no one would have decent records of how much needs to go where, and communications are down (no power) so no one can find out in any kind of reasonable time frame, either. Would some stuff get here or there? Sure. Would it be enough? Not a chance in hell. When some things remain available, if they get scarce, if they're considered critical, people will do anything to get them. Your kid a serious diabetic? They tell you there's only one vial left and they're saving it for the mayor's kid? Guns will come out. When there's none in the conventional pharmacy, hospitals will be the next supply stop in line, and they'll run out in very short order as well -- although since they won't have refrigeration after their generators run out, nor will most citizens, things like insulin will not store well or at all, and that will put an extra load o
Where the heck do you live that you can buy even a studio apartment for $10k?
I live in Montana. There are used trailer homes available here starting at 5k and up. They're perfectly serviceable. This is not the only area of the country where this is possible.
And even if you can, you'll spend $20k/year in gas getting to your job (not to mention the time you waste in the car).
Well, that depends on your job, doesn't it? And isn't that under your control? And can you work from home? I could, mostly, so I leveraged that.
Okay, maybe if you get mad cash working an oil field in the boonies, but for most of us who have to live in a city to be reasonably close to work...
Nope. You personally, assuming you are of normal health and have the usual number of functional limbs, could come out to the ND Bakken oil fields right now and have a job within 24 hours. One paying a reasonable amount of money. You do not "have" to be where you are, wherever that is. You choose to be where you are, and that choice comes with consequences. Make a different choice, alter your consequences -- radically.
And I have a family
Well, that's certainly an issue. My policy was financial stability first, then build a family -- so my kids (3 boys) all had college 100% paid for (All STEM grads now), homes given to them, some useful cash startup gifts, healthcare, choices aplenty. If you go for family first, doors close at an astonishing rate, because your real financial load increases enormously, at the same time as your free time erodes and your job performance and flexibility is impacted by familial obligations. Order matters, and choices have consequences. If you can't earn money to invest, you cannot climb the ladder. Can't help you with that if you're 100% tapped out. My advice here is to glory in your family -- you made a (mostly) irrevocable time/value exchange, might as well enjoy it. But you can probably still do this. The kickoff will be slower, that's all. The question is, how long will it take to save ~10k if you cut out the frills?
What I'm really complaining about is the tax code and the fed's monetary policy.
Ok, and I sympathize, but you have to realize: you're focused here on something you cannot change. That makes it a complete waste of your time. If you want to improve your lot (and your family's), you must focus only on things you can change, and put all your spare effort into those things.
When Americans start actually owning their homes
I own my homes outright. Bought them cash. All of them. No mortgages. I make a boatload of money with them, except for the one we live in. And I gave three homes away to my kids. Most young people in the US can reach this position, if they make the required choices in the right order. I don't care where you start: ghetto, rich man's kid, whatever: it only takes a few thousand bucks to jumpstart the process, and you can save that up working at McDonald's if you simply deny yourself anything more than what you need to survive, and especially quickly if you live at home when you kick this off.
And the feds should NEVER bail out the markets... And the fed should target a 0%, not 2% inflation rate.
Again, focusing on this is a complete waste of your time and energy. You can't fix it. Focus on things you can change. Put your time and energy there.
you need loops of wire hundreds of km long or more.
No. You don't. Refer back to the Carrington event; the telegraph lines in use at the time were not anywhere near that long; they were (electrically and conduction wise) broken up by repeater stations and relay stations at typical intervals of ten miles or so. Even so, enough energy was induced in those lines to set them, and the telegraph offices they were connected to, on fire.
Our modern power grid is similar in most places; broken up by transformers quite regularly, but here's the key difference: a repeater station does not pass along the incoming energy: a transformer will. Not for long, but it doesn't take long. And where we *do* have long lines, those lines are extremely high voltage already, and it will do enormous harm to piggyback even more on top of the normal operating conditions. Installations like the major interties will likely fail catastrophically, and without power, where do you think replacement parts will come from?
Shhh. You'll ruin the fun - it makes a great urban legend
Think for a moment.
If the power grid goes down across the country for months or years -- the most likely serious direct consequence -- for any reason -- even if *nothing* else is damaged by the CME (or other form of EMP-related problem), then the consequences of the following avalanching issues in the affected area must be considered:
o No fuel pumped for transport; none delivered -- so no troops, no relief forces unless from the other side of the planet
o No heating fuel, no cooling power -- people will die just from this; if winter, water systems can freeze, more consequences
o No food production -- uh oh
o No food transport -- guess it doesn't matter there won't be any produced -- starving, desperate people everywhere, then dead ones
o No power in hospitals -- more dead people
o Manufacturing stops -- Everything you consume regularly will run out very quickly. Meds. Food. Soap. Clothing.
o Drugs run out -- more people die, others suffer
o Sanitation loses power -- ok, now everyone begins to die -- sanitation failure in our society would be catastrophic
...which overal will result in mass...
o Starvation
o Disease
o Violence
o Desperation
o Die-off
All these things are inevitable, given just that one simple, scientifically 100% possible consequence. Amidst all that, you know what will work? Almost every weapon in civilian hands, at least until the bullets run out, which could take a while. Then there are knives, hammers, cobbled together spears and pikes, makeshift swords (and a few real ones), you know, the usual stuff of mayhem. Death. Likely the carnage would begin within 24 hours of the food running out, and I think it's pretty obvious what our society would look like a week later. And do you think for a *moment* that a nation-sized relief effort could be successfully mounted by an ally (or an enemy) soon enough and comprehensively enough to preclude that week of madness? If you do, you are far more of an optimist than I am.
It won't mean a thing that you have a car that can run. You're almost certainly going to die. Probably the first time you drive it in front of people who don't have something and think you just might have some of it in your car. Like, you know, food.
If this were true I wouldn't even have a brain left.
I bet there are so many caveats here that the truth of this is almost certain to be lost in the noise. People differ so much, I tend to take it with a very large dose of salt when someone tells me such and such consequences are inevitable. People smoke their entire lives, no cancer. Others, bang, almost right away. Some people have immense physical stamina. Some enjoy the night. Some like the day. Some think kids are the most wonderful thing in the world, others think they're the purest form of annoyance. Some people live for sex, others don't care.
And then there's the stats angle... Headline: "your chances are TWICE the nomal fella if you (fill in the blank)", when it turns out that the chances for the normal fella are one in ten thousand, and yours are now a whopping 1 in 5000. Yawn.
Nah, not buying it. Think I'll skip sleeping tonight and play with my radios.:) 80 meters is open all night, and it's pretty quiet (in the atmospheric noise sense) now!
You know what probably REALLY gives you brain damage? Superstition.
I don't memorize it. That's a bad idea anyway, since it tends to makes you make passwords that are less strong -- things you recognize or have meaning to you. Also, way more than 20 instances. I have hundreds of logins to keep track of.
Instead, I have an application that sorts by site which maintains a record of password and user and anything else specific to the site, and I can move the password and/or other data from there into a shell or a web login, wherever it goes.
Worst case, someone compromises me on one system somehow, they don't even have a hint of how to do it on another.
So mainly, I have to keep control of the application that tracks the passwords. I do that by keeping the password machine pair (main and backup) off the LAN and WAN, and using a custom hardware mechanism to implement a one-way copy/paste tunnel that can only be initiated from the password machine. It's not perfect -- compromise of the workstation I use to actually log in is the weakest point, I think, followed by physical compromise of the actual password machines -- but it's the best I have been able to come up with so far. And of course, I'm very conservative with the workstation. No web surfing, no java, isolated backups, etc. We have layered physical and electrical security as well.
I said "upward lift" as it relates to curves measuring a quantity. I didn't say anything about happiness for either the rich or the poor (nor is it possible to do so... that's an extremely individual thing, and it isn't tied to much of anything. There are happy poor people,. and unhappy rich people.) I said "rich", as in Having Stuff, as opposed to being unable to Have Stuff. In no way was I saying the rich, the poor, or anyone in between was happy, or not. I said all this in such a way as to imply that being able to have stuff is in fact better than not having stuff, as is obvious with some things like food and shelter and sanitation, and not so obvious, but still just as true, when you can call an ambulance or firefighters, but usually don't need to. And that, I am quite comfortable saying.
...and none of that will change a darned thing. Tech will continue to slowly enrich the poor, and the rich will reap those same benefits, while using the output of the poor to create an ever-widening gap. In other words, the poor get richer slowly, the rich get richer really, really fast.
Like any curve fed by human choices, the poor's enrichment in fine grain is a wiggly bastard, but look at the holdings of the US poor in 1700, 1800, 1900, and 2000 and tell me with a straight face there isn't a significant upward lift that is growing ever steeper. Do the same for the top tiers. Although the latter is hardly a curve... more like a vertical line. The top tier can own a spaceship, a submarine and a yacht as *toys*, it's beyond stunning where we are today. And in 2100? Can't even imagine it. In the meantime, the majority of the poor have shelter, refrigerators, tv's, cellphones, running water, streaming audio and video, nearly free entertainment, sanitation, computers, network access, ready access to all manner of comestibles, basic services from police and fire departments (although they're still screwed in court), immensely strong military protection, nice clothing... if you could show that to someone from 1700 and tell them that's a poor person's lot... their head would explode.
...one with GPS, compass, tilt sensors, and altimeter, that can carry a gopro camera and flies ultra-ultra stable, will hover quite still with zero control input anywhere I put it, pointed in any direction I choose (or pan around), hundreds of dollars worth of hardware:
Lemme just ask. Why the heck would I want a quadcopter to fly upside down?
I never understood the urge to fly these things crazy/stunt/ridiculous. The beauty of them is that they are ultimately capable of *stable* flight.
If someone asked me if they could put my quad in unlocked mode and try to fly stunts with it, I'd tell them to get off my GPS-stabilized, altimeter locked lawn. Cuz' that's how I roll. Fly. Whatever.
I just don't get it. Perhaps a fan of upside down flying can enlighten me?
--
Also, watching my quad fly stable as a rock... where the heck is my flying car???????????
No vulnerabilities were exploited on the Linux servers; only stolen credentials were leveraged.
o control physical access
o require strong passwords
o limit login attempt rates on a per-account basis; 5 sec between attempts, 5 minutes if 3 consec attempts fail
o never use the same passwords ANYWHERE
o Sanitize your damned inputs. Do it!!! Length, characters, even language.
Having said that, your users will surely allow some clown on board because THEY lost THEIR creds; so watch your permissions, etc., and back up their crap for them regularly and with a long timeline so they can change creds and you can restore them to sanity after some wackjob deletes all their stuff.
Mostly, that's it. For the hardcore, use no canned public-facing solutions. If you want zero vulnerability, don't use Other People's Code.
The US has already descended into a condition where large groups (hundreds) of people live under bridges, absolutely cannot find employment, and have completely run out of whatever portion of the social safety net that applied to them. These people are desperate by any sane measure, and society treats them as 100% un-rehabilitatable. Some of them are going to act out -- although they almost certainly would not have if they had even minimal food, shelter, and some tiny margin of hope. Some will just fold in on themselves, sure. Anger can go many directions other than reprisal, even righteous anger.
The point of mentioning felons was exactly that: with just a few percent of the world's population, we have 25% of the prisoners. That doesn't even count the convicted felon class that is out on the street, the majority of which are basically unemployable and certainly not mobile, class-wise. Exceptions exist of course, but that's the general case. So we have this large disenfranchised class, and something that is different in the US than in many other countries is that these people have almost no, that is basically zero, hope of moving back into society's warm embrace. They are truly locked into the lowest class, and they will stay there for the most part. The more of them there are, the more likely the tiny group that take reprisal for what they see as an injustice will puke out a serious problem for everyone else. We're digging our own hole here.
As a citizen, apparently, of another country, is yours a country that makes sure that if you commit a felony, that you are done with any chance at a job? In most european countries, rehabilitation is a real thing. Not here.
I know that seems like common sense, but the very rich have engineered it so that it's stupid NOT to borrow money. This is what makes us all slaves. You HAVE to borrow money because if you have decent credit, a mortgage is as cheap or cheaper than renting. Saving won't work due to inflation.
Every single idea there is wrong. You don't have to rent. So "cheaper than renting" is just misleading. Start small: the cheapest place you can live. You can find livable housing you can own, and later rent, for well under $10,000. Save, buy, save and buy again, rent one, and you're winning huge. That ONE idea obviates your entire train of thought. If you think you "must" live somewhere, you are limiting yourself. If you think you "must" have a certain type of home, you are limiting yourself. If you think other people "must" be impressed with your home, you are limiting yourself. You want all those limits, fine, but the bloody holes in your feet came from your own shots.
It *always* costs more to borrow than to save and buy for cash, even if you have zero interest on your savings. That's because you effectively gain the interest you would have paid on the mortgage. Proceed stepwise, and you're moving up fast. Once you have enough to (conservatively) invest in upper tier enterprise, the whole picture changes. The rest of your post is just whining.
The only caveat here is it takes time. You can borrow and live in a house you don't really own, drive a car you don't really own, and pretend you're doing ok, while giving up more than those things actually cost and losing your ability to move up without external help, or you can exit the merry go round and do it yourself. Totally your call.
Real alternatives? AC, I lived this, never had a large income and currently live in a huge house, have a lovely partner, more cash in savings than most people's retirement accounts, and about every toy you can imagine, plus a martial arts studio, a photography studio, and a music studio. Several cars, and I'm happy as the proverbial porker in poop. I had some severe setbacks -- legal, medical -- and I blew right past them because I had money.
I started small (trailer home), worked up constantly, rented out the homes I purchased except for the one I was currently living in, and I did it all on a lowball programmer / engineer salary (no college degree... keeps the earnings down a bit, generally.) Had plenty of girlfriends, never was lonely, and finally got real serious with a wonderful lady who's been my partner for almost 20 years now.
Now, if you can't see it, or manage it, that's your own issue: It doesn't make it unreal or impractical. The fact is, this works, and it will work for anyone who has a nominal income so they can get started early for a few thousand bucks -- and that's if your parents won't contribute to your launch, which many will if you're not trying to buy a 100k home right out the door. A cheap, used trailer is a perfect start. You can own it, you don't pay interest, from there, set yourself up to get another slightly less cheap place, do that, move there, then rent out the last one, and from there you win, win, win. Fast. Start in your 20's, the end game is pretty much a given: any rational home you want, lots of money, security, zero debt, credit rating *irrelevant* because you never had to borrow anything.
That depends - a home is a *secured* loan. You can always 'give it back' and rent.
No. It's NEVER a "better" idea to get a mortgage. The amount of extra money you pay in interest is HUGE. Save the money yourself (which will take less time than it would take to pay off any mortgage), then buy the home outright. Now rent THAT out; you'll make money so fast you won't even know what hit you.
A *humble* home is better than renting for decades.
Oh, absolutely. My first home was $5000. It was a used trailer; two full, if tight, baths, three bedrooms, living room, kitchen. I paid cash. But getting a loan for that $5000 probably would have cost me a lot more. And *that* is for a relatively short term loan. So I had it paid for earlier, I owned it, I saved plenty, and I used THAT money to get further ahead. Today (I'm almost 60), I'm so far ahead of the average homeowner I'm about around the curve of the universe, lol. A usable interior of about ~6000 sq feet, plus, heck, my *deck* is bigger than most people's homes. My home theater is over 200", and I own *lots* of stuff. I never had a large income by programmer / engineer standards. And yes, I paid cash for it, too, and I used that cash as leverage to drop the purchase price significantly.
No. (Almost all) people *need* a spouse. For love, for the work of life.
Absolute nonsense. A girl/boy friend gives you the love, and you can share expenses, rent, etc. if you care to pool and/or cohabit, instead of "going spouse" and paying for weddings and all that pop culture bullshit. And that's if you require same. I totally reject the idea that most people need this, or even that most people have it. Over half the cohabiting pairs in the last major survey were not married. And a whole lot of the married ones are bloody unhappy because they are trapped in one or more ways.
On the purely economic side, its efficient to have 2 (or 1.5) incomes to pay one mortgage, two people to share household goods, groceries, cooking, cleaning...
Sure. But it doesn't mean you need a spouse. Friend is good enough. Benefits or not. Even an "associate" is enough to share expenses, plus they're easier to swap out if need be. And it's even *more* efficient to save for a house than to pay the interest on a mortgage. You'll own it sooner, and you'll spend a lot less. Start small (real small, as small as you can), and work up.
Your health will (almost certainly) fail if you strike it out without a spouse.
That's purest pop-culture nonsense. If you can't live with yourself and like it, you're just immature and clueless. Furthermore, you are a lot less attractive to others: no one really wants someone who arrives all full of lonely angst, even if they'll settle for it. Not even as a friend. You end up with a grasping and/or jealous partner, which is disgusting and harmful. It's also pitiful and painful and an imposition on everyone else. In addition, you make better choices when you aren't desperate: the best partner will come to you as a healthy, selective, happy person, and you'll reject also-rans comfortably if you're not desperate to solve the "I'm so lonely" (said with a whine) "problem." Learn to like yourself and be comfortable inside your own skin. You'll be a much better person for it.
You are obviously aware that, if _everybody_ eventually shared your (our) point of view, our current economic system (that is driven by consumerism) would collapse in a rather short time
Absolutely. However, there's no risk of that. Just look at the comments above you. People will rarely take the more difficult path, even if it leads to success. On top of that, some just don't understand debt. Again, look at the above messages, talking about how a mortgage is a *good* idea. It'd be hilarious, if it wasn't so sad.
However, if _everybody_ eventually shared your (our) point of view, the whole world is going to look a lot like Japan (or China 25 years from now).
Again, yes -- but again, there's no risk of that. Most people will follow the well trodden path, squeeze out a few crotch-blossoms, generate enormous debt, lose the house in the divorce, and sit around wondering WTF just happened... and we'll have our next generation.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Truly, you lack imagination. The app could easily limit itself to male or female, slim or fat, blonde or brunette, white or black, etc., ad infinitum. It could use facial recog to check for actual nudes of that person on the net, and if found, map them to or display them with or instead of the person you're looking at, or just take a "best guess." Apps wouldn't have to be Google approved; they could be sideloaded, etc. So Google's "policies" are irrelevant. And a device that takes pictures that can't be uploaded off the device... might as well not have a camera.
These possibilities are not good. Just one of the many, many downsides of this kind of device.
The thing is, the problems with Glass are not myths at all. They are serious social concerns dealing with privacy, anonymity, malware, prejudice, discrimination, and danger to one's person.
Can Glass implement facial ID? Yes. Can we expect people to act out on the basis of an ID and subsequent information gathering, as opposed to anonymity? Yes. Can Glass pass on things you do to a 3rd party, including things like typing your passwords? Yes.
Until or unless Google comprehensively addresses these concerns (and frankly, I don't think they can), Glass will remain under fire from those who actually understand the technology; and it will remain a threat to anyone who values their anonymity and/or privacy, regardless of if they understand the threat or not.
Mod this up --- article is well worth reading and 100% relevant.
Mommying game content does not address the actual problem (abject stupidity), and creates another one: the watering down of content that resembles the world you thought up.
Also, game developers, take note: People mostly only have a very low count of legitimate mommies. Please do not think even for a moment that it is appropriate that you decide outsiders can, or should, fill that role in limiting your creative output. In architecting a game, please think of yourself as a god, responsible to no one, and without concern for who thinks what about whatever, except as you want them to. That's *much* better: we call this creative freedom, and good grief, do I ever want you to have it. You, and writers, and all other artists.
If you want to support (fill in group), by all means do so. Give them money, time, bags of cat food, speak to them, speak at their outreach events if they think you have something to contribute, but do not, under any circumstances, decide those groups have the chops to decide what's good for everyone else and limit what you actually want to do accordingly.
Aside from the obvious problems, this trend has very dark mirrors we can see all around us; for instance, fox news thinks its perfectly ok to distort the living heck out of any sane narrative of events, past, present or future, and then bottle-feed it to their audience.
If you want to make a game, just make the game. Don't second guess anyone, don't try to be the obedient dog of the morality police or the ethical police or the politically correct police or the religious police or the atheist police... just build your world the way you think you want it and see if people like it.
We have plenty of individuals and groups vying for the position of mommy already. Please don't add to this problem. And it is, most assuredly, a problem.
It's not the house transformers that are the problem. It's the big ones; and those can take years to get. Ask your power company. Our radio club did as part of disaster preparedness. We were told that if the big hardware failed, much of it was very unique and could not be replaced off the shelf more than once or twice. Normal manufacturing times were in the months, and inventory was very low (because these things are immensely expensive. Hundreds of thousands of dollars each.) Now, think: everything blows out, everywhere. How does all that stuff get replaced? Even if manufacturing was still going, which it would not be, it still wouldn't be quick. Remember, the grid isn't just down because breakers have opened -- it's ruined.
There's little cause for optimism here, and every reason for concern.
And this is just in the case of a power grid failure, nothing else. If it's worse -- and it could well be -- then recovery is that much further down the line. Likewise, if the source is worse -- a serious EMP event, for instance -- all this is madly optimistic.
No. There's no power. So there's no credit card network. People don't have much cash. The banks are down because there's no network connection because there's no power, so the link to the federal reserve is severed, as well as the link to the charging networks. The vast majority of pumps are wired underground back to a controller in the building, which in turn is wired to a computerized cash register, which in turn is wired out to the parent company, none of which works, and isn't flexible enough to be converted to barter or significant back invoicing anyway. Getting those pumps running isn't as simple as your imaginary hacking the AC to the pump -- and it won't be done quickly, if at all, and it *surely* won't be done by your imaginary "redneck." Refineries won't be making any more fuel, either, so what there is will have to come from the NFR, which won't last long even it could be perfectly distributed to a fully working network of fueling stations, which as I say, won't be there.
No, I meant exactly what I said. Without fuel -- and they will be without fuel -- the machines that do the harvesting won't run; the machines that do the transport of the food won't run; without power, the machines that clean and package the food won't run. Hence, no food production. Harvesting of meat animals is done with electric power tools. Big ones. You think you can keep up production with a knife and an axe and a hand saw? Ask a pro butcher to try it and see what happens to output rates. Liquid foods and other goods can't be prepped, sterilized, or packaged without power. All industry stops for the same reason -- the machines don't run.
No, I just have an up-to-date understanding of modern inventory practices, something you clearly lack. We no longer keep warehouses full of large quantities of individual items. Modern inventory practice is to constantly measure the demand, and have items flowing from production through transport to retail like "shit through a goose" to stay *just* ahead of that demand, as one famous product manager put it. This is true of most things today, and particularly so of foodstuffs and medicine. Without fuel, that flow stops. People will buy (or barter, or steal -- banks are down, remember) for what there is, and then there won't be any. Things with particularly short shelf lives or specific environmental requirements -- such as insulin, byetta, victoza, milk, eggs, meat, most fruits, and most vegetables -- are kept at almost zero inventory, just a few days supply, if that. Even if there is some in a warehouse somewhere, you seem to have forgotten that distribution is computerized -- it'd be one hell of a challenge to try and set up manual distribution, even assuming you had transport, which you would not, because there would be little to no fuel, and no one would have decent records of how much needs to go where, and communications are down (no power) so no one can find out in any kind of reasonable time frame, either. Would some stuff get here or there? Sure. Would it be enough? Not a chance in hell. When some things remain available, if they get scarce, if they're considered critical, people will do anything to get them. Your kid a serious diabetic? They tell you there's only one vial left and they're saving it for the mayor's kid? Guns will come out. When there's none in the conventional pharmacy, hospitals will be the next supply stop in line, and they'll run out in very short order as well -- although since they won't have refrigeration after their generators run out, nor will most citizens, things like insulin will not store well or at all, and that will put an extra load o
I live in Montana. There are used trailer homes available here starting at 5k and up. They're perfectly serviceable. This is not the only area of the country where this is possible.
Well, that depends on your job, doesn't it? And isn't that under your control? And can you work from home? I could, mostly, so I leveraged that.
Nope. You personally, assuming you are of normal health and have the usual number of functional limbs, could come out to the ND Bakken oil fields right now and have a job within 24 hours. One paying a reasonable amount of money. You do not "have" to be where you are, wherever that is. You choose to be where you are, and that choice comes with consequences. Make a different choice, alter your consequences -- radically.
Well, that's certainly an issue. My policy was financial stability first, then build a family -- so my kids (3 boys) all had college 100% paid for (All STEM grads now), homes given to them, some useful cash startup gifts, healthcare, choices aplenty. If you go for family first, doors close at an astonishing rate, because your real financial load increases enormously, at the same time as your free time erodes and your job performance and flexibility is impacted by familial obligations. Order matters, and choices have consequences. If you can't earn money to invest, you cannot climb the ladder. Can't help you with that if you're 100% tapped out. My advice here is to glory in your family -- you made a (mostly) irrevocable time/value exchange, might as well enjoy it. But you can probably still do this. The kickoff will be slower, that's all. The question is, how long will it take to save ~10k if you cut out the frills?
Ok, and I sympathize, but you have to realize: you're focused here on something you cannot change. That makes it a complete waste of your time. If you want to improve your lot (and your family's), you must focus only on things you can change, and put all your spare effort into those things.
I own my homes outright. Bought them cash. All of them. No mortgages. I make a boatload of money with them, except for the one we live in. And I gave three homes away to my kids. Most young people in the US can reach this position, if they make the required choices in the right order. I don't care where you start: ghetto, rich man's kid, whatever: it only takes a few thousand bucks to jumpstart the process, and you can save that up working at McDonald's if you simply deny yourself anything more than what you need to survive, and especially quickly if you live at home when you kick this off.
Again, focusing on this is a complete waste of your time and energy. You can't fix it. Focus on things you can change. Put your time and energy there.
There's no "except" about it -- I wasn't talking about income. I was talking about material wealth.
Proof. Read: "You r shit."
No. You don't. Refer back to the Carrington event; the telegraph lines in use at the time were not anywhere near that long; they were (electrically and conduction wise) broken up by repeater stations and relay stations at typical intervals of ten miles or so. Even so, enough energy was induced in those lines to set them, and the telegraph offices they were connected to, on fire.
Our modern power grid is similar in most places; broken up by transformers quite regularly, but here's the key difference: a repeater station does not pass along the incoming energy: a transformer will. Not for long, but it doesn't take long. And where we *do* have long lines, those lines are extremely high voltage already, and it will do enormous harm to piggyback even more on top of the normal operating conditions. Installations like the major interties will likely fail catastrophically, and without power, where do you think replacement parts will come from?
Think for a moment.
If the power grid goes down across the country for months or years -- the most likely serious direct consequence -- for any reason -- even if *nothing* else is damaged by the CME (or other form of EMP-related problem), then the consequences of the following avalanching issues in the affected area must be considered:
o No fuel pumped for transport; none delivered -- so no troops, no relief forces unless from the other side of the planet
o No heating fuel, no cooling power -- people will die just from this; if winter, water systems can freeze, more consequences
o No food production -- uh oh
o No food transport -- guess it doesn't matter there won't be any produced -- starving, desperate people everywhere, then dead ones
o No power in hospitals -- more dead people
o Manufacturing stops -- Everything you consume regularly will run out very quickly. Meds. Food. Soap. Clothing.
o Drugs run out -- more people die, others suffer
o Sanitation loses power -- ok, now everyone begins to die -- sanitation failure in our society would be catastrophic
o Starvation
o Disease
o Violence
o Desperation
o Die-off
All these things are inevitable, given just that one simple, scientifically 100% possible consequence. Amidst all that, you know what will work? Almost every weapon in civilian hands, at least until the bullets run out, which could take a while. Then there are knives, hammers, cobbled together spears and pikes, makeshift swords (and a few real ones), you know, the usual stuff of mayhem. Death. Likely the carnage would begin within 24 hours of the food running out, and I think it's pretty obvious what our society would look like a week later. And do you think for a *moment* that a nation-sized relief effort could be successfully mounted by an ally (or an enemy) soon enough and comprehensively enough to preclude that week of madness? If you do, you are far more of an optimist than I am.
It won't mean a thing that you have a car that can run. You're almost certainly going to die. Probably the first time you drive it in front of people who don't have something and think you just might have some of it in your car. Like, you know, food.
This is my answer to you.
The photo used shows myself and my lady. The conversation happened exactly as depicted. ...she's smarter than me. Obviously. :o)
Yeah, also: oh, bullshit.
If this were true I wouldn't even have a brain left.
I bet there are so many caveats here that the truth of this is almost certain to be lost in the noise. People differ so much, I tend to take it with a very large dose of salt when someone tells me such and such consequences are inevitable. People smoke their entire lives, no cancer. Others, bang, almost right away. Some people have immense physical stamina. Some enjoy the night. Some like the day. Some think kids are the most wonderful thing in the world, others think they're the purest form of annoyance. Some people live for sex, others don't care.
And then there's the stats angle... Headline: "your chances are TWICE the nomal fella if you (fill in the blank)", when it turns out that the chances for the normal fella are one in ten thousand, and yours are now a whopping 1 in 5000. Yawn.
Nah, not buying it. Think I'll skip sleeping tonight and play with my radios. :) 80 meters is open all night, and it's pretty quiet (in the atmospheric noise sense) now!
You know what probably REALLY gives you brain damage? Superstition.
I don't memorize it. That's a bad idea anyway, since it tends to makes you make passwords that are less strong -- things you recognize or have meaning to you. Also, way more than 20 instances. I have hundreds of logins to keep track of.
Instead, I have an application that sorts by site which maintains a record of password and user and anything else specific to the site, and I can move the password and/or other data from there into a shell or a web login, wherever it goes.
Worst case, someone compromises me on one system somehow, they don't even have a hint of how to do it on another.
So mainly, I have to keep control of the application that tracks the passwords. I do that by keeping the password machine pair (main and backup) off the LAN and WAN, and using a custom hardware mechanism to implement a one-way copy/paste tunnel that can only be initiated from the password machine. It's not perfect -- compromise of the workstation I use to actually log in is the weakest point, I think, followed by physical compromise of the actual password machines -- but it's the best I have been able to come up with so far. And of course, I'm very conservative with the workstation. No web surfing, no java, isolated backups, etc. We have layered physical and electrical security as well.
I said "upward lift" as it relates to curves measuring a quantity. I didn't say anything about happiness for either the rich or the poor (nor is it possible to do so... that's an extremely individual thing, and it isn't tied to much of anything. There are happy poor people,. and unhappy rich people.) I said "rich", as in Having Stuff, as opposed to being unable to Have Stuff. In no way was I saying the rich, the poor, or anyone in between was happy, or not. I said all this in such a way as to imply that being able to have stuff is in fact better than not having stuff, as is obvious with some things like food and shelter and sanitation, and not so obvious, but still just as true, when you can call an ambulance or firefighters, but usually don't need to. And that, I am quite comfortable saying.
That is true, but in no way negates what I said. Meaningful activity != work.
...and none of that will change a darned thing. Tech will continue to slowly enrich the poor, and the rich will reap those same benefits, while using the output of the poor to create an ever-widening gap. In other words, the poor get richer slowly, the rich get richer really, really fast.
Like any curve fed by human choices, the poor's enrichment in fine grain is a wiggly bastard, but look at the holdings of the US poor in 1700, 1800, 1900, and 2000 and tell me with a straight face there isn't a significant upward lift that is growing ever steeper. Do the same for the top tiers. Although the latter is hardly a curve... more like a vertical line. The top tier can own a spaceship, a submarine and a yacht as *toys*, it's beyond stunning where we are today. And in 2100? Can't even imagine it. In the meantime, the majority of the poor have shelter, refrigerators, tv's, cellphones, running water, streaming audio and video, nearly free entertainment, sanitation, computers, network access, ready access to all manner of comestibles, basic services from police and fire departments (although they're still screwed in court), immensely strong military protection, nice clothing... if you could show that to someone from 1700 and tell them that's a poor person's lot... their head would explode.
...one with GPS, compass, tilt sensors, and altimeter, that can carry a gopro camera and flies ultra-ultra stable, will hover quite still with zero control input anywhere I put it, pointed in any direction I choose (or pan around), hundreds of dollars worth of hardware:
Lemme just ask. Why the heck would I want a quadcopter to fly upside down?
I never understood the urge to fly these things crazy/stunt/ridiculous. The beauty of them is that they are ultimately capable of *stable* flight.
If someone asked me if they could put my quad in unlocked mode and try to fly stunts with it, I'd tell them to get off my GPS-stabilized, altimeter locked lawn. Cuz' that's how I roll. Fly. Whatever.
I just don't get it. Perhaps a fan of upside down flying can enlighten me?
--
Also, watching my quad fly stable as a rock... where the heck is my flying car???????????
Having said that, your users will surely allow some clown on board because THEY lost THEIR creds; so watch your permissions, etc., and back up their crap for them regularly and with a long timeline so they can change creds and you can restore them to sanity after some wackjob deletes all their stuff.
Mostly, that's it. For the hardcore, use no canned public-facing solutions. If you want zero vulnerability, don't use Other People's Code.
The US has already descended into a condition where large groups (hundreds) of people live under bridges, absolutely cannot find employment, and have completely run out of whatever portion of the social safety net that applied to them. These people are desperate by any sane measure, and society treats them as 100% un-rehabilitatable. Some of them are going to act out -- although they almost certainly would not have if they had even minimal food, shelter, and some tiny margin of hope. Some will just fold in on themselves, sure. Anger can go many directions other than reprisal, even righteous anger.
The point of mentioning felons was exactly that: with just a few percent of the world's population, we have 25% of the prisoners. That doesn't even count the convicted felon class that is out on the street, the majority of which are basically unemployable and certainly not mobile, class-wise. Exceptions exist of course, but that's the general case. So we have this large disenfranchised class, and something that is different in the US than in many other countries is that these people have almost no, that is basically zero, hope of moving back into society's warm embrace. They are truly locked into the lowest class, and they will stay there for the most part. The more of them there are, the more likely the tiny group that take reprisal for what they see as an injustice will puke out a serious problem for everyone else. We're digging our own hole here.
As a citizen, apparently, of another country, is yours a country that makes sure that if you commit a felony, that you are done with any chance at a job? In most european countries, rehabilitation is a real thing. Not here.
Every single idea there is wrong. You don't have to rent. So "cheaper than renting" is just misleading. Start small: the cheapest place you can live. You can find livable housing you can own, and later rent, for well under $10,000. Save, buy, save and buy again, rent one, and you're winning huge. That ONE idea obviates your entire train of thought. If you think you "must" live somewhere, you are limiting yourself. If you think you "must" have a certain type of home, you are limiting yourself. If you think other people "must" be impressed with your home, you are limiting yourself. You want all those limits, fine, but the bloody holes in your feet came from your own shots.
It *always* costs more to borrow than to save and buy for cash, even if you have zero interest on your savings. That's because you effectively gain the interest you would have paid on the mortgage. Proceed stepwise, and you're moving up fast. Once you have enough to (conservatively) invest in upper tier enterprise, the whole picture changes. The rest of your post is just whining.
The only caveat here is it takes time. You can borrow and live in a house you don't really own, drive a car you don't really own, and pretend you're doing ok, while giving up more than those things actually cost and losing your ability to move up without external help, or you can exit the merry go round and do it yourself. Totally your call.
Real alternatives? AC, I lived this, never had a large income and currently live in a huge house, have a lovely partner, more cash in savings than most people's retirement accounts, and about every toy you can imagine, plus a martial arts studio, a photography studio, and a music studio. Several cars, and I'm happy as the proverbial porker in poop. I had some severe setbacks -- legal, medical -- and I blew right past them because I had money.
I started small (trailer home), worked up constantly, rented out the homes I purchased except for the one I was currently living in, and I did it all on a lowball programmer / engineer salary (no college degree... keeps the earnings down a bit, generally.) Had plenty of girlfriends, never was lonely, and finally got real serious with a wonderful lady who's been my partner for almost 20 years now.
Now, if you can't see it, or manage it, that's your own issue: It doesn't make it unreal or impractical. The fact is, this works, and it will work for anyone who has a nominal income so they can get started early for a few thousand bucks -- and that's if your parents won't contribute to your launch, which many will if you're not trying to buy a 100k home right out the door. A cheap, used trailer is a perfect start. You can own it, you don't pay interest, from there, set yourself up to get another slightly less cheap place, do that, move there, then rent out the last one, and from there you win, win, win. Fast. Start in your 20's, the end game is pretty much a given: any rational home you want, lots of money, security, zero debt, credit rating *irrelevant* because you never had to borrow anything.
No. It's NEVER a "better" idea to get a mortgage. The amount of extra money you pay in interest is HUGE. Save the money yourself (which will take less time than it would take to pay off any mortgage), then buy the home outright. Now rent THAT out; you'll make money so fast you won't even know what hit you.
Oh, absolutely. My first home was $5000. It was a used trailer; two full, if tight, baths, three bedrooms, living room, kitchen. I paid cash. But getting a loan for that $5000 probably would have cost me a lot more. And *that* is for a relatively short term loan. So I had it paid for earlier, I owned it, I saved plenty, and I used THAT money to get further ahead. Today (I'm almost 60), I'm so far ahead of the average homeowner I'm about around the curve of the universe, lol. A usable interior of about ~6000 sq feet, plus, heck, my *deck* is bigger than most people's homes. My home theater is over 200", and I own *lots* of stuff. I never had a large income by programmer / engineer standards. And yes, I paid cash for it, too, and I used that cash as leverage to drop the purchase price significantly.
Absolute nonsense. A girl/boy friend gives you the love, and you can share expenses, rent, etc. if you care to pool and/or cohabit, instead of "going spouse" and paying for weddings and all that pop culture bullshit. And that's if you require same. I totally reject the idea that most people need this, or even that most people have it. Over half the cohabiting pairs in the last major survey were not married. And a whole lot of the married ones are bloody unhappy because they are trapped in one or more ways.
Sure. But it doesn't mean you need a spouse. Friend is good enough. Benefits or not. Even an "associate" is enough to share expenses, plus they're easier to swap out if need be. And it's even *more* efficient to save for a house than to pay the interest on a mortgage. You'll own it sooner, and you'll spend a lot less. Start small (real small, as small as you can), and work up.
That's purest pop-culture nonsense. If you can't live with yourself and like it, you're just immature and clueless. Furthermore, you are a lot less attractive to others: no one really wants someone who arrives all full of lonely angst, even if they'll settle for it. Not even as a friend. You end up with a grasping and/or jealous partner, which is disgusting and harmful. It's also pitiful and painful and an imposition on everyone else. In addition, you make better choices when you aren't desperate: the best partner will come to you as a healthy, selective, happy person, and you'll reject also-rans comfortably if you're not desperate to solve the "I'm so lonely" (said with a whine) "problem." Learn to like yourself and be comfortable inside your own skin. You'll be a much better person for it.
Absolutely. However, there's no risk of that. Just look at the comments above you. People will rarely take the more difficult path, even if it leads to success. On top of that, some just don't understand debt. Again, look at the above messages, talking about how a mortgage is a *good* idea. It'd be hilarious, if it wasn't so sad.
Again, yes -- but again, there's no risk of that. Most people will follow the well trodden path, squeeze out a few crotch-blossoms, generate enormous debt, lose the house in the divorce, and sit around wondering WTF just happened... and we'll have our next generation. :)
I should have made clear I was speaking of the USA and the forerunner inputs to the USA. My apologies.
I'd be fascinated to hear about a country that doesn't work this way, though. Can you elaborate?