Some observations which may seem obvious but bear mentioning:
(1) In today's out-of-control / Ponzi monetary system, this is almost enough to start a speculative bubble
(2) At some point anti-aging breakthroughs at a fundamental level are inevitable
(3) When real anti-aging therapies become available they are going to be priced out of this world...literally priced for billionaries. The LAST thing in the world your health-insurance is likely to underwrite is something which will extend your natural lifespan to something preternatural. Can you imagine ObamaCare doing that? Can you imagine the impact of such a move, were it to occur, on the broken pension/SS/medicare system and the negative interest rate economy in general?
(4) We have a problem already with "elites" buying it all -- including complete control of the government. Can you imagine the situation when billionaires -- and only billionaires -- can afford to live forever?
(5) That's right: totalitarianism by the 0.001% for the 0.001%... forever.
I'd say if we are going to "fix" the government and monetary/tax system we might want to fix it sooner than later.
I agree! The governments of the world should force all their citizens to stop eating meat. And driving cars. And having more than one child.
Oh, except the politicians, of course. An exception must be made for the politicians... and Goldman Sachs!
âoeAll animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.â
â George Orwell, Animal Farm
I am pretty much on board that the planet is going through a warming period. My questions include (1) what is causing it? (2) how is separated from other warming causes which we know happen all the time (3) what we can do about it (4) what we should do about it (cost vs benefit) (5) why government and Goldman Sachs should be allowed to GROW and profit from the crisis. It is VERY clear that government and GS never waste a good crisis but love to foment them. Government "science" should always be suspect; it is a significant conflict of interest. That doesn't mean the science is necessarily bad -- but it sure should be held to a much higher standard than other science.
without an endless stream of things to threaten us with. If it's not Russia, it's Terrorists (aka their friends from Saudi Arabia). If necessary, they will IMPORT the terrorists by scanning all the non-muslims at the local airports. If it's not that it's WMD. Or it's Global Warming. If Warming doesn't frighten us sufficiently to give them the added larceny and power and bootlicking they crave it might be "Climate Change!".
Now that "climate change" doesn't seem to be raising enough goosebumps they have to warn us about what climate change (caused by shipping all the manufacturing jobs off to China, where they don't use pollution controls) will mean: disease. Especially for women and children!
Govt: First they break your legs. Then they offer you a crutch. If you don't seem to want the crutch they will commission special studies so they can do my propagandizing on why you should be very very afraid.
Well, I am afraid. I am afraid of the government. I used to kind of admire it; at least I thought it genuinely had our best interests at heart. It takes a while to grow up in today's world.
(1) Put them out of a job unless they can become an engineer, medical professional, lawyer, or government employee.
(2) Double or triple the price of a big mac (unless someone can figure out how to make the fast food in another state and import it.
Do the politicians think fewer unskilled jobs will somehow cause the remaining poor to grow bigger brains/ higher IQs? Or do the politicians figure the poor can always eat cake?
Making plans to move my factory out of state. I can always sell my products back into the state, of course, as that is protected by Federal law. At least for now.
"...including members of the Rockefeller and Disney families"
So these aren't productive rich but mostly people who are already living on the dole?
The productive rich -- and I'm not counting the stock market and hedge fund folks as in the really productive class -- are generally the best stewards of their own money. I'd say Steve Jobs did a pretty good job of SIMULTANEOUSLY increasing his net worth and increasing the wealth of society. Would it have been better if Steve Jobs had given his money to the LEAST competent in the world (those who administer government) so they could build more tenement slums and bridges to nowhere or...get this...wars in foreign countries?
The truth is we could have rebuilt our roads and infrastructure or we could have chosen Bush's and Obama's boondoggles and wars.
And guess which "we the people" chose?
Now get a brain.
Actually I like the whole idea of diversity -- especially if it includes the ability to opt in where I want and opt out of any standardized way of tracking me.
I'm going to take another look at pale moon now. I hope they follow through with what they are thinking. Anything but more Google/Microsoft/Safari consumerism.
"...influenced by human-induced climate change"
Is there really any proof of "human induced"?
And why isn't the cause any longer called -- more correctly, I might point out -- "global warming"?
I won't say anything about "influenced by", although I think there is some question there, also.
I will still ask why we are looking to the same government which encouraged all the things we are now blaming for a "solution" and why, in particular, the government (and Goldman Sachs) are supposed to be enriched (enlarged) by the solution? And why are we still importing from China (and other countries which continue to pump bilge into the air instead of adopting our environmental standards). I mean, if the problem is GLOBAL warming than isn't the government (which is supposedly SO concerned now about doing something) doing the obvious and most direct and least government/goldman enriching things first? Instead of the opposite, of course.
There appears to be an incredible amount of corruption and propaganda behind pushing a particular message and a particular solution. Just sayin'.
This has been tested to death. Yes, there will be some outliers - some few people who will use the opportunity to expand their horizons. But that is mostly a matter of will. And will tends to actually decline, for the vast majority of people, when there is not urgency. The vast majority of people will no longer have as much reason to get out of bed in the morning, much less work up a sweat.
This would ultimately be one of the problems of life extension for everybody, btw. Most people are already wasting most of the life they have. Reducing urgency will produce more waste. It's an absurd experiment; try conducting it on rats and see what you get before you scale. Or is there more of a meaningful experiment here than it might otherwise seem? One would hope so. Y-combinator must surely be more clever than to re-try the Morlock-Eloi angle.
Buy him the mathematica program. There is a student desktop price as low as $140
"to use for as long as you're a student." http://www.wolfram.com/mathema...
If that is still too much money, there is supposedly a free version of mathematica available for the Raspberry Pi http://www.wolfram.com/raspber...
(and I've read of a similar program for Atom-based boards).
The Wolfram Language book is available free on line.
I suspect a working mathematica could be the best possible gift if he is as bright and motivated as you say. He'll learn a Lisp. He'll get an introduction to Functional Programming (and maybe more). And he'll have a working tool to help him through school and far beyond.
provides the logic most often used to justify offshoring and "free" international trade. However, the theory (logical as it is) is founded on a number of premises. A number of these premises held centuries ago but not so much any more. There is, notably, the premise that "factors of production" (e.g., factories and resources) cannot easily be moved. And money and credit were supposedly not conjurable at whim from nothing but government dictat. GIGO, even if the machine can run for some time on garbage and momentum.
I hypothesize we are at the beginning of a bifurcation of the WWW. Websites are going to have to decide how many potential users they are prepared to forego to try and force compliance. Users are going to have to decide how many websites they are prepared to forego in order to respect themselves, their time, their privacy, and their personal security..
Especially on my smartphone I had already gotten to the point where the pain of dealing with all the crap popups was discouraging me from using web (as opposed to the internet) at all. So the availability of solid ad-blocking was finally enough to induce me to upgrade to an Apple 6S. Now I'm noticing that a lot of websites, including slashdot, don't load at all. How do I feel about that? Well, it would have been nice to be able to visit slashdot from my mobile but, frankly, I'm already writing it off.
There are plenty enough other sites on the web and I expect I will eventually reconcile fully to not going to certain sites -- just as I avoid porn sites. The toughest thing? it would nice to have a browser that didn't even waste my time taking me to sites which were going to block access. Hopefully that will come out as a feature in new ad-blocking software.
All in all, I have to say the fresh air from not having to deal with the endless shit thrown up by the 'advertisers' (pimps) is more than worth the price of admission...er, being denied admission!:-) This is something everyone is going to have decide on their own. And I guess, from time to time, I may be tempted to drop my shields so I can let a site molest me in return for letting me see their "content". But probably not very often and maybe not at all. Fuck Forbes, along with the Times, etc. If 3/4 of the websites disappear from my web I think I will be just fine with that in the longer run. All the browsing was giving me ADHD anyway.
Why can't websites just put up static ads instead of all this privacy-invading, abusive advertising? Yeah, I'm sure they will say there isn't enough money in that. But if enough people refuse to go along with the compliance training, I expect they will rethink that. If nothing else, websites which don't block me and put up static ads know a little about me just on the basis of my voting with my feet. That ought to be some sort of a differentiation. Eventually, I expect the differentiation will be between low class people (who allow themselves to be abused in return for candy) and those of higher class who actually think longer term and respect themselves a little more. We'll see. I don't expect it to take that long, really.
There are some really fascinating - and potentially revitalizing - new languages out there, and these are among the most interesting.
Julia is comparable to R running like greased lightening. It deserves attention and $600K. It has C level speed, which is remarkable given its domain.
Elm is comparable to Haskell but much more approachable -- especially for web development.
Elixir is like Ruby..maybe Ruby goes on a date with Erlang and they fall in love. Kinda functional; kinda something wild.
There are some other FASCINATING languages coming out, too. For instance, you might check out red... keeping in mind how the unknown REBOL did in in the redmonks comparison of conciseness + other compelling strengths.
What i would say is that we are in urgent need of better languages. The hardware, network, and critical deployment goes asymptotic while we mostly get is out-of-proportion bloat and bugs as our languages progress linearly, at best. We desperately need software upgrade in a real sense -- not the sense we generally keep getting with more of the shopworn procedural/object-oriented paradigm.
The history of Google getting their hand down everyones' pants has been pretty simple strategy wise.
(1) Offer "free" candy, no strings attached.
(2) Get you to sit on their lap and feel comfortable and safe. Not such a scary "string", right?
(3) Loosen your belt-buckle etc. as they offer more candy.
(4) Stick it in as they give you another dollup of candy.
(5) Invite you to invite your friends in on the free candy.
(6) Go to the schools for the children. Administrators will turn over a lot of information on underage children given enough "free" candy.
Here we go again. I'm guessing it will become increasingly difficult or impossible to sidestep google getting its way with you and yours as time goes on. Just wait until they have you using their routers, driving cars infected with their tracking devices, etc. etc.
Amazing how stupid the human race as a whole appears to be.
It would make me feel better about my country if various states here would take it upon themselves and independently vote for an equivalent resolution. I'm not aware of any state - not even any city - which has demonstrated the independence and moral leadership to speak up for Mr Snowden. Why not? SF and various other cities have declared themselves sanctuary cities. Why has no US state or city stepped forward and declared sanctuary for a much more deserving cause?
Everything is paid for with an IOU; we can afford
on
Review: The Martian
·
· Score: 1
...this, certainly, but actually anything.
And eventually -- probably sooner than we know -- the open ended credit cars are going to be pulled.
When that happens we might as well have some "things" to show for all the debt. Once again, it isn't as if there is any point AT THIS POINT in trying to trim the budget. We --- and really the entire world -- are already economically doomed and no amount of "budgeting" now could possibly get us back to a safe position before the whole Ponzi system implodes. So, by all means, we should create more IOUs for a hundred billion or whatever, and "go where no man has been before!"
We should hurry, hurry, hurry to create the EUSA. But notice the E is in FRONT of the USA. Regardless of who is nominally in charge of this Frankenstein we can be sure of at least three things:
(1) Eastern Asia will always and ultimately be in front.
(2) Government will become enormously bigger, and the political class and their Masters will be the real beneficiaries.
(3) There will be -- as we continue to see in the EU -- horrific, unfolding consequences; and a lot of both wealth and freedom transfer.
(4) Anyone who knows anything about history should know the name of this tune: "You can check out any time you'd like. But you can never leave." Look to the EU and the USA, itself, for the reality of these sorts of "voluntary" agreements.
--
I think it's time we get rid of elected representatives entirely and go to direct vote on everything. Three benefits: (1) It would utterly thwart the special interests. (2) It would develop a strong, informed citizenry. (3) It would dramatically, dramatically reduce the accretion of incomprehensible laws and regulations the citizens don't understand, often don't even know exist, which are NOT worth their cost or aren't worth any cost at all.
I suspect under such a system we wouldn't have 1/10th the wars, would have better infrastructure, and would generally have a much brighter future.
Google was doing evil right from the beginning and has continued with that pretty much every step of the way. At the beginning the moto, together with all the "Free" software and "Free Software" gave them the benefit of the doubt, and encouraged people to simply trust them. So, it was a con and an effective one.
As they took pictures of your house. As they drove down your street, photographing you, your house, your license plate without permission -- and even actively sniffing out your IP address so they could better tag you and exploit you.... As they collected your phone number, under pretense it was for your "safety". As they moved into the phone business in order to spy on you ever more effectively and add your contacts to their cross-referencing. Etc. Etc. Etc. (I know I am preaching to the crowd here, for the most part, but occasionally it helps to step back and connect the many dots to make crystal that Google has been doing Evil with clear intention (and a lot of bullshit rationalizations and fanboy fanning; Google as been deliberate and CUNNING and manipulative and misleading...in their EVIL.
Anyway, what Google is doing is something commonly done when people and, especially, companies have burned through their "good will". It is called "rebranding" and it is a major tip off to their new plans for exploitation of the human race.
Google and Facebook and Monsanto and Microsoft are like those pigs in Animal Farm. Consider how well THAT story of trust and goodwill worked out for the more ordinary animals.
Is it any good? I get it that it costs money, or at least a lot of donated time (and even then some real costs), to deliver a good piece of software. I would be willing to donate to support such software if it is a good alternative to Adblock's attempt to pimp me off. In any case, privacy is too important to leave it at the mercy of profit.
Some of the open source/ free software projects should maybe be put on hold until the community has a top notch, no BS ad-blocker out the door?
I mean, do we really need an upgraded Linux kernel half as much as we need our privacy back and these pimps and voyeurs shat down?
Is Adblock proposing to disallow any and all TRACKING and reading of cookies from other sites? Didn't think so.
How many people are stupid enough to think Adblock has their real best interests at heart?
We don't have to have sex with strangers as a condition of walking public streets. Why do we have to put up with this shit from pimps such as Google and Facebook... and Adblock... at all?
I admittedly haven't tried this yet - thus the question mark... I need to run Windows ONLY for a couple applications in my business, but those apps are Windows XP/7 centric. Wine clearly isn't going to be anywhere near good enough (and I increasingly suspect never will be).
How hard is it to setup Windows under Linux, inside Virtualbox, and cut it off utterly from the internet? Is there a huge performance hit? Will XP or Win 7 PRO (which has a built-in Win XP emulator) be difficult to install or disappoint?
I don't NEED continual internet access. In fact, I don't even want it. I would like there to be a continual but convenient switch to disable internet connectivity with a single click or, alternatively, I would like an OS which would WARN me any and every time there was any attempt by any process to access the internet or allow an internet connection.
Get rid of the internet and the need for Microsoft or OSX updates goes to about zero.zero. Doesn't it?
I want to point out the obvious: Tim Cook hasn't introduced a single, highly successful NEW product yet. The apple watch isn't exactly taking the world by storm and, besides, I am not sure it wasn't in the product pipeline for a number of years. Even Steve Jobs didn't hit a home-run every time but he hit enough of them to be legendary. Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs and we have no evidence yet that Tim Cook is able to do anything more than operate the Apple "machine" without running it off the road. Certainly no evidence that Tim Cook would know insanely great if it hit him between the eyes.
I wouldn't bet on an Apple car. I certainly wouldn't bet on it out performing nor out wowing Tesla, nor Porche, nor even Toyota.
In a contest between Tim Cook and Elon Musk, in terms of ability to 'manifest' insanely great...Elon Musk would be the clear winner. I know there is a school of thought that the leader isn't all that important; that it is the company as a whole which really matters. But the evidence really calls that into question.
Slashdot Mirror
Some observations which may seem obvious but bear mentioning: (1) In today's out-of-control / Ponzi monetary system, this is almost enough to start a speculative bubble (2) At some point anti-aging breakthroughs at a fundamental level are inevitable (3) When real anti-aging therapies become available they are going to be priced out of this world...literally priced for billionaries. The LAST thing in the world your health-insurance is likely to underwrite is something which will extend your natural lifespan to something preternatural. Can you imagine ObamaCare doing that? Can you imagine the impact of such a move, were it to occur, on the broken pension/SS/medicare system and the negative interest rate economy in general? (4) We have a problem already with "elites" buying it all -- including complete control of the government. Can you imagine the situation when billionaires -- and only billionaires -- can afford to live forever? (5) That's right: totalitarianism by the 0.001% for the 0.001% ... forever.
I'd say if we are going to "fix" the government and monetary/tax system we might want to fix it sooner than later.
I agree! The governments of the world should force all their citizens to stop eating meat. And driving cars. And having more than one child. Oh, except the politicians, of course. An exception must be made for the politicians... and Goldman Sachs! âoeAll animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.â â George Orwell, Animal Farm
I am pretty much on board that the planet is going through a warming period. My questions include (1) what is causing it? (2) how is separated from other warming causes which we know happen all the time (3) what we can do about it (4) what we should do about it (cost vs benefit) (5) why government and Goldman Sachs should be allowed to GROW and profit from the crisis. It is VERY clear that government and GS never waste a good crisis but love to foment them. Government "science" should always be suspect; it is a significant conflict of interest. That doesn't mean the science is necessarily bad -- but it sure should be held to a much higher standard than other science.
without an endless stream of things to threaten us with. If it's not Russia, it's Terrorists (aka their friends from Saudi Arabia). If necessary, they will IMPORT the terrorists by scanning all the non-muslims at the local airports. If it's not that it's WMD. Or it's Global Warming. If Warming doesn't frighten us sufficiently to give them the added larceny and power and bootlicking they crave it might be "Climate Change!". Now that "climate change" doesn't seem to be raising enough goosebumps they have to warn us about what climate change (caused by shipping all the manufacturing jobs off to China, where they don't use pollution controls) will mean: disease. Especially for women and children! Govt: First they break your legs. Then they offer you a crutch. If you don't seem to want the crutch they will commission special studies so they can do my propagandizing on why you should be very very afraid. Well, I am afraid. I am afraid of the government. I used to kind of admire it; at least I thought it genuinely had our best interests at heart. It takes a while to grow up in today's world.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
(1) Put them out of a job unless they can become an engineer, medical professional, lawyer, or government employee. (2) Double or triple the price of a big mac (unless someone can figure out how to make the fast food in another state and import it. Do the politicians think fewer unskilled jobs will somehow cause the remaining poor to grow bigger brains/ higher IQs? Or do the politicians figure the poor can always eat cake? Making plans to move my factory out of state. I can always sell my products back into the state, of course, as that is protected by Federal law. At least for now.
"...including members of the Rockefeller and Disney families" So these aren't productive rich but mostly people who are already living on the dole? The productive rich -- and I'm not counting the stock market and hedge fund folks as in the really productive class -- are generally the best stewards of their own money. I'd say Steve Jobs did a pretty good job of SIMULTANEOUSLY increasing his net worth and increasing the wealth of society. Would it have been better if Steve Jobs had given his money to the LEAST competent in the world (those who administer government) so they could build more tenement slums and bridges to nowhere or...get this...wars in foreign countries? The truth is we could have rebuilt our roads and infrastructure or we could have chosen Bush's and Obama's boondoggles and wars. And guess which "we the people" chose? Now get a brain.
Actually I like the whole idea of diversity -- especially if it includes the ability to opt in where I want and opt out of any standardized way of tracking me. I'm going to take another look at pale moon now. I hope they follow through with what they are thinking. Anything but more Google/Microsoft/Safari consumerism.
"...influenced by human-induced climate change" Is there really any proof of "human induced"? And why isn't the cause any longer called -- more correctly, I might point out -- "global warming"? I won't say anything about "influenced by", although I think there is some question there, also. I will still ask why we are looking to the same government which encouraged all the things we are now blaming for a "solution" and why, in particular, the government (and Goldman Sachs) are supposed to be enriched (enlarged) by the solution? And why are we still importing from China (and other countries which continue to pump bilge into the air instead of adopting our environmental standards). I mean, if the problem is GLOBAL warming than isn't the government (which is supposedly SO concerned now about doing something) doing the obvious and most direct and least government/goldman enriching things first? Instead of the opposite, of course. There appears to be an incredible amount of corruption and propaganda behind pushing a particular message and a particular solution. Just sayin'.
This has been tested to death. Yes, there will be some outliers - some few people who will use the opportunity to expand their horizons. But that is mostly a matter of will. And will tends to actually decline, for the vast majority of people, when there is not urgency. The vast majority of people will no longer have as much reason to get out of bed in the morning, much less work up a sweat.
This would ultimately be one of the problems of life extension for everybody, btw. Most people are already wasting most of the life they have. Reducing urgency will produce more waste. It's an absurd experiment; try conducting it on rats and see what you get before you scale. Or is there more of a meaningful experiment here than it might otherwise seem? One would hope so. Y-combinator must surely be more clever than to re-try the Morlock-Eloi angle.
Buy him the mathematica program. There is a student desktop price as low as $140 "to use for as long as you're a student." http://www.wolfram.com/mathema... If that is still too much money, there is supposedly a free version of mathematica available for the Raspberry Pi http://www.wolfram.com/raspber... (and I've read of a similar program for Atom-based boards). The Wolfram Language book is available free on line. I suspect a working mathematica could be the best possible gift if he is as bright and motivated as you say. He'll learn a Lisp. He'll get an introduction to Functional Programming (and maybe more). And he'll have a working tool to help him through school and far beyond.
provides the logic most often used to justify offshoring and "free" international trade. However, the theory (logical as it is) is founded on a number of premises. A number of these premises held centuries ago but not so much any more. There is, notably, the premise that "factors of production" (e.g., factories and resources) cannot easily be moved. And money and credit were supposedly not conjurable at whim from nothing but government dictat. GIGO, even if the machine can run for some time on garbage and momentum.
I hypothesize we are at the beginning of a bifurcation of the WWW. Websites are going to have to decide how many potential users they are prepared to forego to try and force compliance. Users are going to have to decide how many websites they are prepared to forego in order to respect themselves, their time, their privacy, and their personal security.. Especially on my smartphone I had already gotten to the point where the pain of dealing with all the crap popups was discouraging me from using web (as opposed to the internet) at all. So the availability of solid ad-blocking was finally enough to induce me to upgrade to an Apple 6S. Now I'm noticing that a lot of websites, including slashdot, don't load at all. How do I feel about that? Well, it would have been nice to be able to visit slashdot from my mobile but, frankly, I'm already writing it off. There are plenty enough other sites on the web and I expect I will eventually reconcile fully to not going to certain sites -- just as I avoid porn sites. The toughest thing? it would nice to have a browser that didn't even waste my time taking me to sites which were going to block access. Hopefully that will come out as a feature in new ad-blocking software. All in all, I have to say the fresh air from not having to deal with the endless shit thrown up by the 'advertisers' (pimps) is more than worth the price of admission...er, being denied admission! :-) This is something everyone is going to have decide on their own. And I guess, from time to time, I may be tempted to drop my shields so I can let a site molest me in return for letting me see their "content". But probably not very often and maybe not at all. Fuck Forbes, along with the Times, etc. If 3/4 of the websites disappear from my web I think I will be just fine with that in the longer run. All the browsing was giving me ADHD anyway.
Why can't websites just put up static ads instead of all this privacy-invading, abusive advertising? Yeah, I'm sure they will say there isn't enough money in that. But if enough people refuse to go along with the compliance training, I expect they will rethink that. If nothing else, websites which don't block me and put up static ads know a little about me just on the basis of my voting with my feet. That ought to be some sort of a differentiation. Eventually, I expect the differentiation will be between low class people (who allow themselves to be abused in return for candy) and those of higher class who actually think longer term and respect themselves a little more. We'll see. I don't expect it to take that long, really.
There are some really fascinating - and potentially revitalizing - new languages out there, and these are among the most interesting. Julia is comparable to R running like greased lightening. It deserves attention and $600K. It has C level speed, which is remarkable given its domain. Elm is comparable to Haskell but much more approachable -- especially for web development. Elixir is like Ruby..maybe Ruby goes on a date with Erlang and they fall in love. Kinda functional; kinda something wild. There are some other FASCINATING languages coming out, too. For instance, you might check out red ... keeping in mind how the unknown REBOL did in in the redmonks comparison of conciseness + other compelling strengths.
What i would say is that we are in urgent need of better languages. The hardware, network, and critical deployment goes asymptotic while we mostly get is out-of-proportion bloat and bugs as our languages progress linearly, at best. We desperately need software upgrade in a real sense -- not the sense we generally keep getting with more of the shopworn procedural/object-oriented paradigm.
That taking Google out of the equation couldn't fix!
The history of Google getting their hand down everyones' pants has been pretty simple strategy wise. (1) Offer "free" candy, no strings attached. (2) Get you to sit on their lap and feel comfortable and safe. Not such a scary "string", right? (3) Loosen your belt-buckle etc. as they offer more candy. (4) Stick it in as they give you another dollup of candy. (5) Invite you to invite your friends in on the free candy. (6) Go to the schools for the children. Administrators will turn over a lot of information on underage children given enough "free" candy. Here we go again. I'm guessing it will become increasingly difficult or impossible to sidestep google getting its way with you and yours as time goes on. Just wait until they have you using their routers, driving cars infected with their tracking devices, etc. etc. Amazing how stupid the human race as a whole appears to be.
It would make me feel better about my country if various states here would take it upon themselves and independently vote for an equivalent resolution. I'm not aware of any state - not even any city - which has demonstrated the independence and moral leadership to speak up for Mr Snowden. Why not? SF and various other cities have declared themselves sanctuary cities. Why has no US state or city stepped forward and declared sanctuary for a much more deserving cause?
...this, certainly, but actually anything. And eventually -- probably sooner than we know -- the open ended credit cars are going to be pulled. When that happens we might as well have some "things" to show for all the debt. Once again, it isn't as if there is any point AT THIS POINT in trying to trim the budget. We --- and really the entire world -- are already economically doomed and no amount of "budgeting" now could possibly get us back to a safe position before the whole Ponzi system implodes. So, by all means, we should create more IOUs for a hundred billion or whatever, and "go where no man has been before!"
We should hurry, hurry, hurry to create the EUSA. But notice the E is in FRONT of the USA. Regardless of who is nominally in charge of this Frankenstein we can be sure of at least three things: (1) Eastern Asia will always and ultimately be in front. (2) Government will become enormously bigger, and the political class and their Masters will be the real beneficiaries. (3) There will be -- as we continue to see in the EU -- horrific, unfolding consequences; and a lot of both wealth and freedom transfer. (4) Anyone who knows anything about history should know the name of this tune: "You can check out any time you'd like. But you can never leave." Look to the EU and the USA, itself, for the reality of these sorts of "voluntary" agreements. -- I think it's time we get rid of elected representatives entirely and go to direct vote on everything. Three benefits: (1) It would utterly thwart the special interests. (2) It would develop a strong, informed citizenry. (3) It would dramatically, dramatically reduce the accretion of incomprehensible laws and regulations the citizens don't understand, often don't even know exist, which are NOT worth their cost or aren't worth any cost at all. I suspect under such a system we wouldn't have 1/10th the wars, would have better infrastructure, and would generally have a much brighter future.
Google Proved That. Classic seduction tactic - hand out candy and whisper sweet things as you slide your hands down the little kids pants.
Google was doing evil right from the beginning and has continued with that pretty much every step of the way. At the beginning the moto, together with all the "Free" software and "Free Software" gave them the benefit of the doubt, and encouraged people to simply trust them. So, it was a con and an effective one. As they took pictures of your house. As they drove down your street, photographing you, your house, your license plate without permission -- and even actively sniffing out your IP address so they could better tag you and exploit you.... As they collected your phone number, under pretense it was for your "safety". As they moved into the phone business in order to spy on you ever more effectively and add your contacts to their cross-referencing. Etc. Etc. Etc. (I know I am preaching to the crowd here, for the most part, but occasionally it helps to step back and connect the many dots to make crystal that Google has been doing Evil with clear intention (and a lot of bullshit rationalizations and fanboy fanning; Google as been deliberate and CUNNING and manipulative and misleading...in their EVIL. Anyway, what Google is doing is something commonly done when people and, especially, companies have burned through their "good will". It is called "rebranding" and it is a major tip off to their new plans for exploitation of the human race. Google and Facebook and Monsanto and Microsoft are like those pigs in Animal Farm. Consider how well THAT story of trust and goodwill worked out for the more ordinary animals.
Is it any good? I get it that it costs money, or at least a lot of donated time (and even then some real costs), to deliver a good piece of software. I would be willing to donate to support such software if it is a good alternative to Adblock's attempt to pimp me off. In any case, privacy is too important to leave it at the mercy of profit. Some of the open source/ free software projects should maybe be put on hold until the community has a top notch, no BS ad-blocker out the door? I mean, do we really need an upgraded Linux kernel half as much as we need our privacy back and these pimps and voyeurs shat down?
Is Adblock proposing to disallow any and all TRACKING and reading of cookies from other sites? Didn't think so. How many people are stupid enough to think Adblock has their real best interests at heart? We don't have to have sex with strangers as a condition of walking public streets. Why do we have to put up with this shit from pimps such as Google and Facebook ... and Adblock... at all?
I admittedly haven't tried this yet - thus the question mark... I need to run Windows ONLY for a couple applications in my business, but those apps are Windows XP/7 centric. Wine clearly isn't going to be anywhere near good enough (and I increasingly suspect never will be). How hard is it to setup Windows under Linux, inside Virtualbox, and cut it off utterly from the internet? Is there a huge performance hit? Will XP or Win 7 PRO (which has a built-in Win XP emulator) be difficult to install or disappoint? I don't NEED continual internet access. In fact, I don't even want it. I would like there to be a continual but convenient switch to disable internet connectivity with a single click or, alternatively, I would like an OS which would WARN me any and every time there was any attempt by any process to access the internet or allow an internet connection. Get rid of the internet and the need for Microsoft or OSX updates goes to about zero.zero. Doesn't it?
I want to point out the obvious: Tim Cook hasn't introduced a single, highly successful NEW product yet. The apple watch isn't exactly taking the world by storm and, besides, I am not sure it wasn't in the product pipeline for a number of years. Even Steve Jobs didn't hit a home-run every time but he hit enough of them to be legendary. Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs and we have no evidence yet that Tim Cook is able to do anything more than operate the Apple "machine" without running it off the road. Certainly no evidence that Tim Cook would know insanely great if it hit him between the eyes. I wouldn't bet on an Apple car. I certainly wouldn't bet on it out performing nor out wowing Tesla, nor Porche, nor even Toyota. In a contest between Tim Cook and Elon Musk, in terms of ability to 'manifest' insanely great...Elon Musk would be the clear winner. I know there is a school of thought that the leader isn't all that important; that it is the company as a whole which really matters. But the evidence really calls that into question.