Hitchhiking Gesture Patent
The thumb is positioned in an erect manner with the rest of the fingers clenched into a fist. Optionally the forearm can be successively pivoted at the elbow joint.
If any of you want to go hitchhiking you will have to invent gestures of your own that do not violate my patent. Perhaps you could do a sort of Egyptian walk to attract attention instead, although it is possible that the Bangles have a patent on that particular gesture. I will of course licence you to use my hitchhiking gesture at a fee that renders the whole purpose of hitchhiking completely pointless:)
China has been pressing for a treaty in this area for a long time and it is widely believed that their own test was an attempt to force the issue. Recently China and Russia again pressed for the US to sign a joint treaty, but the US government were not interested.
Well some of them certainly do have oil, but it's not always about oil. For example, sometimes it's about Bananas as was the case with Guatemala and the United Fruit Company.
Don't, mistake official explanations with the real reasons. The US has being trying to control Cuba since the 1800s but the British Navy was an obstacle for a long time. John Quincy Adams noted that "the laws of political gravitation" would bring Cuba into the hands of the U.S.
Eventually the US saw an opportunity when Cuba was striving for independence from Spain. The resistance in Cuba was wary of US offers of help because they were worried that once in, the US would never leave. However, the US gave assurances that would not be the case (e.g. Teller Amendment) and went in to help the resistance. Once the Spanish-controlled government was overthrown, the US (predictably) refused to leave. General Samuel B.M. Young expressed the opinion... "a lot of degenerates...no more capable of self-government than the savages of Africa,".
Eventually US forces did leave, but they laid down conditions for withdrawal, known as the Platt Amendment. The Cubans had to agree to a US Naval Base (the now infamous Guantanamo Bay) and to never transfer any Cuban land to a power other than the US. The terms also allowed the US to intervene in Cuban affairs when the US deemed necessary. Under US pressure, the terms were even embedded into the Cuban constitution. Eventually this repressive and imperialistic amendment was repealed in 1934 under Roosevelt's "Good Neighbour policy" but the US refused to give up Guantanamo bay and it can only be removed with the consent of both parties (an unlikely occurrence to say the least). Of course, it was ok for the US to give up these powers in 1934 because Fulgencio Batista was already the de facto ruler of Cuba. With this US-backed dictator in place, the Platt Amendment wasn't really necessary.
Eventually this nice little arrangement ended in 1959 when Castro toppled Batista. That is the source of US anger ever since. It is the anger of losing control of Cuba. All the rest of it is just excuses. It was the fear of invasion from the US (which was being planned) that drove Castro into an alliance with the USSR. Eventually there was an invasion attempt (bay of Pigs) but fortunately for Castro it was totally pathetic, possibly bordering on a US attempt at humour.
Although there was no successful invasion, the US conducted a long terrorist campaign against Cuba including the destruction of crops and what we would regard today as Al Qaeda-style bombings. Right now the US is harbouring Possada Carriles who is widely believed to have been behind the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed 73 people. The US denies involvement in the bombing, but refuses to extradite him to Venezuela citing fears that he might be tortured. Since the US government does not believe that waterboarding is torture, I can only assume they fear he may be subjected to something worse than waterboarding.
The US government will always claim that hostility towards Cuba is for one reason or another but the truth is that it wants control of Cuba and always has. Being a democracy is no guarantee that the US will leave you alone as the case of Venezuela amply demonstrates. The US teaches some unfortunate lessons. It teaches that if you have an open democracy, and you are not a government liked by the US (e.g. a socialist one), the US will use that openness against you, even going as far as coup attempts as was the case in Venezuela, Guatemala etc. If some future leader of Cuba does want to make a transition to democracy, he will no doubt have second thoughts after looking at US subversion in Venezuela and elsewhere.
I just knew Virgin Media would be in on this. Their service is completely awful. Not only is it hopelessly unreliable, but they are throttling users very aggressively. You don't have to download much before they switch your speed right down. Avoid them at all costs.
Exactly. When Castro met up with Che Guevara after the Guatemalan government was ousted, he wanted to know what happened. He couldn't believe that such a popular socialist (and democratic) government was overthrown. Guevara told him that the US had infiltrated the press and the unions and was spreading propaganda and stirring up trouble (which it was). Not surprisingly when Castro ousted the US-backed dictator Batista, he cracked down on the press and unions for fear of US infiltration. So the US taught an unfortunate lesson. i.e. If you have a government we don't like, and you have an open society, we will use that openness to attack and undermine your government.
Now I don't approve of the Castro dictatorship, even though it is better than the US-backed Batista dictatorship. However, I acknowledge how difficult it would have been to have a socialist democracy in Cuba without the US subverting the whole thing very quickly. They almost succeeded quite recently in Venezuela during the failed coup in 2002 and they are also supporting opposition groups in Bolivia right now. The governments in Central and South America are really quite sick of the US trying to control them all of the time and there is a real backlash taking place.
The Real News might be a glimpse of the future. It carries no advertising and works on a donation basis. Mainstream media outlets really just act as a megaphone for governments and big business. For anyone who is interested in the way news is reported, I would strongly recommend you watch Manufacturing Consent on Youtube (there's a book too).
Otherwise all those HD-DVD movies people have bought would be useless and a waste of money. As it is, they can just rip those high def movies to their hard drives.
If we can draw inferences from those correlations, then we may be able to [b]save lives[/b] by heightening awareness of possible events or changing the allocation of our security assets to provide more protection.
How about saving lives by not using air-strikes in densely populated civilian neighbourhoods? It doesn't take a computer model to tell you that bombing towns and cities is going to kill civilians and create a lot of very angry (and probably armed) people.
What I mean is, it's pretty cheap to get a digital video camera and computer editing software. But all that huge, heavy and power hungry studio lighting you need is outside most peoples budgets. So they end up just using the normal lighting in a room which is not good enough. If some brilliant white led studio lights were available, that might change things.
Is this dynamic range issue due to the video compression used rather than the CCD?
That would be great. One of the main reasons that amateur films look so crappy (aside from the acting) is the poor lighting. It's the one thing that digital technology doesn't really help with. Maybe LED lighting will make it more practical to do some decent lighting for amateur films.
I hope they are not going to start suspecting everyone who downloads or uploads a lot of data. I'm sure I'm not the only one who collaborates on making films with people in different countries. I often leave my machine on all night either uploading or downloading footage.
Slashdot Mirror
I think we are just going to end up with one massive games company.
Packed with 50GB of Flash memory :)
If it was somehow possible for Sony to prevent Blu Ray working with the X-box 360, I wonder whether they would do it, to kill of their rival?
Hitchhiking Gesture Patent
:)
The thumb is positioned in an erect manner with the rest of the fingers clenched into a fist. Optionally the forearm can be successively pivoted at the elbow joint.
If any of you want to go hitchhiking you will have to invent gestures of your own that do not violate my patent. Perhaps you could do a sort of Egyptian walk to attract attention instead, although it is possible that the Bangles have a patent on that particular gesture. I will of course licence you to use my hitchhiking gesture at a fee that renders the whole purpose of hitchhiking completely pointless
Isn't it?
It will definitely keep you fit. I believe the vehicle will also have a hole in the floor so you can supplement the engine with some legwork.
China has been pressing for a treaty in this area for a long time and it is widely believed that their own test was an attempt to force the issue. Recently China and Russia again pressed for the US to sign a joint treaty, but the US government were not interested.
Well some of them certainly do have oil, but it's not always about oil. For example, sometimes it's about Bananas as was the case with Guatemala and the United Fruit Company.
Better in the sense that Castro has the interests of Cuba at heart rather than those of the US and the Mafia.
Don't, mistake official explanations with the real reasons. The US has being trying to control Cuba since the 1800s but the British Navy was an obstacle for a long time. John Quincy Adams noted that "the laws of political gravitation" would bring Cuba into the hands of the U.S.
Eventually the US saw an opportunity when Cuba was striving for independence from Spain. The resistance in Cuba was wary of US offers of help because they were worried that once in, the US would never leave. However, the US gave assurances that would not be the case (e.g. Teller Amendment) and went in to help the resistance. Once the Spanish-controlled government was overthrown, the US (predictably) refused to leave. General Samuel B.M. Young expressed the opinion... "a lot of degenerates...no more capable of self-government than the savages of Africa,".
Eventually US forces did leave, but they laid down conditions for withdrawal, known as the Platt Amendment. The Cubans had to agree to a US Naval Base (the now infamous Guantanamo Bay) and to never transfer any Cuban land to a power other than the US. The terms also allowed the US to intervene in Cuban affairs when the US deemed necessary. Under US pressure, the terms were even embedded into the Cuban constitution. Eventually this repressive and imperialistic amendment was repealed in 1934 under Roosevelt's "Good Neighbour policy" but the US refused to give up Guantanamo bay and it can only be removed with the consent of both parties (an unlikely occurrence to say the least). Of course, it was ok for the US to give up these powers in 1934 because Fulgencio Batista was already the de facto ruler of Cuba. With this US-backed dictator in place, the Platt Amendment wasn't really necessary.
Eventually this nice little arrangement ended in 1959 when Castro toppled Batista. That is the source of US anger ever since. It is the anger of losing control of Cuba. All the rest of it is just excuses. It was the fear of invasion from the US (which was being planned) that drove Castro into an alliance with the USSR. Eventually there was an invasion attempt (bay of Pigs) but fortunately for Castro it was totally pathetic, possibly bordering on a US attempt at humour.
Although there was no successful invasion, the US conducted a long terrorist campaign against Cuba including the destruction of crops and what we would regard today as Al Qaeda-style bombings. Right now the US is harbouring Possada Carriles who is widely believed to have been behind the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed 73 people. The US denies involvement in the bombing, but refuses to extradite him to Venezuela citing fears that he might be tortured. Since the US government does not believe that waterboarding is torture, I can only assume they fear he may be subjected to something worse than waterboarding.
The US government will always claim that hostility towards Cuba is for one reason or another but the truth is that it wants control of Cuba and always has. Being a democracy is no guarantee that the US will leave you alone as the case of Venezuela amply demonstrates. The US teaches some unfortunate lessons. It teaches that if you have an open democracy, and you are not a government liked by the US (e.g. a socialist one), the US will use that openness against you, even going as far as coup attempts as was the case in Venezuela, Guatemala etc. If some future leader of Cuba does want to make a transition to democracy, he will no doubt have second thoughts after looking at US subversion in Venezuela and elsewhere.
I just knew Virgin Media would be in on this. Their service is completely awful. Not only is it hopelessly unreliable, but they are throttling users very aggressively. You don't have to download much before they switch your speed right down. Avoid them at all costs.
Exactly. When Castro met up with Che Guevara after the Guatemalan government was ousted, he wanted to know what happened. He couldn't believe that such a popular socialist (and democratic) government was overthrown. Guevara told him that the US had infiltrated the press and the unions and was spreading propaganda and stirring up trouble (which it was). Not surprisingly when Castro ousted the US-backed dictator Batista, he cracked down on the press and unions for fear of US infiltration. So the US taught an unfortunate lesson. i.e. If you have a government we don't like, and you have an open society, we will use that openness to attack and undermine your government.
Now I don't approve of the Castro dictatorship, even though it is better than the US-backed Batista dictatorship. However, I acknowledge how difficult it would have been to have a socialist democracy in Cuba without the US subverting the whole thing very quickly. They almost succeeded quite recently in Venezuela during the failed coup in 2002 and they are also supporting opposition groups in Bolivia right now. The governments in Central and South America are really quite sick of the US trying to control them all of the time and there is a real backlash taking place.
The Real News might be a glimpse of the future. It carries no advertising and works on a donation basis. Mainstream media outlets really just act as a megaphone for governments and big business. For anyone who is interested in the way news is reported, I would strongly recommend you watch Manufacturing Consent on Youtube (there's a book too).
And when your player inevitably dies? I'm talking about the long term.
Yes, since you can rip them, the format they come on is sort of irrelevant.
Otherwise all those HD-DVD movies people have bought would be useless and a waste of money. As it is, they can just rip those high def movies to their hard drives.
How about saving lives by not using air-strikes in densely populated civilian neighbourhoods? It doesn't take a computer model to tell you that bombing towns and cities is going to kill civilians and create a lot of very angry (and probably armed) people.
What I mean is, it's pretty cheap to get a digital video camera and computer editing software. But all that huge, heavy and power hungry studio lighting you need is outside most peoples budgets. So they end up just using the normal lighting in a room which is not good enough. If some brilliant white led studio lights were available, that might change things.
Is this dynamic range issue due to the video compression used rather than the CCD?
The Idea that the leader of Titan doesn't have weapons of mass destruction, is palpably absurd.
That would be great. One of the main reasons that amateur films look so crappy (aside from the acting) is the poor lighting. It's the one thing that digital technology doesn't really help with. Maybe LED lighting will make it more practical to do some decent lighting for amateur films.
Which organisation do I throw my cash at?
I hope they are not going to start suspecting everyone who downloads or uploads a lot of data. I'm sure I'm not the only one who collaborates on making films with people in different countries. I often leave my machine on all night either uploading or downloading footage.
In a survival situation you may well need a quick camp-fire, so a Dell Laptop would make perfect sense :)
Relying on accelerometers would amount to Dead Reckoning. Position errors would quickly build up.
that's one thing that really does set him apart from the other candidates.