It is definitely an exponential-looking rate of technology advance. Hard to believe my grandpa saw planes become common, phones, even electricity. Refrigeration changed a lot. It's interesting though that the vast majority of earthlings live in a pretty low-tech way. Life expectancy hasn't budged much in a long time. Another lesson from history (Egypt, Mesoamerica, Babylon, Rome, etc) is that civilizations often fluoresce and then decline, often more dramatically than their rise.
Oh well, one thing is certain: If I live to average age, I'm going to see some pretty exciting changes.
Denver channel 7 has won a few Peabody awards, so it's not completely fluff. I don't get channel 7 myself (rabbit ears) but it seems to have a good reputation.
Computers have gotten very cheap. You can do facial recognition in real time with a normal desktop machine.
As far as knowing where you've been/where you're going, both systems locate you and which direction you're heading at a point in time. I don't understand the distinction you're trying to make.
The facial recognition systems were designed for use in high traffic areas, such as airports, transportation hubs, and busy city streets.
All it will take is a few hundred of these cameras spread over a city (at your expense, for safety reasons of course) and you've got a pretty big-brother friendly system that tracks people by name/ssid, logs their movements, and can be easily queried to see possible associates, patterns of movement, suspicious activity, etc. I plan on fighting such a system as I can. It is very creepy to me, very easy to imagine how it will be abused.
They already have such a system in the UK. So don't be saying "Impractical!" They did have a similar system for autos first, so perhaps they're simple more advanced than we are in the US. I predict we'll follow a similar pattern. Governments seem quite hungry and shameless for massive data acquisition on citizens.
They can't expect you to have a sales receipt for buying something at a swap meet. Just show up with the disc. This issue is probably irrelevant.
As far as uploading/downloading goes, you cannot "only download" with bittorrent. You download and upload the chunks already completed. If you break your client to download only your speed will tend towards 0. Might take months to finish the file.
My thought exactly. Why the hell would the MPAA bother seeing who was downloading this piece of shit?
Then I looked up the box office totals. That stinkbomb raked in $280 million US box office alone. Number 29 of all time. Of course it came in between Matrix Reloaded and Shrek, so maybe my taste doesn't align with what makes money.
You could strobe remote control codes while going through neighborhoods to annoy the natives. Anyone with non-opaque drapes would be treated to their equipment turning on or off.
I suggest doing it once per neighborhood, and never anywhere near home or work. Once they figure it out, your car will get vandalized.
One obvious point is that cellphones provide your position, and the map will show you a small area around that position. It isn't suitable for a browser, where you'd want to specify position, scroll around manually, and have a much larger screen.
I did have the same thought, though. First, I tried to load the page in my browser. Then, I looked for a cell-phone emulator.
Wow. I like how your post was all hippy-dippy and then you break out the guns and psycho shit. Whiplash!
I'm sort of the same way. I don't understand people that get all worked up about things. It's most noticable behind the wheel of course, possibly because it's pretty anonymous.
I do think about things a lot, and am bothered by ineffeciencies a little, but mostly just think of ways to improve them. Sometimes it does involve weeding out retards. I also do my own crazy stuff, like bring a book or my pile of mail everywhere. Any time I'm in a line, I just grab something out of my bag to occupy myself. It's amusing to see the people around me in line seethe, check their watches, make frantic "I'm late this fucking line" phone calls. Oh, and then they get to the front and act all surprised by every progression of the transaction, with bonus points for scrabbling around for an actual checkbook at the end.
I just happily go through my mail, or read 10 pages of a book, or whatever.
Who do you think pays for processing? Surely not your bank! Do a web search for "debit card processing fee rate" or something and you'll find a vast array of bad deals aimed at small businesses. Debit cards are generally cheaper than credit cards, but you'll always pay a per-transaction and a percentage. Big chain stores negotiate down to a floor around $.15+1.5% and for smaller stores you can easily double that.
I completely agree. Maybe King Soopers has smarter customers in general (heh, right)
In the 5 years since they put them in at my local store I've never used the regular checkout. I can get a full handbasket of about 15 items through in about 2 minutes.
My store is very busy, so self-checkout always has a line during peak hours. The 5 person line usually takes just a couple of minutes, although there are retards sprinkled through and if they line up wrong you can wait for 5-10. I watch in amazement as some person with 3 items somehow takes 5 minutes or more to checkout. The same thing happens at the post office and many other places. I have always wondered what they're doing. I wouldn't know how to make sending a package take 10 minutes.
I simply recast it in my head to A...T...Mmm mmachine. They just pronounce it funny. Same thing for PIN number. I need to do everything I can to make other people less irritating.
Too bad the trick never worked for "The La Brea Tar Pits."
If you value your time at all, try to think of the discount being paid in time. If you save 5 minutes at $50/hour that's a $4.17 discount.
I bring my own bags to avoid dumpstering them and they give me a nickel each. I'd do it for free, though. I prefer self-checkout actually, even if the line is longer. It usually moves faster (since there are 4 stations moving at half speed) and I don't have to interact with a cashier/bagger.
You'd be doing the store a favor if you shoplifted instead. They pay $.15 + 1.5% minimum, so those 25 cent washers give more to the cc processor than the store. It'd be nice if there were a better way to handle small transactions.
All my guesses are pretty gross. Here's one: You practice electro-autoerotic asphyxiation and enjoy tossing people's salads in 3rd world countries. If it's manual asphyxiation, you're going to need some extra equipment.
The human body does better than 50% conversion efficiency, so 20 watt hours would cost about 30 kcalories. That's a pretty small amount, even on an extremely low-calorie diet. The kids might use less calories with the computer, since they might be running around playing otherwise.
For those who thought about using this as a pleasant form of exercise, here is a handy guide: 8 hours of cranking at maximum speed will burn off a third of a dry bagel. Keep it up all day and night and you'll burn off an entire dry bagel. Let's just say this won't solve obesity problems quickly.
Part of the problem is that intelligence isn't a 1-axis entity. It's especially inapt regarding interacting with others. Many borderline retards are great at reading others and make great salesmen/politicians. Many geniuses are bad at interacting with others, even minimally.
I think there's definitely an ability to communicate effectively. It's probably partly innate, partly cultivated.
It certainly is possible to have a net positive effect on the environment. You could spend your time recycling, educating people, or inventing more efficient ways to live.
I bet the inventor of compact flourescent lightbulbs had a net positive effect on the environment.
If some engineer made front-loading washers cheap enough for them to catch on in a big way, that'd save trillions of gallons of water a year.
Sadly, you don't see many environmentalists going into hard science.
Before you get too cozy thinking the US is the land of the free, bear in mind we imprison more of our citizens than any other country on this planet. The rate of incarceration growth has been impressive lately, so the point could be made that things are getting worse.
I think a good gauge of how fascist a country is would be incarceration rate.
It's pretty sad that we don't hold America up as an ideal any more. It's all "red scare was worse" this and "Saddam tortured more Iraqis" that.
It's also pretty sad that the US imprisons more people than any other coutnry, even China. We also have the highest incarceration rate. Higher than Russia.
I think we need more citizens to worry and less citizens to say "It isn't that bad!"
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It is definitely an exponential-looking rate of technology advance. Hard to believe my grandpa saw planes become common, phones, even electricity. Refrigeration changed a lot. It's interesting though that the vast majority of earthlings live in a pretty low-tech way. Life expectancy hasn't budged much in a long time. Another lesson from history (Egypt, Mesoamerica, Babylon, Rome, etc) is that civilizations often fluoresce and then decline, often more dramatically than their rise.
Oh well, one thing is certain: If I live to average age, I'm going to see some pretty exciting changes.
Denver channel 7 has won a few Peabody awards, so it's not completely fluff. I don't get channel 7 myself (rabbit ears) but it seems to have a good reputation.
Wow, you couldn't be more wrong.
Computers have gotten very cheap. You can do facial recognition in real time with a normal desktop machine.
As far as knowing where you've been/where you're going, both systems locate you and which direction you're heading at a point in time. I don't understand the distinction you're trying to make.
The facial recognition systems were designed for use in high traffic areas, such as airports, transportation hubs, and busy city streets.
All it will take is a few hundred of these cameras spread over a city (at your expense, for safety reasons of course) and you've got a pretty big-brother friendly system that tracks people by name/ssid, logs their movements, and can be easily queried to see possible associates, patterns of movement, suspicious activity, etc. I plan on fighting such a system as I can. It is very creepy to me, very easy to imagine how it will be abused.
They already have such a system in the UK. So don't be saying "Impractical!" They did have a similar system for autos first, so perhaps they're simple more advanced than we are in the US. I predict we'll follow a similar pattern. Governments seem quite hungry and shameless for massive data acquisition on citizens.
They can't expect you to have a sales receipt for buying something at a swap meet. Just show up with the disc. This issue is probably irrelevant.
As far as uploading/downloading goes, you cannot "only download" with bittorrent. You download and upload the chunks already completed. If you break your client to download only your speed will tend towards 0. Might take months to finish the file.
My thought exactly. Why the hell would the MPAA bother seeing who was downloading this piece of shit?
Then I looked up the box office totals. That stinkbomb raked in $280 million US box office alone. Number 29 of all time. Of course it came in between Matrix Reloaded and Shrek, so maybe my taste doesn't align with what makes money.
You could strobe remote control codes while going through neighborhoods to annoy the natives. Anyone with non-opaque drapes would be treated to their equipment turning on or off.
I suggest doing it once per neighborhood, and never anywhere near home or work. Once they figure it out, your car will get vandalized.
Don't you remember the huge brouhaha about facial recognition cameras? At least when they're tracking cars they don't know for certain who is driving.
here is a sample article.
One obvious point is that cellphones provide your position, and the map will show you a small area around that position. It isn't suitable for a browser, where you'd want to specify position, scroll around manually, and have a much larger screen.
I did have the same thought, though. First, I tried to load the page in my browser. Then, I looked for a cell-phone emulator.
Just put an impact detector on the thing (possible with location data) and your accident will show up instantly!
Wow. I like how your post was all hippy-dippy and then you break out the guns and psycho shit. Whiplash!
I'm sort of the same way. I don't understand people that get all worked up about things. It's most noticable behind the wheel of course, possibly because it's pretty anonymous.
I do think about things a lot, and am bothered by ineffeciencies a little, but mostly just think of ways to improve them. Sometimes it does involve weeding out retards. I also do my own crazy stuff, like bring a book or my pile of mail everywhere. Any time I'm in a line, I just grab something out of my bag to occupy myself. It's amusing to see the people around me in line seethe, check their watches, make frantic "I'm late this fucking line" phone calls. Oh, and then they get to the front and act all surprised by every progression of the transaction, with bonus points for scrabbling around for an actual checkbook at the end.
I just happily go through my mail, or read 10 pages of a book, or whatever.
Who do you think pays for processing? Surely not your bank! Do a web search for "debit card processing fee rate" or something and you'll find a vast array of bad deals aimed at small businesses. Debit cards are generally cheaper than credit cards, but you'll always pay a per-transaction and a percentage. Big chain stores negotiate down to a floor around $.15+1.5% and for smaller stores you can easily double that.
I completely agree. Maybe King Soopers has smarter customers in general (heh, right)
In the 5 years since they put them in at my local store I've never used the regular checkout. I can get a full handbasket of about 15 items through in about 2 minutes.
My store is very busy, so self-checkout always has a line during peak hours. The 5 person line usually takes just a couple of minutes, although there are retards sprinkled through and if they line up wrong you can wait for 5-10. I watch in amazement as some person with 3 items somehow takes 5 minutes or more to checkout. The same thing happens at the post office and many other places. I have always wondered what they're doing. I wouldn't know how to make sending a package take 10 minutes.
I simply recast it in my head to A...T...Mmm mmachine. They just pronounce it funny. Same thing for PIN number. I need to do everything I can to make other people less irritating.
Too bad the trick never worked for "The La Brea Tar Pits."
If you value your time at all, try to think of the discount being paid in time. If you save 5 minutes at $50/hour that's a $4.17 discount.
I bring my own bags to avoid dumpstering them and they give me a nickel each. I'd do it for free, though. I prefer self-checkout actually, even if the line is longer. It usually moves faster (since there are 4 stations moving at half speed) and I don't have to interact with a cashier/bagger.
Here is how it happens:
They cost less to install.
Management doesn't use self-checkout.
You'd be doing the store a favor if you shoplifted instead. They pay $.15 + 1.5% minimum, so those 25 cent washers give more to the cc processor than the store. It'd be nice if there were a better way to handle small transactions.
All my guesses are pretty gross. Here's one: You practice electro-autoerotic asphyxiation and enjoy tossing people's salads in 3rd world countries. If it's manual asphyxiation, you're going to need some extra equipment.
For those who thought about using this as a pleasant form of exercise, here is a handy guide: 8 hours of cranking at maximum speed will burn off a third of a dry bagel. Keep it up all day and night and you'll burn off an entire dry bagel. Let's just say this won't solve obesity problems quickly.
I think there's definitely an ability to communicate effectively. It's probably partly innate, partly cultivated.
Romans 3:10 - As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one"
Romans 3:23 - for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
No exceptions, not even for a newborn babe. All. Not even one. Pretty clear on this subject.
I bet the inventor of compact flourescent lightbulbs had a net positive effect on the environment.
If some engineer made front-loading washers cheap enough for them to catch on in a big way, that'd save trillions of gallons of water a year.
Sadly, you don't see many environmentalists going into hard science.
Here you go, I even sorted them for you: 1 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 7 7 8 8 10 10 11 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14 14 15 15 16 16 17 17 17 17 18 18 19 19 19 20 21 22 22 23 25 26 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 32 33 35 36 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 42 43 45 46 46 47 48 49.
I think a good gauge of how fascist a country is would be incarceration rate.
It's pretty sad that we don't hold America up as an ideal any more. It's all "red scare was worse" this and "Saddam tortured more Iraqis" that.
It's also pretty sad that the US imprisons more people than any other coutnry, even China. We also have the highest incarceration rate. Higher than Russia.
I think we need more citizens to worry and less citizens to say "It isn't that bad!"
That sounds great and all, but I'll bet there are hundreds if not thousands of "Jack Valenti" in the US.
Here is some evidence
Yet Novas are quite popular in Mexico now. Maybe they take a hipster pleasure in the irony.