There are trees all around my home, trees on my land, wildflowers in my back yard, and pure nature all around.
Some of my previous residences have looked like that too. I won't speak to the situation where you are, but I will relate what I discovered about my locality after putting some thought (and research) into it. From another comment on this article:
The developers have just gotten really good at hiding it: things like strips of trees that border the main roads, blocking the view of the suburban sprawl. Roads that curve pointlessly so that you can't see down the length of them. When you drive through this area you get the impression that it's still somewhat natural land... until you take notice of the long, long lines of cars everywhere. Or the 4-story apartment complexes. Or you take a turn off any main road and get lost in suburbs for days. Or you look at satellite photos from 10 years ago, and compare them to recent photos... that lays it plain. You can hide this stuff from earth-bound humans' line-of-sight pretty well, but not from an aerial photo.
You also have to consider that things that take up a small percentage of the land - like roads - have an impact that extends way beyond the concrete itself. Likely, the definition of "wilderness" they use has to do with humans' effects on ecosystems. Not how aesthetically pleasing it is to homebuyers.
It depends on how they define "wilderness." I'm currently living in The Woodlands, TX (actual name) which people from Houston consider "the country", but there is an average population density of 2,500 people per square mile. The developers have just gotten really good at hiding it: things like strips of trees that border the main roads, blocking the view of the suburban sprawl. Roads that curve pointlessly so that you can't see down the length of them. When you drive through this area you get the impression that it's still somewhat natural land... until you take notice of the long, long lines of cars everywhere. Or the 4-story apartment complexes. Or you take a turn off any main road and get lost in suburbs for days. Or you look at satellite photos from 10 years ago, and compare them to recent photos... that lays it plain. You can hide this stuff from earth-bound humans' line-of-sight pretty well, but not from an aerial photo.
I haven't studied biology in detail but I don't think you need to hit 2500/mi population density for there to be severe disruptions to an ecosystem. I get the feeling the wilderness loss they're talking about isn't "small town becoming big city", it's "undeveloped land becoming partly developed land". Think of light pollution - the light bulbs themselves take up a minuscule amount of space, but their pollution covers the majority of the planet, already, today.
My personal definition of wilderness is being able to walk for a whole day in any direction without seeing a sign of human activity. The only time I experienced that was in rural Finland almost two decades ago.
How come nobody ever brings up EM spectrum pollution when companies push for wireless everything? Or the old-fashioned pollution that comes from all these peripherals suddenly needing to have batteries? Particularly stuff like headphones where there is a negligible benefit to going wireless. (I'd consider it the opposite of a benefit, but I seem to be outside the reality distortion field. Or maybe i'm just not "courageous" enough.)
I doubt it. There are still plenty of other audio applications, consumer and professional, that will use the old-style analog connectors. Nearly all of them, really. And there will be people with more money than sense who will continue to pay the Apple tax. Their phones are going to use some functionality, but those people typically don't use it anyway. People who buy a phone for pragmatic, functional reasons are already buying Androids, and those manufacturers will continue to cater to the power users.
You generally have to be at least 25 years old to rent a car. I'm 27... my elementary school had a lab of Apple IIs and System 7 Macs. The first computer I owned ran Windows 95. After using these systems the concept of a file, and data storage, aren't foreign. By the time the iPhone was released I had already graduated high school. It's a knowledge thing, not a generation thing.
"if one is convinced that the system is stacked against him or her, why go to college in the first place?" Because it's being offered as the only solution to enter the middle class. Because it lets you feel (and seem) like you're accomplishing something... even though you have serious doubts that you'll get the advertised results.
It's only supported for another 6 months. Thankfully, the only reason I need Windows is for games... and the security updates aren't critical there, as long as you keep it off the internet. (yay single-player)
Hopefully by the time I build my next box it'll be the Year of Linux Gaming....But I figure I'll have enough power to run the games under WINE or in a VM by then.
Why does it bother you so much that they are self-destructive? You need to take a deeper look at what you're proposing. There's a device that's come along with the potential to reduce the harm associated with nicotine use... and your proposal is to use the power of the state to ban it? I'd ask you if you were more concerned with people's health, or with being a self-righteous asshole, but your attitude tells all.
I've yet to find a YouTube ad, unless I'm using someone else's computer or phone. If it had ads when I looked at it, there's a pretty good chance I'd simply not use it. I know that, when I'm getting blazed in my friend's back yard, the ads on YouTube oftentimes get me pulling out my own digital music collection... and no, not some streaming service, I mean the audio files that are in my possession loaded up on an SD card.
They're not trying to make sense (to you), they're trying to test something that we don't have full details on. Perhaps what they're testing requires that time frame. I'm sure that if they could do the test in such a way that nobody knew it was even happening, they would.
The ACA gave states the option to expand Medicare. Some of the states, like mine, opted not to. I lost my employer-sponsored health insurance in mid-2014 and have been without health care since. I've tried to sign up for subsidized packages through healthcare.gov since then and have been offered nothing below $120/mo... you might say that's cheap, but it's $120 more than I have. I've applied both while unemployed and while working part-time for minimum wage. I don't see how I could get much poorer, but apparently I'm not poor enough to qualify.
Sure, 30 million have been herded into buying near-useless insurance plans - but what multiple of that have fallen through the cracks? The ACA is like a cloth patchwork over a leaky bucket. Not quite free market health care, not quite government health care: the bastardized system we have now is the worst of both worlds. The fortunate ones who do have access to health care can fondle their UnitedHealth cards, look at this 30M figure, and pretend the issue is solved. You have to realize we still have the shittiest health care system of any developed nation.
As long as "health insurance" continues to be a thing, it will stay that way. What we need to do is remove them from the mix entirely. It's an entire industry whose only purpose is to skim money from people by being the gatekeepers to doctors and hospitals. Get rid of that, and you get rid of the main source of inefficiency in the system. Certain things are simply done better through centralized government management - road systems, police, military defense, and health care. Privatizing stuff like that has disastrous results.
The filter bubble is widely known, but this is the first article that I've seen with some hard numbers. It comes at a particularly interesting time due to the possibility of a Trump presidency. I see Fox News mentioned in one of the other comments on this thread. I think this shift to "social media" as a news source will do way more damage than Fox ever could. With Fox, you're still dealing with an old-style news organization... It's slanted more than most, but there's still some semblance of accountability. Their talking heads spout carefully crafted misdirections, but if they were to fabricate a story out of thin air, that would not stand. It'd go down like Dan Rather. A lot of this shit that goes around on Facebook would never fly on Fox News.
Going a bit OT here but remember how much vitriol people directed at Bush? Say what you will about his policies (there's definitely a lot to say...) but at least the man was qualified to be a statesman. I'd take 8 years of the cowboy over 8 days of this rodeo clown they're running for 2016.
They could be betting that, at a lower price, more people will be willing to cough it up for the data. The first thing to consider is that real professionals won't be affected by this type of thing - they store separate backups on another server (or offline entirely) and so would just restore the data from the backup.
Having worked for a web hosting company for a couple of years, I envision this being the scenario the ransomware makes the most money from:
(1). Ransomware encrypts (say) the web site of a small business owner or independent realtor.
(2). Realtor doesn't notice the site is down for a week or two, by which time the free backup from their cheapo hosting plan has been overwritten with an infected copy.
(3). Having no backup, realtor is faced with a decision to either pay $800 to have the site recreated by a web dev, or $300 in BTC to pay the ransom.
$300
If they wanted 10 BTC, it would be more cost-effective to just build the site again, netting the ransomers nothing.
Some relevant stuff could be trade secrets though. Particularly about risk management and pricing. Health care in the US is a combination government/corporate system.
Slashdot Mirror
There are trees all around my home, trees on my land, wildflowers in my back yard, and pure nature all around.
Some of my previous residences have looked like that too. I won't speak to the situation where you are, but I will relate what I discovered about my locality after putting some thought (and research) into it. From another comment on this article:
The developers have just gotten really good at hiding it: things like strips of trees that border the main roads, blocking the view of the suburban sprawl. Roads that curve pointlessly so that you can't see down the length of them. When you drive through this area you get the impression that it's still somewhat natural land... until you take notice of the long, long lines of cars everywhere. Or the 4-story apartment complexes. Or you take a turn off any main road and get lost in suburbs for days. Or you look at satellite photos from 10 years ago, and compare them to recent photos... that lays it plain. You can hide this stuff from earth-bound humans' line-of-sight pretty well, but not from an aerial photo.
You also have to consider that things that take up a small percentage of the land - like roads - have an impact that extends way beyond the concrete itself. Likely, the definition of "wilderness" they use has to do with humans' effects on ecosystems. Not how aesthetically pleasing it is to homebuyers.
It depends on how they define "wilderness." I'm currently living in The Woodlands, TX (actual name) which people from Houston consider "the country", but there is an average population density of 2,500 people per square mile. The developers have just gotten really good at hiding it: things like strips of trees that border the main roads, blocking the view of the suburban sprawl. Roads that curve pointlessly so that you can't see down the length of them. When you drive through this area you get the impression that it's still somewhat natural land... until you take notice of the long, long lines of cars everywhere. Or the 4-story apartment complexes. Or you take a turn off any main road and get lost in suburbs for days. Or you look at satellite photos from 10 years ago, and compare them to recent photos... that lays it plain. You can hide this stuff from earth-bound humans' line-of-sight pretty well, but not from an aerial photo.
I haven't studied biology in detail but I don't think you need to hit 2500/mi population density for there to be severe disruptions to an ecosystem. I get the feeling the wilderness loss they're talking about isn't "small town becoming big city", it's "undeveloped land becoming partly developed land". Think of light pollution - the light bulbs themselves take up a minuscule amount of space, but their pollution covers the majority of the planet, already, today.
My personal definition of wilderness is being able to walk for a whole day in any direction without seeing a sign of human activity. The only time I experienced that was in rural Finland almost two decades ago.
How come nobody ever brings up EM spectrum pollution when companies push for wireless everything? Or the old-fashioned pollution that comes from all these peripherals suddenly needing to have batteries? Particularly stuff like headphones where there is a negligible benefit to going wireless. (I'd consider it the opposite of a benefit, but I seem to be outside the reality distortion field. Or maybe i'm just not "courageous" enough.)
I doubt it. There are still plenty of other audio applications, consumer and professional, that will use the old-style analog connectors. Nearly all of them, really. And there will be people with more money than sense who will continue to pay the Apple tax. Their phones are going to use some functionality, but those people typically don't use it anyway. People who buy a phone for pragmatic, functional reasons are already buying Androids, and those manufacturers will continue to cater to the power users.
You generally have to be at least 25 years old to rent a car. I'm 27... my elementary school had a lab of Apple IIs and System 7 Macs. The first computer I owned ran Windows 95. After using these systems the concept of a file, and data storage, aren't foreign. By the time the iPhone was released I had already graduated high school. It's a knowledge thing, not a generation thing.
As someone who is drinking Newcastle Brown and rolling up a joint right now...
shit, I forgot where I was going with that.
"if one is convinced that the system is stacked against him or her, why go to college in the first place?"
Because it's being offered as the only solution to enter the middle class. Because it lets you feel (and seem) like you're accomplishing something... even though you have serious doubts that you'll get the advertised results.
I have a problem with eating Panda Express anywhere at any time... it's gross.
fwiw, I live in Houston but have broads in Atlanta.
You think a nigga from Java gets a pension? People in America don't even get pensions anymore.
$25 is closer to the actual damages, so the other one must be the error.
It's only supported for another 6 months. Thankfully, the only reason I need Windows is for games... and the security updates aren't critical there, as long as you keep it off the internet. (yay single-player) ...But I figure I'll have enough power to run the games under WINE or in a VM by then.
Hopefully by the time I build my next box it'll be the Year of Linux Gaming.
Why does it bother you so much that they are self-destructive? You need to take a deeper look at what you're proposing. There's a device that's come along with the potential to reduce the harm associated with nicotine use... and your proposal is to use the power of the state to ban it? I'd ask you if you were more concerned with people's health, or with being a self-righteous asshole, but your attitude tells all.
I find that a joint goes well with the concert experience. I can't say the same for kids wandering around.
I'm guessing it's some kind of video chat thing.
"Concept car"... the final car (if there is one) will take styling cues from this but will also be fit for actual use.
I've yet to find a YouTube ad, unless I'm using someone else's computer or phone. If it had ads when I looked at it, there's a pretty good chance I'd simply not use it. I know that, when I'm getting blazed in my friend's back yard, the ads on YouTube oftentimes get me pulling out my own digital music collection... and no, not some streaming service, I mean the audio files that are in my possession loaded up on an SD card.
They're not trying to make sense (to you), they're trying to test something that we don't have full details on. Perhaps what they're testing requires that time frame. I'm sure that if they could do the test in such a way that nobody knew it was even happening, they would.
The ACA gave states the option to expand Medicare. Some of the states, like mine, opted not to. I lost my employer-sponsored health insurance in mid-2014 and have been without health care since. I've tried to sign up for subsidized packages through healthcare.gov since then and have been offered nothing below $120/mo... you might say that's cheap, but it's $120 more than I have. I've applied both while unemployed and while working part-time for minimum wage. I don't see how I could get much poorer, but apparently I'm not poor enough to qualify.
Sure, 30 million have been herded into buying near-useless insurance plans - but what multiple of that have fallen through the cracks? The ACA is like a cloth patchwork over a leaky bucket. Not quite free market health care, not quite government health care: the bastardized system we have now is the worst of both worlds. The fortunate ones who do have access to health care can fondle their UnitedHealth cards, look at this 30M figure, and pretend the issue is solved. You have to realize we still have the shittiest health care system of any developed nation.
As long as "health insurance" continues to be a thing, it will stay that way. What we need to do is remove them from the mix entirely. It's an entire industry whose only purpose is to skim money from people by being the gatekeepers to doctors and hospitals. Get rid of that, and you get rid of the main source of inefficiency in the system. Certain things are simply done better through centralized government management - road systems, police, military defense, and health care. Privatizing stuff like that has disastrous results.
The filter bubble is widely known, but this is the first article that I've seen with some hard numbers. It comes at a particularly interesting time due to the possibility of a Trump presidency.
I see Fox News mentioned in one of the other comments on this thread. I think this shift to "social media" as a news source will do way more damage than Fox ever could. With Fox, you're still dealing with an old-style news organization... It's slanted more than most, but there's still some semblance of accountability. Their talking heads spout carefully crafted misdirections, but if they were to fabricate a story out of thin air, that would not stand. It'd go down like Dan Rather. A lot of this shit that goes around on Facebook would never fly on Fox News.
Going a bit OT here but remember how much vitriol people directed at Bush? Say what you will about his policies (there's definitely a lot to say...) but at least the man was qualified to be a statesman. I'd take 8 years of the cowboy over 8 days of this rodeo clown they're running for 2016.
These people waste money on stuff all the time. What they should be doing isn't relevant.
They could be betting that, at a lower price, more people will be willing to cough it up for the data. The first thing to consider is that real professionals won't be affected by this type of thing - they store separate backups on another server (or offline entirely) and so would just restore the data from the backup.
Having worked for a web hosting company for a couple of years, I envision this being the scenario the ransomware makes the most money from:
(1). Ransomware encrypts (say) the web site of a small business owner or independent realtor.
(2). Realtor doesn't notice the site is down for a week or two, by which time the free backup from their cheapo hosting plan has been overwritten with an infected copy.
(3). Having no backup, realtor is faced with a decision to either pay $800 to have the site recreated by a web dev, or $300 in BTC to pay the ransom.
$300 If they wanted 10 BTC, it would be more cost-effective to just build the site again, netting the ransomers nothing.
Made discrete - what you would probably call "ones and zeroes", that is, digital.
802.11g travels through analog air. It's still digital.
Some relevant stuff could be trade secrets though. Particularly about risk management and pricing. Health care in the US is a combination government/corporate system.
And how many peoples health were jeopardized while they fucked around?