Yes, I remember the Clipper Chip. Essentially, a government-supplied encryption scheme with a backdoor that a law enforcement agency could get a court order to take advantage of.
I find it difficult to compare that egregious bit of stupidity -- which was proposed and thoroughly shot to pieces in full public view -- with this secretive, shadowy, unaccountable program.
There, I saved some apologist troll from the trouble of posting a disingenuous, dismissive post treating more damning evidence of this administration's march toward a police state.
If they can annoy us, we have every right to take every measure within the law to annoy them.
Stand outside their doors at opening and closing times and shout at their employees with megaphones. Helpful, inoffensive things, like looking both ways before crossing the street and buckling up while driving.
Use public records to find out who is responsible for ad campaigns and beam audio at their children telling them to beg mom and dad for a pony.
By "dust," he means the mysterious substance that drives the powers-that-be of Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy to distraction. And it's the cause of the Northern Lights in that alternate universe.
The first book of the trilogy -- known as "The Golden Compass" in the U.S. and "The Northern Lights" in Britain -- opened in theaters last week.
The incredible cost of fuel required to slam one of these puppies through the atmosphere is more than compensated for by the savings to the airline due to not having to serve more than one round of beverages.
If I were to tell you that that was the monthly lunar transfer pod taking Karl Rove to Expedition Habitat Prime on the far side of the moon so he can shed his humaniform exoskeleton and enjoy a week of R&R splashing in a recreation of the methane swamps of his home planet I'd be [MESSAGE ENDS]
The lead character's room mate, "Sol," was played by Edward G. Robinson. The author of the book on which the movie was based, Harry Harrison, was on set during the filming. (Among other things, he suggested that a character visiting a butcher bring her own plastic bag with her.) Robinson, best known for his tough-guy gangster roles, asked Harrison what the hell his character was about. Harrison told him, (paraphrasing) "You're me, as a dying old man. You remember the world before everything went to shit."
One of the things Sol rants about to Charton Heston? The greenhouse effect.
Also, the big ugly secret of the movie -- Soylent Green is People -- is just a sympton. Soylent Green is supposed to be made of krill and plankton. Heston's character finds a secret research study commissioned by the Soylent Corporation revealing that humanity has managed to kill off the ocean ecosystem.
Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men" is a mind-boggling future history. Very dated and politically/ideologically goofy in its early parts, then increasingly way-out as humanity nearly dies out, evolves, nearly dies out again, moves to a terraformed Venus . . . and so on, until the 17th and final human species dies out on Neptune 2 billions years from now.
While racing through the history of the cat-like "Third Men," Stapledon notes that one civilization uses tidal power to such an extent that the orbit of the moon is slightly altered!
Last month, I gave $100 each to the local food bank, America's Second Harvest, Heifer Project International (grants livestock to families in 3rd world countries), to name just the charities that deal with hunger issues. All told, I think I laid out $1,800 to charities and alumni organizations.
And I ran the office food drive this year; we brought in 1,230 lbs. of food.
And put $100 worth of toys in the office toy drive bin. I'm running that, too.
And I went in for a couple of those "Buy One, Give One" deals from the One Laptop Per Child folks.
I still have enough money left over to buy a toy robot, if I had a mind too. Or am I obligated to donate that too?
I don't need to repeat the Ben Franklin bit about trading freedom for a little temporary security again, do I?
Guns? Perhaps, but how about voting and writing your representatives and raising an unholy loud stink? Fifty respectable-looking middle-class people waving signs in front of fifty Federal Buildings and a hundred senators' offices would send a rather definitive message. Yeah, every one of those protestors would be on a List, but in a country where there are Lists being on a list could be a sign your morality and principles are intact.
Six is too young to sit around pounding on a video game. I swear, we're raising a generation of kids who won't know how to walk on dirt and run screaming from squirrels.
Someone else suggested family games. Sounds good.
I'd also suggest:
A subscription for the family for CRAFT and MAKE magazine.
A tub full of craft items and kits. Dollar stores and places like "Joann Fabrics" and Michael's have really cheap, really nifty DIY projects for girls. I visited Harbor Freight yesterday; they had a bin full of kits to build dinosaurs, motorcycles, cars, biplanes. All under two bucks.
- A utility network that delivers steam. No kidding! - A service that delivers seltzer siphons to elderly European immigrants. They pick up the empty bottles and charge them up with fresh seltzer. No kidding! - A pneumatic tube delivery system linking major law firms with City Hall, various court houses, and a dwindling number of restaurants. The restaurants send out menus and accept orders by New Amsterdam Pneumo-Tube; lunches are delivered in special cylindrical lunchboxes. One of the thermos cylinders used to deliver hot soup recently fetched several thousand dollars on eBay. No kidding!* - A guy in a goat cart who delivers jugs of whale oil to five historic buildings in lower Manhattan. They're working from "old stock" bottled over a hundred years ago. No kidding!**
You know, those little pamphlets full of fine print that get shoved in your bill and promptly thrown away because they're purposely made to be obscure and hard to read?
If there's no "we allow an obscure government agency look at everything you read, write, say and listen to without court order or accountability" clause, can we sue the fuckers?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I remember the Clipper Chip. Essentially, a government-supplied encryption scheme with a backdoor that a law enforcement agency could get a court order to take advantage of.
I find it difficult to compare that egregious bit of stupidity -- which was proposed and thoroughly shot to pieces in full public view -- with this secretive, shadowy, unaccountable program.
There, I saved some apologist troll from the trouble of posting a disingenuous, dismissive post treating more damning evidence of this administration's march toward a police state.
If they can annoy us, we have every right to take every measure within the law to annoy them.
Stand outside their doors at opening and closing times and shout at their employees with megaphones. Helpful, inoffensive things, like looking both ways before crossing the street and buckling up while driving.
Use public records to find out who is responsible for ad campaigns and beam audio at their children telling them to beg mom and dad for a pony.
"Altair."
That's the class name . . . I guess the individual ships will get knicknames, the way that the Apollo command modules and LEMs did.
By "dust," he means the mysterious substance that drives the powers-that-be of Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy to distraction. And it's the cause of the Northern Lights in that alternate universe.
The first book of the trilogy -- known as "The Golden Compass" in the U.S. and "The Northern Lights" in Britain -- opened in theaters last week.
The incredible cost of fuel required to slam one of these puppies through the atmosphere is more than compensated for by the savings to the airline due to not having to serve more than one round of beverages.
It's full of stars!
Um, sorry. I just had to.
Think they'll spot any dyson spheres?
. . . a responsible party, like someone working for the Cato Institute, or Exxon-Mobile, or George Deutsch?
That would only explain the clouds in the northern hemisphere.
If I were to tell you that that was the monthly lunar transfer pod taking Karl Rove to Expedition Habitat Prime on the far side of the moon so he can shed his humaniform exoskeleton and enjoy a week of R&R splashing in a recreation of the methane swamps of his home planet I'd be [MESSAGE ENDS]
The White House is already taking steps to make sure that these "scientists" at NASA don't say anything that might upset you:
Climate Science Manipulation Alleged
Obviously, this report didn't get properly vetted. By the end of the day it should be titled "Unday Clouds Shine Pretty! Doubleplus Good!"
Where in the article does it say anything about the world ending? Or that the investigators were "weathermen?"
Clearly, you are the one who is jumping to conclusions without examining the evidence.
Enjoy your nap. Maybe you'll be a bit less cranky when you wake up.
Soylent Green came out in 1973.
The lead character's room mate, "Sol," was played by Edward G. Robinson. The author of the book on which the movie was based, Harry Harrison, was on set during the filming. (Among other things, he suggested that a character visiting a butcher bring her own plastic bag with her.) Robinson, best known for his tough-guy gangster roles, asked Harrison what the hell his character was about. Harrison told him, (paraphrasing) "You're me, as a dying old man. You remember the world before everything went to shit."
One of the things Sol rants about to Charton Heston? The greenhouse effect.
Also, the big ugly secret of the movie -- Soylent Green is People -- is just a sympton. Soylent Green is supposed to be made of krill and plankton. Heston's character finds a secret research study commissioned by the Soylent Corporation revealing that humanity has managed to kill off the ocean ecosystem.
Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men" is a mind-boggling future history. Very dated and politically/ideologically goofy in its early parts, then increasingly way-out as humanity nearly dies out, evolves, nearly dies out again, moves to a terraformed Venus . . . and so on, until the 17th and final human species dies out on Neptune 2 billions years from now.
While racing through the history of the cat-like "Third Men," Stapledon notes that one civilization uses tidal power to such an extent that the orbit of the moon is slightly altered!
Last month, I gave $100 each to the local food bank, America's Second Harvest, Heifer Project International (grants livestock to families in 3rd world countries), to name just the charities that deal with hunger issues. All told, I think I laid out $1,800 to charities and alumni organizations.
And I ran the office food drive this year; we brought in 1,230 lbs. of food.
And put $100 worth of toys in the office toy drive bin. I'm running that, too.
And I went in for a couple of those "Buy One, Give One" deals from the One Laptop Per Child folks.
I still have enough money left over to buy a toy robot, if I had a mind too. Or am I obligated to donate that too?
Flanders, Quimby, Lovejoy, Kearny . . . it makes walking to the indie movie house on 21st fun!
I don't need to repeat the Ben Franklin bit about trading freedom for a little temporary security again, do I?
Guns? Perhaps, but how about voting and writing your representatives and raising an unholy loud stink? Fifty respectable-looking middle-class people waving signs in front of fifty Federal Buildings and a hundred senators' offices would send a rather definitive message. Yeah, every one of those protestors would be on a List, but in a country where there are Lists being on a list could be a sign your morality and principles are intact.
. . . State Religion?
Depends on who wins in 2008.
We have better shopping. And big cars. And Jesus.
Six is too young to sit around pounding on a video game. I swear, we're raising a generation of kids who won't know how to walk on dirt and run screaming from squirrels.
Someone else suggested family games. Sounds good.
I'd also suggest:
A subscription for the family for CRAFT and MAKE magazine.
A tub full of craft items and kits. Dollar stores and places like "Joann Fabrics" and Michael's have really cheap, really nifty DIY projects for girls. I visited Harbor Freight yesterday; they had a bin full of kits to build dinosaurs, motorcycles, cars, biplanes. All under two bucks.
* Fry giving up his super-parasites (shades of Bear's Blood Music!) to see if Leela will love him for himself.
* Fry uncovering the truth of about his brother's assumption of his name and heroic career. Oh, man!
Still active in New York City:
- A utility network that delivers steam. No kidding!
- A service that delivers seltzer siphons to elderly European immigrants. They pick up the empty bottles and charge them up with fresh seltzer. No kidding!
- A pneumatic tube delivery system linking major law firms with City Hall, various court houses, and a dwindling number of restaurants. The restaurants send out menus and accept orders by New Amsterdam Pneumo-Tube; lunches are delivered in special cylindrical lunchboxes. One of the thermos cylinders used to deliver hot soup recently fetched several thousand dollars on eBay. No kidding!*
- A guy in a goat cart who delivers jugs of whale oil to five historic buildings in lower Manhattan. They're working from "old stock" bottled over a hundred years ago. No kidding!**
Stefan
* Well, OK, I'm kidding.
** Yeah, that's fake too.
With only sucky unscripted Reality TV shows for distraction, people may actually start reading the news and getting angry.
Speak untruth inner party member Kerr. Doubleplus ungood.
You know, those little pamphlets full of fine print that get shoved in your bill and promptly thrown away because they're purposely made to be obscure and hard to read?
If there's no "we allow an obscure government agency look at everything you read, write, say and listen to without court order or accountability" clause, can we sue the fuckers?