Out of interest, by what mechanism is the data sent? Is there a service that dispatches it over a proprietary protocol running over TCP or similar? When is it sent and so forth? I'd be interested in snooping on it myself to have a look at exactly what does leave my PC, if what you're saying is true then that for us in the EU, puts Microsoft in breach of the European Data Protect Directive, and if I can evidence that happening from my machine then I can lodge a formal complaint with our Information Commissioner.
What happens if you block transmission of the data on your router's firewall? Does it just give up?
"Don't think you are having a private conversation when Cortana is on and your near your computer."
Unless she's developed the ability to detect sound through other means then this is at least one thing I'm safe from as I don't actually have a microphone attached to my PC:) Alexa on the other hand, oh, she's already listening. See my other post for my experience so far with her.
I was rather annoyed to turn my monitor on the other day and find the usually nice images that change through the day on the lock screen replaced with an advert for fucking Finding Dory. Thankfully it seems you can disable that at least, which I now have.
"Here is a little thought experiment for those who don't "get it". Would you accept someone sitting in a parked car in the morning waiting for you to leave your house then following you to work. When you walk across the street they are right behind you following your every move and recording everything you do?"
I actually rather think you've missed his point, his point is that Microsoft is sending anonymous data back - i.e. data that can't be tracked to you. Someone following you to work by very definition can be traced back to you because it's you they're following and tracking.
I think there's a fair discussion to be had about how anonymous the data is, and something still irks me to this day about paying for a product and using my CPU power, storage, and bandwidth for their commercial gain, but I do agree with the GP somewhat that there's unreasonable paranoia about telemetry sent in this way in general. Personally I think there should be something more obvious in it for me if they want to collect this data - i.e. give me a free copy of your software if I'm a test subject and let me explicitly agree to that. Don't make me pay hundreds of pounds for software only to use my computing resources to profit off me even further without my knowledge or explicit consent.
A large part the reason I think that is because people seem to not care that every search they make, every site they visit, every service they use nowadays typically involves anonymous telemetry being connected (even if you block tracking cookies, your actions are still being tracked and measured server-side). People still use these services, yet when the same thing happens from an OS, or piece of installed software on a desktop, or phone, they suddenly take bigger issue with it, yet the data collected may be no less anonymous than the data they're handing over on a daily basis elsewhere.
I thought the Echo Dot would be a fun thing to play with so I got them whilst they were cheap during Black Friday fortnight or however long they've managed to drag it out for now. I read that you can even order food through apps like Just Eat, but when I first used it I didn't really know you had to ask specific Just Eat commands.
So imagine how disturbed I was when I said "Alexa, I'd like to order some food", and she replied "From your order history, I can see that you have ordered 12kg Dog Food. Is this what you want?". I shouted no, and I she repeated the same thing (I guess because we ordered the dogs different flavours they were treated as different products).
This is what they think of us, they think we should eat dog food, their path to making us subservient has already begun. I hope you like dried chicken and rice smooshed into brown dry kibbles, because it's all we're apparently going to be eating when they take over given that they apparently already view us as mere dogs.
"Well, we're all about to see your assumptions and your faith tested. And I predict a continued rise in income inequality, with some various uglinesses on the side. If that happens, what will your reaction be?"
To double down and vote for him again in 2020, because next time it will be different!
It wont be anti-globalism because anti-globalism is inherently anti-corporatism. Anti-globalism would hurt Trump's own businesses and whilst he may have claimed to have stepped back from them (for at least 4 years) he'll still want his family to be getting rich off them.
I suspect you'll see targetted protectionism however claimed as anti-globalism - i.e. "We're placing sanctions on the Chinese because we're anti-global" when in fact those sanctions will just be targetted protectionism against say China's financial services organisations with the goal of making Goldman Sachs and such wealthier whilst still expecting to trade with China normally in other ways (i.e. buying cheaply manufactured shit from them).
It really only takes a few seconds to view any number of fact checkers that highlight precisely why you're wrong, and that can evidence any number of right wing falsehoods being peddled. There is no conspiracy, just malace and a will to push political ideas through lies, because people just don't like what you're selling when you try and sell it based on the facts of your argument.
The fact you didn't do that, and spent longer writing a response is precisely why you'll always be stuck in your ignorant echo chamber, unable to accept even the most moderate of arguments, bound to extremism through your wilful ignorance.
You no doubt hate people passionately like those in ISIS, and yet there you are, a victim to the exact same kind of brainwashing from the other side of the fence. If only you saw the irony of your position, yet doing so would conversely mean you were smart enough to just not be in that position in the first place. If you want to know how anyone ends up in an organisation as sick as ISIS, then you only have to look at the fact your first response was to try and attack me back, rather than to actually do even the simplest bit of research into right wing lies.
Call me a troll or shill or whatever all you will, it wont change the fact you're wrong. Unfortunately for you, reality denial doesn't actually change reality.
Those are basically the same conditions we dive in in the UK, through the summer months you'd be fine in a semi-dry suit which can be picked up quite cheaply. The other option that will suit year round is a dry suit, which are much more expensive, but can be hired pretty cheaply.
For a typical dive you'll still feel far warmer than you would on a winters day, so it's really not too bad, though I agree it's hardly the same as diving along the equator.
You're partly right - the answer really varies as different reefs are affected in different ways, but fundamentally global warming can exacerbate effects such as El Nino/La Nina, so that your 3c increase may become 5c for a time. The issue is that these ecosystems are fragile and it only takes small changes to do immense damage. It's not that nature can't adapt to temperature fluctuations and such, it's that it can't adapt at the rate of change we're forcing on it. In terms of global warming in general consider the Polar Bear, normally climate would change over thousands of years and Polar Bears would become more brown, have less insular fur and move south and become more like grizzlies, but we're forcing change to their environment in decades, that's just not long enough for enough generations to be selected for brown fur - you just aren't going to go from white fur to brown fur (and possibly lose some insulating features) and adapt in that kind of compressed time frame, which is why they're at risk.
For what it's worth there are reefs that don't seem particularly affected at all by the temperature change, the Great Barrier Reef seems to be one of the most especially fragile ones, and coupled with it's immense size this makes it stand out. See my other post elsewhere on this topic where I point out that the Red Sea reefs are currently at their most vibrant they've been in a long, long time regardless of temperature change, simply because of the reduction in tourism to Egypt. In contrast, much of the Great Barrier Reef is already protected from humans, yet is still suffering. This should really highlight how different reefs are affected in different ways, that they can recover, but recovery needs different things in different reefs - lack of human presence is doing wonders in Egypt's Red Sea, but it's doing nothing for the Great Barrier Reef, my suspicion being that the Great Barrier Reef suffers far more greatly from the changes in a body as large as the Pacific than the far better protected Red Sea does where humans are by far the largest problem.
Climate change isn't an inherent problem in itself, man-made or natural, you're right, it happens. The problem is the rate of climate change that's occuring right now, that's the real issue here, nature just doesn't have sufficient time to adapt right now which is why we're seeing events like this and why this period is often being called a mass extinction event period.
I'll let you into a current diving secret, and you may find this news rather positive. Because of the current lack of tourism in Egypt due to terrorist attacks elsewhere in Africa on tourists, the Egyptian revolution and subsequent military crackdowns as a result of the coup, and the bombing of the Russian civilian airliner by ISIS or whoever decided to take responsibility the red sea reefs have made an astounding and profound recovery in just a couple of years.
The sheer volume of life and quality of the reef is probably one of the best in the world right now, many old time divers have told me it's the most vibrant they've seen it since the sport was in it's infancy over 40 years ago, and the great thing is it's incredibly cheap now because they're desperate for tourists and because the tourist trade workers are desperate for jobs there's more than enough people to look after you so you're getting 5 star service for 2 star travel prices with one of the best reefs int he world to boot.
But in general, it may also be a question of where you have decided to dive. Some of the most hyped places are actually not that great as dive sites - the Great Barrier Reef isn't that great a diving spot, similarly the Belize hole is heavily hyped, but overrated. In contrast the Red Sea currently before tourism picks up again, places like Komodo, and the Galapagos which are far more expensive, will give you a much more positive picture. Also the lesser visited Caribbean islands are good spots - ignore the most popular like Aruba, Jamaica, Barbados and so forth and go for places like Turks and Caicos. If you really have the money then get yourself to remote places like Ascension Island, and the few boats that go to the most remote of the Galapagos Islands.
Outside of this even local diving can be great, you don't get quite the widespread colours of the most beautiful tropical reefs here in the UK for example (though there is more colour under the UK waters than most realise), but for sheer fun not much beats diving with seals in the Farne Islands and down in Cornwall, and for history buffs and wreck divers, you don't get much better than Scapa Flow where the bulk of Germany's fleet (74 ships) was scuttled at the end of World War 1 to cripple their naval ability. Most places in the world will have great diving sites of some sort or another.
But the take away from the Red Sea scenario specifically is this, that although we're undoubtedly doing immense damage to reefs, it seems some at least can recover and recover quickly if we leave them alone. This wont be true everywhere, as much of the Great Barrier reef is already protected, and because of its exposure to the Pacific does seem to make it more prone to this sort of event, but if we can stop it I have faith that these reefs wont be gone forever, I believe they can and will recover - the difficulty is in stopping it in the first place, if we can do our part and manage that, then nature can and will fix the rest for us as it has temporarily in the Red Sea now that humans have been heavily removed from the equation.
Of course expensive is always going to be relative, but I don't think this is necessarily true. I wouldn't for example say that it's more expensive than something like skiing, or snowboarding, or having a hobby such as playing with motorbikes, or hotrods. I think most people could afford to dive, if they wanted to, but beyond that I think you're right - it's just not on most people's radar.
I understand there has actually been a decrease in people diving in recent years, so I think there is probably some income link to it whether real, or perceived, I suspect maybe the biggest factor is for people who don't live near a diving site and that the really prohibitive part is actually the transport to a diving site if you have to fly or drive a thousand miles. This said, many rust belters probably don't realise they have some of the best wreck diving sites in the world next to them in the great lakes - that sort of thing is just not well advertised, so I'd wager awareness of the accessibility of the sport is as big a factor as decreasing income.
"The bright, vibrant colours you see in pictures aren't what you will ever see underwater on a tourist trip.
Red light, and the colour tones nearest red, are basically gone after 1 meter of seawater. There's simply not enough light in that spectrum making it from the surface, to the coral, to your eyes. That's why a lot of fish are red - the colour basically vanishes unless it's up in your face."
Nonsense, I do a lot of underwater photography and this simply isn't true. Our eyes are incredibly good at adjusting to the reduction in the colours as we go deeper, and it's only really when you start going below around 20metres that you really start to get so little light that your eyes just can't compensate well anymore. Reefs are incredibly colourful down to the common basic recreational limit of 18m - something like a rainbow parrotfish will look exactly as colourful as it does in any of the most colourful pictures you can find on Google images at 15 metres.
There are of course times this isn't true, when there are issues with water conditions such as diving in water that is suffering some form of algae bloom, or silt kick up where the algae or silt particulate in the water will of course have light bounced of of itself.
"The other thing the photographers do is they take photos with the strongest possible flash, and only take photos in the coolest parts of the reef; nearest the cool open water and on a slope, not on the hot flat deck that's right below the surface and catches the refracted sunlight 10 hours a day with the least mass flow."
Again, nonsense. We take photos wherever we can find a great photo and that's never restricted by depth or geography, but simply whether we're in the right place at the right time to get a great subject. That can be at 30cm, or it can be at 100 metres. My camera has perfectly good enough white balance to shoot consistently without my strobes down to about 10 metres. Below that I do indeed take strobes, but I've had some great shots without them even at 18m.
"Other things to consider are that you're less likely to see Nemo and more likely to find small hussars, sea cucumbers, and the stingrays and reef sharks."
That really depends where you go, many tourist dives are actually unlikely to see things like reef sharks and stingrays because animals tend to get bigger the deeper the water and they tend to keep tourists who aren't that comfortable with diving in relatively shallow (i.e. above 18m) dives. In some regions you of course get these creatures coming into the shallows, but for the most part on a tourist dive you're going to stay fairly close to the coast, and you'll see countless smaller fish like you would typically see in the most colourful marine aquariums.
It's fairly obvious you've never been diving, because you're basically wrong about everything. The GP was referring to the fact that in some areas the damage to reefs is substantial such that the beautiful colours are gone, not that reefs that are healthy are not colourful below 1 metre.
So let me get this straight, you're a "Senior Systems Engineer/Architect", and you can't use Google or news websites, therefore you believe none exist?
Seriously?
How have you not been fired yet if you're that stupid and that incompetent?
GP is right, you're so far into the propaganda zone that you believe the insanely ridiculous idea that no right wing lies exist? That's astoundingly ignorant, I doubt you'll heed it, but hear this in case there's some dwindling hope for you, I'm telling you now; with a comment so obviously nonsensical you're so far into your self-created echo chamber that you have an astoundingly distorted view of the world, and desperately need to take a step back and consider that you might be wrong about some things, that you might have been misled about somethings, and that you've become an unquestioning mindless zealot for your cause.
Good luck, you'll need it stuck that far in the propaganda machine - and that applies to anyone in your situation, whether right or left, this aint a partisan issue, it's an issue of folks like you being screwed up with propaganda to the point of utter absurdity where even someone making a balanced non-partisan argument is "the enemy" like the GP was. Politics isn't broken because of the politicians, it's broken because voters like you put tribalism over rationality.
I actually agree with you that neo-Nazi is an invalid designation, because it does indeed require adherence to a very specific ideology, and not all alt-right supporters agree with it.
What isn't an invalid designation though is far-right, and given that that term is already well understood, and does accurately describe the entirety of alt-right I'm not sure why, given that alt-right is against political correctness, and for calling a spade a spade, they don't just stick with this accurate and correct designation of far-right.
It's almost as if they know full well their views are despicable to the majority, and that they believe if they call themselves other than what they are that that makes it okay, but then that also makes them hypocritical in that they're creating a new PC term "alt-right" instead of just using the existing correct term, "far-right".
That's why it's really quite hard to take the alt-right movement seriously as anything other than a bunch of irrational far-right hypocrites, because there's no logic to the movement or the viewpoint when the name they use to identify in itself goes against one of their most precious beliefs - the idea of being able to call something what it is rather than hide behind PC terms like "alt-right".
Are you really so insecure in your beliefs and so naive that you think hiding behind alt-right somehow makes your far-right views less repugnant? Why are you so fearful of accepting your actual political leaning that you have to pretend it's something it's not by hiding behind an alternative name, much like how North Korea calls itself a Democratic People's Republic when it's anything but? Reality distortion by restricting yourself to far right news? Angry but deep down know you're focussing it on the wrong things?
I'm genuinely intrigued as to how you justify the very hypocrisy at the core of your movement and why you don't have the courage to stand by your political beliefs objective designation and just call it what it is.
Did you mean to respond to me? What I posted is the exact opposite of the American viewpoint because the American viewpoint is exactly what I pointed out - that China and Russia are working in concert against the US and are inseparable communist allies, which is clearly nonsense.
Russia and China aren't that close, this is a common myth peddled by the idea that because they both oppose US domination, that they must be friends.
But let's be clear, even China agreed that Russia's annexation of Crimea was wholly unacceptable, and regardless of Putin trying to put a brave face on things by announcing deals with China to sell them Russia's oil and gas, this is really desperation by Russia and exploitation by China as the prices China has agreed to pay are grossly in favour of China.
It's arguable that China actually has a better relationship with some European nations such as Britain than it does with Russia. Ultimately China cares about two things - trying to gain control of the South China sea, and growing wealth through trade. The reality is that contrary to it's claims Russia can't help much in the South China sea because it's navy is decrepit (and focussed on Syria) and it's economy is small, declining, and of low quality to external investors anyway.
As such, China has more to gain from working with the West than it does with Russia as much as Russia may be desperately happy to play the useful idiot for China when it needs one every now and then. Even historically one shouldn't forget that China and Russia were technically at war with each other over a border dispute for most of the cold war and up until 1991.
For the same reason that having satnav fitted into my car is a £750 module, when it could just be a free download onto the existence in car computer from the Google Play store. Because money. That's why.
Visual Studio is the best of breed IDE slowly being made worse in an attempt to capture "Web 2.0" marketshare from PHP, node.js developers and the like whilst dragging the whole IDE down to their level and failing their core market where all the enterprise licensing (i.e. the bulk of their income) comes from - the business world that uses languages like C, C# and C++.
If you've not used it since 2008, you've not really missed much, it peaked at 2010 and has become much worse since as features have been removed and the IDE has become less usable and less stable. They're slowly getting it back up with 2015, but christ 2012 was an abomination that should never have been released.
Amusingly it's not the first time this happened, it's almost an exact repeat of a decade ago - Visual Studio.NET 2002 was horrendous, so they release 2003 to make it slightly less horrendous, 2015 was a bit better, but 2008 was the first time it really became solid, stable, and functional again then 2010 topped it all off. We're seeing the exact same pattern now - 2012 like 2002 shouldn't have been released, 2013 like 2003 is an attempt to fix the fundamentally broken 2012/2002, and 2015 like 2005 is a slight improvement where the features and functionality are returning but the stability still leaves a lot to be desired. Only another year and a half then until 2018 maybe that will hopefully be like 2008 was - stable, functional, then by 2020 we can have an IDE with nothing much to complain about again, maybe. Or maybe they'll just make the menus shout at us in capital letters and the icons lose all discernible features and meaning again for absolutely no good reason at all, who knows.
"Clinton voted to invade Afghanistan and we wrecked that country - even more so than it was before, which is quite a feat."
Look, I'm completely anti-2003 Iraq invasion, and I think the West absolutely fucked up the way we handled Afghanistan, but this is verifiably untrue.
Under the Taliban people were executed for the most trivial of things (like looking at a Taliban commander wrong), and they were executed in the most horrible of ways - like being buried in the ground upto their neck whilst people throw stones at their head until it finally kills them, in the middle of a football stadium with massive crowds watching and joining in the spectacle.
It wasn't even stable, the Northern Alliance along with a number of warlords elsewhere were still very much at war with the Taliban.
I'm not going to pretend the country is some stable pinnacle of democracy or any such thing, of course there's still fighting, and of course those things are still happening in some places.
But in major population centres women can now go to school, teenages wont be stoned to death simply for sharing a peck on the cheek, and they have reliable utilities such as power and running water. They also get to choose their leader via the ballot box, and the country has been growing economically even without the aid it receives.
Afghanistan has a very very long way to go still, but to pretend it's not vastly better is astoundingly naive. Interestingly even the Taliban themselves have been forced to moderate - they used to look a whole lot like ISIS in their actions and management of cities, but now even when they do recapture areas from the government they're at least slightly more moderate than they used to be because they know if they don't they'll suffer uprisings and be thrown out by the populace themselves.
Yeah we went in for the wrong reasons, yeah we went about it the wrong way, and yeah we took our eye off the ball by allowing ourselves to get distracted by Iraq. But make no mistake, Afghanistan IS better, nowhere near perfect, but it is much better than it was under the Taliban. To think it isn't shows an astounding level of naivety as to what Afghanistan was like before the invasion.
Exactly, realistically Trump's policy mean that he's setting the US on a path to be left behind.
The US will still be digging coal, something that we started doing seriously in when America wasn't even a country, whilst the rest of the world will have whole new economies and industries based on renewable power.
It really is a journey back to the 17th century for America, whilst the rest of the world will see massive economic growth from the new and growing industry of renewables as fossile fuel use continues to decline everywhere else. America wont find many allies to invade middle eastern nations for oil and gas when no one else actually has much use for it anymore.
"What happens when those 12 carriers are blockading California and not allowing any airplanes or ships in or out?
I think you missed the whole point, the USA could dictate terms at the end of a gun, they have the military forces to do it."
Well given that California has more than it's fair share of military forces physically situated inside it, that would be an incredibly risky thing to do if you want them. But regardless, such an event simply wouldn't happen in isolation, you're talking about declaring war on a new nation, and committing massive military resources to it leaving your interests elsewhere wholly undefended, you're talking about creating a Syria type situation where even if you win you've done so much damage to the region that it's economy is destroyed and the end result is that it's worthless anyway, but filled with a whole lot of pissed off people that even once the situation is over will be carrying out terrorist attacks against your regime for decades to come. Again, normally, if you're going to have a war, then there has to be a point - Syria happened because Assad had no other options.
Then there's the international angle it would undoubtedly lead to massive condemnation of the US, it would remove all geopolitical influence the US would have left at that point, and possibly even sanctions. Americas enemies would love nothing more than a civil war, and Californians would likely be sent plenty of help to tie the US up in an ongoing war from covert sources like Russia, and China who want to see it distracted and impotent globally whilst they spread their influence, again, so when the war ends the US is far weaker and far worse off, with far less trade options, far poorer as a result and far more likely to again be unable to service it's debts.
America would have plenty of other options if California decided to try and become independent than war, and war would quite clearly be a far worse option than the alternatives.
"I have trouble seeing anything like that happening, since it is illegal for states to leave the USA."
Again, I'm really not disputing this, I really have no idea about the legal aspects. This is similar to the situation with places like Catalonia in Spain that want independence but can't get authorisation for a referendum from the central government. The legality of it doesn't quell dissent, or do anything to stop serious attempts towards independence however.
I think you're probably right that it wouldn't happen though regardless, I just see no reason why California couldn't see a serious and sustained push for independence, and that if it did happen I suspect the remaining US and California would still remain the closest of allies, albeit with very different laws. As I understand it one of the guys pushing for this even said his goal is to leave the union, become independent, then rejoin with more autonomy - so effectively what they really want is not necessarily permanent independence per-se, but more autonomy such that if a president, house, and senate they have a huge distaste for is forced upon them, it at least doesn't effect them much legally. I think this in itself is an important factor in it not happening - I'd wager there'd be an agreement for far greater state autonomy to quell suggestions of independence if they became a serious idea and that would be enough to remove large amounts of support for the idea.
It's always been the JSF project - Joint Strike Fighter, and it's never been billed as anything else other than a strike fighter in any country it's due to be exported to.
You're right that the F-22 is blocked from export, but countries buying the F-35 already have their own existing air superiority fighters (although none as good as the F-22). For most countries receiving the F-35 this is either the Eurofighter, the F-15, or F-18s that have been transitioned from the strike fighter role into the air superiority role. Certainly here in the UK our air superiority fighter is the Eurofighter Typhoon, and the F-35 is entirely intended to be a strike fighter.
I'm not commenting about the legality of the act of independence or the possibility of it happening because I know literally nothing about that and am more than happy to admit it, I'm merely pointing out that if it did happen it would follow standard international norms on the situation which would result in the outcome I pointed out.
"And if the USA said exactly that, what would California do, hold a protest rally? Issue a strong statement?"
It means that California also wouldn't have to accept any of the US' national debt - debt is merely a negative valued asset and if you refuse to hand over positive valued assets then you don't have a hope in hells chance of getting them to accept any negative valued assets. Your nation's debt situation is precarious enough as is without removing your primary income source from the equation yet maintaining the same value figure on your debt. Frankly, if it were to happen it would be a stupid move by the remaining US as it would lead to a high chance of bankruptcy, as such it would be easier to just not be dicks about it and to just come to a mutual agreement in the first place.
To put numbers on it based on current figures your debt to GDP ratio would climb from 106% to 124%. This would in turn increase the cost of bond yields for the US as your risk of bankruptcy would have increased which would in turn further increase your debt to GDP ratio unless you made significant spending cuts (i.e. this is exactly what happened with countries like Greece) - you enter a cycle which becomes hard to recover from as poor economic standing increases borrowing costs which increases poor economic standing which increases borrowing costs and so on, and so forth.
So I'd say California would have a hell of a strong position to negotiate from. There's really no benefit to the rest of the US in being arseholes about it - what's the point in hogging 12 instead of 11 carriers if it means you can only then afford to sustain 8 carriers?
No, that's not how it works. We went through this whole discussion and legal quagmire with the possibility of Scottish independence. If California became independent it would gain a population proportional share of the US' assets and debts, so 12% of the airforce, navy, and army and so on.
During to the run up for independence there would of course be some negotiating - i.e. California and the rest of the USA may decide that California only gets 10% of military assets instead of 12%, but takes reduced debt instead, or vice versa - as a major coastal state they may decide they'd prefer more naval/carrier assets and accept more debt as a result. Fundamentally though the starting point and the default if no agreement could be reached would simply be a 12% share (based on current populations of course). Even if the rest of the USA wishes to genuinely try and block California getting anything by force or similar then the US would also have to retain all it's debt, which with the loss of the Californian economy could be rather crippling to the point it would force the rest of the USA to do massive decomissioning programmes on large parts of it's military anyway, whereas California could run a surplus from the outset and thrive, maybe buy some knock down assets from the rest of the USA as it's forced to sell them off regardless...
Those are the principles by which it would work, so no it's not simply a case of the rest of the USA saying "Those all belong to us, you get nothing".
Slashdot Mirror
Out of interest, by what mechanism is the data sent? Is there a service that dispatches it over a proprietary protocol running over TCP or similar? When is it sent and so forth? I'd be interested in snooping on it myself to have a look at exactly what does leave my PC, if what you're saying is true then that for us in the EU, puts Microsoft in breach of the European Data Protect Directive, and if I can evidence that happening from my machine then I can lodge a formal complaint with our Information Commissioner.
What happens if you block transmission of the data on your router's firewall? Does it just give up?
"Don't think you are having a private conversation when Cortana is on and your near your computer."
Unless she's developed the ability to detect sound through other means then this is at least one thing I'm safe from as I don't actually have a microphone attached to my PC :) Alexa on the other hand, oh, she's already listening. See my other post for my experience so far with her.
I was rather annoyed to turn my monitor on the other day and find the usually nice images that change through the day on the lock screen replaced with an advert for fucking Finding Dory. Thankfully it seems you can disable that at least, which I now have.
"Here is a little thought experiment for those who don't "get it". Would you accept someone sitting in a parked car in the morning waiting for you to leave your house then following you to work. When you walk across the street they are right behind you following your every move and recording everything you do?"
I actually rather think you've missed his point, his point is that Microsoft is sending anonymous data back - i.e. data that can't be tracked to you. Someone following you to work by very definition can be traced back to you because it's you they're following and tracking.
I think there's a fair discussion to be had about how anonymous the data is, and something still irks me to this day about paying for a product and using my CPU power, storage, and bandwidth for their commercial gain, but I do agree with the GP somewhat that there's unreasonable paranoia about telemetry sent in this way in general. Personally I think there should be something more obvious in it for me if they want to collect this data - i.e. give me a free copy of your software if I'm a test subject and let me explicitly agree to that. Don't make me pay hundreds of pounds for software only to use my computing resources to profit off me even further without my knowledge or explicit consent.
A large part the reason I think that is because people seem to not care that every search they make, every site they visit, every service they use nowadays typically involves anonymous telemetry being connected (even if you block tracking cookies, your actions are still being tracked and measured server-side). People still use these services, yet when the same thing happens from an OS, or piece of installed software on a desktop, or phone, they suddenly take bigger issue with it, yet the data collected may be no less anonymous than the data they're handing over on a daily basis elsewhere.
I thought the Echo Dot would be a fun thing to play with so I got them whilst they were cheap during Black Friday fortnight or however long they've managed to drag it out for now. I read that you can even order food through apps like Just Eat, but when I first used it I didn't really know you had to ask specific Just Eat commands.
So imagine how disturbed I was when I said "Alexa, I'd like to order some food", and she replied "From your order history, I can see that you have ordered 12kg Dog Food. Is this what you want?". I shouted no, and I she repeated the same thing (I guess because we ordered the dogs different flavours they were treated as different products).
This is what they think of us, they think we should eat dog food, their path to making us subservient has already begun. I hope you like dried chicken and rice smooshed into brown dry kibbles, because it's all we're apparently going to be eating when they take over given that they apparently already view us as mere dogs.
"I don't recall the Republicans..."
Well you wouldn't, that is unfortunately one of the side effects you'll suffer living your life as a partisan wingnut.
The question is why are you telling us again? We already know - your repeated posts giving evidence to the fact aren't exactly subtle.
"Well, we're all about to see your assumptions and your faith tested. And I predict a continued rise in income inequality, with some various uglinesses on the side. If that happens, what will your reaction be?"
To double down and vote for him again in 2020, because next time it will be different!
It wont be anti-globalism because anti-globalism is inherently anti-corporatism. Anti-globalism would hurt Trump's own businesses and whilst he may have claimed to have stepped back from them (for at least 4 years) he'll still want his family to be getting rich off them.
I suspect you'll see targetted protectionism however claimed as anti-globalism - i.e. "We're placing sanctions on the Chinese because we're anti-global" when in fact those sanctions will just be targetted protectionism against say China's financial services organisations with the goal of making Goldman Sachs and such wealthier whilst still expecting to trade with China normally in other ways (i.e. buying cheaply manufactured shit from them).
It really only takes a few seconds to view any number of fact checkers that highlight precisely why you're wrong, and that can evidence any number of right wing falsehoods being peddled. There is no conspiracy, just malace and a will to push political ideas through lies, because people just don't like what you're selling when you try and sell it based on the facts of your argument.
The fact you didn't do that, and spent longer writing a response is precisely why you'll always be stuck in your ignorant echo chamber, unable to accept even the most moderate of arguments, bound to extremism through your wilful ignorance.
You no doubt hate people passionately like those in ISIS, and yet there you are, a victim to the exact same kind of brainwashing from the other side of the fence. If only you saw the irony of your position, yet doing so would conversely mean you were smart enough to just not be in that position in the first place. If you want to know how anyone ends up in an organisation as sick as ISIS, then you only have to look at the fact your first response was to try and attack me back, rather than to actually do even the simplest bit of research into right wing lies.
Call me a troll or shill or whatever all you will, it wont change the fact you're wrong. Unfortunately for you, reality denial doesn't actually change reality.
Those are basically the same conditions we dive in in the UK, through the summer months you'd be fine in a semi-dry suit which can be picked up quite cheaply. The other option that will suit year round is a dry suit, which are much more expensive, but can be hired pretty cheaply.
For a typical dive you'll still feel far warmer than you would on a winters day, so it's really not too bad, though I agree it's hardly the same as diving along the equator.
You're partly right - the answer really varies as different reefs are affected in different ways, but fundamentally global warming can exacerbate effects such as El Nino/La Nina, so that your 3c increase may become 5c for a time. The issue is that these ecosystems are fragile and it only takes small changes to do immense damage. It's not that nature can't adapt to temperature fluctuations and such, it's that it can't adapt at the rate of change we're forcing on it. In terms of global warming in general consider the Polar Bear, normally climate would change over thousands of years and Polar Bears would become more brown, have less insular fur and move south and become more like grizzlies, but we're forcing change to their environment in decades, that's just not long enough for enough generations to be selected for brown fur - you just aren't going to go from white fur to brown fur (and possibly lose some insulating features) and adapt in that kind of compressed time frame, which is why they're at risk.
For what it's worth there are reefs that don't seem particularly affected at all by the temperature change, the Great Barrier Reef seems to be one of the most especially fragile ones, and coupled with it's immense size this makes it stand out. See my other post elsewhere on this topic where I point out that the Red Sea reefs are currently at their most vibrant they've been in a long, long time regardless of temperature change, simply because of the reduction in tourism to Egypt. In contrast, much of the Great Barrier Reef is already protected from humans, yet is still suffering. This should really highlight how different reefs are affected in different ways, that they can recover, but recovery needs different things in different reefs - lack of human presence is doing wonders in Egypt's Red Sea, but it's doing nothing for the Great Barrier Reef, my suspicion being that the Great Barrier Reef suffers far more greatly from the changes in a body as large as the Pacific than the far better protected Red Sea does where humans are by far the largest problem.
Climate change isn't an inherent problem in itself, man-made or natural, you're right, it happens. The problem is the rate of climate change that's occuring right now, that's the real issue here, nature just doesn't have sufficient time to adapt right now which is why we're seeing events like this and why this period is often being called a mass extinction event period.
I'll let you into a current diving secret, and you may find this news rather positive. Because of the current lack of tourism in Egypt due to terrorist attacks elsewhere in Africa on tourists, the Egyptian revolution and subsequent military crackdowns as a result of the coup, and the bombing of the Russian civilian airliner by ISIS or whoever decided to take responsibility the red sea reefs have made an astounding and profound recovery in just a couple of years.
The sheer volume of life and quality of the reef is probably one of the best in the world right now, many old time divers have told me it's the most vibrant they've seen it since the sport was in it's infancy over 40 years ago, and the great thing is it's incredibly cheap now because they're desperate for tourists and because the tourist trade workers are desperate for jobs there's more than enough people to look after you so you're getting 5 star service for 2 star travel prices with one of the best reefs int he world to boot.
But in general, it may also be a question of where you have decided to dive. Some of the most hyped places are actually not that great as dive sites - the Great Barrier Reef isn't that great a diving spot, similarly the Belize hole is heavily hyped, but overrated. In contrast the Red Sea currently before tourism picks up again, places like Komodo, and the Galapagos which are far more expensive, will give you a much more positive picture. Also the lesser visited Caribbean islands are good spots - ignore the most popular like Aruba, Jamaica, Barbados and so forth and go for places like Turks and Caicos. If you really have the money then get yourself to remote places like Ascension Island, and the few boats that go to the most remote of the Galapagos Islands.
Outside of this even local diving can be great, you don't get quite the widespread colours of the most beautiful tropical reefs here in the UK for example (though there is more colour under the UK waters than most realise), but for sheer fun not much beats diving with seals in the Farne Islands and down in Cornwall, and for history buffs and wreck divers, you don't get much better than Scapa Flow where the bulk of Germany's fleet (74 ships) was scuttled at the end of World War 1 to cripple their naval ability. Most places in the world will have great diving sites of some sort or another.
But the take away from the Red Sea scenario specifically is this, that although we're undoubtedly doing immense damage to reefs, it seems some at least can recover and recover quickly if we leave them alone. This wont be true everywhere, as much of the Great Barrier reef is already protected, and because of its exposure to the Pacific does seem to make it more prone to this sort of event, but if we can stop it I have faith that these reefs wont be gone forever, I believe they can and will recover - the difficulty is in stopping it in the first place, if we can do our part and manage that, then nature can and will fix the rest for us as it has temporarily in the Red Sea now that humans have been heavily removed from the equation.
Of course expensive is always going to be relative, but I don't think this is necessarily true. I wouldn't for example say that it's more expensive than something like skiing, or snowboarding, or having a hobby such as playing with motorbikes, or hotrods. I think most people could afford to dive, if they wanted to, but beyond that I think you're right - it's just not on most people's radar.
I understand there has actually been a decrease in people diving in recent years, so I think there is probably some income link to it whether real, or perceived, I suspect maybe the biggest factor is for people who don't live near a diving site and that the really prohibitive part is actually the transport to a diving site if you have to fly or drive a thousand miles. This said, many rust belters probably don't realise they have some of the best wreck diving sites in the world next to them in the great lakes - that sort of thing is just not well advertised, so I'd wager awareness of the accessibility of the sport is as big a factor as decreasing income.
"The bright, vibrant colours you see in pictures aren't what you will ever see underwater on a tourist trip.
Red light, and the colour tones nearest red, are basically gone after 1 meter of seawater. There's simply not enough light in that spectrum making it from the surface, to the coral, to your eyes. That's why a lot of fish are red - the colour basically vanishes unless it's up in your face."
Nonsense, I do a lot of underwater photography and this simply isn't true. Our eyes are incredibly good at adjusting to the reduction in the colours as we go deeper, and it's only really when you start going below around 20metres that you really start to get so little light that your eyes just can't compensate well anymore. Reefs are incredibly colourful down to the common basic recreational limit of 18m - something like a rainbow parrotfish will look exactly as colourful as it does in any of the most colourful pictures you can find on Google images at 15 metres.
There are of course times this isn't true, when there are issues with water conditions such as diving in water that is suffering some form of algae bloom, or silt kick up where the algae or silt particulate in the water will of course have light bounced of of itself.
"The other thing the photographers do is they take photos with the strongest possible flash, and only take photos in the coolest parts of the reef; nearest the cool open water and on a slope, not on the hot flat deck that's right below the surface and catches the refracted sunlight 10 hours a day with the least mass flow."
Again, nonsense. We take photos wherever we can find a great photo and that's never restricted by depth or geography, but simply whether we're in the right place at the right time to get a great subject. That can be at 30cm, or it can be at 100 metres. My camera has perfectly good enough white balance to shoot consistently without my strobes down to about 10 metres. Below that I do indeed take strobes, but I've had some great shots without them even at 18m.
"Other things to consider are that you're less likely to see Nemo and more likely to find small hussars, sea cucumbers, and the stingrays and reef sharks."
That really depends where you go, many tourist dives are actually unlikely to see things like reef sharks and stingrays because animals tend to get bigger the deeper the water and they tend to keep tourists who aren't that comfortable with diving in relatively shallow (i.e. above 18m) dives. In some regions you of course get these creatures coming into the shallows, but for the most part on a tourist dive you're going to stay fairly close to the coast, and you'll see countless smaller fish like you would typically see in the most colourful marine aquariums.
It's fairly obvious you've never been diving, because you're basically wrong about everything. The GP was referring to the fact that in some areas the damage to reefs is substantial such that the beautiful colours are gone, not that reefs that are healthy are not colourful below 1 metre.
So let me get this straight, you're a "Senior Systems Engineer/Architect", and you can't use Google or news websites, therefore you believe none exist?
Seriously?
How have you not been fired yet if you're that stupid and that incompetent?
GP is right, you're so far into the propaganda zone that you believe the insanely ridiculous idea that no right wing lies exist? That's astoundingly ignorant, I doubt you'll heed it, but hear this in case there's some dwindling hope for you, I'm telling you now; with a comment so obviously nonsensical you're so far into your self-created echo chamber that you have an astoundingly distorted view of the world, and desperately need to take a step back and consider that you might be wrong about some things, that you might have been misled about somethings, and that you've become an unquestioning mindless zealot for your cause.
Good luck, you'll need it stuck that far in the propaganda machine - and that applies to anyone in your situation, whether right or left, this aint a partisan issue, it's an issue of folks like you being screwed up with propaganda to the point of utter absurdity where even someone making a balanced non-partisan argument is "the enemy" like the GP was. Politics isn't broken because of the politicians, it's broken because voters like you put tribalism over rationality.
I actually agree with you that neo-Nazi is an invalid designation, because it does indeed require adherence to a very specific ideology, and not all alt-right supporters agree with it.
What isn't an invalid designation though is far-right, and given that that term is already well understood, and does accurately describe the entirety of alt-right I'm not sure why, given that alt-right is against political correctness, and for calling a spade a spade, they don't just stick with this accurate and correct designation of far-right.
It's almost as if they know full well their views are despicable to the majority, and that they believe if they call themselves other than what they are that that makes it okay, but then that also makes them hypocritical in that they're creating a new PC term "alt-right" instead of just using the existing correct term, "far-right".
That's why it's really quite hard to take the alt-right movement seriously as anything other than a bunch of irrational far-right hypocrites, because there's no logic to the movement or the viewpoint when the name they use to identify in itself goes against one of their most precious beliefs - the idea of being able to call something what it is rather than hide behind PC terms like "alt-right".
Are you really so insecure in your beliefs and so naive that you think hiding behind alt-right somehow makes your far-right views less repugnant? Why are you so fearful of accepting your actual political leaning that you have to pretend it's something it's not by hiding behind an alternative name, much like how North Korea calls itself a Democratic People's Republic when it's anything but? Reality distortion by restricting yourself to far right news? Angry but deep down know you're focussing it on the wrong things?
I'm genuinely intrigued as to how you justify the very hypocrisy at the core of your movement and why you don't have the courage to stand by your political beliefs objective designation and just call it what it is.
"And exactly what "right wing" false claims are you talking about?"
All of them I imagine.
Did you mean to respond to me? What I posted is the exact opposite of the American viewpoint because the American viewpoint is exactly what I pointed out - that China and Russia are working in concert against the US and are inseparable communist allies, which is clearly nonsense.
Russia and China aren't that close, this is a common myth peddled by the idea that because they both oppose US domination, that they must be friends.
But let's be clear, even China agreed that Russia's annexation of Crimea was wholly unacceptable, and regardless of Putin trying to put a brave face on things by announcing deals with China to sell them Russia's oil and gas, this is really desperation by Russia and exploitation by China as the prices China has agreed to pay are grossly in favour of China.
It's arguable that China actually has a better relationship with some European nations such as Britain than it does with Russia. Ultimately China cares about two things - trying to gain control of the South China sea, and growing wealth through trade. The reality is that contrary to it's claims Russia can't help much in the South China sea because it's navy is decrepit (and focussed on Syria) and it's economy is small, declining, and of low quality to external investors anyway.
As such, China has more to gain from working with the West than it does with Russia as much as Russia may be desperately happy to play the useful idiot for China when it needs one every now and then. Even historically one shouldn't forget that China and Russia were technically at war with each other over a border dispute for most of the cold war and up until 1991.
For the same reason that having satnav fitted into my car is a £750 module, when it could just be a free download onto the existence in car computer from the Google Play store. Because money. That's why.
Visual Studio is the best of breed IDE slowly being made worse in an attempt to capture "Web 2.0" marketshare from PHP, node.js developers and the like whilst dragging the whole IDE down to their level and failing their core market where all the enterprise licensing (i.e. the bulk of their income) comes from - the business world that uses languages like C, C# and C++.
If you've not used it since 2008, you've not really missed much, it peaked at 2010 and has become much worse since as features have been removed and the IDE has become less usable and less stable. They're slowly getting it back up with 2015, but christ 2012 was an abomination that should never have been released.
Amusingly it's not the first time this happened, it's almost an exact repeat of a decade ago - Visual Studio .NET 2002 was horrendous, so they release 2003 to make it slightly less horrendous, 2015 was a bit better, but 2008 was the first time it really became solid, stable, and functional again then 2010 topped it all off. We're seeing the exact same pattern now - 2012 like 2002 shouldn't have been released, 2013 like 2003 is an attempt to fix the fundamentally broken 2012/2002, and 2015 like 2005 is a slight improvement where the features and functionality are returning but the stability still leaves a lot to be desired. Only another year and a half then until 2018 maybe that will hopefully be like 2008 was - stable, functional, then by 2020 we can have an IDE with nothing much to complain about again, maybe. Or maybe they'll just make the menus shout at us in capital letters and the icons lose all discernible features and meaning again for absolutely no good reason at all, who knows.
"Clinton voted to invade Afghanistan and we wrecked that country - even more so than it was before, which is quite a feat."
Look, I'm completely anti-2003 Iraq invasion, and I think the West absolutely fucked up the way we handled Afghanistan, but this is verifiably untrue.
Under the Taliban people were executed for the most trivial of things (like looking at a Taliban commander wrong), and they were executed in the most horrible of ways - like being buried in the ground upto their neck whilst people throw stones at their head until it finally kills them, in the middle of a football stadium with massive crowds watching and joining in the spectacle.
It wasn't even stable, the Northern Alliance along with a number of warlords elsewhere were still very much at war with the Taliban.
I'm not going to pretend the country is some stable pinnacle of democracy or any such thing, of course there's still fighting, and of course those things are still happening in some places.
But in major population centres women can now go to school, teenages wont be stoned to death simply for sharing a peck on the cheek, and they have reliable utilities such as power and running water. They also get to choose their leader via the ballot box, and the country has been growing economically even without the aid it receives.
Afghanistan has a very very long way to go still, but to pretend it's not vastly better is astoundingly naive. Interestingly even the Taliban themselves have been forced to moderate - they used to look a whole lot like ISIS in their actions and management of cities, but now even when they do recapture areas from the government they're at least slightly more moderate than they used to be because they know if they don't they'll suffer uprisings and be thrown out by the populace themselves.
Yeah we went in for the wrong reasons, yeah we went about it the wrong way, and yeah we took our eye off the ball by allowing ourselves to get distracted by Iraq. But make no mistake, Afghanistan IS better, nowhere near perfect, but it is much better than it was under the Taliban. To think it isn't shows an astounding level of naivety as to what Afghanistan was like before the invasion.
Exactly, realistically Trump's policy mean that he's setting the US on a path to be left behind.
The US will still be digging coal, something that we started doing seriously in when America wasn't even a country, whilst the rest of the world will have whole new economies and industries based on renewable power.
It really is a journey back to the 17th century for America, whilst the rest of the world will see massive economic growth from the new and growing industry of renewables as fossile fuel use continues to decline everywhere else. America wont find many allies to invade middle eastern nations for oil and gas when no one else actually has much use for it anymore.
"What happens when those 12 carriers are blockading California and not allowing any airplanes or ships in or out?
I think you missed the whole point, the USA could dictate terms at the end of a gun, they have the military forces to do it."
Well given that California has more than it's fair share of military forces physically situated inside it, that would be an incredibly risky thing to do if you want them. But regardless, such an event simply wouldn't happen in isolation, you're talking about declaring war on a new nation, and committing massive military resources to it leaving your interests elsewhere wholly undefended, you're talking about creating a Syria type situation where even if you win you've done so much damage to the region that it's economy is destroyed and the end result is that it's worthless anyway, but filled with a whole lot of pissed off people that even once the situation is over will be carrying out terrorist attacks against your regime for decades to come. Again, normally, if you're going to have a war, then there has to be a point - Syria happened because Assad had no other options.
Then there's the international angle it would undoubtedly lead to massive condemnation of the US, it would remove all geopolitical influence the US would have left at that point, and possibly even sanctions. Americas enemies would love nothing more than a civil war, and Californians would likely be sent plenty of help to tie the US up in an ongoing war from covert sources like Russia, and China who want to see it distracted and impotent globally whilst they spread their influence, again, so when the war ends the US is far weaker and far worse off, with far less trade options, far poorer as a result and far more likely to again be unable to service it's debts.
America would have plenty of other options if California decided to try and become independent than war, and war would quite clearly be a far worse option than the alternatives.
"I have trouble seeing anything like that happening, since it is illegal for states to leave the USA."
Again, I'm really not disputing this, I really have no idea about the legal aspects. This is similar to the situation with places like Catalonia in Spain that want independence but can't get authorisation for a referendum from the central government. The legality of it doesn't quell dissent, or do anything to stop serious attempts towards independence however.
I think you're probably right that it wouldn't happen though regardless, I just see no reason why California couldn't see a serious and sustained push for independence, and that if it did happen I suspect the remaining US and California would still remain the closest of allies, albeit with very different laws. As I understand it one of the guys pushing for this even said his goal is to leave the union, become independent, then rejoin with more autonomy - so effectively what they really want is not necessarily permanent independence per-se, but more autonomy such that if a president, house, and senate they have a huge distaste for is forced upon them, it at least doesn't effect them much legally. I think this in itself is an important factor in it not happening - I'd wager there'd be an agreement for far greater state autonomy to quell suggestions of independence if they became a serious idea and that would be enough to remove large amounts of support for the idea.
It's always been the JSF project - Joint Strike Fighter, and it's never been billed as anything else other than a strike fighter in any country it's due to be exported to.
You're right that the F-22 is blocked from export, but countries buying the F-35 already have their own existing air superiority fighters (although none as good as the F-22). For most countries receiving the F-35 this is either the Eurofighter, the F-15, or F-18s that have been transitioned from the strike fighter role into the air superiority role. Certainly here in the UK our air superiority fighter is the Eurofighter Typhoon, and the F-35 is entirely intended to be a strike fighter.
I'm not commenting about the legality of the act of independence or the possibility of it happening because I know literally nothing about that and am more than happy to admit it, I'm merely pointing out that if it did happen it would follow standard international norms on the situation which would result in the outcome I pointed out.
"And if the USA said exactly that, what would California do, hold a protest rally? Issue a strong statement?"
It means that California also wouldn't have to accept any of the US' national debt - debt is merely a negative valued asset and if you refuse to hand over positive valued assets then you don't have a hope in hells chance of getting them to accept any negative valued assets. Your nation's debt situation is precarious enough as is without removing your primary income source from the equation yet maintaining the same value figure on your debt. Frankly, if it were to happen it would be a stupid move by the remaining US as it would lead to a high chance of bankruptcy, as such it would be easier to just not be dicks about it and to just come to a mutual agreement in the first place.
To put numbers on it based on current figures your debt to GDP ratio would climb from 106% to 124%. This would in turn increase the cost of bond yields for the US as your risk of bankruptcy would have increased which would in turn further increase your debt to GDP ratio unless you made significant spending cuts (i.e. this is exactly what happened with countries like Greece) - you enter a cycle which becomes hard to recover from as poor economic standing increases borrowing costs which increases poor economic standing which increases borrowing costs and so on, and so forth.
So I'd say California would have a hell of a strong position to negotiate from. There's really no benefit to the rest of the US in being arseholes about it - what's the point in hogging 12 instead of 11 carriers if it means you can only then afford to sustain 8 carriers?
No, that's not how it works. We went through this whole discussion and legal quagmire with the possibility of Scottish independence. If California became independent it would gain a population proportional share of the US' assets and debts, so 12% of the airforce, navy, and army and so on.
During to the run up for independence there would of course be some negotiating - i.e. California and the rest of the USA may decide that California only gets 10% of military assets instead of 12%, but takes reduced debt instead, or vice versa - as a major coastal state they may decide they'd prefer more naval/carrier assets and accept more debt as a result. Fundamentally though the starting point and the default if no agreement could be reached would simply be a 12% share (based on current populations of course). Even if the rest of the USA wishes to genuinely try and block California getting anything by force or similar then the US would also have to retain all it's debt, which with the loss of the Californian economy could be rather crippling to the point it would force the rest of the USA to do massive decomissioning programmes on large parts of it's military anyway, whereas California could run a surplus from the outset and thrive, maybe buy some knock down assets from the rest of the USA as it's forced to sell them off regardless...
Those are the principles by which it would work, so no it's not simply a case of the rest of the USA saying "Those all belong to us, you get nothing".