They are the Australian gun lobby (like the US NRA sort of) and not regarded very well. I always put them last along with the "fathers who don't want to pay child support" and the anti immigration groups.
Not quite.
Whilst being pro-gun, they aren't as gung ho and batshit insane as the US NRA. Their policy lines are more based on sport than self defence. Personally I put Shooters and Fishers above Lib/Nat (I vote below the line).
As a third party, they help prevent one party from ruling by fiat.
But I agree with you about the anti-immigration groups although Shooters and Fishers shouldn't really be lumped in with them.
The vast majority of automatics put the shifter in the center console nowadays,
I know, but when you say "stick shift" you're normally talking about manuals.
I haven't seen a column shift in ages, In Australia they went out of fashion in the 80's and everything since has been on the floor.
It's really ridiculous because the transmission in modern cars is electronically controlled so they could easily replace the shifter with a set of buttons or a small lever on the dash.
Easy to do, yes.
Easy, no.
The reason is that most people are used to using the stick (be it auto or manual). Most people even have trouble with flappy paddles (I certainly did, although my first experience with flappy paddles was an F1 simulator).
That would get rid of the need for the center console, which has actually been growing in size the past few years and invading the space where I'd normally place my shin/knee.
As a connoisseur of small Japanese sports cars, the shifter is actually smaller.
In a sports car you want the shifter to have shorter throws for more aggressive gear changes so they tend to put smaller gear sticks in there.
They can be gotten by almost anyone. Waitresses, cashiers, etc. can easily collect hundreds a day.
Our credit card system is set up so that getting money from the credit card account without being quickly caught is the hard part.
Actually, it's not.
You only get caught if your dumb (I.E. order a big screen TV delivered to your home).
The majority of credit card fraud occurs through high volumes of low value transactions. For US credit cards it's normally US$20-15 per transaction and for UK/European cards it's more like US$30-50 as European banks believe a bit more in their own security. This is actually very hard to catch if done properly, most people wont notice the money gone and by the time the bank pieces it together (as you're using different merchants, different methods and stagger the transactions) the fraudsters have gotten away with a tidy sum.
The main defence against credit card fraud is the fact there are so many credit cards. Which as anyone in any form of security will tell you is no defence what so ever.
Usually you need some kind of idiot mule to get the money, sent it to you, without knowing who you are. Then when the cops arrest him, he is stuck holding the 'bag'.
Actually, you send it overseas. Even if you have a presence in a trustworthy country (I.E. a merchant account in the UK) you immediately send the money to another country (Albania for instance).
No it wasn't. Orwell wrote 1984 after beeing delusional on how the communists behaved during the Spanish civil war, where he inititially fought for the communists.
Partly correct,
In his essay Why I Write, Orwell clearly explains that all the "serious work" he had written since the Spanish Civil War in 1936 was "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism". [1] Therefore, one can look at Nineteen Eighty-Four as a cautionary tale against totalitarianism and in particular the betrayal of a revolution by those claiming to defend or support it. However, as many reviewers and critics have stated, it should not be read as an attack on socialism as a whole, but on totalitarianism and potential totalitarianism.
Basically Nineteen Eighty-Four was a diatribe against Nazism (National Socialism, state controlled for the benefits of the few with generous lashings of nationalism and jingoism) if England had of slid into Nazism in the same way as Germany did.
Animal Farm was his diatribe against Communism, more precisely Stalinist communism (the use of Trotsky pigs), again he moddled the rise of government in the same way Soviet Russia came about (popular revolution against oppressive authority, leadership struggle where the hard line personalty takes control, becomes more oppressive than the previous authority).
Confusingly, in the title and elsewhere, the word 'soda' is used. A soft drink isn't necessarily a soda/carbonated/fizzy drink. In other words, a soft drink may be non-fizzy. That makes the summary at least somewhat ambiguous.
In most of the world, a "soft drink" refers to a carbonated sugary beverage.
This is by far, not the biggest problem that paper had. The fact a serving is not clearly defined is far worse.
Political Correctness implicitly states that culture and race are the same thing. Of course, that's not really true, but the cowardly among PC types still stands stedfast to conflate the two. So, if you mention black culture, you will be chastised as a racist!
Erm, "black" is a race.
If you're talking about black culture, you are talking about a specific race. Compared to say, Buddhist culture or beer culture which is not bound to a racial group.
Now saying "black culture" is not racist in itself, it really depends on what you're trying to say. I.E. saying "there are higher incidents of crime in predominately black neighbourhoods" is not racist, saying "therefore all blacks are criminals" is racist (and wrong as we see the same levels of crime in white neighbourhoods with similar socio-economic conditions). The same goes for implication, trying to tie skin colour to low IQ (as the GP has done in subsequent posts) is racist as he ignores all other explanations (I.E. lack of education, political instability).
Finally, my problem with people who complain about "political correctness" rarely understand what it is. "Political Correctness" has become a term for "He said something I dont like and its true" and is used as an ad hominem attack. Almost everyone who relies on the "PC gone mad" argument ends up being full of shit (Sorry, not PC enough for you) as they couldn't find a logical, rational rebuttal for the argument.
One option would be that mothers who allow their kids the have so much sugar in their diet is failing in probably more ways than one. So not only is the child getting improper nutrition but also not being taught how to act & respect people or things
This is probably quite true.
But... and there is always a but.
We've long known there's a link between sugar and hyperactivity. This study is really just saying water is wet (there's probably going to be one on the colour of the sky soon). The headline is misleading too, it says "soda makes five year olds break your stuff" where in reality what it should say is "too much soda makes kids hyperactive" which is kind of fucking obvious and not nearly as alarmist.
Also I haven't been able to find in the study or the article how much they consider to be "a serving" of soda. Obviously if you're letting a kid drink 4 cans of soda per day, you should expect them to be hyperactive.
The reason no one goes to them today is because cars have long been unsuitable for, ahem, romance. Not to mention either a bunch of friends, or a couple of kids along. Nobody can move in a modern car. In a pre 1970's car, you could put the seat back - a long bench - and have plenty of room. Now you have two "bucket" seats, and a plastic console and stick-shift in between.
You had me up until here.
Few people are capable of driving manuals any more... In fact, forget the manual part, few people are capable of driving.
Of course, "Google Can Do No Evil" attitude is quite prevalent, and I suppose like Apple fanboys, they refuse to see any bad things their company does. It's easy to hate Microsoft. It's easy to hate Apple. But hate Google and the fanboys can be just as vicious as Apple ones.
On the other hand, you'll find most of Google's fanboys are rational and capable of discussing Google's faults (and that of their products) nor do they stick their heads in the sand when actual faults are found (in fact they are typically the first to find them).
Unlike Apple or Microsoft, Most of Google's critics are their biggest fans.
Then again, Google responds to criticism by fixing issues rather than telling them they're holding it wrong.
Being forced to work for a certain amount of time after deciding you don't want to work anymore seems like something less than employee protection. At will employment is brutal, but it is fair.
I dont see your reasoning here. Especially since you didn't elaborate on your point.
The point is that an employer is bound by law to pay you for your notice period. You are obligated to work for that period unless your employer releases you from that obligation (but they still have to pay your notice period). This is the protection part.
"At will" employment puts all the power into the employees hands, they can get rid of you for anything without notice or warning.
"At will" is not fair by any meaning of the word. It's as lopsided as you can get.
Instead I was told wait in the conference for 2 hours for one of them to drive to the location(we were a satellite branch.) After signing a couple of documents they told me to leave and they would pay the next two weeks as the last of my vacation time.
That would suck.
In Australia I am required by law to give a notice period to my employer and my employer is required by law to pay me for my notice period. However if my employer wants to terminate my employment immediately, they are well within their rights to frog march me out of the building but they still have to pay me my notice period even though I didn't work it and then pay me my annual leave balance after that. So if I have a notice period of 2 weeks and 2 weeks leave, they have to pay me for 4 weeks.
There is no bridge to burn, and people that are leaving already have new positions elsewhere when they resign. What is the possible incentive to give more than one or two day's notice?
In countries with proper employee protection, it's required by law that you give a notice period (as defined by your contract, so anywhere from 1 week to 3 months depending on your position).
Above this, it's simply professional. Even if you intend to burn bridges at that company, if you do it like an arse word will get around about you.
Russia Today has an edge simply because it has a big reporting staff. This is unusual in the US today. Only the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post have serious world reporting staffs any more.
RT is biased, but it's no worse than Fox News. The embarrassing thing for Americans is that RT doesn't have to make up bad stuff about the US. They just put the bad stuff at the top of their pages.
It's funny that RT takes direct pot shots at CNN/MSNBC, when Fox News has a lot more "pro-west" things to say that are critical of Russia (and foreigners in general). It's as if they know that taking pot shots at Fox would basically be two elephant hunters going after each other, instead of the elephant.
When using propaganda, you want to target more legitimate sources of information (CNN/MSNBC are terrible by European/UK/Australian standards but still a lot better than Fox) and paint them as inaccurate and unreliable because the people who use these sources tend to be more rational and capable of doubt.
Fox News is pretty much US (Republican) propaganda, so the people who trust this source have already made a decision about what they think and are merely looking for a source to confim their pre-existing world veiw. It makes no sense to target Fox News (except for comic releif) with propaganda as the bias and ignorance of the audience makes them largely immune to it.
And yet most Android manufacturers are taking a loss right now.
Your evidence of this is?
Acer and Asus are making money. Same with ZTE and Huawei. In fact only HTC is reporting a loss and this wasn't until the last quarter.
People keep saying Android is eating Apple's lunch, yet Apple had revenues
Because companies have never gone from massive to dead in just a few years. I mean RIM is still a massive powerhouse who would never need to look for a buyer to stave off bankruptcy, that'll never change.
All of Apple's money doesn't count if people stop buying their products.
Step 1: remove iMac, keyboard, mouse and power cable from the box.
Step 2: plug in power cable into back of iMac and wall socket.
Step 3. plug in keyboard and mouse.
Step 4. plug phone cord into phone socket in back of iMac and wall.
Step 5. Turn on iMac
Step 6. Launch AOL.
Step 7: Find out AOL doesn't work in your area (or country).
Step 8: Try to find a modem that's compatible with OS X.
Step 10: buy a very expensive modem as the cheap ones only worked with Windows XP.
Step 11: Find out no production software runs on an iMac.
Step 12: Throw out iMac, buy a PC which you should have done in the first place if you wanted to get work done.
So the super-rich go to some hide-away. These people are accustomed to having things done for them. Automation will cover only so much. So now they have to bring in some help (people who aren't super-rich). And then, there are a lot of rich people who are mean and selfish, so they are going to have to have a police force--more outsiders who aren't super-rich. These rich people will have children who don't appreciate or care about the ideals of their parents, and take their world for granted.
Domino after domino, the ideal world these rich people have created will degrade into a rather "normal" place, with rich and poor, law-abiding and lawless, just like any other place.
Sadly, this problem has already been solved.
For millennia the rich kept slave soldiers and used a variety of methods to keep them subservient from simple death threats to holding their families hostage to making them eunuchs. Many were trained from a very young age to be unthinkingly loyal to their masters. Only in recent centuries have armies largely composed of slaves been eliminated, even though in the poorest parts of the earth similar things are still going on (think: boy soldiers).
The easy way to prevent distension from the "security force" is simply to hold their families hostage. Any hint of disloyalty and the soldiers family gets spaced.
Can you rebel when you have handguns and they have hellfire missiles?
Yes.
The people with the guns can still kill and destroy at will. They will strike at the vulnerable parts of the civilization. They will also be likely to give up their lives for the cause.
The people with the hellfire missiles, however, will be hamstrung by the sheer destructiveness of those weapons. A Hellfire missile is of no use if the target is in the very location you are striving to protect. Yes, you/could/ kill the insurgent, but the collateral damage would vastly outweigh the gains you would achieve with such a "victory".
This assumes that the people with the highly destructive weapons care about protecting the population.
Feel free to go and look at some average dictators.
Saddam for instance had no problems gassing entire towns, Assad has no issues with bombing people's homes.
When you're willing to go complete "total war" as Clausewitz put it the destructiveness of your weapons is a huge advantage. Handguns simply wont stand up to that for long.
There would be far less complexity if the Ultra Rich decided to purchase something like Australia as well as all the drones that you could stick a shake at to attack anything that came within 500 miles, and then for sport lob a few high yield explosives into population centers that appear to be getting a little too uppity.
Australia would be a bad idea, with everything from Sharks to Taipans to 40 degree C winters to Koala drop bears, the rich would be dead within months.
The 802.11 protocol does not require cell phones to broadcast their MAC addresses. Phones do it so that they can discover nearby networks faster, but it is completely optional.
There needs to be an update to iOS and Android that gives users the option to disable this feature (I can't remember the official name). Users should understand that it will take longer to find access points, but in exchange, they get vastly increased privacy.
Android already has this option.
In Android 4.x (4.3 here) go to Settings and slide the WiFi setting to "Off".
You can be "moral" without being lawful (See: moral crusaders, given the elasticity of the definition of moral (I.E. Westbro Baptists and Islamic extremists both see themselves as moral) you can do some highly illegal stuff and still be "moral").
Also, you can be lawful without being moral.
You should have used the && operator, whilst you can be both moral and lawful without being a complete tosser it is very, very difficult.
The really funny thing is that this conversation about it being hard to trust Google is in response to an article disclosing that Google has fulfilled its promises and, indeed, been trustworthy.
True,
But AOSP means I dont have to trust Google if I dont want to.
Using Occams razor, there are enough skilled people in the community to know if there is any malicious code maintained by Google and that its not possible that all of them are in on the conspiracy (the more people in a conspiracy the less secret it is, the whole "information wants to be free" thing).
People complain that google wants to sell ads and collect some personal information (to sell presumably), Apple and Microsoft are doing the same thing (read the Itunes EULA, Apple reserves the right to sell your information to third parties) however the big difference between Google and Apple/Microsoft is that Google are honest about doing it.
Slashdot Mirror
Plus, geese are vicious bastards who'll attack and chase animals much much larger than themselves. And they poop like crazy.
Indeed, I used to be a Canadian before I took a Goose to the knee.
They are the Australian gun lobby (like the US NRA sort of) and not regarded very well. I always put them last along with the "fathers who don't want to pay child support" and the anti immigration groups.
Not quite.
Whilst being pro-gun, they aren't as gung ho and batshit insane as the US NRA. Their policy lines are more based on sport than self defence. Personally I put Shooters and Fishers above Lib/Nat (I vote below the line).
As a third party, they help prevent one party from ruling by fiat.
But I agree with you about the anti-immigration groups although Shooters and Fishers shouldn't really be lumped in with them.
The vast majority of automatics put the shifter in the center console nowadays,
I know, but when you say "stick shift" you're normally talking about manuals.
I haven't seen a column shift in ages, In Australia they went out of fashion in the 80's and everything since has been on the floor.
It's really ridiculous because the transmission in modern cars is electronically controlled so they could easily replace the shifter with a set of buttons or a small lever on the dash.
Easy to do, yes.
Easy, no.
The reason is that most people are used to using the stick (be it auto or manual). Most people even have trouble with flappy paddles (I certainly did, although my first experience with flappy paddles was an F1 simulator).
As a connoisseur of small Japanese sports cars, the shifter is actually smaller.
In a sports car you want the shifter to have shorter throws for more aggressive gear changes so they tend to put smaller gear sticks in there.
They can be gotten by almost anyone. Waitresses, cashiers, etc. can easily collect hundreds a day.
Our credit card system is set up so that getting money from the credit card account without being quickly caught is the hard part.
Actually, it's not.
You only get caught if your dumb (I.E. order a big screen TV delivered to your home).
The majority of credit card fraud occurs through high volumes of low value transactions. For US credit cards it's normally US$20-15 per transaction and for UK/European cards it's more like US$30-50 as European banks believe a bit more in their own security. This is actually very hard to catch if done properly, most people wont notice the money gone and by the time the bank pieces it together (as you're using different merchants, different methods and stagger the transactions) the fraudsters have gotten away with a tidy sum.
The main defence against credit card fraud is the fact there are so many credit cards. Which as anyone in any form of security will tell you is no defence what so ever.
Usually you need some kind of idiot mule to get the money, sent it to you, without knowing who you are. Then when the cops arrest him, he is stuck holding the 'bag'.
Actually, you send it overseas. Even if you have a presence in a trustworthy country (I.E. a merchant account in the UK) you immediately send the money to another country (Albania for instance).
No it wasn't. Orwell wrote 1984 after beeing delusional on how the communists behaved during the Spanish civil war, where he inititially fought for the communists.
Partly correct,
In his essay Why I Write, Orwell clearly explains that all the "serious work" he had written since the Spanish Civil War in 1936 was "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism". [1] Therefore, one can look at Nineteen Eighty-Four as a cautionary tale against totalitarianism and in particular the betrayal of a revolution by those claiming to defend or support it. However, as many reviewers and critics have stated, it should not be read as an attack on socialism as a whole, but on totalitarianism and potential totalitarianism.
Basically Nineteen Eighty-Four was a diatribe against Nazism (National Socialism, state controlled for the benefits of the few with generous lashings of nationalism and jingoism) if England had of slid into Nazism in the same way as Germany did.
Animal Farm was his diatribe against Communism, more precisely Stalinist communism (the use of Trotsky pigs), again he moddled the rise of government in the same way Soviet Russia came about (popular revolution against oppressive authority, leadership struggle where the hard line personalty takes control, becomes more oppressive than the previous authority).
drank more than four soft drinks per day
Confusingly, in the title and elsewhere, the word 'soda' is used. A soft drink isn't necessarily a soda/carbonated/fizzy drink. In other words, a soft drink may be non-fizzy. That makes the summary at least somewhat ambiguous.
In most of the world, a "soft drink" refers to a carbonated sugary beverage.
This is by far, not the biggest problem that paper had. The fact a serving is not clearly defined is far worse.
Political Correctness implicitly states that culture and race are the same thing. Of course, that's not really true, but the cowardly among PC types still stands stedfast to conflate the two. So, if you mention black culture, you will be chastised as a racist!
Erm, "black" is a race.
If you're talking about black culture, you are talking about a specific race. Compared to say, Buddhist culture or beer culture which is not bound to a racial group.
Now saying "black culture" is not racist in itself, it really depends on what you're trying to say. I.E. saying "there are higher incidents of crime in predominately black neighbourhoods" is not racist, saying "therefore all blacks are criminals" is racist (and wrong as we see the same levels of crime in white neighbourhoods with similar socio-economic conditions). The same goes for implication, trying to tie skin colour to low IQ (as the GP has done in subsequent posts) is racist as he ignores all other explanations (I.E. lack of education, political instability).
Finally, my problem with people who complain about "political correctness" rarely understand what it is. "Political Correctness" has become a term for "He said something I dont like and its true" and is used as an ad hominem attack. Almost everyone who relies on the "PC gone mad" argument ends up being full of shit (Sorry, not PC enough for you) as they couldn't find a logical, rational rebuttal for the argument.
One option would be that mothers who allow their kids the have so much sugar in their diet is failing in probably more ways than one. So not only is the child getting improper nutrition but also not being taught how to act & respect people or things
This is probably quite true.
But... and there is always a but.
We've long known there's a link between sugar and hyperactivity. This study is really just saying water is wet (there's probably going to be one on the colour of the sky soon). The headline is misleading too, it says "soda makes five year olds break your stuff" where in reality what it should say is "too much soda makes kids hyperactive" which is kind of fucking obvious and not nearly as alarmist.
Also I haven't been able to find in the study or the article how much they consider to be "a serving" of soda. Obviously if you're letting a kid drink 4 cans of soda per day, you should expect them to be hyperactive.
The reason no one goes to them today is because cars have long been unsuitable for, ahem, romance. Not to mention either a bunch of friends, or a couple of kids along. Nobody can move in a modern car. In a pre 1970's car, you could put the seat back - a long bench - and have plenty of room. Now you have two "bucket" seats, and a plastic console and stick-shift in between.
You had me up until here.
Few people are capable of driving manuals any more... In fact, forget the manual part, few people are capable of driving.
"You might as well ask why a Lamborghini cost is six figures since you bought a CitroÃfn C1 last week for less than ten thousand."
Well, for a better car analogy is more like asking why a 16-wheeler is more expensive than my C1.
Isn't it obvious,
Pirates, pirates are making 16-wheelers so expensive.
Of course, "Google Can Do No Evil" attitude is quite prevalent, and I suppose like Apple fanboys, they refuse to see any bad things their company does. It's easy to hate Microsoft. It's easy to hate Apple. But hate Google and the fanboys can be just as vicious as Apple ones.
On the other hand, you'll find most of Google's fanboys are rational and capable of discussing Google's faults (and that of their products) nor do they stick their heads in the sand when actual faults are found (in fact they are typically the first to find them).
Unlike Apple or Microsoft, Most of Google's critics are their biggest fans.
Then again, Google responds to criticism by fixing issues rather than telling them they're holding it wrong.
They don't get it. The people who block your content in-line can send you back any page they choose, including a 404.
If you get a page back it's not a 404.
Shouldn't this really be a 403 "Forbidden" or a more British sounding 406 "Not Acceptable".
Being forced to work for a certain amount of time after deciding you don't want to work anymore seems like something less than employee protection. At will employment is brutal, but it is fair.
I dont see your reasoning here. Especially since you didn't elaborate on your point.
The point is that an employer is bound by law to pay you for your notice period. You are obligated to work for that period unless your employer releases you from that obligation (but they still have to pay your notice period). This is the protection part.
"At will" employment puts all the power into the employees hands, they can get rid of you for anything without notice or warning.
"At will" is not fair by any meaning of the word. It's as lopsided as you can get.
That would suck.
In Australia I am required by law to give a notice period to my employer and my employer is required by law to pay me for my notice period. However if my employer wants to terminate my employment immediately, they are well within their rights to frog march me out of the building but they still have to pay me my notice period even though I didn't work it and then pay me my annual leave balance after that. So if I have a notice period of 2 weeks and 2 weeks leave, they have to pay me for 4 weeks.
There is no bridge to burn, and people that are leaving already have new positions elsewhere when they resign. What is the possible incentive to give more than one or two day's notice?
In countries with proper employee protection, it's required by law that you give a notice period (as defined by your contract, so anywhere from 1 week to 3 months depending on your position).
Above this, it's simply professional. Even if you intend to burn bridges at that company, if you do it like an arse word will get around about you.
Russia Today has an edge simply because it has a big reporting staff. This is unusual in the US today. Only the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post have serious world reporting staffs any more.
RT is biased, but it's no worse than Fox News. The embarrassing thing for Americans is that RT doesn't have to make up bad stuff about the US. They just put the bad stuff at the top of their pages.
It's funny that RT takes direct pot shots at CNN/MSNBC, when Fox News has a lot more "pro-west" things to say that are critical of Russia (and foreigners in general). It's as if they know that taking pot shots at Fox would basically be two elephant hunters going after each other, instead of the elephant.
When using propaganda, you want to target more legitimate sources of information (CNN/MSNBC are terrible by European/UK/Australian standards but still a lot better than Fox) and paint them as inaccurate and unreliable because the people who use these sources tend to be more rational and capable of doubt.
Fox News is pretty much US (Republican) propaganda, so the people who trust this source have already made a decision about what they think and are merely looking for a source to confim their pre-existing world veiw. It makes no sense to target Fox News (except for comic releif) with propaganda as the bias and ignorance of the audience makes them largely immune to it.
Your evidence of this is?
Acer and Asus are making money. Same with ZTE and Huawei. In fact only HTC is reporting a loss and this wasn't until the last quarter.
Because companies have never gone from massive to dead in just a few years. I mean RIM is still a massive powerhouse who would never need to look for a buyer to stave off bankruptcy, that'll never change.
All of Apple's money doesn't count if people stop buying their products.
Step 1: remove iMac, keyboard, mouse and power cable from the box.
Step 2: plug in power cable into back of iMac and wall socket.
Step 3. plug in keyboard and mouse.
Step 4. plug phone cord into phone socket in back of iMac and wall.
Step 5. Turn on iMac
Step 6. Launch AOL.
Step 7: Find out AOL doesn't work in your area (or country).
Step 8: Try to find a modem that's compatible with OS X.
Step 10: buy a very expensive modem as the cheap ones only worked with Windows XP.
Step 11: Find out no production software runs on an iMac.
Step 12: Throw out iMac, buy a PC which you should have done in the first place if you wanted to get work done.
So the super-rich go to some hide-away. These people are accustomed to having things done for them. Automation will cover only so much. So now they have to bring in some help (people who aren't super-rich). And then, there are a lot of rich people who are mean and selfish, so they are going to have to have a police force--more outsiders who aren't super-rich. These rich people will have children who don't appreciate or care about the ideals of their parents, and take their world for granted.
Domino after domino, the ideal world these rich people have created will degrade into a rather "normal" place, with rich and poor, law-abiding and lawless, just like any other place.
Sadly, this problem has already been solved.
For millennia the rich kept slave soldiers and used a variety of methods to keep them subservient from simple death threats to holding their families hostage to making them eunuchs. Many were trained from a very young age to be unthinkingly loyal to their masters. Only in recent centuries have armies largely composed of slaves been eliminated, even though in the poorest parts of the earth similar things are still going on (think: boy soldiers).
The easy way to prevent distension from the "security force" is simply to hold their families hostage. Any hint of disloyalty and the soldiers family gets spaced.
Can you rebel when you have handguns and they have hellfire missiles?
Yes.
The people with the guns can still kill and destroy at will. They will strike at the vulnerable parts of the civilization. They will also be likely to give up their lives for the cause.
The people with the hellfire missiles, however, will be hamstrung by the sheer destructiveness of those weapons. A Hellfire missile is of no use if the target is in the very location you are striving to protect. Yes, you /could/ kill the insurgent, but the collateral damage would vastly outweigh the gains you would achieve with such a "victory".
This assumes that the people with the highly destructive weapons care about protecting the population.
Feel free to go and look at some average dictators.
Saddam for instance had no problems gassing entire towns, Assad has no issues with bombing people's homes.
When you're willing to go complete "total war" as Clausewitz put it the destructiveness of your weapons is a huge advantage. Handguns simply wont stand up to that for long.
There would be far less complexity if the Ultra Rich decided to purchase something like Australia as well as all the drones that you could stick a shake at to attack anything that came within 500 miles, and then for sport lob a few high yield explosives into population centers that appear to be getting a little too uppity.
Australia would be a bad idea, with everything from Sharks to Taipans to 40 degree C winters to Koala drop bears, the rich would be dead within months.
The 802.11 protocol does not require cell phones to broadcast their MAC addresses. Phones do it so that they can discover nearby networks faster, but it is completely optional.
There needs to be an update to iOS and Android that gives users the option to disable this feature (I can't remember the official name). Users should understand that it will take longer to find access points, but in exchange, they get vastly increased privacy.
Android already has this option.
In Android 4.x (4.3 here) go to Settings and slide the WiFi setting to "Off".
people are predisposed to liking what they spent money on.
I don't know about that. I spent a bunch of money on an ex-wife and I don't like her much at all.
When it comes down to it, you didn't pay her to stay, you paid her to leave.
As the old saying goes "Why are divorces so expensive? Because they're worth it."
Competent != (moral || lawful)
You can be "moral" without being lawful (See: moral crusaders, given the elasticity of the definition of moral (I.E. Westbro Baptists and Islamic extremists both see themselves as moral) you can do some highly illegal stuff and still be "moral").
Also, you can be lawful without being moral.
You should have used the && operator, whilst you can be both moral and lawful without being a complete tosser it is very, very difficult.
Trusting Google is a hard thing to do.
The really funny thing is that this conversation about it being hard to trust Google is in response to an article disclosing that Google has fulfilled its promises and, indeed, been trustworthy.
True,
But AOSP means I dont have to trust Google if I dont want to.
Using Occams razor, there are enough skilled people in the community to know if there is any malicious code maintained by Google and that its not possible that all of them are in on the conspiracy (the more people in a conspiracy the less secret it is, the whole "information wants to be free" thing).
People complain that google wants to sell ads and collect some personal information (to sell presumably), Apple and Microsoft are doing the same thing (read the Itunes EULA, Apple reserves the right to sell your information to third parties) however the big difference between Google and Apple/Microsoft is that Google are honest about doing it.