> It's like property tax seizure sales. If you owe enough back taxes on property, we'll seize it and sell it. We do this with all > real property and mobile homes.
In fact, this is one of the very reasons that the federal government was formed. There is no coincidence at all in the fact that Shays Rebellion happened just before the calls for a small central government to put down peasant and slave rebellions and deal with Indians who might not like us taking their land.
It has only ever been government "for the people and by the people" if, by the people, you mean the top few percent of wealthy land owners by "the people". That shows no signs of changing.
I guess thats one way to "solve" the "problem". Sort of like, if you define concentration camps as a homeland; then Hitler was a zionist!
While you could do all that, my whole point was, this is a pretty simple problem to deal with. You can easily allow the wii or any other device, access to the internet but NOT the internal LAN. Its done all the time for certain types of devices. In fact, the WII is even a simpler case; often such hosts need to allow for internal connections initiated by machines on the LAN, but are not able to go the other way. The Wii doesn't even need that.
Of course, I should have pointed out, the project really dies (in a large corporate world) when you see your managers eyes glaze over as he imagines the hours upon hours of meetings that he will have to attend; to explain to the managers above him, how the networking technology (that he doesn't actually understand) works, so that he can justify asking them to ask the manager of the networking group to assign one of his people to the task of setting up the network portions of this.
I guarantee thats where the whole plan dies and the Wii in the break room becomes not worth it. At least, at some places I know.
Thats no fun! Seriously, its a corperate world we are talking about right? Why not a corporate solution. We deal with devices that need some manner of protection all the time.
You put this into an existing subnet of devices that require internet access but not internal LAN access. If you don't have such a pool of devices, you make such a subnet. Hell you define a game console VLAN, put all the game consoles in it (even a large company shouldn't have more than a handful), give them a small subnet (a/27 or something), and then setup their gateway router to only allow them to connect out the internet pipe and not to the internal network.
The real problem, I think, is that such devices are easily overlooked. Some manager putting a wii in the break room might not realize whats the exposures are, and just gets a network drop like any old desktop, and plugs it in.
Um no. There is huge difference here. In one case (the firewall) I am junking traffic sent by others, to my machine. I reject it at my machine. I am not rejecting traffic thats not destined for me. I am just deciding what can come through my network connection to my machine. If I want to allow no packets at all, thats all on me.
This system is another story. This is the system for determining who should be fined by the government. Often that fine goes along with other penalties, who might lose their license. Who might have wages garnished or be thrown in jail. We are talking about using the machinery of the state to harass and abuse a person into compliance.
Its one thing to filter packets to my own machine, which may or may not help. Worst case is, I, the person who made the decision, doesn't get packets that I want. In the other case, someone decides to put fake pictures up, a third party is being encouraged to use harassment and violence against someone. I don't see how you equate them AT ALL.
In short, arbitrary rules and even bad ones are fine when there are no real world consequences for other people, but, even a small window of opportunity for abuse in a system with real world physical and financial consequences for people other than the abuser should NEVER be based on anything so easily abused.
Its better to let infinite numbers of the guilty go free than to allow even a handful of the innocent to be punished.
Actually I mostly agree but... I also agree with the other comments that, despite this, they come closer to being a good news show than anything else on TV (NPR however, does a great job, on the radio).
While they may often go for cheap shots and humor that has little or nothing to do with the news, they also bring to the forefront important stories that others relegate to being uninteresting or do a small blip on with no explanation. Or they rush off into some BS "analysis" that pushes one or two points of view on the subject and drop it.
The daily show on the other hand uses comedic exaggeration and metaphor, to explain and or give people a sense of context around these things. News should be more than "here is the raw data" or "here is what a couple of sides of the issue said in sound bites"
Its like evolution vs "intelligent design". A good friend of mine pointed out, just yesterday, that most people can't defend evolution. They get tripped up with very simple counter arguments, counter arguments that an expert could easily deal with ("gaps in the fossil record", "how could the eye happen") but most people can't do it.
That said, he then made a very amusing analogy:
The equivalent for me, as a historian, would be to have students debate the merits of the "theory" that the Holocaust didn't happen versus the "theory" that it did, since one is supported by incontrovertible evidence and the other is the product of willful ignorance and blind ideological adherence.
Now, thats the sort of "put it in perspective" analogy that you don't hear in mainstream news because, mainstream journalists are so into this idea of "fairly presenting both sides" and "not making judgements" that they routinely print absolutely BS and extremely weak or disingenuous arguments right along side solid ones. However, its exactly the sort of analogy that John Stewart makes over and over again on his show to put things in perspective.
Sure, much of the show is just comedy, and just made up for laughs, however, the humor often delivers the news better than the more "serious" shows.
> This is reality, not the Federation of Planets. Get used to it.
I don;t think that excuses bad behaviour. Yes, in reality this stuff happens. That doesn't mean we should not despise it. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't expose and punish it. There have been many changes in technology that put current regiemes in a very different place than the past, we should use every single one of those to hold them accountable, expose their lies, and cut them down to size.
Nothing about accepting the reality of atrocity means we shouldn't hold those responsible accountable and make an example of them.
Just a bit of a nit pick, you also need a portion of that capacity available to produce parts for maintenance. Though, I think we can safely assume, for mirrors, that this will continue to exist regardless of these mirror farms. Which is why its just a nit pick.
Very true. That said, I mean... and the advent of refrigeration killed the ice man.
I have nothing against a person wanting to make a living off their skills, however, I also can't blame someone for not paying for it if people will give it to them for free. If so many people are willing to submit works for a contest or whatever you want to call it that it prices you out of the business, thats unfortunate but, its the way it is.
Certainly, you are right, this is not going to match up those with true professional skills with clients and produce great work. However, if thats not what a company values, I don't think I can fault them for not valuing it, especially if it gives them some other advantage (like essentially being a stunt to get their name out).
I mean, if I need my house painted, I am not going to hire a local artist, I am going to buy some paint, some six packs of beer, and call some friends.
Yes but this is only a prototype. The technology has a lot of potential, and the question then becomes... if one application is small and its ok to steal tiny amounts of power that are unnoticeable over line loss, where do you draw the line? Should it just be free for all and we decide later if its a problem? What will we do when someone develops a "floating fortress" that deploys hundreds of these and tethers them to run from and recharge itself?
Would it be acceptable to setup a fleet of these glide up, charge some batteries, then come back and get new ones and supply a constant battery power? If thats acceptable too, becuase its so small, how do you tell the next guy he can't do the same, and the next?
Not to mention that stealing power through induction is nothing new, and nothing that the people who are trying to sell that power are too keen on you trying. I mean, I can see the military not really caring too much about that aspect for their operations, but such a scheme would need some way to pay for it if you wanted to use it domestically.
It is kind of a chicken and egg sort of problem. I mean, goat meat is out there, but its rare. I can find ground lamb too, but, its not something alot of people cook with, so not every store bothers, and not all the time. Ground beef? I can buy any day at any store.
People buy what they are used to, and what they know how to cook. You need to get it out there for people to get used to it to create a market for it. Of course, whats the incentive for any individual to get it out there and take initial losses hoping that enough people start cooking with it to make it viable? Even if the payoff for all of us is big in the medium to long term, its hard to find enough individuals (especially without organizing them around a cause) that will be willing to take that short term loss when they can't expect to see the long term gain themselves (to the grocer selling beef vs goat isn't a big difference as long as it sells)
Well.... any new religion has to differentiate itself from the old, so it can't be too conservative in its own beginnings.
Christianity isn't new anymore. Now, there are many Christian cults, and each of them has their own slant on the interpretation of those stories.
Some interpret it very "liberally", like you seem to. Others see things more black and white and prefer literal interpretations.
Now, to go to a conservative christian and show him your interpretation of the bible, you are calling into question his very moral core, not only that, but the moral core of his parents and grandparents. He would no more like to hear that you interpret the Bible the way you do, than he would like to hear about the Koran.
Lets also not forget the Bible is more than the life and times of Jesus. You may be all nice and liberal and willing to gloss over Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (women should be subservient and never hold a position over a man or be teachers... among other quite enlightened and liberal viewpoints) but not everyone does.
> but sending your army somewhere and then expecting your soldiers not to shoot back if they get shot at or bombed seems very weird > to me.
Weird because it is...and nobody is doing that. These weapons will be used as adjunct weapons. They will be there to use either with traditional means to gain an edge, and they will especially be used in situations where traditional means would yield bad PR. I am sure that they are hoping that the use of non-lethal "burning waves" that leave no mark to be shown on camera, will instantly reduce any stories of protests being broken up to middle of the paper news.
Nothing has changed war like television. Images of the horrors of war in Viet Nam divided the US. I don't think Orwell was prophet or predictor of the future so much as an astute observer of human society. There are a few people with the power to influence many, and even they often live in this shared delusion of common cause and nationalism. Thats how it is, how its been.
As long as each person is an individual cog in a larger machine, then nobody has any need to contemplate his own moral responsibility for what is happening. The best way to maintain that, is to not give people an emotional reason to break out of their nationalist hallucination. Or worst, have them see you as the enemy to their interests within that nationalist hallucination.
The machine can't run with the cogs questioning their own part and acting in response to it.
> I like the story about the 'reformed' bully. Kind of touching how he apologized so deeply.
I was pretty shocked myself. Though, as soon as he said who he was I was doubly shocked because... well I mentioned he had obviously been kept back a grade, he was taller than everyone else in the class. He was the epitome of the big bully. Now... now... well... hes not bigger than me anymore. In fact, I had a couple of inches on him.
Hard to avoid sizing someone up when he is the only person you have ever actually been in a real fist fight with (standing up to the bully only works in after school specials btw).
Back when I was single and lonely (not that long ago) I found myself reading some Dave DeAngelo and some other "pick up artist" stuff. Eventually, I kept at it, met a girl, got married. Now I am watching my newly single friend go through the same thing, and....
I notice that all the "Pick up Artist" stuff really is a bunch of bullshit, but, its the sort of bullshit thats going to build your confidence. Make the problems seem smaller, make you feel more in control. Then they throw in a little bit of the basic social skills that you probably missed out on as a kid (I am still bad at making eye contact, which isn't just bad for meeting girls and getting laid, but in all manner of social situations... like work)
The problem is the only real way to learn it is through experience, but, if you don't know what you need to practice (and few people can really tell you, the specifics since, it was learned so long ago, its like walking to them) then how do you practice and get that experience?
Incidentally, my view on bullies did change a bit when I ran into that slightly older kid who was kept back and became a huge bully in a bar a few years back. As soon as he realized who I was he started crying, hugged me, and apologized for what a rotten kid he was. Apparently, even bullies are capable of change.
> And now, a lot of states have mandatory automobile insurance laws on the books. Do you live in one? I do, and I remember when it went into > effect. If you do, have your premiums gone down because so many more people are now paying into the system and because there are so fewer > uninsured motorists on the roads now? Yeah, mine haven't either. Funny how that works, isn't it? Again, it sounds nice in theory, but in > reality, these laws are just a blatant money grab by insurance companies to use police power to force you to pay them money. Like I said, the > industry as a whole is a scam.
Me too!
However, we used to also have more tightly regulated insurance. As such, the minimum insurance package was actually cheaper than the national average, when compared against the same coverage. Then of course, we kept the minimum insurance mandate, and dropped some of the regulations on insurance. That didn't help matters at all.
Frankly, I agree that its a blatant money grab by the insurance industry. On the other hand, having less uninsured drivers on the road is a good thing. So it seems to me that the state should just... provide the insurance. Spin off a non-profit semi-private organization that provides insurance essentially "at-cost" (as much as you can for what is essentially a form of gambling).
That or drop the mandate. One or the other though.
My mother was an X-Ray tech for 25 years (before she went out on disability due to problems with her retinas)
You say this wont be useful for spot images, but, doesn't the operator usually stand in a shielded area for spot images? Maybe not with portable units but, in dedicated X-Ray rooms.
Also... while traditional lead suits are not all protective... the unprotected areas (like hands and face) are the ones that are far less likely to be damaged by radiation than say... your kidneys.
This does seem cool but, I don't see why you would even need it for spot images most of the time. -Steve
When they said in the article that it had to do with their mission, I figured it must be a hash of "Use Fear Uncertainty, Doubt, and Lies to bilk the taxpayers out of as much money as possible while providing absolutely no tangible benefit to anyone."
Apparently, they chose to just use their "cover mission".
This really sounds to me like an interesting experiment in error correction.
You have n machines which were all (or most) at some point within 1 ms or so sync to an atomic clock. They all immediately started to add error to that time. So now, this system seems to be, sampling all of these machines, collecting all of their skew together. If the skew is random, you would expect it to cancel itself out. If it tends to bias in one direction, you should be able to figure out an average skew.
Then that average is used to set the machines, causing a sort of feedback loop, which makes me wonder if they are continuing to get NTP input at some nodes to try and add a signal for the feedback loop to tune itself into.
Kind of shooting from the hip but, its a neat idea anyway.
> However I agree with your assessment. There is no substitute for experience. > I think society would be much improved by mandatory military service.
Funny you would say that. I actually mostly agree. This may surprise anyone who has heard how little I think of the military or soldiers in general. That said, I would argue that some form of mandatory or strongly encouraged, (I am not really into non-consensual except in the most extreme of cases... I think prison should be reserved for true serial rapists and murders, and political criminals) however.... as a requirement for voting rights and or citizenship? Sure, I could buy that.
Also, I would only really support it if the mandatory service were STRICTLY defensive forces service. Or at least, I wouldn't join up and get citizenship unless they were strictly defensive forces (and making it an option doesn't fly either, since every person who takes that option could be used in such a way to free up someone who would fight... manpower is fungible as they like to say)
Part of this is that, as a US Citizen, I realize how huge of a military that would create and no such military should ever exist to my mind. If we broke up into individual state militias, then I would be an even bigger supporter of such an idea, but a single centralized power of that magnitude would be something that I would fear.
> You should have bolded "reported", because as you say, men aren't likely to call the cops when their wife beats the hell out of them; they're > ashamed the cops will laugh and call them pussies. Women have no such problems calling the cops.
I don't want to cast this aspersion on all, or even most, women but... I have even been witness to my friends live in girlfriend tell him "Fine if you want it that way I will just call the cops now and tell them you hit me" because they were having an argument. Same woman... no lie... I saw her tell him "I don't want us to both have keys to the same apartment" demanded his, then when he wouldn't give them up, handed him hers.
She then walked over to a police cruiser down the block, told them he reached in her pocket and took her keys. (of course, she lucked out, my friend was still made from the fight with her and the cop was one of those douchebags who was just itching for a fight and egged him on until I had to step in and pull my friend away and tell him to calm down)
I don't tend to have the same view exactly, but, I have had a small amount of martial arts training (couple of years in a couple of styles, nothing too serious), and so, I have been exposed to women trained to fight, and they are every bit a mans equal when trained (making allowances for size and strength, but those advantages can be somewhat nullified with speed, training, and experience)
That said, I heard a very interesting talk by an old martial arts master (I forget which, one of the japanese schools) in a documentary. His insight on schoolyard violene was interesting... he said its good for boys to fight when they are young because they learn their own strength, they get hurt, and they learn how much damage they can do to others and themselves.
His claim was that the danger of trying to eliminate this sort of fighting was young adults growing up not knowing their own strength and not being as aware of how much they can hurt each other, and so fights between them, when they do arise, are more deadly.
Overall, I believe it. Look at someone whose been a martial artist for years. The control that they can exhibit is amazing. The ability to throw a "lightning fast" punch, yet connect with so little force that you might not know it, or how and where to give you a good solid hit to bruise your ego without damaging your bones or flesh. Hell, one of my instructors had so much control, that I didn't realize that he was demonstrating a sneaky groin kick until I felt his toes caressing my balls. Quite unsettling how fast it happened but... he still had enough control to not even cause pain.
Now schoolyard fights wont give you that sort of control but... try sparring with some new students who just recently learned how to throw a kick and its just all unfocused power with no control.... so I can definitely see it.
If facebook suddenly changed the name of your "Friends list" to your "Acquaintances List", would you immediately drop all of your friends and family? What about family members that aren't really friends?
Out of curiosity, what are "on facebook for".
The whole idea of social networking (even if you leave "websites" and ask people who talk about in person, face to face, social networking) is... expanding your social network by making new connections to new people.
Maybe you just want to use it as a personal BBS for chatting with your friends, but some people are on there to also, meet new people. Thats why you can check of "Dating" as what you are there for, its why they allow you to proclaim your relationship status (oddly they are open enough to allow "open relationship" but... still only allow you to specify one relationship... and married is just married with no option for "open marriage".... ahh.... assumptions....)
In any case... if the point of FB was just chatting with people who already know you well.... then why even have such options? Why have a bio section to describe yourself? My friends, afterall, know who I am and who I am married to.
Slashdot Mirror
Plus, you buy a pony and you get a pony. You buy a congressman and all you get is an ass!
-Steve
> It's like property tax seizure sales. If you owe enough back taxes on property, we'll seize it and sell it. We do this with all
> real property and mobile homes.
In fact, this is one of the very reasons that the federal government was formed. There is no coincidence at all in the fact that Shays Rebellion happened just before the calls for a small central government to put down peasant and slave rebellions and deal with Indians who might not like us taking their land.
It has only ever been government "for the people and by the people" if, by the people, you mean the top few percent of wealthy land owners by "the people". That shows no signs of changing.
-Steve
I guess thats one way to "solve" the "problem". Sort of like, if you define concentration camps as a homeland; then Hitler was a zionist!
While you could do all that, my whole point was, this is a pretty simple problem to deal with. You can easily allow the wii or any other device, access to the internet but NOT the internal LAN. Its done all the time for certain types of devices. In fact, the WII is even a simpler case; often such hosts need to allow for internal connections initiated by machines on the LAN, but are not able to go the other way. The Wii doesn't even need that.
-Steve
Of course, I should have pointed out, the project really dies (in a large corporate world) when you see your managers eyes glaze over as he imagines the hours upon hours of meetings that he will have to attend; to explain to the managers above him, how the networking technology (that he doesn't actually understand) works, so that he can justify asking them to ask the manager of the networking group to assign one of his people to the task of setting up the network portions of this.
I guarantee thats where the whole plan dies and the Wii in the break room becomes not worth it. At least, at some places I know.
-Steve
Thats no fun! Seriously, its a corperate world we are talking about right? Why not a corporate solution. We deal with devices that need some manner of protection all the time.
You put this into an existing subnet of devices that require internet access but not internal LAN access. If you don't have such a pool of devices, you make such a subnet. Hell you define a game console VLAN, put all the game consoles in it (even a large company shouldn't have more than a handful), give them a small subnet (a /27 or something), and then setup their gateway router to only allow them to connect out the internet pipe and not to the internal network.
The real problem, I think, is that such devices are easily overlooked. Some manager putting a wii in the break room might not realize whats the exposures are, and just gets a network drop like any old desktop, and plugs it in.
-Steve
Um no. There is huge difference here. In one case (the firewall) I am junking traffic sent by others, to my machine. I reject it at my machine. I am not rejecting traffic thats not destined for me. I am just deciding what can come through my network connection to my machine. If I want to allow no packets at all, thats all on me.
This system is another story. This is the system for determining who should be fined by the government. Often that fine goes along with other penalties, who might lose their license. Who might have wages garnished or be thrown in jail. We are talking about using the machinery of the state to harass and abuse a person into compliance.
Its one thing to filter packets to my own machine, which may or may not help. Worst case is, I, the person who made the decision, doesn't get packets that I want. In the other case, someone decides to put fake pictures up, a third party is being encouraged to use harassment and violence against someone. I don't see how you equate them AT ALL.
In short, arbitrary rules and even bad ones are fine when there are no real world consequences for other people, but, even a small window of opportunity for abuse in a system with real world physical and financial consequences for people other than the abuser should NEVER be based on anything so easily abused.
Its better to let infinite numbers of the guilty go free than to allow even a handful of the innocent to be punished.
-Steve
Actually I mostly agree but... I also agree with the other comments that, despite this, they come closer to being a good news show than anything else on TV (NPR however, does a great job, on the radio).
While they may often go for cheap shots and humor that has little or nothing to do with the news, they also bring to the forefront important stories that others relegate to being uninteresting or do a small blip on with no explanation. Or they rush off into some BS "analysis" that pushes one or two points of view on the subject and drop it.
The daily show on the other hand uses comedic exaggeration and metaphor, to explain and or give people a sense of context around these things. News should be more than "here is the raw data" or "here is what a couple of sides of the issue said in sound bites"
Its like evolution vs "intelligent design". A good friend of mine pointed out, just yesterday, that most people can't defend evolution. They get tripped up with very simple counter arguments, counter arguments that an expert could easily deal with ("gaps in the fossil record", "how could the eye happen") but most people can't do it.
That said, he then made a very amusing analogy:
Now, thats the sort of "put it in perspective" analogy that you don't hear in mainstream news because, mainstream journalists are so into this idea of "fairly presenting both sides" and "not making judgements" that they routinely print absolutely BS and extremely weak or disingenuous arguments right along side solid ones. However, its exactly the sort of analogy that John Stewart makes over and over again on his show to put things in perspective.
Sure, much of the show is just comedy, and just made up for laughs, however, the humor often delivers the news better than the more "serious" shows.
-Steve
> This is reality, not the Federation of Planets. Get used to it.
I don;t think that excuses bad behaviour. Yes, in reality this stuff happens. That doesn't mean we should not despise it. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't expose and punish it. There have been many changes in technology that put current regiemes in a very different place than the past, we should use every single one of those to hold them accountable, expose their lies, and cut them down to size.
Nothing about accepting the reality of atrocity means we shouldn't hold those responsible accountable and make an example of them.
-Steve
Just a bit of a nit pick, you also need a portion of that capacity available to produce parts for maintenance. Though, I think we can safely assume, for mirrors, that this will continue to exist regardless of these mirror farms. Which is why its just a nit pick.
-Steve
Very true. That said, I mean... and the advent of refrigeration killed the ice man.
I have nothing against a person wanting to make a living off their skills, however, I also can't blame someone for not paying for it if people will give it to them for free. If so many people are willing to submit works for a contest or whatever you want to call it that it prices you out of the business, thats unfortunate but, its the way it is.
Certainly, you are right, this is not going to match up those with true professional skills with clients and produce great work. However, if thats not what a company values, I don't think I can fault them for not valuing it, especially if it gives them some other advantage (like essentially being a stunt to get their name out).
I mean, if I need my house painted, I am not going to hire a local artist, I am going to buy some paint, some six packs of beer, and call some friends.
-Steve
Yes but this is only a prototype. The technology has a lot of potential, and the question then becomes... if one application is small and its ok to steal tiny amounts of power that are unnoticeable over line loss, where do you draw the line? Should it just be free for all and we decide later if its a problem? What will we do when someone develops a "floating fortress" that deploys hundreds of these and tethers them to run from and recharge itself?
Would it be acceptable to setup a fleet of these glide up, charge some batteries, then come back and get new ones and supply a constant battery power? If thats acceptable too, becuase its so small, how do you tell the next guy he can't do the same, and the next?
-Steve
Not to mention that stealing power through induction is nothing new, and nothing that the people who are trying to sell that power are too keen on you trying. I mean, I can see the military not really caring too much about that aspect for their operations, but such a scheme would need some way to pay for it if you wanted to use it domestically.
-Steve
It is kind of a chicken and egg sort of problem. I mean, goat meat is out there, but its rare. I can find ground lamb too, but, its not something alot of people cook with, so not every store bothers, and not all the time. Ground beef? I can buy any day at any store.
People buy what they are used to, and what they know how to cook. You need to get it out there for people to get used to it to create a market for it. Of course, whats the incentive for any individual to get it out there and take initial losses hoping that enough people start cooking with it to make it viable? Even if the payoff for all of us is big in the medium to long term, its hard to find enough individuals (especially without organizing them around a cause) that will be willing to take that short term loss when they can't expect to see the long term gain themselves (to the grocer selling beef vs goat isn't a big difference as long as it sells)
-Steve
Well.... any new religion has to differentiate itself from the old, so it can't be too conservative in its own beginnings.
Christianity isn't new anymore. Now, there are many Christian cults, and each of them has their own slant on the interpretation of those stories.
Some interpret it very "liberally", like you seem to. Others see things more black and white and prefer literal interpretations.
Now, to go to a conservative christian and show him your interpretation of the bible, you are calling into question his very moral core, not only that, but the moral core of his parents and grandparents. He would no more like to hear that you interpret the Bible the way you do, than he would like to hear about the Koran.
Lets also not forget the Bible is more than the life and times of Jesus. You may be all nice and liberal and willing to gloss over Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (women should be subservient and never hold a position over a man or be teachers ... among other quite enlightened and liberal viewpoints) but not everyone does.
-Steve
> but sending your army somewhere and then expecting your soldiers not to shoot back if they get shot at or bombed seems very weird > to me.
Weird because it is...and nobody is doing that. These weapons will be used as adjunct weapons. They will be there to use either with traditional means to gain an edge, and they will especially be used in situations where traditional means would yield bad PR. I am sure that they are hoping that the use of non-lethal "burning waves" that leave no mark to be shown on camera, will instantly reduce any stories of protests being broken up to middle of the paper news.
Nothing has changed war like television. Images of the horrors of war in Viet Nam divided the US. I don't think Orwell was prophet or predictor of the future so much as an astute observer of human society. There are a few people with the power to influence many, and even they often live in this shared delusion of common cause and nationalism. Thats how it is, how its been.
As long as each person is an individual cog in a larger machine, then nobody has any need to contemplate his own moral responsibility for what is happening. The best way to maintain that, is to not give people an emotional reason to break out of their nationalist hallucination. Or worst, have them see you as the enemy to their interests within that nationalist hallucination.
The machine can't run with the cogs questioning their own part and acting in response to it.
-Steve
> I like the story about the 'reformed' bully. Kind of touching how he apologized so deeply.
I was pretty shocked myself. Though, as soon as he said who he was I was doubly shocked because... well I mentioned he had obviously been kept back a grade, he was taller than everyone else in the class. He was the epitome of the big bully. Now... now... well... hes not bigger than me anymore. In fact, I had a couple of inches on him.
Hard to avoid sizing someone up when he is the only person you have ever actually been in a real fist fight with (standing up to the bully only works in after school specials btw).
-Steve
Back when I was single and lonely (not that long ago) I found myself reading some Dave DeAngelo and some other "pick up artist" stuff. Eventually, I kept at it, met a girl, got married. Now I am watching my newly single friend go through the same thing, and....
I notice that all the "Pick up Artist" stuff really is a bunch of bullshit, but, its the sort of bullshit thats going to build your confidence. Make the problems seem smaller, make you feel more in control. Then they throw in a little bit of the basic social skills that you probably missed out on as a kid (I am still bad at making eye contact, which isn't just bad for meeting girls and getting laid, but in all manner of social situations... like work)
The problem is the only real way to learn it is through experience, but, if you don't know what you need to practice (and few people can really tell you, the specifics since, it was learned so long ago, its like walking to them) then how do you practice and get that experience?
Incidentally, my view on bullies did change a bit when I ran into that slightly older kid who was kept back and became a huge bully in a bar a few years back. As soon as he realized who I was he started crying, hugged me, and apologized for what a rotten kid he was. Apparently, even bullies are capable of change.
-Steve
> And now, a lot of states have mandatory automobile insurance laws on the books. Do you live in one? I do, and I remember when it went into
> effect. If you do, have your premiums gone down because so many more people are now paying into the system and because there are so fewer
> uninsured motorists on the roads now? Yeah, mine haven't either. Funny how that works, isn't it? Again, it sounds nice in theory, but in
> reality, these laws are just a blatant money grab by insurance companies to use police power to force you to pay them money. Like I said, the
> industry as a whole is a scam.
Me too!
However, we used to also have more tightly regulated insurance. As such, the minimum insurance package was actually cheaper than the national average, when compared against the same coverage. Then of course, we kept the minimum insurance mandate, and dropped some of the regulations on insurance. That didn't help matters at all.
Frankly, I agree that its a blatant money grab by the insurance industry. On the other hand, having less uninsured drivers on the road is a good thing. So it seems to me that the state should just... provide the insurance. Spin off a non-profit semi-private organization that provides insurance essentially "at-cost" (as much as you can for what is essentially a form of gambling).
That or drop the mandate. One or the other though.
-Steve
My mother was an X-Ray tech for 25 years (before she went out on disability due to problems with her retinas)
You say this wont be useful for spot images, but, doesn't the operator usually stand in a shielded area for spot images? Maybe not with portable units but, in dedicated X-Ray rooms.
Also... while traditional lead suits are not all protective... the unprotected areas (like hands and face) are the ones that are far less likely to be damaged by radiation than say... your kidneys.
This does seem cool but, I don't see why you would even need it for spot images most of the time.
-Steve
When they said in the article that it had to do with their mission, I figured it must be a hash of "Use Fear Uncertainty, Doubt, and Lies to bilk the taxpayers out of as much money as possible while providing absolutely no tangible benefit to anyone."
Apparently, they chose to just use their "cover mission".
-Steve
This really sounds to me like an interesting experiment in error correction.
You have n machines which were all (or most) at some point within 1 ms or so sync to an atomic clock. They all immediately started to add error to that time. So now, this system seems to be, sampling all of these machines, collecting all of their skew together. If the skew is random, you would expect it to cancel itself out. If it tends to bias in one direction, you should be able to figure out an average skew.
Then that average is used to set the machines, causing a sort of feedback loop, which makes me wonder if they are continuing to get NTP input at some nodes to try and add a signal for the feedback loop to tune itself into.
Kind of shooting from the hip but, its a neat idea anyway.
-Steve
> However I agree with your assessment. There is no substitute for experience.
> I think society would be much improved by mandatory military service.
Funny you would say that. I actually mostly agree. This may surprise anyone who has heard how little I think of the military or soldiers in general. That said, I would argue that some form of mandatory or strongly encouraged, (I am not really into non-consensual except in the most extreme of cases... I think prison should be reserved for true serial rapists and murders, and political criminals) however.... as a requirement for voting rights and or citizenship? Sure, I could buy that.
Also, I would only really support it if the mandatory service were STRICTLY defensive forces service. Or at least, I wouldn't join up and get citizenship unless they were strictly defensive forces (and making it an option doesn't fly either, since every person who takes that option could be used in such a way to free up someone who would fight... manpower is fungible as they like to say)
Part of this is that, as a US Citizen, I realize how huge of a military that would create and no such military should ever exist to my mind. If we broke up into individual state militias, then I would be an even bigger supporter of such an idea, but a single centralized power of that magnitude would be something that I would fear.
-Steve
> You should have bolded "reported", because as you say, men aren't likely to call the cops when their wife beats the hell out of them; they're
> ashamed the cops will laugh and call them pussies. Women have no such problems calling the cops.
I don't want to cast this aspersion on all, or even most, women but... I have even been witness to my friends live in girlfriend tell him "Fine if you want it that way I will just call the cops now and tell them you hit me" because they were having an argument. Same woman... no lie... I saw her tell him "I don't want us to both have keys to the same apartment" demanded his, then when he wouldn't give them up, handed him hers.
She then walked over to a police cruiser down the block, told them he reached in her pocket and took her keys. (of course, she lucked out, my friend was still made from the fight with her and the cop was one of those douchebags who was just itching for a fight and egged him on until I had to step in and pull my friend away and tell him to calm down)
-Steve
I don't tend to have the same view exactly, but, I have had a small amount of martial arts training (couple of years in a couple of styles, nothing too serious), and so, I have been exposed to women trained to fight, and they are every bit a mans equal when trained (making allowances for size and strength, but those advantages can be somewhat nullified with speed, training, and experience)
That said, I heard a very interesting talk by an old martial arts master (I forget which, one of the japanese schools) in a documentary. His insight on schoolyard violene was interesting... he said its good for boys to fight when they are young because they learn their own strength, they get hurt, and they learn how much damage they can do to others and themselves.
His claim was that the danger of trying to eliminate this sort of fighting was young adults growing up not knowing their own strength and not being as aware of how much they can hurt each other, and so fights between them, when they do arise, are more deadly.
Overall, I believe it. Look at someone whose been a martial artist for years. The control that they can exhibit is amazing. The ability to throw a "lightning fast" punch, yet connect with so little force that you might not know it, or how and where to give you a good solid hit to bruise your ego without damaging your bones or flesh. Hell, one of my instructors had so much control, that I didn't realize that he was demonstrating a sneaky groin kick until I felt his toes caressing my balls. Quite unsettling how fast it happened but... he still had enough control to not even cause pain.
Now schoolyard fights wont give you that sort of control but... try sparring with some new students who just recently learned how to throw a kick and its just all unfocused power with no control.... so I can definitely see it.
-Steve
So...
If facebook suddenly changed the name of your "Friends list" to your "Acquaintances List", would you immediately drop all of your friends and family? What about family members that aren't really friends?
Out of curiosity, what are "on facebook for".
The whole idea of social networking (even if you leave "websites" and ask people who talk about in person, face to face, social networking) is... expanding your social network by making new connections to new people.
Maybe you just want to use it as a personal BBS for chatting with your friends, but some people are on there to also, meet new people. Thats why you can check of "Dating" as what you are there for, its why they allow you to proclaim your relationship status (oddly they are open enough to allow "open relationship" but... still only allow you to specify one relationship... and married is just married with no option for "open marriage".... ahh.... assumptions....)
In any case... if the point of FB was just chatting with people who already know you well.... then why even have such options? Why have a bio section to describe yourself? My friends, afterall, know who I am and who I am married to.
-Steve