I never understood whats so immoral or degrading about being a whore. Certainly there are segments of the "sex worker" community that are unsavory and engage in despicable activity (sexual slavery, mental/physical abuse, unfair exploitation) however, there are also those who work freelance and or enjoy their jobs.
I don't mean to ruin whores for you, I mean, maybe you need to see it as degrading and immoral to get off, your kink is ok I guess. Though, I no more understand that kink than asphyxiation, so it does seem a bit strange to me.
> See? You yourself only wanted casual sex, so you're quite a hypocrite for bashing people for "starting a relationship with > a lie". (Clue: if you're not ready to marry someone after dating for a year, then you're never going to be interested in > marrying them. If you keep "dating" them, it's just because you want casual sex.)
Thats pretty simplistic and involves some serious conclusion jumps. I got together with a girl, we both wanted an open relationship, we both didn't really feel any need to get married, both didn't want kids. Next thing you know, we are living together, and in an open marriage.
Not everybody gets together with plans in mind, and those plans often change, even when they do. When my wife and I had been living together for 6 months, nobody could have predicted our eventual marriage, especially anyone who asked us. Had one of us really been dead set against it, who knows, the other may have found someone else and moved on by now. Its really hard to say.
Secondly, I don't think the line is "marriage vs casual sex". Theres an entire spectrum of relationships and people who have been in quite committed relationships for years and never been married. Some want monogamous marriage, some can reconcile marriage and casual sex (some by cheating, some with openness), some can even reconcile multiple marriages (some by cheating, some by openess).
I saw that, but I figured that they must at least believe that they can do away with the extra sensors and use some more available mechanism. However, thats kind of besides the point. Assuming that they can overcome that hurdle, I think we can at least give them that for the sake of argument.... that being a given... its still not going to work for more than a short time... if it ever does.
Thats right.... 6 months from the day that they start using it on any major service, until it is utterly useless.
All it takes is for a handful of people with the right skills to care, and there are some paranoid sons of bitches out there who know how to hack hardware and code, and there will be solutions available quickly. I imagine it will start with drivers and or keyboards that buffer and randomize timings. (this may not work well for peadophiles since randomization can probably be detected quickly)
It shouldn't be long before software that will buffer your keystrokes and retime them to a profile, maybe even flag and give you a chance to edit statements based on a grammar profile too.
Not all of it will be easy, but, come on, some of this stuff will be easy, and once its done by someone who is a free software supporter, well, I can't imagine it being too long before it takes less than 20 minutes from the time that you learn about this sort of tracking being used until you have protection.
Most people don't know how to use mixmaster to send email. However, how long does it really take to figure out and start using it? Few people know how to use PGP or OTR, but, you could be using either of them in 20 minutes if you wanted to (maybe not fully understanding what you are doing, but using it...)
I bet this is a great project for justifying a budget though. Hell, once its utterly broken, I bet some lobbyist will catch a nice paycheck going around urging the congresscritters here in the US (and equivalents elsewhere) to go around urging them to ban this horrible new technology. Whether it happens or not, this useless dud is going to be raking in the cash for years!
Some things have often bothered me about the way that congress does things. Its actually reading a bit about coding design that really sunk it home. This seems to me like a top down specification of implementation rather than a specification of interface.
That is, it doesn't say "this is the goal, this is what information we need, this is what you will get". Instead its "This is how you will do it".
"This is the information you will send to the tower, this is the format it will be in, these are the tolerance specifications for how accurate and precise your instruments will be, this is the standard reference that we will use" is much simpler in the long run, because it requires less changes to the specificaion.
Why should the tower care if its GPS, Cell phone tower positioning, or star charts that produce the data? As long as its accurate to a specified reference...
of course, I do wonder.... why do they want to replace radar with GPS? Radar doesn't require an active participant on the other end. That, in and of itself, conveys certain benefits, not the least of which is not requiring much specification beyond not allowing air craft with the radar signature of small birds to be flying around.
What can I say, I bathe daily and wear deoderant. I have to, the windows group is two cubicles over, and I don't want the pheremones to scare them. I am less of an MS hater than I used to be, in general, but, I still despise running windows. Been "windowsless" on my dekstop and my own systems for almost 10 years now.
> an inexperienced/retarded user is gonna fuck up any OS he's on if you give him the opportunity.
Sure, but some give him more opportunity to fuck up than others. You can fuck up quite a bit on a linux box, however, your damage is limited without root access.
> On the other hand, a noob will download some Mac binary that'll wreck his system, or an ubuntu virus for some linux noob.
I can't speak to the Macs but, Ubuntu virus? Really? highly unlikely for a number of reasons. I have never seen anyone run antivirus on a linux box, for the purpose of making sure the linux installation was uninfected. The ONLY time I have seen a virus scanner run under linux was check email passing through mail relays.
I have seen systems taken by worms, sure. It happens. However, its far less of a problem and most of the ways to protect yourself are more general than looking for specific viruses. Not running unecissary services, not running services on desktops, using ssh instead of telnet (yes, there are still telnet users), packet filtering, IDS etc.
The only exception might be chkrootkit. Thats definitely a sort of pattern scanner, and definitely does get used, but, its slightly different in general from virus scanning. So depending on how you define it, I may stand corrected.
Actually, didn't those ideas at least go back to Marx? Though, I always read the communist manifesto as less "this is how to bring about a workers paradise" or "we should fight the class war" as much as "This is the progression that I see happening" or "this is the war thats been going on for generations".
Also I will point out, as you may know, there are a number of communist communities, even here in the US, that have been operating, quietly, for generations, and living just fine in their communities. Look at "the farm" down in TN for some great examples of how more modern/progressive communists organize.
Its far less oppressive than you might think. They have organized around a system where people just...have normal every day paying jobs. They all pay into a common fund, get an allowance to live off of, and even get a pension from their community. They seem to live (according to articles that I have read) more like a large communal tribe than a town or city of disconnected individuals.
Actually, sort of. Open Source is not a democracy. Its more like, an infintiely distributed set of micoautocracies.
So...its my project, we do it my way, and btw, fuck you. This is an autocracy damnit!
But... its sort of like when you bitch about the government and people say "well if you don't like it, then leave" well, its almost like, you had the choice. Like instead of bitching about the autocrat, you can just build a throne, toss on a crown, and lead away whoever will come.
Just imagine if you could post "Soverign Kingdom of Phil" in front of your house, and be free from all government coercion, liability, and benefit. Of course, now you have to make progress on your own, but, your the king. Heavy is the head that wears the micro-crown.
In that way, its more of what many anarchists advocate for. Everyone works together by choice, and if you don't like how the group makes decisions, you don't have to be part of the group, go find another group, or found your own.
Democracy isn't "I do what I want" so much as "We do what a majority of us decided". (or a republic, we all do what the representatives that we picked got together and decided)
An old boss of mine used to call it the "Soft creamy center security model".
He was also the one who had us implementing packet filtering on each and every individual box. It was some work, but it was worth it.
Compartmentalization is good, if you are smart about it.
Another good analogy is "Defense in depth". Should you have a firewall? Yes. You should also patch regularly, sniff packets with an IDS, packet filter on every machine, run tripwire (or equivalent), have antivirus (on platforms that require it:cough: windows:cough:), seperate users segments from server segments, seperate out a DMZ for services, have a password policy, educate users.
No one of those things is going to protect you fully. All of them together, has a good chance of making you a far less appealing target with a very unsatisfying and sour center, rather than soft and chewy goodness.
I always find these legal battles so amusing. Not to bad mouth youtube/google but, the percentage of accounts that have uploaded "infringing content" is such a laughable statistic. I wonder what percentage of accounts have uploaded anything? More than 1 vidoe? More than 2?
My guess is, most accounts would fall into one of a couple of catagories: 1. People who made an account to post a comment, and never used it again 2. People who made an account to upload some stupid video from their phone, and never used it again after one or two such videos. 3. People who wanted to see a video that was only accessible to people who made an account because it had some "mature content" 4. People who would fall into catagory 1-3, but found they liked commenting or having personal playlists 5. Old accounts tied to old email addresses of people who currently are in 1-4.\
If those categories don't account for 70% or more of all accounts, I would be shocked.
> Yeah. Keep saying that. When our government starts taking away our liberties (forcing people to buy health care, taking > away private property to give to another private party are just two examples), I'd say that's bad for America.
Yah, next thing you know they are going to be licensing people to tell you what you can put in your body, stopping you from growing plants like cannabis on your farm and selling them at market value, shit they might even ban the possession of perfectly legal plants an animals just because they came from another country where they were illegal. We can't let that START happening, or next thing you know we will have consenting adults in front of the supreme court arguing why we shouldn't be banned from certain kinds of sex in our bedrooms! Could you imagine people having to do that!
Of course, once we hit that point, it will be undercover officers infiltrating peoples social organizations, warrantless wiretaps, speed trap cameras, and strip search scanners at the airports! What a fucking police state that will be!
In case you hadn't noticed, all of this has already been happening for years. I agree with the desire to not live in a police state, and I do think that the "mandate of insurance" tends to smack of police stateism. I would PREFER single payer.
At least taxes are already being taken by force, if they want to use them to provide a service, thats no worst than taking them in the first place. Mandating that I have to do something with someone else though.... that does bother me. I just don't see why we should reward years of screwing by private insurance with a mandate to buy from them.
> In regards to the bailout, I agree, the government did that behind our back, and mostly against our > collective wishes. But we still are the problem, as we will vote these people into office next time. > We voted all the clowns back in after the PATRIOT ACT debacle as well.
True but... what was the choice?
Don't like Rep X who voted for the PATRIOT ACT? Well... then your choice is to vote for Candidate Y.
Of course the problem is that Candidate Y is the only serious contender, and isn't really running on a platform of opposition to PATRIOT. In fact, he would have voted for it if he had the chance too.
In addition to that, putting him in means the seat flip flopping on abortion rights, just to name one key issue... in reality its on a whole host of different issues. In fact, you voted for Rep X last time because of a number of those issues.
So whats your option? Shoot for the symbolic victory on one issue, thats really an even bigger loss for you? Stick with X because of the few important issues that you prefered him for?
Or maybe go for the third option... pick a minor candidate who supports your views. Of course, if he does, then he is mostly going to be taking votes of other former Rep X votes, splitting the votes of people who support those issues, and helping to hand a win to Candidate Y.... bringing you back to the same real loss.
Clearly the rational choice is to stay home, roll a joint, and watch American Gladiators.
> 1) The government has more force to throw at you than any dissenting group could hope to match. The > government has pretty much a monopoly of force.
Currently true. Personally, I think that this is exactly the situation that the second amendment tried to avoid. Sadly narrow interpretation has hamstrung it and left us in this sad state.
Of course, I simply pointed out the second amendment as evidence that this state of affairs was not intended and that it is the right of the people to overthrow despots. I never said a revolution HAS to be violent. I would be happy to convene a new constitutional convention.... or 50 (no, I don't particularly want a strong federal union... if anything, maybe something like the EU)
> 3) It is the low road, and pretty much says that you completely given up on the American people, or on > any chance of fixing the American discourse.
Low? Maybe. Its not so much the people as the bureaucracy that I have essentially 0 faith in. They have shown absolutely no real interest in representing what I see as liberty in any meaningful way. if anything, they approach whats left of liberty as an unfortunate hinderance to their ideas, rather than a core value.
I have 0 faith that they have any intention to do anything but maintain their dominance, and line their own coffers.
> I personally dread the day when people take up guns against their elected government. First because the > term "elected", by picking up guns your saying that you know better than the voters, which to me, is > tyrannical
This presumes fair elections. I submit that the system of choosing who ends up on the ballot AND the system of voting itself, constitute systematically unfair elections that highly favor the hegemony of two parties that are willing to collude to break up issues between them as a method of effectively shutting out any voices but their own.
As such, I don't, personally, recognize the legitimacy of said elections. I pay my taxes, of course, because they are the biggest gang in town and I am genuinely afraid of their thugs. That should not be construed as I actually consent to their governance or consider them "my government", any more than I would MS13 if they came into my shop and told me I had to pay for protection from their thugs too.
Personally I advocate the progressive marginalization of the government as an entity, as a new form of revolution. De-legitimization in the eyes of the masses, replacement of their functions by other entities where possible, wholesale subversion of their "laws" when applicable. Just as I would for any other armed gang of thugs.
As an anarchist (of the libertarian socialist variety), I have no desire to force my ideas on anyone but... I certainly don't advocate being a collaborator with thugs. I do however advocate self defense, and being prepared enough so that, should the day come, they need to think twice about clamping down and restricting liberty too much further.
If they simply did not attempt to use their thugs to enforce social engineering, I would happily treat them like any other legitimate organization which might need a force to defend itself but, otherwise respected others.
> I don't know about you, but I'm searching for something to have faith in in our political system and I'm > not coming up with a whole lot of realistic choices.
Well... some believe the second amendment came from the belief that the people may need to overthrow this government, should it become tyrannical. Given the devolution of political discourse down to a game of splitting up issues down lines that force nearly everyone to vote based on who they don't hate the most....
you could consider faith in the overthrow of tyrants. The actual act of it may not be realistic now, but, all it takes to become realistic is a growing number of faithful.
I experienced that once as a young kid, and once as an adult, while on vacation in France.
The first time was quite scary and I thought was a nightmare for years. One of the few things that I remember clearly from that age.
The second time, well, I knew what cataplexy was, and was sleeping on my side in a relatively light sleep (was napping on the bed in my hotel room). I wonder if the old hag is litterally waking up with cataplexy during an apnea episode. Not having your lungs breathing automatically, and not respond when you try to move them... would hurt, sensation of CO2 in the lungs, no response from muscles.... I could see that triggering panic in most people.
In any case, if that off the cuff postulation is correct, it may explain why I didn't experience it. Light sleep, on my side.... I woke up with no pain/pressure in my chest... I just... couldn't get up, or consciously move my arm, or even move a finger. No panic, but... I knew what cataplexy was by then, and recognized it immediately.
In any case, is your friend treating it? or going untreated? I can't recommend a CPAP highly enough. I still only sleep 6-7 hours, but those hours just... do so much more.
The authors yes, maybe, but only because they feel that helping Iranians (cubans, sudanese get around their laws is ok, as long as US law is respected.
What I am making fun of is, the idea that this has any effect on the Iranians. They have always been able to get this elsewhere, home grow it, or get it from people in the US who feel subverting authoritarians is worth doing, even if you can't put your name on it.
I thought this sort of thing was stupid when ITAR regulations prevented the export of RSA, its stupid that they didn't learn that they were attempting the impossible, and looking stupid doing it, when those were fixed... they still haven't learned that lesson.
I actually don't care about the nation states so called "national enemies".
Send them hydrogen bombs for all I care. Seriously. The whole security and fear meme is so overrated. We spent years preparing for a war that was plainly just never going to happen with the USSR, because the fucking idiots in charge on both sides were so afraid that the other one was planning to come after them.
The last thing we need is more excuses for these people to have pissing contests. Its ridiculous for them to think that any countries regulations on "exports" of this type matter one bit.
Every single one of these technologies has been in those countries for YEARS now. I would be shocked if people weren't using IM, as simply one example, in all three of those countries since the mid 90s.
The ridiculous thing is that these "nation state" jokers are taken seriously at all.
Have they? They say they did it to "foster free speech".
I have a different take.... isn't it so cute, they think they matter!
As if nobody in Iran has instant messaging because....the US government said it couldn't be exported. To even think that a change in US policy on these technologies could now, or ever, have any such effect is either naive to the point of being cute and deserving of a pat on the head.... or so myopic, that their heads must be elbow deep up their asses.
I was an insomniac as a kid, and eventually grew out of it. Once sleep became a real problem, I even found out that I had sleep apnea and have slept with a CPAP mask for a few years now. It was strange to be 29 and, for the first time, to really get a good nights sleep.
That said, I can only sleep about 7 hours a night, max. I go to bed around 12-1 am...I wake up around 7... no alarm clock (well, my phone makes some noise at 6)... but the vast majority of days, I wake up within minutes of 7 am... am trained now.
My wife, on the other hand, sleeps more like 9-10 hours a day. Thats what she needs, by 9 pm, she is pretty tired (if she is still up).
> It's great that we realise this, but how about we look at why the fuck someone has a need at pissing off > people and being a 'troll'?
> I'm not a fan of the excessive PC tripe either, and when I was a little less mature I was angry at > people for being overly sensitive and not allowing me to discuss taboo subjects, but that doesn't mean > that attempted attention grabbing propaganda through a "door in the face" methodology is appropriate. > Learn some tact and patience and address the issue earnestly please.
Actually, reading his response shows quite a bit of tact and patience.
I don't know about you, but, I got a good chuckle out of the troll. Thats the thing though, nobody really complains about a lot of nonsense posts if they are genuinely funny. I am glad to see we have a community where people can and do just post what comes to their mind, even if it is just a joke.
Many things will offend someone, but something like this can actually start a discussion that is, in some small way, useful. Where else do you see issues of political correctness really being brought up and discussed in a rational manner? Not until someone comes out with something that has offensive tones.
Without someone pushing the boundaries, how does anything move forward?
In short, fuck em if they can't take a joke, seems reasonable to me. -Steve
Sure but, theres two sides to this coin. I think that my own use case here illustrates this well.
I don't run ad blocking software, however, I do run noscript and requestpolicy. These are firefox addons that allow me to control what scripts and other risky (from the point of view of maintianing the integrity of my environment, including the security of my personal information) content run in my local browser by site.
As an example, fsdn.com and slashdot.org are both allowed to run their scripts right now, and fsdn is allowed to get requests from this site. So should someone manage to inject some content that would cause slashdot to tell my browser to run a script on some other random attack page... it would be refused unless I decided to allow it.
Now... anyone who knows much about how web ads work can see the problem here. This setup, done entirely for reasons other than ad blocking, blocks ads voraciously. Its not my fault, I didn't say "I want to block ads" but...the ads are all implemented in a way that makes it impossible to, wholesale, honor them, without risking honoring a malicous and common attack. Also, many of these ad sites attempt to track me from site to site, which, I do not condone.
They have every right to advertise and have advertising. They even have every right to close their site down to paying members, or just people who they can verify in some way view their ads, or run their scripts.
Of course, they don't do that because it would drive away readers if it became less convenient. Instead they have nothing that they can do but bitch and moan about the fact that other people aren't using what they are giving away publically for free in the manner that they intended people to use it.
Slashdot Mirror
I never understood whats so immoral or degrading about being a whore. Certainly there are segments of the "sex worker" community that are unsavory and engage in despicable activity (sexual slavery, mental/physical abuse, unfair exploitation) however, there are also those who work freelance and or enjoy their jobs.
I don't mean to ruin whores for you, I mean, maybe you need to see it as degrading and immoral to get off, your kink is ok I guess. Though, I no more understand that kink than asphyxiation, so it does seem a bit strange to me.
> See? You yourself only wanted casual sex, so you're quite a hypocrite for bashing people for "starting a relationship with
> a lie". (Clue: if you're not ready to marry someone after dating for a year, then you're never going to be interested in
> marrying them. If you keep "dating" them, it's just because you want casual sex.)
Thats pretty simplistic and involves some serious conclusion jumps. I got together with a girl, we both wanted an open relationship, we both didn't really feel any need to get married, both didn't want kids. Next thing you know, we are living together, and in an open marriage.
Not everybody gets together with plans in mind, and those plans often change, even when they do. When my wife and I had been living together for 6 months, nobody could have predicted our eventual marriage, especially anyone who asked us. Had one of us really been dead set against it, who knows, the other may have found someone else and moved on by now. Its really hard to say.
Secondly, I don't think the line is "marriage vs casual sex". Theres an entire spectrum of relationships and people who have been in quite committed relationships for years and never been married. Some want monogamous marriage, some can reconcile marriage and casual sex (some by cheating, some with openness), some can even reconcile multiple marriages (some by cheating, some by openess).
-Steve
I saw that, but I figured that they must at least believe that they can do away with the extra sensors and use some more available mechanism. However, thats kind of besides the point. Assuming that they can overcome that hurdle, I think we can at least give them that for the sake of argument.... that being a given... its still not going to work for more than a short time... if it ever does.
-Steve
Thats right.... 6 months from the day that they start using it on any major service, until it is utterly useless.
All it takes is for a handful of people with the right skills to care, and there are some paranoid sons of bitches out there who know how to hack hardware and code, and there will be solutions available quickly. I imagine it will start with drivers and or keyboards that buffer and randomize timings. (this may not work well for peadophiles since randomization can probably be detected quickly)
It shouldn't be long before software that will buffer your keystrokes and retime them to a profile, maybe even flag and give you a chance to edit statements based on a grammar profile too.
Not all of it will be easy, but, come on, some of this stuff will be easy, and once its done by someone who is a free software supporter, well, I can't imagine it being too long before it takes less than 20 minutes from the time that you learn about this sort of tracking being used until you have protection.
Most people don't know how to use mixmaster to send email. However, how long does it really take to figure out and start using it? Few people know how to use PGP or OTR, but, you could be using either of them in 20 minutes if you wanted to (maybe not fully understanding what you are doing, but using it...)
I bet this is a great project for justifying a budget though. Hell, once its utterly broken, I bet some lobbyist will catch a nice paycheck going around urging the congresscritters here in the US (and equivalents elsewhere) to go around urging them to ban this horrible new technology. Whether it happens or not, this useless dud is going to be raking in the cash for years!
Thanks for the correction. That makes a lot more sense. So this sounds like its no worst than what is already out there.
Franky, for anyone but a total technophobe, calling that radar is quite misleading. I always thought radar specifically referred to well... radar.
-Steve
Some things have often bothered me about the way that congress does things. Its actually reading a bit about coding design that really sunk it home. This seems to me like a top down specification of implementation rather than a specification of interface.
That is, it doesn't say "this is the goal, this is what information we need, this is what you will get". Instead its "This is how you will do it".
"This is the information you will send to the tower, this is the format it will be in, these are the tolerance specifications for how accurate and precise your instruments will be, this is the standard reference that we will use" is much simpler in the long run, because it requires less changes to the specificaion.
Why should the tower care if its GPS, Cell phone tower positioning, or star charts that produce the data? As long as its accurate to a specified reference...
of course, I do wonder.... why do they want to replace radar with GPS? Radar doesn't require an active participant on the other end. That, in and of itself, conveys certain benefits, not the least of which is not requiring much specification beyond not allowing air craft with the radar signature of small birds to be flying around.
Just my thoughts.
-Steve
Of course, as Ben Franklin finished that one liberty is a well armed sheep.
I tend to agree but... I also label myself as an anti-authoritarian. I would say the same thing of democracies and republics.
> you have the faint smell of an MS hater
What can I say, I bathe daily and wear deoderant. I have to, the windows group is two cubicles over, and I don't want the pheremones to scare them. I am less of an MS hater than I used to be, in general, but, I still despise running windows. Been "windowsless" on my dekstop and my own systems for almost 10 years now.
> an inexperienced/retarded user is gonna fuck up any OS he's on if you give him the opportunity.
Sure, but some give him more opportunity to fuck up than others. You can fuck up quite a bit on a linux box, however, your damage is limited without root access.
> On the other hand, a noob will download some Mac binary that'll wreck his system, or an ubuntu virus for some linux noob.
I can't speak to the Macs but, Ubuntu virus? Really? highly unlikely for a number of reasons. I have never seen anyone run antivirus on a linux box, for the purpose of making sure the linux installation was uninfected. The ONLY time I have seen a virus scanner run under linux was check email passing through mail relays.
I have seen systems taken by worms, sure. It happens. However, its far less of a problem and most of the ways to protect yourself are more general than looking for specific viruses. Not running unecissary services, not running services on desktops, using ssh instead of telnet (yes, there are still telnet users), packet filtering, IDS etc.
The only exception might be chkrootkit. Thats definitely a sort of pattern scanner, and definitely does get used, but, its slightly different in general from virus scanning. So depending on how you define it, I may stand corrected.
-Steve
Actually, didn't those ideas at least go back to Marx? Though, I always read the communist manifesto as less "this is how to bring about a workers paradise" or "we should fight the class war" as much as "This is the progression that I see happening" or "this is the war thats been going on for generations".
Also I will point out, as you may know, there are a number of communist communities, even here in the US, that have been operating, quietly, for generations, and living just fine in their communities. Look at "the farm" down in TN for some great examples of how more modern/progressive communists organize.
Its far less oppressive than you might think. They have organized around a system where people just...have normal every day paying jobs. They all pay into a common fund, get an allowance to live off of, and even get a pension from their community. They seem to live (according to articles that I have read) more like a large communal tribe than a town or city of disconnected individuals.
-Steve
Actually, sort of. Open Source is not a democracy. Its more like, an infintiely distributed set of micoautocracies.
So...its my project, we do it my way, and btw, fuck you. This is an autocracy damnit!
But... its sort of like when you bitch about the government and people say "well if you don't like it, then leave" well, its almost like, you had the choice. Like instead of bitching about the autocrat, you can just build a throne, toss on a crown, and lead away whoever will come.
Just imagine if you could post "Soverign Kingdom of Phil" in front of your house, and be free from all government coercion, liability, and benefit. Of course, now you have to make progress on your own, but, your the king. Heavy is the head that wears the micro-crown.
In that way, its more of what many anarchists advocate for. Everyone works together by choice, and if you don't like how the group makes decisions, you don't have to be part of the group, go find another group, or found your own.
Democracy isn't "I do what I want" so much as "We do what a majority of us decided". (or a republic, we all do what the representatives that we picked got together and decided)
-Steve
An old boss of mine used to call it the "Soft creamy center security model".
He was also the one who had us implementing packet filtering on each and every individual box. It was some work, but it was worth it.
Compartmentalization is good, if you are smart about it.
Another good analogy is "Defense in depth". Should you have a firewall? Yes. You should also patch regularly, sniff packets with an IDS, packet filter on every machine, run tripwire (or equivalent), have antivirus (on platforms that require it :cough: windows :cough:), seperate users segments from server segments, seperate out a DMZ for services, have a password policy, educate users.
No one of those things is going to protect you fully. All of them together, has a good chance of making you a far less appealing target with a very unsatisfying and sour center, rather than soft and chewy goodness.
-Steve
I always find these legal battles so amusing. Not to bad mouth youtube/google but, the percentage of accounts that have uploaded "infringing content" is such a laughable statistic. I wonder what percentage of accounts have uploaded anything? More than 1 vidoe? More than 2?
My guess is, most accounts would fall into one of a couple of catagories:
1. People who made an account to post a comment, and never used it again
2. People who made an account to upload some stupid video from their phone, and never used it again after one or two such videos.
3. People who wanted to see a video that was only accessible to people who made an account because it had some "mature content"
4. People who would fall into catagory 1-3, but found they liked commenting or having personal playlists
5. Old accounts tied to old email addresses of people who currently are in 1-4.\
If those categories don't account for 70% or more of all accounts, I would be shocked.
-Steve
> Yeah. Keep saying that. When our government starts taking away our liberties (forcing people to buy health care, taking
> away private property to give to another private party are just two examples), I'd say that's bad for America.
Yah, next thing you know they are going to be licensing people to tell you what you can put in your body, stopping you from growing plants like cannabis on your farm and selling them at market value, shit they might even ban the possession of perfectly legal plants an animals just because they came from another country where they were illegal. We can't let that START happening, or next thing you know we will have consenting adults in front of the supreme court arguing why we shouldn't be banned from certain kinds of sex in our bedrooms! Could you imagine people having to do that!
Of course, once we hit that point, it will be undercover officers infiltrating peoples social organizations, warrantless wiretaps, speed trap cameras, and strip search scanners at the airports! What a fucking police state that will be!
In case you hadn't noticed, all of this has already been happening for years. I agree with the desire to not live in a police state, and I do think that the "mandate of insurance" tends to smack of police stateism. I would PREFER single payer.
At least taxes are already being taken by force, if they want to use them to provide a service, thats no worst than taking them in the first place. Mandating that I have to do something with someone else though.... that does bother me. I just don't see why we should reward years of screwing by private insurance with a mandate to buy from them.
-Steve
> In regards to the bailout, I agree, the government did that behind our back, and mostly against our
> collective wishes. But we still are the problem, as we will vote these people into office next time.
> We voted all the clowns back in after the PATRIOT ACT debacle as well.
True but... what was the choice?
Don't like Rep X who voted for the PATRIOT ACT? Well... then your choice is to vote for Candidate Y.
Of course the problem is that Candidate Y is the only serious contender, and isn't really running on a platform of opposition to PATRIOT. In fact, he would have voted for it if he had the chance too.
In addition to that, putting him in means the seat flip flopping on abortion rights, just to name one key issue... in reality its on a whole host of different issues. In fact, you voted for Rep X last time because of a number of those issues.
So whats your option? Shoot for the symbolic victory on one issue, thats really an even bigger loss for you? Stick with X because of the few important issues that you prefered him for?
Or maybe go for the third option... pick a minor candidate who supports your views. Of course, if he does, then he is mostly going to be taking votes of other former Rep X votes, splitting the votes of people who support those issues, and helping to hand a win to Candidate Y.... bringing you back to the same real loss.
Clearly the rational choice is to stay home, roll a joint, and watch American Gladiators.
> 1) The government has more force to throw at you than any dissenting group could hope to match. The
> government has pretty much a monopoly of force.
Currently true. Personally, I think that this is exactly the situation that the second amendment tried to avoid. Sadly narrow interpretation has hamstrung it and left us in this sad state.
Of course, I simply pointed out the second amendment as evidence that this state of affairs was not intended and that it is the right of the people to overthrow despots. I never said a revolution HAS to be violent. I would be happy to convene a new constitutional convention.... or 50 (no, I don't particularly want a strong federal union... if anything, maybe something like the EU)
> 3) It is the low road, and pretty much says that you completely given up on the American people, or on
> any chance of fixing the American discourse.
Low? Maybe. Its not so much the people as the bureaucracy that I have essentially 0 faith in. They have shown absolutely no real interest in representing what I see as liberty in any meaningful way. if anything, they approach whats left of liberty as an unfortunate hinderance to their ideas, rather than a core value.
I have 0 faith that they have any intention to do anything but maintain their dominance, and line their own coffers.
> I personally dread the day when people take up guns against their elected government. First because the
> term "elected", by picking up guns your saying that you know better than the voters, which to me, is
> tyrannical
This presumes fair elections. I submit that the system of choosing who ends up on the ballot AND the system of voting itself, constitute systematically unfair elections that highly favor the hegemony of two parties that are willing to collude to break up issues between them as a method of effectively shutting out any voices but their own.
As such, I don't, personally, recognize the legitimacy of said elections. I pay my taxes, of course, because they are the biggest gang in town and I am genuinely afraid of their thugs. That should not be construed as I actually consent to their governance or consider them "my government", any more than I would MS13 if they came into my shop and told me I had to pay for protection from their thugs too.
Personally I advocate the progressive marginalization of the government as an entity, as a new form of revolution. De-legitimization in the eyes of the masses, replacement of their functions by other entities where possible, wholesale subversion of their "laws" when applicable. Just as I would for any other armed gang of thugs.
As an anarchist (of the libertarian socialist variety), I have no desire to force my ideas on anyone but... I certainly don't advocate being a collaborator with thugs. I do however advocate self defense, and being prepared enough so that, should the day come, they need to think twice about clamping down and restricting liberty too much further.
If they simply did not attempt to use their thugs to enforce social engineering, I would happily treat them like any other legitimate organization which might need a force to defend itself but, otherwise respected others.
-Steve
> I don't know about you, but I'm searching for something to have faith in in our political system and I'm
> not coming up with a whole lot of realistic choices.
Well... some believe the second amendment came from the belief that the people may need to overthrow this government, should it become tyrannical. Given the devolution of political discourse down to a game of splitting up issues down lines that force nearly everyone to vote based on who they don't hate the most....
you could consider faith in the overthrow of tyrants. The actual act of it may not be realistic now, but, all it takes to become realistic is a growing number of faithful.
-Steve
I experienced that once as a young kid, and once as an adult, while on vacation in France.
The first time was quite scary and I thought was a nightmare for years. One of the few things that I remember clearly from that age.
The second time, well, I knew what cataplexy was, and was sleeping on my side in a relatively light sleep (was napping on the bed in my hotel room). I wonder if the old hag is litterally waking up with cataplexy during an apnea episode. Not having your lungs breathing automatically, and not respond when you try to move them... would hurt, sensation of CO2 in the lungs, no response from muscles.... I could see that triggering panic in most people.
In any case, if that off the cuff postulation is correct, it may explain why I didn't experience it. Light sleep, on my side.... I woke up with no pain/pressure in my chest... I just... couldn't get up, or consciously move my arm, or even move a finger. No panic, but... I knew what cataplexy was by then, and recognized it immediately.
In any case, is your friend treating it? or going untreated? I can't recommend a CPAP highly enough. I still only sleep 6-7 hours, but those hours just... do so much more.
-Steve
The authors yes, maybe, but only because they feel that helping Iranians (cubans, sudanese get around their laws is ok, as long as US law is respected.
What I am making fun of is, the idea that this has any effect on the Iranians. They have always been able to get this elsewhere, home grow it, or get it from people in the US who feel subverting authoritarians is worth doing, even if you can't put your name on it.
I thought this sort of thing was stupid when ITAR regulations prevented the export of RSA, its stupid that they didn't learn that they were attempting the impossible, and looking stupid doing it, when those were fixed... they still haven't learned that lesson.
-Steve
I actually don't care about the nation states so called "national enemies".
Send them hydrogen bombs for all I care. Seriously. The whole security and fear meme is so overrated. We spent years preparing for a war that was plainly just never going to happen with the USSR, because the fucking idiots in charge on both sides were so afraid that the other one was planning to come after them.
The last thing we need is more excuses for these people to have pissing contests. Its ridiculous for them to think that any countries regulations on "exports" of this type matter one bit.
Every single one of these technologies has been in those countries for YEARS now. I would be shocked if people weren't using IM, as simply one example, in all three of those countries since the mid 90s.
The ridiculous thing is that these "nation state" jokers are taken seriously at all.
-Steve
Sounds like a plan but...congress doesn't really like it when you try to spy on them.
Oh wait.... sorry, wrong meeting.
-Steve
Have they? They say they did it to "foster free speech".
I have a different take.... isn't it so cute, they think they matter!
As if nobody in Iran has instant messaging because....the US government said it couldn't be exported. To even think that a change in US policy on these technologies could now, or ever, have any such effect is either naive to the point of being cute and deserving of a pat on the head.... or so myopic, that their heads must be elbow deep up their asses.
Somebody should give them a gold star for effort.
-Steve
but...everyone is a bit different.
I was an insomniac as a kid, and eventually grew out of it. Once sleep became a real problem, I even found out that I had sleep apnea and have slept with a CPAP mask for a few years now. It was strange to be 29 and, for the first time, to really get a good nights sleep.
That said, I can only sleep about 7 hours a night, max. I go to bed around 12-1 am...I wake up around 7... no alarm clock (well, my phone makes some noise at 6)... but the vast majority of days, I wake up within minutes of 7 am... am trained now.
My wife, on the other hand, sleeps more like 9-10 hours a day. Thats what she needs, by 9 pm, she is pretty tired (if she is still up).
I can't do it, by 12 I am just... still awake.
-Steve
> It's great that we realise this, but how about we look at why the fuck someone has a need at pissing off > people and being a 'troll'?
> I'm not a fan of the excessive PC tripe either, and when I was a little less mature I was angry at
> people for being overly sensitive and not allowing me to discuss taboo subjects, but that doesn't mean
> that attempted attention grabbing propaganda through a "door in the face" methodology is appropriate.
> Learn some tact and patience and address the issue earnestly please.
Actually, reading his response shows quite a bit of tact and patience.
I don't know about you, but, I got a good chuckle out of the troll. Thats the thing though, nobody really complains about a lot of nonsense posts if they are genuinely funny. I am glad to see we have a community where people can and do just post what comes to their mind, even if it is just a joke.
Many things will offend someone, but something like this can actually start a discussion that is, in some small way, useful. Where else do you see issues of political correctness really being brought up and discussed in a rational manner? Not until someone comes out with something that has offensive tones.
Without someone pushing the boundaries, how does anything move forward?
In short, fuck em if they can't take a joke, seems reasonable to me.
-Steve
Sure but, theres two sides to this coin. I think that my own use case here illustrates this well.
I don't run ad blocking software, however, I do run noscript and requestpolicy. These are firefox addons that allow me to control what scripts and other risky (from the point of view of maintianing the integrity of my environment, including the security of my personal information) content run in my local browser by site.
As an example, fsdn.com and slashdot.org are both allowed to run their scripts right now, and fsdn is allowed to get requests from this site. So should someone manage to inject some content that would cause slashdot to tell my browser to run a script on some other random attack page... it would be refused unless I decided to allow it.
Now... anyone who knows much about how web ads work can see the problem here. This setup, done entirely for reasons other than ad blocking, blocks ads voraciously. Its not my fault, I didn't say "I want to block ads" but...the ads are all implemented in a way that makes it impossible to, wholesale, honor them, without risking honoring a malicous and common attack. Also, many of these ad sites attempt to track me from site to site, which, I do not condone.
They have every right to advertise and have advertising. They even have every right to close their site down to paying members, or just people who they can verify in some way view their ads, or run their scripts.
Of course, they don't do that because it would drive away readers if it became less convenient. Instead they have nothing that they can do but bitch and moan about the fact that other people aren't using what they are giving away publically for free in the manner that they intended people to use it.
Thats always a winnining strategy. Whining.
-Steve