Foxnews.com uses Disqus, although im not certain the merit of pin-pointing racists, xenophobes and homophobes in america. people like Rick Santorum and Steve King can and do go around bashing gays and muslims respectively with little social repercussion. Pamela Geller basically makes a career out of muslim bashing. Alaskas Don Young refers to south american and central american immigrants exclusively as wetbacks in his commentary on radio stations, and a sizeable number of our southern politicians have been card-carrying members of the KKK.
yet freedom of speech gets a good stretch here in america when its true definition was essentially political. In america, the first amendment guarantees your vocal objection to the agricultural policy of tom vilchek cannot result in riot police kicking in your door at 4 in the morning and beating you with riot batons in the street for your dissenting opinion. the freedom of religion granted us the right to organize against the government at a social level, as to deject the church in its occupation as a station of the government was in england considered nearly treasonous.
smart cars, connected cars that is, are regular cars with more gadgets and gizmos. cars that check email, report weather, play pandora and such are a recent development of course, and not one i may add that many drivers care for. Some argue they exist as a marketing effort to spur millenials to purchase automobiles. As a millenial myself, and one with an automobile that gladly interfaces with my phone to play pandora radio, I can confirm the marketing effort is misplaced.
what executives and marketing C-levels dont understand is that boomers drove because it was still fun. gas was inexpensive, income was plentiful to afford a car and its upkeep, and the novelty of road trips was still something most americans found fascinating and entertaining. Gen Xers piled their kids into SUV's for the ego stroke and gas, while not expensive, was still relatively affordable but something else changed. Traffic was becoming universally abhorrent. the much adored culdesac street planning mandate from the sixties had snarled it for miles and government budgets began to resemble holocaust victims to such a degree that potholes capable of puncturing a tire became commonplace on most commutes. the Xers responded by buying larger SUV's like the H2 and turning up the 20 speaker stereo to drown out the din of the crumbling pavement on their way to the cube farm.
fast forward to the millenials of today. the economic collapse of 2008 has caused most governments to send their highway planning divisions packing as their budgets turn tits up. highways and byways now look more like Reuters photos of bombed out occupied zones. Gasoline is so expensive as to make a road trip a punchline, and traffic congestion models the zombie apocalypse flicks we've glued ourselves to for the last 5 years. whats worse is most of the millenials you see today are falling apart under the weight of their college loans and an average wage thats declined precipitously for 30 years under the guise of free market capitalism. "a new car" for most millenials is a used SUV from a gen-Xer who just had to sell it to make the mortgage gestapo leave them alone for another week. factoring its voraceous appetite for gas, its high mileage, and its mad-max driver, all we've scored is a time-bomb with eddie bauer seats. So lets address the C-levels now...you want to sell us a new, tiny car with lots of gizmos and great gas mileage for less than 20k and while we applaud the offering we still can barely afford, the roads still suck and the insurance is only slightly less expensive than our education loans. Thank you no, the idea smacks of stupidity.
I can take the bus for a fraction of the cost of owning a car. I dont care if it takes 45 minutes because I have a smart phone, or tablet. im connected to all my friends, including the one im going to meet up with for drinks and dinner. my phone will warn me about making my stop, and let me recharge the fare on my card while i leave the driving to a competent, qualified and much more seasoned bus driver. i dont have to pay insurance, worry about parking, fret about the cost of gas, or earn a ticket for speeding
to put it quite simply: stop trying to sell me a $30,000 iphone case with wheels.
if you continue to use google for searches, discontinue this practice immediately and instead use duckduckgo.com
Keep a whitelist of cookies you're willing to accept, and accept them only for the session in which they are generated. this type of limitation can be controlled in Firefox's preferences under privacy. you should routinely delete the whitelist, as a periodic audit of what you need is more expensive than simply rewhitelisting your most visited sites and discarding the one-time stuff you no longer need.
at one time there was a slashdot article on 4 things you can do to increase your privacy as outlined by the EFF, however i cant find it and see no harm in reposting it.
1. use adblock plus
2. use noscript
3. use HTTPS everywhere
4. block any and all cookies, as mentioned above, with strict whitelisting for banks and reputable online merchants.
newer nerds to slashdot may reconsider the virtues of using mutt, cone, or alpine for email as they effectively render tracking pixels and malicious http content an exercise in futility on the part of the sender. RMS uses links/lynx for all of his web browsing, and while that may be a bit extreme for most of us, it certainly cant hurt to use it for opening email links should you be faced with the necessary evil of a questionable URL.
the punishment is certainly dire, but mexicos lack of preventative efforts should be called into question. Was the vehicle marked as carrying radioactive cargo? why was there a layover of such dangerous material? were there warnings in multiple languages? pictographs from local health and safety agencies are surely readily available. the GHS is surely used in Mexico https://www.osha.gov/dsg/hazcom/ghs.html
two people are dead and numerous others exposed because they either did not know what the truck contained, or could not read the ample warnings. Mexico has a 93% literacy rate. there is no excuse for this accident.
because if they all end up with 15 year sentences, people might start asking why we're such a sensitive target thats so dangerous to attack. it might draw more attention to our business practices and confidential information. our own employees might become sympathetic, nay, might start 'leaking' information on how we skirt banking regulations and use our market dominance to arbitrarily freeze funds or hold 30% of transactions for 90 days, or how we refuse to pay bug bounties and lock out entire countries without explanation.
so if we could just stop over-reacting to this silly hacktivism and just go about our business that would be swell.
for 20 years now the internet has been increasingly about 'free $X for some privacy" and its a model we've all gladly accepted and the concerned hackers among us protested. the cost of hosting and the cost of engineering are oft cited reasons to employ this deep-dive marketing horseshit but for some of us, the salary alone seems to suggest hosting and marketing online are trivially inexpensive. So sure, if you want me to use your service how about I attach a condition. You can have some of my privacy, if your C-levels and marketing nutjobs enjoy a little social engineering. And once some money grubbing bentley driving suit's license plate or back yard or in home conversation courtesy of a laser microphone turn up in a tumblr feed, then we're fucking even.
No one takes this into account in america because for some reason taking into account the fundamental failures of unbridled consumer capitalism is a "bad thing"
the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act committed $7.77 trillion to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. in 2009. You dont get to pump that much money into your economy and violate the good faith and principal of an open exchange system of capital and investment without serious repercussions. youve altered the system on a fundamental level that should render nearly every analyst suspect in their evaluation or prediction of it. at best, what we have is a run-flat tire posing as an economy. at worst, nearly every performance metric and return at any exchange level is completely without genuine meaning, no better than a fraudulent lottery ticket.
let me list off a few of the more cherished past times of monarchial rule...just for a kinds reference.
1. Blasphemy: as a law the crown can and does have you executed for everything from a simple expletive to your atheism or lack of church attendance. Criticism of the monarchy, as exemplified in thailand, is very punishable by death.
2. Grinding poverty and inequality: Monarchial rule begets serfdom and a midevil class structure. furthermore that class is infected upon your name for generations. Kings decide what you can and cannot eat with hunting laws, and who you can and cannot marry by proxy of the church. in the past, even certain hats and colors were banned by monarchies.
3. forced rule: In an absolute monarchy, the monarch rules as an autocrat, with absolute power over the state and government. If you want to see what this is like, visit North Korea.
Curtis Yarvin, the prominent neoreactionary mentioned in the piece, is a Libertarian. as are Hoppe and Seller.
Neoreactionaries believe 'The Cathedral,' is a meta-institution that consists largely of Harvard and other Ivy League schools, The New York Times and various civil servants. Anissimov calls it a 'self-organizing consensus.' Sometimes the term is used synonymously with political correctness. The fundamental idea is that the Cathedral regulates our discussions enforces a set of norms as to what sorts of ideas are acceptable and how we view history â" it controls the Overton window, in other words.
This is just a comedic recasting of a Fox news script. Rail against the intellectual elite, lambast the media for their liberal bias, and bitch relentlessly about how Political Correctness is destroying society by repressing dicks like John Derbyshire and every other techbro and brogrammer barking 'dyke' and 'cunt' at the first woman to correct their segfault. Its angry white men that think somehow because they write python or understand linux they have a carte blanche to grind their axe about everything from the taxes they pay to the horrors of enduring their multicultural workplace.
'This program will go a long way to not only providing these guys with jobs, but it is my hope that they hire people like them who have changed their lives and are now ready to contribute to society, pay taxes, follow the law, support their families,'
Why didn't the milktoast suburbanites of san jose (silicon valley) and surrounding cities do this earlier, say before any of these candidate hires were charged or convicted with a crime? We're forgetting this and many other communities in california were the same ones who decided 3 strikes was a great idea to curb crime. that building prison repositories for nonviolent drug offenders was an easy way to pocket some private prison cash and rid the streets of low income minorities who were supporting their families and paying their taxes as best they could, until you criminalized their very existence. The program fails to take into account the lack of unskilled employment for people who certainly arent going to qualify for a position at google, but perhaps they used to be a good welder or carpenter. the program exists largely as an exercise in the psychology of guilt. the job education also doesnt take into account what being an inmate means in California or other states. It means you emerge with your housing and apartment applications categorically denied because you served time. It also means those nice companies that taught you cobol on your worst days, wouldnt so much as talk to you on the street on your best. you are a branded felon. no matter how much Java you learned you're faced with a system that endorses and accepts the wholesale shunning of an entire class of people from the employment system.
imagine a room full of angry hitmen. Puppet: plans to beat you to death, but when his arm gets tired he cant switch to the other arm. instead he grabs a box of markers and proceeds to write an angry letter on your face. Chef: is competent enough to kill you in your sleep, knows everything about you and can even draft random passerby for practice. Shes spending the next 2 months assembling a rifle for each possible scenario she may find you in, and redefining some of the most effective murder/homicides in history so they work just for you. Ansible: A nice killer in a business suit that will probably smother you and dispose of your corpse in an entirely predictable way. The 'Murder She Wrote' of configuration management, she'll win an oscar once you're dead. Salt:as of this writing, salt last killed 54 days ago and currently stands as the less-than-well-known of your potential murderers. Salt has pretty good ideas on how you should die...its just puppet has been maiming folks for way longer and chef's gotten so popular that people cant walk through the streets without hearing someone gloat about how wonderfully she kills. Salt has a manifesto and a pretty sizeable arsenal...someone just needs to send a contract over, or a phonecall, or whatever it is chef does when she gets to murder folks.
Telesign pulls where the phones were registered and who provides the service. The older an account is, the better. And if the number shows up as attached to legitimate accounts with companies, apps, and websites to which Telesign provides services, thatâ(TM)s a good thing. Having a newly-opened account results in a lower score, or using a less-well known carrier, or having a number thatâ(TM)s not registered with some of the customers for which this company does two-factor authentication.
this is all vital information I'll take into consideration. I'm clearly going to switch to cricket mobile, and refuse to use call-to-verify services. because if youre going to maintain a clandestine or "closed" as you call it network of telephone activity used by corporations to target and analyze me as a consumer, I'd like to ensure I rank right around anders brevik and james holmes. I want this ranking, because the companies that need to stalk my every waking moment in search of a need, want, or urge to exploit are the kinds of companies that should be razed to the ground. they dont offer a product or service anyone needs, much like you. rather, they are a font of predatory behavior that in any other walk of life, government or private, would absolutely not be tolerated.
this has never been about offering discounts. The monitoring technology is used as a statistical predictor of quarterly profits vs loss and helps drive the overall cost of insurance, not your discounts. the 15% discount, a maximum you can earn with the progressive program, is a $150 discount on a thousand dollar per year policy that still puts full-coverage insurance far outside the realm of the average 18 year old. many 18 year olds pay significantly more than this.
As a gay man having recently moved to the midwest from a major metropolitan area, I can attest that no such monitoring system will ever help me. because its illegal for me to get married, I pay more insurance despite having a 10 year clean record of driving. In my larger city I used zipcars for longer trips, purchasing their insurance when required. This constitutes, in every insurance provider ive checked, a policy increase for not having maintained insurance. thats right, i get a penalty for not consuming a product consistently enough. all this for the privilege of any event of an accident, in which ill pay the deductible out of pocket and wait for reimbursement because thats how insurance works if youd like your personal transportation out of the shop. Subrogation, the humiliating process of waiting for your expenses to be reimbursed, can take years.
do yourself a favour, if you want lower insurance drive a smaller or older automobile. something within the past 10 years isnt likely to break down with regular maintenance. It also allows you to come to grips with reality. Regardless of make model or features, driving in a car in the 21st century sucks. traffic is dismal, road etiquitte is nonexistent, your operating costs are also proportional to the vehicles pedigree, and you open the door for a world of new expenses like parking tickets, towing fees, and hungry meters. Stop waiting for some mega corporation to offer a discount for loyalty or a pittance for the invasion of your privacy.
1. before lyrics sites, listeners simply didnt have access to much of the lyrical content of the music they were exposed to. industry cronies like the RIAA didnt give a shit if the poetic art of a song was conveyed legibly or eloquently; the tipper sticker is still at their discretion and used liberally to bump or kill a song or artists popularity. These lyrics sites stepped up and helped promote artists directly by engaging their listeners with informative and open information in most cases as to the content of a song, not just the sound of it. lyrics sites had forums dedicated to the meanings of songs as well as where to purchase them. As a parent, you appreciated these sites because it let you enforce or relax certain censorships against your child without having to resort to a vague and condescending sticker on the tin which of course, is not present on mp3s.
2. litigation cannot stop the internet much as cloistered catholic monks could not stop the spread of literacy. many lyrics sites will go dark to avoid litigation, but one can reasonably expect the site owners have an absolute plethora of other names and domains they can fall back on. Remember, the music industry trade association in question isnt proposing a solution to the problem of the lack of song lyrics in popular culture, theyre just enforcing trade and copyright at the behest of their stakeholders. lyric databases can be created and dissemenated across tor or through magnet links in bittorrent if need be.
3. a smaller point but the university of georgia's music industry shill happens to be david lowery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lowery
David is a musician famous mostly for the song 'low.' as far as most are concerned hes a relatively one hit wonder. so Yet another internationally renowned, nationally proven and locally beloved music figure has joined the staff this semester, and heâ(TM)s no slouch next to the other big names already there. 2 years later he just so happens to work on a project to help litigate lyric sites? it feels like the university of georgia might be a 'stacked deck' in this case used to justify litigation under the guise of academic research. Seeing as hes not published and his algorythm as well as its findings lack peer review outside a multi million dollar industry litigation agency, if he really is the researcher then we've got problems. if hwoever hes just a semester instructor, http://www.terry.uga.edu/news/releases/david-lowery-to-teach-spring-semester-course-for-ugas-music-business-certif
then id like to know the engineer or scientist and see more of their work.
for a minute there I thought america was the only country that invented a secret court to grant secret warrants to undisclosed agencies seeking to wiretap undisclosed targets.
turns out now that everything you did to slashdot is "legal" we can move on to more pressing issues like when are we getting more Doctor Who? I feel like personally thats the only way i could ever call the whole 'we have no respect for the internet' thing squaresies
start reporting your employees as independent contractors. Not only do you get to injur and maim people without any repercussions, but you can hire illegal immigrants and not face any of the state-by-state penalties for doing so. Wal-Mart does this routinely with its cleaning crews.
the fact is OSHA has been a toothless entity for a decade or so anyhow. states like texas and georgia barely have one, and when it enforces violations they typically become 'corrective action taken' events instead of cash out of pocket citations.
today two companies I despise, microsoft and facebook, came together to offer me not a job with dental and health benefits, but what most would conclude is a pittance for securing something as arbitrary and vast as "the internet."
the black market on the other hand offered to pay handsomly a years salary for my exploit that breaks microsoft embedded security in appliances like ATM's and nuclear reactors, thereby recognizing and acknowledging my important work in the field of security. Until such time as megacorps get their milton freeman head out of their ayn rand arse, im inclined to sell to the highest bidder because $5000 bounties dont pay my mortgage.
as it implies a few things for starters.
1. Britain, having exhausted all other methods of corrective action against pedophilia and child exploitation that may prove fruitful given its nature in the UK, now relies on a clandestine american spy program that hasnt been proven to catch a single pedophile, let alone terrorist.
2. the spy program, although decried throughout europe and asia as invasive and inappropriate, is however of such great importance to the efforts of the UK to fighting crime as to be above critique. Nay, it is above even mentioning the very programs or policies in place.
3. That edwards revalations may prove fruitful to hostile governments neglects to inform the reader that the information disclosed is related to a government that practices rendition, harbored a network of secret prisons, exercises indefinite detention against foreign and domestic nationals, and practices torture. the hostile government in question also operates the largest prison population in the world.
4. that so far your only response to the snowden revelations has been to harass and intimidate your own journalists into silence has exposed the ineptitude and desparation with which you seek to just make the whole thing go away. That somehow you think this condescending appeal to the humanity of the UK through your 'think of the children' rhetoric is even plausibly considered valid is laughable. Glen Greenwald is evidence enough you couldnt care less.
as an american citizen i can only implore europe: please, stop us. this has gone on far enough, far beyond spy vs spy and into america spying on every foreign citizen of any foreign government it chooses under the guise of some malevolent executive privilege we awarded ourselves after jihadists bombed a financial center. we have, as we continue to do today, exercised rendition and torture based on the information we collect using these programs.
http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/153/apple-phones-home-too https://www.apple.com/privacy/
When you share your content with family and friends using Apple products, send gift certificates and products, or invite others to join you on Apple forums, Apple may collect the information you provide about those people such as name, mailing address, email address, and phone number.
When you create an Apple ID, register your products, apply for commercial credit, purchase a product, download a software update, register for a class at an Apple Retail Store, or participate in an online survey, we may collect a variety of information, including your name, mailing address, phone number, email address, contact preferences, and credit card information.
electronically limited engine speed, ABS, stability assist systems, FLIR cameras mounted in high end luxury sedans, adaptive headlights, lane change warning systems, automatic parallel parking computer controlled airbags and seatbelt pretensioners as well as adaptive predictive braking in the event of imminent collision have all been introduced and vastly improved the safety of automobiles.
the hillarious truth though is car insurance routinely increases every year without fail. We have Progressive with 'snapshot' technology to rate and view your driving patterns and habits, yet it only claims at most a 15% discount so long as you let them invade your privacy and promise to drive like a geriatric. Snapshit is designed as a tool for the insurance company to more accurately calculate its liabilities and predict their resultant quarterly earnings.
car insurance is also premised on ludicrous multiplier factors like being married. I cant get legally married in my state as a gay man, so all i get is a half-hearted apology from the agent and a rate hike. did I maintain auto insurance for the past 2 years? no, but not out of any intent to defraud. I lived in san francisco for 2 years and didnt need a car so hence, no insurance and another condescending giggle from the agent. maddeningly enough, some states allow insurance "discounts" for customer loyalty, a concept thats wholly divorced from the original purpose of insurance. finally do i rent or own a home? im renting a place so clearly im a more dangerous driver? whatever. did I bundle my insurance with multiple vehicles? no? looks like more expensive insurance then
the truth is ive owned two cars in my state out of transportation need. one was a brand new 2013 Acura TL, the other a 2001 Crown Victoria. I bought the crown victoria and traded in the acura because it makes absolutely no difference to the insurance company. that despite having no accidents for over a decade, both cars cost the same to insure for me. So to think that somehow insurance companies are just going to take a huge revenue loss just because my car gets more computerized is a fucking joke. Private, loosely regulated automotive insurance is at best, a fucking joke. for 90% of americans that do need a car for work, it isnt even an option so insurance companies can enjoy gouging you for whatever they like. and my crown victoria? i can just get liability insurance because one year of full-coverage insurance is more than the car is worth to replace.
of all the products Redmond hasnt ritualistically pedaled into the ground, XBox seems to have defied even ballmers best attempts. their unfortunate XBox 1 unveiling which included an actual redaction of features and freedoms when compared to its competitors was certainly bad PR, but its not a killing stroke. XBox still maintains excellent game titles, and despite the hardware being plagued with flaws a return policy that basically sends you a free one console when yours unpredictably dies. its got netflix support, so you get a good selection of movies as well.
though id say XBox has its days numbered with Sony switching to the x86 platform. if fable, halo, and things like gears of war get a wild idea to move to Playstation, there isnt much incentive for customers to maintain their relationship with Microsoft. And the current 360 customers who remember the DRM snafu at the Xbox 1 release will certainly consider it a selling point if left 4 dead isnt exclusive anymore.
megacorps never listen.everything from cigarettes to global warming and fracking have all seemed to have this pattern:
1. new technology or idea proposed with limited research. it gets pushed hard by megacorps who want cash.
2. problems arise such as seismic disturbance, gas in the water supply, etc.
3. industry reacts immediately and violently to the concerns of regular citizens. everything classified as an 'isolated event' and media is threatened with advertising boycott if they report too much about it.
4. mounting evidence suggests new technology is dangerous and has negative consequences.
5. industry responds insisting everything is OK.
6. more evidence mounts, legislation gets proposed to curtail the technology and enact regulation
7. industry pushes back with FUD and insists the effects are 'controversial' and 'unknown' with relation to the technology but that regulation is not the answer because jobs..
8. deaths, major accidents, and environmental impacts are being seen.
9. Industry starts gladhanding senators and congressmen to ensure interests are seen to. senators, as usual, are familiar with ignoring constituents with less than a million dollars.
10. industry no longer formally responds to complaints. evidence consists solely of legislation they crafted and enacted to support their industry.
11. industry pulls out after investment potential is exhausted or litigation expenses become annoying. pack up, move out, and assign a 'vacant trust' to the property to ensure superfund only kicks taxpayers in the beanbag.
I often provide helpouts to people who dont know much about computer programming in exchange for little green slices of paper I collect. sometimes I trade this paper with other people so they can give me things like gas and food, and other helpouts.
governments routinely spy on eachother. Governments do not routinely spy wholesale on the citizens of other nations and claim it as their privilege.
The concern remains as stated: a country that practices rendition, torture, and indefinite detention without trial is now spying on anyone and everyone. this is a country that has operated secret prisons and invaded without cause soverign nations. America bombs indiscriminately anyone it decides through secret process to be an enemy combatant with any unintentional target in the bombing posthumously declared an enemy combatant. This is a country that is perpetually at war, maintains the highest prison population in the world, and its now spying for all intents and purposes on absolutely everything and everyone. In my opinion as an American, concerns from the international community are absolutely valid and reasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
Foxnews.com uses Disqus, although im not certain the merit of pin-pointing racists, xenophobes and homophobes in america. people like Rick Santorum and Steve King can and do go around bashing gays and muslims respectively with little social repercussion. Pamela Geller basically makes a career out of muslim bashing. Alaskas Don Young refers to south american and central american immigrants exclusively as wetbacks in his commentary on radio stations, and a sizeable number of our southern politicians have been card-carrying members of the KKK.
yet freedom of speech gets a good stretch here in america when its true definition was essentially political. In america, the first amendment guarantees your vocal objection to the agricultural policy of tom vilchek cannot result in riot police kicking in your door at 4 in the morning and beating you with riot batons in the street for your dissenting opinion. the freedom of religion granted us the right to organize against the government at a social level, as to deject the church in its occupation as a station of the government was in england considered nearly treasonous.
smart cars, connected cars that is, are regular cars with more gadgets and gizmos. cars that check email, report weather, play pandora and such are a recent development of course, and not one i may add that many drivers care for. Some argue they exist as a marketing effort to spur millenials to purchase automobiles. As a millenial myself, and one with an automobile that gladly interfaces with my phone to play pandora radio, I can confirm the marketing effort is misplaced.
what executives and marketing C-levels dont understand is that boomers drove because it was still fun. gas was inexpensive, income was plentiful to afford a car and its upkeep, and the novelty of road trips was still something most americans found fascinating and entertaining. Gen Xers piled their kids into SUV's for the ego stroke and gas, while not expensive, was still relatively affordable but something else changed. Traffic was becoming universally abhorrent. the much adored culdesac street planning mandate from the sixties had snarled it for miles and government budgets began to resemble holocaust victims to such a degree that potholes capable of puncturing a tire became commonplace on most commutes. the Xers responded by buying larger SUV's like the H2 and turning up the 20 speaker stereo to drown out the din of the crumbling pavement on their way to the cube farm.
fast forward to the millenials of today. the economic collapse of 2008 has caused most governments to send their highway planning divisions packing as their budgets turn tits up. highways and byways now look more like Reuters photos of bombed out occupied zones. Gasoline is so expensive as to make a road trip a punchline, and traffic congestion models the zombie apocalypse flicks we've glued ourselves to for the last 5 years. whats worse is most of the millenials you see today are falling apart under the weight of their college loans and an average wage thats declined precipitously for 30 years under the guise of free market capitalism. "a new car" for most millenials is a used SUV from a gen-Xer who just had to sell it to make the mortgage gestapo leave them alone for another week. factoring its voraceous appetite for gas, its high mileage, and its mad-max driver, all we've scored is a time-bomb with eddie bauer seats. So lets address the C-levels now...you want to sell us a new, tiny car with lots of gizmos and great gas mileage for less than 20k and while we applaud the offering we still can barely afford, the roads still suck and the insurance is only slightly less expensive than our education loans. Thank you no, the idea smacks of stupidity.
I can take the bus for a fraction of the cost of owning a car. I dont care if it takes 45 minutes because I have a smart phone, or tablet. im connected to all my friends, including the one im going to meet up with for drinks and dinner. my phone will warn me about making my stop, and let me recharge the fare on my card while i leave the driving to a competent, qualified and much more seasoned bus driver. i dont have to pay insurance, worry about parking, fret about the cost of gas, or earn a ticket for speeding
to put it quite simply: stop trying to sell me a $30,000 iphone case with wheels.
if you continue to use google for searches, discontinue this practice immediately and instead use duckduckgo.com
Keep a whitelist of cookies you're willing to accept, and accept them only for the session in which they are generated. this type of limitation can be controlled in Firefox's preferences under privacy. you should routinely delete the whitelist, as a periodic audit of what you need is more expensive than simply rewhitelisting your most visited sites and discarding the one-time stuff you no longer need.
at one time there was a slashdot article on 4 things you can do to increase your privacy as outlined by the EFF, however i cant find it and see no harm in reposting it.
1. use adblock plus
2. use noscript
3. use HTTPS everywhere
4. block any and all cookies, as mentioned above, with strict whitelisting for banks and reputable online merchants.
newer nerds to slashdot may reconsider the virtues of using mutt, cone, or alpine for email as they effectively render tracking pixels and malicious http content an exercise in futility on the part of the sender. RMS uses links/lynx for all of his web browsing, and while that may be a bit extreme for most of us, it certainly cant hurt to use it for opening email links should you be faced with the necessary evil of a questionable URL.
when you pry it from my cold, dead mpd.
the punishment is certainly dire, but mexicos lack of preventative efforts should be called into question. Was the vehicle marked as carrying radioactive cargo? why was there a layover of such dangerous material? were there warnings in multiple languages? pictographs from local health and safety agencies are surely readily available. the GHS is surely used in Mexico
https://www.osha.gov/dsg/hazcom/ghs.html
two people are dead and numerous others exposed because they either did not know what the truck contained, or could not read the ample warnings. Mexico has a 93% literacy rate. there is no excuse for this accident.
because if they all end up with 15 year sentences, people might start asking why we're such a sensitive target thats so dangerous to attack. it might draw more attention to our business practices and confidential information. our own employees might become sympathetic, nay, might start 'leaking' information on how we skirt banking regulations and use our market dominance to arbitrarily freeze funds or hold 30% of transactions for 90 days, or how we refuse to pay bug bounties and lock out entire countries without explanation.
so if we could just stop over-reacting to this silly hacktivism and just go about our business that would be swell.
for 20 years now the internet has been increasingly about 'free $X for some privacy" and its a model we've all gladly accepted and the concerned hackers among us protested. the cost of hosting and the cost of engineering are oft cited reasons to employ this deep-dive marketing horseshit but for some of us, the salary alone seems to suggest hosting and marketing online are trivially inexpensive. So sure, if you want me to use your service how about I attach a condition. You can have some of my privacy, if your C-levels and marketing nutjobs enjoy a little social engineering. And once some money grubbing bentley driving suit's license plate or back yard or in home conversation courtesy of a laser microphone turn up in a tumblr feed, then we're fucking even.
No one takes this into account in america because for some reason taking into account the fundamental failures of unbridled consumer capitalism is a "bad thing"
the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act committed $7.77 trillion to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. in 2009. You dont get to pump that much money into your economy and violate the good faith and principal of an open exchange system of capital and investment without serious repercussions. youve altered the system on a fundamental level that should render nearly every analyst suspect in their evaluation or prediction of it. at best, what we have is a run-flat tire posing as an economy. at worst, nearly every performance metric and return at any exchange level is completely without genuine meaning, no better than a fraudulent lottery ticket.
1. Blasphemy: as a law the crown can and does have you executed for everything from a simple expletive to your atheism or lack of church attendance. Criticism of the monarchy, as exemplified in thailand, is very punishable by death.
2. Grinding poverty and inequality: Monarchial rule begets serfdom and a midevil class structure. furthermore that class is infected upon your name for generations. Kings decide what you can and cannot eat with hunting laws, and who you can and cannot marry by proxy of the church. in the past, even certain hats and colors were banned by monarchies.
3. forced rule: In an absolute monarchy, the monarch rules as an autocrat, with absolute power over the state and government. If you want to see what this is like, visit North Korea.
Curtis Yarvin, the prominent neoreactionary mentioned in the piece, is a Libertarian. as are Hoppe and Seller.
Neoreactionaries believe 'The Cathedral,' is a meta-institution that consists largely of Harvard and other Ivy League schools, The New York Times and various civil servants. Anissimov calls it a 'self-organizing consensus.' Sometimes the term is used synonymously with political correctness. The fundamental idea is that the Cathedral regulates our discussions enforces a set of norms as to what sorts of ideas are acceptable and how we view history â" it controls the Overton window, in other words.
This is just a comedic recasting of a Fox news script. Rail against the intellectual elite, lambast the media for their liberal bias, and bitch relentlessly about how Political Correctness is destroying society by repressing dicks like John Derbyshire and every other techbro and brogrammer barking 'dyke' and 'cunt' at the first woman to correct their segfault. Its angry white men that think somehow because they write python or understand linux they have a carte blanche to grind their axe about everything from the taxes they pay to the horrors of enduring their multicultural workplace.
'This program will go a long way to not only providing these guys with jobs, but it is my hope that they hire people like them who have changed their lives and are now ready to contribute to society, pay taxes, follow the law, support their families,'
Why didn't the milktoast suburbanites of san jose (silicon valley) and surrounding cities do this earlier, say before any of these candidate hires were charged or convicted with a crime? We're forgetting this and many other communities in california were the same ones who decided 3 strikes was a great idea to curb crime. that building prison repositories for nonviolent drug offenders was an easy way to pocket some private prison cash and rid the streets of low income minorities who were supporting their families and paying their taxes as best they could, until you criminalized their very existence. The program fails to take into account the lack of unskilled employment for people who certainly arent going to qualify for a position at google, but perhaps they used to be a good welder or carpenter. the program exists largely as an exercise in the psychology of guilt. the job education also doesnt take into account what being an inmate means in California or other states. It means you emerge with your housing and apartment applications categorically denied because you served time. It also means those nice companies that taught you cobol on your worst days, wouldnt so much as talk to you on the street on your best. you are a branded felon. no matter how much Java you learned you're faced with a system that endorses and accepts the wholesale shunning of an entire class of people from the employment system.
imagine a room full of angry hitmen.
Puppet: plans to beat you to death, but when his arm gets tired he cant switch to the other arm. instead he grabs a box of markers and proceeds to write an angry letter on your face.
Chef: is competent enough to kill you in your sleep, knows everything about you and can even draft random passerby for practice. Shes spending the next 2 months assembling a rifle for each possible scenario she may find you in, and redefining some of the most effective murder/homicides in history so they work just for you.
Ansible: A nice killer in a business suit that will probably smother you and dispose of your corpse in an entirely predictable way. The 'Murder She Wrote' of configuration management, she'll win an oscar once you're dead.
Salt:as of this writing, salt last killed 54 days ago and currently stands as the less-than-well-known of your potential murderers. Salt has pretty good ideas on how you should die...its just puppet has been maiming folks for way longer and chef's gotten so popular that people cant walk through the streets without hearing someone gloat about how wonderfully she kills. Salt has a manifesto and a pretty sizeable arsenal...someone just needs to send a contract over, or a phonecall, or whatever it is chef does when she gets to murder folks.
Telesign pulls where the phones were registered and who provides the service. The older an account is, the better. And if the number shows up as attached to legitimate accounts with companies, apps, and websites to which Telesign provides services, thatâ(TM)s a good thing. Having a newly-opened account results in a lower score, or using a less-well known carrier, or having a number thatâ(TM)s not registered with some of the customers for which this company does two-factor authentication.
this is all vital information I'll take into consideration. I'm clearly going to switch to cricket mobile, and refuse to use call-to-verify services. because if youre going to maintain a clandestine or "closed" as you call it network of telephone activity used by corporations to target and analyze me as a consumer, I'd like to ensure I rank right around anders brevik and james holmes. I want this ranking, because the companies that need to stalk my every waking moment in search of a need, want, or urge to exploit are the kinds of companies that should be razed to the ground. they dont offer a product or service anyone needs, much like you. rather, they are a font of predatory behavior that in any other walk of life, government or private, would absolutely not be tolerated.
this has never been about offering discounts. The monitoring technology is used as a statistical predictor of quarterly profits vs loss and helps drive the overall cost of insurance, not your discounts. the 15% discount, a maximum you can earn with the progressive program, is a $150 discount on a thousand dollar per year policy that still puts full-coverage insurance far outside the realm of the average 18 year old. many 18 year olds pay significantly more than this.
As a gay man having recently moved to the midwest from a major metropolitan area, I can attest that no such monitoring system will ever help me. because its illegal for me to get married, I pay more insurance despite having a 10 year clean record of driving. In my larger city I used zipcars for longer trips, purchasing their insurance when required. This constitutes, in every insurance provider ive checked, a policy increase for not having maintained insurance. thats right, i get a penalty for not consuming a product consistently enough. all this for the privilege of any event of an accident, in which ill pay the deductible out of pocket and wait for reimbursement because thats how insurance works if youd like your personal transportation out of the shop. Subrogation, the humiliating process of waiting for your expenses to be reimbursed, can take years.
do yourself a favour, if you want lower insurance drive a smaller or older automobile. something within the past 10 years isnt likely to break down with regular maintenance. It also allows you to come to grips with reality. Regardless of make model or features, driving in a car in the 21st century sucks. traffic is dismal, road etiquitte is nonexistent, your operating costs are also proportional to the vehicles pedigree, and you open the door for a world of new expenses like parking tickets, towing fees, and hungry meters. Stop waiting for some mega corporation to offer a discount for loyalty or a pittance for the invasion of your privacy.
the government starts telling me i have to disclose my internet turbo switch?
1. before lyrics sites, listeners simply didnt have access to much of the lyrical content of the music they were exposed to. industry cronies like the RIAA didnt give a shit if the poetic art of a song was conveyed legibly or eloquently; the tipper sticker is still at their discretion and used liberally to bump or kill a song or artists popularity. These lyrics sites stepped up and helped promote artists directly by engaging their listeners with informative and open information in most cases as to the content of a song, not just the sound of it. lyrics sites had forums dedicated to the meanings of songs as well as where to purchase them. As a parent, you appreciated these sites because it let you enforce or relax certain censorships against your child without having to resort to a vague and condescending sticker on the tin which of course, is not present on mp3s.
2. litigation cannot stop the internet much as cloistered catholic monks could not stop the spread of literacy. many lyrics sites will go dark to avoid litigation, but one can reasonably expect the site owners have an absolute plethora of other names and domains they can fall back on. Remember, the music industry trade association in question isnt proposing a solution to the problem of the lack of song lyrics in popular culture, theyre just enforcing trade and copyright at the behest of their stakeholders. lyric databases can be created and dissemenated across tor or through magnet links in bittorrent if need be.
3. a smaller point but the university of georgia's music industry shill happens to be david lowery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lowery
David is a musician famous mostly for the song 'low.' as far as most are concerned hes a relatively one hit wonder. so Yet another internationally renowned, nationally proven and locally beloved music figure has joined the staff this semester, and heâ(TM)s no slouch next to the other big names already there. 2 years later he just so happens to work on a project to help litigate lyric sites? it feels like the university of georgia might be a 'stacked deck' in this case used to justify litigation under the guise of academic research. Seeing as hes not published and his algorythm as well as its findings lack peer review outside a multi million dollar industry litigation agency, if he really is the researcher then we've got problems. if hwoever hes just a semester instructor, http://www.terry.uga.edu/news/releases/david-lowery-to-teach-spring-semester-course-for-ugas-music-business-certif
then id like to know the engineer or scientist and see more of their work.
IMHO, lowery has an axe to grind and is being used nicely by the industry to grind it (Metallica anyone?) hes not a top 10 for any label, so if this one fails theres no chance we lose a major investment...after all this is a guy on his blog who equates playing low-budget venues with serving in iraq
http://www.davidlowerymusic.com/300-songs-blog/blog/48-friends-3-guys-walk-into-a-bar-in-canoga-park-why-being-backstage-at-a-low-grade-music-festival-is-like-being-in-iraq
hes also posted tabs and lyrics to the songs from his band, Cracker. now correct me if im wrong, but your label owns that song. they own the tabs, they own the melody, they own your stage presence and likeness. http://www.davidlowerymusic.com/300-songs-blog/blog/45-movie-star-and-get-off-this-cracker-more-on-selling-out-the-marc-jacobs-edition-m1-tank
if Sony or the RIAA took any of this se
for a minute there I thought america was the only country that invented a secret court to grant secret warrants to undisclosed agencies seeking to wiretap undisclosed targets.
turns out now that everything you did to slashdot is "legal" we can move on to more pressing issues like when are we getting more Doctor Who? I feel like personally thats the only way i could ever call the whole 'we have no respect for the internet' thing squaresies
start reporting your employees as independent contractors. Not only do you get to injur and maim people without any repercussions, but you can hire illegal immigrants and not face any of the state-by-state penalties for doing so. Wal-Mart does this routinely with its cleaning crews.
the fact is OSHA has been a toothless entity for a decade or so anyhow. states like texas and georgia barely have one, and when it enforces violations they typically become 'corrective action taken' events instead of cash out of pocket citations.
today two companies I despise, microsoft and facebook, came together to offer me not a job with dental and health benefits, but what most would conclude is a pittance for securing something as arbitrary and vast as "the internet."
the black market on the other hand offered to pay handsomly a years salary for my exploit that breaks microsoft embedded security in appliances like ATM's and nuclear reactors, thereby recognizing and acknowledging my important work in the field of security. Until such time as megacorps get their milton freeman head out of their ayn rand arse, im inclined to sell to the highest bidder because $5000 bounties dont pay my mortgage.
as it implies a few things for starters.
1. Britain, having exhausted all other methods of corrective action against pedophilia and child exploitation that may prove fruitful given its nature in the UK, now relies on a clandestine american spy program that hasnt been proven to catch a single pedophile, let alone terrorist.
2. the spy program, although decried throughout europe and asia as invasive and inappropriate, is however of such great importance to the efforts of the UK to fighting crime as to be above critique. Nay, it is above even mentioning the very programs or policies in place.
3. That edwards revalations may prove fruitful to hostile governments neglects to inform the reader that the information disclosed is related to a government that practices rendition, harbored a network of secret prisons, exercises indefinite detention against foreign and domestic nationals, and practices torture. the hostile government in question also operates the largest prison population in the world.
4. that so far your only response to the snowden revelations has been to harass and intimidate your own journalists into silence has exposed the ineptitude and desparation with which you seek to just make the whole thing go away. That somehow you think this condescending appeal to the humanity of the UK through your 'think of the children' rhetoric is even plausibly considered valid is laughable. Glen Greenwald is evidence enough you couldnt care less.
as an american citizen i can only implore europe: please, stop us. this has gone on far enough, far beyond spy vs spy and into america spying on every foreign citizen of any foreign government it chooses under the guise of some malevolent executive privilege we awarded ourselves after jihadists bombed a financial center. we have, as we continue to do today, exercised rendition and torture based on the information we collect using these programs.
http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/153/apple-phones-home-too
https://www.apple.com/privacy/
When you share your content with family and friends using Apple products, send gift certificates and products, or invite others to join you on Apple forums, Apple may collect the information you provide about those people such as name, mailing address, email address, and phone number.
When you create an Apple ID, register your products, apply for commercial credit, purchase a product, download a software update, register for a class at an Apple Retail Store, or participate in an online survey, we may collect a variety of information, including your name, mailing address, phone number, email address, contact preferences, and credit card information.
electronically limited engine speed, ABS, stability assist systems, FLIR cameras mounted in high end luxury sedans, adaptive headlights, lane change warning systems, automatic parallel parking computer controlled airbags and seatbelt pretensioners as well as adaptive predictive braking in the event of imminent collision have all been introduced and vastly improved the safety of automobiles.
the hillarious truth though is car insurance routinely increases every year without fail. We have Progressive with 'snapshot' technology to rate and view your driving patterns and habits, yet it only claims at most a 15% discount so long as you let them invade your privacy and promise to drive like a geriatric. Snapshit is designed as a tool for the insurance company to more accurately calculate its liabilities and predict their resultant quarterly earnings.
car insurance is also premised on ludicrous multiplier factors like being married. I cant get legally married in my state as a gay man, so all i get is a half-hearted apology from the agent and a rate hike. did I maintain auto insurance for the past 2 years? no, but not out of any intent to defraud. I lived in san francisco for 2 years and didnt need a car so hence, no insurance and another condescending giggle from the agent. maddeningly enough, some states allow insurance "discounts" for customer loyalty, a concept thats wholly divorced from the original purpose of insurance. finally do i rent or own a home? im renting a place so clearly im a more dangerous driver? whatever. did I bundle my insurance with multiple vehicles? no? looks like more expensive insurance then
the truth is ive owned two cars in my state out of transportation need. one was a brand new 2013 Acura TL, the other a 2001 Crown Victoria. I bought the crown victoria and traded in the acura because it makes absolutely no difference to the insurance company. that despite having no accidents for over a decade, both cars cost the same to insure for me. So to think that somehow insurance companies are just going to take a huge revenue loss just because my car gets more computerized is a fucking joke. Private, loosely regulated automotive insurance is at best, a fucking joke. for 90% of americans that do need a car for work, it isnt even an option so insurance companies can enjoy gouging you for whatever they like. and my crown victoria? i can just get liability insurance because one year of full-coverage insurance is more than the car is worth to replace.
of all the products Redmond hasnt ritualistically pedaled into the ground, XBox seems to have defied even ballmers best attempts. their unfortunate XBox 1 unveiling which included an actual redaction of features and freedoms when compared to its competitors was certainly bad PR, but its not a killing stroke. XBox still maintains excellent game titles, and despite the hardware being plagued with flaws a return policy that basically sends you a free one console when yours unpredictably dies. its got netflix support, so you get a good selection of movies as well.
though id say XBox has its days numbered with Sony switching to the x86 platform. if fable, halo, and things like gears of war get a wild idea to move to Playstation, there isnt much incentive for customers to maintain their relationship with Microsoft. And the current 360 customers who remember the DRM snafu at the Xbox 1 release will certainly consider it a selling point if left 4 dead isnt exclusive anymore.
megacorps never listen.everything from cigarettes to global warming and fracking have all seemed to have this pattern:
1. new technology or idea proposed with limited research. it gets pushed hard by megacorps who want cash.
2. problems arise such as seismic disturbance, gas in the water supply, etc.
3. industry reacts immediately and violently to the concerns of regular citizens. everything classified as an 'isolated event' and media is threatened with advertising boycott if they report too much about it.
4. mounting evidence suggests new technology is dangerous and has negative consequences.
5. industry responds insisting everything is OK.
6. more evidence mounts, legislation gets proposed to curtail the technology and enact regulation
7. industry pushes back with FUD and insists the effects are 'controversial' and 'unknown' with relation to the technology but that regulation is not the answer because jobs..
8. deaths, major accidents, and environmental impacts are being seen.
9. Industry starts gladhanding senators and congressmen to ensure interests are seen to. senators, as usual, are familiar with ignoring constituents with less than a million dollars.
10. industry no longer formally responds to complaints. evidence consists solely of legislation they crafted and enacted to support their industry.
11. industry pulls out after investment potential is exhausted or litigation expenses become annoying. pack up, move out, and assign a 'vacant trust' to the property to ensure superfund only kicks taxpayers in the beanbag.
I often provide helpouts to people who dont know much about computer programming in exchange for little green slices of paper I collect. sometimes I trade this paper with other people so they can give me things like gas and food, and other helpouts.
governments routinely spy on eachother. Governments do not routinely spy wholesale on the citizens of other nations and claim it as their privilege.
The concern remains as stated: a country that practices rendition, torture, and indefinite detention without trial is now spying on anyone and everyone. this is a country that has operated secret prisons and invaded without cause soverign nations. America bombs indiscriminately anyone it decides through secret process to be an enemy combatant with any unintentional target in the bombing posthumously declared an enemy combatant. This is a country that is perpetually at war, maintains the highest prison population in the world, and its now spying for all intents and purposes on absolutely everything and everyone. In my opinion as an American, concerns from the international community are absolutely valid and reasonable.