There is no way on this fucking EARTH the powers that be ( read that governments ) are going to let anything tarnish the holy grail of surveillance tech that people stand in line for weeks to buy of their own accord.

Birthers will recind their claim against Obama, Dawkins will get Baptised, and Ron Paul elected president before this will happen.

Rest assured, if it DOES, it is with full blessings of the aforementioned governments.

games actually drove the PC hardware market. The latest, greatest game would only run the top end settings by
utilizing hardware that didn't even EXIST when the game was released.

These days we have consoles and very, very few games are built with PC only in mind. Too much money to be lost
by ignoring the console market. Thus, any games made for the PC have to be " dumbed down " for lack of a better
word to ensure it will run on current generation consoles. Even though top end PC hardware can absolutely crush
any console on the market today.

In fact, it seems these days the games are made for consoles FIRST, then ported to the PC platform.

Other than 3D / CAD software and the like, there really isn't anything to push the hardware makers to innovate anything.
Especially at the consumer level.

I mean, seriously, how much horsepower do you need for Facebook or Twitter ?

If you want another example of how peaceful protests are pointless, try to organize one any where near where the ( insert elected official here ) will be speaking. You'll find yourself herded into a " Free Speech Zone " several blocks away where you are free to protest to your little hearts desire. Ignoring the zone and organizing a protest closer to your intended audience will see you arrested and carted off somewhere.

So yeah, while you get to protest, no one will even hear or see you doing it. Making the entire thing pointless to begin with.

In addition, it is not unheard of for the police to plant LE's in plain clothes within the protesting crowds to give the Riot Geared folks a reason to step in. In fact, the sooner they start the silliness, the sooner they get to clear the protesters out. Otherwise, they might be stuck there all day long waiting for something to happen.

With the only exception in recent memory being the huge backlash over SOPA, I can't think of any peaceful protests in this country that have made a difference about anything for quite a long time. When the peaceful versions of protest are finally regarded as a pointless exercise that will only serve to get you arrested, folks will start resorting to the non-peaceful variants. In this, I fully agree with girlintraining.

Either use a semi-auto weapon ( SKS, AR-15, and the like ) or outfit your bolt gun with a suppressor and quietly take down the coyotes without them even realizing what's happening. Hell, your neighbors will thank you too :D ( So will your ears )

My Savage .308 is equipped with an AAC Cyclone and you will NOT hear it beyond fifty yards or so. My similarly equipped Savage MK-II ( .22lr ) is on par with a pellet or BB gun when fired. A coyote or wild pigs worst nightmare.

It's not a safe. It's a " Lockbox "

It's designed to give you fast access to the weapon when needed, yet provide a simple deterrent to keep your ( obviously unlearned ) kiddo from casually picking it up. It's not designed to be " child proof " any more so than the crazy lids on prescription drug containers are. Want to increase its ability to keep little Timmy from getting it open ? Mount it to the wall, or inside a drawer where it can't be thrown around the house like a football.

Besides, these devices are really only necessary in either of the following circumstances:

1) You live in a nanny-state that has imposed these requirements upon you under the " Think of the Children " clause
2) You are a lazy or terrible parent that failed at teaching little Timmy / Susie what a firearm is and how / why to handle one correctly and safely
            ( In which case you probably shouldn't be handling firearms either )

That's likely because there is far more to a good job than a good wage. For those of
us who aren't just coming out of college anyway :D

$150k per year ? Nice. Working 80 hour weeks to get there ? No thank you.
I do have a life outside of my work and I plan to keep it that way. Work hours,
conditions, percent of travel, vacation time, benefits and overall company
attitude towards their employees are all factored in when I'm job hunting.

I'm not going to be slaved to my cell phone 24/7. I'm not going to work through
lunch everyday without compensation either. My expectations of you are as important
as your expectations of me. Miserable morale of existing employees is a huge red flag
as are high turnover rates. My life will not get put on hold so I can work super overtime
because the sales folks promised a customer we could build Rome in a day for them.
Tip: Fire your sales folks and hire some with realistic goals.

I understand probationary periods and entry level positions. Common sense for those
of us who have been in the workforce for several years.

However, I know what I am capable of and will not waste my time if you seem to think
I am going to work for outsourced wages. Hire a recent college grad with no experience
or your favorite ( insert low wage nation citizen here ) if you want to go the cheap route.

Tip # 2: Amateurs are far more expensive in the long run than any Professional will ever be.

I will have done my homework over cost of living expenses in the area you wish me
to work within. You want me to live in Los Angeles or New York City and only want to pay
$60k / year ? Yeah, you keep thinking that.

My salary requirements will allow me to live reasonably close to where I work without
having to eat Ramen Noodles every night. Negotiations about telecommuting may soften
my stance a bit.

I guess the bottom line is this:

Unless you're planning on hiring outsourced labor, you better realize that you get what you
pay for. Abuse your employees in any way ( hours, compensation, silly corporate bs games )
and your hiring manager will go insane. Unless I am in really bad shape, I am not going to
grovel and beg for a job. Quit assuming everyone will work for pennies on the dollar simply
because the economy is in bad shape right now.

Folks may be desperate, but they're not stupid. Killing yourself for a job that won't even cover
your bills is a pointless waste of time.

In four words . . .

Yes, it's worth it.

Everyone uses the same damned excuse every time this topic comes up. OMG what if a doctor is at the movie and he gets an emergency phone call and has to jump right up and go perform BRAIN SURGERY right away . . . . and . . . and your jammer prevents him from getting the call and . . and . . someone DIES. . . .

Yeah. SHUT UP. Hospitals have f*cking SHIFTS and the GD hospital is FULL of more doctors at any given moment than all of us combined even know. Stupid fucking argument. The whole, omg the emergency folks can't do their job argument is really getting old.

Show me an establishment within a reasonable distance of the civilized world and I can guarantee you they have land line systems for emergencies. Likely several. Why ? Because cell phones are unreliable that's why. . . . .

Solution: Set aside a small part of spectrum designed for emergency personnel if you really think the above argument is a valid one. Their phones will run on this frequency only. Hand it out to all the folks that qualify as emergency personnel and done. Since jammers work on specific frequency bands, no one will bother making one for this frequency as too few folks will actually use it. Kinda like writing viruses for Linux systems. Yeah you can, but why ?

Cell phones aren't reliable to begin with. Signal strength comes and goes, calls get dropped constantly. The damn service is so bad you wouldn't know if it was your shitty service that's dropping the call or some one with an active jammer. This is a moot argument until cell phones actually provide a reliable service.

There are three means to deal with an asshole talking on a phone where they shouldn't be.

1) Hope they realize their error and STFU on their own. Unlikely as most who are guilty of this behavior are too damn stupid to realize what they're doing is annoying the shit out of everyone around them. This is a by-product of a world without consequences. They talk and act like assholes because no one will do anything to stop them out of litigation fears.

2) Run a jammer. This effectively removes the problem since . . . ( see number 3 )

3) Talk to them about it. This is pointless and will likely start a damn fight. Folks get quite pissy when you ask them to put the phone down or refrain from talking at 110db. Ask me how I know this . . . . :|

All that being said let me say this:

These devices are a godsend in certain scenarios. The portable ones typically have a 10m range and are easy to use. Push a button for a temporary 30 second disruption ( all phones will show " No Signal " ) or a flip switch for a continuous cone of glorious cell-free silence. Movie theaters, quiet restaurants, live performances, libraries, church, hospitals, you know. . . all the places where Common Sense would dictate " Hey, maybe this is a bad time to have my Lady Gaga ringtone fire up at max volume for the thirty seconds it's going to take me to dig through my purse to find my phone " all perfect examples of where jamming comes in handy.

Trust me, you'll get nowhere trying to teach them why they are in the wrong here. Unless you enjoy fighting, it's far, FAR easier just to deal with it discreetly because establishment management surely isn't going to do anything about it.

Now, I wouldn't have to resort to such measures if the management of any of the aforementioned establishments removed them from the premises for blatantly annoying the rest of the patrons. Since the world is a litigation-happy place, no one would dare say anything to anyone. Welcome to reality.

Thus, the jammers popularity.

Ever consider these little devices probably wouldn't sell so well if folks didn't believe there to be a problem worth purchasing one to begin with ?

Tip: ( from experience )

Don't use these on the bus or near roads / motorways. As driver X is blasting down the road with phone glued to her ear she is already distracted. If she loses her conversation due to your jammer, the very first thing she will do is pull the unit away from her head and stare at it. This means she is no longer looking at the road. Bad things happen when folks don't pay attention to the road . . . .

Realize your device is only good for as long as the cell phones use their current frequency assignments. Once technology shifts ( and it does it quite rapidly ) your device is an expensive paperweight. In other words, a jammer built for 3G systems won't do squat to 4G phones. So be prepared to spend $$$ over the years if you plan to keep up with technology changes.

Go on a trip and fire up that little Map app ( to figure out where you are ) on that Iphone and watch what it does to your data usage.

Try and stream ANY music service ( even at low bandwidth settings ) while you're at work during the day and watch what it does to your data usage.
( I have to do it over 3G because my corp firewall blocks any site ( and known VPN ports ) that makes my job more tolerable )

Video is a complete joke unless you have wi-fi access so I won't even go there. Even if you COULD, you would obliterate your data caps in a hurry if
you tried to watch any video.

I recall when 3G was supposed to be omglookhowfastitis, but it sure seems to have slowed down dramatically over the past several months. My data
plan is 200M ( and I rarely reach it as I don't even use the phone much anymore due to the caps in place ) but I plan on dropping the phone completely
once my contract is up. Unlikely I'll even bother with another one of any flavor at all.

Done playing these damn games with these folks. They can keep their damn phones.

The only reason I still have a Windows based system at all is for the applications I utilize that require Windows to work.

I use a SATA selection switch to boot either onto a Windows Drive for the 3D app work, or onto a Linux drive for all my
websurfing needs. The Windows drive runs minimal services, no firewall, no anti-virus. It does not get patched beyond
the current ones loaded for stability reasons. I load no new software onto this drive. It is net blocked at the router.
No internet access at all for that system. Any finished work I need to upload to the net is transferred to a dedicated
E-Sata drive which I can access from my Linux drive. As a result, it's secure and pretty damned stable. Perfect for 3D
app work.

Once you have purchased a licensed copy of an app for the Windows platform, it would be quite expensive to purchase another
license for a different OS. ( Linux or Mac based ) Assuming the software in question even has a ported version to the alt OS to
begin with.

You'll also get into driver stability / support for upper end Graphics Cards needed to run the software. While Quaddro's have
certified drivers under Windows, I can't swear to it under Linux ( which is where I would prefer to be ).

Here is my very small list of why I'm still on Windows: ( due to having commercial licenses for each )

Maya
3DS-Max
Softimage | XSI
Mudbox
Zbrush
Rhinocerous 3D | Vray

If a Linux flavor existed for ALL of them, I would switch today.

Considering how petty Congress is being about the entire issue, I would downgrade the damn rating as well. From their ( S&P ) standpoint, the leaders of the USA are willing to put the entire economy at risk while they squabble about their own little pet issues.

We ( the US ) obviously can't get its act together by ourselves. Congress proved that. It took the threat of a downgrade before we finally decided to get semi-serious about the issue. Personally, I would consider the S&P downgrade as a warning shot across the bow. In effect "Get your sh*t together or suffer the consequences".

We shouldn't REQUIRE a GD debt increase to begin with. If our idiot 'leaders' would learn to spend less than they take in, we wouldn't NEED a debt ceiling at all. S&P sees this, as does the rest of the world. The leadership isn't interested in reducing their spending and, as a result, S&P made the right decision. This isn't a sustainable path. At some point it WILL come falling down around you. Why the retards in charge can't figure this out is beyond my ability to explain.

Personally, I hope the other rating companies follow suit. It will take that level of threat before my elected morons finally quit bickering and note the cliff edge they're dancing on. Maybe ( and it's a longshot ) they'll be able to get this train back on the right track. Maybe.

Given their track record, I'm definitely not counting on it. . . :|

Seriously, blasphemy a criminal offense ( again ) ? It's really tough to take any government ( or country )
seriously when they revert to dark age laws. . . What's next ? Going to revert back to the Earth being flat
or the center of the universe theory ? Sink some witches in the nearby river to see if they float perhaps ?

What a grand idea. . . so does the new law specify a specific religion ? Or just Christianity ? Everyone knows that any religion
other than the local 'accepted' one, is blasphemous to the local groups for the 'other' heathens do not believe in the 'right' God. So will the
Yahweh-Squads start kicking down doors at the local mosque ? Round up the Buddhists ? Re-educate the Atheists ? Will works
by Dawkins and similar authors in your library become grounds for your arrest ?

Of course, this is likely the "whatever-you-do-don't-anger-the-muslims" law.

Just . . . wow.

Do you really need a random noise generator ?

Maybe it's just me, but my computers and all networking gear is connected to the main house power via UPS systems. Besides not wanting the random voltage spike or power failure to kill my system, it's designed to filter noise off the line to begin with, so I have serious doubts any noise generated from the computer will "leak" out past the UPS going the other way. . . .

Jail time ?

*evilchuckle*

If an organization sought to ruin my life over something as trivial as this, there would be no jail time. I would have to try and go for the record in the amount of sheer violence and destruction I could possibly bring to bear on the offending entity. I would leave nothing but ashes. . . . half the populace would call me a monster, while the other half, a hero. What incentive remains to live when an entity such as the RIAA / MPAA can ruin lives with such impunity ? I say screw them, and go down guns blazing so to speak.

What choice is left to those without the means to defend themselves against such tactics ? Using the law to fight them will only result in financial ruin so it's a win-win situation for those with the funds to do so.

As long as we play by their rules, we will always lose. . . . .

Then again, we could always point out to the judge / jury / evil-lawyers that if the songs are worth so much, why do they pay the artists pennies on the dollar for them ?

"I do do a little planning. Before I go through the security line, I pretty much empty my pockets into my backpack, so that way I have nothing on me metallic that 'beeps' when I go through. And these days, I pretty much just wear flip flops, that that the shoe thing isn't that big a deal."

Thanks for trying to be as efficient as possible, however you are a diamond in the rough for lack of a better phrase to utilize.

You can be that person that takes exactly 12.3482 seconds to enter / perform / exit the security checkpoint due to superior planning and organizational skills, but the other ten thousand folks in front of you who are genuinely amazed, nay SHOCKED that we have devices that can actually FLY pretty much nullifies your accomplishment :D

I liken it to the freeway. You're not the sort of person who will stop in the middle of the freeway to rubberneck some accident on the other side, but you get to sit in traffic for every one of the idiots that do. All lanes are blocked, there is nowhere you can go. You are at the mercy of the clueless ones in front of you all the while wondering how you can obtain your very own orbiting Death Ray Laser to remove the offending individual from the gene pool. . . .

I refrain from traveling as much as possible anymore due to the security circus that airports have turned into.

Dunno if I would be quite so quick to point the finger at a
disgruntled Union employee just yet. It would make little
sense to cut the fiber BEFORE a strike actually takes place.

Typically, when something like this occurs, the folks responsible
will wait until the strike goes active as it would greatly prolong
the outage. With that said, I can't imagine any reason for someone
doing this ahead of time outside of a potential warning. -shrug-

The contract has expired yes, but as of this writing, there
isn't any information from the Union nor the Company on how
the negotiations are going outside of the usual propaganda from
both sides.

There are currently two rumor mills circulating about. One has a
potential strike occuring sometime in the May timeframe. The other
pegs it as early as Easter Sunday. Either way, I wish they would
either agree to the damn contract or get on with a strike. Sitting
at work not knowing for days on end really gets annoying after a while. :|

If a strike does happen, it's going to simply be a test to see who
can hold out the longest. On one hand you have folks not getting paid
in a sh*tty economy. On the other, the company will be working it's
management to death to compensate. My understanding is twelve hour
shifts, six days per week initially. Folks being moved around to different
offices means roundtrip drive times of two to three hours ( traffic permitting )
in some cases.

It boils down to:

Can the non-management folks handle the lack of pay long enough to outlast
the management who will be ready to kill anything in sight after a few weeks
of insanity level work hours ?

All in all, this is just going to suck for everyone.

*Except those highly compensated executive types and high level Union officials*