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Comment This is just the beginning. (Score 1) 282

I think they bet on new, more efficient, cleaner technologies that will replace lead-acid sooner or later (eg. liquid metal batteries) but something has to start this process of development. So yes - lead batteries might be dirty right now but overall process will cut a lot more of impact of coal in the future. Clearly they are far ahead of everyone else in this regard. Renewable energy devices prices are dropping similiarly to computer prices not so long ago. I wonder when (not if) they'll be able to push prices below coal.

Comment Who is supposed to receive this crap-propaganda ? (Score 1) 510

Quicly looking at comment section of Telegraph article I see that it propably didn't succeed in indoctrinating anyone. Therefore I'm curious why such a piece of crap has been published at all. Maybe it is not directed to unwashed masses. Maybe it is directed to corporate/bankster/military/intelligence estabullshitment, not ordinary people. Maybe it is some kind of message sent by puppet government and puppet media saying something like: "See, we're (still) loyal. We'll go with you everywhere and we're ready to defend your (dirty) business even to our own detriment. We'll do anything, just give us some convenient, well paid position in your corporations when people throw us out.". I see this as a dangerous precedence. Politicians not afraid of what people think about them will not hesitate to send police or military to beat everyone "to the fuck'n skull" or "disappear" people if ordered so by TPTBs. The same with media: seeing journalists producing such crap without any signs of hesitation I smell crappy soviet-style system of propaganda (which I still remeber as I've spent my childhood in communist Poland).

Comment US regime busy legitimizing NSA transgressions (Score 5, Insightful) 504

In the meantime Feinstein is busy pushing a new bill through Congress. It will not only legitmize NSA spying on everyone but also impose even harsher penalties for anyone who dares speak out. Despite of majority of citizens now being clearly against it (despite of all bullshit and propaganda thrown at them by corporate media). I know it makes many Americans angry but I don't see much difference between civil liberties in US and China right now, the only one being that US regime is far superior in concealing itself behind "freedom and democracy" mirage.

Comment War between Google and Microsoft getting hotter. (Score 5, Insightful) 178

In other news patent cartel created by Microsoft and Apple attacks Google and others. Somewhat sad to see when one side of this battle uses product superiority and the other one resorts to lawyers and patent trolls. It just underscores roteness and corrupion of US corporate economy.

Comment There is no such thing as 'objective media'. (Score 5, Insightful) 431

Even if they try their best to do this. Every article, blog post, every news program always reflects point of view of whoever created this content. Even if such person tries his/hers best to be as objective as possible, it is impossible to avoid bias.

The only truth is what you see yourself which is of course impossible for practical reasons. The second best approximation is to snort though raw footage and original materials. This is very time consuming task and it is also impractical for anyone who is not a professional investigative journalist.

This brings us to preprocessed and prepackaged information spewed by either mainstream or alternative media. What works for me is to assume that they all have a lot of spin in their content and that every spin doctor uses at least partially true arguments supporting his/her position at first, is quiet about arguments contrary to his/her position and resorts to lies and fabrications only if all other alternatives fail. So I'm trying to read arguments of all adversary sides (US media, european media, russian media, chinese media, iranian media) and then use my head to sort out things - pretty much 'Scherlock style' deduction. Unfortunately this requires some time and effort, which most of people do not want to expend.

Very unpleasant thing about this is that western media perform very poorly in this regard, especially since run-up to Iraq war. I attribute this to general situation and 'lack of good arguments' on western side - which directly correlates to our latest economic (2008 crash and afterwards) and social (rise of police state) troubles. We now see things going from bad to worse: UK blocking PressTV, UK government forcing Guardian to destroy its computers, now UK PM threatening all newspapers if they do not obey his demands. The same in the US: Obama prosecuting and jailing more than twice as many whistleblowers as all his predecessors combined, US blocking RT, huge assault on journalists, with some of them propably murdered by government thugs to silence and send a message (Michael Hastings). We are certainly not better in this regard than government controlled eastern media and I suspect we might even crossed point of no return in our way have only to strictly controlled, totalitarian media spewing nothing but lies and propaganda.

Comment Call it a "natural process" (Score 2) 321

Wireless wiretaps started around 10 years ago and now your lovely government starts using them as as Kafka style "evidence". Who needs this pesky "proper" evidence after all. Two years ago Obama, (in typical, cowardly way - on New Year Eve), signed NDAA that contains sections 1021 and 1022 that allow government thugs to jail citizens at whim and keep locked them indefinitely in military facilities without evidence and without access to court. Who needs this pesky judge after all. Guess when (NOT 'if') your ruling class will start using it in large scale against citizens they don't like. Countdown has started, folks.

Comment So called "justice" in so called "free country" (Score 1) 622

US of A is almost there. Wait for economic situation deteriorate a bit more, supply of 3-rd world countries still having something to steal dry out (a.k.a "bring democracy - US style"), US public image to deteriorate enough to not be worth defending and you'll see US government hand in hand with US corporations exterminating its own citizens just to steal their belongings. The only thing that keeps US thugs from doing this is publicity. Given current situation, rapidly deteriorating economic situation and rapidly deteriorating public image of USofA around the world, it is only matter of time. Until things won't change radically, which - given Obama administration busy codifying Bush' transgressions, killing its own citizens abroad and jailing its own domestic critics and journalists - won't happen soon.

Comment New "traditional" energy source (Score 2, Interesting) 140

There was something called "focus fusion" that utilized boron-hygrogen fusion but I'm not sure it did work out well. Regardless, I'm less and less confident if it makes sense. Solar cells and wind turbines are becoming cheaper every year and have passed nuclear energy cost (in $/kWh) some time ago (was it 2010? I don't remember...). Like computers, those devices are becoming cheap commodity and are on their way to take carbon in terms of dollars per kWh. In other worlds, renewables (along with smart grids and energy conservation techniques) are on their way to become new "traditional" energy sources. Bucky Fuller was right after all: nuclear energy (in all its forms) is only marginally better than fossil fuels, renewables take the play to whole new level. We've just missed it for some time because fossil was too cheap (to be frank - partly thanks to stealing fossil fuels from 3-rd world countries by western powers)

Having said that, it does not mean we shouldn't do any research in this area. Basic research is THE basis of achievements of our civilization but please call spades the spades. Don't think it will magically solve our energy problems but there is a chance it will become breakthrough in many ways we don't expect.

Comment Modern corruption. (Score 4, Insightful) 298

It is not about stupidity. It is about control. Obama is a sockpuppet for his corporate sponsors. He does not have his views, he just reads all this crap from his teleprompter and signs whatever his corporate sponsors want him to sign. That's all. After ending his silly presidency, he'll have his well paid, warm chair in Goldman Sachs, Apple or some other corrupt corporation. He'll have his speeches paid $500'000 a pop. Just like Bill Clinton or Tony Blair.

You see, staying in office isn't an end in itself for modern politicians. It is merely an interim position in their quest of getting insanely rich. Their carreer begins AFTER they get out of office and stays until they collect few hundred milions dollars or so. Staying in office for entire life like those pesky congressmen do is so old school.

Comment Not all parts of your lovely govt are shut down (Score 2) 193

Despite shutdown US decided to extend military training program for syrian terrorists (err ... "rebels") stating that only "moderate rebels" are being trained that is propably yet another of its never ending stream of lies. FOMC is still peddling cheap money to stock markets, so all those Wall Street parasites calling themselves "investors" receive their checks. It's funny as they're just recipients of yet another government giveaway, albeit conceived a noth as instead of directly receiving government money, they're "earning" it from financial markets massively pumped by government via FOMC and similiar mechanisms. Call it socialism for rich people.

In short, two most important functions of US government today - that is funding wars and Wall Street bankers - are alive and kicking.

Comment Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score 0) 201

I tried to a film on deaths in Samsung factories I've seen a while ago on YouTube. It was virtually impossible. Only after I've found this on al-Jazeera pages, I was able to type in exact title and it showed up. Call me a tin foil hater but I suspect this is a modern form of censorship. Those fucks from Google are censoring bad stories on Samsung.

As much as I hate Apple and Microsoft for their business practices, I'm more and more confident that all of them are almost the same. They're all scourge of modern times. Both Google and Samsung aren't much better than Apple or M$. Googlers will sell you out to NSA in a heartbeat (albeit M$ seems to be always the first to do this). Samsung will exploit you to death in their factories.

I'm more and more confident that favorizing ones above others does not make sense. Getting rid of all of them is propably the way to go. No one needs a newest shiny gadget every few months after all. There are so many interesting things to do instead looking into a smartphone all the time.

Submission + - Snowden Strikes Again: NSA Mapping Social Connections of US Citizens (nytimes.com)

McGruber writes: The New York Times is reporting (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html) on yet another NSA revelation: for the last three years, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information.

  The NSA can augment the communications data with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes, insurance information, Facebook profiles, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data, according to the documents. They do not indicate any restrictions on the use of such “enrichment” data, and several former senior Obama administration officials said the agency drew on it for both Americans and foreigners.

In a memorandum, NSA analysts were told that they could trace the contacts of Americans as long as they cited a foreign intelligence justification. That could include anything from ties to terrorism, weapons proliferation or international drug smuggling to spying on conversations of foreign politicians, business figures or activists. Analysts were warned to follow existing “minimization rules,” which prohibit the NSA from sharing with other agencies names and other details of Americans whose communications are collected, unless they are necessary to understand foreign intelligence reports or there is evidence of a crime. The agency is required to obtain a warrant from the intelligence court to target a “U.S. person” — a citizen or legal resident — for actual eavesdropping.

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