Comment Re:I agree with the claimed motives... (Score 1) 380
No, the NSA spying began a lot earlier than GWB. I first heard of it during the Clinton era. No idea how long it had already been going on at that time.
No, the NSA spying began a lot earlier than GWB. I first heard of it during the Clinton era. No idea how long it had already been going on at that time.
From the video I just watched, there's some kind of lens in front of the laser beam that disperses it into a wider light beam. The laser should only be thought of as a bulb, then.
Wrong idea.
The lasers only illuminate a phosphor emitter, which then produces the actual headlight beam. No laser light is emitted at all. It's more akin to the way a CRT works.
A thousand internets to the first one that figures out how to make the lasers scan the phosphors CRT-like to produce projected video. Stuck behind a semi for miles at night and bored? Just project a movie against the rear of the trailer ahead of you with your raster-capable headlights!
Strat
I think you have a very valid point which is why this such a scary issue. However, the emails were obtained through a court ordered subpoena during an investigation and retrieved through back ups the government is required to keep.
It's much scarier than that.
The NSA has all the official certs, the exploits, and the technical ability (along with the ability to coerce/force ISPs, phone carriers, etc to help) to forge and place an email or any other digital evidence on pretty much anyone's system that they wish to, and have it appear forensically to have been created/saved/received on any past time/date they wish.
Throw in a little "parallel construction" and you're suddenly a convicted felon on the way to a new, very "friendly" cell-mate for a few decades, all legal-like. This is a tool the Stasi would have wet-dreams about.
It's too much power for *anyone* to have.
Strat
No, those beginnings were not in the 60s. The first games were 1896. Before 1906, they didn't even have national teams.
The Olympic Games started with the ancient Greeks in Olympia (hence the name) with records going back as far as at least 776 BC, and may well have begun even earlier.
Strat
currency market is still in beta.
For sure. But at least BitCoin is an upgrade from the fiat fiasco currencies.
The US Federal Reserve and the entire US Federal Government must all be using bootleg copies of Timmy "Tall-Tale" Geithner's TurboTax program.
Or, they're...you know...criminals. The people that are supposed to be tried in a criminal court, and if convicted, incarcerated in a Federal penitentiary to protect the public.
But, for some strange reason, Tweedledum won't prosecute nor convict Tweedledee, and Tweedledee won't prosecute nor convict Tweedledum. They're just running game on some "dum dees" because they buy into the (D)/(R), L/R, White/Black, Rich/Poor race/class/party-warfare and fight each other while they and their children are being robbed blind on multiple levels and in multiple ways.
Strat
The Olympics stopped being about amateur sports a long time ago.
It's never actually been about "amateur sports" in anything other than name and some niceties to dress the illusion. It's always been a contest of international/inter-cultural/ideological propaganda campaigns, international one-upsmanship, and a sort of warfare without armies.
Now, it's just an ultra-commercialized piece of garbage. I'm glad I don't have to be subjected to it online, and even happier that the information superhighway won't be slowed down by all those big trucks full of Olympics video internets..
I remember as a kid in the '60s, the Olympics were *covered* by the major networks. You know, as they happened, few interruptions, etc? No endless advertisements and "color commentary" with only tiny bits of actual competition "highlights". By the late '70s going into the '80s, it was well on the way to jumping the shark and I paid less and less attention.
By the time the '90s and the crap they called the "Olympics" came around looking more and more like an infomercial, I stopped watching or caring.
These days?
It's dead, Jim.
Strat
It seems cops in NY could certainly use some serious reining-in. In this incident, an officer allegedly kicked and broke the leg of a 10-YO boy who used his mother's phone to video record them, and then also sexually assaulted the mother.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new...
Cretins like that would use Google Glass as a tool of oppression to aid with blackmail, extortion, and control of the population under their purview.
But as bad as thugs like that are, I'll bet even *they* say "Fuck Slashdot Beta!".
Strat
Lets just trust that the Feds would never abuse our help. That this isn't an effort on their part to examine malware in order to build better malware, or an effort to see what malware that we are able to detect to better help them build malware that we can't detect. After all, have they ever abused our trust in the past?
I already sent them mine. Heck, it's already on a good 2/3rds of their computers. How much more do they want, anyways?
And Agent Robinson, get your feet off of your desk and get to work, slacker!
Strat
No, son. The OTHER fold. A little further --
Oh, never mind.
I see Skinny Puppy's billing of the government to be a sign that they condone the use of their music in such a way. I know that's not true but a C&D letter would have been a much better political statement.
Sounds like you don't know how music licensing works. Remember when Heart got all pissy with the Republicans for using their song "Barracuda" at the GOP convention? Yeah, they didn't have a legal leg to stand on. Anybody can play your song in their venue, anywhere, as long as they've paid the license fee.
Nobody should need to go below the fold for a highly desirable feature.
I ALWAYS go "below the fold!" With my tongue. That's where the most desirable, uh, "feature" is.
Until corporations are muzzled, nothing will change.
I'll copy-paste a section from another of my comments in another thread and article that addresses this point.
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
The US doesn't have a Left/Right, (R)/(D) problem as much as it simply has grave, ongoing, massive and broad civil rights violations being committed by the government against the entire population under both major political parties.
If the government can be reined-in and brought back under the people's control and end the massive corruption, then corporations and banks, etc would also be brought under control, once you have a government that will actually prosecute corporations/banks/financial institutions and their heads who violate the law, and without any favoritism.
I believe that two of the things that *must* be included in any proposed solution for it to have any credibility whatsoever are term limits for all in Congress to end "career politicians" and strict rules with criminal penalties for going from a government post/office/position into a private sector job/position for any entity over which/whom you had power/influence, in order to stop the revolving-door corruption in D.C.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason." - Mark Twain
Strat
I bet some police officers are mighty pissed off about this ruling, but as someone who frequently drives with the lights on to warn fellow motorists of speed traps, I am pleased.
I was amazed because I thought this issue had been settled long ago as a free speech issue (warning others of a speed trap, etc) back in the 1970s when practically everyone who drove and many who never drove had CB radios, and "bear" warnings were standard road etiquette.
I remember it went through almost the same thing when officers actually entrapped a few CB'ers by getting on the radio and asking for a "bear report", and attempting to locate & arrest whoever responded. That shit didn't fly with folks of any political stripe back then.
Do we have to keep re-deciding every civil right for every single medium and situation? You have freedom of speech on foot, but we have to go through crap to decide that you also do when driving as well? WTF?
Sounds more like a way to attack civil rights by retrying and retrying the same rights and their principles under every situation possible until something sticks, and that can then be used to disassemble the rest of that right, and then on to others, rinse & repeat.
And now there are secret courts and secret rulings, mass domestic surveillance and data-mining, "Halt! Ihre papiere, bitte! Vhere are you goingk, vhere haf you been?" ICE/BP roadblock checkpoints 80 miles from a border, and nobody has 4A rights anymore? Again, WTF??
The US doesn't have a Left/Right, (R)/(D) problem as much as it simply has grave, ongoing, massive and broad civil rights violations being committed by the government against the entire population under both major political parties.
If the government can be reined-in and brought back under the people's control and end the massive corruption, then corporations and banks, etc would also be brought under control, once you have a government that will actually prosecute corporations/banks/financial institutions and their heads who violate the law, and without any favoritism.
I believe that two of the things that *must* be included in any proposed solution for it to have any credibility whatsoever are term limits for all in Congress to end "career politicians" and strict rules with criminal penalties for going from a government post/office/position into a private sector job/position for any entity over which/whom you had power/influence, in order to stop the revolving-door corruption in D.C.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason." - Mark Twain
Strat
But again, even if all of the above weren't true, voting for evil is in itself intolerable, unacceptable, and evil.
That is a rather immature (and pitifully black-and-white) description then you describe someone else as
evil
There is a lot to politics. Someone else is not automatically evil just because you disagree with something they do.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
Look, regardless of what you might believe, there is evil and there are countless evil, sociopathic people in the world, particularly in places of power like governments. If someone makes the decisions, takes the actions, and promotes the policies and attitudes that an evil person would, then they too are evil.
Pointing this out is not immature nor is it black and white, as their are degrees of evil, just as there are degrees of good.
That kind of mentality has brought us to - and some times beyond - the brink of war on more than one occasion.
Of course it has, as people must take action to defend themselves when attacked/threatened by others with evil intent.
Not every disagreement can be resolved through non-violent political debate and negotiation. If you believe that evil can be negotiated with, I suggest you read up on Neville Chamberlain and the part he played just prior to WW2 as an example that's repeated over and over through history when people delude themselves that evil can be negotiated with.
It seems like the world has to keep re-learning that lesson every 50 to 100 years. It's too bad that so many will die and so much blood and suffering will flow simply because people refuse to remember and avoid the same mistakes and the same old lies.
I wonder how many people here are aware that the US Congress passed a law that rolled back prohibitions against the US government using the same propaganda tools and programs they use against foreign governments, groups, and militaries?
The whole concept of propaganda as a tool of mass influence & control came from the Progressive Woodrow Wilson administration, specifically Edward Bernays in Wilson's "Committee On Public Information" which promoted Wilson's desire to enter WW1. People who voiced opposition to Wilson's policies and actions were investigated, harassed by government agencies, targeted for ridicule and hate in the press, and more. Sound familiar?
Evil doesn't always attack with ships, planes, and tanks. Evils' most ultimately-deadly attacks don't involve firing a single shot, yet millions die.
Strat
I'm retired, you insensitive clod!
A rock store eventually closed down; they were taking too much for granite.
