1) Bitcoin is in no way secret. The blockchain (record of all transactions) is public.
Except, there is no requirement to tie a receiving address to a specific person. Not truly anonymous, but by using best practices, you can reasonably obfuscate what YOU are doing.
What you are suggesting sounds like the essence of most of the municipal broadband plans I have seen. The city runs cables from homes to a central location(s). A company/co-op/ambitious guy buys upstream bandwidth from the central location to the internet, and uses it to service the customers they have recruited and have access to via the city owned cable plant. Some will bundle additional service on top of that, such as email, a website, a news portal, etc. Others can provide IP connectivity and get out of the way.
For a while, DSL worked like this (I did it from 98-05 or so, IIRC). I paid the ILEC for a "naked" DSL line, but they provided no IP service on the line. I then paid the ISP of MY choice for internet services. If you only wanted IP connectivity, not any bundled VOIP, streaming video, etc, you found an ISP that provided the service you wanted, at the price you were willing to pay and signed up. The ILEC also ran ISP services with all the "value added" crap, so they weren't especially interested in making it widely known that you could use someone else, but it could be done.
I moved out to the country, where no one could spell DSL, then somewhere along the line, the requirement for the ILEC to provide third party access to their copper lines was removed.
If there are so many people wanting another provider, another company would show up and eat the existing one's lunch.
If I get together with a group of like minded individual with the goal of creating a local fibre ISP, we will fail for the simple lack of access. In most areas, governments have given a local monopoly to an incumbent cable and/or telephone company, and they have exclusive access to the infrastructure needed to run new cables.
Even if it was physically possible, do we really want 47 different sets of cables run up and down every street?This sounds like a huge waste of resources, and a logistical nightmare to me.
I'm no fan of big government. I do think that government should work to manage community resources that are considered essential, electricity, water, roads; in the past, phone service. Does government get it right, and efficient, every time? No. Is government regulation better than the pure free market approach? I expect yes, but since we don't have a truly free market, we may never know.. What is considered essential changes over time. Either we are now, or will soon be, at the point where internet service is essential.
Soldiers are trained to ignore the internal conflicts and follow orders.
True, most people, christians or not, would hesitate to kill another person without some form of training. But, there are different levels of internal conflict. Following the order to kill a foreigner, while deployed outside the country, doesn't present the same conflict that following the order to kill citizens of your own country would.
If a soldier will kill people under orders, what makes you think they'd hesitate to take away someone's guns when ordered to do so?
Do you understand the concept of legal and illegal order? The Uniform Code of Military Justice (which is a sub-set of United States federal law, not some seperate guidelines invented by the military), Title 10 - Subtitle A - Part II - Chapter 47 - Subchapter X - section 892 provides for punishment of soldiers who fail to carry out lawful orders. There is no requirement to carry out illegal orders, and soldiers from private to general have been prosecuted for issuing or carrying out illegal orders.
I expect that some of them would attempt to carry out that order. I also expect that they would face resistance from others within their ranks that understand the ramifications of such an action. Those being, we are now initiating an armed takeover of the country that we signed up to defend, and going against some of the foundational elements of that country.
It's no different than a gun nut saying in one breath that he "supports the troops" and in the next saying he's going to shoot any soldiers who come to take away his guns.
Why do you keep going to the "Support our troops = believes in 2nd amendment rights" story? Why would you think that "supports troops in (sorta, kinda) legal actions in a foreign country" is the same as "supports troops when they are taking illegal action in the US"? Those are certainly different scenarios.
Your fantasies about citizen-soldiers are nothing more than dreams. If the federal government ever decided to take away your guns, they won't have any problem getting soldiers to do it, and you'll be massively outgunned.
Wow, I though I was a pessimist. Hopefully I can keep dreaming, and don't have to find out how this plays out. I don't know what your definition of "won't have any problem" is, but I guess we'll have to agree-to-disagree about the level of commitment to the rule of law and the constitution that is present in the armed forces. I'm sure it's not 0% would or 0% would not obey those orders, and based on what the actual numbers are, so goes the chances of such a thing happening or not.
For the sake of discussion, what does it look like when 30% of the soldiers given these orders refuse them, and take action to keep them from being implemented. At the same time, approximately 30% of US households own firearms, at a rate of more than 1 per household. I don't think that is "won't have any problem" territory. Sure, some of those people will willfully turn them over, but lets talk about those who don't. Are you suggesting that troops with rocket launchers, or an air strike, are going to be called against some person or group that refuses to turn over their firearms? Now you're getting into Civil War territory, and the only people wishing for that are far out on the fringe. Being "massively outgunned" means less than you might think, see US vs. North Vietnam, USSR vs. Afganistan, Israel vs. Palestinians . You have to factor in the "will to fight". There would be doubt in the minds of soldiers, and much less in their opponents.
If the job assigned to an armed forces member is "deploy inside the United States, and forcefully take weapons from the citizens", then that assignment sets up a conflict, both for the soldiers, and the citizens.
For the soldier, it conflicts with their oath to protect the US and its Constitution, which explicitly states citizens may own firearms. Some will rebel against this type of order, others will not. Whether it moves beyond the order being issued would revolve around the percentages of each, and how they react amongst themselves. Refusing an unlawful order is, IIRC, still a legal action for a soldier.
If soldiers actually get to the point of trying to implement those orders, the conflict is less confusing, yet more severe, for citizens. The soldier is no longer a "American citizens who are just doing their jobs", they are now an invading force attempting a military coup, and there goes the reason for not shooting back.
loaded rifle on the hood of his truck and it's pointing at me.
Violating the 4 basic rules of firearms? Yea, I would GTFO too.
jet planes and flame throwers and guided fucking missles and grenades
The armed forces are currently composed of your brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins, and friends. These people still have some compunction to not shoot at American citzens. They do still swear an oath to defend the country and the constitution. When war-bots start taking over the front line roles that humans currently occupy, THEN this argument starts making a lot more sense. Hopefully there is never a need for a hot engagement, but history has shown over and over again that people will face those long odds when things get bad enough.
Ferguson riots where the masses threw rocks
Where were the fucking gun rights assholes?
I wasn't aware that the purpose of the protests in Ferguson was to shoot police officers. If that would have happened, we would be in a VERY different place right now. Luckily no one went there.
A number of gun rights groups (sorry, refuse to use your ad-hominem attack terms) were protecting local businesses from being attacked. Just like a number of local business owners did during the LA riots in 1992.
It's a shitty, thankless job where you get to enjoy the worst of human behavior.
They should get a different job then. When you find one that isn't shitty and thankless, let us know.
and occasionally your life is on the line
The job of police officer is not nearly as dangerous as your friends would have you believe. Again, if they don't like it, they can GTFO.
Many of them were soldiers who enlisted, had a gun put in their hand at 18 years old, and taught to kill other people.
If they enlisted, the gun wasn't put in their hands, they reached out and grabbed it. Yet again, their personal choice.
A lot of them are pretty nice work-a-day randos just trying to get through life like the rest of us.
Randos, with guns, authority, and an us vs. them attitude. If you are talking about the so-called "good cops", then show me the story where the "good cop" turned in his co-worker for corruption, violence, etc, and wasn't persecuted by his remaining co-workers. Until police end the Blue Code of Silence (Blue Wall, Blue Shield), then there is no such thing as a good cop. Police who won't enforce the law against other police are just as bad as the law breaker.
It's the plugins for all those that really sold me on using FreeNAS instead of rolling my own.
A person goes to a restaurant
The expectation being that the restaurant is going to serve food that is not dangerous to eat. The food might not be tasty, the service may be poor, and the prices may be high, but there is an expectation that the person walks out physically unharmed.
they decide to go on the chair lifts
Again, the expectation is that the equipment is functional. The family is not guaranteed a fun time, but they at least expect to not be injured.
cinema in question had failed to meet the health and safety regulations
Same as above. The expectation is that established rules for safety will followed.
Football is inherently dangerous, and participants should have no reason to believe injuries are not a potential outcome. If there is a governing body that tries to downplay the chance of injury, tries to encourage participation while recovering from injury, or tries to discourage rules and equipment changes that would limit prevent injuries, they should be subject to scrutiny up to and including being sued, just as the restaurant, lift, and cinema owners in your examples would be.
From the summary, "They can't really spin the drives faster than 7,200 RPM without increasing heat and the rate of failure. "
I don't see an assertion in the summary, or the article, that drives are physically limited to 7200 rpm. You couldn't finish the sentence before replying?
you should want this same sort of camera on all of your senate, congressmen/women, judges, jury, and all the way down to local mayors and governors, and most importantly - the president.
I don't have a problem with those public officials being monitored while they are on the job. The police, who generally carry guns and have a growing reputation for abusing the powers granted by their position, seem like a good place to start.
I've noticed several design suggestions in your code.
