Water pumped steroid corn that has patents on it, and is harder for animals and humans to digest? Actually causes problems in animal studies but they sort of ignore that point because they have millions to bribe with, in political circles and at the ag colleges? Those "wonder" seeds? That academic and industry developed shit that is one of the main causes of obesity and diabetes, that stuff? Plus, you can't save seeds practically or legally with their crap, meaning you are in economic thrall to some other place forever and two days, have to pay what they demand, plus use their brand chemicals to even make the seeds work, again, whatever they demand in price??

No thanks, I'll stick to my country hayseed bumpkin non academic open pollinated seeds, save the very best ones from my yield every year, then plant those the next year. Well, as much as I can, until their patented crap has spread so much you can't do that any longer.

I don't care how much you alter them, you aren't developing *exact* good seeds for extreme specialized and local cases, the individual farm. I know my weather is different from just ten miles north of here. You have academic developed seeds to deal with that? I'll answer that, no, you don't.

    If you want to do some actual research and learn something, go look how much franken academic/corporate whored off seeds have destroyed all the wonderful little specialized corn crops in Mexico, replacing nutritious corn with generic puffed water "almost could be called food" corn, and is causing economic chaos and a drop in the health of the people there because of it.

Just because you get more bushels an acre doesn't mean it is better quality, more nutritious, or even economically advantageous. It's economically advantageous to the seed and chemical companies and the asshole loan shark banks and wall street speculators and hustlers, that's it. You wind up *needing* more bushels an acre just to break even with increased costs of production.

      The "green revolution" was due to cheap oil and cheap natgas and cheap phosphates and cheap weed and bug killers (especially when they didn't give a crap about long term environmental effects from those), none of which is true any more.

I farm and garden, and you can "plant" your monsanto and similar franken seeds where the sun won't shine on them.

Now, I think your point has some merit, some but not entirely, because your analogy didn't work based on real life stuff once you see through the PR propaganda that the corporate/ag-ademic heads push out. Ya, they can do it, but is it really a good deal? Just because you *can* do something like that, make cross species franken seeds, isn't the only reason that you should.

I also think you'll find the bulk of the youngerish pro farmers today have at least some college/university education and are usually *better* at general tech than most specialized IT people or pure career academics. Because they have to use such a variety of modern tech to make a living, they get more flexible at problem solving, because real life always has unexpected problems, wildcards.

There's a case to be made for single specialization, and just that, and obviously we need *some* people to do that, the very small in numbers extreme far out deep thinkers who can't tie their shoelaces or anything else much, but there's a better case to be made for higher level generalized knowledge in the "practical" world where stuff gets done. You won't get that in academia very much, it takes out in the "field" work to do that, the ag field or the shop or the data center or the factory floor or the design office, etc. Because that's where the wildcards show up that have to be dealt with *today*, thee is no luxury of another year or ten research, it has to be fixed *now*.

  And that's what the article is about, in general terms, if you over specialize in just one thing, you can get shafted fast when reality changes, whereas if you do a high level generalization, learn several different disciplines well, and train your mind to *think* better and be more flexible, to think "wider", you are able to move smoothly from one situation to the next, you are able to deal with the unexpected better, and to grok the overall scene better. Military folks have a term for this way of thinking, because their work has rather harsh consequences for failure, it is called "situational awareness" and you will not get that in academia. Some guy could be top in his class at west point, have degrees, teach some specialized aspect of military thought and science, etc, then out in the field fail on day one at a real "job site".

And it's the same with every other discipline out there. Theory is nice, practice gets things done and smooths out the bugs in the theory. Both are needed, but the bug smoothing, the polishing of the thoughts, is the real-value added that society and civilization needs.

The above ^ in one sentence, a "theoretical" question..

Which is more practical and of more value, Minix, or Linux?

Just a list of all the carriers out there in case anyone wanted to see it. I wasn't trying to score any points or dispute anything with it, just thought it interesting.

With that said, if you want to get into dick swinging for some reason, in the next major war, not a joke war with the US versus some third world nation, like we use carrier aircraft now against, hitting goat herders in pickup trucks, but against a real opponent, you'll find out that carriers are obsolete now, just huge expensive targets. I wouldn't give ya a nickel for one then.

Happened in the US with our civil war. Took a long time for it to get back to "normality" and I guess I would say it never has really. Now I didn't realize that so much until I was an adult and moved to the south. Growing up in the north we had a certain cultural mindset, but after moving here it hit me how much differences remain, and how much the south is still discriminated against in general terms.

And the weirdest thing to me is, because this was mainly about race issues..the north is more racist, just they don't admit it or acknowledge it. The most racist place I have lived is in Boston, followed by Detroit, way more racist than around here where I live now, rural bubba land Georgia.

I've noticed a rather glaring oversight in the FOSS world. A good browser that isn't an offshoot and "oh ya, that..." from a Microsoft product. Ya, talking about Firefox. We need an open source browser that has *nothing* to do with MS windows or Apple.

I don't know if a clean slate effort would be better than a serious fork from mozilla or what, but I think FF on Linux suffers greatly from being tied to Microsoft products so heavily. I always get the impression that the windows version is the real effort there at moz central, and linux is a little side effort that they really aren't all that interested in.

No idea how to make that pay other than what has been tried before, establish a foundation/non profit and start looking for grants and ask for donations, etc.

With that said...Brazil is looking to be on an economic upswing this century, probably the best of the developing world because of natural resources and efforts to have a diversified and robust internal economy. I know a ton of farmers here are giving up in the US and moving there, and I guess I would assume the industrial and otherwise sector is as well. The big kahuna this century is energy self sufficiency, water access, and ability to also be food self sufficient, and Brazil has all that right now, plus, still cheap to live.

List of carriers and nations, all classes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_carrier#Aircraft_carriers_in_service

For nine grand I could get used and still serviceable: a motorcycle (new if I wanted a chinese bike), an atv, a pickup, a sedan, and have enough left over for a passable used compact tractor with the attachments. A little more upscale in price, I could get a cherry dune buggy all tricked out, a really nice datsun 4wd pickup that has been completely restored and customised, and then almost but not quite enough left over for that yanmar compact tractor.

All at once..for a sedan..hmm..performance, I'd look for a used porsche, or reliable and good mileage, look for an older mercedes diesel, a 240 or 300D, then make it run on veggie/grease diesel.

with that said, that's an interesting engine, never knew it existed. VW (group) comes up wioth some interesting stuff.

Hmm..nine grand...enough for an electric conversion kit for some smallish sedan or small pickup, minus batts. Another option.

Heard an interesting thing about electric vehicles the other day, there are some all electric Rav4s out there with more than a 100,000 miles on the original batteries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV

  Also found out there are shops now that rebuild prius batt packs and it has dropped to under one thousand bucks for that. Started out around ten grand for a replacement pack. Quite a savings for just ten years or so down the road from when they were released.

generic related link

http://www.eaaev.org/eaaevsforsale.html

If I had the loot, I'd do one of those right now, plus get enough solar panels to keep it charged up well, before the dollar drops in worth more and all the imported stuff explodes in price. Just sayin...I *really* like the idea of a paid off transportation "stack". All I need is around a 50 mile round trip range for an electric, that keeps me within a "don't beat on the batteries" window.

I don't know if you want to count it, but Opera mini on my feature phone makes web browsing tolerable. AFAIK it is written in some form of Java. I use it a lot.

Ubuntu took off from heavy advertising. Advertising and marketing works, and the initial "get as many free disks as you want " shipit deal helped there as well.

Now, what they failed to do is capitalize on this advertising. They should immediately (as soon as they saw they had a hit on their hands) have gone to selling their own machines. Relying on dell. some *mart, some online mom and pop store, etc is not the same.

They don't need every hardware config under the sun, just maybe six machines total, don't go crazy there. This needs to be like an Apple effort, just using open source, integrated hardware and software in nice packages.

    They need a netbook (go for ARM, make the breakthrough), a full laptop with optical drive, an entry level cheapish desktop, a higher end workstation/gaming type desktop, expensive but all top shelf components, don't be scared, just do it, a SOHO tower server perhaps that comes with NAS, then a rackmount enterprise server.

  They use the LTS releases as the target OS for those machines. The main hired on devs use those machines all the time, so they really grok how to make them fly and get rock solid.

Now, the support is two tier, you own a bonafide branded Ubuntu machine, you get first tier support. Everyone else gets second tier (which is what Ubuntu has now, pure anarchy with hardware, good luck if it works or not, go wade through the forums pages deep with "help me plz").

first tier, separate forum, and the devs, or other offical hired on dudes, DO read the forums there and respond. And quickly. You take the people's money, you answer their questions and fix problems as fast as possible.

First tier branded machines get the REAL "just works" treatment. The rest is like now, good luck with your hardware, might work, might not, go haunt the second tier forums, see what needs to be done there. If you want the every six month bleeding edge releases, oh well, good luck. sure you can run it..but don't expect the same support as they give people who have paid for the hardware and software. Hardware they sell should stay supported for two LTS cycles. That's more than enough now a days for people to milk their hardware out. Chances are, if the hardware and software was really a good match, it would work longer than that, but officially, make it two cycles.

  And they should be able to keep cost competitive in this, as they have the resources for economies of scale and some good Q&A before making hardware selection for the branded machines. If local mom and pops can assemble and sell generic machines, so can a big company like Canonical.

Every new LTS release, new hardware comes out, and it "just works", everything, wireless, all of it.

*Most* people don't give a rat's ass about upgrading their OS and machines every six months, look how many people and businesses are still running XP and some older hardware. They want "just works" and "finally, I got this freekin SOB computer figured out and can use it now" over bleeding edge every other week something new is added/updated, and something old that worked, stops working. That gets way annoying to the other 99% of the humans out there who aren't serious devs/hobbiests. Real annoying.

You want linux mainstream on the desktop, or you want to keep it for hardcore nerds only, choose one.

This is probably the ultimate basis for any governmental regulation of commerce, basic contract law. If you have a claim, you have to prove it. You can't prove it, tough noogies. I think they would be hard pressed to get some law passed..because then it would mean anyone could just come up with any paperwork and "prove" they owned something. You signed with some bank, and one hour later they resold it upstream, where it disappears, which happened to millions of homeowners...greed caused insanity. Some of these mortgages have been sliced to ribbons and repackaged upwards of *two dozen* times. They can't prove who owns them anymore! That's the gist of it.

I think it's the best case of karma nailing those wall street crooks ever.

Nope, it's a huge loophole that will be used widely the more it is understood and the more local lawyers start using it. Entity x claims they own the mortgage..produce the paperwork. No legit paperwork, they don't own it. It is SO convoluted, so many smallish pieces of the mortgage went here there and yonder, they buried themselves in paperwork and counter claims and so on. It's tied up in derivatives, and even derivatives of derivatives, bets and counter bets against a piece of this mixed with some student loans (another ripe place to look for who really owns the loan), and a ton of other trade-able busywork "financial products" in 50 other nations, I mean, it's the mother of all paperwork messes. The original mortgage *doesn't exist* anymore. They didn't keep them intact. They busted them up so many different ways it would takes years to untangle it all, if they even could.

    No clear claim, judge goes case dismissed, homeowner walks away with title. The alleged claimant can't prove a thing. Already some people got title to their homes. It's been a slow snowball rolling downhill, but it is accelerating, started in 2008 and finally getting some traction.

I think it is wonderful, and more people should take advantage of it. One of the best ways to beat the conjob scam "trickle down" grifter's economic system yet.

Add thousands of "security contractors".

No diff. Dudes who follow any orders and carry weapons.

Oh wait, there is a diff...."security contractors" *cost more*. Added bonus for the NWO crowd, they are more likely than not to have come from paramilitary deathsquads (meaning even less resistance to certain orders), and they also aren't subject to the same alleged rules of war and rules of being in "service". Plus, being "civilian", they don't count! It's like they aren't there! Even though they are, they aren't "official" GI, so they just don't count.

I just clicked all three, they all load

http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/homeowners-rebellion-could-62-million-homes-be-foreclosure-proof

Title to that article is "Homeowners' Rebellion: Could 62 Million Homes Be Foreclosure-Proof?"

Maybe try doing a search with those, going in through google or reading the cache

All I know is they worked last night for me, and are working today.

This is just a follow up to some of my earlier posts on this subject. some folks have already got their homes this way, wherever they were sending the checks to, can't prove title. Those mortgage repackagers sliced and diced and obfuscated things so bad, no one really knows anymore who really owns their poof created "mortgage".

The whole deal with bank loans and "fractional reserve" banking is fraud and counterfeiting IMO. Not only is that bogus, they couldn't be content with making a killing, they had to try and force a superkilling with all those tranches http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranches they created. That system needs to crash and burn. But, that's the system they had to bailout, or, the tax payers had to bailout. Nuts. It's coo-coo.

dyncorp got busted for freaking *slavery* and the doofus government still uses them.

This is also interesting, and has a blackwater connection. Basically, blackwater is so despised in iraq for all the abuse there even the pro US Iraqi government doesn't want them there (but we insist they stay in some form). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah,_The_Hidden_Massacre

Just wondering if there are any "data only" cellular services, that is, you don't get a phone number nor do they provide phone service. I mean that's ALL they have, not a "data plan" from a normal telco, a company that *only* does cellular/mobile data service. I use a WISP, but it isn't cellular, nor mobile capable, the antenna has to be precisely aimed. The radio uses a sim card though...which made me wonder about this.

Such a cellular ISP, that charged by bandwith consumed plus a modest monthly connectivity fee, might work. It might even exist, I don't know, that's why I am asking.

As to those other bozos, the regular telcos and ISPs, etc, we need dumb pipes, then content providers. They shouldn't be *both*, that sets up the conflict of interest and it goes downhill from there.

oblig car analogy, a really bad one, for what these telcos want...

You have a real cream puff Belchfire Motors Land Dreadnought. Unfortunately, it only gets 1.5 miles to the gallon..so you have to stop a lot and fill up...now it could run on any gas, the engine is capable of it just fine, but as soon as you pull up to a non-Belchfire pump the tank cover locks up, and even if you manage to get some in, it runs like crap ..until you pull up to the Belchfire Motors fueling stations and fill up there. Then it runs perfect. But Belchfire gas costs twice as much. See, you have a consumer choice! According to Belchfire...

Every once in awhile I burn my crappy cellphone pics and any tech manuals/data pages (mostly for machinery/vehicles) or ebooks I have downloaded to a CD. That about does it for me. I use online email, no local storage. Hmm, no movies saved, all my movies are on DVDs. Music I don't save, GF has a Cd collection, I gave up years ago mostly when CDs hit and they cost as much as or more than vinyl albums or cassettes. I went, "this is a ripoff"! and stopped buying them, unless really cheap and used at yard sales.

I guess I could hang them from strings in the tree in the front yard, then they would be backed up in the cloud.... 0_o

I keep a few live CDs burned and hanging around on the spindle. Every few months I'll burn another more up to date one, run it once to make sure it works..that's it. If Mr. Hard drive goes, in goes knoppix or austrumi until I get another one. DSL used to be good, but it hasn't been updated in years now. Slax doesn't grab my hardware perfectly, nor do most of the other live CDs, but knoppix and austrumi always do. And austrumi runs in RAM all the way, so no hard drive needed really, even with low RAM amounts (Knoppix can do it too with the "toram" option, but I don't have enough RAM for it). Puppy runs as root and I think that's a bad idea so I don't fool with it.

Now what I would like eventually is take the drive I have now, make it the swap partion, even though I notice I hardly ever hit swap. Then have a small cheap SSD for the OS and apps, then a big hard drive and start ripping and storing what movies we do have. Unfortunately, half of them are on tape, and my old VCR is non functional, have to get another one someplace, used I guess.

for now though, backed up "good enough" for my purposes.