Comment Re:Android. The "PC" of mobile devices (Score 1) 92
My lenovo laptop runs Ubuntu Linux. I like to make my own choices.
Note that this method does NOT work with a printed copy of the fingerprint, only the original fingerprint itself. That is because it detects chemicals which are sweated out onto the skin. and when the finger is pressed to the paper, the sweat is pressed onto the paper. The cocaine does NOT change the shape of the swirls; it only adds invisible chemicals to the sweat and ink on the paper.
Almost everything you tthink of as a fingerprint is actually a photographic copy of a fingerprint, and the method does not detect anything from the copy. So police can use it on suspects, but you can't look at Barack Obama's published fingerprint in the New Yrok Times to see what he's been swallowing recently.
I think you've got it backwards. When I was growing up, a thousand years ago, there were only three sources of news: NBC, ABC, and CBS. The evening national news television shows were standard and the only available source of news for anybody.
Now people have the World Wide Web which connects them to others all over the world. You can follow friends in Norway and India and Hong Kong. Yes, you can restrict it somewhat. But the global connectivity will leak through.
My American ex-wife still lives in the same house we owned when I left, and hasn't talked to me in twenty years. My Thai ex-wife now lives in another country but we are Facebook Friends.
At one point during the Vietnam war, French reporters learned that the US was bombing the dikes in North Vietnam. The reporters had been there and seen it. But the reports were hear-say to the American people; stories published elsewhere and reports leaked to the US news media. Today you yourself, in Chicago, can read the French newspapers and get the stories first hand. You can be Facebook friends with the guy you went to high school with who now lives in Paris. And thanks to Google Translate, even language is not as much of a barrier as it used to be.
There used to be an American consciousness, and a German consiosness, and a Chinese consiousness.When one went wacko, we had World War Two or the Korean War There is now a growing being, a Global consiousness. It's neurons are the cables of the Internet. This is CNN, and BBC, and Al-Jazeera, and even Facebook. This is good.
"How far past the foundation?" I was standing in the middle of thie highway that has run for 25 years between Vientiane and the bridge, passing in front of where the new Embassy was built.
It was just one increment in the continuing saga of American government arrogance. The previous example was FATCA, in which the U.S. is trying to regulate the behavior of non-US banks. My Thai bank now refuses to open any new account for any US citizen because of FATCA, and I don't blame them. My existing account was grandfathered in; their computer doesn't know that I am a US citizen.
AFAIK no other country in the world attempts to regulate it's citizen's behavior when they are outside the country. I live in Thailand. While here I am obediant to Thai law, same as my friends who are Germans and Swedes and French. I feel no obligation to obey US laws. I haven't set foot in the USA for twenty years.
I have four living Thai children. Uncle Sam only knows about one of them. I figure they're better off without US passports.
Americans are not aware of this crap. The NSA is accused of "logging the metadata" of your phone calls. The NSA admits to RECORDING the content of every phone call I make. But Americans don't care. Today Uncle Sam thinks he owns the me; tomorrow he will think he owns you. Well, he doesn't own me, yesterday or today or tomorrow..
I tried to use my tablet to take a picture of the new American Embassy building outside Vientiane, Laos. I was told by the guards that this is prohibited. I went out to the street and took a picture from a public road on Lao territory, but they again told me to delete the picture. I figure they had no right to prohibit the picture, but I deleted it anyway. Then they had the paradox that they were insisting that I delete the picture, but they could not touch my tablet and I could not delete the picture because it was already gone.
So two days later, while I was in a taxi driving from downtown Vientiane to the Thai bridge, I pulled out my tablet and shot a video as we went past the new Embassy building. As soon as I got home I posted the video on my web site at
http://www.andycanfield.com/Th...
So far the idiots in the U.S. State Department haven't contacted me. Is it an act of treason for you to look at it? Ask your lawyer.
There are people you dislike lining the side of the road. You, and your friends, are standing on the other side of the road. There is a line of police down the middle of the highway, with their guns pointing away from you, protecting you. No problem, you feel safe and secure. Except that, someday, those policemen will turn and point their guns towards you.
I've seen it happen. Every defender you hire is a potential enemy. Every threat to others is a threat to you. Every bodyguard is a potential killer. As long as the Supreme Court agrees with your lawyer, you can laugh at the losers, but the day the gavel stikes you, your laywers will hide and your ass is grass.
It is better to not have enemies; to incite hatred and defy the world is foolish.
Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?
