not really. the problem is most of the general population are apathetic to many causes, and generally don't care as long as they are able to order the shit they want.

Just like the Iranian centrifuges, which successfully thwarted a determined enemy state, thanks to the use of an Air gap.

Oh wait that didn't help... and neither will an Internet kill switch.

I think the American politicians have been watching too much of the Terminator series.

the only practical purpose a switch like this could have is to cut off widespread uncontrolled communications amongst civilians or to prevent dissenting views being broadcast within the country.

the nefarious uses and benefits to an "internet kill switch" far outweigh the remote chances that are being touted.

but remember. Think of the children.

great. so then If im being robbed i can't just give the thief a dongle or my keys.

now he's going to cut my finger off as well.

biometrics aren't that great anyway, a majority of Fingerprint readers especially are rediculously easy to circumvent.

Last time I bought a computer it was via Dell,

I rang them up and argued about the fact I didnt want windows.

they argued it was built into the price.

at the time windows home premium was around $250 odd, so I said I wanted $200 off the price, whether or not windows was installed.

it was easier for them to discount me the price of windows (and I doubt it costs them that much per computer) than it was for them to sell me a laptop without windows.

so forget about trying to get it without windows, the main thing is to not have to pay for it!

and there would be immigration queues like nothing you've ever imagined to move to little ol' Australia, until someone see's all the resources there, so then they'd all be off to little ol' New Zealand who would have been largely unaffected due to the isolation and mostly lack of ability to actually even contribute, and continued to trade with China.

seriously, New Zealand almost has the advantage of being able to respond to "you must fight with us" and we are like, no problem. we've got the dingy packed and 8 of the soldiers are ready to go, but 2 of them are a bit hung over.

of course you could invade with about 15 guys and a large stick, but meh. I digress.

of course there is an afterlife,

scientifically accepted too, however most religious wouldnt like it.

as for the religious side of the afterlife debate, I'll not get into that, but we do spend our entire life converting energy from one form to another.
this stops to a greater extent when we die, however forgoing being destroyed in a fission or fusion reaction the atoms that consist of "you" will continue for a long time,

and the energy that was "you" cannot be created or destroyed, but may be converted in many ways during your afterlife... however you may not be aware of any of it.

I don't know what the cost is, but there are 2.5 times the number of people in Seoul as there is in the whole of NZ,

if one assumes economy of scale, then it would be much cheaper.

however if it is the reverse then it is not so.

that wouldn't stop the feasibility of using a hybrid wired/wireless system as has also been suggested.

not even first at that by the looks of things.

Over here in Wellington New Zealand we have had all electric buses for a really long time, since 1949 in fact.

they aren't 100% always battery powered, but nobody said they had to be. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_Wellington

we have the dedicated trolly bus fleet, that can switch to running on batteries when there is no power, then back to overhead lines when power is restored,

from what I can see this achieves all the positives of the Korean system and none of the negatives (return times, charge times etc) as they are full time
electric but only require the battery power as a backup.

(ok the lines might be a bit unsightly to some, but my point remains)

so this might be the first electric bus system that requires no on the go charging, but is that necessarily a good thing? they still have to plug in sometime.

Ok slightly offtopic, but I live in an area where we have planes flying over head all the time (i'm about 14 - 16 kilometres from a major international airport)

and in the 8 years I've been living here, I've never actually seen a contrail. and yet you guys in the states see them all the time?

(to be fair, where i live is renown world wide for being windy)

not to fuel the conspiracy guys, but in my little out of the way part of the world we don't get contrails...

so I have no idea what a missile trail vs a plane contrail looks like, but I certainly thought it looked like a missile (having now established myself in having no credibility at all)

I think these guys are a massive inspiration. for so long I have dreamed of becoming someones evil nemesis. now we have RLSH I can take the next step and be a bungling RLSV!

I imagine that a majority of those exorbitantly priced books are available for free download by the "criminal element" if you know where to look.

this isn't a set of lock picks, an assault rifle or a hazardous chemical, its something that can be digitised and distributed pretty easily, and at 150 pages even in a huge pdf it'd probably take between 5 and 10 seconds on a slow broadband link.


so the idea that the "good" guys are going through training programs the "bad guys" aren't privvy to the information in is really more bollocks than anything else.

either the "bad guys" invented what the book is discussing, or they won't have much trouble getting access to it.

actually here in NZ itunes is much more misleading, they have two radio buttons "visa" and "mastercard" once you select one, you can't de-select it, but if you don't select either you can continue on.

I'm usually fairly clued up, but even this had me stumped, especially as thats not how radio buttons "should work"

I apologize if you thought my comments were "fucking anti-american bullshit" I should have said "north Americans" as you are right, they are having the same issues in Canada as they are in the States, I was just blown away that it was going on with _apparently_ very little protest in a first world country. Its probably unfair, but I expect poor regulation and screwed up industry practices in places like India, and other places that may not be considered the bastions of freedom that countries like Canada and the US are. In fact there are heaps of countries where I wouldn't be surprised at all at this sort of thing going on (poisoning of water via the frac'ing chemicals and the NG itself) there are plenty of developing nations out there with much worse things happening to their water supplies. The fact remains thought that I _am_ surprised at it occurring in places like the USA or Canada, no doubt however this is the start of a much bigger problem to come as the NG shale has been discovered in plenty of other places in the world. Again, I was not trying to attack the USA nor engage in "fucking anti-american bullshit" if I came across that way I apologise.

Speaking of clean water supplies,

I watched "Gasland" the other day, I'm sure it is totally one sided, but as far as polluting water goes that is some full on stuff you Americans let big business get away with.

I mean, flammable gas imbued in your water, is cool for the whole "watch my faucet explode" but aside from that I'd be worried about moving anywhere that has NG shale under it, for it'll be a short time before you are "frac'ed"