Damnit Scully, we had it this time! We had it, had them, and those bastards took it away from us!

They landed on any of a hundred small island airstrips with the full knowledge of the Malay government, and by now that alien's body has made it back to the Pentagon and out of our reach.

So heaven is available to anyone whether or not they follow your God's law?

No. Even according to their own doctrine, "many are called but few are chosen". Funny, really, how people can find it comforting to believe a book that tells them that, out of the billions of people on the planet, a mere 144k of them get into heaven.

Then again, plenty of suckers play the lottery, too, so, what do I know?

I live in Portland & often people mistake *problems inherent to any big city* with problems of the specific city, or even neighborhood they visit.

Oh, no mistake there - I apologize if I suggested that as a problem unique to SF.

I meant only that SF, despite its reputation, doesn't get a pass on the "cities suck" vibe. It did have a few nice neighborhoods; and I'll even admit I felt relatively safe walking around at night (though I stayed on the "good" side of the hill). But beyond that, it has the qualities all cities necessarily have - Too damned many people, too little public transit, too many beggars, too much traffic, too loud, too bright, too expensive (I've never understood that last one - Supposedly, dense populations reduce the cost of living, so why does everything cost more?).

But no, nothing against SF itself. Mostly just disappointed it doesn't live up to its reputation.

you are only correct from a *professional* pov.

if you are an amateur and don't intend to publish or make money from the work, you do not need a model release.

its good courtesy but in most countries, you don't need to ask permission if this is your personal collection. in the US, its definitely true that if you are in public, you don't need any release for non-pro image captures.

There is nothing sadder than a group of tribalist asshats who believe in Zip Code superiority.

Indeed. Our way of establishing tribal superiority is superior.

WOW, just WOW, I'm sure they believe all this too.

Having recently experienced SF as an outsider on vacation... Honestly, after a week, I got used to some of its quirks. I could see it as more or less basically habitable as a permanent resident.

But my impression for the first half of that week? "You fucking savages call this shithole home??? Google couldn't pay me enough to put up with this!"

In hindsight, yes, Google could pay me enough - But for similar money, they could also pay me enough to take a private jet in every day from further North.

Jus' sayin'...


/ I did find the guy spraypainted gold amusing, though - Especially when a scab stole his usual spot. Like watching monkeys fling poo at each other.

At comcast that is how we worked from 1998 to 2007 when I was there. Security breach? I can tell the CEO to fuck himself to his face and yank the plug. And at many times I saw executives escorted out of the data center by guards because they were being idiots demanding we restore internet access. Management are clueless morons, they must be left out of the loop for security.

It's why Cops dont have to call the mayor when they see a guy running into a bank with a gun in his hand and a big sack with a dollar sign painted on it.

"Maybe they're just fucking idiots,"

This describes the management of all large corporation IT departments. IT is an expense, they are not really important like the marketing department.

I work in software but I love to hack hardware. there are many surplus electronics places around here that you won't find many other locations in the world.

there is a lot of food choices here and that's a huge draw for those of us who like choice.

you can dress how you like and few judge you by it.

the weather is amazing (we get our spring a week or two before valentines day, most years). cars don't rust out here and we only have snow if you drive to the mountains. you can ski if you drive there and you can go to the beach that same day if you want.

of course there are lots of big name computer-based companies out here. lots of start-ups, as well. (but semi high unemployment right now and companies that simply cannot be pleased and wont' hire you unless you walk on water, sigh).

housing is hella expensive here, that's true. cost of living otherwise is not much more than other nice areas in the country.

social views are very liberal (I consider that a good thing) and racial unrest - at least in the bay area - is essentially non existent other than near oakland and some other select areas; certainly not widespread and the crime rate is not at all high (car break-ins do happen, though).

all in all, I like being here and would be very sad to have to leave it. been here over 20 years and while the economy has certainly had its up and downs, there are more benefits than negatives to living here, especially for those of us who like to dabble in hardware hacking.

Cheese and frickin' rice

I've heard of sticky rice before. not sure what frickin' rice is. maybe that's what rice-a-roni is made out of??

On a stock phone without any hacking, rooting or other tricks needed? HTC hero must have been an awesome phone to come fully open like that.

I'll be paid fairly for the work I am doing....

It never happens...

We've never had it better here in fact, than since that monstrosity of a union disappeared, and Russians could have had it just as good, were it not for Putin.

And yet when either old age or an "accident" does Putin in, the next leader will be about the same or worse. Putin might make a passable impression of a supervillain, but he's just a man; he didn't beat people into submission with his superpowers, he rose to power because he's the kind of person who gets power in a country like Russia.

So no, Russians couldn't have had it just as good were it not for Putin. Some details would be different, but the country would still be just as authoritarian and obsessed with domination. Lenin did away with the outer trappings but not the inner essence of Czarism, and added a cartful of "ends justify the means" to the mix, which then made Stalin the best available match for the resulting muderous abomination. The later leaders then renounced Stalin but not the essence of the system, and the ball simply kept rolling until the empire collapsed. But even then only the symbols and forms of Russian institutions changed, while the heart of the system went to live on. Which then led to Putin's being the next behind to keep the throne of Czars warm.

Until something is done to its national psychosis, Russia will always be a country where a leader like Putin is the best people can hope for, since he's the least nasty embodiment of Russian national spirit (which still makes him pretty damn nasty). Did I say leader? Because all decisions of importance are made by the nature of the Russian system, and Putin simply handles the logistics of implementing them, getting his share of the loot as payment.

Every country has the government it deserves, and Russia is no exception.

please explain further.

I'm aware of the intel RNG that uses additional info (can't remember if it was the openbsd guys or freebsd; maybe linux but I seem to remember it was bsd that didn't trust the intel RNG and added extra sources of entropy).

I'd like to understand how adding more random sensor input can hurt randomness.

We don't want to be separated with friends by national borders just because some moron wants a toy state to play with.

National borders don't need to separate people any more than, say, city limits do. In a free country, crossing the border is a formality, and many neighbour states have dispensed with even those. It's empires who make a huge deal of borders; normal nations treat them as legislation handover points.