5) British cuisine.

Science fiction author "Gennady Stolyarov" isn't listed in Internet Speculative Fiction Database either, and the book's publisher, "Rational Argumentator Press" has a grand total of *one* publication, and its web presence is a section of Mr. Stolyarov's personal site. So what we're dealing with here is the self-published work by an unpublished crank sci-fi author -- not that there's any dishonor in being an unpublished crank sci-fi author. There's lots of us around.

I peeked inside the book, and what strikes me is that if you squint, this *looks* like a religious tract pitched toward children, right down to the colorful but stiff illustrations. Take a look at the cover, with it's child dressed in a blue oxford shirt, red tie and khaki chinos banishing death. This is peculiar, in a way that I applaud; an image pitched at children by someone so far out of the mainstream that she has no idea what a culturally "normal" child looks like. That's a good thing for the world, although it may not do much for the author's message. It's more important for people with an oddball streak to write books than people who think like everyone else.

This book appears to come out of the same impetus that underlies a lot of religious impulse: rage at the fact we're are going to die. It's a fact we *should* be uncomfortable with. Religion does the most damage when it makes us too comfortable with the prospect of death. The afterlife becomes a make-up session where we can do the things we put off line life like reconciling with estranged loved ones.

Anyone who regards speculation about technological singularity enabling indefinite human life extension as a "promise" is taking far too much comfort in what is, at best, an intriguing idea. But the universe itself has a finite lifespan; any being who could last to the heat death of the universe, or even a single 2 million century "galactic year" would be so far from human that calling it "transhuman" would be like calling ourselves "transprotozoans".

Whether we just disappear after a mere century or so, or survive as something unrecognizable as human, our opportunity to experience the universe as ourselves, as humans, is brief. We should make the most of it, no matter what we plan to leave behind when our human existence is done.

Well, "set a thief to catch a thief."

One of the reasons for the dysfunction we have in Washington is that all the rules that are supposed to protect the public interest have become so complicated that they actually promote crony capitalism. You need someone who knows how to hack the system to catch people hacking the system.

It *IS* easily done, right?!?

What are your thoughts on this one?

Not unless you use a hidden camera. If you use a visible camera and no one objects, you can assume their implicit permission

But if you're standing on a pier photographing a beach, aren't you 'hidden' in that most subjects do not see your camera? 16MP sensors are amazing things when coupled with a good lens.

The trick with good times is when they don't last. What we see, more so in this cycle that most, is centralization of power and responsibility/regulation (there has never existed a more regulated society than the modern West).

The cost of this is extreme - by some estimates, most people pay 30-60% of their earnings for the year to support such a structure (if you don't understand the average 22% cost of goods as embedded income taxes, google for the Harvard economics study). When we have an extreme downturn, like now (we need 350,000 jobs per month added for 10 straight years just to get back to "Bush era" employment numbers), people can't afford it. Just this week we have the example of Obama saying that people should cancel their phone service to pay for his healthcare scheme, but that's just a glaring example of a pervasive problem.

Only so many people will allow their homes to be confiscated to pay for the ostentatious lifestyle in DC and on Wall Street, while they're having trouble putting food on the table for their families. If trends continue, the USD will lose its place as the national reserve currency (debt-to-gdp is over 100% now; Bretton Woods was agreed upon when the USD was still backed by gold) which will cause a rapid loss of buying power. And the more the US outsources, the less will be there when the USD loses its value. At some point, they can crank up the printing presses to fund poverty programs, but when people stop accepting dollars, there's nothing else to do but to implement wage and price controls and/or seize the means of production. The odds of a revolt go up with each step along the way.

The shame of it is, we can see this coming, and we can recognize that we need decentralization and de-escalation of power, but the political system does not allow for it to back itself down. Even the very name, "lawmakers" is telling - "law-removers" isn't in the lexicon.

Jefferson himself predicted the situation, and even recommended revolution as the solution. I'd rather see a peaceful and economic one.

From time to time, a gas station here or there realizes that by checking under the hood, they sell enough oil alone to pay for the wages of the gas-pumper, and cheerfully offers full-serve at the same price as the self-serve across the street.

hawk

And then there's your retirement income when you move out of state.

Nevada has dealt with this by making all property within the state exempt when the judgment is for state income tax on retirement income.

sure, your *judgment* gets full faith and credit . . .

hawk, esq.

For a networking or storage appliance, it should get on the network using stateless autoconfiguration.

Hey, man, you've given yourself away as being from the future.

pfSense is a good example of how to do an interface well for network configuration. I'm not sure that defining a network topology in a directory server would be easier or better.

Do you mean that in most countries, if you take a picture of a crowded beach, you'd need six thousand model releases to be legal?

'Cause that doesn't sound sane. Not that most regulations are.

and apparently there's nothing more newsworthy coming across the firehose. I suppose we should take this as a sign that many people have stopped contribuitng to /. Perhaps they're over at SoylentNews now.

So we learned nothing from the 2001 US bombardment and invasion of Saudi Arabia then?

Either Ahmadinejad or Assad are beind this one. It doesn't matter that Ahmadinejad is out of power - he wanted to nuke Israel (it doesn't matter if that was a mistranslation). Assad just needs a good bombing anyway (it doesn't matter how he's going to price his oil).

'Cause Blackwater got BILLS TO PAY (it doesn't amtter that Blackwater changed its name to Xe and then to Academi to cover its tracks). And we've got bombs on the shelf that are getting close to their expiration date! Plus: jobs!

Hey, maybe one of the eds just randomly pushed a journal post to the front page.

Dealers try to mystify and generally complicate the process of buying a car by offering to arrange financing, making you a trade-in "deal" and obfuscating the true cost of the car. Fortunately you can get a detailed break down of the dealer's costs (including factory to dealer incentives) from Consumer Reports. Then you arrange financing elsewhere (or pay cash), sell your existing car yourself, decide on how much markup you'll pay, and resolve not to buy any additional services or warranties through the dealer. If you do those things you won't be walking into the dealership like a lamb to slaughter. They might as well try to fuck the Rock of Gibraltar. Some of them will try, but you just walk out the door and find a dealership that will sell you a car on your terms.

The last car I bought I walked into the dealer; the salesman saw I had the printouts and said, "I'm not stupid. How much are you going to pay?" I named a price 5% over the dealer's true cost. I could have opened with 3%, but I appreciated not having to go through the whole ridiculous ritual. It was a reasonable offer and the salesman immediately accepted. Half an hour later we finished up the paperwork; I dropped off a cashier's check the following day and drove my car off the day after that. It was all low-key and civilized, and by executing the deal quickly the dealership earned a fair paycheck for a couple hours of work.

This is the way buying a car should be: you tell the dealer which model you want, hand over a check and drive off. Letting the dealer do anything else "for you" is asking to be screwed over. Despite what the salesman claims, there is nothing the dealer can do to make your life simpler, except maybe fetching your plates from the motor vehicle registry. Do everything else yourself, including determining the price you'll pay for the car.

The bastards now are so full of themselves that they don't even pretend anymore.

Well, that is part of it - to show you what's there place and your place. Like at the airport, nobody expects to find a bomb in the keester of a midwest sales manager, but he's gonna get the anal probe so that he knows just who's in charge. It's worse than most people would treat a dog, really.