I taught in Saudi Arabia during the last year. There's a mandatory Google safe search there. For the first few months I taught English before teaching IT. When students would ask what certain words meant, I'd show them pictures on Google images. Occasionally, the word wouldn't show. These were non-porn words. I wish I could remember what some of those words were because I'd like to check to see if they're also blocked in the US. What a fucked up thing, Google.

My mom recently passed away and I had seen a news clip somewhere about this.
I wanted (and still want to) do this for her, for my dad when his time comes and for some of my other relatives that have long since passed away but are all but forgotten now except by the few remaining survivors. I would love to do something to honor and respect their memories and their pasts.

So I looked at the website that offers the QR service for memorials, lifemarker.com

This was the biggest question I had and I found the answer I expected.

Q: How long will the LifeMarkerTM web archive be maintained?
A: Web archive page(s) that comply with the terms and conditions of LifeMarkerTM, LLC will be maintained for as long as the company is in business.

Well we all know how long companies stay in business. Not very long.
So what I'm doing now is trying to find a way to put something online that will stay online for 100 years (or as long as the internet is alive).

Another thing about the company, the sample they exhibit didn't really impress me. So it's time to roll my own.

I'm thinking buy a domain and hosting and put up any content you want. Make sure that archive.org crawls it. Then generate a QR code for the archive.org copy of your content. You can generate your own QR code easily. Then find someone that can do ceramics and have it put onto a ceramic tile. Lots of people do ceramics as a hobby. Find a way to attach it to the headstone that will never turn loose. There must be a ~permanent~ adhesive.

I'm sure this isn't the best way to do it but it's just something I pulled out of thin air. I need to do a lot more research on it but I honestly have little faith in that lifemarker company being around for long, much less any other company.

posting to kill a mistaken mod.

Sorry, I posted that while doing five other things. On my site, I have 17 out of 600 questions from the MMPI test (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory). That test is owned by NCS Pearson, Inc. They had (have?) their attorneys send out DMCAs. There was an article on slashdot about the same attorney going after someone else for posting 75 questions. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/03/23/2324258/dealing-with-a-copyright-takedown-request

I filed a counter-notification because 17 questions is fair use. Two months later I got a 2nd DMCA about the same thing, from the same attorney. I sent Pair my 2nd Chilling Effect notice disputing the same DMCA. Pair said if they get sued, that they'll sue me for damages.

I wasn't sure if Pair paid attention to my first counter-notification. I asked about it a couple times. That took a week or two to get answered since I think they had to consult their attorney. They said I should've just played along and removed the 17 questions and that they'd disable my entire site if they got a 3rd complaint about those questions. They also said I should feel free to move to another provider.

All in all, a long way of saying, that I don't think Pair is big enough to handle the VPN for the Navy ship. Although maybe they've grown in the last few years.

Thanks for your advice. It's mostly about Pair saying they didn't care about my DMCA dismissal* and telling me if it happened again, they'd yank my site.

The email thing is just a reminder to leave. My contract ends in August and I'll move along.

* Done through Chilling Effects then I had a lawyer look it over. I donated money to EFF.

I was letting gmail handle my account from Pair. The spam ratio got big enough that Google complained to Pair and Pair cut me off from sending all my email to Google. I went a month without cleaning it out seeing how many spam messages I'd get. 10,000 appears to be the limit for Google.

I've also had a problem by objecting to a false DMCA complaint. Pair said I was the only one who objected rather than just remove the wrongly perceived complaint. They told me if there's another complaint that they will close my account.

I've had a Pair acct for over 10 years on an abandoned site that I overpay for. I think I'll be moving along when my contract ends this year.

Have you been to an ER in the US? I've waited 8 hours before. When I was in Australia and ran out of anti-seizure medication (held up in Customs) getting some more was wonderful. The confusing part was how to bill me since I'm American.

I think mandatory coverage (health care, vehicle coverage) should have a gub'mint provided way of doing it..

Siddhartha Gautama aka The Budda aka Buddha is not a deity. The Buddha was simply a human being like all other human beings.
Buddha means "enlightened one".
One respectfully honors the memory of The Buddha but one does not worship The Buddha. Generally.
For the majority of Buddhists, it is not a religion, it is a philosophy.

Just sayin.. :-)

HERF.

When I walk out in my back yard and find a little helicopter hovering around taking photos of my house and yard, I am going to shoot it down unless it's clearly marked as a law enforcement drone.

If it's a commercial drone, it's going down. I'm going to get myself a .22 caliber pellet rifle. It's not a firearm but it will jack up a camera lens and or put a nice hole in a plastic fuel tank. Google has already crossed the line on every other avenue. I can see them trotting these out soon. If I'm not mistaken, they've been working with developing drones for quite some time already..

Microwave oven, magnetron, HERF.

I got a Walmart money card. The card is free. You have to put at least $25 on it the first time you use it.
Each time you add money to it they charge you a $3 fee. The funds are instantly available vs Visa Greendot which you have to wait an hour to be able to use it then you have to mess around entering codes on your phone to load the money into the card. And they charge you $5 to load the card.

With the Walmart card you hand them cash, the $3 fee and the card. They swipe the card, you press YES on the terminal and it's done. You can then go use it anywhere you like, just like any other Visa card.

I only put money on the card when I need to use it and I only put as much money on it as I need for the purchase. I don't pre-load it so there's never money just sitting on it. I load it and spend it right away. This limits the damage someone can do to me if they hack the system. In 2010 my Credit Union issued Visa card was hacked (someone stole like 50 million Visa card numbers) and they ripped me off for over $900.. It took me months to get it back and during that time my account was suspended and I couldn't use my Visa card OR my credit union account, at all! That PISSED ME OFF and I vowed to never let that happen again. That's when I started using pre-pay debit cards. Preemptive damage control. Sure, it's an inconvenience but the risk is reduced by a huge factor.

Besides, I learned that my credit union sells records of customer transactions to third parties. THAT really pissed me off...

I hate what this world has become. I hate the greed. I won't participate in the filthy, greedy cluster-f**k that life has become.

Well see, this is what I want to avoid. I want true freedom from greedy money grubbers prying into my personal doings.

I have become a member of Diaspora and they claim to be open and honest about your privacy. That's all fine and good but Diaspora is a closed system and it took me over a year to get in after I requested access.

I have facebook despite the fact that I hate them for the same reasons I hate google. But, my family, my kids and even my grandkids are on facebook and they use it frequently. They post photos and pour out their lives there and that's how I get to see their photos and peek into their lives. They are going to do it no matter what I tell them about privacy so I might as well follow them and see the things they post. I can't expect them to flood my email with photos and detailed accounts of their daily life..

But yeah, I want secure, private email. I would like a blog too. I looked at Wordpress and their privacy options suck. They don't allow you to restrict your blog audience and they don't allow you to delete your account if you decide to pack it up and quit. And they hound you for $$ for more features. They nickel and dime you to death for each and every little option. Tumbler is about the same. None of the blogging sites I've seen give you fine grained controls or privacy options. Blogger came about as close as you could get but then we're back to that awful choice of trading away your privacy to them. NONE of them allow you the option to prevent google or other search engines from indexing the contents. Sometimes people just want to share with family & close friends but not the rest of the world.

I refuse to sign up for or be a part of Google+. That is a stalker's wet dream come true. I joined early on through an invite and I was appalled at the lack of control you have. You can't block creepy people. Creepy people can add you to their circles and you can not remove yourself from them. For instance, some creep could find me on Google+ and add me to a circle he has created such as "Women I want to rape, murder and dismember".. No matter what I say or do, I can not stop this person from adding me or watching me on their lovely social network. In reality, several disgusting, gross men added me into circles they had created, without asking me if they could. I complained and told them to remove me. They told me things like "Chill out bitch, I'm just checkin you out.".. I complained to google about these people and google told me all I can do is prevent them from commenting on my posts but I can not prevent them from seeing my profile or reading anything I post to "public". This is what pushed me to delete my Google+ account completely.

I've looked at DuckDuckGo and I may start using it. Bing sucks. Google search has turned crappy after the inclusion of google+ into google search.
I just can't find many good reasons to continue using google search. It's just not a good search engine anymore, it's tainted and then there's the privacy problem.

Picasa, I never liked it. I don't like Flickr either. Photobucket and all the rest, I just don't like them, at all. I would like to have a place where I can share photos I take with my family but where I maintain total control over who can access it. Private should mean private. Private shouldn't mean partially private.

I did figure out how to install TOR on my iPhone. I like that by using TOR I am subverting their greedy money machine, to a degree. I had an adblocker on my iPhone and that helps, a little. But I want more privacy enhancements on it too. On my desktop system I have Ghostery, adblock+ and several other privacy enhancers installed though I don't use TOR on my desktop, it's just too slow.

So I guess you are right in that I shouldn't equate a pay system with a righteous system. I don't mind paying money for services, just as long as they totally respect my privacy. I would be more than happy to pay for privacy, if that's what it takes. But if I can find free services that are truly free and they provide me with respect for my rights and my privacy, I would certainly look into them and consider them as well.

Enough is enough. I've had it with the greedsters, the parasitical banksters, the predatory capitalists, and the profiteering corporations. I've had it with the 1%'ers and I want a divorce from the rotten, broken relationship. I'm open to constructive suggestions.

Thanks.. :-)

Ever heard of pre-pay debit cards? No I guess not.

Besides, I didn't ask for judgement or debate, I asked for alternatives to google.

Thanks anyway.

Greed.