J-William
-
Posts
489 -
Joined
-
Days Won
1
Posts posted by J-William
-
-
If you want to talk about the practical realities of the state (instead of the morality of theft, coercion, and murder) then you will almost always be wasting your time.
Because the biggest practical negatives of the state are the unseen costs and the unknowable lost opportunity. If the murder, theft and coercion of the state are not enough to convince someone that the state is dangerous... well maybe it's time to move on, time is short and there are lots of other people you could be talking to.
-
Currently, teaching myself Java and wondering if anyone has any suggestions for teaching yourself.
Heya! that sounds great! I've been working on learning Python myself. I'd say you've taken a good step in reaching out to other people for help and support. Maybe we could keep in touch and check on eachother's progress
for actual advice... well I've been finding lots of free books/ online tutorials and picking out the best of those. I've also been keeping a notebook with my progress to help me manage the "project" of learning to program.
I think you'd do well to work on a project that solves some problem you want solved. It doesn't even have to be a problem that hasn't been solved, it could just be one that you want solved in your own way.
For example I'm starting on a project to process text files and add spaces between Chinese "words"... which is hard because Chinese words aren't well defined like English words. There are programs that do this, but they are hard to use and don't work in exactly the way I want them to so I've made it a project to make a program that does this in a user-friendly (or at least me-friendly) way.
-
Yeah it's a real dodgy self-agrandizing book.
I still haven't made it through the rest of the book and don't think I will. The childhood stuff was interesting and tragic, and her covering up for her parents was completely predictable.
This (self-described) sociopath's activities--Sunday school teacher, professor of law, and attorney, become a kind of joke for voluntarists, don't they? She has the unholy trinity of coercion covered here.
I agree, she is the very model of statist conformity. She does everything she can to fit in with the crazy people around her.
-
Well, I’m just going to go ahead and assume that if there were even a one in a billion chance of life long paralysis or death, most people would take their chances with a week of the flu instead.
Yeah, I mean cuz no one dies from the flu...
-
And they're going to need to talk to this AlGore fellow about the internet he made divulging all these state secrets.
Next they're going to order god to cease and desisit with the earthquakes and the wild fires...
Oh and they're definitely going to get on the case of Einstein and Newton about this gravity thing... it sure crashes lotsa planes!
-
Although a US citizen himself, Greenwald lives in Brazil with his partner, because the US doesn't recognize same-sex unions as a basis for a green card.
Talk about losing something, personally, because of the state.
Well, since this Dershowitz guy is saying this on CNN, it's certainly a trial balloon for launching prosecution of Greenwald. I'm pretty certain that Glenn will be better off to be based in Brazil for at least the time being...
Not that I embrace anything at all about the state as it relates to Mr. Greenwald.
-
The real threat to our privacy and economy isn't Big Brother but a weak state, at the mercy of the alien forces of global business
hahah hahaha... hahaha
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/snowden-government-force-for-good-big-brother
this is the real danger of people equating big business with government... they want us to forget which one has guns, which one has prisons, which one propagandizes children for thousands of hours.
Basic economics still has the nerve to teach as fact that markets are more rational than public servants can ever be
The nerve of that "Basic economics"! can you believe it? Basic physics also has the nerve to teach that things fall due to gravity! Gahh! [6]
-
The bit about the NSA only taking metadata is laughable. Metadata is also known as "search criteria." They can use the metadata to index and find the actual phone call audio, when they have a reason to retrieve it.
Literally everything is being captured. That data center in Utah isn't for recording TV shows.
Absolutely!
When you look at the capacity they have and the capacity they are building; it is more than enough to record every single phone, Skype, im, Facebook, or twitter conversation.
I was looking into it a few weeks ago when I saw a comment about the feasibility of recording every phone conversation.
The short answer is that it is possible,
The long answer: If they were to record at a normal bit-rate for voice say 32 or 64kbits/sec then it would take an absolutely insane amount of storage and would not be possible. But there are very low bit-rate codecs along the order of 600 to 800bit/sec. At that bit rate it would be a fairly trivial matter to store all of the voice communications for the US for a long time.
Do we know that's what the Utah data-center is for? Nope, we don't know anything, but with the size of that Utah data-center they could probably record everything and keep it around for long-term storage, since tapes can currently store at least 250TB per square foot we're looking at maximum roughly 375 exabytes at the Utah data center... Whic doesn't square with the claimed Yottabyte, but whatever...
An hour long conversation recorded at 600bits/sec is 270kB... so doing some very rough math, you have 1,500,000,000,000,000 hours of conversations recorded at the NSA's new faciltiy.
Divide 1,500,000,000,000,000 by 300,000,000 and you get 500 million hours of recording time for every man woman and child in the United states. So that's clearly ridiculous because most people don't live more than about 700,000 hours
-
So, Mr Edward Snowden is big news, and I was reading through his wikipedia page and get this...
his laptop is adorned with stickers supporting internet freedom organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Tor Project.[6] Although he says he "believed in Obama's promises", he "voted for a third party" in the 2008 election.[9]Political donation records indicate that he contributed to the primary campaign of Ron Paul.
Yeah... he was working at the NSA, donated to Ron Paul and had internet freedom stickers all over his laptop. Who exactly looked at this guy and thought "our secret evil schemes will never get out with this guy around!"
isn't it supposed to be a big terrifying surveillance state, yet they can't even look at their own employees and figure out who might blow their plans?
The only thing more obvious would be if he showed up at work wearing a Freedomain radio T-shirt.
Posted this to my blog, thought it was worth posting here so maybe someone would read it
http://sticktowriting.com/wp/snowden-maybe-they-should-have-known/ -
I also think games are a phenomenal bargain.
2-Hours of LOTR in the theater: $10 ($5 per hour of amusement)
1000 Hours of Skyrim: $60 (6 cents per hour of amusement)
Just think, with Steam you get it for half price.
Terraria was a great deal, and I'm not finished with it yet.
80 hours in Terraria: $1.25 (1.5 cents per hour of amusement)
-
"Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight" is interesting, and I think it's worthwhile to read at least the first part where she talks about her childhood. It's almost funny how predictable the author's claim that she had a "normal" childhood, to then turn around moments later and describe her extremely abusive father, and suicidal/passive aggressive mother.
First: the author seems oddly insightful, and completely devoid of self-knowledge. At the same time that she's relating truly horrifying episodes of parental abuse and neglect from her socially adept parents, she takes complete blame for her muted emotional responses and her tendency to use people as an adult.
Second: For all the "OMG crazy sociopath" it's really a rather boring and self-indulgent tome. I guess it's a memoir and the author is not a terribly interesting or accomplished person who claims to be a sociopath... and so one might expect it, but the author sure goes on about herself.
-
With all due respect Stef, 99% of libertarians I know or heard about, got into libertarianism thru Ron Paul's campaign. In fact, I think majority of your listeners got to you via the same route. I love your work and I'm totally into ancap stuff, but let's be real: you are a second step on a ladder where Ron Paul's POLICITAL campaings were the first step. You are harvesting his seeds.
Non-participation in political action is just ingoring our chance to wake people up. Your philosophy is an advanced level of libertarianism. To get to the average citizen, the most effective way is to get a jolt of truth via political campaing because this is the only time people pay attention to these things. Get them to google things, discover more. Ultimately, they'll come to you, but political action is a necessary -- albeit politically futile -- step. We don't have to choose one or the other. We can have both.
With all due respect DaProle, 99% of libertarians I know or heard about, got into libertarianism thru Ayn Rand...
I personally know zero people who came in through Ron Paul.
-
But Adam is working for the Jewish conspiracy.
It's true, I read it on facebook!
-
Goods from kiosks at two malls seized
the sale of counterfeit goods - in Buffalo and beyond - poses a major security threat.
"When you purchase counterfeit goods, when you sell counterfeit goods, you don't know who you're dealing with. You don't know what kind of criminal activity you're supporting," Spero said. "It's actually organized crime that is behind the distribution of these goods. It could be terrorists as well."
HAHAHA!
HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHA!
-
I'm really starting to wonder if it is good or bad to expose myself to this kind of news... Certainly it's a good way to stoke my daily moral outrage against the state, but it's hardly empowering.
I mean what can I do about the actions of people with guns and prisons? There is no way that knowing about the despicable actions of prison guards will help me stop them.
On the other hand I think it is very important that people know about these things and not be so complacent and compliant with the growth of the police state... [:@]
Ambivalence is the name of the game!
-
Not unless it's to say exactly what he said. After sinking decades of my life into succeeding in business, I'd sooner amputate my foot than tank my career by refusing a congressional hearing, or attending only to tell US Senators something they wouldn't like.
So, no, he shouldn't have ignored "these fools." Fools who have large personal fortunes, oddly enough. Not very foolish sounding, are they?
Can't help but agree with that taunting fools with guns would not be a great way to protect the hard work you've put into your business..
I can't agree that they are not fools... they are certainly very savvy and morally bankrupt and have therefore amassed large fortunes, but that doesn't mean they aren't fucking idiots!
-
A friend of mine on Facebook rather bravely posted this yesterday (Mother's Day), it's by Dr. Alice Miller:
"So it hardly happens that somebody takes the heart to say clearly and honestly: "I never have received love from my mother and therefore I do not feel love for her. In truth she is an alien for me. She is lonely and may be in need of a loving son, but I do not want to lie in order to give her this illusion. I owe her and myself the truth that I cannot feel genuine love for her as an adult, because I suffered so much from her blindness as a child." Someone who dares to reflect that way will not be dangerous to his children anymore and will hardly have to anticipate severe, incomprehensible illnesses, because he is able to realise his body's signals before it is too late."
Wow Dave, that's quite a quote... Thanks, it really gives me something to reflect on for mother's day.
To be more honest, it taps into a deep well of emptiness and pain
-
a march is about as collectivist as it can get right?
The only problem with collectivism is when it's forced on people.
Nothing wrong with people voluntarily coming together to show support for a cause.
Right. It's the "collective" action of the market which makes the free market work so many apparent miracles.
-
I love it! I love Adam and I support what he's doing completely!
If I were going I would be very much concerned that the government will start shooting or employ agents provocateurs to start the shooting so they can be justified in putting down an armed group of crazy gun-nut terrorists...
However, I don't feel like that is very likely. The establisment has much better ways of either ignoring the movement, or marginalizing it by making fun of the crazy gun-nuts. So I think that it is going to be very safe to go, and the real battlefield will be online and in the mainstream media... and hopefully that's where you'll have some effect.
-
Lemme guess, she was black right? The cops can get away with anything... I mean she's suing them, they are not being brought up on criminal charges.
The cops will get out of this without paying her one thin dime. What judge is going to believe her word over that of a policeman?
This sort of stuff is just awful, I feel terrififed to think about what it must have been like before people had ubiquitous and cheap recording devices...
-
As the police and a pro-government youth militia swept into shops and factories, threatening arrest and worse unless prices were rolled back, staple foods vanished from store shelves and some merchants reported huge losses. News reports stated that some shopkeepers who refused to lower prices were beaten by the youth militia, known as the “Green Bombers” after the color of their fatigues.
wow, they sound like the red guard in China... except I guess these "Green Bombers" haven't killed quite as many people.
-
As a voice that warns about government tyranny, I find it insulting to infer that I've said tyranny is 'just around the corner'. No, it's very much right here, right now. There's no, 'turning into a police state' it's TURNED. Everybody thinks they know what tyranny looks like, but the joke's on us. They aren't going to do the whole Nazi\North Korean\Pink Floyd The Wall style fascism any more with the marching and the uniforms and propaganda posters. (except for the whole SWAT thing, but that's not as marchy) We're too keen on that.
Except they are doing the "marching and the uniforms and propaganda posters" in schools with the full support of almost every Democrat or Republican.
-
-
I'm assuming the audience members all had handkerchiefs over their faces, the event parking lot was full of upside down cars, and the inside of the hall was lit entirely by molotov coktails and burning tires?
Yep! it was the best event of the year! [hexplode]
Independence Day
in General Feedback
Posted
It's fairly easy to forget about in China... So I totally forgot about it except to glance down at the date and go "oh yeah..."