Article = none , personal opinion
I want to discuss NSA / PRISM and how the united states wants to spy on the whole wide world, and how , maybe , if they feel like , they might possible slow down , a little , on american citizens, possibly maybe make some token of apology that probably means nothing and does nothing , but the rest of the world is out of luck.
I want to discuss the new changes to the prostitution laws.
I have no interest in the Mike Duffy ex Newsie and the gang and his 90k in lawyer fee's that Harper decided he wasn't going to pay.
I want to discuss how Harper's foreign minister Baird thinks the americans are totally right about wanting to throw Edward Snowden in jail for his "crimes" and how this pretty much puts Harper in the same boat as Obama , selling out the canadian population to a foreign nation , since he's staying absolutely quiet on the matter and not promising anything.
I want to discuss why the heck are we trying to increase trade with China when they frequently violate human rights, and copy rights, and along with the USA are hacking away at the world to a fair thee well. And harpers staying quiet on that front as well.
But CBC doesn't want to discuss this.
They just want to talk about the "Duffy Scandle" and who said what , and what an evil person Harper is , and the rest gets scant , or no , treatment at all.
There are real stories, real issues out there, and no one care what the Canadian Public things. They're trying to tell the canadian public what to think, to dictate to us.
And I'm not too happy about that.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Sunday, December 01, 2013
Store Bought Bread = Evilness
article = none , personal opinion.
Normally , I can eat a whole loaf of store bought bread in a day (with peanut butter or jam or whatever was on sale ) . And I'm still hungry ,and I will wolf down potatoe chips or whatever .
But now , with the bread making machine , two huge slices did me for the whole day.
Weird ... or is it?
There have been news articles of corperations doing research to make their food stuff more attractive , not just labelling but changing the ingredients (typically adding more sugar ) . Taste , texture , amount of lard or other ingredients ... all in search of making you almost addicted to their product , like it was a drug. I already know they're doing it to potatoe chips and I try to avoid the stuff , but I hadn't expected them to be doing it
to bread.
They're messing with the ingredients of store bought bread to make you eat it like a starving wolf ?
I'm sitting here trying to lose weight , going on long walks , the works, and these bozo's are sabataging everything I eat and making me gain weight just for a fast buck?
Yeah , I'm a little ticked at them.
I should have guessed when a plate of rice fills me right up but store bought meals (McDonalds) I'm hungry an hour later. The grocery stores are literally a battle ground, as several news articles have reported, with competing brands trying any dirty trick , and we are the casualties.
Am I going to have to home make everything from now on? Do they have machines for that ? Because I'm a computer techie, not a cook. Put the ingredients in the machine and press start is pretty much all the effort I want to spend on this kind of thing.
Wonder if there's a machine for making soda pop, I drink a lot of the stuff.
Normally , I can eat a whole loaf of store bought bread in a day (with peanut butter or jam or whatever was on sale ) . And I'm still hungry ,and I will wolf down potatoe chips or whatever .
But now , with the bread making machine , two huge slices did me for the whole day.
Weird ... or is it?
There have been news articles of corperations doing research to make their food stuff more attractive , not just labelling but changing the ingredients (typically adding more sugar ) . Taste , texture , amount of lard or other ingredients ... all in search of making you almost addicted to their product , like it was a drug. I already know they're doing it to potatoe chips and I try to avoid the stuff , but I hadn't expected them to be doing it
to bread.
They're messing with the ingredients of store bought bread to make you eat it like a starving wolf ?
I'm sitting here trying to lose weight , going on long walks , the works, and these bozo's are sabataging everything I eat and making me gain weight just for a fast buck?
Yeah , I'm a little ticked at them.
I should have guessed when a plate of rice fills me right up but store bought meals (McDonalds) I'm hungry an hour later. The grocery stores are literally a battle ground, as several news articles have reported, with competing brands trying any dirty trick , and we are the casualties.
Am I going to have to home make everything from now on? Do they have machines for that ? Because I'm a computer techie, not a cook. Put the ingredients in the machine and press start is pretty much all the effort I want to spend on this kind of thing.
Wonder if there's a machine for making soda pop, I drink a lot of the stuff.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Adventures in Bread Making
I watched a video on break making.
Cover a table with flower, kneed for 8 minutes, let sit for an hour , need again , sit again 40 min ... very messy , very long , looks like hard work too. Why would I possibly want that ?
I've had my eye on a Bread Maker for a while now, and I finally scraped together the cash to buy one. The fact that "Black Friday" , traditionally an american only sales event , has migrated north and this 80 $ bread maker only cost me 50$ was a big help as well.
Apparently , you just pour the ingredients in , push the button , and walk away. An hour later, you come back to a nice freshly baked loaf of bread.
And the current price of a loaf of bread is $2.50 Canadian. But baking it yourself is considerably cheaper. I estimate the 2.5kg of flour I bought will do me for at least 5 loaves of bread , and it cost $2.99 . The rest will last considerably longer than 5 loafs.
What the heck is that duck taped to the front of the bread maker you ask ? Funny thing about the recipie book that comes with this bread maker. It has 10 really complex recipies for really strange and bizarre loaves of bread. But it doesn't seem to have a "simple loaf of bread" recipie. I had to go find one on the internet and tape it to the front so I wouldn't lose it.
And because I eventually plan on moving into public housing , and I seriously don't trust neibours on public housing vis a vis cock roaches , I put all the ingredients in a nice sealed plastic container.
I love sealed containers. Especially air tight ones. If I could , I'd put all my worldly possessions in them.
Note to self : Blow 10$ and get another one, there's still room on my shelves. And even if there isn't , they stack ok.
So ..inventory all the ingredients, check the recipie ...
ouch. Forgot the yeast.
Back to the grocery store. Luckily it's only a block or so away. Wait in line ...buy my one single item ...
Put ingredients in the "bucket" inside. Heed the warning in the instruction manual that the yeast always goes last.
Interesting thing about the bucket. There's a paddle in it that goes round and round and round ... is that going to leave a hole in the back of the bread? Hmmm....
Plus ... there's a heating wire ....you know, you look in your oven and there's this big wire that when you apply power heats up and turns red and gives off heat like crazy , there's one of those circling the bucket that I put all the ingredients in. I guess it automagically kneeds and cooks. Cool.
Hmm...one hour and still not done. Note to self. Get a pic when it's done.
Cost Per Loaf
Total cost of start up ingredients (salt,surgar , vegetable oil , flour , yeast) was 15$ (yeah I cheaped out and bought only the smallest packages of each. Cost efficiency is terrible for the first experimental batch ).
But at 3 cups per loaf, Flour is the one controlling the cost , really. The rest of the stuff I just took a little tiny bit out of each , they'll obviously last 50 loaves or something ridiculous. So 10$ divide by 50 is 20 cents a loaf for all of that. And the flour is 3 dollars for 5 loaves (at a guess, I'll likely get six or seven , but we'll say five) is 60 cents , so the total is 80 cents a loaf.
80 cents a loaf , compared to 2.50$.
And thats using the most cost inefficent bag of flour (you get discounts for buying larger bags). If this works , I can see that 80 cents becoming 40 cents , and me carrying home 8kg bags of flour once a month...or larger. :)
Edit : Cost per loaf
The loaf this thing produces is freaking huge. Worth about two store bought loaves. So that 80 cents a loaf is really 40 cents for store bought sized loaf equiviliant.
One Loaf of Bread (3 hours later)
Yes , as you can see , the paddle does leave a little hole in the back of the loaf.
That is a standard sized dinner plate , to give you an example of how big a 1 1/2 pound loaf of bread is.
It tastes ... like a store bought loaf of bread. Nothing special , nothing terrible , nothing wonderful. Perfectly edible.
Note to self : Get a proper bread cutting knife. The pruning knife you see in the pic just mangles it , and trying to eat peanut butter of a huge thick slice of fresh bread , still warm , that would put a slice of texas toast to shame , is a messy business.
Also , stand it up and cut it horizontally , seperating top from bottom . The loaf is freaking huge and you'll never be able to hold on to a full slice unless you chop it down to size.
Cover a table with flower, kneed for 8 minutes, let sit for an hour , need again , sit again 40 min ... very messy , very long , looks like hard work too. Why would I possibly want that ?
I've had my eye on a Bread Maker for a while now, and I finally scraped together the cash to buy one. The fact that "Black Friday" , traditionally an american only sales event , has migrated north and this 80 $ bread maker only cost me 50$ was a big help as well.
Apparently , you just pour the ingredients in , push the button , and walk away. An hour later, you come back to a nice freshly baked loaf of bread.
And the current price of a loaf of bread is $2.50 Canadian. But baking it yourself is considerably cheaper. I estimate the 2.5kg of flour I bought will do me for at least 5 loaves of bread , and it cost $2.99 . The rest will last considerably longer than 5 loafs.
What the heck is that duck taped to the front of the bread maker you ask ? Funny thing about the recipie book that comes with this bread maker. It has 10 really complex recipies for really strange and bizarre loaves of bread. But it doesn't seem to have a "simple loaf of bread" recipie. I had to go find one on the internet and tape it to the front so I wouldn't lose it.
And because I eventually plan on moving into public housing , and I seriously don't trust neibours on public housing vis a vis cock roaches , I put all the ingredients in a nice sealed plastic container.
I love sealed containers. Especially air tight ones. If I could , I'd put all my worldly possessions in them.
Note to self : Blow 10$ and get another one, there's still room on my shelves. And even if there isn't , they stack ok.
So ..inventory all the ingredients, check the recipie ...
ouch. Forgot the yeast.
Back to the grocery store. Luckily it's only a block or so away. Wait in line ...buy my one single item ...
Put ingredients in the "bucket" inside. Heed the warning in the instruction manual that the yeast always goes last.
Interesting thing about the bucket. There's a paddle in it that goes round and round and round ... is that going to leave a hole in the back of the bread? Hmmm....
Plus ... there's a heating wire ....you know, you look in your oven and there's this big wire that when you apply power heats up and turns red and gives off heat like crazy , there's one of those circling the bucket that I put all the ingredients in. I guess it automagically kneeds and cooks. Cool.
Hmm...one hour and still not done. Note to self. Get a pic when it's done.
Cost Per Loaf
Total cost of start up ingredients (salt,surgar , vegetable oil , flour , yeast) was 15$ (yeah I cheaped out and bought only the smallest packages of each. Cost efficiency is terrible for the first experimental batch ).
But at 3 cups per loaf, Flour is the one controlling the cost , really. The rest of the stuff I just took a little tiny bit out of each , they'll obviously last 50 loaves or something ridiculous. So 10$ divide by 50 is 20 cents a loaf for all of that. And the flour is 3 dollars for 5 loaves (at a guess, I'll likely get six or seven , but we'll say five) is 60 cents , so the total is 80 cents a loaf.
80 cents a loaf , compared to 2.50$.
And thats using the most cost inefficent bag of flour (you get discounts for buying larger bags). If this works , I can see that 80 cents becoming 40 cents , and me carrying home 8kg bags of flour once a month...or larger. :)
Edit : Cost per loaf
The loaf this thing produces is freaking huge. Worth about two store bought loaves. So that 80 cents a loaf is really 40 cents for store bought sized loaf equiviliant.
One Loaf of Bread (3 hours later)
 |
| Back of Loaf |
 | |
| Side View |
 | ||||
| Top View |
That is a standard sized dinner plate , to give you an example of how big a 1 1/2 pound loaf of bread is.
It tastes ... like a store bought loaf of bread. Nothing special , nothing terrible , nothing wonderful. Perfectly edible.
Note to self : Get a proper bread cutting knife. The pruning knife you see in the pic just mangles it , and trying to eat peanut butter of a huge thick slice of fresh bread , still warm , that would put a slice of texas toast to shame , is a messy business.
Also , stand it up and cut it horizontally , seperating top from bottom . The loaf is freaking huge and you'll never be able to hold on to a full slice unless you chop it down to size.
Friday, November 22, 2013
A day for a retired techie
A stunning day of adventure in the life of a retired techie....
So I'm playing wow , and I get this quest to go rescue a goblin,
but when I open the flight point map , it's just blank ..for a bit,
and then it loads.
Girlfriend , are you running anything heavy ? No , how about the
room mates ?
Oh right , I can check that on my router. so I close the game,
go to the router's control page, and what do I see ? Seven
devices. Two named android (probably phones) , one named playbook
(Probably a black berry playbook) and a couple or three computers.
Do you know your room mates have hooked up two phones and a
black berry hooked up , and you're only charging them 15$ a
month ? I could ban the mac addresses.
No , don't do anything tonight. She doesn't feel like fighting with them.
Back to the game. I'm in Northrend , in that quest where
you get transformed into a female Vylkul giant, evil creatures
because THEY'RE FULLY CLOTHED ! I mean like , even a priest has
less clothing than they do ! What kind of game is this where
you can't stop and look down the shirt of your own charactar
and admire her breasts ?
Oh , and they enslaved all their males and have them working
in a mine, and I get a quest to go kill the rebels who don't
like being slaves to women. But thats just par for the course
in a video game.
*Sigh* Now girlfriend is pissed. What do you mean two phones
and a play book ? what the heck is a playbook (it's the
blackberry version of an iPad) . Ok ok , I'll ban the mac's
after midnight when they're all asleep. Sheesh .
Back to the game. Kill the male rebels , become best friends
with the cruel dominatrix who's running the mine , sent off
to kill a female Vylkul this time. I'm supposed to "do it
gently, she is a female after all " .
Playbook is 600$ - 1000$ . Android phones start at 200$ and go
up. And room mate complains at the 15$ / month she's supposed
to pay for her share of the internet. And she's using so much
that my game is lagging. Invasion of privacy knowing all this ?
Well...she's cheating us and interfering in our enjoyment of
our internet. She's lucky we don't just lock her out entirely.
We'll leave her lap top connected , that's all we agreed to.
Now where is that stupid goblin I'm supposed to rescue ?
The List of Evil Companies
I'm going to keep a list of Evil Companies. Companies that lie , or do nasty things that a large number of their customers would find offensive. In order to make the list , a company has to go above and beyond the call of profiteering. Screwing you over with cheap flimsy products isn't enough.
LG , a Division of Samsung
Why : News Reports , nov 2013 , of their Smart TV not only tracking the viewing habits of it's users (despite having internal controls that could be set to "off" , they tracked you anyways) , but they were also tracking anything else on the local network the TV was connected too (file names from USB sticks , from any disks put into the cd / blue ray players, etc)
Google , Microsoft , AOL , most USA Corperations
Why : Homeland Security in the United States Requires them not only to turn over all information they have on every user who uses their services, they are legally forbidden to tell anyone just how much information they're turning over. President Obama publically admitted to this in the summer of 2013 . In the face of their restriction of telling just how much they're reveiling to the NSA via the infamous PRISM program , declarations that they're not listening in on your phone calls , reading your emails , listening to your skype calls , etc (for anyone in the world) are non-credible.
Google Corperation (Again !)
Why : I have an android phone. Anytime I try to use anything from Google it demands I activate Google tracking and let them track my exact location all day long. I tried to download and use a program to learn french , and they want to know my exact location. I see no reason for this. Deleted the App.
Microsoft , re: XBox :
Why : The XBox has a camera on it (the kinect device to detect hand / arm motions) and Microsoft is legally requried , like all USA Corperations, to spy for the US Government. Ergo : Pictures of you in your home while many people are likely partially or completely unclad are being submitted to NSA whether you like it or not.
Microsoft , re: Windows Updates :
Why : The combination of automated Windows Updates and US Government requiresments for any US corperation to spy for them mean that they can include a trojen to spy on you at any time through an automated update. The fact that there wasn't one there yesterday doesn't mean there isn't one there today. Also , given the history of companies like LG for including opt out features that don't actually opt you out of anything , the fact that you've disabled updates doesn't mean a thing.
Apple iPhone re: Fingerprint scanner
Why : Because Apple is a USA Company , and is legally required to hand over all information it gathers to NSA . And it's getting the fingerprint of anyone who buys one of their fancy new finger print secured iPhones, and thus passing it on to the USGovernment. Yes, they totally deny it. Yes, they are forbidden to tell you just how much information they are giving to NSA by US Law , no their denials are not credible.
This list will continue to be updated as new evidence and news articles come to light.
LG , a Division of Samsung
Why : News Reports , nov 2013 , of their Smart TV not only tracking the viewing habits of it's users (despite having internal controls that could be set to "off" , they tracked you anyways) , but they were also tracking anything else on the local network the TV was connected too (file names from USB sticks , from any disks put into the cd / blue ray players, etc)
Google , Microsoft , AOL , most USA Corperations
Why : Homeland Security in the United States Requires them not only to turn over all information they have on every user who uses their services, they are legally forbidden to tell anyone just how much information they're turning over. President Obama publically admitted to this in the summer of 2013 . In the face of their restriction of telling just how much they're reveiling to the NSA via the infamous PRISM program , declarations that they're not listening in on your phone calls , reading your emails , listening to your skype calls , etc (for anyone in the world) are non-credible.
Google Corperation (Again !)
Why : I have an android phone. Anytime I try to use anything from Google it demands I activate Google tracking and let them track my exact location all day long. I tried to download and use a program to learn french , and they want to know my exact location. I see no reason for this. Deleted the App.
Microsoft , re: XBox :
Why : The XBox has a camera on it (the kinect device to detect hand / arm motions) and Microsoft is legally requried , like all USA Corperations, to spy for the US Government. Ergo : Pictures of you in your home while many people are likely partially or completely unclad are being submitted to NSA whether you like it or not.
Microsoft , re: Windows Updates :
Why : The combination of automated Windows Updates and US Government requiresments for any US corperation to spy for them mean that they can include a trojen to spy on you at any time through an automated update. The fact that there wasn't one there yesterday doesn't mean there isn't one there today. Also , given the history of companies like LG for including opt out features that don't actually opt you out of anything , the fact that you've disabled updates doesn't mean a thing.
Apple iPhone re: Fingerprint scanner
Why : Because Apple is a USA Company , and is legally required to hand over all information it gathers to NSA . And it's getting the fingerprint of anyone who buys one of their fancy new finger print secured iPhones, and thus passing it on to the USGovernment. Yes, they totally deny it. Yes, they are forbidden to tell you just how much information they are giving to NSA by US Law , no their denials are not credible.
This list will continue to be updated as new evidence and news articles come to light.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Spy TV
Yep. TV that spies on you.
UK-based IT consultant Jason Huntley, who raised the issue in a blog, welcomed the "positive step".
The point here is the TV was spying on you in the first place. Tracking your habits , and adjusting what commercials it shows you , in other words, targetted advertising.
The fact that it had controls hidden away somewhere to turn off spying is irrelevant because they usually hide them so well most users can't find them. The fact that those controls didn't work is just gravy on top of it all.
Why is targetted advertising evil ? Why is showing you stuff you might be interested in a bad thing ?
Because they tack a little extra onto the price if they know you're interested. Because you can't do research for a friend on something anymore because the prices they quote you will be different than the prices they would quote him.
And because you're no longer dealing with a reputable company. Providing controls that they know don't work is the same thing as lying. LG and Samsung are no longer reputable companies. And the problem is , everyone does this kind of thing , and demands the consumer accept being lied to on a regular basis.
Everyone wants you to join their social website , so they can spam you with targetted ads.
Everyone wants you to watch their internet TV , so they can spam you with targetted ads.
Everyone wants to track your computer across all sorts of web sites and see what you're interestd in , build a profile on you , so they can spam you.
They are predators , and you are the prey . And their intentions are hostile. (At least financially)
How would you like your boss to get a list of all the TV shows you've been watching , cheap , for just a few dollars ? Every post you made on face book , every news article you read . How about a lawyer ? Did you get into a car accident recdently ? Going through a nasty divorce and there's mud slinging all over the place ? How would you like to lose custody of the children because some lawyer supena'd your TV company and sold the judge on the notion that the TV you watch is innappropriate for children ? Or that you watch waaaay too many beer commercials you must be an alchoholic ?
Letting them build a profile on you , be it TV you watch , websits you visit , etc , screws you for hunting for jobs , screws you if you ever try and make an insurance claim , screws you in any divorce , just generally screws you whenever someone gets to go rooting through it looking for dirt and making no attempt at a fair assessment of your charactar. They'll point out the bad and totally ignore the good and thats all anyone will see.
Letting them make a profile of you will get you in a lot of trouble , and is to be fought at every turn.
Or you can just get a job at walmart for the minimum wage and give up on every winning a court case against any insurance company. Heck , don't bother with insurance they'll never pay out anyways , not with your profile.
LG promises update for 'spying' smart TV
LG has admitted it
continued collecting data on viewing habits even after users had
activated a privacy setting designed to prevent it.
The television maker has apologised to its customers and told the BBC it would issue an update to correct the problem.UK-based IT consultant Jason Huntley, who raised the issue in a blog, welcomed the "positive step".
The point here is the TV was spying on you in the first place. Tracking your habits , and adjusting what commercials it shows you , in other words, targetted advertising.
The fact that it had controls hidden away somewhere to turn off spying is irrelevant because they usually hide them so well most users can't find them. The fact that those controls didn't work is just gravy on top of it all.
Why is targetted advertising evil ? Why is showing you stuff you might be interested in a bad thing ?
Because they tack a little extra onto the price if they know you're interested. Because you can't do research for a friend on something anymore because the prices they quote you will be different than the prices they would quote him.
And because you're no longer dealing with a reputable company. Providing controls that they know don't work is the same thing as lying. LG and Samsung are no longer reputable companies. And the problem is , everyone does this kind of thing , and demands the consumer accept being lied to on a regular basis.
Everyone wants you to join their social website , so they can spam you with targetted ads.
Everyone wants you to watch their internet TV , so they can spam you with targetted ads.
Everyone wants to track your computer across all sorts of web sites and see what you're interestd in , build a profile on you , so they can spam you.
They are predators , and you are the prey . And their intentions are hostile. (At least financially)
How would you like your boss to get a list of all the TV shows you've been watching , cheap , for just a few dollars ? Every post you made on face book , every news article you read . How about a lawyer ? Did you get into a car accident recdently ? Going through a nasty divorce and there's mud slinging all over the place ? How would you like to lose custody of the children because some lawyer supena'd your TV company and sold the judge on the notion that the TV you watch is innappropriate for children ? Or that you watch waaaay too many beer commercials you must be an alchoholic ?
Letting them build a profile on you , be it TV you watch , websits you visit , etc , screws you for hunting for jobs , screws you if you ever try and make an insurance claim , screws you in any divorce , just generally screws you whenever someone gets to go rooting through it looking for dirt and making no attempt at a fair assessment of your charactar. They'll point out the bad and totally ignore the good and thats all anyone will see.
Letting them make a profile of you will get you in a lot of trouble , and is to be fought at every turn.
Or you can just get a job at walmart for the minimum wage and give up on every winning a court case against any insurance company. Heck , don't bother with insurance they'll never pay out anyways , not with your profile.
Monday, October 07, 2013
How Much Debt is Too Much ?
article = none, personal opinion.
I was online on some forums , discussing the american debt problem and how some people wanted to raise the debt and others didn't , and someone asked me , "how much debt is too much ?".
This is actually a valid question that comes up time and time again. So I thought I'd put it in my blog.
Modern nations do seem to live in a debt riddled condition. How much debt can they take ?
To fully understand this question , let us examine the price of coca cola over the history of it's existance .
Or more simply, in 1950 , coca cola was 5 cents a bottle
In 2013 it's $2.00 a bottle.
Over the course of 63 years, the price has increased 40 fold.
Interestingly , thats a lot of inflation , but it doesn't seem to have seriously harmed our society.
So , what are the mechanics of this inflation , and specifically , where does debt fit in to the picture ?
Debt is a slippery concept in a world where inflation exists. You see, debt is a set number of dollars, like , say , 100. But inflation is the "size" or "value" of that dollar shifting. When Inflation exists, the value of the dollar decreases. This , interestingly enough , has the side effect that the "Value" of your debt shrinks , even though the specific number of dollars of your debt does not.
So what is the primary source of inflation ?
It's where the government doesn't have enough money. So first , it borrows some from the bank. Specifically , the bank that it owns (if that doesn't strike you as wacky , nothing will) . Second , it will decide to print more money.
Oh for the ability to print more money. If I could print more money , I'd never go bankrupt.
Ok. For example , I have a currency , I'm going to call it Tokens. There are 1000 Tokens in exsitance.
They are worth my entire set worth , which doesn't change.
Bob has 100 Tokens in the bank. He's saving them for a rainy day.
After a while , I get into trouble I owe money. I owe Frank 100 tokens.
So I decide I will print more Tokens. I will print 100 more tokens.
There are now 1100 Tokens in existance. They are worth my entire wealth , which hasn't changed.
This means that tokens have shrunk , they are now worth only 1000 / 1100 of the previous tokens, or 91% of the original tokens. (90.909090..%)
Bob has 100 Tokens in the bank. But they have shrunk , they're only worth 91% of their previous value. by printing tokens, I have taken 9 tokens from Bob.
Frank is now paid 100 Tokens in the new currency , which means I have only paid him 91% of what I owed him.
If you are thinking we stole savings from Bob , and underpaid Frank , you are absolutely correct !
So how much debt is enough ?
That depends on Frank , doesn't it ?
First question. Who is Frank ? Frank is an accountant with a bizarre view point. Whats so bizarre about his point of view ?
He honestly believes the currency he's working in doesn't change in value.
And he's legally required, by the standards and practices of accounting in his country , act in this manner. He can't charge an extra 9 tokens on his debt because I printed more money. He has to pretend that he lives in a fantasy universe where that didn't happen.
And why does he believe that ?
Well ... because I told him to. You see , not only am I the one printing money. I'm the one making up laws to control the debtors. I'm the one collecting the taxes.
If you get the feeling that I'm just crudding people over every time they turn around ... yep. That would be me. Your standard western government.
So , how much debt is enough ?
Hmm... actually , if I take it slow , I can keep the "Tokens" growing smaller and smaller for pretty much forever , can't I ? I mean if a 40 to 1 decrease in value doesn't even upset people , because I spread it out over 60 years , I can keep going forever that way can't I ?
My total debt can be 33% of the tokens in circulation. If it gets higher ...
you got it.
Print more tokens.
I was online on some forums , discussing the american debt problem and how some people wanted to raise the debt and others didn't , and someone asked me , "how much debt is too much ?".
This is actually a valid question that comes up time and time again. So I thought I'd put it in my blog.
Modern nations do seem to live in a debt riddled condition. How much debt can they take ?
To fully understand this question , let us examine the price of coca cola over the history of it's existance .
Or more simply, in 1950 , coca cola was 5 cents a bottle
In 2013 it's $2.00 a bottle.
Over the course of 63 years, the price has increased 40 fold.
Interestingly , thats a lot of inflation , but it doesn't seem to have seriously harmed our society.
So , what are the mechanics of this inflation , and specifically , where does debt fit in to the picture ?
Debt is a slippery concept in a world where inflation exists. You see, debt is a set number of dollars, like , say , 100. But inflation is the "size" or "value" of that dollar shifting. When Inflation exists, the value of the dollar decreases. This , interestingly enough , has the side effect that the "Value" of your debt shrinks , even though the specific number of dollars of your debt does not.
So what is the primary source of inflation ?
It's where the government doesn't have enough money. So first , it borrows some from the bank. Specifically , the bank that it owns (if that doesn't strike you as wacky , nothing will) . Second , it will decide to print more money.
Oh for the ability to print more money. If I could print more money , I'd never go bankrupt.
Ok. For example , I have a currency , I'm going to call it Tokens. There are 1000 Tokens in exsitance.
They are worth my entire set worth , which doesn't change.
Bob has 100 Tokens in the bank. He's saving them for a rainy day.
After a while , I get into trouble I owe money. I owe Frank 100 tokens.
So I decide I will print more Tokens. I will print 100 more tokens.
There are now 1100 Tokens in existance. They are worth my entire wealth , which hasn't changed.
This means that tokens have shrunk , they are now worth only 1000 / 1100 of the previous tokens, or 91% of the original tokens. (90.909090..%)
Bob has 100 Tokens in the bank. But they have shrunk , they're only worth 91% of their previous value. by printing tokens, I have taken 9 tokens from Bob.
Frank is now paid 100 Tokens in the new currency , which means I have only paid him 91% of what I owed him.
If you are thinking we stole savings from Bob , and underpaid Frank , you are absolutely correct !
So how much debt is enough ?
That depends on Frank , doesn't it ?
First question. Who is Frank ? Frank is an accountant with a bizarre view point. Whats so bizarre about his point of view ?
He honestly believes the currency he's working in doesn't change in value.
And he's legally required, by the standards and practices of accounting in his country , act in this manner. He can't charge an extra 9 tokens on his debt because I printed more money. He has to pretend that he lives in a fantasy universe where that didn't happen.
And why does he believe that ?
Well ... because I told him to. You see , not only am I the one printing money. I'm the one making up laws to control the debtors. I'm the one collecting the taxes.
If you get the feeling that I'm just crudding people over every time they turn around ... yep. That would be me. Your standard western government.
So , how much debt is enough ?
Hmm... actually , if I take it slow , I can keep the "Tokens" growing smaller and smaller for pretty much forever , can't I ? I mean if a 40 to 1 decrease in value doesn't even upset people , because I spread it out over 60 years , I can keep going forever that way can't I ?
My total debt can be 33% of the tokens in circulation. If it gets higher ...
you got it.
Print more tokens.
Monday, September 23, 2013
The Banality of Systemic Evil
Article
This article , posted in the New York Times, pretty much sums up my opinion about Edward Snowden and other whistle blowers. Since I have noticed that articles like this tend to vanish at a time, I am not only hot linking to it , but copying it in full , for future reference.
I hate when my favorite articles just vanish. Feel free to hit the "article" link above and give them a few eye ball views for their advertising revenue.
So has the younger generation lost its moral compass?
No. In my view, just the opposite. Clearly, there is a moral principle at work in the actions of the leakers, whistle-blowers and hacktivists and those who support them. I would also argue that that moral principle has been clearly articulated, and it may just save us from a dystopian future.
In “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” one of the most poignant and important works of 20th-century philosophy, Hannah Arendt made an observation about what she called “the banality of evil.” One interpretation of this holds that it was not an observation about what a regular guy Adolf Eichmann seemed to be, but rather a statement about what happens when people play their “proper” roles within a system, following prescribed conduct with respect to that system, while remaining blind to the moral consequences of what the system was doing — or at least compartmentalizing and ignoring those consequences.
A good illustration of this phenomenon appears in “Moral Mazes,” a book by the sociologist Robert Jackall that explored the ethics of decision making within several corporate bureaucracies. In it, Jackall made several observations that dovetailed with those of Arendt. The mid-level managers that he spoke with were not “evil” people in their everyday lives, but in the context of their jobs, they had a separate moral code altogether, what Jackall calls the “fundamental rules of corporate life”:
Aaron Swartz counted “Moral Mazes” among his “very favorite books.” Swartz was the Internet wunderkind who was hounded by a government prosecution threatening him with 35 years in jail for illicitly downloading academic journals that were behind a pay wall. Swartz, who committed suicide in January at age 26 (many believe because of his prosecution), said that “Moral Mazes” did an excellent job of “explaining how so many well-intentioned people can end up committing so much evil.”
Swartz argued that it was sometimes necessary to break the rules that required obedience to the system in order to avoid systemic evil. In Swartz’s case the system was not a corporation but a system for the dissemination of bottled up knowledge that should have been available to all. Swartz engaged in an act of civil disobedience to liberate that knowledge, arguing that “there is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.”
Chelsea Manning, the United States Army private incarcerated for leaking classified documents from the Departments of Defense and State, felt a similar pull to resist the internal rules of the bureaucracy. In a statement at her trial she described a case where she felt this was necessary. In February 2010, she received a report of an event in which the Iraqi Federal Police had detained 15 people for printing “anti-Iraqi” literature. Upon investigating the matter, Manning discovered that none of the 15 had previous ties to anti-Iraqi actions or suspected terrorist organizations. Manning had the allegedly anti-Iraqi literature translated and found that, contrary to what the federal police had said, the published literature in question “detailed corruption within the cabinet of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government and the financial impact of his corruption on the Iraqi people.”
When Manning reported this discrepancy to the officer in charge (OIC), she was told to “drop it,” she recounted.
Manning could not play along. As she put it, she knew if she “continued to assist the Baghdad Federal Police in identifying the political opponents of Prime Minister al-Maliki, those people would be arrested and in the custody of the Special Unit of the Baghdad Federal Police and very likely tortured and not seen again for a very long time — if ever.” When her superiors would not address the problem, she was compelled to pass this information on to WikiLeaks.
Snowden too felt that, confronting what was clearly wrong, he could not play his proper role within the bureaucracy of the intelligence community. As he put it,
The bureaucracy was telling him to shut up and move on (in accord with the five rules in “Moral Mazes”), but Snowden felt that doing so was morally wrong.
In a June Op-Ed in The Times, David Brooks made a case for why he thought Snowden was wrong to leak information about the Prism surveillance program. His reasoning cleanly framed the alternative to the moral code endorsed by Swartz, Manning and Snowden. “For society to function well,” he wrote, “there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures. By deciding to unilaterally leak secret N.S.A. documents, Snowden has betrayed all of these things.”
The complaint is eerily parallel to one from a case discussed in “Moral Mazes,” where an accountant was dismissed because he insisted on reporting “irregular payments, doctored invoices, and shuffling numbers.” The complaint against the accountant by the other managers of his company was that “by insisting on his own moral purity … he eroded the fundamental trust and understanding that makes cooperative managerial work possible.”
But wasn’t there arrogance or hubris in Snowden’s and Manning’s decisions to leak the documents? After all, weren’t there established procedures determining what was right further up the organizational chart? Weren’t these ethical decisions better left to someone with a higher pay grade? The former United States ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, argued that Snowden “thinks he’s smarter and has a higher morality than the rest of us … that he can see clearer than other 299, 999, 999 of us, and therefore he can do what he wants. I say that is the worst form of treason.”
For the leaker and whistleblower the answer to Bolton is that there can be no expectation that the system will act morally of its own accord. Systems are optimized for their own survival and preventing the system from doing evil may well require breaking with organizational niceties, protocols or laws. It requires stepping outside of one’s assigned organizational role. The chief executive is not in a better position to recognize systemic evil than is a middle level manager or, for that matter, an IT contractor. Recognizing systemic evil does not require rank or intelligence, just honesty of vision.
Persons of conscience who step outside their assigned organizational roles are not new. There are many famous earlier examples, including Daniel Ellsberg (the Pentagon Papers), John Kiriakou (of the Central Intelligence Agency) and several former N.S.A. employees, who blew the whistle on what they saw as an unconstitutional and immoral surveillance program (William Binney, Russ Tice and Thomas Drake, for example). But it seems that we are witnessing a new generation of whistleblowers and leakers, which we might call generation W (for the generation that came of age in the era WikiLeaks, and now the war on whistleblowing).
The media’s desire to psychoanalyze members of generation W is natural enough. They want to know why these people are acting in a way that they, members of the corporate media, would not. But sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; if there are psychological motivations for whistleblowing, leaking and hacktivism, there are likewise psychological motivations for closing ranks with the power structure within a system — in this case a system in which corporate media plays an important role. Similarly it is possible that the system itself is sick, even though the actors within the organization are behaving in accord with organizational etiquette and respecting the internal bonds of trust.
Just as Hannah Arendt saw that the combined action of loyal managers can give rise to unspeakable systemic evil, so too generation W has seen that complicity within the surveillance state can give rise to evil as well — not the horrific evil that Eichmann’s bureaucratic efficiency brought us, but still an Orwellian future that must be avoided at all costs.
---- end article , begin my own ranting ----
"For the leaker and whistleblower the answer to Bolton is that there can be no expectation that the system will act morally of its own accord."
This statement dovetails into my primary complaint against the USA spying on the whole world. How can The System (the United States) act morally in a situation where they are openly abusing non-voters (non usa citizens) . They are unelected , they have no motivation to stop at all. They have USA Senators caught on camera lying to the american public , people who can get them booted out of office. And you think they're going to be truthful to people whom are powerless to stop them from abusing anything they feel like abusing ?
No taxation without representation is the american principle. Only your elected officials can tax you ,not the evil british forieners (thus the boston tea party) . It extends to far more than just a monetary tax. It extends to any kind of burden you put on any people that you don't represent.
So yes, as Obama said , the Germans probably are listening in on German calls. But they are elected by the people of germany , and they can be booted out of power if they abuse the priviledge. But Americans listening in on German calls , 600 000 a month , and they're doing everything they can to expand that to the whole world ? There's no representation. There's nothing the german people , the people of the world who are not USA citizens , can do to take these people to task for it when they mess up.
And these are their allies they are doing this to , not their mortal enemies that they are at war with.
this is not acceptable. I demand they stop.
And I know full well they won't.
This article , posted in the New York Times, pretty much sums up my opinion about Edward Snowden and other whistle blowers. Since I have noticed that articles like this tend to vanish at a time, I am not only hot linking to it , but copying it in full , for future reference.
I hate when my favorite articles just vanish. Feel free to hit the "article" link above and give them a few eye ball views for their advertising revenue.
The Banality of Systemic Evil
By PETER LUDLOW In recent months there has been a visible struggle in the media to come to grips with the leaking, whistle-blowing and hacktivism that has vexed the United States military and the private and government intelligence communities. This response has run the gamut. It has involved attempts to condemn, support, demonize, psychoanalyze and in some cases canonize figures like Aaron Swartz, Jeremy Hammond, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. In broad terms, commentators in the mainstream and corporate media have tended to assume that all of these actors needed to be brought to justice, while independent players on the Internet and elsewhere have been much more supportive. Tellingly, a recent Time magazine cover story has pointed out a marked generational difference in how people view these matters: 70 percent of those age 18 to 34 sampled in a poll said they believed that Snowden “did a good thing” in leaking the news of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program.So has the younger generation lost its moral compass?
No. In my view, just the opposite. Clearly, there is a moral principle at work in the actions of the leakers, whistle-blowers and hacktivists and those who support them. I would also argue that that moral principle has been clearly articulated, and it may just save us from a dystopian future.
In “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” one of the most poignant and important works of 20th-century philosophy, Hannah Arendt made an observation about what she called “the banality of evil.” One interpretation of this holds that it was not an observation about what a regular guy Adolf Eichmann seemed to be, but rather a statement about what happens when people play their “proper” roles within a system, following prescribed conduct with respect to that system, while remaining blind to the moral consequences of what the system was doing — or at least compartmentalizing and ignoring those consequences.
A good illustration of this phenomenon appears in “Moral Mazes,” a book by the sociologist Robert Jackall that explored the ethics of decision making within several corporate bureaucracies. In it, Jackall made several observations that dovetailed with those of Arendt. The mid-level managers that he spoke with were not “evil” people in their everyday lives, but in the context of their jobs, they had a separate moral code altogether, what Jackall calls the “fundamental rules of corporate life”:
(1) You never go around your boss. (2) You tell your boss what he wants to hear, even when your boss claims that he wants dissenting views. (3) If your boss wants something dropped, you drop it. (4) You are sensitive to your boss’s wishes so that you anticipate what he wants; you don’t force him, in other words, to act as a boss. (5) Your job is not to report something that your boss does not want reported, but rather to cover it up. You do your job and you keep your mouth shut.Jackall went through case after case in which managers violated this code and were drummed out of a business (for example, for reporting wrongdoing in the cleanup at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant).
Aaron Swartz counted “Moral Mazes” among his “very favorite books.” Swartz was the Internet wunderkind who was hounded by a government prosecution threatening him with 35 years in jail for illicitly downloading academic journals that were behind a pay wall. Swartz, who committed suicide in January at age 26 (many believe because of his prosecution), said that “Moral Mazes” did an excellent job of “explaining how so many well-intentioned people can end up committing so much evil.”
Swartz argued that it was sometimes necessary to break the rules that required obedience to the system in order to avoid systemic evil. In Swartz’s case the system was not a corporation but a system for the dissemination of bottled up knowledge that should have been available to all. Swartz engaged in an act of civil disobedience to liberate that knowledge, arguing that “there is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.”
Chelsea Manning, the United States Army private incarcerated for leaking classified documents from the Departments of Defense and State, felt a similar pull to resist the internal rules of the bureaucracy. In a statement at her trial she described a case where she felt this was necessary. In February 2010, she received a report of an event in which the Iraqi Federal Police had detained 15 people for printing “anti-Iraqi” literature. Upon investigating the matter, Manning discovered that none of the 15 had previous ties to anti-Iraqi actions or suspected terrorist organizations. Manning had the allegedly anti-Iraqi literature translated and found that, contrary to what the federal police had said, the published literature in question “detailed corruption within the cabinet of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government and the financial impact of his corruption on the Iraqi people.”
When Manning reported this discrepancy to the officer in charge (OIC), she was told to “drop it,” she recounted.
Manning could not play along. As she put it, she knew if she “continued to assist the Baghdad Federal Police in identifying the political opponents of Prime Minister al-Maliki, those people would be arrested and in the custody of the Special Unit of the Baghdad Federal Police and very likely tortured and not seen again for a very long time — if ever.” When her superiors would not address the problem, she was compelled to pass this information on to WikiLeaks.
Snowden too felt that, confronting what was clearly wrong, he could not play his proper role within the bureaucracy of the intelligence community. As he put it,
[W]hen you talk to people about [abuses] in a place like this where this is the normal state of business people tend not to take them very seriously and move on from them. But over time that awareness of wrongdoing sort of builds up and you feel compelled to talk about [them]. And the more you talk about [them] the more you’re ignored. The more you’re told it’s not a problem until eventually you realize that these things need to be determined by the public and not by somebody who was simply hired by the government.
The bureaucracy was telling him to shut up and move on (in accord with the five rules in “Moral Mazes”), but Snowden felt that doing so was morally wrong.
In a June Op-Ed in The Times, David Brooks made a case for why he thought Snowden was wrong to leak information about the Prism surveillance program. His reasoning cleanly framed the alternative to the moral code endorsed by Swartz, Manning and Snowden. “For society to function well,” he wrote, “there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures. By deciding to unilaterally leak secret N.S.A. documents, Snowden has betrayed all of these things.”
The complaint is eerily parallel to one from a case discussed in “Moral Mazes,” where an accountant was dismissed because he insisted on reporting “irregular payments, doctored invoices, and shuffling numbers.” The complaint against the accountant by the other managers of his company was that “by insisting on his own moral purity … he eroded the fundamental trust and understanding that makes cooperative managerial work possible.”
But wasn’t there arrogance or hubris in Snowden’s and Manning’s decisions to leak the documents? After all, weren’t there established procedures determining what was right further up the organizational chart? Weren’t these ethical decisions better left to someone with a higher pay grade? The former United States ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, argued that Snowden “thinks he’s smarter and has a higher morality than the rest of us … that he can see clearer than other 299, 999, 999 of us, and therefore he can do what he wants. I say that is the worst form of treason.”
For the leaker and whistleblower the answer to Bolton is that there can be no expectation that the system will act morally of its own accord. Systems are optimized for their own survival and preventing the system from doing evil may well require breaking with organizational niceties, protocols or laws. It requires stepping outside of one’s assigned organizational role. The chief executive is not in a better position to recognize systemic evil than is a middle level manager or, for that matter, an IT contractor. Recognizing systemic evil does not require rank or intelligence, just honesty of vision.
Persons of conscience who step outside their assigned organizational roles are not new. There are many famous earlier examples, including Daniel Ellsberg (the Pentagon Papers), John Kiriakou (of the Central Intelligence Agency) and several former N.S.A. employees, who blew the whistle on what they saw as an unconstitutional and immoral surveillance program (William Binney, Russ Tice and Thomas Drake, for example). But it seems that we are witnessing a new generation of whistleblowers and leakers, which we might call generation W (for the generation that came of age in the era WikiLeaks, and now the war on whistleblowing).
The media’s desire to psychoanalyze members of generation W is natural enough. They want to know why these people are acting in a way that they, members of the corporate media, would not. But sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; if there are psychological motivations for whistleblowing, leaking and hacktivism, there are likewise psychological motivations for closing ranks with the power structure within a system — in this case a system in which corporate media plays an important role. Similarly it is possible that the system itself is sick, even though the actors within the organization are behaving in accord with organizational etiquette and respecting the internal bonds of trust.
Just as Hannah Arendt saw that the combined action of loyal managers can give rise to unspeakable systemic evil, so too generation W has seen that complicity within the surveillance state can give rise to evil as well — not the horrific evil that Eichmann’s bureaucratic efficiency brought us, but still an Orwellian future that must be avoided at all costs.
---- end article , begin my own ranting ----
"For the leaker and whistleblower the answer to Bolton is that there can be no expectation that the system will act morally of its own accord."
This statement dovetails into my primary complaint against the USA spying on the whole world. How can The System (the United States) act morally in a situation where they are openly abusing non-voters (non usa citizens) . They are unelected , they have no motivation to stop at all. They have USA Senators caught on camera lying to the american public , people who can get them booted out of office. And you think they're going to be truthful to people whom are powerless to stop them from abusing anything they feel like abusing ?
No taxation without representation is the american principle. Only your elected officials can tax you ,not the evil british forieners (thus the boston tea party) . It extends to far more than just a monetary tax. It extends to any kind of burden you put on any people that you don't represent.
So yes, as Obama said , the Germans probably are listening in on German calls. But they are elected by the people of germany , and they can be booted out of power if they abuse the priviledge. But Americans listening in on German calls , 600 000 a month , and they're doing everything they can to expand that to the whole world ? There's no representation. There's nothing the german people , the people of the world who are not USA citizens , can do to take these people to task for it when they mess up.
And these are their allies they are doing this to , not their mortal enemies that they are at war with.
this is not acceptable. I demand they stop.
And I know full well they won't.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
New Apple iPhone pushes biometrics 'into the mainstream'
Article
What makes Apple’s "Touch ID" significant is that it makes the enhanced convenience and security of biometrics a standard feature on the world’s most recognized smartphone platform.
And smartphones are where people are increasingly doing most of their business, from email to shopping to banking, says Martin Drew, president of iView Systems, an internet security firm based in Oakville, Ont.
"People hold their entire lives on these devices these days. If someone had access to your smartphone for two hours, the damage they could do to your life would be phenomenal," says Drew.
He says the biggest benefit of biometrics is that it makes typing passwords obsolete.
So an american company like apple, which is requied by US Law to hand over every scrap of data it gets on every single user in the world , is now going to have your finger prints. Which is to say , NSA is now going to have finger prints of everyone in the whole wide world. The Same NSA that fabricated rape charges against Assage (the wikileaks guy) and is currently fabricating similar charges against another hacker taking refuge in canada with NSA documents in his possession ?
This is the same USA that likes to arrange "regime changes" in Mexico on a regular basis, and at least once in Iraq and Afghanistan ?
Oh ...you're going to point out that artical where it says Apple doesn't keep the entire finger print on file , it only keeps certain key points that distinguish one user from another ? it only keeps the parts that mean anything in other words ?
As if that makes a difference. How hard can it be to program a simple "connect the dots" program to regenerate a finger print from the important points that actually distinguish one person from another ?
Two people can keep a secret , but only if one is dead. My favorite quote from Robert Heinlien a science fiction author. What does it mean ? It means no secret stays secret forever. Sooner or later , it will come out. Just like PRISM came out . Mark my words, USA will be caught stealing copyright secrets from other nations (they currently deny doing so , but with PRISM it's well within their means) and they will be caught planting finger prints and trying to frame someone.
And they're going to look good with egg on their face, no one trusting them anymore , and no one wanting to do business with any USA company any more. Heck , I already don't want to do business with any USA company.
Don't take my word for it, you don't need to. These secrets always come out on their own. The only idiot is the one who thinks they wont.
And yes, I 'm looking straight at Obama , or whoever the next president of the NSA might be.
What makes Apple’s "Touch ID" significant is that it makes the enhanced convenience and security of biometrics a standard feature on the world’s most recognized smartphone platform.
And smartphones are where people are increasingly doing most of their business, from email to shopping to banking, says Martin Drew, president of iView Systems, an internet security firm based in Oakville, Ont.
"People hold their entire lives on these devices these days. If someone had access to your smartphone for two hours, the damage they could do to your life would be phenomenal," says Drew.
He says the biggest benefit of biometrics is that it makes typing passwords obsolete.
So an american company like apple, which is requied by US Law to hand over every scrap of data it gets on every single user in the world , is now going to have your finger prints. Which is to say , NSA is now going to have finger prints of everyone in the whole wide world. The Same NSA that fabricated rape charges against Assage (the wikileaks guy) and is currently fabricating similar charges against another hacker taking refuge in canada with NSA documents in his possession ?
This is the same USA that likes to arrange "regime changes" in Mexico on a regular basis, and at least once in Iraq and Afghanistan ?
Oh ...you're going to point out that artical where it says Apple doesn't keep the entire finger print on file , it only keeps certain key points that distinguish one user from another ? it only keeps the parts that mean anything in other words ?
As if that makes a difference. How hard can it be to program a simple "connect the dots" program to regenerate a finger print from the important points that actually distinguish one person from another ?
Two people can keep a secret , but only if one is dead. My favorite quote from Robert Heinlien a science fiction author. What does it mean ? It means no secret stays secret forever. Sooner or later , it will come out. Just like PRISM came out . Mark my words, USA will be caught stealing copyright secrets from other nations (they currently deny doing so , but with PRISM it's well within their means) and they will be caught planting finger prints and trying to frame someone.
And they're going to look good with egg on their face, no one trusting them anymore , and no one wanting to do business with any USA company any more. Heck , I already don't want to do business with any USA company.
Don't take my word for it, you don't need to. These secrets always come out on their own. The only idiot is the one who thinks they wont.
And yes, I 'm looking straight at Obama , or whoever the next president of the NSA might be.
Monday, September 09, 2013
USA Making spyware
Article
Way down deep on the first page.
(The TAO is a highly secret NSA unit that “specializes in surreptitiously installing spyware and tracking devices on targeted computers and mobile-phone networks” and that has played a role in the hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Washington Post reported previously.)
Can I sue them for data tresspassing if I find any on my computer ?
I mean , I'm not an american , I didn't give them permission to do squat on my computer. And they can't retroactively write laws for me they can for their own citizens.
I would like to sue them, I think. I'd lose of course, I have no doubt they'd put pressure on the Canadian government and suddenly their actions are all perfectly legal and back dated 20 years or some such .. but still, it would be fun.
Way down deep on the first page.
(The TAO is a highly secret NSA unit that “specializes in surreptitiously installing spyware and tracking devices on targeted computers and mobile-phone networks” and that has played a role in the hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Washington Post reported previously.)
Can I sue them for data tresspassing if I find any on my computer ?
I mean , I'm not an american , I didn't give them permission to do squat on my computer. And they can't retroactively write laws for me they can for their own citizens.
I would like to sue them, I think. I'd lose of course, I have no doubt they'd put pressure on the Canadian government and suddenly their actions are all perfectly legal and back dated 20 years or some such .. but still, it would be fun.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
My Crystal Ball 2013
Article = none , personal experience.
I suppose it is a hobby of everyone to try to tell the future and guess where the world is going. This is my latest shot at it.
First : What is the crystal ball made of.
Or , what technologies do I think will affect the world ?
So what do I see in the future with these four things ?
I see Star Wars.
I see Uncle Owens farm , a small family riding herd on their robots , cleaning and maintaining them while the robots go out and do all the farming. I see simple clothing , loose pants and tops , made by automated machines. I see spare parts for the robots being made by "3D Printers" which will likely be called something else by then.
I see very few formal "jobs". I see the return of the craftsman , making his goods via commanding robots to do it and just maintaining the robots. I see a small family getting work maintaining the electrical grid , or the internet grid , for a small city block. I see people processing farmed goods into goop of some kind for the 3D food printers. I see other people making and recycling plastics for the other 3D printers. I see 3D printers for metal parts.
I see people making the electronic guts of various devices. Some guy might specialize in the internal workings of a cell phone , for example , and sell that. People will buy it , and print out their own case for it. And just slip it inside.
I see work needs to be done (usually by robots) in electrical power, in internet infrastructure, in construction, in food growing and preperation, in transport, in elevators, in all the "essentials" that we cannot do without. (Hmm..don't forget robot maintenane in the list , dang things will be everywhere) I see people overseeing small companies with robots doing the work. And they just watch monitors and give the robots hints.
I see children coming of age, and as a going away birthday present they get a couple of robots of their own before being sent out on their own to make their way in the world. Much like today you give them a microwave or vacuum cleaner or some such.
I see all the cooking and cleaning being done by robots, I see most of our "manufactured goods" being made at home , with no need to buy things, just more and more plastic or metal goop for the 3D printers.
I see a lot of "Luxury" shops. Restaurants. Bars. Coffee shops. People don't need a restaurant they can cook for themselves, but still they will go out and congregate with other people. There will be small fancy clothing shops , but no big super stores for cloths (or foods) since the robots back at home will make the "cheap" stuff. Store bought cloths and food will be Luxuries, not neccessaties.
I see a world full of people who mostly just maintain and repair their own personal robots as a primary skill , and as a secondary one other thing (farming , electronics, making cell phones or computers, etc) . I see large corperations will vanish because the economies of scale theory is dead in the water with 3D printers. Well , most corperations. Oil Companies are here as long as the oil lasts, we need the electrical power. And after that the nuclear reactor plants and the hydro electric companies are probably with us forever.
And police. There will always be a-holes out there who need to be locked up. That's just human nature.
And thats , in general , my vision of the future. Other than adding a few more professions that will never go away , that's it. People running their own little companies, bossing around their robots who make stuff both for their own internal use, and to sell and bring in a little cash to pay the electric bills.
I suppose it is a hobby of everyone to try to tell the future and guess where the world is going. This is my latest shot at it.
First : What is the crystal ball made of.
Or , what technologies do I think will affect the world ?
- 3D Printers. They're down to 1300$ , and only getting cheaper
- Nasa's Pizza 3D Printer. Doesn't exist yet , but they have commisioned the creation of a 3D printer that makes pizza's for the astronaughts up in space.
- Artificial Intelligence : Emily is getting smarter. Who is Emily ? The voice system when you cal bell canada , that computer that answers , and can understand what your saying. If your accent isn't too heavy.
- The Internet. Pretty certain it's not going anywhere.
- Cheap Sewing machines. down to 88$ for an electric one. They can't go much farther down , all that can happen is more features
So what do I see in the future with these four things ?
I see Star Wars.
I see Uncle Owens farm , a small family riding herd on their robots , cleaning and maintaining them while the robots go out and do all the farming. I see simple clothing , loose pants and tops , made by automated machines. I see spare parts for the robots being made by "3D Printers" which will likely be called something else by then.
I see very few formal "jobs". I see the return of the craftsman , making his goods via commanding robots to do it and just maintaining the robots. I see a small family getting work maintaining the electrical grid , or the internet grid , for a small city block. I see people processing farmed goods into goop of some kind for the 3D food printers. I see other people making and recycling plastics for the other 3D printers. I see 3D printers for metal parts.
I see people making the electronic guts of various devices. Some guy might specialize in the internal workings of a cell phone , for example , and sell that. People will buy it , and print out their own case for it. And just slip it inside.
I see work needs to be done (usually by robots) in electrical power, in internet infrastructure, in construction, in food growing and preperation, in transport, in elevators, in all the "essentials" that we cannot do without. (Hmm..don't forget robot maintenane in the list , dang things will be everywhere) I see people overseeing small companies with robots doing the work. And they just watch monitors and give the robots hints.
I see children coming of age, and as a going away birthday present they get a couple of robots of their own before being sent out on their own to make their way in the world. Much like today you give them a microwave or vacuum cleaner or some such.
I see all the cooking and cleaning being done by robots, I see most of our "manufactured goods" being made at home , with no need to buy things, just more and more plastic or metal goop for the 3D printers.
I see a lot of "Luxury" shops. Restaurants. Bars. Coffee shops. People don't need a restaurant they can cook for themselves, but still they will go out and congregate with other people. There will be small fancy clothing shops , but no big super stores for cloths (or foods) since the robots back at home will make the "cheap" stuff. Store bought cloths and food will be Luxuries, not neccessaties.
I see a world full of people who mostly just maintain and repair their own personal robots as a primary skill , and as a secondary one other thing (farming , electronics, making cell phones or computers, etc) . I see large corperations will vanish because the economies of scale theory is dead in the water with 3D printers. Well , most corperations. Oil Companies are here as long as the oil lasts, we need the electrical power. And after that the nuclear reactor plants and the hydro electric companies are probably with us forever.
And police. There will always be a-holes out there who need to be locked up. That's just human nature.
And thats , in general , my vision of the future. Other than adding a few more professions that will never go away , that's it. People running their own little companies, bossing around their robots who make stuff both for their own internal use, and to sell and bring in a little cash to pay the electric bills.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Crazy Eskimo
Article = none, personal experience
Did I mention the crazy eskimo guy I have as a room mate ? (one of seven room mates actually , in that house).
My first encounter with him was when he accused me of catching a fly and putting it in his room. Not sure how you catch a fly with your bare hands , undamaged , but he's pretty sure i did it.
My second was when I lent him my phone and he called up the Land Lady and informed her he'd just called city of ottawa because living in a basement was against the rules, and there were three people living upstairs in the same room (it was a large room , and they were one family) also illegal.
Yep. He didn't let her wonder who called he city of ottawa. He phoned her up and told her himself.
This instigated the part where I help clean the room on the main floor (those guys were disgusting pigs ! ) and move half my stuff up there and live there for a while. And while I was helping the land lady clean my new digs, she mentioned him.
Oh yes, and how she mentioned him. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks he's eight ball crazy. City of Ottawa says he can't live in the basement and she's saying he's got to be out by the first (so she told them). Not to mention that all sorts of other unspecified problems she's been having with him.
Then the real fun began. Crazy Eskimo caught me in the hall and asked if my welfare was being cancelled, and I said no. He insisted that everyone in the city of ottawa had their welfare cancelled, were they saving money by this ? I told him that was extremely unlikely , but he insisted they were. Apparently he likes to lead with a question , but he's not interested in the answer , he's already made up his mind before he opens his mouth. Told him I was on disability and I'd checked with my worker , no problems for me, maybe disability wasn't affected ?
This guy lives in his own little world , I swear. He doesn't want to hear what anyone else says.
There's no drinking allowed in our place , but I keep noticing these beer cans in the kitchen piling up along one shelf. And then I notice that at night Crazy Eskimo likes to sit at that table. And talk to people.
What does he say ? Well , that night , first he complained "McMasters University is Shit !" a few times, then asked one of the roomies what Universy he went to. "Ottawa University. " "Ottawa University is shit ! Every University in Canada is shit ! " repeat a few times. Needless to say we both walk away.
A little later I use the kitchen microwave to heat up some chicken broth (I'm on a no food day , they want to x-ray my belly the next day ) and he looks at me and says, slightly slurred "Too many fucking old men in this country. Fucking old men just don't die. "
"Wonders of Free Health Care I tell him. "
He just continues repeating that.
Half way down the hall and into my room it occurs to me. I have a head full of grey hair , and a grey beard too. This guy is deliberately looking for a fight it seems.
I decide upon a plan , a plan I call avoiding Unneccesary Drama. Basically ... it's only five days or so to the end of the month , and this guy is out of there by then. I'll just visit the girl friends for five days and skip over this whole melt down thing.
Interesting that he thinks welfare cut off everyone in the city though. He may use that as an excuse to try and stay longer , claiming he has no place to go. Maybe I'll give him until a little after the first.
I'll just drop by long enough on the first to pay the land lady and be gone again.
Did I mention the crazy eskimo guy I have as a room mate ? (one of seven room mates actually , in that house).
My first encounter with him was when he accused me of catching a fly and putting it in his room. Not sure how you catch a fly with your bare hands , undamaged , but he's pretty sure i did it.
My second was when I lent him my phone and he called up the Land Lady and informed her he'd just called city of ottawa because living in a basement was against the rules, and there were three people living upstairs in the same room (it was a large room , and they were one family) also illegal.
Yep. He didn't let her wonder who called he city of ottawa. He phoned her up and told her himself.
This instigated the part where I help clean the room on the main floor (those guys were disgusting pigs ! ) and move half my stuff up there and live there for a while. And while I was helping the land lady clean my new digs, she mentioned him.
Oh yes, and how she mentioned him. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks he's eight ball crazy. City of Ottawa says he can't live in the basement and she's saying he's got to be out by the first (so she told them). Not to mention that all sorts of other unspecified problems she's been having with him.
Then the real fun began. Crazy Eskimo caught me in the hall and asked if my welfare was being cancelled, and I said no. He insisted that everyone in the city of ottawa had their welfare cancelled, were they saving money by this ? I told him that was extremely unlikely , but he insisted they were. Apparently he likes to lead with a question , but he's not interested in the answer , he's already made up his mind before he opens his mouth. Told him I was on disability and I'd checked with my worker , no problems for me, maybe disability wasn't affected ?
This guy lives in his own little world , I swear. He doesn't want to hear what anyone else says.
There's no drinking allowed in our place , but I keep noticing these beer cans in the kitchen piling up along one shelf. And then I notice that at night Crazy Eskimo likes to sit at that table. And talk to people.
What does he say ? Well , that night , first he complained "McMasters University is Shit !" a few times, then asked one of the roomies what Universy he went to. "Ottawa University. " "Ottawa University is shit ! Every University in Canada is shit ! " repeat a few times. Needless to say we both walk away.
A little later I use the kitchen microwave to heat up some chicken broth (I'm on a no food day , they want to x-ray my belly the next day ) and he looks at me and says, slightly slurred "Too many fucking old men in this country. Fucking old men just don't die. "
"Wonders of Free Health Care I tell him. "
He just continues repeating that.
Half way down the hall and into my room it occurs to me. I have a head full of grey hair , and a grey beard too. This guy is deliberately looking for a fight it seems.
I decide upon a plan , a plan I call avoiding Unneccesary Drama. Basically ... it's only five days or so to the end of the month , and this guy is out of there by then. I'll just visit the girl friends for five days and skip over this whole melt down thing.
Interesting that he thinks welfare cut off everyone in the city though. He may use that as an excuse to try and stay longer , claiming he has no place to go. Maybe I'll give him until a little after the first.
I'll just drop by long enough on the first to pay the land lady and be gone again.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Kidnapped by Islamic Terrorists
How an Alberta woman abducted in Somalia survived captivity
Amanda Lindhout, the Canadian journalist taken hostage in Somalia in 2008, has released a new book detailing the 15 months she spent in captivity and revealing how she endured thoughts of suicide.
The now-32-year-old Alberta woman was captured while working as a freelance journalist near Mogadishu and held for 459 days. During that time, Lindhout says she was beaten and sexually assaulted before considering suicide about a year after her capture — that is, until a small brown bird flew into the doorway of the room she was trapped in.
So what do we have here ?
- Beaten
- Sexually assaulted
- Kidnapped (ie: committed no crime)
- Terrorists are 1.3 million richer
You wonder why people hate Islam ? This goes under the catagory of "They did it to themselves" . How can you not believe they are inutterably evil acting like this and then claiming their religion requires it ?
And this business that "You're not Islamic you deserve it" is just horse pucky. There are three major forms of Islam , and they all hate each other , and they all will happily murder you if you're not of their particular brand of Islam . So no matter what you do , someone out there wants you dead.
There's nothing to be said. They've already said it all themselves. They've already done it all, demonstrated it all.
Monday, August 12, 2013
U.K ad firm uses Wi-Fi-enabled trash cans to track people
Article
LONDON -- Officials demanded Monday that an advertising firm stop using a network of high-tech trash cans to track people walking through London's financial district.
The Renew ad firm has been using technology embedded in the hulking receptacles to measure the Wi-Fi signals emitted by smartphones, and suggested that it would apply the concept of "cookies" -- tracking files that follow Internet users across the Web -- to the physical world.
"We will cookie the street," Renew Chief Executive Kaveh Memari said in June.
LONDON -- Officials demanded Monday that an advertising firm stop using a network of high-tech trash cans to track people walking through London's financial district.
The Renew ad firm has been using technology embedded in the hulking receptacles to measure the Wi-Fi signals emitted by smartphones, and suggested that it would apply the concept of "cookies" -- tracking files that follow Internet users across the Web -- to the physical world.
"We will cookie the street," Renew Chief Executive Kaveh Memari said in June.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
State of the DisUnion these days
Article = None, personal experience.
And the City of Ottawa thinks my rooming house is illegal and so two people got kicked out, and I got to move to the main floor since living in the basement in a room the size of the average broom closet is apparently against Health and Saftey rules.
I don't mind the new digs , despite having to haul all my junk up the stairs alone (that's going to take days). But I talked to the other room mates and apparently a year ago this place got declared illegal and all the roomies were given a months notice and kicked out.
Kicked out. No emergancy housing, just you have a month to find other accomidations, thanks and good night.
I swear if I have to move again I'm abandoning most of my stuff and just getting a big duffle bag for a few changes of cloths. And maybe a bigger computer bag for my lap top. It doesnt' quite squeeze into the current lap top bag I have.
Bought a garbage can and 6$ got me 100 bags for it. Why am I mentioning this ? because I had to help clean up the room I was about to move in , and it was a disgusting stye. Also ... my own room down in the basement was none too clean ... mostly I admit because I didn't have a garbage an (my fault) and going up those stairs to throw out a bag or two of garbage was just too much in my current state of health (not my fault).
In the news today ...
Lavabit , an encrypted mail service , got raided by the US Government. They decided to shut down rather than give the guys in jack boots anythings. They also got hit by a hush order, making it illegal for them to say anything. But when you publically state "It is illegal for me to talk about the issue" , and you live inside the united states, it's pretty obvious the united states government is shutting you down.
More disturbing is Silent Text pre-emptively shutting down before the US Government can force them under. Disturbing because their servers are based in canada, not the USA , but they say Canada cooperates way too much with the USA so they're not taking any chances.
Hmm... thats not good to hear.
I went looking for a canadian based mail service. Found a big list, started down it. Ping the mail server, then use a location service ( http://www.iplocation.net/index.php ) to find out where in the world that address where the mail server is. The five or so I checked were all inside the USA. So much for trying to get to a mail server outside of the USA.
I remember when I worked at rogers they actually were hosted on gmail servers, despite the rogers.ca address. And the competition Bell , were hosted on hotmail servers specially rented for the purpose. Which was a pain since hotmail and gmail were constantly fighting and locking each other out and refusing to accept mail from each other at the time ...
I think we need to petition the Government of Canada to set up some free email servers here in Canada for canadian use. Because sending in the FBI to grab all the email and arrest anyone who doesn't cooperate ? I firmly believe Obama has lost his mind. I really do.
It's going to be interesting, the next two years. That being how long Obama has left to be President of the United States.
Unless they impeach him.
And the City of Ottawa thinks my rooming house is illegal and so two people got kicked out, and I got to move to the main floor since living in the basement in a room the size of the average broom closet is apparently against Health and Saftey rules.
I don't mind the new digs , despite having to haul all my junk up the stairs alone (that's going to take days). But I talked to the other room mates and apparently a year ago this place got declared illegal and all the roomies were given a months notice and kicked out.
Kicked out. No emergancy housing, just you have a month to find other accomidations, thanks and good night.
I swear if I have to move again I'm abandoning most of my stuff and just getting a big duffle bag for a few changes of cloths. And maybe a bigger computer bag for my lap top. It doesnt' quite squeeze into the current lap top bag I have.
Bought a garbage can and 6$ got me 100 bags for it. Why am I mentioning this ? because I had to help clean up the room I was about to move in , and it was a disgusting stye. Also ... my own room down in the basement was none too clean ... mostly I admit because I didn't have a garbage an (my fault) and going up those stairs to throw out a bag or two of garbage was just too much in my current state of health (not my fault).
In the news today ...
Lavabit , an encrypted mail service , got raided by the US Government. They decided to shut down rather than give the guys in jack boots anythings. They also got hit by a hush order, making it illegal for them to say anything. But when you publically state "It is illegal for me to talk about the issue" , and you live inside the united states, it's pretty obvious the united states government is shutting you down.
More disturbing is Silent Text pre-emptively shutting down before the US Government can force them under. Disturbing because their servers are based in canada, not the USA , but they say Canada cooperates way too much with the USA so they're not taking any chances.
Hmm... thats not good to hear.
I went looking for a canadian based mail service. Found a big list, started down it. Ping the mail server, then use a location service ( http://www.iplocation.net/index.php ) to find out where in the world that address where the mail server is. The five or so I checked were all inside the USA. So much for trying to get to a mail server outside of the USA.
I remember when I worked at rogers they actually were hosted on gmail servers, despite the rogers.ca address. And the competition Bell , were hosted on hotmail servers specially rented for the purpose. Which was a pain since hotmail and gmail were constantly fighting and locking each other out and refusing to accept mail from each other at the time ...
I think we need to petition the Government of Canada to set up some free email servers here in Canada for canadian use. Because sending in the FBI to grab all the email and arrest anyone who doesn't cooperate ? I firmly believe Obama has lost his mind. I really do.
It's going to be interesting, the next two years. That being how long Obama has left to be President of the United States.
Unless they impeach him.
Snowden link to encrypted email service closes
Article
Texas-based Lavabit service has shut down but said legal reasons prevented it explaining why. Correspondents say Lavabit appears to have been in a legal battle to stop US officials accessing customer details. In addition, secure communications firm Silent Circle has shut its email service because messages cannot be kept wholly secret.
What does this mean ?
Well, "Legal Reasons" means the USA Government , since they are based in Texas. It is there for clear that the USA Government has shut them down. It is also clear that the USA Government has muzzled them and threatened them to prevent them from saying why.
Why do we care ?
That the USA is shutting down services it cannot spy on is worrying. That Google, Yahoo, and most of the services we use are USA based is even more worrying. It may be time to start deliberately looking for non-usa providers for ... well...everything.
The part where no one is allowed to say what the USA government is doing or they get tossed in jail is particularly worrisome.
Apparently , USA has become the new Communist Russia. Communist USA, it seems. Throwing in jail all political opponents. Muzzling the press. Oh , and they recently decided to ignore a copyright decision that they lost because it would be bad for their economy.
I don't think we should be trading with these people anymore. I think we need to cut all links.
Monday, August 05, 2013
Seoul hits at Obama’s Apple veto in patent dispute
South Korea’s trade ministry on Monday criticised the US president’s weekend veto of a patent infringement ruling against Apple, expressing “concern over the possible negative impacts that this kind of decision could have on Samsung Electronics’ patent rights”.
Mr Obama vetoed a June ruling by the US International Trade Commission banning a range of Apple devices – which the court ruled had infringed a Samsung patent – from being imported into the US.
So basically , what we have here is the USA saying "we don't care that one of our countries companies is infringing on your copyright. But don't you dare do it to us. "
Aha.
His intervention over the weekend on behalf of Apple in the first case was made because the Samsung patent involved technology that is key to technology standards, potentially giving the South Korean company “undue leverage” in licensing negotiations, according to the reasoning for the veto.
"Technology standards" . In other words, the USA gets to make the standards with their for-profit companies and get that "undue leverage" but other countries do not.
Is it just me , or did US Copyright law just become a club for beating all non-usa companies to death ? I'm sure all the americans are cheering , but I'm not an american.
Basically , the US copyright system can now be ignored , since it is demonstrating a bias in favor of the USA and against everyone else.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
MMO Monotization : The not so F2P option
The Top F2P Monetization Tricks
What is F2P ? It stands for "Free to Play".
Tanstafl you say ? (Tanstafl = There Aint No Such Thing As a Free Lunch )
You are correct .
Coercive Monetization
A coercive monetization model depends on the ability to “trick” a person into making a purchase with incomplete information, or by hiding that information such that while it is technically available, the brain of the consumer does not access that information. Hiding a purchase can be as simple as disguising the relationship between the action and the cost as I describe in my Systems of Control in F2P paper.
It's long. It's complicated. To simplify ...
Your playing a game, we'll say "Bejeweled" , with slowly increasingly difficult levels.
This is called a skill game. You need skill to advance.
Suddenly , you reach this level you cannot get past no matter what , but they'll let you "buy" your way past with in game "Jewels" , the game currency. How do you get jewels ? Well, you pay for them. With real cash. And you get volume discounts, and maybe one or two jewels drop once in a while in game.
this is called the money game. You need money to advance.
Money games are tricky. They do everything they can to hide the fact that you're paying real world cash every now and then. Common tricks are , as I mentioned , volume discounts. Now it's hard to calculate how much real world cash you're paying to get past this "money game" level and back to the skill game. Other tricks include occasionally dropping in game currency (the afore mentioned jewels as an example) but not often enough , you will have a hard hard road if you don't drop some cash.
The first purchase is the hardest to get. After that , you are marked as a spender , and from then on , most of the game is the "money game" , difficulty levels now explode to ridiculous levels and the only way to get past any level is to buy your way past, though the game will always advertise there are people who get to the end without paying a dime. This is like a casino advertising it's winners. For every winner there are ten thousand losers.
Three online MMO's I have played are this kind of "Coersive Monetization" model. They are the Star Trek Online game, Guild Wars 2 , and the new Star Wars The Old Republic has switched to it. And they all use the same mechanism. A box will randomly drop (very frequently randomly) , but you need a key to open it, and that key costs special game currency to buy. (never real world cash , that would trigger a response from the user and you'd realize you're being tricked, always there is an in game currency of some kind) . And inside are random items that are far more powerful than what regularily drops from the mobs you're fighting
In effect , you can't have the good stuff unless you spend cash. You're a second class user.
SWTOR is a specially abusive model in that they charge you 15$ a month to unlock anything , and then they still sell these packs full of good stuff that you simply cannot get by just playing the game. So they're collecting from the free to play crowd and they paying customers indiscriminately, thus abusing the people who pay the 15$ / month.
Different from this is Wow's free to play model. They basically let you play until level 20 for free. And if you want to keep on playing it's 15$ / month and away you go. No packs, no special keys to buy , none of that "coersive monitization" junk . Just an honest "play our game for 15$ / month" , and the guys with the impressive gear got that stuff honestly , by playing , not because they dropped 100$ real money on packs or special keys to unlock f2p treasure and stuff.
What is F2P ? It stands for "Free to Play".
Tanstafl you say ? (Tanstafl = There Aint No Such Thing As a Free Lunch )
You are correct .
Coercive Monetization
A coercive monetization model depends on the ability to “trick” a person into making a purchase with incomplete information, or by hiding that information such that while it is technically available, the brain of the consumer does not access that information. Hiding a purchase can be as simple as disguising the relationship between the action and the cost as I describe in my Systems of Control in F2P paper.
It's long. It's complicated. To simplify ...
Your playing a game, we'll say "Bejeweled" , with slowly increasingly difficult levels.
This is called a skill game. You need skill to advance.
Suddenly , you reach this level you cannot get past no matter what , but they'll let you "buy" your way past with in game "Jewels" , the game currency. How do you get jewels ? Well, you pay for them. With real cash. And you get volume discounts, and maybe one or two jewels drop once in a while in game.
this is called the money game. You need money to advance.
Money games are tricky. They do everything they can to hide the fact that you're paying real world cash every now and then. Common tricks are , as I mentioned , volume discounts. Now it's hard to calculate how much real world cash you're paying to get past this "money game" level and back to the skill game. Other tricks include occasionally dropping in game currency (the afore mentioned jewels as an example) but not often enough , you will have a hard hard road if you don't drop some cash.
The first purchase is the hardest to get. After that , you are marked as a spender , and from then on , most of the game is the "money game" , difficulty levels now explode to ridiculous levels and the only way to get past any level is to buy your way past, though the game will always advertise there are people who get to the end without paying a dime. This is like a casino advertising it's winners. For every winner there are ten thousand losers.
Three online MMO's I have played are this kind of "Coersive Monetization" model. They are the Star Trek Online game, Guild Wars 2 , and the new Star Wars The Old Republic has switched to it. And they all use the same mechanism. A box will randomly drop (very frequently randomly) , but you need a key to open it, and that key costs special game currency to buy. (never real world cash , that would trigger a response from the user and you'd realize you're being tricked, always there is an in game currency of some kind) . And inside are random items that are far more powerful than what regularily drops from the mobs you're fighting
In effect , you can't have the good stuff unless you spend cash. You're a second class user.
SWTOR is a specially abusive model in that they charge you 15$ a month to unlock anything , and then they still sell these packs full of good stuff that you simply cannot get by just playing the game. So they're collecting from the free to play crowd and they paying customers indiscriminately, thus abusing the people who pay the 15$ / month.
Different from this is Wow's free to play model. They basically let you play until level 20 for free. And if you want to keep on playing it's 15$ / month and away you go. No packs, no special keys to buy , none of that "coersive monitization" junk . Just an honest "play our game for 15$ / month" , and the guys with the impressive gear got that stuff honestly , by playing , not because they dropped 100$ real money on packs or special keys to unlock f2p treasure and stuff.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Police given OK to murder Civilians.
Provocative title , you think ?
But It has an unfortunate amount of accuracy to it.
The Crown was able to provide only circumstantial evidence to suggest Constable Bill Bentley had willfully concocted a false story, Justice Mark McEwan said in B.C. Supreme Court on Monday.
.
.
.
The Crown had pointed to the Mounties’ similar notes and statements – which contradicted amateur video that later surfaced – as proof the officers had colluded. For example, officers claimed Mr. Dziekanski advanced on them with a stapler before he was stunned and wrestled to the ground, but the video showed no such occurrence.
VIDEO LINK HERE
This cop, one of four, murdered this polish guy at the air port, lied his ass off to cover it up , is publically caught lying his ass off with incontrovertable proof...
And is found innocent of all charges.
Basically , the cops have been given a free ride to lie and murder anyone they like. It's hard to see any other conclusion.
Because that's exactly what they've done here. Murdered some guy , and then made up stories to justify it afterwards. And then got caught red handed. And got turned loose anyways. Free to go , thank you and good night don't bother submitting a second set of lies we don't want to go through this again.
It is the principle of Law that Justice must be seen to be served.
I see no justice here.
But It has an unfortunate amount of accuracy to it.
Mountie cleared of perjury charge related to inquiry into Dziekanski taser death
A Mountie accused of lying at the public inquiry into the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski has been acquitted on a charge of perjury.
The Crown was able to provide only circumstantial evidence to suggest Constable Bill Bentley had willfully concocted a false story, Justice Mark McEwan said in B.C. Supreme Court on Monday.
.
.
.
The Crown had pointed to the Mounties’ similar notes and statements – which contradicted amateur video that later surfaced – as proof the officers had colluded. For example, officers claimed Mr. Dziekanski advanced on them with a stapler before he was stunned and wrestled to the ground, but the video showed no such occurrence.
VIDEO LINK HERE
This cop, one of four, murdered this polish guy at the air port, lied his ass off to cover it up , is publically caught lying his ass off with incontrovertable proof...
And is found innocent of all charges.
Basically , the cops have been given a free ride to lie and murder anyone they like. It's hard to see any other conclusion.
Because that's exactly what they've done here. Murdered some guy , and then made up stories to justify it afterwards. And then got caught red handed. And got turned loose anyways. Free to go , thank you and good night don't bother submitting a second set of lies we don't want to go through this again.
It is the principle of Law that Justice must be seen to be served.
I see no justice here.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
US House votes to continue NSA's phone surveillance
The US House of
Representatives has narrowly voted to continue collecting data on US
phone calls, in the first legislative move on the programme.
In a 205-217 vote, lawmakers rejected an effort to restrict
the National Security Agency's (NSA) ability to collect electronic
information.The NSA's chief had lobbied strongly against the proposed measure.
The vote saw an unusual coalition of conservatives and liberal Democrats join forces against the programme.
The details of the NSA dragnet were made public by Edward Snowden, a former contractor for America's electronic spying agency. He is now a fugitive, seeking asylum in Moscow.
In a 205 - 217 vote , US Law makers decided to continue to listen in and spy on every phone call , email , chat , skype call , and more , in the entire world. Or at least any such information as they could steal.
The rest of the world did not get to vote on the matter.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Power Outage July 19 / 2013
Article = none, personal experience
So I'm at Girlfriends place on Friday , sleeping until three in the afternoon (it's 30 degree's out , major heat wave). Finally get up and take a shower ...
Thunderstorm. Flickering lights . Darkness.
Now I'm in the dark ... but the shower is still working we still have water. Where's the soap ? where's ... pretty much anything ? It'd hadn't been dark a moment ago. Get out of the shower , which I hadn't finished, visions of slipping on a bar of soap and killing myself and no one finding me for a week dancing in my head.
Find some diet cola in the fridge left over from last week sit down on my favorite chair and stare at the blank computer screen.
No power. No computer . No internet.
Girlfriend is on the phone talking to a friend. In Tagalog. I have no clue what they're saying. Luckily everyone I know is on cell phones these days. Wind with some kind of unlimited local calling is actually cheaper than a land line.
We talk about the last power outage. Lasted for days. No no , Girlfriend assures me. That was when some power company in the states blew a gasket and blamed it all on us. All I remember is getting out of work early and endlessly walking around the building while our bosses tried to decide if they were going to send us home or tough it out and hope the power came back sortly. The stars were very pretty that night long ago. Seeing as how there were no lights near by to drown them out.
Checked the balcony. The sun was still up , and it was quite cloudy, owing to the thunder storm that had most likely knocked out the power.
Sat down and watched the rain a bit. Girlfriend was glad I was there since the room mates (who now lived in my room while I lived in a broom closet across town that probably still had power and internet where as her place didn't) were off for the weekend. Camping or some strange thing.
I phoned my sister in toronto. She was on a wind phone too , so wind to wind call , no charge. We chatted for an hour. She was at work but no one else had shown up so she was sitting at her desk feet up on it relaxing. Or so she told me.
Talked about our dear sweet father , whom her interest in Geneology had turned up. No idea where that is going. Could be a new friend for life, or he might tell us to bugger off and quit bothering him. Not a clue . This isn't a soap opera, and things don't always have a happy ending in real life.
Then again in most good soap opera's there rarely is a happy ending either. House MD ended with House's best friend having terminal cancer. Greys Anatomy it's almost traditional by now , season nine, to have some disaster strike and kill someone off at the end of the season (end of september we find out if Richard survives or not... I'm betting not , mostly because I read an online artical saying one of the main actors had asked to be written out of the story , and it was Richard webber on the ground getting electrocuted at the end of the season finale. Could be a fake out though. )
Why am I meandering on like this ?
Blonde Sister (the one in Toronto) doesn't like my blog. She says I sound like a crazy man with issues all over the place. I tell her ... the blog is where I vent. It's where I can vent in private / public without sounding like a crazy man . So , according to her , I sound like a crazy man on my blog instead.
Aha. Win some lose some. I'll try to keep the ranting down to a minimum.
But really. The Americans listening in on every phone call, every email, every skype call, and more , in the world ? And their president not only refuses to apologize, but see's nothing wrong with it. Everyone does it , he publically states. Who wouldn't want to rant about that. Am I ranting again ? Sorry.
Girlfriend decides to take me to dinner, her favorite Buffet across town. She's nice enough to even pay for it , though she tells me she's knocking it off the price of the computer I "sold" her and never got paid for. Apparently I'm being paid in the form of whatever T-Shirts and pants she finds on sale at the Sally Anne , and the occassional night out.
Win some , lose some. I'm keeping my current lap top though. When Ottawa Housing comes through and gets me a place it's becomeing my new Ubuntu machine, since she has my old one and it just sits on a shelf while she uses my previous main computer.
On the internet they're constantly taking surveys, for marketting purposes, who's using what operating system. Are you an apple user ? A windows , a linux man ? Statisticians want to know so they can sell the information to advertising agencies who can in turn sell it to computer manufacturers. There's a lot of money on the table for junk like that.
Do I count as a windows guy or a Linux Guy ? I wonder sometimes...since I like to have one of each at all times (when I get a choice in the matter, when Girlfriend hasn't "liberated" one of my machines" )
We get home and the powers back on. I remember I promised myself I'd write a blog entry about this , and that I would try to keep the ranting down to a minimum.
We'll see how it goes.
So I'm at Girlfriends place on Friday , sleeping until three in the afternoon (it's 30 degree's out , major heat wave). Finally get up and take a shower ...
Thunderstorm. Flickering lights . Darkness.
Now I'm in the dark ... but the shower is still working we still have water. Where's the soap ? where's ... pretty much anything ? It'd hadn't been dark a moment ago. Get out of the shower , which I hadn't finished, visions of slipping on a bar of soap and killing myself and no one finding me for a week dancing in my head.
Find some diet cola in the fridge left over from last week sit down on my favorite chair and stare at the blank computer screen.
No power. No computer . No internet.
Girlfriend is on the phone talking to a friend. In Tagalog. I have no clue what they're saying. Luckily everyone I know is on cell phones these days. Wind with some kind of unlimited local calling is actually cheaper than a land line.
We talk about the last power outage. Lasted for days. No no , Girlfriend assures me. That was when some power company in the states blew a gasket and blamed it all on us. All I remember is getting out of work early and endlessly walking around the building while our bosses tried to decide if they were going to send us home or tough it out and hope the power came back sortly. The stars were very pretty that night long ago. Seeing as how there were no lights near by to drown them out.
Checked the balcony. The sun was still up , and it was quite cloudy, owing to the thunder storm that had most likely knocked out the power.
Sat down and watched the rain a bit. Girlfriend was glad I was there since the room mates (who now lived in my room while I lived in a broom closet across town that probably still had power and internet where as her place didn't) were off for the weekend. Camping or some strange thing.
I phoned my sister in toronto. She was on a wind phone too , so wind to wind call , no charge. We chatted for an hour. She was at work but no one else had shown up so she was sitting at her desk feet up on it relaxing. Or so she told me.
Talked about our dear sweet father , whom her interest in Geneology had turned up. No idea where that is going. Could be a new friend for life, or he might tell us to bugger off and quit bothering him. Not a clue . This isn't a soap opera, and things don't always have a happy ending in real life.
Then again in most good soap opera's there rarely is a happy ending either. House MD ended with House's best friend having terminal cancer. Greys Anatomy it's almost traditional by now , season nine, to have some disaster strike and kill someone off at the end of the season (end of september we find out if Richard survives or not... I'm betting not , mostly because I read an online artical saying one of the main actors had asked to be written out of the story , and it was Richard webber on the ground getting electrocuted at the end of the season finale. Could be a fake out though. )
Why am I meandering on like this ?
Blonde Sister (the one in Toronto) doesn't like my blog. She says I sound like a crazy man with issues all over the place. I tell her ... the blog is where I vent. It's where I can vent in private / public without sounding like a crazy man . So , according to her , I sound like a crazy man on my blog instead.
Aha. Win some lose some. I'll try to keep the ranting down to a minimum.
But really. The Americans listening in on every phone call, every email, every skype call, and more , in the world ? And their president not only refuses to apologize, but see's nothing wrong with it. Everyone does it , he publically states. Who wouldn't want to rant about that. Am I ranting again ? Sorry.
Girlfriend decides to take me to dinner, her favorite Buffet across town. She's nice enough to even pay for it , though she tells me she's knocking it off the price of the computer I "sold" her and never got paid for. Apparently I'm being paid in the form of whatever T-Shirts and pants she finds on sale at the Sally Anne , and the occassional night out.
Win some , lose some. I'm keeping my current lap top though. When Ottawa Housing comes through and gets me a place it's becomeing my new Ubuntu machine, since she has my old one and it just sits on a shelf while she uses my previous main computer.
On the internet they're constantly taking surveys, for marketting purposes, who's using what operating system. Are you an apple user ? A windows , a linux man ? Statisticians want to know so they can sell the information to advertising agencies who can in turn sell it to computer manufacturers. There's a lot of money on the table for junk like that.
Do I count as a windows guy or a Linux Guy ? I wonder sometimes...since I like to have one of each at all times (when I get a choice in the matter, when Girlfriend hasn't "liberated" one of my machines" )
We get home and the powers back on. I remember I promised myself I'd write a blog entry about this , and that I would try to keep the ranting down to a minimum.
We'll see how it goes.
Sunday, July 07, 2013
Big Data Asks, "How much can we overcharge you ?"
Study: Firefox users pay less for car insurance than users of other browsers
"CoverHound deals with several insurance companies to offer side-by-side rate comparisons, but it decided to flip the script and compare something almost as exciting as insurance: it’s users’ choice of web browser.
It found that, on average, Firefox users pay $608 for six months of car insurance, Chrome users pay $731, and Internet Explorer and Safari users pay the same: $750."
So Essentially , business is spying on you, basically which browser and by extension which computer you're using , and deciding they can charge extra if you're on some computers because you seem rich , or you're gullable or something.
Does anything seem wrong with this to you ? Do you suddenly feel like a sucker , a mark waiting to be ripped off , because you don't have the technical expertise to install firefox on your comptuer ? Do you feel ticked because you think insurance, in this case, is looking to take you for a ride ?
Trust me. This is only the beginning of Big Data and it's effect on the general population. Business people will do anything to make a buck. Today they figure what browser you use tells them something worth money , tommorow it will be your picture on face book , or who knows what else. But they're mining , and they're spending millions looking.
And apparently it's working.
This is why data privacy is so important. You are now being ripped off financially because of violations of your data privacy. And where there's money involved, you can bet they're going to exploit this as far as they can.
"CoverHound deals with several insurance companies to offer side-by-side rate comparisons, but it decided to flip the script and compare something almost as exciting as insurance: it’s users’ choice of web browser.
It found that, on average, Firefox users pay $608 for six months of car insurance, Chrome users pay $731, and Internet Explorer and Safari users pay the same: $750."
So Essentially , business is spying on you, basically which browser and by extension which computer you're using , and deciding they can charge extra if you're on some computers because you seem rich , or you're gullable or something.
Does anything seem wrong with this to you ? Do you suddenly feel like a sucker , a mark waiting to be ripped off , because you don't have the technical expertise to install firefox on your comptuer ? Do you feel ticked because you think insurance, in this case, is looking to take you for a ride ?
Trust me. This is only the beginning of Big Data and it's effect on the general population. Business people will do anything to make a buck. Today they figure what browser you use tells them something worth money , tommorow it will be your picture on face book , or who knows what else. But they're mining , and they're spending millions looking.
And apparently it's working.
This is why data privacy is so important. You are now being ripped off financially because of violations of your data privacy. And where there's money involved, you can bet they're going to exploit this as far as they can.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
France, Spain take action against Google on privacy
Article
(Reuters) - France and Spain led a Europe-wide push on Thursday to get U.S. Internet giant Google to change its policies on collecting user data.
News that the U.S. National Security Agency under the Prism surveillance program secretly gathered user data from nine U.S. companies, including Google, to track people's movements and contacts makes the timing especially sensitive for Google.
France's data protection watchdog (CNIL) said Google had broken French law and gave it three months to change its privacy policies or risk a fine of up to 150,000 euros ($200,000).
Spain's Data Protection Agency (AEPD) told Google it would be fined between 40,000 euros and 300,000 for five violations of the law, that it had failed to be clear about what it did with data, may be processing a "disproportionate" amount and holding onto it for an "undetermined or unjustified" period of time.
Whoa , this is unexpected.
Google is a USA company. It must follow USA laws. But what happens when those USA laws are in conflict with other nations laws, especially in the area of Data Privacy ? Is negotiating with France and Spain actually going to do anything when the USA holds the strings to the puppet and can make them do anything ?
How many violations of privacy laws will it take, that Google has no control over it must do , will it take before all USA computer companies start getting banned from providing services to these countries ? One can already immagine local competiters drooling in anticipation of google, yahoo, and the like getting booted out of their little ponds.
All thanks to the antics of the USA government.
It's a new age out there, a post PRISM age.
And it's not Snowdens fault (the guy who leaked the existance of PRISM) because one of the first things any intelligence agency learns is that "two people can keep a secret , but only if one of them is dead" , so they must know that it is inevitable that all secrets eventually come to light. What did they think would happen when people found out you're recording every phone call in the world ? Every email , every facebook posting ?
This won't be boring , that's for sure.
(Reuters) - France and Spain led a Europe-wide push on Thursday to get U.S. Internet giant Google to change its policies on collecting user data.
News that the U.S. National Security Agency under the Prism surveillance program secretly gathered user data from nine U.S. companies, including Google, to track people's movements and contacts makes the timing especially sensitive for Google.
France's data protection watchdog (CNIL) said Google had broken French law and gave it three months to change its privacy policies or risk a fine of up to 150,000 euros ($200,000).
Spain's Data Protection Agency (AEPD) told Google it would be fined between 40,000 euros and 300,000 for five violations of the law, that it had failed to be clear about what it did with data, may be processing a "disproportionate" amount and holding onto it for an "undetermined or unjustified" period of time.
Whoa , this is unexpected.
Google is a USA company. It must follow USA laws. But what happens when those USA laws are in conflict with other nations laws, especially in the area of Data Privacy ? Is negotiating with France and Spain actually going to do anything when the USA holds the strings to the puppet and can make them do anything ?
How many violations of privacy laws will it take, that Google has no control over it must do , will it take before all USA computer companies start getting banned from providing services to these countries ? One can already immagine local competiters drooling in anticipation of google, yahoo, and the like getting booted out of their little ponds.
All thanks to the antics of the USA government.
It's a new age out there, a post PRISM age.
And it's not Snowdens fault (the guy who leaked the existance of PRISM) because one of the first things any intelligence agency learns is that "two people can keep a secret , but only if one of them is dead" , so they must know that it is inevitable that all secrets eventually come to light. What did they think would happen when people found out you're recording every phone call in the world ? Every email , every facebook posting ?
This won't be boring , that's for sure.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
he EU is demanding assurances that Europeans are not having their rights infringed by a massive US surveillance programme.
Article
The EU is demanding assurances that Europeans are not having their rights infringed by a massive US surveillance programme.
Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding plans to raise the concerns with US Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday.
Last week a series of leaks by a former CIA worker led to claims the US had a vast surveillance network with much less oversight than previously thought.
The US insists its snooping is legal under domestic law.
Let me take a moment to answer the EU's concerns , and the rest of the worlds concerns, in this matter.
1. The USA assures us that under their own laws that they get to make up , that say anything they want them to say , they are acting in a perfectly legal manner.
2. The USA assures us that the "traiter" who let everyone know that the USA was lying proflifically to everyone in the world will be prosecuted to the full extent of any law the USA may have already invented out of thin air , or might invent in the future. It is their intention to make this guy an example to all , just like they're doing to the wikileaks guy , that they will not tolerate being caught laying, not by anyone.
3. The USA will now give you the usual lies , I mean assurances , that this will never happen again and you're all perfectly safe and shouldn't worry about it.
4. No , the USA will not consider simply telling everyone in the world "We're spying on you all. If you're a terrorist , your only option for secure communications is a network of carrier pidgeons. " despite the fact that this is probably the truth.
5. It is unlikely that Obama , or any us president , will understand how a person screened for loyalty to the USA , who is specially selected for his desire to protect and defend his country , who truely believes in the ideals of his country (freedom , and privacy in particular) could ever betray them just because they've sold their countries morals down the river for short term gain.
In closing, I'd like to paraphrase President Obama.
"Don't worry , be happy. No one is listening in on all your phone calls. "
The EU is demanding assurances that Europeans are not having their rights infringed by a massive US surveillance programme.
Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding plans to raise the concerns with US Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday.
Last week a series of leaks by a former CIA worker led to claims the US had a vast surveillance network with much less oversight than previously thought.
The US insists its snooping is legal under domestic law.
Let me take a moment to answer the EU's concerns , and the rest of the worlds concerns, in this matter.
1. The USA assures us that under their own laws that they get to make up , that say anything they want them to say , they are acting in a perfectly legal manner.
2. The USA assures us that the "traiter" who let everyone know that the USA was lying proflifically to everyone in the world will be prosecuted to the full extent of any law the USA may have already invented out of thin air , or might invent in the future. It is their intention to make this guy an example to all , just like they're doing to the wikileaks guy , that they will not tolerate being caught laying, not by anyone.
3. The USA will now give you the usual lies , I mean assurances , that this will never happen again and you're all perfectly safe and shouldn't worry about it.
4. No , the USA will not consider simply telling everyone in the world "We're spying on you all. If you're a terrorist , your only option for secure communications is a network of carrier pidgeons. " despite the fact that this is probably the truth.
5. It is unlikely that Obama , or any us president , will understand how a person screened for loyalty to the USA , who is specially selected for his desire to protect and defend his country , who truely believes in the ideals of his country (freedom , and privacy in particular) could ever betray them just because they've sold their countries morals down the river for short term gain.
In closing, I'd like to paraphrase President Obama.
"Don't worry , be happy. No one is listening in on all your phone calls. "
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Internet at Home
Article = none, personal experience
Ok, it turns out my land lady doesn't have camera's everywhere spying on us through the internet. Apparently there was an outage a week or so ago , and I heard the other residence in the hall talking about how "a lot of people depend on that router for their internet".
Take that with her comment about how expensive internet is , and a quick peek at the rogers internet page shows it's 10$ / gigabyte for overages , and she was talking about how she was paying a lot of overages ... yeah she just doesn't want any new users on her modem. It's too expensive.
My phone has internet , they charge me 8$ / month for it. I phoned them up and they said it was a five gigabyte limit. (apparently "unlimited" internet is pretty limited).
Yes , I'd tried my phone before at my old place, my brothers basement. I got cut off every five minutes. But here at my new place on the other side of town , or should I say NOT on the very edge of Ottawa where if you walk across the street to the shopping mall and try to go behind it you find nothing but trees for the next one hundred kilometers , reception is considerably improved. I can actually hold a steady connection and play for two hours at a time.
Installing World of Warcraft is 22 gigabytes , I had to bring my lap top over to a friends place and use their connection , but after I got it going , a week of fairly steady playing was only 240 megabytes , less than a quarter of one gigabyte.
Good enough.
Guess I'm online again.
Ok, it turns out my land lady doesn't have camera's everywhere spying on us through the internet. Apparently there was an outage a week or so ago , and I heard the other residence in the hall talking about how "a lot of people depend on that router for their internet".
Take that with her comment about how expensive internet is , and a quick peek at the rogers internet page shows it's 10$ / gigabyte for overages , and she was talking about how she was paying a lot of overages ... yeah she just doesn't want any new users on her modem. It's too expensive.
My phone has internet , they charge me 8$ / month for it. I phoned them up and they said it was a five gigabyte limit. (apparently "unlimited" internet is pretty limited).
Yes , I'd tried my phone before at my old place, my brothers basement. I got cut off every five minutes. But here at my new place on the other side of town , or should I say NOT on the very edge of Ottawa where if you walk across the street to the shopping mall and try to go behind it you find nothing but trees for the next one hundred kilometers , reception is considerably improved. I can actually hold a steady connection and play for two hours at a time.
Installing World of Warcraft is 22 gigabytes , I had to bring my lap top over to a friends place and use their connection , but after I got it going , a week of fairly steady playing was only 240 megabytes , less than a quarter of one gigabyte.
Good enough.
Guess I'm online again.
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