An example of a true National Emergency was 9/11/2001.
Everyone gathered behind the president, whether they voted for him or not. Both political parties stood on the steps of the capitol building together and sang God Bless America.
The true nature of the emergency brought Americans together rather than dividing them further.
Everyone recognized the nature of the emergency without being told or convinced that it was an emergency.
A jackass not getting its way does not constitute a national emergency. I'm hungry now, so I'll declare a national emergency.
While a person driving a registered vehicle cannot be considered reasonably suspicious, did the court consider other important factors such as whether the driver has non-white skin?
What about walking down the street peacefully minding ones own business? But having non-white skin?
Some law enforcement authorities would want the court to consider whether all persons should be treated equally in police contacts, or in the determination of who the police should make un-requested contact with.
Occasionally when the police stop someone, and that person turns out to be a part of law enforcement. In that case all other factors become irrelevant and they should be permitted to carry on about their business; regardless of any other suspicious factors such as an odor of alcohol, or obvious signs of violence, or other things that would ordinarily warrant further investigation.
Because it is getting difficult to impossible to gerrymander districts to ensure that elections go they way they are supposed to, let me propose a better, more uniform design for voting systems.
Paperless voting.
You to go the polling place. In the voting booth, you vote electronically on a touch screen. Your vote is instantly tallied in the cloud so that up to date nationwide vote totals are available for all to see, including Vladimir. A voting receipt is printed to prove you have voted.
Your voting receipt has a URL to a page showing YOUR ballot. Each URL contains the unique sequential voting sequence number of the order of all voters in the nation who voted. While you are visiting your online ballot page, you can change your vote if you so wish.
What could possibly go wrong?
Such a design wold offer voting convenience unlike any in our history.
Now it doesn't matter if this machine is open source. The voter can see the ballot and that it is correctly marked.
(Like at my precinct . . .) that ballot is then inserted into a counting machine that shows the total count of all votes, and you see that number go up by one as the ballot passes the scanner, in clear view, and falls into a ballot box.
These paper ballots could be manually recounted should the need occur. Or they could be re-counted by different machines to speed things up. But ultimately the clearly marked paper ballot is what is counted. The machine counts the same markings on the ballot that a human sees to indicate their vote.
While I can't speak about Verizon, I notice AT&T switches out the tiny LTE icon for a 5GE icon.
Dear AT&T, please be truthful. Instead of a tiny 5GE icon, how about a tiny 5G LIE icon. Yes, it says LIE right there in front of God and everyone.
But here's the thing. That icon is so tiny that people will recognize it as saying 5G LTE instead of 5G LIE. Especially if you carefully choose or design the font. The difference between the two might be only one pixel or even a sub-pixel.
Censorship isn't as effective as some would like unless the censorship can be enforced everywhere.
Should every citizen of certain countries get to censor what the entire world can see? What about countries with radically different views? Can a country censor things they don't like which may reflect negatively on certain religions or religious figures? Don't those religious figures have a RTBF?
What if China wants to censor all events that occurred anywhere in the year 1989? Doesn't the year 1989 have a right to be forgotten?
Netflix rented disks made of delicious polycarbonate plastic by snail mail with return envelopes.
Then one day Netflix offered movies by some new fangled streaming over the intarweb tubes.
Hollywood, just like the music recording industry didn't have any vision and therefore didn't believe this internet streaming of movies would work out. After all, why would anyone want a service that didn't require you to even get up from your chair to put in a DVD, let you watch any movie you wanted, at any time you wanted, without annoyitating commercials, for cost far lower than cable TV?
Before very long, but still long ago from now, Netflix had quite a lot of really good movie titles.
Like this photographer, I'm sure Hollywood thought they would license their movies "for a little extra money". After all, this streaming thing wasn't going to last or ever take off.
Netflix streaming blossomed. Hollywood must have been green with envy -- how hard could it be to set up a streaming service? Eventually many of those good titles on Netflix disappeared to be replaced with less desirable content. Raise your hands if you remember this?
Like this photographer, I'm sure Hollywood was shocked that someone else could make a lot of money from a licensed copyright work.
The marketing department is working very hard on 6G. I'm going to hold off and wait for 6G which will be along soon, and will be Sooooo much better than puny 5G.
When the MPAA and RIAA can't even correctly identify whether something is copyrighted, or whether they own that copyright, then how can they expect anyone else to do so?
When I look back to 1975, at the state of microcomputers, it is shocking how primitive the technology was. I can't imagine 1968 computers made from stone knives and bear skins.
If you look at BYTE magazine from the period of 1975 to 1980 it is instructive to see just how much things advanced. The early home brew microcomputers were all unique. No software compatibility. Everyone had a custom way of interfacing a keyboard to their computer for example.
By 1977 we see the 'holy trinity' appear: Commodore PET, Apple II, and TRS-80. This was the start of software standardization on a large scale. (In just a couple years Radio Shack boasts of selling more computers than any other computer company ever -- so I would say that really was a standard platform for software more so than any prior computer, but similarly for Apple II and Commodore PET.)
It still took until 1983 to get the Apple Lisa. And that was just a bit ahead of its time -- what I mean is that the hardware still hadn't caught up to the dream. It didn't exactly fly off shelves. I don't recall much 3rd party commercial software for it. In 1984 the original 128 K Mac, and that was just barely enough hardware capability to effectively build mass market GUI software for.
That is a real testament to how far ahead of its time this demo really was. On such primitive computing hardware of the day.
On the post: United States Gifted With 33rd National Emergency By President Who Says It's Not Really An Emergency
Re:
To invoke Godwin, Hitler won, get over it.
On the post: United States Gifted With 33rd National Emergency By President Who Says It's Not Really An Emergency
anyone's guess
I don't have to guess when it is perfectly clear, like the emperor's new clothes.
Most (all?) of those families seeking entry do not have white skin. That MAKES it a national emergency in the eyes of some.
That's blunt. But I said it. The ugly truth nobody wants to talk about. Oh, and they might also be poor rather than wealthy.
On the post: United States Gifted With 33rd National Emergency By President Who Says It's Not Really An Emergency
9/11 was a national emergency
An example of a true National Emergency was 9/11/2001.
Everyone gathered behind the president, whether they voted for him or not. Both political parties stood on the steps of the capitol building together and sang God Bless America.
The true nature of the emergency brought Americans together rather than dividing them further.
Everyone recognized the nature of the emergency without being told or convinced that it was an emergency.
A jackass not getting its way does not constitute a national emergency. I'm hungry now, so I'll declare a national emergency.
On the post: Monster Energy Loses Appeal On Monsta Pizza Trademark Ruling
Re: Re: Re: Energy v Cable - Monster Dome Edition
Even better: none leaves.
On the post: Ex-NSA Personnel Spied On Americans And Journalists For The United Arab Emirates
Re:
Being a journalist would make him an enemy of the people -- according to his own words.
On the post: Ex-NSA Personnel Spied On Americans And Journalists For The United Arab Emirates
They would feel sick . . .
They would feel sick if the check does not clear.
On the post: Appeals Court Says A Person Driving A Registered Vehicle On A Public Road Is Not 'Reasonably Suspicious'
Appeals court analysis flawed
While a person driving a registered vehicle cannot be considered reasonably suspicious, did the court consider other important factors such as whether the driver has non-white skin?
What about walking down the street peacefully minding ones own business? But having non-white skin?
Some law enforcement authorities would want the court to consider whether all persons should be treated equally in police contacts, or in the determination of who the police should make un-requested contact with.
Occasionally when the police stop someone, and that person turns out to be a part of law enforcement. In that case all other factors become irrelevant and they should be permitted to carry on about their business; regardless of any other suspicious factors such as an odor of alcohol, or obvious signs of violence, or other things that would ordinarily warrant further investigation.
On the post: Revolving Doors And Regulatory Capture Are Ensuring E-Voting Remains An Insecure Mess
Gerrymandering is going away
Because it is getting difficult to impossible to gerrymander districts to ensure that elections go they way they are supposed to, let me propose a better, more uniform design for voting systems.
Paperless voting.
You to go the polling place. In the voting booth, you vote electronically on a touch screen. Your vote is instantly tallied in the cloud so that up to date nationwide vote totals are available for all to see, including Vladimir. A voting receipt is printed to prove you have voted.
Your voting receipt has a URL to a page showing YOUR ballot. Each URL contains the unique sequential voting sequence number of the order of all voters in the nation who voted. While you are visiting your online ballot page, you can change your vote if you so wish.
What could possibly go wrong?
Such a design wold offer voting convenience unlike any in our history.
On the post: Revolving Doors And Regulatory Capture Are Ensuring E-Voting Remains An Insecure Mess
Re:
Voting machines should do exactly one thing:
Generate a PAPER ballot, clearly marked.
Now it doesn't matter if this machine is open source. The voter can see the ballot and that it is correctly marked.
(Like at my precinct . . .) that ballot is then inserted into a counting machine that shows the total count of all votes, and you see that number go up by one as the ballot passes the scanner, in clear view, and falls into a ballot box.
These paper ballots could be manually recounted should the need occur. Or they could be re-counted by different machines to speed things up. But ultimately the clearly marked paper ballot is what is counted. The machine counts the same markings on the ballot that a human sees to indicate their vote.
On the post: Federal Judge Says Compelling People To Unlock Phones With Their Fingerprints/Faces Violates The 5th Amendment
Re:
On the post: Verizon Promises Not To Over-Hype 5G, Immediately Proceeds To Over-Hype 5G
In Icons We Trust
Dear AT&T, please be truthful. Instead of a tiny 5GE icon, how about a tiny 5G LIE icon. Yes, it says LIE right there in front of God and everyone.
But here's the thing. That icon is so tiny that people will recognize it as saying 5G LTE instead of 5G LIE. Especially if you carefully choose or design the font. The difference between the two might be only one pixel or even a sub-pixel.
Nobody could accuse you of lying.
On the post: AT&T's Planning Yet More Layoffs Despite Tens Of Billions In Tax Breaks And Government Favors
Why all the hate on AT&T?
More jobs for:
* hiring managers
* job recruiters
* people who write and mail unemployment checks
* people who work in soup kitchens
etc.
On the post: EU Court Adviser Says Google Shouldn't Have To Enforce A French RTBF Request Anywhere But In Europe
The problem
Should every citizen of certain countries get to censor what the entire world can see? What about countries with radically different views? Can a country censor things they don't like which may reflect negatively on certain religions or religious figures? Don't those religious figures have a RTBF?
What if China wants to censor all events that occurred anywhere in the year 1989? Doesn't the year 1989 have a right to be forgotten?
On the post: Notoriously Corrupt Sri Lanka Police Force Arrests Citizens For Pretending To Bribe A Cardboard Cutout Cop
Satire isn't dead
On the post: Photographer Licenses Photo To Shutterstock, Is Shocked When It Plays Out Exactly How Everyone Would Imagine
The Early Days of Netflix
Netflix rented disks made of delicious polycarbonate plastic by snail mail with return envelopes.
Then one day Netflix offered movies by some new fangled streaming over the intarweb tubes.
Hollywood, just like the music recording industry didn't have any vision and therefore didn't believe this internet streaming of movies would work out. After all, why would anyone want a service that didn't require you to even get up from your chair to put in a DVD, let you watch any movie you wanted, at any time you wanted, without annoyitating commercials, for cost far lower than cable TV?
Before very long, but still long ago from now, Netflix had quite a lot of really good movie titles.
Like this photographer, I'm sure Hollywood thought they would license their movies "for a little extra money". After all, this streaming thing wasn't going to last or ever take off.
Netflix streaming blossomed. Hollywood must have been green with envy -- how hard could it be to set up a streaming service? Eventually many of those good titles on Netflix disappeared to be replaced with less desirable content. Raise your hands if you remember this?
Like this photographer, I'm sure Hollywood was shocked that someone else could make a lot of money from a licensed copyright work.
On the post: AT&T Attempts A Head Fake With 'Fake 5G'
AT&T is always innovating
On the post: UK Spies Say They're Dropping Bulk Data Collection For Bulk Equipment Interference
Warrant process?
I think you meant a rubber stamp process.
To do high volume rubber stamping, the UK should study from the master: the USPTO.
On the post: Latest EU Copyright Proposal: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, But Don't Use Upload Filters
MPAA / RIAA don't even know what is 'suspected'
On the post: Microsoft Posts List Of Facial Recognition Tech Guidelines It Thinks The Government Should Make Mandatory
Microsoft would never collaborate with government
It is inconceivable (NSAKEY) that Microsoft would ever collaborate with the government to spy on everyone.
On the post: It's Been 50 Years: Take Some Time This Weekend To Watch Doug Engelbart's Mother Of All Demos
Primitive Technology
If you look at BYTE magazine from the period of 1975 to 1980 it is instructive to see just how much things advanced. The early home brew microcomputers were all unique. No software compatibility. Everyone had a custom way of interfacing a keyboard to their computer for example.
By 1977 we see the 'holy trinity' appear: Commodore PET, Apple II, and TRS-80. This was the start of software standardization on a large scale. (In just a couple years Radio Shack boasts of selling more computers than any other computer company ever -- so I would say that really was a standard platform for software more so than any prior computer, but similarly for Apple II and Commodore PET.)
It still took until 1983 to get the Apple Lisa. And that was just a bit ahead of its time -- what I mean is that the hardware still hadn't caught up to the dream. It didn't exactly fly off shelves. I don't recall much 3rd party commercial software for it. In 1984 the original 128 K Mac, and that was just barely enough hardware capability to effectively build mass market GUI software for.
That is a real testament to how far ahead of its time this demo really was. On such primitive computing hardware of the day.
It is a trip back in time, but if you want to look at old BYTE magazines, they are here:
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Byte_Magazine.htm
or higher res scans here:
https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine
and just for fun, Popular Electronics here:
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Popular-Electronics-Guide.htm
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