* Posts by Trevor_Pott

6991 publicly visible posts • joined 31 May 2010

Is there ANOTHER UNIVERSE headed BACKWARDS IN TIME?

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

@Nightkiler

Benevolent dictatorship. Totalitarianism is so arch...

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

@Mark 85

The US Tea Party is massive. There are an order of magnitude more Tea Partiers than there are UKIP. The Tea Party is also fragmented; it is a series of anarchistic local chapters that each believe something slightly different. If you knew anything about the fragmentation of the Protestant faiths across America into these little tiny one-church or two-church religions, you'd understand.

The UKIP is comparatively cohesive, but oddly enough nowhere near as well funded. You need to pour a lot of money into the Tea Party to keep the who lot of them pointed in roughly the same direction. (This is what the Kotch Brothers do for the movement.)

The UKIP, by comparison have direction, rough unity, a party structure and the trappings of a formal bureaucracy.

The Tea Party is a bunch of anarchists loosely held together by massive amounts of propaganda and the hard work of party hardliners. The UKIP is mostly a bunch of racists who have adopted a veneer of libertarianism-based pesudo-legitimacy in order to gain power. In essence, the UKIP would be a faction of the Tea Party in the states, but the main bulk of the Tea Party actually are far more concerned with tax avoidance and keeping the government off their property than bigotry.

The two organizations are only rough analogues. The details and differentiations are actually quite fascinating...and terrifying.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

@Boris the Cockroach

And you've hit the nail on the head. But this isn't an "immigration versus not immigration" issue. If it wasn't local minimum wage workers, it would be outsourced to another country where wages or low (India), or automation is high (American Public Cloud).

Even your low-paid migrant workers unaware of their rights are vulnerable to having their jobs outsourced, or losing out to "the cloud". How do we solve this? Closing our borders won't help. Protectionist economic policies will trigger retaliation, and are legal nightmares given the complex strictures of treaties that have been negotiated over the past several years.

It's a complex problem that won't find a single, simple solution amenable to a sound bite. But it absolutely is a problem that needs to be addressed. We're trying hard to tackle it here in Canada now. The States are going through this on a massively public scale. Australia are trying the ultimate xenophobe approach. The UK are trying to ostrich it out.

The Scandinavian countries are trying to compromise and promote a sense of social responsibility amongst corporations. The French are trying massive regulation. Of all the approaches beign tried, none have worked to the satisfaction of the populace...and maybe none ever will. It's human nature to always want more than we have.

But for the first time in a while a major election has occurred in which "it's the economy, stupid" wasn't the #1 driver. Japan is showing that other things can affect our consciousness. There are critical questions that need to be addressed regarding immigration, outsourcing, human rights abuses by domestic and foreign corporations and the minimum wage.

If your mainstream parties aren't brave enough to address them in an adult manner maybe what's needed is for you to step up and stat a party that will.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Ah!

You say "Some things should be for debate others not." Yet you feel that "the removal of UDHR" is something that should be up for discussion. Lovely person you are. Just lovely.

"Do you also say 'I am not a racist. But...'? Didnt you say you opposed them because you believe they would try to impose their beliefs on others? You claim they are a party to remove choice so you would remove choice because they are against your beliefs?"

The UKIP is attempting to create for itself a "right" to remove the right to choice from others. So absolutely, I would deny them any avenue to power before they are given the opportunity to enact that plan. Nobody has the right to remove rights from others, and denying people the option to give themselves such a "right" is not "removing choice"...it's defending it.

"How is it wrong that in our democracy the main parties are having to stand for something and actually have some difference in their policies? Or is that against your beliefs of choice?"

It is the choice of those who create parties and run them to stand for something...or nothing at all. You can create a party whose sole purpose is the promotion of the consumption of limes. That's democracy.

If you don't like the equivocation of extant parties then either join one of those parties and raise a ruckus enough that you shame the cowards into taking a stand, or form your own party. That's the very definition of choice.

But you know what? I'd take "waffly and largely ineffective populist party" over "stands for something and that something is evil" any day. I'd personally prefer a party that takes a stand along the lines of "socially progressive and fiscally conservative" but your populace apparently hasn't organized one of those yet.

"You seem almost fanatical as you see nazi's everywhere"

No, just the UKIP, an actual neonazi organization in Germany, the Wildrose party here at home and three branches of the Tea Party in the US. They're the only organizations I am currently aware of that are "on disturbingly Nazi-like trajectories".

"so I assume you are opposing the torture, bombing, invasions and camps for the experimentation of torture methods against certain ethnicities?"

Nope, I oppose "torture, bombing, invasions and camps for the experimentation of torture methods" against all sentient life. I'm not only unwilling to limit my sympathies to specific ethnicities, I am capable of compassion for other species, too.

"You also comment about personal attacks, I assume you can read what you have written?"

You mean the part where I have called an organization and the ideals it espouses out onto the carpet to be disinfected by the sunlight? Why yes, I can read that. That's far from a personal attack. When I make a personal attack, sirrah, you'll know. It will involve the word "twatdangle". That's a key giveaway.

"The discomfort you sense is that of a stranger being slightly disturbed by your dictatorial and potentially offensive views."

Anyone discomfited by a staunch defense of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a public questioning of the ethics of those who seek to regress away from that document is a person (or persons) that I am absolutely fucking chuffed to bits about offending.

"While I am discussing how democracy benefits from choice and the main 3 being forced to offer choice"

I am unsure why you are so enamored of the idea of forcing others to do things.

"you seem to be attacking me because you want me to be everything you seem to have very personal issues with."

I am not attacking you at all. I am calling the UKIP into question in public. You keep responding as though this is a personal attack on you. You seem to have some element of your own self-image tied up with that organization, as though by questioning them I am questioning you.

More to the point, perhaps, the UKIP is not "everything I have issues with" Not by a long shot. They represent a decent % of the traits I find deplorable in humanity, yes...but I can find things to deplore everywhere.

The UKIP are a threat. That makes them worthy of special attention. If all they were was an old white boy's club sitting in their pub under the heads of African animals whining about the loss of empire, I'd not give a fig. But they have been accruing power, and the rest of the world may pay for that in lives.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

@JLV

This, but more horrible.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Ah!

"I agree with you that a more extreme party can sometimes open up discussions that mainstream parties have been traditionally reticent to address. Both Labour and Tory supporters have issues with immigration, but no party has wanted to be the first to speak about it because of how close they would have to skirt to accusations from the other parties of bigotry and racism (and believe me their political opponents would be unable to resist jumping on that bandwagon!)"

Canada has immigration problems too. And there is the same reluctance to touch that live wire because of the issues surrounding racism, etc. Despite this, our conservative party absolutely did open the topic up for debate, and simultaneously lashed out at those within it's own base that sought bigotry and xenophobia, beating them back under the rocks from which they came. This proves to me that such debates can be raised and handled in a manner which doesn't give oxygen to the sorts of ideologies that would regress our nations to before the UDHR.

So really, to rephrase the question of the UKIP's value as an agitator let's be a lot more honest:

"Is giving voice and power to a party and platform of rampant xenophobia and bigotry an acceptable price to pay for ignoring the outright cowardice of politicians in mainstream parties? It this an acceptable price to pay for their consistent inability to raise difficult subjects in a controlled manner so as to be able to have the conversation in a rational - and non-radicalised - fashion?"

The answer to that question may well be measured in lives.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

@hollerith 1

Sir, I would make a terrible god. Well, actually, it would be a bit more Jabba than Cthulu, but still...I submit I am a non-ideal deity.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Ah!

"As I said I think they can be a force for good regardless if they win or lose. Their mere presence has opened up debate on decisions of this country which the public get little to no say."

The problem is that the debate you seek is on whether or not to turn your company back to a time before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That isn't something that should ever be up for debate. That is an absolute hard line in our history. There is no going back.

Debate about budgets and local politics, about social programs and so forth? Good. Fine. But debate about whether or not the principles of the UDHR should be applicable to a nation? No. That's not optional. The principles in the UDHR are fundamental. They are - quite literally - worth dying to preserve...by the tens and hundreds of millions, if necessary.

No force which seeks to turn the clock back to before the UDHR can ever be or will ever be a force for good.

"You ask me to back up my claim of your intolerance, I point to your posts."

Attempting circular reasoning because you don't actually have the ability to defend your points? Oh, bravo. Extra troll points.

"My original response to the original comment was of course the established order being shook up with choice."

I'm probably the most ardently passionate commenter on El Reg about the need for choice in all things. But in this, the UKIP are not adding choice to the mix. As a party they stand quite loudly and proudly for the removal of choice from others.

You say that their mere existence adds choice and thus it is bigotry to speak out against them. I find it hilarious you're so gullible. They aim to limit choice for a great many people all in the name of providing greater choice.

War is peace, sir...and freedom is slavery.

You do a lot of ranting about your hatred of centrist policies. You do have an extremist left party as well as a centrist party and a right-wing party. You felt the need for an extreme right wing party too? That adds the required mix to make you happy?

I absolutely do believe that all parties should have their feet held to the fire and be forced to explain themselves...but given the horribleness of the UKIP's stances, there is a criticality to debunking their crap. The same requirement for urgency just doesn't apply to the other parties.

It is that hard line I talked about above. Where they seek openly to renege on the basic tenets of the UDHR and regress the UK back to a point where not all people are equal.

You wonder why I would be passionate about debunking the UKIP's lies? The honest truth is that it is because I do not want my nation to have to expend the lives of it's young men and women fighting the nation that the UKIP would build. It is because what the UKIP stands for is social regression of such extremes that it becomes the duty of the citizenry of the world to warn - and ward - against.

I don't particularly care what you believe, but I do care that you attempt to dress up the UKIP as somehow more acceptable than it actually is. Do remember that before World War II started, the Nazi party was the small extremist party of passionate people who agitated for "change". They focused on the economy and reshaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower.

They did not start off with invasions of other nations and outright genocide. They started off being a nationalistic ultra right wing party that sought to "throw off the shackles of it's European oppressors".

Oh, there was racism, but it was - at least initially - not hugely overt. They downplayed it to the public and you only really got doses of it if you were a believer and went to the meetings.

Everyone knew that the Nazi party were racist, but they managed to toe the line in public rather well...and they had A Plan For Change. One that involved not only building Germany's economy, but restoring pride to everyday Germans.

They got themselves elected. Then they played power politics and took over. Then it all went - pretty literally - straight to hell.

Now, I realize that this is the point where a UKIP supporter will simply cry "Godwin's law", but Godwin's law doesn't apply where the comparison is valid. And I am not comparing the UKIP to the Nazi party during WWII, but to the early Nazi party circa 1920, with the biggest difference being that the UKIP lacks a charismatic and driven leader like Hitler.

Like the Nazi party of 1920, the UKIP is focused mainly on what we would today call "libertarian" principles, but it doesn't take much digging at all to see that it is "libertarianism for the select few" being espoused; abject subjugation for the rest.

Now, there are differences in the party policies (thank $deity!) but the concepts of xenophobia and bigotry tying together an almost anarchistic individualism tied together with a demand for provisioning of state services for the privileged (cognitive dissonance alert!)...those are very much the same.

The parallels are highly worrisome. Especially given that repealing Human Rights is their oft-stated goal.

So you'll just have to forgive me (or not, I really don't care) if I feel that whether or not some fuckpotato in parliament is embezzling a few hundred thousand for a second home is completely fucking irrelevant when compared to the fact that not only does this part of bigotry and hatred exist, but that is is gaining enough support to elect people.

If the UK were some third world country with some aging MIGs and a few vietnam era tanks, I wouldn't be worried. Go right ahead and destroy yourselves. But your nation has enough firepower to turn every single population center in my nation into smoking craters and the means to get that firepower across the pond to accomplish the task.

Choice is fine and wonderful, but some lessons you learn. And when the same old monsters come round again, you resist. Even if all you can offer is calling "bullshit" in the forums when people try to make the UKIP out to be "a force for good".

Last but not least, don't think your attempts to dodge discussion of the issues by attacking me personally go unnoticed. I'd say "I'm sorry for making you uncomfortable", but really, I'm not.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Ah!

Awww, does it hurt your feelers when I tell you you're an asshole?

I find it pitiful and cowardly that you seek to vilify someone as intolerant because the one thing they don't tolerate is intolerance. It never ceases to amaze me how often the world's douche canoes try that old shtick. "If you don't let us [practice our religion/maintain our culture/preserve our nation] by [denigrating others/creating predjudiced or outright racist laws/clamping down on immigration/forcing our religion upon others with the mechanisms of the state] then you're the intolerant one who doesn't respect our [race/religion/culture/beliefs/etc]".

Fucking clownshoes.

It is not intolerance to tell someone they're douchebags for wanting to control others. It is not attempting to control you by preventing you from controlling others.

To use the extreme arguments - because they have some grounds in history - you are not "intolerant of slavers' beliefs" because you create laws that prevent slavers from owning slaves. You are not "intolerant of a person's religion" because you prevent that person from forcing their religion on others. And you are not intolerant of someone's race/history/culture by creating laws that ensure everyone is treated equally under the law.

It is those who seek to force their religion on others, who seek to keep an identifiable group as an underclass (or outright as slaves) and those who seek to preserve "racial/national/ethnic purity" by keeping anyone different out who are intolerant. You can attempt to twist the language and change the conversation all you want, but every single person here can see through your bullshit for what it is.

The UKIP are a party founded on intolerance. They preach intolerance. Their most prominant members are rabidly intolerant and the visible population of their supporters are intolerant. Not merely intolerant, they absolutely have demonstrated themselves to be a party of "bigots, xenopobes and paranoid control freaks".

I don't disagree with the need for a shakeup in politics. Every nation needs them from time to time. But I absolutely will not abide by attempts to romanticize or rationalize any group whose aim is to "shake up" said politics by repealing the social gains towards equality that so many people have died for.

If you are a bigot who wants to tell others what they can and can't do then man up and fucking own it. Don't waffle and try to pretend you're something else.

I own my beliefs, sir: that no group should be able to tell another group what they can and can't do. And I see absolutely no contradiction in the fact that by enforcing that, I would prevent those who want to force their beliefs on others from doing so.

Now, if you propose to call me a bigot for my beliefs, then back up that claim sir. And start it by explaining to me how I am a bigot for saying "believe what you want, but you must allow others to do the same" but someone forcing their beliefs on another is not bigotry. That's some massively fucked up cognitive dissonance right there.

Now, if you want to try to convince me the UKIP are, in fact, socially progressive fuzzy wuzzies who would never force their beliefs on others, or act in a prejudiced fashion towards others please, do explain pretty much every word out of the mouth of every single prominent UKIP spokeOldBoy in the past five years.

Believe it or not, I can have my opinion of the party changed. You just need to present enough evidence to convince me not to base my beliefs on the face value of their members' statements.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Ah!

"Like them or not UKIP can be a force for good"

No, they can't.

"They target people based on their individual concerns and personal beliefs, while the main 3 aim for popularism and the magic 'centre'. "

Yes, instead of simply accepting as fact that we have moved beyond Bigtory-as-a-Service and are into a world where we are accepting of others as human beings, regardless of any qualifier, the UKIP cater to bigots, xenopobes and paranoid control freaks.

The UKIP demand order. The order of absolute, rigid control. With theirs being the boot on everyone's throat, and the guns pointed at the faces of anyone not "just like them". Nice bunch. I see a lot of "good" in their future. /s

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Ah!

"Disorder to a well ordered government system?"

Sounds about right. And like a perfectly ordered universe, the UKIP is hostile to life. A singularity is the epitome of perfect order, but you wouldn't want to live there.

Pirate Bay towed to oldpiratebay.org

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: NO.

"any shred of DRM, any at all is entirely unacceptable. I also have a few choice words concerning any attempts to limit free sharing of things with zero multiplication cost, but that's a battle for a another day"

Which leaves no money for creators. An indie band could eek out a living by going form pub to pub. But you sure as hell won't get Guardians of the Galaxy if everyone can just take their non-DRMed copy and share it with the whole planet.

If we want top tier entertainment we need to make compromises. I think that the entertainment industry have to make compromises too, if they want us to buy their stuff.

But the compromise must end with consumers paying for the content they consume. And the only reasonable and rational means to do this so far is DRM. Of course, DRM wouldn't be so hated if it weren't such a pain in the ass. And it's a pain in the ass mostly because it is trying to enforce insane rules about what can be copied when and where.

So if we get the entertainment industry to relax their rules I think we can relax our "no DRM, ever" policies and meet in the middle: just enough DRM to prevent widespread piracy, but not enough to impact the enjoyment of the works. In exchange, we pay for the works we consume...and the media empires let us "keep" the copes we now "own".

That's a fair deal. That is a sustainable deal. The extremes of the arguments are not. Copyright minimalists will cause - are causing - a massive backlash. Copyright abolitionists don't leave a realistic economy for creative works. So we compromise. That's what rational adults do when the extremes are non-viable.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Greed

Every big of academic work on this that I've seen says that if they just provided what people wanted, they'd change reduce piracy from 40% to 10%. So...they can have 90% of people pay an reasonable amount and consume large quantities of content, or have around 60% of people pay an unreasonable amount and consume small quantities of content.

Again, going back to the studies on this, the option where people pay a less, consume more and 30% fewer pirate results in significantly more revenue than the option where they rape 60% of people for everything they can get and ultimately end up with those people buying less and less mainstream content.

It seems to me that if they're greedy they should choose the option that makes them more money. Otherwise they risk the rise of independent media turning from just something hipsters engage in into "the norm". If that happens, big content's right fucked.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

EZTV has been up for a few days, too. Via the proxies, at least. All hail the conquering zeros.

*shrug* Of course, in order to combat piracy the folks who create content could offer a service that offers downloadable, transferable files in high quality, with a very simple and easy to use interface (think EZTV) at a price the average person can afford.

Hell, they can even make the files DRMed, so long as you make quality players for all OSes and offer a reasonable means of ensuring multiple devices can access the content. Little widgety bob calls home with my login information when I watch? Okey dokey. They already know what I bought because I paid for it, so I've no real issue with them knowing I'm watching it on my iPhone versus my TV.

Then if they see it used by hundreds of devices from around the world, they'll know my account details were lost and they can reset them. That will help prevent the "piracy" aspect.

Content companies could place the DRM code in escrow such that if they go out of business or decide it's no longer a viable business to be doing the content thing the DRM code is released and everyone can crack open their media and be able to play it once the DRM servers are offline.

There are reasonable paths forward that provide the level of service that 90%+ of the population want while providing a viable revenue stream to the rightsholders. (For a great many reasons, I don't consider streaming to be viable at all. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I am most interested in videos/TV when I am in places where internet access is crap.)

Piracy can't be eliminated. There will always be some % of the population that engages in it. Why not just accept this and work to massively minimize it by providing people what they want at a price they're willing to pay?

All your content in one place. Pay the fee, "own" your copy, watch it on all your devices. The minimum of restrictions required to make it work, but enough control to prevent the most obvious piracy.

So...what's the real issue? Why the hell is this something that can't happen?

Sony Pictures hit by 'fightback on filesharers' DDoS claims – report

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

A citizen's arrest in Canada doesn't include the right to do violence to the other individual. It also has some very strict rules on things like "forcibly confining the person", etc. By the same token, you don't get to go seize your stolen property from someone else; you are to get the police involved, etc. Unlike the USA, the concept of a citizen's arrest is tightly regulated, as are your "rights" regard defense of your property/home/etc.

I am almost 100% sure that Sony DDoSing someone (or a group of someone's via poisoning a torrent) would be illegal here in Canada if it wasn't done with the consent and cooperation of the police as part of an ongoing investigation.

This has a great "layman's version" of Canada's citizens arrest rules: http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/other-autre/wyntk.html

Edit: I'd also like to state that case law basically says that you can't run down thieves. As a security guard or store owner you can detain them, if they are pretty much cooperative, but you cannot hop in your car and chase them around the block, jump out when they're tired, clock 'em, stick 'em in the truck and haul 'em back to the store to wait for the cops. That's very hollywood, but the basic rule of thumb is: once they're effective out of your control it's a matter for the police, not for citizens.

IIRC, there may be some exceptions for trained PIs searching for high value items, but these folks typically have to declare themselves with the local police department and keep them informed of the progress of their investigation. (I am fuzzy on the details of this group's responsibilities.)

The law on the books for citizen's arrests here has been very much restricted by case law.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Not what I have read..

Because it is not the place of Sony to be policing the distribution of stolen goods. They have to rely on the police like everyone else. Anything else is vigilantism and that is flat out illegal pretty much everywhere but the USA. Even there, most jurisdictions would call it interference with the law.

Sony doesn't get to play by a different set of rules than regular citizens. Either digital vigilantism is legal, or it's not. If it's not illegal, you can't go after Anonymous any more than you can go after Sony.

Pick a side, and live by the law. Even when you find that law inconvenient.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

"I find the thought that Sony would launch a DDoS fairly hard to believe."

Why? Sony have repeatedly demonstrated that they have no morals or ethics whatsoever.

"Poisoning the well by adding a bunch of fake torrents"

This is digital vigilantism no different from a DDoS. Interfering in the distribution of stolen property is the job of the police, not an individual or corporation. In Canada, you'd go to jail for this. You aren't allowed to run down robbers, shoot people because they're on your property and you don't want them to be, etc. Be mindful that almost every country on the planet has laws against being a cowboy vigilante.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: No fan of Sony, but...

Interfering with dissemination of stolen digital property is the job of the police, not of Sony. What you are describing is an act of digital vigilantism, no different from any of the things Anonymous gets up to when trying to be the good guys.

So pick a side: is digital vigilantism illegal, or not? If it is, then it is as illegal for a corporation as it is for an individual, full stop.

Sony hackers PINCH early version of James Bond Spectre script

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: No, no and no

"Some" schadenfreude? No, sir. My schadenfreude is currently being alien cultures because it is a transluminal beacon of unprecedented power. There is no "some" here, Kemosabe. If you could find a way to focus my schadenfreude particle emissions into a coherent stream you could vaporize black holes.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: No, no and no

The bond script is as a result of Sony being hacked. They were hacked because their corporate hubris decided they didn't need proper security, just like it dictates that they treat their customers like shit.

Thus if badness happens to Sony due to the Bond script being leaked, good. Anything that helps ram home the concept that corporate hubris - especially in Sony-like quantities - is a bad thing is necessary and good. If they treat their own staff so badly that their staff start leaking things, that's cool too. If a meteor from space wipes their corporate headquaters off the map, that's also good. (Though it would be useful if it managed to not kill anyone while accomplishing this act of excellence.)

Decades of treating their customers like crap has left me without the capability to feel sympathy for Sony. I feel only amusement at every negative thing that befalls them, and a dark anticipation of their hopefully inevitable demise.

Bad things happening to Sony do not damage my calm. Quite the opposite: the feeling I am experiencing can best be described as me gusta.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: No, no and no

Sure it is. Sony have contracts with the people who mop the floors. These people get paid regardless. Some actors who are big enough names might get a % of profits, but - to be frank - that's a gamble anyways, and they have more than enough money regardless.

No, this pretty much only hurts Sony's brass and its shareholders. People who deserve a switch kick in the crotch (or eleventeen thereof) for their various and sundry crimes.Youa re spouting nothing more than copyright maxiamlist propaganda. Throughly debunked stuff at that.

Look, if Sony goes under, I do agree a bunch of people will be inconvenienced as they lose their jobs and have to find new ones. That sucks. It really does.

But Sony is evil. Outright and unrepentantly. Should we tolerate an evil corporation for the sake of jobs? Or should we cheer it's demise and work to ensure that in it's place something better emerges?

Now, I don't believe for a second this will "kill" Sony. But Sony does need a lesson in humility. Their corporate hubris and the callous nature with which they treat customers are not to be tolerated. Maybe - just maybe - this incident could start them learning the lessons that need be learned.

I suspect that a willingness to mop floors or fetch coffee for below a living wage will be as valuable to other companies as it is to Sony, and those individual won't be harmed. A great many managers and executives, however, will. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: No, no and no

"This is not just a World Company X got hacked scenario, there is something much more offputting about this...."

Really? I think it's fitting and just. Sony have been such utter fuckbags to their own customers for so many years that I think this is a great start to the penance they should be paying. I am amused. I will continue to be amused for some time. I hope the bad guys left behind a Sony rootkit on as many computers as they could find.

Sony to media: stop publishing our stolen stuff or we'll get nasty

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Sony should hire the leakers.

That's not a question of "Sony are not evil and thus don't deserve to die". It's a question of "evil is the only option".

The big question to hand is why everyone is hating on Malaysia? Are there embargos against it? Reasons the payment processors of the day refuse to play ball? Seems to me companies like Microsoft and Nintendo don't just geoblock an entire nation without good reason...

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Sony should hire the leakers.

Don't give them ideas! Just let Sony die. It's time. They need to die. Please, for the love of all that's holy let this be Sony's end.

Docker, Part 2: Whoa! Spontaneous industry standard! How did they do THAT?

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

EU Google-bashing is making us look really bad, say Google bashers

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Of course...

"If you have built up a community around your profile on one service, then it is very difficult to up stumps and move to another, without losing that community and having to start over.

Or if you are a GMail user, for example and hundreds of people have your address, it is a pain to have to go through your contact list and inform them that you are moving to a new address, and all because Google change the T&Cs to mean that they can scrape your email for other services not related to GMail."

Okay, fair point. So I think there's a case to be made there that those users who were using Google services before the great Ts&Cs merger might have cause to request segregation of their data, if that's their beef. But not anyone after said merger. Because they would have gone into this (in theory) knowing what they're getting.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Of course...

"Users are either forced to accept this bludgeoning of their rights or they have to quit the service."

They are not forced to use the service. Alternatives exist. More or less decent ones, too. This isn't "Microsoft OS on the desktop" here. You aren't de facto locked in because it's the only thing that's realistically usable and/or everyone else uses it.

if you use bing maps on your website, nobody gives a wallop. If you use Yahoo News, nobody cares. So what's the big deal? Is it, perhaps, a desire for cake and simultaneous consumption thereof?

If you want something to get your panties in a bunch about, let's start having conversations about "integrated search". Android, ChromeOS and, yes, Windows. Why should a search of my local PC/NAS/Corporate Network/etc be streaming the information about what I'm searching for to Bing/Google/the NSA/etc? Local is local. Web is web. The twain should not meet.

Now there is a privacy issue.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Of course...

If you hadn't killed that man, I obviously wouldn't be accusing you of it, now would I?

Bloke, 36, in the cooler for leaking ex's topless pics on Facebook

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Why not just unauthorized

"Do you at least allow your actions and behavior to be modulated or modified by your family group? Your close friends? A spouse? Or do you always assert your dominance over them as well?"

Nope. I do not allow my behavior to be modified by anyone. I pursue what I believe regardless of others. If they believe in what I believe, they can choose to affiliate themselves with me. If not, why would they choose to spend time with me?

"Our entire species is based on our ability to work and play within a social context, including the suppression of our own desires and wants for the betterment of those around us that we know."

Individual humans may choose to suppress their own desires in order to help others. But that must remain their choice. You don't force that upon them at the barrel of a gun.

I think you'll find that, given the choice, the overwhelming majority of people choose to help others. Those that don't get ostracized. But therein lies the key: the utilization of social pressures rather than force to ensure harmony. That means that all extremes are unwelcome. Including the moralistic extreme that desperately wants to control the actions of others. For example, via controlling sexual practices.

The instant you bring the threat of force into play as a means of ensuring compliance with one group's demands you are removing the "social animal" portion of the equation.

"We only built civilizations when we were able to take our urges to fuck, eat, and kill and subsume them for what was to be future gains."

Actually, we probably built civilization as a means to more easily obtain grains for making beer. Self restraint is a fairly novel concept to most civilizations, and certainly Victorian levels of restraint are outright bizarre, in historical context. Traditionally, civilizations have created entire social structures to allow the carefully directed release of pent up violent, sexual, etc. energies in order to ensure social harmony.

Telling everyone to be repressed all the time "for the children" - or whatever is the nonsense of the day - is actually pretty odd. Enforcing that with violence leads nowhere good. Every time it's been tried, violent revolution has followed.

"Finally, it's cute the way you froth at the mouth when I tell you about society, as if you've never heard about it."

It's cute that you think I'm "frothing at the mouth" by telling you to get off my lawn. You are so wrapped up in your own righteousness that what you accuse me of, who you accuse me of being and what you accuse me of believing are hilarious. If you knew anything about me, if you had read my posting history to come even remotely close to understanding what I believe in, you would probably implode under your own inability to rationalize your view of the world as defined through your narrow sterotypes.

An unwillingness to bow to a collectivist viewpoint or to subsume my personal morality to your own (or anyone else's) doesn't mean I am a right wing libertarian, selfish, or care only for myself. But oh, you feel the need to believe that, to stamp with that and to attack your perception of me rather than who I myself am.

"And that schtick about killing you is precious."

So, I take it you're one of those people who demands that violence be done to others to force them to comply with your morality but are too much of a fucking coward to hold the knife yourself, eh? If I had any respect for you, it's completely gone.

"I guess I know who to talk to if I want to see hyperbole taken to it's own extreme."

Yes, that's what I do. I look at the extreme version of your position in order to show you the irrationality of what you espouse. You are demanding that people be given the option of compliance with your morality or incarceration. The extension of that, of course, if that if they choose to forgo incarceration then physical violence will be done to them. If they resist the physical violence done to them, they will be killed.

The logical extension of this is that if anyone believes in their own morality enough to refuse to have it be subsumed to your morality you are willing to have someone else kill them for not believing what you believe. Apparently, however, you're too much of a coward to do it yourself.

And for what, hmm? Individuals demanding the right to engage in activities which don't harm anyone but themselves. But because their beliefs differ from yours, violence should be done to them. How does that make you different from the peckerheads that launched the crusades? Or the Inquisition?

You want to see your beliefs enforced through the apparatus of the state, just as they did. Ah, but that logic makes you uncomfortable. So it's better to attack me personally. It's easier to view me as a hateful, selfish monster than to turn that judgmental gaze inward and examine the bleakness of your own soul.

"In general, you just prove my earlier assertion about how libertarians are nothing more than a bunch of selfish pricks who believe they are owed something and have no real interest in governance, society, or humanity, beyond its capacity to provide a cheap thrill or quick high."

Actually, I don't prove that at all. You seem to think I do, but that's because you're operating on A) false sterotypes and B) associating me with the wrong sterotype.

One problem you have is an inability to see gradations. "Libertarian" is a huge spectrum. On the right, there is the tea party: staunchly independent, rabidly anti-state, even anarchist to a large degree. They are - by and large - a collection of cognitive dissonance. The Tea Party believe in the "right" to tell others what to do, but also believe in the right not to have anyone tell them what to do. They have no real solutions to operating an economy, groups of individuals or any facet of a modern nation.

On the left, you have left libertarians. The group I belong to. We believe strongly in the state as a means of handling various social problems, but also believe that the state should be kept as minimal as possible. Where it doesn't need to intrude into people's lives, it should not be allowed to.

Some things we need a state for. National defense, education, health care, emergency services, policing, various flavors of scientific endeavor, environmental protection and a few other things. Left libertarians understand that we must subsume part of our individuality to the whole in order to see these necessary services accomplished. This is generally done through taxes, and by accepting laws such as environmental regulations.

But left libertarians vehemently oppose the unification of church and state. The nation has no business in the bedrooms of the citizenry. We vehemently oppose censorship, internet tracking and pretty much anything else that attempts to tell everyday citizens what they may or may not think - or do.

Where our thoughts or actions do not harm others they absolutely should not be restricted or restrained. We should not be forced to believe what someone else tells us to believe, no matter the circumstance.

Left libertarians champion freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom of belief while understanding that freedom of action may need to be curtailed under very specific circumstances in order to meet the needs of society at large.

If you cannot understand the difference between left and right libertarians then you're a fool, and no amount of debating can educate you.

To sum up my personal beliefs, you can always refer to the following:

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (or the one).

The needs of the few (or the one) outweigh the desires of the many.

The desires of the many outweigh the desires of the few.

The freedom of the mind of the individual is sacrosanct.

Now, if you want to keep on equating me with the right wing libertarian anarchist types, you go right ahead, but you'll only be proving out your own idiocy in public. I am strongly anti collectivist, yes. But that doesn't mean I don't understand the narrow, carefully applied uses of social infrastructure.

It just means I am a human being, not a drone.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Why not just unauthorized

"but try to pause for a moment to recognize the hypocrisy of telling me that my morality is meaningless while yours trumps it"

Nope, don't see it. My morality is all that matters to me. You can follow it if you wish, but I have no reason whatsoever to follow your morality.

"You participate in society and society provides a framework around your actions."

And why should I care, or obey?

"Society has a set of rules. You can rebel against the rules, rail against them, raise holy hell, even outright ignore them. Consequences can be minor like being ostracized by people you don't like. It can also be incarceration, confiscation of property, freedom, or even your life in extreme situations. Them's the rules. You don't like them, use the levers of power provided and recognized by society to change them."

And there's the crux of it, isn't it? I need to do what you say because if I don't I will be threatened with one of two options: voluntarily allowing myself to be incarcerated by people I don't respect or death. In other words, for all your vaunted "rules", it is still "obey or die". I should convert to your belief system why again? Sounds like you're an almighty peckerhead of the first degree.

As for rebelling, resisting and seeking change, that's exactly what I do. This little windy thread of fockosity is where it is because you didn't like my questioning of authority and encouraging others to do the same. You just felt you had to tell me to acquiesce and comply, because currently it's people with your morality that have the guns.

I'll bet you care a fuck of a lot less for the importance of authority when it's people of my morality telling you to "obey or die". Of course, we'll wrap it up in laws and politics so that it's all disambiguated and proper, but I, for one, look forward to the day you have to choose between the barrel of a gun or your belief in right and wrong.

"But if things don't change, they don't change. You don't win hearts and minds by prattling on about how your morality is superior to mine on the basis that my morality shouldn't be used to override yours."

Really? Because that's what you're doing. I'm just following your example. And my morality is superior because it's my morality. Your morality may be a superior fit for you. I'm not telling you what to believe. I'm telling you to back the fuck off and let others believe what they want.

The alternative is fomenting revolution. Repressed people become very angry. And if you repress them long enough, then when they take control they don't allow you the space and freedom to practice your beliefs. Instead, they emulate their oppressors and demand that you obey, or die.

Give up your morals, or go to prison. Go to prison, or die. It's okay for you to demand this of others? Why? Why not give others the space to live their lives as they want, hmm? Keep it up, and your successors won't give you the option either.

"You want to live by your own set of rules and have no one ever tell you where you might be wrong, you need to remove yourself from society."

Aha! There's a kernel of truth right there. You believe people who disagree with your morality are wrong. That there is an absolute right and wrong, and those who do not recognize it believe the wrong thing, and should be punished accordingly. The truth comes out, finally!

I don't care if someone tells me I'm wrong. I care when they try to enforce their belief with violence. The rights of the individual end at the point where that individual attempts to tred on the rights of another individual.

You have the right to believe what you wish, but not to tell me what I may or may not believe. You have the right to prevent me from harming another, but not from undertaking actions which do not harm others. That is what I believe, I will die to defend that, if necessary.

You are allowed to believe I am wrong with all your might. You are right to tell me I am wrong until you are blue in the face. But I will fight you to my dying breath if you attempt to prevent me from undertaking actions which harm noone and where all participants in those actions are consenting adults. From jumping on a trampoline to an 11,000-man homosexual space orgy.

You will have to kill me to see my alter my behavior because your morality ordered it so. Are you prepared to do that? To kill a man for doing something which harms noone? Are you man enough to hold the knife yourself? Can you do it without trembling? Can you look me in the eyes when you do so? How deep does your conviction go, son?

"Otherwise, life is about compromise and realizing that some things just aren't going to be your cup of tea. If you can't change it, you can't change it."

Wrong. Life is about standing up for what you believe in. To the death if necessary. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Compromise only applies where the fundamental rights of two people are in conflict. You have no fundamental right to tell me what I may or may not do, when those actions do not harm another.

Now we have the responsibility to work out a compromise where there is a conflict between the rights of two people. If my actions may harm others - including through indirect methods, such as harming the environment - then we need to find a compromise between the actions I wish to undertake and the fundamental rights of others such that I can achieve as many of my goals as possible via a limited set of actions, but the rights of others aren't harmed. That is part of being an adult.

Nowhere in there is there an obligation - or a right - to limit actions which do not harm others. That "right" only exists in the minds of the fanatic; one who spreads their beliefs at the point of a gun.

"If you can't change it, you can't change it."

If you can't change it, you fight it. Through every means at your disposal. You use your actions and your words to inspire others to take up the fight alongside you. You never accept the limitation of rights and freedoms simply to make someone else more comfortable. Our ancestors died for those rights. It may be that in standing for them, we die too. We all go some time, and I'd rather go with my head held high saying "no, I refuse to comply" than in my bed at the age of eleventy, with a jackboot at my throat or some priest telling me what's to be.

" I agree that there are some actions currently criminalized by the government that maybe shouldn't be due to either arbitrary bright lines (alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine good, everything else bad) or political process by a group better connected than another. But that's how things are done. Try to change them, move the needle. In the US, that's worked for gay marriage and the pot smoking thing is starting to take off. Things change, they take time.

Sometimes, however, things don't change."

And yet, change is exactly what I'm trying to accomplish. You just don't seem to like the change I represent, so you attack. Because that's how things are done is the shittest, most cowardly excuse I have every heard in my life. "Because that's how things are done" does not, under any circumstances mean that's how things should be done, or that I should feel myself bound to the strictures and regulations of others.

Change happens because people refuse to comply. Change happens not by bowing to those in charge and pleading with those who benefit from authority to limit themselves and their power.

Change happens because you stand up and say "no". It happens because one man inspires millions and those millions march. Change requires resistance. It requires questioning, defying and eventually tearing down authority.

I won't be acceding to authority any time soon. I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees. If you believe so strongly that I shouldn't have rights, that my morality should be subject the whims of others, then wield the knife yourself, you coward.

Otherwise, stay the hell out of my way, and don't tell me what I can and can't do. Freedom is a test of wills. Is yours the stronger?

Rosetta beams back colour pics: 67P shades of grey are SO HOT right now

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Water???? Ice????

1) This comet may not be representative of all comets. We don't have enough data to know for sure why it looks so different from the others.

2) This comet is from a different group of bodies than likely impacted the Earth during the late heavy bombardment. Why would all comets be the same if they formed under different circumstances

3) The surface of the comet is covered in dust. That doesn't mean the comet is all dust and rock. We'll know definitively when the thing gets close to the sun and starts heating. It could be an outer layer of dust/rock around a core of volatiles. If that's true, how did that happen? What formation process could lead to it? If it's not true, what formation process could/would lead to a rock-only or rock-predominant comet in the orbit it now occupies?

The saga of 67P is far from over...

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

I wonder if the dust is even in it's distribution and depth. Perhaps the result of the "impact" (read: just-barely-faster-than-gradual-agglomeration) that caused to distinct bodies to merge into a "duck"? Much to learn!

Hold the front page: Spain's anti-Google lobbyists lobby for Google News return

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Ha

"Is the market for spanish news big enough for a rival to step in?"

Yes, but not big enough that a rival is willing to pay extortion to the government/news sites in order to run a fucking index. This law damns everyone, not just Google.

Apple lawyers fight to silence dead Steve Jobs: 'No right' to hear him from beyond the grave

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

I'm really not interested in explaining the physics of the WTC collapse to someone who by all indications is probably crazy. That said, a few things jump out.

1) All your wanking about the design of the building fails to take into the account the types and amounts of stress it was designed for. Shearing stress, sudden shock, even the momentary difference in weight supported by the floor below before the rubble impacts it (and the recreates the stress, with the added kinetic momentum of having fallen a floor) all play their part. There are some truly great simulations of the collapse done by computer science nerds.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh3qUmNxC6E for one example.

This is a great look at the design https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo1WZ9g1IJ4

Here's a computer science rendering of the impact, also well done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH02Eh44yUg

2) It was not "office furniture" burning, it was jet fuel. From a 767 fueled for a transcontinental flight. Oxygen was continually supplied to the burn because the core of the building was severely damaged on impact, ripping the elevator shafts open and sucking in oxygen from below through the chimney effect.

Take a good look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM88xJX5FsA <-- you'll see a good example of a bright orange fire (the fuel) burning on the floor below the impact point, and you can even watch the tower deform and shake before collapse. It doesn't blow out, it doesn't suddenly collapse, it's gives way through means of structural collapse.

Is Jet Fuel enough to melt steel? Well, it's not exactly going to turn it into a river of lava. But it will make it soft, pliable...fuel that gets aerosolised for any reason (and considering the complex microenvironments inside those buildings, there would have been pockets of periodic aerosolisation) absolutely would get hotter than a puddle o the stuff burning on the ground.

So you don't have to melt everything completely to do stupid amounts of damage, and you everything doesn't burn equally. There's enough complexity there to account for all sorts of weridness witnessed, but also to fundementally weaken the structure and cause the collapse.

Ultimately, the problem with trying to answer any and ever question you come up with is that you can always find some minor point that you don't understand and claim that proves the towers were demolished. It's the "god of the gaps" argument, but applied to a conspiracy instead of religion.

What I will say, however, is that there are some pretty fundamental - and overarching - issues with your line of questioning. They point to a lack of understanding of the finer physics of the event, as well as a disregard of the cascade effects of the plane impacts (such as what really happens when that much jet fuel goes up. How goddamned hot it gets, and what that does to things.)

You would do well also to research the concept of "shock compression". Towers are build for and rated to handle only so much shock compression. They are primarily designed for continuous compression. A single shock impulse beyond capacity can doom the whole structure. If you want to study that in more detail, don't study the 9/11 collapses. The best research on that comes out of studies on the plasma shockwave effects of nuclear blasts or fuel air bombs.

Just watch what a daisy cutter can do and you'll understand the effects of shock compression.

Last, but not least, http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0112/eagar/eagar-0112.html is a great start along your journey towards understanding the science of the event.

Additional resources: http://www.debunking911.com/ - http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/9-11_conspiracy_theories - http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/1227842

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Not strange to me...

"Something that disturbs me though is the following, why are there so many conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11"

Short version? There are two categories of people who make up conspiracy theorists in instances like this:

1) Those who have an issue with the group in question and basically mistrust them so much that see conspiracy even when it isn't there. Their hatred runs so deep that they are unable to accept that the group in question may in fact be doing exactly what they appear to be doing, even when every element of evidence says they are. This is conspiracy through hatred.

2) The second (wildly more popular) group are those with unchecked schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Understand that schizophrenia and autism are two ends of a spectrum, with "normal" in the middle. On the Autism side you have OCD, Depression, ADHD, Aspergers and other Autism Spectrum Disorders. Here you have issues with inadequate serotonin, dopamine, etc.

Autism Spectrum Disorders as usually comorbid to a greater or lesser degree. I.E. an Aspie might have OCD, or an ADHD individual like myself might have Depression as well. The Autism Spectrum is a cluster of issues caused by inability to adequately produce or reuptakr certain neurotransmitters; so it makes sense that few individuals suffer from any one illness.

Autism Spectrum Disorders are typically pervasive developmental disorders and/or mood disorders. They tend to be about "issues getting adequate sensory information into the brain to feed a very fast working brain" combined with "issues with impulse control, focus and ability to make decisions."

On the exact other side of that spectrum, you have Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders. Here you would have paranoia, auditory and visual hallucinations, multiple personality disorder, paranoia, delusions, thought disorder, etc.

Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders occur usually because of too much serotonin, dopamine, etc. The exact same chemicals that, without enough of them - or an error in reuptaking them - cause Autism Spectrum Disorders will cause Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders when there are too many of them in the brain.

Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders are about reality distortion.

You would be shocked how many people walk around undiagnosed on both ends of the spectrum. Also, how many people are improperly medicated. For example: give an amphetamine to someone with an Autism Spectrum Disorder and it will (likely) help them. Give that same drug to someone with a Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder and they'll freak the fuck out. What helps one group harms the other and vice the versa.

There are a lot of people with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders walking around unmedicated. Just like a lot of aspies don't have formal diagnoses and we're only just beginning to identify and help all the people with depression, ADHD, OCD, etc. In a lot of ways, we understand Autism Spectrum Disorders better than Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders, and thus we more readily identify them and are better equipped to help them.

"Is it feasibly possible that they are all wrong, I am not advocating that they are right, just that it seems improbable that they are all wrong. What are the chances that there is Smoke without Fire."

Pretty good, actually. Conspiracy theorists can be pretty damned convincing. They certainly are passionate. When you combine this with someone who knows that not everything is told to the public and who have - for whatever reason - an innate distrust/hatred of an entity (the government, for example), then you end up with people who want to believe.

If you are honestly open to the "why" of this, I could give a freaking seminar. The reasons, techniques and so forth are actually really well studied. It's the same way people get sucked into cults. Especially Scientology.

"Is it just a general consensus that the governements (those in control) are no longer to be trusted ?"

Yes, the evidence does suggest this to be the most likely scenario.

"Is there a reason for someone wanting to create this kind of psychological chaos within society or has society simpy lots its marbles. Is this the precursor of what's likely to increasingly happen in the near/immediate future."

This sort of "chaos" has always existed, in all societies, throughout recorded history. It is human nature to never be satisfied with what we have.

When dissatisfaction becomes too great, social upheaval follows. Old power groups are overthrown. New ones take their place and the cycle begins again. This flows from the fact that humans simultaneously react very badly to being treated "unfairly" or "unequally", yet are only ever truly happy if we have more than the next guy.

There's an old social experiment that basically goes like this; take two people who both make the same amount of money. One of them moved into the smallest house in a richer neighborhood. The other buys the biggest house in a poorer neighborhood. Without fail (once clinical depression has been accounted for), the guy with the bigger house than his neighbors is the happier one.

Is society at it's breaking point? No. The impotency of the Occupy and Ferguson protests demonstrated that. We are several generations away yet.

"At the end of the day the same question will always arise : Who stands or stood to gain from this ? or is it just the kickback from prior errors."

Um, at the end of hte day, Al Qaeda stood to gain from it. Face it: they put a minimal amount of money and manpower into an operation and it was successful beyond anyone's wildest imaginings. In just 13 years they've caused us to become simpering cowards willing do give up our civil liberties at the drop of a hat.

The goal was to make the west look foolish, petty, weak, fallible and corrupt. We played right into that. As a result, Al Qaeda was able to drive recruitment through the roof and solidify their power base: which was the point of the exercise. Al Qaeda accomplished exactly what they set out to accomplish, and then some.

So successful were they, in fact, that other radical groups were able to capitalize on the aftermath and this is where you get the rapid rise of organizations like ISIS.

Others within the American government profiteered off the events. Some may even have collaborated. But the groups that benefited the most absolutely were the radical Islamics. They wanted to raise an army, build nations and establish a theocracy. They got exactly that.

With the added bonus that they set off every whacko christian in America and thus got their enemy to spend the past 13 years fighting itself while they seized power. Worked rather well, all things considered.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Not strange to me...

No, what rational person would?

1) Many media outlets have agendas. Look at FOX News. They wouldn't tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth even if they knew it. Niether would CNN. That doesn't make their agendas orchestrated by the government. Mr. Burns Murdock is quite capable of being a fucksack all on his own.

2) Nobody knows 100% of the truth. A lot of it is reconstruction of events and consultations with various experts. I believe that many of the experts on reputable media outlets were telling what they believed to be the truth, given the evidence they had.

3) I also believe that investigations were undertaken by the government agencies involved to get to the bottom of it and that those investigations were undertaken in good faith. This is because they relied on so many individual from so many (often competing) agencies, at so many levels of government, civilian agencies, independent experts, industry experts, contractors, etc. that to mislead or brianwash all of them would have been an undertaking more outrageously expensive than the entire shuttle program.

Did these guys figure every last thing out? Nope. That's not possible. Humans are fallible. But I absolutely do believe they gave it an honest try.

4) Do I believe the spooks were up front and honest with anyone about what they knew, and when they knew it? Hell no. I am convinced their culture of secrecy is so fucked up beyond repair that they don't even know what they knew and when they knew it, or would be allowed to talk to themselves about it if they did!

5) Foreigners were involved. Specifically people from Canada and the UK. I know people who went over to help, in a professional capacity. Forensics experts. Pilots. Engineers. Medics. These are not people that were convinced to lie to the world about what they saw, I guarantee you that. I'd by my life on it. You don't grow up in a family full of shrinks and be unable to spot someone who is blanking something that big.

I don't trust those in charge of the US government. I certainly don't trust the spooks. But I just don't buy that every single foreigner, every civilian, every contractor, every civil servant, every agent, every officer, every investigator, every engineer, etc...

I don't buy that they were all duped. They saw plane wreckage. They analyzed the debris, the treated the wounded, bagged and tagged the dead. What was left of those people wasn't due to a missile impact, Khaptain. They burned by being exposed to a fiery inferno that only a plane full of jet fuel could have produced.

I could go on with evidence that I know of personally that goes beyond what's in the news stories. All of it correlates pretty well. Something that big doesn't just happen and not touch the lives of nearly everyone on the continent in some way. We all have stories about it, mate.

So, is the news coverage or the official reports or so forth all 100% true? Probably not. But how much of that is honest inaccuracy and how much is coverup and how much is attempting to use a tragedy for political gain (or ratings)?

Nuance. It's a required component of critical thinking. The world is not binary.

"If we don't have the 100% truth accurate down to the position of each electron on each atom then it was all a conspiracy and they used missiles, not planes" is outright lunacy. That's a false dichotomy so broad that it is indicative of a mental illness. Specifically something on the shizophrenia spectrum where paranoid delusion and related illnesses live.

We'll never know 100% for sure every last detail of what happened. But nothing supports your hypothesis about the events, and there's a lot that says that the official story is probably at least mostly true.

The physical evidence tells us how the event happened. The bit that needs to be taken on faith - or with a bowl of skepticism - is "what were the motivations of the hijackers." But in all honesty, sir, that's the only major place where there's any real room for debate at this point. Everything else has been tested, retested, modeled, remodelled, analyzed and checked to death.

Google says NYET! to Putin, pulls techies out of Russia – report

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: What total rubbish!!

"Profit won that battle a long time ago, principles today, are all well and truly dead and buried!"

Personally knowing quite a few senior people at Google, I must disagree. They value their principles quite highly. I don't happen to remotely share most of their principles, but they do believe in them as strongly as I do mine...and they'd be willing to see off a lot of profit to achieve them.

Aged star could give us clues to HOT TEEN's behaviour

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Time to get started!

You're wrong.

You need oil to go to space. You can do it using light and water. More resource intensive, sure...but the idea that there will never be a group of humans so fanatical about the idea of leaving the rest behind and setting out to spread their seed/ideology/religion/whatever is ridiculous. You clearly don't understand what human passion, insanity, fervor or curiosity are capable of.

One good crusade and you'll get humans on other planets, even if just to escape the peckerheads that live here. Besides, Elon Musk will probably prove you wrong inside your own lifetime. Every time someone tells him it can't be done, the bugger goes ahead and does it anyways.

Cool technology: Submerged blade servers escape the heat

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Magnetic dust a problem, how about this then ?

The oil exists to accept the heat, then transfer it to the exchangers? Why else are we submerging computers in oil?

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Magnetic dust a problem, how about this then ?

But the electronics are magnets, too. They generate their own magnetic fields. Rather a lot of testing would be required to solve the problem, factoring in the flow of liquids as they interact with heat, possible entry points for the metal dust, etc.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Boggle our minds

I'm going to be honest and say that I suppressed my internet troll instinct to photograph and spread the pain. Some things should not be shared. Thus I don't actually have pictures of any of these things. If I could forget them, I would.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Ah... The memories

We tried a few times. The problem isn't really cooling, but how then keep it warm enough during the winter. Winters in the mountains or up north can get pretty cold, and the heat transfer has to be sunk crazy deep to be of any use. That isn't always possible. Where it is, oddly enough, there tends to be a more permanent admin trailer (or other setup) which will generally allow for more systems than we would put in a "shed".

Sheds go where people don't want to. 'round here that usually means "where the ground 'ain't dirt and getting heavy machines in is really freaking expensive."

Cisco: Think we're a lawsuit-hurling villain? 'Complete garbage'

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Dear Cisco,

Bullshit.

Microsoft pulls a patch and offers PHANTOM FIX for the mess

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Anyone else having trouble with the latest batch of Office updates?

Pull out .net 4.5x and put it back. Solves it. If not, then I suspect it's the MSXML update. Mind you, I've only seen that with 2010 on XP.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Here's the REAL fix

100 patches a year for one version of Windows, maybe. Microsoft make a lot of products, and some of us run multiple versions of Windows.

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Here's the REAL fix

"overall problems had been pretty rare"

Define "rare". I get at least two "requires intervention on all affected systems" patches of the "Microsoft really fucked this one up" every year. Exchange Update Rollups, I'm looking at you...

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Mobile first, cloud first.

Security last, privacy last.

Microsoft's priorities are 180 degrees from where they should be.

This week it rained in San Francisco and the power immediately blew out. Your tech utopia

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Re: Come to Vancouver

"everyone wants to live here"

Lies. I loathe Vancouver. Now, Tofino...I would like to live in Tofino...

Canadian watchdog goes to court to probe Apple's iPhone deals with mobe networks

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

Apple.

Canadian telcos.

There are no good guys here.

'I'm begging you to join' – ICANN's NetMundial Initiative gets desperate

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

For $600,000 a year I will provide you a space - physical as well as virtual - to discuss the governance issues of the internet. I will even provide top quality technical content to help kickstart discussions as well as the manpower to moderate discussions and even edit proposals.

That doesn't take a "council". It doesn't take politicians or chairpersons. It takes an accountant, a devops team, some writers, an editor and an ombudsman. With some money put away to rent a conference room for the annual meeting.

The difference is that what I propose would be focused on generating ideas towards actual solutions. Kickstarting discussion with thought leadership content, a trained ombudsman to work through disputes and an editor to make sure that proposals turned in by special interest groups are actually comprehensible and even engaging to the populace at large.

With $600,000 I could pay the full time salaries of people who would be dedicated to those goals. A hell of a lot more would get done than NetMundial, let me tell you.

What's needed here isn't a council, it's a professional magazine aimed at governance issues. Turning ideas into viable proposals then bumping those back to the various other organisations that work on internet governance and letting them vote on them, lobby for them, or otherwise do what they get paid to do to make the internet go.

Screw captain cockwombles and his band of merry council misfits! Give me Timothy Prickett Morgan and a gaggle of technosphere support staff any day.