- Carl-Bear (who occasionally traffics in science fiction) makes his best guess about what Elon Musk’s mysterious new “hyperloop” transportation system will be. And finds it familiar.
- One more (rather weird) way that the rich are different than the poor. Different toxins in their bodies.
- Government forces one privacy option out of business (in the creepiest way). A new privacy option is born. Not in the U.S. of course. Nobody in their right mind would base a privacy service in the U.S. from here on out.
- Small business? The IRS wants to know what you’re doing with your cash — and it appears to be shooting in the dark hoping to win through intimidation. Of course, it denies any intent to intimidate anybody. Nooooo, the IRS is your friend. You are its “customer.” No intimidation could possibly be involved.
- Do you trust cops? (Rhetorical question. Wiseass remarks not required — but probably inevitable.)
- “Revolution, RIP.” Sad but beautiful.
- Is Divergent going to be good? Anybody here read the parts of the YA trilogy published so far? (This movie is being made from book one; book three is due out this fall.) Looks either a) promising or b) like a Hunger Games ripoff. Getting the books now …
“I’ve noticed a shift in my reactions to police.”
Yea, my shift in reactions has been documented here. There is a comment on that post by Mike,
“I spent a number of years riding turns with an officer. He was barely 5′ tall. I once asked how he handled those so much larger than him. His reply, ‘don’t ever let them know they scare the dogsnot out of you’.”
I think that hits close to my root cause. How many submission rituals are you expected to perform every day? I like for those who buzz close in and stare with the cold eye of authority to know that they have not won the complete and utter compliance of everyone. Its a small thing, until its not.
I think certain European countries, the U.S. and possibly Japan are the only societies left that have “trust the police” as a default setting. Most other countries nobody trusts the police not even the politicians they work for. We really should be working hard on societal default settings of not trusting any government employee and not trusting anyone you don’t know personally. Just operate as if everyone is out to take advantage of you.
Had a family freind many years ago. They owned a lucrative small family business. It made lots of money in mostly cas transactions (60’s and 70’s most transactions were cash). The one and two dollar bills (remember those) were never counted as part of the daily take. They also shifted aside any silver coins that came in (silver dollars, half dollars and dimes were still commmon then). Making those kind of adjustments to your reporting was probably easier when the book keeping was done by hand and they used antique cash registers. It was interesting seeing them go on vacation hauling bags of one dollar bills, good thing they had their own plane.
“Carl-Bear (who
occasionally trafficsformerly trafficked in science fiction)…”Cat on the zoomba is funny. What’s with the costume though? Anyway, I’ve got to go find something else to do this morning. 🙂
And now the flamboyant (and not-American) Kim Dotcom also gets in on the privacy act:
http://www.businessinsider.com/kim-dotcom-encrypted-email-service-2013-8
His aim is to create a new encrypted mail service since LavaBit and Silent Mail (which I wasn’t aware had closed) were forced to commit “honorable suppuku” rather than betray their customers.
May they be reborn happily and safely offshore.
Musk/SpaceX has released the Hyperloop Alpha plan. I’m reading the PDF now, will post comments on my site after. Based on the first graphic, I may have been pretty close.
My quickie analysis of the Hyperloop Alpha is up at the original link (just scroll down a little):
http://www.bussjaeger.org/index.html#hyperloop-guess
Not so close as I thought from that graphic.
Yeah, it makes no sense to start any privacy service in the USSA any more. Wasn’t Silent Circle located right in Washington DC? Madness!
What I don’t understand is why so few VPN providers seem to want to also provide email service. Seems like the two would go together perfectly – all your traffic is going through the VPN server anyway – why not provide email from it as well?
I have read Divergent and Insurgent, and just ordered Allegiant, out in October.
I thought that Divergent was a very good book, Insurgent, not so great. I am hoping that Allegiant wraps it up well.
IMO, a much better dystopian series (also being made into a movie) is Marie Lu’s Legend, and Prodigy, with book 3, Champion, coming out in a few months.
Also, Lissa Price’s Starters was a pretty good dystopian.
Hi Claire,
Just in case you are not aware.
“E-mail provider shuts down amid court battle”
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/09/tech/web/snowden-email-lavabit/
http://lavabit.com/
re: the IRS letter. The proper “reply” is to simply not answer the letter. Burn it. There is and can be NO LEGAL OBLIGATION to answer such a letter. CERTAINLY is no moral obligation.
ignore them, and they will become irrelevant.
be the change you wish to see in the world.
I very much enjoyed Divergent. It was a fantastic read. Insurgent was not quite as good as it got bogged down with plot points that I assume are necessary for the story in book 3, Allegiant. We shall see. The books are easy, fast reads and I do not think you will regret the time you spend reading them.
I really enjoyed Little Brother by Cory Doctorow as well.
Cheers,
Sam