samedi 30 juin 2018

Free or Inexpensive Music Scoring

I've just recently gotten a computer after many years. I'd like to start scoring music again. I have some apps on my phone, which are OK but the interface is clumsy mostly due to me. Anyhow, I was wondering if anyone had any advice on apps to get for the computer (Mac). I can always write/record on Reaper or Garage Band, but I'd prefer just writing notes on a staff and assigning instruments.


Oh, also, good drum machine apps similar to the old 70's and 80's ones.

Oh, also also, post links to your stuff!


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the new normal?, toward a "Psychocivilized" Society?, our "Brave New World"? ...

(I had to remove all links)
I noticed the other day on a comment about books from East Germany's stasi era: "Zersetzen: Strategie einer Diktatur, von Sandra Pingel-Schliemann" (books which have become very popular lately), how police in current day Germany, after happily inviting ehemalige stasi operatives to change arms wholesale to their ranks, have started to use such techniques as Zersetzung (a form of psychologically and biologically harming, torturous gaslighting) and gang-stalking for social "self-policing" and as "social control" mechanisms (in the U.S. there are many snitching and perpetrating gangs with names such as "shared responsibility committees" (SRC), which are part of the wide and thick so-called "total awareness" infrastructure). They are organized and coordinated by the highest levels of the government. Even private store front businesses proudly display their participation in the "nexus" program (a city-wide web of snitches).

This is definitely happening across all "freedom loving" Western countries in a vertically coordinated fashion from socially organized stalkers to big business using not only pets for their Pavlovian/Skinnerian psychological "research", but non-consensually "Americans" (as gringos tend to exclusively call themselves as they talk from their higher grounds) and "unAmerican" earthlings, as well. Why would they torture pets?, for their meat when they have cows, chicken, and all that plastic ***** they blend with it?, or, for their brains/minds? Since dogs are social animals: (bred to suffer: theintercept 20180517 inside-the-barbaric-u-s-industry-of-dog-experimentation/?comments=1#comments)
~
All kinds of "scientific" and "engineering" cultures in all kinds of university and research centers (as during Nazi times, psychologists are the Naziest of them all) are very much part of it and, of course, they are smart enough to clearly see evil to its face in what they are doing:

// __ Google employees finally wake up and realize they’re working for PURE EVIL… AI drone “terminator” project meets internal resistance
~
// __ Former DARPA exec to head shady Facebook project called “Building 8” centered around augmented reality and brain-scanning technology
~
// __ Technocracy At Google: How Personal Data Enables Total Social Engineering
~
// __ Google worshipers applaud their own total enslavement as Google AI unveils near-perfect human voice mimicry tech
~
but they choose to believe the little lie, stupid story the government tells them in order to get the government fundings. As it happened during MK-Ultra times, none of them, not even symbolically, has ever offered any kind of open technical or moral explanation or apology for their participation as part of those "social control", non consensual experimentation and torture programs. Besides, "such things only Vladimir Putin would do".

If I had to explain this to regular, "unencumbered" folks out there I would call it MK-Ultra on steroids. In those times, the government emphasized that "experiments" be conducted non-consensually on "unwitting subjects in their regular social situations" (unsuspecting subjects' own their natural living environments, monitored real time without them having a clue at all or for the most part not knowing what was going on).

The Internet has given USG/GCC (Global Control Conglomerate) their holy grail: a portable TV doubling as the perfect platform for silly protagonism and mind and body bracelet for life. The dependency of "We the people" on all kinds of "smart" devices has given them just what they wanted: zero comma nada privacy and total panoptic control for the proles, while securing layers and layers of obfuscation, secrecy, "legal" corruption and red tape covering their actions to extremes way above and beyond of what the stasi and the KGB could have fancied in their wildest dreams.

Let me share with you some of my personal experiences for you to see how things concretely happen. You just write and post out there a poem:
hsymbolicus wordpress poems (lies ...) and your router gets bricked. You write letters complaining about it to social institutions (none of which pays any attention to it even though (as they tell you): "they know this 'happens'") and you openly talk about it and your telephone and Internet access gets disconnected for 8 months. Then, when you bring ACE Innovative and Verizon to court, even if you bring network logs (you can't possibly have made up) as evidence which they can check from their ends, to which they explicitly admit, as well as confirming based on their own logs that: "yes, the telephone and Internet access I had been paying for was cut off", but the judge dismissed my case because ... " (ready?): "you have no way to prove that the reason why you couldn't get a job is because you didn't have phone and Internet access!" (now that is a KGB style catch 22!). An alarming aspect of that crap is that, for the most part, it has an AI feeling to it.

All of a sudden you start noticing bed bugs in your apartment and you proceed to thoroughly and repeatedly clean it and you put your mattress in a plastic cover, then you start noticing bed bugs in the bed you use at a shelter where you volunteer, you stop sleeping in that bed (start sleeping in random places on the floor of the sanctuary), then you start getting what seems to be scabies infections (even though the virus causing it is anaerobic) and that happens to you -repeatedly-. My doctors wondered and asked me in front of my girlfriend how was I able to get such infections repeatedly and you may, as well; but they don't stop there; as they make you go through such episodes, they make all kinds of people (at times in groups/organized gangs) wherever you go or are, crazily scratch their bodies around in theatrical ways and when you browse your crush (kpop Choi Soo Young) you find on youtube and from any other search engine you use videos, pictures of and links to people with all kinds of skin diseases ...

Comparing USG with the stasi is an odd joke (I know firsthand, I lived in East Germany in those times). The stasi didn't even use computers. They had to manually write down their notes, manage paper files and use paper index cards even smaller than those Hollerith Lochkarten. There were, how many?, three (3)?, thirty-three (33)? cameras all over Ost-Berlin, which locations everybody knew and were neither computerized nor did they have pattern recognition capabilities. In a country of 17 million people, they could maximally monitor 4,000 fixed telephones, many of which were used by more than one person and neither the software nor the computing power and storage capacity to do real-time speech-to-text existed. Now, compare that with their capabilities nowadays to automatically record, store, index and monitor real time all the information consciously generated by yourself (what you say, write, read, ...) and all kinds of information and data you secondarily create (an exact shopping bill) and marginally associate with (GPS) as you conduct your daily life (everyday detailed records of your whereabouts, your medical records, your buying records and preferences, ...) of every single individual in a cross-correlated and zeitgeistable way (they can make all this data go back in time as it relates to just one individual and her/his life and associates and even drive it prospectively into the future) and all of this happens automatically! That niggah was king of right when he said: "nobody is listening to your phone calls": (Obama: 'Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls'), the good politician he his (if there was such a thing as a "good politician" (I mean, notice his faces and those of the people standing by, how they project the right mannerism)). He made fun of a whole nation with a straight face! He did not tell you, that "they don't even need to listen to your phone calls, really"! How 1950's is that?! They are "just" speech-to-texting, recording, and indexing real time all you have ever said on or done with your phone and to whom for good in a cross-correlated way. You would expect for someone who sat his black rear end in law school for 12 years studying "Constitutional Law" in all those fancy universities to have done something about FISA courts and corruption (as he initially promised), but, no, he ended up boasting about drone strikes, especially the double taps aspects of it; joking about "not having expected to have been so good at killing people ..."

Things are getting so out of control that even though I (as 47% of the U.S. population in the past, most contested election ever) didn't even care to vote, mind any of it (to me all that kind of non sense is like practicing voo-doo), I actually found as a quite hopeful event that the people chose Trump as U.S. President. Oh, God! The status quo in the U.S. hates that to no end and they don't seem to be able to ever come to terms with that. Yet, with all his well-known, consistent and openly histrionic and explicitly tactless character, racism, ...: he reverted laws put in place by Obama to give the regular police in the U.S. the right to acquire all kinds of military-grade weaponry (including Direct Energy Weapons), has the balls to fire sacred cows of the so-called "Intelligence Departments", has even renounced to a salary as a social service officer (Great Lord! How corrupt is that!?!), doesn't give a ***** about the media (in fact, he enjoys using and making fun of them), has been the only sitting U.S. President who has questioned in no-ambiguous terms that "good Christian" thing of considering what people do to you "terror" but what you to them "errors" (even if USG, their acolytes and local collaborators have 8x the genocidal ratio of Nazi Germany during WWII and not a single one of their "freedom of the press" media venues touch any of it with a 10 feet pole, in fact, I believed they unemployed O'Reilly for "not handling" well Trump): euronews (in English): Republicans slam Trump for suggesting US as bad as 'killer' Putin
~
When the Catholic Church discovered that Celtic monks were praying in an interpersonal, Hippie way (we Christians used to pray like they do in other Abrahamic religions, Muslims and Jewish people), they quickly realized how to put that to good use and make such "new developments" profitable, so they instituted and made mandatory the Sacrament of Penance in order to know what "'sinners' had in their minds" and make them pay for it.

They don't even need the Sacrament of Penance, nowadays. "We the people" do them the favor of divulging, even classifying for them all our illusions of that thing they used to call privacy. They have such a degree of control over every single individual in society that they have been non consensually selling your predictive information to marketeers
(theintercept 20180413 facebook-advertising-data-artificial-intelligence-ai/?comments=1#comments), which makes you wonder at which point they will be selling your prospective health bill to big pharma and medical companies in a country where only 4% of medical effort in invested in avoiding illnesses while 88% in selling pharmaceutical products and medical services.

Many people, after being harassed and tormented for years (which is also part of their "experimentation"), have done harm to themselves and other under the belief that to be the only way to exercise their self (they think the government is "reading", "has hijacked", is implanting ideas and dreams in their minds, ...)

What is new? Well, yes, USG has a long history of not only having wild dreams about social control but also experimenting on unsuspecting people:
wikipedia Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_Stat es
wikipedia The_Plutonium_Files
~
but USG is past trying to emulate the Catholic Church, they are actually trying to play God with the help of all IT companies and all social institutions (they "legally" bully them into compliance using gag orders, "'National Security' reasons", "mutually beneficial insider discretionary cultures", . . .). The most scary aspect of this all is not even that (as they think of it) this is all "purely technological", "ideologically neutral", "Constitutional", "legal"; ... "it does not relate at all to morality", ... but that "We the people" don't seem to see the dangers of it all with open eyes and clear consciousness, since all we are doing is looking into our cell phones, so, we can't read or comprehend any idea which scope and meaning doesn't fit on its screen size (ach! that Constitution!?!, too much scrolling!). The NSA even makes fun of people and people don't even realize it. They themselves say the issue is not if they can and do collect all that data, but how they use it, when the "smart" kinds of @ssh0l3s they are, they will certainly find profitable uses for all that data in order to justify salaries. People did not react after Snowden revelations. They just rationalized it all as "metadata".

Nowadays, the whole of society is the control group. TIs are the ones getting the freak treatment. How not to become a TI? Pray to their AI Gods! No one knows the answer to that question. Even if you become an indistinguishable penguin within the well-behaved strata of society, they may need those kinds of penguins for "R&D". All we know is that now as then their AI God is "all-powerful" and "all-knowing". As they play their Godly AI chess with all that data they may take notice of you and there is nothing you can do about it. Many people have discovered as they did during Nazi, East German stasi and KGB times, that there isn't such a thing as "good intentions" or just offering "token help" to them. Once you say yes, to them they will own you, ruin your life for good, since you have no way of influencing whatever they understand as "helpful": theintercept 20171010 recordings-capture-brutal-fbi-tactics-to-recruit-potential-informant
~
// __ Ella Free (channel with many interviews to TIs)
~
// __ Dr. Katherine Horton - Stop 007
~
rlopez2


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Please send us your carbon dioxide!

Whilst there is said to be a global excess of carbon dioxide the Uk is suffering a critical shortage. At a crucial time when England is doing better than expected in the World Cup, Wimbledon is just about to start, and we have a heat wave; there is a shortage of carbon dioxide. This means pubs are running out of beer (and other fizzy drinks), crumpet manufacturing has ground to halt and other baked products may cease production. Chicken nuggets and burgers are no longer to be found on supermarkets (slaughterhouses asphyxiate chickens with carbon dioxide) and other meat products may run into supply problems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44654127
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44644407

Who knew that carbon dioxide was such a vital product.

So if you are planning to visit the UK this summer please bring your own supply of carbon dioxide especially if you want a fizzy drink! (I have no doubt that some posters here will blame the Tories, Brexit, the lack of independence for Scotland, the SNP, Trump, the Russians, anti-Russians, the Illuminati.)


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vendredi 29 juin 2018

Mowing a Lawn While Black?

Here's an exceptionally silly story which Raw Story tries to build into a racist incident:

Quote:

News 5 Cleveland reports that 12-year-old Reginald Fields was mowing the lawn of Lucille Holt, a resident of Maple Heights, Ohio, when suddenly police officers pulled up near where he was working.

The police were on the scene because Holt’s neighbors had called 911 and claimed that Fields had inadvertently cut some of the grass on their property and they wanted the police to come ask him to stop.
First, if I was that 911 operator I would tell them that this is not an emergency. Second, unless he was really damaging their property, why would they complain that he "inadvertently" cut their grass? And third, did they ever think to come out and tell the kid where the boundary was?

But of course what makes this national news is that it happened to a black kid. However, there is one element lacking; we are not told the race of the complainant. I looked up Maple Heights, Ohio on Wikipedia. It's a suburb of Cleveland, and is 68% African-American. That means the odds are quite good that the complainers were the same race as the kid.

BTW, there is a happy ending; all the publicity has sent his summer lawn-mowing business through the roof:

Quote:

Even though Fields said he was initially discouraged that someone would call the cops on him for mowing a neighbor’s lawn, he has been encouraged by the support that he has received from people in the community — and he’s even seen his business orders pick up after his story garnered media attention.

“Just give me a call,” he tells News 5 Cleveland. “I will be there. On time!”
I can't help identifying with him; I worked summers mowing lawns at his age (it was one of the few jobs that a kid could get), and I loved having money. I had one guy paying me $2.00 an hour to maintain his yard (it was an easy three-hour job) back in the day when $1.30 or so was the minimum wage. He always had lots of other odd-jobs that he would put me to as well, so I was fairly swimming in money, an unusual situation for a kid whose allowance had been 50 cents a week.

The only problem with mowing lawns is that while you get a lot of work in April and May due to the rain, by July and August most of your customers only need you every 3 weeks or so.


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Headers in Microsoft Word

I think I used to know how to do this, but I've forgotten. I can't seem to figure it back out, and Google isn't helping. Anyone pretty familiar with Microsoft Word?

Basically, I am writing a term paper. It's all one document. The cover page has no header. The next two pages (abstract and table of contents) each have a lowercase Roman numeral as the header (in this case, ii and iii). I have all that done.

BUT then the subsequent pages are required to be headed with regular numerals, beginning with 1. And it's all one document. I cannot figure out how to make this change happen and still keep the numerals. Can anyone advise? I'm sure it's something fairly simple that I'm missing.


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Military Intelligence Epic Fails

Since Operation Double Cross was mentioned before, I thought I'd start a thread about such cases when the military believed the darndest things, and took WTH decisions based on it. So not necessarily always "intelligence" as in information, but sometimes even as in IQ ;)

My submission to get the ball rolling would be the WTH decision in 1943 for the German Uboot command to order all METOX detectors shut off permanently.

In case someone doesn't know what I'm talking about, the Brits very early took to putting anti-submarine radar on coastal command planes, and then the Leigh lights, which were actually guided by the radar and also indicated the optimum bombing height. Effectively with the two you could start a pretty precisely aligned bombing run from miles away, switch on the lights at the last moment (the radar became useless under half a mile or so), and they'd go exactly on the surfaced sub. Which would soon become, shall would say, permanently submerged.

The French however had developed the obvious counter to being pinged by radar, namely, you can just have a receiver that picks up the pings: the METOX. It actually works better than some may think, because such a passive receiver's picked up signal is only decaying with the inverse square rule, while active detection has an inverse fourth power rule. So you can actually detect that there's a plane searching the area before it has any chance of picking YOU up.

But the French device was even better. Since the anti-submarine radar needed tweaking to keep the right resolution as it approached a sub, the sub could also know the exact distance of the plane (again, purely passively) and if it's picked you up (since then the signal would start getting tweaked to match your position.)

Unfortunately, there was another equation in getting detected: Enigma and later huff-duff. The Germans were losing a lot of subs, because the Brits could find their position one way or another. Usually by getting lucky and cracking a 4-rotor Enigma message anyway.

So even with the early warning installed, the sub losses were going up. Somehow the Brits were finding the subs anyway. Well HOW? Since they were convinced that their Enigma code is completely uncrackable, and surely their subs don't send long enough messages for their position to be triangulated (both assumptions awfully false), the Germans started thinking long and hard about what ELSE could be giving away the sub positions. AH-HA! If we have a system that detects ASW radar, the Brits must have gone one step further and made a system that detects our detector. Surely they detect the METOX! TURN IT OFF!

What makes this an especially stupid idea is that you CAN'T detect a passive receiver. You can detect something that sends a signal, which was the detection that the Germans had installed on their subs. But you CAN'T detect that someone is passively receiving your signal.

So turning the damned thing off permanently removed the valuable early warning, and only really helped the Brits.


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World Cup Woo

Mods, feel free to move this topic if I posted this in the wrong section, which I don't think I did.

Ok, so I've been hearing some bullcrap from our sports journalists yesterday saying that there is some "curse" going around with every single World Champion not being able to become world champion four years later (Italy & Brazil say Hi)...

My parents seem to be buying this ****. Yet when I tell them it's ********, they get pissed.

This is woo, right? I mean, come on... :rolleyes:

For some reason, our sports journalists also seem to think that the UK is going to win the World cup, because:

1. They did it in 1966
2. in that same year, Burnley FC qualified itself for european football, just like this season
3. Chelsea ended 5th, just like at the end of this season
4. Real Madrid won the Champions league and in 1966, they won the European Cup (former name of the Champions League)

The only person not buying this crap, is Jan Mulder (incase someone doesn't know who this guy is).


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mercredi 27 juin 2018

White woman arrested for hitting black teen at community pool

A white South Carolina woman hit a black teen as she booted him and his pals from a community pool — and then bit a cop who came to arrest her for the assault, according to a report.

“Get out now!” she can be heard yelling. “There’s three numbers I can dial, 9-1-1, okay? Get out, you little punk.”

Stephanie Sebby-Strempel, 38, allegedly told a 15-year-old boy and his friends that they “did not belong” and had to leave the Reminisce pool in Summerville on Sunday, Dorchester County sheriff’s officers said, according to ABCNews4.

The teen was one of several children invited to the pool by a friend in the neighborhood, officials said.

https://nypost.com/2018/06/27/white-...mmunity-pool/?


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The Trump/Putin summit predictions thread

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/27/polit...ato/index.html


Seems trump and Putin are going to have themselves a one on one sit-down in the not too distant future. This thread serves as a one-stop shop for all predictions both silly and serious.


My initial prediction:

"President" trump proudly boasts about the reaction he gets when hugging the flag, and feels the need to show Vladdy how it's done so we get the image of trump hugging the Russian flag.


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Interesting Campaign Video

Mary Hegar is a veteran running for Congress against a Tea Party candidate in Texas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MJ_Hegar

[yt]?v=Zi6v4CYNSIQ[/yt]

Her book Shoot Like a Girl, is in development for a movie possibly starring Angelina Jolie. This is the best kind of publicity a politician can obtain using other people's money. :)

She is also featured in a Girls With Guns video on Youtube.

[yt]G6sLnOTDsOE[/yt]

The incumbent John Carter is one of those who jumped on the birther bandwagon as co-sponsor of HR1503, a bill to require more documentation of presidential candidate's birth. He has contributed to more worthwhile bills though.

Ranb


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Supreme Court’s Janus decision is a win for government workers (and all Americans)

In its 5-4 ruling Wednesday in Janus vs. AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), the US Supreme Court overturned decades-old precedent that allowed government unions to compel public employees to pay union fees or risk being fired.

Quote:

"Under Illinois law, public employees are forced to subsidize a union, even if they choose not to join and strongly object to the positions the union takes in collective bargaining and related activities," Alito wrote. "We conclude that this arrangement violates the free speech rights of nonmembers by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern."
Another massive victory for Free Speech and curtailing the creeping power of the State-Union Industry Complex.

A summary of the good news here


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New Kinks Album on the way?

Dave Davies tweeted today

Dave Davies

Verified account

@davedavieskinks
16h16 hours ago

"Me and Ray have spoken about the possibility of us working on a new album. Ray has a few songs he wants to finish. I have 3 or 4 songs I’ve written with Ray. We’ve been talking about it for some time now. We haven’t discussed shows or anything else at the moment."


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[Continuation] The Trump Presidency VIII

Republican tax law starting to negatively impact Churches

Mod InfoContinuation thread, as ever anything from the previous thread can be reposted/quoted etc.
Posted By:Darat


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mardi 26 juin 2018

The billion dollar drone

OK. Unmanned surveillance drone that has a long range, Australia to buy six for 7 billion.



https://ift.tt/2KlpYgA


Nope. Don't understand how they cost that much. Especially when they would be a sitting duck if someone wanted to shoot one down.


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The Interrelationship between Religiosity and Psychosis

I found a reference to this study in an article at a Christian website in Denmark, WHO: ’Religiøse mennesker’ oplever oftere psykoser (Udfordringen.dk, June 15, 2018)


PE = psychotic experience
Quote:

Conclusions
Among individuals with religious affiliations, those who reported more religiosity on four of five indices had increased odds of PEs. Focussed and more qualitative research will be required to unravel the interrelationship between religiosity and PEs.
Psychotic experiences and religiosity: data from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys (Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Feb. 16, 2018)


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lundi 25 juin 2018

Living Water.

I just saw one of those commercial-decorated cars on the road advertising this “Living Water”.

Prominent was a message to “call for franchise information”...

But also things like “hydrogen rich” (????)

The website:
http://www.livingwaterhealthsolutions.com/

Quotes from scripture in a couple of places, and indicates that this stuff has all sorts of health and curative powers, as well as improvements in “cognitive ability”.

Sounds like a combination of good old snake-oil and a pyramid scheme all rolled into one.


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Converting time into distance

I recognise that this should have been something simple picked up in class but I failed by GCSE in maths twice so don't have this knowledge.

I was in the Hayden Plane('')arium recently and was impressed by a walkway in which they turned 1,125,000 years into a foot, ending up with all of human life being the size of a piece of hair.

I got the idea to do something like this with my nephew or such so paced around an area I thought to do it with and it was 67.6 feet.

What do I do now? I do recognise this is probably very simple but I'd appreciate a poke in the right direction.


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dimanche 24 juin 2018

Stylus and touch screen: 'write to type' program interface ?

My Hunton/Peck system of keyboarding leaves a lot to be desired. Digital dexterity and the lack thereof makes it very frustrating. And I've never felt more retarded than when trying to use a cell phone. I use a thumb-ball mouse too, but a tremor and hand damage inhibits fine functions.

So I'm thinking a combination of a touch screen, a drawing program, and OCR ? Maybe it can learn to read my handwriting- I can't. :D


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samedi 23 juin 2018

Depression, clinical depression, treatments, suicide, prevention discussion.

While these topics are of personal interest, I don't want it to be a discussion about me.

I will just say that exactly 6 months ago, the first day of Winter, the man I deeply loved, John, age 63, took his life. The method he chose was helium. By the time I realized what was going on, I ran to his house but was moments too late. We had argued. In the last few months of his life, he underwent a strange behavioral change.

Diagnosed with clinical depression since his 20's, almost every treatment available was tried. Antidepressants, therapy, ECT shock treatments, long distance running, marijuana, breathing therapy, and the list goes on. Towards the end he turned to drugs, including peyote, ketamine, ecstasy, to name a few.


There is no question that many people here have dealt with debilitating depression and other mental conditions. I know I have. But I have been able to, with medication and therapy, to stay somewhat level, but I shudder thinking about going without them because I know I would not be OK.


I am looking for a discussion of depression. In general, but also treatments, good and bad, opinions, anecdotes, thoughts.

Thank you,

Julia


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vendredi 22 juin 2018

Private school holds "Austerity Day"

BBC News: St Paul's Girls' School 'Austerity Day' criticised

"A private girls' school in west London has been criticised for holding an "Austerity Day" where pupils ate potatoes and fruit for lunch.

St Paul's Girls' School, which has fees of £7,978 per term, said serving pupils "simple" food helps them learn about "less fortunate" people.

Henna Shah, who attended the school on a bursary, said the event made her "uncomfortable".

Campaigners said it showed a "complete lack of understanding" of poverty.

The school, where a typical menu for students includes herb-crusted salmon and duck leg confit, posted about the event on Twitter on Wednesday."

Discuss....


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What's a relatively safe way to park my savings?

I have some money in index funds.

But as everything is at record highs, I'm not making much, Trump overstimulating the economy and starting trade wars, I'm thinking of getting out for a while and research some good opportunities.

I'm learning technical analysis and want to start choosing my own stock instead of just sitting in a huge diversified index fund.

But what to do in the meantime?

I could just keep it in Euros. Or diversify and get an account that allows me to keep multiple currencies (Dollars, Swiss Francs).
Or I could put it in government bonds.

Trump is scaring the **** out of me, and here in the EU, the lack of coherent immigration policies are driving voters towards the populist right in many countries. These all happen to be "Euro-skeptic" and that is also scaring the **** out of me with regards to the Euro.

What's a relatively safe way to park my savings?


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London - Police capture self-claimed "bomber" alive

BBC News: Bomb threat closes London's Charing Cross station

"A man on the tracks claiming to have a bomb forced the evacuation of London's Charing Cross railway station.

British Transport Police (BTP) was called to reports of a man on the underground tracks at 06:35 BST. Armed police also attended the scene.

A 38-year-old man was detained under the Mental Health Act and no weapon was found. No injuries have been reported.

There was disruption to the mainline and London Underground services but all are now running normally."


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[Continuation] Brexit: Now What? Part 5

Mod InfoContinuation thread from: http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=324086
Posted By:Darat
Quote:

Originally Posted by The Don (Post 12336231)
No doubt all of this was covered in excruciating detail in David Davis' industry sector impact analyses and various mitigating strategies identified. :rolleyes:

From Airbus' own risk assessment:

Quote:

No deal Brexit

In case of the UK leaving the EU without a deal on the 29th March 2019, there would be no Transition Phase, the UK would leave the Single Market, the Customs Union and the European Court of Justice jurisdiction. Therefore, WTO rules would kick in and numerous frictions would heavily impact our operations and that of our supply chain.

Airbus’ production is likely to be severely disrupted due to interruption to the flow of parts and/or discontinued airworthiness. Given today’s prevailing uncertainty, buffer stocks would be needed (estimated value circa €1B, not accounting for lead time and logistics disruptions).

Given Airbus’ steep ramp-up demands on the best-selling A320 and A350 families, our critical industrial capabilities are already running at full capacity. With no spare capacity left over years to come, every disruption to production would most likely turn into an unrecoverable delay.

Every week of unrecoverable delay would entail material working capital impact, re-allocation cost, cost for inefficient work, penalty payments to customers and up to €1B weekly loss of turnover. Despite the incremental stocks, the disruptions in a no deal Brexit situation are likely to add up to several weeks; potentially translating into a multi-billion impact on Airbus.
Which is why they wrote to Michael Barnier asking why he was preventing contingency plans being discussed.

UK jobs are at risk in the longer term, but in the shorter term it is Airbus as a whole that is at risk.

EDIT: And of course if Airbus needs government support in the short term, Boeing will be running straight to the WTO.


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Water Contamination - "Public Relations Nightmare" Report EPA & WH tried to block

From May:

Quote:

Scott Pruitt’s EPA and the White House sought to block publication of a federal health study on a nationwide water-contamination crisis, after one Trump administration aide warned it would cause a "public relations nightmare," newly disclosed emails reveal.
Linky.

Now it's out:

Quote:

These chemical compounds pose health risks to millions of Americans. They’re in roughly 1 percent of the nation’s public water supply, according to the EPA; in roughly 1,500 drinking water systems across the country, according to the Environmental Working Group. People who drink from these systems, even if their exposure to PFAS is low, now have a potentially increased risk of cancer; of disruptions in hormones and the immune system; and of complications with fetal development during pregnancy.

But military personnel and veterans are particularly at risk, because PFAS compounds are in firefighting foams, which have been used in training exercises at military bases across America since the 1970s. Those foams have leached into the groundwater at the bases, and often the drinking water supply. Nearly three million Americans get their drinking water from Department of Defense systems.

The DOD has reported widespread contamination at its bases, as well as the surrounding area. In a March report to the House Armed Services Committee, the department provided a list of 126 military facilities where nearby water supplies contained PFAS levels above the EPA’s standard, and 36 bases with drinking water contamination on site. “In all, 25 Army bases; 50 Air Force bases, 49 Navy or Marine Corps bases and two Defense Logistics Agency sites have tested at higher than acceptable levels for the compounds in either their drinking water or groundwater sources,” the Military Times reported.

The EPA had been assuring people who lived on these bases that they were safe from the potentially harmful effects of PFAS—which range in severity from weight gain to liver disease to cancer—at levels of 70 parts per trillion. But the new ATSDR study says safe levels were actually much lower, from 7 to 11 parts per trillion.

...

Since becoming aware of PFAS contamination, the DOD has “shut down wells, provided alternate water sources, or installed water treatment systems” at 11 military installations, according to a 2017 report from the Government Accountability Office. But despite that progress, “the pace of actual cleanup has been quite slow,” the Berkeley School of Law said in a report cited by the Center for Public Integrity. “Most of the time and money has been spent studying the problem,” the report added.

That time and money is wasted when those studies are delayed unnecessarily, Benesch said. “It was ready six months ago,” she said. “Six months that the government agency responsible for setting these levels, for doing the toxicology, was not able to provide us with their findings.” Providing the study earlier would have forced the EPA to consider changing its regulations sooner, Benesch said. Had parents and pregnant women on military bases known about the study, perhaps more of them would have avoided the tap water.

What, then, did the study’s temporary suppression achieve for Trump and Pruitt? It bought some time for the chemical manufacturers that support them, so they can prepare for the inevitable onslaught of personal injury lawsuits related to PFAS contamination. It also delayed public pressure to increase government spending on environmental cleanups at military bases and on updating rural water infrastructure. But the study’s delay may not have achieved what Trump and Pruitt most wanted it to. Let the public relations nightmare begin.
Linky.

Remember when the EPA barred those reporters?

Quote:

The emails became public around the time the EPA held a conference on these chemicals in water. EPA allowed a small number of reporters to attend EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's remarks at this conference. CNN was among those excluded, and an Associated Press reporter asking to attend the meeting was shoved out of the building by a security guard.
Linky.


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jeudi 21 juin 2018

Alzheimers - Answer Found?

This is fascinating research, and possibly opens the door for an end to Alzheimer's: https://www.theguardian.com/society/...say-scientists

As Prof Hardy notes: "There are some families with mutations in specific genes who always get this disease. It’s difficult to square that with a viral aetiology. I’d urge an extremely cautious interpretation of these results."

Yet if, as the article notes, "the viruses are... much more common forms of herpes that nearly everyone carries..." then a genetic propensity could be easily explained.

Very early days, but I like the comment that they weren't looking for viruses, but the numbers couldn't be ignored.

If it turns out that the virus is the cause, it would open the door to vaccination, similar to the shingles & HPV shots.

Watch this space!


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Canada legalizes recreational use of marijuana

The Canadian Senate has voted 59-29 to legalize the recreational use of marijuana paving the way for a fully legal cannabis market within a few months. This makes it the second country after Uruguay to do so (not counting the legal minefield that exists in US states).
Quote:

The Government is expected to decide a date that would legalise it in early or mid-September.

"We have seen in the Senate tonight a historic vote that ends 90 years of prohibition of cannabis in this country, 90 years of needless criminalisation, 90 years of a just-say-no approach to drugs that hasn't worked," independent Senator Tony Dean, who sponsored the bill in the Upper House, said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-2...na-use/9890440


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mercredi 20 juin 2018

Civil War Battlefield 'Limb Pit' Reveals Work Of Combat Surgeons

Civil War Battlefield 'Limb Pit' Reveals Work Of Combat Surgeons

Quote:

Scientists have uncovered a pit of human bones at a Civil War battlefield in Virginia. The remains are the amputated limbs of wounded Union soldiers.

It's the first "limb pit" from a Civil War battlefield to be excavated, and experts say it opens a new window on what is often overlooked in Civil War history: the aftermath of battle, the agony of survivors and the trials of early combat surgeons.


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[Continuation] Donald Trump has 'dangerous mental illness', say psychiatry experts at Yale... Pt 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emily's Cat (Post 12331305)
We're setting a precedent that a very, very, very small number of mental health practitioners can claim that a politician has a mental disorder, without having followed the appropriate procedures to form a diagnosis... and can use that as a means to remove that politician from office.

In what possible universe does some people saying he has a personality disorder result in him actually being removed from office? That would be like suggesting that if I say he stole my wallet he's going to be dragged away and thrown in jail.

The most it could possibly be, the most drastic and consequential result, is that if all the right people found it plausible they could force him to undergo a direct evaluation and then maybe, possibly, use the result of that as part of the evidence needed to lawfully remove him from office. But that's a pretty extreme case and frankly isn't going to happen.

So no, I'm not at all worried about that.


Mod InfoThread continued from here. You may quote and respond to post from previous parts.
Posted By:zooterkin


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GE kicked off the DJIA

The last of the original DJIA members, General Electric, is being booted off for poor performance.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...member-removed

Apparently, GE has been booted before, but that was back in the very early 20th century. Coming back seems unlikely this time around.


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“Brain Balance”

We’ve been getting pretty heavy advertising locally for this Brain Balance treatment regimen, which is alleged to cure or treat a variety of childhood mental problems including ADHD and even autism.
The ads have generally been in the form of testimonials from parents who go on about how their kid was “unmanageable” prior to treatment and is now a happy, studious child.

Little or nothing about what form the actual treatment was. Sounded pretty suspect to me...

NPR’s All Things Considered did an article on the outfit yesterday:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...zor-thin-evide

The scientific underpinnings for the techniques used, including the diagnostic techniques, are very suspect. The article mentions that one study touted by the outfit was actually authored by the guy in charge.

There are testimonials from apparently-satisfied parents. The price is steep, as much as 10,000 dollars a month, and this is not covered by any insurance.


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University draws fires for using "Nazi" quote

BBC News: University includes Nazi quote in email to students

"A university has apologised for emailing students a quote by a notorious Nazi general in what was meant to be a motivational message.

The email quoted Erwin Rommel's saying: "One cannot permit unique opportunities to slip by for the sake of trifles."

The University of Exeter said the quote, used by a member of staff in its career advice service, was "randomly" generated from a website."

Obviously the facts that Rommel was never a member of the Nazi party, and that he was forced by actual Nazis to commit suicide after being implicate in the July Plot to assassinate Hitler is probably a bit too nuanced for the reporter....


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Clintonemails.com: Who is Eric Hoteham Part 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Big Dog (Post 12332481)
It isn't just about McCabe [...]

We don't know that. We don't know what role the grand jury has played in this. All we know is that one has been involved in some way at some point.

Quote:

[...]and because the doj IG just testified about it yesterday....
But we already knew McCabe had been referred to prosecutors, and this doesn't seem to add any information to that as far as I can tell. What in this story is actually new information?

Mod InfoThread continued from here. You can quote and reply to any posts from previous parts of this thread.
Posted By:zooterkin


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Optus is accused of racism over its 'Ethnic Dads' comedy segment that mocked European

Quote:

Optus' shabby World Cup coverage has again come under fire, with viewers slamming a comedy segment as racist.



Comedy group Sooshi Mango joined host Mel McLaughlin and former Australian football star Mark Schwarzer during their coverage of the tournament.


Playing their roles as 'Ethnic Dads', the group's appearance was criticised by viewers who said it was 'nearly as bad as their attempt at broadcasting the World Cup' and 'as funny as a prostate exam'.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/austr...age/ar-AAySYyW


Posted as I find this interesting given that it is allegedly impossible to be racist against 'white people'.


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Boy placed in foster care after mum refused to buy him an ice cream

Quote:

A judge has blasted a social worker and ordered a boy to be returned to his mother, after the child was taken away because the woman refused to buy him an ice cream.


The social worker stated in a 44-page application, the mother was failing to meet the now eight-year-old’s “emotional needs” by not allowing the boy his treat one time, and not giving him the haircut he wanted.


Despite the lengthy witness statement, Justice Mostyn on Wednesday ruled those claims were “utterly insubstantial” and “obviously inconsequential”.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/boy-placed...041656148.html


Reading between the lines, there may have been some real issues, but it seems that the social worker was not able to clearly articulate them.


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mardi 19 juin 2018

Graffiti Artists, or Scum? Three Men Killed on Railway.

Three men were killed in the early hours of yesterday, at Loughborough junction, near Brixton, aged 19 and 23.

Due to the grafitti paraphenalia surrounding the bodies, police believed they were in the process of 'tagging' the railway bridge, seen by thousands of commuters every day, heading into central London.

However, some have called them 'scum' and 'vandals'.

So, what do you think, scum and vandals, or street artists?

Quote:

Police have informed the families of the three men, aged 19, 23 and 23, who were killed by a freight train near Loughborough Junction station on Monday morning.

Their relatives and members of the London street art scene eulogised them as talented artists whose deaths had left them bereft.
They are named as:

Quote:

Harrison Scott-Hood, who was 23 and from Muswell Hill in north London, was “loved by everyone”, said his parents, Susie and Perry, adding: “He was an intelligent and wonderful boy who had so many close friends.” Their son was a “beautiful artist”, they said.
Quote:

Alberto Fresneda Carrasco, a 19-year-old Spanish-American who lived in north London, enjoyed fashion and was due to begin studying graphic design at the London College of Communication in September.
Quote:

The third victim was named by family as Jack Gilbert, 23, from Muswell Hill, north London. Messages were left to the trio under their “tags” of Kbag, Lover and Trip on social media.


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California collector with 550 guns gets busted

He's a felon so he can't have any. The photos seem to show almost entirely long guns that look pretty old. I see some lever-action rifles and probably some shotguns.

Convicted US felon arrested with more than 500 guns in California home

Quote:

Originally Posted by BBC News
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department have found more than 500 guns inside the home of a convicted felon after a tipoff from a neighbour.

Deputies arrested Manuel Fernandez, 60, after a two-day search of his home revealed the massive illegal arsenal.

He was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, and illegally having an assault rifle and large-capacity magazines.

He was released on a $35,000 (£27,000) bond one day after his arrest...

...According to the LA Times, a source familiar with the investigation says the owner appears to be a firearms collector rather than someone with plans to use the guns for violence.

Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) are examining the weapons - some appear to be decades old - in an attempt to trace their origin...


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44537028


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Are the Imigrant tents in Texas sutible Faraday Cages?

Are the tents in Texas, suitable and safe durring Thunderstorms?
https://physics.stackexchange.com/qu...a-faraday-cage
Remember hearing about several animals being killed in similar conditions a few years ago.


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Feynman 100 at Caltech

Caltech organized a conference to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Richard Feynman. Separated into two days, the first of which features speakers with more personal talks about Feynman while the theme of the second I took to be "if Feynman were alive, what would we want to tell him about modern physics".

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...tVGlcgRXfnq768

As a Feynman fan I enjoyed these and thought others might as well. Highlights for me were his sister Joan's talk, and Leonard Susskind (I'm a fan of his as well, but he talks mostly about Feynman's scientific career this time), but there's a lot of good stuff.

For those who have enjoyed both the science and the stories of Feynman there's probably not too much new material about the man, but for instance Joan Feynman's talk was more about herself, and about her brother's influence on her life as a scientist.

Anyway, I expect there are some other Feynman fans around here, and hope you will enjoy this too. :)


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Why are apointments to US supreme court so contested

As an European, this is something that puzzles me about US politics. It was a huge deal when the republicans blocked Obamas candidate for the supreme court, and later had their own candidate get the vacant seat. I never hear about similar controversies in my own country (Denmark) or neighboring countries.

So can anybody explain why it is different in the US?


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lundi 18 juin 2018

Can jumping Mexicans cause an earthquake?

Did Mexico’s Revelry in World Cup Win Over Germany Cause an Earthquake?

Quote:

Originally Posted by New York Times
Late Sunday morning, seismic sensors in Mexico City detected what was reported to be a small earthquake. But it was triggered in an “artificial manner,” according to the group monitoring the gauges.

“Possibly because of mass jumping,” said the group, the Institute of Geologic and Atmospheric Investigations in Mexico, which said that at least two of its sensors picked up the activity.

The cause of that mass jumping? Moments before, the Mexican men’s national soccer team had scored a goal against powerhouse Germany in their group-stage match in the World Cup in Moscow...

...While nobody was questioning the degree of happiness experienced by the nation, some experts challenged the claim of seismic activity circulated by the Institute of Geologic and Atmospheric Investigations.

El País, the Spanish newspaper, quoted Arturo Iglesias, an investigator with the Institute of Geophysics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, saying that an earthquake cannot be induced by “the scattered activity of fans.”

In a blog post on Sunday night, the Institute of Geologic and Atmospheric Investigations appeared to push back at the doubters, clarifying that the event was imperceptible to the general population. This sort of occurrence can be referred to as an “artificial” earthquake, the institute said, “to clearly establish that it is not a geological event.”...


https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/06/1...world-cup.html


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Sherrif's Deputy charged with Super Aggravated Sexual Assault

Jose Nunez, 10 year veteran of the Bexar County Sherrif's dept, has been charged with sexual assault of a four year old girl, possibly repeatedly and possibly with other victims. Nunez is said to have threatened the chil's undocumented mother with deportation if she reported it.

My question is, and I trust there are posters with some experience in this area: how do predators like this function in day to day world? It seems that the level of depravity such a person is living under would render him unable to function normally. Wouldn't alarm bells be going off with his every word and action? Does a sociopath (or whatever designation) also possess tremendously convincing acting skills? How do they know how to behave 'normally' to go undetected if they are so profoundly warped?

http://wjactv.com/news/nation-world/...ds-sex-assault


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dimanche 17 juin 2018

The Trump/Kim Summit - USA v No. Korea - General Discussion

Wow, Kim must be at home writing, "Dear Penthouse Letters, I never would have believed it if it hadn't happened to me". Trump did the diplomatic equivalent of saying yes to anal on the first date. He even let Lunchbox pull his hair. Some strong leader we have. I knew he gave it up for Russian oligarchs, but the thirty something from a basket case like North Korea? Jeeze. The hookers in Nevada brothels have higher standards than your president.


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What is the source of dust?

By dust I mean fine particulate matter, and I'm interested in natural sources, here on Earth, but also on the Moon, Venus (if there is any), Mars, etc.

Focusing on the main sources, both immediate and indirect. And ignoring "water dust" (i.e. snow and ice), at least here on Earth.

My guess is that the main immediate sources are soil, sandy deserts, and sandy beaches. With volcanoes an important, but not major, source. Micrometeorites, salt spray, and no doubt many others are minor sources. The purely geological processes involved (i.e. ignoring the organic ones which are essential for the creation of soil; I'm interested in those which apply beyond the Earth) are thus water, ice, and wind erosion (probably in that order).

On the Moon, there's surely a lot of dust from ancient volcanoes and large impacts, but in recent times (i.e. the last ~3 billion years) it's the result of micrometeorites and their impacts. Similarly for Mercury.

On Mars?

On Venus??


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samedi 16 juin 2018

Slow network file copying to only one drive

I have this very strange problem. As I have said before, I have a number of computers networked together in my business, but for the purposes of dealing with the problem I'll just talk about two.



On Computer #1, the single HDD is IDE connected (its an old computer that runs XP SP3, but as its a turnkey computer, it cannot be upgraded due to software and hardware constraints).

On Computer #2, the SSDs and the HDD are all SATA connected.

The problem is that when I try to copy a folder of files from Computer #1 TO Drive T: on Computer #2, its is extremely slow, yet copying the other way, or between T: and D: is fine. For testing, I used a folder containing 20 image files totalling about 18MB.

Computer #1 C: to Computer #2 D: <5 seconds (same in reverse)

Computer #1 C: to Computer #2 T: 7 minutes 31 sec

but in reverse

Computer #2 T: to Computer #1 C: <5 seconds

Computer #2 D: to Computer #2 T: - <5 seconds (same in reverse)

Because T: and C: on Computer #2 are both identical SSDs, I tested C:

Computer #1 C: to Computer #2 C: <5 seconds (same in reverse)

If there is some problem with Drive T: or the way it is configured, why would it only affect network file transfers when writing to the drive, and not reading from it.

Now for clarity (even though I didn't do any actual testing) I get the same result if I try to copy files from ANY of the other computers on the network to Drive T: on Computer #2.... its very, very slow.

This has got me stumped.


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vendredi 15 juin 2018

How should people address law enforcement leaks?

This is related specifically to law enforcement leaks about cases.

The IG report has added more to something I have pondered for awhile. It found widespread relationship building between the press and FBI. I would bet efforts to foster leaks at state level depends on the importance of the state.

I think we can move beyond the basics real quick. The reasons we should oppose FBI leaks on cases are clear. The reasons the press should try and get leaks are clear.

What should we do about it? How should it be balanced?


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Wealth Redistribution Or Tax Cuts?

https://futurism.com/research-shows-...-not-tax-cuts/

I was browsing the net and came across this article. I could not believe what I was reading. While I agree that there seems to be a huge gap between the haves and have nots, I don't believe that the Robin Hood approach will solve the problem for the same reason that approximately 70% of lottery winners go broke.

In many cases, people wind up "poor" because of bad choices and an inability to manage money in the first place. Dumping a heap of cash on them gives them some relief and maybe even some luxuries but in the end, the majority of them will be broke again, with some even worse off than before they received the windfall.

I believe that financial literacy taught in compulsory school courses would be beneficial. However, in countries like the US, where "keeping up with the Joneses" and product advertising influences purchasing, would result in pretty much the same outcome.

I think some tax cuts or tax credits would bring some relief to the bottom 50% of income earners without completely robbing the upper 50% who pay the vast majority of taxes.

Is this pandora's box?


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Skirting the issue....

BBC News: New upskirting law blocked by Tory MP

"An attempt to make upskirting a specific criminal offence in England and Wales has been blocked by one Conservative MP.

The government had given its support to introducing the new law earlier.

But Sir Christopher Chope shouted "object" to the bill, leading to cries of "shame" from other MPs.

The campaign for the law against upskirting - where photos are secretly taken under a skirt - was started by victim Gina Martin.

Ms Martin said she was "extremely upset and disappointed" by Sir Christopher's objection, but remained "positive and hopeful".

She said she had already spoken to him and arranged a meeting to discuss the bill further with him.

Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse, who brought the private member's bill to Parliament, has criticised the "out-of-touch Tory" for "sabotaging" it.

Other MPs, including Conservative ministers and colleagues, have tweeted about their dismay at Sir Christopher's decision.

Ms Hobhouse's bill would have made upskirting a criminal offence and meant offenders could face a maximum of two years in prison."

On BBC Breakfast this morning Hobhouse suggested that the fact that the act has been an offence in Scotland - where it is apparently known as "upkilting" - since 2009 may be down to it being taken more seriously when men are targetted kind of missed the point. A camera up a Scotsman's kilt is more likely to reveal more than what is up the average lady's skirt.


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The Stanford Prison Experiment was a hoax

https://medium.com/s/trustissues/the...e-d869212b1f62

That article isn't really written in a way where I can quote a relevant part or two, but to sum much of it up - Zimbardo, the man who orchestrated the experiment, has lied about many aspects of what actually went on, even if he hadn't it was methodologically unsound, and even if it weren't people who have tried to replicate it have come up with different results and so Zimbardo has tried to prevent their papers from being published.


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mercredi 13 juin 2018

Yerkes Observatory Tours - University of Chicago Ending 121-Year Relationship

On June 2 my brothers and I visited the Yerkes Observatory, which is owned and operated by the University of Chicago. It’s located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin on Geneva Lake not far from Chicago.

Yerkes was built in 1897 and originally housed the telescope with the world’s widest aperture, a 40-inch refractor. It’s still there. It had a long history of significant astronomical discoveries by prominent astronomers.

Hour-long $10 tours are conducted every day but Sunday. You learn about the unique architecture of the building, then sit near the large telescope for a lecture about it. During scheduled evenings you can observe through the large telescope for $100.

The tour and accompanying lectures are marvelous. The reason for the fees is that the U of C will divest itself from association with the observatory on 2018 OCT 01. Local residents who perform docent duties including lecturing are in the process of raising funds so that they can keep the observatory running and continue providing tours.

If you are living in or visiting Northern Illinois or Southern Wisconsin, I highly recommend touring Yerkes. Here’s a link to its website: astro.uchicago.edu/yerkes

Meanwhile, I've been in contact with the head of the local community's Yerkes Future Foundation. Ditto for the chairman of the physics department at Northern Illinois University which is not far from Yerkes Observatory. They are now in contact with each other. While an institution of higher learning is needed to maintain and operate the facility, a homebuilder is needed to develop the surrounding 77 acres near Geneva Lake.

Below is a link to an article regarding the Yerkes Future Foundation. Its proposal is essentially a place holder as it seeks prospects with deeper pockets.

https://www.chicagomaroon.com/articl...p-yerkes-open/


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Will California split up?

Initiative to break California into 3 states to go on November ballot

I am kind of curious. California is not as liberal as many people think, the deserts east of Los Angeles were some of the most conservative places I ever visited in the U.S. This would split into three states, six senators. That might be the biggest impact nationwide, shifting the U.S. Senate from 100 people up to 104.

(New) California (centered on the LA area) would probably reliably deliver two Democratic Senators.

North California (including the SF Bay area and Sacramento, all points north from there) would probably be likely to produce two reliably Democratic Senators (but not as reliable as LA, due to the libertarian leaning areas in the far north and east parts of the area).

South California (San Diego, Imperial Valley, the far eastern deserts up to the northern end of Death Valley) would probably elect Republican Senators. Strong military vote in the San Diego area, strong conservative and libertarian leaning folks out in the deserts.

Will it happen? My guess is that many people the South eastern deserts would be happy to leave the state. Much of LA's water delivery system would end up in South California. People in the eastern deserts always thought they got a raw deal out of LA's water acquisition efforts.


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Apparently Kat Von D is an anti-vaxxer (surprise, surprise)

https://www.buzzfeed.com/laurenstrap...8Gk#.faxzKzE8J

To summarize, Kat Von D, aka she of the potential anti-Semitism with a husband who has swastikas tattooed on him and makes swastika art, is now getting on her high horse and claiming she plans to raise a "vegan child, without vaccinations", as she is pregnant with her first (I think). She proceeded to then tell people who oppose her stance to unfollow her.

Setting aside the hypocrisy of making a public post about how you plan to raise your child and then telling everyone in advance to shove off with their advice, I find her stance deeply disturbing on many levels. The Veganism is one thing, and while it is possible to raise your child vegan, I sincerely hope she does her research on finding the correct foods to feed her child at each stage of growth after she weans it from breastfeeding (which I assume she plans to do); but her lack of research, or rather research into the woo side of vaccinations, concerns me greatly. Not only is she placing her child at risk, she's placing every other child and adult who for whatever reason (immuno-compromised, too young for vaccinations, etc) can't get vaccinated at that moment at risk. And all because of a thoroughly debunked study from a man who has since been barred from practicing medicine because he flat-out lied in his work.

I have a friend who chose not to vaccinate her children, but with her I support her stance for several reasons. One, she suffered SEVERE allergic reactions to every vaccination she was ever given as a child (to the point of being hospitalized after every one), and she was concerned her children might suffer the same problem. Two, she homeschools and keeps a close eye on her children, and if they show the slightest sign of being sick she keeps them home and does not let them around the other children in the neighborhood until they are well. Three, she plans to let them make their own decisions about being vaccinated once they are old enough to make that choice. She is not choosing to not vaccinate her children because of a debunked study, and she is well aware that when sick her children are a danger to other children and adults who cannot be vaccinated for whatever reason and keeps them home as much as possible. Kat Von D on the other hand is, at least apparently, not vaccinating because of a ludicrous stance that has been thoroughly debunked, and that ticks me off. However, it seems this might hit her in the pocketbook at least; many people are now planning to boycott her cosmetics line in protest of her stance, so with any luck she'll feel at least a minor pinch for her lunacy.


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Biblical Gender Roles Absurdity

I stumbled over this article via an unrelated search - “Why god wants you to stay in an abusive relationship”. If you think that’s a great article, stay for the rest of the site.

There’s nothing like a belief in biblical inerrancy to justify acting like an asshat to your fellow humans, but the author appears to be immune to cognitive dissonance as long as it’s in the Bible and benefits his position.

Is this sort of thing common? I’ve never encountered this worldview in real life.

Pass the brain scrubbing brush, please.

https://biblicalgenderroles.com/2018...-relationship/


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mardi 12 juin 2018

Please Defend Transcendental Human Rights

On this forum, it is common for the concept of human rights to come up. Whether we’re talking about gun ownership, abortion, or privacy, this side discussion is likely to arise, and when it does, it almost always becomes a jumbled mess of people talking past one another. So I’m making this thread as an opportunity for those who believe in transcendental human rights to make their case.

So what exactly are we talking about here? Honestly, I’m not entirely sure, because I don’t believe in transcendental rights, nor do I know precisely what others are referencing when they invoke them. But I can nail down what we are not here to discuss.
  1. Human rights are a government/legal construct. A right is something that I am legally permitted to do. In the United States, I am allowed to voice my displeasure with the government. In North Korea, I do not have that right.
  2. Human rights are certain principles that, when reflected by human actions, tend to enhance prosperity. If we all behave as though humans have a right to bodily autonomy, then we will avoid assaulting one another, and then everyone will be happier and safer as a result.

Almost certainly, most people would agree that both of these concepts of human rights are sound, and so they do not really need to be debated. I am making this thread about “transcendental” rights because there are some people who believe that human rights are something more than the two examples above.

Perhaps these rights are a physical fact of the universe, like the gravitational constant. Maybe they an inherent facet of human nature. Or, they might be special privileges bestowed by God himself.

Whatever the case may be, if you are a proponent of transcendental human rights, then there’s a few questions I’d like you to answer.
  1. Can you give a definition of human rights?
  2. How do you know these rights exist?
  3. The American founding fathers believed that we were all endowed with “certain unalienable rights,” yet they also believed that slave-ownership did not conflict with those rights. How can we pinpoint their error?


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Iphone randomly not charging while off

Anyone ever heard of this? Got an iphone 6, plug it in at night to charge: can see the charging symbol. Turn off the phone to charge faster (and not get woken up at 3 AM due to alerts), while making sure while turning it off it's on a stable surface, charging symbol still lit.

Next morning, turn it on: hasn't charged at all. Plug it in and it starts charging again.

Can't find anything on internet about it.


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Two men ask for directions, get beaten to death by mob as fake WhatsApp video sparks

The problem with fake news...



Quote:

Two men have been beaten to death by an angry mob in the Indian state of Assam because of false rumours spread on social media about child kidnapping gangs.


The pair had stopped to ask for directions when they were killed; their deaths filmed by attackers who then shared the gory videos online.


One of the victims, 29-year-old musician Nilotpal Das, can be seen covered in blood and pleading for his life.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world...ria/ar-AAyx6sV


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lundi 11 juin 2018

Air Force Officer Deserter caught

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/11/us/mi...-jr/index.html
Quote:

Capt. William Howard Hughes Jr. disappeared in July of 1983 after returning from duty in Europe. He was last seen in New Mexico withdrawing $28,500 from his bank account at 19 different branch locations, the Air Force said in a statement.

.... he was formally declared a deserter on December 9, 1983.

"On June 5, during a passport fraud investigation, the US Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service interviewed an individual claiming to be Barry O'Beirne. After being confronted with inconsistencies about his identity, the individual admitted his true name was William Howard Hughes Jr., ....
Long time to be missing for someone still hiding out. Newspapers back then saw a link between his disappearance and certain events such as the Challenger disaster. Hughes said he went UA because he was depressed.

Ranb


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Removing Names From Voter Rolls

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/11/polit...hio/index.html
Quote:

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Ohio's method of removing names from its voter rolls does not violate federal law.

Ohio law allows the state to send address confirmation notices to voters who have not engaged in voter activity for two years. If a voter returns the notice through prepaid mail, or responds online, the information is updated. If the notice is ignored and the voter fails to update a registration over the next four years, the registration is canceled.
Okay, on the surface it doesn't seem so unreasonable.

Quote:

A dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor and liberal justices argued that the court ignored a history of voter suppression that the National Voter Registration Act, commonly referred to as the motor voter law, was meant to address.

"Congress enacted the NVRA against the backdrop of substantial efforts by states to disenfranchise low-income and minority voters, including programs that purged eligible voters from registration lists because they failed to vote in prior elections," Sotomayor wrote.
On the other hand using the law to unfairly disenfranchise people is bad.

Quote:

The case came about when Larry Harmon challenged the process arguing that he was removed from the rolls even though he had not moved, but rather had opted not to vote in 2009 and 2010. When he showed up at the polls in 2015 he was told his registration had been canceled. He claimed no recollection of receiving a confirmation notice from the state and he later brought suit along with two public interest groups called the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and the A. Philip Randolph Institute.

In September 2016, a federal appeals court ruled against Ohio, saying that 7,515 ballots that had been struck could be cast in the that fall's election. The state appealed, saying the process targets people who have failed to respond to a notice, not those who have failed to vote.
Then we have those lazy ass people who don't make a decent effort to vote. I'm not saying that Mr. Harmon is lazy, but if a person needs to vote to stay registered, then perhaps it is a good idea to actually participate in an election?

https://www.vote.org/state/ohio/
This stuff is not that hard. Libraries have internet now; don't need it at home to register or obtain an absentee ballot. I've voted by mail since 1989.

Sometimes you just have to put your back into it.

Ranb


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[Continuation] Breaking: Mueller Grand Jury charges filed, arrests as soon as Monday pt 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Big Dog (Post 12322438)
How quickly we go from McCabe is a patriot to ignoring the facts about the OIG to asserting that McCabe's criminal lawyer is acting reasonably in obtaining an immunity deal before testifying before Congress arising out of his misconduct while the person who was second in charge at the FBI.



Lying under oath to advance one's personal interests at the expense of the FBI.

Sounds like a patriot, don't it.

We don't know what instructions or pressure Sessions or others in the administration put on the IG at DOJ to come to their conclusion. We'll have to wait for a party untainted by Trump connections to determine the truth.


Mod Info
Continued from this thread. You can quote and reply to any post from that thread here.
Posted By:zooterkin


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Apparently Russia helped orchestrate and bankroll the Brexit campaign propaganda.

This is breaking several different ways over the past 24 hours.


Everything you need to know about the bombshell report linking Russia to Brexit By David Gilbert Jun 11, 2018

How a Journalist Kept Russia’s Secret Links to Brexit Under Wraps
A pro-Brexit journalist held back evidence of links between Russia and the Brexit campaign while playing down so-called conspiracy theories on TV.


https://www.theguardian.com/politics...brexit-meeting

Quote:

Arron Banks, the millionaire businessman who bankrolled Nigel Farage’s campaign to quit the EU, had multiple meetings with Russian embassy officials in the run-up to the Brexit referendum, documents seen by the Observer suggest.

• Multiple meetings between the leaders of Leave.EU and high-ranking Russian officials, from November 2015 to 2017.

• Two meetings in the week Leave.EU launched its official campaign.

• An introduction to a Russian businessman, by the Russian ambassador, the day after Leave.EU launched its campaign, who reportedly offered Banks a multibillion dollar opportunity to buy Russian goldmines.

• A trip to Moscow in February 2016 to meet key partners and financiers behind a gold project, including a Russian bank.

• Continued extensive contact in the run-up to the US election when Banks, his business partner and Leave.EU spokesman Andy Wigmore, and Nigel Farage campaigned in the US to support Donald Trump’s candidacy.
Quote:

Towards the end of last year, Banks issued a statement saying his contacts with “the Russians” consisted of “one boozy lunch” at the Russian embassy. Documents seen by the Observer, suggest a different version of events.

Was fairly easy to see this coming a couple months ago when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica was carrying water for pro-Brexit groups.


Amazing the times we live in. Putin has his hand in every pie:

Quote:

A trove of leaked emails have exposed the extensive Russian ties of two top Brexit supporters in the U.K. who later threw their weight behind
Quote:

Controversy has grown over Russia’s alleged interference in a series of key polls, including the election of Donald Trump, last year’s French presidential elections and the Brexit referendum, to secure outcomes favourable to President Putin. Putin has long seen the eastward expansion of EU influence as a threat.

Putin has learned that propaganda > military & GDP. Dividing the enemy makes you stronger.

And here's an American opinion, so beware: 50 years ago the USA would have treated this as a deceleration of war against our allies. Sadly, as seen with the Russian interference in our election over here, one of our major parties is quite literally in Putin's pocket.


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