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atomheartbevo

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Posts posted by atomheartbevo

  1. Pretty sure Wesley Crusher-based plots was written by people who grew up watching Will Robinson in the 60s. Not sure where Dr. Smith fit in.   I guess merge Data/Troi/Dr. Crusher to get that intelligence/incompetence combination. 

  2. Damn. Humble is not going to let Story Bundle put up a bunch of stuff without a response. 

    https://www.humblebundle.com/books/super-nebula-2018-books

    Quote

    HUMBLE BOOK BUNDLE: SUPER NEBULA AUTHOR SHOWCASE 2018 PRESENTED BY SFWA

    Not just the daughter of Thanos! The Nebula bundle is back with another shining compilation of some of the best speculative fiction ever published. Get titles from Ursula K. Le Guin, Greg Bear, Octavia E. Butler, James Morrow, and more. It's not around for an infinity, though, so grab the bundle now!

    Seriously, scroll down through that collection. Some decent authors. 

  3. 1 hour ago, chainsaw said:

    How fucked up are we talkin here

    No exact details other than life threatening and/or potential for amputation.   It was just a comment made in passing (asking somebody in our group to pray for them)  

    Which isn’t surprising. You don’t get a bunch of screws/nails/whatever shot into your legs without something bad happening.  

  4. Thought this was going to be about an upcoming series from NBC (airs in September).

    Quote

    Manifest, a high-concept mystery thriller, which has landed at NBC with a put pilot commitment, is exploring such a hypothetical scenario. The drama hails from The Mysteries of Laura creator Jeff Rake and producer Robert Zemeckis. Warner Bros. TV, where both Zemeckis and Rake have overall deals, is the studio.

    In Manifest, written/executive produced by Rake, a plane disappears from radar and returns five years later after being untraceable and presumed lost at sea. No time has passed for those on the plane but, for their loved ones at home, a long five years have gone by. The series follows their personal lives as well as the larger mystery and purpose that is their destiny.

     

  5. Speaking of snappers, there is a decent sized snapping turtle in the main pond near Central Market on North Lamar (looked to be Common and not Alligator).  Saw him come up near the bridge, looked to be easily 20 pounds+.  Not as big as the snapping turtles around Barton Creek/Springs/Town Lake, but some kid is going to be surprised one of these days when they are down there catching minnows, especially with all of the growth on the water hiding a lot of things.

    Hopefully nobody takes a hammer to it

  6. 1 hour ago, Aphelion said:

    I’ve never heard someone self identify as an evangelical.  Typically folks will say they are Christian and if pressed give the denomination they attend. The term was developed to lump large groups together for political demographic purposes.  People now use it as a pejorative to reference what they believe to be a monolithic group of hateful nationalists whose sole purpose was to get Trump in office.  They often have some crazy uncle or father in law that they can give an anecdotal reference for what all evangelicals must be like.  Similar to how entire races of people must be like the few representatives you know. 

    This is all anecdotal, but I hear folks at my wife's church (Baptist and a large Baptist church at that) use the term and/or self-identify as evangelicals all the time.  This is a church with a large Hispanic and Korean/Asian population, and a smaller Indian (India Indians) population, and they send folks on missionary work to South America, Africa, and India on a fairly regular basis.

    What I don't hear them use is "fundamentalist" and I doubt any of them want any association with that term, even though some of the older folks would definitely be identified as fundamentalists in times past.

    And I've also heard plenty that make it very clear they are uncomfortable with Trump, up to and including the lead pastor.

    And I've heard more than one story from somebody in her Sunday school group (ages 20s-50s) that started off with "I have a friend who is gay/atheist/whatever, and I've prayed for them for years, and they are going through a tough time right now, etc., etc., etc."  In other words, they maybe Baptist, probably even consider themselves evangelical, but unlike their parents' or grandparents' generation, they have friends that are gay/atheist/etc.

    I do believe there is a trend among the younger folks, because I hear things in a mainstream Baptist church these days that I wouldn't have 10 or 20 years ago, and if a lot of the older and more stricter denominations want to stay relevant, they are going to not only embrace these younger folks, but make sure they don't alienate them at some point.

  7. 45 minutes ago, JimTom said:

    The French are one of our biggest (if not the biggest) allies we have.   

    I know they are in our top three biggest allies - they were with us in the first Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo in the '90s, Afghanistan for over a decade, they even tried to save the Green Berets that were recently killed in North Africa (unfortunately the Green Berets thought they were going to be overrun and destroyed their radios and couldn't provide coordinates or instructions).  The French are with us in pretty much all of our major military endeavors these days, and have been since the '80s, which is why I always get pissed at the fucking rednecks doing the "French are pussies" nonsense.

    Quote

    Just so I understand you, you're saying it's ok for terrorists to kill civilians in France in 2018 because of the "non-peaceful" actions they might have been responsible for in the past?

    Not at all.  I'm saying the the terrorist attacks in France are not as random as some think - plenty of the nutcases carrying them out probably think they are helping their brothers in Afghanistan/Syria/North Africa in some way.  There's a reason why the US, UK, and France seem to top the list of these types of attacks.

    • Like 1
  8. It’s amazing how little he knows about history. “Peaceful” is not a word I would use to describe the French.  Putting aside Vietnam and the 70s and 80s,  they were with us in Afghanistan for over a decade, had their hands all over Libya, and are still heavily involved in North Africa, etc.  

  9. On 5/11/2018 at 7:57 AM, Modessit said:

    I have my DD214 so that's not an issue. I remember reading about the inspection issue. Not sure about credit scores for me and the wife (she was behind on student loans for a while) so I'll check that out. Wasn't planning on a fixer upper, but probably something in the $100k range outside Austin proper - preferably in or near Round Rock - although if the no MI requirement allows a low enough monthly payment then that price point might go up.

     

    The hot market concerned me about VA loans and owners accepting them. I remember a while back watching one of the house hunting shows where a Navy guy in CA with a VA loan went thru 35 properties before finally closing on one.

     

     

    Do you have an account with USAA?

  10. On 5/11/2018 at 5:58 PM, Patrick Bateman said:

    Here's some more info on why it was cancelled.....

    Indeed it looks like the nature of the deal with Syfy made it difficult for it to continue.  It may find a home somewhere though....

     

    SyFy is owned by NBC/Universal/Comcast, who also has a 30% stake in Hulu.  I’m kind of surprised they wouldn’t go to the mat for such a criticially acclaimed series. 

  11. 16 hours ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

    Yeah if you look back at Swam in the hornfan days, he was a typical conservative poster.  I agreed with him quite a bit.  Somewhere he took a turn towards the deep end, and we've been watching him approach it and then hit the gas as he went off the deep end since early shag days.  He definitely appears to believe the nonsense he spouts.  Its been amazing to watch.

    Its either that or I used to be a right wing kook and I worked my way out of it.  

    Self-loathing when he started living by the saying “it’s not gay if you’re underway.”

  12. 11 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

    I love how “evangelical” has become a dirty word. 

    It should, since so many sold out to hop on the Trump train.

    My wife goes to a large Baptist church, which means I occasionally do.  Plenty of them, you can tell they know that Trump is not a good person, is not much of a Christian, etc., but they are too locked into team politics to critically analyze him.

    edit: On the other hand, plenty of people I talk to 1-on-1 are not comfortable with Trump and acknowledge his flaws.   But getting them to say it publicly is impossible.  And this is a church with large immigrant populations (they have a couple of services for Spanish and Korean speakers), with a lot of members who spend time and/or money supporting missions in South America, Africa, and India.  

  13. I remember a lot of us who had been in the military, plus plenty of analysts online and in the MSM, looked at the units that were publicly named as being involved, and what the publicly-stated goals were, and looked at the actual size of the operational areas (very widespread across Texas and other states) and rightfully concluded that they were about to ramp up operations in Syria with US Army Special Forces (seriously, the size of the area was an almost perfect 1:1 representation of the size of Syria).

    But people chose to believe Russian bots and Alex Jones and that Walmarts had underground prisons.  Sounds about right.

  14. 5 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

    Hey Newdoc. I got all the Evangelical cred you might could ask for. SBC yo. I can quote Scripture and I have the Scofield in the new and old KJV plus others. Does that count? If I am a believer that has disavowed the stance of Jeffress and the son of Graham do I count? Can I now leave the Baptists and go unto  the Methodists or maybe even go all the way and be an Episcopalian? That's still Protestant right? 

    Bring it on. let's dance

    The biggest difference between Baptists and Methodists, is the Methodists will say “hi” to each other in the liquor store. 

    • Like 1
  15. 3 hours ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

    She was pretty obviously next in line for the dems from the moment Obama was sworn in. They had 8 years to focus on her and focus they did. The dem field in 2020 will be pretty crowded, so they can't laser focus on any one potential candidate like they did Hillary. You did see a little of it when Oprah's name got floated. I'd guess it took less than 24 hrs for the right wing memes to start showing up on the usual suspect's Facebook posts, but then she downplayed it and the memes stopped. Since the nomination likely won't be decided before summer of 2020, it will be much harder for them to gin up the hate like they did with H.  

    They will also most likely be heavily defensive over Trump at that point, and/or trying to preserve seats in Congress.  The GOP will be spread very thin. 

  16. 46 minutes ago, Tom said:

    Lulz.  One of the influential voices in this country is stoking paranoia and civil unrest at the idea of corruption in government being uncovered to a couple of callers while millions are listening who share their views.  

    We get it, man.  You're too cool for school and nothing matters to you.  It's all just a game. 

    If Rush Limbaugh’s audience were to suddenly disappear, the company that makes Rascal scooters would go under. 

    • Haha 1
  17. Relevant article for Austin.

    https://www.mystatesman.com/news/crime--law/documents-austin-police-embracing-wider-use-license-plate-readers/6kZ9vnEgeVKofJehgwn4GO/

    Quote

    About two years ago, Austin police began exploring the acquisition of equipment that automatically reads license plates with the intention of becoming better at finding stolen vehicles.

    But as plans developed, police ideas became grander as they considered expanding the scope of the program to collect data from several hundreds of thousands of drivers each day and allow police access to a vast license plate database, according to an American-Statesman analysis of more than two years of reports, memos, contracts and emails obtained through a public information request.

    The automatic license plate readers — or ALPRs — are essentially high-speed cameras that snap photos of license plates and use software to check plate numbers against a database of stolen cars. The technology has been pitched by police as a way to reduce auto thefts, increase the number of stolen vehicles recovered and save taxpayer dollars by indirectly reducing local insurance costs.

    But the equipment’s ability to track local drivers’ daily movements has ruffled privacy advocates.

    An analysis of the documents found that police have proposed expanding the use of ALPRs to:

    • Collect data on all drivers entering the city through major highways by documenting the time and date through a network of cameras affixed on Interstate 35, MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1), U.S. 183, U.S. 290 and Texas 71, which would essentially encircle the city.
    • Create so-called “virtual stakeouts” by using up to five trailers equipped with automatic license plate readers that can be moved throughout the city, allowing police to aim the cameras at specific locations.
    • Collect license plate data from time-sensitive crime scenes, such as robberies or homicides.

    The implications for law enforcement are compelling. ALPRs are considered by police to be a “force multiplier” — a way to make policing more effective without increasing the number of officers on the street. At its best, an ALPR could help a cop catch the plate of a car wanted in an Amber Alert and lead to the rescue of a kidnapped child. At its most worrisome, privacy advocates say, it could be used to monitor drivers who frequent certain religious centers or buildings associated with political groups.

    Privacy advocates also worry about possible abuse because of the manufacturers’ policy of maintaining all data collected by the cameras unless directed otherwise.

    “The longer they keep the data and the more data points you have, the more you can learn about a person’s behavior — where someone goes to church, what doctors they have or where they slept at night,” said Dave Maass, an investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy watchdog group. “Maybe we can predict where somebody is going to be, and we can tell you who their associates are. It can be very invasive over time.”

    Data collected from Austin police plate readers would be held indefinitely for now because no policy has been formalized. However, documents show police officials have suggested data retention of one year.

    Earlier this month, police started a $50,000 pilot program, which did not require Austin City Council approval, that affixed cameras to three unmarked patrol vehicles. Officers began uploading plate data to a server maintained by Vigilant Solutions, the California-based company that makes the equipment and its software.

    Vigilant officials confirmed that Austin police now have access to a license plate database made possible by plate readers attached to Vigilant’s private clients, mainly tow truck drivers and repo men.

    Quote

    An original proposal asked for cameras to be placed on all of Austin’s major highways, but that was amended to reduce costs. Instead, police would ask for a bank of cameras to be placed in far North Austin on I-35 to track southbound traffic as it moves into town and likewise in far South Austin for traffic headed north.

    The highway cameras lend themselves to monitoring drug or human trafficking, and police consider them a valuable tool in those cases, the documents showed.

    Quote

    At least one other Central Texas community, though, remains wary about the license plate readers. Last month Kyle City Council Member Daphne Tenorio called the technology “a little too Big Brother-ish” at a meeting where she moved to rescind the city’s no-cost contract with Vigilant Solutions.

    Kyle’s agreement with Vigilant was akin to what was being used by some officers in Guadalupe County. The technology would flag drivers with any warrant, including those for unpaid traffic citations.

    Vigilant would provide the equipment free as long as it got 25 percent of the fees paid, according to Vigilant Vice President Joe Harzewski, who made his case for the technology to the council before members voted 6-1 to cancel Kyle’s contract.

    “It’s a little too invasive for me,” Tenorio said in making the motion. “And while I understand the data isn’t quite kept here and it is in Virginia and locked away, I am uncomfortable with it.”

    The council had approved entering Vigilant’s program in January but began questioning the deal after it became unclear whether Vigilant could sell the data to a private company.

    Harzewski said Vigilant kept its law enforcement data on a separate server from business data and said that any private company working with Vigilant will not have access to the data.

    All Texas law enforcement agencies using Vigilant’s ALPRs do share data, Harzewski said. Vigilant’s software allows for interagency sharing to be turned on and off at the push of a button, he said.

    Harzewski said the company’s law enforcement server has never been hacked but noted that data collected by the license plate readers has been abused in the past.

    “We’ve had people hand out access where they shouldn’t have,” he said. “We give bulletproof technology to our clients, and they’re free to do with it as they see fit.”

    Vigilant estimates that it has collected 3.5 billion license plate impressions, according to company documents provided to Austin police, and is collecting the impressions at the rate of 100 million a month.

    ALPRs have been proposed for uses that worry privacy advocates, such as a proposal in Los Angeles to send letters to the homes of drivers whose cars have been recorded driving through areas known for a high amount of prostitution.

    Reyes said Austin police would use license plate data stored from vehicles without warrants.

    “If we have the data available, why wouldn’t we use it?” Reyes said. “I think what is important is that the information that we collect is for law enforcement purposes only.”

     

  18. 3 minutes ago, Captainant said:

    Back on topic though, 4th circuit actually just had a ruling that suspicionless forensic searches of electronic devices at the border are unconstitutional, in a rare protection of 4th amendment rights

    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/05/fourth-circuit-rules-suspicionless-forensic-searches-electronic-devices-border-are

    Holy shit, that's amazing.  Company I worked at for several years had a policy of sending folks going overseas with a wiped laptop, or shipping the laptop ahead, to be loaded at the overseas site, because Customs/etc. could be very overzealous with checking laptops.  There was a serious concern that those chucklekfucks were imaging HDDs and going through the data at their will/pleasure.

    We never travelled with any laptops or tablets that had any personal stuff on it, because we don't need some dipshits looking through our photos or documents or email.

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