Are you looking for actually helpful technical information presented in an easy-to-understand manner? Are you seeking help for common (or perhaps not-so-common) hardware and software issues? Well this is the place for you!
I tried to join 3, but ended up joining only 2, Discord servers to get answers to this, as Google was useless. I swear Google search is getting worse by the day... Anyhow...
My mom needed a Crypto Wallet that started with a number, not a letter. That is all the information I had. I posted this in the two Discord servers I tried, Cracking Crypto and Crypto Currency. They just ignored me at Cracking Crypto and were not helpful at all. Crypto Currency is THE WORSE DISCORD COMMUNITY IN THE WORLD, PERIOD!
Though I was clearly not spamming, simply asking a question, and did receive some help, I come back the next day, hopeful for more answers, only to be told that I was banned for spamming! It was BLATANTYLY CLEAR AND OBVIOUS I was NOT a spammer! I never posted links, never advertised anything, and only asked questions and sought advice.
But what is COMPLETELY UNFORGIVABLE of BOTH Discord Communities is that NOT A SINGLE FUCKING PERSON COULD or WOULD ANSWER MY SIMPLE QUESTION! I asked what Bitcoin/Crypto currency addresses that started with letters were called. THEY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT IMMEDIATELY!
Well YOU won't have to go through that BS, because I will tell you what you need to know, right here, right now! A Bitcoin address that starts with a letter is a, "Native Segwit Address (bech32)." The prefix of a Native Segwit Address is actually bc1.
A Bitcoin address that starts with the number 1 is called a, "Legacy Bitcoin Address (P2PKH)" and it WILL HAVE capital letters in it. In Exodus Wallet, I am not sure if you have to go into Settings and Enable Advanced Wallet Settings to see this, but after I did I noticed a toggle for Legacy Bitcoin Address, and this gives you an arrow initially to the right of your deposit address and QR code, that when clicked, provides your Legacy Bitcoin Address.
A Bitcoin address which starts with the number 3 is a, "Nested Segwit Address (P2SH)." If a site only seems to accept Bitcoin addresses that start with numbers, that means they likely work only with a Legacy Bitcoin Address or a Nested Segwit Bitcoin Address.
It is so fucking simple, why couldn't anyone have told me this? Why couldn't Google have translated the search, "Bitcoin addresses that start with letters VS numbers" into that? I don't have a fucking clue! I apologize for the swearing, please don't let this distract you from the value of this information. I am not sure you are going to easily find it anywhere, without knowing the exact phrases to search for. It was truly a Hi-Tech Headache!
There are videos at that page I encourage you to watch, I will be going over the entire thing and watching the videos in the near future. I will update this post with anything else I learn that is relevant. Please comment below to let me know if this post helped you.
I have only done a little research, and have neither the time nor energy to dive more extensively into it, but there are some things about the NextDoor app of which you should be aware.
1. There is no way to report lead or moderator activity, and no way to identify which individual is doing which action. I did email support@nextdoor.com, but I suspect my email will either be ignored, or the address will prove to be invalid. You can not use NextDoor's Contact/Reporting tool, as that requires you to know the specific name of the individual you want to report. If you have no way of identifying who hid or deleted your post, then you have no way of reporting them with the current system. There is also no section in their limited contact form for reporting abuse of authority.
2. The information you are getting on NextDoor, when it comes to political or societal issues, will be heavily biased towards whatever those in charge of your community decide. Therefore, if you have a corrupt mayor allegedly colluding with a private citizen, as in my area, any attempts to expose or report such activity will be censored and your account will be deleted. In my neighborhood, somehow, this same private citizen is in contact with those in charge of our neighborhood, and they are working together to censor and silence many important matters in our community.
3. NextDoor does not care about the abuse of their system. I do not know what is driving the folks behind this app, but they have been approached and contact since at least 2018 with the same issues, again and again, but have chosen to do nothing about it. They should have a section in each neighborhood listing everyone in charge, and they should make sure a history of anyone taking action on a post is available to the poster. All messages to and from those in charge should be archived and saved for legal purposes. But none of these solutions have been provided. So as I said there is no way to know who to report and no accountability of those in charge. If we knew who they were and could report an improper action on a post or user, we could report them and perhaps have a change in leadership.
If you are considering using this app, I would advise that you not install it. Not unless you really need to start your own neighborhood group for something. If you have installed this app and are using it, you might consider uninstalling it. If you are in any way paying money to NextDoor, please consider cancelling all such payments, at least until they get their act together and clean up their system.
I am thinking about removing my account from the app, and then uninstalling it. I do have a group I started that I might want to see grow, but I am not sure that is a good enough reason to continue. I understand Facebook is considering similar features - if whatever Facebook does is as terrible as what NextDoor has done I'm definitely not using it.
If I decide to delete my account and uninstall the app, I will leave a review on Google Play warning others about this app.
The issue occurred with my first Amazon Renewed Note9 purchase, and the exact same issue occurred with its replacement! In both cases what happened is the screen dimmed, it took on a greenish tint, lines appeared and displayed items lagged on the screen. It happened when I was using the camera on my first device, and in the process of updating the second.
It gets worse... Samsung basically swept this under the rug, so when it first started occurring, about 2-years after the phone was released (and coincidentally out of warranty.) Enough users complained that Samsung eventually offered a free display replacement. But I can find nothing on the internet about this program, how to apply, or even if it is still in operation!
Furthermore I went to a certified Samsung Repair Center, and neither the guy behind the counter nor the guy behind a sheet of glass in another room (who the guy behind the counter kept deferring to) knew anything about this issue or the replacement program. These are certified technicians that are supposed to know their shit, and in reality, they don't know shit about the devices they are servicing!
I AM ADDRESSING THIS TO YOU, TECHNICIANS! It is YOUR FUCKING JOB to know EVERYTHING about EVERY DEVICE you service, PERIOD! That is what you are paid for. That is what you were trained for. It took me 5 minutes on Google to learn about the Note9, so what is your excuse?
When I went to college, just a few years back, I worked at a help desk. Basically I provided free technical support for the community as part of my training. I knew only the basics about the laptops and phones that came in to the center to be worked on. Yet I replaced an iPhone screen, looked up the quirks with HP Stream laptops, and fixed numerous laptops released over the last decade or so. I didn't get paid for this. But if a customer had come in with a Note9 who was experiencing this issue, I damn well would have done a better job helping them, either fixing the issue myself or pointing them in the right direction, than this paid technician did for me!
There is also no excuse for the technicians not catching this issue in the Amazon Renewed program. Because Comcast refuses to provide a detailed list of compatible devices, and has such a limited amount they accept in the first place, I had to give up using my LG G7 ThinQ and go looking for another phone. Because the techs at Amazon Renewed didn't catch this display issue during updating (which tells me they never updated and thoroughly tested these phones) I received not one but two bad units! And now I am back to square one, trying to find a phone that will actually meet my needs AND work with Xfinity's service! I am very disappointed with the lack of professionalism I have encountered and experienced here.
I have contacted two excellent, well-known technicians at YouTube and commented on their Note9 reviews about this issue, and I am hoping that either or both of them will look into this and do a video on it. I will make a video later, when I am not experiencing late 90-degree heat with no air conditioning and can use my computer a little more.
Thank you for reading. I hope this helps you to avoid the issue I have experienced.
So I have returned to Morrowind after nearly a decade away. Adding the Morrowind Modders section here at this blog. Started playing the game again. Building an account at Nexus Mods. Returned to Valenwood today, and I realized a few things... First of all the scale is too big. Way too big. These huge boards that make up each platform aren't really in scale with the size of the NPCs and the characters. And I vaguely recall someone taking issue with the fancy armor and clothes I put on the NPCs. They were right. As well as whoever told me that the scale was off, if that vague memory is correct. Secondly not so much a realization but a question. Why did I stop playing Morrwoind? Why did I leave the modding scene? I think part of it was that I was going through some internal changes. I would find that book on Lucid Dreaming at my local library and soon renounce my former Christian faith, only to then experience a belief systems crash. I would then start my first blog, fall in love with an anthropomorphic chipmunk (long story) and begin my second blog. I would also start playing the new Unreal Tournament and trying to penetrate into the new UnrealED. I started to build or finished building a new computer around this time, and spent a lot of time playing Venetica. I can't remember if it was a conscious decision, or if I was drawn away like a cat transfixed by the next position of a laser pointer. Whatever happened, Valenwood remains unfinished, and I am not happy with the work I have done. I know, kind of, what I need to do with it. But now that I am using Blender and not 3DS Max, I am hesitant. Will I ever fix Valenwood? Will I start over, or fix what's there? Where did all those years go? I am not sure. I will submit Valenwood to Nexus Mods sometime in the next few weeks. You can see Amaya Lodge there now.
Not far from where my parents and I currently live is a brand new development. It is full of big, fancy looking houses that likely have little or no craftsmanship in their builds. I think there are at least a dozen houses but there are likely more. It is one of many new developments that have been built here in the Camas, WA area. There is one not far from here that makes me think of the Muggles houses in the Harry Potter movies - every house looks exactly the same. As I was walking the extra-wide sidewalks of the development closest to me, I started doing the math in my head. $400,000 - $800,000 or more for each house. Few if any of these houses have been paid for in cash - it is most likely that loans were taken out to buy them. Well things don't add up. In order to be approved for a house loan at your local bank or credit union you have to go through a bunch of hoops, you can't be hugely in debt and you must have some sort of collateral. I am pretty sure I am right about these general terms. So that means each individual or family buying a house in the development would have had to have shown enough collateral or earning potential to get the initial loan for the first payment. Say 10% or so of the houses full cost. Likely it is far more. That means folks have at least $40,000 - $80,000 worth of whatever value is required. Minimum wage is roughly $12.00 an hour. If you work 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, you earn $480 a week, $1,920 a month. You probably don't have 40k of assets lying around. That means anyone earning minimum wage can not afford these houses. In fact, it is likely that the monthly payment for each house before interest is around $4,000. I can't imagine there are many folk who are earning $4,000 a month. They would have to be in the minority, wouldn't they? I don't think all these houses are owned by business owners, lawyers or doctors. Can't be that many in this area. But here is what doesn't add up... If you drive around this area, you will find a LOT of traffic, from the early morning to midnight. All these people driving around, and certainly most of them live in these houses. That means they are not going to work, earning the money needed to build any assets or pay their monthly bills. If you add up your house payment, utilities. internet, cell phone bills, health insurance, life insurance, housing insurance and car payments - that is a LOT of money that folks should be working hard somewhere to earn. Yet they are all driving around during the day! How is it these people are earning money? And how is it they got approved for loans to live in these houses? And how could an average hard working minimum wager ever hope to get themselves into one of these houses? What is it these people are actually doing during the day, other than going out to shop, eat or spend more money to go on vacation or buy toys? I am confused by this. It seems to me that these people are living in some other reality than my own, even my parents and the lady they rent space from. How is it they found their way to jobs where they do not have to report to work somewhere, or even if they do, they are paid so hugely and well for whatever it is they do? How do they pay all their bills, and at the same time managed to gather enough assets to use as collateral they can get a fancy new house? I heard children playing in one property. That's even more of an expense, a couple hundred more each year at least, and still more than that if their children have good medical and dental plans. It doesn't made any sense! Going to college is not the solution either. A lot of influential people will tell you that going to college is how you get the higher paying jobs. But I am an honors graduate and I can't find any work at all, much less high paying work. I simply can not see how these folk somehow went from my position when they were younger and now have the kind of money to throw around to get these houses, without any equally great commitment to some workplace somewhere. I know that somewhere in this development there are multiple families living together, sharing the load. Maybe they have connected friends who co-signed for them. And there have to be a few folk who work 80+ hour work weeks somewhere. But these are in the minority. Most of those who live in these homes are a couple, some with children, most without. Usually they are middle-aged. Two-people in a sprawling, 4,000+ square foot house, 3-4 bedrooms including a master bed and bath with a walk-in closet. All that extra space they neither use nor need. Yet my parents couldn't even afford to rent a 1-bedroom apartment. The worst thing about this is that nobody questions the system. Nobody spares a thought as to the ecological and economical impact these developments have. Nobody wonders how people are affording to live in these places. Nobody wonders why there is so much traffic during normal business house, when people should be at work. Everyone drives along, lost in their own little world, many trapped in a different reality than the one others seem to be living and thriving in. Why is that?
It currently says this livestream is scheduled for March 26th: https://player.vimeo.com/video/325672146 The source page is here, at Fight for the Future: https://www.battleforthenet.com/#watch OK, so what is going on here? Didn't we pass Net Neutrality laws over a year ago? Well, we did. The people spoke loud and clear, and our government passed the proposed bill. But a man named Ajit Pai, the Chairman of the FCC, basically reversed the decision. It has since come to light that he was working on behalf of what FFTF (Fight for the Future) calls Big Cable. The end result is that the Net Neutrality laws we asked for and voted for were thrown out. Now there is a new bill called the, "Save The Internet Act" which will be voted on my congress in the next few days. Big Cable is trying to add some amendments to the bill that would ruin it, and we need to join together, in a, "The Internet is watching You" movement to be sure that the bill is passed unaltered. Why is this important you ask? If you have Netflix look up a series called Adam Ruins Everything. In that series is an episode that broaches, lightly, on this subject. All backed up by legitimate research. Basically America has the slowest and most expensive internet of any developed country. This has occurred due to a variety of mistakes our government has made, including allowing cable companies to merge instead of promoting healthy competition. Basically, in some areas of America, you only have Comcast to choose from, or Verizon. And these companies want to throttle your internet usage even more to give priority to businesses and companies that pay more. Comcast has already been monitoring its customers, as you may know. All these things that Big Cable have been doing, and want to do in the future, will serve only to slow down the internet even more, and, make it even more expensive. You don't have to just accept things as they are. You don't have to resign yourself to slow internet speeds and high internet access prices. You don't have to just take it. You are the customer, and there are more of you than there are people working for Comcast, Verizon and other big cable companies. You have choices. You could boycott Big Cable. Or you could fight back in other ways, and showing your support for the Save The Internet Act is one way in which you can do this. The details are on Fight for the Future's main page: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/ Share the link to this livestream with your social media connections. Get the word out there. Donate even a dollar or two if you have that to spare. Whatever you can do to get the word out, and help the folks at FFTF get the word out, do it. And make it clear to your government - the folks representing the area where you live - that you want this bill to be passed, unaltered. Here is a link to their social media materials: https://www.battleforthenet.com/media/ More information here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13mf9BpKFS0Z-Z4hXZ9lvy8EG7qVqe2tOxwyhlirk6Sc/
I am considering doing a Live Stream tomorrow morning at YouTube around 10AM PST. Should start by 10:30AM. I will be reading a chapter from a book I am currently studying, entitled, "The Book of Knowing and Worth" by Paul Selig.
Look for a link here just before it starts. The Live Stream will only start after I have posted a link to it below:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DreamBlissFlows/live
UPDATE: Running a bit late, rushing through a bowl of cereal, will start in 15 minutes. Link will appear soon! Thank you for your patience!
UPDATE 2: The Live Stream is now over. Ran out of time and I don't think my computer can handle it. Looking into other options now.
OK, so I stupidly thought that the Live Stream would process on the servers of YouTube and all I needed was an internet connection. I mean others are doing it on their phones! But no, I have to use OBS to start the stream, then it is "capture" through YouTube or something like that.
Anyhow I had to quit my idea for a Lets Play for Minecraft because my laptop simply can't handle recording and playing a game at the same time. I will go so far as to say it can barely handle recording inn real-time at all. It's a Dell Inspiron N5110, and it has a lot goin' for it - i3, 6 gigs of RAM. But I need an i7 and 8 gigs of RAM at a MINIMUM, and ideally I would have a modern 6-8 core processor and 16 gigs of RAM.
I have a desktop computer that could, theoretically, handle everything. But I have no room for it where I currently live. Also my computer was made, by me, about 5-7 years ago, so it will likely fail without some upgrades.
So yeah, Live Streams and Video Tutorials, and especially Let's Play, is off the agenda. Have to figure out some other content to share with you all, besides a blog.
So I am going to cover a lot of bases here, and talk about a lot of things that have been bothering me. First up is Clayne Crawford being forced out of the Lethal Weapon series. Watch this video:
The important part here is something I have never seen before. It's a recording from on-set, a conversation between Wayans and Crawford, and it pretty much tells the whole story. I wish we could get more material like this! Basically it looks like Damon wanted to be the front man, but didn't want to put in the work. Meanwhile Crawford was writing the episodes, working with the stunt crew, and pretty much carrying the whole show. Yet they kick him out, without giving any sort of proper notice, and now they may attempting to blackball the man. I wish that there was some way we could get together and hold not only Wayans, but everyone in charge who supported him, accountable for their actions. What they have done to Crawford, who is such a good actor we never got a hint of what was going on during the show, is inexcusable. It is Wayans who made the environment toxic, Wayans who didn't want to show up for the action scenes, and Wayans who never really wanted to be on the show in the first place. Wayans should have been kicked out, and Wayans should be blackballed, not Crawford! To add insult to injury, Wayans has up and quit at after finishing the last episode of season 3. So why did they have to kick Crawford out in the first place, and what is keeping them from bringing him back? I don't know about you, but I am done with Lethal Weapon at the end of season 2. I am also going to look for petitions to sign to bring Crawford back and right the wrongs that have been done here. Here are some petitions: https://www.change.org/p/fox-broadcasting-company-we-want-clayne-crawford-in-lethal-weapon-season-3 https://www.change.org/p/fox-broadcasting-company-lethal-weapon-bring-back-clayne-crawford https://www.change.org/p/warner-bros-needs-to-take-responsibility-for-lethal-weapon https://www.change.org/p/warner-brothers-clayne-clawford-back-on-set-for-lethal-weapon https://www.change.org/p/warner-brothers-keep-clayne-crawford-on-lethal-weapon You can hear from Crawford himself all of the shit they (Damon Wayans and those in charge) did to him in this video: https://youtu.be/Dn9wk7vp_js Next up is the series NCIS. We are being lied to, AGAIN, about Pauley Perrette. Someone started a rumor she left for a skin care line, which she has emphatically stated is not true. Others are saying that she has said, much like Michael Weatherly, that she just felt it was time to move on. But another rumor I can not yet validate says she left over a conflict between her and the only remaining main character, Mark Harmon. This rumor is supported by the fact that Perrette did not appear in any of the scenes with Harmon in her final episode. The conflict was apparently over a dog that Harmon insisted on bringing to the set, that bit someone. Maybe that was a part of it, but it doesn't seem to me as if that would be enough. My guess is where we should be looking is squarely at Mark Harmon. He is the common denominator in all those who have left the show. I suspect he is behind the poor script writing for the character Ziva, causing Cote de Pablo to quit, and I would not be surprised that both Perrette and Weatherly finally had enough of his crap and just quit. I suspect that the character Ducky, played by David McCallum, is leaving next. I have never been a big fan of NCIS. But I have watched a lot with my mother. I have always admired the character Gibbs. But its sad to now suspect that Mark Harmon is nothing like the character he portrays, that he may in fact be a bully, a sexist and a bad script writer to boot. I think its time to send him his walking papers and shut NCIS down, do another spin-off series in the same way NCIS was spun off of Jag, so they can have a new series with a similar theme and fresh actors. Finally the most important news is that Stan Lee is dead. I mentioned somewhere about how it was rumored he was being treated. I guess his fight is over, I hope that the parties responsible are found out and legally dealt with. I am not saying Lee was murdered, but I am pretty sure when an old man says something like, "I just want to die" there are people behind it, draining him of the will to live. I think that is what happened here. Lee just gave up. He has given us so many wonderful superheros, and I have enjoyed his many cameos over the years. I wish I could have met him. I wish I had been able to help him through what looked like a tough time, surrounded by scheming relatives and in-laws that wanted his money. But he is at peace now, in a better place, and they can't hurt him anymore. I wish I had more power, in fact that we had more power, to step into situations like these and throw our weight around, to make things change. All we have is our petitions and maybe our blog posts and videos, for anyone who watches them. But it's not enough. Too many things are being done, have been done, that I know I do not approve of, and I am pretty sure I am not alone. I wish those of us who care had a say, had real authority, and the kind of money and legal power that we could open an investigation, find the guilty parties, and punish them according to their crimes. Maybe they haven't broken the law, but they have broken our trust, and they should have to answer for that. RIP Stan Lee.
For some reason there is very little information on this on the internet, and the Wikipedia article for 3D Buzz has vanished. This news is over a year old now, but I thought it important to make a concrete web entry of some sort for it. Here is the thread I found at 3D Buzz: https://www.3dbuzz.com/forum/threads/204974-Jason-s-fight-is-over
According to the thread, Jason Busby passed on the morning of September 14th, 2017. This is probably why 3D Buzz hasn't done much the last few years, at least on YouTube, and some users may be experiencing issues with the site. Not sure who is running the show now. I will update more if I learn more.
Years ago the folks at 3D Buzz got wind of the tutorials I was doing, and one of the folks working there made an offer to have me come in and teach or add my tutorials. But that offer was later rescinded, I never knew why. Probably I didn't do or say the right thing. So I have always had a small chip on my shoulder against them. I really believed in what they were doing and that was like your hero telling you, "YOU SUCK!!!"
But I guess it was for the best. More and more I am seeing so many things I failed to implement and learn in level design, maybe I'll even find some things I did wrong in modeling. I would have been a good teacher, as far as relaying information. But if I taught based solely on what I had learned the lessons would not have been of 3D Buzz quality. I acknowledge this.
I hope Jason is happy wherever he ended up. Maybe his version of Heaven is a giant Tron world. I hope he is having fun, and I wish him well on his journey. He will be missed, but his work will live on. He has left quite a legacy.
Would you like to see more video tutorials, more articles, more content in general at YouTube and here at Hi-Tech Headache? Well then, I will need your support. You will notice in the menu at the right of your screen are two new links; one to my Patreon Page and one to start your own Patreon Page. If you wish to support me directly you can use the link to my Patreon page. If you would like to start your own Patreon Page, you can click the link to create your own Patreon Page.
Now starting out at Patreon is hard, if you don't have anyone to make that initial pledge. So for a limited time only I will commit to pledging up to $10.00 to the first dozen or so people who become my Patrons at Patreon and subscribe to any tier, or who start their own Patreon campaign using my referral link. You will help me get my Patreon campaign started, and in return, I will do the same for you.
Not only that I will help you, as much as I can, learn how to build and promote your Patreon Page! I have noticed a number of Patreon members whose pages are missing a variety of things which are required for a successful Patreon campaign. I will help you navigate those initial setup waters, in addition to helping you get your campaign started by pledging to you.
I appreciate your help and support! I have my Patreon page all set up correctly, but I need those initial pledges to get the ball rolling. By becoming my Patrons you help me to do this, and in return I will help you succeed right out of the gate. It's a win-win for everyone!
We're gonna go over something important that probably few in the game industry think about. We will use an illustration of parents raising a child, to correlate the process of those involved in who create and develop a game. We will use two games for our examples: Unreal Tournament and the Unreal series of games by Epic Games, and Creativerse by Playful Corp. I should also note that I understand Creativerse is a sort of clone of Minecraft, but I was never able to get past how Minecraft looked, while, for some reason, it doesn't bother me in Creativerse.
The process of making a game could, in a way, be thought of as similar to the process of giving birth to a child. There is all the same or similar mental, emotional and physical (to some extent) strain. Of course making a game does not have the same intensity or level of any of these, or the amounts of extreme physical pain. But most game development teams look upon their new creation with much of the same love a mother looks on her newborn child. Also most game development teams are very protective of their children, as are most mothers. But unlike most healthy people who have children, game development teams retain an obsessive sense of ownership of their child.
Just as a baby is completely dependant on its parents for survival, so a video game initially depends on those who made it for its survival. But just as a baby will eventually learn how to walk, and will grow up into a (hopefully) free-thinking human being, at some point a game will have matured enough that its creators no longer need to "support" it. The game will stand on its own. But there is something I think game developers forget here, some vital piece they miss.
You see just a child will mature and eventually become an adult, ultimately depending on society and the world to define who they are and to support themselves, so a video game matures and becomes dependant on its community. A video game community is comprised of the players who buy, play and create things for that game. In the same sense that parents must learn to let their grown child grow and release them out into the world, so game developers have to let go of their game and let it stand on its own.
What do I mean by this? Let's bring in my examples... Many years ago a game was released that really did change the game industry. Its name was Unreal, and it was quickly followed by Unreal Tournament. The last time I checked in on this game, a new version had been released for free to the community. Unreal was different in that it was a first person shooter, but there were elements of adventure and even a story. I still remember the fondness many players had for the Nali. When Unreal Tournament came out it became more about its first person shooter aspect, but players could, and did, design their own adventures. That is because Unreal and Unreal Tournament, and it's latest iteration, have a very good level editor.
I am not over exaggerating when I say I have a gigabytes of maps and things from the Unreal Tournament community. It may not seem like a lot now, but we're talking gigabytes from a time when a 40 gigabyte hard drive was about the same amount of space a 4 terabyte drive is to us today. The developers did things right, and Unreal Tournament reigned for many years. There may still be people playing it today. The last time I checked in on its newest iteration the developers were still doing things right. In the past they even went as far as to hire many of the most active and creative members of the Unreal Tournament community. Some of those same people are part of the game development team today.
Here is a picture from one of my Unreal Tournament 2003 - 2004 levels, when I was known as DeathBliss:
You can still some of my work at MapRaider (surprisingly): http://www.mapraider.com/profiles/Deathbliss
Now let's look at Creativerse. Both Playful Corp's Creativerse and Epic Game's Unreal Tournament have, in a way, an editor. In Unreal Tournament the editor has always been an external program. You built your level and then played it. Here is a tutorial video showing Unreal Tournament's new editor:
In Creativerse the game and game world itself is the editor. Here is a video showing a bit of that:
You build things from within the world, much like the old FPS games Cube and Cube 2. But the developers behind Creativerse have made a mistake, and I am not going to call their attention to it.
In any sort of environment when you are making something, you need certain tools. We will use the Rotate tool as an example. Let's say a game developer releases their game and includes a functionality in some form of the ability to rotate objects. Once the game is released to the community, the members of that community will use that rotate functionality. They will come to depend on it.
Let's say that players learn they can rotate things in 45 degree increments and the game development team, for whatever reason, does not want that. But before the game development team has done anything about it, the community has built hundreds or thousands of structures using this "bug." In this case if the developers removed it the impact would be low unless everything that had been rotated was rotated back to a default position. But removing the tool or fixing the bug also removes the functionality, and this is the wrong thing to do.
In Creativerse, a year ago I guess, the community discovered that they could use something called Block Phasers to automate farming. The default farming process is to use your tool on the ground then go around and plant your seeds. Then when the plants have grown you go around and pick up your plants. But then you have to plant your seeds again if you want more plants. With the Bock Phasers players could make the seeds phase in and out. So they planted their seeds once, waited for the plants to grow after setting up everything with a switch, then flipped the switch to turn the block phasers on before they harvested the plants. When they would flick the switch again, the seeds would reappear, and the garden would be replanted.
Now think about this for a second... Hundreds, if not thousands, of Creativerse players, members of the Creativerse community, have designed entire houses, forts, camps, bases, etc. all around the idea of automated Block Phaser farms. So when the developers removed that functionality by "fixing" this bug (it did not need to be fixed) it messed up all of these things that the Creativerse community had made. That is the mistake Playful Corp made.
If they had bothered to go to YouTube or pay any attention to what the Creativerse community was doing, they would have seen how their proposed fix would have affected things. I don't think they did that. I don't think they care. They do have a forums through Steam, but as far as I know there is no way to directly contact the game development team. In my opinion they are, in short, doing this incorrectly.
Yes, according to the law a game is the property of whoever made it. Yes, according to the law they can do whatever the hell they want to their game. Just as some parents feel they can do whatever the hell they want to their children. The end result is bad in both cases. While a game development team may have legal ownership rights, once a game has been released it belongs to its community, in the same way that Einstein belonged to the human race, as any of us belong to the human race.
Imagine if all our geniuses had been shut away and not allowed to share their discoveries with us? Think of all we missed out from Nikola Tesla, all the information the American government has hidden away or destroyed. Just as what the American government did to Tesla wronged all of of the human race, when a game developer does whatever the hell they want with one of their games it wrongs all of the members of its community. Just because it is right in the eyes of the law, that doesn't make it ethically, morally or in any other way the right thing to do.
In other words, having the right to do something doesn't make what you do right. We should no more tolerate game developers doing whatever they want with their games then we should tolerate parents doing whatever they want with their children, end of story.
If you are a game developer, or a game development team, and you are reading these words, heed their message well! Once you release your game you ONLY legally own it. In order for you to be successful, your game must be successful, and for your game to be successful it has to stand on its own in its community. Be very careful when you are fixing bugs that remove functionality that you IMMEDIATELY replace that functionality, no matter what!
Understand that players will come to depend on some of the things you think of as bugs. Understand that some bugs provide functionality that improve your game and the experience of those who play it. Do not make Playful Corp's mistake and fix a bug that not only did not need to be fixed, but also drastically affected all the members of the Creativese community.
There is this ridiculous ad on the radio right now, I think I overheard it was put out by the sheriff's department. In essence, under the guise of providing helpful information, it talks about marijuana, which is legal now here in Washington. It tells how a teen's brain is developing, and essentially says marijuana and other drugs (recreational drugs implied) have a negative effect on that.
I had to laugh at the sheer stupidity of this. First of all I have yet to see even one, credible, independent, not funded by the prescription drug companies report proving that marijuana has even the slightest impact on any brain, from a baby's to an old man (which I am sure it does), and that any effect it does have on this is somehow negative, implying it is permanent and damaging the brain in some way.
I remember back in grade school how DARE came in and told us that marijuana was addictive. I think I remember that correctly. Of course I know from personal experience that this is not true. In fact, it is no more addictive than alcohol. Yet you have people who drink a lot, and do drugs a lot. They aren't addicted to the substances they are consuming. They are addicted to the feeling they get from them. It is more a habit than an addiction. I used to eat a lot of Doritos potato chips. Bags a night. Was I addicted to them? No. My brain was affected by the MSG they contain, sending signals that the chips tasted good, making me eat more. Then eating chips became a habit because I was becoming a pain eater (someone who eats their pain.) But MSG is no more an addictive substance than marijuana.
The biggest issue with this stupid commercial is that long before teens even try marijuana, or cigarettes (which does have shit in it that has a negative effect on the physical body - at any age), parents have taken them to doctors where they have been prescribed more drugs than my 90 year old grandmother! Prescription drugs for ADD, depression and insomnia to name a few! That will have FAR, FAR more of a detrimental impact than marijuana. And teens have been on these since they were children. So you want to talk about negative impact on a developing brain (and body) let's start there, shall we? By the time teens get to the hard recreational stuff their brains and bodies have already suffered a lot of damage, probably more substantial than anything they would get from most of the hard stuff. Certainly far more than anything they would get taking shrooms, smoking weed or dropping acid (to name a few.)
The police do not know what they are talking about. They are not doctors or medical professionals. They are enforces of the law, which states that most of not all -non-prescription drugs are illegal on a Federal level, and that pretty much everything else other than marijuana, at least here in Washington, is illegal on a local/state level.
The cops don't give a flying fuck about your health. If they did they would attach prescription drugs with the same vigor they beat up street vendors selling harmless weed. They main priority is the law, and they only regurgitate the same false beliefs their superiors shoved down their throats since they first signed up. That drugs are bad, if someone doesn't have a prescription for them.
You can get brain damage from breathing the smog in New York, or living near high voltage power lines. MSG in your food probably does more brain damage. Prescription drugs certainly does more. So why the focus on marijuana, where any brain damage that may occur, which has not been scientifically proven, is minor at best and likely not permanent. I mean a developing brain still has the power to heal and rewire itself, right?
Oh and let's not forget about brain plasticity. The implication of this ad is that the brains somehow hardens or stops growing and developing once you reach some indeterminate age. But it's a scientific fact that the brain is always making new connections, always growing and developing on that way, based on a person's activities, meditation being one of them. The brains of 30 year-olds who have mediated a year or more are far different than of those in the same age/race group who have not.
They want you to believe you will somehow become lazy or stupid if you smoke weed. You can only become lazy or stupid if you get addicted to how you feel on weed and start smoking all the time. Weed relaxes you, you will not feel like doing anything else. It affects your concentration and focus, you can not work while on it. Neither of these are necessarily bad things, unless you live in a society that wants everyone to be productive little wage slaves, like ours. There is nothing inherently wrong with sitting around smoking pot all day. But you won't be paying rent or getting out to do much if you do. You become unproductive, and our materialistic society has no tolerance for anyone who is not some cog in the machine.
You have to find a balance here. Put in your hard day of work without using any mind-altering substances of any kind, then come home and smoke weed all you like. Best way to relax and far more effective pain relief than anything in the store. You just have to be responsible about how you use these things. If you are a teen don't give into peer pressure, to smoke or ingest anything. Make sure that it is your own uninfluenced choice when you join in and drink a beer, or smoke a cig or a joint. Same for sex - don't have sex just because all your friends got laid and you are afraid of being left behind. That is the stupidest reason in the history of stupid reasoning to have sex. Have sex when you are ready for it and you want it, and of course when you partner is ready for it and wants it.
It all comes down to taking what the adults and those in authority say with a grain of salt. Do not be influenced by the beliefs and opinions of others. Use your own mind, make your own decisions, decide what you want to believe, and always, always question everything, especially your beliefs. Be Yourself! What does that mean? It means to think for yourself, choose your own beliefs, and make your own choices, regardless of what others order, say or tell you to do, and that includes the law! You are the best authority on your life, whatever your age (which is merely the number of times you have been around the sun) happens to be.
I have removed the old Amazon Payments image and added a widget to my GoFundMe campaign, "Pedaling to Passion." I would appreciate your support, whether you donate to the campaign or simply share it.
At the end of the month I will be, by society's definition, homeless. Technically I can continue to live with my parents when they move to Battlground, WA. But they are moving to a small single-wide trailer. It doesn't take the gift of prophecy to see that to live there would mean continuing to live as I have, sitting here, staring at a computer or TV screen. I have been doing that for most of my life, and I am done with it.
My parents have never done anything like this. I don't think they even could. My dad talks about hiking the PCT someday. I hope he does, I want him to follow his heart, his passion. But I don't think he ever will. He started in a single-wide trailer, and now he's just repeating that same old cycle. Nothing of significance has changed for him or my mom since he retired from Safeway 30 years ago. My parents are, as I said somewhere else, at anchor on the sea of life. To join them in Battleground would be to live the same same way. But I want to go exploring!
It seems to me we sell our ambition, our dreams, our passion, in exchange for what society says we should have. Comfort, safety, security. Or we go the other extreme, throw out everything to live with nothing a a monk of some religion or other. How many of us have ever found the balance, where we follow our ambition, our heart, our passion, and through that find a way to provide comfort, safety and security for ourselves, if that is what we want?
I either have no passion or I have forgotten what it was. I want more from life than a room in a single-wide trailer, and I do not believe for one second that I have to kill myself off, working for someone else, at a job I hate, in order to get it. Nor do I think for one second that I have to take it to have it. I don't believe in earning anymore, and working hard should always be a choice, not something forced down anyone's throat. Do you know that hard labor used to be a prison sentence? So why do we value hard work so much, when it is really nothing more than a punishment?
It has nothing to do with responsibility. We are responsible for only one thing, our choices. Whether conscious or not, somewhere we make a choice and we live its consequences. Our life is a direct reflection of our choices. It is the mirror on the wall that shoes us very clearly how we see ourselves and the world we live in.
I am going to seek and hopefully either find or rediscover my passion. I am going to explore the world. My parents never went to Disnyeland, the Grand Canyon or to any of the Eight Wonders. They haven't even been overseas, as far as I know. The most adventurous thing that have ever done is attend an ACN conference in Chicago I think it was.
I don't want to live like that anymore, and with your help I will be able to. I am doing this, with or without your help. As far as I am concerned. grandma selling the house is a clear a sign as anyone would need that it is time for me to go, to change my life. I don't think anyone will find the life of their dreams while they sit on their couch, or their recliner. There is no reason things can't come to all of us on silver platters, but collectively humans believe that this doesn't happen, and is somehow bad or wrong to expect. So that is our experience. We created a life of struggle for ourselves. Someday we will learn to stop fighting and struggling and simply be. in oneness and receptivity.
Updates may be even fewer and further between these next few months or even years. I am hitting the road and I have no idea if or when I will return. I appreciate every reader of this blog, and everyone who supports my campaign. It's been a good run, I have enjoyed this experience, and learned a lot these last few years. But now graduation day is coming, as of June 1st it will be time for direct experience. Wish me well!
Apparently the folks over at Tor feel that we have to have some sort of prompt if we maximize the Tor Browser window. Also, if we change the homepage to anything other than the default, we will no longer be able to maximize the Tor Browser window, and we will endure a prompt. The assholes that engineered this discuss it here: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/7255 I just fought with this for the last 2 hours. I would never have figured out what was going on if I hadn't found this link. I may demonstrate in a video tutorial later, maybe the community can figure out a way to patch this. They tell is that we can be tracked by our screen resolution. So what? Why in the hell is that their business? It is my right to change my homepage, increase my screen resolution, and turn off this prompt. I will spend time later figuring out just how to do that. If I find anything I will post it here. Just be aware that the folks working on Tor have gone off the reservation, gotten delirious with power or something. So you may need to find another way to access the hidden parts of the internet.
Just a quick blog entry to tell you about my recent purchase at NewEgg. I have been a customer for many, many years, over a decade as a matter of fact. The computer I am using to write this article was built with components purchased at NewEgg. They have always been my go-to place for computer hardware.
But just as Hard Forums stopped being a good place to go to get computer related advice, NewEgg is no longer a good place to purchase computer related electronics. The only advantage they have over Amazon is that it is far easier to search through items, while at Amazon you have to wade through literally dozens of pages of crap, because Amazon is not keeping a good eye on its sellers. You will see the same mouse, listed from $19.95 to $24.95, often several of the same mice, usually a minimum of a dozen pages you have to scroll through. NewEgg is slightly infected in the same way, but you can select NewEgg products and still have a wide selection of higher quality stuff to go through. If you select Amazon as the seller all of a sudden you loose about 80% of your results.
What I can not forgive is NewEgg's return policy. I just purchased a refurbished keyboard/mouse setup from them. I only had to take it out of the box, identify the slant of the keys was not enough of me, and that the keys had stickers for the letters, to know that I wanted to return it for a refund. Guess how much that is going to cost me, as there is nothing wrong, as far as I know, with the product? A $5.00 restocking fee and $14.00 for a shipping label, which is supposed to be prepaid if I am returning within the time limit, which I am. I don't think the keyboard mouse set is worth the price of its return, and as it is a $50.00 retail item at least, I am just disgusted with the whole thing. For those who want to know its a Logitech Wave keyboard and mouse set. I think the price was about $30.00 for refurbished OEM.
If I had purchased this from Amazon I would have been able to return it with no restocking fee, and a good chance of free UPS pickup! I guess that is one more advantage that NewEgg has, you can find refurbished stuff. I have never seen anything like that at Amazon. The only other place is Tiger Direct, where I got a MadCatz RAT 5 for $19.99 and the TV I am currently using.
The worst thing about this whole thing is that I was price watching all through Black Friday. NewEgg had an EVGA and MSI mouse, among others, listed at $19.99. I had already ordered the RAT 5 so I waited. There was nothing, and I mean nothing, saying these prices were for a limited time. I watch for that green text next to the items listed at NewEgg like a hawk! Well now these mice have had their prices increased $10.00 - $20.00! I can only assume it is to price gouge shoppers for Christmas. It's just sad, and Amazon is doing the same fucking thing!
I have had enough I have to say. From the consistently higher prices at Amazon, the endless pages of repetitive junk listings, the $20.00 shipping costs for items that don't weigh more than a few ounces and aren't fragile or anything. To NewEgg's policy of profiting from its shoppers in its return and restocking fees. I think I am done with NewEgg for now, and I am about ready to quit Amazon. But at least at Amazon I can try something and return it almost effortlessly, and for very little cost.
Let this be a warning to you about NewEgg. The prices are $10.00 - $20.00 over what they were just a week ago, because they are trying to make money off of you for Christmas. If you buy something from them, and want to return it simply because you are not happy with the item. you will pay a huge restocking fee and shipping label fee, unless you opt to ship it yourself, and I can't guarantee you will save any money that way either.
After searching for vegetarian sources of magnesium. Since yesterday evening I had been suffering from what I can only describe as, "Dwarves mining for gold in my skull." A real migraine in other words. I mentioned this to my mother today, after taking my 3rd Excederin, and she said I needed magnesium. I went out to their RV and nabbed some, taking one 250mg pill. Immediately I felt better. Not conclusive proof I know. But I did a little investigating in my kitchen and turned up some interesting results.
Cocoa was listed as one of the sources of magnesium. I looked at the gluten free brownie mix box, having had a few brownies today, and discovered that it had no magnesium. Same for my Swiss Miss simple dark chocolate cocoa mix. I looked at my frozen vegetarian meals, my coconut milk, Amy's French Veggie soup, mac 'n cheese, my stir-fry veggie mix, a can of kidney beans, my Bragg's Yeast Flakes even some almond butter. Almonds are also supposed to be high in magnesium. I checked a container of Quaker oats and a bottle of molasses.
Out of all of this guess what items actually had magnesium? My coconut milk, the oats, and the molasses. Not one other item had magnesium in it. At least it was not listed. I find this to be very suspicious. Sure, they could have just not listed it. But if this was something food companies did not list, why is it on these three products? Also the yeast flakes are a vegetarian supplement, why isn't magnesium in there? Why is it missing from the Hain's almond butter?
Either food companies aren't listing it, or they are making an effort to remove it from our food. If they are making an effort to remove it from our food, why? Magnesium helps you concentrate, it is very good for you. I would never go so far as to say you need it, like the meat companies say you need protein. I quote Thoreau on this, "One farmer says to me, 'You can not live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;' and so he religiously devotes part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle."
I think this is something worth investigating, even the organic food companies like Amy's are either failing to list the magnesium in their products, or simply excluding it. In the meantime I advise you start taking a magnesium supplement, at least once a week, especially if you are having headaches that won't go away or a difficult time thinking clearly or concentrating. These may be linked back to a lack of this item in your food. If you are a vegetarian you are supposed to be getting this a lot in the food you eat. But as I discovered it is lacking in mine. Even the huge bag of basamati rice I bought at CostCo!
OK, before I get started, yes. Comcast is not actually behind this. They are not the ones sending out these notices or enforcing them. But they are still an evil anti-net neutrality corporation that needs to be destroyed. I am going to talk about this as if it is their fault, even if it actually isn't, and if you don't like that, tough.
So Comcast is sending out popups they inject into your browser, part of this 6-strikes thing you may have heard about. I guess they somehow measure the size of a file you have nabbed a link to from a torrent site, and if your file matches that size, they send you the warnings. Yes, sometimes you will receive notices about files you had nothing to do with. The system is not perfect.
They are getting your IP address from when you get the file. Too technical for me to properly explain. Something about incoming and outgoing. The end result is they get your IP and the notice is sent to the customer's primary account! Remember that, it is very important. If you are not logged into your primary account at Comcast/Xfinity you can not see the email notices.
Those notices warn you about the content you have, and the only way the popups disappear is after you have deleted the files. If its audio files in .flac, for example, you can convert them to .mp3 and delete the .flac. But if its a movie file that is harder to deal with. To appeal these notices will cost you $35.00.
Do not bother going to any Comcast satellite office. They do not provide technical support and will just give you an automated service number to call. The people on that line will give you another automated number to call. If you try chat with tech support online you will spend roughly 4-6 hours try to get help, as the people you talk to just stop talking to you. They will also try to get you to sign up for other services. I had to restart chat about a dozen times. I am not exaggerating.
After reading this you may start looking for a way to encrypt your IP address. So you can be anonymous. You can't use Tor, because they can get your IP on the outgoing. Sorry. You can't use i2p because it only allows you to download i2p torrents! The i2p site doesn't mention this for some reason, or I missed it.
I got i2p installed and running, got some torrents going, but nothing was downloading. I scratched my head, wondering what the hell was going on. Googled around - almost no information out there. Finally found an article on Reddit, and later a Yahoo answer, that explained this. Wasted 8 hours.
Your only option is to pay for a proxy or a VPN. You will want one with little or no record keeping. Anything you find that is free will be limited in speed or time. So your choice is to pay up to $50.00 a month for that, or just order the TV show you want from Amazon or YouTube. Hell it may even be cheaper just to get cable and a DVR box!
Comcast, CAS, MPAA, RIAA, they all win. For now. Until someone smarter than me figures out how to make a totally encrypted internet browser with a good torrent program built in that is free/open source and works with any torrent file out there. Until then you are downloading at your own risk.
UPDATE
OK, so I painted a pretty grim picture. But there is still one way to get the things you may want to get, and that is emule. I don't think they can track you with this, and you can search for files within the program, leaving no trace of your activities on the internet.
Emule is better than i2p as far as what is available. Be warned that this 0.60 version floating around from emule.com is not an official release, so stay away from it! Use the emule-project link I gave you above.
Share The Files is notorious for two things. 1. Most anime is subtitled, and any mention of English dubbed is either ignored or mocked. 2. Most of the time you will be lucky to get things in 720p. If you say anything about this, or complain about it, you will be banned. Also most requests are ignored.
Emule 0.50 should still be safe. However with the new measures Comcast/CAS or whoever is using, it is still download at your own risk. You are probably better off just quitting, at least for now.
UPDATE 2
I found another option, detailed in this video:
UPDATE 3
I have been using qBitTorrent for about a month now. I search for files within the program, using the old sites only as a reference, I do not click on any magnet or torrent links. I have received one CAS email since that time, and I have absolutely no clue how they were able to track that file, and why they are seemingly unable unable to track others. Everything is being done through software running on my computer. There is just something going on here I do not understand. In any case, be aware that while using an internal search for torrents, such as TorrentSearch or qBitTorrent is the safest option by far, it is still not free from prying eyes.
So I think I figured out what is going on... Under the guise of a releaser you trust, folks working for the CAS and whoever else is involved put up a file that is the genuine article, on the torrent networks. This file however has markers in it. So the CAS through Comcast can monitor your bandwidth, and when they see a marker, note it. My guess is there is one for the start of a file and the end of a file. Because if they were just monitoring bandwidth usage in general they would have no way to determine what single files you were downloading. So there has to be some sort of marker, embedded within the file, so they can monitor your bandwidth and figure out the exact size of that file, and then send you a CAS Copyright Violation Notice.
They are in the testing stages right now. They want a system that will work flawlessly and reliably. If this marker system works well enough, there will be more and more files released with these markers in them. Maybe they could even be put into the original broadcast of a show so that when it is recorded the markers are recorded right with it. They will either assume the name of a releaser you trust, so you download it, thinking you are safe, or they will create a new releaser group of their own, maybe establish it for a while, get a lot of people hooked, and when it is worth all the money they have to be putting into this, send in the authorities and lawsuits.
If they are using a marker system there is no way to protect yourself. It wouldn't matter if you hid your IP or never clicked on links at torrent sites. If it is in the original file, the releasers giving you the file may not even know it is there. But I think they are watching this, because the file in question for me has since vanished off the networks. The only way to deal with this is to create a program that quickly and easily finds these markers and removes them from a video file, without altering the original video and audio streams.
If I am right in my guess, we should be seeing such programs very shortly. Unless the releasers already have a program, or are developing one, and then using it themselves to clean files. This could be the case, because you see some releases with the word PROPER in it released after an earlier version of the exact same file.
The point is you can stop wasting money on your proxy, if your download bandwidth is being monitored, they have you by the balls, and there is nothing you can do about it. There is no way to protect your bandwidth, that I know of, from being monitored. If there was, that would be of greater value than a proxy. The CAS and those working for or with them know all about people rushing to hide their IPs. They have a play in place to protect their interests, you can trust me on this.
This will only work with Tixati, and you will have to translate the steps if you are using anything other than Windows. The file path where you will copy the two files, in your Windows 7 instal directory, is:
\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\tixati
As you have just learned, these companies aren't really bothering to watch the torrent sites. As I have explained in this post, there are ways around that. You can search in something like qBitTorrent then copy the magnet link across. Nothing to track there. So the only way to get you is to upload a file and watch who downloads it. They have a list they work from, they upload some part of the file, or maybe the whole thing, not sure which.
They find everyone downloading whatever they have shared, track back the info, clean it up, and send Comcast a message, resulting in an injected popup you have to click on. Then you have to go into your email and read their warning. Then you have to move or delete the file. Obviously sharing it will result in additional warnings.
To avoid all of this, use this automatically updating IP filter, and this will filter out the known unwanted IP addresses of those tracking people. Of course all these companies have to do is figure a way to generate new IP address on a regular basis that have to be found and blocked. But it will help block any known IPs from these companies still in use, protecting you.
If you are downloading torrent files, you are not safe!
I caught a glimpse of this on the news today. If you are in the Seattle area, you can see this rig parked and ready to go. Some things in the news segment caught my attention. Rather than go into some big huge article, how about a few questions? First of all the government is supposed to represent the people, correct? Well the people have made it very clear we do not want arctic drilling. Yet Obama went ahead and gave Shell the green light? Why? We know it's not because of any uncertainty. Look at the security they have around the rig! They know we don't want Shell to drill in the arctic, or else they would not have all that security in place and this 500 yard perimeter around it. So why are they going ahead with something we, the American people, do not want? Secondly a law enforcement official of some sort made a comment they they could not comment on what would happen if someone breached the perimeter. Why? All law enforcement is there to protect and serve the people. They work for us, not the corporations and not the government. So it seems to me that we should be the first to know exactly what would happen if we crossed that perimeter. It has nothing to do with public safety. So what are we not privy to know the details of the law and how it will be enforced? We, the American people, were not given a chance to vote on arctic drilling. We have not been given a chance to vote on switching to electric cars, which would remove our dependance on oil and help the environment. We were not given a chance to vote on many of our laws and the consequences should we break them. Our president is doing things in our name we don't even want, and so are our law enforcement officials. So my last question... Have you even considered these two questions regarding this issue? Now that you have been presented with them, what will you do about it? Here is one step you can take: https://shellno.org/events.php I will post more later on the TPP and revoking the Patriot Act. For now here are some more links: Sunset the Patriot Act https://www.sunsetthepatriotact.com/ I feel naked - stop the NSA from spying on us: https://www.ifeelnaked.org/ Say no to the Trans Pacific Partnership http://www.citizen.org/TPP http://www.citizen.org/tppaction
I will be adding to this later. Right now I wanted to warn users looking into geek2geek, AKA gk2gk. It actually is a scam. If you go to spiritualclick.com, you will see the exact same interface. Both sites claim to be 100% free, and just from looking at geek2geek, I can safely asume both do not tell you about the various memberships you can pay for. There is a free membership, but you can not contact anyone other than gold members, so I have read elsewhere. geek2geek would have you believe that it is %100 free, as it says right there on the front page. But that is a lie. You can not contact other members, with the exception of gold members, unless you upgrade to a paying, silver membership. There is a thread at scame.com that talks about the autopay service you get put into if you do sign up for a paying membership: http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=123877 Experience has taught me that when a site claims it is %100 free, but is misleading you, and hiding the information about its costs and memberships, it is best to avoid it. Now one last thing... I will post a full review later, but OK Cupid does let you message people, unlike most other "free" dating sites. But OK Cupid is not as good as everyone seems to be saying. In brief: If you are a handsome male or pretty female, not overweight at all, interested in those no more than 5 years to either side of your age, OK Cupid will work for you. If you are are not a handsome male, or pretty female, and are a little overweight, interested in anyone outside of 5 years to either side of your age, and especially interested in anyone handsome or attractive, OK Cupid will not work for you. OK Cupid forces you to be matched with people no more than 5 or so years older or younger than your age. OK Cupid also forces you to be matched with people who share your body type. In other words, if you are not a handsome male or attractive female or are overweight, you will be matched with other unattractive, overweight people. OK Cupid is also plagued with the following: - More Christians than anyone spiritual but not religious. - More women with children. - Inappropriate matches with those of the same sex showing up, even if you have specified that you are straight, and looking for straight members of the opposite sex. I just received an email with a guy in the people I was matched to. As I said I will do a full review later. detailing all my experiences. But the long and the short of it is that OK Cupid is not fun, and it is not for anyone who is interested in those younger and more attractive then themselves.
