August 17, 2014

Yesteryear
One year ago today: August 17, 2013, work on the cPod.
Five years ago today: August 17, 2009, conjecture and music classes.
Ten years ago today: August 17, 2004, apres-Woodstock.

           And it was a pretty nothing Sunday by many standards. But not the standards around here. By noon, the club has peeled apart the [7489N] new electronics kit (see y’day) and I felt like I had been put throught the Inquisition. How many questions can be asked until I just give up? I described the positive side of the device, today I got the opposite viewpoint. But this is the idea of these meetings, to get a more general idea of what can go wrong. But why is it always my project? Because it gets this far?

           First, this is a photo of a clean wire cut. It isn’t clear and you can’t really see the cut, but here’s the two halves. Left us red-faced, mostly me. See the neat cut across the wire rope? We failed at it, I think I already admitted it. A hacksaw begins to splay the ends after ¼ of the way through, a pair of hand cutters and the ends will unravel. Dang if the local barfly doesn’t come over and show me first try how to do it with a dull pair of cheap side-cutters. See my face? It’s red. Boy, and I stoopid or what? But Theresa and Patsie, at least I’m not as stoopid as I was five minutes ago. Or five years ago, five years ago meaning August 17, 2009.

           Why am I picking on people? Because I'm in a cranky mood. I’ll tell you why. Here’s my tale about F “naught” and F “prime”. I get this far into celestial navigation, see this far—I’m holding out my hands perpendicular about a yard apart. And I’m stunned. Now let me explain. F° and F’. See those symbols? So did I, and I’m old school. It took me hours to realize the typesetter of the book realized there is no ASCII superscript “1”. Thanks to that moron, I spend hours looking for F “prime”, the first derivative of F “naught”.
           He meant F “degrees” and F “minutes”. All I can tell you is that no matter how much brains or common sense you arrive with, you are outnumbered. Heavily.

           XCurrency. Years ago, I predicted the company that came up with some way to quash the scumbags at PayPal and introduce a truely anonymous on-line currency would be welcomed by the world. I’m looking closely at XCurrency. Here’s something well-thought out, in that the authorities cannot shut it down without disrupting Internet traffic deemed necessary for the world economies. I won’t go into it, but even BitCoin isn’t really anonymous as they can use servers (Google servers) to track down the individual computer. Right now, at this moment, you have no idea how much information is being recorded by people who know your IP address.

           The XCurrency system uses onion routers, so not only can the transaction not be tracked, it is impossible to tell even if there was a transaction. And that’s the way it is supposed to be until they get a warrant. Anonymity is the reason people use cash—so don’t be surprised if they outlaw cash before too long. I knew it was coming since the day PayPal went back on their word and demanded ID for an account. Everyone has a right to privacy or nobody has privacy, take your pick. You can’t have it both ways. So keep your eyes on this.

           [Author's note 2017: Xcurrency has been completely banished and all sites, including search results and references to the company have been obliterated from the Internet. What conspiracy?]

           Another reason to watch is because it is pretty certain that currency controls are on the horizon. No government in history has every gotten itself out of the mess like we are in today. I’ve seen what happens in other countries when the government seizes the money. And don’t say it won’t happen here or you have forgotten that all the gold in Ft. Knox came from seizure from private citizens. Those hit the hardest will be the ones who worked hard their whole lives, those who saved and invested. Right now, you cannot deposit or spend more than $5,000 without reporting where you got the money.
           And when the middle class is completely wiped out, don’t look at me. They are the ones who supported the years of welfare and pensions and entitlements with their votes. They did not heed the warnings. In Greece, all pensions were nationalized and wages cut up to 40%. And yes, these things will happen here sooner or later. So, everybody take an uber-taxi to the pub, drink up, vote for causes that make you look good, and trust your elected representatives. It’s always worked before.

           Last day I said insurance is corrupt. Allow me to elaborate. That is an industry that needs to be hauled on the carpet. There’s not a person out there who has not been burned by an insurance company or could tell you a story of the near insane corruption of that business. Talk about your contrived business, there is nothing in Nature that is anything close to “insurance”, the term itself has become synonymous with corruption.
           One thing I have against insurance is their invasion of privacy. Try to buy car or house insurance with just your name, address, and birth date. They will refuse to sell it to you until all of your personal and private information they can dream of is in their file cabinet. They behave as if they have a right to this information, and since insurance can be compulsory, they write their own ticket on that one. And I assure you from experience, anything you tell an insurance company ceases to be private. Telling one insurance company the tiniest detail and it all gets dumped into a searchable database.

           It will not likely happen, but the entire insurance industry needs to be federally investigated for fraud. Folks, it is not as if the authorities might find something. They will. Every insurance company is guilty and has been for decades. The police, the courts, the landlord can’t profile you, but your insurance company bleeds off that right.

           I was once refused auto insurance because I did not know if anyone in my family had been recently in an accident. It’s not like I declined to say, I really didn’t know. The “agent” told me I had to answer but not knowing was not and acceptable answer—he said it was up to me to go find out. I once tried to buy motorcycle insurance and the agent didn’t want to know about the motorcycle. When I said the insurance was not for me, but the motorcycle, he refused my business. I’ve been more than once threatened that if I didn’t tell the agent what he wanted to hear, my future claims might be designed. I walked out, but most people would be susceptible to this horrid brand of blackmail.

           Yes, I am aware that many insurance companies are investigated, but it universally seems to be for the denial or underpayment of claims. That is barely scratching the surface. What is not being investigated is the rotten core. Forget about “bad faith” practice and start looking deep into how the industry itself is abusing people’s rights. The investigators are barking up the wrong tree. Start with limiting what information insurance companies are allowed to “gather”, I believe is the correct term.
           Why the hell does an insurance company think they have a right to information about other people I have the misfortune to be related to? A reputable business would go ask them and quit trying to pry information out of me. One of the first lessons I learned in life was to limit the amount of information that my relatives had because I know they would sell you out in an instant if they thought it would cause you trouble.
           Now, I am the worst enemy the insurance companies have. They just don’t know it. They are slick on the outside, but will screw your for your last dollar on the inside—and control the law that makes it so. Put another way, if insurance companies were a country, they’d be Canada.

           [Author's note: This is unrelated, but not a lot of people know about Hellerstein. He’s a New York judge whose son represents the Israeli airport passenger screening company. That company is Mossad-controlled. That means they are on the front line of knowing what terrorists are planning to do next. Six weeks before 9/11, Hellerstein’s pal, Silverstein, took out an insurance policy on the World Trade Center which doubled the previous coverage and added an extra clause covering “terrorism”. Hellerstein subsequently awarded Silverstein $4.5 billion. That's billion, with a "b".
           Wait, there’s more. He (Hellerstein) then awarded him (Silverstien) twice the money because Silverstein argued there were two terrorist attacks. Covered by the same insurance policy was Building 7, the structure adjacent to the towers. It was not hit by an airplane, but mysteriously collapsed the same day for an addition payout of $860 million. Silverstein and his son and daughter mysteriously failed to show up for their daily breakfast in the rooftop restaurant of the North Tower only once. On 9/11.
           There’s nothing funny going on.]

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++