jupiter2's comments

Thanks for a well thought out response that adds value to the discussion. Some of the other responses irked me because of how little thought was given to these harsh realities and I responded in kind. Don't be put off if you read those responses.

I just watched the video. I would love to agree but I can't. Mind you, I'm speaking as someone who grew up in the inner-city. This doesn't mean that people there were unhappy, disconnected - something the video seems to think is the root cause. In fact, it was usually the opposite. Parties, strong family bonds, lots of strong personal connections, outgoing - and still... drug-addicts. Fact is, I was one of the few that was introverted and disconnected (geek).

The Vietnam sample given in the video doesn't speak to how often the users were taking drugs, how often they went cold turkey, how difficult it was to attain drugs. They played a section of a lonely and scared soldier but did not discuss situations where a group of soldiers, in a welcoming environment, shared the experience.

What a person needs to do to get drugs (not having the resources) and how it changes them over time isn't dealt with in the video at all. They slowly become accustomed to the new changes (theft, prostitution, assault) and work from there.

The very same people I have known in life who have been drug-addicts have only changed their lives when they hit rock-bottom as a result of tough love or jail time. Some never manage it despite all the effort in the world.

Nothing else changed in their lives - not their personal connections, not their work situation, nothing. This is at odds with the message of the video. In fact, love and compassion along with strong friendly bonds led to enabling in every case that I witnessed.

I don't want to sound like some kind of expert. The topic, which I never should have engaged in, brings back many bad memories. Mothers leaving & destroying their families, two cases where a baby was thrown out a window (once during a party), a son killing their mother, a heterosexual male teen engaged in homosexual sex for money, overdose ending in death, young suburban girls living on the streets, the wife of a friend leaving her husband for weeks at a time to prostitute for money. Sigh... And more...

I am a firm believer that even the nicest person will willingly engage in the worst kinds of crimes under the right conditions. We can all be broken. We should always be on guard to protect ourselves from situations that can break us. Drugs are one of these devices.

> I don't believe we should mandate what people can and cannot do with their bodies

I agree with this 100%. Suicide, daredevil acts, tats, all-night gaming sessions... whatever. So long as it doesn't hurt anyone else: My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.

This has never been the case with drug addicts, in my experience. Every drug addict effects those around them in negative and often dangerous ways.

It was you who generalized about ALL drugs. I responded to that in the same general way. Then, despite my temperate and reasonable response (open to discussion about psychedelics, not psychoactives), you proceeded to create a strawman and burn it down. This, despite the fact that, under certain circumstances, I agree about some of the benefits of legalization - as I very clearly stated.

You can go on talking to yourself and the imaginary puppet you created but I'll follow up with this:

Like the other responses I've received that seem to come from children with NO real world experience. I ask you too: have you any experience with addicts? Have you ever asked a recovering addict if he/she would ever start using (psychoactive) drugs again if they were legal?

Of course not. The safe place where you're writing from is painful to interact with. Your response is practically a copy/paste from some hot trending topic from the pages of a marijuana user.

Don't presume to know where I formed my opinion. Some of us aren't children jumping on the latest hot topic with the fervor of an ignorant SJW. Some of us have lived through decades of this. fucking. shit.

Do NOT clump all drugs together in some ignorant Shangri–la dance. Unless you've experienced the effects of drugs in your own personal life, don't diminish their effects on people you probably never interact with. I doubt you care through your pseudo-cognitive dissonance.

You state that "sale to adults" would somehow, magically make addiction a non-issue with some legislation. For the love of Spock! People can't control the food they eat but they can somehow manage addictive drugs? That has NEVER happened. The naivete you engage in is far more dangerous than laughable.

You think for a second that even the least harmful drug isn't going to get taxed through the roof - creating yet another black market. The government can't control itself. You have to have seen it with cigarettes and now sugary drinks being taxed out of reach. Are you even living in the same world as everyone else?

Discuss a solution that makes sense. Talk real research. Separate the drug types. Some can be legalized, some should never see the light of day. And for God's sake - use some critical thinking: it's one hell of a drug.

Which ones do you recommend? Heroine, cocaine? What type of amphetamines? Maybe crack? How about inhalants?

Let me know how this works out for you.

> it's unfair to attribute the destructive negative effects you're describing to the drugs themselves.

I can't believe some of the responses. I have to ask you too, have you any real-world experience with addicts? Have you ever lived in a community with a drug epidemic? Neighbors, mothers, friends, family on heroine or crack?

Are you suggesting that making drugs like heroine, cocaine, amphetamines, crack, inhalants and others available to adults (let's say, 21 years and older) is a solution? People can't even control their fast food intake or alcohol consumption but somehow heroine wouldn't be a problem.

I've seen the damage this has caused, first hand, more times than I can recall - in the real world, in the inner-cities. I did not pick up my opinion in a trending topic.

I've talk to ex-drug users. Not a single one would ever do drugs again. I've seen families destroyed and not a single one effected would want (psychoactive) drugs to be a part of their lives.

Now if we're talking about marijuana or well-researched psychedelics (not psychoactive), that's a different topic.

You're comparing water to heroine, cocaine, amphetamines, crack, inhalants and others? This is a joke, right?

Have you any experience with addicts at all or is all of this coming from an Ivory Tower, safe from the real world?

> war on drugs has been a huge disservice to humanity in so many ways. ... All for what? Some sense of moral purity?

I was, and still remain to a great deal, very anti-drug. Unless there's a system to manage it effectively, people will abuse drugs. It will destroy their lives. Let's not downplay the impact here.

I've seen the negative effects far too often - from destruction of families to young girls prostituting themselves for their next fix to brutal crimes. It's horrific.

The actual "War on Drugs" has always been a half-hearted effort. It has served as a political talking point and a means to control/surveil the population through fear-mongering. In much the same way that terrorism is being used to increased the powers of the surveillance state.

I do agree with its' usage related to medical purposes or in any way that it can be effectively managed as a recreational activity (but I have doubts about the general population being able to manage harder drugs).

Having said this, there is great value in research. I saw the value of research for the first time when I read 'DMT: The Spirit Molecule' by Rick Strassman, M.D.[1]. It was truly an eye-opening experience for this particular (naturally occurring) drug.

It led me to read (for a while, many years ago) about other psychedelics as well as the research and personal stories related to their usage. Amazing stuff when managed correctly.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0892819278?redirect=true&p...

Late response: I'm having a hard time understanding your reasoning here.

A less generic comparison is Apple. Apple builds it's own devices and supports them.

If I buy an ASUS Tablet, I'm not expecting them to provide security updates to Lenova or Samsung Tablets. I am expecting them to support their own devices. They have everything they need - they built the devices themselves.

Similarly, if I buy an phone that's been purposely tweaked by AT&T, working with Samsung - I expect that they are more than able to provide security updates but are simply unwilling to do so. They have all the tools (drivers, access, etc) they need.

You're looking at the general Android landscape. It's a question of holding the device makers accountable. Providing security updates for devices you build yourself, with drivers you developed yourself (or through a partner) isn't an issue - it's pure (litigable) greed.

> I always end up with 5: use, study, share, modify, share modifications

I wish the author had expanded the four freedoms (for clarity) instead of trying to condense it. I just don't think it effectively targets the different limitations that exist in software.

The categories you listed above are so clear and concise that further explanation seems unnecessary:

The 5 software freedoms in just 6 words.

It does a great job of breaking down the areas where I have seen limitations imposed by other software packages over the last three decades.

Even the first item - use - which at first glance may be the least troublesome, is riddled with limitations related to running on specific hardware, under certain conditions (non-commercial, certain networks, etc).

Final thought: I wonder if this list could be further expanded with a 'No Software Patents' or similar item - as it relates to Software Freedom (maybe this is just redundant?).

This is great news. I can understand wanting to keep this as simple as possible but... if you decide to add any features:

1. Transparent Background (and)

2. Choice of character color (to integrate better with a webpage's color scheme, for example)

I appreciate the effort by Michael Pietroforte - this is a tremendous resource for Windows users concerned about privacy. I hope that the work here is kept up-to-date.

I have nothing but bad things to say about Microsoft and Windows 10 but will save it for a more appropriate time. I don't want to diminish the work here in any way.

Note: The page states that the "document is not about Windows 10 Home", which implies that there may be even more privacy tweaks not covered by this already extensive document. I think that it should also state that an update may reset one or more of these tweaks[1].

Note2: I wonder if autoit/autohotkey (with proper errorlevel-checking) could be utilized to periodically go through a list like this to insure the changes remain intact? Possibly report changes as it re-applies the privacy toggles.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/window...

> Either way, it's a nice project with a good execution!

I agree. Very quick too. I tried it with some ascii art and it makes the overall image a bit thinner, though:(

(not handling spaces correctly)

Image: https://sli.mg/ZSLtf6

Ascii Source: http://www.ascii-art.de/ascii/ghi/gary_larson.txt

> Americans handed the U.S. presidency to a racist, xenophobic, authoritarian, climate-science-denying, misogynistic, revenge-obsessed ego-maniac

Ah yes... the scripted narrative continues. George Soros, the global terrorist, must be proud. I stopped reading after the HuffPro-colluding nonsense written above. Good job reaching out to a different audience./s

This article is essentially blogspam: author uses phone for various random tasks throughout the day and still has loads of battery left.

Having said that and as the owner of the AscendMate2, part of my purchasing decision was based on this, more scientific, article:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8031/huawei-ascend-mate-2-revi...

I am now entering 1.5 yrs with the HAM2 and it still impresses me everyday in terms of battery life. Occasionally I'll download a misbehaving app that (secretly) eats my battery life and the HAM2 suddenly has the staying power of a regular "flagship" phone from a major company. That app is soon vanquished from the device.

The Ascend Mate2 is not without it's compromises but for basic (non-gaming) work on a large screen... this low-cost phone is a real winner.

> Or possibly the effect of having a user base in the billions. How do you adequately support that?

The same way Amazon does? How about banks, airlines and other similar.

I understand that there's little motivation for some online services to improve their customer service experience but Google is especially bad. Even when making a purchase from them (an area where both Apple and Microsoft do much better), you're dealing with a bot with absolutely no other contact point.

As a non-amigan but a huge fan of alternate OSes, I am constantly impressed by the enthusiasm and energy you guys still have for this system. It's contagious in a non-annoying way. I upvote interesting Amigan stuff whenever I come across it.

As an old-school DOS user, AmigaDOS, which I wasn't familiar with, looks fascinating. I'll have to see if it's available next time I boot Icaros Desktop.

> naming&shaming businesses who have effectively done nothing wrong.

Aren't they actively running malware as a result of their own laziness not to upgrade their Magento[1] Site?

This malware is being used to steal customer credit cards (at the very least) - perhaps identity theft as well. They are the very agents of 3rd-party hackers. This list[2] should be sent to the proper authorities and have the stores closed immediately.

Customers who have made purchases at these stores can and should be looking at lawsuits.

If you're going to run a 3rd-party solution for your ecommerce needs and patches have long been made available, you patch. If you can't even do this one simple thing - you get run off the internet for criminal negligence.

[1] https://magento.com/ [2] https://www.magereport.com/page/about

One of the links I visit, when I want to relax is: https://archive.org/details/computermagazines

So happy when I discovered they had a few DAK Catalogs. So many pleasant memories and a few orders too! That guy could really put a catalog together back in the day: https://archive.org/search.php?query=dak%20catalog

(Cynical response) Increasingly: governments, big business and/or a combination of those two. It's getting difficult to tell them apart.

> having in mind all of these projects that Mozilla killed lately

I actually got angry when I saw it was from Mozilla. It's gotten to the point that supporting their projects seems like a waste of time. It's the old... "fool me twice, shame on me".

Something like this would have fit in nicely with Firefox OS, too.

They don't just pull the plug on interesting projects, they do it so quickly.

> dropping it while after because it didn't match their expectations.

I wonder what those are? Entry into the educational market, tie-in into other projects (that haven't already been killed), showcasing open technologies...

Honestly, I'm not even sure they know themselves./rant

Still... like much of their previous work, this looks promising.

> based on whats trending on the web

Kardashians?