genedickson

There is nothing new here, but I am glad to see it. I'm forwarding the link to my local listserv where it will be ignored by most.

Radio waves literally go through people's bodies; people own themselves. I fail to see any reason to expect privacy, and certainly no right to privacy.

If you value your privacy don't use cell phones of any description and minimize your use of electronic and third party communications.

So when is the prochoice movement going to invest in the same technology? So run a gofundme already and shut up!

The missing vital information is this: IBM Berlin would not have been cut off until the U.S. entered the war. The war broke out years before, and the human rights abuses began years before that. IBM absolutely knew what was up for years by the time the U.S. manipulated Hitler into declaring war on us after Pearl Harbor (That's a whole story in itself involving a Nazi spy who was serving in the U.S. Congress). They were worse than Nazi collaborators; they didn't have to worry about being shot if they didn't do what they were told. The news reports about the holocaust were largely discounted; even Jews didn't believe them, but IBM had access to inside information and would have known why Hitler was so obsessed with census data. They had to know that the news reports were true. Not to say that the plight of the various groups the final solution was applied to would have been significantly different if IBM hadn't been involved.

There is a very important piece of history left out of this article and comments. The Nazis hired IBM to do the bulk of their computing. They may have used the Z3, but my uderstanding is that they didn't use it, though since it had such a narrowly specified field of use they could have used it and IBM wouldn't have known the difference. But the fact is that IBM supplied, at the very least, the vast majority of computer tech for the Nazis.

I'd be very interested in a detailed comparison between whatever IBM was using at the time, the capabilities of the Z3, and whether it could have been modified to do the types of work IBM did. IBM's primary notoriety about all this is that they helped the Nazis to locate members of groups to be exterminated, but I expect that was a small part of what they did for the Nazis. But no IBM execs faced the Nuremburg Tribunals.

Also, I think Zuse at least somewhat well known in the U.S. The most basic computer books I have seen all have something about him. The information is available and common in the U.S. in elementary computer books like they use to teach schoolkids what computers are. I've read a fair amount of stuff about him in elementary school computer texts that I got in thrift stores and like that. The basic information about who he was and what he did is commonly available. Details are less common, so when I saw the post I immediately checked it out, whereas I more commonly open up pages in new tabs and read them after I've done my shopping through the feed. But the reason I recognized the name of the man and the machine is because of elementary school books that I picked up in a thrift store in 99.

Recent memory research supports the way they structure the testing. The repetition and redoing things until you get the score of 100% not only shows sticktoitiveness, but the process improves retention. Also, the way they have the video lectures stop and ask questions which require the correct answer before continuing improves retention. So far, all the courses I've looked at have a free option, but some are more free than others. One course I enrolled for would let me take the tests, but wouldn't grade them. Guess what I didn't finish? What do the certificates look like? Do they name the school providing the class? Lots of colleges and universities are offering courses on coursera. Some charge more than others for the certificate. In theory, the value of the certificates should be affected by the outfit presenting the course. What does it matter who gives the course if the certificate is going to only say coursera? A certificate from a famous school is a certificate from a famous school. Coursera is just a classroom.

There are lots of people working to stop surveillance blockers. I expect that at least some of the HN crowd are employed by sites which are refusing admittance to people with such filters. I stumble on it regularly while surfing around. But I have no sympathy. I regularly harass websites to the effect that if they eliminate the interactive part of advertising the only thing to filter out will be the graphics. Further, the amount of publicity that an established outfit like Wired could have by eliminating interactivity of ads would put them in the news for a while. Any publicist who couldn't put an established site in the top of the news is incompetent. Imagine for instance the New York Times getting rid of their paywall and having just one non interactive ad on each article for unsubscribed folk. Of course they would suffer from being the competition to many of the outfits who might otherwise want to interview various people who were involved, But they would still get major publicity if they had a decent team getting it. It is a talked about thing even by non technical types. The real issue is that the publicity would only last some months, after which they would only be able to trumpet to the effect of we were the first. It could still be a gold mine of publicity, which would bring customers to the site. Of course when people followed links advertisers would still know where they came from, and whether they actually bought anything. I use ghostery and no script. I never turn them off for anybody. All surveillance is bad as far as I am concerned. What would you think if your neighbors gave you shit because you had curtains on your windows? That's how I see it.

I don't give a FF, I want to minimize the information strangers have about me. I'd rather see ads that were not targeted. If they know about me that is bad, regardless of all else. Who doesn't matter. Why doesn't matter. I've never had a checking account or credit card. My bank knows nothing of how I spend my money. For mail order I use money orders and aliases. When I contact online sellers I use an alias which I delete shortly after receiving whatever and telling them that it came. I consider surveillance unpatriotic. I may not be able to prevent the NSA from knowing all, but I make purchases anonymously unless I am at a brick and mortar store.

I don't use facebook or google. I use startpage a a google proxy on rare occasions, but mostly search with ixquick. My representatives know what I think about government surveillance and privacy issues, for what its worth. I agree and disagree about online ads always having interactive features. It makes sense, but the controversy around this does make for the possibility that some will go for straight ads. For me surveillance is the main reason I use blockers. History shows that corporations are more of a threat than government. Hitler could never have made it absent the Krupp family. They put him in power. I don't know about Stalin. He did have help along the way, but since he ruled till he died there is a lot less information available, and it is spotty at best. Of course in America the corporations run the government, and it isn't just from campaign contributions, though at this time that is the biggest thing. Europe to. Most of the world's governments are run by corporations behind the scenes. The big possibility to force ads to be non interactive is to seriously call newspapers and magazines that predate the internet on this. I do this pretty regularly. An ad that does not have any interactivity cannot be filtered without removing the article one is reading. That is easy to do. And the incredible amount of publicity waiting for the first newspaper or magazine to require advertisers to eliminate interactive ads should be really tempting. If their publicity department doesn't see this they need to hire me! Given the resources that publicity outfits have I could get the ball rolling and keep it going for long enough that it would be remembered for a while after the boom. The only thing to filter would be the graphics. Alt text would deal with this. If on has use of the advertised item(s), one will check out the pictures. However, I noticed when I "upgraded" my firefox that they don't have the option to block images in the new version, or at least they make it difficult by completely removing the tool bar that held that function. I've looked and looked, but not found. In any event, I utterly lack sympathy for interactive advertisers and the websites that allow them. I'll happily do without them as they go out of business, and I hope they do!

The U.S. has been a cashless society for generations. Few people even know what cash is. They think federal reserve notes are cash. They are not. Alaska has cash in circulation and you can spend it at any business, though the scales are out of sight until you break out the cash. They can make change in cash or federal reserve notes. Federal reserve notes are the middle ground between digital currency and cash. I've never seen anyone spend cash in the lower 48. I'm sure that Somali currency is not cash either.

I live in California and you are wrong. They use federal reserve notes like everybody else.

Stop calling them ad blockers. They block surveillance features that advertisers put in their ads. I do not believe that ads would be blocked by surveillance blockers if they were just ads. Absent the surveillance, how would they recognize them? If ads were identical to the ads in analogue newspapers then surveillance blockers would let them through. When I read an analogue newspaper or magazine nobody is knowing if I read the ads or not. They only know whether they get results from advertising in that outlet. And they know that by tracking. They could run ads that don't spy on people. I always use surveillance blockers. I never shut them down for anybody. It is especially offensive when sites that are hardcopy outfits which have gone digital to keep up with the times complain about surveillance blockers. They certainly know how to run ads that are just ads. There is no technical difference between the ads and the rest of the page. The layout is the thing. They have experience with this and professional advertising people know about tracking results.