State EMT Workers Can't Innovate

This article had a bit that made me say "WTF?"

EMT/ambulance workers in NYC don't have GPS devices. This can be problematic if they're called to an obscure address, or if they're working outside their normal service area. In NYC, there's a lot of 1 block streets in obscure locations. In a severe emergency, an ambulance can be called someplace outside the crew's normal area.

Some crews resort to bringing their own GPS devices, but that’s against the rules and they could be punished if caught, Bahnken said.

I can't believe that someone would say that with a straight face. I can't imagine the reporter not saying "WTF? This is bull****!"

EMT workers aren't allowed to bring their own GPS devices to work? Some State bureaucrat actually made up such a rule and is enforcing it? How can someone do that with a straight face?

The State is about power and control. State bureaucrats are threatened by an EMT worker who uses non-State-issued tools to do his job.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

There's a new international fake free trade treaty. It's the "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" (ACTA). Evil laws are always given noble-sounding names. A more accurate name is "The Mainstream Media Corporate Welfare Agreement".

These economic terrorists say "This treaty is an open and democratic process." However, they refuse to release the drafts and details.

"It's an international 'free trade' treaty!" is a convenient catch-phrase for circumventing individual countries' laws. Most "free trade treaties" are actually "corporate welfare treaties". That's one reason people falsely believe free markets are evil.

"Intellectual property" is not property. A pro-State troll says "WTF? How will artists get paid?" The artist can directly solicit donations from fans. The artist can make most of their money from live performances. Some independent artists are already successful at this, without the backing of the mainstream media cartel.

There's already a group of people that steal artists' work without paying. They're called "record company executives". Via "Hollywood Accounting", the artist usually never sees $1 in royalties, even for a smash hit. A new band is locked up in a long-term contract, before the media cartel will promote their music. A pro-State troll says "The artist voluntarily signed the contract!" The State media cartel gives unreasonable power to corporations. 20 years ago, the only way to get a song published was via the media cartel. Now, some independents are directly self-publishing on the Internet and bypassing the media cartel.

The media cartel feels threatened, because the Internet threatens their business model. The "solution" is to crack down on freedom on the Internet.

What are the provisions of the ACTA? This analysis is based on drafts and rumors.

The ACTA changes copyright infringement from civil to criminal. Now, a copyright infringer can only be sued by the copyright owner. After ACTA, copyright infringement will be a crime.

It's the usual "cartel externalizes enforcement costs to the State". If the RIAA/MPAA had to maintain their own spying network and private army, it wouldn't be profitable. Instead, they lobby the State to enforce their cartel.

The ACTA has a "3 strikes" provision. If you're guilty of copyright infringement 3 times, then your ISP terminates your service and you're barred from purchasing Internet access. The UK already has such a law. (The Anonymous commenter from the UK who frequently comments on "legal extortion" would like that bit.)

It's unclear if "3 strikes" is "3 convictions for copyright infringement" or "3 times accused of copyright infringement". There probably will be an administrative court, with judges chosen by the RIAA/MPAA, separate from the regular legal system. Someone accused of copyright infringement probably won't get due process, when their Internet access is terminated and they're barred from buying Internet access.

The ACTA has an "ISPs are required to spy on users" provision. If an ISP suspects a user of copyright infringement, they are required to rat you out to the State copyright police. There's a "safe harbor" provision for ISPs who spy on their users; the user can't sue for violating their privacy.

If an ISP doesn't enact a "spy on users" program, then they're subject to potential civil and criminal penalties. There's no legal requirement for ISPs to spy on users, but they risk being sued or kidnapped if they fail to comply.

That is like the ironically-named "Bank Secrecy Act". The Bank Secrecy Act requires all banks to report "suspicious transactions" to the IRS and FBI. A bank who rats on its customers is immune from being sued by a customer. The Bank Secrecy Act makes all State-licensed banks into spies for the State. The "Bank Secrecy Act" really is the "Bank Anti-Secrecy Act". Evil laws are always given innocent-sounding names. BTW, the "Patriot Act" amended the "Bank Secrecy Act", imposing stricter requirements on banks.

I don't see how this law is enforceable. People will switch to invitation-only strongly-encrypted filesharing networks. Some peolpe already do this.

A P2P filesharer has a distinct traffic pattern. However, there are legitimate filesharing uses. World of Warcraft distributes updates via BitTorrent. Retrogaming is a grey area. Most old games are legally copyrighted but abandonware.

There's another benefit for the prison/legal cartel. Criminalizing copyright infringement will lead to more people in jail. Most people do some "illegal" P2P filesharing. If the police seize your computer and search for copyrighted material, they will frequently find infringement.

Criminal copyright infringement enhances the Police State's ability to send anyone to jail. Many young people now believe "P2P filesharing is not a crime." The police can seize someone's computer and search for copyright infringement, even if that wasn't the original reason for the search.

The ACTA is an example of State corporate welfare. This "free trade treaty" is a stealth way of imposing freedom-restricting laws. A cartel externalizes enforcement costs to the State. The "incandescent light bulb ban" is another corporate welfare law, implemented via international treaty.

Too many young people are now accustomed to P2P filesharing. They realize that it isn't really a crime. The mainstream media cartel spends a lot of money on propaganda denouncing P2P filesharing. I don't see the mainstream media cartel winning this battle. They're still going to try. The ACTA will lead to lots of frivolous arrests and lawsuits for copyright infringement.

"Best of FSK" Updated

I updated the "Best of FSK" list in the left sidebar. It's been awhile since the last update.

I wrote a PHP script that parses out the Google Analytics page and generates the results for me. For a long time, that's been on my "list of things to do". I finally did it. It only took me two hours.

I noticed that my motivation is increasing again. It seems that the withdrawal from the psychiatric drugs takes a full year or longer. I'm not back to 100%, but I'm doing better.

There's a new #1 post, "Who's the Richest Man in the World?" I haven't mentioned the Supreme Leader of Humanity in awhile. I'm leaning towards the explanation "Everyone is insane. Nobody is completely in charge."

That's the "advantage" of a democracy/oligarchy instead of a monarchy. In a monarchy, "assassinate the king" is the only way for some people to advance. In the current system, if a figurehead dies, then someone else takes their place. This makes a democracy more stable than a monarchy.

In the current system, a high-ranking State insider makes more money milking the current corrupt system, rather than assassinating other insiders. Instead of a single absolute dictator, you have collusion among many insiders. If one deviates, he's a replaceable cog. There's no "Supreme Leader". It's just a criminal gang protecting it's turf.

The President is the nominal leader, but he's really very low ranking on the State parasite scale. If a President gets wise and starts threatening *REAL* insiders, then he'll get Kennedy-ed.

I now have a script that automatically parses my Google Analytics statistics into a "Best of FSK" list. I might try monthly lists now. It was a really easy program to write. I'm surprised that I put it off for so long. My motivation and ability must really be recovering.

"Best of FSK" - July 2010

I wrote a PHP script that automatically parses out my Google Analytics statistics. Here is a list of my most popular posts in July, sorted by Absolute Unique Pageviews.

This includes all posts, and not just those published in July. The most popular posts published in July were "Sholom Rubashkin, Political Prisoner" and "Why Chatroulette Failed".

1. Did the USA Declare Bankruptcy? (257)
2. Who's the Richest Man in the World? (193)
3. The Compound Interest Paradox (179)
4. The Hunt Brothers' Silver Corner (178)
5. Ruby on Rails Sucks! (163)
6. Sholom Rubashkin, Political Prisoner (130)
7. The Federal Reserve Caused the Great Depression (119)
8. The Gold Lease Rate is Negative! (112)
9. The Five Levels of the Economy (99)
10. Verizon LG enV Touch, Bitpim, and Open Source (97)
11. Real GDP is Decreasing, 1990-2007 (93)
12. LeBron James and the NBA CBA (88)
13. Premium Text Messaging Fraud - 91097 and 654654 (84)
14. Why Chatroulette Failed (82)
15. The Black-Scholes Formula is Wrong! - Part 1/12 - Overview and Background (70)
16. Calculating Vega and other Greeks in Black-Scholes (65)
17. Real GDP is Decreasing, 1990-2008 (65)
18. The Gold and Silver Taxation Scam (63)
19. Real GDP Is Crashing, 2000-2009 (60)
20. Satanic Death Hospitals (55)
21. David Axelrod, State Psychopath (48)
22. The State Stole My Savings! (47)
23. The Pat Tillman Conspiracy Theory (45)
24. Is It Worth Hoarding Nickels? (44)
25. The Monetizing the Debt Scam (41)
26. Gold and Silver Buyer's Guide (39)
27. Water Powered Cars and Zero Point Energy (39)
28. Real GDP Growth Has Been Negligible Since 1990 (38)
29. Agorist Philosophy Overview (35)
30. Why Does Jay Walder Need A Bodyguard? (34)
31. StackOverflow Sucks! (32)
32. The Nymphomaniac Pattern (32)
33. The Federal Reserve and Income Tax Conspiracy Theory (31)
34. The Compound Interest Paradox - a Simpler Explanation (31)
35. Fantasy Supreme Court Nomination Hearing (31)
36. Rick Barber for Congress! (31)
37. The Communist Manifesto's Successful Implementation in the USA (30)
38. A Commodity Price Volatility Calculation (30)
39. The Liberty Dollar Scam Continues! (30)
40. Your Strawman Corporation (30)
41. Internet Kill Switch (30)
42. Easily Import Excel and CSV Files Into Blogger! (29)
43. The Fluoride Conspiracy Theory (28)
44. Time Warner Cable and Lousy Software (28)

Is this a useful feature? I can make it easily now, because I wrote a PHP script that parses my Google Analytics statistics.

The "Good Morning ... **GOOD MORNING!!**" Fnord

I recently served on jury duty. I briefly considered bringing some FIJA pamphlets with me, but I didn't feel like getting myself arrested. This time, my goal was to get myself dismissed without actually serving on a jury. I would be missing out on my salary, for time spent on the jury. I figured "I understand jury nullification! I can think for myself!" would be sufficient to get myself disqualified. All the prospective jurors were dismissed, without even being questioned. In effect, I paid a tax of one day's salary, and the State didn't even derive any benefit.

My parents were concerned that I would be getting myself arrested, if I told the judge that I understood "jury nullification".

I was planning a detailed post on my jury duty experience. For a good laugh, watch the NYC jury duty propaganda film they showed us. I was a "petit juror", which meant criminal.

In the jury waiting room, a State bureaucrat gave us a briefing. He had the attitude of someone running detention in school. His attitude was "I get paid the same whether I do this quickly or slowly. Therefore, I'll take my time." It was an attitude I remember well from when I was in school.

The State bureaucrat did something very interesting. He said "Good morning, jurors!" A few people weakly responded "good morning". Then, he said "**GOOD MORNING, JURORS!!**" The second time, he got a louder response.

My reaction was "WTF? Is this school?" I remembered that, in school, the teacher or principal would say "Good Morning!", and get similarly angry when there was a weak response. This reflex was conditioned by years of public schooling.

I was shocked when I read this blog post by a criminal defense attorney.

“Good afternoon . . . GOOD AFTERNOON.”

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen a prosecutor NOT use this old chestnut to try to “warm up” the jury. They say “Good morning,” and when the jury doesn’t respond enthusiastically say something like “I know you can do better than that. Good morning!” or “I said, ‘Good morning!’” I wonder if this seems cute to the jurors, or just patronizing. Am I jaded from having seen it a hundred times?

He said "In nearly every criminal trial, the prosecutor uses the 'Good Morning...' trick." That blogger said it was merely an annoying thing that prosecutors do. In fact, it's a mind control trick. Do you see the evil fnord?

In a State brainwashing center, the teacher or principal uses the "Good Morning" trick to enforce discipline. By using this mind control trick, the prosecutor establishes himself as the equivalent of the teacher or principal! The prosecutor is setting himself up as the authority figure in the jurors' minds. There's another benefit. The prosecutor can eliminate people who don't give the conditioned response.

That blogger was offended by the "Good Morning" trick, but he didn't see the importance like I did. It's a mind control trick, establishing the authority of the prosecutor.

According to that blogger, most prosecutors use this trick. Did they discover it through trial and error? Is it part of the State brainwashing ritual? Did someone figure out "If teachers and prosecutors behave similarly, then it'll be easier to convict innocent people!" If every prosecutor does it, then someone is telling prosecutors to do it.

There are a lot of similarities between a court and a school or church.

• The juror waiting room looks like a school auditorium.
• The benches in a courtroom look like the benches in a church.
• The people stand up or sit down when the priest/judge orders them to.
• A priest wears black. A judge wears black.
• A church prominently displays a cross, the symbol of God. A courtroom prominently displays a flag, the symbol of the State.
• The judge's desk is like the altar of a church.
  

A courtroom is a church. The judge is the priest. A courtroom is a school. The prosecutor is the teacher or principal.

I noticed that some criminal defense attorney bloggers complain how the system is stacked against defendants. One says "Innocent until proven guilty is a lie. A defendant is acquitted only when he manages to overcome the presumption of guilt."

A lot of things in a courtroom are subtle mind control tricks. They establish the legitimacy of the judge and prosecutor. The "Good morning..." trick is used by prosecutors, to establish their authority.

CSCO Circuit Breaker

On Thursday, the new circuit breaker rule was triggered for CSCO on the AMEX. CSCO didn't really increase sharply. A large market buy order was sent to the AMEX. The AMEX is only required to respect top-of-book on the other exchanges. According to current rules, other orders may be traded through.

The AMEX just started trading CSCO. There was thin liquidity on AMEX, and the other exchanges had small quotes. There were enough book orders on other exchanges to fill the AMEX order, but AMEX is only legally required to honor the quote.

Here is an example. Suppose NASDAQ's quote is 1000 shares offered at $22.00. There also are 100000 shares offered at $22.01. The NASDAQ quote offer is $22.00x1000. AMEX receives a 100000 share market buy order. AMEX is only required to send 1000 shares to NASDAQ for $22.00.

AMEX may ignore the order at $22.01. If there are fewer than 99000 shares offered on AMEX, then the stock will trade up all the way to the circuit breaker level. This forces NASDAQ to also halt the stock. Even though NASDAQ had plenty of liquidity, the trade on AMEX forces NASDAQ to also halt trading.

Technically, AMEX didn't break the rules. The rules are defective. The large exchanges lobbied for this rule, "only top of book gets trade-through protection", to discourage people from sending their orders to small ECNs.

A malicious trader could exploit this rule. If you send a large order to an ECN with a thin market, then you can trigger the circuit breaker.

Traders with large orders usually break them into small pieces. They usually use limit orders. It seems suspicious that someone sent a large market order to AMEX but not also to NASDAQ. Did someone maliciously send a large order to AMEX to force a halt in CSCO?

I don't know what software AMEX uses to trade CSCO. There probably aren't "liquidity refreshment points" like on the NYSE. Does someone have "market maker" status on AMEX for CSCO? If yes, they should be fined for "failing to maintain an orderly market". Even ECNs sometimes have market makers. Some traders register as "market makers" because market makers get preferred margin status. These traders publish infamous "stub quotes" of $0.01 and $99999. That satisfies the technical obligation to quote, but the SEC is supposed to be cracking down on that.

AMEX didn't break the rules. The rules are defective. What are some possible reforms?

One possibility is that the new circuit breaker rule could be enforced on a per-exchange basis, rather than globally. It seemed silly that AMEX was able to force NASDAQ to halt trading.

One possibility is to give trade-through protection for *ALL* orders and not just the top of book. The large exchanges would object. There would a "swamped with data" problem. Keeping track of just the quote is easier than keeping track of the full order book.

Another possibility is to give trade-through protection at various points. The exchange publishes the quote, the total number of shares within $0.05 of the quote, and the total number of shares within $1 of the quote. Trade-through protection is provided at each point.

That would be a compromise between using the full order book and just the top of book. The current system is unfair, when someone places a large limit book order $0.01 away from the quote. Other exchanges can just trade through it.

The current system is also unfair to "reserve" orders. For a "reserve" order, you display only a couple hundred shares, but the rest of the order is kept on the exhange's book. Other exchanges can "trade through" the reserve order. One of my coworkers observed "Only fools use reserve orders. They're too exploitable."

The stock market is one big scam. Physical gold and silver is almost definitely a better long-term investment than State paper. It's still interesting to study logical contradictions in the way the stock market operates.

Got a Virus - Antivir Solution Pro

My PC got infected with a virus. It's "antivir solution pro". It completely hijacks your PC. It begs you to go to their website and sign up. It redirects all your http requests to itself, so you can't even browse the Internet.

I managed to temporarily disable its proxy server. I then found a webpage before it re-hijacked my PC.

You have to start your PC in safe mode (press F8 while booting).
You have to kill the virus process.
You have to find the executable and delete it.
You have to remove the registry entries it created (probably superfluous once you delete the executable).

Just to be safe, I changed my gmail password.

I was playing a flash game while my PC got infected. It seems like it's hijacking a defect in Adobe's Flash player. I re-downloaded the latest Flash player.

I probably should use a real operating system instead of Windows. Most of my stuff is web-based now. Most of my programming is done in PHP.