Wasn't the money in Namibia given out to some of the poorest members of the community? The articles cited a 301 percent increase in self-employment. The concerns about gaming the system are certainly real, but it seems to me that you will always have outliers who want to take advantage. The question is whether or not a certain percentage of people behaving badly is worth the overall benefits to society, and I believe that is it.
As far as it being more of a burden on the middle class, I would happily pay more if it meant that everyone was getting more in return. Furthermore, why does it only have to be the burden of the middle class? If a corporation sees a 500 million dollar increase in profits because it aggressively automated its processes, why can't we institute rules to mandate they pay a certain percentage of the back into the UBI fund? More money for people means more potential consumers of their goods, right?
None of this is surprising to an extremely small subset of the global population, those who have had the means to study computer science and cryptography, and the history(ies) of government sanctioned spy agencies for a long enough period to be able to glean insights into the future behaviour of said agencies.
Since not everyone who reads this site meets those criteria, I suspect that it is even a not-insignificant subset on hacker news as well.
You might find it helps to mentally (or programmatically) replace every instance of NSA, and its various expansions, with the name of that agency's direct lineal predecessor, which existed in a time when bureaucratic circumlocution was far less pervasive, and which could therefore rejoice in such an ominously portentous name as "the Black Chamber."
To see the effect, let's try it with some headlines I've just cherry-picked from a Google search results page for purposes of demonstration:
"Black Chamber team spies, hacks to gather intelligence on targets, report says"
"Appelbaum: 'Scary' Black Chamber will spy on you – every which way they can ..."
"Black Chamber Secret Toolbox: ANT Unit Offers Spy Gadgets for Every Need ..."
I mean, how can you not love a name like that? You can't even say it in an ordinary tone of voice. See for yourself! No matter how you try, you'll find yourself saying not merely "the Black Chamber," but...the Black Chamber.
I think an official change of name is long overdue.
Clearly you're right, in the sense that, as a simple statement of fact, the NSA revelations are surprising to a great many people, maybe most people who learn of them. But there is a sense in which, when people say "this is not surprising", it implies "to people who know some things about the subject". I guess this expression, used this way, might come off as elitist or haughty, but I think it's a pretty common usage. Another reason I'm surprised at all the surprise is that I never studied cryptography, computer science, or the history of spy agencies systematically. The Puzzle Palace was a popular book, widely read, and I learned about NSA involvement in academic cryptography research by accident while studying up on numerical algorithms for physics simulations.
Does the developer have access to the raw data stream as well? I.e, can I apply filters the audio or record the incoming data?
If not, will I be able to run this concurrently with multiple audio gathering programs? Should probably google if a computer's input source can be multiplexed in that way :)
We don't provide any special support for doing this, but we do give you access to the browser's MediaStream object. You can attach that to an AudioContext and use the web audio API to do what you're asking for.
I'm sorry, but do you mean the violent behaviour that didn't cause the bombing of the King David hotel in Jerusalem? Or the persistent treatment of the Palestinians as non-entities in a country in which they account for some 20 percent of the population? Or perhaps you're refering to the hawkish attitude taken towards Iran and syria? Neither of those countries support anything close to democracy, but it's a farce and a damn shame to pretend that the religious extremists in Israel are anything but.
I was referring to religions that go to war vs another for religious reasons. Crusades: Christian vs Islam, for example.
Jerusalem is different, that being a country with displacement/murder of people at its creation. Not that I agree with any sort of treatment towards families killed or kicked out on the founding.
After having read a bit about the bombing of the King David Hotel, well, I guess there are some radical elements there too. Pity.
Did they run out of money to design the back or something? They can't have Jony Ive but was there no one else they could hire to approximate 60s era Braun? Like a 4th year design student?
I know - I opened the site and my first thought was, oh it looks quite nice. Then went to gallery and my heart sank that no-one had bothered to look at the thing side-on.
As far as it being more of a burden on the middle class, I would happily pay more if it meant that everyone was getting more in return. Furthermore, why does it only have to be the burden of the middle class? If a corporation sees a 500 million dollar increase in profits because it aggressively automated its processes, why can't we institute rules to mandate they pay a certain percentage of the back into the UBI fund? More money for people means more potential consumers of their goods, right?