You paid for it – possibly making payments on it for years. It’s your car now . . . right?
Maybe.
But the data it contains effectively belongs to someone else.
Don’t believe me? Then take a look at your owner’s manual – if you own (well, think you own) a new car.
On page 34 of the (cough) owner’s manual for the 2014 Mercedes Benz E-Class wagon I recently reviewed, there is a section devoted to Information about electronic data acquisition in the vehicle. This refers to the Event Data Recorders – aka “black boxes” – that all new cars come equipped with now – by law. These EDRs store information about your driving, such as vehicle speed, “g” forces during deceleration and cornering, whether you are “buckled up for safety” – and so on.
The information is not merely stored, either. It can (and will be) retrieved – and not by you.
Without your consent.
And very possibly, without your even knowing about it.
The MB manual admits this, openly.
“Please note that your vehicle is equipped with devices that can record vehicle systems data . . . Daimler AG can access these data and submit them.”
Italics added.
How is the data “accessed”? Via the same technology your (hrrrmmm!) car gets real-time weather updates, stock quotes and e-mail. If your car is equipped (as almost all new cars are equipped) with send and receive data transmission capability then data about your speed, how “aggressively” you accelerate (or brake) and whether you are wearing a seat belt can also be sent and received.
This data “is transmitted in the event of an accident”. Emphasis on “is.” Not might be transmitted. But is transmitted. Whether you agree or not. Hell, you’re not even asked.
It’s not new, either.
GM has been fitting cars with its OnStar system since the ’90s – decades before the gunvernment got around to issuing a fatwa that every new car will have them, period. And the data is not transmitted “in the event of an accident” only.
Big Brother is watching – I assure you. 
About eight years ago, I was testing a then-new Cadillac. One day, as I was driving it with enthusiasm up a mountain road, the Van Halen I was listening to abruptly cut out and was replaced by a strange woman’s voice urgently inquiring whether I needed EMS. It was the helpful OnStar operator. Who had been sicced on me via OnStar, because OnStar deemed my “g” forces during cornering excessive. Mind, I did not push the little OnStar button (because I hadn’t wrecked and did not need EMS). Rather, OnStar did not like the way I was driving – and on its own initiative, contacted the OnStar authorities.
Who – at that time – did not actually have any authority to do anything about my “excessive” speed/lateral “g” forces during cornering. But that is going to change now that Event Data Recorders with send and receive capability are required by law.
Why do you suppose the gunvernment issued a decree requiring that all new cars have these send and receive-capable black boxes? Check Shoprite Specials and Spar Specials. Do you suppose it is a coincidence that the insurance mafia – the “private” half of the gunvernment-corporate conglomerate – has been pushing hard for in-car monitoring capability? 
Again, from the pages of the MB owner’s manual:
“Daimler AG can access these data and submit them … for safety research or vehicle diagnosis purposes … on the instruction of prosecuting authorities… (and) as otherwise permitted by law.”
Italics added.
That is, whenever the gunvernment (and don’t doubt it for a moment, the insurance mafia) decides to “access” these (not your) data. Which they’ll just go ahead and do whenever they please.
It is entirely possible they are already doing it.
Bear in mind that the gunvernment openly – contemptuously – violates our formerly private correspondence with impunity, “accesses” whatever “data” it wishes to regarding our financial activities and many other activities besides. And the insurance mafia is now doing precisely the same thing – with the help of the gunvernment. Examples include anytime-they-like access to your DMV records (the car insurance mafia) and now, access to your medical records (the health insurance mafia). There is too much money – and too much control – at stake. They want it all – and are playing for keeps.
Real-time (as you drive) monitoring (and control) is going to be a fact of life within five years. Perhaps sooner. And once it is a fact of life, the next step will be a declaration that cars without the built-in capability to narc out their (ahem) “owners” are “not safe” and will, accordingly, no longer be allowed to operate on the public (that is, gunvernment) roads. They will either have to be retrofitted with the technology or become so many thousand of pounds of useless metal and plastic.
I’ve been a car journalist for more than 20 years – and I have had a ringside seat as these bits and pieces have come into focus – and are now coming together.
I am thankful that I at least got to enjoy the tail end of automotive freedom – when a car represented liberation, you and the open road. Go where you like, how and when you like. Leave it all behind.
Tomorrow, someone else will be along for the ride.
What was it the late great Robin Williams said in the film, Dead Poets Society?
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…
Indeed.
Better hurry.
Throw it in the Woods?
PS: We depend on you to keep the wheels turning. If you value alternatives to the MSM, please support independent media. Our donate button is here.
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Just as with what you term the “Sail Fawn”, the technology to track the movements of your vehicle in real time already EXISTS. It’s not a matter of if it’s feasible, it’s whether the “Gubmint” has the will to collect the data and digest it. Truly, most ‘Muricans can be tracked as easily as a tagged bear in the woods…and there are enough busybodies and bureau-rats at all levels of Government, let alone all the marketing companies, that want to know, for THEIR purposes, whether you like it or not and regardless of whether you think you gave consent, or NOT.
This was best explained in the otherwise forgettable third installment of the original “Planet of the Apes” movie franchise, where the two intrepid chimpanzee scientists, Cornelius and Zira, along with a brilliant chimp scientist, Dr. Milo (Sal Mineo), whom salvaged the ‘Icarus’ interstellar spacecraft that had brought USAF Col. George Taylor (Charlton Heston) to them, “Half understood it”, and managed to repair it and get it space worthy…for a flight back to 1973. Later on, the “evil German” science adviser (Eric Braden) to the President (William Windom), after he’s admonished that to interrogate the chimps with the intent to dispose of them and their unborn child, had been tried by King Herod of old, and Christ survived, responds: “With all due respect, Mr. President, King Herod lack OUR facilities”. Even in an otherwise lame movie with decidedly chintzy production values, the writers recognized that Government perfidy is more a matter of means, the will already EXISTS.
So Jose working 14 hour days on a roofing crew with an 8th grade spanish language education from Guadalajara Secondary Academy is “too damn lazy” to read the written law. That’s the problem?
So Tyrone who wanders the streets since age 10 and ditches school is the problem. We just need a bigger truancy force to keep Tyrone incarcerated until he reads above a 1st grade level so he’ll know all these statutes so the Aristocracy of Pull can finally work the way it’s supposed to? He’s just “too damn lazy” to report to kid prison like he’s commanded by his betters?
Dear Bevin & Methylamine,
You own your toaster. Period. Sell it on craigslist, put a sign on it in at whatever price at your yardsale. Give it to your sister. No one cares. No thought required. You have quiet title to the thing
The state owns your cars.
The state owns your guns.
The state owns your pets.
The state owns your children and your wife.
The state owns your job and your home.
Before performing any transaction, you’ll want to consult the state. Look at the written words. Read authoritative discourse on the matter. Talk to an official. Talk to an expert in the matter. If you value your property and your freedom, you are required to give a lot of thought to the matter. If you were a new Polish immigrant in the states, with no English skills. You wouldn’t want to take chances with anything in the list except the toaster. I’m sure you’re Polish friends warned you of this, it would be common knowledge the types of things not to do on your own recoginizance.
Bevin and Methylamine aren’t involved in this, but I just thought I’d address this to them, as a sort of unexpected non-sequitorial twist, that’s the kind of avatarian behavior you’ve come to expect from Tor Minotaur Libertarian the 3rd.
Interesting article. However, even if this were not an issue, you still don’t “own” your car…at least not once it’s registered to the State. Ask any member of your state’s Highway Patrol…they are taught as new recruits that the State is the underlying owner of all “motor vehicles”. Ask any honest lawyer (or one that is not as ignorant as the general population, if you can find one)…”to register” is to give up title; “motor vehicle” is a contract which the State is a party of, or at least has authority over; and “drive” is a commercial term. The State has some authority over all commercial activities. This is proper when it comes to “driving a motor vehicle” (taxis, freight haulers, etc.) since the commercial activity is making a profit on what we all jointly pay for and own (the roads). To own our cars again, we must learn the legal meaning of such words and use them properly. We must stop “driving a motor vehicle” (commercial act) and start “operating a car” (private act), or better still “traveling by private car”. Then we must stop registering our cars as something they’re not (unless we are using them for commercial purposes). We then have to be willing to pay for our cars outright since the banks are in bed with the State to own everything and thus won’t finance a car unless you register it as a “motor vehicle”. And finally, we must (until there are enough of us) put up with the ignorance of the bulk of the population (some of whom are “law enforcement”) when we are harrassed for asserting what we know is correct. Sadly, we will never own our cars because even those willing to do the research and study to know these things will choose to fall in line anyway claiming, “I have to pick my battles”.
Thank you for making my point better than I.
In Mich. they changed our Drivers License to Operator Permits apx. 4 or 5 years ago. Maybe 6?
They had to due to the amount of folks who started fighting and proving that they were not “driving” a commercial vehicle.
They were operating a private vehicle and not doing commerce. This was driving the courts, no pun intended, and judges nuts…
So they just changed the terminology and then added all of our data, SS#, etc… onto the back on the magnetic tape.
I think I need to find a rare earth magnetic or something to remove that data…
http://www.millionmanar15march.com
Please show me where:
http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-127-1627_8669—,00.html
Or at least the court cases. There’s no way that happened in lower regular traffic court. They’ll just laugh and tell people to pound sand. Thus there must be a record.
Yes, the ‘privilege to drive’ is a scam, built up over decades, but again, the standard narrative is lacking the cites needed, which should exist.
I wish, just once. Someone would actually present something concrete other than this well someone says chain of ‘evidence’.
But let us say that registration does confer ownership on to the government by contract. It’s invalid because its done via coercion if not outright fraud.
First however, it has to be shown such transfer actually exists.
Hi Brent,
I agree with you on the first point; in all the years I’ve been doing this, I have yet to see evidence in support of the assertion.
But on the second: Shit, man – we’re constantly “contracted” under coercion. From the traffic ticket you sign under duress to the whole bullshit notion of the social contract and “consent of the governed”! See what happens if you argue the “contract” is invalid because you were forced…
I know you know that.
Just making a point for the peanut gallery!
I’ve actually looked for it. I can’t find any of it. The commercial thing for DL’s the transfer of ownership with title and reg. I can’t find it in the law.
There’s an effective condition created via bad law, perception, and fraud but no where can I find it spelled out.
Brent, a lot of times, too, the pertinant info won’t be in the statute books….but rather in court decisions. Finding all the pertinent info can be near impossible, unless you spend your life doing nothing but that.
I’m skeptical too, about a lot of the legal BS out there…but consider this: You don’t get the actual title to your car. The state holds the actual title…you just get a CERTIFICATE of title. (and if you had the real title, it would be the same regardless of what state you lived in- but the certificate of title is different in every state, because it is something that is created by the state).
While there is a lot of BS out there pertaining to non-existent legal theories….the “system” also does a good job often, of hiding the facts. e.g. you can’t find any law or statute that says if you enter into a state-sanctioned marriage contract you will be subject to the jurisdiction of family courts…but yet that is exactly the case- but no mention of it is made in any of the laws one would look at if they were researching marriage “licenses”. One would have to look at totally unrelated things to ascertain that fact- and even then, they never come right-out and say it plainly; one would have to read between the lines and extrapolate; and look up the exact definitions of words as they pertain to legal useage, etc. The system is so big and complex- and they don’t keep related things close to each other, but rather scatter them all over the place, so that one would have to spend virtually all of their time doing nothing but futzing with codes and statutes…as some actually do- and what do they get for it? Nothing! Because we are powerless to force “them” to even follow their own laws.
I look at it from a practical standpoint: Do you have to pay tax on it to keep it/use it? Do you have to have permission to use it? Can “they” confiscate it if you don’t cross some T or dot some i ? Do “they” determine the specifications and features it has, rather than the person who is purchasing it and the manufacturer? Then it is not truly yours…..
Reading between the lines isn’t law. If it were scattered someone could show me the pieces. Nobody can.
The effective condition is due to people’s beliefs, not law. If people stop believing it, it ceases to be, in some instances even if no law is changed.
How cars are spec’d, that regulation by government started when people decided the federal government should do it instead of SAE. The original regs were copies of SAE standards.
We are largely dealing with a population that believes things that aren’t so. They aren’t so, never been so, and that’s why I can’t find them.
Brent, it doesn’t have to be “law”. Look at the IRS commisioner who said “They follow the law WHEn THEY CAN”. -It’s about power. They do what they want, because we are now powerless to make them abide by any law.
Wanna see the real law? Just don’t pay your tax/reg fee/etc. Ask ’em for a copy of the law when they haul your vehicle away. Some places, just parking YOUR vehicle in YOUR driveway without valid plates wsill make it go bye-bye.
Where’s the law that says you must act respectful to pigs? There is none…but try telling the pig to go F^ck himself, and see how far you get when he beats you/arrests you/tases you, even though you have not broken any law, and he has by arresting you/assaulting you merely for exercising free speech.
If you’re saying it’s just the brutality of power, then say that to start. Don’t tell me that ‘registration is handing over ownership’ and all the rest I’ve been hearing for years but yet that’s never the case. Just say they’ll do whatever they want because they have the monopoly of legal violence.
You mention a car without current reg in the driveway. I’ve personally experienced that. There is absolutely no law against it where I had this car stored. None. Zero. City, County, State. None. Still ticketed. Why? Power. The law is what they say it is when they say it, but that doesn’t mean the written law reflects that. It doesn’t.
People have belief systems, built up over time because they are too damn lazy to read the written law. If these beliefs go away so do the problems even without changing the written law. People believe things that aren’t so. They believe a car must have registration even if it doesn’t leave the driveway so it’s so, but it isn’t so. It’s not been written.
As to taxes, I understand the -effective- condition, but that’s the effective condition. Let’s say registration cost zero. I have my bicycle registered to avoid being hassled over it. (I was getting hassled by cops too frequently then so I did it before I got hassled by some smart ass cop who knew of that detail in the law) Cost is zero. (even doing it annoyed the desk cop) Does the town own my bicycle now? Not in name or effectively. Town used to require vehicle stickers. Now they don’t. Do they still own my cars? They never did.
Let’s not pretend effective conditions are real and codified. When we do that we fall into the trap the clueless masses are in. Sure we didn’t fall in the same way, but we still end up in it.
This really wasn’t my contention….but since I’m here…
It’s not the registration. Registration is required to use your vehicle on “their” roads. It’s the fact that the state holds the title, and sends you their “certificate of title”. I’ve heard the arguments- I’m not into that stuff enough to repeat all the mumbo-jumbo- a lot of it has to do with court precedents and looking up terms in legal dictionaries- and I don’t waste my time with that stuff, because, as we both agree, it’;s about power. But if it weren’t so, then why couldn’t we just transfer ownership of vehicles between ourselves? I mean, I buy your car; we draw up a contract or you give me the title (if you hadn’t, instead of the state) and I keep that paperwork until I sell it to somebody else. But instead, notice, the transfer of ownership has to be done through the state. Why is that, if if it’s truly your property? (And the title is seperate from the reg./permission to actually the use the vehicle).
I mean, if I were to get married, and did so (as I would) through private contract, without involving the state, the state would have no say concerning a divorce or any other matter between me and the bi..err…young lady- and i wouldn’t have to petition the state/use their courts for any matter involving my marriage….so how is it i have to go through them to buy or sell a car/
Like I said, I too am skeptical of a lot of these tin-foil legal theories….but just by the points I made above, I’d say it is proof that there is some validity to this one. (What state do you live in that requires regging bicycles? I will NEVER reg my bike! Gotta draw the line somewhere- and it seems like we’re just about toeing the line in every sphere of life these days… Sheesh- riding my bike is the one endeavor in which I still feel free, even on “public” roads…)
The certificate of title… I have found no evidence whatsoever that there is a ‘real title’ or that the state gets ownership. I addressed this already. I can move to another state by monday if want, if Illinois owns my cars why don’t they stop me from giving them to WI or IN?
Cars disappear all the time. Sell it to some guy. He puts it in a container heading to China or Africa or wherever. drive it to Mexico.
All I ask for is proof. But there is none. It’s just tales. Sure there is an effective condition because 999/1000 people or more believe in it. We should be encouraging people to stop believing in it rather than telling them there are actual laws for it, which only strengthens their belief system.
As to my bicycle and other things I believe obedience will collapse the system as much as rampant disobedience. The system will collapse if we obey all the rules. It needs disobedience to function and then it chooses who to harass. I’ve been chosen enough of my life. But there’s nothing like obeying all the rules so detailed that you’re obeying rules the cops don’t even know. The look on a cop’s face when he doesn’t have a rule to exploit is priceless. Having a cop call you an “asshole” because you know the law better than he does and he’s stuck is also priceless. Watching a cop get angry because he came out of spider hole but couldn’t find a reason to pull you over…. again priceless. I wonder how many people I saved because some cop was following me wasting his time.
There’s many ways to play this game.
I agree – in principle – with all of that.
But I question whether it’s viable. That is, whether any cop or court will defer to such. I doubt it. “The law” is whatever they say it is.
Many will believe anything they read. Especially if the words are in a magic law book somewhere with a wax imprint of some jewish princesses’ kiss on it and the assurances of the required half dozen of juris doctor shills of state who “this” is the one true and official law, really, we swear, why would we lie?
Me, I love the kike-supremacists of the KofKofKof every bit as much as the the white power K3. Go KKK, the original one that disbanded with a different agenda. They were the greatest challengers to southron reconstructon in their day.
Googoyl it.
Why the Hebe double standard tho. Why wouldn’t they make a few bucks when they have a whole functioning bunch of besties outside the rank and file statist system.
The genius of Jooz is there’s a guarded entry gate for those so chosen to join the kosher lambs. Not like nationalities and races that are mainly animalistic pedigrees controlled by clandestinians.
Degrade the backbencher white mouthbreather miscreants, or uplift the same miscreants. Whatever the job is just do it. Why is one better than the other, from their perspective. Use em then lose em. Bring on the SinoZionists, booballuh, meriKah is all used up. Besides, Nehederet Eretz and then Ramzor is on.
Hebes are heblarious!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Sdkps0Quo
A proud Jew tromping over goy cemetaries of the Marty McFlies. Kind of in yer face obvie supremacist masterracial, aint it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQxmJ-XeFNU
Spielberg=storytown. Sure that’s his name alright. You want some more Christian Values handmedowns? Keep yer shekels. No charge for you titans of morality. Pleeze Wigga, youz killin me.
Phoenician Qoph; Hebrew ק ;
Aramaic Qoph; Syriac ܩ
Arabic ق,ق
Phonemic representation kˤ, q
Position in kike-abet 19
Numerical value 100
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek Ϙ
Latin Q or K
Cyrillic Ҁ
Meanwhile the EU is conducting seatbelt checks for our safety- hmmm:
https://twitter.com/CIPhilVickers/status/509600603350528000
The Nazis lost – but the safety Nazis won.
It’s incredible, when you stop to survey it, from the perspective of just 30 years ago (for those who can remember).
Back then, most people would have mercilessly mocked anyone who demanded that people be forced at gunpoint to “buckle up for safety.”
Today, “safety” is venerated by a society gone fey. Not gay. But very fey.
Sadly it is true. Back then as you say is when I was born.
Want to see something creepy:
http://www.nottinghampost.com/Beverley-s-seatbelt-victory/story-22908193-detail/story.html
Would such happen in the US?
We’re all to be treated as children – in perpetuity – by our “parents” (the government and its enforcers).
Yup- what I meant is something as creepy as waiting as people leave their house and set off. Texas I heard can be bad.
You’d have to go back further than 30 years, Eric. 30 years ago, some states, like NY already were enacting the seatbelt BS.
I remember once, in a junk car I had picked up (a 66 Catalina wagon, I believe) I found a pamphlet from 1959, decrying the evils of mandatory insurance, that they were then trying to enact. Wish we’d see things like that today, instead of everyone just supporting all the BS.
In a totally unrelated vein: An 80-something year old small-time (one-man) car dealer I knew, got ARRESTED and handcuffed for installing a used air bag in car he rebuilt when he was having it inspected to get the title (In NY it’s illegal to use used air bags, “to discourgae theft”)- He owned the vehicle the air bag came from; had the title, and all. This guy is a Jew who survived the Nazi invasion of Hungary (He was born in Transylvania!)….and he gets arrested and CUFFED in NY for using his own legally-owned property! Let this country burn!
I agree, Moleman (in re “let it burn”).
Regretfully.
Per Jean, per others who post here… the majority of people are cattle. They will accept anything. No, worse. They will demand it.
Moo! Mooooooo!
Safety! Security!
Moooooooooooooooo!
I begin to wish I were a sociopath. Maybe it is better to join them if you can’t beat them.
Sometimes feel like I am one myself- agree.
What do you mean “join them?”
How to identify ameriKans? They always say hi or make curt gestures to indicate upfront they are law abiding and not threatening. It’s crazy really. Hello, you’re scum of the earth murderers in the aggregate. This friendly fronting is 99% of the content behind their pleasantries I’d guesstimate.
I prefer being contrarian and rarely do so. Why not claim to be a no good spammer, scraper, and profiteer off the blood sweat and tears of all manner of valiant producers. Especially adult content. A transient filled disinfo locale extraordinaire, who knows what it’s even like. Not many.
Now I’m off the usual kiddie script big time.
Maybe googul isn’t even the true evil one. Might be smaller oligarchs demanding it de-index sites like yours that THEY ALLEGE (because why even prove, they have market power) use the ubiquitous everyday deeplinks. Boom, millions of pesky potential competitors are cut off at the knees with no blood or ill will reaching their hands.
Deep Linking
By now, users of the World Wide Web are very familiar with the common practice of “deep linking,” which involves providing a link on one website to a specific page or content on another website by bypassing the other website’s home page or main page.
Despite the ubiquity of this practice, however, there is still some controversy over its universal legality, as illustrated by two recently filed cases: GateHouse Media v. New York Times Company, and Jones Day v. BlockShopper LLC.
Deeplinking, everybuddy duzz it
http://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/intellectual/news_0209.html
CyberSolze – shit maybe I’m a clever pissant offshore spammer who’s never once set foot in America, only Canada & Mexico? Chatting up site principles to mask my server bandwith hijackings?
http://sajha.com/sajha/html/images/users/62e80ee1-e888-4d6f-ad47-8b25a17f4bbb/keyser%20soze.jpg CrimeLord DoctorWhom UrgentNeedTardisRepair. Will work for traffic.
DamnItUsedToFeetGoodToBeGangstaNowImTooOlde
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IJCFc_qkHw
Spammer Top Spoof Sites
http://news.techworld.com/security/3539295/spammers-top-spoofing-targets-are-still-finance-and-travel-industries/
Fake US Soldiers Robbing Women Online
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/consumerawareness/fl/Fake-US-Soldiers-Robbing-Women-Online.htm
Wohh! What if a Nigerian Prince Really Needs My Help?
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/510/800/bd7.jpg
Where does a Hyena Catdog belong, now that everywhere in ameriKah is ruled by Necromongers of one sect or another?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8jKH8EUvHg
Original Owner Surprises Hyena on its 4 year old birthday!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdljhlvm2G8
Soviet Animal Channel – Exotic Crimepets Unplusnogood
http://melissaasmith.hubpages.com/hub/fatalattractions
Fatal Attractions presents evil negligent animal owners duhn duhn DUHN!
In the episode titled “Pet Hyena: No Laughing Matter”, included is a story of a wild attack from a non-pet hyena. This is common in the show, likely due to the fact that there are no other existing stories of deaths from pet hyenas for the show to report on, so it serves as filler that pumps the viewer up for the main story which, despite the title, does not contain a fatality.
What it does contain is a perfect example of the real problem with exotic pet ownership: selfish and irresponsible owners. In the episode, Bryan Hawn obtains many exotic pets, such as even lemurs, to live in his Florida apartment.
Continuing to do things he finds pleasing, he adds a hyena to his collection, purchasing the animal from the Animal Kingdom Zoo in Bordentown, NJ, despite barely having the purchase price of the animal alone.
While keeping even a dog in a small apartment would be unethical, he deludes himself into thinking he can keep such a large carnivore locked in his apartment. All too commonly, even with domestic pets, reality sets in once his new pet becomes an adult.
An opportunity surfaced allowing him to turn his animal in without penalty (an exotic animal ‘amnesty day’), and that persuaded him to part with the animal. The animal currently resides at the Zoological Wildlife Foundation. You may all applaud now CyberProles.
Better a hyena than a lapdog or housecat, I’ve decided. Of course there might be more options.
Man wrestles his pet hyena to establish dominance
A hyena’s bite is actually stronger than a white shark’s and a lion’s, which is pretty cool when you think about it. Here’s some more hyena blogspam:
Although they resemble both dogs and cats, the three species of hyenas and the aardwolf are in their own separate and very unique family called Hyaenidae.
The most well-known is called the spotted hyena, also known as the laughing hyena due to the unusual and eerie sounds it makes. After the African lion, the spotted hyena is the largest carnivore in Africa, weighing up to 180 pounds and standing up to 30 inches at the shoulder.
These are complicated, intelligent, and highly social animals with a really awful reputation. For centuries hyenas were said to have the souls of the damned trapped inside of them, and when a clan is on the hunt, calling and squealing to one another, it certainly sounds like cackling demons.
In addition, female spotted hyenas have unusual genitalia that outwardly resemble that of a male. This shocks even many modern cultures who fear it as a sign of anarchy or the work of the devil. And, of course, they have long been considered sneaky scavengers, but they are actually skilled hunters and clans will organize to take down prey as large as zebra.
Most clans hunt and kill the majority of what they eat, but, like all the animals of the African plains, they will also steal absolutely anything that isn’t nailed down.
Although they exist in their own family, hyenas display traits of both felines and canines. Like canines they hunt by running down their prey and grabbing it with their mouths, not their paws. But, like felines, they groom themselves often and scent-mark their territory. Unique to hyenas are their amazing bone-crushing teeth.
Short, powerful canines are on display towards the front of the jaw, but deep in the back of the jaw where they can exert the most leverage, are massive carnassials which pulverize the entire skeletons of prey as big as wildebeast. Socially, the spotted hyena lives in a matriarchal society quite rare in the world of mammals.
Females are larger, more muscular and definitely more aggressive. The highest ranking male in the clan is subordinant to the lowest ranking female. These spotted hyena clans are rude, boisterous, highly social groups that spend allot of time pushing and shoving but will ultimately spend the afternoon siesta snuggled in a huge shaggy pile.
Of course you probably dislike hyenas for no reason from the get go. Dogs and cats are better because “blankout” You’re just another jibroni statist programmed cunt who knows all he needs to about hyenas because derp derp regurgiderp USA TODAY article bullet points on hyenas.May a dingo eat all of your babies.
The Artful Hyena
The older the hyena, the gnarlier their ears are. Why? Because although they are tight-knit and extremely dependent on each other, the members of a hyena clan spend allot of time beating each other up. Most interesting and unique is that it’s the females doing most of the damage.
Female hyenas actually have more testosterone then males, can be about 30% larger, and significantly more muscular. Why this arrangement? Nobody is really sure, but the hyena is a very successful species that has adapted to many situations over thousands of years.
In ancient Egypt spotted hyenas were raised and harvested for their meat occasionally being kept as rather large and messy pets. More recently, as humans have encroached further and further into their world, hyenas have learned the skills of dodging traffic and dumpster diving.
On the savanna, hyenas center their lives around a specific territory well marked by community “latrines” where the entire clan will leave mounds of chalk-colored feces. Hyenas have such powerful teeth and jaws that they will eat every inch of a carcass including the bones.
When the bones are digested they turn the hyenas excrement a very distinctive off-white color, so piles of white poo mean “this land is the hyenas, back the fuck off!”
Hyena’s appearance, habits, and sounds may be very odd, but when it comes to sex there is no more confusing creature than the spotted hyena. Unusually high testosterone levels in female spotted hyenas create not only larger, stronger and more aggressive girls, but also transform the female sex organs. The clitoris of the female spotted hyena is a tube-like pseudo penis 6 to 7 inches long that looks almost identical to a male penis.
Completing the illusion, the labia are fused together in what appears to be a scrotum. These organs make it nearly impossible for even experienced hyena observers to tell the difference between males and females, and have caused many to believe that hyenas are clans of devilish hermaphrodites whose cackles mock the norm.
But actual intercourse is no laughing matter, it is a delicate and stressful process where a submissive male must somehow arch his way under the female and insert his penis into a dangling tube.The female urinates and gives birth through the urogenital canal which runs down the center of the clitoris.
Birth is extremely difficult due to the length of the canal, and death during the first delivery is about 1 in 10. Subsequent deliveries are easier. There are usually two cubs delivered, but fighting between the cubs often occurs, particularly if they are the same sex, and the weaker will often perish in the first weeks. Young males will leave the clan at about 2 years, females will remain for life.
Just like in any rough neighborhood, the kids on the Savanna find safety in numbers. Five hyenas might steal a fresh kill from a lion, Ten African wild dogs can take a zebra carcass from a hyena, and a big enough gang of vultures will drive just about everyone away from whatever is left. Holding on to a meal on the plains comes down to stealth, intellect, courage, and -most important- your peeps beside you.
While lions, hyenas and wild dogs all hunt and kill much of their own prey, stealing is part of the rythym, and plunder keeps you fat, but the vulture does not the crewhunt at all, and is the only true scavenger in this circle of adversaries.
Is the Hyena a Cat or a Dog?
Our tendency when looking at an unusual animal is to try to relate it to something familiar. Hence the common question “is a hyena a dog or a cat? Or maybe a bear?” Fact is, hyenas are hyenas, or more scientifically, members of the small 4 species family called Hyeanidae.
In the carnivore family tree are two main groups, feliformia, or “cat-like” carnivores, and caniformila, or “dog-like” carnivores. The ancestors of the modern hyena were cat-like tree dwellers that spawned not only cats but civets, mongoose and binterong. So hyenas are in the sub-order feliformia, along with all modern felines.
But over the course of evolution, hyenas developed many of the behaviors and physical features of the dog species that lived in the same environment. Because those behaviors and physical attributes were effective adaptions to the environment and filled a similar ecological niche, this is called concurrent evolution, and it is why hyenas look and act so much like African wild dogs even though they do not share the same ancestors.
Ultimately, hyenas are hyenas, or more scientifically four species in the very specialized family Hyaenidae. They share biological ancestors with cats but developed more like dogs. Among modern animals, they are most closely related to the civets which are medium sized carnivores that resemble weasels, but also have their own separate family.
Weird thought I had a while back. Make this site limited in someway, unless someone sends in a dollar. Just one dollar. Ask firmly and with consequences, they do so, or at least that they purchase something of yours from kindle that’s $1.00. Mail it in if needed. My reasoning being, once someone’s mailed or wired you something, now it becomes easier and more likely for them to send more.
Now they have skin in the game. Now they worry that they are a complying customer of yours. Not IDGAF hooligans who are beyond accountability whatsoever.
For some unknown reasons. Shit gets serious. Even over a measly dollar.
Tamp down the drivebyers and maybe spammers even, since you need to be on the list to post anything. Even spam. (Really, I know little about spam)
Maybe base it on IP or user, I don’t know specifically. Or require it for commentors maybe. That way, even clover and gil will at least have to pony up a buck once. After the first buck, it’s on the honor system. Or you send them reminder emails. Or a nag watermark appears, or whatever.
Some will outsmart it, but so what. At least your fellow edentulite types will comply. Then you’ll know who is “good” and who is just here for freebies.
Perhaps just some scary red text for visitors that says YOU ARE A NON-REGISTERED VISITOR. Please take the necessary steps to register. (give you their email, and a buck, or whatever. Perhaps it escalates for each return visit per time period. (5 free monthly visits, then no more))
I’ve been locking my doors lately. But a few years ago, I didn’t for maybe a year. I had good neighbors that had my back and we all knew each other despite our class differences. Especially there was an everpresent retiree who was always on watch and keeping everyone social and out of their cells.
My parents live a few miles from town on a little lake in edentulite western carolina. Nothing needs to be locked there, there’s pecan vendors and all kinds of honor systems afoot, I know just what you mean.
I can’t stomach a small town because of small minds who are up in everyone’s business, and make life like a dayprison. Some rural settings might not be a problem. I’m planning on going rural Mexico permanently at some point. If things stop going sideways long enough. <a href="http://www.desmotivar.com/img/desmotivaciones/160189_vecino-entrometido.jpg" clovers/entrometidos who speak in a foreign slave tongue is tolerable. Maybe if I were more mainstream valued and consensus moral, this wouldn't matter.
If only I could press a button and live among rank and file germans, australians, or french. I'd do so in a heartbeat. Surely they have different faults, but I think I've made myself allergic to AmeriKans somehow. I can't stomach them anymore. Good thing I live in Norte Mexico.
There's a powerful reasoning constraint at play here, as you pointed out earlier. SOMETIMES a microhood might be a lot like a small town, not that it matters to those not in them. Best to err on the side of caution. We all know a lot about a little. And a little about a lot. I wouldn't expect you to know how section 8 neighborshoods really are, it's a wide tricky gamut, and depends who you are.
Generally there's two codes of conduct. Strict absolute respect and care for your close neighbors. And unrestrained malice and even mayhem towards wealthy or offensive outsiders as you perceive them. This is greatly simplified, but should suffice as an aphorism.
One might move to the hood, but there's a procedure for actually acquiring your rep and place in the hood. Of being considered part of it by the indijjennuss. Personally, I would rather experience non-stop drivebys and 200 decibel mufuhguhdick music 24/7 than live among the crackerbox bradybunch boobeoisie. I assume you went Rural Galt for similar reasons.
The Good Bourgeois Are Protected By The Vigilant Spider
bourgeois spider
In your case, you’re probably rather like me. A refugee sophisticate among the edentulites. I’m in diaspora myself, of a different kind. A lot of my family is very small town and far-spaced farming rural, except in recent history. I know what you mean, but am taking a different tack in hopes of enlightenment.
People who’ve survived the constant push to the urban zoos and kill zones are sometimes rather like gold that’s stayed in the pan while the lighter less substantive elements have been washed away.
I do engage in a lot of generalizations, if I were going to stick to concrete facts, I’d probably do so face to face at a public watering hole or friends house. Maybe I’ll let my guard down eventually here, but it’s a slow process, and maybe something I don’t want. It seems like once we know the facts about each other, philosophizing ends, and there’s just comparisons and competitions that go on.
Objectivism would probably be far more powerful, if all the novels and dissertations had been discovered and translated from some 1800’s writings and no one knew much about their author and what the author was like as an individual.
Maybe Aristotle wore gold chains and lounged about with his homies listening to Athenian Rap Music all day. Sure would cast his writings in a different light.
latest meme
http://i.imgur.com/wuTOTty.jpg
edentualities
http://funnystack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Funny-Redneck-19.jpg
http://redneckpictures.redneckjokes247.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/redneck-twerk.png
http://cdn.motinetwork.net/demotivationalposters.net/image/demotivational-poster/1212/redneck-murders-redneck-teeth-matching-dna-demotivational-posters-1356222491.jpg
http://www.radass.com/2014/09/09/radass-daily-best-picdump-photos-2/
The redneck chick has a smoking’ bod!
true that, cuz!
YOLO, LOL
da hizzle sutra!
Here comes the rain again
Falling on your head like a tragedy
Falling on your head causing new demotions
Not even the naked eye, can see
– hood boodha RZA wootang rap sutras
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKF3qcJh45Y
Neo Constantine Klaatu
SCO v. IBM is a civil lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. The SCO Group asserted that there are legal uncertainties regarding the use of the GNU/Linux operating system due to alleged violations of IBM’s Unix licenses in the development of Linux code at IBM.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._IBM
There is a long slog of determining what Linux and Unix is legally. And who is its proprietor. I for one couldn’t care less. This is part of the old dying world of statism as far as I’m concerned.
There is Novell, Unix’s latest owner, saying, we have no interest in suing anyone. And that being the end of that. (Note I am an amateur layman, surely there’s much more to this than I know of) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnixWare
Either way, it is certainly theft to sneak onto Eric’s property and steal his chickens. Less certainly, it is a lesser theft, or non-theft, to plant an opium field in a far corner, and then harvest it, and make millions off of it and not even share. No harm no victim, I’d say. But if you get caught and get shot by a neighbor, you’re on your own, that’s how property works nowdays.
But what of copy pasting his writing? Of creating a complete mirror on another server of his entire site. Of copying the kindle versions of his books (should they exist) and making them available to all for free to any of the nearly 3 billion internet users who’ve learned how to avail themselves of Internet Free Shit.
Truly a new Intellectus is needed. A new body of truth to cover the reality we all find ourselves in. Linus English Language 1.0 might be of great use and clarity to today’s muddied and uncertain times.
My idea of a better language is one that is just like math. There isn’t an australian math, and a canadian math. There’s just math. Why not open source non-hierarchical english. I don’t give a shit who invented the number 5. Or that in germany in 1225 the plus sign was invented by Gustavus VIIth the Flatulent. Strip down to essentials, and jettison all else, I’d say.
To say dismissively the internet is for fags and geeks, is a non-sequitir. Especially when the world is increasingly mastered by those able to reason and inhabit the many wired worlds and realms of shared thoughts and creations.
How might honor and right acting be brought into the online milleu? That is the question, it would seem. There’s all manner of freeloadings and rationalizations. But how might the vast data cornucopias be organized and accoutred so that spontaneous harmonies might continue to multiply, and statist predations might begin to be defeated?
Hi Tor,
I think it comes down to “honor and right acting be(ing) brought into the online milleu.”
The NAP relies on people choosing to do the right thing, without being compelled to do so.
The fact that people can avail themselves of free shit doesn’t make it right to avail themselves of free shit.
I’ll gibs you an example. Out here in the Woods, there are people who have “honor system” produce stands. We buy our stuff from one such. You go there, pick what you want ( no one’s around) and leave a check or cash in the little folder they provide. It actually works. People don’t take the stuff without paying for it (or take the money).
But it depends on people choosing to do the right thing; that is, freely paying for what they avail themselves of.
What if instead of produce. It’s a music and DVD movie stand. And various flash drives sit inside a covered plastic case. I could stop by, make a complete copy of one of the flash drives, and leave the original there. And not pay. And not take any money. No one has been hurt. It may not be entirely the right thing, but it is definitely less damaging than stealing food or money.
Maybe out of guilt, or anarchist goodwill, I place some online ads for the stand on the internet, and hundreds of new customers stop by and buy things and pay for them in accordance with the wishes of the property owners. Isn’t this a mitigation. And even preferrable. Especially if they end up with far more money, than if I had just paid for what I took?
I’m not saying put any of this into practice. But just consider all of this with an open mind and a philosophical mindset. It’s just one more subjective thing that is of benefit to you and your neighbors. Nothing good or bad one way or the other.
Is honesty truly is the best policy any more provable than Jesus is Lord? I’d say maybe a little, but not much more. I would say a better world could come around right now. If all NAP adherents left some small altar with various free shit trinkets for others to take or to give to. Not your best stuff. Or necessary required stuff. But excess stuff you might do without. Wouldn’t crime plummet to near zero, if everyone could go out and rummage about from free shit voluntarily offered by the NAP faithful.
Getting you payment for the services you render here involves all manner of complex statist minefields and arduous difficulties. Pay pal. Checking accounts. Postage stamps. Envelopes. Disgusting fed debt notes covered in pestilence. This is all detestable statist stuff of the worst sort.
But if there was a trinket altar at the edge of your property. And at Dom’s. Or since you’re a business of sorts, maybe in some kind of business district trinket altar. Now you would see all kinds of people stopping by to drop you off things. And pick up things you might leave for those visiting you IRL. Maybe I tell my friend who drives US 321 all the time to stop by, and then I leave him something in turn.
As I mentioned earlier, I have a recovering naive faith based mind, so bear with me, and fill in the gaps, make corrections where needed. I hope my gist makes its way thru.
In short, I hope what you say isn’t not true. That there’s honestly and rightly more to the story. And not just rationalizations and sophistries. But real paradigm expanding new realities to consider.
I would say rather, the NAP requires architects to incentivize the right behavior by funnelling rewards towards those who engage in desired behaviors. I do believe you personally have a functioning sense that discerns the honest classes from the dishonest, but I prefer not relying on anything so political, non-technical, and limiting.
A world where the owner is the absolute monarch of his property is a necessarily limited world. A world where an owner is sometimes treated as he wishes, and sometimes dealt with in a way he doesn’t like, MAY be a better world for him and for all. The internet of all places, seems to be the place where we discuss reality as it really exists. I’m all for Walton’s Holler and Little Houses on the Prairies flourshing and make a resurgence. But I don’t hold out hope that we will return to those more honest and righteous times anytime soon.
Is the envelope just sitting out in the open? Is it attached and secured in some way? Maybe there’s a camera watching it? Maybe the owner of the property keeps an eye on the envelope and patrols it clandestinely from time to time. Who’s to say he won’t blow a hole in whoever decides they’re not feeling very NAPpy at the wrong time?
I know what you’re saying. And in my own way I’m sometimes the guy providing these types of goods and services upfront without a credit check or identification required.
I’m immediately wary of an group of people who naively claim to be a cut above others in any way. This honor system is great and all. But what about some of the local dishonor systems that might also exist?
What is so great about rural land wasting people. Look at Canadian People for example. Imagine what Japan People could do with all those resources, if those bumfucks weren’t infesting all that prime real estate and leaving it fallow and inaccessible?
I live in the anti-thesis of your enviroment. A place where southern prole urbonics and morality is the lingua franca and modus operandi to be sure. Around here, if you hire a Wigger/Mexican to work on your property, you’ll want to make sure all your windows are locked when he leaves. Because often he’ll leave something unsecured so he can return later for whatever has caught his eye.
Forget the honor system. Better to employ the paranoid whatif dishonor system of not trusting anyone ever for anything. Caveat Proprietor.
I don’t trust Jesus religions. I also don’t trust civic religions, where country folk are somehow seen as better humans than city folk. There might well be some truth behind this consensus belief, but until I see someone really dig in to the matter, and show me what’s true and what isn’t, I’ll suspend agreement, and consider the good country neighbor just another statist myth.
I disagree with you that no one has been hurt.
The person who made the music or film spent time and creative effort to produce something of value that you’ve taken (and here I assume, without the creator’s consent) simply because you could take it – and because the creator was powerless to prevent your taking it.
This, for me, is a question of personal ethics.
If it’s not yours, if you didn’t create it – and if the person who did create it isn’t explicitly giving it away for free – then it’s not right to take it.
Mitigation does not make it right, either.
Let’s say I took your car on a joyride – but washed it for you before I returned it.
Does that make it ok?
WRG to online stuff:
Even if I were to “lock down” EPautos and make it viewable only to subscribers, all it would take is one person unwilling to behave honorably (to, in effect, dine and dash) to ruin the whole thing. He could subscribe, gain access, then copy and repost. Boom. The paid subscribers are pissed because the stuff is now available somewhere else “free.” Which is why few, if any, online pubs have been able to make a go of paid subs.
The bottom line, as I see it, is that if people want sites such as this to exist, they should support the creators and producers of the site and its content. Expecting them to work for free is pretty obnoxious.
And ultimately, untenable.
The only reason I’ve been able to do this is because I moved to a rural area ten years ago and my cost of living is lower. But even so, I cannot work full time for free (and resent working part-time for free). This is why people “sell out” and go to work as corporate fuckin’ shills.
If that’s what you want, then that’s what you’ll get.
How much do you or any of us pay when we “steal” news content from other newsites. I’ll guess nothing.
Literally like any common ghetto black, you’re stealing from your fellow journalists so you can run this site. Truly some straight up gangster nigger backstabbing fo sho. Because that is clusterfuck shitsandwich they make you eat if you want to keep yourself fed these days, not a mark against you.
Yet again, not to pound the sand, but the few oligarchs must be complied with beyond reason. Or every little fish must get stepped on and abused. There’s seems to be little in between. You can go full Buddha, and only exclusively write your own content. And get consent for every hyperlink. But what will be the consequence, do you think?
Not to be repetitive. But taking your car isn’t analagous. Perhaps a client of Dom’s is able to breech Dom’s server firewall, and get a copy of his software without detection or damage to him. Software he would have otherwise sold to them at a profitable markup he charges clients.
If it’s some Latvian potato farmer thousands of miles away, it’s immaterial, I’d say.
If you’re car is taken, you’re deprived of something. Leeching is different entirely. You’re never physically out anything. But there’s been an intrusion. The creepy aspect of getting something from someone clandestinely is probably the worst aspect.
You can subjectively object to leeching. Call it equivalent to larceny and petty theft if you wish. I’d say it’s closer to digging thru the trash at a giant plantation for discarded items. No individual is hurt.
The opinion of strangers and the tears of Jesus. They’re both identically worrisome in my case.
Imagine a hypercapitalist domed city. Where the public sector atmosphere is 100% nitrogen. Even the oxygen you need to breathe must be purchased. I imagine enough air would be bought, that soon everyone would be breathing second hand exhaled air for free.
Freeriding is a huge concern. In meatspace and especially cyberspace.
Everyone would owe their very lives to the air buyers of course. But how to make them pay? That would be another matter entirely.
Again, I sound like any clover asshole it seems. Only I know what I truly mean by these uncool thoughts and smug sounding muck rakings. I hate writing them, but they’re what manifested as I pursued this latest conceptual chimera, I can only hope you know what I truly mean by them as well.
Hi Tor,
Virtually every article that appears on this site is written by me. A few are contributed by others (for example, Brent’s recent piece) and printed with their explicit permission.
So, your assertion doesn’t hold water.
It’s worse than that, though. The “free” Internet is systematically killing off non-corporate/non-MSM media (and publishing, generally) because the only way to make a living is by working for the corporate/MSM media.
This is the tragedy of the Internet.
Generalizations are tricky precisely because they are accurate… and non-specific.
“Blacks” are more likely to murder you than whites. Troof. But the individual black may be a fine person – and less likely to murder you than the violent cracker next door. Also troof.
Just so:
As a rule, people in the country (my area) are less likely to just take the “honor system” offerings (or the money left by others) as a result of social conditioning, mores, etc. But it doesn’t mean no one will just take the stuff. Someone might.
You play the odds.
But the odds are generally better here than in the ‘burbs (much less the hood)!
HAHAhaha! So true!
The honor-system produce stand would work where I now live.
Try it in NYC….. HAhahahaha!!!! There’d be nothing left of it before an hour was up- stand and all. It’s hard enough, there, even with cashiers and security cameras and guards, to not lose everything to theft. (Of course, in reality, the Nazis would shut down the produce stand before the homies even had a chance to pilfer)
Hi Tor,
“Is honesty truly is the best policy any more provable than Jesus is Lord?”
Yes, it is – if you want a civil (and free) society rather than a society or hyenas.
It’s only (arguably) one of a multitude ways of acheiving a free and civil society. Saying it’s the only option is claiming a monopoly on morality. Saying there is only the current system or your ideal system is the false choice dialectic.
I’m speaking to you not man to man, but avatar amalgam to peanut gallery here. I agree with you on the desired ends. It’s your(and my) statist indoctrinated means to get to the ends that I question.
Anyhue my reddit accounts have been deleted by some scumbag adminfag, so I guess justice and property rights prevail there as well. The point is mostly moot. None of us will likely make the required changes and adaptations. I doubt anyone in Europe or the UK will even know what we’re on about. They quote statist dogma nearly chapter and verse, and don’t even know it. Of course they’re wealthier, since USSA is the designated defense dogs. Trillion $ Bow Trillion $ Wow. Woof Woof. Grrrrr.
What you say sounds reasonable in theory, but in practice, gets twisted and ends up serving the mainly the ends of only a few powerful oligarchs. This is only my anecdotal experience.
Why I Carry. Update, Memphis thugscrummer arrested.
http://www.thv11.com/story/news/local/2014/09/08/juvenile-arrest-memphis-kroger-attack/15275333/
Prepping Simulator for violent urban encounters
http://pop-a-nig.com/
Epautos, just more blogspam in the eyes of reddit, whatever the fuck that means.
http://www.reddit.com/domain/ericpetersautos.com/top/
This takes time and skilled effort. Also valid forms of currency, regardless of dissenting opinions. It seems the consensus here is to be wholesale dismissive and creatures of habit, which seems to be what they want.
Well it’s reddit property they’ll say. Herp derp. Muh propertah.
If people (to use the terminology of the fantastic Zen Buddhist film, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) were excellent to each other – without being coerced, just because they desired to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated – then all our man-made troubles go away.
I like that I do not feel the need to lock my door when I leave the house for a few hours. A friend may stop by and help himself to a beer or borrow some of my tools – but that’s ok, because he has my permission a priori. It is not likely some random person will come by and help himself to “free” (because he can just take it) stuff.
Hyenas – on two or four legs – are foul animals.
I do not emulate such.
Another thought:
If we could get sufficient advertising, the need to ask for reader support would disappear.
The problem – thanks to Goo-guhl – is that it is damned near impossible to get sufficient advertising. Oh, we could paper (so to speak) the site with ads from Goo-guhl. But then we’d be spreading our legs for free.
Goo-guhl has effectively monopolized online advertising in much the same way that Wal-Mart has monopolized retail. You either accept their terms – or you go broke. Actually, you go broke either way.
So, the end-run is reader support.
Which – in theory – ought to be s snap. At least, for a heterodox publication like EPautos.
Ostensibly, people want non-shill news/analysis and opinion. In which case, they ought to be willing to support it. Because absent support, it becomes a giveaway. And – unfortunately – few people who do what I do can afford to spend their days working for free. If we can’t make a living doing this, well, we’re kind of forced to do something else.
I enjoy this. I think this is important (not me, but the anti-authoritarian message; as well as providing a place for people to come and see they are not alone). But at the end of the day, the bills have to be paid.
The sad thing – from my perspective – is how easy it could be to make this (and similar media) work. Appx. 80,000 people on average click on/read EPautos each month. If only 5 percent of those people sent us $5 a month we’d be fine. Almost anyone can afford $5 a month. It’s the price of a cup of coffee and a cookie at Starbucks.
But here’s where it gets really sad. If 50 percent of our readers sent us $1 a month, we’d be better than fine.
Just $1 dollar a month – less than the price of a small cup of coffee – from 50 percent of the people who regularly come here.
But it’s not happening.
And I know that other non-MSM sites are struggling with the same issue. They are popular and reach a wide audience. But – for the most part – the audience expects the material to be provided for “fee.” Even though $1 a month would cost them effectively nothing – but make all the difference to those producing the material.
@ Eric, re: Hyenas:
One of those VERY odd animals… Females larger than and more aggressive than males. Look male until puberty, too. They even have masculinized genitalia.
Much like what we see in the Western World these days…. Especially in the US…
Eric, that is precisely why all despots/communists/etc seek to destabilize and destroy the moral under-pinnings of any society they are trying conquer. Because other than by direct brute force, it is impossible to control and manipulate a society of moral people who will voluntarily do the right thing.
This is why everyone from the DOE to Zionists who control Hollywood push a constant agenda of sexual and material lust; moral relativism; destruction of the fambly/traditional roles and values, etc.
For one example: The biggest group of voters who voted for Obozo, were unwed mothers. i.e. all they had to do was dispose of the man as the provider, and the woman will look to the state to fulfill all the duties that the husband should provide.
Ditto the homoes: Want to make love to another man’s poop-chute? You’ll need the state to give you special protections when you are ostracized by normal society; to provide kids whom you can not procreate; to treat your AIDS and botulism [from all the bad meat in the can]; to define your “marriage”- since God-ordained marriage forbids buggery- etc.
And in return for the state providing all the favors for the morally-bankrupt, the morally bankrupt see to it that the state is perpetuated, because the illicit state has become their protector and provider, etc.
Well-said, Eric!
I think that is why, in a nutshell, we will never have a true libertarian society- not enough people willing to do the right thing. This is also why limited constitutional governance has not worked/lasted. No matter where on the earth one goes, one always finds people who are all too willing to point guns at their fellows, not for a principled cause/to stop aggression, but rather just because they are told to/in support of some regime to which they have delegated all moral responsibility. They “serve” in exchanhge for being absolved of any guilt.
Ditto, there’s never any lack of thieves- whether in the state’s service; or the independent kind.
The interesting thing about Linux, is that those who contribute to it, put it out there for free- and figure any compensation they get for it is gravy. I guess that’s easier to do in a situation where one is not t5he sole producer of something, but just one of many contributors; and is not dependent upon it for their liveliehood.
Heh…this has me thinking that I’d better send a few dollars to Patrick Volkerding and Philip Newborough, lest I find myself amongst the ranks of the thieves!
[Tor, I don’t mean to ignore you….I just don’t want to turn this into a Linux blog! :D)
No worries. I can’t log out of here, no matter what. I wonder if I’m about to get SWATTED by the 4Chan Party Van or something. Better move my CyberBrothel to the alternate ghosttown safehouse just in case.
Don’t worry, they’re tagged
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHmMWenjsfY
I’m reading an article I saw in r/space on NASA’s December Orion mission, why is he here?
http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/35e2a71c423902ea48f3d208827de8c9?s=60&d=wavatar&r=X
Gravatar Conspiracy
http://blackbutterfly7.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/piercys-gravatar.jpg?w=604
Admins are on the hunt. Code word: Uncle Remus is unzipping his doodah. Abort. Abort.
http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2013/5/14/reddit2.png
Pretty sure Eric is using Mac desktop. But you make a solid point to give due weight to freedom/privacy when making the individual cost benefit decision on what tech you choose, and how you use.
Not sure about the libertarian subset of users. But worldwide, 73/2866 million internet users, 2.5% of internet users, use linux.
linux counter
http://linuxcounter.net/main.html
Dear Linux Geeks
http://www.stephankinsella.com/2009/09/de-coster-on-linux-geeks/
Operating Systems: Lessons for libertarians 1.0
http://www.strike-the-root.com/71/lg/lg1.html
TOR TAILS 1.1.1 is out. (The Amnesic Incognito Live System)
https://blog.torproject.org/category/tags/tails
Funny thing is, Tor, there seem to be a disproportionate number of Libertarians/Anarchists on the various Linux forums. I kinda think it’s the fact that the Linux/FOSS/GNU community is a microcosm of a true free market (One that no longer exists in most other spheres of life and economics)- and not only is that attractive to fellow libertarians, but I think that many who come to Linux end up seeing just how great a truly free market can function and what it can accomplish, without state or corporate interference/funding.
helot, it is free market thinking, anarchist thinking if you will. I refuse to contribute another cent to Bill Gates or any of the people who use their fortunes to take away anyone’s rights, yours, mine and the whole damned planet full as I see it. I continue to slog along with this old XP simply because I want to find a computer not linked to tyranny, a hard find these days as I see it. Those who want to merely make a computer that will run any OS are the exact free market sellers I’m looking for. For me, buying one of the previously made computers whose company sought profits for any entity with an OS doing the bidding of the tyrannists, is something I seek to avoid. I wish I could produce my own, something that had no ties to any previous OS I’m aware of not of the free market. Sheesh, I’m give out. A hard day of 500 miles and 14 hours….peace…..to everyone……
Hi Eight,
I’ve been rattling this around in my head for a long time now. I think the free market and corporations may be incompatible. Consider your example. Microsoft is so huge, can bring economies of scale into play, such that it overwhelms the competition. Ditto Wal Mart (and Goo-guhl). And not because the products are better. They just cost less (at our expense, ultimately) and the market is flooded with them.
It’s arguably a form of violence. Wal-Mart, for instance, uses its massiveness to leverage prices down – including buying stuff at a loss, to kill off the competition. Goo-guhl has almost entirely cop-opted online advertising and effectively forces web sites to accept cents on the dollar rates, because there’s no viable alternative.
Corporations are inherently/inescapably sociopathic. Their primary object is not the making or selling of things. The creation of value.
It is the making of money – period.
Profits, however made.
And there is no “brake” or “check” on this lust for profits uber alles.
An actual human being who owns a business will have a moral sense (if he’s not a sociopath) and while he of course wants to make a profit, making a profit is not the primary object.Making something (or selling it) is. That is, he seeks to produce value.
But the critical element is the human element. Which is not there in a corporation, which reduces human beings to integers or widgets who exist only to serve the corporation – and “increase shareholder value.”
It may very well be that an NAP society doesn’t scale. That it only works on the level of the town – where “everybody knows your name.”
I submit that corporations are – by definition – fascistic (in the proper – the Mussolini – sense). They require the submersion of the individual into lock-step conformity. Individualism and the corporation are mortal enemies.
And individualism is losing.
>” I think the free market and corporations may be incompatible. “<
Yes, when you think about it, what is a corp? It is an artificially created being created by the state, which grants it's participants certain benefits, including that of LIMITED LIABILITY.
Basically, if one incorporates, one gives up certain rights in exchange for certain state-granted privileges. That is deefinitely a skewing of the free market, because without the state and it's power to tax and control, there could be no such thing as a corp.
@Eric- I would side with the viewpoint that limited liability is incompatible with freedom.
I also submit that corporations aren’t people.
But, how it it “aggressive” to lower prices, even selling things at a loss, in order to kill competition? And, can that even actually work in a free market? My (limited) understanding of Austrian economics would seem to suggest that that won’t actually work. I assume you’ve all read Tom DiLorenzo’s article on the Gilded Age at least once, and he basically argues the same thing, that economically its more trouble than its worth to undercut competition by selling goods at a loss.
I think if we take the position that purposely selling goods at a loss to kill competition is “aggressive”, the NAP has lost any real, objective meaning. Statists have all kinds of arguments for why drug use, speeding, and owning automatic weapons is aggressive. Of course, their arguments are silly, because they turn possibilities into actualities. I think this line of reasoning logically does the same thing. I’d be curious to see arguments to the contrary.
A classic eggsample of the free market naturally regulating itself, better than any stae/king ever could, was c. 1980 when the Hunt Bros tried to corner the mareket on silver, by buying it all up. Silver briefly went to $50/oz because of their actions….people who were holding silver and who had the sense to sell made a killing…..then as soon as the bros stopped their massive buying campaign, the price of silver went right back down; the bros took a bath; and the people who had the sense to sell when it was up, could buy it back for a quarter of what they got for it. Beautiful!
Had the state been meddling at that time and place…no one would have made-out, except the state and their chosen few.
@ David / September 18, 2014 at 3:05 pm
“how it it “aggressive” to lower prices, even selling things at a loss, in order to kill competition? ”
Devil’s in the details here.
For example: Ace Hardware vs. Home Depot or Lowes.
Who can AFFORD to sell at a loss?
ACE is actually a franchise; Ma and Pa Kettle, per se, are the owners, leasing a name.
Home Depot or Lowes? Corporate.
So, if Ma and Pa CANNOT sell at a loss…
Start to see the rat’s tail here?
Lowes and HD aren’t “selling at a loss.” Free Market can’t support them, they run out of capital & product, and then – without money to purchase inventory – they MUST shut down. It’s lean times for the competitor for a while, but if competitor has been decent in business, they’ll outlast the “sell at a loss” competitor.
But when you roll it upwards? 2 locations, forget anything else; now you have two sets of profits, assuming real market. You can now sell for a few pennies less at each place (still selling at a profit, mind) – and still make a profit.
Three locations, slice off a little more ECONOMIC profit… You’re still undercutting your competition, still making a profit. But you can afford less profit at each location – something the single-location vendor cannot do.
To put numbers on it – assume the costs are the same at each location:
Location 1: Cost = $1,000/month
KTLO – Utilities – Inventory churn – EE pay/salary – insurance – mortgage or rent
Sales: Same at each location, again: $2,000
Sales (income) – Cost = Profit
2k – 1k = 1k
Now, you get the opportunity to expand.
Location 1: Cost $1K
Location 2: Cost $1K
POTENTIAL profit each location: $2,000
Which means the “pure” profit of Location 1 can cover the COSTS of location 2.
But you want to drive out the competition. They’re only small-time operators anyway. You have TWO locations now, you can undercut their prices because while you all still get materials at the same cost (another assumption for simplicity – with two locations, likely you’ll be getting a volume discount), you can cut your prices to 75% of your competitors – and STILL make a profit.
Costs are the same for everyone.
Location 1 + Location 2 = $2K costs, unchanging.
But selling at 75% of previous costs: Income = .75 * $2K / store = $1500 income per store.
Means $500 profit/store – but those cost savings against your competition? They will go bankrupt.
That’s MicroE.
To move to Macro?
Lowes or HD can subsidize their stores in Location X with income from stores across the country. California’s profit covers NJ’s costs. And it’s ALL going to Corporate.
THAT is where it becomes “aggressive.” It’s anti-competitive, and SHOULD be illegal to move profits around like that. It’s one thing when Boonton and Denville are your two sites; two towns in NJ separated by 15 miles or such. When you have state boundaries in the way, how is that not part of interstate commerce?
Anyway, what happens when the competition is bankrupted and removed? Then you have Monopoly, right? And then the prices can go to whatever you wish.
Examples like Microsoft work. You don’t HAVE to buy M$ software. You can use Linux and LibreOffice, or go to Adobe for Adobe Editor, or find some other small-time word processing/slide making/ spreadsheet manipulating software. So it’s not a monopoly… Not De Jure, “Under the Law.” But it can out-price EVERYONE on volume, sells around the globe, and by being EVERYWHERE, everyone wants it – they already know the software, no learning curve or transition costs, no opportunity costs while people learn a new system…
So it’s a De Facto (in fact) monopoly, but it gets away with murder.
Walmart is famous for this sort of practice. Also, for being the “Category killer.” You go to Wally-World, you pay less for “X” (Say, shirts.) While you’re there, you grab your food and pharmacy needs, too – both of which are priced HIGHER than you would pay if you went to the drugstore and grocery. But the driving is a hassle, and the cost of gas being what it is – it’s nearly a wash. And this is more convenient – so if it’s $0.05 more expensive in the long run, for saving 35 minutes? Most people will do it.
5 cents * 1 million people/day….?
OUCH.
Second – Wally-world is actually FAMOUS for coming in, killing the local business (by subsidizing stores, as above, and undercutting costs), then setting prices back up – ABOVE what the locals used to charge. But now there’s a startup cost involved, you can’t just open a business….
BTW, “undercutting costs” is overly simplistic, but follows similar model.
Ma and Pa cut costs by taking less profit. But Jimmy is still working full time, and gets paid as a full time / regular employee – including benefits. His family depends on that income (whether he’s Head of Household or just an income doesn’t matter much.)
Walmart? got 3 dozen people equal to Jimmy doing equivalent jobs – ALL on PART-TIME, NO BENEFITS, NO OVERTIME straight pay.
Ma and Pa can hire someone else and cut Jimmy’s hours, yes – but they’re human, they KNOW Jimmy, and they KNOW his family will starve…
Walmart couldn’t care less.
“OUT OF THE WAY, 627-55-9864! COMING THROUGH!”
Corporate doesn’t know, or WANT to know, who 627-55-9864 is. Think Scrooge from “A Christmas Carol:” “I never knew Bob had a crippled son.” “Why didn’t you ask?” (Scrooge and Ghost of Christmas Present)
Ok, went a bit far afield here – but I hope it makes things clearer.
Just selling for less isn’t inherently evil or “aggressive.” However, the mis-application has real and lasting effects – and opens the way to greater abuses, which may (WILL) have other problems. Microsoft could in theory, crash EVERY computer with their operating system – with a few keystrokes, and back-door connections that “don’t exist.” This option is extreme now – but times change, people change… Someone might just have a hissy-fit one day, and it might make sense.
(Intel processors have wireless and hardware-level “back doors” built in. On the vPro chipset? You have 3G WiFi. On the chip. Can read the entire hard drive on “phantom power” – the power you use when the system is OFF, for things like the clock – and it bypasses things like hard drive encryption. Windows actually talks to your hardware, but also provides chip software, aka microcode, and those vendors want to be compliant anyway with such technologies as “wake on LAN” events… So the BIOS? Is actually a possible back-door. The Network interface card? Ditto. Etc, etc, etc. Network, modem, keyboard, mouse, USB ports, the chipset itself on the motherboard… Security is an illusion, man. So is an “HONEST” corporation – because NO ONE is ever responsible. MICROSOFT did it, not Bill Gates…. Etc.)
All it really takes is a few sense off. If the game isn’t rigged, things stabilize – Ace can’t provide tool rentals without taking a loss, so they leave that to HD and Lowes. But Ace can compete based on information, friendly knowledgeable service, and better prices on smaller volume, higher-quality tools. So that’s what they do. Smaller locations, fewer staff, less selection, higher quality, focus on merchandise everyone needs – and stuff that breaks. Reduce hours, reduce staff, multi-task personnel, and KNOW the answers. Be part of the community.
HD or Lowes, even though you know John, the manager of tool rentals? The price is the price. It’s CORPORATE rules. And John can’t help with gardening.
Jimmy at Ace knows everything about gardening; how to tune a gas mower, leaf blower, and car engine; and he can cut you a deal on any/everything in the store.
I hope this sort of paints the picture, though it’s like a howitzer landing in your lap…
The economics is only part of it. By itself, the economics of scale show how unfair competition can destroy a market, or society. Bad money drives out good, yet again.
Add in the intangibles, you still have “Niche” market survivors, and megacorps raking in profits. HD and Lowes compete in different segments, but do volume that Ace can’t match, and use lower-skilled (in theory) employees. That means greater ability to undercut an Ace, let alone an old-time hardware store. (the franchise at least gets some vendor concessions; Dad’s Hardware doesn’t even get THAT from vendors. The VENDOR’S cost of doing business, especially containing the opportunity cost, is actually HIGHER for Dad’s than Ace, which is higher than HD or Lowes.)
Boss is yelling that I’m not doing my work, I’ll have to shut up now. 😉
I’m an old Unix guy myself, you’re preaching to the choir. Used it at a nearby university as a youngun, it was on dozens of green terminals amid the book stacks and available to all who knew how to use it.
I too am interested in developing the thought space you’ve brought attention to. As well as name it and finding slogans for it. I agree that a libertarian community might learn and promote a common tech language. For themselves and all others who abjure aggressive violence. What might an Open Source Linux English distro look like, I wonder?
One great instance of true free market, is when something is invented that adds new value to the world where it never before existed, the wealth of the world then makes a sudden instant increase.
Take radio programming for instance. With a minimal amount of hardware. And some minimal amount of acquired listener capabilities. A whole new realm modulated wave worlds were created. Especially consider what would be possible under radio transmission technology without the state and authoritarian rationing and prohibitions.
Everything that now exists, might likewise be broadcast over radio waves. And countless things not physically possible as well. Every human became wealthier, when radio was invented and broadcasts were commenced.
It is likewise the case with Unix. And then arguably, again in a different way, with Linux. WIth Linus Torvalds’ operating kernel based on Unix which began with a few lines of C in 1991, and has now grown to 16 million lines of code.
History of Linux at wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux
I don’t know that Linux fits the definition of libertarian or anarchism, but I don’t think that’s important. It’s a new world of Unix that brings new things to millions. Worse case scenario, it’s a base hijacking and theft of proprietary Unix, depending on who you might ask. But so what. It’s a new phenomena that has no real world. If the original proprietor is not deprived. Then is their truly theft?
For the most part, I get all the media I could ever consume off the internet, without need of paying anyone a dime. I might choose to gain the additional benefits of payment to producers. But it’s optional. It would seem that value producers have to be compensated in someway, but not through traditional force and authority, as far as I’m concerned.
It’s a new paradigm, the internet. Value producers are on their own to secure compensation. I’m probably responsible for all kinds of eyes seeing this website due to my efforts on reddit and elsewhere. I don’t see a nickel or get any special privileges for this, nor do I expect I ever will.
Just ask Eric. You can expect a kick in the teeth from every side for all your efforts at offering value to the internet. It’s easy to be an altrusitic sucker. It’s near impossible to get even the meagerest compensation for all your time and effort. It’s all building pyramids for unknown invisible Cyberpharoahs, whoever they are, and whatever it is that they’re really up to.
Linux at reference . com
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/linux
Linus Unix is an implementation of the Unix kernel originally written from scratch with no proprietary code.
The kernel runs on Intel and Alpha hardware in the general release, with SPARC, PowerPC, MIPS, ARM, Amiga, Atari, and SGI in active development. The SPARC, PowerPC, ARM, PowerMAC – OSF, and 68k ports all support shells, X and networking. The Intel and SPARC versions have reliable symmetric multiprocessing.
Work on the kernel is coordinated by Linus Torvalds, who holds the copyright on a large part of it. The rest of the copyright is held by a large number of other contributors or their employers. Regardless of the copyright ownerships, the kernel as a whole is available under the GNU General Public License.
The GNU project supports Linux as its kernel until the research Hurd kernel is completed. This kernel would be no use without application programs. The GNU project has provided large numbers of quality tools, and together with other public domain software it is a rich Unix environment.
A compilation of the Linux kernel and these tools is known as a Linux distribution.
Eightsouthman, it’s a serious pet peeve of mine – clovers around here roll down the exit ramp onto I-94 at like 35-40mph right into 70+mph traffic without even looking, and that’s bad enough, but tell me… what usually occupies the RIGHT line of a major traffic artery, hmm?
18 wheelers, that’s what!
And there’s me, stuck BEHIND them when they pull out right in front of some weary overworked, underpaid Kenworth pusher who might not be as fully alert as they should be, and where am *I* going to GO?!
Thankfully while my BMW E-type is geared/chipped for fuel economy, if you plant that pedal on the firewall it goes into “hallelujah-mode” and shows its rally-car heritage (remember Patrick Snijers?) as I blow past that whole nasty bit of business on the margin and put that damn Clover where he/she BELONGS… in my rear view mirror!
Next time one of em does it to you give em every horn you’ve got – they deserve no less.
Funny how the car companies are now promoting an “anti-lead-foot” technology, isn’t it?
What happens with V2V? 18 wheelers can’t slow down, and occupy a lot of space…
Cars that can no longer accelerate…
So, car that can’t move cuts off truck that can’t brake, because V2V says the space
is clear NOW… But in 5 seconds, 30 tons or so needs to be there. So that car that can’t speed up inserts itself in front of the truck that can’t stop, where does the truck go? Does the car realize it’s about to turn into a squashed bug? If so – it’s so EFFICIENT it can’t move anyway! Does the car move out of the way, onto the shoulder…? If so, does the driver get fined for not staying on the road? Does the truck “driver” get a ticket for not sharing the road? Both? Or does the truck hit the car, reducing the occupants to red mist, possibly killing the trucker, too?
What methods of “selective reduction” does TPTB plan for us?
Well, I kind of see it as techno-scocietal Darwinism. Those that are soft-brained enough to trust their lives to gov-tech riddled cars because ‘driving’ apparently became to much for the idiot masses to manage, won’t be missed.
It’s no fun for those aware but at least some pruning of the old evolution tree may occur. Is it possible to hack an airbag to have 3 second delay? Could speed thing up a bit.
Don’t forget “crumple zones”- i.e. making the already small flimsy cars soft “to absorb the impact”. Sure, they absorb the impact…but in a major crash it also means intrusion into the passenger compartment and or deformity of the same. Now, every fire dept.; has to have a full littany of hydraulic tools with which to cut cars apart, in order to extricate the occupants, because the cars get so smushed. In the old days, few if any dept.s had such tools…and yet occupants were extricated from all but the severerst wrecks (ones in which they would be dead, anyway). Today, all but the most minor fender-benders are “tool jobs”, because the cars can absorb impact…but can’t maintain their integrity due the legislated requirement to absorb that impact- and once again, the consumer has zero choice in the matter, because Uncle Sam(bo) has decreed that that is the way it shall be! (MPGs be damned! This is why I have always driven only the biggest cars [Town cars] and trucks![F250/350’s]).
The idea is to make the passenger compartment rigid and the crumple zones everything outside it. This then prevents intrusion. And yes this means fenders and such may jam doors.
Older cars had far more intrusion because rigid hard points for suspension mounts etc would be strong enough to intrude into the passenger compartment. And of course energy would get transferred to the occupants.
Brent, that’s the theory- but as someone who has played with/worked with junk cars for a good deal of my life, I deon’t see that theory borne-out in practice. As the years go by, I see more and more intrusion- not less. Displaced dashboards which mangled people’s legs; doors pushed practically to the middle of the car; trunks obliterating the rear seating area; front wheels pushed into the foot-wells. You just didn’t see this stuff with the old pre-crumple zone cars. (The main problem then, was lack of seatbelt use; and sharp/protuding objects in the passenger compartment- but getting impaled on a headlight switch was a lot better than having both legs crushed, or your rib-cage flattened)
I saw a mid 70’s Ford LTD that had been in a high-speed highway crash. The front two or three feet were mangled….passenger compartment wasn’t touched/absolutely no intrusion. If the dude was belted (and he likely was, as the windshield was intact) he walked away. Had that been a modern car with a 3-foot long hood and all soft and crumply….the guy at best would have been a paraplegic…but more likely, pushing up the daisies.)
Crumple zones started in the late 1950s on MB cars. By the late 1970s I would guess most everything had it to some degree or another.
The late 1970s cars were pretty well on the way to being well designed for crashing. Without optimization for various conflicting standards that didn’t yet exist, steel could be used more liberally to protect the passenger compartment. I am not sure how far ideas of crumple zones and directing the hard points outside the passenger compartment had become. After all a number of 1970s basic platforms were able to make it all the way up to the crash standards of just a couple three years ago.
If you’re talking no crumple-zone cars one has to roll back to the 1960s or before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_r5UJrxcck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-WYKYrq5FI
The thing is, Brent, in the 70’s, the crumple zones actually worked, because the cars were big enough/sturdy enough for them to do so. I mean, if you have a 7 foot long front-end, and 3 or 4 feet of it crumples……..you still have plenty of room before the passenger compartment. On a car with a barely 3′ front-end…where’s it gonna go?
On side impacts, only the most severe crashes (high-speed T-bone; truck; pole…) would seriously intrude. On today’s cars, they fold-up pretty easy. Rather low-speed T-bone on your side, and you’re getting squished.
F what “they” say….I see this stuff with my own eyes. If you knew your daughter were going to be in an accident on the interstate….would you want her in a ’77 LTD, 2014 Focus?
My ’75 Ford Maverick was hit in the door by a semi truck. The rocker and door pushed up against the seat frame. About 1 inch of movement and that’s where it stopped. The inside of that door had huge crash bar in it by modern standards. When in doubt over design. And with the tools of the time there was lots of doubt.
Without CAFE crash protection might have stayed over-engineered, but CAFE forces removing steel where ever it can be and that includes crash protection. Everything cuts closer to the standards when the standards conflict. Not to say that 70s cars were optimal for crash protection, they weren’t. Everything is a balance.
Not sure what I would pick for crash protection today. I am more into avoiding crashes…. in which case I would pick the high performance version of the focus over the LTD II.
I’m into crash avoidance too. Over 30 years driving…only one accident. Completely unavoidable; as a Polock pulled out of a stop sign right in froint of me- thinking it weas a 4-way stop.
But yeah….if yours had been the Focus instead of the Maverick, all the side airbags in the world wouldn’t do you much good. They would’a had to pry you out of a 6″ wide space between the mangled door and the console.
RE: “I would pick the high performance version of the focus over the LTD II.”
I dunno mang, high performance don’t mean Jack when a deer suddenly (and seemingly out of freaking Nowhere!) jumps in front of you.
Of the times that’s happened to me, I was Very glad to be driving an 80’s boat of car or some such. Almost nothing happened.
On the other hand, of the newer cars that I’ve seen and heard of going through the same, the car got totaled and the driver often was injured where I (in an 80’s boat) would not have been even scratched.
I’m reminded of the thread here about what is the best car for a teenager learning to drive and the consensus at that time was…. A. Great. Big. Boat. Of. A. Car.
…Can anyone dodge the jumping deer?
That’s just my baseline, yours may vary.
Oh, and myself, I like high bumpers, lifted trucks. It might be worse to hit head-on level with the other guy, but I think maybe, it’s better than going under the frame in a low clearance vehicle.?
I still can’t get the image out of mind of a guy in a little car stuck up under the rear end of a semi-trailer. Since then I’ve done my best to be bumper-to-bumper height. Is that a bad approach?
Anyway, deer, and mindless old People, seem to my greatest danger. I used to think it was only the 70-something drivers I had to be wary of until this week when a fifty-something coming off an on-ramp up ahead of me hit his brakes as he tried to merge! I’m like WTF!? Why would someone in a convertible sports car with the top down on a nice sunny day with a hot middle-aged woman in the passenger seat – who is two car lengths up-ahead and in front of you with a clear merge lane – hit the brakes while merging?
“Clover-DUmKoff” was all I could think as I swerved.
Dang! My comment went into the spam box.
Between an LTD and a Focus, which would you rather run head-on into a full sized deer?
Performance and handling is nice, but it doesn’t cut it in some situations.
I agree, Helot.
Aside from major accidents, another thing to consider – which isn’t debatable – is that it’s easy to incur thousands of dollars of damage in a modern car in a very low-speed fender-bender type of accident. A slight bumping-into coming out of a parking spot, for example, can tear (and effectively ruin) an entire front “fascia.” Headlight “assemblies” routinely project into harm’s way – and if you crack/brake one, it may cost you hundreds of dollars.
Moleman, I would like to think that even with the oddity of how it happened, blowout while braking, the modern car would be more controllable for the sake of decades of advancements and not ended up there.
Helot, deer aren’t a significant issue where I am. But the modern A-pillars and roof will better keep the critter out of the passenger compartment and the glass is no weaker or stronger than it was back in the day.
If the critter hits the side or the front at bumper level I really don’t see all that big of difference beside the dash bombs.
Everything is a trade off, that’s the art of engineering. The problem is that government puts its fat thumb on the scales.
Within a very short time (5 years, perhaps less) cars will become literally appliances. Transportation mechanisms, not controlled by you. You will get in “your” car – speak or enter a destination – and the car will take you there. It will not exceed any speed limit. It will not drive “aggressively.” It will be exactly like taking a cab – only it’ll just be you (and Big Brother) in the damned thing.
That would not be so bad, actually, since we would not be liable for any infractions.
Though I believe you also had an article recently stating the insurance mafia et al would find a way to avoid any liability, and heap it back on us. (Again, read a software EULA, espeically Microsoft.)
Everyone’s so busy living life, they’ve forgotten what it is to LIVE.
WTF good are “the Golden Years” when (a) they’re leaden, not golden, and (b) you have to work the same as when you were 18 just to maybe eat something besides dog food?
My father was VERY wealthy, overall.
He left my mother essentially destitute.
I am not wealthy (though I admit more my fault than anything else, but living INSIDE the matrix… 😛 )
So, now I’m going to need to support her, too, and the $400,000 house they bought 20 years ago? Likely more like $200,000 now, IF we’re lucky – and needs a mortgage just to get it sellable.
Damn Big Brother, and Damn to HELL the RATS that most of humanity is. They have a CHOICE, and I can see in their eyes when I talk, they wish I’d just crawl away under a rock, and STOP drawing attention to the man behind the curtain… Though they could do SO MUCH BETTER just by yanking the curtain down and punching him until he stops wiggling.
If not for themselves, for their offspring.
Cowards and whores…
RE: “That would not be so bad, actually,”
I dunno, think: TSA in your car alongside an Obomatron doctor?
…Eventually.
What a great place to scan you, I mean, they do it for People who have been convicted of D.U.I. via those breathalyzers which prevent the car from starting if you don’t use it. Why wouldn’t they expand upon that? No need to get you into the doctor’s office, they already have you.
OnGovStar/HAL: “You passed your weapons check, Jean. Congratulations! However; I see you haven’t gotten your vaccination loaded with formaldehyde and mercury yet, Jean. Please breathe deeply as we administer your CDC approved air-E-sol vaccination so we can continue your journey.”
The car doors lock.
@ helot:
Yeah, i’m sure it would go that way.
You omitted how the machine will check to ENSURE you breathed in deeply…. It will check respiration, after all.
You’ll sit on the anal probe, breath through the breathalyzer, your eyes will be immersed in VR so you can work…
Etc.
All the dreamed-of technologies to date, which would make life ebtter, perverted to encapsulate us, and reduce us to immobile blobs….
Until TPTB put us into the Matrix full-time. Future power plants will be human-powered, LITERALLY. So Gore’s descendants don’t need to worry about global warming as THEY take their private jet to Jamiaca for a beach vacation, and then go tour the castles of Europe for a few months, and supervise the (automated) grape vineyards of California, and… (Note there is never any WORK done – that’s done by those inside the matrix, using VR computers to manage the physical Boomers (Bubblegum Crisis) that are actually doing the work…
RE: “As the years go by, I see more and more intrusion- not less. Displaced dashboards which mangled people’s legs; doors pushed practically to the middle of the car; trunks obliterating the rear seating area; front wheels pushed into the foot-wells.”…etc….
No doubt.
I often (long ago) used to wonder why T.P.T.B. didn’t create a bubble of sorts. Not the bubble wrap suit or airbags, but a bubble of a control cockpit that upon impact would jettison the operator up into the air to be gently let down by a parachute or the impact absorbed by a spring of some sorts?
Too danged expensive, I imagine. Or impractical? Idk.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this: “You will get in “your” car – speak or enter a destination – and the car will take you there. ”
What If, you don’t know where ‘there’ is?
Passenger says: ” Take me to that, ‘one street’, you know, five blocks down from, ‘what’s-that-place up that alley I’ve been to countless times’ but forget the name of.”
I guess the car just sits, in that instance?
A worthless pile of scrap that would be.
It sure as Hell would piss off a Lot of older People.
Maybe the younger People would be content to sit and wait as they try to determine where it is exactly they want to go while mindlessly and furiously thumbing their hand-held-whatever electronic device?
No minds?
It’s funny- they used to ridicule older cars for having “flab and excess”- but that flab and excess used to act as a “crumple” zone, all around. You could get blasted in the door when that door was a foot thick…but ya kinda want to avoid that with some Toyota with a 2″ thick door that you can flex with your hand…..
Can’t make this shit up!
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/CFR-2011-title49-vol6/CFR-2011-title49-vol6-part563/content-detail.html
dom, shit, that’s depressing. And what’s more depressing is the amount of money stolen from us to come up with all of it. Bureaucrats, simple minds, sitting there all day, sucking big bucks off the feral teat just to complicate life and make it cost us even more. The mind boggles, at least my old one does.
Revolution can’t some soon enough.
I’m reminded of an “old” Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, where someone wished Buffy hadn’t come to Sunnydale.
It was a nightmare world where vampires walked the streets freely, the population count changed by the minute, and yet everyone pretended nothing was wrong – but they never went out after dark, either.
At the end, the Watcher (helped the Slayer, Buffy) was able to undo it by destroying the gem of power for the wish-granter. Dialog is what’s important.
“How do you know it will be better?” (demon)
“Because it can’t be any worse!” (Watcher)
[Leaving the mechanics aside, it was a dreadful show, but so bad it became good. If the wish were undone by destroying the stone, of course, all the OTHER wishes the demon granted should’ve been undone, too, but let’s not confuse the world with logic. Predictive programming, maybe? Or just brainwashing at a coarse level? Removing all logic, cause and effect, etc. 😛 ]
Americans have been dumbed down so far that waking them up is like pissing up a rope into the wind. 🙁
I am an new car auto technician for Dodge,Ram,Chrysler and Jeeps. The airbag module has had the capabilities to data record in the event of airbag deployment since they where installed back in the 90’s. According to the instructors at the Chrysler training centers where we get updated training for all the new wizzbangs installed on vehicles, those airbag modules could hold data of “unknown” lengths. The instructors guessed it was usually in the hours to days worth depending on how new the vehicles are. So we have been living with these EDR’s for more than 20 years. They just get more intrusive and are out in the open.
IN our training sessions the instructors have stated that,any vehicle with drive by wire,ABS,GPS,adaptive cruise control and crash sensors on front and rear bumpers isn’t “your”vehicle anymore. Add in V2V and we are now the passengers of those little yellow cabs in Total Recall.
Moonshyne, “drive by wire”, shit, that depresses me. I occasionally have to ride in/drive, a 2004 one ton single wheel crewcab 4Wd pickup used as a crew truck. That sumbitch is so wore out it’s not funny. One thing that’s been replaced, virtually every part of it so far, is that “drive by wire” bs. I don’t want to remember the times you’d start across and intersection in front of fast traffic and that bastard will rev up and launch you into the fray and then return to idle. No matter what you do it won’t go. You can live through the fracas when everybody slams on their brakes to not run over you. It doesn’t care if you recylce it 5 times as that’s supposed to reset everything. It virtually laughs at you. In the middle of nowhere, not even cell phone service, we decide to go for food since nobody had eaten all day. Vrrooommm, that sucker fires up, no muffler(yeah, I know, it just makes it loud….but I had no part in that), put into gear and gas it…..only it don’t gas. So we simply drive all over locations at idle, alternately going through the 5 start up thing or just pumping on the pedal(no effect except frustration). Everybody hates that damned pickup. It’s gonna get a bunch of people killed some day and I hope to be in my KW when it happens.
I remember them having hell with getting good times when they produced the first ‘Vette with bluetooth or whatever it is they use. Had a mind of it’s own(literally) and didn’t take input very well. What in hell’s the matter with cable except they weigh a few ounces.
That’s precisely what’s wrong with vehicles now. Manufacturers must make bullshit to comply with stupid regs set forth by the “in crowd” or the EPA as they’re regularly known. Never mind that most of these vehicles will have the fuel mileage and most other things thrown out the window when they’re rigged out for a job.
A 2012 heavy duty dually one ton(more actually) Dodge crewcab, 4 WD Cummins diesel consistently gets 5.5 mpg. I gave it the moniker “slurp”. That’s big rig mileage, of the heavy hauling type. Oh, it has a work bed and a few big toolboxes, a big Lincoln welder, a large air compressor and a few other things such as torches, some larger wrenches and what not. But it’s way out of “range” for that size truck compared to big rigs. It’ll poke a hole in the wind but it makes you pay…….often.
Morning, Eight!
I am pretty sure that virtually all (if not actually all) new vehicles are now equipped with drive-by-wire throttle. And yes, I agree. It’s another reason to throw new cars in the woods…
Most older FI setups used the standard throttle position sensor, which pretty much told the system if the throttle was wide open or shut.
They can be dangerous when they screw up as I discovered many years ago while overtaking on my K100RT – suddenly the injectors shut off regardless of throttle position. Yikes. Then you’re stuck on idle.
When I bought my new truck, a 2011 Ranger, it came with satellite radio. I didn’t order it, it was just thrown in. It is easy to disconnect any satellite reciever or transmitter. Just pop the roof liner retainers off and un couple the two leads going into the antenna. My brother in law did it with his Onstar equiped company truck as well. No need to have it hooked up if you don’t want the thing.
Give it time Dave, when you next have a DMV inspection they’ll either snitch on you for disabling the system or by default have to upload your car’s data to TPTB for “obedience” testing.
And this, exactly this, is why I just paid more than the car is probably worth in order to have my venerable 1985 BMW fully repaired, because despite its age and poor handling in snow (which is a bit of an issue up here in MI) so long as I can keep it running Big Brother isn’t going to be glaring over my shoulder, throwing a hissyfit when I blow past some Clover rolling off an exit ramp at 35mph into 70+mph traffic without even looking.
Too bad I can’t afford a “classic” like a Tucker Torpedo or Hudson Hornet, though.
Ree, this past week I’m hauling a big overload cause that’s just the way it works sometimes. I’m caught in the outside lane, big rigs passing me and this damned clover with his wife in the big Mercury are doing about 50. I have to nail the brakes(smell of brakes anyone?)and continue on my high speed exit (low speed this time)to another roadway behind these fools. I see the guy looking back but he’s an a-hole and won’t go on. I have to use full power to pull the hill I’d normally just ease over and I’m still behind him. I turned on my headlights so there was no way the a-hole couldn’t know I was pissed and I was right on his ass(listen, when a big rig gets on your bumper, you have fucked up and the guy behind the wheel is hot, not a good time to hit the brakes or some other heroic maneuver). He moved over when we had two lanes and I blasted past right on the line between lanes just to say “fuck you asshole”. I won’t defend my actions other than I’m human and don’t like being abused any more than anyone else. I almost used the air horn on him and what I really wanted to use was the chrome horn.
Eric,
I would love a follow-up on the number of cases of people arrested or fined for disabling the “calling home” (caugh) features of their cars “snitch” computers…
Also, is not this a clear violation of privacy? (laughing uncontrollably now)…
Do you know of anyone reverse engineering their car computer to be “open source” and not operating for the benefit of the authorities… such as DARPA?
For example, some freedom lovers are rewriting computer BIOS to protect them from big brother on their PCs.
Also added to this list the part in the manual that says the police can remotely turn your car off. (I assume this is in the event of a high-speed car chase).
Hm, what WILL the police DO, when there are no more High Speed chases? They just shut down any escaping “criminal’s” car, and shoot the occupants….
I WISH people had balls in this country….
My sister has bigger balls than most everyone, though. (Roller Derby girl)
Hmmm…if I can access speed and engine/tranny data from the OBD-II diagnostic connector in my ’98 and ’99 vehicles (With a $50 scanner, no less) I *wonder* who else could..????
“I *wonder* who else could..????”
Anyone with an OBD-II scanner and physical access to (and control of) the vehicle. However, OBD-II to my knowledge does not have wireless capability and it stores nothing but fault codes. Detailed running information is made available on an instantaneous basis at the data port. If someone wanted to record this data it would require an external recording device plugged into the OBD-II system, like the tattle-tales being pushed by some of the insurance mafia. Note that this is from what I have read about the system. My own vehicles are old enough that they are not affected.
To be really free of this stuff you would probably need a car of 1980s vintage or older. At some point the thugs may order them off the road, but for now it is still possible to drive an older vehicle without encurring their wrath.
Very true, Ned Flanders…err…Jason Flinders 😀
I just find it *interesting* that all the data/sensors were already present in these vehicles. I used to wonder why they had started making vehicles so needlessly complex. In retrospect, it likely was no accident- but probably just a step in the gradualism that slowly lead to the wireless blackboxes.
I beleive if you go looking, you’ll find that wireless hacks are KNOWN to exist for these computers-on-wheels.
the last “exploit” I heard of was using a USB port and taking over the car that way.
Why USB?
Wireless is already De Rigeur (Insultingly easy).
And that’s to CONTROL the car’s functions: Accelerator, brakes, airbag, etc. Wireless remote control. Via wifi. Bluetooth.
It’s even showing up in recent movies, like Fast and Furious.
How old does your car have to be to not be equipped with these govt listening devices (i.e. black boxes)?
I used to read things like this, and say “When are people going to say enougth is enough; and wake-up; and stop participating in/funding this nonsesne?!”. I
I learned years ago, that the answer is “Never”.
Not only will they just accept and submit; but they will gladly help their masters to thwart those of us who would dare to preserve our rights and what little remains of our “freedom”.
GET OUT while you still can. This country is turning into something that even Stalin himself could not even conceive of. And it’s only going to get worse.
I agree with you.i was talking to my mother about it earlier today.i have come to the conclusion that its quite similar to stockholm syndrome.
And go where?
Having spent prior decades in the car business, and having a keen interest in all things transportation-related for an even longer period of time, I’ve been well aware of this agenda and privacy intrusion for many years. While my current car, a 2007 Toyota Yaris, does have a data recorder; I hope that the two ELIOs that I have deposits on will not. My state regards three-wheelers as motorcycles, so my ELIOs should get around much of this guvmint intrusion. I am old enough now, that if or when I get my ELIOs, they should hopefully be the last vehicles I will ever have to buy; and they will be replacing both my car as well as my motorcycles.
We have come so far… As a country, the only one I know of, who’s Constitution gives you the “Right to travel” to no rights.
Where road ways and right aways are now so controlled, do you still have this Right?
Did you even know your Constitution gave you this Right? or why?
The more you learn the more our Founding Fathers were genius in my eyes…
Bear in mind that the Constitution does NOT “give” you rights. Its purpose was to limit the central government to a set of specific functions and to protect rights that were seen as pre-existing and bestowed on human beings by their “Creator.” Government was not supposed to be the source of “rights,” by definition it can only grant “privileges.”
Of course at this point it is evident to anyone paying attention that the Constitution has utterly failed to limit government and preserve individual rights. Today we are living in an increasingly authoritarian police state.
The reason most here are anarchists is due to the demonstrated impossibility of keeping a mini-state small. The state by definition is a band of power-hungry armed thugs, and a ravenous beast. Even if you create it with the best of intentions, that little monster will grow up and out to break its chains and ultimately wind up eating you alive.
Correct, my Rights come from God and God alone!
The US Constitution is the only one I know of that states, reaffirms that you have this God given Right to travel…
Thank you for making the point clearer. and yes that little monster has grown up and is eating up my house, home and business… and God Given Rights!
http://www.millionmanar15march.com
The Constitution has not failed to limit government; The PEOPLE have failed to maintain the power that they once had, to see to it that gov’t never would acquire more power than the people, who are ultimately responsible for the enforcement of the precepts of the Constitution.
Our grandfathers sold us out.
And WE could sort THEM out – if we chose to….
Think that one over.
then understand why it will never happen…
The US Constitution was effectively nullified in April 1865, with the surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia to Gen. Grant at Appomattox. After that, the US was no longer a VOLUNTARY association of States with the Federal Government as THEIR ‘servant’…like Lord Vader, Uncle Sam was once the “learner”, and then became the “Master”…and I don’t see his twin Jedi kids ready to convince “Daddy” to abandon the “Dark Side”.
Hexman –
As I have said before, the Constitution does/did not GRANT any rights, it only acknowledged certain rights that we had, either simply as humans, or as Englishmen, which the founder and framers still considered themselves to be.
Nor have I seen the “Right to travel” you mention in any of me readings of the Constitution.
Phillip, I don’t think you’ll find any reference to “right to travel” in the Constitution, as this is a PRINCIPLE of Common Law defined long ago, the beginnings of which are contained in the Magna Carta (1215 – 1297) and the English Bill of Rights 1688.
Every law dictionary defines “driver” as one conducting commercial activity:
DRIVER. One employed…
Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, 1856
DRIVER– one employed in conducting a coach, carriage, wagon, or other vehicle…”
BOUVIER’S LAW DICTIONARY, (1914) p. 940.
Driver – One employed in conducting or operating a coach, carriage, wagon, or other vehicle, with horses, mules, or other animals, or a bicycle, tricycle, or motor car, though not a street railroad car. See Davis v. Petrinovich, 112 Ala. 654, 21 So. 344, 36 L.R.A. 615; Isaacs v. Railroad Co., 7 Am. Rep. 418, 47 N.Y. 122.
Black’s Law Dictionary, 3rd Ed
DRIVER. One employed…
Black’s Law Dictionary, 4th Ed, 1951
“The activity licensed by state DMVs and in connection with which individuals must submit personal information to the DMV – the operation of motor vehicles – is itself integrally related to interstate commerce”.
Seth Waxman, Solicitor General
U.S. Department of Justice
BRIEF FOR THE PETITIONERS
Reno v. Condon, No. 98-1464, decided January 12, 2000
Supreme Court of the United States
Driver – one EMPLOYED. Commercial activity.
http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/DLbrief.shtml
Many precedents have been set regarding this. The fact that roads are created in Fee Simple, meaning paid for by the public using virtually every tax imaginable, means everyone has the right to use what they paid for.
Contrary to that, “driving” being a commercial activity for private gain on public roads is unfair, and therefore must be strictly controlled by licensing and registration. They’ve deceived generations into believing that they need a licence to use what they already own.
If you’re being paid to be behind the wheel, you must be regulated, otherwise tell them all to jam it.
The Founders would have thought it ridiculous to bother mentioning any right to “travel”, or of “privacy”, like other rights specifically enumerated, they were presumed to already exist! However, to foil off any argument about “I don’t see no steenkin’ right listed here…”, they enacted the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which state that specifying rights as they’d just done didn’t disparage other rights, and all powers NOT specifically granted to the Federal Government were reserved for the several states, OR the PEOPLE. These two Amendments are the most brazenly and frequently disregarded by “Uncle”.
One does not “drive a car”. You “operate a motor vehicle”. In legal terms, the state owns the legal and equitable interest having obtained the “title” direct from the manufacturer. You must register your continued use of their vehicle annually. The states bond rating is influenced by the motor vehicle titles it holds. You must seek “permission” to operate on the (their) state and federal highways or they will take back what is theirs until you comply.
Pavalo,
Thanks for another piece of the puzzle!
The ‘driving’ vs. using a conveyance for private transportation thing has only slightly more to it than the title thing I discussed in my previous comment. I still cannot find anything supporting it in the written law for the state I live in and no one has ever been able to show it to me for any other state. However there is a base right to travel upon the public way that has through various laws been effectively decayed into a government granted privilege.
Now are there legal arguments, magic words in the temple that can get around these laws that have been added over time? Possibly. There have been tales of people who supposedly did it. But if there were a written record of court cases high enough in the system word of mouth could change everything. But government is very good at preserving the system by letting people who fight hard enough go but making them fight over and over and over again until they are drained of resources and time.
Anyway there’s more meat here, but the effective condition does make such a distinction with regards to what ‘driving’ or ‘traveling’ is.
@Pavlo – Now the can of worms opens. When the original purchaser of the vehicle drove it off the lot the dealer gave the state the original Manufacturer’s Certificate of Origin, from which they gave the buyer (or finance company) a pink slip/ Certificate of Title. Now that the car is paid off try and get the original Cert of Origin of your property back from them. They will send you in endless legal run around(s) and won’t do it because of the bonding (property ownership) process you mentioned.
Eric,
Years ago a Libertarian opened my eyes to the fact we do not own our cars…
When you buy a new car, ask for the title, the original, the manufacture title, not the one that the state sends you.
If you have to get a title from the state, you don’t own your car, the state does.
Thoughts?
I have looked multiple times for anything in the law that supports this theory. I found nothing. There is no title from the manufacturer, just a document that says they manufactured the car. I forget what it’s called now… statement of origin or something like that.
Also note that if you put a car away in a garage and stop registering it the government does not come after you. Does not care. Cut up a car and put it in a dumpster. The government does not know, does not care. Keep a car on your farm, stop registering it, again, nothing happens.
So there isn’t even an effective mechanism for this theory that I can find.
The closest are cloverian urban/suburban color-of-law tickets for expired registration when the car is in one’s driveway and never leaves it. But even then, usually the written law permits it. The system just ignores the written law.
I wish that you were correct, but in Utah, if you fail to re-register a car the next year there are letters and then phone calls and then finally a knock on the door wanting to know why that vehicle was not re-registered, letters saying that insurance will be re-instated on the vehicle unless you can show that it has been disposed of or that you do in fact have insurance.
Unfortunately – Big Bully IS watching.
Guess there’s no car hoarding in Utah. No barn finds either.
That’s got to take a lot of time and effort to follow up on everyone who parks a car out back after the trans goes bad or something. It’s not like NYC or Chicago where things are packed in and lots of people. But even in the big city a car gets placed in a garage and forgotten about and there are no knocks on the door.
I read a post on another site this week from someone who came across an E-Type in a NYC garage that hasn’t been on the road since 1981. Although this was a much freer country in 1981.
In a dystopian piece I wrote those are the cars that survive. The ones that fell off the books before things got really tight.
In KY., once the car is on the books with the state, you pay property tax on it every year. Only way to stop is to sell it, or junk it. In some states, like NY, there were no titles prior to 1972- so cars older than that escaped the system.
There will be no barn-finds of 21st-century cars….not that anyone would want a pile of old circuit-boards and surviellance equipment with wheels, anyway…..
Cali(porn)ia is much the same way. You must pay a FEE to “non-operate” your vehicle each year you merely park it out back under the shade tree, and, IF it’s not listed on your insurance policy, ANOTHER fee to “de-list” it!
I recall an old editorial cartoon from the 1960’s depicting a beleaguered motorists, with a bunch of “passengers” already weighing his ride down, and others clambering to get on, tagged as various taxes and fees associated with vehicle ownership. Its tagline? “THE TROUBLE WITH HITCH-HIKERS!”
Do you think that you are looking for something that isn’t there because they don’t need it?
The key word is “register”. What does that mean in law?
The way it works is: that by the act of registering your car with the state, you confer ownership of that car to the state, they then give you permission to use what is now their property.
Hmm. It is near time to just buy $300 craigslist cars, get a bill of sale (notarized) and never transfer. Drive it until it gets impounded and get another. No license, no insurance, no registration. Just a bill of sale so it can’t be claimed to be stolen.
For my 10 trips to town a year, probably cheaper than playing by the rules even if I did pay the eventual fines.
Heh…that reminds me of the good old days in NYC. Since parking can be ridiculously expensive there, people would buy few-hunnert-dollar beaters, and park where ever they could and let the tickets mount-up, and when the car would finally get impounded, they’d just get another. Can’t do that no more….. Now, 98% of the time, when you see a car parked illegally, it is either a pig-mobile; or a pig’s private vehicle. (There are vids on Youtube documenting entire BLOCKS lined with pig’s private vehicles parked on the sidewalk!)
Illinois definition:
(625 ILCS 5/1-171) (from Ch. 95 1/2, par. 1-171)
Sec. 1-171. Registration – Registration Sticker. Registration. The registration certificate or certificates, registration plates and registration stickers issued under the laws of this State pertaining to the registration of vehicles.
Registration Sticker or Stickers. A device or devices to be attached to a rear registration plate that will renew the registration and registration plate or plates for a pre-determined period not to exceed one registration year except as provided in subsection (1) of Section 3-414 of this Code. Should the Secretary of State determine it is advisable to require a registration sticker to be attached to a front registration plate, he may require such action and provide the necessary additional sticker. Such determination shall be publicly announced at least 30 days in advance of a new annual registration year.
(Source: P.A. 80-1185.)
Feel free to show me where in:
http://ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=062500050HCh.+3&ActID=1815&ChapterID=49&SeqStart=34500000&SeqEnd=66500000
Ownership was transferred to the state. Furthermore, if states owned the cars why do they permit them to leave the state and be sold out of state?
I stripped & sold all the parts (except frame, engine and nuts & bolts) of an old motorcycle I had. I sent the DMV their form that the motorcycle no longer existed. For two years they kept sending me renewal notices with fines, penalties and threats about my drivers license if I did not pay to renew registration. After 6 months exchanging letters with them they informed me that I did not properly dispose of the vehicle with a sate licensed auto wrecker/ junk yard, owed the money, bla bla bla.
I never heard from them again after I sent in the vehicle sales/ transfer form listing Micky Mouse with the address of Disneyland, CA and a price of zero dollars on the sale… back dated two years.
In Illinios just put the car where no complainers will see it and forget about it. Nothing happens. If it’s still in emissions testing that may come before the reg expires. Just return the card saying it’s off the road or junked. After the reg expires they won’t give a damn.
Scary thing is – most people are too stupid to realise that.
Because we use words with ONE meaning, they use ANOTHER meaning, and the meanings are lost in translation…. By intent.
The thing is Jean, that the words in legal dictionaries are the ones THEY use, hoping we never know about it and continue to use ordinary dictionaries with baseless meanings under law. Once you start checking out some of the meanings of ordinary words in legal dictionaries, you’ll understand how we’ve been misled for so long.
Yeah – ain’t no accident.
There’s a REASON a EULA (End User License Agreement) is so long. It’s not to cover every eventuality; it’s to ensure that THEY are blameless, even if they placed a bomb inside your computer and set it to go off on command. They are legally not responsible, as YOU accepted the terms.
The contract says (I summarize), We will assemble a gun and bullets, all set to go, point it at you, and periodically pull the trigger. You accept this by clicking Yes, and by doing so, you accept all liability for being shot. If you click No, we will not point the gun at you, but we will see you as an enemy and try to destroy you by shooting at you. You will also not be able to run (any software of note). You will need to be a gunsmith (software engineer) to make the machine more than a glorified calculator.
It is LITERALLY that simplistic.
MS Windows, for instance, as far back as 95, insisted that you only used the software voluntarily, and accepted any and all flaws in the software, up to and including loss of your computer and even your life, without complaint. So if the power supply blows up because the OS has errors? Not their fault. It also allows for back doors into your computer system, so that MS can listen in to your machine – and put in and take out ANYTHING. Every document created with MS office? Belongs to MICROSOFT, actually, not to you – or the company you work for.
/rant.
Can you imagine if the Kroger’s riot were done by whites, on a military installation, in retaliation for what’s been goign on for at LEAST 60 years now? Since the WW2 “Greatest Degeneration” came back, sick of war and conflict, and pussied out, allowing the imbecile liars to run the show, importing the War home… We’ve turned into something that Stalin and Hitler couldn’t have fantasized about in their most fevered madness-inspired wet dreams. We fear our neighbors; we fear foreign terrorists; our leaders betray us with impunity, we even elect them back! The enemy is within the gates, and no one will DO anything… Out of FEAR. The KKK won, but (as above) we is ALL niggaz now. The only good Injun is tame… We are to be tamed, sedated, moesticated, turned into labor units, and farmed for the best characteristics… Docility, servility, cowardice, low IQ, low imagination, etc.
And probably soon sterilized “for our own good.” (Can’t leave those pesky cancer-causing hormones in our body. Nature doesn’t know best, God doesn’t exist, only The State can make these decisions, and THEY will decide which ova and sperm should meet, and then use the lowest females as “breeders.” Even better – they know how to make two eggs fertilize, and then become a human being. Sexual reproduction, in a sterile lab, without the pesky issue of Men. Take two egg gametes, strip the outer cell layers, the DNA nucleii merge, and form a new cell, which then recognizes it’s “just starting out” and in essence acts like a fertilized egg. And it’s a a FEMALE offspring, which meets several of the other useful traits, as well: less curious, less intelligent [a point or two now, but wait until it’s “normal” to contro DNA for IQ…], more emotional –> more manipulatable, more interested in human connections and less time-oriented, less space-oriented. More consumer-oriented, too. Less aggressive, so far – we’ll see what the Feminism Wave 4 & 5 results are…)
I wonder if I could write up a Utopia/Dystopia story, written from the Statist view, where the Dystopia is closer to “Clan of the Cave Bear” or similar, and the Utopia is this sterile, orderly, all-female world….? Post-transition, but with men within living memory… Draw elements from 1984, Equilibrium, Brave New World, Terminator, Clockwork Orange, The Matrix (I), Continuum, the Last Ship (TV series, not book), Branded, Idiocracy, Aeon Flux (shorts), maybe The Martian Chronicles… And DEFINITELY add in a Stainless Steel Rat (The Utopians Dystopia.) Probably be an “adult” work, though, due to sexual situations developing, and any interactions between the two “societies.” Maybe I could use the conceit of the GOR series, a parallel “twin” Earth? Same orbit, always opposite the sun from us, so it would be invisible, but a few secret paths… Or maybe a “fringe” element, or the UFOs? Maybe make it that we’re LIVING in the GOR-side, and the greys are the “androgynous” alter-earth – though in my story, I’m thinking effeminate greys, not androgynous.
Hmmm…. Need to write a storyboard, problem that I’m at work…
I take it for granted that every Libertarian or anyone at all concernede with freedom/privacy, is using a Linux operating system…..
MS Win-D’ohs! is a perfect illustration of why we will never see a free libertarian society in the Western World….just look at what the majority are willing to not only put-up with….but how they’ll even PAY for it and demand it! Same with Stupid-phones and such…..they volunteer for/demand/are willing to pay for the very things which are enslaving them and robbing them of any privacy. Hell…they’ll even broadcast their every move and emotion on DisgraceBook!
I agree, Mole.
The only way out – for people like us – is FTL travel and a new Earth.
@Moleman:
I work in a “big finance” group (Was the lowest of the bailouts, before my time here).
VERY conservative, they were one of the “winners” paired with a “loser” to “shore up” the market.
IE, winner and loser merged, winner’s assets cancelled out the loser’s toxic assets. In theory – it’s all book-keeping and magic accounting. It was well documented in a film recently…
But I can’t say which place. As it is, they have more spyware than the NSA.
We’re still on XP. Users are being locked out of everything. All for data safety (which data we shouldn’t have access to anyway, but being paranoid myself, I GET the fears… just not the stupid responses. Anyway.)
Linux, the last distro… I noticed they had the same sort of EULA, and their online marketplace would allow downloads and such ONLY if you accepted that same sort of EULA… “If we f*ck you up, not our problem.”
Maybe it’s time to look back into CentOS? Or maybe BSD? Ubuntu’s looking too … Commercial, now. 🙁
@Eric,
I’m sure glad they links to this site on Lewrockwell….. Never knew there was a libertarian car guy before!
@ Jean:
Must be Ubuntu you’re talking about with the crazy EULA. I don’t see how they can even call that Linux anymore…it’s as bad as Windurs now. I like Slackware- Don’t let the reputation scare you- I’m not even a geek by any stretch of the imagination. Package management can be a little tricky at first…but it’s the oldest and freest (“free” as in “free speech”) distro out there; and it works as well on antiquated hardware as it does on newer stuff. (Just stay away from Antix- it’s maintained by a communist. Betcha he shows up here now that I’ve posted that…he seems to have spies always on the look-out. Seems to take offense when I call him a commie, whereas he calls himself a Marxist!)
And that is why I maintain an older car, and hoard spare parts to keep it running…hopefully until I stop running.
Glad to be driving a 1987 MBenz 300D-T. No transmitters, and virtually EMP-proof!
If the EDR is part of the airbag system, then disabling it should be as easy as replacing the airbag fuse with a blown one, and swap with a good one when going in for service or DMV tripe.
Of course this might put a nagging light on your dash that a cop can see if you’re pulled over. So maybe a hidden switch connected between the airbag fuse wiring would do the job.
A few months ago in a Corvette Magazine I receive,I read something disturbing.A person wrote in about how they had an Insurance/Onstar related problem.Apparently the Insurance company was upset it was not getting mileage updates from Onstar.This happened because the car was rarely driven and it must be started to broadcast the Onstar data.Now ,this person swore he never authorized this to happened and was shocked that it was being done.I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry because I said from the beginning this technology would be used against us.I know it’s only going to get worse (much worse) also..
Hi Reid,
Yup.
A few months ago, there was a bit of a kerfluffle – some may recall – about GM owners who never signed up for the Onstar subscription nonetheless discovering that OnStar was on nonetheless.
It’s all coming together.
boothe, if you mean accident data recorder. looks like you’d want to go with 1999 or 2000 only. The data ostensibly belongs to the car owner. Meaning the bank unless paid off? Also I imagine insurance companies have the right to it, based on your policy. Authorities can get data with court order. Or most likely just take it, like they seem to always do.
One also has to ask oneself, is the data really limited to accidents? Seems hard to believe there aren’t other latent capabilities if they want someone’s data badly enough.
25 page list of vehicles with an Event Data Recorder (EDR) installed by the manufacturer. The list is of those vehicles that are capable of storing crash data records that can
be recovered using commercially available equipment
The data table is sorted in order by year, make and
model.
The amount and type of information stored, and the
conditions that will cause a crash record to
be created, varies greatly. For the most part, a crash record will consist of approximately five
seconds of pre-impact data that can include vehicle
speed, brake application, engine speed,
throttle position and more. A record may also include crash force information.
http://www.harristechnical.com/downloads/EDR%20List.pdf
Feds Impose Mandatory Event Data Recorders in All Cars.
According to this site these vehicles have event data recorders automatically installed:
https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t987528-2/
2001-2007 Ford Mustang
2010-2014 Ford Mustang
2006 Forum post on Mustang
http://forums.corral.net/forums/lounge/1291563-black-box-new-stang.html
Reading owners manual last night for the new Stang and came across an interesting disclaimer.
Event Data Recorder. EDR
Records all kinds of stuff from seat belt to speed to engine parameters, throttle position. Then gives lengthy bold faced disclaimer about how police may or may not use this information against you and then goes on to give disclaimer notices about the GPS system and 911 auto dial system recording similar information.
Disabling EDRs, which cars have EDRs
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=43740.0
It occurs to me that the data can lie, too.
Also that the court throws out whatever data it doesn’t like – for example, there’s a young woman charged with DUI, after a cop T-boned her car because he never stopped at a stop sign. Her neck was broken in 4 places, her blood taken at the hospital confirms NO intoxicants, yet she’s being charged, and the cop is walking free.
Would EDRs be thrown out there? Would it have mattered? Cop slowed, his dashcam shows he didn’t stop – yet the case proceeds? He ADMITTED he didn’t stop.
The law is what we say it is.
I am already detstined for hell for things I’ve done.
Might as well do some good along the way, if you follow my meaning. They aren’t playing by their OWN rules. Why should we? Why play by ANY rules?
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/images/2009/06/432205.jpg
(Link in case the image doesn’t show – might be blocked as cross-site scripting, also might be issues posting it – but I must leave the issues to Dom, I’m afraid. Supposed to be working on a Jazz server validation. Piracy seems so much more honest! Hell, even prostitution is cleaner than what I do any more…)
Jean, that reminds me of something that happened locally: A toddler runs out onto the highway and gets squished by a car. Driver doesn’t stop. Only description of the vehicle they had was a “white SUV or minivan”. They had nothing to go on, so they offered a $5K reward for info. A local drug-addict proffers the name of some woman who happens to have a white minivan. Woman is arrested; Parts from her vehicle are impounded and sent to the state pigs for forensics. Since the “evidence” didn’t prove what they wanted it to, it was conveniently “lost”- meanwhile the woman sits in jail for 7 months. Finally, at pre-trial, her lawyer presents cell phone records which show that the woman was nowhere near the accident scene anywhere near the time of the accident. They actually tried to have the cell phone records thrown out! (but didn’t get away with it). Woman is released, and has to move out-of-state, because the whole county wants to kill her, believing she is guilty because her name was in the paper, and because they had arrested her (They had to put her under guard to even bring her into the courthouse!). Just shows how “they” could care less if you’re innocent or guilty- they’re just interested in convicting *somebody*.
This country deserves everything that is going to come upon it! Even people in small-town local gov’ts make the Roman emperors look sane and decent.
Americans just demand *something* be done. They really don’t care if it works, is right, makes things better or worse, they just want something done. Those in government take full advantage of this condition.
Another reason they shouldn’t vote.
Too busy thinking with their genitals… Even the heart is more rational.
Human beings are essentially tribal a-holes. Not tribal even in the Hutus/Tutsis sense, but in the “Us” and “Them” sense.
The example Moleman provides illustrates this: A “concerned citizen” (drug addict) enabled “US” to identify the guilty party, so she became immediately part of “THEM.” THEM are the enemy. Doesn’t matter skin color, age, etc. US are the victims, the sacred, the enlightened. THEM are the enemy – always.
IT vs. Business.
Business vs. QA.
Motorcycles vs. cars
Cars vs trucks
Cops vs criminals (actually, we’re ALL criminals now, according to them – I can be tribal, too.)
Geeks vs. jocks
Etc.
As you note, it doesn’t matter if the responsible party is punished, it matters that SOMEONE is punished. that’s the origin of the word scapegoat: When the rains were scarce, the tribe in danger, the priests would fete a goat, put all the sins of the tribe into the goat, and then sacrifice the goat (banishment was popular; not sure about killing it outright). The goat would take the blame and the sins with it, and the tribe would be forgiven and blessed.
Not unlike the Christ story, actually. 😛 Someone ELSE takes the blame, and forgiveness is granted. Anyway….
Yeah – just DO SOMETHING. Right or wrong, DO SOMETHING. Feel our pain, save our lives (we’re too stupid to do it ourselves, by educating our children…)
Etc.
The human animal has changed a fraction of a percent in our years on this globe. I mean the RACE’S years, not our personal years.
Maybe I’ve been looking at this all wrong, all along….?
😛
I was raised to think.
I think I’m going to stop worrying about the idiots, and start looking at how to live my own life.
Well-said, Brentp! (Oooo, that P is hard to pronounce….unless you’re Welsh!)
What you describe, is basically the modus operandi of our current political system! Gov’t offers a solution to a problem (which problem was usually created by them in the first place)…idiots welcome the intrusion…err..solution. Doesn’t matter that the “solutions” have never worked in the past, and in-fact, usually accomplish the very opposite of their stated purpose, because American sheep are like 5 year-old amnesiacs.
For Jean: Very perceptive comment! The “jocks vs. geeks” made me think how this behavior is not only ingrained and strengthened in the communal schools- but how it’s even worse these days.
In my day, you had a few groups; and you had just plain individuals. If you didn’t belonmg to one of the three or so groups, you were just a plain-old kid. Today, there are DOZENS of groups- Goths and queers and wiggers and hipsters, etc. -and virtually no individuals/just plain-old kids. I can’t bel;ieve that the majority of our population (even with my already low opinion of them) would send their kids off to these seething caldrons of social engineeering where Lord Of The Flies is played out continually.
BTW: Re: Christ. Jesus volunteered to take on the guiolt of the repentant; big diff. between that and the guilty ones commandeering a victim. (One who does not even have the ability to absolve them, anyway).
But you are absolutely right about not worrying about the idiots. Most people will not listen to reason; and we’ll never change them because their actions are what they are because they only seek to justify their true motives. All we can do is what is best for us…and that not only often turns out to be what is best for everyone…but offers more of a rebuttal by way of the fruits produced in our lives, than anything we could do or say to others.
This will prove to be a double-edged sword. Sure the insurance and police mafia might be able to gain records of the VEHICLE’S driving history, but not YOURS.
Without anyone being able to prove the data is connected to your foot, it’s just a bunch of numbers.
Note that this is also an invasion of privacy.
If the PTB “deem” the records to be yours, you have 72 hours to rebut them. Demand evidence that it was you. They’ve got no hope. Deeming doesn’t stand up to the rules of evidence unless you consent to it.
On the other hand, officer swinest says you were doing “x” and you weren’t, the box will prove you right, providing it’s accurate and, if the box evidence doesn’t stand up in court, then it never will. So insurance companies penalising you for those records can be sued.
It’s like a friend of mine a couple of years ago argued that his GPS black box recorder is far more accurate than the police laser. The judge didn’t understand until he described how GPS works, with at least 4 satellites containing atomic clocks that are far more accurate than a single laser containing none. The judge still didn’t want to entertain the black box reading because he was obviously on the side of the cops.
It was won upon appeal though, because there was no evidence that 4 or more satellites could be lying and there was no human intervention in taking the reading, where the laser could be wrong for many reasons (pan, sweep etc.).
Everybody here knows my stance on car registration etc., so I need not say any more regarding that. If you all collectively let the PTB get away with this crap, you asked for it.
Hi Rev,
This assumes they pay fair – which they do not.
Example: The burden of proof is on you if you receive a red light/automated radar ticket to prove it wasn’t you driving. If you are unable to demonstrate such to the satisfaction of an “arbitrator” (note, not a court) then you lose.
What they have done – and this is brilliantly dirty pool – is categorize traffic fines as civil infractions, thus end-running the usual legal protections that would apply in a criminal prosecution.
“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” – Supposedly Thomas Jefferson
http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/when-injustice-becomes-law-resistance-becomes-duty-quotation
There is a point at which the law becomes immoral and unethical. That point is reached when it becomes a cloak for the cowardice that dares not stand up against blatant violations of justice. – Kurt Huber
http://www.searchquotes.com/search/When_Injustice_Becomes_Law_Resistance_Is_Duty/
Of course, everyone knows my thoughts on how to deal with it. Pedantic and low-level, but still a start…
Exactly right, you are now guilty until proven innocent, the exact opposite of what was supposedly the Amerikan “justice” system. Having been to traffic court a few times over the many decades of driving around here the judge barely listens to your story before declaring in favor of the cop’s testilying. If you have the temerity to appeal it will cost more in fees, court “costs”, your time, etc. than if you just pay the fine. The PTB have all the time in the world to grind you down, and they do it exceedingly well.
eric, cell phone transmission tower being shut down has already been addressed in Tx. Grits for Breakfast, a legal blog for Tx but for other states as well as fed to a great degree since it’s all tied together, spoke of this but it’s still in the “air” so to speak, even though some(mainly the feds)have used this(think Clive Bundy)as a weapon/tool to control others.
It’s been probably 8 years or so a friend who was a tech for GM told me they access the data for a vehicle for any point at any time, totally.
Got that warm, fuzzy feeling yet?
Makes that old 92-93 GM diesel all that more enticing, not a computer on them anywhere and ultra-reliable. The only time Blackie was ever exposed to a computer was when I’d open my lap top at a wifi source on the road.
Lots of great advantages to new cars/light trucks but soooo many disadvantages for the non-sheeple.
An auto-generated message came in on my cash only phone yesterday giving me 500MB more data for free if I’d just auto-pay. Hell, I turned my truck around without even delivering the load and laid the hammer down all the way to the xxxxx store. Actually, I LOL’d, selected “erase” and said out loud to no one “in your fucking dreams pigs”.
I read a while back, that where I used to live on Lawn Guyland (Long Island. Suffolk county, NY) they actually made it so that you have to show ID to buy airtime for phones! Heard of a few other places pulling that, too. The noose just keeps tightening. You know it won’t be long till that spreads to the rest of the asylum- then my Trac-fone (Which I just keep in the glove compartment, and never turn on, except on the rare occasions I want to make a call) gets flushed down the terlit!
Moleman,
Don’t you know that minute cards are a cash substitute these days. Course last I checked, the cards themselves were not trackable, but better keep an eye on that.
That, and payphones are disappearing.,
My car has no electronics beyond the radio, tape deck, and alternator. Guess I’ll keep the old girl going a while longer.
Eric – Fascinating, albeit depressing, information on cars that can (and I’m sure will) rat us out to the authoritays if we “step out of line.” Do you know if the 99 – 04 Mustangs were equipped with data recorders? I’m seriously considering selling my Miata and buying a rag top 5 speed pony GT of that vintage. But then I read your comment about Government Motors OnStar snitch system coming out in the 90’s and that set me to wondering. Did Ford do something similar that we’re not commonly aware of? Even if “they” have to physically retrieve the “black box” I don’t want one in “my” car.
New edge mustangs cannot phone home. Do not have event recorders. I’ve never heard of one having one, no reason why they should. I know 99s don’t and I don’t think it was added in 00-04. Ford did not have anything like on-star and it still doesn’t. The newer cars like my ’12 does have some limited EDR capability. Ford Sync has no data transmission capability without your cell phone best that I can tell. Your cell phone via blue tooth is how it communicates.
I predict an industry in silencing unwanted cell-phone transmitters, and disabling flash memory chips, will spring up.
This stuff is trivially easy to do.
The problem with disabling these devices will be when you register “your” vehicle. They will note they don’t work, and you won’t be allowed to plate that vehicle until you make them work. Many states have inspections or air “pollution” tests, and if items don’t work you have to fix them to get your plates.
For example, in Indiana (Indianapolis and Northwest Indiana areas) we have air pollution tests. However even if ONE idiot light is on, they refuse to even test your car. Doesn’t matter if that light has anything to do with the exhaust system. So it has become a de-facto inspection. So you have to go make that stupid light go off somehow ($$$$$$).
And even if you have no problems they may still refuse to test your car. I had a car that was a little too “loud” (it wasn’t) for one inspector. He said, you have a hole in your muffler (how he knew that I don’t know because he didn’t look). I think he wanted to go on his break, because that is the direction (room labeled break room) he walked after telling me no test. He didn’t log me on the computer either. Lazy a**.
So I went home, double checked to make sure there was no hole, of course there wasn’t. Then drove to a different testing location and that inspector didn’t bat an eye and tested my car. It passed easily too. That first inspector wasted an hour and half of my time. I should have complained, but your not supposed to test more then once a day. But they didn’t know because lazy a** didn’t log me in, so the second one had no idea.
“The problem with disabling these devices will be when you register ‘your’ vehicle.”
Easily solved. Disable them temporarily and re-enable them when it comes time for inspection. Of course, the better solution would be a kit that masks the collected data by clipping the actual values to values within the acceptable limits. I am pretty certain that these devices contain a PROM which can be replaced by and EPROM.
Most automobile Event Data Recorders, aka “black box”, control the air bag deployment. Not being a big fan of air bags, this does not particularly concern me. But, if you do want the utility offered by an air bag, this is something to take into account when considering disconnecting the EDR.
Funny how it’s human nature that puts us there, in Statist clutches….
And then human laziness/stupidity/nature that at least lets us back out again….
” They will note they don’t work, and you won’t be allowed to plate that vehicle until you make them work. Many states have inspections or air “pollution” tests, and if items don’t work you have to fix them to get your plates. ”
They can try all they want. Yet, it is supposedly illegal to drive without insurance still millions do. It is illegal to drive with an expired tag on your car, many still do this (I know of one person at work who has a tag that is 3 months expired and from different state no less).
Truth be told the true technos will not bow to this and will disable them and go on their merry way. Stuff like this is made to entrap and subjugate the masses not the few that are creative and enlightened enough to ‘beat the system’.
Hi Nonya,
Yes, it is possible to drive without insurance insurance (and so on). The problem – the catch – is if you have something they can take.
The poor can ignore “the law.” After all, you can’t take money from someone who hasn’t got any. And if you’re poor, who cares if you spend a few days in the clink? It’s free room and board (and cable TV, too).
But if you’re a typical working/middle class person, you cannot afford to be arrested by the side of the road for not having insurance and valid tags. Your car impounded; you sent to jail.
It’s not just the money, either.
It’s your job.
You will in short order lose it if you are arrested and jailed. And if you are someone like me, who must have a “valid” driver’s license for work – you will no longer be working if your license to drive is no longer “valid.”
Then you will be poor – and “free” ….
>”Then you will be poor – and “free” …”<
HAha! So true, Eric!
When I was a kid growing up in the NYC metro area (one of the LEAST-free places on earth), we didn't even have a car..or anything else to tie us to "the system". -and money for rent and food came from "the government" [I was too young to realize where they got "their" money from :D)….Ironically, we were truly free.
The sad thing is, I could have gone on like that for the rest of my life…they actually encourage it and make it easy; and they actually start turning the screws on you when you go to break-out of that position and actually want to be productive and autonomous.(One of my sister's, though perfectly able-bodied, has remained in that system ALL of her adult life!!)
It's funny- "they" would say that I grew-up in "poverty"….but it was the most joyous time of my life (2nd only to the last dozen or so years, since I lift NY and got some acreage in the country…)
Thanks to the vagaries of the bureaucratic apparat, the “Deep State haf vays” of getting your aging ride off the road, making it ever-more impractical to “pass” these capricious “tests” which typically have zilch to do with whether the vehicle is safe or has emissions in line with its factory capabilities. I see this more with my sons and them keeping their ‘beaters’ alive; we joking call it “getting past the ‘dragon’ “, as in passing “Smaug” (smog).
#2 son back there in corn-growing country (which his job completely depends on, as he works for a multinational Ag conglomerate as the plant engineer) has a hell of an idea. It seems that since VW’s ‘cachet’ has gone down in light of Uncle’s “Fatwas” on their DIESEL vehicles; he’s searching for a newer, but not new, Jetta, with low miles and in pristine condition (i.e., very clean, leather interior, all the “bells and whistles”, less than 40K miles), as there’s plenty out there for less than $12K…to replace his 2003 Jetta, which has long served. At least where he lives in IA, even biannual smog checks aren’t required, so he’s been able to make that ’03 Jetta serve long and well…likely I’d give it to his baby sister who’s almost 18, as likewise where she lives in UT smog is not required either…but here in CA, it would be, and I’d have to solve that old Jetta’s persistent ‘trouble light’ in order to make it ‘legal’ here in Northern CA!
Eric, this article about the proposed rulemaking from the DOT fully supports your article. They deny what it’s really used for: http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/September04/045.html
Eric- thank you for a typically superb and informative article. This is just another reason to buy and maintain clean used cars. My current 2000 BMW E39 may be a money pit, but to my knowledge it’s not a snitch…
Thanks, Jeff!
I’ll be holding onto my old Pontiac (and old bikes) too….
This is interesting, and also troubling due to the potential for abuse. Do you know of any cases where this telemetry is/was used to ticket or prosecute drivers?
I’m thinking that as with any technology there must be a way to “manage” your privacy, so do you know if it is possible to opt-out or disconnect the monitoring?
Question is WHEN it will be abused, BY WHOM.
Never IF.
And there IS NO opt out, nor will there EVER be one.
Disconnecting it will be illegal, and if you are caught (and with the soon-to-be-mandatory V2V communications, you WILL be caught – or wrecked, per an old Car and Driver magazine Op-Ed, circa 1970!) you’ll be fined, imprisoned, maybe even executed.
Remember the tinfoil-hat conspiracies of the past: how many are actually turning out true, or at least, truer than we’d thought possible?
The USSR WON the cold war – we just didn’t know they’d done so by infiltrating our government. (They didn’t need agents, either – they just allowed the American Sheeple to populate the disease of Cloverism – aka nanny-statism, i.e. need to control others. Where wealth accumulates, men decay. Morally as well as physically.)
Example: The CIA was created to deal with foreign enemies. They now can target Americans, and operate on American soil. They are also big in the drug trade…
Example: SWAT. Meant for terrorist and hostage situations. Now used for serving no-knock warrants at 3 AM, to the wrong house, for such egregious crimes as unpaid parking tickets.
Example: the evil black rifles that Americans can’t be allowed to have? Officer Not-So-Friendly calls it a patrol rifle. DHS calls it a Personal Defense Weapon. And those are AUTOMATICS, whereas the American civillian cannot be trusted with a semi-automatic weapon.
Get the picture yet? It’s all meant to control and intimidate us. All it has ever been about.
Morpheus: What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.
[holds up a Duracell battery]
Neo: No, I don’t believe it. It’s not possible.
Morpheus: I didn’t say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be the truth.
___
What if I told you the human battery thing started before even the cube farms…?
We are merely units of work. We must be kept productive in the early years – then quietly put down in our declining years… So, poison the air, food, water, with slow-acting poisons (e.g. carcinogens) – and then make us PAY for the “cures” (which are in fact as bad as or worse than the diseases they “cure”, which really means, the disease symptoms they hide.) If we were slaves, the master would want to keep us healthy, sheltered, well-fed, complacent. But making the chains gold – economics – the slave believes himself free, but then must pay for his own food, shelter, water, amusements, car insurance, health insurance, etc.
BTW, I’m the resident firebrand. Though I’m seeing mroe and more people around the country wake up… Just hope they realize the long-term costs, before the long-term and short-term costs are equivalent.
Yes, On-start can be bypassed. All of the modules in the GM vehicles share data by hard wiring them together in series. ( for now anyway ) The communication lines for On-star are the High Speed Lan lines, or HSLAN. There are two wires that go into the module, and two that exit the module that go to the next module in the series.
The 2 going into the module can be clipped, and reconnected to the 2 that exit the module, and all other modules can still share data, as they must, or your vehicle will not run. This is not illegal. Not all GM vehicle have On-star yet, and the wiring schematics show application with and without On-Star. You should be able to get a schematic on-line or from a full service auto repair facility.