psychophipps

Use one-time pads.  These are single-use encryption methods that are so random, they are to be used for one message and then are discarded, that they're basically impossible to break as you'll never have an example of the key from both sides.

Give the guy a PDA with a series of keys and transmit back and forth only in emergencies or set times.  The good part about this method is that each key is only good for a single, short message so finding it wouldn't help the AI much as it weouldn't know the sequence that the keys are to be used in.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

I am a person who has the full knowledge that this selected activity is entirely unneccessary.  I furthermore state with great authority that the environmental-rape-in-a-box that the signals I'm writing this post with are coming from is completely unneccessary for my survival or the survival of the human species on the whole.  How does this $2000 hunk of plastic and random semiconductors that serves me no purpose other than entertainment not qualify as excessive when I could very well have helped someone who really needed the money instead?

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

I really dug it too.  

I found the changes to the movies to be largely beneficial in both cinema and story as the actual LotR trilogy was boring as books.  Too many useless sidetracks and he couldn't describe a fight for sh*t.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

MY friend got burgled a bit ago.  Well, he almost did.  Seems the asshole didn't notice the blue and white home security sign before he booted in my buddy's front door...literally.

Blew out a $400 antique door lock, had to replace part of the frame, interior trim, and door.  

The funny thing is that he thinks he saw the guy drive past him as he rounded the corner at the end of his block.  He saw the guy backing out and figured he was flipping a bitch or something.  Didn't bother to look at him enough for an ID.

He and his wife never wanted a gun in their home before this but they really like the .45 revolver his grandpa gave them...

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

I buy all my music, thanks.  I feel that if I like a bands music the least I can do is support them so they can make me some more.  The greed of record companies or their subordinate legal staff has no bearing on the fact that when you steal music, and I'm not talking about a random song now and again to decide if you want the CD, you're stealing from people who have done one hell of a lot of work to be where they're at.  Just like you.  Just like me.

I run a "janky" copy of my OS that is pre-registery so I can basically insert a random key into it.  As long as the spun key isn't already registered I can use it (and the spinner checks for me).  Of course, this IS a pre-sales copy that was handed out free to a few select PC manufacturers.

I'm not really guilty about this, to be honest.  The actual retail price, even at wholesalers like Cosco, is out-freaking-rageous and it's getting to the point where you need these regular upgrades to even run your machine anymore.  I realise that this is how things work in the industry but you really shouldn't have to shell out well over $100 US just so your machine can run video games.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

The tweak to the above that I would make is the addition of "post armor damage is increased by one point for each point over the needed roll to hit."  This will help stop the, rather lame and not funny, derringer-to-assault cannon incident mantioned above.

Mark(psycho)Phipps(( HAHAHA! )

Nano-optical and nano-auditory upgrades.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Nationalism is nothing more than the human tendency to say, even if it's subconscious, "You are not the same as me and mine" with a handy line in the dirt.  This said, it's pretty much impossible to remove as long as there are borders of any kind even if those borders are the walls of your current domicile.

There is deep rooted psychological need for humans to separate themselves from others while at the same time maintaining relationships with others.  This basic contradiction adequately displays why the world is the way it is as it points out that very little of what we do makes much sense to people from the third person perspective.

In other words, we're on nothing more than world full of 6 billion plus random fluctuations that we still try to make sense of while separating ourselves from it with a whimsical, "Glad it's not me..."

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

It's amazing how much more smoothly negotiations go when you have someone who is willing to negotiate.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Whoa there now, Hoss!  I never described anyone as a victim.  I merely stated that the "victim's mentality" tends to be common amongst the other first-world nations and that it's becoming more common even here in the U.S.

Every (potentually inflamatory) comment after that was in response to a (potentually inflamatory) comment made by someone else,

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Thank you for taking markc's comments to the intellectually challenged extreme. While I do appreciate a healthy arguement as much as the next overbearing, opinionated w*nker, this has entered the level of "patently ridiculous".  Common sense states that you would at least give it a go, if it's feasable and reasonably safe, and do a runner if it's obviously not.

DUH.

You know what, Wiphe?  You actually sometimes run into this kind of thing in the U.S. as well.

Now, how about we put this into perspective, shall we?

Note: This poor guy has been pretty much constantly burglarized for an extended period of time.

Note: The article didn't mention one bit about the circumstances of Mr. Martin giving that car the good news six years previous.  Given the very limited information here, the immediate and probably overreacting response by the local police to any firearms incident because guns are BAD, and the probably very limited investigation by the police who, again, simply took his permit away because "decent folk don't use guns, no matter what".  For all we know, he might have been telling someone to get off of his property and stop trespassing, responding to a threat he had received that was unprovable during the investigation, or some other such situation.

Note: He's known to have a problem with the local police.  Umm...Duh? You get constantly robbed despite your best attempts at home security, including removing a f*cking staircase fer chrissakes, and get an equally long list of, "Sorry Wilphe, but we can't catch them" and tell me how supportive you are of your local police department.  Wow, you probably wouldn't be either, eh?

Now add that the local police have attempted to remove your ability to protect yourself and your comfortable livelyhood, 6K quid in furniture probably means he was stuck sleeping on a f*cking cot, and this picture gets to be even more clear.  

Of course he feared for his life!  He's surrounded by unsupportive police officers and he's getting potentually-violent felonies commited in his home on a regular basis!

How about the fact that he's known to be a "dangerous, gun-toting, old nutter" and I'm further willing to bet that he gets his share of harrassment from them just as he would here in the States.

Note: The authorities are holding him from early release because he has the gall to not feel bad because he shot some punk kid and a professionally-criminal drug pusher who broke into his home to steal his livelyhood.  They furthermore state that he will be a threat to future burglars (Too right! ) so he's a naughty boy!

*LOL* Where do you guys get this stuff?!?

Why don't you just give up and simply agree to disagree on this issue already?

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

And he would have gotten much less far if the cashier at the petrol station had a defensive firearm like many have in here in the States.  His weapon was empty and knowing that the cashier was unarmed he knew that he could calmly walk away in that situation where he'd have a fair to middlin' chance of getting gatted in the spine, or in the chest when he first walked into the building, here in the States.

When the first police vehicle showed up on-scene he also knew that the officers inside didn't have a firearm so he knew that he could calmly stand up without any cover at all and fire indiscriminately at them.  Had this happened in the States, he would have had to take cover from the two armed officers inside the vehicle, both wearing ballistic armor, and take the time to engage them before he could have continued with his killing spree, giving other officers a chance to also arrive at the incident.

So far this story has done nothing but point out with startling clarity that having armed citizens and/or police officers would have dramatically reduced the loss of life and potentually ended the situation in a much shorter timespan. Furthermore, it also shows that the certain knowledge that his victims where unarmed, and thus completerly lacking in a credible threat, gave him a confidence in the commision of his crimes that he would not have shared here in the United States.

The other two stories, while certainly tragic, were commited with illegal firearms in the first place from what I can see in the stories.  They were also commited in such a rapid timeframe that official response times were pretty much out of the equation until it was all over. Of course, these incidents could very well have happened here in the States with pretty much the same results due to the targets involved and the way that the crime was commited.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

An interesting story happened here in the US a year or two ago. Some student at a college had flipped out and started randomly blowing holes into people, a legal owned firearm but the man didn't have a Concealed Carry Permit.  This went on for a bit, it does take the police a bit to get somewhere, but when the fuzz showed up it was already taken care of with the suspect captured.

Turns out that a couple of fellow students saw what he was doing and did a runner to their cars so that they could grab their own pistols, both also legally owned, to even things up a bit.  The suspect, not expecting to see some fellow students at a liberal arts college charging at him with firearms at the ready, promptly stopped shooting.  The two armed students covered him and, despite the fact that shooting the suspect was well within their rights, one actually tackled him and wrestled the weapon from him while the other student kept him covered.

Of course, the news told all about this incident and the heroics of the two students, but their reported story had one slight switch from reality.  Seems that just about every news agency covering it randomly (Whoops! Our bad! ) forgot to mention the use of firearms by the students that facilitated their ability to close with the suspect and tackle him in the first place.  

When questioned on the matter, the suspect honestly stated to police something along the lines of "When I saw that they had pistols pointed at me, I stopped shooting.  They were screaming for me to put my pistol down and I didn't want to get shot."  Nice one, you f*cking w*nker!  

The police further stated during a press release, with some obvious editting involved so that the students legally owned firearms were not mentioned in the broadcast, that the intervention of the students saved a number of lives.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Looks like I'll be going with a Glock 23 or a Glock 23C.  You guys think that the compensator is worth the extra bucks?  Also, I have a price of $492 + $25 s/h and insurance from a website.  How does this stack up with prices you can get where you are?

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Not one bit, honestly.  In fact, I find the overwhelming assumption that everyone is basically unarmed to be quite scary because each and every single criminal in the UK (who is already commiting a crime here so what's packing a weapon going to do except increase their odds of success?) knows that you're not a threat to them if they have a weapon because you certainly won't.  The fact that you find this situation not only perfectly acceptable but blandly inevitable further disturbs me.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Just goes to show that no matter how bright your light or how dark your hole, there is always shades of grey in it somewhere.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Well, I'm not scared of everyone I meet either!

Contrary to what you non-carrying country guys and gals might think or hear, we don't use and carry firearms because we think that everyone around us is a potentual psychopath just looking for someone to snap on. We feel pretty much the same way about the "getting attacked" as well, to be perfectly honest.  

I, and many of my fellow americans, simply fail to see the point in getting potentually killed by an aforementioned "random incident" because of a lack of being more prepared for it if you can be.  This is why I study the martial arts and this is why I'll probably be carrying a concealed firearm sometime in the foreseeable future.

Think of it like a toolbox for your home. You have tools in it for those "just in case" moments, not the certain knowledge that everything is going to suddenly catastrophically fail in rapid succession. Our second amendment right from our constitution simply means that we have legal access to a tool that your government doesn't let you have outside of the military and law enforcement.  

It doesn't make us more dangerous on average to anyone from outside the U.S. barring the commission of a crime because, as the media doesn't like mentioning very often, citizens with concealed carry permits very rarely (as in well under five recorded incidents per year) flip out and start randomly blowing holes into people.  You see, the people who bother getting these permits are the responsible, consciencious people who lock thier firearms up in a safe when they're not in use and take courses on firearms safety and correct defensive shooting.

As for the "random danger" faced here in the U.S. that we have to "defend ourselves from" I can only point out that when I was hanging out with a bunch of brits, aussies and kiwis back in Madison, WI I saw them get into more fistfights and random brawls over stupid sh*t than I ever saw the U.S. guys getting into.  Hell, they'd just grab a random bottle and have a go at the poor guy who "looked at them funny" or some similar nonsense. I discussed this with my friend who spent two years up in Scotland and he concurs completely.  You UK guys are freakin' nuts!

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Actually, the weapons dropped in Japan were atomic, or fission, weapons.  The hydrogen bomb, also known as  thermonuclear or fusion weapon, wasn't developed and deployed until 1952, IIRC.

An interesting sidenote is the fact that the japanese military was perfectly willing, and planning, to fight until every man, woman and child was a corpse.  One of the generals turned to the emperor randomly and asked what he thought of their plans.  The emperor paused in thought and told them to stand down so that Japan wouldn't be eradicated from the earth.

Another note is that a mistranslation resulted in the second weapon being dropped.  After the first weapon detonated the envoys of each government met and discussed Japan's potentual surrender.  The japanese, the inscruciable people they are, had used a word that can be potentually translated as both "We're considering it, but slowly" and "I think not" depending on it's usage and context.  Well, they meant the first and we got the last.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

I agree on the ankle holster, DS.  Another aspect of the ankle holster is the incredibly slow draw you get with them.  You need to do a full crouch (never a good thing in a defensive situation), disengage the security feature, and draw the weapon from a full down position all the way up to your LOS while keeping your eyes on your attacker the whole time.  Needless to say, there is a fairly good chance you'll simply get a boot to the nug-bone as you're doing all of this which has a very good chance of making you blow one of these steps and failing to draw your weapon.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

I will end my comments on this section of this topic with a great comment that my dad told me once, "Assumption is the mother of all clusterf*cks".

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

What makes Americans carry firearms is a cultural lack of the all-too-common "victims mentality" that pervades large sections of the first-world countries.  This mentality, and it's honestly becoming more common even here, basically points out that all of the "protective services" out there are reactionary in nature.  

For instance, the police.  Great if you have a crime to report but they really can't help you in any way until a crime has been commited and they can get some proof.  They can't keep some crackhead from blowing a hole in you for some rock unless they randomly hit him carrying either drugs or his weapon. As long as he lays low until he decides to go out popping caps, he has free reign for the most part.

So we look at this situation of basically being screwed unless we're armed or Bruce-frickin'-Lee and most who decide they don't like it this way go the route of a defensive tool of some sort. These help to even the odds a bit and it often doesn't require 10 years of Uf Gnuk classes to fend off some thug looking for easy prey.  Common sense then directs many of them into a firearms retailer as the light weight, immediate stopping potentual, longer range and typical multiple shots makes them prime examples of personal defensive weaponry.

It's all fairly logical when you look at it from a proactive standpoint,

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Not sure yet, honestly.  I really dug this compact Kimber I was handling at the Sportsman's Warehouse over Thanksgiving weekend.  Well, I liked everything except the price tag...

I'm interested in giving the S&W 1076, the old FBI sidearm in 10mm, a spin because I'm big enough to handle the recoil.  Of course, finding 10mm ammo is getting kinda hard what with .40 S&W taking it's place in the 9mm+ market.

Maybe a .40 Glock?

*sighs*

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Any thoughts on the front carry, guys?  I'm thinking about picking up a CC weapon and that's the carry I prefer of the ones I've tried.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

I'd go with some of the new PDWs that are out now.  Low recoil, plenty accurate out to acceptable urban ranges, shoot through current body armor and good magazine capacities with low ammunition and weapon weight.

Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

You're right, Karsten.  El Salvador would probably now be run by the "communist" narcotraficantes, just like Colombia.  You know, the place where they still hack people to bits on a regular basis to keep the others in line and the drug money is the only thing keeping the country running.

That would be MUCH better for the average El Salvadoran than the current setup...

Mark(psycho)PHipps( HAHAHA! )