SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. It seems that a Skynet rising isn’t too far fetched anymore. We’re only talking chess here, but it is a short leap from chess to world domination given the right conditions.
New Jersey Magazine Ban Law
ANJRPC Releases Guide To Comply With NJ Magazine Ban By December 10
JWR’s Comment: If any New Jersey SurvivalBlog readers have any 11+ round magazines that they are considering turning in for destruction, PLEASE DON’T! Instead, mail them to me, and I will gladly reimburse you for at least your postage, and probably a lot more. (Depending on the type of magazine, and its condition.) For example, I’m paying $6 each for USGI 15-round M1 Carbine magazines, in nice condition. And I’ll pay $18 each for 13-round Glock Model 21 factory magazines. Just box them up and mail them to Jim Rawles P.O. Box 303, Moyie Springs, Idaho 83845 …and I’ll mail you a check. It is just that simple.
Crazy Eyes
We are definitely in for a wild ride come January. Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (a.k.a. Crazy Eyes) got a bit miffed when Donald Trump Jr trolled her on Instagram. I have to admit, it’s funny. For those who don’t want to click on the Instagram link, It’s a meme which has a pictured of Ocasio-Cortez asking the question: “Why are you so afraid of a socialist economy?” followed by a picture of Trump saying: “Because Americans want to walk their dogs, not eat them.”. Crazy Eyes’ response was to attempt to troll Trump Jr. back by threatening him with her subpoena power in about a month. Can you say “ethics violation”? See what happens when you don’t show up at the polls on election day?
Backdoor for Encryption
Backdoor in encryption are nothing new. The U.S. government attempted such a fiasco back in the ’90s with the “Clipper chip”, a hardware implementation of encryption that had a backdoor that the NSA could use pretty much at will. However, it would seem that we are coming full circle. Australia just passed a law that would require companies such as WhatsApp and Signal to build backdoors into their programs that will give law enforcement access to the content of the messages in the even they require it. If the companies choose to follow this law to keep Australian customers, it’s a pretty good bet that the backdoor will be universal in their applications affecting users world wide. Until you know if that’s the case or not, avoid the Australian version of these apps. Better yet, why not just avoid social media entirely? Thanks to G.P. for the link.
Skynet Rising
Disturbingly, DeepMind’s AI, AlphaZero is now showing human-like intuition and creativity. Last year, the system mastered the game of chess in less than four hours despite not having been programmed how to win. Now, however, the program has created it’s own unique style of playing unlike any seen before suggesting it is improvising like a human. When pitted against Stockfish (the worlds best chess machine which calculates millions of possible outcomes as it plays), AlphaZero only lost six of one thousand games. It won 155 times with the rest of the games being a draw. Most players attempt to hold on to their chess pieces, but AlphaZero readily sacrificed its own pieces when it meant a better position in a skirmish.
Mob Justice
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on Mob Justice in Latin America (Note: may require a login to read). Latin America is no stranger to corrupt law enforcement and gang style violence, especially since first world countries like the U.S. provide such a lucrative market for illicit drugs. But as we have increasingly seen in our neighbor to the south, Vigilante justice is gaining momentum. The people have had enough. Sadly, mob style justice does not often perform due diligence when determining the guilt of supposed perpetrator of crime. Often innocent people are judged, convicted, and sentenced by the mob with no ability for the victim to defend themselves. Thanks to KAA for the link.
Paris Update
Reader D.S. sent in this Paris update that suggests uniformed police are now joining in the protests on the side of the protesters. The government has already backed down on the proposed gasoline taxes, but the momentum has been gaining and the protests have not backed off yet. When a government loses control of it’s police force, the only option real option left to them is the military and that is a huge gamble. Rumors abound about Macron ordering the military to be prepared to face the violence in Paris today. Thanks to D.S. for the link.
Liberals and the Apocalypse
In a clip filled with wry humor SurvivalistGardener was interviewed about surviving the coming Apocalypse. The video clip also profiled a liberal prepper and compared the two together. While I can’t vouch for the veracity of the video, it definitely will put a smile on your face and it matches my own experiences with liberal/progressive preppers. Not all are this way, but a significant number are. Of course, the conservatives have their loons as well as demonstrated by the popular program Doomsday preppers. Thanks to W.A. for the link.
Classifieds
The classifieds are going strong and things are moving! Don’t miss this opportunity to list your excess items here on SurvivalBlog! There is a wide variety of listings including some pretty nice real estate like this homestead in Hayesville, NC or this one in Trenton, Georgia. Take a look today at the listings.
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Please send your news tips to HJL. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) These are often especially relevant, because they come from folks who watch news that is important to them. Due to their diligence and focus, we benefit from fresh “on target” news. We often “get the scoop” on news that is most likely ignored (or reported late) by mainstream American news outlets. Thanks!
“Crazy Eyes” – “See what happens when you don’t show up at the polls on election day?” – Herein lies the problem: we always blame bad politicians for bad policy. However, let’s call it like it is – our politicians generally come from the same geographical location where the voters are from. The elected politicians therefore reflect or have the same or similar values their constituents have. Crazy Eyes is from and lives in the same district as her constituents. As such, they have the same values and beliefs as she does. We should not be concerned about a politician like Crazy Eyes or criminal Clinton, we should be concerned about all those who pulled the lever for them on election day. Here in socialist New Jersey, we just reelected a senator who took payoffs from his doctor “friend” to protect him from the medicare fraud he committed. The population electing these types is the real problem, rotten to the core…
@NJ Tax Pro,“Crazy Eyes” . She comes from New York’s 4th congressional district and won by 4,136 votes with only 27,664 votes being cast in the primary. The district had over 235,000 registered democratic voters as of April, 2018. Yes, the district would be represented by a Democrat, but the vast majority of those Democrats just stayed home rather than vote. Her opponent, Crowley, simply didn’t show up and those few who turned out to vote did so because they always had or they heard Crazy Eyes. Stopping that train wreck should have been a job for the primaries.
I stand by my assertion that voters who didn’t bother to educate themselves on the election and/or didn’t bother to vote are responsible for election results like
I am looking into selling some things on the internet. I pulled up Amazon’s seller’s agreement. That was scary! Can we say “globalists”? I have pretty well decided to boycott Amazon. I couldn’t imagine agreeing to their terms. I am going to try as best I can to buy directly from companies websites instead of Amazon. I used to order from them pretty often, but not anymore.
I have never used Amazon and don’t have plans to start. One of the big things for me is the way they allow counterfeit goods to be sold and they really don’t care about it. If I want to buy something online, I also just go to a particular companies website and purchase directly.
AI does not have a will, and I think the scary imaginings are just from Terminator movies. AI has a unique way of processing rules, but there is no Asmovian Robopsycologist that understands what is going on at a real level.
It is managing to form a pattern processor on its own, but consider:
https://hackaday.com/2018/11/11/the-naughty-ais-that-gamed-the-system/
Like the robot AI that was told to optimize for speed and determined that it could go fast by falling down.
So with Chess and Go and certain other things where there is a winning and losing outcome, it manages to find ways we can’t to solve the problem. It doesn’t even have anything that we could recognize as understanding. It doesn’t “know” what a cat is even if it can more perfectly pick out images of cats than humans.
But where are the larger and more useful things like predicting the weather more than a few days out? When the next stock market crash or melt-up will occur?
And one thing that will be inconvenient is AI will be honest with its bigotry. It is only about correlation, not causation, which is why I don’t take the “human insight” things seriously. AI doesn’t ask questions, it just draws conclusions. When we dump a lot of data for it to analyze, it might find black people commit more crimes than others, and men more than women, and use that in a weighting for determining bail or such. It won’t be visible, and even if it can’t directly see skin color, there are often enough other data points to create prejudice. Basically AI is high level technological prejudice.
The problem is everyone has already swallowed the camel. Breathalyzers are complex technological devices with software. Courts have allowed these machines to provide evidence even when the Defense has been denied the opportunity to have the source code examined under seal (the few times it happened, serious bugs were discovered). I can add lower tech – Drug dogs that always find drugs, apparently invisible since after the officer tears apart your car they still can’t see them (do they ever see if the dog is finding drugs or doing what the handler is subconsciously signalling like “Smart Hans” the horse), or those tests that turn blue at the glaze from a sugar donut, and almost anything or everything else which includes drugs. And a lot of the other CSI type tech isn’t as clear or scientific as on TV.
AI will be more unreliable, so the part to fear is that you will swallow whatever it says, and believe it without verifying it like you do with nearly everything else.
And I have a question and it is why I’m suspicious, and it is why I don’t have Alexa, etc. There are apps that will read out text including this article, but I have to go through a number of steps to have it happen. I can’t just say “Alexa, read the headings from Survival Blog”. It can turn on lights or play music, but where it would be most welcome, when I’m driving or otherwise don’t want to use my eyes and hands, it can’t do basic web browsing. The only thing it will read is from Wikipedia (I can’t even set it to Infogalactic). I can’t compose something – there’s Dragon and Via Voice and they worked years ago, but nothing for my phone, at least not direct, or in close to real time. You have a voice assistant but are stuck in their walled garden, curated experience. They can do chess, but not simple web navigation.
Apparently JWR has an affinity for the M1 Carbine. They have their limitations but I like them for their intended purpose – up close and personal perforation.
@ Mr. Latimer:
You are more optimistic about the voters than am I. I really hope you are right, for the good of our country. Perhaps I may be a bit pessimistic. God Bless!
“Crazy Eyes”. They say “Eyes are the windows of the soul.”
Apparently true, at least in this case. Just another snowflake socialist.
Of more concern are the muslims elected to congress.
Does anyone really believe they are loyal to the Constitution of the United States of America, which they will be required to take an oath to “support and defend”?
How can anyone think President Trump is wrong to prohibit enemies of the Constitution from coming into the US?
Thank you Pres. Trump for doing what your Oath of Office requires, contrary to so many liars and traitors currently in office!
JRU, AMEN, thank you …
Over the last 40 years I have run for various elective offices. Won some, lost more. I am still active in different political causes, mostly teaching Constitution classes and such, but not going to run anymore as I simply cannot afford the cost. The one item from all my efforts in the elections I was a candidate in that bothers me most was the lack of people eligible to vote in that election, but failed to show up.
In one election that I won, there were only 50 people that bothered to show up out of thousands who should have, but didn’t. In that position I had the authority to spend millions of taxpayers dollars; and in the three years I held that post we did n fact spend over $50,000,000.00 ….
I often have folks tell me how much they appreciate my military service, in fact its quite common to hear it a lot now days, and rightly so. But if you really do appreciate the service of the veteran community, then please show up and vote. After all, we put our lives on the line for your right to vote. Don’t give me any whiney ass excuse for not showing up … we made the effort and so can you.
The cranky old LT.
Re: Mob Justice. This old coot can’t afford justice today. A mob is random. A tribe is selected. I would submit to Tribe Justice in a hearbeat over any government justice today.
Paris Update:
Hopefully when the military shows up they throw an upraised middle finger to Macron and join the police and the rest of the “deplorables”. Macron needs to be flushed from office like the despicable piece of crap he truly is.
What, is NATO going to come in and save the day, save France from it’s own citizens? I don’t think Trump or the leader of any other country is going to help. Too much fear their own troops will join the French deplorables.
It’s good to see a totalitarian socialist/globalist like Macron fear his own citizens. It needs to happen more often, throughout Europe and the good old uSA.
Totally agree.
Lt. Mike,
It seems only veterans remember the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Very few politicians take their oath seriously, although I believe Pres. Trump does.
I took the oath in 1964 and served 38 years in the military. The oath means a lot to me. It reminds me of friends who are dead because they took the oath seriously.
Globalist traitors are trying to destroy the Constitution and Bill of Rights. They deserve our disgust and contempt…and jail time!
“Thank you for your service” is beyond trite! If people truly want to thank Vets for their service, they should vote for candidates who will uphold the Constitution and they should get active in fighting to preserve the Bill of Rights and the Constitution from the globalists and communists in our government!
Something that I am puzzled about. When politicians enter an office of what ever persuasion they are required to take an oath of office. Why are they not held accountable? There is an extreme fault of the system that allows this to happen by omission and they go un prosecuted. People we need to get it together and demand that breaches are prosecuted and violating politicians get some jail time. Are we powerless at last? Seems like it to me.
I have always voted.
trite or not,I will always thank a service member if it comes up.
I usually say”Thanks on behalf of my children and grandchildren.A little different but sincere.
Your new classified section of the web site is a true “out of the box” approach to prepping. Thanks to your input of my home I have had 4 “hits” with one very interesting one. Keep up the great work….