So no, I won’t take it until I see how it plays out in society. And if I am persuaded by the evidence, I might take it. I’ve taken only 1 flu shot. As someone in mid-20s, I have low risk and honestly would prefer getting the flu to injecting myself with a vaccine. So I’ve elected to stop getting flu shots and take the risk. For now, I think 18 hours of suffering isn’t that bad. When I’m over the age of 40, or over 60, or at whatever age I decide, then maybe I’ll reconsider if I prefer to get sick or take a vaccine that may or may not work, given the multitude of strains of the flu.

For now, I wash my hands, wash my food, keep shoes outside, and stay home if I’m sick. Responsible self-quarantining and healthy diet are my strategies to avoid contracting or spreading sickness.

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Dear Cale:

I received your communication indicating your concerns about the two National Security Agency programs that have been in the news recently. I appreciate that you took the time to write on this important issue and welcome the opportunity to respond.

First, I understand your concerns and want to point out that by law, the government cannot listen to an American's telephone calls or read their emails without a court warrant issued upon a showing of probable cause. The programs that were recently disclosed have to do with information about phone calls – the kind of information that you might find on a telephone bill – in one case, and the internet communications (such as email) of non-Americans outside the United States in the other case. Both programs are subject to checks and balances, and oversight by the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the Judiciary.

As Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I can tell you that I believe the oversight we have conducted is strong and effective and I am doing my level best to get more information declassified. Please know that it is equally frustrating to me, as it is to you, that I cannot provide more detail on the value these programs provide and the strict limitations placed on how this information is used. I take serious my responsibility to make sure intelligence programs are effective, but I work equally hard to ensure that intelligence activities strictly comply with the Constitution and our laws and protect Americans' privacy rights.

These surveillance programs have proven to be very effective in identifying terrorists, their activities, and those associated with terrorist plots, and in allowing the Intelligence Community and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to prevent numerous terrorist attacks. More information on this should be forthcoming.

· On June 18, 2003, the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) testified to the House Intelligence Committee that there have been "over 50 potential terrorist events" that these programs helped prevent.

· While the specific uses of these surveillance programs remain largely classified, I have reviewed the classified testimony and reports from the Executive Branch that describe in detail how this surveillance has stopped attacks.

· Two examples where these surveillance programs were used to prevent terrorist attacks were: (1) the attempted bombing of the New York City subway system in September 2009 by Najibullah Zazi and his co-conspirators; and (2) the attempted attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in October 2009 by U.S. citizen David Headley and his associates.

· Regarding the planned bombing of the New York City subway system, the NSA has determined that in early September of 2009, while monitoring the activities of Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan, NSA noted contact from an individual in the U.S. that the FBI subsequently identified as Colorado-based Najibullah Zazi. The U.S. Intelligence Community, including the FBI and NSA, worked in concert to determine his relationship with Al Qaeda, as well as identify any foreign or domestic terrorist links. The FBI tracked Zazi as he traveled to New York to meet with co-conspirators, where they were planning to conduct a terrorist attack using hydrogen peroxide bombs placed in backpacks. Zazi and his co-conspirators were subsequently arrested. Zazi eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to bomb the NYC subway system.

· Regarding terrorist David Headley, he was also involved in the planning and reconnaissance of the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India that killed 166 people, including six Americans. According to NSA, in October 2009, Headley, a Chicago businessman and dual U.S. and Pakistani citizen, was arrested by the FBI as he tried to depart from Chicago O'Hare airport on a trip to Europe. Headley was charged with material support to terrorism based on his involvement in the planning and reconnaissance of the hotel attack in Mumbai 2008. At the time of his arrest, Headley and his colleagues were plotting to attack the Danish newspaper that published the unflattering cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, at the behest of Al Qaeda.

Not only has Congress been briefed on these programs, but laws passed and enacted since 9/11 specifically authorize them. The surveillance programs are authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which itself was enacted by Congress in 1978 to establish the legal structure to carry out these programs, but also to prevent government abuses, such as surveillance of Americans without approval from the federal courts. The Act authorizes the government to gather communications and other information for foreign intelligence purposes. It also establishes privacy protections, oversight mechanisms (including court review), and other restrictions to protect privacy rights of Americans.

The laws that have established and reauthorized these programs since 9/11 have passed by mostly overwhelming margins. For example, the phone call business record program was reauthorized most recently on May 26, 2011 by a vote of 72-23 in the Senate and 250-153 in the House. The internet communications program was reauthorized most recently on December 30, 2012 by a vote of 73-22 in the Senate and 301-118 in the House.

You may be interested to know that the Senate Intelligence Committee will be proposing changes to these programs to ensure transparency and to make public additional facts. Attached to this letter is an opinion piece (http://tinyurl.com/NSA-OpEd) I authored in the Washington Post on July 30, 2013 that further highlights our proposed changes. While I very much regret the disclosure of classified information in a way that will damage our ability to identify and stop terrorist activity, I believe it is important to ensure that the public record now available on these programs is accurate and provided with the proper context.

Again, thank you for contacting me with your concerns and comments. I appreciate knowing your views and hope you continue to inform me of issues that matter to you. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact my office in Washington, D.C. at (202) 224-3841.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein United States Senator

This is how I got into making my own website. I came across BMFW [0], and studied the CSS file. I styled my plain html, adapted their CSS, and then kept going, finding inspiration from other sites and projects along the way. Almost 4 years later, my site [1] is a lot better, though still not perfect or finished.

I plan to download this React template, and use it as a learning opportunity. I'm definitely more interested in learning Vue or another hipster ass framework, but at this point I've done zero learning. Gotta start somewhere.

[0] http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/

[1] https://www.calebyers.com/about.html

[0] https://www.calebyers.com/blog/dns-ad-blocking.html

I bought two Sony a7ii cameras and a flash for only $1400, because they were used. Full price new, it would've been 3600. They work great, and I can use my money on other things. I see very few reasons to buy new electronics, especially given the security of an iPhone and how easily they are reset.

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049

I have been meaning to shoot a roll of ISO 16 film, the CMS20 II by Adox. They claim it can resolve up to 500MP of details.

Would be great to compare to results to full frame with adapted film lens.

Here's their film page with sample pictures: http://www.adox.de/Photo/adox-films-2/cms-20-ii-adotech-ii/

My canon is currently mid-roll with infrared, so it'll be a while before I get around to using it.

If you take two pictures of the same scene, one with a small sensor, and the other with a larger sensor, the geometric difference is apparent.

Scale a 5 meter tree down to the size of a phone's sensor, and you're having to tightly pack the detail of the tree, to something smaller than your fingernail.

But shrink that same tree onto a bigger sensor, or a sheet of 4x5 film, and you don't compress the tree as much.

We don't notice the shortcomings of phone sensors until we try to print the photos. They don't enlarge very well. Printing an 8x10 from a cellphone is challenging, and the grain and imperfections are magnified.

But you can enlarge that piece of film to 8x10 no problem, and the detail is astounding.

If you only look at phone pictures on a phone, then they look very nice, and a piece of 4x5 film is bigger than some phone screens. There are more silver crystals (pixels) in the film than there are pixels in your phone screen, so you can't appreciate the total detail of film on a small phone either.

The thing to consider is choosing the sensor or the film size based on how you want to display the image. Then you pick the best camera for the situation, considering cost, convenience, usability, etc.

I have worked a lot of different analog film cameras and digital ones, and I've noticed that most cameras can take great pictures. You end up paying more for usability and quality. Pro bodies have dedicated buttons and whatnot, so you can accomplish what you need, very quickly.

A touch-screen camera with pure software controls is never going to be for pros, but, cell phones have their moments of better performance for getting the job done.

A cellphone camera is like a piano that plays chords but not individual notes as far as usability. A manual camera lets you do what you want and make up new chords.

Hope that clarifies the image sensor aspect. Aperture helps, but it can never make up for the constraints of the sensor.

Wrote a little post about how I configured my blacklists and whitelists with AdGuard Pro for iOS.

https://www.calebyers.com/blog/dns-ad-blocking.html

Even if our phones were 100% trustworthy, they are triangulated by cell towers thousands of times per day. Location tracking can only be avoided by:

1: Not owning a phone.

2: Powering off your device and keeping in a Faraday cage while not using.

Tempting to own a cute little purse that blocks phone signals, but do I really need a cell-phone on my body, 24/7?

If I evaluate the overall pros & cons of my cellphone, it has been overwhelmingly negative. I've had a phone since August 2014, when I went to college. Before that, I would text with my parents' phones.

Here are the top negative things that have happened due to using a phone:

1. Miscommunication, isolation, social anxiety due to social media and texting. Talking in person is so much better. And what about the hours and hours of snapchatting, so pointless and sad looking back.

2. False sense of security, thinking you can know what's going on, help people, intervene when necessary (friend sexual assault stuff at parties). What about when their phone dies? It made me wish we had landlines, or that I had been there. If I didn't have a cell phone, I don't think I would've left the party. I would've stayed and kept watch.

3. Poor posture, lack of sleep, constant exposure to blue light (who knows if the light is really bad), etc.

4. Missed connections by having my head in my phone all the time in public.

5. The US government has a total map of my life since August 2014, even though I have sent thousands of encrypted messages and hundreds of encrypted phone calls.

6. Less time available each day. I have spent typically 1-3 hours per day on my phone since I got one, about 1,980 days ago. This amounts to probably 4,000 to 6,000 hours, or about 170 to 250 days. In other words, about 1/8th of my life since 2014 has been dedicated to bullshit technology.

Here are some positives:

1. I have lots of photos that would otherwise have required a camera. But I have dozens of film cameras and a few digital ones, and there's no reason to shoot photos on such a tiny format. Good luck printing cell-photos beyond 5x7 or even 8x10.

2. I occasionally talk to family. This could be accomplished with a landline.

Maybe I've missed some things, and maybe I'm being pessimistic, but the reality is that I've lost lots of sleep and experienced more problems with interpersonal relationships as a result of having a phone. It's likely that not owning a phone would expose me to a new class of problems, but I've decided to get rid of my phone.

I'm in the process of switching accounts and removing 2FA, so I don't need cell service. Once I get there, I'm planning to write a little blog post about it. After having a baby, it's become clear that a phone is sucking my life away, and I need to be present with my family. Hope to have this all dealt with in the next week or two.

https://www.quora.com/profile/Gabriel-Weinberg

http://teenperl.com/