Covert Remote Protest Transmitters

As a piece of protest art, “Covert Remote Protest Transmitters” ticks all the boxes. An outdoor covert projector that displayed anti-globalization messages at a G20 summit is protest. To disguise it inside a surveillance camera body housing — sticking it to the man from inside one of his own tools — is art. And a nice hack.

However you feel about the politics of globalization (and frankly, we’re stoked to be able to get cheap tech from anywhere in the world) the open-source DIY guidebook to building the rig (PDF) makes up for it all.

They installed the camera/projector long before the summit, where it sat dormant on a wall. A cell phone inside turned on the projector’s light with each ring because they attached a relay to the cell phone’s speaker circuit. In the instructions there’s an example of using a light-dependent resistor (CdS cell) to do the same thing, relying on the phone’s backlight functionality instead. There are a lot of ways to go here.

The optics consist of a couple of lenses aligned by trial and error, then fixed in place to a balsa wood frame with hot glue. A big fat Cree LED and driver provide the photons.

The video documentation of the piece is great. It’s mostly the news media reacting to the art piece as a “security breach”. A security breach would be a gun or a bomb. This was an overhead projector displaying messages that were out of the organizers’ control. Equating security with the supression of dissent is double-plus-ungood. Touché, CRPT.

Anyway, while you’re getting prepped for your next protest, have a look at the Image Fulgurator.

84 thoughts on “Covert Remote Protest Transmitters

  1. Nice hack 0 Authority doesn’t like being made to look like a fool. so what other reaction were they expecting?

    Pretty nifty idea installing it in something that looks like it aids their agenda (having security camera footage should trouble occur).

    I guess next thing will be that all CCTV cameras will need to be licensed, or will be removed for “security reasons”.

    1. That. However you may stand towards these summits, it is perfectly understandable that they would consider _any_ device that triggers _something_ remotely via cell phone a potential threat, and removed it as a “security measure”. Add the usual media hyperbole and you got yourself a “security breach”.

      1. In the video they mention that it was seen as a security ,breach but that the security said it wasn’t because it was installed before they designated the area as secure area basically, hence no breach.

        And obviously if an area is locked down then having anybody have the ability to plant whatever is a security breach, since unlike this benign thing it would indicate some ISIL fanatic for instance might install something quite different also.

        BTW, on a personal note: Fuck globalization.

          1. You make a good point, because I don’t think all those organizations they keep talking about like ISIL and al queda and al shabaab and whatnot EVER tried to attack a G20 leader. They kill kids and pensioners and bus passengers and any other person without influence, but never the people that are actually sending the drones and planes to kill them for some reason.

            Makes you wonder, or worse, draw some conclusion about the whole world and its games.

        1. Installed before they secured the area, so it’s not a breach. Obvious question, but what if it was full of explosives? Or would sniffer dogs find that? It’s still something that shouldn’t have been there, and wasn’t on the security plans. There must be something you could fit in there that’s dangerous, gas-powered gun for example, and motorise the “camera” (and put in an actual camera) for aim.

          It’s something one might learn from shoplifting. If people see what they’re expecting to see, things essentially become invisible. Beneath the threshold of noticing, like that thing Doctor Who put round his neck in the episode with the Toclafane.

        2. Lets not leave out the fact that ISIL and such is basically an ‘agent provocateur” sponsored by the CIA (protecting the world banking interests).. And, Yes… FUCK GLOBALIZATION.. and the World Bank, and the IMF.. I could go on for days.. :)

          Remember Guy Fawkes

  2. Curious that they did not opt for a cheap camera lens to achieve the same effect instead of aligning lenses by hand. This is a well known way of projecting an image with a flashlight. Maybe they could not fit a camera lens in the housing they were considering, this is the only possibility I can think of.

    1. Disposable camera (if you can find a place that let you have the used ones) is a good source of cheap plastic lens. Remove the shutter, put a stencil where the films sits and you have it at the right focal length. All you have to do is to add a light source. You can even reuse the flash! It is pretty easy to build a relaxation oscillator to trigger the flash tube.

      1. The comedian Stewart Lee and some of his friends built something similar to use at concerts. A high-powered flash with “CUNT” stencilled on cardboard in front of it, mounted as a gun. Give people an insulting phosphene after-image for a minute or so.

        1. I think the idea is that it’d be better putting that money towards more projectors rather than towards one video projector, since it makes it more difficult for the protest to be shut down (if one camera is disconnected you can enable another one)

        2. Moving videos take time to watch, and with no sound and general anarchy it’s not easy for people to concentrate long enough, especially if you’re dodging police trying to gas and electrocute you. A few instant propaganda images is certainly good, and if it’s cheap all the better.

          Also home-made stuff is less traceable, if that’s an issue. The Man can be very petty and vindictive if you wound his pride.

          1. All good points, the only advantage of a pico projector would be moving and more detailed pictures, and that can be an advantage if the press manages to get shots from it, or if it really impacts the G20 guys when they see it maybe (unlikely I know). But overall you guys are right.

  3. The reason they’re calling it a “security breach” is because they want to normalise the idea that protest is somehow wrong, immoral, dangerous or illegal.

    The media has been doing shit like that over here in Aus for ages… you should have seen how bad they were during the Sydney Siege, endless monstering at police press conferences and bullshit about bombs and ISIS, all of which was subsequently proven to be utter horseshit, it was just one nutter that slipped through the cracks.

    1. The reason they’re calling it a “security breach” I’m sure has a lot more to do with the fact that there was a home-made, remote activated device discovered *within the exclusion zone.* Sure it was benign, but it might not have been. From a security point of view, yeah, it would definitely be something to be concerned about.

      Still a very cool project. As far as the politics go, I frankly stopped paying attention a while ago.

    2. @h4rm0n1c
      The reason they’re calling it a security breach is because it compromised a security device to allow remotely-activated behavior without the knowledge of the people running the event. In other words, they called it a security breach because it is, by design, and by intention. It’s transparently obvious that the protestors meant this as a form of civil disobedience.

      As an aside, I wish more people would recognize that just because the government has a vested interest in a particular narrative does not mean that every statement they use to build that narrative is untrue.

      Beyond that, it doesn’t mean that every action or statement is intended solely or even primarily to advance that narrative. It’s really frustrating to discuss issues like globalization because people start thinking of governments as monolithic and single-minded entities. It can’t possibly be that the people in charge of security take their job very seriously. No, it must be that they’re using fear to keep us tractable.

    3. Hey, we have to be careful about ISIS. If they had their way we’d live in a police state, with other people’s morals made into laws, and an abusive police that do whatever they like and can’t be held accountable.

  4. good idea but bad execution. should have gone with a build that uses something compact enough like this to be flat and attached to something so that it looks like it belongs. come on, learn something from the grifters that steal info from POS machines and ATMs.

      1. How about an IR or UV laser, and a substance that reacts to the wavelength by emitting visible light sprayed onto the opposing wall?

        I guess it’s over-engineered.

        1. Depends, if you block the light with your shadow, you can work out what direction the source is in easily. Having a source that switches on for short periods, irregularly, would be good, as well as (most importantly) looking like something that’s supposed to be there. Though of course that depends if you’re really bothered about the thing being captured by the enemy.

          Also moving laser mirrors are expensive, and not bright. Using laser lenses with a pattern in is way too dim. At least with affordable, tiny lasers. Lasers are a bit crap at illumination generally.

      1. Getting the costs of drones way down would really help with this. Dozens of them, autonomous or swarm-networked, would be good for propaganda messages. At the moment drones are cheap enough for governments to buy as many as they like. Working out where you can cut corners would really help. Maybe even using aerodynamics, wings, to make it more efficient. Or even helium.

  5. I really like this concept, and can sort of see both sides to the security issue.

    “However you feel about the politics of globalization”

    Is there a term for “being against company’s doing lots of different thing”? Because thats what I am against.
    I don’t mind, or even like, company’s operating worldwide.
    But one company dominating by putting its hand in progressively more areas to me seems bad for (real) competition.

    Not sure theres a term that separates those two things is there?

    1. It’s pretty much to do with companies being rich enough and therefore powerful enough to have influence on the scale of governments, without our having any say in electing them. Also said companies buying / bribing / threatening (using jobs etc) governments to remove laws that stand in the way of the companies’ expansion and profit. Things like environmental and consumer protection laws, as well as anti-monopoly laws. Companies ultimately aim towards a monopoly where they can charge whatever they like and nobody can stop them. The only force against that is good government. When we have it.

      There’s a lot of reasons why what we have now is not a real free market, and while companies talk about that as a virtue, they’d just as soon have freedom for themselves and drive their customers out using all sorts of predatory marketing and legal techniques. As we’ve seen here as much as anywhere. Maybe that’s partly through having too many lawyers, who knows?

      The trans-national thing is also bad because companies pick and choose where to represent themselves for tax and legal purposes. Amazon and Starbucks famously paying no tax at all in the UK, despite our streets being plastered with the latter. Might be legal but it’s certainly not honest.

      The last thing I’ll mention, is the wage disparities, combined with rapid technological advancement, which mean basically everything you buy is made in communist China. Not good for all the things people used to make in our own countries, providing job satisfaction and wages for working-class people.

      Used to be, you didn’t have to be particularly clever or talented, but if you were willing, you could go get a job that paid a respectable wage, support your family, and be proud of that. Now the working classes have been made desperate, and are treated so. Thanks to what happened in the 1980s, there’s very little job security any more. We can many of us be fired on a whim, so we’re abused, over-worked with no overtime pay, and if we complain we can be sacked without reason and replaced by some other poor soul.

      In the UK we have a scheme where unemployed people are forced into working a real job, for no wages. They get their regular benefit. The employer gets a “trial” employee for no money. There’s been cases where someone was made redundant (no redundancy pay of course), to be replaced by a freebie from the job queue. Said person was then unemployed themselves, put on the scheme, and ended up being placed back in her own job, working for nothing. And that’s supposed to encourage a “culture of work”. I think the other side of the equation, the obligations of an employer to his employee, even if just moral ones, have been surpressed and forgotted.

      And that’s my little essay on what’s wrong with the world today.

  6. I feel that they only sure way to improve the world is to make it better, rather than protest about how it is now, or worse try and break things. i.e. I don’t see this fake camera stunt as creative at all. If you are not solving the problems of the bottom 20% and sharing the solutions with them then you are kidding yourself that you are making a difference. Next time build a better mosquito trap!

    1. Protest fundamentally leads to revolution. You don’t get up and single handedly change the world just because you feel like you ought to be able to. It takes a lot of people and a common mindset, with one moment of wild neuron firing in one single persons brain. That’s how you end up with Ferguson and Baltimore.

      Humans have tricky behavior. We want to be united, we want our freedom, we need rules within reason, but we need public privacy, incase we need to break said rules which would otherwise jeopardize our freedom. Not because we will break rules…but in case…

      1. Yeah, but revolution doesn’t tend to improve things, it just kills the current leaders, installs another set who are usually just as bad, but kills lots of civilians and destroys infrastructure in collateral damage. Whilst I’m sure we could find one counter example, I’m fairly sure almost all revolutions have not improved things for the general population – e.g. Russia, Syria, Egypt, … General population now worse off, and lost lives.

        1. When I mentioned Ferguson and Baltimore, this is sort of the point I was making. These were not good events for the nation. Nobody should be proud of the justice it served.

        2. “Yeah, but revolution doesn’t tend to improve things”

          Non-violent protests have actually improved things many times in the past though, and this is clearly more towards that end of the spectrum.

        3. oh please, save your vapid opinions for your freshman seminar. your “fair certainty” about the outcome of “most” revolutions is off base, and frankly a massive insult to anyone who has affected any of the change allowing your undeserved present quality of life instead of toiling in a field, subject to the whims of your local fief slave lord. your examples were laughable however.. specifically the last two, the details of which must be unfamiliar to you as are the significantly improved outcomes nearby during approximately the same time.

          1. “frankly a massive insult to anyone who has affected any of the change allowing your undeserved present quality of life instead of toiling in a field, subject to the whims of your local fief slave lord”
            I am sure the millions that died in the USSR, China, and Laos are very happy.
            Revolution on the whole does not tend to improve things.

        4. I would not characterize Syria as a revolution. Started as a protest and an attempt to chance things, soon was usurped by islamic fanatics (often foreign) and western and regional powers (US/UK/saudi/turkey) stirring the pot to fuck over the country for their own purposes.

      2. I don’t think the G(x) protests are expected to initiate a revolution, but they are there to be a counter-force to the vain self-serving self-appointed superiority and right to (undemocratically) rule the entire world population attitude of those G- politicians and their wealthy 0.1% controllers.
        And it’s a combination of protesters and the normal public and some politicians who are not part of the inner circle, Backing each other’s morale and reminding the G- politicians that they are being watched.

      3. Not necessarily. In a democratic society protest can also lead to more people becoming aware of an issue and, potentially, voting on that issue to change/improve things gradually

    2. “If you are not solving the problems of the bottom 20%…”

      The only thing people can do to help others is to do what they’re best at. In this case, the artist makes art and getting that message out to thousands of people will hopefully prompt someone else to start solving problems for the bottom. Maybe those people that get inspired will be politicians, economists, or who knows what.. but to ask an artist to “solve the problems of the bottom 20%” without using art is silly.

      Just for fun though, what “better mouse trap” would you suggest he build to correct a wealth imbalance that has been an integral part of society since the start of society?

      1. By what ethical reasoning is there to correct a “wealth imbalance” in the first place? Nobody seems to have any logical and altruistic answer to this very important question. It is a truly empty movement because none of it’s supporters have even attempted to think it through to its logical conclusion.

        The cry usually comes from those that don’t have (by whatever means) to legally steal from those that do. There is nothing but extreme selfishness in this notion. You want more than you have. That is greed. Those that adopt this concept have been statistically proven over and over again to be the least charitable and least contributing to society. Because their motivations are selfishness and greed. When asked about others, they dismiss it by suggesting some third party steal from the haves and redistribute it. That removes ANY responsibility from themselves to contribute to the well-being of others.

        The desire to have more is what drives the wealthy to do the work to have more. So, these two factions are technically the same. The only difference is that one is willing to do what is necessary to attain it while the other demands it is their born right to it.

        What then if we ever achieved a world where every single person had exactly the same? What would be the drive or motivation to work harder or even work at all? What value would there be to anything you own if nobody else needed it?

        You couldn’t be an artist. Because as soon as you generate something new, you have something nobody else has. That makes it valuable. That makes you more “wealthy.”

        Money isn’t the issue because all of these concepts exist in numerous examples of tribal civilizations without money. Some people’s crops will be more fruitful than others. Some people’s cattle will bear more milk or more offspring than another’s. It is human nature. Capitalism simply understands human nature and provides the best set of rules and tools deal with human nature. The problem isn’t capitalism, the problem is that we aren’t really doing capitalism. And like it or not, that is because of constant push from socialists and communists. They are the very reason for all the things they claim to be against.

        Capitalism and democracy only promise an equal and fair opportunity, not an equal outcome. That part you must do yourself.

        1. And before anyone calls me a 1%’er… I grew up in a family of 5 kids to a father that completed high-school, went into the army, and then worked in a factory as a grunt his entire life. My mother had an 8 grade education because she had to leave school to help with her 7 siblings and to help the family make ends meet by washing the neighbor’s clothes out of her home.

          Altogether, my parents supported a family of 7 on a single income of $40K by the early 2000’s. They could not afford to send any of us to college. I worked 2 jobs to pay for my college to get an electrical engineering degree. Until I was almost 30, my pay was as little as $8K per year to $22K per year at most (I’m not going to say how old I am, but I am still young.) Even after my degree, I had to work numerous jobs at $10-12/hour in order to ‘earn my due.’ Barely enough to even pay my student loans back, much less rent, food, car, etc…

          Now after many years I am finally up near $100K as an electrical engineer. I was fully and completely aware all my life that there were those born into better situations than I (and worse as well.) I was grateful for what I did have compared to friends that had less. I held no animosity for those that had more because I knew I needed to work harder, but always had the same opportunities. I am always grateful at the opportunity to be charitable to others because not only does it help them, it reminds me of how fortunate I am. I prefer it that way vs. being robbed and forcibly giving to a fraud-filled system.

          I am hardly in the 1% category and have no real desire to ever get there. I am driven only by providing as good and stress free life as possible for me and my family. For me, that is enough. I will leave the extra wealth to those that desire it and I am fine with that. They owe me nothing because this is where I decided my priorities are. My choice.

          1. More capitalism just breed more corruption. (the “invisible hand” of the market yeah right)

            Anyway, how would you have turn out to be if your parent had better condition? Maybe you’d had made it through the ph.d. Or CEO of your own company. Or maybe a drug addict now jobless.

            You say you had to ‘earn my due.’ take low paying job, because food, rent, loan etc.

            In the mean time my parent were richer. I Had no debt. Decent salary right from the start.
            “It’s human nature to be jealous of what we do not have”, yes but you had to endure years of shit. Why?

            not sure why you value iniquity.

            “the problem is that we aren’t really doing capitalism. And like it or not, that is because of constant push from socialists and communists. ” uh… if communist did anything they just push US far into the right side of the political spectrum with thing like military industrial complex.

          2. Because I would rather enjoy what I have and built by my own hands than to steal yours. I’d rather develop something that convinced you to trade some of yours for something of mine.

            Maybe you appreciate what YOU have much less than I do. Therefore, you have more, but are you happier?

            I don’t deserve any piece of what you have even if you never had to work for it. I didn’t work for it either.

          3. I can appreciate this, because I can relate. I just hope that my kids won’t have to start as low as I did, but that they climb as far as I did from the vantage point I can afford them.

            The reality is that many people don’t actually want monetary success, they just want to live. Unfortunately, they’re inundated with images of excess that they come to perceive as the optimum way of living.

          1. Are you assuming an environmental issue from the first 5 letters of my name? That’s not what it means. How unusual for an Internet Libertarian to spend his time throwing slogans and calling people morons, while being oblivious to the real world. Have a shave and leave the house, meet some people. Get some politics that allows for other people too.

          2. I assume you are environmentalists/socialist/communist slacker because I have lots of experience with your dumb posts here.

            I’m bald, thank you. And my job has me traveling all over the world, thank you. In fact, I was just out of the country last week.

            You might be the one that needs to grow up.

  7. One thing that comes into mind is the Flooding of light onto another persons property which is against some local Codes.
    Other than that its a good hack until its deployed
    in an are with strict codes.

  8. I wonder what tipped them off? Maybe it was that all the cameras were pointed at walls? For your iteration, try projecting out of the rear of the housing, and point the front into a plausible direction.

  9. Why is communism/socialism so in vogue? Every place it has ever been tried, all that has happened is it took the money from one set of selfish, rich people and created a new vicious set of selfish rich people. The “little” people have NEVER benefited from its adoption. The only economic system to ever make any appreciable improvement in the lives of the “little” people is capitalism. Of course it’s also quite frowned upon to call it “communism” or “socialism”, mainly because people know that those are bad things, so those espousing it want to do the old bait and switch and put it in a different tin. Are the little projectors a neat hack? Perhaps, but why is so much creativity being wasted on such inane endeavors? Harness that creativity to make yourself rich and then SHOW the rich how you think they should act by acting that way yourself. That’s far better than petulantly demanding that the rich and powerful give up the riches and power they’ve worked to amass.

    1. In short… because people are stupid. Just read their diatribes and you can get a glimpse of how stupid they are.

      Every generation grows up thinking their thoughts are epic and original. That the world would change if we just ‘tried it’ with complete and total ignorance to history.

      Well, that, and communism/socialism centralizes power and wealth into a single body (necessarily so in order to ‘redistribute it’) and destroys democracy. As you noted, in every example where it has been tried, the people those within this post hate become richer and more powerful. Every single time. So, these willing and stupid pawns are doing exactly what those they are protesting against want them to do.

      1. Justice_099, have you ever been to Iceland? From Wikipedia…

        It’s see, more democratic, less corrupt, more developed, provides universal health care, provides free tertiary eduction to it’s citizens, environmentally greener, non-nuclear, about 1/3rd the guns per person, has lower crime rate, is safer and so on…. and not pure capitalist.

        And that is what these protests are about – you should strive to make your country better, not try to export your belief system to others and beat it into them with a big stick – if it is that great others will follow willingly.

        There is nobody less interesting to listen to than a ardent fundamentalist, be that open source, socialist, capitalist, environmentalist or religious – they just go on and on and on beating the same old dead horse.

        We heard you the first time and found it amusing – by the third or forth time it is getting boorish.

    2. “That’s far better than petulantly demanding that the rich and powerful give up the riches and power they’ve worked to amass.”

      It is exactly that which is wrong with your reasoning.

      You do not become rich by working.
      You become rich because you get the support that you need to make other people do your work.

      This could be the showstopper business idea that you happen to have once in your life.
      But that is just not happening for 99% of the people.

      You could call it just and fair and necessary that good business models get all the support and people working.
      But still, it is just not true that working gets you rich. Other people get you rich.

      Given limited resources (and non-infinite economic growth), that is how it works.
      But dream on.

      1. Tom if nothing else, they’ve devised a clever ploy whereby they get others to make them rich. That too is a form of work. But in this age of Facebook, Twitter and Apple, trust me if you have a good enough idea and apply enough elbow grease you still can make it to riches. Your problem is your ideas aren’t good enough (no matter how good YOU think they are) or you just haven’t worked hard enough. Is there some measure of luck involved? You bet! You clearly can’t expect to win on every single roll of the dice. So you just need to come up to bat more often if you want to hit the lucky strike. No. my premise still stands…

      2. …and one more thing… Those 99% are still better off under capitalism than under communism even if they aren’t lucky or smart enough to propel themselves upwards!

        1. Hard to call yourself ‘poor’ when you have ipads, iphones, xbox’s, big screen TVs, and designer clothing. But they do. Maybe they are the greedy ones because that’s not enough for them. They want more and they want the people that worked for more to just give it to them for nothing.

          Maybe we need to start shipping kids over to 3rd world countries for a year or two to learn what poor really means. Even the very poorest in the USA have absolutely no idea what real hunger and poverty is like. I just last week spent some time in one and let me tell you that even the very worst off here have it better than even an average person in one of these countries. I bet at lunch today, Tom tossed out some food he didn’t feel like eating because it was too much or he just didn’t like it.

          People like Tom will never be rich because of his attitude. And instead of even trying, he has developed an animosity towards those that did. If he can villianize them, then he can feel happy about his underachievement and not being one of ‘them.’

          It’s always amusing to me how greedy, lazy, selfish, and hypocritical these occupier types are. One only needs to look at all the trash and filth left behind at an Earth Day event to truly despise these morons.

          1. I know you’re right. I spent some time in Africa working on a project with the World Health Organization. I got to see some things first hand that were eye opening. Our poor know NOTHING about true poverty.

          2. They desperately bring meaning into their lives by colluding against “the other”, usually the government.

            It makes them feel like they’re righting for something. That’s why they have so many problems, it’s not their own fault, it’s because x, y, z gets them down.

          3. Justice_099 said:
            > People like Tom will never be rich because of his attitude. And instead of even trying, he has developed an animosity towards those that did. If he can villianize them, then he can feel happy about his underachievement and not being one of ‘them.’

            Now, I clearly did not state any views that could make you assume any details about my personal life.

            I also did not villanize anyone. (Not yet..;-) )
            I did not even criticise people being rewarded for having a good business idea.

            In fact, I stated the opposite. That is, that for some 99% of the people this example just does not apply.

            What does apply is one very easy economic concept:
            ==> If some people become rich, others will have to pay.

            That is true no matter /how/ exactly this amassing of power and means happens.
            And it is important to get this right.

            Because this is necessary for people to understand, that it /can be/ in their very own interest
            to limit the amount of resources that any individual can amass without regulation.

            What in detail qualifies for an /indeed/ forced limitation of individuals power is up to the public. I am not giving any examples here.

            But this I thing you will agree: If your policy /actually favours/ the off-chance prospect of “making it really big”
            for some
            over the blatant needs of almost anyone else, than your policy sucks.

          4. “But this I thing you will agree: If your policy /actually favours/ the off-chance prospect of “making it really big”
            for some
            over the blatant needs of almost anyone else, than your policy sucks.”

            You would be correct. I do agree with that. And that isn’t capitalism. That is exactly the perversion that results from all the attacks on capitalism.

            “==> If some people become rich, others will have to pay.”

            This is also true. In socialism, that is by force. In capitalism that is by innovation and having things people want to give their resources to attain.

            That’s the real difference between the two. Socialism will always have victims. In true capitalism, they are not victims.

          5. Justice_099 wrote :

            “That’s the real difference between the two. Socialism will always have victims. In true capitalism, they are not victims.”

            Hahahaha – do you really actually believe that crap?????

            The victims are the people who through no fault of their own, are unable to achieve an independent life. They are tossed on the pure capitalist scrap heap and left to rot.

            Got hit on the head by a golf ball at 25 and had a stroke?
            A builder who lost a limb in an industrial accident?
            Lumbered with an learning disability though pure bad luck?
            Medical misadventure?
            Spent too long breathing coal dust down the mine?
            Did the big company shut up and leave your town, leaving you with a house you can’t sell and no job? (looking at you Detroit)
            Too old to work and had your funds in the share market when it crashed?
            Did you own a shop and have kmart move in next door?
            Do you have to stay home and look after a disabled family member (after all nobody else will)?

            These are all victims under a pure capitalist system. Pull your head out of your a@#e. Either extreme is intolerable.

          6. “Got hit on the head by a golf ball at 25 and had a stroke?”

            In our current strange brew of socialism & inverted fascism life still sucks. In a true capitalist system if you didn’t have private insurance you’d be relying on the charity of friends neighbors and family, life might still suck but at least nobody is having a gun held to their head to pay for the behemoth groaning productionless bureaucracy to dispense your meager stipend. Even just a portion of taxes “liberated” from me at gunpoint could buy some pretty awesome insurance on a real open market.

            “A builder who lost a limb in an industrial accident?”

            Much the same as the above, employers known to not “make right” with injured workers would also have to pay higher wages to entice workers on the risk:reward scale.

            “Lumbered with an learning disability though pure bad luck?”

            A simple person works a simple job and lives a simple life, how or why would socialism or communism want to change that?

            “Medical misadventure?”

            See above

            “Spent too long breathing coal dust down the mine?”

            Kinda repetitive, no workers paradise solves this even by putting a gun to your fellow humans head.

            “Did the big company shut up and leave your town, leaving you with a house you can’t sell and no job? (looking at you Detroit)”

            Do you honestly believe the fall of Detroit was the fault of an actual free market and not a horribly configured centrally planned market manipulation?

            “Too old to work and had your funds in the share market when it crashed?”

            Risk & reward and again what crashes don’t have the bloody hand prints of central planners all over them?

            “Did you own a shop and have kmart move in next door?”

            Risk & reward In your mind should a gun be held to my head to keep your shop open in the face of stiff competition?

            “Do you have to stay home and look after a disabled family member (after all nobody else will)?”

            Not much different than other medical issues above.

            “These are all victims under a pure capitalist system. Pull your head out of your a@#e”

            You don’t really seem to understand what a free market is. I can’t think of one promoter of socialism or communism that doesn’t see themselves as living the easy breezy life as an intelligentsia in the new workers paradise and relish the thought of rough men using brute force to force their ideals on others.

  10. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to make a comment that doesn’t include social commentary, but did anyone else realize the error in the light detection circuit?

    The LDR and pot should form a voltage divider, not just one series resistor from base to “gnd”.

  11. It absolutely was a security breach because it _could have_ been some sort of destructive device.

    If you’re still doing this anti-government dead dance then you’re a child. Government is not the problem – the current crop of politicians _and_ voters are. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Living in a democracy is like walking on a busy street; you get knocked down and nobody cares to pick you up. You weren’t knocked down by anybody but your own peers.

    Americans are so “anti-racist” these days, reacting swiftly to any perceived notion of racism. And yet you still don’t have gay marriage? How backwards! Crying over racism and slavery and yet you’re still withholding the rights of a portion of your population!

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