Ascension into Alpha level - thanks to a forum member

I fear this is a cunning ploy by Dread Pirate Liqua to cause us to drop our defences and deploy the Fluffy Pink Hug Laser rather than the Torpedoes of Wanton Destruction that he so thoroughly deserves.

Seriously though, that's an amazing gesture. :)
 
But I am interested in how that procedure works. How can you increase someones pledge?

I was waiting until I got home before composing this email but figured now would be as good a time.

In short - you can't.

FD helped me out as they believed my initial request would be a one off. I made an exact payment of the amount Susi needed, noted the PayPal ID number, and some kind chap at FD migrated the payment off my account and onto the other. Ashley told me that they couldn't do that for more as the payment system is secure (PCI-DSS no doubt) and the people in charge of it were busy .. fair enough I think.

Some good news has come out of this though .. Ashley told me they were busy due to working on "the combat video".

I think that might mean we will have something new soon :D

Options I guess then include:

  • Gift a pledge to someone. Not the same as uplifting though.
  • Give them some funds directly (PayPal them who then use the money to up their pledge)
  • Log in as them. Security concerns though as it means sharing username/password and ultimately your address. Not something I would be comfortable with to be honest.


Right now I am debating how to proceed with this.


ETA:
If you're concerned with the NSA and similar, and to be honest you should be, it's too late .. they have been watching us all (I don't mean FD community but the internet at large) for a number of years and if you only realise that now it's too late. You can, however, start to reduce your footprint on the internet so casual people can't find you. From leaving school I do not exist (when using my real name) and forum names (like Liqua) I keep for a number of years then rotate out. Paranoid .. maybe, but in my profession I have to be :eek:
 
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Some good news has come out of this though .. Ashley told me they were busy due to working on "the combat video".
* deep breath *

AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

* deep breath *

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* unconsciousness *
 
I was waiting until I got home before composing this email but figured now would be as good a time.

In short - you can't.

FD helped me out as they believed my initial request would be a one off. I made an exact payment of the amount Susi needed, noted the PayPal ID number, and some kind chap at FD migrated the payment off my account and onto the other. Ashley told me that they couldn't do that for more as the payment system is secure (PCI-DSS no doubt) and the people in charge of it were busy .. fair enough I think.

Some good news has come out of this though .. Ashley told me they were busy due to working on "the combat video".

I think that might mean we will have something new soon :D

Options I guess then include:

  • Gift a pledge to someone. Not the same as uplifting though.
  • Give them some funds directly (PayPal them who then use the money to up their pledge)
  • Log in as them. Security concerns though as it means sharing username/password and ultimately your address. Not something I would be comfortable with to be honest.


Right now I am debating how to proceed with this.


ETA:
If you're concerned with the NSA and similar, and to be honest you should be, it's too late .. they have been watching us all (I don't mean FD community but the internet at large) for a number of years and if you only realise that now it's too late. You can, however, start to reduce your footprint on the internet so casual people can't find you. From leaving school I do not exist (when using my real name) and forum names (like Liqua) I keep for a number of years then rotate out. Paranoid .. maybe, but in my profession I have to be :eek:

Ah, thanks so much for clearing that up! Also thank you psykokow for your earlier reply, I thought I'd combine them here.

That was a good initiative on your part and I understand they are very busy and cannot do this much. If you start with one, before you know someone else wants something done too.

Like you guys said, I thought about a direct transfer to someones bank account. They would need to trust me with personal data.

Since I am a privacy fighter, any such information would afterwards be utterly annihilated.

I am happy you are also aware of what is going on with the secret services. I have been aware of those issues for many years before Snowden and Assange. I am quite critical these days about the internet, which is becoming more and more the structure that chains us.

Paranoia is no longer a usable term for critical thinkers. They were right all along while being laughed at when they talked about the NSA etcetera.

Anyway, thanks for your help you and psykokow.
 
Evening NSA...

I have nothing to hide so I don't care.... Hope you find all my internet browsing of the BBC, Elite Dangerous, Genealogy (I CAN come after you if need be....) and hearingdogs.org.uk utterly riveting... :D:p

PS : Any private stuff such as banking etc is done with different logins etc to avoid any problems with the less savoury elements out there... I'm not a mug and have previously worked in the Card processing arena so know the pitfalls etc...
 
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Paranoia is no longer a usable term for critical thinkers. They were right all along while being laughed at when they talked about the NSA etcetera.

Anyway, thanks for your help you and psykokow.

Just because they are after you doesn't mean you're not paranoid!

:D
 
Evening NSA...

I have nothing to hide so I don't care.... Hope you find all my internet browsing of the BBC, Elite Dangerous, Genealogy (I CAN come after you if need be....) and hearingdogs.org.uk utterly riveting... :D:p
...

The best thing about this whole whistle blowing event, is that the NSA database is now full of pointless red herring statements like this. So we can all collectively make their system worthless by effectively trolling them this way. :p LOL
 
* deep breath *

AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

* deep breath *

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* unconsciousness *

We are very close to alpha so having some cool video is not surprsing :D
But it is cool to know that we will have a combat video ;)
 
Some good news has come out of this though .. Ashley told me they were busy due to working on "the combat video".

I think that might mean we will have something new soon:

We wantsss it precioussssss... We must have its yessssss....
 
Congratulations Wolfwood! (did I get that right?)
You did! That's actually a handle I'd used in the past when I could. But, apparently because of some anime character who carries that same name, I have not always been able to get it. So, you'll bump into several Wolfwoods who are not me online.
 
Evening NSA...

I have nothing to hide so I don't care....

We all have something to hide. But that is not the point. The point is that privacy, the right to a private (family) life are basic human rights.

No one would argue over the need, right or necessity for freedom of speech or oppose it. Yet, when it comes to privacy, suddenly everyone shrugs their shoulders about it.

But in The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) privacy is defined and protected against unwarranted investigation etc.

So it is not about having something to hide or not, we all do, why otherwise do we use nick names here, why do we have curtains in our house and do we shield our hand when we use our pincode in the store?

Privacy is extremely important because with it comes autonomy. You cannot truly make your own decisions, like choose what party to vote for, what organizations to support, what societies to join and so on and so forth, if you do not have privacy. If you do not have that, if someone is looking over your shoulder all the time, tracking & tracing you, profiling you, for advertising or for reasons of fear of terror or crime, something psychologically unsound will happen.

It is called the panopticum effect. A panopticum is most clearly depicted in the shape of prisons, where there is a central observation post and the cells can be scrutinized from that position. No one can break rules because it will be known.

What will happen is that citizens will start to censor themselves and adopt patterns of behavior to comply with a self-imposed norm that they believe is the norm that is expected of them.

It is vital and fundamentally important for the relationship between citizen and state that there is privacy and that it is protected against extreme dragnet practices of information gathering.

Never tell anyone ever again you don't have anything to hide. And besides, it is not entirely up to you to decide that.

The secret services profile you based on as many as 90 or 100 different traits. It is the government that decides that one or more of these warrants concern. If the government creates new laws that make something illegal and they have your profile, you will be in trouble. Privacy is the protection that stands between a government of ill will and one of good will.

It is too easy to just believe that because we live in democracies, insofar that is still true to whatever degree you feel justifies that word, we are safe from bad government. But I never got any official document, at birth or for my 18th birthday that guarantees me a free and democratic life.

Anno 2013 every citizen needs to actively protect and fight for privacy rights. There is much at stake and the race hasn't been lost yet as many people would claim. Quit your social media, they are not in your best interest. Do not use google services, they work for their shareholders by profiling you to the extreme. Do not twitter. Do not use camera's with GPS, or turn that off. Personally I don't own cell phones, they are tracking devices and I don't want to spy on myself by letting certain people know where I am and who I know.

Even that is an act of defiance causing suspicion: who would anno 2013 not have a mobile phone? He must have something to hide... And that is one other aspect of privacy loss. That certain patterns of behavior might be deemed suspicious and reason for extra scrutiny. A society where privacy becomes a reason for suspicion is no longer free.

Most people here remember playing the first Elite. Remember what life was like back then, before internet. Compare it to the here and now. I am not convinced any longer that the internet was a good idea. It is becoming the infrastructure of our chains.
 
The best thing about this whole whistle blowing event, is that the NSA database is now full of pointless red herring statements like this. So we can all collectively make their system worthless by effectively trolling them this way. :p LOL

That is why I have grown more and more technorealistic over the last decade or so.
Big steps are being taken in the field of quantum computing. Such computers can sift through data much more easily. :mad: Yet most people like, love technology. They believe it makes life better. Or makes them happier. Critic-less we adopt new technologies, usually, so we believe, to fix a problem, often caused by previous technologies.

I get happy when my babe smiles at me. Not because of some gadget. People in the Amazon have little, they are happy. We? I am not so sure. I think we are distracted.

I wonder what depth our official writers are entering into their stories. Surely there must be worlds with agonizing dictatorships. Totalitarian worlds without privacy with oppressive regimes. Complete dystopia's. The simple statement about a world in Elite that is was a dictatorship didn't really mean so much.

I wonder if today it will show up, maybe in the market: a dictatorship requires lots of cloth, for uniforms, small arms, to suppress people.

While a true democracy might import, I don't know, luxury goods, liquors, recording devices, books and entertainment systems, anything that would in a dictatorship only lead to rebellion :)
 
I get happy when my babe smiles at me. Not because of some gadget. People in the Amazon have little, they are happy. We? I am not so sure. I think we are distracted.
I listened to a lecture by two UK professors studying happiness a year ago and their findings were very interesting. The happiness ratings in poor African villages where mothers made dinner in a communal outdoor "kitchen" were much happier than people living in most of Europe (northern Europe being a surprising exception by being happier in general than the rest of Europeans).
 

Minti2

Deadly, But very fluffy...
Most people here remember playing the first Elite. Remember what life was like back then, before internet. Compare it to the here and now. I am not convinced any longer that the internet was a good idea. It is becoming the infrastructure of our chains.

and yet here you are using the very infrastructure that you claims chains us?

SORRY that was very flippant of me, just to hard to resist! :)

I agree on some points you make, other parts i don't(i have no wish to start a *** for tat running commentary)

I would say i remember the days before the internet, great days to but the internet has provided me with an abundance of knowledgeable wealth, you hate Google, i love it!
I have access to new friends i could never have possible have met, games such as ED with forums that are fun to play and with a sociable side to it.

I did long distance learning and did very well, i learned what a drabble was from the forums on here and enjoyed a new avenue i never thought i would enjoy.

Internet shopping, finding new music, keeping in touch with friends list goes on and on....

Hey maybe your right and am wrong but am so long in the tooth i don't care, if the government want my secrets they are welcome, i gave up wearing womens clothes some time ago anyway! :p

Personally i think your restricting yourself but that's my view, if your happy then fine, but am happy in this long life ive had so far and don't feel any person or government is restricting me neither :)
 
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Some good news has come out of this though .. Ashley told me they were busy due to working on "the combat video".

I think that might mean we will have something new soon :D

Did Ashley actually say 'soon' or are you guilty of encouraging the use of that awful word? ;)
 
Did Ashley actually say 'soon' or are you guilty of encouraging the use of that awful word? ;)

Something worse.

Seems Ashley actually meant they were working on the combat BUILD and unfortunately I deleted some messages to make room and his was one of them so I can't even verify.

May have unintentionally misled you sorry. :(

I threw my toys around in the DDF but it didn't make a difference.

*grumbles some more about a lack of an update*
 
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