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I'd like you to understand why cross-platform code is incredibly important (note that this page quotes Judge Jackson of the MS vs. DOJ case as to why Microsoft felt it was so important to put a stop to cross-platform code as to break the law.)

But I think what we have lost sight of is maintaining both the usefulness of our code and our independence as programmers by not remembering how to write cross-platform code.

What Sun got wrong was not making Java cross-platform, but trying to bind us all into proprietary platform of Java while sweetly singing into our ears that it was platform independent. Sun did this and continues with it to serve its own marketing and political purposes, purposes which may not serve the interests of either the public or the independent developer.

You too can write cross-platform code, in almost any compiled language. Check out the ZooLib cross-platform application framework for C++, as well as the Boost C++ Libraries.

Jon Watte of Be, Inc. told me "Portable, to some people, means it builds on at least two linux distributions with several flavors of GCC".

Here's a list of a bunch of application frameworks, many of which are cross-platform, and many of which are open source - so there's more than just ZooLib to pick from.

Get off your duff and ship your executables for all platforms in common use - and not just ones with POSIX system call APIs!

And here's a hint for making your code buildable cross-platform - ever try to run "./configure" on a computer that doesn't have a command shell? Pretty hard. Makes folks like me struggle to write all the makefile's and config.h's by hand. But look at how many platforms the Independent JPEG Group's JPEG codec library builds on - DOS, MacOS, Cray, you name it, and it builds with both ANSI-C and old K&R c compilers (using macros for the function interfaces).

Kids these days... damn it makes me mad.

Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc

Most of the search-engine hits on my rocket engine patent disclosure page have been from SIFYSEARCH -- a web portal in India.

Sorry, but I'm a linguist... I can't resist questions about Basque. Basque is spoken in the Basque country, an area which coincides with northern Spain and southern France. The political relationship between Basques and the French and Spanish government is tense, and there is sometimes violence. You can read about it at this little page, which also has an introduction to the language. As for the writing system, Basque doesn't use any non-ASCII characters at all. But there's not a whole lot of Basque editions of O'Reilley books. Heh. Ten points if you send me an email and you know what 'ergative' means hee. (Basque is ergative.)

They can't be the smallest untethered autonomous robots ever created because I've created at least one that is smaller, and one that might be smaller (about the same size).

Sure, my smallest robot might be pretty boring and simple compared to these things (and operating with vastly reduced efficiency because I still haven't got around to putting the coaster wheel on...), but it's probably almost half the size - and since it's solar powered, it is genuinely autonomous (I don't think a battery powered robot can be said to be fully autonomous unless it is capable of recharging or replacing its own batteries).

So Nyah to Sandia - your robots might be much better, but mine are still smaller :-)

http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Facility /8332/reaper-exploit-release.html

Seriously, having lived in two countries with free/80% subsidised health for all, this question really does seem to be an echo of that Python sketch

I used dasm a pair of times and once you know what code your gcc generates following a function is pretty straightforward, but what amazed me most is when i knew that you can decompile Java bytecode and get the source back with this.

I was driving one of my 8 series (an M Tech believe it or not, we're talking a potential 200 MPH + ). Anyhow, on a country road we were forced to slow down (I don't speed BTW) because some loon had been pulled for speeding. Anyhow 5 minutes later, said loon is behind and harrassing me 'cause I'm only doing 30 in a 30 zone. I hope he gets banned 'cause he just doesn't understand.

A great deal of extended phenotypics in humans is grounded in the manipulation of mirror neurons of susceptible populations. Autism, in particular, is symptomatic of genetically recessive populations that are experiencing extended genetic dominance -- autism being a pathological byproduct of the imperfect intervention in social identity mechanisms that normally produce such extended phenotypic social structures as religions, bodies politic, etc.

The inappropriate attention historically given to autism and mirror neurons by the academic establishment is an indirect result of the genetic interest among urban elites in maintaining the extended phenotypic social structures that rely on the manipulation of mirror neuronal responses. Recent defections by Italians and Jews (e.g: Vittorio Gallese, Giacomo Rizzolatti and their colleagues at the University of Parma and Hugh Fudenberg), ethnic groups that have historically been the prime beneficiaries of such urbanizing social structures in the West, are being driven by the increasing presence of Dravidians (V.S. Ramachandran and Vijendra K. Singh) whose group is not as dependent on the existing extended phenotypic structures of JudeoChristian civilization, and whose relatedness to the recessive European populations, combined with their own genetic dominance, creates a unique relationship with northern European ethnicities -- the primary victims of autism in the U.S.

WARNING: The most important positive-sum group activity where multiple clans are involved is detection and exclusion of defectors in the sense of the prisoner's dilemma. Otherwise you will get cycles where people come together, cooperate, build up a wonderful environment and then attract parasites who multiply until your little society collapses and everything has to start over. This is very much like the real life cycles of civilizations.

Dammit you beat me to it! My post has a link, though!

Calvinball is definitely non-zero-sum. It's potentially infinite-sum.

There's also the constraint of pressing each note in strict timing: your computer doesn't care if each key-press exactly follows a quarter note rhythm at 200bpm - it allows you a considerable degree of rubato. So if a typist with good co-ordination between their hands you should easily be able to out-do a pianist.
-- Andrem

Despite what some ACs say, I don't think you've been trolled. Check out his website. This guy appears to mean every word he says, as much as an existentialist can. His guestbook is a SlashDot microcosm, with Shoeboy signing in and a goatse.cx link

Not sure about the first two points:

If Microsoft can deliver on a *cross-platform* solution.
Java is cross-platform, there are VMs for about any system you could imagine.

If .NET handles the 30 odd languages they claim to support, with easy extendability for more.

You can run tons of languages on a Java virtual machine.

Nosferatu is clearly the same story as Bram Stoker's Dracula. Replace Dracula with Orlok and Renfield with Knock and story is the same.

The story is here.

In order to prepare for the next Shuttle disaster, we need to examine the various scenarios that may occur, their likelihood, consequences and what work should be done, in advance to prepare ourselves, our space program and our citizenry.

SCENARIO: Stranded in LEO due to APU failure

For example, consider what would happen if an orbiter were stranded in LEO due to total APU failure. The logic of the situation would unfold in this scenario:

Hundreds of millions of people on Earth would watch every detail of the dramatic situation unfold over several days (assuming they have that much life support). During the first few days, there will be many attempts to repair the problem with ground crews working round the clock on a simulated orbiter in a similar failure mode. They will come up with any of a number of futile attempts to fix the problem which the astronauts will, at first, dutifully carry out. This work will proceed even though there is little or no possibility of an actual fix. The public, the astronauts and NASA personnel will feel hope and dispair in cycles at each attempt, until, eventually, the charade will wear thin. At that point, the astronauts, the ones who are facing certain death, will be under enormous psychological pressure to end the charade.

Such a break-point will carry with it the likelihood of one or more astronauts venting frustration and hostility -- possibly built up over many years of disillusionment as part of the crippled US space effort.

NASA will attempt to blank-out all communications with the astronauts at or before this point. Some or all astronauts will not want to cooperate with this black-out and will refuse to allow the their communications to be encrypted. Ham radio operators and others around the world will band together to pick up the transmissions of the doomed astronauts and make them available to the public.

After breaking from the bureaucracy's authority, the astronauts may become extremely critical of specific individuals in NASA and its contractors. They will have nothing to lose and will finally have a chance to right what they perceive as the wrongs in the space program.

A few weeks after the dying words of the astronauts are heard, the shuttle will reenter the atmosphere at 5 or 6 miles per second. It will break up. A few large fragments will scatter widely and unpredictaby, hitting the ground before total disintigration due to the ablative coating. The public, ignorant of probability theory, will be in terror at the thought of the shuttle crashing into their communities causing mass destruction. The fireball could easily be visible from large population centers and will most likely be viewed on television broadcasts around the world.

SCENARIO: Secret Shuttle Launch Disaster

The DoD reopens the Vandenburg Shuttle launch facility. A payload with a plutonium radioactive thermal generator needs to be placed in an LEO polar orbit. About 2 minutes after SRB separation, a main engine pump turbine blade fails causing the turbine to fly apart at supersonic speed. The containment works pretty well but a few blades get out. One of them nicks the pressurization system for the fuel oxydizer tanks in one of the OMS pods. The astronauts sense a loud THUD and the loss of one of the main engines. They opt to abort once around using the remaining two main engines. Everything goes according to the contingency plan. All fuel is consumed from the main tank. The tank separates. The OMS engines start up. Only one of them lights. Since this produces an off center thrust, the RCS consumes excessive amounts of fuel to keep stability. The OMS system, only capable of using half its fuel, fails to put the Shuttle into a once around trajectory. It reenters short, somewhere near the Persian Gulf. In the early phase of reentry, when the aerodynamic control surfaces are insufficient to orient the spacecraft, the already overtaxed RCS runs out of fuel. The Shuttle begins tumbling somewhere over the Caucasus Mountains. By the time the control surfaces could be used, the Shuttle is in a fatal spin. It breaks up. When it breaks up, the RTG canister, designed to withstand reentry, is struck by one of the structural members of the Shuttle. Not being designed to withstand this, it shatters. 22 kilograms of Pu238-dioxide are distributed in the atmosphere over Moscow, Kalinin and Lenningrad.

The Soviet ballistic missile warning radars, primarily facing north, are briefly treated to the spectacle of hundreds of reentering objects coming down around Moscow and Lenningrad. The two largest, most economically important and strategically significant cities in the Soviet Union.

Pu238 is 284 times more radioactive than the fissionable isotope Pu239 due to its relatively short half-life of 86 years. It decays by alpha emmission of 5.5Mev. While this is somewhat higher than the decay energy of Pu239, it is far higher than the decay energy of U235 and not similar to the decay energy of any other common nuclide. Thus to the relatively unsophisticated instruments initially used to evaluate the sudden release of radioactive material, it will appear as though 5.5 metric tons of weapons-grade Pu239 has suddenly reentered over Moscow.

5.5 metric tons of Pu239 is enough to support on the order of 500 warheads. Areasonable surmize would be that a US secret launch out of Vandenburg was to illegally emplace a facility containing 500 or so nuclear warheads into an orbit where it would pass over the Soviet Union 4 times per day from the south whre their early warning radars could not detect it until it was far too late.

Vandenburg is a highly secured facility. Due to the local geography, neither the launch pad nor the assembly building can be viewed from sites not on the base. The Soviets will have very limited intelligence about launch preparations and the launch itself. Our belated protestations that it was merely a routine Shuttle launch will be met with a great deal of skepticism.

The Soviets, sensitized by the Chernobyl disaster to nuclear catastrophe, will be react unpredictably.

SCENARIO: Brilliant Soviet Rescue of Astronauts Stranded in LEO

As in the "Stranded in LEO Due to APU Failure" scenario, all 3 APU's fail, leaving the astronauts helplessly adrift.

The Soviets, hearing Tom Neff's idea of a rescue effort, come up with a brilliant plan. They launch an unmanned Soyuz from Space City with the stated intent of making a rendevous with the drifting Shuttle and rescuing some of the astronauts (the Soyuz wouldn't have capacity for all of them). Space City, being at a much higher latitude than KSC, gives the Soyuz craft a much higher inclination orbit than the Shuttle. The Soyuz, being incapable of correcting its inclination by the required amount, intersects with the Shuttle's orbit at a few miles second or so.

Thus the Soyuz saves our brave astronauts from the senseless torture of a slow death.

Why would the Soviets would go along with such an imbicilic rescue attempt when it requires the sacrifice of a launched Soyuz (worth $15 to $20 million)? The Soviets draw attention and blame for the disaster away from NASA. This allows NASA to contain the political damage and maintain its appearance of conducting a space program, leaving the Soviets free to develop space without competition.

SCENARIO: Possible consequence of terminal approach APU failure

During reentry 2 of the APUs fail and the third has some problems (as has occured before). But unlike the previous instances, the Shuttle comes into the terminal area energy management manuver a little bit high and a little bit fast. It encounters a little clear air turbulence while in a tight turn to bleed off this excess energy. As the pilot is lining up on the runway, the third and last APU gives out due to the buffetting. Unfortunately, the APU failed before he completed the final turn. The control surfaces go dead. The Space Shuttle, now out of control, impacts at supersonic speed into the waiting crowd which never hears it coming. Thousands perish.

Shuttle Disaster Premises

Here are the premises of the Shuttle disaster scenarios (my apologies to those who find all this painfully obvious, but the noise level around here has made it necessary that I belabor these points):

1 The SSME turbine pump blades have been found to be a weakness in the SSME design that has yet to be dealt with adequately.

2 The failure of these blades would result in a failure mode that has not been adequately tested, thus the turbine blade containment ring may not succeed in fully containing the debris.

3 The 3 APU's have been found to be a weakness in the Shuttle system design as 2 of the 3 have failed in a single mission with the 3rd found to be near failure after landing.

4 According to James Fletcher, the NASA Administrator appointed by President Reagan to reform NASA's Shuttle program after the Challenger disaster, the Space Transportation System is on the verge of becoming "economical". (While I may not agree with this opinion, it is certainly reasonable to assume the statements of such a person to be "plausible" in these scenarios.)

5 An "economical" launch system is what the military needs to launch its crushing backlog of spy satellites and Vandenburg is the only launch site which can make polar orbit without going over populated areas.

6 The trajectory of a Shuttle launched to the south into a polar orbit (which is the typical orbit of spy satellites) from Vandeburg reenters over the major western Soviet cities in the event that an abort to once around option is attempted and falls short due to inadequate thrust (such as OMS engine failure secondary to SSME failure).

7 RTG's are a far less vulnerable power source for spy satellites than solar cells and the military is increasingly concerned about solar panel vulnerability.

8 Unavoidable clear air turbulence is common over the Shuttle landing site at Edwards AFB.

9 The OMS fuel and pressurization lines are in reasonable proximity to the SSME turbine blades.

10 The Pu239 oxide cannisters have not been adequately tested since when they were subjected to an explosive test, they did fail and NASA proceeded to proclaim them flight ready because the explosive test was "invalid".

11 We have no way of rescuing Shuttle astronauts stranded in orbit.

Some other facts, pointed out to me privately, that could be used for future Shuttle disaster scenarios:

12 Orbital debris is a significant threat to the Shuttle as we have already experienced damage during one flight.

13 The SSME bell is not being adequately inspected for hairline cracks which could fail catastrophically during launch.

There are many classes of plausible disaster scenarios based on these premises. I've chosen to write on just a few exemplary cases which are particularly horrific. They are worth contemplating because they are so horrific.

What bad thing happens if an Everquester sells one of his/her possesions or characters?!!? I don't understand why Sony are being such pricks about this! What harm comes to them from trading these items freely? Is Sony jealous that they're not getting a piece of the pie? How is this different from buying, selling and trading Magic cards?

--
And Justice for None

I scanned in my copy of the first and last page of the letter I got from Deloitte & Touche. See them here: http://www.geocities.com/pancake_1968/main.html

Maybe you can find a better VM on this list of Java VMs and compilers. The page has also links to other VM lists.

Did you know IE comes standard on an Ipaq?

I guess the reason that they do not want to use IE on iPaq-Linux is because it has to be pretty hard to run WINE with it!

Well, if it can run, it will look like this.

Have a nice Week-end!

Check out the 34 line web server written by Rick Klement, the best Perl programmer I've ever known, who says of it:

I wrote this after seeing a small HTTP server that took ~650 lines of C. I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try for a ten-to-one reduction. Not only did I exceed that, but the ~650 line server did not do POST type CGI's, which mine will.

This server (which I name 'ws') has been quite useful. I use it for CGI testing, it's much simpler launching 'ws' with all parameters given on the command line than modifying an Apache conf file and firing the new Apache server up.

'ws' takes four arguments on the command line,
ws port_number doc_tree_base cgi_tree_base cgi_location
but they all have defaults. I usually fire it up with
ws 80 . .
and then fetch plain docs from machine/somedoc.html and CGI's from machine/cgi-bin/somecgi.pl

Yeah, I read that book. There's a page about it with a lot of detail-- one interesting point that I didn't realise before is that it was based on a true story. The teacher in question (Ron Jones) wanted to show the untruth in "it couldn't happen here"-- the students had opted for security and conformity at the loss of freedom and the human rights of their peers without realising they were slipping into it. Indeed, much of the impetus towards fascism seems to have come from the students themselves.

Eerie, isn't it?

M

I work in the electronics booth at a certain unnamed international toy chain with a backwards letter in their name. I can definitely see why sega would want to abandon this genre. There is simply too few games to support paying for such a system, and too few people buying them. With Playstation, PS One (the smaller, $99 version of playstation) and PS2, there are hundreds, if not thousands of games available, due largely to the fact that it is an international platform and there are tons of import games for it (though not all of them do very well in the translation. See zero-wing AKA "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US"). With sega, they have to basically do every game in house, since it would be hard to convince a developer to support the platform with such a bad track record of success.

Now, regarding video quality. RealVideo 8 is quite good, and in every comparison I've seen, does better than the competition. Of course, I'm a RealNetworks employee, so I'm prone to bias. Still, here's the link to comparitive data on the RealNetworks site, as well as an independent assessment which largely comes to the same conclusions (with some nods to the competition). And, yes, there's a Linux version

As far as server price goes....hey, we've gotta make a living somehow. For the bandwidth necessary to stream to the audiences that you quote, you're going to pay a lot more in bandwidth and infrastructure than in software licenses.

So, can we get a little slack here? :)

Rob

The Wave was the result of an experiment in Personality Cult worship in PaloAlto Cali. in the 60's. It is VERY funny that the monkeys who are developing this 'squeel' system have never heard about it.

The book based on this event was required reading in my HighSchool - very interesting read.

Maybe the people devloping the "W.A.V.E." program should read a book... it is uncanny that this experiment (in 60's California) detailed in this book is exactly what this "W.A.V.E." program will lead too - that the book actually warned against this.

This is very weird.

• We can discern broad rules of sensible things to do and not do.
• Imperfect predictions are better than no predictions.
• Even chaotic systems can be controlled and manipulated (hello Alan Greenspan, hello to the Hunt Brothers)
• Incautious changes to a system that you don't understand can lead to disaster

• The Greenhouse Hoax...Noel Mc Donald
• Global Warming: A Chilling Perspective
• Greenhouse Syndrome: Just Hot Air?
• Global Warming: A Political, Economic and Scientific Backgrounder
• A BRIEFING ON GLOBAL WARMING, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
• There are many questions regarding Global Warming
• Global warming has failed experimental test.
• GLOBAL WARMING: INVENTING AN APOCALYPSE
• Home Page of John Daly, author of The Greenhouse Trap.
• John L. Daly Profile of a Greenhouse `Dissenter'

I spent countless hours with that system. most of my ability to approach problems and solve them (technically, at least) came from the time I spent hacking code (and hardware) for 'my personal computer'.

back in '78 or so, when it first came out, personal computers were a novelty and fascination. and you felt special if you posessed one of these in your home. you wanted to spend all your available time with it, and with so many hours comes a level of 'grok' that can only be attained by hardcore overtime.

I found that since I was in my early teens when I got my first computer, learning to relate to the box at its level became second-nature to me. by the time I was college age, the computer science classes were almost trivially easy and the lab assignments were unchallenging as well.

I fully believe that getting exposed to computers very early gives people such a huge advantage later on - especially if they go into that very field. the radio shack trs-80 was the first system to be so widely available to anyone who wanted it, and it had a 'cool factor' that, at the time, was undenyable. give a kid one of those and if he really gets into it, he's just found himself a high paying and secure career for life.

--

Lots.

Next time I have lunch with my ex-co-workers over at the bank, I'm going to ask them why the "got cash?" signs on their cash dispensers (nee ATM's) got replaced with "get cash!" on one side and just "cash?" on the other. I suspect they didn't get a nastygram from whichever dairy organization holds the trademark (which I'm in violation of, by the way, having a burp cloth on which the baby's grandma embroidered "got milk?" next to a pacifier...), but rather from their own lawyers.

For the curious, I recommend a more extensive article on this subject by a former UN translator, including some examples of problem phrases.

The less curious, of course, are under no obligation to read it.

By the way, here are a few recent locations of the THX startup sound that haven't been taken down by LucasLaws, Inc:

• http://bennyhills.fortunecity.com/tenuda/170/thxst artup.wav
• http://www.geocities.com/shwatkin/sounds/html/thx_ sound_wav.html
• http://www.brain-damage.net/sounds/events/start/th x.wav
• http://batmandork.hypermart.net/wavs/thxsound.wav
• http://www.mastersound.net/wavs/startup/thx.wav

I saw richard talking to some of the members of the press.

.ph0x

The capture & compression can be done in real time, my system is an AMD K7 Duron 650Mhz running on a MSI motherboard with 64Megs of ram. I usually leave the audio uncompressed, at full PCM 44.1khz stereo. I also set DivX ;-) low motion codec at 1 sec keyframes, and 6000 (max) kbps. Average compression is 26:1, somewhere near 200 KB/sec. WIth 10Gigs free, it has more than 20 hours left for recording :) I think you could get even more if you also compress the audio, in .wma at 64kbps, but a little bit faster procesor could be needed. Ah yes, the harddisk is just a Maxtor 30G IDE drive, with UDMA enabled.

I also use a little free scheduler called "Windows Scheduler" to do the automated capture (it saves keystrokes), and virtualdub itself can stop the record after certain conditions are met (like, n minutes passed, or only n megs free on disk).

So yes, your VCR is obsolete already, get a decent CPU and TV Tuner, and have a lot of fun.

Oh, and hear this tip: do the capture at YUY2 (raw) so you can enable the "noise filter", anything from the default (17?) to below (left) should be okay. You will be amazed of the magic this does with old tapes or not good enough tv signal, then choose the compression at the "compression" menu option, so to be done in real time after the raw capture and filtering.

Of course install the DivX ;-) lossy codec, and the very useful free opensource huffyuv lossless codec, use the lossy one when you need a long recording time, and the lossless when you need quality above anything else. Same with PCM (raw) audio vs mp3/wma (lossy).

BTW: Could somebody with the knowledge please take a look at VirtualDub's and huffyuv's source code? Maybe it could be ported to BeOS and Linux, now that we have the DivX ;-) Deux source at hand it could be useful. I hope video4linux 2 is ready :)

--

What? First to *use* USB (not just put it on the board).

That's an argument about their choice of peripherals, not about their support of i/o standards. It's marketing, not engineering. (Not that marketing is not important, just a different discussion.)

First to use Firewire. Using 32bit Nubus when PCs where using ISA slots.

Still using Nubus years after the PC had moved to PCI. Indeed, I'd count Nubus along with SCSI--in both cases Apple went with a clearly superior solution early on, but ended up being held back as the mainstream PC standards, driven by the much larger marketplace, managed to improve much faster and yet be much cheaper than what Apple used.

The "laughably inferior video card" may be so for FPS, but actually performs quite well for graphic artists. Makes me wonder why they specced it.

"The Macintosh does not have any decent 3d support, so therefore we can pretend that 3d support is not important." Any $9 graphics card is just fine for 2d, although I seriously doubt that 16 MB and a 230 MHz RAMDAC are really good enough for any serious graphic artists. The simple fact is that the Mac does not do 3d well, and that that is simply pitiful in this day and age. And no, 3d is not just used for games; you may be shocked, but there are actually graphics artists that work in three dimensions too! (They use PCs and Unix workstations.)

BTW, the only decent 802.11 system out there that can hold a candle to the AirPort system is the Lucent Orinoco system, which is slightly more expensive and a lot harder to set up.

I don't know how hard it is to set up, but IIRC for what you admit is only a slightly higher price it has a much greater wireless range.

How many makers right now are putting out machines with DDR RAM? Last I checked, not many. Sure they're ramping up, but Apple would be stupid (and possibly insane) to be on the top of the curve for every trend. Their machines would be even more overpriced and they could end up with a Rambus/Intel fiasco on their hands if they made the wrong choice. Better to let someone like Intel make that mistake and fight the battles worth fighting (i.e the ones pretty much won already like USB, firewire)

As this thread was initially about system *performance* (as opposed to capabilities), let me tell you that DDR is MUCH more "a battle worth fighting" on this metric. But you have a very valid point--indeed, I agree with you completely. The thing is, what you're saying assumes that Apple will be designing and validating its own chipsets, incompatible with the real world, every time they want to add a feature. In such an environment, it is indeed not worth it to come out with a DDR chipset now. Moreover, while it would have been worth it to come out with a PC133 chispet a year ago and a DDR chipset in around 3 months time, the fact that Apple is the one designing and validating every new chipset is the reason these chipsets are always a year behind the times--it's a very complicated process and Apple's engineers are understandably stretched thin to try to replicate the work of dozens of companies in the PC world.

That's the problem with having a vertical monopoly; there's not enough room for differentiated product lines and innovation. In the PC world, there are 2 or 3 major chipset manufacturers competing to come out with the fastest chipsets with the most new features, and another couple players who drop in to keep competition high. There are about a dozen major motherboard manufacturers, who compete to best implement these chipsets with the most features at the lowest price. Because the PC RAM market is so large, you have all the DRAM manufacturers in the world driving chipset innovation as well. Finally, because PCs are used for general purpose tasks and because there's an independent benchmarking industry in the PC marketplace, all these people know that they won't be able to get away with a single toy SIMD benchmark as an overall measure of "performance"--thus they all feel pressure to create components which actually work fast over a wide variety of circumstances. Hence the PC market is moving into 2.1 and 3.2 GB/s FSBs while the Mac is finally hitting 1.1 GB/s. Oh, and while we're on the subject, it turns out I was wrong: you won't be able to buy a G4 with on-die L2 cache until the G4+ is released in March. Only then will the G4 finally be approaching clock-for-clock parity with x86 chips (according to SPECcpu, i.e. a real benchmark suite).

Now, I'm not saying there aren't some important tangible benefits to Apple's vertical monopoly. I just don't think they're worth the drawback: machines which cost twice as much as the equivalent PC did when it was released 9 months ago.

One final word re: price/performance -- find a notebook that can compete in that area with the new powerbook. Good luck.

Here you finally have a point: the new powerbook is very impressive and indeed competitive with PCs in price/performance. One important reason why is that AMD has not yet had a viable notebook CPU for the mainstream and performance ends of the market, so therefore Intel has a monopoly over that segment and thus performance notebooks tend to cost as much as powerbooks. Conversely, Apple has seen itself frozen out of the market it practically invented with the first powerbooks, as the portable market becomes more and more dominated by corporate consumers. Thus you have a reversal of the situation in the desktop PC market: Intel is getting away with monopoly pricing, while Apple is heavily discounting to try to break back into a market they've nearly lost.

Still, no matter how I might try to talk bad about it, there's no doubt the new powerbooks are very competitive. On the other hand, the situation is decidedly *not* as Apple has presented it. Here's what Apple has to say on the matter:


Sony Vaio Z505...........PowerBook G4

12.1-inch display........15.2-inch wide-screen display
Magnesium alloy..........99.5% pure grade CP1 titanium
650MHz Pentium III.......400 MHz PowerPC G4
No optical drive.........Slot-loading DVD-ROM
2 hours battery life.....5 hours battery life
Not wireless ready.......AirPort antenna built-in
1.15 inches thick........1 inch thick
$2549*...................$2599*

(Taken from here.)

Now let's look at what the actual facts on that Sony Z505 really are.

First off, let's take note of the fact that contrary to Apple's blatant misrepresentation, the Z505 with a P3-650 actually costs $2250, not "$2549". But what's $300 among friends? Well, we can use some of that money to buy the Z505 a 6-hour battery, so hahaha on you. The cost is now $2450, or $150 less than the Mac. Also while the powerbook may be a miraculous 3.8 mm thinner than the Z505, the important measure is of course weight; the powerbook, at 5.3 pounds, is 41% heavier than the 3.75 pound Z505--which makes sense, as they really serve different purposes. Indeed, the low weight (and its huge popularity) is the reason the Z505 is so underpowered for its price (for a PC that is), but we'll disregard that for now.

Unfortunately, there's no way to buy the Vaio as unloaded as those powerbooks: in particular, no way to buy it without at least Word 2000. Nor is there any way to purchase Word 2001 with our brand new powerbook at the Apple Store. We could buy it from MS for $400 but that doesn't seem quite fair. Instead we'll upgrade both machines to Office.

Where does that put us now?


Sony Vaio Z505...........PowerBook G4

12.1-inch display........15.2-inch wide-screen display
Magnesium alloy..........99.5% pure grade CP1 titanium
650MHz Pentium III.......400 MHz PowerPC G4
No optical drive.........Slot-loading DVD-ROM
6 hours battery life.....5 hours battery life
Not wireless ready.......AirPort antenna built-in
1.15 inches thick........1 inch thick
12 GB HD.................10 GB HD
3.75 pounds*.............5.3 pounds
$2650....................$3060

*Longer battery adds weight from this original measurement, but I couldn't find out how much.

What's missing? Well, the DVD player, for one thing. An external one adds $400 to the Z505's cost, making it just a hair cheaper than the powerbook. The 650 MHz P3 is in reality a good deal faster than the 400 MHz G4, but by using the right programs an argument can be made that the G4 comes close. "AirPort antenna built-in" is a red-herring, since you still need to spend $100 for the AirPort card. I looked it up, and the first place I checked had an Orinoco card for $160. Again, I'm almost positive this card has much better range than AirPort. Eh, let's look it up, shall we? Well, AirPort only goes a measely up to 150 feet. Orinoco goes...let's see...up to 1750 feet. Hmm. Guess the "built-in antenna" isn't working too well, is it??

So what do we end up with? The new powerbook is almost exactly the same price as a similarly configured Z505, except that the Z505 has a tad more HD space, has an extra hour on the battery, and, sorry to say, is the faster machine. Alternatively, you can get the Z505 without a DVD player and save $400.

Meanwhile, the powerbook has a luscious 15.2" screen, while the Z505 is stuck with a 12.1" which, while quite small, at least manages to almost hit the resolution of the powerbook (1024x768 vs. 1152x768). The benefit of giving up the nice screen and the internal DVD is up to 1.55 pounds of heft and of course that extra hour.

In other words, it's arguably a tossup. Of course it's a bad comparison because one is a sub-notebook and the other a full-sizer, but Apple chose it, not me. Still, it's worth noting that the Z505 is perhaps the most overpriced laptop around, so it's not such a surprise that Apple chose it when making a comparison.

Well phew! Aren't we enlightened? Did I pass? (It wasn't that tough, I let Apple "find a notebook that can compete in [price/performance] with the new powerbook" for me!)

Now it's my turn: find a desktop Mac that can compete in (price/1.5)/performance with a similarly equipped desktop PC--and I mean in a wide variety of benchmarks, not just Photoshop and RC5. (Indeed, it would be tough to do that even with Photoshop, assuming one actually used a complete Photoshop benchmark like PSbench.)

Good luck. Unfortunately, there are very few good cross-platform benchmarks to consult; the most well-respected cross-platform benchmark in the world, SPECcpu, shows the G4 in a rather unflattering light--indeed, because of this Motorola hasn't even released official scores for the G4, making it the only current general-purpose CPU family I can think of for which SPEC scores are not available. Oh wait, I lied: there's no SPEC scores for Cyrix chips either. However, there are SPEC scores for the P3, P4, the AMD K7, for Sun's UltraSparc II and III, for IBM's POWER3 chip which is sorta related to the G3 kinda sorta, for the Alpha EV67, and the MIPS R12000 and the HP PA-RISC 8600-just in the past year. The point is, every real chip releases SPEC scores, usually early and often. The best we have for the brand-spanking-new G4+ is an *estimate* for the outdated (in fact retired) SPEC95 suite, and man it's not too pretty. Of course, Motorola can always complain that they don't have a very good Fortran compiler, which is key to a good SPECfp score (their SPECint score sucks too, though); still, this is no one's fault but their own, unless of course they never meant the G4 or G4+ to be a high-performance general-purpose chip (oh that's right, they didn't; they built it for the embedded market).

Other cross-platform benchmarks are invariably much less trustworthy, because they are almost always binary only and are never of the breadth or depth of the SPEC suite. Picking Photoshop, for example, is just plain dumb, as Photoshop is simply better optimized on the Mac than on the PC (alternatively, we could benchmark Word and see which runs it faster). There's a nice collection of published cross-platform Mac vs. x86 results here; it's worth perusing, even though most of these programs make *very* poor overall benchmarks, taken as a whole they at least provide some semblence of a big picture. Needless to say, I think your task will be pretty difficult, even if there were a good way to compare performance across the two platforms.

As a Caltech student, I can definitely affirm the accounts of the great steam tunnel tradition. The house most famous for this sort of thing is Blacker.

One fine day, we decieded we needed a faster intranet between the north and south houses for the trading of DivX, porn, and such [shared 10BaseT just does not cut it anymore]. So, the most obvious solution was to set up some routers (FreeBSD and Linux) and drop some gigabit cable. (we only had 100BaseT NICs, but we got a good deal on the cat 5e)

Of course, it was wonderful to have relatively easy access to the tunnels, enabling us to run the cable quickly, neatly, and safely.

Here's some wonderful pictures of the whole thing. The tunnels became quite constricted in some areas, so we had to protect our buddy from the elements (asbestos, spiders, god knows what) as he crawled in the dirt underneath the students houses.

Preparing...

Ready to go..

Anticipation

Success!!

As a Caltech student, I can definitely affirm the accounts of the great steam tunnel tradition. The house most famous for this sort of thing is Blacker.

One fine day, we decieded we needed a faster intranet between the north and south houses for the trading of DivX, porn, and such [shared 10BaseT just does not cut it anymore]. So, the most obvious solution was to set up some routers (FreeBSD and Linux) and drop some gigabit cable. (we only had 100BaseT NICs, but we got a good deal on the cat 5e)

Of course, it was wonderful to have relatively easy access to the tunnels, enabling us to run the cable quickly, neatly, and safely.

Here's some wonderful pictures of the whole thing. The tunnels became quite constricted in some areas, so we had to protect our buddy from the elements (asbestos, spiders, god knows what) as he crawled in the dirt underneath the students houses.

Preparing...

Ready to go..

Anticipation

Success!!

As a Caltech student, I can definitely affirm the accounts of the great steam tunnel tradition. The house most famous for this sort of thing is Blacker.

One fine day, we decieded we needed a faster intranet between the north and south houses for the trading of DivX, porn, and such [shared 10BaseT just does not cut it anymore]. So, the most obvious solution was to set up some routers (FreeBSD and Linux) and drop some gigabit cable. (we only had 100BaseT NICs, but we got a good deal on the cat 5e)

Of course, it was wonderful to have relatively easy access to the tunnels, enabling us to run the cable quickly, neatly, and safely.

Here's some wonderful pictures of the whole thing. The tunnels became quite constricted in some areas, so we had to protect our buddy from the elements (asbestos, spiders, god knows what) as he crawled in the dirt underneath the students houses.

Preparing...

Ready to go..

Anticipation

Success!!

As a Caltech student, I can definitely affirm the accounts of the great steam tunnel tradition. The house most famous for this sort of thing is Blacker.

One fine day, we decieded we needed a faster intranet between the north and south houses for the trading of DivX, porn, and such [shared 10BaseT just does not cut it anymore]. So, the most obvious solution was to set up some routers (FreeBSD and Linux) and drop some gigabit cable. (we only had 100BaseT NICs, but we got a good deal on the cat 5e)

Of course, it was wonderful to have relatively easy access to the tunnels, enabling us to run the cable quickly, neatly, and safely.

Here's some wonderful pictures of the whole thing. The tunnels became quite constricted in some areas, so we had to protect our buddy from the elements (asbestos, spiders, god knows what) as he crawled in the dirt underneath the students houses.

Preparing...

Ready to go..

Anticipation

Success!!

You can find more information & links about this breaking story at this site

Destroy Microsoft!!!

Go here

Many thanks to slashdot user Procyon101 for this link I found buried in some replys to an earlier thread. Just thought I'd post it with a +2 initial score.

Here it is.

Here is how I believe things happened. ;)

Uh oh ... I'm goin ta jail -- Do not pass 'Go', do not collect $200.00

.ph0x

What is it with America's love of voting machines? They don't use them virtually anywhere else.

Haven't you bloody Americans learnt the KISS system - Keep It Simple Stupid.

This means no bloody machines, period !!! If Australia (& also virtually the rest of the democratic world) can do hand counted paper ballots, then so can the US.

The only reason they use machine systems in the US is to cut costs, but the simple fact is they arn't as good (they invalidate more votes then hand counts do, they intimidate & confuse a good percentage of voters & they increase the odds of something fuking up (murphy's law)

Look at the mess, as well as the fuked up punch card machines you have counties with lever machines, other with optical machines, toggle switch machines, push button machines & also touch screen systems too. Then there are places like Oregon where all votes are of the mail in variety (which obviously discriminates against the homeless & disorginised ). The simple fact is that huge numbers of people are intimidated with this complicated mess that's one of the reasons why most Americans don't vote & why the US has about the lowest voter turnout in the OECD.

Look at all the people that are intimidated by machines & even now still refuse to use Automatic Teller Machines, & there are plenty more people like that then just the illiterate, the elderly & immigrants that have poor 2nd language skills.

Its as if the bureaucracy in the US are on purposefully trying to discourage the masses from voting.

The only way to go is to Keep It Simple Stupid. Which means aiming at the lowest common denominator & designing a system that the stupidist simpleton can understand.

Which means 'X marks the spot' hand ballots.

That means a peice of paper with the candidates listed in a columne & another columne of boxes on the side with just one box next to each candidate.

Here are a couple of examples of 'KISS' paper ballots, the 1st one is an example of an Australian preferential ballot (any Americans who support 3rd parties should be demanding that the US system be made either preferential or proportional, otherwise no 3rd parties will ever make any long term headway), the 2nd ballot is an example of an ''X' marks the spot' ballot.

As far as counting goes the US should be doing what Australia does (& most of the rest of the developed world does similar) & hold the vote on a Saturday (I wonder how many blue collar workers in the US chose not to vote because of the incoveniance of voting on a Tuesday), using local schools as voting centres. Then leasing indoor stadiums & convention centres nationwide which are to be used as counting centres for the thousands of temp workers employed to count the votes. Each counter also has a Labour & conservative scrutineer looking over his/her shoulders.

Sure its labour intensive, but as any UN election observer will tell you this is the best system if you want high turnouts with low rates of invalid votes & a result that's as accurate as can be, by Monday morning at the latest (actually in the vast majority of elections we know who's won by about 8pm the same night).

Also all politicians must be removed from any decision making processes as far as the running of elections are concerned, etc.

Look at the way democratic afiliated local officials OKed the hand count iin Palm Beach & then the Republican Florida SoS blocked the hand count (& she was Bush's co-campaign manager, which makes it an even worse conflict of interest). That sort of thing is unheard of in Australia. Where an Independent Australian Electoral Commision administers federal elections & the various state electoral commisions administers state & local elections.

No politians are involved anywhere in the decision making process (except for calling the date of the election). As far as recounts, re-votes, referendums (in Australia politions can't amend the constitution, only the people can through referendums. Where a majority of the total votes & a majority in a majority of states, responds 'yes' to the amendment) & by-elections, etc are concerned only the electoral commision can make decisions regarding them. Although anyone can appeal to the commission's court, for a recount or re vote or something. Whether such appeals are successful is another matter.

Machine voting systems just fuck things up. What is it with America's love of voting machines? They don't use them virtually anywhere else. It's precisely because Americans useing voting machines that their voting system is such a mess. There are reasons why virtually rest of the world uses simple hand ballots - they work & they work perfectly

Haven't you bloody Americans learnt the KISS system - Keep It Simple Stupid.

This means no bloody machines, period !!! If Australia (& also virtually the rest of the democratic world) can do hand counted paper ballots, then so can the US.

The only reason they use machine systems in the US is to cut costs, but the simple fact is they arn't as good (they invalidate more votes then hand counts do, they intimidate & confuse a good percentage of voters & they increase the odds of something fuking up (murphy's law)

Look at the mess, as well as the fuked up punch card machines you have counties with lever machines, other with optical machines, toggle switch machines, push button machines & also touch screen systems too. Then there are places like Oregon where all votes are of the mail in variety (which obviously discriminates against the homeless & disorginised ). The simple fact is that huge numbers of people are intimidated with this complicated mess that's one of the reasons why most Americans don't vote & why the US has about the lowest voter turnout in the OECD.

Look at all the people that are intimidated by machines & even now still refuse to use Automatic Teller Machines, & there are plenty more people like that then just the illiterate, the elderly & immigrants that have poor 2nd language skills.

Its as if the bureaucracy in the US are on purposefully trying to discourage the masses from voting.

The only way to go is to Keep It Simple Stupid. Which means aiming at the lowest common denominator & designing a system that the stupidist simpleton can understand.

Which means 'X marks the spot' hand ballots.

That means a peice of paper with the candidates listed in a columne & another columne of boxes on the side with just one box next to each candidate.

Here are a couple of examples of 'KISS' paper ballots, the 1st one is an example of an Australian preferential ballot (any Americans who support 3rd parties should be demanding that the US system be made either preferential or proportional, otherwise no 3rd parties will ever make any long term headway), the 2nd ballot is an example of an ''X' marks the spot' ballot.

As far as counting goes the US should be doing what Australia does (& most of the rest of the developed world does similar) & hold the vote on a Saturday (I wonder how many blue collar workers in the US chose not to vote because of the incoveniance of voting on a Tuesday), using local schools as voting centres. Then leasing indoor stadiums & convention centres nationwide which are to be used as counting centres for the thousands of temp workers employed to count the votes. Each counter also has a Labour & conservative scrutineer looking over his/her shoulders.

Sure its labour intensive, but as any UN election observer will tell you this is the best system if you want high turnouts with low rates of invalid votes & a result that's as accurate as can be, by Monday morning at the latest (actually in the vast majority of elections we know who's won by about 8pm the same night).

Also all politicians must be removed from any decision making processes as far as the running of elections are concerned, etc.

Look at the way democratic afiliated local officials OKed the hand count iin Palm Beach & then the Republican Florida SoS blocked the hand count (& she was Bush's co-campaign manager, which makes it an even worse conflict of interest). That sort of thing is unheard of in Australia. Where an Independent Australian Electoral Commision administers federal elections & the various state electoral commisions administers state & local elections.

No politians are involved anywhere in the decision making process (except for calling the date of the election). As far as recounts, re-votes, referendums (in Australia politions can't amend the constitution, only the people can through referendums. Where a majority of the total votes & a majority in a majority of states, responds 'yes' to the amendment) & by-elections, etc are concerned only the electoral commision can make decisions regarding them. Although anyone can appeal to the commision's court, for a recount or re vote or something. Whether such appeals are successful is another matter.

What is it with America's love of voting machines? They don't use them virtually anywhere else.

Haven't you bloody Americans learnt the KISS system - Keep It Simple Stupid.

This means no bloody machines, period !!! If Australia (& also virtually the rest of the democratic world) can do hand counted paper ballots, then so can the US.

The only reason they use machine systems in the US is to cut costs, but the simple fact is they arn't as good (they invalidate more votes then hand counts do, they intimidate & confuse a good percentage of voters & they increase the odds of something fuking up (murphy's law)

Look at the bloody mess, as well as the fuked up punch card machines you have counties with lever machines, other with optical machines, toggle switch machines, push button machines & also touch screen systems too. Then there are places like Oregon where all votes are of the mail in variety (which obviously discriminates against the homeless & disorginised ). The simple fact is that huge numbers of people are intimidated with this complicated mess that's one of the reasons why most Americans don't vote & why the US has about the lowest voter turnout in the OECD.

Look at all the people that are intimidated by machines & even now still refuse to use Automatic Teller Machines, & there are plenty more people like that then just the illiterate, the elderly & immigrants that have poor 2nd language skills.

Its as if the bureaucracy in the US are on purposefully trying to discourage the masses from voting.

The only way to go is to Keep It Simple Stupid. Which means aiming at the lowest common denominator & designing a system that the stupidist simpleton can understand.

Which means 'X marks the spot' hand ballots.

That means a peice of paper with the candidates listed in a columne & another columne of boxes on the side with just one box next to each candidate.

Here are a couple of examples of 'KISS' paper ballots, the 1st one is an example of an Australian preferential ballot (any Americans who support 3rd parties should be demanding that the US system be made either preferential or proportional, otherwise no 3rd parties will ever make any long term headway), the 2nd ballot is an example of an ''X' marks the spot' ballot.

As far as counting goes the US should be doing what Australia does (& most of the rest of the developed world does similar) & hold the vote on a Saturday (I wonder how many blue collar workers in the US chose not to vote because of the incoveniance of voting on a Tuesday), using local schools as voting centres. Then leasing indoor stadiums & convention centres nationwide which are to be used as counting centres for the thousands of temp workers employed to count the votes. Each counter also has a Labour & conservative scrutineer looking over his/her shoulders.

Sure its labour intensive, but as any UN election observer will tell you this is the best system if you want high turnouts with low rates of invalid votes & a result that's as accurate as can be, by Monday morning at the latest (actually in the vast majority of elections we know who's won by about 8pm the same night).

Also all politicians must be removed from any decision making processes as far as the running of elections are concerned, etc.

Look at the way democratic afiliated local officials OKed the hand count iin Palm Beach & then the Republican Florida SoS blocked the hand count (& she was Bush's co-campaign manager, which makes it an even worse conflict of interest). That sort of thing is unheard of in Australia. Where an Independent Australian Electoral Commision administers federal elections & the various state electoral commisions administers state & local elections.

No politians are involved anywhere in the decision making process (except for calling the date of the election). As far as recounts, re-votes, referendums (in Australia politions can't amend the constitution, only the people can through referendums. Where a majority of the total votes & a majority in a majority of states, responds 'yes' to the amendment) & by-elections, etc are concerned only the electoral commision can make decisions regarding them. Although anyone can appeal to the commision's court, for a recount or re vote or something. Whether such appeals are successful is another matter.

What is it with America's love of voting machines? They don't use them virtually anywhere else.

Haven't you bloody Americans learnt the KISS system - Keep It Simple Stupid.

This means no bloody machines, period !!! If Australia (& also virtually the rest of the democratic world) can do hand counted paper ballots, then so can the US.

The only reason they use machine systems in the US is to cut costs, but the simple fact is they arn't as good (they invalidate more votes then hand counts do, they intimidate & confuse a good percentage of voters & they increase the odds of something fuking up (murphy's law)

Look at the mess, as well as the fuked up punch card machines you have counties with lever machines, other with optical machines, toggle switch machines, push button machines & also touch screen systems too. Then there are places like Oregon where all votes are of the mail in variety (which obviously discriminates against the homeless & disorginised ). The simple fact is that huge numbers of people are intimidated with this complicated mess that's one of the reasons why most Americans don't vote & why the US has about the lowest voter turnout in the OECD.

Look at all the people that are intimidated by machines & even now still refuse to use Automatic Teller Machines, & there are plenty more people like that then just the illiterate, the elderly & immigrants that have poor 2nd language skills.

Its as if the bureaucracy in the US are on purposefully trying to discourage the masses from voting.

The only way to go is to Keep It Simple Stupid. Which means aiming at the lowest common denominator & designing a system that the stupidist simpleton can understand.

Which means 'X marks the spot' hand ballots.

That means a peice of paper with the candidates listed in a columne & another columne of boxes on the side with just one box next to each candidate.

Here are a couple of examples of 'KISS' paper ballots, the 1st one is an example of an Australian preferential ballot (any Americans who support 3rd parties should be demanding that the US system be made either preferential or proportional, otherwise no 3rd parties will ever make any long term headway), the 2nd ballot is an example of an ''X' marks the spot' ballot.

As far as counting goes the US should be doing what Australia does (& most of the rest of the developed world does similar) & hold the vote on a Saturday (I wonder how many blue collar workers in the US chose not to vote because of the incoveniance of voting on a Tuesday), using local schools as voting centres. Then leasing indoor stadiums & convention centres nationwide which are to be used as counting centres for the thousands of temp workers employed to count the votes. Each counter also has a Labour & conservative scrutineer looking over his/her shoulders.

Sure its labour intensive, but as any UN election observer will tell you this is the best system if you want high turnouts with low rates of invalid votes & a result that's as accurate as can be, by Monday morning at the latest (actually in the vast majority of elections we know who's won by about 8pm the same night).

Also all politicians must be removed from any decision making processes as far as the running of elections are concerned, etc.

Look at the way democratic afiliated local officials OKed the hand count iin Palm Beach & then the Republican Florida SoS blocked the hand count (& she was Bush's co-campaign manager, which makes it an even worse conflict of interest). That sort of thing is unheard of in Australia. Where an Independent Australian Electoral Commision administers federal elections & the various state electoral commisions administers state & local elections.

No politians are involved anywhere in the decision making process (except for calling the date of the election). As far as recounts, re-votes, referendums (in Australia politions can't amend the constitution, only the people can through referendums. Where a majority of the total votes & a majority in a majority of states, responds 'yes' to the amendment) & by-elections, etc are concerned only the electoral commision can make decisions regarding them. Although anyone can appeal to the commision's court, for a recount or re vote or something. Whether such appeals are successful is another matter.

What is it with America's love of voting machines? They don't use them virtually anywhere else.

Haven't you bloody Americans learnt the KISS system - Keep It Simple Stupid.

This means no bloody machines, period !!! If Australia (& also virtually the rest of the democratic world) can do hand counted paper ballots, then so can the US.

The only reason they use machine systems in the US is to cut costs, but the simple fact is they arn't as good (they invalidate more votes then hand counts do, they intimidate & confuse a good percentage of voters & they increase the odds of something fuking up (murphy's law)

Look at the mess, as well as the fuked up punch card machines you have counties with lever machines, other with optical machines, toggle switch machines, push button machines & also touch screen systems too. Then there are places like Oregon where all votes are of the mail in variety (which obviously discriminates against the homeless & disorginised ). The simple fact is that huge numbers of people are intimidated with this complicated mess that's one of the reasons why most Americans don't vote & why the US has about the lowest voter turnout in the OECD.

Look at all the people that are intimidated by machines & even now still refuse to use Automatic Teller Machines, & there are plenty more people like that then just the illiterate, the elderly & immigrants that have poor 2nd language skills.

Its as if the bureaucracy in the US are on purposefully trying to discourage the masses from voting.

The only way to go is to Keep It Simple Stupid. Which means aiming at the lowest common denominator & designing a system that the stupidist simpleton can understand.

Which means 'X marks the spot' hand ballots.

That means a peice of paper with the candidates listed in a columne & another columne of boxes on the side with just one box next to each candidate.

Here are a couple of examples of 'KISS' paper ballots, the 1st one is an example of an Australian preferential ballot (any Americans who support 3rd parties should be demanding that the US system be made either preferential or proportional, otherwise no 3rd parties will ever make any long term headway), the 2nd ballot is an example of an ''X' marks the spot' ballot.

As far as counting goes the US should be doing what Australia does (& most of the rest of the developed world does similar) & hold the vote on a Saturday (I wonder how many blue collar workers in the US chose not to vote because of the incoveniance of voting on a Tuesday), using local schools as voting centres. Then leasing indoor stadiums & convention centres nationwide which are to be used as counting centres for the thousands of temp workers employed to count the votes. Each counter also has a Labour & conservative scrutineer looking over his/her shoulders.

Sure its labour intensive, but as any UN election observer will tell you this is the best system if you want high turnouts with low rates of invalid votes & a result that's as accurate as can be, by Monday morning at the latest (actually in the vast majority of elections we know who's won by about 8pm the same night).

Also all politicians must be removed from any decision making processes as far as the running of elections are concerned, etc.

Look at the way democratic afiliated local officials OKed the hand count iin Palm Beach & then the Republican Florida SoS blocked the hand count (& she was Bush's co-campaign manager, which makes it an even worse conflict of interest). That sort of thing is unheard of in Australia. Where an Independent Australian Electoral Commision administers federal elections & the various state electoral commisions administers state & local elections.

No politians are involved anywhere in the decision making process (except for calling the date of the election). As far as recounts, re-votes, referendums (in Australia politions can't amend the constitution, only the people can through referendums. Where a majority of the total votes & a majority in a majority of states, responds 'yes' to the amendment) & by-elections, etc are concerned only the electoral commision can make decisions regarding them. Although anyone can appeal to the commision's court, for a recount or re vote or something. Whether such appeals are successful is another matter.

Do that to whatever spammer you want, but not to a bank. Next time, they'll ruin your credit report, or worse, they'll stick you one of those dreaded ChexSystems marks. And there is really not much you can do about that.

(1) no nuclear reactors (waste/safety issues)
(2) no coal fired power plants (air emissions issues)
(3) no diesel fired power plants (air emmissions again)
(4) no hydroelectric plants (harms [cuddly species of the day]'s habitat)
(5) in fact, no new power plants at all ("not in *my* backyard!")
(6) you shut down existing plants from (1), (2), (3), and (4)
(7) Solar and geothermal don't seem to work like you think... or at all (i.e., operate at a loss).

Well, congrats... your air and water still suck. Species are still going extinct. You put all your eggs on natural gas which is now drying up and prices skyrocketing, you're freezing your asses off and whining about power shortages, high prices, and rolling bloackouts.

And now you:

(1) want continued legislation to FORCE other states to sell power to CA companies headed into bankruptcy? (Who wants to sell to deadbeats?)
(2) Blame deregulation for the energy shortage! Can't have liberals blaming their eco legislation or (gasp!) call for repealing some of it.
(3) Don't give a flying fuck that other states have to pollute more to keep CA on electrical welfare?

Thoroughly, California made its own mess and ought to be forced to wallow in it. You're all screwed and it's your own fault.

What will you do? Here's my prediction: Democrats will do ***NOTHING***. They'll sit and endure the rolling blackouts and come up with bullshit to justify them to the people. They will wait for republicans to propose building more power plants, and repealing the legislation preventing their construction. They will quietly vote to approve these measures amid much muttering and while speaking against it or more likely, will simply abstain on eco-law repealing bills to give republicans a majority (among remaining legislators who actually vote) to let the bills pass. Then when anyone, ANYONE complains about air quality or water pollution or nuclear waste in California they will "blame republicans for rolling back all our hard work to protect your environment." Saying they never voted to support that legislation. Yeah right.

You want power? Then you have to get dirty *just* *like* *everyone* *else*. TANSTAAFL, you know?

IMO, Republicans ought to continue the staredown with democrats until they start repealing their own legislation. Make the basterds squirm and swallow their own bullshit pride. As for the populations without power? Well, at least they'll learn what voting for liberals results in (stone age living) and will know better and teach their kids better in the future.

Um, did I miss anything here?

Free tip for CA denizens: The Plan to steal your cars from you via smog regs is already well underway. Start fighting it now. Basically it combines (1) smog check rules DESIGNED TO FAIL A PERCENTAGE of cars (with an eventual goal of 97% of all cars over 10 years old) with (2) rules that make it ILLEGAL to keep an unregistered vechicle on your property. (1) + (2) = State power to STEAL YOUR CARS and crush them into cubes. See http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1223/sb42/smo gflyer_5.html for more details.