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We are a recently formed group of concerned citizens who are pressuring the state to adopt a voter verified paper audit trail as a first step toward some form of accountability. A big argument has been the cost of adding printers, but apparently Diebold has started giving them away. "Diebold has agreed to modify the county's machines for free by the 2006 deadline so voters can review a printout of their ballots before casting them." Campaign for Verified Voting in Maryland

1) So? Come on, get serious.

2) Why we went to war. You've heard the saying that no one is so blind as he who will not see?

3) I assume you're talking about the recession, which started when Clinton was in office, according to official government figures. Well gosh, where to begin.

Service Sector Hiring Hits 3.5-Year High

NASDAQ, Dow Soar on Productivity Gains

For Home Loans, a Steady Market

Two Reports Indicate Recovery Is Taking Hold

Productivity Makes Best Gains in 20 Years

Auto Sales Rise with Economy

Shares Reach 18-Month Highs on Manufacturing News

Holiday Spending Shows Strength

Reports Indicate the Economy is Continuing its Expansion

Economy's Growth Is Revised Upward to 8.2%

U.S. Economic Growth Hits New Records

Number of New Jobless Claims Fell Last Week

Housing Starts In October Near 18-Year High

Economists Expect An Increase of 135,000 Jobs

Consumer Prices Steady After Four-Month Climb

Durable Goods Jump, Jobless Claims Drop

4) Sure. We're going to the moon so Bush can distract us from a bad e-mail bill passed by Congress.

5) Sure. We're going to the moon so Bush can distract us from the RIAA and MPAA.

I could go on ...

I'm sure you could. But I'd rather you didn't. - Alaska Jack

This block of text inserted to overcome Slashdot's stupid average-characters per line rule: WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation. WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, i

Here ya go Da Link

Despite all this, many states and communities are using taxpayers' money to finance subsidies to Wal-Mart, to come in and rape them.

In 1999, it was reported that in Olivette, Missouri, a developer received a tax incentive of up to $38.9 million for a construction project including a Wal-Mart and a Sam's Club--more than a third of the projected total cost of the project. In 1998, it was reported that the city of Chesterfield, Missouri was supplying $25.5 million in tax incentives toward the construction of a $100 million-plus mall, anchored by a Wal-Mart. In 2001, Ohio approved $10 million in tax credits and other assistance for Wal-Mart to build two distribution centers and an eyeglass-manufacturing facility.

One report, released this week by the Center on Policy Initiatives, questioned the benefits derived from public subsidies given to a 1998 retail redevelopment project in College Grove, which was anchored by a Wal-Mart. The project, the Marketplace at the Grove, received $13.4 million in public money and assistance, $9.5 million of which went to Wal-Mart, according to the study.

The linked story appears to be noting more than record company propaganda dressed up as news. Let's start with where they got the $60 million figure? Do they really expect us to believe that these kids out did Apple iTunes three and a half times? 17 million $0.99 cent iTunes so far. Not likely.

This story goes into a bit more detail and is worth a read.

I understand some files may have been simple rips but some of the allegedly infringing files that got these kids into trouble are club remixes they did themselves. That is, they created new works by sampling a song, pulling it apart and putting it back together with different beat, and uploading the remix. This is what DJ's do. It may technically be infringing behavior but it's not the kind of thing one would expect police action and possible jail for even if you did upload the final song.

The /. linked story has Paul Roberts, Counsel for the Commonwealth, saying "Ng was well aware he was acting illegally". In my link the story has Ng telling police he believed "Mp3WmaLand operated in a legal grey area". If that is really what happened then Mr. Roberts as the prosecutor should know and is now lying.

Now if you liked the bit about the open source software licensing in the first story, you are going to love this one. In the second story the industry's anti-piracy lawyer draws a comparison between Mp3WmaLand and Osama bin Laden's terrorist cells. Geez, Give me a break! What these kids did is absolutely noting to to with the "T" word. Here is some irony for you, isn't terrorism a small group trying to coerce a large population with fear, and the use or threatened use of force?

Maybe you should do some research before you spout off.

"Discrediting is when a national leader claims a 45 minute launch capability for a middle-eastern nation that turns out to have nothing of the sort."

Post-Saddam Inspectors have visited just under 10% of the sites listed as highest priority by the military, and at those sites they have already discovered foreign made missiles (burried by the way), not to mention that an unclassified breifing of the Kay report indicates they have found:

- Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD-variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the U.N.

- Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1,000 km - well beyond the 150-km range limit imposed by the U.N. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets throughout the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

here and here

My company is a large-market daily-US newspaper, and we are building CMS systems in Zope & Plone (using Python). There may be several advantages to using a scripting language, but a shift from Java to a non-OO scripting language like PHP is likely higher risk for you - Zope (and the Zope Content Management Framwork) may offer a better solution given it has a toolset of components to leverage out-of-the box, and a simple, component-oriented way of developing content management applications with a scripting language that is easier to use, but just as scalable as Java-based solutions.

Because it uses an object database for content repositories for digital asset management, you minimize the need to do object-relational serialization and marshalling between an OO system and a relational datastore. However, this isn't as complicated as it sounds; consider something like Archetypes, a schema-driven content type generation system that also has built-in relationship management for composition of media products from related assets.

Shameless plug: I'll be giving a talk on how we are doing much this at the Plone Conference. in October in New Orleans.

Scalability costs with this type of content-management solution will not be in licensing of yor apps, but in commodity hardware (scaling out). These costs would be greater than if you used something much more bare (i.e. PHP has no security model built-in, so pages might require less resources to render, but you get more limited flexibilty or need to implement such a layer anyway for your application, negating the performance difference), but performance and price would likely be on-par or more competitive than Java solutions.

If you are not in the market to build, but to buy the first 80% of your way into a solution, Zope Corporation has built a commercial CMS product on top of these open-source foundations (Zope/CMF, Squid+ESI) - it is called Zope4Media, initially developed for Viacom and Boston.com (one of the largest local media sites out there, which might speak for the performance characteristics of a well-designed Zope application).

As I'm sure has already been pointed out to you:

1. Georgy's a woman.
2. 890,000 valid signatures (they actually collected, by some accounts, 1.6 million) is peanuts in a state of 33 million people. Only 2.6% of the entire population of the state had to sign in order to get the recall on the ballot. Spend enough time in the Republican strongholds of the central valley or Orange County, and you'll find those signatures no problem.
3. Darrell Issa, a hard-right Republican, spent nearly $1.8 million of his own money to hire people, perhaps illegally, to come in from out of state and collect signatures. Spend enough money and ask enough times outside of a supermarket and people will sign just about anything.
4. Your power bill was FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS last month because power companies asked Californians to de-regulate the market, got voter momentum by promising lower electricity bills in expensive slick commercials, and then abused the open market and illegally gouged prices high. Once that was done, they offered 'cut-rate' prices on long-term contracts, in order to lock in the high prices they wanted before they were caught manipulating the market. Once they had their high prices locked in, they let the market churn subside. Davis made the correct decision, and the right decision, even the smart decision, in signing those contracts, based on the information available to the general public in 2001. That as consumers most Californians were robbed by these contracts is knowledge only available now, in hindsight.*

Where you're right, and don't even know it, is when you say voter disgust with Davis is what paved the way to this recall tomfoolery. Given the choice between Bill "Tax Fraud" Simon and Gray "Prison Guard Union Bitch" Davis, most voters chose to give a de facto 'none of the above' vote and just stayed home last November. These incredibly low turnout figures influenced how many signatures were necessary to get the recall on the ballot, and in the end paved the way for what we see now.

Also as an aside: I think it's BRILLIANT the way the Republican party of CA. has found a way to attack Davis for the budget shortfall, when at the same time holding fast in the legislature against any tax increases in the senate, leading to the pathetic budget we currently have. Absolute genius in the way they managed to eat their cake and have it, too.

And finally: If Georgy would come out pro-gun, she'd be my ideal candidate. As it is, I'll take what she's offering. Definitely the choice my conscience will tell me to vote in October.

* I say "most" because, like a few other municipalities, the town in which I live chose to maintain its own municipal power authority instead of trusting PG&E, so while you're paying $400, I'm paying $65. Thank you, bitch. Suck it dry!

As I'm sure has already been pointed out to you:

1. Georgy's a woman.
2. 890,000 valid signatures (they actually collected, by some accounts, 1.6 million) is peanuts in a state of 33 million people. Only 2.6% of the entire population of the state had to sign in order to get the recall on the ballot. Spend enough time in the Republican strongholds of the central valley or Orange County, and you'll find those signatures no problem.
3. Darrell Issa, a hard-right Republican, spent nearly $1.8 million of his own money to hire people, perhaps illegally, to come in from out of state and collect signatures. Spend enough money and ask enough times outside of a supermarket and people will sign just about anything.
4. Your power bill was FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS last month because power companies asked Californians to de-regulate the market, got voter momentum by promising lower electricity bills in expensive slick commercials, and then abused the open market and illegally gouged prices high. Once that was done, they offered 'cut-rate' prices on long-term contracts, in order to lock in the high prices they wanted before they were caught manipulating the market. Once they had their high prices locked in, they let the market churn subside. Davis made the correct decision, and the right decision, even the smart decision, in signing those contracts, based on the information available to the general public in 2001. That as consumers most Californians were robbed by these contracts is knowledge only available now, in hindsight.*

Where you're right, and don't even know it, is when you say voter disgust with Davis is what paved the way to this recall tomfoolery. Given the choice between Bill "Tax Fraud" Simon and Gray "Prison Guard Union Bitch" Davis, most voters chose to give a de facto 'none of the above' vote and just stayed home last November. These incredibly low turnout figures influenced how many signatures were necessary to get the recall on the ballot, and in the end paved the way for what we see now.

Also as an aside: I think it's BRILLIANT the way the Republican party of CA. has found a way to attack Davis for the budget shortfall, when at the same time holding fast in the legislature against any tax increases in the senate, leading to the pathetic budget we currently have. Absolute genius in the way they managed to eat their cake and have it, too.

And finally: If Georgy would come out pro-gun, she'd be my ideal candidate. As it is, I'll take what she's offering. Definitely the choice my conscience will tell me to vote in October.

* I say "most" because, like a few other municipalities, the town in which I live chose to maintain its own municipal power authority instead of trusting PG&E, so while you're paying $400, I'm paying $65. Thank you, bitch. Suck it dry!

1. They're looking to go with .Net instead of Unix or another stable, secure system. Insert your own jokes here.

2. They're building a Unionized auto plant. Obviously, this guy has no idea why big automakers have constantly moved their plants from heavily-unionized northern states to right-to-work states in the sun belt. Notice what a great benefit being heavily unionized was for the steel industry...

3. He's starting a new business in California. This is the same California, mind you, where Gray Davis and the Democratic Legislature have been making it almost impossible for businesses to operate profitably in. If he was serious about lowering costs, he'd be opening his plant someplace like Nevada or Texas.

Here are few sources to read up on the current California economic crises:

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/investing/articles/ 0,15114,465792,00.html

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20030713- 9999_1n13workers.html

http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/legislative_issues/fede ral_issues/hot_issues_in_congress/legal_reform/tre vor_law_group.html

http://www.americandaily.com/item/1853

This is what happens when you let Republicans (The previous 2 governers of California) design your "energy deregulation" scheme.

Yeah right. Nice try.

Put "Steve Peace" into google and see what you get. A Democrat that desinged the "energy deregulation" scheme.

I'll save you a trip to google, here's a link

• "The state has lost 289,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001."
  
  
• Davis and the legislature have approved new legislation that will increase some businesses' costs per worker "by $4,000 to $5,000 a year."
  
  
• "The legislature made workers' compensation more expensive by mandating a large increase in benefits. California businesses now contribute the highest premiums by far per $100 of employee wages: $5.85, vs. a national average of about $2.50. Yet instead of cutting costs, as other states have done, the legislature recently raised maximum benefits by 71%, from $490 per week in 2002 to $840 in 2005. Countrywide and Verizon both pay four to five times more in workers' comp per employee in California than in Texas."

Sign On San Diego article.

I must admit that part of what I posted was from something heard on the radio...I apparently didn't get it quite right. :-/ I think what I was referring to is new legislation, which hasn't passed and hopefully won't. The current law does require the employer to pay health insurance for the employee during the time off.

Here's the article that mentions Buck: Summit looks at why firms leaving state

What I didn't touch on in my previous post was the bevy of new taxes that're being proposed right now. Unfortunately, I can't find a good summary article but bills are in process that would additionally tax diapers, bullets, cigarettes, gasoline and a host of other items. Our local sales tax rate is already almost 8%!

This is a slightly older article that talks about taxes in California

As to whether or not Democrats are the "boogiemen", clearly they have had control of this state for many, many years. They are responsible for the current business climate which is definitely grim. Throw some more new taxes into the mix, and it will be ghastly. It won't necessarily take much more to drive significant numbers of businesses out of the state. If that happens, California may find itself in a full-blown recession. In the current fiscal climate, IMO other states will fare much better.

Comparing Kosovo to Iraq is stupid.

Actually, it's not. The arguement is that innocent people will die from the bombs.

No, there were many arguments against the Iraq war, including:

* The lack of international support. Note that despite popular belief in the US, the rest of the world didn't like Hussein and weren't necessarily against fighting him. Hans Blix said on CNN that he felt that he didn't sense pacifism among UN delegates, but rather a sense that a procedure had to be followed. In other words, if those inspectors could have found enough evidence, or if the US could have presented enough evidence, then the UN would have voted for war. This is also why France and other nations said that if Iraq used chemical weapons in the war, they'd jump right in. That evidence just never materialized (and still hasn't).

* The lack of a clear rationale for the war (first terrorism, then real but long-since-past crimes, then "to finish what we started", then WMDs, none of which were sufficiently proven to compel the UN). This is of course related to that first argument.

* The fact that Iraq was already crippled by international sanctions while more dangerous nations (e.g. North Korea) were running free. Also related to that first argument.

* The way the US supports dictatorships (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) and genocidal governments (e.g. Turkey, re. both the Kurds and the Greeks of Cyprus) while trying to justify a war against an enemy nation (in part) on those grounds. Also related to that first argument.

Notice a pattern here? This is what the rest of the world was thinking this whole time: "The US is messing with the Middle East again? Probably just more oil politics. Just like the US, to do whatever's best for themselves without thinking about the rest of the world."

* The lack of a plan to rebuild Iraq, especially one which accounted for disparate needs of the various ethnic factions in Iraq (e.g. the Kurds want a homeland).

* The argument that with the nature of the US/Britian/Iraq relationship in the past decade (Iraq was bombed regularly during that time, plus there were a few no-fly-zone run-ins) that some other nation should have done the job. The US did have a _few_ allies, you know...

* The argument that the US should have just assasinated Hussein. Wasn't that first missile strike an attempt to do just this? If you believe the US, then Iraq would have been happy to get rid of him, and then with the UN's help the remaining government could have been steered in the right direction. Now, I'm no fan of assasination, but if the alternative is a war, it's probably the better choice.

And so on.

None of these arguments applied in the case of Kosovo, which is why comparing Iraq and Kosovo is foolish.

Since the one posted doesn't work, how about this one: (if you don't mind the pop-ups)

Box office wizardry: New 'Harry Potter' movie hauls in $87.7 during opening weekend

Good enough?

See, this is one thing that bothers me about single-player games: the computer has one set of strategies, and it sticks to them religiously. After a while, one of two things happens to me: either I figure out how to exploit the flaws in the AI's strategy, and end up trivially defeating it every time, or else the AI becomes more challenging simply by increasing the speed at which it reacts (reflex-based games), or the amount of resources available to it (turn-based strategy games), or both (real-time strategy games), until it is no longer humanly possible to keep up (and even if you could, you'd still be competing against the same old strategy the AI always uses). Both these outcomes are stupendously boring.

At least when you're playing against other humans, there's the possibility that your opponent will use learning and creativity to constantly surprise and challenge you, creating whole new levels of gameplay that an AI would never provide.

A good example of this problem is Virtua Fighter 4. The AI just uses the same set of techniques at all levels, simply increasing its speed and reaction time until you can't keep up. And it always falls to the same cheap shots (until you can't produce them fast enough to exploit whatever opening the AI has left for you).

When I play against my friend, however, the cheap shot that worked yestreday fails today, and I have to come up with a new and surprising technique to keep from getting my ass handed to me. This motivates my friend to improve his own techniques, which then makes it necessary for me to innovate, &c. My skill at the game improved much quicker when playing against humans than it did against the AI.

I still can't beat VF4 (arcade mode) consistently--how sad is that?--but I'll confidently take on any human challenger in a best-of-ten set.

I live in San Diego, if anyone wants to take me up on the offer.

MASTERKILLA - "Fragged again?! WTF! It's my keyboard and mouse! They're all F*CKED an backwards!!"

0WNZU - "5ur3 th3y 4r3, LAM3RZ! w0ot!!!! 1 rU!3 t1M3 4nD 5P@C3!!!! U SUxxx00rs B4D!!!!!!!!!!!"

Sorry; the RIAA thinks that is piracy too and is looking to tax that next.

Many, many people see e.digital as being nothing more than a pump-and-dump penny stock scam, and there certainly is enough evidence to back it up.

This article barely touches the depth of shady deals this company is engaged in:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/bauder /20020707-9999_1b7bauder.html

They've announced several vaporware mp3 players, which caused a stock pump, and when nothing panned out the 'dump' came and the stock once again dropped. The few units they were able to manufacture are now being liquidated on ebay and various liquidator companies.

Most recently, the company has engaged in extremely questionable financial arrangements in order to stay afloat - they recently took out a $1.5 million loan with 100% of their company's assets as colatteral, to a shady off-shore entity, in a clear case of death-spiral financing.

This company currently has several hundred million outstanding shares, and is still issuing more.

The principals of the company have made something of a career out of pump-and-dump companies - look at the histories of Patriot Scientific (java procesor hype) and ATC (hyped audio technology). They're also involved in promoting movies and solo-flying machines. All the same gang. Decades of scam companies, lies and misleading statements to shareholders, and never once a real product or profits.

E.Digital does not deserve in any way to get this kind of exposure on slashdot.

(Disclaimer: I have never owned any shares, but I do know several people who were hoodwinked into purchasing shares, and lost a huge amount of money.)