What is wrong with using an optical scanning device to assist the hand-count? So long as a statistically relevant percentage of random ballots are hand-counted to confirm it
That's the problem. Almost no voting processes in ANY STATE implement random hand-counted audits. I think many people would be happier if your "so long as" was actually the way it worked.
Repairations. I prefer something similar to what Canada does with the First Nations (ie, Native Americans) - they live tax free. Something similar might be more workable. Besides if you give repairations to African Americans, what about all the other groups that have been f*cked over like the Chinese, Mexicans, and most of all, Native Americans?
The issue is complex and repairations are not my preferred answer to the problem.
The argument against universal grammar is of course is non-Latin languages like Japanese (and possibly Russian) which don't play by the rules. I'm not really a language expert on either, but I'm tried to learn Japanese and its really tough.
You do realize that universal grammar allows different languages to have different rules, right? The universality is about how nouns and verbs exist in sentences, and relate to each other, etc. Even in French vs. English, genderization and possession are wildly different, but the basic universal structure is the same as English (Example: talking about my wife's father, I would say, effectively "his father" which is wrong in English... it's "her father"... this leads to some very weird sounding things between the two language speakers).
Universality does NOT imply that all the grammar rules will be the same at all.
Isn't OSX slower on the same hardware as compared to MacOS 9 and isn't there some compatibility issues between the two.
That's only be a comparison worth mentioning if Apple didn't smooth the transition by keeping a VM that ran OS9 in OSX (Classic mode). Since Microsoft didnt' do the same thing, application developers and users are faced with the decision of either using XP (and having continued compatibility) or moving to Vista.
Based on all the talk over the 'tubes, it's pretty clear that people have, in general, chosen to stay with XP.
One thing I would say about Vista, is that if compatibility issues are what it takes for Windows programmers to at last write programs that can function with reduced privileges, this is a good thing.
Again, a VM could smooth this transition (while securing XP as needed as well). Of course, Microsoft chose not to do this. I wonder why?
Well, Microsoft surely have Apple beat when it comes to customer confusion.
How does this play with a former "PlaysForSure" device that is intended only for XP? What about the Zune (which, AFAIK, still doesn't work with PlaysForSure media, but *does* work with Vista?
Seriously, are MS intending to hand Apple a computer media format monopoly on a silver platter?
Who ever moderated the parent as "troll" didn't think about it very hard. A simple "no" in answer to this question is actually quite accurate. That is sad, and there is a great deal more to be said on the matter, but it is the truth.
Perhaps the troll rating was because there's no easy way to moderate something as "incorrect". Troll/Overrated are the only two real options, unless the moderator wants to give up modding this topic and reply to the post (as to why I feel "No" is wrong, see other replies further down)
Also, "No" is very much NOT informative nor is it insightful. I think the current moderation of the GP post is inaccurate, becuase there is no real meat to the reply. A one-word "informative" "answer" is neither. It could well be the beginning of one, but is incomplete.
That said, I would need a device with larger screen than either the kindle or the Sony gadget.
Then pick one of the others... (link provided by another poster above).
Personally, the iRex iLiad looks really nice: 8 inch, 1024x768 screen, all the nice stats, and can read more formats + has wifi (!). Downside: costs $699. Still, it apparently browses the net too (amazon only allows limited browsing features).
>
Strangely enough, I've now made a "AAA" entry in my cell phone with a dummy number that goes nowhere. Whoever designed the damn thing should get a "stupidest design on market" award though.
You have to keep in mind, that, assuming you're in the US, the *carrier* gets some very strong input on phone design. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a profit-maximization scheme by your average ethics-free phone carrier. an extra say, 5 SMS's per caller who uses this phone would be a great additional revenue.
Does anyone else find it strange that Vista's backup and previous version system is more advanced than OS X's Time Machine, and yet you hardly ever see it mentioned on a review or when people are talking about Vista. Apple adds a generic version of the same thing, and the press and fans go wild...
I'd call that a failure of marketing on Microsoft's part. Or perhaps, the fact that for at least half of the Vista installations (ie, Vista Home), it doesn't exist?
Microsoft has great technology "in theory", but when it comes to implementation they just can't get it right.
As for "less features", does Vista's search tool allow you to full-text search against previous versions? Didn't think so.
OK, maybe it wasn't a failure of marketing after all, since "Previous Versions/Volume Shadow Copy" pales in comparison to the usability of Apple's Time Machine.
I'm still not totally clear on how ISP's can throttle your bandwidth if you encrypt what you're sending..
Port-based traffic shaping will work if the target (say P2P) uses specific ports. You're right if you're talking standards based communications using a common port. But this iPlayer may sadly use a non-standard port, which then clearly identifies their traffic, which can be shaped/throttled.
Does anyone have any experience with how the new VMWare Fusion compares to VMWare Workstation?
I think Fusion is basically the only VMWare software that runs on a mac (Workstation does not support OSX as a host, and currently aside from hacked binaries, OSX is not supported as a guest on any virtualized system). I use Fusion and Parallels, and the experience is similar. You want to use Fusion over Parallels if you need access to VMWare's virtual appliances (instant downloadable VM images of Linux/etc), or if you already have an image from a different system (I've personally never tried this).
I like Parallels better, but the thought of being able to move my VM to a non-Mac (using VMWare Workstation, etc) is very compelling.
The cell phone offering is truly sad in North America. The same old phones with the same old features churned out with no real mashing of the technologies that we all want. How hard is it to truly create a phone with a camera, mp3 player, POP, and instant messenger? Not hard? Why then can you only usually find 1 out of the 30 phones through a cell provider have those *basic* features?
Why are POP and a camera "basic" features? I never use my camera in my phone and in my last one (T610), I would inadvertently click the camera button during a call and it would crash the OS.
What you consider "basic" is "irrelevant" to others, and that's why you don't see them on all phones.
The part where I agree with you is that most phones that do offer some of these features either do them so poorly or make the UI/OS so unworkable that the features becomes drawbacks to the product (Motorola, I'm looking at you).
btw, while we're listing our "fav features"... here's mine (that most phones still don't get right):
Clear crisp voice calls
A good SMS client
A good call history with no artificial limits on the storage (that reports incoming unlisted numbers as "unlisted" or "unknown", but with a call timestamp (yes some phones still fail this test)
A good contact manager that allows me to enter at least the street address of the person calling in addition to a number
A good synchronization system
Bluetooth for earpieces and car integration
Notice I said nothing about cameras, mp3s or POP access. I prefer to use devices that do those functions well, and I would much rather have my phone do what IT does well (ie, some PDA features are a natural convergence). Do I expect all phones to have my features... NO!
Bio-Diesel makes a lot more environmental sense, not least because the WORST carbon footprint it can have is 0, than electric anything.
Are you dense? Where is the biodiesel coming from? What waters, fertilizes, and processes the plants that make the biodiesel? What chemicals and nasty biproducts are used to refine the oil to make diesel fuel?
Electric can have close to zero carbon footprint by using Nuclear, Wind, or Solar power. Biodiesel will almost never do so until all the farm/processing equipment is also carbon neutral.
have serious doubts that IT projects have made any significant improvements in management efficiency in the last decade or so. More likely the people estimating timelines, budgets and features have learned from their mistakes and simply set the bar much lower than they did in the early 90s.
It's the "SAT Effect" (tm). Why actually improve performance when you can simply tweak the metrics by which you measure?
Pardon, but as someone who's managed projects, it's a bit more than "tweaking metrics" or "moving goalposts". If you have an otherwise successful project, which is doomed to failure through unrealistic timeline and resource estimation, it's not only going to be "not successful", but as the manager of the effort you have to deal with resource burn-out, constant discussions with executive leadership to explain why you're behind, frustration, and general discontent in your project team. Not only do you not get time to complete your project, you spend MORE time bitching to management and dealing with the consequences of working on a doomed project.
Disclaimer: I'm currently owner of a Tivo Series2, unhacked, unmodified, connected to a SDTV, 5.1 receiver, and receiving analog cable (so I don't have to futz around with the channel blaster or deal with a cable box). I pay approx. $55/mo for this.
That said, if I'm going to get a new Tivo, I have to deal with a lot of new issues:
$$$: A new HDTV-compatible receiver and display
$$: Cost of upgraded Cable services
$: Cost of cable-card rental fee (x2 if I want to record 2 channels at a time)-or- dealing with the channel blaster again (yukk!)
So in addition to the upgrade to HDTV, I will have to shell out probably another $30-$50 a month, which I really don't see as being necessary, and for what? HDTV? Forget it.
On the other hand, this newsseems promising, if Comcast doesn't f$ck it all to hell.
You can either go off starting random wars of aggression, or you can conduct planetary exploration. The American taxpayer, quite rightly, doesn't want to pay for both. Many don't want to pay for either, frankly.
Why the hell is this modded flamebait? Despite the fact that the mission is admirable, and that I personally love the space program, if President Bush wants to say "we're going to Mars" he better damn well pony up the cash.
For any of you who aren't aware, the Bush administration is notorious for unfunded mandates. If Bush thinks it's so good as to put it in the State of the Union address, he better damn well find a way to pay for it... otherwise it's just hot air as usual.
I don't see where you get that MP3 wasn't killed as well.
From your definition of dead, you seem to imply that it's dead as a de-facto standard. mp3 is definitely still a defacto-standard... if you believe otherwise, name a single player that doesn't support it.
WMA on the other hand is pretty much dead as a de-facto standard, as there are many devices in the market that don't support WMA (mainly, iPods).
pple killed WMA. They also killed MP3. They both exist of course but they'll never be anywhere near as dominant as they once were. In addition any music downloaded and bought from the iTunes Music Store is ALSO in AAC format.
You're half right. WMA dies, because the only reason to use a format is because you get it from an online store or through file-sharing services. Noone in their right mind shares WMA, but Microsoft could have cornered the online store format (playsforshure?)... Apple prevented that, locking them out completely from the market.
What Apple realized early on, is that they could NOT replace mp3 as a format (nor would they necessarily want to, everyone supports mp3)... so mp3 lives (and thrives), but so does AAC (as most purchases now are AAC, not mp3).
So maybe I'll have one at some point in the next two years. In the mean time, though, I'm still scratching my head and asking the question: What more will it do for me than what I really have? I honestly think that's a variant of the "what's so revolutionary about it?" question. It's a fair question and Apple doesn't really need people running up to its defense with rhetoric about the iPod's success.
Answer? As a Treo user, I will say, if you like your current phone... probably not much. The Treo does some great things (I don't even have a data plan, and it's highly functional) and I will likely not get the iPhone until the 2nd rev (at which point, being the cheapo that I am, will likely settle for a deal on the rev1's).
This phone is not for us... but we're a very small minority in this jungle of bad phones, horrible interfaces and subpar providers.
> Why did the 8 jurors think they were guilty, if it was an open and shut case?
Because the defendant was a transsexual prostitute?
More likely (and more ominously) it's possible that most jurors simply believe what the Police tell them. It probably helped that the defendant was someone society has been told to despise, but it could have been anyone else as well.
Add to this the likelyhood that jurors as "normal people" don't like to be very factual at all. If they like you (you appear to be a nice person), they'll go out of their way to bend and break rules to help you out... the flipside is the bad part.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/jean_wyclef/7152926/lyrics.jhtml
The issue is complex and repairations are not my preferred answer to the problem.
Seriously, don't agree with all points in the song, but it's got a powerful message.
Welcome to Politics in the US.
Sad but True.
Universality does NOT imply that all the grammar rules will be the same at all.
Based on all the talk over the 'tubes, it's pretty clear that people have, in general, chosen to stay with XP.
Again, a VM could smooth this transition (while securing XP as needed as well). Of course, Microsoft chose not to do this. I wonder why?How does this play with a former "PlaysForSure" device that is intended only for XP? What about the Zune (which, AFAIK, still doesn't work with PlaysForSure media, but *does* work with Vista?
Seriously, are MS intending to hand Apple a computer media format monopoly on a silver platter?
Also, "No" is very much NOT informative nor is it insightful. I think the current moderation of the GP post is inaccurate, becuase there is no real meat to the reply. A one-word "informative" "answer" is neither. It could well be the beginning of one, but is incomplete.
Personally, the iRex iLiad looks really nice: 8 inch, 1024x768 screen, all the nice stats, and can read more formats + has wifi (!). Downside: costs $699. Still, it apparently browses the net too (amazon only allows limited browsing features). >
Microsoft has great technology "in theory", but when it comes to implementation they just can't get it right.
As for "less features", does Vista's search tool allow you to full-text search against previous versions? Didn't think so.
OK, maybe it wasn't a failure of marketing after all, since "Previous Versions/Volume Shadow Copy" pales in comparison to the usability of Apple's Time Machine.
Eat that, Oracle.
Seriously the database layer is being commoditized, and MySQL and PostgreSQL are leading the way.
My only question, was Google required to disclose these changes, or are they just doing the right thing (again)?
I like Parallels better, but the thought of being able to move my VM to a non-Mac (using VMWare Workstation, etc) is very compelling.
What you consider "basic" is "irrelevant" to others, and that's why you don't see them on all phones.
The part where I agree with you is that most phones that do offer some of these features either do them so poorly or make the UI/OS so unworkable that the features becomes drawbacks to the product (Motorola, I'm looking at you).
btw, while we're listing our "fav features"... here's mine (that most phones still don't get right):
- Clear crisp voice calls
- A good SMS client
- A good call history with no artificial limits on the storage (that reports incoming unlisted numbers as "unlisted" or "unknown", but with a call timestamp (yes some phones still fail this test)
- A good contact manager that allows me to enter at least the street address of the person calling in addition to a number
- A good synchronization system
- Bluetooth for earpieces and car integration
Notice I said nothing about cameras, mp3s or POP access. I prefer to use devices that do those functions well, and I would much rather have my phone do what IT does well (ie, some PDA features are a natural convergence). Do I expect all phones to have my features... NO!Electric can have close to zero carbon footprint by using Nuclear, Wind, or Solar power. Biodiesel will almost never do so until all the farm/processing equipment is also carbon neutral.
That said, if I'm going to get a new Tivo, I have to deal with a lot of new issues:
So in addition to the upgrade to HDTV, I will have to shell out probably another $30-$50 a month, which I really don't see as being necessary, and for what? HDTV? Forget it.
On the other hand, this newsseems promising, if Comcast doesn't f$ck it all to hell.
For any of you who aren't aware, the Bush administration is notorious for unfunded mandates. If Bush thinks it's so good as to put it in the State of the Union address, he better damn well find a way to pay for it... otherwise it's just hot air as usual.
WMA on the other hand is pretty much dead as a de-facto standard, as there are many devices in the market that don't support WMA (mainly, iPods).
What Apple realized early on, is that they could NOT replace mp3 as a format (nor would they necessarily want to, everyone supports mp3)... so mp3 lives (and thrives), but so does AAC (as most purchases now are AAC, not mp3).
This phone is not for us... but we're a very small minority in this jungle of bad phones, horrible interfaces and subpar providers.
Add to this the likelyhood that jurors as "normal people" don't like to be very factual at all. If they like you (you appear to be a nice person), they'll go out of their way to bend and break rules to help you out... the flipside is the bad part.